For better or worse???

Mom and Dad are arguing. Fighting maybe, we are not sure. The kids are nervous. What happens next we wonder, will there be a divorce, who will we go with, will dad take the house??


Mom has done some stuff that dad is really pissed about. Seems like it’s not really bad stuff and I can’t tell if he’s just mad because she went against his wishes, if it’s a power trip or…he’s just tired of her. Part of his complaint is that he wants her to treat one of our brothers like he doesn’t exist. The other is that she’s spent too much time helping our ne’er do well brother.

Oh, and uh… Dad has been fooling around a bit. He tried to keep it quiet, but you know once someone makes a complaint, it hits the news, and then it’s all out there.We are so embarrassed, but he doesn’t seem to care. (well, he cares he got caught..you know)  We wonder if they can reconcile. If there is still enough love left.

This kind of stuff is hard for the kids. We are not responsible for them … we support mom, but we have always loved dad too.

Who gets the property? Who gets the kids? Or, do we just wander off by ourselves.

Most of America has been touched by divorce. Most of you can at least understand what I’m saying.

You now understand what it feels like to be a catholic these days.

Faith

Blind Faith.

I often wish that I could be one of those folks who believe…
who believe everything that the church hierarchy say. (editing note here. I don't want to believe WHAT they believe, just wish I had their faith in their belief system.)

They seem so sure, so confident. They are positive that by believing they are following the rules…and for them all will be well.

I listen as they rebut arguments. They have a sureness about them. THEY KNOW what is right and what is wrong and there are no shades of grey and there is no need to think about anything…because they KNOW.

I am often accused of doing the same thing! Ha, if you could live in my head one day and realize how unsure I am of almost everything. I will speak about how I feel, and I will challenge those who hurt my kids-but everything else??

Except Love.

I know I love my kids. I believe they are God’s children. I believe He loves them. I believe that each of my sons is capable of loving in a spiritually healthy way… the gay one and the straight one. And I believe there is a sacrament in that love, a blessing that keeps us able to go on in the ‘bad, the sick, the poor’ times of our relationship.

The rest of it I try to work out day by day. I have evolved a lot in the last 10 years on the subject… and those years have not been easy on my catholic soul.

My Google alert brought me to a new blog this weekend.

The title for the day was I support gay rights because I am Catholic, (not in spite of it)

http://blueberriesforme.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/i-support-gay-rights-because-i-am-catholic/

The post I loved, the comments…oh jeez…they are so sure. I wonder if their lived experience is as sanitary as it sounds. I’m going to try not to judge how they came to their belief system… I envy the surety.

Letters…we write letters!!!

In the day, I guess this would all have been considered tilting at windmills… No windmills in sight sooooo-we write letters.

The director of the Ali Forney Center in NYC, a homeless shelter for lgbt youth wrote a pointed note to Cardinal Dolan, publishing it on Huffington Post. He called out the Cardinal and the church in general for our lack of outreach to lgbt youth.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-siciliano/cardinal-dolan-lgbt-youth_b_1363153.html

And he pissed off the Cardinal… who wrote back that his character had been attacked, but failed to mention that he would make plans to come and visit. And that letter was published.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-siciliano/cardinal-dolan-responds_b_1396816.html

HRC of course has written and published a letter to Cardinal Dolan concerning ending support of NOM.

http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/hrc-freedom-to-marry-to-cardinal-dolan-end-support-of-nom/

But they were not the first, Equally Blessed got a letter out to the Cardinal about the un-Christian tactics of NOM last week.

http://www.equally-blessed.org/node/30

I have written to (then Archbishop) Dolan a couple of times, asking him to bring up bullying at the USCCB of which he is the head (not sure that he will be as a Cardinal…but his influence will still be in the room.)

I got a couple of nice … “we worry about that too” kind of responses… and then I caught a news segment he did talking about LGBT folks… “we will be sued… we will be booed if we don’t hire THESE PEOPLE’ and I shared my feeling with him about that kind of language.  The HURTFUL kind...
http://thiscatholicmom.blogspot.com/2011/12/112911-most-reverend-timothy-m.html

I assumed that might be the last of my pen pal status with the Cardinal, and uhm…I guess I’m not really expecting a reply to this letter, but I wrote it, sat on it, prayed about, edited it and then put it in the mail yesterday….

If nothing else, the Cardinal has figured out how to ‘get mail’. I have to hope at some point he will have heard enough that even he will have to wonder if this is the Spirit speaking to him. If he won’t help, he could at least take the Hippocratic oath… and Do No Harm.

April 9, 2012

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan

1011 First Avenue

New York, NY 10022



Dear Cardinal Dolan,

Hi, it’s me again, the lady from Memphis (Father Val Handwerker’s Parish) who wants Church to reach out to lgbt youth, the teens and young adults who deal with bullying and homelessness in a real way- and sometimes end up killing themselves.

I was saddened to see the public battle between you and the director of the Ali Forney Center. I think we have to remember that those who work with ‘broken and hurting’ people often get angry with those they see as being part of the system that hurts these kids. I equate that anger to Jesus clearing the temple. Sometimes righteous anger has a true place in our world. Your response to him sounded very personal… he had hurt your feelings and you were sure he was wrong about you. How wonderful if you could have made that response AFTER visiting the center and listening to the kids, or in conjunction with an offer to visit. Unfortunately without that … it sounded simply … petty. His method of publicly calling you out was not the way to get you to visit; your response wasn’t helpful for the problem either.

I think I have shared with you that my husband and I are safe house volunteers for our local lgbt community center. We have opened our home to a dozen ‘discarded’ gay youth since August 2009. Some stay a week or so, some have stayed months, all are still in our lives. One attempted suicide in my home. We were blessed to find him in time, and his life is beginning to be back on track. We are not fortunate enough in Memphis to have an Ali Forney Center, or any kind of shelter outreach for lgbt youth. We host the kids and help them out of our meager personal funds, because we believe this is how our Christ would want us to behave, to reach out. Children hear messages of marginalization and internalize them. This is not news, but this is something that we as church seem willing to ignore.

We cannot as church pretend that we don’t cause harm. In only the last few weeks NOM (funded and loved by Catholic organizations) was unmasked as an agent of social destruction. A priest told CHILDREN in an assembly that gay=bestiality. To the kids this sounds like CHURCH TALKING! Church is spending funds to fight civil marriage when folks are homeless and hurting. We are cutting funding to organizations that do the blessed dirty work of reaching out to people where they are- in the gutter the homeless shelter or the hospital.

Please consider this topic when you meet again with the bishops. For some kids time is running out.

I wish you His peace and strength as you do His work…

Deb Word

He is risen! Alleluia, Alleluia!!

My husband and I got up before dawn and joined a thousand others in our community at a sunrise service in our Catholic Cemetery.  Calvary.  This is the cemetery that holds the remains of my parents and grands.  I don't go there often. I believe the spirit is released and only the empty vessel remains. And yet today it felt a bit like going to church WITH my parents, partly because this was their final resting place but mostly because my parents had gone to this service for years before their death. I had never been, but I'm feeling restless in my Catholic skin these days and wanted a way to worship that was different.

My pastor was one of the presiders. Ok, so it wasn't THAT different. But it felt that way. No building, no major trappings. We sat in lawn chairs or stood, we prayed together, and I'd say most in the crowd have loved ones whose remains are at Calvary. It was family in a good way. It was moving to be at the tomb on Easter!

My thoughts this morning touched a couple of times on Easter of 2011. That Sunday morning we went to church, we played with the grandchildren, kissed them and sent back home to Mississippi, and then my oldest and hubby helped me shave my head. Nothing BUT cancer was on my mind last Easter.  Luckily this year cancer was simply a moment of tears, partly sad partly joyful... and then I was able to return to prayer.

We returned to the house refreshed...
I returned a missed call and minutes later was visiting with one of my fosters.

His mom has been slowly leaving him for years... by repeatedly discarding him in his early teen years, reconciling recently and now he is losing her to death. She is only 39 ... he is 19 with a 12 year old sister. She has less than a week according to the hospice nurses. He cannot do this he tells me.  I understand. His sister cannot do this... he has a plan that takes them away for a few days ... and he would rather have left it unspoken that he is trying to avoid being there when she goes. But, I spoke it. It sounds as though she is already deep in a pre-death coma, sleeping all the time he calls it.  I know I would not want to be left at that time... and yet I tried to be careful in sharing My fears, My guilt... and I tell him he will be making decisions that he might regret.  He is leaving the cross. He cannot bear it any longer.  I get it.  I was an adult when I lost each of my parents... and it was the worst time of my life. I don't know how you do this as a child....watching, waiting, impotent to help.

He is a child... in so many ways. And yet in watching his sister suffer... he remembers to be the adult for her.  He cannot fix Mom. He can help his sister... and I don't know that he is making a decision HE will regret.  They will leave on Wednesday. Mom may go before that.  And there is nothing either of us can do to fix anything. 

These are the times that I need my faith. These are the days that I need to believe in all I've been taught... these are the times that I have to remember... the mission is to love. And to love totally, without reservation without fear.  Sharing the pain of others is part of that love, part of that faith.

I am so grateful that I had the chance to worship in a way that was meaningful this morning... to know He is Risen!

Follow the prophets... they lead us to the future.

It’s been another week of not great church news… Bishop being prosecuted, NOM papers from court explain a strategy of destruction, angry reaction from Cardinal Dolan to an activist who begs him to come meet the kids we help displace with our angry rhetoric. And then there was the mandatory lecture in MN where a priest played ‘let’s teach ‘em how to vote’ with the senior class,  beginning with the need for marriage and ending abruptly when the kids stood their ground asking questions and sharing lgbt history.   Politics, legal repercussions for the crazy ‘which rock is the pedophile priest under,’ and hurtful rhetoric are not the way to observe holy week.

I know my church wants to say all are loved. I know that. But the hierarchy seems so concerned about slippery slopes creating protected classes and retaining the legal right to treat our kids differently that the message of love is lost…long gone. 

This is the holiest week of the year in my church. This is the week that I would usually spent many many hours in church… and yet I just can’t do it this year.  I’m trying to convince myself it is a health issue. But I think it’s a gut issue, more emotional than physical.

On Tuesday I hosted the ministry group at our house, pre Chrism Mass. Our potluck space was being used, so we moved across the street. Beautiful souls… my friends in this ministry are folks who have been kicked around by the church, and yet they are faithful. They are able to ignore the bad…or write it off to the flawed human condition. And we revel in the wonder that is our way of celebration. Our rituals are life sustaining.

I’ve written often that I wonder weekly why I stay. Why am I still a Catholic.  This week we are reminded that Jesus didn’t ‘appreciate’ the hierarchy either.  And they called Him a heretic. And yet he continued to love, and to teach us to love.

There are many many historians in my church… ( who will tell us that we must live, pray, love a certain way because the HISTORY of our church says so) but there are not as many prophets.  I hope to follow the prophets, NOT the historians. The future of our church lies in the hands of prophets.

Money money money….


Last week it was the lottery. We all made little quiet plans about how we would spend a zillion bucks. Some folks loudly proclaimed charities they would support, others talked about fast cars and a fabulous life. We know there are folks whose lives were ruined by the way they handled money after a lottery win…and yet we all know WE would do better. We would do GOOD…in ways we have always wished we could. And I would have LOVED to have the chance to try, but out of three tickets we only had 1 chosen number. Not our turn for sure.

This week there are the office pools for basketball. No one will get rich from these, but more than the winners have figured out how to spend the winnings. Every little bit helps.

At my house we always seem to get by. Hubby is currently not working; semi retirement he calls is, as he looks for a lower stress part time job. My paycheck has to go to things more substantial than frivolous … as I would prefer it. But it seems we ALWAYS get by. Never a huge surplus, but thank goodness, never have bills going unpaid either. And we have always found ways to share even when things are slow for us.

I have to be careful when I deal with the fosters and money. As we have always done, we try to listen, figure out if the need is real and how the problem arose. One of the kids from a recent stay reached out last week looking for a ‘few bucks’ for toiletries. I have learned to watch the face book posts to see if a kid is really suffering or just using us as a ‘resource’. If I see posts about having fun in bars…then my rule is that they are welcome to visit and have a meal; if they are figuring out how to go get ‘messed up’… that money could be put to use in other ways. We try never to give cash. Toiletries & food I can find for them, but not cash. These are kids whose risky behavior and poor decision making abilities may have contributed to homelessness. I worry that I may be aiding and abetting in a way that will make them depend on us…when they have to be learning to depend on themselves. These decisions are hard for me, and it is a hard way for them to learn. I find it easier to do….when there really isn’t a lot of cash to spare. You just never know where you will find a blessing….