Dec. 4, 2020

Now that it is clear that Biden is in for Jan. 20, I can start to grow my fingernails again.

Here are some personal things for a change. Most or many of you know that my birthday is the 28^th of November. That was in 1935, so I am now past 85 heading for 86 (When I was up in Johannesburg last year, I was staying with a couple whose wedding I had performed and as I returned from moving around town I came to the gate of their gated complex and forgot the magic entry number. The guard asked for my driver’s licence ---it had nothing to do with me getting into the complex, but I have learned that it is easier to just go along with it rather than to challenge it---so when he say my date of birth he said “Usaquba na?” Are you still driving? Ha. I found out it is much easier than walking.

Getting back to my birthday, a friend whom I met 53 yrs, ago in St. Mary’s hospital when I was chaplain (1967, 68,

69) 1967 When  she was giving birth to her lastborn son, offered to supply a lunch for me on my birthday (a custom evolved that when it is her birthday, I take her to lunch, and when it is my birthday, I take her to lunch) I of course accepted, but at her house rather than at a restaurant. However, I asked that it be on Friday the 27^th, because it is a tradition at our old folks home that on one’s birth or feast day, there is a cake and a glass of wine, I wanted to be home for lunch on Saturday the 28^th. No problem. She had ordered Prawn (shrimp) curry which is a favorite of mine. She also invited a nun friend of hers as well as her parish priest (pastor), a youngish Indian named Michael Ndaraju, one of the nicest priests I know in the Durban diocese. It  was a great time that we had lasting from before lunch to after 5pm when we really had to head back to our homes.

Then, of course, there was the celebration at lunch at Mater Dolorosa (MD) with all my old brothers. Only retired bishop Fritz Lobinger is older than I (He is 92 and still pushing nicely). I was told that I am now the oldest member of the Mariannhill community in the Mariannhill and Mthatha provinces. Hard to believe. I don’t feel that old. Ha.

Another friend and his wife also invited me to a lunch at their house, at 2:30 in the afternoon (that was after the lunch with the old timers). Well, we took it in stages, and the last stage , after the Briyanni, was some ice cream. Ha. I was stuffed. I really overate and had trouble sleeping that night as it was not settling well, but I survived.

Then, on Sunday the 29^th of Nov., I was at Savannah Park, as usual, for the 8am Mass and had been warned not to rush off after Mass, so I knew that there was something cooking.(But I didin’t know that there was much more after Mass somewhere else). So, after Mass there was some soft drink and cupcakes for the community and the traditional singing of happy birthday.

I usually go up to the house of the leader of the community (Mike Pillay, a Indian leading a mostly Zulu community…we are very integrated) where his wife, Annetta, usually prepares a lunch, but this time,  I was told, there is going to be a braai (a cookout). The Braai is a kind of traditional was of celebrating anything. It means, lots of meat (beef, pork, and sausage.) They said the Braai would be at 1pm (this was about 10am) and I knew that they meant 1pm African time, not world time. Ha. So, Annetta was kind enough to feed me a bit before the actual braai. Then the people whom they had invited began to arrive. Most of them were family members of Mike whose family is a mini united nations, with all colors under the sun. There were also some young seminarians and a deacon from Madagascar who had been at Mass with us earlier in the morning.

But the frosting on the cake was that the parish priest (I am only the hired hand) also came and brought a retired archbishop with him, Slattery, who is spending time here in our diocese trying to get things better organised. I knew him from years before when he was the bishop of a neighboring diocese where I used to pop in from time to time to have a chat and a cup of coffee. I was happy to see him. Then one of my Provincials came as well and  after some eating and drinking, the speeches started. I won’t have to wait for canonization because they did it there. Eventually they gave me a chance to get in a few words of thanks and appreciation too. Among other things, They gave me a beautiful birthday candle with the number 85 on it. It is too nice to burn but I have a secret way of preserving it.

I made it back in time for supper (6pm) but I skipped supper because I was stuffed again.

On Monday I had an appointment with a neurologist. I wanted to have him check out my back which is very crooked (again---scoliosis they call it) to see if (which I dreaded) I might have to have another back op. However, he just knocked on my back, going down the spine, vertebra by vertebra, asking is there was pain, which there wasn’t, so he said no need to think of an op, at least not now. Because my left leg never got straight at the knee, my left leg is a bit shorter than the right and, I guess, the muscles pull a little bit to the other side which pulls the spine a bit out of being straight. He didn’t seem to think that there was a big problem, and I breathed  a sigh of relief.

That was Monday, Dec. 1. On Tuesday I drove (thank the Lord I can drive an the spasms don’t bother me)

Bishop Lobingrer to the bank In the morning. In the afternoon I went to Sr. Amanda to fetch a baptism candle for a friend and his wife for the young daughter whose baptism we are preparing.

On Wednesday evening I took the candle over to their house and brought a nice baptismal certificate to be kept as a kind of keepsake of that important day.

Thursday, The house doctor came to check us out (he does this on his own time) and I gave him the information about my back. I then went to the  pharmacy to get my monthly supply of pills (I have become a pilleater, drug addict). They gave me something to calm down the spasms (they use it for epilepsy) and it is working like a charm. I still have the spasms but they are able to be dealt with now.

I am going to stop now as I am going to the hospital for a noon service. I am going to play a song for them on my computer and use that as a way to stimulate some thinking about what we want to pray about. See you later. 

 

 

 

 

Dec. 2, 2020

The U.S. prepares for the Biden administration

In a further affirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and a major repudiation of President Trump’s baseless claims that he was defrauded in last month’s election, Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department had not uncovered significant voting fraud, while Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, referred for the first time to a “new administration,” seemingly a tacit acknowledgment of Mr. Biden’s win.

 

As the U.S. prepares for the transition to the Biden administration, its economy hangs in limbo. Mr. Biden has called for Congress to come together to pass a “robust” relief package to help households and businesses.

The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, backed Mr. Biden’s reach-across-the-aisle approach, warning Congress that “the outlook for the economy is extraordinarily uncertain” without an effort to smooth the transition.