Praying to the Saints

At Mass today celebrating the Solemnity of All Saints, the celebrant talked about the lesson of the stained glass window. He said saints weren't perfect, but like light through a stained glass window, their souls shined through them in a beautiful way.

A little later I read Pope Francis' reflections on the day as well, and there was the stained glass reference again. He was quoted in the National Catholic Register as saying, "Saints are not perfect models, but are people whose lives God has crossed,” and they can be compared with the stained-glass windows of a church, “which allow light to enter in different shades of color.”

As we observe the day, we are reminded that death is not the end, and we pray to saints because, like all of us, they live on. Take comfort in knowing that you are never alone.  Revelation tells us that the saints are not only there, but they can hear us and can act on our behalf (Rev. 5:18). We have a lot of help available if we simply ask. 

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

I’ve recently been reading about herem warfare – God’s command in the Old Testament that the Israelites destroy their enemies, including animals and babies. It’s hard to understand this, especially in light of the New Testament’s emphasis on loving one’s neighbor. The world is a troubled place and it’s tempting to ask why a good God allows these things to happen.

In my book, Gift of Death – A Message of Comfort and Hope, I tell the story of Matthew Shea, a little boy who was killed when he slipped out of his older brothers’ grasp, jumped on a sled and took off down a hill on the family farm. At the bottom of that hill, his father was clearing snow and didn’t see his son. In an instant, Matthew was under the back tires of the tractor and he died on the way to the hospital.

Whenever something like this happens, especially if it’s the death or illness of a child, it can cause us to wonder why God would inflict such a thing on those he loves, or even if there is a God. It’s a question that people have been asking since the dawn of time. When Jesus was asked this very thing, he said, “He lets the sun rise for all people, whether they are good or bad. He sends rain to those who do right and for those who do wrong.” (Matthew 5:45) Contained in that verse is the idea that God doesn’t inflict the bad, he simply allows it to happen. But why?

“Our Lord created us to live in paradise,” says Msgr. Patrick Schumacher. “His plan was that we not experience death. Worries, stresses, are not created by God, they’re allowed by God as we live in this fallen world.” Schumacher says it's most likely to come up when the bad thing happens to a child. “It gets us to our core because we think it’s not fair. But that’s because we can’t understand God’s plan. Bad things can happen for our salvation.”

That can be hard to accept, especially since we can’t see with God’s long lens. We pray and then wonder why God didn’t answer. What we often fail to recognize is that God’s answer comes in his own good time. “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways’” declares the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8).

If you want a perfect example of the benefits of looking at the world through a long lens, consider the life of Jesus. “Sinless, yet betrayed by his closest friends,” says Schumacher. “Sold for the price of a slave, his agony in the garden when he was alone, beaten by Romans who occupied his homeland, betrayed by his own people before Pilot and nailed to a cross. The one truth after Adam and Eve is that there would be no redemption without suffering, without the cross. And that’s why Jesus Christ is our model to answer that question.”

Little Matthew Shea died in 1994. Here is an excerpt from the book:

"In the same month that Matthew died, Pat became pregnant again. She was 44 at the time. Nine months later she gave birth to Maria, a long-awaited baby girl. (Msgr. James) Shea believes that Maria was a special gift, influenced by Matthew, and he says the little boy’s death brought the entire family closer together.”

In the years since 1994, two of Matthew’s brothers have become priests, and Msgr. Shea believes he continues to bring good things to all of their lives. Few can doubt that Matthew is with God. It’s possible that the terrible thing that happened to his parents paved the way for the salvation of many. 

Thy Kingdom Come: Why We Shouldn't Fear the End Times

Hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorist threats, mass shootings – if you watch the news these days you could be tempted to go hide under the bed. These events bring on talk of the end times that we are warned about in the New Testament. The apostles expected Jesus to return at any moment, though He told them they "would not know the day nor the hour." We don’t know it either, and every generation has seen it coming. Still, there’s no doubt that the events we’re experiencing today can bring on anxiety. So what do today’s theologians have to say?

“We’re definitely facing some 'apocalyptic' problems right now: the prospects of nuclear war, genetic manipulation and a breakdown of family life,” says Dr. Jared Staudt, PhD, the Catechetical Formation Specialist for the Archdiocese of Denver. “We can’t say for sure that we are facing the end times, but we are at least seeing a foreshadowing of those challenges.”

St. John Paul II also felt change coming, and said in a speech in 1976, “We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the Antichrist.”

Talk like that can bring on a sense of helplessness and even a temptation to despair, but that’s where faith comes in, because St. John Paul also famously said, “Be not afraid.” In the same address, he pointed out, “The confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence. It is, therefore, in God’s plan.” Meaning God has us in the palm of his hand. He will take care of us.

“For Christians, the coming of Christ is not something to fear, but to expect with hope,” Staudt adds, pointing out that a central prayer for the early Christians was 'Maranatha,' meaning ‘Come Lord!’ As Christians, we do have to expect suffering and persecution. I say that so that we don’t despair when we face them. Jesus has promised to be with us and to give us His comfort and joy even in the midst of trials.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also talks of the end times in a spirit of hope:

In the Lord's Prayer, "thy kingdom come" refers primarily to the final coming of the reign of God through Christ's return.⁸⁸ But, far from distracting the Church from her mission in this present world, this desire commits her to it all the more strongly. Since Pentecost, the coming of that Reign is the work of the Spirit of the Lord who "complete[s] his work on earth and brings us the fullness of grace."⁸⁹"The kingdom of God [is] righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."⁹⁰ The end-time in which we live is the age of the outpouring of the Spirit.

And that’s the key. Without the end times there can be no Second Coming, there can be no “new heaven and a new earth.” We can find comfort in the very prayer that Jesus taught us. While we don’t know when, we do accept with faith that He will come again, He promised it, and we should mean it when we say, “Thy kingdom come.”

Fake News and How to Spot It

"Fake News" will go down as one of the catchphrases of the decade, and with good reason. The proliferation of talk radio and talk TV, where individual views are batted around endlessly in 24-hour news cycles, has led to opinion spouting by people around the globe. They may not be journalists so much as entertainers.

It's so pervasive, in fact, that Pope Francis has made it the theme of his message at the 2018 World Day of Social Communications, in an address entitled "The Truth Will Set You Free: Fake News and Journalism for Peace."

This isn't society's first run-in with slanted news. It used to be called yellow journalism, when reporters wrote "purple prose," embellishing a story for the shock value. The idea was to sell newspapers at a time when there were many papers competing. There were also the reform-minded muckrakers, who wrote their stories during the Progressive Era, to shine a light on particular societal ills, such as children working in factories or the exploitation of immigrants in the early 1900s. Good intentions perhaps, but slanted nonetheless.

So what is fake news today? Is it gossip, is it simply biased, or is it more nefarious than that? It often is just people spouting off without knowing the facts. Perhaps a television or radio talk show host ventures an opinion and it's quoted and then misquoted until a distorted story is taken for truth. But it's also journalists manipulating the facts to tell a story in a particular way to further their particular view, not unlike the muckrakers of the past.

J.R. Havens is the news director at KFYR-TV in Bismarck, ND. He says news mistakes or factual errors happen for a variety of reasons, not the
least of which is stations or networks looking for a competitive edge. "It can happen because they want to be first. Sometimes they sensationalize because they want to pump their own tires. And sometimes it's just carelessness."

Does this mean you should distrust all journalists? Havens says at the local level, at least in his newsroom where reporters tend to be young, there is somebody senior looking over shoulders to try to ensure they are balanced in their reporting.

"Another set of eyes makes sure there are no opinions in there. Training is the key," he says. "Training, training, training."

But he can't vouch for every newsroom. So what can you do to make sure you're getting the real story?

Al Aamodt, a longtime news manager at a television station in Fargo, N.D., says the important thing is to be educated and know what's going on in the world around you. "Have a good understanding of both sides of an issue," he says. "You can spot the bias on any story simply by being informed. Ask questions. The reader or viewer is not as stupid as some people think they are."

Or,  you can rely on the good reporter's favorite question: how do you know that? If you can't verify it, don't repeat or repost it.

Fully Rely on God - F.R.O.G.

https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Death-Message-Comfort-Hope/dp/0692745610

   Mikey Hoeven has a thing for frogs. They remind her of her favorite acronym - Fully Rely on God. She does that, relies on God, but life can be hard sometimes, and it was particularly challenging earlier this year when her mother-in-law died.
   Raziye had been sick for a long time, suffering from Alzheimer's disease. She no longer remembered what happened from one moment to the next, and while she sometimes had flashes of recognition for loved ones if reminded, she usually forgot them in the next moment. There was one person she did think about - Jack, her husband of 33 years. Raziye lived for Jack and always had, but she hadn't seen him in a while. She lived in a care facility and because his health was failing, he was unable to visit her or call her on the phone as he'd done before. She never stopped asking for him, though, and one day she started saying, "Jack's dying."
    The thing is, Jack was dying. How could she know? Nobody even told her that he was sick, somehow she felt it; she stopped eating and drinking, and simply faded away.
     Jack died two days later.
      Mikey was with her mother-in-law when she passed. And though she was close by, she wasn't in the room when Jack went. Once the funerals were over, she says she felt a heaviness in her chest, a need for reassurance that they were well. She prayed to God, telling him she needed to see a frog. Then she went outside to water the plants, and lo and behold, she saw this little guy in the grass as if he was waiting for her.
     "Honestly, in the seven years we've lived in that house I've only seen a frog twice!" she tells me. She says she immediately felt better and knew that Jack and Raziye were doing just fine. It was a God thing.

Follow Monica on:

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Her latest book is Gift of Death - A Message of Comfort and Hope

Remembering St. Teresa of Calcutta

I spent the better part of the Labor Day weekend packing as Cliff and I prepare for a move. While we moved a lot in our early years, we've been in our current home for almost 20 years now, so we've accumulated a lot of stuff. For example, one drawer was filled with tennis trophies, which I dutifully wrapped and packed. And then it occurred to me, what do I need to move these for? I never look at them and I don't plan to display them. So I unpacked them and tossed them in the trash; I felt no pain in doing it. So much of what we keep is like that. It might spark a memory, or we think we might shrink back into it, or we imagine that someday we'll find a use for it. My entire basement is filled with that kind of thing.

This was brought home in a big way this past week as I've watched the residents of Houston, struggling just to get out of the way of the water flooding in as a result of Hurricane Harvey, never mind being able to save all of that accumulated "stuff" that make up a life.

By contrast, the weekend news also included pictures of Rohingya refugees crossing into Bangladesh from Myanmar, trying to escape the violence in their villages. Everything they owned they carried on their backs, and it wasn't much. They were simply getting away with their lives.

Years ago my newly-married brother and his wife lost everything when their home was destroyed in a tornado that tore through Andover, Kansas. My sister-in-law barely got out in time, leaving behind all of their as yet unopened wedding gifts. When I asked my brother what he needed he laughed and said, "Well, you can't say I'm a guy who has everything!" Except that he quickly realized he did have everything he truly needed - a good job, a wife he loved and a community ready to help.

Today, September 5, marks the date that St. Teresa of Calcutta died. She lived her life without accumulating, choosing instead to simply serve. As I pack the things that I think I need in my new home, I hope I can keep her in mind, downsizing, simplifying and instead, gathering in and giving back love.

Five Important Things to Do Before You Die

I recently spent a week with my extended family at a lake in Minnesota. My adult children were with me, and my daughter surprised me by talking about where we all wanted to be buried when we die. And it got me thinking about what's important when it comes to end-of-life issues. It's what used to be called getting your affairs in order. When you hear that, you probably think of things like wills, deeds, and funeral arrangements. That's your practical preparation. But how do you prepare emotionally and spiritually? After your lawyer and your financial advisor, if you're a person of faith you probably contact a priest or minister, assuming you're able. It's important to get right with God. But what about your friends and family? What do you say to them?

1. You might start with, "I'm sorry." If there are people you've harmed, now's the time to set things right. As it says in Ephesians 4:32, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." But that's not where it should end. Fr. Paul Becker says there are four more things you need to say.

2. "I forgive you," comes right along with expressing remorse. Psychologists will tell you forgiveness is mainly for your benefit because it allows you to let go of bitterness, which in turn helps to free your soul.

3. "I love you," is next on the list. I believe this is easier to say these days than it once was, particularly for men, but it can still come hard. Don't assume that your loved ones know how you feel. There's a famous song by Reba McIntyre that comes to mind here:

         The greatest words I never heard I guess I'll never hear.
         The man I thought could never die has been dead almost a year.
         Oh, he was good at business, but there was business left to do.
         He never said he loved me. Guess he thought I knew.

That's not a mistake you want to make.

4. "Thank you" is next on the list. You may take all of that care you've received over your lifetime for granted, but you should know that it isn't always easy to be there for someone else. For those who are "there" for you, be grateful.

5. And finally, say goodbye. That might be the hardest part, because people are afraid to leave their loved ones behind. My father felt this way and it motivated me to write a book Fear of Death - A Message of Comfort and Hope  to help him and others deal with it.  Give those you love a chance to tell you how much you mean to them and let them know about their place in your heart as well. It's healing for you both, and it's a gift only you can give.


                                                                        ***

Fear not, because God is with you.

-St. Pio of Pietrelcina

Guardian Angels Working Overtime

Todd Telin doesn't ride a motorcycle. He hasn't since his bike slid sideways and sent him shooting down a highway at 80 miles an hour.

"That's how fast I was going when I saw the wheel on an old truck beside me in the right lane start to wobble," he says. As he was considering his options the wheel fell off and rolled into the side of his bike.



"If it had hit the front tire I would have gone end-over-end. If it hit the back I would have rolled. That it hit the side probably saved my life." The motorcycle fell on top of him and he started an 80-mile-an-hour slide.



"I was wearing leathers, but no helmet," he adds, "and while I was sliding I kept thinking, 'Keep your head up, keep your head up." As it was, he slid boots first about 200-feet along the pavement, burning through his shoes, scraping a hole in his foot and taking off most of his small toe. But that was it. The second he stopped, he says he bounced back up.

A friend of his was also on that road, a doctor who saw the wheel, and saw the fall, and thought there was no way Todd had survived. He hit his brakes and drove through the median to turn around and head back to the scene. "By the time he got there I was standing. Adrenalin I suppose," says Todd. He climbed into his buddy's pickup and they headed for the nearest Emergency Room, which happened to be in a small town. There was no doctor there that day.

"Only an intern," says Todd. As they came through the door, a woman in another bed was in cardiac arrest, and the intern was in over his head. "He was scared to death," says Todd. "You could see it on his face." Todd's road rash and foot injuries, while serious, suddenly took a back seat.

"His friend said, 'I'm a doctor, do you need a hand?' and then he jumped in and they saved that woman. So maybe that was the whole point," says Todd.

Both he and the woman lived through it. Even so, Todd says he'll never again climb onto a motorcycle. He doesn't want to push his luck.



 

Dad Made His Own Funeral Dinner

His business card reads: "Have Fedora & Dr. Who Scarf Will Travel," underlined.

His claim to fame is a quote from Donald Trump which reads: "Nobody reports that, but you do. That's why I like you."

Pete "DatechGuy" Ingemi is a blogger http://datechguyblog.com/from Massachusetts with a long resume. I ran into him at the Catholic Marketing Network Trade Show where he was selling his book, Hail Mary, and gathering interviews for his radio program. He interviewed me, but I could tell by looking at him that he had a story. I wasn't wrong.

He heard what my book, Gift of Death, was about, then told me about his father, who died in his kitchen right after making his own funeral dinner.

"He was sitting at the kitchen table with his face in his hand," Pete explained. "Being Sicilian, he always sat where he could see all the doors -- the front door, the side door and the cellar door." Pete's brother Antonio arrived first with their mother and at first glance they thought he was sleeping. But when they touched him they realized he was cold. This was a guy whose ancestors hailed from Italy. Years earlier he'd owned a bar and restaurant called the Mohawk Club. Cooking was a thing he knew how to do. And he loved to do it. "He loved to see people eat."

On this particular night, even though he was expecting only four for dinner, he'd cooked food for an army. Spaghetti, meatballs, peppers and onions, steaks, chicken and pot after pot of sauce; traditional Sicilian dishes of all kinds. They were on the stoves and in the ovens in the upstairs kitchen and in the spare room, and in the cellar where the old restaurant stove was stored. There was food in toaster ovens that they didn't discover for days. Everywhere you looked, there was something wonderful cooking. "As Italians we naturally always made more food than we needed to," he said, "but this was ridiculous."

As the family gathered over the next several days they were well provided for. "Everybody just ate. There was so much food and everybody loved my father's cooking." Suffice it to say nobody went hungry.

Did he have a premonition? "Nobody knows. But it sure seemed that way," Pete told me. Earlier in the day he'd called the priest, and he talked to a brother he hadn't seen in a while. He called his wife at work, a thing he rarely did. He didn't say goodbye in those calls. Instead, he said farewell in a way that was uniquely him, channeling his love into his food.

If you're interested in Pete's book on Hail Mary - The Perfect Protestant (and Catholic) Prayer, here's the link: http://ow.ly/sI0S30e05H2

The Body/Spirit Connection

I've become interested lately in Terminal Lucidity. It's only recently been named by biologist, Dr. Michael Nahm, but it's not a new thing. It's that moment when somebody who has previously been unresponsive is suddenly alert and communicative hours before death. On his website, Exploring Frontiers of Biology, http://www.michaelnahm.com Dr. Nahm lists several examples.

In one case he talks about a woman who had Alzheimer's Disease and who had not recognized anybody for five years who engaged in normal conversation just hours before she died. In another, he describes an event in which a young man with cancer that had spread to his brain had lost the ability to speak or move, but who woke up and said goodbye to his family right before he died.

As with so many things that seem inexplicable, scientists are trying to find a physical reason for this. However, I became convinced while doing research for my book, Gift of Death, that we are surrounded by an entire world of wonder that we simply can't see. How else to explain the woman who told me she was surprised one day when her doorbell rang, and standing there was her favorite aunt who lived in a different state. Before she could ask any questions or even hug her, her wall phone rang. "Come in!" she said. "I'll just answer that and be right back." She went into her kitchen and picked up the phone. It was her father, telling her that her aunt had just died. When she turned back toward the door, there was nobody there. She believes her aunt had come to her in spirit to say goodbye. "What was even more amazing," she told me, "is that when I reflected back on it I realized the woman I saw at the door was my aunt when she was much younger."

If you know of anybody who has had this type of experience, I'd be interested in hearing their story.
Write me at: talkingpro2@gmail.com

Faith in Our Future

Watch the news today and you may get the impression that the entire world is run by extremists, and that America, and Americans, are hated everywhere.

I thought I'd share with you a conversation I was privileged to have with North Dakota native Brigadier General Gigi Wilz. General Wilz grew up in Richardton, ND, in a military family. She joined the National Guard when she was just 17 and since then has served our country for 30 years, using her talent not only to pave the way for women in the armed forces, but to act as a representative of the people of our nation. She spent the last two years as NATO Commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where she met and got to know people from all 29 nations that make up the NATO Alliance; people from all corners of Europe. She was in a position to really hear what people elsewhere think of us. What she said might surprise you. I'm writing it here, word for word.

"I think if we take the middle of the road citizens of other nations, they still love America and think America is important in terms of global order. Most people, when you talk to them, all want to come to America and experience that. So, I think for the most part we have a good reputation, regardless of what you hear on both ends of the spectrum in the media."

I asked her if she thinks the media as an industry chooses sides. She laughed and said, "I probably shouldn't answer that question sitting here in a television studio, but yes, I think they have the tendency to go way right or way left. And the truth of the matter is, most Americans are right down the middle, and that's the population that the news media is not capturing today."

Fair enough. Next question: Situations like what's going on in North Korea are very frightening. With her military experience, does it worry her?

"It does, but I don't know that we haven't been here before with other rogue nations, so as long as we have incredible leadership within the defense structure and we have a Congress and we have a president who's trying to influence that, then I'm less concerned."

She also said, "I'm not the politician, I'm not the world leader, but from a military perspective we think it's very important that we demonstrate  an alliance. That's why NATO is important...I believe that diplomacy is still the best deal, always backed up by military power, and that's why the NATO Alliance is so important.

Does our form of government still work?

"Yes, without question. It's got a checks and balances system so, just like I subordinate myself to civilian leadership, that leadership also needs to pay attention to Congress. That's important."

When the news we hear is so often gloomy, I found General Wilz' views reassuring, as if we are still in good hands.

You can read more about her in this month's issue of Inspired Woman magazine, Freedom issue. Find the link here:
https://inspiredwomanonline.com/

I Think That I Shall Never See.....

"A Poem Lovely as a Tree" *


You think you know your kids. Especially after 27 years. Which is why I was so surprised by my son's recent reaction to California's Muir Woods. We had time to do one thing, so we were headed to Stinson Beach when we saw the sign, and he mentioned that visiting the giant redwoods was on his bucket list. "Let's go!"

This detour was meant to be. Signs said the parking lot was full, but we took a chance and pulled right into an open space. After that, we walked the trails and took pictures of tree after tree. To me it was a really nice walk. But to C.J. it was awe inspiring. He couldn't get enough.

Perhaps it was growing up in North Dakota, which has its own brand of beauty, but it's certainly not the land of trees. Perhaps it's just the idea that these trees have been there for hundreds of years. Perhaps it was sharing the experience with his wife, Erica. In any event, the fun part was in watching those two.
   

Today I found the perfect travel itinerary for the remainder of their lives. Here's the link to that, for the rest of you tree lovers out there:
http://www.cntraveler.com/gallery/the-most-beautiful-forests-in-the-world

*Poem by Joyce Kilmer

Alley Life - Part Two

A whole other world exists in my son's neighborhood once the sun goes down. I know this because I just visited Denver again, where he and his wife live in an 11-unit downtown apartment building.I was up in the small hours for two reasons. First, they have no air conditioning, so I was sitting on their front balcony drying off and enjoying the cool night air. I also had to catch an early-morning flight, so going back to bed seemed pointless.

I heard what sounded like a party going on somewhere nearby. It seemed close, but I couldn't see anybody. Just voices. From that noise I picked out the sound of two people talking, a man and a woman. He was pouring out his heart to her. Of course I considered going inside and giving them their privacy, but I have to admit I was riveted. He loved her! He couldn't live without her! He'd waited his whole life for her! Silence. She clearly didn't feel the same way. My heart hurt for him. It was as if I was right there in the room with them, that's how clear the sound was. I wanted to give him a hug. Poor guy. And then....the sound of the laugh track. Turns out I was listening to a re-run of Cheers, playing on the TV in the apartment one balcony over.

Bu t wait! At that moment the can man came by. He was having a good night. His grocery cart was stuffed with cans, and so were the bags he had hanging from the sides and underneath. Perhaps that's why he didn't try very hard. He wheeled up the alley, peered into the dumpster, tossed an empty peanut butter jar and a fast food bag out onto the cement, then let the dumpster lid clang down, wiped his hands on the front of his t-shirt, and continued on his way.

That dumpster is the site of a lot of city life. Arguments happen there, along with transactions I've described in previous blogs. On this night, though, all was quiet once the can man left. Even the TV was off next door. For a quarter of an hour it was just me and a tiny bird waking up and singing in the branches of a tree not two feet from my face. At
4 a.m. the garbage trucks arrived with their backing beep and their diesel fumes. But for just a moment, Denver and I were at peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXyeS-jZSpA

Choose Your Moment

This week I heard from a man who related to me how he had been at the bedside of a dying friend.

"I slept in the living room where she rested on a recliner for two full days," he told me. "She was not responding.  When I gently touched her and said, 'It’s OK to let go,'  she showed a weak version of her beautiful smile.  I left the room for just a minute or two.  When I returned, she had passed."

There's so much about death that we don't understand, and in many cases there isn't a thing we can do about it. I'm thinking of the sudden car crash or a fall off the roof. But in researching my book, Gift of Death, A Message of Comfort and Hope, one thing I heard over and over again was how much say people do have in choosing their actual moment of passing over.

You may ask yourself why anybody would choose to die alone like the man's friend, but if you think about it, death can be a very intimate and private experience. I believe some people are just more comfortable slipping away without an audience. The reasons for this must be as varied as the people experiencing death.

In a recent interview I heard death described as an intrusion, and it certainly is. It interrupts life as we know it and once it's over nothing is ever the same. So that would make it the ultimate transformative experience, whether it's happening to you or to somebody you love. .

 It's what you do with that transformation that makes all the difference. On this Father's Day I am thinking of my own dad who has been gone for two years now. As I describe in my book, his last actions on earth were focused on those he loved rather than himself. I can't know what happened to him in the moments after he died, although I feel certain that he's doing just fine.

But what I do know is his death transformed my life, and sent me in a different direction both spiritually and actually. I think of this every time I face an audience and talk about death as a gift. For me, fear is gone, God is close, and so is my dad.

Coincidence? No Such Thing

I have been speaking about my book, Gift of Death, for months now, and never really saw the title. When I was getting ready to publish I asked everybody I knew what they would call it, then I chose the three most popular suggestions and put them out on Facebook for my friends to vote on.

Gift of Death was not my first choice. I think I wanted something that didn't even have the word "death" in it. I thought it might be off-putting. I wanted something that would make people actually pick up the book because they were so intrigued, and then, hopefully, read it. I didn't want to scare people off. But the response was overwhelmingly in favor of Gift of Death, so that's what I went with.

Yesterday I was taking notes and was abbreviating the title rather than write it over and over again, and here's what that looked like: GOD. How could I have gone that long without noticing? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know this. The book as been nothing but a blessing. Coincidental? I don't think so.

I never really feel my age. Actually, that's not true. When I've spent too long driving and I have to uncurl myself from behind the wheel I do feel it. But most of the time I still feel young and fit. That's why it surprised me to see that John F. Kennedy would have been 100 years old on May 29th.

It surprised me because I remember the young president. Mainly I remember the day he died, because my mother cried on that day, something I rarely saw. I have a very vivid memory, at four years old, of sitting before the television with my brother, watching as the slain president's funeral cortege passed by. It's difficult to know what I truly remember after that because he has been in the news so much.

His death marked the beginning of a sad time in American history, when it seemed as if we lost our tolerance for discourse on political and philosophical differences, as JFK was followed in death by Martin Luther King, Jr., and then Bobby Kennedy. These days it's tough to get close to a sitting president, or any world leader for that matter, as extremists choose to make their statements by pointing a gun, or by bombing innocent people. The world feels like an increasingly dangerous place.

Statistics say that's not actually true, that we are safer today than we've ever been historically speaking. After all, half of the population of Europe was wiped out in a single battle with plague in the Middle Ages and two world wars wreaked their devastation in the modern era. Plus, people have always had the capacity for cruelty.

So, we're safer perhaps. But judging by what one reads on the internet and soundbites on the news, it seems we are becoming angrier day by day, and ruder, and less tolerant of opposing views.

Perhaps if we listened more and talked less. Too simplistic? Likely yes, but don't we have to start somewhere?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBiH5fsKJB8

Big Brothers and Family Weddings

What is it about big brothers? Mine is my only sibling and in some years he felt like my only friend. We were born just eleven months apart, and Larry was my hero growing up. When I was six I wanted to be just like him. I tagged along when he played army with his friends and he (usually) made sure I was included. He tolerated me when they played cops and robbers. If I insisted on Barbies he'd bring out G.I. Joe. We rarely fought, but if we did I always won because he refused to hit me back and I could run faster anyway. One memorable day I talked him into letting me tie him up. I threw a blanket over his head and tied his feet together, then pushed him over. When his head hit the floor I ran like I was on fire, and yet, he didn't tell on me. Another legendary story says that when I was four I socked a neighborhood boy in the nose for being mean to my brother. We built forts together using scrap lumber from the new houses going up in our neighborhood. We collected crawdads from a nearby stream. And we played a lot of Battleship.

Over the weekend I journeyed to Kansas to watch his oldest child, his daughter Laurina, get married. It was great fun spending time with extended family, watching him get all teary-eyed as he gave her away. "I had something to say when I handed her to Josh," he later told me, "but I couldn't get it out." My brother, the brave retired colonel, brought to his knees by the long walk down the aisle with his "princess."

But perhaps the best moment for me was dancing with Larry to The Commodores' "Brick House." Did I mention that I don't dance?. If they play a slow song I might shuffle a two-step, but that's about it, despite the square dancing lessons that my mother made us take as kids. The kind of dancing we did in the 70s involves a lot of unscripted flailing about, and at this stage of the game might also first require a couple shots of tequila. And yet, there we were, alone on a stage with my family looking on and cheering. Fortunately, the video they took is a little too dark to see. But it was a moment I'll never forget. Two things I learned from this trip to Kansas:

One: my brother can dance to anything (perhaps his marriage to a former dance instructor has something to do with it?).

and 

Two: he can sing! One more story. When we were kids I famously told him to stop singing in church because he was embarrassing the family. I know. Not very nice. But this last Sunday I sat right beside him in St. Luke's, and it turns out he has a very nice voice. He can even sing "Brick House" while dancing. 

That First Scratch

 It was bound to happen, and it didn't take long. I got a parking ding on the new car. It was one of those drive-by-hit-the-mirror-before-driving-away accidents that happen routinely downtown. The damage wasn't bad, but still, I felt a pang.

We aren't a real car family. We tend to drive them into the ground, and even when we do buy a new car, it's never really new. My first car, purchased in 1978, was a white Impala that I bought for $100. I spent another $5 on a can of white spray paint from K-Mart which I used to cover the rust on the fenders and doors.

 It wasn't pretty (not as nice as this by a longshot), but my boyfriend could fix anything that went wrong with chewing gum and bailing twine, and it ran. I drove it to college and eventually sold it for $100.

Over the years, depending on the number of kids we were hauling around, the cars got bigger, with vast backseats. We had two Oldsmobile Silhouettes that we bought from my father-in-law which we drove into the ground. They were the type with the vast front windshield. It felt like you were driving an arcade video game. The last one, by the time we finally got rid of it, had a door that literally was tied shut with baling twine. It went on many family road trips and I would venture to guess it plays heavily into my children's summer vacation memories. They would listen to an old mix tape that was labeled, "Driving With Dad." Cliff still has the mix, and in fact, has gifted the children with memorial CD's. They speak with great fondness of the time they were fighting over a big bottle of Coke in the backseat and Cliff, while driving, grabbed it out of their hands and poured it out the window. "I can still see it streaming along the windows at 80 miles an hour," is how my daughter remembers it.  "Not my finest hour," is how Cliff recalls the incident. But they all laugh.

 Then there was the shiny red Sebring convertible. I loved that car, and Cliff bought it for me. It certainly wasn't his first choice. My dad said at the time, "I guess everybody has to make that mistake at sometime in their lives," and shook his head. And he was right. We rarely put the top down because it was either too cold or windy. When I bought it I had three small kids, so dropping them off at school meant one in the front seat, two in the back. "Shotgun!" was our morning rallying cry. I sold it the year we acquired a South Korean exchange student. Three teenagers just didn't fit in the back.

We bought a Jeep instead. I loved that car, too. It could practically move sideways, that's how good the turning radius was, and it also carried us on many family trips. Never mind the fact that it got eight miles to the gallon. We had it for a decade.

So, we bought the shiny red "Every Car." You know the one. It has a modern-day wagon look, with the windows that get smaller in the back, and the hatchback in lieu of a trunk. It goes a lot farther on a tank of gas, it's comfortable, and it boasts a Bluetooth phone and stereo system. But I have trouble finding it in a crowded parking lot.
I never had that problem with the white Impala.

Driving The World Over - Part Two

Yesterday I took a driving safety course, required by the company I work for. It wasn't a bad experience. Good advice. Reminders like swerve to the right rather than the left into on-coming traffic and don't drive if you can't see past the hood of your car. In Guatemala the rule is "butts on the ground," which means when riding in the back of a pick-up truck down the highway at 75 miles per hour, don't stand.

It's dangerous, of course, and that's why it's illegal to do it in the United States. But there's no doubt you can get an excellent view of everything this way.

There are the street views, so different from the way things look in the U.S.

And there's the countryside, which has a beauty all its own.

We seem much more concerned about our personal safety here than they are there. I can only speculate on why this is. Perhaps the view there is more fatalistic. Again, I never saw a Guatemalan wearing a seatbelt, and it was very common to see a family of four on a single motorcycle. I asked my driver whether there were a lot of fatalities on the roads and he said yes, it was a big problem. So why, I wondered, didn't people wear seatbelts? His response was a shoulder shrug and a smile. "Es lo que es," he said. It is what it is.  

On Visting the Chimeltenango Dump

 

  I should start out by explaining that I'm in Guatemala covering the opening of The God's Child Project Casa Jackson Hospital for Malnourished Children. While I'm here, I'll be doing some stories for KFYR-TV. The first one has to do with homelessness and the way people struggle here to feed their kids. Sometimes they fall short, and that's when GCP steps in.

    Getting from place to place in Guatemala is an adventure. Public transportation comes in the form of a brightly-painted bus (the so-called chicken bus),

 a tuk tuk (a three-wheeled motorcycle covered in a tarp)

 or an open truck with metal framing on the sides to  provide handholds for people who ride standing up, which I did. 

There I was, speeding down the highway with my hair flying, the other cars whizzing by, close enough to touch. It's a mountainous road, as are most here, and passing is perilous. Not that it stops anybody.The guy standing in the  back of the truck yells down to the driver when he thinks it's safe to pass. It's the ultimate trust exercise. 

(copy and paste this url if it doesn't open and you want to see video of the dump)

https://www.facebook.com/MonicaHannan/posts/10212337828509214?notif_t=like&notif_id=1491057047468949

     Our destination was the  dump in Chimeltenango. Like most dumps, you can smell it long before  you see it. Burning garbage smells the same the world over. But here, the blowing dust combines with the smoke. We spy a woman raking the trash on a hillside very near the flames. My guide, Heneo, approaches the woman to ask if we can interview her. She agrees and my photographer Javier and I trek through the smoke. Her sharply-lined face is covered in soot, her eyes are red-rimmed with irritation and she appears to be in her late fifties or even sixties. She tells me she is 34 years old, the mother of five, the oldest  of whom is 21. I see two small children playing at the bottom of the land-fill, hiding under the shade of a tree. I assume they are hers. She says, with Heneo interpreting, that her husband died leaving her with no way to  make a living, so she and her children spend their day sifting for recyclables. They earn about a dollar a day. As she tells me this, tears track a black trail down her face as she asks for help. I ask where she lives and she points to a cave carved into the side of a hill not ten feet away.There is a young woman sitting there, holding an infant who they say is about nine months old. The baby's  face is also covered with grime, but he does not open his eyes or even stir. The girl tells  me the baby is sick with a cough. It's not hard to see why, as the two of them are in the direct path of the smoke. We hand them money and turn to go. Immediately, the mother heads back down the hill to continue her raking. 

    Half of the population of Guatemala is living in poverty. For 25 percent that poverty is extreme. Offering money may fill an immediate need, but the real answer is education. It's important for this woman's children to go to school. Getting them there is the goal of The God's Child Project.

On New Cars (or, Waiting For That First Scratch)

I have never liked being told what to do. When I was perhaps four or five I decided it would be a good idea to “wash” my father’s brand new car with sand. I had a grand time “helping” him. I wasn’t alone. Another neighborhood boy had the bright idea first and lured me in. Just imagine the moment my dad saw what we’d done. He was a gentle guy, but on this occasion he couldn’t even talk to me. He just handed me off to my mother. For the rest of that car’s life, it had swirls in the paint. It wasn’t malicious on my part. I didn’t really understand what I was doing. Still, I’m sure that was little comfort to my dad.

Today, I picked up a new car; new to me at least. Shiny red and clean and reliable (I hope). I traded in our well-loved 2002 Jeep Liberty to get it, and actually felt a little pang letting the Old Reliable go. It’s been a fun companion and has seen a lot of Naylor road trips and good times. But these days I am on the road a lot, and public speaking makes me feel anxious enough without the added worry of whether my car will make it.

As I was driving it out of the lot I was being extra careful with it, sort of the way I drove for the first time with my newborn daughter in the car. I’m sure that feeling will wear off quickly. But it reminded me a lot of a fellow I used to work with who, first thing every morning, dumped a half a cup of coffee all over his desk “just to get it over with.” Perhaps I should just go out there and ding it…just to get it over with. Perhaps not. I’m sure it will happen soon enough, with or without my help. Wish me happy trails!

The Final Taboo in Our Sunset Years

I ran across an article recently whose subject was the Death Cafe. Apparently it's a movement that's circling the globe. There's a website, and here's its description:

At a Death Cafe people drink tea, eat cake and discuss death. Our aim is to increase     awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives .

Having studied on and written about death at length, I found the idea of this intriguing, but also a little sad. These discussions seem to be a kind of group therapy for people who are questioning, seeking or are simply afraid, but can't talk with those closest to them because the conversation gets a big shut down. I know how that is.

I wrote my book, Gift of Death - A Message of Comfort and Hope, because I wanted to (I admit it) force a loved one to think about his approaching death. I continued it with the hope that what I had discovered and the comfort that followed, would also be a help to others who are afraid. The issue I struggled with most during the writing and subsequent publishing of the work was what to call it. My friends and mentors helped me bounce around several titles, and there were two camps. One thought that if I wanted to sell it I should avoid the word "death" at all costs. The other thought I should include the word because, well, why hide what the book is about? In the end I put it out there on Facebook, and the title you see is the one that came back with the most positive hits. 

Even so, people tend to squirm when I tell them what my book is called. One elderly woman phoned me specifically to ask for my book because she's a fan and she knew I'd been writing. She didn't know what it was about, and said she didn't care. She just wanted to read it. I sent it to her. I asked her weeks later what she'd thought of it and she admitted she hadn't even cracked the cover. In fact, it was hidden away. She explained, "I'm a lot closer to death than you are, you know, and I don't want to be scared." Clearly, she already is. To calm her fears, I basically told her everything that was in the book, and why it would be a comfort to her, but still she hasn't read it. 

The article I read said that death is the last taboo subject in our modern world, and so who better to discuss it with than total strangers. I think there's a better way. Look someone you love in the eye, and ask them this:

"Where do you think you'll go when you die? And if you're afraid, let's talk about that." 

If it's just too scary, read my book. I think it will help. 

The Big Move

  Today's world is small. Unless you live in North Korea (and even there if you know where to look), we all seem to have access to the latest thing thanks to the Internet, the 24-hour news cycle and the availability of world travel. But 45 years ago, California felt about as far from North Dakota as you could get. I moved from the West Coast to Bismarck in 1971, and it was a year of firsts for me.
   My father sold Olympia beer, and I still remember the day he came home and told my mother he had been transferred. He may as well have said we're moving to Timbuktu. We had to pull out a map. The one thing we keyed in on was the "north." We knew that it was a place both cold and remote. When we told friends where we were going, inevitably, they said, "Where's that?" followed by "Why on earth?" Still, it wasn't our first move, so onward and northward we went.
   We packed our lives into Bekins boxes and drove to the airport. I'd never been on a plane before, and we flew first class. There was nothing cardboard about it. Dinner was served on china dishes with real silverware and linen napkins. My brother and I were served Coca Cola, a rare treat for us back then, and my parents drank champagne from glass flutes. That was back in the days before there were doors on the cockpits, and I remember the captain calling my brother and me up to look at the controls before he pinned wings on us and made us honorary pilots.
 
A TOWN WITH ONE TAXI

 

   When we landed, we were driven in a cab to the motel that would be our home for weeks while my parents waited for our new house to be ready. A cab ride might not seem remarkable, but this one certainly was. It had jump seats; a lot of fun for kids. The motel we stayed in had a pool, also a huge deal. Those experiences eased the transition for me. That fall I started sixth grade in a public school, after my years in Catholic elementary. I traded in the school uniforms that had always made getting dressed in the morning easy and painless, for jumpers that made me stand out in a way I didn't appreciate. Most of the rest of the kids wore jeans, something that hadn't been allowed in my schools. I had experienced snow before, thanks to a couple of years spent in Spokane, but never the kind of snow and cold that North Dakota gets.
     I remember that first Christmas begging for ice skates, but then being unable to use them because I couldn't stand the cold that the other kids seemed to take in stride. Bismarck had its own culture, very different from the one I'd been surrounded by in California, with our big, noisy extended family. But culture, like the cold, is something kids adapt to.
     These days I'm right at home in the very middle of North America, and I wouldn't want to leave it behind for anyplace else. But there are those February days, like today, where I do a little California Dreamin'.

Hot Dog Day

I was cleaning out an old trunk the other day and ran across the hat I wore to Mass in 3rd Grade, at St. Rose Catholic School in Santa Rosa, California. It was blue plaid wool, not a hat, really, as I think about it, but rather, a triangle of fabric with plastic bands sewn onto the edges that held it to my head like a vice. We didn't need it for warmth. It was part of our uniform at a time when girls had to cover their heads in church. (This picture is not of me, but put brown hair in place of the blond and I'd say it's a pretty good likeness...and THAT'S the hat). I looked at the hat, smiled, and then tossed it out. I kind of regret that now, because seeing it brought me right back to my first day at that new school. I was a student there for less than a year. Yet it left a lasting impression.

The school year had already started when I was enrolled. It was my first experience with Catholic school rather than public. The jumper I wore was scratchy, my saddle shoes were stiff, and I was scared to death. I didn't talk to anybody. After lunch, bladder bursting and standing in a hall that was rapidly emptying as children found their classrooms, I finally discovered a heavy oak door marked "girls." Getting in was easy. Getting out was not. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get that door to open again, not in or out. After 15 minutes of trying I sat down under the sinks, tucked my knees up under my chin and started to cry. A short time later the door swung open and one of the nuns in a long black habit, with rattling Rosary beads and a wimple around her shiny red face sailed in. I knew I was not where I was supposed to be and I feared the worst. She bent down, saw my face, and smiled.

"I don't believe I've seen you here before," she said, and held out her hand, which I grasped like a lifeline. She hauled me to my feet. "What's the trouble?" I explained that I couldn't get the door open and she put her hand over her mouth to hide a grin, then said, "Ah, now that is confusing." She led me around the stalls to a door on the other side of the long room, one I hadn't seen until then. Of course, the "Out" door. "One swings in, the other out, you see?" she said, then led me back to my classroom. (Okay, that's Ingrid Bergman, but the habit looks right).

The nuns at that school were kind, and because they were, I grew to love my time there. I learned to stand when I was called on in class, or when the priest came into the room. I learned to make the Sign of the Cross whenever the bell rang, a habit I had a devil of a time breaking when I went back to public school. By far the best days, though, were Hot Dog Days. There was no hot lunch at St. Rose. We brought our lunches in brown paper sacks, or in lunchboxes shaped like school buses with the thermos hooked in the flip-open lids. We ate on the playground that was really an asphalt parking lot surrounded by a chain link fence. We sat on the cement sidewalks with our backs up against the brick building. Most days it was bologna sandwiches or peanut butter and jelly on white bread. But once a month we each brought a quarter from home and lined up for Hot Dog Day. If I close my eyes I can still smell it. The hot dogs came wrapped in white paper with a packet of mustard tucked in beside the bun. If you got there early and got a good place in line they were still steaming. They were accompanied by a carton of Foremost milk, tall and skinny with a cap on the top that flipped open. Dessert was a tiny cardboard cup of orange sherbet with a flat wooden dipping spoon under the lid. It was heaven. There was excitement in the air, for no other reason than that it was Hot Dog Day.

I looked the school up on the Internet to see if it would spark any memories, and the old building doesn't appear to be there anymore. There's a modern school now, probably one with hot lunch and a real playground with swings and slides. The little girls no longer have to wear those vice-grip hats. Dockers and polo shirts have likely replaced the scratchy wool uniforms. But we had something they don't have, unless of course, they still have Hot Dog Day.