Saved by A Big Jar of Mustard

We all know the parable about having faith the size of a mustard seed.  A mustard seed is really small.  So small, if you dropped one while cooking,  it might be hard to find it.  This is not a story about small things.  I'm not very good with small things.

I was once told that my problems stem from attacking a difficult situation with a sledge hammer, while others are using stilettos.  And this story is about how a really big, industrial, restaurant-size jar of mustard changed my life, and brought me back to faith and family.  I'm thinking about it today because I ran into the priest who gave me that mustard.  His name is Father Dave Reeson.

In 1986 I was in my second of three years working toward an MFA in Acting at the University of Louisville. In that theater department I was surrounded by people who practiced magic, members of a coven of witches.  I was regularly bothered by spirits appearing around me.  Homosexuals and bisexuals of every stripe were my closest friends.  I still remember Louisville as one of the darkest places on the planet.  My parents were always begging me to quit and come home.  I had a fellowship and a job, and didn't want to leave without my degree.

My brother Tim died on either the last day of November or the 1st of December, 1986.  I think it happened earlier rather than later because I had spent the two days crying for no apparent reason. After receiving the call from my Dad,  I called some of my colleagues to have them spread the word that I would be gone for a while.  They came over, Marian carrying an unopened bottle of 12 year old Pinch.  They helped me take care of the logistics of packing and travel.  And Marian gave me A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to read on the plane.  I did read it.  I don't remember it.

Safely at home, I was curiously out of sync with the rest of my family.  I wanted to turn everything into a joke.  I rode the edge of hysterical laughter to tears.  I was sitting on the couch in the family room next to my Grandma when Father Dave Reeson came in.  He had been helping my parents with funeral arrangements in  the dining room.  He asked if there was anything he could do for any of us.

You might not be familiar with the custom of bringing food to the family of the deceased.  It is a Nebraska thing.  We had been receiving and storing chicken tetrazzini and sliced hams most of the morning.  So when Fr. Dave asked his question, only one thing came to mind.  "Well Father, we've got an awful lot of ham.  We could really use some mustard."  Everyone tried to laugh.  Or maybe they just looked shocked.  I don't really know.

Fr. Dave came back a few hours later with the jar of mustard.  One Gallon.

I mention this today because I happened to run into Fr. Dave Reeson at a funeral my son was serving at our parish.  I had to re-introduce myself, but he is still in touch with much of my family.  I told him I wanted to thank him for the mustard.  He didn't remember and I burst into tears as I told the story.  I probably seemed like a raving lunatic talking about 26 year old mustard.

But that mustard  was an act of kindness, with humor, and faith that started me on my way back home to the church.

I know Jesus says we only need a mustard seed.  But I needed the whole gallon.  Thanks Fr. Dave.

Writing on Hands

By now most of us will have noticed this silly trend of writing on hands for Obama.  More personal than a bumper sticker, more temporary than a tattoo, writing on hands is a strange practice.  When do people write on their hands?  I have a few examples from my own experience.

I used to write appointments and assignments on my hands or arms when I was in high school and college.  I was a theater major, so I was expected to be eccentric.  Sometimes I wrote the lyrics of a favorite song on my jeans.  I was young and trying to be on the weird side of hip.  When I belatedly became an adult, such writing stopped.

My husband is a field tech for a local internet provider.  He writes on the palm of his hands occasionally.  For him it is an expedient way to recall a phone number or address when he is in a rush.  It happens only on stressful days, a few times a year.  Notice he writes on his palms, because he doesn't want to show it to the world.

I remember people writing on various body parts in order to cheat on tests.  The really committed cheats in all girl schools wrote on their thighs, because no teacher would ever ask a girl to lift her skirt in class.

So this is what this trend of writing on hands for Obama means to me:  By writing on your hands you have revealed your desire to seem weirdly hip, forgetful, stressed, and a lying cheat.

That is also an accurate assessment of Obama's statements on the Middle East, our economy, and his supporters during the last week.  Amazing how it all comes together.

What We Can Learn from the Middle Ages

I don't really know enough about the Crusades to make a correlation between today's politics and the last time the West was at war with Islamic countries.  But I do love Medieval literature, and particularly the plays from Quem Queritas through Everyman.  It was a time when Catholic themes were expected in drama.  More time should be spent sharing these tales and plays with young students.

I love the pictures I see in my mind as I read.  Sir Gawain rides forth to face what he believes is certain death at the hands of the Green Knight.  On his shield is a Pentacle to represent the Five Wounds of Christ, the Five jJoys of Mary, and the Five Decades of the rosary.  On the inside of his shield is a painting of the Blessed Virgin holding the Child  Jesus.  He travels alone, beginning after Mass on All Saints Day, and ending at a strange castle after praying for a place to hear Mass on Christmas Eve.  This is a warrior of incredible virtue.  He is a model for us in this wild age.

I love the Castle of Perseverance.  From his birth, Man is lured by the temptations of the World.  He is distracted by Flesh, and responds to Lechery.  The Devil shows Man his best offers, and Man is drawn to Covetousness.  In the end, Man struggles free with the help of God and resides in Perseverance until he departs from this life.

I even enjoy the very obscure plays of Hrosvitha.  She was an Icelandic nun who rewrote the plays of Plautus to entertain the sisters in the convent.  She clearly enjoyed a good laugh.

At a time in which our Catholic faith is rocked by schism and heresy akin to the Protestant Reformation, and we are at war with Islam as we were during the Crusades, I recommend taking time to look back at the literature of the Middle Ages.  Perhaps we will hear the angels telling us not to look for Jesus in the tomb, as they do in Quem Queritas.  Or maybe we will, like Everyman, find we are carrying Good Deeds with us to our final judgement.  Hopefully our Good Deeds will be more robust than the character in Everyman.

Fantasy versus Ideology

Rhetorical criticism is an inherent part of punditry.  Because rhetoric is the use of symbols to influence thought and action, analyzing the rhetoric of political candidates helps us to make informed  choices between candidates.  Recently, respected members of the conservative right have described President Obama and other prominent Democrats as ideological, and call for Republicans to respond with ideology.  I believe this is a mistake of apples-and-oranges in comparing the two rhetorical purposes.  This is not an election about ideology.  This is an election about fantasy versus ideology.

When fantasy rhetoric is used, people in a particular group use communication to create reality.  Once the fantasy is shared, meanings that used to be understood by individuals converge and alter to create a shared reality.  The creation of a shared reality requires the use of both fact-based and fiction based media.  Fantasy rhetoric depends on stereotypes and stock scenarios that can be repeated, allowing new members to put new experiences into familiar forms.  In this way the fantasy vision unifies experiences, creating a master analogy that applies to all situations.  When the master analogy is shared, the experiences of individuals that would be exceptions to the analogy are perceived by the group as rare or personal.  This creates a large number of people who will see their experiences as unique and uncommon, while still believing and acting on the fantasy.

Here's an example:

• Women should not be punished with a baby.
• Children do not bring joy to a home, but interfere with a woman's ability to advance in her career and drain family funds, creating poverty.
• News reports of children abused or abandoned by single parents increase.  MTV presents the sad world of teen moms as a reality show. 
• The stock scenario of the single parent is retold with abusive partners, the need for government assistance, and the inability to juggle work and child care.
• Since the life of a child born into this situation is so hard on both the child and the parent, abortion is the humane choice.
• The master analogy becomes that poverty is the same as death.
• A particular young woman who had a child as a teen, and later graduated from college, and married for life, will assume that her situation is unique.  No other young woman has the family support or the intelligence to be able to do the same thing. 

Let's compare this rhetorical fantasy with the ideological rhetoric of the conservatives.  Like fantasy, ideology strives to present a cohesive world view.  Ideology starts with a principle, and ends with how that principle manifests in lived experiences.  Ideology does not depend on fiction, but rather depends on a combination of faith and fact.  Ideology sees failures to reach desired outcomes as the result of abandoning the principle.  When faced with many failures, the ideologue returns to re-educate with the principle.  The principle is never abandoned.

Here's an example:

• All people have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Life is the formost right, because with out it, no subsequent right is possible.
• This right to life is a gift to all human beings through God and nature.  
• When faced with an unplanned pregnancy, the ideologue of faith will believe that God has a reason for this new life having been created at this time.  The ideologue of nature will understand that the choice to create the life has already been made at the time of conception.  The life exists and it has value.  In order for the new life to receive liberty and pursue happiness, the life must be preserved and protected.
• Failure to live  violates the original principle, negating all other rights.
• When many people violate the principle of life, the conservative ideologue returns to nature and God to re-educate the populace.
• There are no exceptions to the principle of a God-and-nature-given right to life.

When conservatives try to apply ideas to fantasies, we frequently run into brick walls.  The stereotypes and stock scenarios of the liberal fantasy have become deeply intrenched in our culture.  We might be seeing a final backlash from the media.  I find it humorous that professed liberal pundits are calling Debbie Wasserman Schultz out about false statements on the 'war on women' fantasy, and our President on his use of entertainment media rather than the White House reporters.  These reporters are abandoning the fantasy.

Ideologues are wise to remind us of our rights and our fundamental principles.  It is time for our country to wake up from this fantasy nightmare.

Charity versus Entitlements

When I first became acquainted with Tea Party ideas, it seemed obvious to me that what we were arguing about was taxes versus charitable giving.  I now believe this is the most fundamental choice we have before us.  Do we want a government, even of representatives with which we agree, to decide who is worthy of charity and who is not?  Do I want to have, say 10% of all of my dollars spent at Target, go to the charities their CEO chooses, or do I want to give 10% of my money to my parish where I personally know the people making the decisions?

We have become a country where fewer people make bigger decisions with our money everyday.  Our Omaha Pubic School's Board decided that it would be a great idea to do away with the grading system.  They call it outcomes based, but that just means no child will receive fewer than 50% on any assignment provided a DNA test proves that the drool on he test belongs to him.  

The US Department of Education has a projected budget of $69.1 BILLION for 2013.  If each school child age 0 to 17, and his or her family were to share equally in that money, each child would have $910 and change.  Add to that money spent by sate and local governments, and by parents who pay taxes, but use private schools or home-school, and spend their own money to do it.  Does education spending seem like a scam to anyone else?  And I'm not even talking about the indoctrination that passes for education.  I'm just talking dollars and bodies.

What about welfare?  What about the difference between food stamps and food banks?  When Jesus told us to 'Render unto Caesar...'  I don't think he was talking about Obama, and Planned Parenthood, and the Department of Education, and Food Stamps, and Welfare... 

So I'm asking everyone to look at how much you pay in taxes, and how much you can offset by giving to charities you trust.  Give more to those you trust to make good decisions, and less to government.