McIntyre House: A Small Life Raft in the Ocean of Drug and Alcohol Residential Rehabilitation

I am guessing that you have the same experience I do when it comes to charities--receiving a veritable flood of solicitations for all sorts of good works being provide for an overwhelming number of needs in every arena of human existence.  I have my favorites, and they tend to be the larger charities because they have the ability to get my attention, places like St. Jude (taking care of children with cancer for free, founded by Danny Thomas (who just happens to have been a sometime parishioner at my Church back in the 70s and 80s), and Best Friends (a growing sanctuary for animals of every kind in Utah). The only way I have become familiar with smaller local charities is by virtue of providence. I have come to accept the truism that there are no accidents--with God. One such "accident" in my life was becoming acquainted with a small residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation program called McIntyre House located in Los Angeles. The total number of beds in the house is for 16 men. That's small in quantity, but not in the quality of the rescue from the depths of despair. I suppose Providence makes it possible, even obligatory, for me to introduce this little essential charity to you and hope that maybe you will see your way to incorporating it into your monetary gifting. Because there are so many worthy charities, places like McIntyre House can get lost in the fundraising shuffle. Despite that reality, it has survived over 20 years, but always operating on a lean budget relative to its larger brothers and sisters in the world of saving lives. 

First, here's the website address, and a picture of the House. McIntyreHouse.org.

A lot of hard work goes on behind those doors. Men come to those steps on their last physical and psychological legs, sometimes having tried everywhere and everything else literally to stay alive. And, even if they cannot pay the approximately $2,500.00 a month for food and board and program, they are not turned away on that account. The Program is based on the precepts of Alcohol Anonymous, and the goal is retrieving the lost self and bringing him back into the community. It happens in this home like community. It isn't fancy, and it is in an ordinary neighborhood, without a million dollar view. But when a man transitions to a sober life, it is a million dollar emotional event. 

McIntyre House is non-sectarian, everybody in need is welcome to seek help.  But it was started by a Catholic priest, and his friend who was, and remains, in the arena of prison ministry. That's how I happened upon it. The late Jeremiah Murphy was my pastor, and his approach to catholic (universal) social justice was to throw a net around some of his parishioners and say, "I'm doing this and I wonder if you would like to help." And through him, and its Executive Dirctor, Brian Hardin, I found myself involved and somehow on the Board. And I have been now, for over 7 years. And I have come to see what a difference this small residence makes in lives. I even got to go to one of the "transitions"--a kind of graduation ceremony with family and friends of the resident to sober living, and I can tell you how profound it is to see someone who was literally in danger of death come back to the world.  

The big places do this too. They save lives. But not everyone can go to them, and so, a place like McIntyre House is a small life raft that needs, in my view, to continue to exist. It has, in some ways, against the odds, because it costs so much to keep going, to keep the lights on so that men can be brought inside those doors.

As I write, the holiday season is upon us, and it won't look like any other in the history of the United States, or the world, due to the Covid crisis. That's been especially hard on people who are trying to recover from (or not fall into) the scourge of drug and alcohol addiction. But the guys of the House are still trying to create a festive atmosphere in which to continue their life affirming work. And to create a way to raise funds in a time when no one can get together live and in person. Normally, we have a party this time of year, and other live gatherings to bring the House to the attention of our friends and the larger community. But this year, the House is going to do something special, "The Twelve Days of McIntyre House". Beginning on December 12, through to the 23rd, with the help of alumni and other friends of the House, there will be an online fundraising event. When you go to the website, there will be a banner for you to click on and to learn about the good work of the House not from talking heads but from the people who have been and are being helped by the fact that the House exists. And, of course, there will be a donor button for you to contribute, if your would, even though you have so many other demands on your funds. And maybe you would consider becoming a sustaining friend of McIntyre House, by clicking on the donor button every month, with whatever you can spare. The need will continue after the holiday season. 

What is that saying? "He who saves one life saves the world entire." 

Your small act of charity will be a life raft for a man who comes to the doors of McIntyre House this coming year and in the years ahead.  

Apocalypse in the Sunshine

I had an appointment just before noon. I had to have a Covid-19 test. No, I have had no symptoms, nor am I aware of having been exposed. But I am having a colonoscopy on Monday, which I had to put off because of a medical procedure last year I have written about here, and given, again, that inevitable family history and the fact I have had a polyp in the past, I just didn't feel able to put it off again, nothwithstanding my reluctance to have my nose probed. 

I had heard how the Covid-19 test is done, and the idea was stomach turning. At least with the colonoscopy I'll be asleep. But no such luck with the short, but invasive nose test. I tried to put it out of my mind until I was driving into the Thalian Building Garage. I could still run, but, well, I didn't. 

On the way, I revelle in the beauty of the day. It was relatively warm. A perfect November California Day. Normally, things would be bustling, but with the newest lockdown here in Los Angeles, and state wide, it was basically a ghost town. I noticed that the Coffee Bean Tea and Leaf on Robertson and Beverly has not survived the second ravage of the economy, which though articulated as not significant compared to the dangers of Covid, we are seeing is killing not only businesses but livelihoods and lives. Not sure, but I think Fig and Olive on La Cienega might be gone. Every store and restaurant along the route was empty and barred, except for take out or delivery service which curfew ends at 10 p.m. A beautiful day, and no place to go, except maybe to your local grocery, pot store, and I did notice that at least one nail salon was open. Inside Church Services have never been restored. And there is no sign of it happening, despite the fact that the Supreme Court told New York that such unequal treatment is problematic. Oh, by the way, I have written twice to my Archdiocese, and have received bupkus as my answer. Whether it is in regard to the state or to the institutional part of the Church, the human part, it is a bit alarming to realize that you are one of the "little people", since they are the ones who are always the first expended in public crises. One need not imagine too hard what it will be when apocalypse is upon us. I don't expect anyone to agree. I am merely, as others do, expressing my "feelings" in what to me is a maddening, insane time. 

There was not a long line of cars at the Thalian Building. I assume the others had appointments like I did. I donned my mask. The rule was that you kept your windows up until you presented your identification through the window, something one is required to do pretty much everywhere, except in voting, I note with parenthetical irony. Upon that initial identification I was moved to the next section, where the action would occur. I did think it a little paradoxical that this method of determining whether you are positive or not was occurring in a parking lot. I am not sure how it had previously been sanitized. But there you are. Mine not to question why. I had further identification questions to answer. My date of birth. My full name. When my procedure was going to be. The latter part allowed the opening of the window. Of course, the test itself required it.

The technician was very nice. Presently, everyone is very nice when they tell you what you have to do. She pulled that long q-tip out and told me that she would be putting it up my nose and then there was this slight ten second movement once it was up there (well, given the picture below, it is up, then down) and I should breathe. I could lower my mask to expose my nose, but kept the mask on my mouth. The first effort was not successful, apparently because I had my head tilted back. The sensation had been let's say, unpleasant, and that it would be repeated caused me consternation.  I had every inclination to sneeze. I wondered why, given medical technology, the method of testing is so, primitive. And it seems to me that in a garage a lot could go wrong with accuracy and this odd method. I mean, the stick goes, well, you can see!) And around. I found myself tearing up as if I were about to bawl. Truthfully, there is a lot about this time period in our history that makes me want to bawl, so this reflexive response seemed apropos. My eye makeup running and my nose feeling, well, odd, I drove off and back here to lock up. 

As I said, it is a beautiful day. So I did my laundry, here in the apartment on my super duper good for a dorm plastic machine, and edited my podcast (Ordinary Old Catholic Me on Podbean.com; also found on Tune In, Pandora). I will make one more quick trip today, to my Church garden where they are still able to do half hour outdoor confessions, for now. I have been very close to blasphemy in these last weeks given all the events in the world at large that are impinging on all of us.  I keep hearing we are "all in this together". Alas, what I feel we are in together doesn't have quite the utopian ending that has been promised.

But at least when the apocalypse comes I will be in the sunshine. Unless of course on that day, it finally rains. 

House Arrest for the Once Free

Not that it matters as I am an insignificant cog in the world of shakers and movers and of course "the science", but today I am really in a state of existential despair. I have struggled with the "What if" version of Obsessive Compulsive Order throughout my life, and probably an underlying dysthmia (a less dramatic form of depression). I have always needed to find the absolute of a thing or a situation, and as I am sure I have written elsewhere on these pages, I was raised by a very authoritarian mother who brooked no opposition over what she thought was true, and thus was true for me, and a then very strict Catholicism in school where authority and truth were one. Most of us worry about doing the "Right thing" (Well we used to anyway), but I had contorted my worry into a case of debate over pretty much anything. They call some forms of OCD the "doubting disease" because one can never settle on what is the "correct" thing to do. There are two aspects (well there have been for me) of this cyclical analysis. The first is that when you settle on a decision, you feel all right for about thirty seconds, and then the "what if I am wrong" shadow falls, and the whole back and forth starts again. Once forced into a decision of one sort or another, the net phase is wondering over and over whether you did the "wrong" thing, and if you did, whether it can be undone. No doubt it is a case of being stuck at some early developmental phase that gets taken with you in to the adult world. From the age of relative cognizance until I retired some years ago, the torture of that way of being was, in Catholic terms, my "Cross".  Some few friends have seen me in the throes of it. Others, who think of me as relatively decisive, would have no clue that my particular form of the search for truth (and there are I know many fellow travellers on this psychological road) has been pure torture. 

If I could not be certain about a path and its potentialities, I avoided it where I could. It probably partialoy explains my never marrying or having children. I had to work since I would be supporting myself, and, when I look back, probably it was idiotic that I became an attorney, where debate is a feature of the job--like I needed some more of that. I happened to find a niche in that arena--legal ethics--where my need for settling on THE TRUTH--was moderately protected and nutured. But even there the storm in my head over every trial decision raged until I was able to find a sub-niche, which included teaching that made it somewhat bearable. 

Once I retired, the occasions for worrying about decisions I made, diminished on a day to day basis, since I remain unattached and don't have a daily job in the usual sense, though they still pop up from time to time where I cannot avoid a significant task. But the last several years, culminating in global and national gaslighting, have reignited the torture.  And it has been topped off with Covid. What is plain to me and to like half the nation is not plain to the other half. And one half, not mine, has the media, official and social, and all educational facilities to tell me that I am wrong about pretty much anything I think I think. You know that phrase, "Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining"? When you have the doubting disease it doesn't help to have outside forces entering your head to trigger debates you don't want to have. 

So, yesterday, I read another one of many articles on how there should be no live Thanksgiving activities. We are told that the positive cases are increasing. Well, that makes sense in that there is a lot more testing. I am having a colonoscopy at the end of the month and am compelled to have a test myself. But carefully omitted in the terrifying news of increasing positives/cases so that a new lockdown can be imposed is a breakdown of the positives. Many have no symptoms. Some have mild symptoms. Some get very sick. Some die, as they do of heart disease, cancer, car accidents, bathroom falls, bacterial infections, suicide, murder and the like, every day. In California, the death rate since the beginning of the pandemic affair is just under one half of one percent of the population of the State. And yet we have never actually opened and are about to be fully shut down again. 

And IF we do go to ANY such gatherings, it should be very very small, and it really should be outside, and everyone wearing masks, and only one person handling food, and everything disinfected. In fact, you should even use paper plates. I have a small bubble (well under ten) with whom I usually share Thanksgiving, and I was perfectly satisfied that with reasonable care I could and should go until I read this article, these articles. And then there was a curfew. Nobody out from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. 

In my heart of hearts, I wanted to say, with extra emphasis, particularly since the leaders imposing these rules have manifestly not been following them (which in one's debate in the head seems to mean that THEY don't believe what they are selling), "Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining!"  But instead I realize the gaslight had worked, playing on my wish to be good and true and charitable, I don't want to hurt anybody. I don't care much about my getting it, and even dying from it (in fact if this world we are in is what the "new normal" is, dying might be preferable where you believe in eternity), but after all this propaganda, even if I know that what I have been told is crazy, well, I don't really KNOW, do I?

And I can hear not just in my head any longer, but some of you perhaps reading this post of lament, saying, "Yes, you would be responsible!" Unlike me, they are very very very sure of "the science", even though that's not "the science" of a lot of other, well, scientists. And no one will tell me how it is that post Covid, if there is a post-Covid (as we know even with a vaccine, we are told that we must maintain masks and other forms of PPE for a time unspecified) we will become less dangerous to one another outside of our hermitages. 

So, I wrote an e-mail to my potential host to say that, essentially, the deep concern of the state for our respective healths and my wish not to kill anyone was getting to me, and though I didn't believe a word anymore that is being said to me by anyone in authority (which is quite something since authority was as I said that upon which I was weaned even more than the average developing child), maybe Thanksgiving this year (and probably henceforth in my dismal view of things) wasn't a good idea. My friend was understanding and empathetic. He pointed out that some of his more socially minded, progressive friends had not cancelled their small gatherings. And he reminded me that several of us have been together throughout "L'Affaire de Covid" in the prior 8 months, that bubble I was talking about since none of us have much family left. None of us had contracted even the sniffles.  I was on the other end of the debate in my head. 

Which brings me to the title of this blog entry. I still haven't made a final decision about Thanksgiving. I am trending toward going. But of course, that will probably change as I engage in the "What if's" some more. But the oppression of this time we all share and my particularly psychological baggage really got to me.  Except for the Rosary Across America which I have been doing every day with Relevant Radio, praying in desperation for some change in our national and world circumstances--and that I did in the supine position in my bed--I did nothing at all today until I began writing this entry. There were things I could do, that I do other days, when I am not going to my doctors for yearly examinations, or shopping at the 99 Cents Store for some provisions like toilet paper which is about to be in short supply again (I really was running low even for normal times), or going to my still closed parish outside for Mass. I could read. I could speak to someone on the phone. I could read again. I could write. I could read again. I could pray, which as I said, I sort of did. I could take a walk. No, not that here in California 'cause one is supposed to be wearing a mask when outside. I admit to avoiding that when I am walking short distances, but it would be hard to achieve in a city, and I the mask for me (and I am sure for others who simply fear to admit it) is unbearable for long periods. 

I did go out on my newly fixed terrace, and lie in my free standing hammock, watching the palm trees and the little fountain I got to enhance the locale. I thought, well, at least I have this. Then I thought about "house arrest." How was what I, all of us, been doing, particularly in California and New York and the other enlightened states, different from "house arrest"? As we know, though better than regular prison, house arrest is usually that which someone who has committed a crime is subject. 

I went to that source of all modern day knowledge, "Wikipedia".  Here is some of what it says, "In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined to their residence.  Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all.  House arrest is an alternative to being in prison while awaiting trial or after sentencing. . . 

. . .most programs allow employed offenders to continue to work, and confine them to their residence only during non-working hours.  Offenders are commonly allowed to leave their home for specific purposes; examples can inclue visits to the probation officer or police station, religious services, education, attorney visits, court appearances, and medical appointments. Many programs also allow the convict to leave their residence during regular, pre-approved times in order to carry out general household errandes, such as food shopping and launry.  Offenders may have to respond to communications from a higher authority to verify that they are at home when required to be. Exceptions are often made to allow visitors to visit the offender. . ." 

I am, we are, under house arrest. Now, a lot of you think that there is this big difference. We aren't offenders--well we are as we are germ factories and any potential contact with another is lethal. It always was. It always will be. But right now, it is particularly a focus in the days of Covid, which has been given a distinct place in the hierarchy of dangers by approved scientists. So, public health requires house arrest.  Someone, many someones, writes on Facebook "Just wear the mask".  I do, because there is no choice as far as I can see and I am still the perfect subject/object for mandates from authority (though I have learned that authority is often wrong; but you know what they say, "Give me a child till he is five and I'll show you the man."  Or woman. I was a malleable child.) But I cannot help but ask the question, mostly quietly, as dissent is no longer patriotic as it was when it was progressives dissenting, "Will there ever come a time when we can stop wearing a mask?" And since, as I said, I know that we won't stop being germ factories, and no doubt there is some other contagion, natural or man made, ready to be released upon us, my terror, and it is a terror, for me, though apparently not for most of you given the nods of approval for extended use, it will be forever. And to me, if that is our future, we might as well be bugs. What we will no longer be is human. And my opinion being just as valid as anyone else's until I become a speech offender and house arrest becomes the real prison kind, is that we are heading toward tyranny of the kind you read about in history books until they get revised by utopians. My prayer tonight is "God spare us from Utopians". 

My religious friends are calling all this a "chastisement". It sure feels that way. 

Since by tomorrow the fullest of restrictions will likely be reinstated here in California if not everywhere in the United States (and the world), I doubt I will be in a better mood. 

And as I said, I am just a cog. I will have to try to reframe and see it as another part of "the Cross" and hope that I will accept the cup of suffering which surely is going to get worse. God will have to unload a heap of Grace on me for that to happen. And even then I am not sure I can handle it. 

Staying the Course

If Joe Biden is formally and officially denominated to have been the winner of the 2020 Presidential election, life will go on for Americans, including the 70 million who did not vote for him. Anyone who lives say, in California, or New York, will find that nothing much has changed since they are one party Democrat states where money is taken from the populace for repeatedly failing programs and restrictions which ignore freedom of expression and movement are becoming the norm. The rest of the nation will soon experience the thrill of Progressivism. Those who voted for this outcome are clearly elated. Their voices and car horns resonated all day in my neighborhood the day the media crowned Mr. Biden as President Elect nothwithstanding the still extant (for now) Constitutional framework that makes state electors the ones to confirm the outcome. 

So it goes. Freedom is fragile. Nations come. They go. Then there is the Catholic Church. Although I know that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it, at least intellectually, it is the Church leaders, the shepherds, the Bishops, who have created spiritual, emotional and psychological doubt so intense that many of the faithful wonder if they can maintain the intellectual hope. The Church, which is the Body of Christ on earth since his Ascension, will indeed survive, but too many will be convinced by the Scatterer, Diablo, that it cannot survive and loyalty to Him is amusingly foolish. He is being helped in this by so many Bishops, and priests who have the secular imprimatur of the media. I am aware that many Catholics will not agree with this assessment. But many do. And all I can say is that is what I see as plainly as the history which is being repeated and from which human beings never learn. Why I might see it and others, far more intelligent and learned than I am do not, I cannot say. And I can tell you, I am just as susceptible to the nudge of the Devil to separate me from my faith because of the overwhelming (to me) betrayal of Church leaders.

It has been hard enough during the pandemic lockdown to trust the motives of the shepherds. Yes, there has been a Corona Virus. Yes, if one is in a risk category, getting it can be terrible, as getting any disease which threatens life, can be terrible. But to tell Churches that they cannot function, and say one can watch on TV or one's tablet, was extreme, particularly in the case of the Catholic Church where many of the seven Sacraments occur inside a Church, and where some, like Last Rites and the concomitant funeral rites require more than 10 people. Still, in the beginning, I was among the faithful that understood and given that it would only be as long as it took, estimated at a few weeks, to "flatten the curve", I was not alarmed, though I was disappointed at the alacrity of the Church's compliance. I wonder if the Church at the time of Henry the VIII was quite as speedy in acceding to King Henry VIII need to separate from Rome so that he could replace the wife who could not provide a male heir with one who, hopefully, could. As we know ultimately that did not work out. 

It has, however, come to a point of feeling utter distrust in the motives of the institutional part of the Church, the human part, the always inclining toward evil human part. We are moving into the 8th months of lockdown, with threats of another full one, and Mr. Biden promising the press of full federal authority against the states (good luck though) and the Church leaders are silent, as far as I can hear, as the cooler and potentially rainy weather moves in. This past weekend, at my parish, though it was fortunately sunny, there were huge winds in the area where we have Mass, everyone with covered faces that remind me of every science fiction narrative I ever read in which humanity is humiliated and captured. The little overhang under which the makeshift altar sat and in which the altar servers also functioned was rattling. The chalice covers had to be held down by the package of intentions for the deceased. Of course, it is not yet quite so dire, but it made me think of photographs I have seen of battlefield Masses. The people of God make do. But in this case, does it any longer make sense?

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/us-catholic-bishops-congratulate-biden-as-president-elect-44702

I have written to the e mail provided for the Archdiocese, which is a media relations address. I expect the sort of response one gets from a politician.  All form. No substance. And with the clear intimation that the contact is an amusing annoyance from a plebian. 

Every so often the idea, which I do believe is one of those proddings from the same guy who got Eve to do his bidding, comes that I can't stay a Catholic anymore. But happily, with prayer, the idea dissipates and I remember that the Church is not a building but Jesus Christ of whom we are a part as the People of God. 

And then. As Dorothy Parker once observed, "What Fresh Hell is This?"

All through the election cycle, when I read the instructions for the Formation of Conscience for the Catholic Voter, all I could think of was, "It must be nice to be able to promote ambiguity about the Truth when it is convenient." Abortion, for example, and the fact that the Democrat ticket gives material cooperation, advocates and promotes the evil of abortion (and folks we are not talking only about the small percent of arguable exceptions like rape or incest, and the rare real danger to the physical life of the mother) was superseded by other issues considered, but not truly, proportionate. 

The Pope, the USCCB, both claiming that they were not endorsing a candidate (which is forbidden) in fact were clearly endorsing the Democrat ticket using careful, but clear, wording about things nuanced, which apparently the Dogma as articulated in the Catechism lacks. 

And today, the coup de grace. The USCCB, under the leadership of the Los Angeles Archbishop, congratulates the Catholic Vice President Biden on his as yet unofficial status as the President Elect. 

The leadership is contemptuous of the Traditional Catholics. I have always had reservations about them, myself. I have always favored the Novus Ordo. I like that the Holy Spirit (in my view) guided Vatican II to bring the people more into the liturgy. I have resisted the Extraordinary Form because it does not appeal to me as much as the person in the pew. But the FSSP is starting to look pretty good to me. People who have converted to Catholicism have said that among the reasons for the decision is that there is a Magesterium. What is true is not up to the ideas of different pastors and churchgoers. There is a unity of theology and an of the people in following that theology. Not these days. In fact, it appears that those who want to try to adhere to what is still supposedly the unchanging Truth, are becoming the outliers. It is a parallel to what is happening to the Conservative in the political realm. 

It does not matter much that I am not happy with the Church leaders. They aren't interested in what I have to say as it does not accede to the nuance which they would force on us, a nuance that really makes Catholicism just another religion, made in man's image not in God's. The Church must change to accommodate man, not man to accommodate God in this scenario. It would be less or a struggle for me if I could just accede to this and let my conscience off the hook. 

What am I going to do? It is a day to day thing.  Each day I pray just to remember Christ in the Eucharist. And the strength that He will, I beg, give me. It really is a battlefield. 

 

Whose face? THAT face.

I guess I can honestly say that I am not, as the West Hollywood government commands, being a "maskhole". I have dutifully worn my mask to the extent that I go out at all any more. 

The hook upon which wearing masks is being successfully enforced is that most decent people don't want to take any chance that by doing or failing to do something they will hurt another human being.  The mantra is that science supports the absolute necessity to comply. But of course, SCIENCE does no such thing. The SCIENT-ISTS currently in vogue say so. Those that say otherwise, also quite a large group of people who only have credibility if they speak "right truth", are suppressed, "fact" checked, excised, fired and otherwise mocked and ridden out of town on a figurative rail, complete with psychological tar and feathers. 

The fact that those holding us in face prison or home lockdown once held precisely the same opinion as those of us who think mask wearing is not about public health. But that opinion did not serve the needs of politics, or manipulation or control. 

I have read and heard of people who seem to have tested positive for Covid, or had symptoms, who swear that they have held to the letter of the rules and regulations. I believe them. To me, that is further evidence that wearing masks and locking down and wreaking physical and psychological havoc on the society and its people is not merely futile, but persecutory. I know of at least one child, about age 8, who is now a full obsessive compulsive about germs. She wasn't before the mandates for our health.

We are now more than half a year past the time we were told, with great authority and reliance on the "right" scientists, these restrictions would become unnecessary as we "flattened the curve". I know, you say, "But the curve is not flattened!"  That was entirely predictable as we were told even back when this all started, in contravention to the promise of loosened restrictions, that in the fall, there would be a "second wave".  It's the fall. And the curve is winding up again. Lots of "positive" cases. What positive cases means is a malleable term. The fact that 99 percent of those who get the virus survive, and even 95 percent of those who are in risk categories, is irrelevant. It's flu season now too, so, it's looking like "flattening the curve" may be devoutly wished for but is an impossible dream. That is, unless certain social conditions are met in the opinion of those who are holding the political strings. 

What's gotten me on this yet again? Well, it was this West Hollywood campaign. How did I find out about it? Well, I was taking one of my furloughs into the outside world in my car, on my way to the doctor, I think, as provided by the usual terms of house arrest, and I saw a colorful banner, a person wearing a mask. It said, "Cover THAT Face!" Not something personal, like "Cover YOUR face!" or "Let's all cover OUR faces!" But THAT. One face is the same as another, and it is not animate or human, it is THAT. Nothing to distinguish us. One human being is the same as another. 

I know. Many of you don't agree. You are still of the opinion that this is all for our good. You think this is just temporary. You must think it is only temporary, or you would be in a state of panic for the reality, which is that when they say, "This is the new normal", they mean it, and what some totalitarian countries couldn't do by arms, has been done by our own countrymen, to cover us up, to shut us up (literally since you can't hear anyone in a mask), and to make sure that OUR faces are not seen one by another and that our interactions are kept quite, quite separate. 

Don't get me on the fact the Churches are still closed on the inside. . . .another levelling of humanity by fellow humans with the will to power, successfully engaging in the deconstruction of our society. 

I note in looking at the link below, that it says "Cover-your-face". Somewhere in the marketing, someone got the idea to make it THAT face. Yes. Be anonymous. Be compliant. 

People like me are having a particularly hard time. We have always bowed to authority. But authority no longer has the underpinning of anything resembling the objective good. It is now a matter of whatever the persons or groups who have power FEEL or WANT to accomplish. You believe it's about  health? In a way, it is. It's about THEIR health and well being. And if you get in their way, THAT anonymous face and the person it once signified will be sacrificed for the newly defined good. 

My dad, dead now nearly 13 years, predicted that our society was on its way to a catastrophe, though he couldn't possibly have conceived this particular scenario. He knew who would author the catastrophe. He used to say, "I won't be here for what happens, but I feel sorry for you, who will be." 

I didn't think it was possible to happen this fast. But here we are. So, you, "Cover THAT face!" And await further instructions.  

 https://wehotimes.com/dont-be-a-maskhole-weho-launches-cover-your-face-and-keep-your-space-outdoor-campaign/

Perceptions from A Photograph

The only remaining member of my mother and father's immediate family is my mother's youngest sister, Terri, who is on her way to being age 94. We speak fairly frequently though she lives on the East Coast. She is fortunate that her nieces on her late husband's side are so very attentive to her. She still, officially, lives in Manhattan but in the last year, those nieces and their extended family have managed to get her to spend more time with them at their homes. She just came back from Florida with them and insisted on being returned for at least a few days to her high rise building smack in the middle of New York. She is slowly going through her things and deciding what she needs to keep and what can be discarded. 

When we talked recently, she was reminding me that my late mother, who died long ago at the age of 48, had been her matron of honor at her wedding in the late 1940s. She mentioned a photograph she had on her dresser of my mother, and father, from the wedding day. I have been in that room, but frankly, I had forgotten about the fact I probably had seen it on one of my visits in the past. 

My aunt has no familiarity, at all, of things technological. She barely manages an answering machine. But she asked her grand nephew, who, when she does insist on being in her apartment, stays with her during the week, if he could send me the photograph. 

It is actually one of the few of my mother and father together. I may have one or two in my memorabilia. I suppose that is largely because my father was the one who usually took pictures, and he even was a bit of a creative in that regard. Many he took of my mother when they were engaged and just shortly after they married circa 1946. They were lovely, even innocently sensual shots of a young woman who dreamed of being a model but never quite had the, let's call it. . ."oomph" to persist. 

I want to veer a little here. I used to be into psychology. I actually was both a client and an official student of the practice. I worked as a trainee therapist for about two years before I gave up the idea of switching to the profession from the law. There is this not very scientific test used, well it was, who knows if it is any longer, called the Thematic Apperception Test. A series of pictures is given to a patient/client. The patient is asked to describe, to tell a story about the pictures. It gives a therapist or test examiner an idea of how the person responds, or thinks about life, or about the people around him or her. It tells you something about personalities and dispositions when two people see the same picture and one describes a happy scene or can interpret the scene with positive nuance (maybe this, or maybe that) and the other describes a depressive one, or even a tragic one. Or a third sees nothing in particular at all.

Well, I guess my photo brought to mind the thematic apperception test. Now, of course, if this were a real test for me, the picture would not be of anyone or any scene with which I would be familiar. There wouldn't be a context in which to judge the circumstances and the state of mind of the people so as to be a kind of tabula rasa for the state of mind of the person doing the interpretation in this case, me. So, the analogy is not quite solid. I knew these two individuals, one better than the other, clearly, as I was 20 when my mother died and 54 when my father did. My mother was an enigma. My father was as well, but there was more time to unravel his pattern, and he left behind a lot of writing that complements my own experience and the stories of others. So, admittedly, my interpretation of this photograph is inevitably colored by my own observations of these two unique individuals to whom I owe my existence and my relatively successful navigation of life thus far, with its commensurate (to all of us) bumps and detours. One thing the picture reminded me of--I miss them, both. Each is half of me. 

Something has occurred to me as I have charted the course of this entry.

Let's do a little TAT with those of you who take a look, if you are of a mind. If you like, in whatever fora you choose, tell me what you see. A few of you know me a long time, and will know how I might or might not interpret the scene and the people. But try to stick to the photo itself and tell me the story of these people as you see it. And then, in a couple of days, I will offer further thoughts. 

Here is a teaser about my father, that is a fact. He is wearing a ring. I never, in life, saw him wear a ring. When he died, he had no rings. There is a story about that ring. I have to do a close up and see what kind of ring it might be. It might be a college ring because he had just graduated on the GI bill. The people we think we know are fascinating. Even the people we don't know. 

Maybe one day this photograph will be in some antique shop and someone will stop by it and make up a story of the people in it long gone. That is a kind of nice earthly immortality. 

The Illusion of Our Importance

As most of you know, I am a person who believes in God, and I believe, also that God has a mission for each of us within the world. I would dare say that we are, individually, and as the communal fruit of His creation, important--to Him and for His purposes and to cultivate our good for His glory. 

But how do we view our importance? We view it in very earthly terms, with little regard, it seems to me, for the eschatological, and even less for the God who is the arbiter of that destiny. 

Just in case it seems that I think myself outside of the illusion of my earthly importance, please note for the record that I have as many illusions as the next self-deceiver. 

What put me in mind of this, today? I had a doctor's appointment, a follow-up to my recent tests. It had been scheduled significantly in advance. I complained perhaps on these very pages how I become angry at the fact that when I need to speak to my medical providers, I have to go through a maze of technology and guardians of that technology, the nurses, the physician's assistants, the office staff, usually with what to my mind seems to my mind a level of dismissal. But when it is time for THE appointment, I receive a call or a text or both, reminding me not only of the appointment but the requirements that append thereto--to confirm, or to timely cancel, with a very firm reminder that the failure to appear will end in a fee, and a further reminder to make my appearance at least fifteen minutes before my appointment, for reasons that have never been clear to me, since I always wait those fifteen minutes. And, in the days of covid, upon arrival, I am not merely to wear a mask, but to be screened for fever and to fill out a form regarding where I have been and how I have been feeling prior to my arrival. Although many of the waiting room chairs are marked with prohibitions for seating, so that patients aren't  sitting right on top of one another, I do notice that the room is pretty full. In the narrow hallways lined with doctor offices and exam rooms, it seems to me that we pass shoulder to shoulder. 

We are all terrified of passing the little blue line before the reception desk if there is someone already at the reception desk. 

A woman takes her place at one of the two windows to announce her presence for her appointment. She is very urgent, even demanding. "I am late, but please tell doctor so and so that I am here. Otherwise he will be mad at me." The receptionist nods but offers no particular response. She, like I, knows that doctor so and so, is not looking for an announcement, and that he is not urgent about whether or not she has appeared, late or otherwise.  The woman repeats her command. It seems to make her feel better even if the reception desk does nothing about it. She sits. And immediately, she makes a call, to the downstairs pharmacy. Of course, patients are asked not to make phone calls in the reception area. However, this lady clearly feels she has dispensation. I am amazed at the ability of some people to draw all attention to themselves as if some revelation will be forthcoming. She has her conversation, all the while seeming to check her person for. . . .injury, rash? I couldn't quite tell, except that her health was it seems a matter of global significance. 

I had been in a bad mood, as mostly I always am, when it comes to doctor's offices and their regulations as against their sometimes cavalier attitudes toward patient questions and concerns, and as a patient myself, I was amused at the fact that like this lady I was watching, clearly I thought that my health must be of global imporance, to be in such a mood. 

As usual, a staff person called me, mangling my name.

Something in me turned. What was the point of my acting the role of sourpuss? I have been praying to the Lord to abandon myself to whatever is His Will for my life, to let go of my need to control, particularly as the world, small and large around me is completely out of control. I was going to do something that doesn't come naturally to me, not try to make myself seen, to give in to my illusion of importance, and just, as someone I know says, "Go with the flow." 

As usual a nurse came in and took blood pressure  and asked about my medications. And then she left. The doctor came in and asked about my medications and took my blood pressure. He was pleased about the working of my stent. I am pleased about the working of my stent. For further precaution against covid, my blood would be taken in that room instead of in their lab. I didn't mention the fact that people seem to be all over the place in relatively small spaces. I asked for a couple of referrals which were given to me at warp speed after my blood tests. "See you in February," said the doctor.

There were no appointments available in February, as the doctor is booked up continuously. But I did get the second week of March. 

I have had some people coming and going to do a repair of my terrace. They started last Tuesday, removed the entire flooring of the terrace except for the wood foundation, and have done nothing since. Today, they showed up when I was leaving for my appointment. They can work with me gone. When I came back, nothing had been done. I have no idea as I write whether they will be  back tomorrow. 

I was still of a "letting go" state of mind. Good. My blood pressure didn't rise and once again I did not give in to the illusion of my importance. The earthly realm couldn't care less about my illusions.