Author: frankisemptiness

September 12th, 2018

The shofar is a strange instrument. It has a rather limited musical range. The ram’s horn  has only one note on its scale. The person blowing the shofar can make the sound of the blast short or long, or loud or soft, but those are the only options. However, the shofar does look pretty cool. I have to admit that.

Rabbi Dinin gave his sermon, or “drash”, prior to his blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. “Drash” is an interesting word for me. Many years ago, I studied Arabic, and one of the first words that we learned in class was “darasa” (درس), which means “to study”. Even though “drash” comes from Hebrew, it seems to me that it is related to “darasa”. Both words somehow have to do with learning. This may be a small and insignificant connection, but it is a connection nonetheless. I spend most of my waking hours looking for connections. I look for the things that bind us together, and I rejoice when I find one.

The rabbi spoke about the significance of Rosh Hashanah. It is first and foremost, the beginning of the Jewish year. He tried to explain why the Jewish people used the shofar on this particular holy day. It was bit hard for me to follow all of what he said, but my understanding is that Rosh Hashanah is both a day of rejoicing, and a day of judgment. On a day of rejoicing, a day when the King is here among us, then a trumpet would be used to celebrate that day. However, Rosh Hashanah is not just a day of rejoicing, it is also a day when the King (God) judges us. A trumpet is not intense or deep enough. The shofar, despite its obvious musical shortcomings, is very moving and very visceral. The sound that it makes comes from the heart.

Rabbi Dinin also talked about how we are judged. I found that part of his drash to be intriguing. He was speaking about the Jewish people, but he could have been talking about almost anyone. The rabbi described the view of the sages that a person is perhaps judged more harshly by God as an individual, than as a member of a group. A single Jew, standing naked and alone before the judgment of God, is more at risk than when he or she can be judged as part of the Children of Israel. The good deeds of the “people” can make up for the failings of an individual. This is not to say that each person is not responsible for their own actions. It is more that our individual actions are considered within the context of our community.

There is an echo of this view within my own tradition, Catholicism. Catholics place (or used to place) a huge emphasis on community. With Catholics it is never the idea of “me and my God”. It is always “Our God and us”. This is in stark contrast to the view of some of the Protestant Christians, who focus intensely on a personal and exclusive relationship with God. The Jewish perspective, and the Catholic perspective, is that we are all in this together. There is no such thing as a private sort of salvation. Looking out for number one is not an option. We are all inter-connected.

Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker, once said that when she died, God might ask her, “Where is everyone else?”

The point is that we all go to God together. Or, we don’t go to Him at all.

Happy New Year.

September 4th, 2018

My Old School from Steely Dan

I just stared at the name of the sender of the email. It was from John. I didn’t open it. I was curious as to what the message would say, but I also suspected that its contents would cause me endless frustration. The email was in response to one of mine, and I kind of sensed where this interaction was going. I have often traded messages with this person in the past, and most of the time, our exchange of words has been amicable. The exception to that is when we start talking about our alma mater, West Point.

John and I both graduated in the Class of 1980 from the United States Military Academy (USMA). We were actually in the same company, B-4. We were in daily contact with each other each and every day for four years. We came from radically different family backgrounds, but we were (and are) friends. John and I spent much of the summer of 1978 together in Alaska, courtesy of the U.S. Army. Over the years, we have maintained an intermittent Internet relationship. We haven’t seen each other, or heard each other’s voices, in thirty-eight years. In a way, it is remarkable that we have any relationship at all. Perhaps, in truth, we don’t.

Our paths diverged upon our graduation. We were both Army officers, but John went into Field Artillery, and I went into Aviation. At the end of John’s service, he moved into a position in the defense industry; not an unusual transition for a West Point grad. When I got out of the Army, I got a job in trucking, and then I became an anti-war activist; a very unusual transition for a West Point graduate. One of John’s sons went to war in Afghanistan. My eldest son, Hans, went to war in Iraq. John seems to be okay with the fact that his son fought in a war. I am not. I am proud of Hans, but I wish to God that he had never enlisted. I don’t think the war did him no good at all.

John has stayed very connected with our old school. He is involved in many activities with alumni and current students (cadets). He really likes to maintain that connection with USMA. More power to him. Somebody should keep the faith with the Long Grey Line. However, that person is not me.

I have not set foot on the campus of West Point since 1981. I have no plans to ever do so. Karin and I traveled up the Hudson River Valley a year ago, and there was a clear opportunity for us to stop at my school. I declined to do that. There is nothing there that I miss. There is nothing there that I want to remember. Karin didn’t know me when I was a cadet. It is probably best that she doesn’t know that experience, even vicariously.

West Point is a strange place. The experience of a student there is a cross between attending an Ivy League college, and doing time in prison. For me, it was a four-year-long mind fuck. After nearly forty years, I am still a bit off kilter.

Oh, back to the email…

John cannot understand my feelings toward USMA. He truly cannot. He writes to me about West Point and the alumni functions, and I, like an idiot, respond by saying that I want no part of such affairs. Then we get on to a seemingly endless exchange of emails, where John tries his best to convince me that I should revere our alma mater, and where I tell him to go pound sand. It never ends well.

In my last message to John, I told him, “I was there, things happened, and it’s over.”

The message from him, that I refused to open, no doubt had a pithy response to my statement.

Keep in mind that John is a very good man, and that he is smarter than I am. He really is. I am helpless against his logic and reasoning. The problem is not that John chooses to be the keeper of the flame for our old school. The problem is that he expects me to do the same. I can’t and I won’t.

I agree with John that our time at West Point changed our lives immensely. There can be no question about that. The real question is: “How were our lives changed?”

John became a staunch defender of the status quo with regards to the U.S. military. I became a pacifist and a friend of the Catholic Workers. I am still both those things. How did this all happen? I have no idea. It just is.

I deleted John’s email. It was a cowardly act. I just couldn’t deal with it.

I plan to write to John in a month or two, and pretend that I never received his email. We can start over. Maybe.

September 4th, 2018

We had a big crowd tonight. I went with a couple other people to the psych ward of the VA hospital to visit with the patients. As usual, we brought them snacks and drinks. The ward was full up. Twenty-one veterans came to hang out with us. Some of them just stopped by to grab some cookies or fruit. Some of them stayed to play cards. A few of them stayed to sit and talk.

One man stood off by himself. He was tall and gaunt. He had long, grey hair that hung down limply to his shoulders. He had a beard that matched his hair. The man wore glasses with thick lenses. The lenses made his grey eyes look abnormally large. His arms were thin and blotchy.

The man had a curious look. By that, I mean he looked like he was curious about something. He seemed interested in his surroundings, but perhaps a bit befuddled.

I spoke to him. “Hi, how are you?”

He smiled and replied, “Oh, I’m okay. I just wish I knew where I was.”

“Ohhhhhh….”, I replied.

The man looked absently around the ward and said, “I don’t know where I am. It seems like a nice place.”

“Yeah, it is.”

The man went on, “I wonder how long I’ve been here. Maybe I got here today. I don’t know…maybe I have been here a year.” He shrugged. “It’s okay. It would just be nice to know.”

“Yeah”, I said.

I asked the man, “What branch were you in?”

He smiled, “I was in the Army.”

“Me too.”

Then he asked me, “So what did you do?”

I told him, “I was a helicopter pilot.”

His eyes lit up, “Really? Wow. I don’t think I would have had it up here to do that”, as he pointed to his head.

“What did you do?”

The man answered, “I was a medic.” He laughed. “They pointed to three of us, and told us that we were all going to be medics. I remember some of that time, but only bits of it. I wish I could remember more.”

I told him, “I got out thirty years ago.”

He thought for a moment. “I am seventy years old, or maybe I am going to be seventy. I’m not sure. I got out, hmmmm, it must be fifty years ago. Something like that. Yeah.”

“That’s a long time.”

The man looked at me and said, “Oh yeah, it is.”

Then he paused, and said, “I would like to see my brothers and sisters. I wonder if they are still alive. They were all older than me.”

We looked at each other for a moment.

I told him, “I’m glad that I talked with you.”

He smiled again, and replied, “So am I. I think I will grab some of those grapes.”

I meditate with a Zen sangha. We strive to achieve a “don’t know” mind. We try to get to a point before thinking, before judging. We work so hard to accept things just as they are. We attempt through sheer force of will to be in the moment.

I just met a guy with a “don’t know” mind. He doesn’t work at all. He just is. 

I envy him.

September 2nd, 2018

James and I were standing next to each other in the plaza in downtown Chicago. We were both holding signs explaining the reason for our group’s political demonstration (i.e. our opposition to the sale of American munitions to the Saudis, which the Saudis then use to murder Yemeni school kids). It was still mid-morning, and much of the plaza was in shadow because the sun was hiding behind the skyscrapers. I was tired, and my thoughts were confused. I was just watching the endless flow of traffic. James attempted to make conversation, and I was giving him monosyllabic responses. Finally, he asked me,

“What gives you life?”

“WTF?”

I was dumbfounded by that question. I mumbled something back to James. I couldn’t come up with an answer. I had no idea what to say. I wasn’t feeling very alive at that moment.

He looked around at our protest, and then he asked me, “Does doing this give you life?”

These were rather profound questions. They were definitely not what I expected to hear. James is an intelligent and thoughtful young man. He is given to asking penetrating questions. He doesn’t make small talk, so in a way it wasn’t that much of a surprise that he asked me about what gives me life. Thinking back on it, that is exactly the kind of thing he would ask.

Silence prevailed.

Was participating in the protest giving me life? I don’t know. It felt like the right thing to do, but it also felt a bit pointless. A political demonstration is an act of faith as much as anything else. My faith in God, in myself, and everything else was at a low ebb that morning.

Finally, I said to James, “In response to your previous question, about what gives me life, I would have to say that it’s my kids that give me life.”

I went on, “My children give me a purpose. Even when they struggle and suffer, and they do, they give me life. They need me. I need to be needed. That’s important to me. I can’t fix their problems, but I can help. That’s why I am alive.”

James replied, “They just want your love and support. That is all I want from my parents.”

“I’m not sure how good I am at supporting them. They call me. Hans calls me a couple times a week. I just listen to what he has to say.”

James responded, “Well, you’re there for them. You listen to them. A lot of parents don’t do that.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

We talked about Hans for a while. I told James about Hans’ experiences in the Iraq War. Then we talked about vets. Then we talked about the Native Americans, because they know how to deal with returning vets. The conversation flowed from one subject to the next.

It got to be almost 2:00 PM. I needed to catch the train back home. I told James that I was going. He put down his sign and hugged me. As I left, he said,

“Keep on living.”

August 31st, 2018

I helped to unload Bob’s car. Bob was temporarily parked in the center lane of Dearborn, which is a busy, one-way street heading north through the heart of the Loop in Chicago. Bob and Kathy had Bob’s car packed with stuff. There were signs to hold, flyers to hand out, and forty-four blue backpacks.

Forty-four-blue backpacks?

They were small school bags, all identical. They were the kind that a small child would carry. There were exactly forty-four of them because forty-four Yemeni boys got killed in August during a bombing attack. One bag for each of the children.

Note: I just found out that ten of the boys survived. So, there were actually thirty-four students killed in the attack. That is still thirty-four too many.

The United States, for reasons that seem obscure, has been backing a Saudi-based coalition that is waging war against a Houthi-led rebellion in Yemen.  In essence, The U.S. is supporting one side in a civil war in a country that is almost unknown to us. On August 9th, the Saudi coalition dropped a bomb on a school bus packed with children. The reasons for this attack are also obscure. In any case, the kids had been on a school trip. The bus received a direct hit from a five hundred pound bomb that had been manufactured by Lockheed Martin and sold to the Saudis. Photos from after the attack show a bus that has been reduced to a pile of twisted, burned metal. There is also a photo of burned and bloody school bags. Blue school bags.

This attack is only the most egregious example of the crimes that the Saudi coalition has committed during its war in Yemen. For several years this coalition has done its best to create am overwhelming humanitarian crisis in Yemen. People are starving there. People are dying of cholera. For some reason starvation and disease don’t get the world’s attention. A burning bus full of schoolkids does.

We were going to protest against this attack by standing in the plaza of the Federal Building on the corner of Dearborn and Adams. The demonstration was not just about this particular bombing attack. After all, there are bombing attacks going on throughout the world every day. We were protesting the U.S. policy that allows munitions manufacturers in our country to sell arms to people like the Saudis, who then use these weapons to kill civilians. By extension, the United States is complicit in war crimes. The tragedy is that nobody in this country seems to care about that fact, or even to know anything about it.

There is a large metal sculpture in the plaza, called “The Flamingo”. There is also a large flagpole in the plaza, where the American flag currently flies at half mast, to remember Senator John McCain. We decided to place the forty-four bags on the pavement in front of the the flagpole. It made for a good visual display. Bob had placed cans of beans and newspapers inside the backpacks to keep them upright. Kathy wanted the school bags arranged in a neat pattern, like a World War I cemetery in Flanders, or like Arlington.

We had seven signs to hold up. Bob explained to me that the signs had to be in order, because they spelled out our message. He said, “It’s like a Burma Shave advertisement along a highway.” The fact that both of us actually know what “Burma Shave” was, and how their ads looked, should tell you something about our age.

We were generally short handed during the course of the demonstration. Sometimes each person had to hold up two signs. Kathy usually handed out the leaflets. She was good at explaining what we were doing to people passing by. There was a lot of pedestrian traffic on that corner. Some people ignored us. Some people stopped to look for a moment. A few people even stopped to talk to us. I think that some folks showed a genuine interest in reason for the protest. Some others just figured that the circus had come to town.

Demonstrations don’t often change hearts and minds. Mostly, they create a momentary awareness. I am convinced that most of the people who looked at our display had known nothing about the massacre in Yemen prior to seeing us holding our signs. Even after seeing the school bags and reading our signs, many of them may not have cared. I saw a number of people shrug and then go on their way. However, for a minute or two, they thought about those kids. I look at it this way: maybe a thousand people walk past our  demonstration. Of those people, maybe one hundred give some thought to the issue. Of those one hundred people, maybe ten write to their Senator or take some other sort of action to stop the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia. As far as I am concerned, even ten people who get involved is a win.

All sorts of people took pictures of us with their phones. That seems to be the way of the world. If a person sees something interesting to them, they take a photo, and then maybe put it on Facebook or Instagram. One young woman approached us while carrying a sketch pad.

She asked us, “Could I draw a picture of you all? I want to remember this scene.”

We eagerly gave the young woman permission to do so. She spent several minutes with her pencil and paper, scribbling as she look at us from the sidewalk. When she finished, she thanked us and showed us the image she had drawn. I wonder how she will post that.

A family walked in front of us. There was a mom, a dad, and two young boys. They read our signs. One boy looked very perplexed. He kept staring at the backpacks. His mother knelt down by him, and she spoke to him about the school bags. She talked with her son for quite a while. When she got back up, she came over speak with us.

She had a Slavic accent. The mother said to us, “I want to thank you for doing this. The bags, they helped me to explain all this to my children. The bags, they are very good. Thank you.”

A guy came up to us, and looked quizzically at the bags and the signs. He had a “Trump” button pinned to his jacket. He came up to me, and asked,

“So, what’s this all about? Do we hate all the Arabs now?”

“Uh no, there a lot of different kinds of Arabs.”

The man went on, “Okay. I just want to know what your message is here. What are you trying to say?”

I replied, “We are against the United States selling weapons to the Saudis so that the Saudis can kill kids in Yemen with them.”

The man told me, “All right. I’m not being critical. That’s good. I’m with you on this.” Then he smiled and gave me a thumbs up.

Another man approaches us. He seemed outraged.

“Why isn’t this in the news?! Here we are in the middle of a five day memorial for a war criminal, and nobody even knows about this stuff happening in Yemen! Thanks for doing this!”

Not all our visitors were happy with us. I was standing next to James, when a black man came to talk with our group of sign holders. The man had no shirt. His eyes were blood red and feverish. He held a Bible in his left hand.

“What all this about?”

Bob tried to explain that it was a way to tell people about the killing in Yemen.

The man looked confused. He asked us, “Can I have one of them backpacks?”

Bob told him, “No.”

“You all got a bunch of them backpacks. Can’t I have just one?”

Bob explained that we had a school bag for each child. We needed all of them.

“I only want one!”

The man didn’t get a backpack. He wasn’t happy about it. He walked away.

Later he came back to the plaza. He lied down on a stone bench.

James said to me, “Our friend is back. This time he has on a jacket, and he has a backpack.”

I looked at the man trying to sleep on a rock hard bench. I shook my head. I said,

“He’s just suffering…

“Like we all are”, said James.

Yeah, like we all are. Like the families of those kids in Yemen. Like the homeless people in Chicago. Like every person who walked past us. Every single one of us is suffering.

What do we do about it?

August 29th, 2018

She sat alone at the back table. She had just walked into the break room of the psych ward at the VA a few minutes earlier. The young woman had looked over the table covered with snacks, and she had taken a paper cup full of popcorn. Then she had huddled into a corner of the room, sitting by herself at the furthest table from everyone else, nibbling idly at her popcorn. Physically, she had isolated herself, but she listened intently to the conversation in the room.

Jim and I were talking about my son, Hans. Hans is an Iraqi War vet. We were discussing his credit score, or lack of one. The last that I heard, Hans had a credit score in the low 500’s. I suggested that Hans had such a screwed up score because he had been in a combat mode with regard to finances. If a soldier (or veteran) isn’t sure that he will live to see tomorrow, he tends to spend money he may not have. The young woman, who was sitting alone, nodded to herself when I said that.

Jim asked, “So, how long does it take to recover from that low of a score?”

The woman in the back chimed in, “Six years.”

Jim turned and asked her, “Really? That long?”

She only nodded.

I moved from where I was sitting over to her table. I looked more closely at the woman. She was curled up almost into a ball, her legs pulled up close and her arms wrapped around them. She was actually thin and tall, and attractive in a punk rock sort of way. I had seen that when she had checked out the snack table. She had long, straight, blond hair. The woman had numerous tattoos. They started at the backs of her hands and extended all the way up both her arms.

The conversation shifted to vets getting disability. The young woman was obviously experienced in this area. She had already received a certain level of disability, but she wasn’t yet at 100%. She told Jim,

“It takes a long time for an application to go all the way up the chain to a person who can actually make a decision. It took me seven years to get any kind of answer.”

Jim said, “Well, I bet it doesn’t take as long for Medal of Honor recipients. Their requests probably get pushed right along.”

The woman gave Jim a rueful smile, “I don’t know about Medal of Honor, but a Purple Heart didn’t do anything for me.”

Jim asked her, “You got a Purple Heart? Where were you? Iraq?”

She nodded.

Jim asked her, “When were you there?’

“2006.”

I did some mental arithmetic. If she had been in Iraq in 2006, then she had to be at least thirty now. She was probably Hans’ age. But he was in Iraq much later, in 2011.

I looked at her again. She had lines in her face that didn’t belong there. Mostly, I noticed her eyes. Her eyes were always restless. They darted from place to place. They were hyper-alert, wary. The woman had the eyes of a hunted animal.

Jim asked her if she had any support. She said that she had some people that helped her, but she was somewhat vague about it. Jim asked her about her family.

She looked intently at him and said, “I don’t have any contact with my family any more. They detached themselves from me.”

That was an interesting word: “detached”. It sounds so neutral. It was like her family members had just cut her loose like an anchor that had snagged on the sea bottom. Her voice was almost without emotion when she spoke. Almost.

Jim smiled at me. “Well, Frank, he isn’t detached from his girl. He’s still hanging with her.”

I said grimly, “You’re right. I won’t abandon her. Not until I have to put her in a box.”

The blond woman looked away from me for a moment.

The woman told us about how she had a PTSD flash back experience, and the cops were called on her. They handcuffed her, and tried to force her into an ambulance. The young woman has an intense phobia about ambulances, and she resisted the police. They hurt her, and they charged her with battery and other offenses. The young vet is still trying to sort out those legal issues. She still has medical problems from injuries sustained during her arrest.

I talked to the vet about the young woman who is important to me. I told her about the struggles of that girl.  The tattooed woman nodded at times. Sometimes, she just looked into the distance.

The vet asked me, “How old is this woman?’

“Twenty-seven.”

She nodded and smiled, “We would probably get along really well.”

I replied, “I think you’re right.”

The vet told me about her pet cat.

She told me, with a hint of sadness, “I don’t have any kids. My cat is my baby.”

I told her, “That is exactly what my girl says about her dog. She is her baby.”

The young woman smiled. It was a thin, sad smile.

Jim and the others were getting ready to go. I was going with them.

I got up and I told the young woman, “I am really glad that I could talk with you.”

She looked up at me from where she was sitting,and said, “You have a lot on your chest. I hope that your burden gets lightened for you.”

I thanked her. I left.

August 28th, 2018

This article from me was printed/posted in the Capitol Times of Madison, WI yesterday.

“Back in 1988, Lee Atwater ran the presidential campaign for George H.W. Bush. Atwater is best known for running ads against the Democratic candidate, Michael Dukakis, that featured a murderer and rapist named Willie Horton. Willie Horton committed horrific crimes while on prison furlough while Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts. Atwater ran those ads in order to show Dukakis as being soft on crime. Since Horton was a black man, the ads also aroused racial fears among voters in that election.

Fast forward thirty years. Mollie Tibbitts has just been found murdered in Iowa. Her alleged killer is an undocumented immigrant. Already, President Trump is using this terrible tragedy to smear immigrants, legal or otherwise. It is unlikely that Trump cares at all about Mollie Tibbitts. Likewise, I don’t think that Atwater cared anything about the victims of Willie Horton. Trump and his cohort care very much that her alleged killer is useful to them politically. We can expect to hear a great about Mollie Tibbitts and her accused murderer from now until Election Day.

This is Trump’s Willie Horton moment.”

August 24th, 2018

“Where is your faith?!”

The elderly sister asked me that question near the end of our session. She was clearly frustrated with me at this point, as I was with her. I had requested some spiritual direction, and she had tried to direct me for almost an hour. It was a hideous disaster.

Or, maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know.

I hadn’t gone to a spiritual director for a long time, at least ten years, maybe more. The last person I consulted was a Catholic priest whose guidance was impractical. I stayed away from official religious guides until just a few days ago. Lately, life has felt overwhelming, so I decided to to talk to a professional.

I am not good at taking advice. Ask anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you that. If I do accept advice, it is only after I ponder it for a while. I hate the hard sell. If a person pushes an idea on me, I automatically push back. I may come around to another person’s point of view, but only after a long period of deep reflection and grudging acceptance. I am not good at instant transformation. I am not Paul on his way to Damascus.

I am also jaded concerning official titles. People who are referred to as “Father” or “Rabbi” or “Zen Master” do not necessarily have any credibility with me. I have spent almost my entire life in organizations where rank and status gave the people in power a certain aura of wisdom. I have found many of those persons to be mere humans who do not understand life any more than I do. Some of them just fake it better than I do. Honestly, I have learned more about God from homeless people and psych ward patients than I have from priests and ministers.

My conversation with the sister was difficult for several reasons. First of all, I entered the discussion seeking guidance, but not really wanting to accept any. I am not sure what I  expected. Mostly, I just wanted to stop hurting. I suppose I could have accomplished the same thing by drinking a six pack of beer or smoking a blunt. I also wanted answers to unsolvable questions, and I thought that, maybe, this sister had some answers. I was hoping that somebody had answers.

The woman actually had answers. They just weren’t the right ones.

For her part, the sister did not listen well. I had told her about Hans and his deployment to Iraq. I told about the killing and the violence. I told her that he had come back different. 

She responded by saying, “Well, I know that you are disappointed in your son.”

“What?”

“You said that you were disappointed in him.”

“I never said that.”

She shook her head, “Okay, you said that he came back from the war different. It’s the same sort of thing.”

No, it’s not. Not at all.

I told her about other people that I love, and about how these people are deeply suffering. I tried to explain how I struggle along with them. She seemed curiously unimpressed.

At one point, the sister asked me, “Do you read the Bible? Do you have a favorite book or passage?”

I answered, “Job.”

She smiled. “Oh yes. And Job stayed true to God despite everything.”

“Uh, yeah…”

Then she asked me, “Do you believe that Jesus loves you?”

“No.”

Brief silence.

“You must believe that He loves you! You told me that you go to daily Mass with your wife. You receive the Eucharist every day. You have to believe that He loves you!”

I was upset. I spoke from the heart. “Noooo, I don’t. I don’t think that Jesus gives a damn about me, and, more importantly, I don’t think he cares about the people that I love!”

“How can you say that?! Just because you’re hurting, you think that Jesus doesn’t love you? Everybody has troubles. Not just you!”

“That makes it all better?’

“God is not the problem here.”

“Then who is?”

“These things are just a part of life.”

“God plays no part in all of this? He’s not in charge?”

“You can’t blame God for your troubles!”

“So, I should just give God a free pass?”

The sister told me, “I want you to write a letter to Jesus tonight. I want to you to tell Jesus that you know how much He loves you. And I don’t want just one sentence. I want a whole page!”

I felt defeated. “Okay.”

“Do you have writing paper?”

“Yeah.”

“I want to see your letter tomorrow. Let’s meet again to tomorrow at 7:30.”

“Yeah.”

She smiled and went on, “Before you go to sleep, I want to say to Jesus, ‘Thank you for loving me’.”

“Okay”.

We ended the session.

I remember in AA there was a slogan that said, “Fake it until you make it!” My understanding of the sentence was that, if a person didn’t yet believe in the twelve steps, the person should act like they do. The idea being that, by “faking” it, eventually the person would truly believe in the program. That never happened with me. I am utterly incapable of faking it. The whole session with the sister reminded me of that phrase from many years ago.

I went back and talked to Karin about my interaction with the sister. Karin was surprised, but not really. She is used to me getting into these sorts of arguments. I mentioned to Karin that the sister expected me to have a spiritual transformation.

Karin looked up from her knitting and said, “Well, good luck with that.”

I wrote the letter. I actually wrote two pages. Most of it was a rant. At the end of the letter, I suggested to Jesus that He open my heart and my senses to see the good in other people. I can’t love Jesus like some other people seem to do. I can’t talk to the voices in my head that way. However, maybe I can see the love of Christ in those around me, and maybe I can love Jesus through them. Maybe. It’s worth a shot. I asked Jesus to give it try. We can work on it.

I showed the completed letter to Karin. She read it and said,

“It’s honest. And it is totally you.”

Any communication with God has to be honest and authentic. I think so anyway.

I had promised the sister to thank Jesus before I slept. I said her prayer without believing it at all. It made me feel sick.

I did not go back to talk to the sister. However, I made sure she got the letter.

August 24th, 2018

“I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I wake up in the morning
Fold my hands and pray for rain
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin’ me insane
It’s a shame
The way she makes me
Scrub the floor
I ain’t gonna work on, nah
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more…”

from Bob Dylan

St. Isidore Catholic Worker Farm is tucked into the rolling hills of southwestern Wisconsin. St. Isidore is across the Mississippi River from Dubuque, Iowa. There are only a few other large towns in the vicinity.

Karin and I drove to the farm on Wednesday morning after having breakfast with the sisters at Sinsinawa. It wasn’t very far to drive. The farm is a mile or two up Clay Hollow Road, and it can be easy to miss if you aren’t specifically looking for it. St. Isidore looks a lot like other small farms in the area. There is a small sign at the entrance to the driveway, but that is also easy to miss.

The farm is built into the side of a steep hill. At the crest of the hill a person can see endless stalks of corn. Those do not belong to the Catholic Workers; they belong to their neighbors. The farmland of St. Isidore is a long, narrow stretch that follows both sides of Clay Hollow Road. There is actually a tunnel underneath the road that allows the cows to move from one pasture to another safely. That’s kind of cool.

Karin and I were initially greeted by farm’s dog, Dora. The dog is black and sleek. I don’t know the breed, but she is a beautiful animal. Dora’s barking brought a human out of the barn to meet us. That was Eric, who we met the day before. Eric lives on the farm, and he also works part time at Sinsinawa. He handles their ecological problems, whatever they may be. From my conversations with the people at Sinsinawa, it became obvious to me that Eric is liked and respected at the Sinsinawa Mound Center. Eric and I had corresponded for several months prior to our first actual meeting. It’s strange; in some ways Eric matched my expectations of him, and in other ways he seemed strange to me. I guess it just works like that.

Eric took us back to the barn, where the other members of St. Isidore had gathered for their morning prayer. They had just completed it when Karin and I had arrived.  Eric introduced to the other residents. There was his wife Brenna, wearing a t-shirt that said, “Indigenous Iowa”. There was a couple, Mary Kay and Peter, who live on the farm with their two small children. There was another Peter, who is trying to set up a new Catholic worker community in Dubuque. Another man was in attendance, but I forget his name, because, at this point in my life, I forget names.

Eric and Brenna gave Karin and me a tour of the farm. The barn is small, but very well maintained. They use it for meetings and lectures and barn dances. Behind this barn, up the hill a bit, is a dilapidated pig shed. It is slowly falling into ruin. The roof is collapsing in upon itself, and the structure looks unsafe and unusable.

The folks at St. Isidore have cows and chickens. Brenna noted that some of the hens were too old to lay, and that they would soon be slaughtered. It was hard for me to follow, but it appears that the Catholic Workers have mutual understandings with their neighbors with regard to land use. Sometimes the neighbors use the St. Isidore property for grazing, and sometimes the folks at St. Isidore have the neighbors harvest their hay. There aren’t bodies enough on St. Isidore to do all the things that need to be done. So, other people from the community have to be involved.

Eric and Brenna showed us several gardens. They grow corn, beans, and squash together, just like the Native Americans did for centuries. They do it because it works well, and it keeps the soil fertile. They also have tomatoes and cabbages. They have other vegetables growing, and they have fruit trees. The Catholic Workers have been canning food already. It is only August, but they are preparing for winter. They are farmers, so they plan ahead, always.

The community lives in a house that is quite nice. It is clean and well-maintained. In a way, it doesn’t feel very Catholic Worker. Most other Catholic Worker houses are a bit well-used. This farm house looked immaculate. I’m not complaining. It felt odd.

Karin and I have been to three Catholic Worker farms. They are all different and they are all alike. Each farm has its own distinct personality, within a Catholic Worker framework. Each community has its own culture and mission. However, each farm is really a community. People live and work together. They are like family, almost. The members of these communities are always very idealistic, and they always have the usual human foibles. They are in the world, but not of the world. They all live out the Gospel in their own ways. They struggle to create a new society.

These farms are very attractive to me. However, I know that I don’t belong in a place like St. Isidore. That is not my place. That is not my purpose. I am never really certain what my purpose is, but I always know what it is not. I need to be in the world, and I need to be working with people in my own town. It is tempting for me to withdraw to an isolated place, but that wouldn’t be right…for me.

I am grateful that St. Isidore exists. I am grateful that we had a chance to visit the farm. But, as much as I love the place, it could never be my home. That much I know.

August 22nd, 2018

The sisters entered slowly into the gathering place next to the dining hall. Some of them shuffled their feet as they made their way to a chair. Some walked unsteadily with canes. Some of them used walkers. They were all old, but “old” is a vague description. Some of the women had hair that was still steel grey. Others had hair that was pure white. Some stood erect. Others were bent and stooped. They all dressed in a consciously understated fashion. Their jewelry, if they wore any, consisted of a necklace with a crucifix hanging from it, or maybe a pair of tiny earrings. Some of the sisters were bright and alert. Others looked exhausted from the journey to their seats in the room. When morning prayer began at promptly at 7:45, there were probably forty sisters in the gathering space. All of them were ready to begin this new day in the same way that they have for fifty years or more.

Karin and I prayed with the sisters several times during our retreat at the Sinsinawa Mound Center, the mother house for this branch of the Dominican sisters. None of these women seemed in any way extraordinary. Many of them were quite frail. However, I was struck by the way they held themselves. They all had a quiet dignity. They were all retired from decades of service to their order. They had made their choice years ago, and now they at the tail ends of their careers, and their lives. These women were not going to leave Sinsinawa. The mother house was their permanent home now. Sinsinawa was the last stop. Every one of these women seemed to be at peace with their choice in life. That was my impression.

The Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters are a teaching order, and they work throughout the United States, and in two other countries. There are over 450 sisters total. Most of them are working in various capacities: as teachers, administrators, nurses, and social justice advocates. About 160 of the sisters are at Sinsinawa. They are the frail and elderly. Karin and I had lunch with a sister who told us that average age of a member at the mother house was seventy-nine. Seventy-nine. The latest estimate for the life expectancy of a woman in the United States is 78.74 years. Karin and I attended a birthday party for on sister who celebrated her centenary. The woman was rather spry.

Karin and I also happened to be at the mother house for a funeral. One of the sisters had died at the age of ninety-six. On Monday afternoon the casket was stationed in the main chapel. Later in the evening, around 5:00, the women moved the body of their sister to the gathering place. There was a ritual involved. Four of the sisters carried candles in front of the coffin. Six sisters served as pallbearers and rolled the casket forward. There is a large foyer between the chapel and gathering place that the women use for prayer. On either side of the foyer stood dozens of sisters in a line, like an honor guard. As the sisters with the candles and the casket walked past the these women, their comrades filed in behind them to make up a procession. All the women sang as they walked to the gathering place with the sister that they had lost. They started out with “Salve Regina”.

There is a long hallway between the foyer of the mother house and the gathering place. It is called the “Diamond Walkway” because of the shape of the windows on either side of it. I followed along in the back of the procession as it it wound into this walkway. The sisters began to sing “Immaculate Mary”. I remember seeing the candles flickering in the distance, and I heard the sister’s feminine voices chanting:

“Ave, Ave, Ave Maria! Ave, Ave, Mariiiiia!”

I didn’t sing along. I didn’t want my feeble tenor to contaminate the beautiful blend of sopranos and altos. It makes me cry to remember it.

Everyone ate dinner after the sisters left the body of their friend in the gathering place.

I embarrassed myself while going through the buffet line. Across from me was a young woman, probably in her late twenties. I asked her,

“So, do you work here?”

She looked at me and said, “I am one of the sisters…oh, and I do work here.”

Then she asked me, “Are you on retreat?”

“Yes.”

The girl smiled at me sweetly, indicating that the conversation was over.

After the dinner, we all went to the gathering place. They had a wake of sorts. It was called a “sharing”. We prayed, and then the people who knew the deceased, Sister Prudence Ludwig, told stories about her. Some of the stories were serious. People talked about how “prudent” the sister was. She was apparently an extremely competent woman: organized, clear-thinking, and focused. Others told humorous anecdotes. One sister talked about Prudence’s desk drawers, where she had everything in exact order, even the paper clips facing the same direction. That sounds like OCD do to me, but I didn’t know the lady.

It was a beautiful service. How many 96-year-olds get a wake where their long time friends reminisce about them? More to the point, how many people die among friends? Most old people die alone and forgotten, at least in our country. Prudence Ludwig did not die alone. She was taken to her final home by her friends and her loved ones. Prudence is blessed.

They had the funeral Mass the following morning.  Then they laid Prudence to rest in the cemetery not far from the mother house. The vast majority of all of the sisters are buried in that cemetery. The stones are simple. They only show the date of death and the name of the deceased. In most cases, the name starts with an “M” for “Mary”. For many years the sisters chose Mary as their first name and then another name to elaborate on their choice. I saw stones that said “M. Theophilus” or “M. Benedictus”. Mary always came first. The theotokos (God-bearer) always came first. Some of the grave stones were worn away. The names are gone now, as are the memories of the dead.

Karin and I walked to the labyrinth, which is right next to the cemetery. I looked at Karin. With her short hair, and her flowing, long skirts, and her deep religious devotion, Karin could easily be a sister here. I told her that.

“You know, you belong here.”

Karin looked at me.

“Oh, I don’t mean in the cemetery.”

She hit me in the arm.