Reflections on the Death of a Pope and Personal Prayer Practices

 I finally got a week off from work as our school where I teach had its Easter break (Spring break to other schools).  While it was far too short and another week would not have hurt, it was a nice time for relaxation and catching up on some things too, which I did.  A few things happened during that week though which are worth mentioning.

On Monday the 21st, Pope Francis passed away.  As a Catholic myself, this is a very significant thing as it means that soon a new Pontiff will be sitting on the Chair of St. Peter in Rome.  I have managed to live through about 5 Popes so far (Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and now Francis).  The bulk of my life - beginning in my childhood and going into my mid-30s - was the Pontificate of Saint John Paul II.  JPII was a good Pope overall - not perfect, but he had many great qualities.  Benedict was also a good Pope, as he championed orthodoxy and a return to our roots as a Church.  Francis though was a whole different breed altogether.  He was both the first Jesuit Pope as well as the first from the New World (an Italo-Argentinian by birth).  But, he was also a Pope who had a reign that tended to be extremely controversial.  On one hand, he was sort of a strong advocate for the marginalized, which I suppose was a good virtue.  On the other, he also had some issues - he was not exactly theologically orthodox, and at times his ill-tempered way of handling people coupled with his somewhat arbitrary dismissal of certain aspects of Church Tradition were concerning.  The introduction of the disastrous document Traditionale Custodis is a case in point.  Francis hated conservatives and traditionalists, and found ways to be punitive against those who disagreed with him in what appeared to be retaliatory.  What he did in particular to Cardinal Burke, Bishop Strickland, and Fr. Frank Pavone, among others, was shocking, while at the same time he touted individuals such as the "Rainbow Jesuit" James Martin.  Add to that the Pachamama mess and this whole "Synodality" thing, and it caused much friction in the Church.  So, how does a more faithful Catholic who values Tradition view Francis?  Let me give a brief proposal of my own.

In the long run, Francis was a validly-elected Pope, so to that end he was to be respected in his official capacity.  And, on occasion he did some good stuff, such as upholding the sanctity of life and traditional marriage.  However, on the other hand, Francis was radical, by theological standards he was a liberal, and his personality was not always the most genial either (he was called in some ecclesiastical circles in Argentina "Old Vinegar Face").  That being said, it is possible to do two things at once.  First, we pray that he had a conversion of heart before his repose, and we also remember his soul as we do all departed. Second, we can also still in good conscience take issue with some of Francis's more radical ideas, and we can pray that his successor will be someone much more nuanced and conciliatory to the conservatives like myself he tried (whether intentionally or not) to alienate and oppose.  The possibility of a more orthodox Pope, even moderately so like Benedict XVI was, is good - some of the candidates for consideration include Cardinal Zen of China and Cardinal Sarah of Africa, both of whom are very orthodox.  As we start looking toward who the successor to Francis will be, I just pray our leaders understand the needs of the Church and don't push political nonsense.  

It is also worth mentioning that there have been much worse Popes than Francis - by the standards of some in history, Francis was mild actually.  The Bride of Christ is still present on this earth, so its leadership is human and prone to imperfection.  Therefore, bad and corrupt clergy are a given.  What we cannot do is let the bad eggs and rotten fruit taint the entire Church, and therefore we use discretion when trying to separate the actions and legacies of fallible leadership from the eternal vocation of the Bride of Christ herself.  This is why I will refrain personally from attacking Francis directly, although I do have many fundamental disagreements with his tenure as Pope.  Even the best and holiest of Popes have moments of displaying their own concupiscent nature - the Pope, after all, is not God and thus is subject to many of the same temptations, limitations, and other challenges we all deal with as human beings.  It is a Pope's attitude and ultimately the reality inside his heart that makes the difference, and only God can truly know the heart.  So, in summary, we can pray for the soul of Francis while still disagreeing with many of the things he has done, and there is no conflict with our faith in doing so.  

Aside from the passing of Pope Francis, we experienced Easter 2025 this past Sunday.  Another year surviving the fasts and abstinences of Lent, and now it is an adjustment getting back into a more festal mindset - no more seafood or cheese pizzas on Fridays, the return of the "Gloria" at Mass, and other things including the shift in the daily decade of the Rosary I pray from the Sorrowful Mysteries to the Glorious Mysteries.  And, that leads me to a brief discussion of my own devotional practice.

I have neither the time nor the focus to pray a complete Rosary every day, so for the past few years I have structured my devotions this way.  To begin, I say a decade of the Rosary, followed by doing the daily Mass reading, and then more personal prayers.  By saying a decade of the Rosary, that requires an explanation.  Each set of Mysteries of the Rosary consist of five decades - each focusing on one Mystery within the five.  The Mysteries are divided thus - The Joyful, the Luminous (introduced 20 years ago by Pope St. John Paul II), the Sorrowful, and the Glorious.  Traditionally, certain days of the week were set aside to pray a specific set of Mysteries, and many people who practice praying the Rosary still do this.  However, I do it differently.  For me, I focus on a set of Mysteries for a week (one each day) and then I organize them according to the Church year.  So, this is my pattern to go by:

1. Advent, Christmas to Epiphany - the Joyful Mysteries

2. Epiphany to Quinquegessima Sunday - the Luminous Mystery

3. The seasons of Lent and Holy Week - the Sorrowful Mysteries

4.  From Easter through Trinity Sunday - the Glorious Mysteries

5. Ordinary time between Trinity and the First Sunday of Advent - one set of Mysteries each week.

Doing it this way for me is like more or less living the life that Christ lived as the Mysteries are then coordinated to the chronological order of Christ's life.  I would even consider it a way of "walking in the footsteps of Jesus" because it then takes on a greater significance.  The Rosary is not a mandated devotion, and therefore it can be adjusted and practiced in a way that reflects the devotee's convictions without compromising Magisterial truth. It is a different type of devotion, and as far as I know, I may be the only person who does it like this.   However, the spiritual benefits of doing it for me are fruitful, and thus I feel right doing it my way in this case. 

The problem with the Rosary - even an adjusted one like the one I pray - is that it can try patience.  You have to keep track of the number of "Ave Marias" said and then make sure you are on the right Mystery.  And, when you are pressed for time in the morning in particular, it can be a hurried exercise.  Some of the prayers, in all honesty, get a bit tedious - the "Glory Be" comes to mind here.  But, they are there for a reason so we overcome our own limitations by being faithful in our devotion.  I no doubt will have some staunch person who will gasp in horror that I said that and say in Greta Thunberg fashion "How dare you!!"  But, let's be honest - a consistent prayer life is not always comfortable or convenient, and even the most tedious of prayers hold spiritual benefit for us.  So, despite hurrying through those tedious acts sometimes, God sees thankfully our hearts, and he sees our faithfulness.  And for those who would take issue, please be honest with yourselves too - are you always ecstatic to say prayers??  I would wager a month's salary to say negative on that, because to say otherwise means you are lying.  We don't have to feign religious zeal to be faithful, and thank God we have a merciful God who understands that.  Even Jesus Himself grew weary at times of praying in all honesty, so we are in good company.  

This was a slightly different approach from my usual observations today, but I nonetheless hope they will give the reader some edification.   Thanks for allowing me to share, and will see you next time!

Dealing With A Spectrum of Things

 As I reflect this week, there is something I wanted to just share.  This past Monday, Barbara had to go to the MVA office over on Reisterstown Pike here in Baltimore to renew her driver's license.  While that process ended up being smoother than expected, there was another problem.  Let me first give some background for context.

I know Baltimore well - I have connections to this city going back to my kindergarten days.  One thing I know is that there are some people here - more so in recent years - that can be very rude.  At the risk of starting a particular controversy, I need to also note the demographic.  Baltimore is by and large a significantly Black city - with the exception of possibly a city like Atlanta, the Black population in Baltimore is a very noticeable one.  While most Blacks in the city are generally easy to get along with and cause no issues, there is a notable exception to that rule.  Some Blacks here tend to get confrontational, nasty, and also are adept at throwing around the "f-bomb" like it is blowing their nose or something.  I have seen delivery drivers and others get very hostile for no reason and when they get like that, I don't engage them - they get a door closed in their face quickly.  I also have a few students I teach like this too - you can't tell them anything without a nasty resistance on their part, and in all reality, there is no call for that.  Barbara had her own experience this past Monday at the MVA, and I want to recount that now.

Driver's license offices tend to have long lines and are a bureaucratic mess in many cases, and the one in Baltimore is no exception.  As we were waiting in line for Barbara to renew her license on Monday, directly in front of us was a short Black woman with long hair and those eyes - you know the look; they are itching for a fight.  In all honesty, the woman reminded me of an ill-tempered, yappy dachshund.  She kept eyeing us in the line, and at one point she started yelling about "her space being encroached upon" by us (in reality, Barbara and I were standing where we were supposed to be).  Barbara had been recovering from a short illness and was in no mood, and surprisingly Barbara was the one who got assertive when she was attacked by this yappy, nasty little woman.  I took on the role of a more nuanced peacekeeper, letting the woman know life was too short and then telling her to have a nice day, which set the little Black wench off more.  And, to complicate things, she had an ally standing behind us who all of a sudden decided to get his two-cents-worth in - this guy had goofy bleach-blonde spikey hair and wore a pair of pink shoes, so it was evident which side he buttered his proverbial bread on.  So, Yappy and her flamboyant friend were ganging up on us for nothing.  I was very happy to get out of that place as was Barbara.  While the rest of the day was generally OK - we ate afterwards at Hip Hop Chicken, a very good local fried chicken chain in the area - the aftershock of that experience was felt for some time.  

The way Baltimore people act as contrasted with the way I grew up is like night and day.  Generally, even if you are in a bad mood, you maintain a certain degree of decorum in a public place.  If perhaps you feel inconvenienced by close quarters, you just politely ask the person for space and generally you get an apology, and they oblige.  However, it seems as if Baltimore has a deficiency of decent manners nowadays, as I see that almost on a daily basis.  Even at school, there is a rude 10th-grade Theology teacher whose classroom is across the hall, and his bearing screams arrogance and a big ego.  An incident with him happened the other day as well.  One very good rule that this school has is that students cannot be unsupervised in any classroom, and if the teacher leaves the door gets locked.  The dean of the school sent this out in an email, but the particular teacher in question tended to ignore it and act like he knew nothing about it.   So, one afternoon when I was either taking a restroom break between classes or going across the street to the Royal Farms to get a Starbucks Frappuccino (I really love those!) and a pastry for breakfast, I had locked my door as prescribed by school policy and stepped out.  When I returned, there was a student leaving my classroom!  When I asked her what she was doing there, she said that Mr. ______, the teacher in question, had let her in to take a test.  That didn't sit well with me as I know how this guy is, and later today he stopped and asked if a student could take a test today.  I told him as long as a teacher was in here, it was no problem, but they cannot be unsupervised in a classroom like that.  The student he was going to send here for a test never showed up, although I told him I was here, and it was OK as long as I was in the class.  Hopefully though, the pompous teacher got the hint though and will be more respectful of his colleagues and school policy next time. 

The other issue I have with so many of these local Blacks in particular is their language - it is volatile!  They call each other the "n" word all the time, and they drop the "f bomb" like it is a bodily function.  I teach in a school that at this point is about 52% Black and 48% Hispanic, and the differences between the two groups is astounding.  The Hispanic students (with a few exceptions) tend to be quieter and more respectful, while the Blacks are loud, disruptive, and generally not participating in the class discussions or anything else.  While this is not true of all of them, a significant number of the write-ups and disciplinary issues I address in a given week are largely the Black students - I do have a number of good Black students too, and greatly appreciate them, but the proportion of trouble that comes up usually has a Black student involved in it.  Our society is afraid to address this problem because one runs the risk of being accused of "racism" if the issue is raised, but the facts do speak for themselves.  And I want to tackle the proverbial elephant in the room now.

Racism by any group against others is always wrong, regardless.  And no doubt true racism is out there.  However, what often happens is that Blacks and some others use the "race card" to validate bad behavior, and this is a problem.  Also, the way they denigrate each other by calling each other the "n" word is concerning.  When they do that, they fail to understand that they are diminishing themselves and therefore justifying actual racists to use that term too.  And that "f bomb" issue - what is with many of our local Blacks using that so often and freely??  I understand an occasional slip happening if one is exasperated or something, but seriously - when you hear these Black kids in school in particular talk, they are peppering "f bombs" liberally in their conversations.  And on the city bus too - many use that word just to hear themselves say it I think.  It really does not paint a good picture of Black culture in America, as many other groups see this behavior as being nasty and uncouth.  As I said, not all Blacks do this thankfully, and there are many decent Blacks who are just as shocked by this language as I am.  However, when most of this stuff is being done by a particular demographic, it creates several problems.  Let me go into at least two of them.

To begin, it is not helping them move ahead in their lives.  Black culture has many good things to preserve and a person who is Black should be proud of those things.  However, being rude, confrontational, and foul-mouthed is not flattering, and many Blacks need to understand how other people see them when they act like complete jackasses.  Secondly, instead of eradicating racism, it perpetuates it in two forms.  First, it makes Blacks more racist against others.  Secondly, when other groups see this behavior, it alters their perception of Blacks and negative experiences with rude Black individuals can be a toxic seed of racism against all Blacks.  If the Black community in America wants to show progress, there are several things they can do to nurture it.  Let's talk about a few of them.

For one, Blacks need to learn basic manners and stop using cusswords as a form of casual conversation.  A Black person who is articulate and doesn't resort to "ghetto-style" lingo and attitude will garner instant respect.  Secondly, let's address this "urban blight" issue that Baltimore and other cities have.  Urban blight describes what you see on many streets - trash all over, abandoned and dilapidated houses and other buildings, and copious amounts of ugly graffiti everywhere.  In recent years, when these issues were addressed by reform-minded people who wanted to clean up neighborhoods, the people who had the ideas were often condemned by activists as promoting "gentrification" and thus cleanup efforts in many cities screeched to an abrupt halt.  I find it interesting that the political Left hollers about the fiction of "climate change" and yet you never see them picking up the abundant trash or trying to improve the lot of many Blacks in those communities by upgrading their homes and encouraging local business.  Instead, those individuals (usually rich White liberals - go figure!) decry any effort to clean up as being racist and promoting gentrification.  If cities are to improve their qualities of life, that attitude needs to change.  If you don't want White investors revitalizing neighborhoods, then encourage the Blacks who live there to do so.  While there are small and bright exceptions now in many neighborhoods, by and large they miss it by infinity.  That too needs to change. 

You have heard my convictions on this today, and hopefully I won't be misrepresented as being "racist" because I am challenging Blacks to adjust their behavior a little and take some pride in their own communities and stop calling each other "n" words and other such garbage.  Until the overall Black population of this city in particular understands that progress will be delayed if not eliminated.  Thank you for allowing me to share. 

Catching Up

 It has been a couple of weeks since last writing, and I need to do some catching up on myself as it is warranted.  Luckily today is a slow day at school, as my students are in what is called MAP testing for the majority of the day.  Therefore, there are a few things I wanted to catch up and reflect upon since opportunity allows.

To begin, the final part of my doctoral journey arrived Monday - I have a complete set of doctoral regalia now.  It feels good to have that, and now I feel like a Ph.D.   With the diploma, dissertation, and regalia, and almost a year to get it all, I feel complete.  I also was able to get my article submitted to the academic journal and it should be up for publication soon.  Having three published articles and a conference presentation will go far in my pursuits of opportunities.

The second thing to talk about is my music collection.  I have decided to include all the music I want to preserve on a very large flash drive - it has 124 gigs storage - and so far I have a MASSIVE collection that I have both gleaned from other drives as well as downloading from Internet Archive - there are several large collections of original recordings of many obscure dance orchestras on there, and I downloaded a significant number of them.  It doesn't totally replace my entire CD collection I lost, but it is a good start.  My plan with my music collection now is to just get CD reissues of some of my favorite original LPs that are not available as downloads, and this third incarnation of my music collection will be a lot smaller but still substantial.  I won't go through the extensive cataloging system I had before either, because frankly I don't need to now. I have literally shelves of original recordings now within a device that comfortably fits in the palm of my hand.  Technology advances, and I guess I need to keep up.

I also want to talk about dreams again.  I have done extensive discussions over the years about dream interpretation, as I believe that dreams are significant.  Unfortunately a huge number of resources on the market on this topic are often done by occult/New Age writers who get a lot wrong, and what I aim to do is develop a Christian understanding of dreams as they are also a prominent thing in Scripture as well.  Understanding and writing down dreams is something I feel is integral to one's emotional and spiritual health, as God uses dreams to talk to us sometimes.  That being said, I wanted to share a recent dream I had which really has stuck with me.

In the dream, I was in what looked like a facility with my house nearby, and a little girl of about 7 or 8 was up for adoption.  She was of Mongolian heritage in the dream, and she was such a tiny, dainty little thing and so beautiful.  I was ready to adopt her, and was in the process of doing so.  As I recall, in the story the little one was more or less abandoned by her parents, and she was somehow believing they were coming back for her.  However, in the dream I was talking to the office clerk who informed me her parents returning was something that wasn't going to happen, and she encouraged me to adopt the little one. The girl at first was hesitant, as she was still thinking her parents would miraculously show up, but in time my heart was warmed when she called me "Daddy."  I really felt connected to that little girl, and I felt a deep love for her as if she were my own.  There most certainly is something to a vivid dream like that, and upon researching it, I learned the following things:

1. New beginnings and change

2. A desire to nurture and care

3. Embracing the unknown

4. A strong desire for family or love

5. Expression of desires or needs I may not be consciously aware of

6. Assuming new responsibilities

In many of these instances, all of this has happened in the past 6 months or so as I have been forced for one thing to embrace the unknown and assume new responsibilities.  I also do want family, and I would love to have something to nurture as my own.  There are also things I know I am not aware of but my dreams bring that to the surface of my subconscious. And, the whole idea of new beginnings and change is something I have been forced to embrace over the past 5 years, as I have been in a constant state of flux.  There are some of these areas I am aware of but cannot discuss them as the time is not right for them here, but my goal is to reflect upon that when it comes to pass later and then share it.  However, these dreams are not an accident nor are they simply a reaction to the pizza I had for dinner yesterday. On the contrary, they both reflect real feelings but also may contain a message.  It is up to me to determine what that is now. 

This week's reflection is somewhat eclectic and brief, but it summarizes what has been going on.  I should be back again next week with further insights on things, so thanks for stopping by and will see you soon. 

Making Some Reflections

 I am writing twice this week as it is a slower week.  Today at school we are just having parent/teacher conferences virtually and we have a slow timeslot now.  But, that gave me some impetus for refleciton today so allow me to ramble as I share.  

From this fourth-floor vantage where my classroom window is, I have a panoramic view of everything.  If I look west, there is the skyline of downtown Baltimore.  If I look east, the glittering golden domes of St. Michael Church, a Byzantine Ukrainian Catholic parish, catch the rays of sunlight which intensify the golden splendor of the beautiful onion-shaped domes of the church.  Looking south, there is a nice view of the Inner Harbor, which if you go straight down Chester Street here will take you there.  A variety of boats of different sizes are hitched to docks down on the harbor, and in the distance the huge smokestacks of a factory can be seen.  While the weather is hazy this morning, it is the first day of Spring and thankfully the chilliness of the winter is a distant memory (at least for now - March can still have the potential of a big snow if one should come into the area).  Although I am battling a cold right now - my throat thankfully is not as scratchy but the stuffiness of my nose is still a thing and the unmistakeable histamine smell is lingering in my nostrils - I am able to function OK and the fact we have a relatively light day here helps a lot.  Let me now just vent a bit.

Teaching high schoolers is not for the faint of heart - while many of them are decent kids, there are disruptive troublemakers who can be a major headache for all of us as teachers. Having a break from some of them is a huge help for us, and it helps the teachers to refocus too.  While it is short-lived (Monday class is back in session) the breaks are refreshing and welcomed.  Many students get a skewered idea of what a teacher thinks - they seem to think we are just chomping at the bit to flunk them or write them up for bad conduct.  In reality, that is not the case.  We want all of our students we are challenged with educating to succeed, but when some slack off in their studies or act up like petulent children in class, they make things harder for themselves.  As I am on the verge of surviving my first year as a full-time educator, it has been a bit of hit-and-miss for me.  I know I am not perfect, and on occasion I may lose composure with students that push my buttons.  Also, given I was thrown into this in the middle of a quarter, I have had to wing the lesson plans somewhat and that has taken some adjustment as well.  However, it also is giving me some lessons to learn for next year too, and as I get ready to navigate the 79 high school juniors I teach in five classes to the finish line over the next couple of months, I am making mental notes of what I could do better, what I have done that is effective, and also I always keep an eye open for new ideas.  The classes I have next year will be different students, with completely different personalities, and it will take understanding them to deal with them as well.  But, at least this year I have managed to gain some insights and I can apply those to my next group in the coming academic year. 

Sitting in faculty meetings tends to be enlightening as well.   One very good idea this school has is that our grade-level and departmental faculty groups meet together fairly regularly, and they are often very productive meetings.  However, you notice things too from your fellow teachers.  Some teachers, for instance, are complaining about problem students in one class who in my classes are generally not an issue.  Likewise, I have problem students who do well conduct-wise with other teachers.  One unfortunate trap we as educators fall into though is not being able to recognize things such as learning disorders or other issues the students may face.  I know of at least one student I have who is autistic, and another one I am thinking struggles with dyslexia.  Both are Black kids, and I note similar issues with them that other teachers have too.  However, knowing the complexities of things like autism and dyslexia makes a teacher more effective at reaching those students, and while it is easy to dismiss these kids as lazy, apathetic, or something else, patterns should be noted and investigated, as there may be an underlying cause.  If a teacher can successfully identify that root issue, a plan can be formulated which will capitalize more on the student's strengths and less on their perceived complications.  A good guidance counselor at a school can be an asset in this area as well.  We as teachers don't have the capacity to diagnose learning disabilities, but we can raise awareness of the potential and work with school authorities and the parents to find ways to sort through the issue.  Therefore, if a student displays certain patterns, it should be documented and then recommended for further inquiry with the proper sources.  

As can be seen, we are in the process of developing a pedagogy or an educational philosophy.  An approach based on empathy balanced with discipline will definitely go a long way.  If the student don't appreciate the teacher at the time, they may later.  The biggest and most pleasant surprise is in the future when a former student approaches you and tells you what an impact you had on them, especially when you did not feel at the time you accomplished anything.  Thank you for allowing me to share. 

The Settling Into Routine

 I have done a fairly detailed chronicle of my journey since last October, and in all honesty, it is an adventure I overall do not care to repeat.  After almost 6 months of feeling very unsettled, similar to a fish out of water, I am finally in the vernacular "finding my groove" as it were.  A couple of trips to the storage facility Barbara and I share in West Virginia has reunited me with much of my personal paperwork and some other things I needed, and we are not quite done yet.  At the present time, the storage unit still holds about 50% of our stuff, so it will be some time yet before total restoration happens.  But, at least now it is feeling better than it did. 

As I mentioned as well, two weeks ago today Barbara moved into the room next to mine, and for the first time in several months we are again under the same roof.  While people may find the relationship Barbara and I have odd (it baffled the Dominican friar at the church when we told him of us last week), it works for us.  We are no longer married obviously, but we are still close and still good friends and that speaks much of a level of maturity on our part.  It is bad mythology to assume that a divorced couple has to hate each other's guts, and in all honesty it is something that society has bought into contributing to its own detriment.  Divorce is tragic in any circumstance admittedly, but life happens - and so does divorce.  Barbara and I thought years ago that we would be married no matter what, yet we ended up doing the unthinkable and divorcing after almost 28 years of marriage. We don't blame each other for it happening, as we were neither totally at fault nor were we totally perfect either.  In many cases, we were victims of circumstance - being pushed by a Pentecostal cult into a marriage when we were not ready for it, and then allowing divisive in-laws to get into our business and cause further trust issues.  When it was all said and done though, Barbara and I are much better friends than we ever were spouses, and we both see that now.  And, that bears further reflection.

Barbara and I are both feeling much better about being back under the same roof again - we both felt a loss and it was difficult for both of us over the past several months.  We are like a brother and sister, as we look out for each other, pool our resources, and generally what we have makes more practical sense given the circumstances.  Many people have applauded us for our state right now, and many are initially shocked but then see how good it works for us and then they are fully supportive.  And, it perhaps is saving both our lives on many levels.   Barbara has unfortunately faced some major health issues in the past several months, and perhaps my being close by may actually be a good thing for her.  Likewise, I am not getting any younger, and a little extra help benefits me as well.  As odd and unorthodox an arrangement that we have is, it works out beautifully, and we are doing better because of it.  For those who would seek to be condemnatory and judgmental, you already know what you can do with yourselves although I am too civil to say it here.  

Part of the resettling of our lives entails getting back some things we thought we had lost.  The crazy circumstances of our move from Hagerstown created a situation for us that tested every fiber of our beings, but we survived and prevailed.  We have had to adjust some things, but nothing too earthshaking.  The idea of surviving vs. thriving comes into consideration here, and I have to say that I have thrived against the odds.  There are days I still have to come to terms with things, but as life starts to fall into place, I must look at this as a new chapter God has opened in my life.  

I am uncertain where things will end up in the long term, but I at least have secure work, Barbara too now has a better home, and as the dust settles a new life is taking shape.  Perhaps when I write in a year I will have a new dimension to the story to share.  God's will and timing will tell. 

Thanks again for allowing me to share my thoughts this week, and I will be back soon. 

Settlement and Restoration

 The past week has had its challenges, but it also has been more satisfying.  Barbara has rented the vacant room in the house now, so she is back under the same roof.  It is actually quite refreshing to have her back in the house, as we are close friends and it gives a dimension of normalcy to what has been an otherwise upside-down several months.  As Barbara gets settled, new routines have been established, as well as bringing back some old ones that benefitted both of us in the past.  It has been wonderful, for instance, to not have to commute on that cursed #21 bus to work every morning.  I still have to take the bus home in the afternoon, but that is much more manageable.  It also means being able to sleep in a half hour later than I used to.  Some other restorative measures have happened as well that in reality have made me feel a little more whole again, so I will get into those now.

My music collection, as many of you who have been following me a long time know, is a very integral part of who I am.  I have collected vintage big band recordings for the better now of 43 years, and for a time I amassed what was perhaps the largest collection I could have dreamed of.  However, with the sudden move last October, I lost a considerable amount of my collection although I did maintain my more important LP sets, which are safe in a storage unit in Martinsburg at this point. However, due to the shock of losing so much, I haven't paid much attention to my music interest over the past few months, as it was a devastating loss to not have a huge majority of the impressive collection it had taken me the better of 30 years to accumulate.  However, thanks to new 21st century technology, I have discovered a new format that allows me to recoup a lot of the old collection in a compact form - the flash drive.  A couple of days ago, I received in the mail a small flash drive containing over 4800 recordings covering a 40-year period between 1900-1940, and much of it was material I had once had in my massive CD collection.  I am able to carry what once was half my library in the palm of my hand, so that was a revolutionary thing.  I have four more of those coming the next week which will add some vintage radio broadcasts (including "Spotlight Bands," "GI Jive," and "One-Night Stand") as well as complete libraries of both Harry James and Guy Lombardo.  I also managed to obtain at a good price two Time-Life CD collections - one is the vintage "Big Bands" series that had originally been released in the early 1980s (I had the Glenn Miller volume on LP back then) and the other is a large collection called "Your Hit Parade" which covers essentially every significant song between the years 1940 and the early 1960s.  Along with the LPs I have in storage (including the two HUGE Franklin Mint sets I was able to salvage), I have a good start to rebuilding what was once an impressive music collection.  I think this time though I will focus on things I really want and not be as comprehensive, except on the drives maybe (I can create my own flash drives too of a lot of original stuff, as it is readily available on both YouTube and Internet Archive).  I may get a few more CDs of things I want outside the genre (namely some classical collections like Igor Stravinsky, as well as some Gospel and liturgical recordings like those I once had), but we'll get to that later.   This new incarnation of my music collection - the third - will be smaller but more focused.  I don't think it is feasible to recover every recording I had before, as I invested many years and thousands of dollars getting those.  But, I can still have a collection I can enjoy for years to come. 

A couple of trips to storage in Martinsburg - one this Friday - have also been reuniting me with much of my personal papers and other things that are significant, and now that I have those back, the challenge is organization.  Due to my smaller living quarters, I do not have near the space I used to have so I have some logistical challenges to overcome.  But, I have managed before, so this is no different.  With Barbara being here now, it means a lot of new opportunities including being reunited with so much of our stuff which we have had to resort to storing in a facility almost 100 miles away.  

As I conclude this week's reflections, I am still in a state of transition, but I am also starting to see some positives as I begin to settle for the first time in a while.  That frankly feels good, and I am hoping to see more of that happen as time progresses.  Thank you for letting me share this week, and I will see you next time. 

New Horizons

 This is now March - the month came in like a wooly lion; cold in the morning but significantly warmer during the day.  And, with this being Ash Wednesday, it means Lent is upon us.  There is much to think about as we officially cross the first quarter of 2025, and I had a few things to reflect upon today.

To begin with, I mentioned that my ex-wife Barbara and I are still very close despite not being married any longer.  She made a good decision lately to move to Baltimore, as she has been facing some challenges and she needed something of a breakthrough.  Just keep her in your prayers.  

Secondly, last week was an exciting week too.  As I was walking over to the Royal Farms store across from the school one day to get my morning coffee and pastry, it was inescapable to see a huge dead rat, with a morbid grin on its face, lying right in the middle of the sidewalk.  And, as is the case with a liberal Democrat-run city like Baltimore, it has been two weeks now and that rat is still there.  You would think they would clean that stuff up due to disease and such, but they didn't.  Looking at that rat though made me think of something pretty profound, and I wanted to share that today.

Having gone through some profound changes over the past year in my own life, there are still lots of things to process.  While I am a lot more financially secure than I was, I still struggle with dealing with the changes that have taken place, as they were earth-shaking and rapid.  As much as I try though, some things are like that dead rat - they are now in the past, yet they are laying there on the path with a morbid grin staring at me.  What are those?  Reminders of things I have lost, but also the memories of the trauma that facilitated those losses.  At times it can be a lot to deal with.  So, how do I deal with these feelings?  I have to think two words - new horizons.  

I am at a crossroads in life I had not anticipated - a lot of my old life as I had known it over the past 20 or more years is now gone, and in its place is a new existence.  There are many positives about a new existence in this case - thanks to this new position teaching in the Jesuit school I work at, I am probably the most financially secure I have been in years.  That is perhaps the biggest positive.  There are days though I wonder if it was worth it - that is the dead rat staring up at me from the middle of my path forward.  Seeing the urban blight in some areas of Baltimore as I commute to work and home on the city bus, dealing with obstinate minority kids in some classes I teach, and even dealing with crazy people at bus stops (more on that shortly) serve to remind me that this change happened and there is no going back.  But, there are other positives too - Barbara is now closer to me, and we do have a wonderful "new" President who is making some dramatic changes that will ultimately be good for our nation.  Thanks to President Trump, I may actually get to visit a very special person in the Philippines this summer (Lord be in that please!).  As events unfold on that I will share details later.  Let me now divert this line of thought and tell you what happened to me last week. 

Thursday I left school in the afternoon to catch my usual bus home across the street.  Generally that stop at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Chester Street is nothing spectacular - it is in front of an old boarded-up former Burger King, and while the street is busy, it is not anything earth-shaking.  But, this is the city, and you learn to anticipate the unpredictable.  At the bus stop this day, there was a woman - she looked Hispanic and in her early 60s - who was obviously indigent.  She had long matted black hair with gray streaks, and a ratty-looking winter coat.  She was hollering and flailing her arms about in a weird manner though at the bus stop, and naturally I thought maybe she was on a phone call with a Bluetooth device, as that is a common thing now.  However, she didn't have a cell phone, and instead was haranguing a group of imaginary friends that were only visible in her ill mind, and she then proceeded to start begging for money or food - she was asking if I could buy her a pizza!  I told her no, and she went back to talking to her imaginary audience without missing a beat.  One of the things she was saying in a thick accent was she was cursing Satan for grabbing her lady parts - I was like "ooookayyy!!" when I heard that.  She also was claiming someone in a black car was following her and trying to cast a voodoo spell or something on her.  Anyway, the bus came, I got on, and she took a seat just across the aisle from me.  She continued her crazy talk, and within ten minutes I had gotten to my transfer stop at the coffee shop on East Avenue.  Not thinking any more of it, and having a long wait to make my bus connection, I went in and had my normal cherry Italian soda - that coffee shop makes the best!  A few minutes later, here comes the crazy lady, and she is trying to beg for food.  At that point, I saw this could be a potential issue, and when the counter person refused her, she left the store.  A little bit later, I saw it was almost time for my bus to get there, so I went out.  Guess who I saw at the bus stop - yes, the crazy woman.  Nuttier than a squirrel in a Snickers factory, she was still talking to a cadre of imaginary friends.  I didn't want to deal with this person any more, so I decided to catch the bus across the street instead.  The bus I usually take home goes to Canton Crossing first and then it turns around to come back.  For some idiotic reason, if you decide to ride it down there you have to get off and then re-board the damn bus just to get back.  I wasted no time getting across the street and waiting for the bus to come - it did shortly after.  As I was boarding, I warned the bus driver that a potentially mentally-disturbed woman may try to board, and wouldn't you know it, here she came!  She got on the bus, still doing her crazy talk, and when I got to Canton Crossing I ran to get away from her as at this point I felt like she was stalking me.  But, here she came, stopping first to beg at a sandwich shop down there, and then she boarded my bus home.  I was trying to think of a strategy to deal with her if she continued riding my transfers, and decided if she got off at my stop again I would call the police and have her dealt with.  Fortunately, she dozed off, and when my stop came up at the corner of 25th and Greenmount, two blocks from my house, I was able to get off and make a hasty retreat home.  The crazy lady was still snoozing and didn't know the difference.  God only knows where she went after all that, but thankfully I got away from her as I was really starting to feel concern.  She, like that dead rat in the middle of the sidewalk, was one of those things that confronts you, and you have to find a way to deal with that.  Thankfully God was with me and I did. 

The dead rat and the crazy woman on the bus reminded me of the same thing in different ways - some things from our past remained unresolved, and there are new challenges to face in a new life.  As you read this today, think of your own challenges, and how you deal with circumstances like that.   As you do, hopefully it will lead to a greater reliance on God's provision in all situations.  Thank you for allowing me to share today.