DEATH

 

VIKING FUNERAL PYRE

One always knows that death awaits us all. We see death around us, we hear about the deaths of others, beloved pets even die when we are children, and we have to cope with that. But it isn't until one starts to feel death in one's own body that it becomes a real "thing." Welcome to the existential crisis.

If you don't have a religious philosophy in place when the existential crisis hits, God save you, because it is easy for me to imagine the emotional crisis that would likely ensue.

When I was very young, I imagined that I would die peacefully in my sleep at a very advanced age, hopefully after saying goodbye to scores of loved ones, tidying up my affairs, and giving away the heirlooms. 

Once I had discovered meditation and spiritual life in my late 20's, my death plans changed to a more spiritual version. Gradually, I grew to imagine I would give sage advice to my meditation students during the day, and at night I would work on aligning all my thoughts with the movement of the Divine. With the pinpoint concentration that comes of decades of meditation practice, I would try to ready myself to catch a ride on that spiritual wave, for what I imagined would be the experience of union with the divine at the end of it all.

Well, it is all very embarrassing now that the reality of impending death has begun to creep through the body, because there are many things I didn't anticipate. One doesn't foresee how unattractive it can be.

You don't envision the humiliation of your eyelashes suddenly migrating to arbitrary spots on one's chin - and growing there like strong little trees that make your eyes water when you pluck them out. Nor do you anticipate a giant random "sun spot" browning a swathe of skin on your cheek. One never thinks that our most constant companion will be crippling pain, and the barely adequate little morphine pills that give you terrible constipation for the first time in your life.

I was horrified about having to have a molar pulled out but lacking the resources to replace it, leaving the teeth on the top row to float around, willy nilly, while my gap-toothed smile suffered for it. (One does not want to frighten the children!) Dental floss became my constant companion after the removal of that big molar. I keep a bag of those little floss picks near the recliner, with kleenex, and a tiny little pink dust bin to throw them away. The detritus of this process is far from glamorous because it is a reminder of where we are all going, cute pink dust bin or not.

At first, I made fun of the cane I had to use to compensate for the knees that had been destroyed by inherited arthritis, and a lifetime of hiking, horseback riding, and walking. The scoliosis I was born with didn't help any of that. So I got a cane that was decorated with pink roses and made fun of having to use one - gamely declaring that I wasn't going to let it get me down and would just turn lemons into lemonade by using remarkably decorated canes. I would be that artistic and somewhat wacky nun with the canes and the sun hats

When I graduated from sporting a flashy little number covered with roses, to a commodious walker complete with padded seat, and finally to an electric scooter, all pretext of being that cool old lady nun vanished. All anyone sees is someone who is aging "badly" by not taking any measures to ameliorate the telltale signs - such as that ever widening "sun spot" that is known, more commonly, as an "age spot."

If I still lived in Los Angeles, people would be bugging me to go to the dermatologist to have the sun spot bleached and sloughed off, to have a dental implant to replace the missing tooth, etc.

A few weeks ago, I suddenly noticed the appearance of a weird dark spot on my scalp, of a bizarre, irregular shape, like a mole that has been blasted to bits - about the size of a quarter. Hoping it was a sun spot, but instinctively knowing it was not, I arranged for it to be biopsied and, sure enough, it came back as suspicious for melanoma cancer, and I now have an appointment at the cancer center where they will, no doubt about it, remove it, some skin around and beneath it, and forever destroy my one remaining physical attribute of some beauty - my hair.

We are not supposed to care about our physical selves, as nuns. Devoting oneself to spiritual life is supposed to eliminate considerations like that. But it isn't the loss of beauty that is the problem for me. Instead, it is the reminder of approaching death, on my part, which is not entirely devoid of aversion for me. I am not so "other worldly" that I am sanguine about passing away in the near future.

As a young nun I read about how several world religions recommend meditating upon death - and I had no problem with that. Death is easy. It is dying that is hard.

While I am looking forward to meeting my maker, I would still rather do it much later. I really would not mind living another 60 years because it is going to take me that long to do all the creative projects I have in mind.

We are not two-dimensional people, and the commitment to living a life for God doesn't preclude all worldly pursuits (though some people justify their lack of imagination and paucity of talents with that excuse that makes them look ever so holy!)   But few people are so lacking in interests! As an artist and a writer, I have parallel lives to that of my life as a nun and meditation teacher - especially now that we are all hunkered down in our bunkers, trying to avoid death by Covid19. I am writing a novel, some song lyrics and various types of poetry. I have no less than 3 series of acrylic paintings in the queue. I even love to make prayer beads, rosaries and "healing" necklaces using semi-precious natural stones. 

On top of all this is a love of study and of learning on various topics. I am a world-class genealogist with more than 40 years experience, a family tree of more than 75,000 people, and a handful of distant cousins I am helping with THEIR trees. Having played the piano, the guitar and the flute in the past, I am now teaching myself the guitalele. I have even contemplated learning at least one foreign language, but God only knows when I would find the time for it or on whom I would practice, since I am fascinated with the Welsh language of my beloved Grammy's ancestors, and there is nary a Welsh speaker in sight!

Other humans, likewise uncomfortable with reminders of death, find the reminders of it writ large on the faces of old people to be repellant, most of the time. This is one of the reasons why older folks are so often the victims of hate crimes - that, and the fact that they are less able to defend themselves, while people who commit hate crimes are vile bullies with cowardly hearts.

Keeping up an image of some semblance of health and vigor is essential to survival. We need to all pretend, to some extent, that we will live forever, otherwise our impending doom is all we'd think about and prepare for. I do not think that our entire lives are meant to be spent in this fashion because, if we were all created by a benign and loving creator, as I believe, then it would be uncharacteristic of Him to arrange it in such a way.

Just think how boring and dismal it would be to have only tragedies to watch on television. I often imagine that the Lord watches us as we watch television, and that His joy thrills to our our joy, etc. It is hard to be joyful unless we put death on the back burner until and unless we meet it in a dark hallway in the middle of the night, on our way to the bathroom or the kitchen, pursuing some need or want.

Yes, the reality of dying is typically a long, drawn-out affair. If you are lucky enough to make it past middle age, it announces itself long before it is actually knocking on your front door. I remember now, with some embarrassment, a much younger me who announced that I wouldn't be complaining about old age and that I intended to "grow old gracefully," but what did I knew? I'd never seen anyone die. .Heck, I barely knew anyone who died at all! There isn't much that is graceful about what is going on over here. My apartment is in chaos, and instead of a gathering of students and loved ones around my bed, There is a viral pandemic stalking the land, and all the teaching is on the phone or on Facebook. I am falling asleep in my reclining chair, wearing the same clothes I was wearing during the day. At least, that's how last night turned out - and who am I kidding? Many nights end that way. Thank God no one is here to witness the snoring I feel sure must be part of that lovely tableaux!

Things are bound to improve after I get my second Covid vaccination next week. I'll feel more comfortable about having an attendant come to my house, but I don't take it for granted that someone will be available during this wickedly difficult era, and the mess has piled up around me for the last year, so much that it will take some time before "graceful" is possible!

It is my guess that the spiritual equivalent of a juggling act has to be conducted throughout each of our lives. We must plan for death but thumb our noses at it at the same time, by living for the natural beauty of life - a beauty rendered more precious and gorgeous by the temporary nature of it all.

Now I leave you for the pursuit.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose
Sannyasini Kaliprana

EVERYTHING IS ALL YOUR FAULT AND YOU SHOULD SUFFER FOR IT

Taking a hot air balloon ride is romantic in the minds of some, but they can be dangerous at times. They may not be as dangerous as driving the Los Angeles freeways, but accidents do happen. More than a dozen years ago, a balloon owned by a small private company met up with some unfriendly winds and dumped some tourists out of the gondola and onto the tarmac at Kirtland Air Force Base. At least one person died.

One of the people injured in that accident was a friend of mine, an elderly lady with an adventurous heart who has undergone quite a few surgeries and continues to suffer from serious chronic pain and other issues as a result of that horrible accident.

Recently, she told me that a friend of hers is blaming her for getting onto the hot air ride to begin with, and this "friend" has no sympathy for her. Evidently, according to that friend, the accident is all her fault and she deserves to undergo years and years of surgeries, pain and disability for being so stupid.

Her relatives are also loathe to help her because she tithes to her church and they continually criticize her for it! Apparently, she is expected to surrender her religious practices and values in order to earn the sympathy and help of family. They are nonbelievers and do not attend church, therefore she must be just like them. It's as if she has to make a deal with Satan in order to get her needs met. Give up your religious practices, and you can eat.

Many Americans have come to the place where their first instinct is to blame and shame people for whatever misfortune has befallen them. The poor are routinely castigated and accused of a catalog of character defects and "bad life choices" that contributed to their condition. Never mind that these social judges pretend to be Christian and that Jesus loves the poor and vulnerable above all people.

"The meek shall inherit the world," not the arrogant, self-important people who treat others with contempt for making mistakes. Choosing to experience the freedom and beauty of nature by taking a hot air balloon ride is not a sin. It may not even be an error in judgment. I wouldn't choose to get into the gondola, but my interest in risk-taking games and rides is extremely low. Other folk, however, like excitement and adventure and may not even perceive a balloon ride as something risky. Some people even jump out of airplanes with parachutes. That's not my scene, but I would still feel terribly sorry for the guy whose chute malfunctions and he ends up spread across the landscape like peanut butter on a crispy cracker. A sizeable number of people, however, feel nothing but contempt for those whose later years don't find them in a mansion stuffed with gold-leaf covered furniture.

If you are needy, due to disability, poverty, or both, you are looked down upon, blamed, shamed, and discounted.

Where does this hard heartedness COME from? How can people like this look at themselves in the mirror in the morning? Even if one is not Christian, where is the compassion that famously resides in the heart of man?

I have experienced different versions of what my friend is enduring now.  Long ago, when I first became disabled, I remember a conversation with a supposedly good friend of 30 years' duration. When I told her I had become disabled and that my Social Security was not going to be enough to get all my needs met, she asked me in a withering and overbearing tone, "If Social Security isn't enough to live on why did you decide to retire?" The word "retire" hit me like a fat, wet mackerel to the face, as I hadn't used that term at all. She had substituted it for the word "disabled" in an effort to make me sound bad and irresponsible. Her immediate response to hearing that I was disabled was to blame me, as if I had chosen to be sick and stop working.

Another odd thing that immediately started is that a number of people began calling me "kiddo," as if I am one of their children, even though we are very close in age. No one ever called me "kiddo" before I became old, sick, poor and needy. I regularly ask people not to call me this, but it continues to happen. Calling someone a child, blaming them for their illnesses and then demanding that the needy person live according to the dictates of others seems to be part of the general package that is thrust upon people like my friend and me.

Fortunately, I have several Catholic friends who walk with Jesus and whose kindness and generosity has kept me from being in much worse condition than I might be otherwise. Others are not so lucky and I do what I can to help when I can, even though my resources are puny.

Contrary to popular myth, "the government" doesn't supply every need of the poor and disabled, nor are there huge numbers of "fakers" who are "milking the system." The millions of poor people living in America today are mostly elderly and disabled people who have spent their whole lives paying taxes and paying into Social Security, doing what they were supposed to do, being upstanding citizens, only to be blamed and skewered with really mean lies at the fag end of their lives.

Grandmas and grandpas are struggling through their supposedly golden years because they had the bad taste to end up poor and/or disabled. It makes me sick, really, every time I hear one of these stories from one of my friends or neighbors, and the only thing that soothes me is the knowledge that God knows all and sees all and that the poor and vulnerable will spend eternity with Him, bouyed up with eternal kindness, eternal generosity, eternal peace and painlessness.

I do not pretend to know what will happen to the people who harass, lie about and criticize the vulnerable and sick in our society. The harassers frequently tell me they are sure they are going to heaven. We shall see.

In the meantime, I pray for my friend and all the other disabled and elderly people she represents. Please join me in those prayers.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose Parnell

SAINT LUTGARDIS AND LOVE OF ENEMY

Saint Lutgardis in prayer

Today marks the death anniversary of Saint Lutgardis, who was a nun who died on this date (June 16) in 1246.  I admit that this lovely saint has little to do with the topic of loving one's enemies, but she is the saint I've chosen for the day, while the Gospel Reading of the day deals with loving one's enemies and praying for those who persecute us.

There is a whole long list of saints who are honored today.  That's the way it is for most days of the calendar year.  There are far more than 365 saints, so they all have to share.  I picked St. Lutgardis (sometimes Lutgarda or Luthgard, depending on the language of the country in which you live.) I had not heard of her before, and I am making an effort to broaden my knowledge of the saints, so she was my choice.  She was also a nun from the age of about 12.  I love to learn about other nuns, as it inspires me to cling more fervently to my own unique vocation.

The holy people we remember today are:

St. Benno
Bl. Guy Vignotelli
St. Aurelian
St. Berthaldus
St. Tychon
St. Colman McRhoi
St. Felix & Maurus
St. Luthgard (Lutgardis, Lutgarda)
St. John Francis Regis
St. Aureus
Bl. William Greenwood
St. Cettin
St. Curig
St. Ferreolus & Ferrutio
St. Quiriacus and Julitta

If you have some curiosity about the other saints, Catholic.org has a wonderful website with extensive information and a great search feature that allows you to find the saints either by date or by name.  The link for that page is HERE.

There was a time in history when ladies had only two choices in life.  You either married or you joined a convent.  Generally speaking, it was rather shameful to be a spinster living at home, but, as with all generalizations, this was not always true.  Lutgardis's father had managed to squander her dowry in a bad investment scheme which meant she could not marry.  At the age of 12, he sent her off to a convent, despite her having no monastic vocation to speak of. In fact, she came and went as she pleased and entertained all visitors she wanted, both male and female.  Then something happened in the way of a vision which set her firmly on the path to heaven.  She grew more and more devout, had visions, a type of stigmata, and levitated during prayer.

You will find her entire story HERE.

The thing I found most inspiring was that she began with no interest in God whatsoever, but ended up becoming a great mystic and saint, which speaks to the importance of teaching one's children the faith.  Often times, a child will express disinterest in a topic, skill, or way of life, but they have no way of knowing if they are interested until and unless you introduce them to it.  Exposure to a thing is necessary.  I think it very odd when someone says that they are not going to teach their child about God but will "let them choose" when they're 18.  Let them choose based on WHAT information, I want to know!

Saint Lutgardis gives me hope that, even if we start out as vain, superficial people, we can grow and improve and "become perfect" as our "father in heaven is perfect," which brings me to today's Gospel reading.

Matthew 5:43-48

(43)  You have heard how it was said, you will love your neighbor and hate your enemy,

(44)  But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you;

(45)  so that that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike.

(46)  For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get?  Do not even the tax collectors do as much?

(47)  And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional?

(48)  Do not even the gentiles do as much?  You must therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

It occurred to me that I have, in the past, prayed for people who have done me grave harm in one way or the other, but it has been quite a while since I prayed for those people.  I have forgiven them and I did pray for them for some time, at least until it was fixed in my brain that those people had been forgiven, but I wonder if Jesus intended that we continue to pray for our enemies, over and over again?  How much is enough?  I am unsure about this aspect of things.  I am grateful that this reading came to me today so that I would have that little nudge that would inspire me to examine an important aspect of my prayer life.  I'll have to ponder this one a bit.

In the meantime, I offer this translation of St. Lutgardis's Heavenly Court: ST. LUTGARDIS'S "HEAVENLY COUR"

The doctor called today.  The latest tests reveal that my illness is still a mystery.  He will call again tomorrow with information about the next steps to take.

Despite being in the middle of an intense pain episode, I made a big pot of vegetarian soup today, with organic tomatoes, kidney beans, red onion, garlic, olive oil, celery, new spring potatoes, and just enough cayenne to warm the mouth.  I put a little brown sugar in there also, to put a damper on the tang of the tomatoes.  I fed a couple neighbors in an impromptu, casual supper: me with my legs propped up on a big box with a pillow on top (my recliner is broken), one neighbor on my couch with a tray and another at the tiny white table in the middle of the living room.  I've lost the ability to socialize in a group, for the most part.  Having spent the last 11 years as a solitary, with very little company, silence has become my friend.  I do enjoy a conversation of substance, but those are sometimes very hard to find or generate.

Now that there is a dog in the house again, I am forced into a walking schedule, which I am assuming is good for anything that ails me.  I have yet to hear of an illness in which they tell you NOT to walk, even if walking makes you feel like someone is sticking hot pokers up your spine and in your kneecaps.  Anyway, it is time to walk the cutest dog in the world.  I'll pray for you while we stroll.

God bless us all.

Silver "Rose" Parnell
(c) 2015

GARDENING FOR THE HOME-BOUND HERMIT

View from the back side of my apartment

I have been sick for the last 2 weeks with an awful stomach bug and have pretty much planted myself in the recliner next to the picture window.  If I was up to getting out of the house and standing at the boundary fence that separates our property from the canal, I would be able to see the Albuquerque Country Club golf course, above.  Considering that I live in subsidized housing, it is ironic that my immediate neighbor is an exclusive club that provides a playground for the ultra rich.  But my view is of a dead yard that used to support plants and grass.

Just over the black wrought iron fence, is a canal that is full of life.  It is home to multitudes of fish, fowl, and creatures.  We have everything from giant carp to trout, as far as fish are concerned.  Giant plate-sized green turtles live in that brackish water, sunning themselves on pieces of concrete.  One has to walk to the fence and peer over and down to see any of this, however.

The turtles in the canal look very much like

this one.

The occasional black-crested night heron will visit, and twice I saw the very shy green heron.

Black crested night heron that I managed to snap

while he was fishing!

I happened to catch sight of a very elegant snowy egret once.  It was standing in the middle of the water so that it appeared to be floating, its legs were so long.  His stark white plumage reflected brilliantly in the rushing water that was fed by pipe from under the ground.

I have been lucky enough to have many opportunities to watch the neighborhood beavers and their babies, when dusk begins to settle and they come out to forage.

This is a nice size beaver, but the mama beaver

who has lived here for years was MUCH bigger

the last time I saw her.

We used to have quite a lot of ground squirrels, muskrats and ugly big sewer rats, but a diamond back water snake moved into the territory in the last couple of years and has grown HUGE on those little critters.  I can't imagine anything big enough to eat him, not even the hawks that make their nests in the cottonwoods on the golf course of the country club.  He'll probably be with us a long time.

This is a picture of a SMALL diamond back water

snake.  The one living in the canal behind my 

apartment complex is about 5 feet long.

That snake also eats the goose eggs, if they nest too close to the water.  A friend and I had to chase it off a nest last spring, where it had already eaten one egg and was tucking into a second.  It will sometimes try to snag a gosling from underneath when it is swimming, and I have witnessed the goose parents battling with it in an effort to save their baby.  Thanks be to God, the baby escaped.  I know that these snakes have to eat SOMETHING, but I wish they would stick to the sewer rats and leave the sweet goslings alone.

Goose parents and the 4 remaining goslings that the snake

didn't manage to catch.

The Albuquerque Country Club is constantly making efforts to eliminate the geese that we love so well.  For a while, they had a border collie chasing them off.  Sometimes they have tried to run them down with those silly golf carts.  I even caught two of their employees swinging at them with golf clubs!  Beating the geese is illegal, but when I yelled at them to stop, they said it was private property and I should just shut up.  I called the police.

one of my goosy friends

In stark contrast to the excesses of the wealthy on the other side of the ditch, the yards of the poor apartment dwellers are bare dirt, covered by a weed tarp on which is a meager layer of cement "crusher fines" that have been dyed to imitate the color of natural earth, or adobe.  Ever since the management ripped out the grass and trees and stopped watering the bushes until they just died of thirst, the asthma I had not seen since I was a small child came rampaging back into my life.  Dust, dirt and chemicals are the culprits.

When I moved into this apartment complex 10 years ago, there were beautiful giant trees growing out of the banks of the canal and shading our yards.  All along the wrought iron fence in front of those trees was a lovely little dirt walkway lit by charming white globes.  There was a peacock living on the property.  Many lovely bushes like lavender, rosemary and honeysuckle, were planted among bright spots of grass.  It was cool, inviting and natural.  Then someone got stingy.  The giant trees were ripped out and replaced with cement blocks and wire screen, leaving our apartment without windscreen or shade.  The charming globe lights were completely removed, leaving much of the property pitch black at night.  The dirt path was replaced with roughly manufactured gravel that gets in your shoes within seconds of stepping on it.  The sprinkler system was shut down, with the exception of a very small patch near the postal boxes.  Grass and bushes died quickly, then giant machines spent 3 months tearing up the back yard and turning it into a wasteland of chewed up concrete and rock.

Looking at my back yard, which is the view from my living room "picture" window, I feel bleak, hot and dry.  I long for the greenery I left behind in California, but I have no people there any more, and nothing to draw me back there, even if I could afford it.  I used to carry a quote from the Bible in my purse.  It was from Hosea and said something like, "I will draw her into the desert, and there I will speak to her heart."  I sometimes try to comfort myself by imagining that the Lord has called me here to speak to me in that way, but a yard full of crushed concrete does not a desert make.  The real desert is beautiful.  This is not.

If and when I have the funds to do some work on the "garden," I plan to install a meditation garden of sorts that will be an inspiration to everyone that walks by.  I have gotten permission to plant a couple of trees, but I have to buy the trees first, and then our gardener will install them, digging through the crusher fines and the weed screen to the dirt below.

A unique feature of my back yard is that the apartment building casts a long shadow over it, starting at about 12:30 in the afternoon, and completely shading it by about 3 or 4 O'Clock.  Any trees planted here have to be QUITE resilient, since it is very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter in this high-desert location, but they won't get continual sun.  The gardener is advising cypress evergreens, and tells me they are very hardy and can withstand the conditions.

These Italian Cypress will grow tall and thin, staying within the bounds of the garden, with occasional pruning by the gardeners.  Between these two cypress, my dream is to install a grotto, within which I will place a large statue of our Blessed Virgin Mother.  Of course, I will have to anchor it to something REALLY heavy, otherwise someone will walk off with it.  One would not imagine that a religious person would STEAL a religious statue, but stranger things happen here in New Mexico.  Thieves and robbers, their bodies emblazoned with full color images of our Blessed Mother of Guadalupe, apparently find no disharmony between the religious symbolism they wear on their bodies and the regular breaking of nearly every commandment our Lord holds dear.  Then there are the homeless people that live in the Bosque, underneath the trees, just a few yards from our apartment complex.  A police officer told me once that there are 200 people living there.

The Bosque near my apartment complex

In the Bosque there are  a mix of people, but many of them are wanted by the law, mostly for drug crimes.  Some are homeless who don't want to be limited by the rules and inconveniences of the shelters.  Several have told me that their belongings are regularly stolen while staying in the shelters.  Others just want the freedom to smoke pot, drink, and do their drugs in peace.  A sizable number are outdoor enthusiasts that will not trade the beauty of the natural environment for the deeply depressing institutional environment of a homeless shelter.  They remind me of the hobos that rode the rails during the big depression in the early years of the 20th century.

Denizens of the Bosque regularly move through the apartment grounds late at night, stealing anything that will be useful, such as patio furniture and cushions.  A little statue of a fairy angel was once stolen during one of these midnight raids.  Maybe the camp site needed a mascot.  I really miss that little statue, as it added a bit of whimsy to the garden.  Clearly, though, whatever improvements I do make have to be too large to cart away and of no use to the Bosque gangs.

I particularly love this statue. I have no idea how really big it is, nor how much it would cost, but this is exactly what I have in mind for my grotto between the trees.  I imagine sitting in front of it during a cool evening, cup of tea in hand, meditating on the Lord, and perhaps doing a rosary or two.

It is no coincidence that religious institutions are typically very beautiful.  God is the ultimate beauty, and whatever beauty we find here on earth comes from Him and reminds us of Him at the same time.  Beauty, especially the natural beauty of flora and fauna, speak to my soul and help to order it into harmony with the Lord.  In it, I find the type of tranquility that predisposes me to feeling His presence and hearing his voice.  Sometimes I think that this sensitivity and need for the beauty of nature is peculiar to artists, but I suspect that there are gifts here for everyone.  Since my garden is on display for all my neighbors to see, I want to inspire others to feel what I feel and stretch their hands and hearts toward the Lord.

When I was a young working woman, my apartment was rather spare and utilitarian.  My apartment was little more than a pit stop.  With 9 hours at work, plus 2 hours of commuting each day, there wasn't much of an opportunity or need to feather my nest.

Nowadays, I have to seek ALL of my stimulation and activity within the four walls of my apartment because arthritis has settled into all my old injuries and I now have mobility problems.  Developing the garden expands my usable living space and gives me an opportunity to get out of the house on a regular basis without actually having to get in the car and go somewhere.  I have nowhere to go, other than church, and if there was somewhere to go, I couldn't afford it anyway.

Scientists understand that all creatures, including us humans, have a hard-wired need for stimulation.  Even animals caged in a zoo, though given really nice enclosures that cater to their physical needs, also require natural elements (such as what I am craving now), as well as activities that challenge their minds.  Zookeepers in the western world do what they can to provide these activities by hiding treats in what they call "enrichment balls" and hiding meals in the enclosure, so that their hunting instincts can be aroused and satisfied.  It would be a sad bear who was relegated to a cage for all its life.

What many do not realize is that, while calories, clothing and a roof over one's head are enough to keep us barely alive, in the strictest meaning of the word, there is no life in that kind of life.  Beauty is necessary.  Connection with other living things; plants, animals and people, are necessary.  Mental stimulation provided by hobbies and crafts are necessary.  Culture is necessary.  Most important of all, connection with God, the ground of our very being, is essential.  Many people ignore these needs when contemplating what to do about the poor.

As a disabled and mostly home-bound person, what I feel most keenly is alienation from what is most natural.  Aside from the dearth of people in my life with whom I can commune face-to-face, I miss my service dog.  I miss greenery, and walking out into the garden in the late afternoon to water and prune, pick at the weeds and breathe in the damp earth and plant fragrances.  I need these things.  We all do, to some degree or another.  Replacing the service dog whose companionship and protection are sorely needed, will be extremely expensive, since I have to have a hypoallergenic dog.  In the meantime, I have a cat that a friend gave me as a kitten 11 years ago, who is dying of kidney disease and whose care and prescription food is bankrupting me.

I have been sick with a stomach virus for 2 weeks now, a portion of which I spent in the emergency room and at the doctor's office, it was so severe.  The rest of the time, I have been sitting in my recliner next to the picture window and gazing out onto the bare dirt of my back yard, wishing I could do something about it.

To my regret, I am unable to live like Mother Teresa of Calcutta who, along with her nuns, endured the conditions of the poorest of the poor.

This kind of asceticism is beyond my physical capacity to endure.  I suspect that the knowledge that one is doing something holy and pure, having the support of one's sisters and an organization, go a long way in helping the sisters deal with this sort of life in the emotional and psychological sense.  My chronic illnesses, pains, isolation and relative poverty are enough asceticism for me, and I suspect that the Lord does not expect more.  He knows I am not able.

No, I am an ordinary sort of person, trying my best to pray continually and to follow Jesus in all things, enlisting the help of Mary and the other saints and the angels for their assistance and intercession, sitting here at my picture window, looking out over my dead yard and the lush playground of the rich beyond it.

Silver Rose Parnell
(c) 2015

THE BLESSING OF ILLNESS

Saint Therese of Lisieux, 

in her sick bed

No one enjoys being sick, including me, but I find that a protracted illness gives me more-than-usual downtime in which to examine my life, count my blessings, and make some resolutions about possible changes to my lifestyle.

Currently, I have this wretched virus which, thanks to my asthma, is clinging to me like a baby monkey on its mum's back.  Illness, when it is particularly bad, makes me contemplate my impending death.  By "impending," I mean that we are all going to die in the relatively near future.  When it is relatively mild, such as the current malaise, I tend to review my eating and exercise habits with a view toward improving them and boosting my immune system.

First, however, I experience an overwhelming sense of gratitude.  Thanks be to be God, I live in a relatively secure apartment, and if I am rendered weak as  baby for a few days, no one is going to invade the place, dispose of me and then take up residence, as may happen in some primitive cultures.  I have clean, pure water that comes out of the taps and I don't have to trudge down to the local river and carry it home on my head, as is still done in many places.

Toilet tissue, facial tissues, saline water in a bottle, a thermometer, blood pressure cuff, a refrigerator/freezer containing a supply of foodstuffs, vitamins, over-the-counter and prescription medications, a comfortable, clean bed, and a host of other benefits of civilization are at hand.

When it is all over, I have a washer/dryer, a mop, some disinfectant, and other cleaning items I can use to chase the germs out of the house so that I don't reinfect myself or, God forbid, get someone else sick because they touched a germy doorknob.

Getting sick is a good opportunity to take a step back and acknowledge the overall situation, in a global context.  If I lived in a village in Africa, I could easily be dead by now.  This is a tremendous reason to be grateful to God that he chose to have me born here in the United States with all its lifestyle benefits.  Granted, we have some problems now, but the overall situation is pretty good, in comparison to other countries.

After running through my list of things for which I am grateful, the next thing I feel is a tremendous compassion for those people in the world who struggle with survival in ways that I probably never will.  Then I pray for them.

God bless you all.

Silver Rose Parnell