End Of Summer: a poem

Tags

autumn, change, conscience, hope, hummingbirds, juncos, nature, November, October, Parkinson disease, raccoons, regrets, seasons, time, woodpeckers, writing

The hummingbirds have left for the season,

A small footnote to the end of summer.

One chapter ends and another will begin, too soon.

~

The bigger creatures still fight at the feeders,

Treasuring their sugared water—

Juncos and woodpeckers, and a bandit raccoon.

~

Nature is always the first to sense change.

With nature, it’s wise to remain friends,

For this writer’s mind too easily now forgets.

~

Autumn is upon me, but it lurks ominously this time.

I now can feel the darkened air of October and November.

If I could have lingered in the sun—but, away with regrets!

~

It’s good to move forward and put to rest the past.

It’s good to smile and find better thermal underwear.

It’s good to examine one’s conscience and therapy to write.

~

Capturing this moment, at least, passes the time.

Better yet, it exercises these shaky hands.

Mostly, as summer turns to fall, I won’t abandon the fight.

~

poem by S.A. Bort:  15 September 2016

photo by S.A. Bort:  14 September 2016

The real Polar Express

Tags

GoUnusual.com, John Hutchinson, MailOnline, Manitoba, Canada, northern lights, polar bears, Polar Express, rolling train hotel, Steve Dobson, tundra, Tundra Lodge Rolling Hotel

MailOnline

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2864197/The-real-Polar-Express-Rolling-train-hotel-offers-round-clock-bear-viewing-watch-Northern-Lights-too.html

FEEDBACK

The real Polar Express!  Rolling train hotel that offers round the clock bear-viewing (and watch out for the Northern Lights too)

• The Tundra Lodge Rolling Hotel in Manitoba, Canada, offers guests spectacular views of polar bears
• 32-room ‘hotel’ has observation areas meaning you can stay warm inside and not miss out
• As well as seeing the beautiful mammals, guests often see the Northern Lights from the balcony 

By John Hutchinson for MailOnline

Published: 07:19 EST, 7 December 2014 | Updated: 10:41 EST, 9 December 2014

Guests at this rolling train hotel will be hoping not to be like meals on wheels… as it is surrounded by polar bears.

The Tundra Lodge Rolling Hotel in Manitoba, Canada, is a custom rolling getaway where guests can enjoy regular visits from the giant winter mammals.

Guests can stay warm from the comfort of one of 32 rooms on-board the train – which boasts a large lounge area for viewing the bears.

Scroll down for video 

The polar bears can get up close and personal with guests staying at the Tundra Lodge Rolling Hotel in Manitoba, Canada

The sight of a bear perched up against your ‘hotel’ may look welcoming, but you’re probably better off aboard the train

The rolling train hotel gives its guests a unique opportunity to see some of the beautiful sights of nature

But daring visitors can get up close and personal with the bears on the raised outdoor viewing gallery and are often treated to the sights of the Northern Lights.

Steve Dobson, who listed the hotel on GoUnusual.com, said: ‘From your own private cabin window or the open-air observation platforms, you have constant proximity to polar bears in the area around the clock.

‘As evening falls, remain in the domain of the polar bear to experience sunset across the snow and ice.

Inside the Rolling “Hotel” Tour
[ For video, see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2864197/The-real-Polar-Express-Rolling-train-hotel-offers-round-clock-bear-viewing-watch-Northern-Lights-too.html ]

Guests can stay warm from the comfort of one of 32 rooms on-board the train – which boasts a large lounge area for viewing the bears

The hotel will offer the chance for some stunning landscape shots that will stay with guests forever

 

Despite the train and tourists venturing onto their homeland, the bears are intrigued enough to come right up to the train

Guests might also get the opportunity to view the phenomena that are the Northern Lights during their stay on the rolling train

‘Safe inside your custom lodge, you’ll enjoy surprising comfort, considering our environs.

‘This custom train of connected bedrooms, dining room and lounge car is built on wheels, allowing it to be stationed for optimal bear viewing each season.

‘There’s no opportunity anywhere else on the planet that affords the chance to be in prime polar bear habitat round the clock.’

Tundra packages start start at £5,000) ($7,895) for a seven-day trip.

Read more:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2864197/The-real-Polar-Express-Rolling-train-hotel-offers-round-clock-bear-viewing-watch-Northern-Lights-too.html#ixzz3LRy881E3
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Pope Francis: “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation.”

 TIME.com

http://time.com/3545844/pope-francis-evolution-creationism/

World faith

Sorry, But Media Coverage of Pope Francis is Papal Bull

• Elizabeth Dias @elizabethjdias

Oct. 29, 2014

Pope Francis leaves at the end of his general audience at St Peter’s square on Oct. 29, 2014 at the Vatican.  Gabriel Bouys—AFP/Getty Images

The “Pope Francis supports evolution” story is just the latest example of the press getting the Catholic Church completely wrong

It is official:  the media has gone bananas in its coverage of Pope Francis.

The OMG-Pope-Francis-Supports-Evolution story of the past two days is just the latest example.  Almost every news outlet, major and minor, has plastered Pope Francis’ name across the interwebs and proclaimed he has finally planted the Catholic Church in the evolution camp of the creation-evolution debate.  The only problem?  Almost every outlet has got the story wrong, proving once again that the mainstream media has nearly no understanding of the Church.  And that madness shows no signs of stopping.

Pope Francis’ real role in this evolution hubbub was small.  He spoke, as Popes do, to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Monday, which had gathered to discuss “Evolving Topics of Nature,” and he affirmed what Catholic teaching has been for decades.  “God is not a divine being or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life,” he said.  “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”

Anyone who knows anything about Catholic history knows that a statement like this is nothing new.  Pope Pius XII wrote an encyclical “Humani Generis” in 1950 affirming that there was no conflict between evolution and Catholic faith.  Pope John Paul II reaffirmed that, stressing that evolution was more than a hypothesis, in 1996.  Pope Benedict XVI hosted a conference on the nuances of creation and evolution in 2006.  There’s an official book on the event for anyone who wants to know more.  Pope Francis’ comments Monday even came as he was unveiling a new statue of Pope Benedict XVI, honoring him for his leadership.

None of that seems to matter to the media; the internet exploded all the same.  Site after site after site ramped up the Pope’s words and took them out of context.  Headlines like these added drama:  NPR: “Pope Says God Not ‘A Magician, With A Magic Wand.’”  Salon:  “Pope Francis schools creationists.”  U.S. News and World Report:  “Pope Francis Backs the Big Bang Theory, Evolution” (with a subhed:  “Also, the pontiff says he’s not a communist”).  Huffington Post. Sydney Morning Herald. Telegraph. USA Today. New York Post.  The list goes on and on.  Only Slate did its homework.

Wednesday morning the stories continued with new, analytical twists.  The New Republic came out with a story titled, “The Pope Has More Faith Than the GOP in Science.”  The Washington Post posted a piece, “Pope Francis may believe in evolution, but 42 percent of Americans do not.”  It doesn’t seem to matter that Pope Benedict XVI called the debate between evolution an creation an “absurdity” in 2007.  MSNBC opened its piece saying, “Pope Francis made a significant rhetorical break with Catholic tradition Monday by declaring that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real.”  NBCNews called the Pope’s statement, “a theological break from his predecessor Benedict XVI, a strong exponent of creationism.”

This embarrassing narrative repeats itself over and over in Francis coverage.  It happened last week when the Pope, again, voiced the Church’s long-standing opposition to the death penalty (having also done so in June, and after John Paul discussed the topic at length in an entire encyclical on being consistently pro-life in 1995).  It happened at the Synod of the Bishops on the family, when the bishops talked about welcoming gays and the media whipped that up into an inaccurate story about an enormous policy shift toward gay marriage.

That’s dangerous, especially because this furor seems to occur most often when hot-button Western political issues can be tied to the Pope’s statements—evolution, death penalty, gay marriage.  Wednesday morning, Pope Francis asked for prayers for 43 Mexican students who were burned alive by drug traffickers.  It is unlikely that that will get the same pickup.

Moral of this story:  Don’t believe most of what you read about the Vatican.  Papal coverage has gone wild.

The Most Surprising Photos of Pope Francis

Michael Sohn—AP

Visitors take photos of Pope Francis as he speaks from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

Story-telling: To our children’s children’s children

“. . . as these tellers of tales sat around the fireside or under the shade of trees, and looked into the rapt faces of the listeners, the deeds of men, monsters and the phenomena of nature became fused into one and their work grew architectonic, the story taking on artistic form and moving on to a magnificent climax, revealing in the end the ethical order of the world.”

So summarizes my following excerpts from the introduction of a small, tattered book [Wyche, Richard Thomas. Some Great Stories and How To Tell Them. New York: Newson and Company, 1910.], a copy of which was passed on to me by my grandmother.

With the spirit of Halloween once again animating us, it’s a time for the telling of macabre tales of ghosts, ghouls and goblins.  But then, it’s always a time for the telling of stories.  We are a storytelling people.  At times our tales have questionable worth, but often enough, we tell stories “taking on artistic form and moving on to a magnificent climax, revealing in the end the ethical order of the world.”

I hope that this blog of mine, When Is A Party Not A Party, is a storytelling blog in the above “artistic” and “ethical” senses—with stories of our exponentially-changing world, stories of library robots, rocketships from India to Mars and teenagers (“digital natives”) who multitask with current media technology in a super-fast manner–ultimately, stories of “spiritual development.”  It, at least, would make my late grandmother happy, and that would make me happy.  The best stories, ultimately, make people reflective of our world—and happy in the common quest to become a more positive force within it.

So, here are some brief reflections on the history and value of story-telling, of turning the outward in and the inward out, from a 1910 book that now spans almost a hundred years through the times of my grandmother, my mother and myself.  –SB

~

STORY TELLERS were the first teachers.  Before the art of writing or of making books, before even the runes or picture writing, there were story-tellers.  Sagamen, scalds, rhapsodists, bards and minstrels by word of mouth handed down through the centuries much of our literature.  Unconscious teachers they were, but none the less did they inspire and teach the people as they recited the deeds of their great heroes, . . . Before even the day of the Sagamen, somewhere far back in the morning twilight of the world, people began to tell stories.

When the child-race first looked out on the face of nature, saw the sun, moon, and stars; heard the stormwind and thunder; saw the tragedy of nature, the death of summer and the long sleep of winter, what did he think?  To him it was pregnant with conscious life—men, monsters or gods, to be obeyed, worshiped or grappled with.  This world of outward phenomena beating in upon him was a great fact, sometimes bringing cold, hunger and death, and at other times warmth, joy and gladness.  If the world of outward phenomena was a marvel to the child-race, none the less significant was the discovery of the world of inward phenomena.  Where did these hopes, these fears, longings, yearnings, loves and hatreds come from, and what did they all mean?  He did not stop to analyze, but in obedience to a universal law spontaneously expressed in some way what he saw and felt.

He had two great facts to deal with, the world of outward objects beating in upon him and the soul and self-consciousness stirring within him.  What must he do?  In some way give expression to what he saw and felt; he must make the inward outward.  He could interpret this outward world only in terms of his inward life.  He had life, joy, sorrow, difficulties, death, and when the day was over he would lie down and sleep; therefore the sun must do like wise.  When the sun came up from the sea and burned his way through the sky and went down gain, to him it was life—conscious life.  The sun strangled the serpents of the night; he went forth like a strong man battle.  Sometimes the storm-clouds would vanquish him; then he scattered his enemies, and from a clear sky smiled upon the children of men.  Then again he went down in a stream of blood, in the red clouds of sunset; and still again into the calm and perfect peace of a clear sky.

. . .

Some became expert in the recital of stories, and as these tellers of tales sat around the fireside or under the shade of trees, and looked into the rapt faces of the listeners, the deeds of men, monsters and the phenomena of nature became fused into one and their work grew architectonic, the story taking on artistic form and moving on to a magnificent climax, revealing in the end the ethical order of the world.

In some such way came the Saga and the Saga-man, the story and the story-teller.  Crawford says in the introduction to his translation of the Kalevala, the great Finnish Epic, that it dates back to a time of great antiquity, to a time when the Finns and Hungarians were a united people; in other words, to a time at least three thousand years ago.  Although the poem is as voluminous as the Odyssey, it lived all these centuries by oral tradition among the people.  It was collected and published for the first time during the last century.

In Rune III of the Kalevala, we have a true picture of the ancient story teller and his work

“Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,

Passed his years in full contentment,

On the meadows of Wainola,

On the plains of Kalevala,

Singing ever wondrous legends,

Songs of ancient wit and wisdom,

Chanting one day, then a second,

Singing in the dusk of evening,

Singing till the dawn of morning,

Now the tales of oldtime heroes,

Tales of ages long forgotten,

Now the legends of creation,

Once familiar to the children,

By our children sung no longer,

Sung in part by many heroes.

Far and wide the story traveled,

Far away men spread the knowledge

Of the chanting of the hero,

Of the song of Wainamoinen;

To the south were heard the echoes,

All of Northland heard the story.”

In the oldest specimen of English poetry that has come down to us, we read of Widsith, the far traveler:  “Thus roving, the gleemen wander through the lands of many men as their fate wills; they find ever in the North and in the South some one who understands song.”  These story tellers, sagamen, skalds, gleemen, rhapsodists, who wandered from land to land telling or singing of some great deed, were welcomed by court and king, as well as by the common people.  And sometimes as one passed from one court to another, a chain of gold hung about his neck as a royal gift.

These story tellers, bringing news from the outside world as well as giving the people glimpses of the higher realms of thought with which their story dealt, were true teachers and poets.  Not surfeited with book-learned lore, they spoke out of their hearts to the hearts of the people.  Their names have usually been forgotten, but their work remains in the stories of Ulysses, Siegfried, Beowulf, King Arthur, St. George, The Kalevala and similar stories—a picture of the life of the primitive race, a history of the spiritual development of man in time’s morning.

 

The spoken word has more life than the printed page.  Literature was first vocal, and nature’s plan has suggested the method for the education of the child to-day, and the stories she used have in turn become the stories for the children of to-day.

Note:  above photos by S.A. Bort, autumn 2014.

Three Essays Advocating the Abolishing of Money: III. “Imagining Earth (Without Money)”

02 May 1990, DENVER, CO:  Imagine earth without money.  Begin with the occupations that would cease to be.  The IRS workers would be the first to go; who needs taxes on a planet without paychecks?  Running a close second would be the lawyers; no one would have money to give them, and they wouldn’t work for free.

Who would miss the televangelists that peddle the good word?  Robert Schuller would have to simplify his Crystal Cathedral “gospel of prosperity” down to “the Gospel.”  And how would Jim and Tammy Faye raise cash for Christ in a world where a “donation” is the giving of oneself?  They wouldn’t.

Then, there would be the product distributors from Amway, Herbalife and Kirby; the peddlers of water purification systems, encyclopedias and aluminum siding; the entrepreneurs of ways to keep our lives tidy.  They would pass from this world without a eulogy.

Finally, on the slightly darker side of life, drug peddlers and prostitutes would also be left without soil from which to grow.  What bounty would there be, after all, from the selling of bodies and dependencies without the fertilizer of money?  Imagining earth without money is like imagining a garden without weeds.

There is something wrong with money and its cancerous effects on humanity:  money forces into a secondary position all other thoughts than those of acquiring earnings, just as a life-threatening disease forces into a secondary position all other thoughts than those of survival.  Only after the tumor of money has been wrenched free of its grip on humanity will this oppressive focus on survival be cast aside, like a broken cocoon.

The vocations that remain will be those that matter:  the teachers, the medical workers, the farmers, the pilots, the researchers, the scientists, the religious, the writers, the artists, the architects, the builders, the clothing designers, the engineers and the chefs.  Minds and hearts, without bonds, will be free to pursue the higher concerns of civilization.

What would motivate people to fill these vocations when money no longer exists as reward?  Ask yourself what you would do with your life if you didn’t have to earn money in order to purchase survival.

Would you build a sailboat and sail around the world with your companion while drinking 100-year-old bottles of Chateau d’Yquem white wine from the Bordeaux district of France; eating all the grilled, freshly-caught seafood that the world’s seas have to offer; making wild, passionate love five or six times a day on the foredeck, under the flying jib sail?

Would you build a log cabin in a secluded mountain valley next to a gushing stream that glistens like light through a crystal and read the entire fifty-four volumes of the Brittanica Great Books from Homer to Freud?  Or, would you commit yourself to eternal sluggishness as a couch potato by watching the entire series of videos of Star Trek, The Twilight Zone and The Lucy Show?

Suddenly being without the need to earn money would be similar to skipping grade school:  the idea sounds great until you’re at home for awhile, bored and wondering what to do next.  There is a natural motivation in people to be useful.  In fact, people are born uniquely useful.  In most cases, this usefulness is stifled as people move towards concentrating on the practicality of earning a living.  The impression that people would veer towards laziness when confronted with freedom is only because people today yearn for laziness as a drastic alternative to the imposed drudgery of their function in society.  Function is a substitute for usefulness.  In a world without money, people would be free to realize the full potential of their usefulness.

Why would a person purposely choose to be lazy (an act of rebellious escape) when their natural role in life has become unbound, recognized and appreciated?  Instead of laziness, there would be play and festivity:  the rejoicing of the body, mind and spirit in the celebration of being fully human and fully alive.  What wonders of human creativity could be revived?

In a world without money, education would be different.  Teachers would be teachers because they are truly gifted at teaching and their desire is to teach.  They would be free to wholly concentrate on the activity of teaching, instead of teaching while also having to earn a living.  Students would be in school according to their educational needs and not according to the level of their parents’ income (or lack of income).

School would serve to guide in the discovery of a student’s unique usefulness as well as to emphasize and strengthen the student’s awareness of that usefulness.  In the process of strengthening awareness, the student would come to an understanding of why certain jobs (with their underlying skills) will always be more effortless, and why other occupations will always require more effort (like swimming against the flow as opposed to swimming with the flow).

When students reach the end of high school, they would have both the ability for university level work (those who desire such) and a defined sense of direction from high school to a vocation (both virtually unknown today), based on the recognition and understanding of their natural, underlying skills.  Students today are so concerned about “priorities” like job images, jobs that are in demand for the decade of the nineties and amounts of income, that they are blind to how their unique talents translate into useful vocations.  In a world without money, education would be a process in which everyone gains and not a game in which some win and most lose.

Without the concept of money, work would settle into that which is necessary for the advancement of civilization.  People would practice their vocations throughout the world.  With the benefits of language study in school, carpenters would offer their skills in the building of housing throughout the world.  Doctors and medical aides would also be in demand worldwide.

The concept of ownership would disappear with money; people would be free to live wherever their vocation would be needed at the time.  Transportation would not be a concern since fares would be nonexistent.  Think of the entire globe as an extended metropolitan area.  As people now travel modestly among Northglenn, Boulder, Littleton, Aurora, Castle Rock and Colorado Springs, they could travel freely among Denver, Paris, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Prague, Beijing, New Delhi, Tokyo or Homer, Alaska.

Housing would exist for those workers living in each “suburb.”  Restaurants of all cuisines would serve meals cooked by those who love their occupations.  In a world without money, people would simply love doing the things that they do the best.  As a result, there would no longer be room for greed, crime, or empire building.  Purpose in life would be to fulfill creative potential daily instead of to “fill full” savings accounts for retirement.

Play and festivity would be hard to distinguish from work in a world without money.  In work that one truly loves, there is a sense of already being at play and of having to force oneself to break away for quiet time or simple frolicking.  One thing play would not be is an escape from work.  Instead, it would be a celebration of life; and that is exactly that imagining earth (without money) is all about.

~

by S. A. Bort / 6 August 2013 (2 May 1990)

Three Essays Advocating The Abolishing Of Money:  II.  “The Travail of Wage Labor“

Three Essays Advocating The Abolishing Of Money:  I.  “The Lower Depths of Capitalism”

PHOTO CREDITS:

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NOTE:

I originally wrote this May 2, 1990.  After twenty-three years, I thought I would tune it up a bit and publish it here on the blog, along with the two accompanying essays.

I sent these three essays to Burlington, Vermont’s Brautigan Library, named for Richard Brautigan and  initiated by his daughter, Ianthe.  The essays were among the first (in 1990) accepted, bound and placed on the shelves under the “Mayonnaise System Catalog Number” of:  “Social/Political/Cultural:  SOC 1990.007.”  My accompanying certificate states:  “LET NO MAN block the light of wisdom and inspiration found therein.”

See: http://dtc-wsuv.org/brautiganlibrary/?s=Stephen+Bort , http://www.cchmuseum.org/research/the-brautigan-library/ , http://www.thebrautiganlibrary.org/Blank.html , http://www.brautigan.net/responses-library.html , http://brautigan.cybernetic-meadows.net/tiki-index.php?page=The+Brautigan+Library and https://www.facebook.com/BrautiganLibrary for current information on the library.

Shortly after I was added to the shelves, I was contacted by Lawrence Ingrassia of the Wall Street Journal, who was writing an article on the opening of the library.  He had seen the above foreward to this essay and was curious about the concept of “abolishing money.”  He asked if I was a socialist.  I answered no.  He asked other questions, but in the end, his article of May 28, 1991 did not mention me.  His article can be found here: http://brautigan.cybernetic-meadows.net/tiki-index.php?page=Ingrassia+1991+Fictional+Library+Becomes+a+Real+Place

Falling Trees: a memoir

Nestled snugly between sleep and consciousness, I listened through our bedroom window to birds singing in backyard trees, dreamily wondering if the morning’s chorus included the two blue jays that I had spied late yesterday afternoon by the birdbath, or the red-breasted finches that granted occasional appearances or the rarest of all winged royalty to this backyard choir—the cardinal.  Surely, the gray sparrows were present in force this morning—this first day of spring.

Our cat Mittens moaned from the bedroom window, seeming frustrated, tapping his claws lightly against the pane of glass that separated him from all the backyard merriment.  With a sudden thud against the carpet, he jumped to the floor beside the bed.  My wife of fourteen years stirred for a moment next to me, then settled.

The shuffling footsteps of my mother in her slippers over a creaking kitchen floor could be heard faintly through the wall that divided our bedroom from the kitchen.  The wooden screen door between the kitchen and the pantry area of the garage opened, then closed, slapping four times against the door jamb before its reverse crescendo into silence.  The screen door opened again, then closed, slapping the wood four more times, again falling silent.  The footsteps returned.  I heard water running in the kitchen sink and then my mother’s hacking cough, chronic, seemingly lording its power over her costly prescriptions.

My father, unaware that he had less than four months to live,  made his way into the kitchen.  He pulled himself forward in his wheelchair using one foot, the one not paralyzed, against the kitchen floor.  His foot went down—thump!  He pulled himself forward.  His foot went down again—thump!  He pulled himself forward.  With his right side paralyzed from a 1979 stroke, he had learned to use his foot against the floor along with his good hand on the wheel to guide himself forward.  He stopped at the breakfast table.  I could see him there, even with my eyes closed and the wall of wood and plaster between us.

The aroma of fresh coffee and bacon drifted under the bedroom door, enticing me toward consciousness.  I pushed myself out of bed and headed for the shower.  Mittens passed me along the way, moving on a mission toward the freshly vacated, warm bedsheets, as if toward a bed of freshly cut, backyard grass, toasty warm from the morning sun.  One might have had the mistaken impression that he was visiting his parents here in the Panhandle of Texas.

When the various rites of morning had passed, and noon drew closer, the four of us loaded into a light-brown, eighty-four Buick Le Sabre that belonged to my parents.  The car was large enough so that my father’s wheelchair fit in the trunk and he in the front.  I drove.  The ladies sat in the back.  It was fourteen miles to Spearman, where the only Catholic Church in Hansford County offered their annual spaghetti luncheon as a fundraiser.  It was important to my mother that we attend.

Driving through the scarred and barren landscape, home to the Comanches little more than a century ago, I asked about Ed, my best friend in high school.  Still divorced, forty-one, and raising two of his three daughters in Perryton, Ed repaired roads and city vehicles.  His ex-wife Donna had their youngest daughter.  Howard, his father, had half his right foot amputated last December.  A diabetic, he had apparently stepped on a nail in his garage.  Not realizing the seriousness of the situation until too much time had passed, an infection developed, then gangrene.  Doctors were forced to cut his toes off.  Later, after no improvement, they cut farther.

For most of his life, Howard designed and repaired wooden, antique clocks.  He worked with other wooden antiques as well, but mostly, people wanted their clocks fixed.  He could have continued with his work despite the operations if his eyes had not gone bad as well.  For a while, his son, Ed, would use his good eyes and hands to do the repairs while Howard stood nearby, instructing him along the way.  Howard finally retired from work to relax and enjoy the time that remained with his family.

At the spaghetti luncheon, I recognized a handful of people, all very old now except for Cecilia.  I hadn’t seen her in more than twenty years.  A practicing nurse, specializing in respiratory care at a nearby hospital, she recently turned thirty-nine.

Cecilia, her cousin Kim, my friend Donnie and I often flirted with trouble.  She remembered clearly the times when we drove ninety miles to Liberal, Kansas.  Donnie was eighteen then and could buy beer.  In Texas, the legal age was twenty-one.  We drove back to Hansford County with Budweiser “Tall Boys,” which we drank, children that we were, sometimes drinking beneath flickering Christmas tree lights of the Panhandle night sky—so much light amid so much darkness.

Cecilia’s sparkling eyes stirred ghosts from their long slumber.  I introduced her to my wife.  Cecilia had never married.  She informed me that Donnie had divorced and moved to Oklahoma City.  He managed some Wal-Mart kind of store, she thought.  Her cousin Kim was still married, working as a county clerk at the Court House.  We talked for only ten or fifteen minutes, then said our goodbyes.

From the luncheon, we drove to Hansford Manor.  My Great-Uncle Ralph, ninety-eight years old last December, paralyzed from cancer around his spine, welcomed us there with his glowing smile and stories of life in the old Panhandle days, cattle ventures, wheat harvests and fruitful days in the banking business.

He was the first of our family to move to this county, in 1926.  He worked for the Spearman Bank until breaking off with a partner and forming the Gruver State Bank.  He had lived the most financially towering life of all among our family.

He bragged up a storm about his daughter Peggy, honored recently in San Francisco as “Volunteer of the Year” with a hundred and twenty-five dollar-a-plate dinner.  “One hundred and sixty-four people showed up,” he said with shining eyes—“a hundred and sixty-four!”  He had bronchitis, his nurse informed us, but sounded much better today than yesterday.  We spent fifteen or twenty minutes with him, then headed for home, allowing him his rest.  Before parting, as always, he kissed my mother’s hand and then my wife’s hand.

The early part of the week had stayed cold and windy.  Mid-week passed, and the wind turned calmer.  The temperature rose.  The road from my parents’ driveway to the gate of the Gruver Cemetery stretched just shy of two miles.  From the cemetery, the town of Gruver appeared in a distant haze across several fenced fields to the west.  While there, I hoped to revive some of the stories hidden behind the names that had been carved in stone—stories of people I once knew when they were alive and kicking.

A disturbing sight greeted me. Bird feathers lay scattered over the ground.  At first, I thought the wind had blown them in from nearby fields, but there were so many—literally, they covered the ground.  Walking further, I saw bird heads with hollow eyes and opened beaks, as if silenced in the midst of cries.  Whole wings, black with red centers, indicated that they were red-winged blackbirds.  The numerous bushes and hedges appeared freshly manicured.  Having nested in the shrubbery, the birds must have flown in a panic into the noisy, hedge trimmers.  Bird parts had fallen like leaves about the grave markers, casting a remarkable rudeness about this place of respect.  The grass had dried almost white with green sprouts of new grass poking out here and there.  Cottontails hopped from out of bushes, paused to look around, then hopped away.  I saw only one ground squirrel dashing about.

The grave markers faced east and west with the north-side highway running east and west as well.  Fields of dry grass bordered the cemetery on the remaining three sides.  I recognized more than half of the names on the stones.

Diana, a school friend of my sister’s, and Mark, who I mostly lost to at the town pool hall, share the same day of death:  March 10, 1973.  They had planned to spend that day together in Amarillo, but died instantly along the way in a head-on collision with another vehicle.  “Thy God Has Claimed Thee As Thy Own” was carved into both of their stones.  She was one month away from her sixteenth birthday.  He was twenty.

Mike, whose family lived across the street from ours, was returning to town with his wife on August 29, 1981 for a Thanksgiving weekend visit when his wife fell asleep at the wheel.  His neck snapped.  He was twenty-seven, and his wife survived.

Van, my brother’s best friend in high school, was leaving for college in New Mexico when he accidentally veered his Corvette off the road and into an embankment.  He died April 2, 1970, two months before reaching age twenty-one.  Buddy, his father, whose lawn I used to mow as a boy, died of cancer exactly three months ago yesterday, December 21, 1995.  He was three days away from his seventy-fifth birthday.  A small, oval photograph of a prize-winning steer had been permanently fixed upon his stone, where a picture of the deceased sometimes appears.  The dirt was still fresh and piled high.

Christian and Emma, my great-grandparents, rest next to my grandparents, Cuma and Arthur, near the center of the cemetery.

Walking there, among the stones, the timeless question came to me that when a tree falls in a forest . . . is there only sound if someone is there, to hear it fall . . . if someone is there, to speak of the sound to others?

That evening, my dad retired to bed early.  My mother fell asleep in the living room recliner with the television still on.  For a while, I watched her closed eyes and her slightly opened mouth.  I listened to her relaxed breathing and the ticking wall clock, and I stirred within like a child in a womb, resenting time and the decay that it brings.  Turning off the television and lights, my wife and I then stepped quietly through the darkness to our room, with Mittens, leaving my mother to her restful dreams.

~
by Stephen Bort / 30 July 2013 (9 May 1996)
photo by S.A. Bort

Note:

I was living in Denver, Colorado when originally writing this essay.  I entered it in a contest sponsored by the Denver Women’s Press Club.  The reader kindly rejected it from the winners circle, commenting, “You write well, with good narrative descriptions.  This piece reminds me of a chapter from one of those family epic novels, which sets backgrounds for the characters and their relationships. . . . I got the sense that I was reading stream-of-consciousness rather than a good, compact piece with a purpose. . . . I found myself wondering what the purpose of the piece was.  Who are all these people mentioned?  What do they have to teach me or show me that I care about?  What would the audience be outside your own family.”  She concluded with, “Your style shows great promise.”

Ballad of a Calmed Sea (of Nicole): a poem

My niece Nicole has a gentle soul,

a calmed soul has she.

Once, she made me a salad

as sweet as a ballad—

as a ballad of a calmed sea.

~

An activist for the left

who suffers peace, bereft,

peace from a nation of war.

She hones her penned-fightings,

confiding me with the writings,

that her writings be twofold forged.

~

With her compatriots, I disagree

most wholeheartedly—

wholeheartedly, freedom by nature they reject.

Regardless, I’m still free to edge a sword

by which one day I may be gored,

gored by those she’d elect.

~

My niece Nicole has a gentle soul,

a calmed soul has she.

Once, she made me a salad

as sweet as a ballad—

as a ballad of a calmed sea.

~

by S.A. Bort / 28 July 2013

My Travels: 3. Corpus Christi, Texas

View of Corpus Christi 11-17-12 –SB

November 15-20, 2012:  If I were to characterize in a general and respectable fashion the good people of the state of Texas, I might call them rowdy white-trash meets dude’ed-up faux-sophistication with some of the liveliest regional music this side of the universe.  And here, gringos are made welcome [see my previous post A gringo like me].

I was schooled in Texas many years ago, as far north as counties go, in what is called The Panhandle.  I lived there for seventeen years.  My parents, paternal grandparents and great-grandparents are buried just tens of miles north of the Battle of Adobe Walls.  Now, on this 2640-mile roundtrip roadtrip from Colorado, just shy of driving the entire north-to-south spread of the state from Dallam County to Corpus Christi in Nueces County, I didn’t wear my Texas-stitched boots, not even once.  I had them with me though.  It somehow didn’t feel right to put them on this time.  Too many inner changes in recent years, I guess.  Not so sure anymore where I am or where I’m from.

you are here 11-17-12 –SB

Arriving at the edge of the Gulf, not too far from the border of the currently drug lord-ruled Mexico that snakes along the Rio Grande river, and after seeing along the way some of the many yard signs declaring, “SECEDE!” in lieu of the recent U.S. presidential election, I took pictures of funny-looking coastal creatures, like pelicans hanging around small, docked fishing boats and fighting for scraps from the fishermen aboard,

pelicans and Mexican fisherboy 11-17-12 –SB

tall herons standing stoically on rocks out a ways in the water thinking seriously about whatever herons think about

heron 11-18-12 –SB

and fragile, though designed to run fast, sandpipers that sprinted along the shoreline, occasionally creeping into the wet sand to dig for who knows what, then racing back before the next wave came in.

sandpipers 11-18-12 –SB

There were also the Hitchcockian swarms of gulls.  For those who never viewed Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” nature, in the form of coastal birds, suddenly and seemingly without reason turned against man, woman and child in a most vicious manner.

gulls in flight 11-17-12 –SB

I bathed my tired feet in the cool Gulf water.  My brain welcomed the plentiful and rich oxygen at sea level, a sweet and spellbinding breeze surrounding me.

toes in the water 11-18-12 –SB

I was as low as one could go in elevation without sinking underwater, yet so light, serene.  Back on the wet shore, I pressed my bare feet hard down into the sand, leaving footprints, as if to declare, “I was here, damn it!”  Too soon, the waves erased them both away like some invisible teacher after a chalkboard lecture, reminding thoughtful students: “maybe for a while, but not for long.”

footprints in sand 11-18-12 –SB

Corpus Christi translates to “Body of Christ.”  It’s located below the stellar Texas constellation of San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and Houston.  If you could see far enough out into the eastern horizon, over the cool Gulf water that kisses faithfully this shoreline, you would see hundreds, maybe thousands, of offshore oil rigs that pin-prick the surface of the deep water, a mile deep in some spots.

gazing eastward 11-18-12 –SB

Sacramental, in a sense, this region’s water, oil and “blood”-like energy from the penetrating rigs, yet not all that different from most other places, or times.

The USS Lexington is permanently docked here, a reminder of a time long past and, I believe sadly, nothing more than an antiquity to many of our youth today whose sense of history spans from the newest iPhone back to its previous version, although the ship personnel now offer, sensibly, a very cool science “campout” aboard the ship to detail experientially its historical and technological significance [see:  http://usslexington.com/ ].

The ship was built in 1942 and decommissioned in 1991, having been hit twice in WWII, nicknamed “The Blue Ghost” by the infamous Japanese radio propagandist, Tokyo Rose, and serving in every major naval battle from Tarawa to Tokyo.  The “Lady Lex” was both “the first US Navy ship to embark female crewmembers” and pure sophisitication of technology for its time  [see: http://www.hnsa.org/ships/lexington.htm].

USS Lexington at night [from: http://www.hnsa.org/ships/lexington.htm]

At night, there’s almost a carnival atmosphere to the city with a bridge that spans the Corpus Christi Bay.  Columns of LED lights change colors as drivers pass under, sort of like walkers along Fremont Street in the ever-changing Las Vegas, Nevada, with its famous, state-of-the-art overhead light show.

Numerous oil refineries, at night, tower up into the sky like odd-shaped Christmas trees or high rises, covered top-to-bottom with bright glowing white bulbs.  Tens, maybe hundreds, of modern windmills, propellered generators, the huge, all-white ones you now see rising up throughout the windy states, spin like steel and colorless pinwheels off in the northwest.

It’s still Texas, but with Hindu motel owners, Mexican waiters, Asian tourists, college students from two nearby universities, homeless in rumpled clothing who sleep either at the Metro Ministries/Rustic House, the Good Samaritan Shelter that includes meals or wherever they can find a relatively warm and hidden spot.  Meals are also available at a local food bank, not to be confused with any of the high-rise banks.  Reminds me of what the late comedian George Carlin is credited with saying, comicly and profoundly: the way the world works is that there’s a club at the top–and you’re not in it.  I say, If it ain’t the truth, it sure feels like it.

There is a rundown, seemingly forgotten section of town populated largely with minorities wandering the streets and avenues, like the black man who approached me very slowly and awkwardly one morning while I was about to drive away from my cheap motel, then asked me for money.  Mental counseling is available at a local clinic, and of course, there is the Salvation Army.

lone man in distance 11-18-12 –SB

There are many examples of graffiti art with not-so-easy-to-understand intent.

seeds of revolution? 11-18-12 –SB

People of all races and creeds fished for meals along the sandy but often rocky, sometimes low-walled, shoreline.  A Mexican lady joyously showed me a flying fish she had caught while I was walking by.  They are typically thrown back and not eaten.  So strange!  Fishes that can just soar right up and out of their given environments, so briefly and majestically, and then fall right back in.  It had a crown of barbs that were poisonous if touched, and of course two wings.  I took a photo, and then the woman threw it back to the water, where it lived.

I guess they’re fish that are just curious about the other side of the surface, and are designed for a revolving door out and then back in again.  I don’t know.  It’s too hard to be at ease with the “peace that passeth all understanding.”  I do know that.

live flying fish 11-17-12 –SB

There are tall high-rise bank buildings, in fact, I think all of the highest-rises are named for banks, along with an “Ocean Drive” lined with mansions near ritzy beachfront hotels.  There are many tall, though not as tall as the banks, old stone churches of many faiths.  Of course, there are the plentiful dance halls and saloons, sometimes called “drinkeries” here.

gull in flight 11-17-12 –SB

Corpus Christi.  The Body of Christ.  Texas.  I’m thankful this season of Thanksgiving, to be here so briefly, just passing through for a few days, breathing wholly and deeply the sea air, mindful of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings that my fellow travelers experience within each moment that we share.

Corpus Christi from beach 11-18-12 –SB

My Travels:  2.  Ruins of Megiddo, Ruins of Mortal Power

My Travels:  1.  Thoreau’s “Walking” (1862)

Don’t be afraid of overshooting the goal post and only scoring the goal.

“We are living in a strange civilization.  Our minds and souls are so overlaid with fear, with artificiality, that often we do not even recognize beauty.  It is this fear, this lack of direct vision of truth that brings about all the disaster the world holds, and how little opportunity we give any people for casting off fear, for living simply and naturally.  When they do, first of all we fear them, then we condemn them.  It is only if they are great enough to outlive our condemnation that we accept them.”  –Henri, Robert.  Collected by Margery Ryerson.  The Art Spirit.  Philadelphia, 1923.

Robert Henri

http://www.henrirobert.org/

The above quote strikes deeply within my heart.  I found it in the following essential book for any home library: [VandenBroeck, Goldian, ed.  Less is More:  An Anthology of Ancient & Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity.  Foreward by E. F. Schumacher (Author of Small Is Beautiful:  Economics As If People Mattered.  1973.).  Inner Traditions:  Rochester, Vermont, 1978, 1996.  p. 219.].

The beauty or the fear of simplicity.  How the right and left of our civilization have seemingly forever feared the beauty of simplicity!

Artist, Robert Henri’s quote resonates so strongly alongside the following quote by economist and philosopher F. A. Hayak, whose birthday (although he has long passed) was three days ago:

“There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.  While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as DeTocqueville describes it, ‘a new form of servitude.'”  –Hayek, Freidrich August.  Individualism and Economic Order.  1948.

F. A. Hayek

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek#cite_note-68

CRITICISM OF F. A. HAYEK:

“Your greatest danger is the probable practical failure of the application of your philosophy in the United States.” – John Maynard Keynes in a letter to Hayek.  [ –Hoover, Kenneth R.  Economics as Ideology.  Lanham, Maryland:  Rowman & Littlefield.  2008.  p. 152.]

“In the negative part of Professor Hayek’s thesis there is a great deal of truth.  It cannot be said too often – at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough – that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of.”  –Orwell, George.  1944.  Writing in response to Hayek’s book:  The Road to Serfdom (1944)”.

Author of the classic dystopian novels 1984 (1949) and Animal Farm (1945), Orwell was no fan of capitalism and yet he found it within himself to step away from partisanship to pen the above, historically-informed forewarning.

Please note Keynes’ inclusion of the word “practical.”  Both the right and left have seemingly forever criticized as an impractical (and unregulated) ideal the simplicity of “treating people equally” as opposed to just making everyone equal (regulated).

One example that comes to mind is the issue of who should fund the caring of the present multitude of those who are unable to work and create income.  One side argues that the government should stay out of it and that community programs should oversee the need.  The other side calls this impractical because, likely, community programs won’t be able to fund or handle the load.  The poor will instead get shuffled off under bridges, to the gutters and into the back alleys.

Is it a matter of practicality?  Is it true that citizen-funded community programs can’t or won’t handle the load?  Is a governmental equalization and regulation of incomes or subsidies the only solution?

Attempting to make people equal is collectivism, as Orwell calls it, which he then describes as “not inherently democratic” but “tyranical,” worse so even than historically imposed by the merciless Spanish Inquisitors.

Please also note how artist Robert Henri and economist F. A. Hayek seem to resonate in the above quotes.  Economist Robert Maynard Keynes and artist Robert Henri, on the other hand, do not seem to me to resonate at all.  Art synonymous with simplicity?  Art in opposition to practicality?

How many times has a creatively-gifted student pursuing a degree in writing been told by parents that such a degree would not be practical?  How many such students have listened to such regulatory and collectivist advice?  Where would our world be without gifted writers on the left, the right and all points in between?

Hmmm, based on the insights from the above quote from Orwell, I wonder if he had parents like those mentioned above, and if so, chose instead to pursue his gift as a writer?

I learned from an influencial person in my life that if I place my palm against another’s and push, that is a difficult, forceful and stressful path that leads to anxiety, fear and artificiality.  If I place my palm against another’s and relax, let go of pushing, then that is a stress-free way of simplicity, non-tension.  A natural equality.  The two palms can exist alongside without either pushing at the other, and they can get by on their own.  Too simple?

Allowing people to empower themselves toward their own pursuits, allowing a free society–whether to live modestly according to one’s meager means or affluently, left or right, craftsman or entrepreneur–whatever, is the simple way of beauty–the beautiful way of simplicity.  An ideal?  Yes.  So what.  Impractical?  No.

In a football game, the kicker doesn’t aim at the goal post but beyond it.  He may not make 100 percent of the attempted distance, but 80 or 90 percent may put the ball over the post–a score.  100 percent is a goal likely never to be achieved.  It is a utopian ideal, impractical.  Don’t confuse that with a score.

The ideals of libertarianism, most fully realized in the aims of Ron Paul, are not to hit an idealistic 100 percent, I don’t believe, but to hit as close as possible.  The goal is to score a realistic and beautiful win.

Of course, the kick is only as good as the kicker.  Players’ records speak loudest on who to place one’s trust in.

In speaking of progressivism, the object is to progress.  The art of football is to progress down the field to a score, to progress in scoring to a win and to progress in winning to take the beautiful Super Bowl.  If you lose, you come back again.  You make progress.  The art is not, however, to progress in injuring the other team’s players to the point of taking them out of the game, or to bypass the rules.

The most obvious and current example that comes to mind is President Obama’s push to the Supreme Court of what has come to be known as “Obamacare.”  By most accounts, the court (now considering the case) will ultimately block his attempt at a “score.”  Why?  Because it directly conflicts with our constitutional guarantees for a right to choose our individual pursuits.  The president is attempting to push aside the Constitution along with all those who oppose him–to bypass the refs and the rule book.  Maybe the refs will turn a blind eye, and he’ll score.  Likely he won’t.

For myself, I choose not affluence but a more simple life.  Who am I to shove it down my affluent neighbor’s throat that his choice is wrong, and that I aim to not only make him swallow it but to kill affluence altogether and ultimately to make her or him enjoy the experience?

Creating a “green” planet” by killing off affluence and consumption are separate concepts, to raise another example.  The first is admirable for all to work towards.  It takes cooperation and compromise to reign in the real dangers of out-of-control consumption.

The second is social engineering for the sake of “making people equal”–a power grab; a purely and politically partisan imposition on OUR equality through nature–“our,” meaning ALL–right and left, Black and White, male and female, gay and straight, spiritual or atheist, simple or affluent.  It’s the equivalent of saying:  “I’m right and you’re wrong.”  “I’m smart and you’re stupid.”  “I’m elite, and you’re of a lower class.”  Servitude.

By the nature of equality and free will, no one person or group has a right to impose their ideals on any other person.  Simple?

Don’t be afraid of overshooting the goal post and scoring the goal.

Cardinal Takes Over for Bishop and Advances on King

I’ve been away from the blog for a bit.  The letter I’m providing here is from six days ago, but it’s still worthy of noting for the below reasons.

I provided an introductory blog on why the Catholic Church has been, is now and should be taken seriously as a georeligious/geopolitical force [ Georeligious Power: A Paris Revolution. A Polish Revolution. An American Revolution? ].  Then, I posted this follow-up article [ The President Caves to Georeligious Powers on Obamacare ].  Consider this present blog the third in a series, the three of which cover the four recent moves on the tournament chessboard that America has become for the “seasoned” Catholic Church and the “rather brazen” newcomer, the Obama administration.

I encourage all to read this, regardless of interest or disinterest in the issues of religious freedom, freedom in general, religion in general, healthcare, sexual freedom, sex in general, privacy, civil disobedience or whether government should act as protector or director of freedoms.  Why?  Simply because it’s invasive to all (non-American citizens as well) at some level.  In other words, if it’s not in your face already, it will be.

At the very least, it adds to the correction of any misconception that the Catholic Church has no influence in today’s world.  It does, and even when not understood on a common-citizen level, it’s understood almost unanimously on national and international levels.  The Church has been, is and will continue to be a major player on our world’s “chessboard.”  And, they’re not going away.  President Obama may be jousting with them at the moment, but he knows it as well.

If you’re a person of any conviction, ranging from no conviction at all (a conviction in itself) to a monk in a monastery, this present match concerns your life at a much higher level.  Are you a person who wants to be left alone without anyone telling you what you can or can’t do with your life (outside of crimes against property, person, government, etc.)?  Or, are you a person who is fine with ceding some, many or all of your freedoms to the government as a director and even enforcer of freedoms custom-fitted for all citizens by a majority vote of citizens?

In a constitutional republic, which is still what we live in within America, the government protects all freedoms without creating / directing / enforcing them upon a minority.  When you’re an equal people, there can be no minority.  It’s only within a democracy, where majority rules over the lives of a minority, that you will find our inherent equality-by-nature of whites, Blacks, women, men, religious, atheist or otherwise trumped by a custom-fitted nature for all.

In this specific match between the Church and President Obama, the president is not acting as an equal-by-nature protector of a constitutional republic where religious freedoms (including those of no convictions) are defended equally.  He’s not even acting as a protector of sexual freedoms when trying to establish one policy that applies to all, regardless of one’s beliefs, religious or otherwise.  He is acting from out of a form of social democracy where he very clearly seeks to direct “the many” of all citizens along “the one” same path — ultimately, with no variance allowed.

Whether you’re in the majority or minority (where you’ll least like it), you’ll be affected.  If you think you’ll wind up in the majority for every issue close to your heart, think again. 

This is a letter from the recently promoted Timothy Cardinal Dolan, formerly Archbishop of New York, to all of the bishops of the Catholic Church, dated March 2, 2012.  I’ve given the link at the bottom for a copy of the entire letter, with his signature included.  For this blog, I’ve condensed the letter to its most directly stated points, and I’ve highlighted in bold the “boldest” of bold statements from the new Cardinal.  Then, I’ve underlined the words and statements, in my view, to taken most seriously.  If nothing else, please view the highlights.

As a side note, if there’s one thing, for me, that has led to the present and growing disconnect between parish-level Catholics and the Church heirarchy, it’s that the Bishops, Archbishops and Cardinals (who do most of the letter-writing and “attempted” communicating that finds its way to the street-level parishioners) have no sense whatsoever (meaning, none) of “street language,” so to speak.  They tend to talk and write like they’re still in the first century Church of Peter or Paul. 

I’ve purposely excised as much as possible of that in my below condensation simply because I believe that communication is a bridge between one and another (including those at a street level like me).  I truly want an inclusive “all” to understand the Cardinal’s argument.  Take a peek at the original document, and you’ll see what I’m getting at.  In all fairness, though, the Cardinal addressed the letter to fellow Cardinals, but I still say they need to talk “to” the people instead of “down to” them to encourage a much needed healing of the widening disconnect.  –SB

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)  March 2, 2012:

I have written you to express my gratitude for our unity in faith and action as we move forward to protect our religious freedom from unprecedented intrusion from a government bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

. . . we as a body have had opportunities during our past plenary assemblies to manifest our strong unity in defense of religious freedom.

Since January 20, when the final, restrictive HHS Rule was first announced, we have become certain of two things:   religious freedom is under attack, and we will not cease our struggle to protect it.

Benedict XVI . . . “Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.”

Bishop Stephen Blaire and Bishop William Lori, with so many others, have admirably kept us focused on this one priority of protecting religious freedom.  We have made it clear in no uncertain terms to the government that we are not at peace with its invasive attempt to curtail the religious freedom we cherish as Catholics and Americans.  We did not ask for this fight, but we will not run from it.

. . . each of us would prefer to spend our energy engaged in and promoting the works of mercy to which the Church is dedicated:  healing the sick, teaching our youth, and helping the poor. . . . each of the ministries entrusted to us by Jesus is now in jeopardy due to this bureaucratic intrusion into the internal life of the church. . . . we were doing those extensive and noble works rather well without these radical new constrictive and forbidding mandates.

Our Church has a long tradition of effective partnership with government and the wider community in the service of the sick, our children, our elders, and the poor at home and abroad, and we sure hope to continue it.

. . . this is not a “Catholic” fight alone. . . . to quote . . . a nurse who emailed me, “I’m not so much mad about all this as a Catholic, but as an American.” . . . Governor Mike Huckabee, observed, “In this matter, we’re all Catholics.”

. . . We are grateful to know so many of our fellow Americans . . . stand together in this important moment in our country.  They know that this is not just about sterilization, abortifacients, and chemical contraception.  It’s about religious freedom, the sacred right of any Church to define its own teaching and ministry.

When the President announced on January 20th that the choking mandates from HHS would remain, not only we bishops and our Catholic faithful, but people of every faith, or none at all, rallied in protest.  The worry that we had expressed — that such government control was contrary to our deepest political values — was eloquently articulated by constitutional scholars and leaders of every creed.

On February 10th, the President announced that the insurance providers would have to pay the bill, instead of the Church’s schools, hospitals, clinics, or vast network of charitable outreach having to do so.  He considered this “concession” adequate.  Did this help? . . . while withholding final judgment, we would certainly give the President’s proposal close scrutiny. . . . we did — and as you know, we are as worried as ever.

For one, there was not even a nod to the deeper concerns about trespassing upon religious freedom, or of modifying the HHS’ attempt to define the how and who of our ministry.

Two, since a big part of our ministries are “self-insured,” we still ask how this protects us.   We’ll still have to pay and, in addition to that, we’ll still have to maintain in our policies practices which our Church has consistently taught are grave wrongs in which we cannot participate.

And what about forcing individual believers to pay for what violates their religious freedom and conscience?  We can’t abandon the hard working person of faith who has a right to religious freedom.

And three, there was still no resolution about the handcuffs placed upon renowned Catholic charitable agencies, both national and international, and their exclusion from contracts just because they will not refer victims of human trafficking, immigrants and refugees, and the hungry of the world, for abortions, sterilization, or contraception.  In many ways, the announcement of February 10 solved little and complicated a lot.  We now have more questions than answers, more confusion than clarity.

What to do now?

For one . . . we will continue our strong efforts of advocacy and education.  In the coming weeks the Conference will continue to provide you, among other things, with catechetical resources on the significance of religious freedom to the Church and the Church’s teaching on it from a doctrinal and moral perspective.  We are developing liturgical aids to encourage prayer in our efforts and plans on how we can continue to voice our public and strong opposition to this infringement on our freedom.  And the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, that has served the Conference so well in its short lifespan, will continue its extraordinary work in service to this important cause.

Two, we will ardently continue to seek a rescinding of the suffocating mandates that require us to violate our moral convictions, or at least insist upon a much wider latitude to the exemptions so that churches can be free of the new, rigidly narrow definition of church, minister and ministry that would prevent us from helping those in need, educating children and healing the sick, no matter their religion.

In this regard, the President invited us to “work out the wrinkles.”  We have accepted that invitation.  Unfortunately, this seems to be stalled:  the White House Press Secretary, for instance, informed the nation that the mandates are a fait accompli (and, embarrassingly for him, commented that we bishops have always opposed Health Care anyway, a charge that is scurrilous and insulting, not to mention flat out wrong. . . .)

The White House already notified Congress that the dreaded mandates are now published in the Federal Registry “without change.”  The Secretary of HHS is widely quoted as saying, “Religious insurance companies don’t really design the plans they sell based on their own religious tenets.”  That doesn’t bode well for their getting a truly acceptable “accommodation.”

At a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff, our staff members asked directly whether the broader concerns of religious freedom—that is, revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption—are all off the table.  They were informed that they are.  So much for “working out the wrinkles.”

Instead, they advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the “enlightened” voices of accommodation, such as the recent, hardly surprising yet terribly unfortunate editorial in America [prominent Jesuit publication].  The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers.

We will continue to accept invitations to meet with and to voice our concerns to anyone of any party, for this is hardly partisan, who is willing to correct the infringements on religious freedom that we are now under.  But as we do so, we cannot rely on off the record promises of fixes without deadlines and without assurances of proposals that will concretely address the concerns in a manner that does not conflict with our principles and teaching.

Congress might provide more hope, since thoughtful elected officials have proposed legislation to protect what should be so obvious:  religious freedom.  Meanwhile, in our recent debate in the senate, our opponents sought to obscure what is really a religious freedom issue by maintaining that abortion inducing drugs and the like are a “woman’s health issue.”  We will not let this deception stand.

Our commitment to seeking legislative remedies remains strong.  And it is about remedies to the assault on religious freedom.  Period.

(By the way, the Church hardly needs to be lectured about health care for women.  Thanks mostly to our Sisters, the Church is the largest private provider of health care for women and their babies in the country.)

Bishop William Lori, Chairman of our Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, stated it well in a recent press release:  “We will build on this base of support as we pursue legislation in the House of Representatives, urge the Administration to change its course on this issue, and explore our legal rights under the Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

In the recent Hosanna-Tabor ruling, the Supreme Court unanimously defended the right of a Church to define its own ministry and services, a dramatic rebuff to the administration, apparently unheeded by the White House.  Thus, our bishops’ conference, many individual religious entities, and other people of good will are working with some top-notch law firms who feel so strongly about this that they will represent us pro-bono.  In the upcoming days, you will hear much more about this encouraging and welcome development.

Given this climate, we have to prepare for tough times.  Some, like America magazine, want us to cave-in and stop fighting, saying this is simply a policy issue; some want us to close everything down rather than comply (In an excellent article, Cardinal Francis George wrote that the administration apparently wants us to “give up for Lent” our schools, hospitals, and charitable ministries); some, like Bishop Robert Lynch wisely noted, wonder whether we might have to engage in civil disobedience and risk steep fines; some worry that we’ll have to face a decision between two ethically repugnant choices:  subsidizing immoral services or no longer offering insurance coverage, a road none of us wants to travel.

. . . we know so very well that religious freedom is our heritage, our legacy and our firm belief, both as loyal Catholics and Americans.  There have been many threats to religious freedom over the decades and years, but these often came from without.

This one sadly comes from within.

As our ancestors did with previous threats, we will tirelessly defend the timeless and enduring truth of religious freedom.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan

Archbishop of New York

President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)

http://usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=51472