Pope Francis Accepts the Staff

Holy smoke, and it was white.

"His election was the election of a rejection of power," said a Jesuit priest in the Vatican's press office--a brother-member from the same Catholic 'religious order' from which Pope Francis has come to us.

Italian was spoken in the pontiff's childhood Argentine home, taught to the son of a railroad worker who emigrated from Italy to South America.

That he's of Italian ancestry should delight all of Rome and Italy. That he has been called from the Americas, a Spanish speaker, endears him to most of the world's Roman Catholic population.

That he rejected palatial surroundings of the Cardinal's residence in Buenos Aires, choosing instead to live in a downtown apartment and ride the bus to work is testament to his humility, and more, to his focus on the mission of his life's work rather than its trappings. Were one to accuse him of being out of touch, as Cardinal, he regularly visited the slums of Buenos Aires, and if one can't find humility in any slum, then where, spiritual or not?

That he bowed his head, asking the world's church to pray for him in silent prayer, silencing the wet and cold thousands rejoicing at St. Peter's Square was a departure from his predecessors. Again, recognizing weaknesses of humanity and his place among it, recognizing from where the Church and its faithful draw our true strength and leadership.

Italian. Spanish. American. Latin American. Humble. Student. Scholar. Teacher. Leader. Leader by example. So far, so good?

Each of the religious orders has their charisms. The Jesuits are regarded as scholars, teachers and missionaries, the Catholic community that dedicated itself to promulgate "The Sacred Heart of Jesus."

Pope Francis earned a degree in chemistry, taught, learned, served, and continued learning and serving and leading. One might cite fearlessness in leadership, when, in the 1990s, he challenged his community, calling for reform within the Society of Jesus ("Jesuits"), and not so very popular a notion within its ranks. Yet, here he is, Pope Francis, the first Jesuit ever to become the Vicar of Christ, testament that even the voice for reform in one of the Church's most structured and respected of Catholic communities, he not only survived politically but continued to earn the admiration and respect from the hierarchy of the Church, in the persons of its College of Cardinals.

Of thousands on thousands of words I've read to research my new shepherd, there was a speech someone called "fiery," where he was compelled to remind his peers--without mincing words--words to the effect that Jesus bathed lepers and broke bread with prostitutes. It was an impassioned plea to emulate Christ, to tell his brother servants that it was time to climb off their high horses, and to serve prayerfully, with humility.

Pope Francis seems to have every ingredient for which I'd wish in a spiritual leader, the ingredients in proper proportion to the whole, in perspective.

The first non-European pontiff in over 1,000 years, he's being hailed as a Pope "...from the New World.." And I think those pundits have it right. Nearly. It's my feeling he's not just from, but for a New World. His holiness, Pope Francis, may just deliver that to his faithful and beyond, a new world, for the betterment of all.

He's accepted the staff as our shepherd, and history may well reflect that Pope Francis was, in the truest spirit of Christ, one who walked softly with bold confidence, carrying that big stick from the moment he said, "Yes," accepting the burdens of a troubled world, the sinfulness and failings of its people that reach into the depths of his own organization. He accepted responsibility to carry and deliver, exemplify hope and forgiveness, with the path toward our salvation constantly enlightened.

My prayer is that he is as I perceive him to be. My faith tells me he'll succeed in a job I regard as one which no man could take lightly, especially when told by peers that it is his torch and cross to bear, God's will.

Bailey Call Collect

Bailey Gallagher played with dollies, jumped rope, had tea parties, got good grades, dreamed of princes, driving a car, a boyfriend, prom dresses, a husband and motherhood. 

She played soccer, was a cheerleader, in drama club, Spanish club, and somewhere along her path of her Irish-Catholic upbringing, specifically high school, she encountered a nun and a priest she liked and to whom she could relate. They taught a couple of her religion requirements, and their passion for and presentation of their classes awakened the unexpected in Bailey. She spoke nary a word of it to another soul. 

The girl was popular, dated alot, but was never considered as 'easy' or 'slutty.' Bailey had  intercourse only a few times with her senior year's boyfriend. To Bailey, sex was in context of a balanced life, normalcy, not a burdensome obsession. She would often revisit whether sleeping with him had been a good decision, and left it with her father confessor. 

She graduated from high school and accepted a scholarship to attend Franciscan University with hopes of getting a degree in education and teaching high school. 

Three years later, she was in front of her academic adviser, confessing she felt called to a spiritual life. The adviser guided her to prayerful and academic/research approaches of discerning answers to, "Me, really?," "Why me?," "Okay, but there are hundreds of  communities of nuns so how do you pick one?."

Four years following, Bailey was was before a bishop, with tears of joy falling along with her hair from tonsure's sacred rite, followed by her profession of solemn vows. 

Thirty-one years, five months and nineteen days later, Sister Mary Bailey was on her lumpy cot in candlelight, under a corrugated roof's rain pounding. She lay there reflecting on a life spent in the Congo, nursing and teaching children. Just four years of those nearly thirty-one and a half  years were spent Stateside, required restorative time to spend among her sisters at the order's 'mother house.' 

Her career's reflection wasn't in wonder of having spent or misspent her life. She was thanking God for all the disease and hardships and deaths encountered in her assignment, grateful that hers was the caring heart, helping hand and available ear chosen for the less fortunate. She knew that few would ever understand, even from the beginning. 

To her, it mattered to the one who mattered --the one who had called her--the one who told her she mattered. 

A gust from the African savannah's storm extinguished the candle, leaving Sister Mary Bailey in darkness but for an instant. In the same instant, her hands quickly found the cruicifix on her chest, and she clutched it tightly, one hand over the other. 

Her death arrived silently, leaving  life with a smile for the hand she saw reaching out to her through her last living thought, and the light, that beautiful light.
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Arizona Can Get Coyote Rich

Here's $400MM the State of Arizona can have to relieve some of its financial woes.

Illegals pay upwards of $1000 and more to be brought into Arizona, usually through the desert, at night. Where do you think they're getting the money? Illegal workers in the U.S. send money home to Mexico. In the future they need to send an extra $1000, and the illegals need to bring that extra thousand.

Let's pretend...just suppose Arizona issues a citation, like a traffic ticket, to any illegal that's caught. The fine is $1000. With 400,000 streaming in each year what if we only catch 20% in the act and cite them. That's $80 Million. Or they can pay $500 for a 'free' flight back to Mexico City on a State-contracted charter with in-flight salsa, chips, and bottled water.

We're now $80 million to the good. Now, what about the illegals already working in-state? If Sheriff Joe--wait, he's perceived as a bad guy for enforcing laws. If any law enforcement officer finds an illegal and issues a citation, I figure there's another $320 million or so that is income Arizona hasn't enjoyed in the past.

Here's a cruncher:  how about if we make it illegal to send, wire, or transfer money to Mexico, so there's no money to pay the coyote, because you don't think that a 75-cents/hour minimum wage is going to yield an extra grand for the coyote anytime soon, do you?

"But wait," the liberal cries, "What about my Uncle Reed who got his wallet picked in Mazatlan and I need to get money into his account?" Call an airline and buy a ticket to get him home, transfer money into his account and have him call his bank to pay his hotel bill.

If a coyote can charge $1200 for me to risk my life following him through the desert with no water or gear for the elements, there's Arizona money for the taking.

Coyote money is good money, and ours for the taking if we would only do it.

"But wait!," Uncle Reed cries, now back in the U.S., "There's bipartisan legislation coming to our rescue for the 11 million poor souls having to lurk around within our borders." Yes, and once we've given a pass to those 11 million, ten million more from 'down South' are going to do whatever it takes to go North and attempt to contrive documents and conditions to qualify for the non-amnesty's amnesty [ed. It's amnesty. A frijole or free citizenship by any other name is still a frijole pass.]

My ancestors paid the fees, did the paperwork, waited, and even struggled to make English their primary language and were proud to do so. They wanted to do it the American way.

 Next thing you know, Canadians will exodus en masse seeking warmth and Obamacare and want a free pass to get it. Heaven help us all, then, eh?

...e'er so gently down

I awaken and it’s night, the return of blue-black's canopy stretched o’er me and light of softness sent from the stars is arriving, coming e’er so gently down. Ignoring the hour, hot water is backing up in a cone awaiting passage through the grind, about to invisibly weave wafts of aroma’s comfort into the air, as water becomes a brew that fills a carafe, as it trickles e’er so gently down.
 
There were times, once, that her neck lay upon my upturned wrist, head nestled in my hand, her angelic baby’s smell there but not enough, the love in my face wondrous and oh so close to hers, as into her crib, I placed her e’er so gently down.

There was the yellow balloon hiding behind the couch, seemingly at hover and forgetting the party of days before, wanting and begging, if it could, for up but coming, imperceptibly, so slowly, e’er so gently down.

I know too well the worst of me, those times I retreat, relinquish control to anger, and only after it’s been dealt find regret braided with remorse because I permitted weakness to sap true character’s will to leave it and grow by walking away after putting it e’er so gently down.
 
At times when 'blest' is forefront of mind it urges me to take this time, my now, to thank the one living between some- and everywhere and I know to give my gratitude, whispered or silent with the nod of affirmation from reverence itself and so few days left, to do so, and I kneel e’er so gently down.

Badly Numbered Days

Something didn’t feel right about its approach.  

I don’t like that others fear it on tippy-toes when it comes up,  while roulette players reach to cover its black space in antithetical hopes of good fortune.  

As a biker, I’m amused that an infamous ‘bad boys’ biker club lays claim to and brandishes it and to its juxtaposed “31.”  

 

On its odd-as-in-funny face, it’s been cast to represent “M,” midway through our alphabet and whose very reputation can be construed to mean “marijuana.”

 

Thirteen is tattooed on my calendar and life again and again this year.

 

13

 

A baker’s dozen, harmless as one of its doughnuts.

 

I’m not superstitious. I confess to calendar dread of thirteen, different than superstition or so I tell myself. 

 

There are unavoidable, inescapable collisions of health and finance in my 2013. 

 

That 2013’s early September marks my sixtieth birthday, there are wistful farewells to youth's bygone days. There’s increased, unwelcome frequency of misspent thought about my mortality that shadow boxes with my moods bank, as annoying and real as the fly you can’t seem to avoid or swat.

 

Should I die before December 31^st, thirteen will necessarily be engraved on my headstone sunk into the limestone and clay of a hilly cemetery in central Kentucky. 

 

Thirteen will will have beaten me, ad infinitum and for all to see, just as it's the odds-on favorite to make losers of roulette bettors. 

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Who's the Enemy, Here?

When I raised my right hand to join the United States Army, the oath I swore was this:

I, Joe Gensle, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Support and defend the Constitution...against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Skirting Congress, the sitting President, our Federal Community Organizer as I like to call him, may issue and edict, an "Executive Order" requiring me and you and other citizens to surrender our guns, protected under the Constitution.

In an America of choice, I can choose to follow law or suffer its consequences. In the Federalism we enjoy with rights and freedoms born of our Constitution and its Amendments. I'd rather stand behind our Constitution than follow an Executive Order from an elected official, whether his or her name was Mickey or Minnie Mouse, Ted Nugent or Ted Kennedy or Marco Rubio. You get the picture. That it happens to be "Barack Hussein Obama" just makes me want to scowl before I spit.

My own government ordering me to surrender my last bastion of order, America's very last resort of defense? Could, in a worst case scenario, we have to protect our very selves from governmental tyranny? Is there a molecule of cerebral possibility that it can be cloaked in "Executive Orders?"

This is [sic] seriouser than you know or can imagine.

Washington refuses to act upon the illegal entry into our country, an assault upon our borders. It refuses to address the root cause--mental illness--for mass murderers' unconscionable acts of human destruction.

And now we're teetering on the brink of having to swing golf clubs or baseball bats, or iron skillets to defend our homes and homeland?

I don't think so. And they just plain don't think, those Liberal Washingtonians.

Proof positive:  If there's amnesty for illegals, or "Dream Children" allowances and legislation, what will happen to illegal border crossings? Will they decrease? Or will there be a massive overrun of our borders (and laws) for swarms of people hoping to gain for free what others have died to protect and defend and sustain?

It couldn't get seriouser, for, those who fashioned my oath must have been convinced that the enemy may come from within, be "domestic," against whom  I swore to defend the United States of America.

Don't vote with your weapon.

Let your vote be your voice,  and your voice be your weapon while those freedoms still stand protected and unchanged.