Category Archives: Personal

The lot up the road

I live in a rural area; the road we live on is zoned “agricultural.” There are a number of houses along it, but all are pretty widely-spaced apart. During the early morning when the weather is nice I like to go for walks up the road with a Rosary in hand and pray while strolling. I say “up the road” as there is a rise in the grade to crest the top (the road climbs over a hill). Soon after starting out from the end of our driveway there is a pleasant pastoral vista of an empty field “up the road” backed by a long row of evergreens and other trees. (For some crazy reason, I get an almost irresistible urge to grab a copy of Grit magazine and start reading.)

firstshot”

second

The other day when I was driving home from somewhere I saw to my dismay a sign posted along the roadside by this vacant field, “SOLD: nameofhousingdeveloper and phonenumber.”

Rats. Someone is going to build a house (or houses?) there.

While I don’t begrudge or hold a resentment against anyone from wanting to build a home along a nice, quiet, rural street, I couldn’t help but feel that “I wish they picked somewhere else!”

I stood there with Rosary in hand pondering the scene in my pajamas. Yes, I go for walks along the street in the morning still dressed in my jam-jams. As I said, it’s a rural street, hardly anyone else is around. So there I am, Rosary in my right hand, slippers on feet, floppy gray socks, plaid pajama bottoms and baseball-sleeved shirt with coffee stains on front, and faded thin bathrobe wafting a little in the breeze, the rare vehicle taking wide berths around me (despite my being along the shoulder of the roadside-there are no sidewalks, either.)

Where was I? Oh, yes, pondering the scene. So I’m staring vacantly across the road at the sweet empty field of various grasses and weedy flowers and I’m trying to get all spiritual about it as I want to write a blog post about something, anything. And something did develop in my consciousness.

fourth

Someone’s going to build a house there. Maybe more than one. That land has been there for like, millions of years and probably no one has ever lived there before, (population density being on the profoundly low side prior to European colonization of North America). Given the perpetually uncertain future, who knows how long the presumed housing will last and if anyone will replace it centuries hence? So, for uncounted eons no one’s ever lived on that spot until a year or so from now.

We are not here, then we are here, then we are not here, again. The land remains. No wonder some misguided people worship the created instead of the Creator. And it is a wonder that while in the “we are here” phase, some other people, also misguided, confuse “ownership” with a moral absolute to do whatever they wish with the land they own. I am by no means denigrating the private ownership of land; on the contrary, that concept is the bulwark of freedom and autonomy. But we should be cognizant that the things we “own” are far more ancient than we are, and others will come after us and may wish to enjoy the land, too.

We “own” the land but should be mindful that it is more like “held in trust” for future people. What does that have to do with someone possibly building a house on that lot? Probably nothing, really. People come and people go, their dwellings, too. The land remains. And my brain takes off and arrives at conclusions unknown from the starting ponder.

Although my walk was this morning, it didn’t occur to me to take a camera, hence the late afternoon photos.

fifth

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Foray into mundanity!

Well, today was the first day that I was able to get outside and do something besides shovel snow. I wish I had been documenting the lousy Winter we in western NY have been having. You all missed out on a lot of serious whining and complaining.

I had intended to dig the veggie garden over but was unable to as it was too water-saturated from snowmelt and recent rains. So that may be a while. I did attempt to figure out the garden’s new dimensions (I’m expanding it a bit (to 30′ x 21.5′ from the 25′ x 20′). At least I got outside and quite dirty! I’m a firm believer in “going outside to ‘get outside’ yourself.” Admittedly that is much easier when the temps are very warm.

I may… keep a photographic record… of the plot.

…

St. Anthony took me very seriously when he helped me find my Mom’s Rosaries. Extremely sentimental, I had misplaced them, I knew not where. No clue. Asked St. Tony for help. Usually this comes… after a while. He likes to meander with me. This time, however, within like a minute or two I got a hint to “Check in that thing.”

And that’s where they were. (“That thing” being a mug I retired from coffee and tea use.) There’s a chance I might have placed the Rosaries in it some time ago during a desk reorganizing, but it would be against my typical considerations to put these valuable beads there. It might have been in an atypical moment, however. Thus, a low probability that I would have placed that mug on my search list. No proof of anything miraculous or supernatural, I’m just happy I found them.

These were Rosaries that she had been given by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (of Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA) at my Baptism. The story she and Dad told was that the nuns had looked me over (I was all of 10 days old) and prophesied that I’d become the first American Pope.

Scary thought, that one.

(In an attempt to get this blog more operational, I may have a few ‘personal,’ ‘reflective’, or ‘mundane’ posts through each week. Hence, ‘Foray into mundanity’ as the title for this post…

I’ll try to NOT BE narcissistic. I doubt that’ll be a worry as I’m not that interesting.)

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Please help a Marine Corp widow

The other day I blogged about my wife’s efforts to help the homeless, in Tents for the Homeless. Today is another day in which I’ll be exhorting you to consider another Work of Mercy

Stephanie Price, Marine widow.

Stephanie and her late husband met on CatholicMatch.com, where I also had met my wife. We continued our friendship with Steph on Facebook, (her husband wasn’t a member.) Our little group of CatholicMatch alumni were devastated with the news of her husband succumbing to PTSD and depression.

To quote from the gofundme campaign: “Stephanie, his beautiful wife who stood by him and tried all she could to get him the help he deserved is now left to pick up the pieces of their family life.

She is the one who has paid it forward for so many. Now this is our opportunity to not only show gratitude for a friend, but to also say thank you for YOUR service, devoted wife of a US Marine who dedicated his life to improving our lives.”

So, for all those who “Support the Troops,” now is your chance to do something. Michael had served in three branches of the US military (Marines, Army, National Guard.)

3576798_fb_1425518222.5883_funds

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Five AM should not exist

I awakened at 5AM this morning, a few hours before I normally have to (and on my day off, to boot!) so I can drive a ways past the village to get blood drawn and urine collected for testing. Had to switch to a new doctor for a few resentful reasons that won’t be explicated here. So the bleedin’ and the peein’ was requested at my physical a few weeks ago.

Five ante meridian does not exist on my homeworld. Denizens of my planet need sunlight to awaken, otherwise we are foggy of brain and need mass quantities of coffee later. So foggy was I that I almost opened MS Word instead of LibreOffice to write this post’s draft.

The world looks almost post-apocalyptic that early in the morning, when all is dark and sentients are missing. There are all these buildings standing about, but few humans anywhere. Those that are about, all look, well… as if they have agendas that differ from the norm.

I’m back home after a nap, and as I’m too blurry-brained to be able to do my Morning Prayers (not even the Rosary) all I’ve been capable of is to fly through StumbleUpon sites. I picked my “Fantasy Books” and “Fantasy Art” categories as I’ve reading “The Lord of the Rings” again.

This post is an attempt to get over my typical “blogger’s block;” that feeling that if I haven’t blogged in quite some time, I can’t again, ever. It’s usually cured by forcing myself to write about something, anything, and then the block is broken.

I sincerely wish to blog most every day, across my three blogs (see feed links in the sidebar). But I’ve been saying that since I started blogging in 2007. {{{sigh}}} Perhaps someday.

Off to pray.

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

It wants to be a novel, but perhaps later

About a year ago I wrote this post on a short story that decided by way of creative inspiration that: It wants to be a novel.

It was going fairly well, then some things in life got to happening and it was set aside.

And then earlier this year I got a new real-world job, details to be disclosed at some other time.

And then… Something happened at this job that got me to thinking creatively. Someone did something that I thought was odd, and that there JUST HAD to be a story behind it. So I got to thinking about the possible story behind the event, and decided that it had to be explored. Writing about seemed to be the best way and so off I was, on to another story.

I didn’t think about length, at this stage in my life I don’t care too much about such things and am just happy that I’m inspired to get story ideas and the overwhelming desire to write them.

I guess it also means that as I’ve matured as a person (which is about time as I’m over 50) and am taking this maturity into my writing “career,” such things occurring could mean that “writing” is becoming a vocation (something meaningful to do as well as to earn a living from) and not an avocation (something meaningful to do, like volunteering).

Why? Because of the seriousness of it. It’s less and less that I’m an “aspiring” writer and more that I’m an “actual” writer.

This new story has taken possession of me. While not obsessed with it as I have marital and job duties, and so on, I am occupied with it. When not actually writing, I am thinking and plotting.

But, I am writing. And in doing so, I am learning more about the creative process and also about me.

More on the latter in another post (I have to look up a quote. a-HA! “Search is your friend.” I found the quote -actually turns out to be two of them as they’re related – and they deserve their own post).

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Strange “sightings” in Church

While at Daily Mass this morning I saw someone who from behind and to the side was a dead-ringer for a friend I knew from kindergarten through some college. Same Mr. Spock-inspired haircut and shade of black hair, same physical build. It wasn’t JJ, who passed away from leukemia in 1995. But the similarity in appearance was amazing.

This brings up something else, a phenomenon I’ve noticed at my home parish, and nowhere else: Every so often I see people who bear a striking resemblance to someone from my old, hometown parish, either a physical similarity, or “something about them” is reminiscent. Odd. It would be one thing if I experienced this at other parishes, but that has not happened, only where I attend Mass now.

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Laying down track…

One of the things that I have learned about myself and writing since starting Listening to the Lost Voices is that in keeping with the Ernest Hemingway quote, “The first draft of anything is shit,” I have to “get over” the less-developed quality of first drafts.

First drafts just do not have the same depth and breadth of the final one. That may seem obvious, but for whatever reason the shallow, boring nature of all of my first drafts had dissuaded me from writing. “This is crap.” And I couldn’t see through to what a nice piece of fiction it ultimately might be. Self-doubt? Low self-esteem? Stupidity? And I’d stop, sometimes for years. There were other things going on which stopped me from writing for long periods, perhaps I’ll get to them someday. But concerning the nature of this post, I had serious problems with first drafts. At once exciting (“Could this be the one?”) and scary (“I’ll be humiliated.”)

It is different now. Why, I don’t know, except perhaps exposure to other writers on social networks has given me insight as to how others work.

I now liken first drafts, and second, third and beyond, to the laying down of track. Just like in building a railroad. You lay down the firm framework to get you to your destination (completed draft) and then afterwards you add the things that always followed when they built railroads out to the American West. At first there’s just the barebones story, and then things develop. As you go over the story in subsequent drafts, you expand upon it: flesh out characters and backstory, build up the world they live in, all sorts of things that would make the story “complete,” and unique to you. Just like in the development of communities along the railroads, hardy, rough “pioneers” settled first, and then more “civilized” types until finally what was Tumbleweed Gulch is now Denver.

In “laying down the track” of this story, I am actually looking forward to the process, at least so that I can get it done and start fleshing out the details. 🙂

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Listening to the Lost Voices

“Listening to the Lost Voices” is the working title of a short story I am writing. Oftentimes the story “seems to be writing itself.” Which is quite nice as writing can be painful, if the story can help out, great!

In short, it is a story involving a guy named John who can talk to people in Purgatory.

A few nicely odd things about this story: The self-doubt that normally defeats my fiction attempts is noticeably absent. I’ve taken to the notion that writing can be a form of therapy. I also think that pretty much all writing is autobiographical. Perhaps not so much that a writer picks an episode in their life and dramatizes it, but stuff from one’s life can serve as filler or material.

Another is that I am taking to heart some writing advice, which helps defeat the self-doubt I mentioned above. One bit of advice is from Ernest Hemingway, who said “The first draft of anything is shit.” That makes me feel better. Another is “If it ain’t on the page it ain’t on the stage.” I am not sure who said it, but it is something I picked up wayback when in a failed attempt at becoming a television and screenwriter. It originally meant the basic power of writers in an industry where they traditionally are disregarded: Hollywood. Directors, producers, actors get all the glory, but they can’t do diddly-squat until the writer writes and finishes. I have altered its meaning to be that “It ain’t gonna get done unless you get it written.” Profound, I know.

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

In the Land of My Exile I Praise Him…

I’ve renamed this blog. Why? because I thought it was a little conceited to name it after myself, even though it is mine and is intended to be “my home on the web,” for general “woolgathering, sharing and writing.”

The new name is from the Old Testament Book of Tobit, Chapter 16, part of verse 6:

Tobit 13:6

“When you turn back to him with all your heart, to do what is right before him, Then he will turn back to you, and no longer hide his face from you. So now consider what he has done for you, and praise him with full voice. Bless the Lord of righteousness, and exalt the King of the ages. In the land of my exile I praise him, and show his power and majesty to a sinful nation. “Turn back, you sinners! do the right before him: perhaps he may look with favor upon you and show you mercy.”

(Via USCCB.)

As a faithful Catholic who reads the Bible, I fully understand that life on Earth is a life in exile. Our true home is Heaven, and that land is where we trudge towards on our daily journey.

As a writer and blogger, I seek to employ my talents, whatever they are, to Praise the Lord. He gave me what talents I possess, and therefore I hope to use them to glorify Him.

Hence the name of this blog.

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Tenth Anniversary of my consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today marks the 10th anniversary of my consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary by way of the method according to St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe. And so, I am a member of his Militia of the Immaculata.

I do believe that being in the MI has been a major bulwark of my Faith. Along with all the usual practices of my Faith, such as frequent Mass, Confession and daily prayer, being a part of the MI strengthens my Faith experience. I am united in daily prayers to thousands of MI’s about the world, and I am a part of an apostolate that has as its roots the idea of spreading the Gospel message by a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary was the conduit by which Jesus came into the world, and Mary can be the guide and patroness of those who work out the Gospel in their day-to-day lives.

St. Maximilian Kolbe used the latest means of his times to spread the Gospel, and we Catholics today have access to technology that was unimaginable to him. Every individual Catholic with a home computer has access to software that can outmatch anything that he had in his entire “City of the Immaculate” publishing center in Poland. That astonishing fact makes you wonder how well we use the means at our disposal.

 

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)