St. Patrick's Breastplate: For my shield this day I call...

Because of the pain, sorrow, anger and compassion for the horrendous suffering in Boston yesterday,  I include in my meditations the powerful prayer known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate

St. Patrick's Breastplate For my shield this day I call: A mighty power: The Holy Trinity! Affirming threeness, Confessing oneness, In the making of all Through love…

For my shield this day I call: Christ’s power in his coming and in his baptising, Christ’s power in his dying On the cross, his arising from the tomb, his ascending; Christ’s power in his coming for judgment and ending.

For my shield this day I call: strong power of the seraphim, with angels obeying, and archangels attending, in the glorious company of the holy and risen ones, in the prayers of the fathers, in visions prophetic and commands apostolic, in the annals of witness, in virginal innocence, in the deeds of steadfast men.

For my shield this day I call: Heaven’s might, Sun’s brightness, Moon’s whiteness, Fire’s glory, Lightning’s swiftness, Wind’s wildness, Ocean’s depth, Earth’s solidity, Rock’s immobility.

This day I call to me: God’s strength to direct me, God’s power to sustain me, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s vision to light me, God’s ear to my hearing, God’s word to my speaking, God’s hand to uphold me, God’s pathway before me, God’s shield to protect me, God’s legions to save me: from snares of the demons, from evil enticements, from failings of nature, from one man or many that seek to destroy me, anear or afar.

Around me I gather these forces to save my soul and my body from dark powers that assail me: against false prophesyings, against pagan devisings, against heretical lying and false gods all around me. Against spells cast by women by blacksmiths, by Druids, against knowledge unlawful that injures the body, that injures the spirit.

Be Christ this day my strong protector; against poison and burning, against drowning and wounding, through reward wide and plenty … Christ beside me, Christ before me; Christ behind me, Christ within me; Christ beneath me, Christ above me; Christ to right of me, Christ to left of me; Christ in my lying, my sitting, my rising; Christ in heart of all who know me, Christ on tongue of all who meet me, Christ in eye of all who see me, Christ in ear of all who hear me.

For my shield this day I call a mighty power: the Holy Trinity! affirming threeness, confessing oneness in the making of all - through love…

For to the Lord belongs salvation, and to the Lord belongs salvation and to Christ belongs salvation.

May your salvation, Lord, be with us always. (Domini est salus, Domini est salus, Christi est salus; Salus tua, Domine, sit semper nobiscum).

Fire!

This is Tina and Anne's house.

This is my friend, Anne Owen, and her friend, Cain.

Anne, like me, is disabled. Until mid-August, Anne and I planned to become apartment mates, combining our Social Security checks to improve both of our lives. She and Cain actually moved into my apartment in early August and she was going to help pay my rent in September after she was freedom from her apartment lease.


Although its unimportant to this story, if you follow me on Facebook, you know that Cain and Alex didn't quite hit it off as buddies.

Alex tells his side of the story in an Alexicon blog post entitled Cain and Me.

This is Anne's sister, Tina Owen.

In mid-August, Tina's live-in boyfriend returned to Iowa from whence he came, living Tina with insufficient income to pay her rent. Anne and I discussed the situation; we agreed that it is logical that she share the house that Tina is renting.  Anne packed up the items she had moved into my apartment and, with Cain, moved into Tina's house.


On August 26th, I drove Anne and Tina to Anne's apartment and filled my CR-V to the brim with Anne's belongings. After unloading it, Anne and I returned to my apartment, planning to carry a final load of less important things to the house the following day,


Following Steinbeck, out plans were disrupted by the electricity at the house being shut off by the utility company. New plans: Anne would remain at my apartment until Monday morning when she could return her apartment keys to her landlord and she and Tiny could begin contacting resources to aid in paying the utility bill.


Early Monday morning, Tina contacted Anne with the horrendous new that the house was ablaze. As Tina later wrote on Facebook:

...my sister ANNE been very kind and understanding that her dense ass sis left a candle burinin and most of her shit is gone too* but damn who don't leave candles burnin sometimes!!! 

The fire is a tragedy. Tina lost all of her possessions, including her school books--university classes have already begun. Anne  lost just about everything of value, including the lyrics of song she has written over many years.

I am grateful that neither Tina or Anne were in the house when the fire began. Also that neighbors rescued Tina's two dogs. However, I mourn the loss in the conflagration of their cats. Three kittens of Tina's cat, Snow, we discovered dead in a closet. Anne discovered the body of one of the older cats; it was burned too badly to determine if it was Snow or Cain.

Whichever, I pray for those who have crossed The Rainbow Bridge and for the one who hopefully escaped.

I Was Overwhelmed by Fear

The massacre in Tucson really affected me. I have had to reevaluate my response to the political right wing. I find that the words of pundits such a Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin frustrate and anger me. However, frustration and anger are not the emotions that drive me. That is fear.

I was overwhelmed by fear. The rational basis of my apprehension is history. I’ll not go into that other than saying the action of the contemporary U.S. right wing parallel the end of the Roman Republic as well as the rise of 20^th Century dictatorships. I may expand on this in a future blog post. This fear is intellectual and rationale.

A second form of fear I experienced that is evinced by the words of the right wing pundits is purely emotional. Actually, this fear is closely related to grief and even more closely related to survival.

The extremists of the right wing have been threatening to do away with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for decades. I survive because of Social Security and Medicare. Without them I would have no shelter, food, or health care. If the Republicans and Tea Party do take Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid away from the American people, many of us will die.

I said that this dear is purely emotional. I do not rationally believe that Congress will end these program, although there is the possibility that Congress can gut them. Whatever! When I have heard the vitriol of hate, prejudice, and oppression coming from the mouths of Glenn, Rush, and Sarah in regard to anything I believe is important, I want (and have) returned volley for volley (to use a Palin-type metaphor).

After reflecting upon the words that President Obama spoke in Tucson on Wednesday, I again remember that I cannot be driven by fear.

The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives - to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud. It should be because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other's ideas without questioning each other's love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations.
I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here - they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.
That's what I believe, in part because that's what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation's future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.
I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.
Christina was given to us on September 11th, 2001, one of 50 babies born that day to be pictured in a book called "Faces of Hope." On either side of her photo in that book were simple wishes for a child's life. "I hope you help those in need," read one. "I hope you know all of the words to the National Anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart. I hope you jump in rain puddles."
If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today. And here on Earth, we place our hands over our hearts, and commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit.
May God bless and keep those we've lost in restful and eternal peace. May He love and watch over the survivors. And may He bless the United States of America." (Complete text HERE)

 
I regret that I have responded to the right wing, volley for volley. That action is not the Way of peacemaking. Also, being driven by fear is the way wars begin. I regret that I have allowed myself to be snared in that web.

There is, for me, only one way of not being driven by fear! It is simple: I must remember than I am not alone.

 

What Greater Grief ...

What greater grief than the loss of one's native land.

~ Euripides, Greek tragic dramatist (484 BC - 406 BC), Medea, 431 B.C.

Finally, a week after hundreds of wild fires began rampaging across Greece, all of the fires are under control. So reported the Associated Press about six hours ago.

Since the story of this tragedy first hit the news, my heart has gone out to the people of Greece. The loss of life, the destruction of villages and farm land, the plight of those made homeless by the conflagration, all seemed to rise each day. Also each day, the reports indicated the fires continued to burn out of control, the end of the inferno not in sight.

At some point, perhaps it was the account that said that the uncontainable fires had reached the ancient city of Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games, I began to think of this catastrophe as affecting people beyond the Greek nation to the whole of Western civilization. For, in my mind, the land of Greece is the cradle of Western civilization.

Even here in the United States, where knowledge of “the classics” is by far the exception rather than the rule, there is at least a recognition by many of classical Greek names, if not an understanding of what the classical references of those names: Plato (a sex club in NYC), Trojan (a brand of condom), Greek (anal sex).

Perhaps I am underestimating my fellow countrypersons. After all, in 2004 Hollywood did release the film Troy and even gave screen credit to the Greek poet Homer (not a "4-bagger” in a baseball game) as one the writers. That I understand more people were drawn to the film by the highly publicized nudity of Brad Pitt than by Homer’s epic, does not undermine the truth that Hollywood is able to produce a film based upon an heroic classic. And, in the same year, Hollywood also released Oliver Stone’s film Alexander, based upon the life of the Macedonian king and the first world conqueror. That the film was less historical than melodramatic and had poor audience attendance does not undercut that Hollywood at least tried to bring a bit of culture into the American world of historical illiteracy

But I digress from the tragedy of the Greek fires. With the cost thus far is 64 dead, an unknown number injured, nearly 500,000 acres of land burned, and an estimated $1.6 billion cost, the time for recovery is approaching, unless the unthinkable occurs:

Fears remained, however, that a new heat wave accompanied by strong winds that have been forecast for the weekend could feed smaller fires or rekindle those that smoldered around the country. ~ MSNBC

The people of Greece remain in my prayers even as my thoughts center on what that land of classic history, poetry, philosophy, democracy, theater, religion, and mythology means to the world. As such, for my late evening reading, I have taken Plato’s Republic from my library shelves.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~ Plato

Remember September 27:Details

April Horror: The Virginia Tech Massacre

The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them. ~ Samuel McChord Crothers

If you came here looking for Monday jokes, they are the post below.

What is being called by CNN the "worst mass shooting spree in U.S. history" took place today. As I am writing this post, a news conference is being held by officials on the Virginia Tech campus Blacksburg, VA. The "body count" (a term used by CNN and much too reminiscent for me of Vietnam media coverage) is now 33 dead and perhaps 29 wounded.

As I sit here typing while listening to the mostly argumentative and often absurd questions asked by reporters, I wonder at the training and intelligence of newspersons. The accusatory nature of many of the questions, expecially coming from one reporter (female voice) and the second-guessing by others, make it seem as if the campus administration and law enforcement are the culprits.

I learned when I was an army officer gathering and evaluating intelligence information that the picture of what actually happened is not immediately obvious. There are now bits of information available, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece must be evaluated for accuracy and relevancy and then placed in its appropriate spot the puzzle. This will take time. For example, at the moment it is not confirmed that the person who killed the two students in the dorm in the early morning was the same person who killed the others in the classroom building about three hours later.

One of the last questions, which I have yet to hear asked and which may never be asked and probably never adequately answered is: What is it about this time of year that leads to mass deaths here in the United States. It will be three days from today, April 19, 1993, will be the anniversary of the siege on the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas, that ended with 81 people dead. It was April 19, 1995, when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was bombed, killing 168. What is it about this time of year that leads to horrible massacres in the United States?

But the facts of what happened at Virginia Tech are for the future. Now is the time to mourn--and pray.