DAILY MIRACLES

 

Sometimes, when you ask The Lord for clarity, He gives it to you right away, ESPECIALLY when you are in real need of emotional support when it comes to your faith. And I was REALLY in need of a little propping up today. Within MINUTES of asking for help, I was given it in a remarkable way.

First, I will give a little background.

Most of you know that I live as a hermit. I do try to be as helpful as I can be to neighbors, despite my limited abilities, but I essentially stay in my own little bubble, where I pray and meditate and do the best I can to deal with painful handicaps.

Over the last year or two, as my disabilities have become much more obvious and visible, by virtue of my having to use an electric wheelchair on the property, I have been struggling with attacks from young neighbors who have bullied me in surprising ways. Sometimes they are trying to force me to give them something. At other times, they seem to be doing it for recreation. 

I even had one new neighbor lobby the managers to take from me a piece of equipment that had been installed for me to assist me in caring for my garden. That neighbor concocted an elaborate lie about it, even though I have written documentation on my phone between the two of us. The new manager was unfamiliar with how the installation of the equipment had occurred and it took 3 months to get it straightened out. It is surprising when things like this happen after I have gone out of my way to welcome them to the property with home-made bread and desserts, but I am not a psychiatrist.

When I was a young woman, I volunteered at nursing homes, and this was a relatively common thing for someone in my generation to do. But now, instead of helping people with fragile health, there are many who attempt to abuse the vulnerable and steal from them instead.

It is as if society has made a radical turn to a more primitive time. Like something out of a science fiction film, the mask of civilization has fallen from the faces of many, to reveal a face similar to what we might have seen in the middle ages, when you could be burnt as a witch, simply for being a woman living alone.

Bullies torment vulnerable people when they think they can get away with it. They usually don't do it publicly, so it is difficult to make it stop. Bullies are usually cowards.

How do we love our neighbor and pray for the enemy in the midst of all this?

As our good Jimmy Akin says, loving your neighbor means wishing the good for that person.  Praying for them is the Christian method of wishing good for them. (Jimmy Akin is a researcher, podcaster and author. He regularly appears on CATHOLIC ANSWERS.) This does not stop them from harassing the lady in the wheelchair, though. At least, not immediately.

A neighbor has recently started throwing bags of dog poop at my back door, where they land on the cement and sometimes open up and spill excrement.  I have seen them do this twice myself. 

That neighbor is taking the dog bags from where I have left them in a big pot in my garden when I have to potty my dog after the sun goes down and I can't see well enough to throw them in the trash can meant for this purpose. The parking lot is way too dark for me to do this and puts me in the way of traffic.

I see this neighbor walking back and forth to my garden, bending over to pick up the bags, then going to my patio and throwing them at the doorstep. 

I have experienced several instances of bullying and harassment from neighbors, since having to start using a wheelchair, so when I found my patio littered with dog poop this morning, it felt like the final nail in my neighborly coffin.  All I need is for someone to give me more work to do.

I had a distraught, out-loud conversation with God and asked him, PLEASE, how am I to continue when so many people are so vulgar and childishly abusive?  It had been a really bad week for me, one in which I have encountered one example after another of disability discrimination and harassment, as well as being abandoned by those who are being paid to help me.

I was having some real disappointments, not only from this neighbor, but from the world, in general, from uncaring telephone companies, merchants and caregivers to our government, where we have just elected a felon/rapist/fascist/white supremacist to the highest office of the land who has already promised to be a "dictator on day one" and who has vowed to eliminate the Medicaid program that helps me survive.  It is a depressing prospect.

It is also difficult to endure abuse while others stand by and blame the  vulnerable for the vulgarity that thugs dish out. Any police officer will tell you that the more vulnerable you are, the more you are liable to be a TARGET.  There is no "reason" that justifies it. The vulnerability IS the reason. I had an entitled Facebook snob recently tell me that no one will do something bad to you unless you deserve it by having done something to them first. It isn't true and makes no sense, when you think about it. The disabled old lady in the wheelchair has no interest or ability, frankly. We are just struggling to get through our day, despite chronic pain and disfunction. Blaming us for the actions of evil people and criminal types is pure gaslighting.

I felt like the entire world has turned ugly. I prayed fervently, out loud, with tears.  "How can I continue?" I asked Him. I had a real "lament" going on for myself. 

This isn't what I imagined when I became a hermit, and part of these problems I have been having with these people is that my mode of life is so radically different than theirs that it probably irritates the soul of those who have no real religious or spiritual life. People who try to torment disabled elderly ladies are not in tune with God. They are in thrall to dark forces, and anyone who is thus situated is going to be infuriated when they come up against the vibe of a  religious hermit who loves God.

The only way to avoid these sort of people is to live more authentically as a hermit - away from the crowd - something that I cannot afford to do at present, especially since I am unable to endure the physicality of it. I have it in mind for future, however, but I need to generate some income in order to do it so that I can pay for the new residence and the means to get moved into it. That's something for the next step.

Shortly after finding my patio littered with dog poop bags, my dog was urging me to take him out for a walk. I had just woke up, but his need seemed urgent, so I took him out and, while I was struggling to get my wheelchair over a speed bump in order to avoid a moving car, a young man approached me and asked me, "May I help you?"

Here was this young man, dressed in a neatly pressed white shirt and nice jeans, reaching for the doggie bag in my hand. I was so surprised!  I had not met him before and hesitated.

He said to me, "Please, let me help you. Every day I see you walking your little dog, and it makes me so happy to see you."

His accent was heavy, but his English was very good.

We had a sweet conversation. He was a relatively new neighbor. He introduced me to his fiance, who was sitting in the car.  They were from Columbia. His manner and his demeanor were miles above and beyond the manners and consideration of my other (American) neighbors who have been harassing me.

I learned a lot from this exchange, and I have "taken it on-board" as an answer to my prayers. It is also a retort to those who claim that immigrants are what is wrong with our country, and who impugn their character in such vulgar fashion. Statistically speaking, immigrants are FAR LESS LIKELY to commit crimes than our American people, and I find that very easy to believe, based on my personal experience of toxic, free-floating hostility from people to whom I have been kind.

When I returned home, I thanked God for the encouragement, and the perspective. I remembered, once more, Jesus telling the parable of the tares and the wheat.

"24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” Matthew 13:24-30

God is bringing "all things to the good for those that believe" by facilitating that the mean people drop their social masks so that I can see who is wheat and who are the weeds. In this way, I can remain with the wheat. In order for this to happen, a certain amount of evil has to be allowed to appear in the world so that I can pinpoint who is of God and who is not.

I really needed this guidance today. It is extremely difficult to raise the consciousness of our culture when it comes to the disabled and the elderly - especially the ELDER ORPHANS, for whom I am working on establishing a ministry through my local parish. Some people will simply NOT be receptive. They have chosen to be weeds.

Fortunately, God has allowed me to see a bit of His method and, as a result, my faith is intact, thanks to those little daily miracles of good being revealed by the bad. I am so grateful for that.

Keep the faith, people! If you love God, He has you in his hand, whether you can see it or not.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose

SAINT PETER OF MOUNT ATHOS, TRINITY SUNDAY - JUNE 12TH

 

Saint Peter of Athos is today's saint. Unlike most of the ones I write about, he is not related to me, but he was a hermit and is said to be the first monastic on the island of Mount Athos that is now famously covered with monasteries.  For more than 1,000 years, the Monks of Mount Athos have been chanting the prayers of the Orthodox faith without ceasing.

I am always curious about hermits because, so far, all of them are intentional hermits and not accidental ones like me. I look to them for encouragement, example, and inspiration.

Once I found myself unable to work and somewhat isolated, about 20 years ago, I did choose to dedicate my life to God, but being a hermit was nothing I had ever aspired to do prior to finding myself in the position of being unable to work due to physical pain and disability. Over time, I have realized that my solitary condition is the only real ascetic practice that I have, other than offering up the chronic, constant pain I have suffered for the last 20 years. It's interesting how these things work out. God has a way of organizing it into an organic flow of its own. I have accepted God's will, as it has been revealed by circumstance.

Today was also Trinity Sunday. I won't even try to begin to explain the Trinity, the central concept of the Catholic faith. It is not a simple aspect of our theology, and I am too tired to even look for a good quote. 

I rarely experience a day when I do not feel ill. The pain is marginally addressed with medication but causes other issues, including chronic insomnia. I can't seem to sleep more than 4 hours at a time, for one thing, and I have days when I am dragging myself through my activities. Today was one of those days. I had overdone things yesterday when I had tried to clean my house and do some laundry. The kitchen is a particular problem, since standing in one spot, to do dishes for instance, causes quite a bit of pain. So, the kitchen is almost always in a bad state. It is a constant struggle.

As I have mentioned before, I was approved for caregiver services 2 years ago but have been unable to actually avail myself of those services. There are no caregivers available and the agencies usually ask me to provide someone MYSELF in order to run them through the agency. Only the people who have relatives willing to do this job end up having their needs met. The rest of us go without. (I have previously told you about a handful of people I was offered who caused more problems than they solved - middle-aged drug addicts who had never had a job in their lives before showing up at my door because they had to show a paycheck to the judge to get their kids back who tried to bully me into letting them do their own shopping on my time, people who wanted to lay on my couch and eat my food, and a couple disabled individuals who thought they could sit around and get paid for keeping me company. That sort of thing.) 

I have not just sat around and waited for someone to show up. I got creative and advertised for a caregiver many times through various websites, and I did find quite a few people who said they wanted to do the job, but when they learned that I wanted them to register with an agency to get paid, they each said the same thing, i.e., that Medicaid does not pay enough and that they wanted me to pay them cash, under the table, or they would not take the job. So, there ARE people available to do the work but they won't do it at the pay that the government allows.

I have called every single approved agency on the Medicaid list MORE than once and their situation is such that they don't even have a waiting list. They just tell me they can't help me - except for the one agency that promised me a caregiver, then when I got switched over to them, they claimed that the three days it took to get it done was "too long" and that they had given the caregiver to someone else. They offered to give me someone who refuses to get a Covid shot, which seems ludicrous. I declined to risk my life just to get my dishes done. They offered me a woman who, when she showed up,  told me she intended to spend the day watching movies on Netflix on her phone or sitting and reading because she has gout and can not stand on her feet. (She refused to stay and even TRY to do the job and kept telling me that her last client did not "make" her work and that she only kept her company and brought her a sandwich when she asked for food. THAT poor woman ended up going into a nursing home because she wasn't getting the care she needed.)

I have called Medicaid have a dozen times and they just ended up telling me they can't do anything about it and to call the Department of Aging and Long Term Services who, in turn, told me to call Medicaid. Finally I called the Governor's office four times and emailed them once but never received a phone call back from them, despite assurances that I would. I sent an email to the President of the United States asking him if there wasn't something HE could so, since he was coming to our state - but I got crickets, of course. He has bigger fish to fry, obviously, but I wanted to do everything I could to advocate for myself before I gave up entirely.

Occasionally a friend will come by to do my dishes, and I am grateful I have this help. But meals happen every day and it isn't long before the dishes pile up after I have a few bad days.

Today was Sunday, a day when I typically ease up on my diet, as it is a "feast" day, and I was really hungry, so I decided to get a rare pizza from Pizza Hut.  As usual, it was a disappointing experience.

It is much too expensive to have them deliver the pizza, which always arrives cold ANYWAY, so I arranged for a "contact free" pick up. I was to notify them when I got there, and they were to bring the food out to my car, just a few steps outside their front door.

Arriving at the restaurant 5 minutes after the pizza was supposed to be ready, I called the Pizza Hut number and a woman said she would "tell them" and that someone would come out with the pizza. No one came out, of course. I did see one employee outside, loitering with a homeless looking girl and polishing the hood of a car that was parked out there.

A van pulled up and a driver went in and back out again and drove away. Another van with a Texas license plate drove up and parked behind me so I could not leave if I wanted to. They went in and came out with a pizza and some Pepsi. Ten minutes went by. I saw an employee go in and out several times.

When I'd been there 20 minutes, I call again and the woman said, "well, you should have called when you arrived."

"I DID call," I told her, annoyed about the whole thing. The rude woman on the phone said she notified them that I was waiting but I may just have to go into the store. It was supposed to be "contactless pickup" and they were supposed to bring it out to my car. 

So, I hobbled into the store, with my purse and my cane. The diffident and unapologetic girl behind the counter said that she had gotten no notice at all! My pizza was ready - sitting there, in the warming oven. I hobbled back out with it, juggling pizza, chicken wings, cane and purse. No tip was paid to these people and I told them I would not be back. I had given them many many chances over the years, but their food and their service is uniformly bad, and it would be crazy for me to give them any more chances.

By the time I got home, the pizza was cold, so I put it in the toaster oven. Half of it was just plain old bread. It was the worst pizza I have ever had.

I think it is time to revert to eating raw fruits and vegetables and maybe some canned beans and rice or baked yams, with nuts and seeds to supplement.  It will be healthy and perhaps I will lose some weight. That way, I can avoid too many dishes. If I can get a chair into the kitchen, I won't be faced with having to stand to clean and chop veggies.

I bet Peter of Mount Athos did not eat much. I found myself being curious about the diet of the original hermits. I am betting it was also mostly raw food. In any case, it was frugal, I'm sure.

Today I made a couple pair of earrings from aluminum wire and some other findings I had on hand. I hope to sell them at a local store. I added them to the dozen or so I had made previously. Even hermits have to do some kind of manual labor to support themselves.

My favorite Carmelite nuns, with a monastery in Colorado Springs, Colorado, are part of an ascetic order of nuns that live mostly in silent adoration of the Divine, practicing meditation, chanting the holy office and immersed in mental prayer. But they have to bring in money to support themselves also, so they have a website where they sell special hand-made rosaries, religious medals, books, and all sorts of things. (By the way, you can find them at: SISTERS OF CARMEL) I highly recommend them.

I remember reading about the monks of Mount Athos when I was a nun in the Hindu convent. Mount Athos is extremely important to the mystical heart of the Orthodox Christian world. Like most monasteries, there are no females allowed on Mount Athos EXCEPT for cats which keep the mice and rats under control!

Photo from an article on a blog devoted to Greece

"The Only Female Allowed on Mount Athos"

GREECE HIGH DEFINITION BLOG

I was surprised and delighted at the number of cats that swarm about the monasteries.

If you would like to read and see more of it, The Guardian also did a wonderful picture essay about it, which you can see HERE - "The Holy Mountain: Monks of Mount Athos

In addition to the monks of the monasteries that live there, the hills are dotted with tiny little hermit "cells" where the hermits live with the bones of the hermits that lived there before them. The bones are kept in a silver box. I'm not sure what the point is of that but it probably assists the monk in keeping his mind on the reality of human life and death. The little hermit cells look fairly dirty and unkempt. I am not sure what the older hermits eat, because some of them can no longer even get out of their cells because it would mean climbing the rocky hills and ledges where their cells are perched. One of them has lived in his cell for 64 years but can no longer come out because he can't handle the rocky climb. I am assuming that the monks of the monastery must leave him some kind of food to eat or they lift it up to him with an arrangement of pullies and baskets. When comparing my situation with his, I live like a queen, so I try to keep this all in perspective.

CBS NEWS did a report about the health of the monks of Mount Athos. The monks there live very long lives with "shockingly low" rates of cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses that plague modern man. Alzheimer's is almost "unheard of." This really IS surprising.

READ THE CBS REPORT HERE

Their remarkable health is attributed to their diet of simple meals eaten at regular intervals in what is known as "the Mediterranean Diet" which is the diet that every one of my doctors has recommended I use! How wonderful that the diet for my good health is the same as the simple diet of ascetic monastics that I am trying to emulate!

I am pretty sure they don't have a Pizza Hut on Mount Athos. They also do not have any women or children (obviously.) They pray and meditate, do a lot of physical work, and eat a wholesome Mediterranean diet that includes lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, olive oil, nuts and seeds.

In addition to the nuts and seeds, there are some supplements that the doctors recommend.  All of these things are on my wish list on Amazon. They have my address and can mail to me directly.

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY WISH LIST

I hope and pray that you all have a wonderful week. I will be working to try to make a little extra money with my art projects but I will not forget to pray for all of you, as I hope that you also pray for me.

God bless us all!

Silver Rose

DIRTY-DEALING MERCHANTS RAMP UP CROOKED CONTRACT SCAMS DURING COVID

 

Cathedrale Saint-Maclou de Pontoise

SAINT OF THE DAY:

Today, May 10, is the feast day of Saint William of Pontoise, a Benedictine hermit who lived in Pontoise, France in the 12th century. We don't know much about Saint William, except that he was a Benedictine hermit that came to this Abbey that another saintly monk named Walter had established. (Walter's tomb is quite lovely!) William evidently attracted some people around him, and the Abbey of Saint Martin drew a crowd, as so many of these saints will cause to do. It usually isn't deliberate on their part. We humans are hungry for inspiration.

Today I am going to discuss several contract scams and situations that have been wasting my time. They represent a trend that has intensified over the last two years of Covid. I suggest that Covid has caused some economic stresses to which some merchants are responding with dishonest scams and tricks and traps. When they are caught in them, they are so insistent upon retaining the ill-gotten gains that they remind me of Smeagol from The Lord of the Rings.

 

LET ME CATCH YOU UP!

This is the type of mobility scooter I use.

WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING LATELY:

As mentioned in my last post, I took quite a break from writing this blog. It is starting up again, but I will be doing far less research and other time-consuming writing, and I will be less formal. I do not have the time to edit and streamline, so the posts will be longer, stream of consciousness, and with fewer pictures.

Some posts are written primarily for documentation purposes and for the typical purpose of anyone who writes a diary. I don't even know where that impulse comes from, but I have found it helpful to go back over entries from the past, so I am just doing this without wracking my brain trying to figure it out.

Today, the electricity is out for the second time in the last few days, I did not get much sleep last night, and I am having trouble getting out of my chair, so I spent some time on this post. 

I am PROBABLY exhausted because of having to fighting with these mercenaries.  Read on!

THE CAREGIVER SCAM:

Whenever I read anything about another religious hermit or solitary, a fleeting wish rushes into my conscious mind that if I was not disabled, I could do a much better job of this hermit life! But perhaps it is better that I am not too inspiring, otherwise there would be too many people in this little apartment.

Anyway, I often wish I was better. Between the mobility issues and the semi-blindness, keeping up with just the daily tidying up around here has gotten to be a huge challenge, especially since there is NO help to be had.

Supposedly, I was to receive caregiver assistance but every single agency that has been approved to supply it tells me they do not have anyone to send and they don't even have a waiting list because their current clients are not getting all their hours. Most of them ask me, "don't you have a relative you could bring?" I have learned that a sizeable percentage of the clients bring their own staff WITH them in the form of family members who would be caring for them anyway. They're glad to get an extra $9 or $10 an hour for something they had been doing for free, but the numerous unrelated people I've asked have ALL demanded cash, which defeats the purpose. Besides - it is illegal and we could ALL get in trouble for that.

The general citizenry believes that the government is supplying ALL the help that poor people need, but it is just a mirage - like so many scams being run at the moment. Covid has exacerbated a situation that already existed 2 years ago when I got approved for assistance.

About three weeks ago, I made my last concerted effort to get some help in here. I called the Blue Cross Blue Shield Care Coodinator. She could not do anything. She and her supervisor think about me every day. I called Medicaid and they said it wasn't THEIR concern that the agencies were not staffing anyone. They suggested I call Blue Cross Blue Shield. Someone suggested I call the Insurance Board (not sure of the name, it is written here somewhere) and THEY said they only get involved in things if there is some fraud or in matters having to do with insurance companies not paying. They said I had to call Medicaid, so I was back at square one. When you call Medicaid, you get put on hold for 45 minutes. I kid you not, but I DID call Medicaid again and they suggested I contact the Governor's office, which I did.

THAT is when people lost their blinken minds. I got calls from all sorts of different people. First it was the Aging and Long Term Services people. They couldn't help me but they contacted someone else who contacted someone else who contacted someone else.

FINALLY, it ended up back in MY lap (predictably!)  The Care Coordinator at Blue Cross Blue Shield told me I was to have a meeting with her and the agency director so that they could school me about what services I could expect to receive, even though she knew FULL WELL how terribly well educated I am about this. (This was not her idea. Someone in that demented phone tree told her to do it.)

Then she mentioned that I was not allowed to tell caregivers that they could not use their phones in my home. This was RIGHT ON THE HEELS of the agency having "sent" me a woman who informed me that she had gout and could not stand and that she would be watching Netflix movies and reading kindle books on her phone! Because of the GOUT, she said she was not able to stand very much and when I explained to her that the dishes and the laundry and all that required that she DO stand, she bowed out of the job.  I asked her, "are you sure you don't want to give it a try?" and she definitely DID NOT.

Apparently, this caregiver became available because her client had ended up in a nursing home because the caregiver just sat around all day and watched movies unless the client specifically ASKED her for something. The poor woman was lucky to get a sandwich.

I ask you: is any of this my fault?

The task ahead is another phone call to the governor's office because they have not answered my second phone call yet.  I do not know if I can face it today, but I will have to do it SOMEDAY because this is not an issue that affects me alone. Anyone who is in my position, i.e., without family assistance, will be moldering away in their apartment with the detritus piling up to their earlobes.

THE VCA PET HOSPITAL SCAM:

Mr. Charlemagne

My charming service dog

A year and a half ago, Charlemagne the Magnificent needed dental work done, so I signed him up for a doggie care program at VCA WEST MESA. The program is called VCA CARES. The first year went off without a hitch, then they sent me an email in September of 2021 telling me that they were renewing the plan starting in November and that it was going to cost me $83.99 a month, which they took from my account for the next six months. Twice after the renewal of the plan, they sent me emails urging me to use the dental benefit of the plan, and I got around to making the appointment for mid April.

The day of the dental surgery, I got up at the crack of dawn and took him down there, after taking him into the office a few days before that for his pre-dental tests.  IMAGINE my shock when VCA presented me with a HUGE BILL for the dental, telling me that I did not have dental coverage on my plan! Apparently, some incompetence and/or computer glitch or SOMETHING had switched my dog from one plan to another, without advising me.  Yet they had still sent me those emails urging me to use the dental benefit, so the whole thing mystifies me.

To date, I have yet to get any kind of explanation that is not some type of nonsensical word salad.

Now, if they had apologized for their goof and offered to make it right and do the dental cleaning, as promised, I would have been fine with it. If they had, instead, offered to reimburse me for the six months of payments I had made while under the impression that I was under the same plan I signed up for, I would have been fine with that. But they decided that they did not want to be out of pocket for any of their mistake. They expected ME to pay for it. Their solution was that I should pay between $850.00 to $1,250.00 for the dog's dental cleaning. Or I could "eat" the last 6 months payments, buy another contract for more money, and proceed from there.

I never would have signed up for a care plan that did not include dental. Besides which, those ancillary services like vaccinations can be gotten for little to nothing at local charities and low-cost animal clinics, especially for disabled senior ladies.

Fortunately, I have had extensive experience working in law offices, a good portion of which was in a contract law firm so I am familiar with the laws. You cannot indebt a person for a contract they do not know they have. Simple. You cannot make a change to an existing contract without giving knowledge and getting consent from the person being indebted by it. Period.

The office manager for VCA West Mesa was rather arrogant and convinced that nothing and no one was going to make her do the right thing. The people in the Los Angeles office behaved likewise. I filed a complaint with the New Mexico Attorney General's office and some guy at VCA in Los Angeles offered to give me $200 "as a courtesy!" 

Criminal con artists have no shame. They are often the most arrogant, self-important, bloviating smarty-pants on the playground.

I contacted my bank, sent them the copies of the emails I received from VCA and they did a charge-back of the full amount. I also put a stop-payment on the monthly charge.

Even though the manager of VCA WEST MESA had agreed to cancel the contract (which really does not need her permission to do, since an agreement did not actually exist), they STILL attempted to deduct money from my bank account on the 4th of this month, on which day I received a flurry of emails demanding payment - if you can believe THAT! Oh...and they were adding a $25.00 charge for their inconvenience!) WHAT NERVE.

SOMETIMES I WISH I WAS LIVING IN A CONVENT

One of the advantages of living in a convent atmosphere, as opposed to going it alone in an apartment, is that the institution stands between the individual and any business people with which the convent has to conduct worldly affairs. It makes it easier. Unfortunately, I have nothing to offer a convent except my prayers because I am both poor and disabled.

Here I am, sitting in front of the swami.

I am in my early to mid 30's in this photo and a

member of the Hollywood "Sarada Convent"

You may not realize it, but most convents have the same rationale as any other business looking to hire a worker - except nuns do not get a salary. At the Hindu convent, we had one lovely older nun who joined when she was 50 - which was 20 years OLDER than the outside limit - but she arrived with a lot of lovely money, and she paid to purchase a beautiful mansion for the nuns. If you do not have money, you have to have physical stamina because of all the physical work that is generally required. On top of that, there are the obvious other requirements. One day I will write about it.

XFINITY MOBILE:

The XFinity agents who spoke to me at the office when I originally signed up for the service lied to me and sold me service in an area where there was a service issue they knew about. I spent months not receiving my phone calls. About 3 out of every 4 went straight to voice mail and the call never appeared on the phone history. It was maddening, especially now when people do not answer the phone in many companies and they tell you they are going to call you back. After months and months of hours and hours of "troubleshooting," including trading in the phone for a new one, resetting the network, etc., they FINALLY admitted to me that that there was a known issue in my neighborhood. Several of my neighbors confirmed they too were having problems making any phone calls at all.

The guy at the corporate office told me that if I paid some extra money he would release the phone so I could go elsewhere, but as soon as the payment went through, while we were on the phone, he immediately reneged! He said, "Oh, gee, it looks like your phone was on a promotion and I have to get permission...." and then word salad ensued. We had an appointment for a few days afterward and he stood me up, then I left messages on his phone every day for a week and he ghosted me. I finally got in touch with him and he was very unpleasant. When I called him on it, he doubled down. Then he denied having made the promise to unlock the phone. 

When I told him that we were just going to have to listen to the audio of our conversations, he went nuts. Probably because he knew that the audio would show that he had been lying.  He was abusive and I hung up on him and never spoke to him again. I tried to report him for his behavior but they give you the runaround at that company.

I waited on going to a new service for two weeks because I could not afford to buy another phone and I wanted them to unlock the phone I had but they kept refusing, saying I had to wait until another 2 weeks went by. At that point, who really knew what to expect? So I indebted myself for yet another phone with CRICKET, which has GREAT service, very nice agents, and uncomplicated procedures. I just HAD to be reachable by phone. A disabled lady cannot afford to have bad phone service, and the calls were being dropped constantly.

I kept calling XFinity, though, because I STILL needed to get that phone unlocked. I did not want to run the risk of losing the unlock code in the time between leaving that service and using that phone again. 

I kept asking them to unlock the phone, per our agreement. They refused to do it for a full FOUR WEEKS. It was maddening. Finally, the last agent agreed to ASK for the phone to be unlocked and I had to wait several days to receive an email. According to him, he had to get permission from SAMSUNG. I don't know what THAT is all about because I got the phone from XFinity!

According to this last person, NONE of the other agents had recorded that I had requested the phone to be unlocked when that was the ONLY reason I had called over the final 4 weeks. It became obvious to me that the agents tell you one thing and then document SOMETHING ELSE so that is why the agent at the corporate office had gone ballistic on me when I suggested that we were going to have to listen to the audio.

Every agent has a different story also. They ALL give you a line and it is impossible to tell what the truth is.

So, there is a lot of lying going on. I am pretty sure they stretch out the time between the day you make the big payment until the day they unlock the phone so they can pressure you to stay.  It was a nightmare.

It reminded me of my experience working for MCI when I first got to Albuquerque more than 20 years ago. I was desperate to get a job as soon as possible so I took this telephone service phone sales job and while I was working there, I heard agents lying CONSTANTLY to potential customers. I would report it to their pod manager and the manager would do NOTHING about it. As long as they were selling, the managers did not care. It was shocking to me.

There are some businesses that regularly cheat and connive,  and then there are businesses that have become a little shady due to the pressures of Covid. There is a small grocery store in town that removes the expiration date clip from the neck of the bread bag and replaces it with a plain wire from the produce department. I took a chance on one loaf and it was obvious when I got it home that it was stale. I had to put it in the freezer and take it out one piece at a time and toast it.

But regardless of whether the business regularly cheats people or is succumbing to the pressures of Covid, I pray for them all. I pray for the people who are abusive on the phone. I pray for the people who lie, especially because Satan is the father of all lies. When someone lies to me, I almost worry about them, in a sense, because I know the price that we pay, spiritually, when we lie.  It is a terrible price to pay.

I encourage you also to pray for those that hurt you, lie to you and try to steal from you. There is a lot of that going on in the world today.

"Silver Rose"

Silver Cottage Hermitage

Copyright (C) 2022

All rights reserved.

SLICE OF LIFE - TODAY IN THE NEWS

SUPER BLUE BLOOD MOON OVER NORWAY

picture by Heiko Junge / EPA

Recently, I watched the amazing super blue blood moon, as it was eclipsed over Albuquerque. It was the first in more than 100 years, so it was a special event.

Today, there is an article in the Washington Post that Donald Trump has ordered that the U.S. plant boots on the moon again. No one knows why this is important at this time in history. It will cost billions, maybe trillions of dollars, but perhaps he was inspired by the super blue blood moon and got carried away.

The picture, above, was taken in Norway. Donald Trump likes Norway and has said that he would prefer that we get immigrants from Norway instead of "shit hole countries" like predominately black or brown places - like Haiti.

40 million poor people in the U.S. often go without food or have to eat cheap but unhealthy substitutes. 1 out of every 4 children in the United States goes to bed hungry.

On television, I watched a special report on NBC about how Hostess, among other companies, is giving their employees a bonus and a year's supply of Twinkies and other manufactured treats.

Poor people are not getting bonuses or Twinkies.

Those with 401Ks are getting a little something in their accounts also.

Poor people do not have 401Ks.

During Trump's brief tenure, many services to the poor have been cut and/or eliminated.

There is a lot of celebration on Facebook among the middle class who are getting a smidgen of a raise, a modest bonus, or a little money in their 401K. "Trump is doing a good job for America!" they've written.

When these people say that Trump is doing a good job for America, which America is it, exactly? At least 40 million people are not included in their vision of America - in Trump's version of America, which is all white and rich.

The tax package that Trump pushed through gave great benefits to the wealthy, a few benefits to the middle class, and nothing to the millions of poor Americans that are struggling to survive. Under Donald Trump's administration, the more wealth you have, the more benefits you are getting from the tax plan and his removal of protections for the environment and the health of human beings around the world. Rich people benefit mightily from the removal of regulations. It isn't a benign benefit. Everyone else must SUFFER in order to push more wealth to the wealthy.

Even the benefits to the middle class are actually booby trapped. They're engineered to expire after a short time, after which there will be a balloon payment that the middle class are stuck with paying. They don't realize that the bonus or the little raise they see today are being given to them ON CREDIT. They've kept the blinders on, but in a year or two they'll be screaming about it and will find a way to blame Democrats tomorrow for the booby trap that the Trump administration laid for them today.

What is YOUR vision of America? Is it a small cadre of rich white folk, with thousands of wan, hungry servants servicing all their needs and desires?

I am praying for the intercession of Saint Francis during these difficult times, when Americans' worst instincts are being triggered. I am talking to Jesus CONSTANTLY throughout the day, asking for him to do something to enlighten these people who call themselves Christian but believe in Satan's values.

What is your vision of a supposedly Christian America? Please think about it.

God save us all

Silver Rose Parnell

Copyright (c) 2018, All rights reserved.

DISABLED AMERICANS BAMBOOZLED BY SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Today I read in the Albuquerque Journal that, unless Congress acts quickly, disabled Americans will experience a 19% reduction in their disability benefits in 2016.  This is a huge cut in an income that is already too sparse to meet all the needs of the disabled, whose medical expenses (including assistive devices and over-the-counter aids) are typically much higher than the average person.

In addition to this possible cut, two things are in the pipeline to happen for Social Security recipients in 2016:

(1)  Medicare premiums will rise by at least $54.00 per month (for some recipients); and,
(2)  NO cost-of-living increase will be given to anyone.

What does this mean for me personally?  If the cut goes into effect, I will be receiving $304 a month less than I did in 2015. (I am not in line for the steep increase to my Medicare premium, I am told, because my income is too low.)  Even so, I am in danger of losing almost a quarter of my entire income!  Already, I don't have enough money to meet my needs.  I have two friends helping me with food and other necessaries, when they are able.  I have NO luxuries.  No television.  No travel. No alcohol, drug or tobacco use.

I worked for more than 30 years and had no idea that the Social Security fund I paid into for all those years would yield such a poor return that it would plunge me into poverty.  Of course, I had no idea I would become disabled, either.  No one does.  One would think that Social Security would at least provide the basics of life; food, shelter, medical needs, transportation, clothing, etc. etc., but it doesn't.

The Journal article (link below) mentions that Rand Paul, in typical fashion, is maligning the disabled by saying that a lot of us are "slackers."  It is a horrible slur to make about a vulnerable class of people, a slur that is both untrue and unchristian.  Having endured the circus of obtaining disability benefits, I can tell you that it isn't easy.  You can't just get a doctor to send a note to Social Security saying that you are disabled!  Social Security has their OWN doctors who have a vested interest in ferreting out fakers.  Just as in any group of people, you WILL find liars and cheats in a tiny percentage.  Politicians like Rand Paul inflate a tiny issue and brandish it vigorously in our faces so they can bamboozle with bologna.  Casting aspersions on the character of the disabled is just another ploy to protect the millionaires from having to pay their fair share.

Lackeys of the Koch Brothers and other billionaires are feeding us this line of crap about how Social Security is going broke because of the poor, the disabled, the elderly, the immigrants.  It is a HUGE lie.

With all this chatter about Social Security and how broke it is, there is almost no mention whatsoever of the most glaringly obvious "fix" for the problem.  At the moment, individuals only pay Social Security tax on their first $110,100 in income (some sites say $106,800.)  This is called the "cap" on Social Security tax.

What this means in practical terms is that the wealthy pay less than a tiny fraction of a percentage of their income into Social Security while the wage earner typically pays 4.2% (or about 8% if self-employed.)  This is not equitable, particularly since Social Security is not a "needs based" program. Wealthy people have no qualms about taking their full Social Security benefits when they reach the retirement age, so why not pay the same percentage into it as we do?

If we removed the cap on Social Security contributions, we would have enough Social Security funds to last until the sun burns out.  Why aren't we doing this?  Why aren't we even TALKING about it?

The government is too busy trying to daze us with smoke and mirrors.  Just as in THE WIZARD OF OZ, there is a guy behind the curtain pulling all the levers and pushing all the buttons that make the smoke billow into the air.

The bloated, gaseous guy behind the curtain is the billionaire "wizard" who donates millions of dollars into superpacs to elect political candidates that will do his bidding.  He and his cronies do not want to pay their fair share into the system, so they pay their glorified go-fers to generate a flurry of misinformation into the atmosphere that pumps up the issue with lies and then blames the problems on the poor, the disabled, the elderly and the illegal alien...anyone but the real culprits - the wealthy who are gaining unjust enrichment at the expense of the poor.

Preferential treatment of the rich was not the original intention of our tax system.  On the Vanderbuilt University website, I learned that:

"When our income tax system started, it was supposed to

be a tax on success," said Beverly Moran, a professor of

law and sociology and a leading tax scholar.  "Only 2

percent of people in the country were ever supposed to

file, and only 1 percent were supposed to pay."

 http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2015/03/four-ways-to-improve-u-s-tax-system/

Vanderbilt Research agrees that the cap on Social Security taxes should be lifted and that 3 other measures should be taken.  Here is their list:

"1.  Integrate the taxes on gifts, estates, income, corporations and shareholder-level income into one overall tax, int he process eliminating loopholes used by wealthy people to avoid paying taxes.

2.  Equalize the tax rates between ordinary income and capital against income, instead of taxing capital gains at a lower rate.

3.  Remove the cap on Social Security taxes, so that high-income people continue to pay the tax on all their income.

4.  Decrease pressure on the IRS to audit poor people."

It is WELL PAST TIME that we open a few windows and clear the air.  The horrific disparity of income between the top and the bottom of the socio economic field has been accomplished by bestowing unreasonable tax breaks on the rich.  Meanwhile, the wages of the working man have stalled since the early 1970's.  Lately, the oppression of the poor, elderly, and disabled and the slander against them is a national shame, and a humiliating nightmare for the poor, especially those who spent many years contributing to society, working, and paying into a culture that now spreads hateful lies about them.

I don't know what to do, other than write this blog, but who knows how long I can continue to do it, given that my income may be cut by almost 25% in a few short months.  That would be convenient for the wealthy cheats.  The fewer poor people with access to the internet, the better for that wizard behind the curtain.  He can continue blowing all that hot air and smoke up your noses.

Silver Rose Parnell
(c) 2015

Pertinent Links:

Report: Social Security disability fund to run dry next year

Petition to remove the cap on Social Security contributions

Top ten lies about Social Security

Four ways to improve the U.S. Tax System - Vanderbuilt University

Robert Reich, Economist - the case for expanding Social Security

National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare

Alliance for Retired Americans