Resurrecting Chicago

According to a recent poll, 69% of Catholics say Jesus is only symbolically present in the Eucharist.  About a third of those polled believe in His actual presence: real food, bread and wine, become the flesh and blood of Our Savior.

The Eucharistic Bread and Wine.

I’m in the second group but I don’t understand His presence as meat. If that reference sounds crude to you — it is.  I remember discouraging a parishioner from showing a film in our parish hall that purported to show at Holy Mass a cracked and bleeding host.

But! what about the story in John’s Gospel (Jn 6:55-63) where Jesus faces this issue head-on. He says “My flesh is real food and my blood real drink.”   And, His hearers say in disgust, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat? We then read that many walked away after hearing this. What sane man asks that his flesh be eaten?

Why is it so easy for us to materialize this message that we hold by Faith?  It seems to me that His presence in the Eucharist goes way beyond descriptive or scientific terms.  Yes, you might argue, but doesn’t transubstantiation define the physicality of this greatest mystery of our Faith? St. Thomas Aquinas, using the philosophical concepts of Aristotle describes the substance of the bread and wine being recreated as the substance of Christ.

Although, the bread and wine after consecration look and taste like what they appear to be, St. Thomas describes what we see and touch as only the “accidents” of bread and wine. The substance of these elements is Christ himself. And, that miracle of  Faith is beyond our reasoning.

I have respect for but less belief in consubstantiation where using a similar Aristotelian analysis, the bread is present with the Body of Christ and the wine is present with His Blood, both substances present in each instance.  I have little respect for trans-signification, where the purpose of the bread and wine changes from being mere food to the elements of the sacrifice of Jesus. Bread and wine placed on the altar and offered to the Father changes its significance and become the Body and Blood of Christ. Nothing physical happens.

Jesus means what He says, not what we think He means. I believe He is truly present, though what I eat seems bread, and what I drink appears to be wine. It’s as if love itself becomes for me a real thing in both the bread and the wine. This I believe by Faith. I understand that Jesus used the words “body” and “blood” but it means that when I receive Him in the Eucharist, He in all his human and divine reality unites himself to me in a mystery of love.  For God is love. It is what I have been searching for my whole life. What about you?

Most mornings at about 5:30 AM, you’ll find me in my yard sitting on a metal bistro chair watching God’s creation wake up. The sun hasn’t risen yet but it’s already light.

I am trying to blend into the scene with a dark-green lawn in front of me and a crabapple tree at my left. That tree is about twenty feet high, its branches are leafed with everything that gives cover for sparrows, robins, house finches, mourning doves, and other occasional species that visit with me as the day begins.

I am praying when I am watching and listening to what’s happening around me. Maybe God is speaking a message today that only I should hear.

Morning birds, sure! But I also hear the muted roar of a train a half-mile from me going somewhere on purpose plus the hum of cars and trucks motoring up and down the highway which courses through the center of my little town. Everyone going or coming from work. Everything sounding busy.

All this motion stirs the air and comes to me like a kind of music. Each morning the composition is different. Robins add their reedy woodwind effect every now and then. House sparrows chirp because that’s all they can do. A mourning dove laments about something as it coos. A cardinal lifts its clarinet and plays songs other cardinals from down the streets hear and join in on. Street traffic adds percussion and bass. There’s a kind of jazz this morning.

The redbird is the loudest. Some fifty feet away from me, a bobbing rush of red perched in a leafy-green oak in my neighbor’s yard sings again. Give me a cardinal singing anytime to lift my spirits!

These are voices through which the Creator speaks and this chorus has me listening closely. What I hear is the Creator asking me to join in with whatever voice I can find within me this morning. So, I clear my throat… and sing!

For the life of me, right now I can’t get the image of Benito Mussolini out of my head. Trump is up there, preening, gesturing,  haranguing the crowd and I see the great fascist Benito, lifting up his chin at the end of his speech, arrogant and defiant. But, it’s not 1942 and  Mussolini is not strutting up there. It’s Donald Trump.

His eyes flash with anger. His mouth gapes oddly as his voice strains louder. The strange flop of yellow hair contrasts with his tangerine-tinted face. He repeatedly gestures like a ringmaster exhibiting the next act of dancing ponies.

His voice is loud, determined to hook you. It is sing-song  as he lists one after another the complaints he has against those who want to ruin this country. Many. many people, good people, know that the election was stolen, he rants. Our country is going down in the cesspool of what the Democrats want,  Elites are jamming down our throats stuff that the the socialists are feeding them. We are loosing our country.  That America that you and I grew up with.  It’s no more.  We’ve allowed our country to  lose it’s prominence among the nations. Nobody respects America anymore.

Were going to change all that. No more sending off money–your money– to countries that take, take, take! And, what do we get back? Nothing! Well, all that is going to change. Our military is the greatest power on earth but it is weakened by timid leadership.  All that is going to change.   We are going to be respected as the greatest country on earth again.

This is a man of stump speeches. Last week, Illinois. Before that, Ohio. He stirs up crowds wherever and whenever he can. Give him a platform — even a stump — anything to elevate him, and he is up there on another harangue. The rant is always the same. The enemies of America are the Democrats. The white race is discounted by massive, uncontrolled invasion at our border with Mexico. But were here today to change all that! We’re here to Make America Great Again!

Benito stirred up the crowds in just about the same way to Italians eighty years ago. Only he said it as Make Italy Roman Again!

They eventually hung him.

Where are the young Catholics? All I see most Sundays are “Boomers” and their X-generation progeny.  Could it be that the Boomers come with good hearts and ready familiarity because after all, church is part of life, a good part.? Meanwhile the Millennial and   Z-generation stay home with the used, abused, confused and refused of every generation..

There are no young people at Mass this morning.  Well, just a few children. Fewer babies. The core of our church communities used to be families. Husband and wife and kids and sometimes grandma and grandpa came to church together. Our church appears now to be dying of lack of family.

Father Casey Cole, OFM, a young bright Franciscan priest has a website where  he tackles dwindling church attendance. He says we first have to admit this is happening.  We can’t be satisfied with a church that isn’t maintaining itself much less growing as church.  But few priests and bishops seem to be worried about it much.  By the way, what  happened to the new evangelization?

He thinks lack of attendance. is due to the following:

—The revelation of the scandal of sex abuse by priests and the cover-ups by bishops.

— the dueling liberal versus conservatism of church liturgies. Vatican II liberals whose liturgies are casual events hosted by the pastor and his crew. Conservatives ringing bells once more during liturgies, Reading their sermons.  Collections restored to ushers and baskets. Tridentine liturgies. (See St. John Cantius Church, Chicago. vs Novus Ordo in Latin and English) People are tired of the liturgical battlefields.

—Priests debating and cheerleading for their side of the Vatican II reforms.  Priests who critize and condemn from the pulpit and rail against other priests, their own bishop and the entire church they feel is slipping into the pit of hell. (So they put us through purgatory about it.)

— The church has become irrelevant.  I think this is the chief reason for the decay of the Church community. One man told me that it didn’t seem to make a difference if  he went or not. “I didn’t miss it nor did the church let me know that they missed me and my family.”

–People in our western culture do not see the need to believe in a God.  Also, we have not learned how to teach doctrine in a way that people understand, appreciate and can live with.

Our culture has two idols: the cult of self and the worship of money. The cult of self symbolized by selfies and endless concern with one’s image.  My brand becomes my idol.  Christian love in the midst of suffering is impossible. Everything is funneled thru my understanding and my grasping for image worship.  How I look, how I sound, how many followers I have, whether I am an influencer or not. I must be iconic.

Then there is the worship of money.  I have more than you.  My idea is so valuable that I am an entrepreneur. It’s not important what I invent but how much I can sell it for. Then, I’ll move on to another invention and another sale. The name of the name is greed and addiction to more and more of what feeds my importance. Elon Musk is the idol here. Right now he is sitting on top of the world counting his marbles and twittering..

Our idols are silver and gold.  The glittering ego that I want the world to see and the gold I display.  This corruption of society is deeply affecting the community of the church. I know one preacher who was encouraged to develop his own brand where he could sell himself as a great retreat master.  We extract huge sums to maintain our cathedrals and ethnic monuments to worship while the people sit in beautiful but sparsely populated churches.

— The church can’t seem to concern itself with the poor. We don’t know who they are and what they need so we contribute money so that the natives in Africa have WIFI so that we can sell them stuff.  Commercialization of radio, TV and social media extracts money and attention so that it can produce more programing to sell more stuff.

FATHER CASEY says that adults are not teaching their children the relevance of the Church because it is honestly not relevant.

WE NEED TO FIX IT

—by serious catechesis of our children. Catholic schools today are often run by educators who hold faith in a secondary position. Religion is taught like a secular subject and often without heart.  Often not energized by the Gospel. Our Catholic school system was a reaction to a great need of education in an immigrant church. We here in the U.S. are no longer an immigrant church.

—by authentic worship.  Liturgy focused on Him and not us. It should be a Thanksgiving Service. It should be a shouldering service where we are encouraged to take up our cross as Jesus taught us to do and to lay down the burdens of sefl and greed.

—By restoration of the cross as in “Take up your cross and follow Me.” That cross is absent in much of our preaching.

— Evangelization.  We need to learn how to do it if it means kneeling down before our protestant brothers and sisters in ministry and asking them how we do that.

— by ceasing to use the sacrament of reconciliation as the sole path to conversion.  Are we never clean until we “go to Confession every day and scrutinize for every sin? Let’s somehow give respectful time for people to get counselling and direction and a BLESSING and prayer for healing now.

A piece of chalk scraped across a blackboard. The scream of a kindergarten girl  piercing the chatter of kids in a school yard playing catch-me-if-you-can.  They both make me cringe.  So do most movies about religion.  Which brings me to “Father Stu.”

I haven’t seen it yet but I suppose I will.  From “The Bells of St. Mary’s” and  “The Nuns Story” to “The Shoes of the Fisherman” I’ve been disappointed by films dealing with religious experience of Catholics. I will just mention “The Exorcist” and “Spotlight.”

Maybe its simply impossible to show authentic religious experience when it costs you money to see it. Holiness for sale. With buttered popcorn and a Diet Coke. “Father Stu” for sale.

However, film is made for stories. Movies should somehow pick up on individuals with spiritual experiences, especially conversion stories. But you can’t tell these stories without describing the suffering that goes with them.  Love God and you are going to suffer.  Or, do you want to try to answer the question that a man casually tossed my way when he said,” Do you think that God will ever make a human being  that can’t suffer?” The scene was a packed E.R.  The middle-aged man who spoke was trying to comfort his withered aged mother groaning from a wheel chair. I’m not sure whom he meant to ask about, his mother or himself. Suffering as redemption does not transfer well to film, though I hear “Father Stu” tries hard to do it.

Mark Wahlberg is Father Stu, an irreligious ex-boxer who converts and eventually becomes a Catholic priest.  He suffers a horrific motorcycle accident and finally dies of an obscure disease characterized by muscle deterioration. He dies just after his ordination, a shadow of himself but an inspiration to everyone who met him.

So, I’ll go see “Father Stu” but not soon. I guess I don’t want to be disappointed again.  If I wait a while, maybe I’ll mature enough to see it.

Holy Week, 2022

This past Saturday in the Office of Readings, St Gregory Nazianzen’s words came alive to me. St. Gregory challenges us to live the Passover with Jesus in our own way.  Jesus tells us of a new covenant, a new sharing of the cup in a new Jerusalem.  We live that life now in symbol of what is coming for all of us soon, the reality in paradise.  But, first we too have to pass over to the other side.

I can understand the meaning of the sacrifice of Jesus with all its desperation, blood, pain, abasement and heroism, if I consider what the Father is asking of me.  He is asking for my life, too.  He is asking for it during this week of holiness before Easter.

How do I bring myself to the altar in my church? I can only be who I am, no more, no less.  Here, it is a simple wooden table raised like a Calvary in the center of the place of meeting.  The building has its tented space and the holy place at the altar and the holy of holies represented by the tabernacle containing the Bread of life.

What am I going to offer? Who and where is the victim?

St. Gregory looks over the passion narrative and helps me to think about this.  There are as many different kinds of sacrifice as there are followers of Christ. Are you a Joseph of Arimathea? Go to the one who condemned him and ask for His body and care for it. Care for the suffering Christ wherever you find Him.

Are you a Simon of Cyrene? Take up your cross and follow Christ.

If you are crucified next to him like one of the thieves, call on him to make you a promise to be with Him in paradise. “Derive some benefit from your shame; purchase salvation with your death.” He has done nothing to deserve this. Ask Him for this grace even though you, too, are hanging on a cross.

We should avoid the horror of denouncing him as we hang on our cross. Or do we join in the hatred for a God who lets children suffer and convulse in death or in bitter disappointment for our screwed-up lives. Do we hang there and curse and demean the Lord who is with us in our suffering? Is His will simply too much for us, His plan insufferable?

Are you a St. John at the foot of the cross? Receive His mother as your mother. This was the concern of Jesus as he was affixed to the cross and at the point of death. Who would take care of His mother?  You will, John. You, and now I, too, take her for my mother. We take her into our homes. She graces us with her presence because she is full of grace.  She helps keep our house in sanctity and we provide her companionship.

Are you Joseph of Arimathea?  Go to the one who condemned Him to death and ask for His Body. Are you Nicodemus?   Bring burial spices and prepare His body for the tomb.  You and Joseph must carry the body to the garden close by Calvary where Joseph had a tomb which had been prepared for his own body.

Are you one of the Marys or Salome or Joanna at the foot of he cross? Them stand there and comfort him and his mother. Weep through the night and into the early morning. Be the first to see the stone rolled back and experience angels and maybe even see, Jesus Himself.”

(a meditation from a sermon of St Gregory Nazianzen quoted in the second reading on April 9, 2022, the Saturday before Palm Sunday. The title seems to be “We are soon going to share in the Passover.”)

November 13, 2020

Thoreau said “Read the best books first, you might not a chance to read them all.”  Picture a white-haired gentleman sitting in a overstuffed, dark leather chair in his huge library. Books are arranged from floor to ceiling and book cases along the walls are crammed with them.  Piles of them are arranged around an old man sitting in an over-stuffed chair and reading a single book.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one hits the mark.  I think I had better read good books first because I am running out of time.

Paul Kalanithi’s autobiography, When Breath Becomes Air is just such a book.  Paul was a neurosurgeon who died of an aggressive lung cancer at the age of thirty-six.  When he was a middle-schooler, his mother gave him great classics to read from Ivanhoe through Dickens.  One after another he sailed through the adventures, romances, simple stories and awesome writing skills of great authors. Along the way he became fascinated with the connection of mind and brain. As Paul matured he decided that his life’s quest would be to study the physical basis of thought.

A word about Kalanithi’s unusual title.  When Breath Becomes Air was inspired by  Baron Brooke’s Fulke Greville, a collection of short, introspective poems from a British author whose life spanned the seventeenth to the eighteenth century (1650s to 1730s]:

Celica 83

“You that seek what life is in death,

Now find it in air that once was breath.

New names unknown, old names gone:

Till time ends bodies, but souls none.

Reader! Then make time while ye be

But steps to your eternity.”

So, the title of this book “When Breath Become Air,” is the moment of death or the ambiance of death itself.

One of the questions that interested Paul the most was what is the meaning of life. He was fascinated by the power of the human mind to reflect deeply on issues,  to investigate the infinite number of places in the human mind and wander around in one or another seeking what was walled in. But, he also was intrigued by the human brain, the material organ which he felt generated all these great ideas.

As an aside, as I read Paul’s book I began to wonder whether the mechanism might be the other way around: Does the mind inform the brain first? But then what of the electronic probes which can stimulate tiny areas of the brain and elicit, for example, a feeling of intense sadness or a spasm of giddiness. Memory, a function of the mind, can be affected or even lost when the brain is damaged.  Just think of the relentless progression of dementia in Alzheimer’s patients. A more fundamental issue are we sure that the physical brain issue  does issue forth a non-material thing such as an idea? What about a complex of ideas? Is thought nothing more than activity in a nerve complex? Or is the conscious, subconscious and unconscious of Jung a separate reality informing the brain and the central nervous system?

Is it true that the brain is machinery that somehow enables the mind, even produces it?  I still wonder whether thought, emotions, and whatever else that is immaterial about us could have other sources, physical or immaterial.  Take the theory of structural Integration”a therapy devised by Ida Rolff.  In “Rolffing,” a therapist uses force and pressure from her thumbs to trap muscles and break fascia which may release strong and significant memories. The person whose facial muscles give her the face of a rigid, unpleasant appearing individual becomes suddenly aware of demeaning methods of behavior training that were employed by her parents as they raised her. And she relates that she sees and hears her father saying to her that she’s a nobody, and ugly and useless besides. The repressed memory is released when the muscles are manipulated. So, where is that memory? Can a set of tiny muscles around a mouth release a recollection? Or, is the brain simply remembering what those muscles signify?

I have a memory of my grandmother bathing my feet and drying them while reciting a nursery rhyme as she dried each toe. But I never remembered that experience except when a therapist Roffled the muscles in my toes. I am sure this memory was released by the novel experience of the therapist working on my toes. I am also convinced that this memory was from my infancy. I could not have called up this memory because I did not have access to it until the therapist squeezed my toes like my grandmother used to do. I was unaware of that memory until far from my brain some kind of reservoir retained this memory. Or, did the stimulation of the squeezing of the muscles simply bring that memory to consciousness in my brain.  Or, are the sensory nerves of my toes simply an extension of the brain itself so that “brain” in it’s ability to reflect upon itself could just as easily be located in my toes as in my head? (See next pg.)

I have no problem understanding that a series of electrical impulses surged through my sensory nerves back through the cranial nerves to wherever in the brain memorial impulses are interpreted for my consciousness. But all this is fascinating: to think that the brain is extended down to tiny muscles as part of the system or simply that there is another source of memory outside of it.

(I also can’t forget the writhing woman with eyes closed anguishing as she related her experience of undergoing five abortions.  I don’t remember whether her anguish was because she was in pain during those procedures or whether she had remorse about being responsible for the lives plucked from her or whether she regretted that she had no children as she entered late maturity. But the memories were released during a Rolfing session.  I don’t remember where in the cycle of rolfing treatments her revelation occurred)

Ida Rolf and her system of Structural Integration lives!

(Paul uses a few words whose meaning is new to me: “idyll” (p.30) (pronounced like “idol”)= a perfect time usually evocative of rustic themes/ “a happy or enjoyable experience or scene.”  “to burke” — to strangle or suffocate secretly in order to obtain cadavers to sell to med schools.( p. 46) “burke him!  originally meant to suffocate but later became any kind of cover-up. “that realization discomfits” (p. 49) — the feeling of dejection that came over him as he began to lose the sense of the dignity of the person he dissected. His cadaver no longer elicited in him  a sense of the sacred.   “Polymath” (p. 72) someone who can work with and through scientific, emotional or spiritual aspects of  a single experience or just some one who knows much in many subjects –he or she of universal knowledge. “Hypothalamus” –a region of the forebrain below the thalamus which coordinates both the autonomic nervous system and the activity of the pituitary, controlling body temperature, thirst, hunger, and other homeostatic systems, and involved in sleep and emotional activity.

p. 75 — Paul describes how furiously working on a crashing patient, his pager goes off with requests for sleeping meds, or attn to a change in a patients condition. How do you do two or more things at once: Think fast, don’t worry about perfect solutions, just attend quickly to one or the other and move on with more deliberation to the urgent case. A triage of busyness.

p. 86 “A truculent vet(eran)– a guy quick to argue or fight defiantly.  “dehiscent” — a wound pod, fruit that breaks open because it is corrupting, over-mature inside so it breaks its seam or simply pops the skin.

“talus” – The sloping rock debris at the base of a cliff (Tay-lus)

(p. 44) “He was caught unawares.”  “Unawares” is an adverb, and  holdover from old English and it is correct. BUT,  “He walked down the corridor unaware of the banana peal in wait for his foot” because it’s an adjective.

p. 49 or so.  “bathos” triteness, sentimentalism.  An instance of the commonplace in the midst of the extraordinary. A film that squats in its bathos. (sic, mine)

Back to Paul Kalanithi: What is the meaning of life which for him also involves what is the meaning of death? What makes human life meaningful? (p. 30). Wanna find out?  Then experience life, not just read about it. Go live on a mountaintop in Costa Rica not just read about  the geography.  Actually hear and see Howler Monkeys growling loudly in the tops of the jungle trees on a misty morning and how eerie it is; experience the swirling upheaval of the warm Pacific wind as it swoops up to meet the heavy cool air of the mountains, a maelstrom of grey clouds dancing to sort it all out as the sun is setting in he Pacific. How dramatic it is.

P.88 “Had I been more religious in my youth, I might have become a pastor, for it was the pastoral role that I sought.”  He  is talking about his calling to lead his patients thru whatever dx or sickness that they were experiencing and not just applying curative medicine.

For me:  Each parishioner who suffers is a chance to forge a covenant with a burdened disciple, a compatriot.  Those who reveal their sins in all their evil, their weaknesses that to them are intolerable, the doubts about the existence of God or rather as one of Flannery’s characters says (Tarwater in The Violent Bare It Away) speaking of the God he feels has yet to act in his life: “God hasn’t noticed me yet.” All the self-revelation of the confessional the bitterness, the anger, the embarrassment, the confusion, the hurting of loving someone whom you can’t seem to help, all this as a pastor I’m supposed to help heal and lead them through.  It’s “active listening” but with direction sought or received from the Holy Spirit.  How do I reveal the path –not to the other side, but to the waiting Jesus.  (Can I do this for them when I make only small steps toward Our Lord myself?)

For me: I as a pastor must risk forming human connections. If I avoid them, if I am sure that I am better than them, that they are unworthy of my attention because I don’t like how they look, or talk, or dress, or that they are too demanding, or crude, or hateful, or if I don’t like the way they treat their children or husband or wife; or, if I feel too much of an attraction to them– I will not try to connect with that person.

For me: That connection is a bridge of trust that has to be instilled in parishioners by me because I am the person Our Lord has put in the path of the needy one. I have to decide when a person just needs my ear but also needs my tongue –and the wisdom to know the difference.

(p. 90)  “disaster”– an unfavorable condition because the stars of the universe are misaligned for me. Or, worse when the star explodes.  e.g The ultrasound of the heart shows a rapidly declining function which will end soon in death.  This is a disaster for the patient. You can see the light go out in his eyes.

The best answer to continuing to face life in the midst of a disaster is to hear yourself come to this conclusion, the seven life-giving words of courage to the feeling “I can’t go on!”, is “I can’t go on. But, I will!” A form of Churchill’s 7 words for life “NEVER (X 5) GIVE UP!”

(p. 96) The seeker or the troubled shouldn’t be hit with theological reasoning or morality proscriptions on the first day. You meet people where they are at.  You start slowly on the front steps of the church, carefully move into the foyer of the church, take them up the aisle and enter the apse only when you think they are ready for the revelation of the Eucharist, the mercy of the confessional, and the secret of Jesus within you.

(p. 125) “Without duty pushing me forward, I became an invalid.” { Jobs end, duty endures. I might not be able to work until the end of my days but duty will lead me on.  The duty to hear the calling in every moment: the call to pray for the world; the call to be a disciple right now; the call to thanksgiving; the call to listen for His voice.}

(p.129) “Have a plan A, B, and C  at all times.”

(p. 132)”I knew some day I would die, but I didn’t know when.”

(p. 143) ” The defining characteristic of the organism is striving.”

(p. 147) Shouldn’t terminal illness be the perfect gift for the young man who wanted to understand death?”

(p. 171) The main thing about the bible is that mercy trumps justice every time.”

(p. 151) “It’s not a job, it’s a sacred thing to help in intimate contact with another human being.”

Cardiogenic syncope — fainting — in the presence of fear, horror.  The autonomic nervous system shuts down the heart:  E.G> At a terrible accident where a car slams into an unyielding wall and six people are dead,  crushed into one another or where  another young man faints at the sound of the E.R. doctor clipping off the end of the mangled index finger of his buddy or the mature med student who faints at the dissection table in the presence of a “fresh leg” separated from the body. {The blood pressure drops as your heart for a few moments slows down, vasovagal syncope.} A condition affecting 3 % of men and a bit more with women. You lose consciousness for a brief time and then when you fall your heart rate returns to nl.)

(p.167) “In the doc’s purview” means from the doc’s point of view or from her perception or outlook. Although the scientific questions may be answered, the existential remain.  E.G.  “We know he has seizures because of this malformation in the frontal lobes.” a med answer to why he seizes. But ultimately why he seizes, why this condition has happened to him is an existential question which science cannot answer.

GRIEF — stages of: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

E.G. Paulito == How cd they choose anyone else? It makes me furious. I’m going to talk to him, maybe we can work this out. It hasn’t worked out and I am stuck with this. I have to move on. It also works in reverse: I accept my dx. It makes me sad. I’ve got to figure out how to manage this; what can I do? This is crap. Why me? It can’t be me.  This can’t be true. (p. 193) “I needed the oracle to scry again.” The oracle is a seer who gazes into a reflective surface.

(p. IX) Introduction/dedication/ theme  “You that seek what life is in death, Now find it air that once was breath.  New names unknown, old names gone: Till time end bodies, but souls none.  Reader! then make time, while you be, But steps to your eternity.” Baron Brooke Fulke Greville, “Caelica 83)