The political IS personal -- or is it? PT I

My daughter and I just returned from two great days in Washington, D.C. It was such a blast because of the generosity of a friend I hadn't met before Tuesday, Mollie.

Ms. Mollie and her husband Mark made me and the DQ feel so incredibly at home so fast. By the time we left this morning, I felt like I'd known her for years -- which just disproves my usual skepticism about virtual friendships.

She and I had worked on the same blog for a year -- and hit it off pretty fast. But you never really know whether you will truly feel at home with someone until you meet up with them, preferably in their normal habitat.

We don't agree on everything, politically speaking. Both of us, in our way, are used to being outlyers when it comes to our place on the religious and political spectrum. And we are both, if I may say so, a bit quirky.

There's a wonderful, refreshing honesty about her (I'm only getting to know Mark a tiny bit) that is winsome.

And apparently that's not solely my perspective -- she's a hit with college students, who can pretty much see through any kind of B.S. one can dish out.

Not to mention that the DQ and Mark and Mollie's dear 2 year old hit it off immediately. Amazing how a toddler can break through that gloss of teenage boredom.

So...is the political personal? Not when there are other shared traits and beliefs...or when you don't allow it to be.

Maybe we need to start giving seminars to the big boys and girls who live on Capitol Hill.

It's elementary, my dear Harry.

The Shoes of the Fisherman

Yesterday I went into the city to see an old friend. After some talk about family and careers, we spoke about the current state of affairs in the Catholic Church.

Our children attended the same parochial school. l talked about what it felt like to be a non-Catholic in that sometimes insular environment. He told me that even sometimes being from another parish made them feel like an outsider. And yet, I said, there were some marvelous teachers -- truly dedicated to helping my daughter in her oft baffling voyage through middle school. Overall, our parochial school experience was very good.

A short step then to the current tide of abuse cases bubbling like a witches cauldron in Europe, a tide that appears to go right to the door of the current Pope Benedict, former Cardinal Ratzinger.

My friend is a faithful Catholic in a local parish, one in which the priest is known for being conservative. So the harshness of his verdict surprised me.

It came down to: sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. According to him, those in the hierarchy perpetrated a pattern of secrecy. In covering up abuse, they deserved what they got.

In such an environment, of couse, the innocent clergy can also be victimized by the awful actions of the guilty.

My friend works for an anti-child abuse agency. So perhaps I shouldn't have been intrigued by the way he reacted.

But when I asked him why he stayed, he said what so many of us say about our corrupt and sinful churches -- we focus on the local church, not the global one. And we recognize that our clergy are also broken and sinful people -- like you, like me, even like the Holy Father.

I can't help but wonder what kind of institution will emerge out of this crisis. Will it be, as John Allen asked on NPR today, one that is willing to investigate and reform itself? Will believers look at the Pope the same way?

And what about future Popes? Will the faithful take a more Protestant position on the notion of obedience?

There is in this no reason to slam the Catholic church. You'd do better to look at your own denomination. Or your parish. Or yourself. We aren't any different on the inside. Any institution has its shadow sides.

And yet even to say that indicates how much the basics of the conversation have changed.

St. Peter's home hasn't imploded-- but the ground underneath it is shifting. Time will tell what it looks like when the smoke clears.

So where were they?

To this stay-at-home slacker (ok, so I had a sermon to write and church service to lead) the irony seemed inescapable.

Two of my friends attended marches this weekend.

One of them chronicled a Tea Party protest of the Democrat's health care reform initiative.

The other attended and videotaped a march in support of immigrants, undocumented workers, and wholesale immigration reform.

What united these two groups? Not a heck of a lot but conviction.

Thousands of people in the street. Speeches. Signs. Passion. I've been on enough marches to know that those who attend almost always feel the media called the numbers wrong.

The thing that fascinated me was that both groups apparently felt ignored or undercovered by the so-called MSM, the "mainstream media."

I've been wondering why so many of us engaged in the political process feel unworthy of notice by the media -- and I ain't talking about that reality show you think you'd be wonderful on.

It takes nothing away from commenters and advocates to wonder if perhaps the issue is larger and more complicated and can't be reduced to one major factor.

Yes, questions of bias, lack of representation in newsrooms, or even a reporter's cultural context are all legitimate.

In any given situation, from any one journalist, all of these may play into the mix.

Yet just as often, I have a feeling that what impelled lack of coverage might have been that one particular editor, with fewer and fewer journalists to assign to a story, decided something else was more important.


I don't have an answer -- or I think that there are many possible answers. But I'm intrigued that the press continues to be held accountable for sins of commision and omission in this respect -- even as they vanish.

Do U Limbo?

I made a lunch date today -- a date that involves going into Philadelphia.

Getting into our lovely town involves a half an hour drive and then about an hour on the train.

Now, this might not seem like a big deal to you readers. After all, it's only lunch, isn't it?

But it was for me.

I just started a new, part-time job. That means lots more writing, public appearances, visiting shut ins and older folks who can't get out -- and talking. Honestly, it's the add-on conversations that I find the most difficult.

That's on top of the other part of my schitzophrenic work life -- the outspoken writer with which some readers are familiar.

Not to mention selling a house.

Hopefully, buying a house.

And a child that needs to be picked up from chess club by 4:00.

What I found when I contemplated lunch with somebody I hadn't met was a tremendous weight of inner resistance.

NOT ENOUGH TIME! WHAT IF THE TRAIN IS LATE GETTING BACK? shrieked my conscious mind.

Not as limber, not as spontaneous as you were...said a quiet but irritating voice.

That's what got me off my duff. OK, I'm not as limber as I once was -- those aches and pains in the morning remind me when I blithely jumped out of bed without thinking about my neck or legs or back.

But I'm still young enough to make choices about how mentally and physically flexible I can become. And I'm finding it's a skill that I need to practice.

So it's the 11:12 from Exton. And hopefully an interesting talk about landscapes, and Quakerism, and photography. If I learn one new thing, it will have been worth the trip.

How about you?

Are there areas where you need to work on your inner or outer flexibility?

Maybe the Simpsons will give you some ideas...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs8ZPwgjxgQ

Guess who is coming to dinner?

Send out an invite, via snailmail or email....and whaddya get? Very often, silence.

Whatever happened to the fine art of the response? Personally, I think it may be a sign of the decline of civilization. Come join me over at Philly Moms for my post on the decline of RSVP'ing.

Comment away. You don't even have to tell me whether you are coming or not!

Cotton Candy Love Emporium

A week or two ago I got off the paid dating site, and signed up with the free one, OKCupid. If Match was kind of a motley crew, OKCupid is more like a Roman bachannal. In fact, I believe was the Greeks who did bachannals -- but those Roman folks knew how to party like it was 99.

It's fine to be a married guy or woman trolling for sex and love on OKCupid. Then there is the folk who call themselves available -- which can cover pretty much everything. Of course, the site also takes personal ads from bisexuals...I suppose, if you were a straight guy looking for a gay woman, you could find her here, also.

No secret that I am an egghead, a middle-aged woman, and definitely not in the hot babe category. So to find myself the object of unremitting male attention puzzles me a little bit. I don't understand why I'm being messaged by 30 year olds -- wouldn't they be happier with women closer to their own age? Of course, guys have been dating younger women for centuries without asking that question.

Unsophisticated moi, it still feels a little peculiar when guys I've never met ask me whether I'm dominant in the bedroom. Or want to have internet sex without having touched more than a cold screen and viewed my picture. At that point, I make myself invisible -- close the hall of mirrors, send the circus home.


It feels to me like a vast banquet -- where, if one seeks to take a sip or a bite, the food and wine is yanked out of reach. And when it comes to exploring love, or maybe even lust, we seem more greedy than smart.

So yes, I've been propositioned -- a lot, as I mentioned to the married guy who wanted advice from me -- and then accused me of thinking I knew the answers. I don't even take it personally anymore -- watching men and women in heat can be like viewing dogs rut.

If this is Cupid's idea of love, maybe he should hang on to those arrows! And yet, I do beleive, that in this group of revelers, there are a few souls as lost as I am. If we are fortunate, maybe we will find one another.

OKCupid is nothing more than American culture, with its so-called liberty, under the microscope. What does it say about our culture that we are lost in a sea of choices and yet can find nothing to nourish us?



Picture by David Shankbone under Creative Commons License on Wikimedia Commons.

A letter to Davila

My dear Davila,

I took my son to the bus stop this morning. It's a grey, rainy day in Glenmoore, with the quiet of the still early morning broken only by the sound of birds singing and the occasional car driving down to our main roads. People going to work. To the gym. To school. To the grocery store.

I took my son's lunch -- the organic apple, the juice, the protein bar -- and put it in his backpack. Shivering a bit in the chill rain, I chatted with another parent waiting with his stepson for the yellow bus to come.

When it arrived, my 12 year old flew out of the car and raced across the streets with his buddies. After a bit more yakking about cell phone plans, I turned the Volvo back on and headed down the cul-de-sac for home.

I didn't get the whole story, Davila.

I tuned into the radio report just around the time that you came across your 16 year old son's body -- and then discovered the 19 year old body of another son.

In Juarez, it takes little to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Your kids were at a party, where it appears that a drug gang mistook a bunch of teenagers for dealers.

You called the Mexican version of 911. And it took two hours for the ambulances to arrive. The journalist told his listeners that doctors and ENT's don't want to be first on a scene -- in case the killing isn't quite over.

For a moment, just a moment, I thought I was there, too -- looking at the bruised bodies of children with you, Madonna of Sorrows.

For a minute, I imagined bringing up boys in a town where death lurks around each corner. Watching them make the right choices - and praying that somehow they might escape. Loving them with the helpless passion of a parent, knowing that you would do anything to protect them.

But I am not with you. I am here, tears cascading down my face.

I am amazed at your courage in calling the authorities and your willingness to speak up. And though I mourn your loss, I am aware that I cannot comprehend it.

How long, mi hermana?

All over this world, we hear the voice of the mother -- a voice heard in Zion, Rachel mourning for her children...because they are no more.