THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CONSERVATIVE CATHOLIC

Lying has always been considered horribly sinful, in Old Testament and in New. We are not supposed to give false witness against our neighbor, but fellow Catholics do this all the time, while defending this vehemently. They're very confused.

It is very disturbing that the man elected to the highest office in the land is an inveterate, continual and bald-faced liar and many  Catholics defend his lies, without even bothering to try and ascertain the Truth. I find it shocking, especially since most Catholics that I know who voted for him only did so because there is a chance he will reverse Roe v. Wade with his choices for Supreme Court Justices. I doubt that will happen, but I certainly understand why some would take a chance on him, hoping that he WOULD follow through.

My problem is that I am a convert and I learned my religion at the knee of the desert fathers and mothers, the mystics and saints of the church. I read myself into the church, while the flesh-and-blood church bears little resemblance to the early church, or even to the present-day convents. The mother superior of a Carmelite convent warned me that I would have a hard time adjusting to parish life, having spent a lot of time in a Hindu convent and being accustomed to the mystical contemplative life.

Oh, how I wish I could hide in some out-of-the-way skete, but I'm physically not able. I NEED the world and its medicines, wheelchairs and scooters, but coming into contact with the sickness of our church has made me want to cry for IT much more than I would ever cry for myself.

WHERE is the Catholic faith I read about in the Hindu convent? Where is the faith for which I left my monastic life behind?

Another thing I see, almost daily, is that many Catholics are confused about politics. They imagine that there is such a thing as a "liberal" Catholic or a "conservative" Catholic when, in fact, there is no such thing. "Liberal" and "Conservative" are POLITICAL terms that have nothing whatsoever to do with Catholicism, which is not a political party. Why don't people know this? It is confusing to me.

Someone actually wrote me today and told me (on Facebook) that being a liberal is sinful! The fact of the matter is that there are aspects of each political orientation that are sinful and neither one is better than the other. It shocked me, though, that someone actually thinks such a confused thought, conflating religion with politics.

If politics was the solution to the world's ills, Jesus would have come as an earthly king, instead of a poor dirty kid, born in a stable and held in the animal's feeding trough. His whole life, he worked with his adopted father, Joseph, in hands-on physical labor.

The liberal ideology wants to allow mothers to kill their babies with abortion. Conservative ideology kills the poor, the sick and the old by removing government programs that help them. Liberals kill them fast and young. Conservatives kill them old and slow. Each is bad.  In fact, the liberals don't FORCE anyone to have an abortion, whereas the conservatives DO force economic policies that kill vulnerable populations, so perhaps it is the conservatives that are the sinful ones. What about THAT? 

Conservative economic policies benefit the rich and squash the poor, creating the perfect environment for lots of abortions because babies are expensive. Conservatives don't like to pay for other people's babies. They don't want to pay to abort them, and they don't want to pay to raise them. Conservatives do not like babies unless their parents are wealthy and never need help. This is why the conservatives don't follow through with promises to make abortion illegal again. They don't want to pay for other people's babies.

Catholics who identify primarily as Republicans and/or conservative dislike paying for other people's babies so much that they sometimes forget the church's longstanding proscription against contraception and end up "disagreeing with the church" about it. They want the poor people to have access to contraception so they don't have to pay for the babies of the poor. Artificial contraception is not pro-life and cannot be condoned in a faithful Catholic life. It is "inherently evil," according to Holy Mother Church.

According to the Catechism, a man having a vasectomy is as sinful as a woman having an abortion. Having a vasectomy is "intrinsically evil" and must never be done, "no matter how good the reason." How many people KNOW this?  How many Catholics are using vasectomies and other forms of artificial contraception, on the one hand, and loudly decrying abortion on the other?  A man cannot serve two masters. You are either pro-life or you are not. You can't cut it in half and say it is alright to frustrate God's generative power on the one hand, but not on the other. Are you open to life or not?

Every single time a program comes on the air, whether the television of the radio, and it's about "pro life," the only thing discussed is abortion. What a sad state of affairs. It seems that only the unborn are alive, in the minds of some people.

Republicans, in fact, do not want the government to help ANYONE who is vulnerable: the sick, the disabled, the poor. They do not want any social programs. They talk about "free markets" and "choices," but the poor, disabled and elderly do not HAVE any choices. They don't have enough money to have choices, especially if Social Security and Medicare are turned into voucher programs that we have to use to purchase needed services from for-profit businesses instead of not-for-profit Medicare? How is that going to work, exactly?

So - back to the man who called me sinful because he imagined that I am one of them damn lubruls. The arrogance of certain conservatives who impugn the character of people whose economic policies run more toward the liberal side, is a terrible sin in itself. Arrogance is pride, and pride goeth before a fall.

In matter of fact, I am neither liberal nor conservative. I am CATHOLIC. I am pro-life. I am against abortion. I am in favor of social programs. You cannot pin me down to any political orientation because I am not a political animal. I am CATHOLIC. Neither Democrat nor Republican will satisfy my yearning for a world in which life is honored, celebrated, supported and held up to God with a grateful HUZZAH!

I pray that all my Catholic brothers and sisters will actually study their faith and stop reading the twisted opinions of priests and others who've become obsessed with abortion and Republican trickle-down economics that has NEVER worked. There is more than one way to kill a person, and abortion is just one. It's a terrible thing. I wish it was illegal, but being pro-life requires more of me than simply being against abortion. LIFE is an enormous topic.

Being PRO-LIFE means being PRO-PLANET and environmentally savvy and caring. It means taking care of animals properly. It means caring about my neighbor to the extent that I want him to live as well as I do. Being PRO-LIFE means being PRO-CREATION, and using the creative gifts that God has showered upon me, especially in a spirit of worship of Him. PRO-LIFE is making chaplets for my friends who pray in front of the abortion clinics. PRO-LIFE is making hats for the homeless who refuse to shelter under a roof, even during the coldest nigiht. PRO-LIFE is feeding a hungry guy - even one who reeks of alcohol. PRO-LIFE is guarding our food supply from dangerous chemicals and crazy DNA experiments (like putting fish genes into tomatoes so they don't freeze). Being PRO-LIFE means protecting the water supply for all peoples and demonstrating against the fracking pipeline that risks the safety of the water of the indigenous peoples. Being PRO-LIFE means being AGAINST CAPITAL PUNISHMENT unless there is absolutely no other way to protect society against a violent predator. Being PRO-LIFE means treating domestic and wild animals with kindness AND RESPECT . 

I'd also like to see the wages increased so that families can afford to have as many children as they want, and mothers can afford to stay home and raise them. THIS is pro-life also. Wages have been kept artificially low for more than 40 years now. When I was working, I saw my income go DOWN over the years, while my responsibilities and my bills increased. Now, wage reform, in addition to being a LIBERAL economic idea is ALSO a PRO-LIFE idea. Am I sinful for being in favor of this liberal idea that I believe will result in fewer abortions and more big families? Nope. HUGE topic.  HUGE.

Poor medical care kills the poor, who die at least 10 years sooner than wealthy people. Why is no one up in arms about that?  I will answer that. Because some Catholics have conflated Catholicism with Republicanism. Republicans hate social programs and, especially these days, want to privatize everything so that everyone has to fight for every ounce of life. Survival of the fittest, is what it boils down to.

In an economic system in which only the strongest survive, the old, the sick and the disabled are naturally the losers and die off. Jesus would never approve of this.

Every time we get into a dialog about social programs, the know-nothings pipe up and equate social programs with socialism and claim that the liberals, and therefore the Democrats, are socialists. It's another LIE. Social programs have the SAME relation to socialism as Social programs has to ice cream socials. Socialism is characterized by the OWNERSHIP OF ALL BUSINESS BY THE GOVERNMENT.  Social programs are common to MANY different types of government that have nothing to do with socialism. (If you didn't learn this in High School, folks, Google is your friend. Hell...break out the dictionary,, for cryin' out loud.)

The real problem we have is that our social programs come nowhere near supplying the needs of the poor, 97% of which are not able bodied and cannot work. All of Donald Trumps blabber about jobs is not going to help the 47 million people in our country who are poverty stricken and living on entitlement programs. Notice...they are STILL poor, even though they've put money into the program their whole lives.

The reason why the social programs do not supply all our needs is that the rich do not pay their fair share. The normal wage earner pays up to 17% of their salaries into the Social Security fund, whereas the rich people pay less than a fraction of 1% because of the CAP on contributions into the fund. Social Security contributions stops for every cent a person earns over $116,000.00 a year! This robs the fund of MILLIONS of dollars of income and is THE reason why we are running a little shy of funds...in addition to the fact that both Democrats and Republicans have stolen money from the fund every year.

If the social programs were run in the same way as they are run in other countries, there would be no problem. America is the only civilized country that doesn't take care of its poor. Now isn't that revolting? The reason why is that the Republicans put up a fuss every time the democrats try to take care of the poor, every time they try to raise the minimum wage, every time they try to pass a bill that helps the sick, the disabled and the elderly.

Isn't it more Christian to take care of the population of a country, to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and visit the prisoner? How can Catholics ally themselves with a party or an ideology that doesn't believe in doing what Jesus asked of us.

It is a cop-out to claim that "Jesus never said you had to force someone to help the poor."  Well, He also didn't say we should force people to pay taxes.  Oh, wait...never mind. He DID say to pay to Cesar what is Cesar's.

The Republican party is the enemy of the poor, the sick, the elderly and the disabled, but that Catholic man called me "sinful" because I have liberal economic ideas? Isn't that backwards and upside down?

The happiest countries in the world, self reported, are places like Denmark, where the taxes are high, and the social programs are adequate to care for the population. It would seem that we do not care about our people at all, in comparison to these countries. CLEARLY, having social programs WORKS for these countries, whereas trickle-down theories have never worked in any ANY countries. The money doesn't trickle down. It stays on the top, with the fat cats. Trickle-down theory is what dictators use.

So, our social programs do not work very well, due to the selfishness of the wealthy and those people who identify as conservatives, above and beyond whatever devotion they claim for Christianity, but there are some conservatives who are sincerely Catholic who recognize the defects in our current system and who step forward to fill in the gaps to the best of their abillities.

I know several of these saintly people, and it is because of them that I am alive.  They identify as conservatives, including the economic orientations, for the most part, but they step in and help the poor who have fallen through the cracks...like me.

They buy me organic food because I'm allergic to pesticides and pesticides give me asthma attacks. They've bought me computers, such as the laptop I am currently using, and even my service dog owes his life to one such earth-bound angel. These are Catholics who walk the talk and who come forward with kindness and generosity in the face of social programs that do not provide life-supporting funds. Not everyone is as lucky as I have been. 

These are the only conditions under which Republican economic ideas can begin to work, and that is if every Republican were to take on one person such as myself who has fallen through the cracks. There are 47 million of us. Can we depend upon the Republicans to come forward and take care of all of us? 97% of us are elderly, disabled, children, or the working poor.

In my mind, allowing for social programs is far more reliable when dealing with the number of poor people we currently have in this country, Trickle down economics has never worked. It is a theory that HAS FAILED but to which many are devoted. 

Does this mean I am "sinful" because I do not believe in this conservative theory? Obvious not.

I would like to ask my Christian brothers and sister to STOP identifying as liberals or conservatives, democrats or republicans, and begin to really identify as CATHOLIC people...because you cannot identify as both. You cannot serve two masters. Either you are Catholic, and you support all Catholic theology, or you are a liberal or a conservative and you only support SOME of the Catholic faith.

Secondly, you need to stop identifying OTHER people as either liberals or conservatives because it's a lie for many of us.

Silver Rose

THE ART OF CONVERSATION

Now that technology is firmly entrenched as THE method of communication in life, I find myself bemoaning the loss of real connection with people.

People call me when busy with something else, giving only a tiny portion of their attention to whatever I may say. It's an insult, really, when you're speaking on the phone and you realize your friend is typing on their computer or reading e-mails. Even when people call ME, and interrupt whatever I may be doing a the moment, they feel compelled to be doing something interesting while talking to me. I am not the only person who experiences this. This is a huge problem in our culture.

"Multi-tasking" inhibits a person's comprehension considerably. Recent scientific studies confirm this. I used to love reading classified ads when job hunting. Invariably, several would say, "must love multi-tasking," as if this was a good thing! An employer once told me, "you can't expect to do just ONE THING AT A TIME!" She was incensed. I had to tell her that I can ONLY do one thing at a time, which is true for all human beings.

We may THINK we are multi-tasking, but, in actuality we are fracturing our attention into tiny little bits had making our mind flip back and forth between each tiny little bit. Memory and cognition suffer greatly when trained into this habit.

In order to adequately absorb information and to learn absolutely anything, one MUST be able to concentrate on one thing for more than a nanosecond.

What you are communicating when you occupy yourself with something other than the conversation at hand is that you don't value the conversation. If you don't agree with that statement, ask yourself this, "if the Pope was on the other end of the phone, would you be playing "free Cell" or "solitaire?" Would you be simultaneously chatting with your husband and kids without even saying, "excuse me for a sec?"

Every human being has the same 24 hours in a day. We can delude ourselves into thinking that we are far more busy than others, but it isn't true. I do not have a typical "job," but my responsibilities and necessary activities are such that I don't have enough time in any day to accomplish all of them. I do the best I can and get as much done as possible, without making other people suffer for it.

I love people, and I want to communicate that to them when they take the time to call me.I listen to what they have to say, and I even ask questions and demonstrate interest in whatever interests them. I can assure you that some of it is downright boring, but, for the sake of the person made in the image and likeness of God, I give my time over to my caller, gifting them with my undivided attention.

Sometimes I have to cut a conversation short in order to attend to a duty, and I do so, knowing that I have given the best of myself to the other person. occasionally, however, I am not at my best and I may be irritable with the caller. Later, I return the call and apologize. It is a spiritual practice that I highly recommend.

I am not important. I am no better than anyone else and, consequently, I try not to behave as if I've got better things to do than to talk to some ordinary person. Therese of Lisieux has been very helpful to me in this regard. She was kind to people who weren't kind to her and whose conversation bored her. She made an effort.

It is not going to kill you if you sit down, put up your feet, drink a cup of tea, and have a nice conversation with a caller, even if they ARE boring. They must need this conversation with you for some reason. The relaxation that you would get from adopting this posture while talking to them may actually be good for you too!

Learning to concentrate in all arenas of your life will increase your serenity factor and help you in your conversation with the Lord. I promise.

I would pray that you give it a try. Keep the conversation short if you have to run off and do something else, but at least give your callers your undivided attention in an act of love. Jesus will love you for it.

God bless us all...

Silver Rose

SHUFFLING TOWARD THE LORD

Traffic outside the apartment complex

Put yourself in my position. I am inside my tiny apartment, trying to lift my heart to the Lord. Right outside the window on the back side of my apartment, painters who will be here for MONTHS having been running a gasoline-powered paint sprayer for the last 3 and 1/2 hours.

In the front of the apartment, in the parking lot, the "landscapers" (and I use that term loosely because they do not seem to know much, if anything about plants and especially how to trim them) are using gasoline-powered leaf blowers to move piles of dead leaves hitter and yon. They're also sandblasting any car that has the misfortune to be parked out there. Thanks be to God, I have a garage.

Where I would LIKE to live.

On the street right outside the apartment, there are several giant road machines, working furiously at smashing the sidewalks and lifting great chunks onto a truck that will haul them away. This project will be in progress for the next 30 weeks. First, they destroy what we HAD (including lovely trees in the median that they just ripped out of the ground and stuffed them into an enormous wood chipper), then they place temporary road surfaces, then they take those out when they're ready to install new types of medians for the new buses which will operate down the middle of the street. OTHER business, with more frequent stops, will still travel on the two remaining traffic lanes. This is a very small city...almost still a town.

My understanding is that the mayor owns stock in one company that is working the project, and his wife's family owns the OTHER company that is working the project.  When residents wonder why on earth we are getting this enormous and unwieldy BIG CITY project in our little town, all we have to do is follow the money.

At the same time that the roads are being ripped up in preparation for a transit system we do not need, the property next door to the apartment complex is LIKEWISE being prepared for the installation of a BREW PUB.  A brew pub.

When I moved here, it was a quiet place to live, placed in a natural setting. My health was also twice as good as it is now.

Now, however, my environment is a nightmare of noise and choking dust during the day, and heavy rap music, motorcycle races and dance music from the country club across the golf course that is on the other side of the ditch from our apartments. I can't get away from it, no matter WHERE I am in the apartment. This is how I can expect it to be for at least another 30 weeks.

While I agree with contemplative and mystic Catherine Doherty that small deserts of silence may be found in all walks of life and that one does not HAVE to live in an actual hermitage to experience communion with the Lord in the desert, there are limits to what I am personally able to shut out of my brain. Consequently, the project of finding a small house to continue my ministries is really heating up.

Since affordable housing is limited to the dangerous fringes of town, nowhere near my church or my friends who are helping me, I have to revamp my approach and just forget trying to find something reasonable in price. Based upon the common rents in the neighborhood in which I need to live, I will have to pay more than half my rent to find a suitable, safe place to live that addresses my lifestyle and my increasingly worrisome health. Since my income is so very low, paying half of it will be a crushing burden, but I have no choice.

Thanks to a couple of friends and well-wishers, I have paid off some oppressive bills. I will also try to sell some of my paintings and my crocheted items. All this is done in preparation for relocating.

All modern ideas about hermits aside, the hermit is typically pictured close to nature. He or she has a residence of some sort, usually very simple and poor, with a good deal of natural setting available to the hermit so that the voice of the Lord may more easily be heard. Contemplatives, in general, are often drawn to more natural environments, not because it is more lovely but because it is more CONDUCIVE to the life of prayer. Unfortunately, the simple, the serene and the natural have become the EXPENSIVE.

I am disabled and becoming more so. I will need access to medical doctors, etc. Some day, I will be blind. Also, I would like to be able to attend church one day, as I have been prevented from doing so for quite some time, due to lack of suitable seating and the distance between the hermitage and the church. Being of poor health puts a big dent in the contemplative life. This is why convents and monasteries do not accept sick people.

Only the monied class can afford to have personal daily access to wide expanses of natural environments. This points back to the era in Europe in which noblemen owned all the land and serfs were essentially slaves on the master's land. Europeans originally came to America because, supposedly, the land was up for grabs. No one "owned" it, which is a debatable point, since the Native Americans have their own view on this. People for whom land ownership was previously impossible suddenly became owners of vast tracts of land.

We have now reverted to the exact same situation we were attempting to escape when we left Europe a few hundred years ago. Since there is no land that is not owned, and permission of someone else is required to live just about ANYWHERE, this has put a big dent in the hermit lifestyle!  Now, if I lived in Austria, there is a town that is advertising for a hermit, and I could live there, but even that hermitage exacts a price:

There is no running water and no electricity. The town has requirements of the hermit, for instance that he does not install any modern amenities and also that he be available to anyone who wants to visit him. It sounds like a job verging on slavery to me, and not in the spirit of the hermit at all. The hermit is independent, most of all, relying upon the voice and guidance of the Lord.

For the last 3 years or so, I have been trying to find a suitable place to live, with very little luck. Most of the rentals that are available in this town are in the grip of corporate management companies, and these sort of companies tend to treat renters as interlopers, even when they DO pay the rent. The corporate model is soulless and certainly does not comprehend or support the monastic lifestyle.

I do not have the funds to PURCHASE property, obviously.

Because this is such a difficult search, limited by very low income and other factors, I ask that you please pray for me, that I may find a house that will address my needs: spiritual, medical, and emotional; one that has a washer/dryer on the premises, since I am unable to cart my laundry to another location; and one that has, at least, a small patch of fenced land for the small service dog. Please pray hard, my friends.

God bless you all.

Silver Rose

WHAT I AM READING NOW - "Poustinia, by Catherine Doherty"

Hermit caves in Syria

I have read it before, I am sure of it, but it has been years. I am enjoying it again. Catherine Doherty's "Poustinia" explains the solitary contemplative way that is the tradition of the Eastern Catholic churches.

One of the marvelous aspects of this tradition of thought and practice is that it is widely  open to all persons, no matter what their station in life. It is a common expression of the laity. From the busy housewife who steals some moments at her prayer corner behind a sheltering curtain, to the acetic who, donning a long shift and carrying nothing but some bread and salt with him, wanders into the forest to reside completely alone, contemplative prayer life is widely practiced.



This book has my recommendation for all my readers who are attempting to live alone with God. It is quite encouraging and soothing, in addition to its obvious educational value.

Here are its particulars:

POUSTINIA

Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer

The modern spiritual classic for those seeking the open heart and 

listening soul of silent contemplation

by Catherine Doherty

Published by

Madonna House Classics

2888 Dafoe Rd, RR 2

Combermere ON KOJ 1LO

www.madonnahouse.or/publications

A lovely introductory passage:

"It seems strange to say, but what can help modern man find the answers to his own mystery and the mystery of Him in whose image he is created, is silence and solitude -- in a word, the desert. Modern man needs these things more than the hermits of old."

National House of Prayer

by Richard Long

If you'd care to read a nice biography of Catherine Doherty, please examine this LINK

Catherine Doherty

from Baroness

to

Poustinik

Photo taken by Thomas Merton

I am not writing much on the blog these days, but I hope you continue to contact me. I remain available for prayer requests, advice and encouragement.

God bless us all!

Silver Rose Parnell

DEDICATION OF THE YEAR 2017 TO OUR LADY OF FATIMA

Our Lady of Fatima statue

This year at Silver Cottage Hermitage has been dedicated to a special emphasis on Our Lady of Fatima, and learning more about the apparitions, the promises and the secrets given to the three young children who were contacted by, saw and spoke with our Blessed Mother 100 years ago this year. Although I am not blogging this year, per se, I do want to encourage my readers to join me in this special observance, and I will continue to post resources on this page to help with that.

I just want to point out that, among all the apparitions of our Blessed Mother, I BELIEVE that the Miracle of the Sun that occurred during one of the pre-arranged meetings of Our Mother with the children is the only miracle to have been witnessed by 70,000 people at once AND photographed AND written about in the newspaper, where most of the photographs derive, as there were newspapermen waiting in the crowd at the prearranged time when the Virgin was expected to appear.

While I am not a big fan of apparitions and mysterious utterances, especially since there is so much fakery possible, THIS particular set of apparitions and circumstances, given the wealth of proof and witnesses extant to this day, is a remarkable thing, and I just can't ignore it. "The miracle of the sun," as it is called, just can't be ignored or discounted. The ability to fake these type of photographs was limited in the day, plus you just can't discount the witness of 70,000 people. So, for me, this apparition is a rock solid and reliable one, so it behooves us all to delve into it.

The three children who saw the Blessed Mother

at Fatima, Portugal

I am not terribly well educated in the whole story and the details, nor have I really dug into the promises and requests of Our Blessed Mother, but I am going to do that this year and I hope to take you with me, just by listing books I read and websites I find along the way.  I will continue to update this page with these resources, as I find them, and I will do my best to keep it credible!

It is my hope that I can encourage you to accompany me on this journey, especially those who are not able to make pilgrimage to Fatima or to see the Fatima statue as it travels the globe.

God bless us all!
Silver Rose

CATCH ME ON FACEBOOK

Silver Rose Parnell

Facebook profile

Any of my readers who would like to continue with a more interactive format, please catch me on Facebook.

THIS LINK should take you to my page. If you aren't a member of Facebook, they'll ask you to sign up. If you prefer not to become a member of Facebook, you can still see what I post publicly. You just won't be able to respond, comment, and interact. If you do become a member, feel free to ask to join my friend list.

I have gotten a lot out of Facebook, personally. I have learned a lot in this medium and have made some contacts that have become spiritually uplifting for me. I would like to share it with you, particularly now that I have limited my blogging.

My daily routine is to post:

• Saints of the day information and pictures
• Mass readings for the day
• "3 good things"
• Posts similar to my blog posts here, but shorter
• Inspiring quotes from the Bible, the saints, and the Pope
• Beautiful religious art and photographs
• Limited commentary on news of the day
• Links to edifying Catholic programming and articles
• Feast of the day information, explanations and paintings

The Facebook format is easier for me to navigate with my disabilities, and it takes much less time than Blogger. This arrangement will give me greater freedom for prayers, study and creative endeavors, while at the same time supporting the spiritual life of other semi-hermits, mystics and contemplatives throughout the world.

I hope to see you there!

God bless us all.

Silver Rose Parnell

FUND RAISING FOR A PAIR OF WINTER SHOES

UPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of quite a few people, we "cobbled together" enough money to order a pair of these shoes. I'll keep my fingers crossed that they fit properly. I may have to take them to the local shoe man to be stretched on the one foot that is bigger, but I anticipate having one pair of warm shoes for winter, which is a lot more than some people have in this world these days! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, all my wonderful friends.

Birkenstock brand "Boston" style clog

black suede

shearling lined

size 41

Width: "regular"

PRICE: $165.00 U.S.

Currently, I have one pair of winter shoes, and my toes are cold. I am fund raising to get a pair that has some insulation. They cost $165.00 per pair.

These shoes go out of stock fast, and then they don't make them again until next winter.

Anyway, if all my friends were to put together a few dollars each, then I hope I can grab a pair of these before they are all sold out. Afterwards, I can design and make myself some leg warmers that will come down over the shoe, using warm yarn.

My deformed feet and the difficulty in finding shoes that fit has been written about before. It's a real problem.

Just click on the DONATE button on the right hand side of the blog. Every little bit counts.

God bless you all.

Silver Rose

WHAT I AM WATCHING NOW (SPOILER ALERT!)

Florence  Foster Jenkins

(nee Narcissa Florence Foster)

1868-1944

I don't require what you might traditionally call "entertainment" these days, as I find certain types of WORK to be my happiest compulsions; things like genealogy research which leads so naturally into historical research, and the making of hats for the homeless...or the occasional cold mail delivery lady. Writing is terrible work, and I just hate it, but I can't seem to get away from it as it also entertains me, in a grim fashion.

Having been given a television during the last year...and quite a large one (to accommodate my failing vision), I DO watch several programs, but I can't seem to generate much interest in anything more than the news channels, and I watch them all, even Faux News Channel, which seems to give credibility to some incredible things and which gives me anxiety, so that channel gets short shrift from me. Everything else, though, as long as people aren't arguing loudly over one another, I will "watch." Actually, the television might as well be one huge radio because I can't bear to just SIT there and watch it. I must be doing something else besides.

Crochet, painting and house cleaning are good accompaniments, except when doing dishes. I have to keep turning off the water to catch the drift of what's being discussed, now and then.

It goes without saying that there are certain PBS programs that are sacrosanct, and I watch them as if I am in a movie theatre; enrapt in the story line and watching every movement in the actors' faces, as if I am one of those human lie detectors I've heard about, the ones who watch the micro movements beneath the skin of a person's face and can tell when they're lying. When Downton Abbey finished its final season, I felt as if a best friend had died. There was so much about that series that I appreciated!

The beauty of the surroundings, the stately movement of time that became less stately over the long haul and more herky jerky over the landscape of what I consider to be a bad bit of historical geography. Anything later than 1925 is on shaky ground with me. Everything became so coarse after that time, while at the same moment congratulating itself that everything was becoming modern.

The grand dowager, Lady Grantham, if you haven't guessed, was my favorite character, and she took something of me with her when she disppeared from my weekly ritual of Downton Abbey worship. She represented the old guard which, to me, seemed very beautiful and lovely in many of its habits.

Recently, however, I was given a discount coupon from my internet carrier so that I could watch a pay-on-demand movie for free. I could have watched one in "high definition" and used up the whole $6.00 THAT way, but instead I decided to watch two movies in "standard def" so that I could have a double feature on an especially painful evening when I didn't have the energy to crochet or write. I got the first movie for free and then paid only $5.00 for the second one, which means each one cost $2.50 (in my mind, anyway.)

As luck would have it, I had snacks in the house, which is a rare thing. I typically eschew anything that isn't real food; that is to say, bread, eggs, fruits, veggies, meat, beans, nuts, seeds, filtered water. This year, when a friend called me from the grocery store and asked me what I wanted, I asked for "goodies" to share with any of the other old lady neighbors who may drop by. It's usually just my friend Ruby, but you never know. Anyway, I had PIE. It wasn't a very good pie, as it turned out, because it had NONFAT MILK in it, which makes me dreadfully sick, but I didn't know about the nonfat milk until it was too late. Anyway, I got to have my movie night with pumpkin pie that would not blow up inside me until a few hours later.

The movie blew up immediately, however. Forever the anglophile, I chose BRIDGET JONES'S BABY as the first feature. Never mind that the starring actress is actually an American. She did a fair job of ACTING as a Brit in the first film, so I thought she'd be good in this sequel.

Mind you, I am not one of those people that hate sequels. I will give them a chance, especially since I always have trouble remembering the FIRST film of the series, so I don't usually catch the little bumbles. If I happen to be sharp enough to catch a flub in the sequel, I yell to no one in particular, "continuity!" as if I was still in the movie business, watching to make sure that a 1960's timepiece didn't show up in a scene that was supposedly from the 1940's! The dog reacts in amusement whenever I talk to myself like this. He thinks his little human has gone mad...or something.

So, Bridget Jones's Baby immediately slapped me in the face with the most vulgar language and innuendo I could possibly imagine, even to the not-so-vague references to the size of a man's genitals, while all her girlfriends kept telling her, in the most chipper way, that she needed to have sex. This is where I learned that, while the first movie ended on a happy note that led us all to believe that Bridget was, finally, ending up with the equally adorable Mr. Darcy, it had not actually worked out with them, and they'd called it quits after 10 years together.

In this second movie Bridget is the head of a similar department in which she had suffered while juggling her boss and Mr. Darcy in that first movie. She has a vulgar sidekick who is the on-screen interviewer for their news program. Said chipper sidekick  pulls Bridget away for a girls weekend at a spa, supposedly, but has actually booked them into a yurt at some muddy rock festival where extremely short blue jean cutoffs are the costume of choice, despite the grim and continual rain.

Now, mind you, Bridget is, by this time, 43 years old, we are told, and the bloom is definitely off that rose. She's lost that bungling sweetness we loved about her in the first film. The camera keeps zooming in on her tight and trim upper thighs where they meet her bum, perhaps to keep us from looking at her face that wears a pained and rigid expression through most of the film. Or perhaps the cameraman got distracted.

I would suspect botox, except that an entire field of terrified wrinkles moves across her cheek bones whenever she mistakenly makes an expression. You could see those micro-expressions from outer space. I'm not being mean. Wrinkles are lovely when one is SMILING, but I can't tell you what to call that expression that happens on her.

It goes from bad to worse. In an extremely awkward set of scenes, she has sex with a man at the rock festival and then sex with her ex, Mr. Darcy, and ends up preggers, having to string along the both of them until they can figure out who is the father. (She won't submit to an amniocentesis test, with that long needle, and I don't blame her a bit.)

The movie slams from one nauseating scene to another, something like a distressed boat on the high seas during a deep sea fishing trip that's gone bad, with the audience mourning dear little Bridget who has obviously died before the movie began, and everyone is vomiting from sea sicknesses and sorrow.

Actress Emma Thompson puts in a highly credible performance as Bridget's gynecologist and is wryly funny despite the lukewarm jokes they make her say. She's a trooper, that one, and it was a relief to see her every time she popped up.  In fact, she may have saved our lives.

The ONLY laugh I got out of the whole movie was when dear Mr. Darcy was trying to carry this balloon of a pregnant woman through the streets of London whilst in labor. His facial expressions were priceless. The second man meets up with them halfway to the hospital, at which point carrying Bridget becomes a two-man job. We could have used a few more good men to carry this film.

Eventually, while giving birth, Bridget realizes she's still in love with Darcy and holds his hand with both of hers, leaving the other guy to just deal with it on the periphery. It was a clunky, heavy scene, with closeups of the hands involved. 1940's, anyone?

So, finally, I have arrived at my POINT.  Our modern world continues to express surprise that women want love, devotion, and family ties, NOT free-wheeling sexual encounters in yurts at rock concerts. We don't want to wait until we're 43 to have babies and get married. Careers, while wonderful and captivating, simply do not replace what we really want. We are biologically programmed for partnership, love and family. God created us for one another, and we keep pretending that it isn't necessary or that we can put it off until our FORTIES, or, indeed, forever...just fornicating our lives away until we're too old to do otherwise.

The developed world keeps fighting biology. Our prime baby making years are between the ages of 15 and 25, which makes sense, given that we are born with every egg we shall ever have. The older we grow, the older the eggs, and the more chance for birth defects or infertility. Believe me, I have heard all the reasons why couples shouldn't marry young or have children young, but the proof is in the pudding. What we are doing now does not work and is just plain sad.

The bleak and sodden love story that is BRIDGET JONES'S BABY is, in my mind, a cautionary tale, at best. Mostly, it is a bad movie because it is inauthentic. It tries to push concepts that do not work in real life. There are no happy feelings at the end of this movie.

Modern ideas about sex, love, marriage, children and abortion are all engineered and fueled by our hyper-capitalistic society, the corporate obsession with money. In short, it all boils down to GREED, but those of us suffering under the consequences of this soul-killing way of looking at the most important aspects of life are not even the people that BENEFIT from the modern philosophies about family, sex, etc. CORPORATIONS are the beneficiaries of this sort of cultural expression. If the corporations can keep us slaving away underneath them, (making slave wages), then the corporations and the CEOs at the top of the heap can benefit. Oblivious to the way that we are being used, movies like BRIDGET JONES'S BABY act like the Nazi propaganda films, trying to get us all heated about our "right" to kill our children or to put off conceiving for so long that children don't enter into the picture or there are damn few of them.  Bridget Jones is a success!  She is the boss at the news studio, churning out entertainment news, making the guy at the top of the heap very wealthy...and she can STILL have a baby, even though her eggs are geriatric. See, people? We can have it all.

Frances Foster Jenkins is also a movie about love, based upon a true story about a socialite who adored classic music and wanted to sing, sing, sing, but she had a tin ear and the vocal chords of a drunken raptor. I loved that movie, and I don't want to ruin it for you because it gives the payoff that Bridget Jones's Baby never could. I hope you see both movies and you can make your own comparisons.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose

A MARVELOUS VISION OF HEAVEN

When I was a nun in the Hindu convent in Hollywood, I distinctly remember a short conversation in which the ersatz head nun waxed enthusiastic about how wonderful it would be when she died and just "merged" into God and became part of Him. Without thinking I said, "that sounds REVOLTING!" As I matured, my point of view changed, and I sometimes remember that conversation with a giggle.

The Catholic has a similar end result in mind when beginning mental prayer. It is just that the deity in mind is the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, rather than the formless God of the Vedanta, the higher reaches of Hindusim.

Many of these Hindu-based and "New Age" religions believe that the world is a horrible place and that the whole rationale for spiritual practice was to escape the grim and never ending cycles of birth and death. Some Christians, influenced by our pagan culture, believe that everything earthly, including our bodies, is bad and must be overcome. They believe that we are spirit beings stuck in the material world, but this is not Christian theology. We are body and soul, created in the image of God.

God created this world and pronounced it "good." He created us in His image, which, of course, is automatically good.

When I became disabled, and the illnesses worsened and accumulated with age, I forgot for a short time that the world is good and that our bodies are good. The horrible distraction of trying to get my needs met and my illnesses addressed pulled my mind away from the Lord to some extent. I was sad that my life had "ended up" like this, despite my joy at finding God and settling into Him. 

Thanks to a mini-series about heaven that I saw on EWTN, I was reminded of the truth, and I snapped out of my depression! My life has not "ended up like this" because my life has no end. My life has just barely begun, in the context of eternity. SO MUCH lays ahead!

In heaven, according to Anthony Destefano, the author of A TRAVEL GUIDE TO HEAVEN  our bodies will be transformed into our "most perfect selves-physically, emotionally, and spiritually." In addition to the deep, abiding joy that we naturally expect to experience in heaven, Anthony draws upon Biblical scripture and Catholic theology to fully develop a vibrant, soul-thrilling glimpse into the heavenly realm.

The Amazon.com page dedicated to this book says that heaven is "not only a spiritual place, but also a physical place, a fabulous "luxury resort," more sumptuous than any on Earth. The residents are real, their bodies transformed into their most perfect selves..."

The DVD based upon this book can be purchased at EWTN, the Eternal Word Television Network AT THIS LINK: DVD - 3 HOURS - TRAVEL GUIDE TO HEAVEN. I found it very entertaining, sometimes charming or funny, and often inspiring. Watching it helped me form a more specific expectation of heaven.

Since 2017 marks the 100 year anniversary of the miracles of Fatima, I intend to devote part of this year to the study of the Fatima miracles, the promises, and the instructions of our Lady. With a little help from my friends, I plan to give out rosaries, books about Fatima, and books about the rosary. Having a vision of heaven under one's belt is a fabulous inspiration to fuel a renewal of spiritual zeal, and is appropriate to any ministry, I would imagine.

Once we learn about the remarkable miracles that were witnessed by 70,000 people, how can we doubt the words of Christ or his blessed church? How can we not believe that, if we love Christ and follow his words, we are destined for that beautiful place called Heaven, where we will spend much more time than here on earth?

I would like to suggest that you purchase and watch the DVD: "TRAVEL GUIDE TO HEAVEN", which is sold through EWTN. Commemorative 100-year rosaries with attached special medal are sold by the Blue Army, otherwise known as the WORLD APOSTOLATE OF FATIMA.

I also recommend perusing the Catholic web websites and pick up anything you can on the Miracle of Fatima. Witnessed by thousands of people, including a host of  journalists who took photographs of the crowds that had come to witness the miracle promismed by the child seers, as well as the actual miracle of the sun, the facts of Fatima present irrefutable evidence of the primacy of the Catholic Church and its faith. There is no other explanation for it.

If you can spare it, please donate on my website so that I can also distribute some rosaries and books this year. As usual, I have medical needs that are not being addressed, and if you God has graced you with the ability to help with those, I am grateful.

Most monastics have to do some sort of work to support themselves, since the generosity of modern man is limited, and the value of lives devoted to prayer is not appreciated. It is difficult to do this while disabled, which is the reason that most convents and monasteries will not accept disabled people, and some will even throw you our if you become ill while living as a monastic among them. Fortunately, the Lord has graced me with some creative skills.

In future, I may be uploading new blogs for the artworks.  In the meantime, my genealogy business can be found at: SILVER COTTAGE GENEALOGY

Please remember that I have professional genealogical skills, I paint, I write, and I make home-made lace chapel veils. I will be putting up some websites for these when I can, but keep it in mind for the time being. I am disabled for most functions, but I can produce a few items for sale, and perhaps I can make something for you. Christmas is around the corner.

May you be showered with blessings!

I pray for all of you, as I hope you pray for me.

God bless us all!

Silver "Rose" Parnell

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

100 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF FATIMA - MINISTRY PROJECT FOR 2017

70,000 spectators witnessed "The Miracle of the Sun" which 

occurred on the very day promised by our lady in 1917

Non-Catholics often scoff at the miracles celebrated in our church, but the miracles surrounding Fatima and the three little children who saw our Blessed Mother and received many "secrets" from her, played only a very small part in the miraculous events of 1917.

It is one thing to experience a celestial anomaly that can be explained away by some natural phenomena. It is quite another to have this anomaly promised for a certain day and time and have it actually occur, with more than 70,000 witnesses, many photographs of the miracle as well as the witnesses, and wide ranging newspaper coverage. This cannot be discounted or dismissed and, once you know the details, the wonderful mystery stays within the heart of even the most skeptical individual.

MANY articles and books have been written about these events, and another article isn't needed. I recommended researching the internet and reading as many of the books as you are able so that you can fully understand what happened.

Most of the legitimate apparitions that have been confirmed and approved by the Catholic Church include a request from our Lady that we pray the rosary. I adore the rosary and am convinced of its incredible, heavenly properties. Its benefits and significance are not entirely explained, as it is with most mysterious practices and points of theology or cosmology. Our Lady has personally requested it and I, for one, will not argue with her.

I've become incredibly inspired to spread this devotion to the rosary this coming year, during the 100th year anniversary of the miracles at Fatima, and I would like to encourage everyone to enjoy its practice and benefits.

First of all, I recommend contacting the Fatima Gift Shop at the WORLD APOSTOLATE OF FATIMA, official organization for Fatima, affectionately called "the Blue Army." Their website is located HERE. I am a member of the Blue Army and receive their wonderful magazine entitled SOUL, but I am not involved in any official capacity and receive no benefit from them as a result of recommending them. I just want to support them in their efforts to spread the instruction of our Lady and the historical events that occurred in 1917.

Consider purchasing for yourself a commemorative rosary. Currently, they come in black or clear, with a special 100 year anniversary medal attached. It's a nice little crystal and/or glass bead rosary.  I have one in pink, but I think they have run out of the pink and the blue currently. They are selling for $19.00 at the moment, which is not a bad price for a pretty little rosary with such significance. Attached to the rosary is a sweet little commemorative medal. You can buy the medal separately, if you wish. You'll need to have them blessed by a priest after you receive them, however.

The black rosary is pictured HERE.

The clear bead rosary is pictured HERE.

Of course, there are many other items available at the gift shop, and I do recommend you consider joining the Blue Army!

Everyone seems to enjoy the Blue Army's rosaries, medals and other items from their gift shop, including the homeless, who are comforted by them.

If you do not have time to distribute these rosaries, or if you do not have anyone in your sphere who you feel will appreciate them, I would be very happy to give many of them locally, in my parish and elsewhere. Contact me for my address, and you can have the Blue Army send them to me, or you can donate via the button on the right hand side of this page, keeping in mind that Paypal takes a percentage of all monies donated.

I am just enthusiastic to have this devotion spread as far as possible.

If you can manage to send me some rosaries from the World Apostolate of Fatima, I would be most grateful. I have a friend who will take them to a priest to have them blessed. One of the very best ways to encourage the practice of the praying of the rosary is to give them away. Obviously, there are less expensive rosaries that are very pretty. For instance, I have included quite a few in my Amazon list GIFTS TO GIVE TO OTHERS that you may find HERE. Amazon has my address and will mail to me directly.

I ask for assistance in giving these out because my income falls far below my basic needs, so I just don't have the money to invest in the rosaries. What I lack in finances, I make up for in enthusiasm.

On the other hand, if you also feel inspired to distribute rosaries, and you can do this yourself, I would be very happy to hear that you are doing that. Our Blessed Mother will be very pleased. Post a comment, below, or send me an email and let me know what you are dong to promote this wonderful prayer and its 100 year anniversary!

In the meantime, I pray for you, as I hope you pray for me.

God bless us all!

Silver Rose Parnell

SAINT AELIA FLACILLA - My 48th Great Grandmother

Many people are skeptical when they hear that I am descended from various saints and royals. It sounds like wishful thinking, or perhaps some sort of bragging, but it's not. Thousands of people are descended from the same families but have not substantiated their genealogy. The thing is, history books and other mentions in contemporaneous writings are available to us, either on the internet or in numerous reference books at the libraries. The royals are especially easy to follow through the centuries. Some of them happen to be saints, and carry that special significance through time.

Most inspiring to me are the early saints who were subjected to incredible persecution and whose efforts at evangelization were the building blocks of the early church. A lot of responsibility was on the shoulders of the royals, for instance, when introducing the faith as the standard of moral and theological thought upon which their respective countries would operate.

In the case of my 48th great grandmother, Saint Aelia Flaccilla, first wife of Emperor Theodosius, she was instrumental in advancing the case for the Nicene Creed being adopted by the faith itself.  In fact, she is said to have prevented a meeting between her husband and a promoter of the Arian heresy that would deny the Nicene Creed. Christian concepts were embodied in the Nicene Creed, not created by it, but heretics fought it.

Saint Aelia also helped and served the disabled, which appeals to me immensely, of course, not just because I am disabled but because I love the disabled who are usually ALSO poor and also have fewer of their needs met than an able bodied poor person. The disabled, who are one of the most vulnerable populations, are especially loved by God. He went so far to say that anyone who served the least of these (the most vulnerable) are serving Jesus Himself. The more I come to love Jesus, the more I feel love for "the least of these," because I recognize, bit by bit, that he is specially present with them.

The fact that an Empress, who could delegate any task to someone else, would herself put her hands to the service of the disabled, makes her a wonderful example for all of us. Since I am descended from her, I feel an especially strong desire to live up to her example, and I also feel a deep feeling of connection with her.

As far as we can tell, the saints have gone directly to heaven and are advocating for us, praying for us, and watching us. On the other side, I feel heard by them and am encouraged by it. I am not suggesting that a familial relationship to the saints is somehow superior to a relationship between a Catholic and his or her chosen patron saints. Not at all. It is just that, for me personally, having a familial relationship fills a giant void in my heart that other people may not have. My earthly family experience with my immediate family was just horrible, and I am completely detached from the few that remain. Jesus, Mary, the angels, the saints, and my Catholic family have become my real family.

"For my father and mother have abandoned me,

and the Lord has taken me up."

Psalm 27:10

In general, I recommend getting to know ALL the saints you possibly can. You may be surprised at the number of them for whom you feel some special connection. They're attentive to us and are waiting for us to appeal to them. I imagine they are already praying for us.

When I speak to the saints, I don't send my words out as if traveling over a far distance. For me, the saint to whom I speaking, whether it is Aelia or Olga or Margaret of Scotland, is sitting right next to me, holding my hand, their face drawn very close to mine. The breath of my words wafts across their ears. They're listening intently, and I am understood without explanation. It bouys me up.

With regard to Saint Aelia, she is a saint in the Orthodox Church and not the Catholic, even though her lifetime was long before the split between the two. I have often wondered if my strong desire for the reunion of the Catholic and Orthodox church can be traced to some genetic memory of my sainted Orthodox and Catholic ancestors. It could be that both Catholic and Orthodox ancestors are praying for all their descendants, and I feel love for both paths of the faith. It is interesting to speculate about the origins of my peculiar prayer ministry for the reunion, but I don't suppose I will know for sure until the Lord takes me home.

In the meantime, I call upon Saint Aelia (and others) for intercession of the Lord for the purpose of the reunion of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, so that the body of Christ may breath with both lungs once more. I invite you to join me!

God bless us all,
Silver Rose Parnell

THE GOD OF SECOND CHANCES

In Tuesday's general election, Hillary Clinton received the most votes from the people, but Donald Trump won the Electoral College votes and is therefore our new President Elect. As a result, there were thousands of people in a number of cities throughout the United States who protested Trump's election as our soon-to-be president. About ten thousand people protested in front of Trump Plaza, well into the late evening. Chicago and Los Angeles experienced large protests. Even here in Albuquerque, we had people in the streets.

This is by no means the first time that a president has lost the popular vote but won the election. It is a unique American quirk that we accept as the legitimate method of determining the winner in any campaign. Peaceful protest is also a feature of the American democratic system and, as long as it doesn't deteriorate into violence, is allowed to occur.

As soon as it became apparent that Trump was going to win the Electoral College votes, I began to pray for him, dedicating a rosary to his well-being and praying that Trump experience a radical conversion of heart. I continue to hope that the enormity of his responsibilities brings him to his knees before God, chastens him and humbles him, so that he can be successful as a president of all the people. As he begins to realize that most of the American people did not want him in the office, but he has to be president of all the people, I imagine it will likely hit him very hard.

My 33rd great grandmother was a Ukrainian ruler who earned a reputation as a bloody and retaliatory queen. In vengeance for the murder of her husband, she nearly wiped out an entire ethnic minority, doing so in a most gruesome and cruel manner. Later, she somehow experienced a great conversion, became baptized, and is now known as Saint Olga of Kiev, patron of widows and converts. If that woman can become a saint, there is hope for all of us.

A wonderful feature of our faith is the Lord's great love for us that manifests in forgiveness, over and over again, immediately upon our expression of regret and plea for forgiveness. Jesus is the ruler of our hearts and meets us there in love.

Donald Trump has expressed harsh criticisms against several minorities, the disabled, women, veterans captured in battle, the American press, and refugees escaping war torn countries. His rhetoric has been vulgar, insulting, retaliatory, and, frankly, dangerous to the welfare of our country (such as when he invited the Russians to covertly interfere with our elections, which, apparently, they did, to some degree or another.) His worldview, as consistently expressed by him, is the antithesis of the Christian worldview.

Despite all the negatives, Christians voted him into office because of his supposedly pro-life sentiments and his stated intention to appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court. In one sense, it was a wild gamble. Trump presents as anything but a good Christian man, but our hope springs eternal. We have seen great conversions before, and this is what it will take in order for this man to meet the expectations of the Christians who voted for him. This is what I pray for.

I ask all my readers to join me in praying for Donald Trump, his family and his support staff. Let us pray for his deep conversion of heart that strengthens his promises with regard to the pro-life cause. Let us pray that he seeks a soft spot on which to land when things get tough for him in the many many battles that face him, and that he realizes that the soft spot he seeks is the loving heart of Christ.

God bless us all...

Silver Rose

THE SUN RISES EVERY DAY

One of the primary reasons the Jews didn't accept Jesus as the Messiah is that Jesus came as a poor person with no power, whereas they were expecting him to be an earthly king. They would say , "what good can come from Nazareth?"

Jesus emphasized, over and over again, that the meek will inherit the earth (meaning "everything"), not the powerful. The meek and tender of heart will inherit the true riches of human life, which is eternal relationship with him.

Political power and position were never held as the goal of Christians, which is why i am so surprised to see so many Christians become hysterical, getting angry, and generally expressing a doom and gloom vision of the future. While it is important to participate in the political story, it is not our story, and we need to remember that. We do the best we can, leaving the result to God.

If your candidate does not win, it isn't the end of the world. I promise. Jesus promised. Whatever the result, accept it and move on.

Yesterday, I awoke to hot air balloons in the sky with the sound of migrating sand hill cranes in the background. God is good. Life is good. Take heart.

Silver Rose

THE POOR DON'T OWE YOU ANYTHING

If an American makes $50,000 a year, he or she will pay about seven (7) dollars per year into the welfare system that supports the indigent on the bottom third of the poverty spectrum.

An in-depth analysis of the facts and statistics was done very nicely HERE on the blog Soapboxie. There are numerous other sources on the internet that echo this information, but I like the charts that this author provides, as well as the way he explains them. Very nice work, on his part.

In return for that seven dollars, a great number of tax payers are exceedingly interested in the activities of that person who receives that seven (7) dollars. They have a lot of opinions about what the poor, disabled and vulnerable should do in exchange for that tiny bit of assistance, and most of those opinions are damn mean.

In addition, the ratio of amount of assistance given, compared to the amount of control some people want over the recipients, would be hysterical if it weren't so sad. To be so focused on the money that drizzles into the pockets of the poor, while the corporate robber barons are emptying our bank accounts just doesn't make any sense.

Jesus would be appalled.

I do not receive any welfare, since I live on the Social Security that accumulated after working more than 33 years, but I very occasionally receive a donation on this blog. The cost of bringing internet into the home far exceeds the pittance I receive in donations, on a year by year basis. (I had hoped that the blog would at least pay for itself but unfortunately, it does not. I refuse to junk up my page with ads from marketers, however. I figure that, at the very least, I can give my readers a respite from the constant flow of sales pitches by corporations that they have to endure on every other page they access.)

Of the very few who donate, most are extremely kind. Others, in the guise of kindness, will assail me with a barrage of unsolicited "advice" that is not only unnecessary, but would also be insulting, if I was inclined toward that sort of response.

Although I have no choice as to whether or not I will be poor, the vast majority of monastics throughout time have been poor by choice and by chance. Ideally, it is a chosen thing, a sacrifice made for God. Even if poverty is thrust upon a monastic by circumstance, we are encouraged to embrace it. When poverty impinges upon the ability of the monastic to perform his or her functions, measures have to be taken to alleviate it. Poverty, in its essence, is not a "good" thing, but a tool in the hands of the spiritual aspirant.

Consequently, most monasteries rely upon a combination of donations and some type of work of the hands that they may sell. Whether it is coffee, candies, rosaries or liquor, most monastics have to produce something for sale in order to survive. In days gone by, most monasteries and convents survived by gifts alone, but modern times find us with far fewer devoted Christians who understand the value of what the monastic "produces" by his or her presence and prayers. Sadly, Westerners are capitalists first and Christians second, in most cases.

Being disabled and gradually becoming more so, I do not have the capacity to produce anything to any meaningful extent, which is why I have a donation request on my front page. Still, there are people who will insist upon gifting me with their opinion of what I must do to produce something worthy of payment. It is exhausting, especially since they fail to observe that I am already doing something worthy.

After trying, and failing, to get me to live under her rule, a recent small donor has gone off in a huff and unfollowed my blog. A relative who gave me a television similarly subjected me to an overbearingd brow-beating. Another who sent me a book a year or two ago erupted into a tirade of name-calling and public excoriation because I will not vote for her political candidate. Unfortunately, these people felt entitled to control my actions after contributing an extremely small amount to the household. People complain that the poor feel entitled, but my experience of life is the opposite. It is those who give with big strings attached who have a sense of entitlement.

The Bible tells us to invite those persons to our banquets who cannot afford to return a similar invitation. I definitely cannot afford to turn my life over to those who give me a few dollars. I have already given that life to God, and it is not for sale.

I have vacillated back and forth about whether or not to continue the blog or if I should dedicate the time spent writing it to some other endeavor. For the time being, I will keep it, because there are more than a few readers who tell me that their condition mirrors mine and that they receive encouragement and grace from my words.

Just as Jesus used parables to instruct, I offer the small circumstances of my life as an example that can be extrapolated to an understanding of the conditions of the poor, disabled and discarded in America, in order to rouse love in the hearts of those who denigrate the poor, and to support the faithful Christian in whom love already flows but who suffers from living in a hostile angry world.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose Parnell