SHOWERED WITH SMALL MIRACLES

SAINT LUCY

Martyr

Patron Saint of the Eyes

THAT FUNNY FEELING

I haven't wanted to mention something, because i didn't want to presume upon the grace of God, nor to "jinx" it, but for the last couple weeks I have experienced two unusual streams of awareness. The first was the distinct impression that I was being lifted on the wings of the prayers of my friends and the saints upon whom they were calling for intercession. My macular degeneration sprang a leak some weeks ago, and we have been storming heaven for a cure.

The second was the impression - a very strong impression - that my eyesight had improved since the injection that I was administered in my left eye a few weeks ago. (Thank you, Saint Lucy!) I was unsure, at first, since my vision in that eye was really bad for the first few days after the injection...but then it seemed to become better than before the shot and I began to entertain the possibility that perhaps the shot had jarred my body into getting rid of that blood leak in my eye.

MY EYE SPECIALIST IS ALSO A VETERINARIAN....APPARENTLY!

Today when I went to the eye doctor's office, ostensibly to have another shot in my left eye, the technician took photographs of the interior of my eye and we discovered that, aside from the primary damage (which is permanent, I am told), the secondary damage from the blood leakage into the eye had simply disappeared. There was no trace of the pool of blood that had shown up in the previous test.

I wasn't surprised. I had this feeling. I just KNEW.

One reason I was not surprised is because I know my body and I know how sensitive it is - especially to drugs and chemicals of any kind. This plays two ways. First, this sensitivity sometimes causes allergic reactions, anaphylaxis and asthma attacks, especially if the dose is large. On the other side of that coin is that my body will often respond very well to a very small dose of medication, because it takes less to get an organic response from my system.

The primary cause of my lack of surprise is rooted in my connection with the Lord. I KNOW He is with me at times, and this week is one of those times.

But not only do I host the Lord in my heart, but I feel a deep connection with many of the saints who observe all from heaven, particularly Saint Lucy, to whom I have directed many pleas for her intercession.

SAINT LUCY

Saint Lucy, originally known as Saint Lucia of Syracuse, is the patron saint of the blind. The oldest record of her is in the Acts of the Martyrs from the fifth century, but most accounts agree that a rejected admirer reported her for being a Christian and she was martyred in Sicily in 304 a.d., when Diocletian was rabidly persecuting Christians. It is in the medieval stories that we first learn that her eyes were gouged out before being murdered.

I have been asking for her intercession regularly during the last few months when I have been struggling with my vision and other issues, as have many of my friends. Some day I hope to write a blog post specifically and only about her.

Coincidentally, her feast day is fast approaching on December 13th.

I had asked my Facebook community to pray for me and also my friends "in real life" for a cure and to buck up my bravery factor. Injections into my eyeball is a tough one for me. Needles have always been a challenge.

THE EYE DOCTOR REFUSED TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS OR SPEAK TO ME:

I told the technician that I wanted to speak to the eye doctor before I got another shot in my eye. My idea was to regularly go to the office for checkups and, if this blood leakage happens again, to then begin a series of shots at that time. It hardly seemed necessary now. There wasn't a trace of the previous problem!

The doctor refused to see me, UNLESS I would agree to mutely sit there while he would just sweep in and give me a shot and then sweep out of the room.

HE REFUSED TO SEE ME. HE REFUSED TO TALK TO ME.

The technician says that monthly shots are what he does. He does it for everyone and he won't do anything in any other way for me....and he won't discuss it with me. When i asked the technician why I would have to have more shots if the eye is no longer bleeding, he said something something something something about "just in case" it starts again!

The message I received, loud and clear was this: STOP TALKING, STOP ASKING INCONVENIENT QUESTIONS AND TAKE THE SHOT OR GET OUT OF THE OFFICE!

I chose to leave, but did make a future appointment which I am not sure I will keep.

UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO HOSPITAL OFTEN TREATS PATIENTS LIKE CATTLE

Being treated like a cow being forced through a metal chute with a string of other cows,, in a living assembly line of sorts, is not how I envision the conditions of my personal medical care, and I am going to have to decide what to do about this state of affairs. I am getting awfully tired of fighting with the University of New Mexico to be treated like a human being instead of a test subject or an excuse upon which someone creates their medical career.

GRATITUDE TO GOD

Putting aside the dilemma with this doctor who refuses to address my personal needs in favor of his assembly line approach, my heart is full of love and gratitude to the Lord for cutting me some slack - even if only for a little while - and letting me retain my vision for a bit longer, without having the screaming emergency of having to have injections in my eyeball. Who knows what the future will bring? I could well be back there in short order, submitting to those horrifying shots, if the bleeding in the eye resumes. In the meantime, however, I am given at least a small reprieve.

I want to thank all of you who have prayed for me in this difficult situation. I DID feel your prayers, and I love you for them! Thanks so much.

CHRISTMAS FAST APPROACHES AND THE CUPBOARDS ARE MOSTLY BARE

On another topic - this month is Christmas, and I would dearly love to treat the other disabled, elderly and poor residents in this apartment complex, at the very least to provide some snacks and drinks. Many of them do not have any Christmas "programs" at all. They spend most of their lives alone and they are left out of family events, either through geography or estrangement.

Food is always a headache, especially for those of us who are intent on eating healthy foods in order to combat serious health worriments. I have lost 90 of the 100 pounds I gained when I stopped smoking tobacco, and I intend to keep it off, but it would be lovely to be able to celebrate the Christmas season with some special FOOD, especially to offer to my neighbors and others who are alone during this glorious season.

In that line, I offer you the following link to my Amazon Christmas food list. I would be most grateful for anything you may be able to contribute. On the other hand, if you would like to contribute FRESH food items, you could donate for that purpose on the paypal link, above-right, just below my photograph.

Here is the link to the Christmas food wish list on Amazon. They have my address and will ship to me direct:

CLICK HERE FOR THE AMAZON CHRISTMAS WISH LIST FOR FOOD

Thank you again, most of all, for your prayers.

God bless us all, and have a very merry Christmas!

GOD BRINGS ALL THINGS TO THE GOOD FOR THOSE THAT BELIEVE

About halfway through the month, I typically run low on food. There are things to eat in the cupboard, but I have to be creative sometimes, and I often have to eat things I'm not particularly keen to have at that moment. I liken it to a type of perpetual fasting and, in that light, it becomes a blessing. Fasting as a method of sacrificing the ego, its will, and its constant need to be fed, enables one to grow closer to God. It has been continually advocated in the Judeo Christian world, as well as in other religions, for thousands of years. God brings all things to the good for those that believe - even when something looks bad at the outset  - even when something is uncomfortable or downright painful.

Tonight I was pondering dinner, when I noticed that I have a lot of half-and-half leftover, as I have reduced my consumption of tea over the last few months. Calculating that the half-and-half was going to go bad before I could use it all if I only used it for tea, I realized that I also had the other items necessary to make alfredo sauce with chopped walnuts. Sunday dinner was delicious. Another thing brought to the good that, on the outset, appeared to be somewhat sad.

If I stop to complain about whatever is going wrong, I may miss the good that the Lord wants to bring out of it and into my life. If I look at the deceptively empty refrigerator and become focused on THAT, it may never occur to me to become creative and make a masterpiece.

The last five years or so have been rough and getting rougher. Someone had me written out of my father's will after he got Alzheimer's. My father died, my uncle died, my son died, my dog died, my cat died. My relationship to the church I loved was destroyed by a callow young priest who ridiculed my weight in front of a group of people, pantomiming how funny it would be if he couldn't pull me out of a chair because my bottom is so big. He disparaged my disability status. He went on to harass me every time he got me alone, and I had to leave the church - the only Byzantine Church in New Mexico. My health has gotten worse and my illnesses have multiplied. Among other things, I am going blind, very slowly, from macular degeneration. My inability to find an appropriate place to live has been documented in other blog posts.

When I became disabled, friends of many years dropped me immediately. The few family who had the resources to help me picked a fight or found some bogus "reason" to be angry with me, giving themselves an excuse not to behave like the Christians they claim to be. They say that family is all one can count on, but but some families are not good. Some families hate God and goodness, living only for their own comfort.

It may never become apparent to me exactly what sort of good the Lord plans to bring out of all this pain. The good may not be realized during my lifetime. It may never make sense to me. It may never make sense to you, but sometime before my story comes to a close, I need to send out a reassuring message, and that is simply this: The Lord is bringing all these things to the good - for me and for others.

This is the blessing of living the Catholic faith, being a member of the church founded by Jesus - even if some of the priests are horridly broken and cruel people - even though I cannot get anyone from the bishop's office to return my phone calls about my vocation - even though our dear Papa is sometimes hard to understand - even though family and friends have left me twisting, by myself, at the end of a short rope - even though I have been suffering continuous pain FOR YEARS. I am being blessed.

Some people mistakenly believe that if we live the Christian faith well, Jesus will reward us with a comfortable life. That is not what he promised. This is what He said:

"Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth:

I came not to send peace, but the sword.

For I came to set a man at variance against his father,

and the daughter against her mother,

and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a man's enemies are they of his own household.

He that loveth father or mother more than me, 

is not worthy of me;

and he that loveth son or daughter more than me,

is not worthy of me.

And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth

me, is not worthy of me."

Matthew 10: 34-38

Christianity is the hardest gig you will ever do. It isn't rainbows, lollipops and unicorns, as some people believe. It isn't warm and cuddly. It isn't about prosperity. It is the sword and the cross, just as Jesus promised.

May we all be blessed.

Silver Rose Parnell

Copyright (c) 2017

All rights reserved.

TO EVERY SEASON

Late winter, 2016

(c) copyright 2016, Silver Rose Parnell

When I was about 15, I had a step father who wasn't quite as bad as the other  2 step fathers I'd had before him. He was a hardworking construction man from Texas and he came complete with a grandfather, which I had never had.

My father's father, a hard drinking, wiry, Irish lathe and plaster man, was completely absent from my father's life, having been in prison for a burglary that went wrong during the depression when everyone was desperate. Even my father never met him, and, by the time I figured out the genealogy, he was deceased.

My father's father, Edward Joseph Shea II,

His mother, Mary Alice Merkel Shea,

Grandpa's 3rd wife, Ruth

My mother's father, a Scottish/English miner from an illustrious California pioneer family, died of tuberculosis in the tiny little hospital in Johannesberg or Red Mountain, in the Mojave Desert, when my mother was a baby and her sister a toddler.  He had the lease of the Yellow Aster Mine in Randsberg, a mine that originally gave silver, then copper. It is a prominent fixture on the main street of that tiny town that used to be the home of 2,000 miners in a bustling tent city where my grandmother worked as a teenager in the Rand Hotel, serving hearty dinners to hungry men, and where she met my grandpa Jack.  Mrs. Wilson, who I interviewed in about 1978, had known him and my grandmother.  She said he was a handsome, tall man, and a really good dancer, down at the Grange Hall.

My mother's father, grandpa Jack

My step-grandfather was probably your typical Texas cattle man, but he had a small ranch in Sacramento where he would host us royally in his down-home, gruff, but loving way. One day he took us all out crawdad fishin' in the American River, or perhaps it was the Sacramento. It was so long ago now, I can't remember.

We came home with a big haul of crawdads and Grandpappy showed us how to clean them, bread them and fry them. It was an exotic experience for me, having been raised by an extremely glamorous mother with flaming red hair and sky-high heels who, although having grown up in a tiny Northern California town, had big city appetites. By the time she married grandpappy's son, she had adjusted her sights somewhat. She was ill with multiple sclerosis which had grown worse over the years, but during her marriage to my stepfather Rodney, her illness abated for a time. She must have been happy.  Later, she was not, and he became her 4th ex-husband.

One day we went pheasant huntin' with Grandpappy.  I think there were just the three of us: me, Rodney and Grandpappy.  My sister and my mother had no interest in hunting whatsoever. I loved the earthiness of it and enjoyed learning how to shoot, which I did fairly well.  We fanned out onto a field of tall yellow grasses on the ranch and began to flush out the birds. A gorgeous, fat, heavily plumed pheasant propelled itself into the clear sky directly in front of Grandpappy. Just at the apex of its takeoff, when the timing was perfect for the perfect shot, Grandpappy pushed the shotgun into his shoulder and pulled the trigger.  CLICK.

He had forgotten to load the gun.

We had a good laugh over that one, and he was embarrassed, of course, but it's a good family story, one of the very few that I possess.

During the summer, Rodney also took me with him on some of his construction jobs and taught me how to install "Best Tile" fully assembled shower and tub enclosures. At the height of the feminist "revolution," this was like a badge of honor. I was doing something that the boys typically did, but I wasn't very good at it and, if truth be told, my tastes ran to far more genteel pursuits. I appreciated the attention, though, of a father figure, as my own father was not interested in family. He wanted to chase women and hobbies, fame and money.

I also learned how to tie my own fishing "flies" using various threads, furs and feathers. Rodney taught me how to tie a really great "Truckee bug" and it worked well in the cool Northern California waters, even though it was a dowdy little gray fly. He paid for fly fishing lessons for me also, which I just loved. Cleaning the fish was never something I wanted to learn how to do, though, and I always managed to get someone else to take that duty, but finding and catching fish was so much fun, it was more fun than I had ever had in my whole life.

Trout

Water color by Silver Rose Parnell

(c) 2005, All rights reserved.

I live near the Rio Grande River now, close to numerous fishing spots, and it has made me nostalgic for the days when I learned to fish with my step father and later fished all over California with my husband. I have toyed with the idea of getting some fishing gear and a license. Now that I am disabled, I have tried to imagine what type of routine and gear I would need to address my numerous ailments so that the fishing would be fun and not a trial. A friend of mine from church is also interested. I have tried to calculate how this might also be helpful to the food budget.  I figured that, as long as I don't get complicated with my gear, it could be worth my while.

We have trout and bass, as well as catfish, and I like all three types of fish. Some of the nearby areas are stocked and some are wild. I began to get a little excited about the prospect.

Today I drove myself to a local dollar store, one of the many in this part of town, and one of the few that really only charges $1 for anything you buy. I didn't linger in the store, as the valves in the major vein in my left leg don't work, putting my entire leg to sleep if I'm on my feet longer than 10 or 15 minutes. That, combined with the arthritis, makes driving and shopping a painful exercise. I inherited these things from my mother, along with varicose veins and PTSD.

On the way home, I made a brief stop at a small health food store and bought some sourdough bread, a guilty pleasure of mine and something I have loved ever since my Grandmother Emzaella introduced it to us when she first moved to San Francisco and started bringing us big loaves of it whenever she came to visit.

By the time I arrived home, I was too exhausted to unpack the car.  I sat down in my big old recliner "for a couple of minutes" and, 4 hours later, woke up feeling as if I had come back from the dead. My entire body was wracked with pain, reminding me that, without pain medicine, I am in much worse shape than I like to remember.

It suddenly hit me. Just like Grandpappy 47 years ago, my gun isn't loaded. I have used up all my ammunition over the course of almost 62 years and, while the imagination is fresh and keen, I don't have what it takes to get that pheasant, or the fish, or whatever.

At times like this, when I encounter my limitations and lack of options, I am tremendously grateful to God for leading me into the Catholic Church where everything in my life takes on a glorious meaning. My gun may not be loaded, but I can offer this difficulty to the Lord, and thereby participate in his suffering with my suffering. I join my sacrifice to His for the sake of the salvation of my soul and the souls of others who cry and groan under the weight of their own crosses.

I also know that, although I am going blind and losing abilities rapidly, it is not the end of the story. It is not the end of me. While a more worldly minded person may feel as if they had been a failure in life, if they were in my shoes, I rather think the opposite. I have come to a glorious end if, indeed, the end is near (one never knows.) I have hope in the promises of Christ. I trust Him and look forward to spending eternity with Him in that brilliant place we call heaven, where the righteous who have repented and lived in a holy manner, according to his commandments, can count on the beatific vision.

My future may not hold more adventures in the fields catching pheasant, or in the streams catching fish, but it does hold the promises of Christ, thanks be to God.

Silver Rose Parnell
(c) Copyright 2016
All rights reserved.