Whatever you do to the least of....

Readings for the 32nd Sunday of Cycle A. Four things struck me:

1. Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto me.
2. Lord, when did we give you drink or feed you ... when did we not?
3. I will come to separate the sheep from the goats, to judge among the sheep and between the goat and the ram.
4. Jesus will come and vanquish the sovereigns of this world.

Thoughts:

Each of us is both part sheep and part goat. No matter what we do as sheep, it will never be enough. For every person that I help, there must be ten I pass by. How can I ever do enough? How can I not feel guilty? Yet there is mercy.

At judgment that in us which is of sheep will be called forward and that in us that is of goat will be banished, forever. Those sovereigns of this world, those addictions which rule over me will be vanquished. I will be freed! I will be liberated.

The Clue to San Francisco

Travelogue: Clues to the Streets of San Francisco

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" - Mark Twain.

San Francisco, CA, stands out for me as one of a handful of America's truly distinct cities. I always wondered what combination of factors could produce both both the hippie counter culture and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Thanks to some native guides, Nancy Gilbert and her family, I got some clues.

The most important thing to understand about San Francisco is the climate, or, as the locals say, the microclimates. On leaving the house, they say it is best to take a sweater. Within the city temperatures may change from sunny warm to cold grey without warning.  It can also vary by as much as 20 degrees if you move ten miles away from the Pacific Ocean or the Bay.  The fog may clear as you climb its mountains or even ride a cable car. But it is the City's year-round microclimate consistency that creates its unique character. It is seldom below 40 or above 80 degrees any time of year. Mark Twain is supposed to have said "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco". He might have said the warmest winter as well, but it is all exaggeration to make a point. I will make my point later.

Haydee and I were there primarily for a business trip with PIANC, an international navigation group. We, along with many of our European visitors, were taken aback to see so many homeless people on the streets. At first I tried to assure them that this was not typical of America, that we didn't have this "problem" in Pittsburgh.

Of course some people were taking advantage of the situation. We saw a man walk away from his wheel chair with his tin can. On a previous trip we were even approached by "aggressive" panhandlers in a deserted area and felt lucky to get away. But this time we saw something different.

We had to make a stop at the local Social Security office. Around the room we saw a lot of people dealing with addictive, abusive, physical- and psycho-limitation issues. We held the hand of a lady starting to shake because it was taking too long for her to see her advisor.  We listened to the man behind us berate the counselor in window #3 as "an illiterate, a high school drop-out" apparently unhappy with whatever counselor #3 said. This was a part of America that I did not want to see and used to want to just sweep under the table.

Then, it struck me how many of these street people were my age, leaving me to wonder if they were victims of some post-Vietnam traumatic injury or of some drug epidemic of my generation. Or were they people released from mental institutions because we closed them all down or released from prisons because of overcrowding. it occurred to me that there really wasn't any place better for them to go.

We arrived the week after the Gay Pride parade and the rainbow flags were still flying. On the bus tour that Haydee took, someone asked why it was San Francisco that became the center of so much Gay Pride. The Guide answered that with the 1849 gold rush, when so many men seeking their fortune arrived greatly outnumbering women, they long ago developed a tolerance to same sex activities. I had never thought of it in that context.

The sun came out a few days later, when Nancy and our son Sean arrived. She drove us around town and up the mountain. Nancy is from San Francisco and we had never before had the opportunity to meet her family. This started to become fun. We had already walked the Golden Gate Bridge and ate breakfast at Dottie's True Blue Cafe, one of Nancy's favorites, where the eggs are still orange and they can tell you the farm they came from. Now we were ready for more.

In addition to seeing where Nancy grew up and went to school (which was really interesting), we did a lot of tourist things too. We walked from Chinatown to the harbor. We took the cable car to Fisherman's Wharf and had the best Irish coffee ever at the Buena Vista Cafe. We went up the mountaintop to see the marvelous view and I was nearly knocked over by the powerful wind. We visited the Jesuit Mission and saw how the Spanish/Mexican/Indian cultures were strong in California in 1776, just as their eastern future-compatriots were signing the Declaration of Independence.

When we drove through Haight Ashbury, I asked why this particular location became the center of both the free speech movement and the hippie counterculture of the late 60s and early 70s, before each movement turned into a caricature of itself.  Nancy's answer combined the idea of low cost of housing in that particular area at the time and the climate. Social rebels and misfits of all causes could arrive without a plan and live outdoors until they could find friends or move into inexpensive housing. Something like the tradition of the 49ers whose only plan was to arrive with the shirt on there backs and strike it rich. She called it a "tolerant" community.

I found myself thinking differently about some of those homeless people I saw. Some people thrive, I guess according to their standards, on living on their own by their wits with only the smallest acknowledgement to traditional society.  All of a sudden I could see the climate as a common thread tying together the 49ers, the homeless, the free-speechers, the nerds, hippies and entrepreneurs, each combining self-reliance, innovation and social re-invention. This was also America, and I had closed my eyes to it before.

The highlight of the trip was yet to come. It was lunch with Nancy's family. Although Nancy has long been part of our family, we never had the opportunity to meet anyone else in hers. We were greeted by Nancy's sister Cathy who anyone would recognize immediately as a sister, and Cathy's husband Robert and daughters Sierra and Claire. Claire, the older one, just graduated from High School. They both were very gracious at dinner while the rest of us explored olden times. Nancy's aunt Barbara, cousins George and Annette, Annette's husband Jodi and a friend of the family Jackie, sometimes called Nancy's adopted aunt because she had been so close to Nancy's mother and remained closely connected to the family, were all there for lunch. It was a real welcoming party. We found so much to talk about. In a couple of hours we felt we knew them forever.

We topped it off with Cathy and George and what I thought was a singularly bad idea, sipping wine on a very cold San Francisco beach blanket. Apparently, judging by all the others on the beach, this is something of a local tradition. I am happy to report how wrong I was as the wine and conversation quickly compensated for any lack of temperature.

We now have lots of new friends in San Francisco and hope some day to host them in Pittsburgh.

Beautiful Vitoria, the Clean

Beautiful Vitoria, the Clean.

 

Haydee and I spent a couple of weeks in Vitoria in May. I wanted to update you from my last visit email of eight years ago, then called “Prosperity comes to Espirito Santo”. This one is "Beautiful Vitoria, the Clean". 

 

Vitoria was always in a beautiful setting, but this time I was struck by how beautiful Vitoria has become as a result of people. It is really clean, at least in comparison to Pittsburgh. The streets are well kept and the little parks are full of flowers. Both Praia do Canto, Camburi and Praia da Costa are now all well developed with very pleasing beachfronts, although there is little ocean at the first anymore there (replaced by the beautiful and interesting "Praca de Namorados") but there are new beaches as well. They have bigger beach fronts, bike trails and kiosques. But it doesn’t stop there. The newest buildings, quite modern eight years ago, are more architecturally pleasingly and esthetically designed now. The old city seems well maintained. On weekends the old city streets are full of people at bars and restaurants, like so many European cities, but it is no longer the center of commerce, government or population.

 

The sense of personal security we felt as Volunteers isn’t there anymore, but then neither is the military dictatorship that provided it. The biggest threat I saw is the one drivers pose to motor-bikers, the motor-bikers apparently have come to believe that the little striped line between lanes is designated especially for them. So motorists changing lanes can be dangerous. Beyond that, one just needs to be more cautious than we were in our care-freer days. 

 

No one smokes in public and few still smoke. There is zero tolerance for drinking and driving. Police have regular roadblock blitzes. Even the smallest amount of alcohol results in a fine and loss of license. People really obey this. Most opine that it was necessary, even though it cuts into their social life.

 

I am surprised when I ask about Brazil’s chances of winning the world cup. They say something like “Brazil has a very good team but only one of four or five very good teams with a good chance”. They don’t think of themselves as sure winners or sure losers. They say kids don’t go wild in the streets yelling gooooooooooooool anymore when Brazil scores. Some shrug their shoulders and say that Brazil has a good team but it doesn’t matter because someone has already decided who is going to win. Maybe Brazil, maybe someone else, but it will be determined before the players take the field. They feel the deception of the 1998 loss to France, which many think was fixed because Cafu was benched at the last minute, or after the loss in 2006 which they might opine was necessary to buy the votes to have the 2014 Cup in Brazil. People just don’t feel that the best team will necessarily be the winner.  No one I have met expects it to be anything less than a tourist nightmare with insufficient transportation facilities and some new airports and stadiums not near completion or army-demonstrator clashes. Some even hope they will not win because it really will distract people from the outrage of the demonstrations that were held last year.

 

If you followed those demonstrations, among the biggest I have ever seen anywhere in the world, it looked like they were going to force real changes. The Terceiro Ponte bridge, and anywhere nearby, was jammed with about a million people protesting. Everyone says they were there at first. Then the anarchist groups started doing damage, burning the bridge toll booths, breaking windows and scratching cars. Regular people stopped demonstrating. People say the anachists did the government a favor. Some believe the government sponsored the anarchists to do the favor. President Dilma promised to make improvements. Maybe she did, but not too many people are happy. In Espirito Santo the Governor suddenly discovered that the private company operating the bridge toll boths had actually recovered all of their costs years ago and no one ever noticed so they were fired the company and the bridge is now free. The company will take the case to court and it will be interesting to see what happens, but of course that will be after the next election.

 

While I did not get all the way to the north this year, I read that both Sao Mateus and Linhares are planning to build port facilities. A new law authorizes private ports. They are among the 14 new ports planned for Espirito Santo, most of them to serve the offshore oil exploration. Vila Velha and Vitoria are competing for a new port along with Presidente Kennedy and cities in the North of Rio for a deepwater facility. I counted 15 ships at anchor off of Vitoria. Interior cities like Barra de Sao Francisco and Ecoporanga are said to be thriving due to the marble and granite developments there. I did get to Colatina. There is now a good road all of the way there and a bypass around if you want to go further north. Colatina and Baixu Guando had a terrible Christmas Eve floods, but Colatina still looked like I remember, which was not all that great.

 

People in general appear wealthier. Brazil benefited as a major supplier to China before China started to slow down. The emergence to two income families also had a big impact. Young female graduates seem to be doing better than males. But they both reflect an entrepreneurial spirit different from our generation of friends did at that age. But recent graduates, since 2011 are having more problems finding jobs. 

People that bought “casas populares” forty years ago and kept them up and improved them the way Brazilians do, now, with streets and sewers added, have them for sale at $500,000. I worry about a housing bubble, but they do not seem to have the ability to get second mortgages so those who have been in their house a long time should be ok. You also see a lot more older people out walking about than we ever did.

 

If this is all too rich for Peace Corps tastes, we stayed mostly at Punta da Fruta, about 15 miles south of Vila Velha, where they are still waiting for pavement and sewers and where cars with loud speakers still occaisionally disturb the otherwise the quiet sound of birds singing all morning. Haydee comes from a very big family. She had packed up gifts for 51 relatives and we personally met every one of them. People who were potential nephews in law are now all parents of a third and fourth generation of relatives.  They fed us constantly.

 

We also got to walk on the beach and relax which is what I really wanted. If this is practice for retirement, which will take place at the end of June, I think I will like it. My asthma was very mild.     

Dogs, which I remember living largely outside, have come indoors and are now objects of great affection. Without allergies, I was able to play with dogs for the first time since I was 15. I liked that too.

 

For everything else going on, the sickness, deaths, tears and tragedies, Brazilians are still the loveable people we remember, and they still want you to eat too much.

 

Jaime McCarville

Prayers that God always answers (feel free to make adaptations that work for you).
November 11, 2013


Prayer #1. This is my favorite prayer. I use it all the time and I am constantly surprised that the answer is always the same.


Jim: "God gimme this" or, maybe sometimes, "God gimme that".

God: "Jim, I, or fate, will do whatever. There is no guarantee that you will be free of sickness, death and heartbreak, along with a lot of the good things too. Your job is not so much to tell me what to do (although I really don't mind), but to cope with whatever it is that does happen. That is your job. You can always ask for more help, you will find them even if only for one day at a time. Start getting ready. When it happens, tell me how it is going. I will always listen to you. Sometimes even you listen to me."


Prayer #2a When I can't make sense of life.

Jim: God, I don't really understand, but if I fight with you, you will win. You will win whether it makes sense to me or not. Help me cope and survive whatever happens. I hope it does not hurt too bad.

Prayer #2b When I have done something I feel bad about or I feel inadequate about what I did do.

Jim: God forgive me as, and if, I forgive others. Remind me. I need to do this every day. Don't make it too hard. By myself I am not that strong. Keep me safe. Keep all of us safe.

God does not really need to say anything. The answer is self-contained.


Prayer #3. I love this prayer. I say it a lot without even thinking that I am talking to God. One does not even need to believe in God for it to work. I hear agnostics and atheists say it all the time. It always start with the same two words.

Jim: "'Oh, God'. I am in trouble and I have no idea how to get out. Help me."

Again, God doesn't need to say anything to provide his answer. I just have to admit that the problem is bigger than me and I need some outside intervention. Sometimes it comes in a new turn of events, more often it is a friend's helping hand, sometimes, it is just a hard lesson learned. Whatever,  it can be coped with.


Prayer #4. Thanking God. When I am in a really good mood and I want to thank God, I ask him how to pay back the favors I have received. I don't use this prayer nearly as often as I should.

Jim: "Thanks God. I am really fortunate with all of the gifts you have showed me. What is expected of me? What can I do for you?"

God: "Lend a hand. Help others find the courage to cope when bad things happen that they do not understand. Be a friend. Moreover, think constantly how even the simple things you do helps or hurts others."


Prayer #5.  To thank my guardian angel. A lot of people don't believe in guardian angels. For me, I could never explain how I have lucked out of so many tight spots if I didn't have one. Macumba and Santaria call them "Santos". In this prayer, the answer surprised me.

Jim: "Dear Angel (or Santo), you have been so good to me, is there anything I can do to repay you?"

Angel: "Jim, like you, I am starting to get old. You could help by trying to make my job a little easier."

OK, I am glad he has a sense of humor, but I guess I can try.

The secret of my success

Success has three Secrets. Many people may call them luck, but I don't think it is.

The first Secret is called "being in the right place at the right time". Now, some people call this luck, but what it really means is that you have to go a whole lot of places. Most of them are wrong places and likely to be boring. So, to pass the time, try to figure out why other people think this particular event may be interesting, at least it will kill the time.

The second Secret is "good timing". Again, a lot of people call this luck but it isn't just luck. It means making connections. Now, since you have gone to so many places (Secret #1), and, if you listened to all of those stories, by this time you should be pretty good at connecting things. 

The third Secret is luck. And that is just ..., plain luck.

What I learn by listening: Anorexia

No one seems to know what causes anorexia, but Prof. Jeremy Wolfe podcasts his course, Psychology 101, from MIT, on iTunesU, and gives a chilling account of the pattern that most people who fall in this category come from. Anorexia, of course, is the disease that will find someone absolutely attesting that everything is fine when s/he is wasting away with shrinking vital organs, sometimes resulting in death.

First, anorexia apparently only occurs in countries where both "food is plentiful" and "thinness is glorified", in fact where we simultaneously obsess over both thinness and food. For about forty years, this was associated with white, middle class western culture. but it recently has spread to other ethnic groups and, more recently, to Japan and China.

Second, it typically occurs among females, specifically young, post-menapausal females who usually are "always doing things right". They are self-disciplined, take care of themselves, do their homework, and generally, follow the rules.

Third, and this was the shocker, they come from families that are achievement-oriented, somewhat overprotective and "enmeshed" in the lives of each other. Prof. Wolfe gives the example of his own extended enmeshed family. When they try to go out to eat it takes 30 minutes to decide where. Shortly into the debate someone will say "Granny doesn't like that place", but it isn't Granny who is speaking up. It is the type of family where everyone tries to speak for everyone and is intolerant of individuals "acting out" anger. If there is an issue, the family tries to smooth it out, quietly, as a unit.

He throws in additional complicating cultural factors, such as the "myth of the superwoman" and how, with self-control, you should be able to fix anything in your life.

The implication seems to be that the young woman desperately wants to control something and she finds that, through self-discipline, she can reduce her eating intake which she equates to self-control, beauty and thinness, all good things. In fact, as an added benefit, the less she eats, the more she finds that she also controls everyone else around her, as they, of course, tear their hair out trying to get her to change while she remains oblivious to the danger she poses to herself.

Few things work all of the time as a cure for anorexia. In the hospital, control over treats such as letting friends visit, sometimes provides enough incentive to get the person to eat. That doesn't always work, however, when they return to the free environment. Counseling the family, as a disorder of the family where the daughter is the treated as the designated victim, also sometimes works, although it must be difficult to reach such an understanding. Most people, however, do eventually recover.

Bulima, on the other hand, occurs largely among the unattached, people who really want to fit in. This often includes a lot of social eating and drinking. It also includes wanting to fit into those tight jeans to fit in socially as well. Unlike anorexics, they feel ashamed and want to diet. But while dieting they feel the hunger and binge, followed by rounds of vomiting and more bingeing. It is as if the brain is saying you are not getting enough nutrition, so "go eat more". Group therapy for bulimics, meeting other people with the same problems, helps remove some of the shame and isolation and is usually quite effective.

What I found so chilling about the description of anorexia is, that, at first glance, how everybody seems to be doing "right" things. He uses this example, however, as a demonstration of how subtlely mental illness can take hold.

The disease must come as a great and terrible surprise to the individuals and families that it strikes. I have never previously ever heard or read anything that I thought might help people deal with the situation. Perhaps this can help a little.

Prosperity Comes to Espirito Santo

In April we had a 5-day quick visit to our family in Brazil. In each visit it strikes me how Brazil constantly re-defines itself. This time it was apparent that the time for that old joke about "Brazil always being the country of the future" might be retired. 

Most of my nephews and nieces, who I had long noticed were so serious as students, now have almost all landed good jobs in the entrepreneurial sector, many associated with Petrobras. They are building a HQ in Vitoria that is said to employ 10,000 future jobs. For right now, many of that generation have left Vitoria to take jobs in Rio until the new HQs opens up. Most of them are individual consultants, self-incorporated. Benefits vary, but it is a different mold than that of "government employee-mentality".

Another nephew plays in a band in bars at the "Triangulo das Bermudas". This is a collection of lively night spots in Praia do Canto, which you shouldn't miss. Praia da Costa in Vila Velha has also developed beautifully.  Daughter Julie already settled on her dream home there, right at the curve at the beach, but, lacks the $300,000 to buy it. Housing prices in general have soared in the passed six years. Is it a bubble or something those of us that have thought about retiring there shouldn't miss out on?

The hills inside Vitoria, that used to house the favelas, are now all built up with real homes. Even the downtown is undergoing historic preservation. The CVRD plant, once the jewel, is now looked at as an eyesore and source of pollution. 

While I haven't gotten back to Barra de Sao Francisco for about 6 years, I am told that it is hard to find a parking spot. The Barra and Ecoporanga have both profited big time from the development of granite. I would love to see the Barra now.

Crime remains a problem, but like in the US, it is concentrated in pockets. Close in suburbs, like Cariacica must be very difficult to live in, but that has little impact on day to day life in Vitoria, except for some normal precautions one might take anywhere. 

Most of my friends from back in the day had long since moved from the interior to Vitoria, making it easy for me to visit them. Now they are retiring and turning the country over to a new generation. I think the new generation will do very well. My friends are starting to move again to places 40 or 50 miles out, like Campinho and Aracruz. They talk about turning back to their hunting and fishing roots and a quieter lifestyle. Sounds nice.

Vitoria was cleaner and prettier than I ever saw it before. Traffic was sometimes congested, but orderly with a surprising respect for pedestrians. The people were happier than I remembered, even from just a few years ago.  It was a short, but great trip. We did it now, mostly out of fear that our own nation's economy may be entering a more tenuous phase and who knows when we will be able to do it again. I hope it will be often and frequent. 

I guess, for Brazil, the future has arrived.

The meaning of Christmas

I find that the meaning of Christmas has a very simple message. Whether you believe that Jesus was a divine messenger, a prophetic messenger or a wise-man messenger that had great knowledge of God. The message of his birth is the same, "we are not alone".

On Reading "Death Comes to the Archbishop"

I woke up way too early today and was lamenting to myself the loss of earlier times in my life, when I had more time to spend with friends talking about things in our lives or what we read. Then I realized that that is what blogs and insomnia were invented for.

This morning I am dwelling on the themes of place and time from a book Arthur Powers told me to read, "Death Comes to the Archbishop", by Willa Cather. Now Willa Cather should be near the top of just about everybody's favorite authors, just for having written "My Antonia". Anyway, I had never heard of this book before, so I gave it a try.

Cather said it was an experimental novel for her, written about 1927. It was like some early Italian movies, more about place than story. She paints (really paints in print) images of the American Southwest in the middle to late 19th century. She notes without preaching, the different relations that Indians, Mexicans and the newcomer Americans all had to the place or to the land. The Indians sought mostly to blend into the environment, not using windows because they felt the reflection scarred the earth, while the Americans came to plant, grow and change it. One can almost hear echoes of these relationships in today's debates on climate change.

A second theme was the sense of time. Haydee has been telling me about her speculations that time could be more circular than linear. The Archbishop, in his old age, goes back and visits the southwest of his youth, just the way I increasingly spend my time enjoying, really enjoying, my experiences of much younger years. People start to think he is going senile, but that misses the point.

I remember visiting my mother in the hospital in her later years. She greeted me with "what a shame, you just missed all of my old friends from Marquette (her college), they were here and we had a wonderful time." To this day I regret being so pigheaded skeptical instead of just asking her "tell me all about it". Maybe you have to be past 60 to understand that dimension.

In addition to the more obvious reasons to like the book, it also held my attention for a more personal one. I had always understood that Regis College, my alma mater, was started in Las Vegas, NM in the latter part of the 19th century and that Bishop Machbeuf invited the College to move to Colorado when he moved New Mexico to become Bishop in Denver. Bishop Machbeuf it turns out was actually the principal supporting character, Fr. Vaillant, in the book. Machbeuf Hall was the dorm with tons of cute girls at Loretto Heights College down the road from Regis.

At the very beginning of the book, Fr. Latour, the bishop, and Fr. Vaillant are commissioned to set up a diocese in the newly won territory of the southwest United States in Santa Fe, NM. Only, it is so new, no one can tell them how to find Santa Fe. It takes them two years to get there and the Mexican priests in the region said no one told them they were getting a new bishop and won't listen to these strangers. So, Latour has to spend another year to cross the desert to the west coast of Mexico to get his credentials from the Mexican archbishop as well.

Along the way, he acquires a mule, named Contento. Contento remains as much a part of the story as anyone else. As for me, I feel like a just took a trip across the southwest, riding a mule named Contento, and I did it all in the latter part of the 19th century.

Now, with all that accomplished, I can go back to sleep.

God and Science: Aceptance and Belief

I have long been troubled by the use of the word "belief". Especially how it is used comparing belief in things we know from religion and belief in things we know from science. Should we even use the same word when talking of things physical and things spiritual? For instance, I believe that the sun will rise in the morning and I believe that if I let go of a ball, it will drop down. I really believe those things. As often as I observe them, they always happens the same way. But I never felt that that was the same way I felt about what I "believe in" about God.

But, wait a minute!

Science tells me that the sun doesn't really rise in the morning. Science tells me that the earth and sun are revolving around each other as they are together hurtling through space at some millions of miles an hour or something. I don't believe that. I accept it, because other people think that is the best explanation, but don't believe it. I can't even comprehend it. And then science tells me that the ball is not really just dropping down, but that the ball and the earth are attracted toward each other and are both moving, however so slightly, in some Newtonian notion of science, toward each other. Now, once again, I can accept that because people a whole lot smarter than I tell me that that is a what they say. But "believe it", come on, NO WAY! In fact, Einstein didn't believe it was the whole story either and described some fascinating system of gravity as a web that someday will probably take the spinning theory's place.

Don't get me wrong. I am not anti-science. I actually accept all of these things as theories, or at least as very likely theories that the smart and intelligent people I seem to think give us pretty good explanations. The things I believe in are those I can see and verify for myself. So, therefore, I believe that the sun rises and I believe that balls drop. I accept that earth and sun revolve around each other and that they are both hurtling through space. I accept that the ball and earth are attracted together and that together they are part of some gigantic web or something. That is OK. I can accept these things without troubling myself about really understanding them any better than the simple way I explained them above.

I invite any readers to explain it to me better and disabuse me of my mis-understandings, but I doubt I will ever reach the point of thinking that I really believe them. They are theories designed to explain, in a consistent manner, what we see but can't explain. In a way, it is something of a convenience.

This all brings me back to things spiritual. I don't know if I believe in God the same way I conceptualize God or the same way that many others might do so. What I believe in is a power of good or of love so much greater than anything I can really understand. I believe this because I have experienced it, usually through other people. I also believe that I have felt that power of love acting in my life, greater than anything I can do on my own. This, I can believe, is God. It is like my belief that the sun will rise and that the ball will drop. I have been fortunate to have had these experiences, even sometimes during great spiritual pain or dryness. Now that is talking about something of convenience!

It doesn't stop there however. Wise and well meaning people have developed theories that tie these and other strands of my religion or even other religions into notions and theories that seek to explain it all. I like to think about the concepts discussed, but I don't dwell on trying to understand them. Anyway, they are called mysteries. Mysteries invite us to enter into deep and profound thought. But people proclaiming that they know mysteries, may just be putting limiting something way beyond the human ability to limit.

Now, I can accept many of these popular theories of god, just as I accept Newton's or Einstein's theory of gravity. But, when I put all of the helps and experiences of love that I have had, that is what I call my belief in God.

McCarville/McCarvill Reunion

Last weekend, Haydee and I and Sean and Nancy attended a McCarville/McCarvill reunion in Clarksville, Md.

We have never been sure how our branch of the family (the Owen McCarville-Jane Lynch group) fit into the rest of these honorable McCarvilles. They all trace their ancestry back to a Thomas McCarville in a family tree that we are not really part of. It was the first time we ever met with this group.

We met many new friends, two of them called Jim McCarville. One Jim McCarville, the one from Minneapolis, told me of the family DNA project that has conclusively proved we have a common ancestor. We just don't know how far back. (By the way, he graciously offered to host the reunion next year in Minneapolis.)

We met another family with a Jim McCarville from Buffalo. They are all big hockey fans and promised to come to see a game at the Igloo before it closes in 2009-2010. By the way, the Buffalo McCarville's don't know how they fit into the Thomas tree either.

I got to argue about whether my friend, old King McCarville, qualified for the definition of a "High King" (I thought so). I bought the updated McCarville/McCarvill CD and went out today to by the Family Tree Maker software. (I should have more updates in the future.) The great T-shirts were worth the trip alone!

It was great that Nancy came along, she is a Gilbert with her own stories, but (and this was my favorite part), she listened so patiently to all of ours.

We stayed at the Inn at Peralynna Manor that we found on Mapquest. It looked like a corporate retreat or wedding reception place that was not otherwise booked for this weekend. The food was fantastic and the service very attentive. The decor was a tad on the over-opulent or even faux opulent side. One of our group, who will remain nameless, said it looked like it was decorated by Michael Jackson, But none of this is to say it detracted from our stay. In fact, it just added to a really great weekend.

Patsy Cline, Always

Haydee, Julie and I went out to see "Always", the tribute show to Patsy Cline tonight at the Pittsburgh Caberet. It was a great show, but the gem of the evening was discovering the Caberet. It is a nice little dinner theater that you could imagine might have been a place that Patsy could have played. Well, maybe you need a little imagination to come up with that. But it was great to hear, "Walkin after Midnight", "Fall to Pieces", Crazy" and 17 other songs they way she would sing them.

Patrick McCarville Named Public Defender for Salinas Co.

Patrick McCarville was named Public Defender for Salinas County, Colorado, on July 1, 2007. Follow the link to find out who he got to defend on his first day on the job. Congrats, Pat!

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/13605055/detail.html

If you click on the second video link to the right of the article, Camper Charged with Murder, and you will see him at work. At least you see his back in a nice suit.

Over 60? Get Your Shingles Shot!

"You know that there is a shot for that now."

Those were the first words out of my doctor's mouth, even before he told me that the lesions on my head were, as I now know, "shingles".

I had never thought much about shingles and, when I did, thought they had been pretty much tamed. Turns out from the many stories of friends and acquaintances, that this virus is very much among us, 10-20% of us are likely to get it, and greatly misunderstood.

Shingles is the same virus that has remained dormant in our nervous system ever since we first had chicken pox. When it wakes up, it travels down the nerves to erupt on the skin. It shows up as feeling of high sensitivity and then what looks like a rash or hives on one side of the body. Mine hit the right hand side of my face. The pox outbreak lasts 7-10 days, and mine is nearly gone, but the pain and numbness can last for 3-5 weeks. Some cases may have longer term impacts, including possibly on the eye.

Shingles is not contagious. With direct contact, a person with shingles can pass the virus on to someone who has never had chicken pox, but you can only get shingles from yourself. It is treatable if diagnosed early. If one is suspicious, don't wait to get it checked out. Just don't.

Dr. Ellis tells me that in 2006 the AMA approved a new shot for shingles. (Web pages indicate that Merck developed it and market it as Zostavax.) According to Dr. Ellis, the AMA recommends that everyone over 60 get the shot. Early tests indicated it reduces the chance of getting shingles by 50%. If I can do any favor, it is to pass this advice on to my friends who may read this page. If you can reduce your chances of getting this by 50%, you want to do it.

IF YOU ARE OVER 60, GET YOUR SHINGLES SHOT!