IrishAyes
IrishAyes's JournalI'm sure it would be a meeting of equals
Though I've never met the current priest. He's from Asia, where there are many Catholic clergy who are also practicing Bhuddists. Since I have strong Buddhist leanings myself, I'd be cool with that. The previous one was certainly not, and I couldn't open my mouth around him w/o an argument. He especially hated Jesuits and Dorothy Day, some of my biggest heroes including the Dali Lama. But even the first priest was far from the only problem, and the person who vowed she'd see me in jail, for instance, then proceeded to lie about missing articles from an area where she claimed to have seen me 'hanging around', well - she and the rest of the Witch Patrol are still there.
But it is what it is, and one way or another I'll have to manage. With God's help and the encouragement of our online group, I'm sure I will. After all, it's not as if I were St. Paul chained in a dungeon. This town's a little better than that.
As many if not most of you already know,
I'm in a strange situation here where I retired. There's a tiny Catholic mission about 6 blocks from my house where I'm unable to attend for various reasons which I hope won't be permanent. So a couple years after my last visit there, I started occasionally showing up at the UMC church less than a block away. The parsonage is just across the alley from my place.
Today they got a new pastor, a fairly youngish single guy who I think will prove interesting and forward minded. Something odd happened during Sunday School. One lady asked a question about the lesson and the others suggested buttonholing the new pastor who happened by the open door so he could give his opinion. He's a friendly sort, so it wasn't uncomfortable, only surprising and strange when he pointed at me (we've never met) and said, "She knows the answer." I made the zip-my-lip gesture, so he just shrugged his shoulders and answered the lady's question.
I did know the answer. What I don't know is how/why he knew I knew. As I said, we've never met, and he only arrived a few days ago. I've tried to make it a policy not to offer more than one opinion per week at church and my limit had already been reached earlier.
But I'd appreciate everyone's prayers that the situation will adjust to allow a comfortable return to my own church someday soon. I miss the Catholic liturgy so much, even though this is a low-church congregation. Meanwhile, I am indeed grateful for the new UMC pastor, because he can make the wait a little more bearable. Interesting young man, also a lover of dogs and solitude. I have no ulterior designs on him, never fear; besides the fact that I vowed never to marry outside the Catholic church, he's also far too young for me and seems gay. But I do look forward to an interesting and enlightening possible friendship.
Sorry you've lost a little wildlife friend
I completely agree with you about free-range pets. People seem to think they're doing the animals a favor when they're really not. My hottest fury, though, goes to people who dump their pets in a rural area where they can 'live free'. If the coyotes don't get them, they starve or get run over or some other horrible fate. Since my little horse ranch was at the end of a 5-mile dirt road, you can imagine the number of throwaways that wound up there - in the waiting jaws of my 2 extremely fine hunting chows. They were such an effective team that the one time they did escape the acre I fenced just for them around the house, they actually made it home safely almost a week later. Neither would admit where they'd gone. Singly, neither would've been a match for the dangers they faced either.
But I digress. Wanted to tell you about the days before the chows cleared the place of other critters. Somebody had dumped their collection of fancy pet rabbits and their successors were indeed flourishing, partly because I fed them. Some were almost tame and would eat food placed near me if I stayed very still a long time. But I had an old German Shepherd who could barely hobble any more, so if she started trying to 'chase' one of the bunnies, it would only hop far and fast enough to keep out of reach. After a few steps, she'd stop to rest and so would her target. When she got up enough strength to resume wobbling forward, the bunny would hop a little more and wait for her to call another rest stop. Sometimes they'd circle the house a couple times before the dog wore out too much to continue. That was her version of chasing rabbits - hobble/wobble a few steps, stop to rest, then go again.
The chows were something else.
Fortunately I traveled widely before retiring
Because my retirement had to be in a remote corner of the wildly xenophobic MidWest, where believe me, the kids leave skid marks as soon as they're old enough to escape because there's nothing here. It has certain redeeming qualities, but a marine aquarium (or club) isn't among them. Neither's a welcome mat for anyone not from the local gene pool - but once again, I think I'm starting to grow on a few people as long as they can resist political assault.
Incidentally, when we lived in SoCal, my son made a Marine World commercial. Everywhere I've lived since, I've hung a small whale toy from the ceiling of the main bathroom over the tub. Fond memories.
I always hear the best of Pope Francis
And that's what I see, too. Who could not love a pope like him?
I look forward to seeing the good Silent Night movie someday, perhaps on NetFlix when I get that.
But I avoid horror movies like the plague they are.
May the building be put to better use now
It was a castle of corruption before. Don't get me started on that, please.
It's about time.
Benedict claimed he wanted to clean up the church, but Francis is actually going about it. Hooray for him!
You're a good egg.
Yoshi may be wreaking destruction because it reassures him (her?) to see you care for him. This might reassure Yoshi that you will always be there for him/her or something.
That said, out in the boonies my red chows used to bring me the remains of their catch of the day. I'd hide to make sure no one passing by on the road could see me, then pretend to enjoy their present before giving it back to them. But I'm sure they considered it very important and would've been hurt beyond measure if I rejected their present entirely.
As said before, I don't usually indulge except to avoid saying something even worse
And their r realy tims whin my amo runz lo.
It's not really meant to mock, but sort of a heads up notice when I think maybe something's overheating. To this date I've blocked no one and hope I never must. I did flag one comment but only after the guy had flagged mine first, when my response had been much milder than his rant. I still don't appreciate that they let his objection stand while denying mine, though I have to agree with them on one thing: I obviously enjoyed telling the guy off.
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHome country: US
Current location: retired to MidWest
Member since: Mon Feb 18, 2013, 10:15 PM
Number of posts: 6,151
