June 25, 2022, The Morning after Roe V Wade

Oh, my God,

I have yet to turn on the telly, but it seems we woke up this morning to find the world did not end yesterday, despite the hysterics who would have us think so.

You knew it would not.

You have given us yet another morning to stretch and face the future, come what may. You have left us with the renewed challenge of determining our fates, and the opportunity to build on the strengths of our collective hopes, dreams, and expectations to make this world a place we would be happy to leave our children’s children. That free-will You gave us? It is still here.

Thank you, Lord.

Now, if we may trouble You for Your assistance,

Remind us to let cooler heads prevail. Inspire us to lower our voices, slow our cadence, so that we may sense the correct direction to take us to the highest and best good for our neighbors, our towns, our country, for humanity as a whole. Help us to respect each other, and each other’s needs. Save us from those who would lead us into temptation for their personal political gain. Silence them, so they will listen to those who elected them, and develop plans to benefit us all. And while you are at it, give us the wisdom to understand that we are each other’s enemies only if we choose to be.

Please remind us to respect each other, regardless of our age, heritage, religion, social stature. Remind us that the children of our communities need our guidance, our respect, our direction, and our protection. And remind us that talk is cheap. Correct action is necessary and required.

So, just do it, okay, Lord? Save us from ourselves. We need You now…even those of us who do not believe in You, for it is true that bidden or not bidden, You are present, and believe it or not You ultimately direct our hand.

Amen, and thanks for today’s rain!

Rox

JUNE, AND THE LIVING IS, WELL, EASY ENOUGH

(sung to the tune of “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess with apologies to Ira Gershwin}

Yes, it’s Juuuune

and the livin’ is easssyyyy

Plants are wil-ting…

in the hot summer sunnnnn…

The soil is riiiichhhh

and the grass is good loo-kin’…

So, hang tight ‘lil poppies

Your bloo-ooms aren’t quite do-oone…

06.22.22

May Peace Be with Them All

Not far from where I now live are the buildings of the old Catholic Loretto Heights College, opened by the Sisters of Loretto in 1891.  The whole campus has been sold and resold over the years, but the graves of 62 Sisters of Loretto are currently buried on the site in a quiet corner at Amherst and Irving.   They have been fenced off and protected for years in  their quiet corner, but now that the entire campus site is being redeveloped in to low income housing in the old dorms, and retail, other housing sites, with streets and sidewalks…it has been decided by the Mother House to exhume the old Sisters and move them to Mt. Olivet, the Catholic Cemetery in Wheat Ridge.   

There have been many protests…but ultimately, as I’ve told my non-Catholic raised friends, you don’t argue with the Brides of Christ!  😊  Just do it… All in all it will be better for the remains to be joined with other sisters and priests who founded and built this area. Back to their community, as it were.

This morning I stopped by to see if they’d started the project (was on my way to Home Depot), and happened on a representative from the Archdiocese of Denver in charge of the project…it was a serendipitous opportunity to have a long conversation about what’s occurring. It is all pretty fascinating…historical impact, religious rules, neighbors stopping by to talk (guilty)…the people enacting the move are in for a loooong couple-three weeks of work…    …HA

The exhumation begins this next Monday, and will continue each day 7-4, until completed.  Each plot will be hand dug by archaeologists/anthropologists trained in that sort of work.  A Sister of Loretto and a rep from the Arch Diocese will be onsite each day. The graves are almost all over 100 years old, so hard to say if even the pine boxes will remain, but they can determine by soil studies where wood is/was, bones are/were.  There is an unlikely chance they may come across an “incorrupt” body, one that has not decomposed, at which time all work would stop until they determine what that might have happened. Imagine THAT!   Interesting times, interesting work…those jolly ol’ nuns are probably enjoying the show.    I can just hear those high pitched, squeaky old voices singing “Now thank we alllll our Goooood..”

Will keep you posted…this is truly the end of an age…the Sisters of Loretto led the charge in the West in so many ways…all across the West. Determined women devoted to their mission.   Peace be to them in their next adventure. 

JUNE 2022

At last! At last! June third has arrived. I am not counting June 1st, since it was rainy and cold, and it snowed heavily in the mountains that day. But today, the sun is out early with the promise of heat. Selah!

I do like the high desert. I have lived here most of my life. I find when I visit either coast, my dry skin stops itching leaving me nothing about which to fidget, my hair softens and hangs, my sinuses seem to annoyingly swell. It’s that wet heat that gets me.

There are trees on the coasts. Lots of them. Lovely, but intimidating after a few days; dark at night, hanging over the roads, hiding who knows what animals that shreik and rustle the leaves. Have you ever heard a meerkat in the woods? Like a baby crying, shudder. It’s no wonder so many great, scary tales originate in New England. And don’t forget the Pacific Northwest, with its rain and mudslides and apple maggots…oh, Lord…just the thought of an apple maggot. And moose crossings. Oh, and Big Foot!

The gardens do grow lush on the wet edges of the country; the rose buds in Santa Barbara are as big as your fist – I’m talking a grown person’s fist. You can pick pomegranates from your neighbor’s tree on the way to school, if you are inclined, though your blood red stained lips and teeth and fingers leave no question about what you’ve been up to. There are camelias, and oleanders, and giant redwoods in California. And eucalyptus trees with trunks as large as houses. Pity the sidewalks where the trees grow tall; they crack and heave…murder on little knees trying to roller skate to the corner and back. Sidewalk surfing generally involves a split lip or bloody knee or two. The Florida coast is flat, and wind blown, and sandy, sandy, sandy clear into town. Palmetto bugs, big and ugly and everywhere; geckoes, and citrus rats – shiver – Flowering jacarandas and towering kapok trees, and grapefruit trees calling out for a steal when no one is looking. And peacocks in the old orchard, and mermaids, REAL mermaids, in Weeki Watchee!

Yeah, there is much to be said about life on the coasts… great views, great seafood, great people, but mildew and mosquitoes and silverfish, and killer fogs with ghost ships lurking. Here on the Colorado plains we too have great views, great Mexican food, great people (though many have only recently moved here and have brought their politics and over the top lifestyles with them), flies and brown recluse spiders and rattlesnakes and tales of crazy pioneer hatchet ladies…in New Mexico we had tarantulas and quick lizards with blue tails, oh, and scorpions (always check your shoes and socks before putting them on), and aliens – so they say.

All the old cliches apply: “To each his own.” “Bloom where you’re planted.” “You can’t fix stupid” uh, not that one…. Suffice it to say that at the end of the day, Dorothy was right… despite the call of the wild, the temptations of travel, lunch in the luxe of an old gangster’s pink hotel, “There’s no place like home.”