November 14, 2022
Reflections
LIAM
Two nights ago I was channel hoping on our TV.
I caught a movie called, "Liam."
Never heard of it - nor did I recognize any of the actors in it.
It looked like it was taking place in Northern England in the 1930's. I'm not sure about that. I'll have to look it up on Google.
Mass has the priest's back to the people. Communion is received on the tongue at the altar rail.
Liam is a little boy moving towards his First Communion. This meant: also moving towards his First Confession.
He and some boys are looking at a big heavy enormous art book. It's kept on a shelf in their classrooms. They spot a painting of two naked women.
Recently he had seen his mom naked by accident.
The little boy was discovering differences.
The boys teacher - the girls were kept in another room - spots the commotion by the boys with the art book.
She brings in Father Ryan - a fierce force - to read the riot act to the boys. They have seen him in action - in the pulpit - a roaring fire of words.
Should I try to get this movie and how it on a priests' retreat?
November 13, 2022
Reflection
MONDAY MORNINGS
There's something about Monday mornings.
I've read a few times that most heart attacks happen on Monday mornings - early - before people are off to work.
If that's true - and - reported heart attacks can be tabulated - it gives a glimpse into Monday mornings.
Tomorrow morning is Monday morning - uh oh.
There's that first Monday morning after a two week vacation with the kids at the beach. We have to get back into the regular grind of life.
There's that first Monday morning on a new job - what are our thoughts?
Friday afternoons have that "Phew!" in them - as we look forward to the weekend.
Do Monday mornings have a special sound?
Are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays different?
Sabbath is necessary.
Are there cultures - or were there cultures where folks worked 7 days a week - without vacations - without breaks?
Do or did slave masters - or tyrants know people need a break?
It was Monday morning - March 31, 2008 when I first wrote this. I had neglected doing any writing into this note book in the weeks that followed.
[Today is November 13, 2022]
November 12, 2022
Reflection
TABLES AND CHAIRS
There are moments and there are moments.
There are tables and there are chairs.
We sat there as tiny kids in our high chairs - banging our spoon - wanting our food - wanting attention. Yet when it comes to baby's high chairs there an underlying disconnect. That half moon high chair table top - locked us in - and separated us from the rest of the family.
We know tables - the family table as kids - the gathering place where we ate our veggies and our birthday cake - the place we were
excommunicated from when we did
something wrong.
We remember the tables we sat at in school.
We might remember the restaurant table where we proposed.
Then there are our chairs.
We remember sitting there in the hospital - with a blanket - waiting for a spouse to get better.
We remember a rocking
chair at our grandmother's. We loved to visit her and get to sit in her rocker - even though
we were so small - but she made us feel so tall.
"Who sits where?” is the question we think or say - when are at a table in a house where we are a visitor or a guest.
It’s interesting when we we visit certain homes. Sometime there is no special seat at the
table for the King of the family; sometimes there's a seat where you better not sit.
How do you replace a spouse or dad or mom or son or
daughter who has died - when a certain
chair still fills them - with so much emptiness?
Certain chairs would not get listed as worth a million dollars
on The Antique Road Show - because they are priceless.
It’s good to sit there at a table in the evening of our life and jot down on paper - the moments of our life, That's old age or retirement homework.
We remember as kids seeing our mom writing home to her parents in another country or our brother in college or in the military.
Gather the letters. Save them Write the history of our family.
There are tables and there are chairs.
