Global Irony

This strikes me as rather ironic...or odd...or just plain wrong. I ordered a few copies of the U.S. Bishops document on Global Climate Change, and they came in a box- cushioned by styrofoam packing peanuts.

The End

This weekend marks the end of "the holidays". Monday it will be business as usual.
It's too bad. I wish we...I...would remember throughout the year.
I wish I would remember the wonder of the incarnation, and what it says about how we think of each other, ourselves and all of creation.
I wish I...we... would remember the extra gentleness that Christmas brings; the cease fires, the giving, the eyes open to "the poor", the family time, the awareness of the sacred - all of the goodness.
I don't make new year's resolutions, they're pointless for me. But this year, I am going to try to remember.

Better Than a Blue Light Special!

Last week I was at Wal-Mart to buy a greeting card. I used the self check-out, scanned the $2.63 card, and fed a $20 dollar bill into the appropriate slot. Thirty seven cents came out of the change slot, and when I grabbed the change for the bills I found that I had $22! What a deal! I ended up with a card and more money than I came in with!

This policy will certainly ensure customers.

I found it funny, and then, I found myself with a $2.37 dilema. I was surprised at how tempting it was to keep the tiny windfall. I almost tucked in my pocket, I vacilated, hemmed and hawed, and in the end told a clerk. She looked surprised and called for help. It struck me as funny that they checked my reciept and I thought, "Who would make this up?"

After opening up the machine in ways surprising to me I walked out I with the card and $17.37.

I've had one other "Better Than a Blue Light Special" experience. It was years ago, before cell phones. I was on my way home from a youth event with a car full of middle schoolers. We were following a van carrying the rest of our group. Suddenly the van let off smoke signals and something sprayed my windshield. I'm no mechanic, but I knew that wasn't a good sign.

After pulling over, and corraling an excited bunch of pre-teens off of the highway we decided I needed to go into the nearest town and call for help. I was tired, anxious to get home, worried about our friend's van and frustrated. I loaded up my crew so there would be a few less kids wanting to play on the highway and headed to a pay phone. After I made the call I hung up, the phone made a sound I had never heard from a pay phone - and change started pouring out of the phone! Apparently I had hit the pay phone jackpot!

I was dumbfounded.

The kids were really excited! They saw free ice cream cones and drinks. I was caught, again, in a dilema. As tired as I was, had it not been for the kids, I would have pocketed the change and headed back out to the highway to wait for help.

But here I was, with a bunch of kids, coming home from a church event and presented with a "teachable moment". *&^%!!!

I called the operator, who was as clueless as I was. She connected me to someone, who connected me to someone, who had no idea what to do. After a few minutes of this I told the kids, "You win!" We got treats and headed back out.

Life is funny. And that's good. That's grace.

And it's all around us.

It's coming!

Spring is coming! We have rather chilly weather today and forcast for tomorrow, but warm weather is on the way. A couple of days ago, I was surprised by the sudden appearance of a small group of little yellow crocus peeking up out of the middle of dormant thyme. Bright, unaplogetic (it's Lent, you know) wonderous little flowers. I love 'em! And this year, I go into spring with a much better attitude than the last couple of years. I feel better inside and am working on the physical side so that I can get the most out of this spring.

For the last few years I've been excited by the promise of spring, but found the reality to be a mix of that excitement and the living with an energy draining, nameless anxiety. Now, that seems for the most part, to be under control. I have been enjoying things more lately, and have extra excitement for the promises of spring and summer, and all the glorious things the Earth does in those months.

I'm especially grateful this year for the cycle of seasons. This time, when spring and summer roll around, I have another chance to jump in with both feet and wallow around in the all the glory of these coming months!

Two Major Events in Our Lives

The first one is a great happy one! Saturday the 7th Shelly and Adam welcomed their new little boy into the world! I got to be there for the birth and it was WONDERFUL!!! His name is Jackson Adam Hollingshead. His Papa Jack is pretty darned proud of the name. They call him Little Jack. :) So, he is his grandpa's namesake and was born on his great grandpa's birthday. The tradition in Adam's family is to give the boys their dad's name for a middle name. So this little guy is already steeped in tradition - he's so Catholic already!

Shelly and Little Jack are doing fine. Ellie, who will be 3 yrs old on Thursday, is enjoying the responsibility of being the big sister. She is an absolute delight to be with and being grandparents is the best job in the world!!!!!!!!!!!

The other news is not as happy. Last Wednesday eve my Aunt Evie was sitting at the kitchen table with my Uncle Kenny. She just laid her head down on her arm on the table and was gone. It was a shock and left my uncle and cousins with mixed feelings. She had been suffering from Alzheimers and it had been very hard for my uncle. Her personality had gotten so argumentative and awful that it was all he could do to get through the day with her.

With her passing it feels to me like the end of an era. She is the last of the Kopetzky kids - my mom's family. (There were 8 of them) Aunt Evie was the kind of person that lit up a room when she walked in. She was loud and boisterous and loving and had a laugh like no other. When I was growing up we spent a lot of time with them. A few times we lived with them when mom and dad were having a hard time. The first time I lived with them - they tell me - I was three days old. Mom had to go back into the hospital with kidney problems and my aunt and uncle kept me and both said that I spent the whole three days crying. What a joy I must have been!

Our family spent many, many happy Sundays with them - and on one occassion we stayed with them when my mom packed us all up and we left my dad. I remember Aunt Evie giving us kids a talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees. For the life of me, I had no clue what she was talking about. I couldn't see how trees and forests had anything to do with the situation.

In my little kid mind I thought they were rich because they had a color t.v. They lived for some years in an old convent in Littleton, CO and we loved it because we played hotel with all the rooms upstairs. My youngest cousin in that family, Denise, was adopted. I had never heard of such a thing, and when they let us peek into the bassinet I almost expected to see some kind of alien.

These last days have been full of memories and lip biting. And then I remember Little Jack's birth and it all comes full circle.

I will miss Aunt Evie, I am sad at the realization that an era of my life is closed, and I am very much in love with Little Jack.

Of Rice and Ministry reflection

In thinking about the rice and water experiment these three famous little monkeys came to mind, "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil."

I now don't think that "hear no evil, see no evil" means to block out and ignore evil. To do that, to allow it to exist is to be complicit in evil.

I do think it might mean that we are not to absorb it into ourselves. By doing that we fall prey to the evils of being overwhelmed, feeling helpless, becoming cynical. That is useless, and helps no one and nothing. Rather, we need to be able to face it, to do our best to change it, and to not allow it to become part of us.

As for the "speak no evil", that speaks for itself.

Of Rice and Ministry - Part 1

Recently, I attended the National Catholic Conference on Youth Ministry. The theme was "Formed by Living Waters". One of the speakers shared information and slides on the work of Masuro Emoto....

"...a creative and visionary Japanese researcher "

From a website:

"From Mr. Emoto's work we are provided with factual evidence, that human vibrational energy, thoughts, words, ideas and music, affect the molecular structure of water, the very same water that comprises over seventy percent of a mature human body and covers the same amount of our planet. Water is the very source of all life on this planet, the quality and integrity are vitally important to all forms of life. The body is very much like a sponge and is composed of trillions of chambers called cells that hold liquid. The quality of our life is directly connected to the quality of our water.

Water is a very malleable substance. Its physical shape easily adapts to whatever environment is present. But its physical appearance is not the only thing that changes, the molecular shape also changes. The energy or vibrations of the environment will change the molecular shape of water. In this sense water not only has the ability to visually reflect the environment but it also molecularly reflects the environment.

Mr. Emoto has been visually documenting these molecular changes in water by means of his photographic techniques. He freezes droplets of water and then examines them under a dark field microscope that has photographic capabilities. His work clearly demonstrates the diversity of the molecular structure of water and the effect of the environment upon the structure of the water."

For more information, and some intriguing photographs visit the following website:

http://www.life-enthusiast.com/twilight/research_emoto.htm

In this most interesting presentation the speaker shared with us an experiment using rice and water. The theory is that by placing words on jars of rice and water, the contents will be affected. The words on each jar are "Thank You", " and "You Fool". He also used one other jar with the same contents that was ignored. After some time the results were that the jar with "You Fool" and the ignored jar rotted, while the jar with the words "Thank You" remained clear.

The point of his message is that if water is that our human make-up is 60% water, and if water is so affected by words, what does that say about how we speak to each other?

When I got home from the conference you can guess what I did....yup, three jars of rice and water are now residing in our basement. Along with taping the words on the jar, I also touch them and say the words out loud to the first two, while ignoring the third jar.

Reactions have varied , including, "So now you're talking to rice?", sideways glances, a stern warning about "messing around with such things", to one person who fully expected somthing to happen.

So, despite the laughs, sideways glances,the dire warning, and with the encouragement of one, I forged on ahead. Read on......

Of Rice and Ministry - part 2

If you haven't read the post that precedes this one, "Of Rice and Ministry - part 1" ,you should do so. This one will make more sense.

Here's my follow up...on day 6 - which seems really early, I looked at the jars of rice and water and this is what I found. The first picture is the jar I ignored, the second is the jar with the words "You Fool".

And this is the jar with the words "Thank you". I don't know

what to think. The pictures are a little fuzzy, but I think you

can see what's happening. The first two are molding and

starting to bubble (rice wine in the process?) and the

"Thank You" jar is clear.

Is it because this jar was cleaner than the other two, did they have some microscopic something lurking in them, just waiting for food?
Are they just a couple of days ahead of the clear jar, and will it catch up with its own mold and goo?

I'll let it go for a while and see what happens. If this one continues to be clean, eventually I think I will clean them all out, boil them, and try it again to rule out the lurking bacteria theory.

One of the warnings I got was the temptation to think that I have power to affect things. And, in all honesty, it crossed my mind. But, this isn't about my power. I think it might be about being open. Jesus said, over and over, "You're faith has saved (healed) you." What if this is about faith? What if a negative attitude could shut things off, but an attitude of curiosity, openness, even half-belief could let things happen?

In one of my first blogs I questioned the energy that surrounds us and that we give off as it related to relationships with our dogs. Is the rice and water something similar?

Jesus said that he was going so that we could do what he had done and more. What forces exist that we ignore or ridicule or are afraid of? Are they things beyond our control?, our imagination?, our willingness?

Is it dangerous, as I was warned, to be curious about these things?

For me, it's more about affirming possibilities than about danger. I'm not afraid, just very, very intrigued. As kids we chanted, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!"

Is that true? At a deep level, maybe beyond our consciousness, do words make a difference? If that is even remotely possible, what does that say about how I speak to other people - and to myself?

What does that say about how I address the teen in class who has pushed every button I have,

about the lady who comes into the office asking for help with her rent while wearing her artificial, expensive fingernails,

about the man who comes in who I know is on the Registered Sex Offender list,

about the last time I hurled words like weapons at another person with the intent to hurt?

Can we put people down,

can we keep them down

by our perceptions, our energies, our words?

Can people be trapped by words?

Is that why Jesus insisted so strongly on forgiveness without limit?

So many questions from three jars of rice and water.