Still June 24, 2021

June 24, 2021 still

 

As regards the other issue I was thinking of, All you of the catholic variety, you may remember as we were growing up in the western catholic culture, two of the famous names that were ingrained in us were: St John Fisher and St. Thomas more, two big martyrs under King Henly VIII. For you non-catholics, you may remember the movie, A Man for all Seasons …it was the life of St. Thomas More. These were some of our heroes in the catholic saints culture,

Both from the UK, but I say a western catholic culture.

On Tuesday this week, Fr. Bernard Ngidi, who is the main celebrant at our mass in the morning, chose ST. Paulinus of Nola, a very early Christian saint, so that the altar was covered with a white cloth. When I came into the chapel in the morning, having re-read the biography of my two heroes who were martyrs, murdered by Henry VIII because of faith matters. So, being martyrs, having shed their blood for their beliefs, the color of the altar covering should have been red. Ha. So, as I entered the chapel, I immediately noticed that the color was white and not red as I thought it should have been.  So I asked Fr. Bernard, why white, and he said because it is the feast of Paulinus of Nola, who was not a martyr. I was stunned…who is Paulinus of Nola, I thought, and then I realized that Fr. Ngidi comes from an African culture and didn’t know any more about St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, than I did about Paulinus of Nola. He grew up in an African culture where those names probably didn’t get much mention whereas in our western culture, these were big Christian heroes. So we have various cultures in our house.

In the German speaking European culture, they eat everything with both knife and fork, unlike us uncouth Americans. I smile when I see one of them have a piece of bread with peanut butter or jam eating what we would just take in our hand with a knife and fork. They will also eat an apple after first peeling it with a knife, when I just munch it down. Ha. And then there are many cultures in Africa so that saying one is of an African culture tells nothing any more that saying that a person is of a white culture. Every nationality of whites has its own culture as does every African nation its own culture. I knew this, of course, but this very simple but real experience  at Mass the other day caught me.

 

June 17, 2021,

   MRI on Monday, the 14^th, but the pills that I put under my tongue to stop the spasms during the MRI might as well have been a piece of chocolate or lump of butter.  They did nothing…zilch. And, of course, the whole thing was a disaster.  My left leg was doing an Irish jig the whole time and especially when it came to having to scan the spine, it was clear that it would never work. We has to just give up. The radiologists were very kind and thoughtful, but they didn’t think of the cost, because they quickly got in contact with an anaesthetist who said he would be free Friday morning and they quickly booked him and me for another MRI. That’s tomorrow. I may have to ask for some help from the family when I see the, what I expect to be, huge bill . I hope that we can cover it. I may have to rob an ATM. 

But to be a bit more positive, the main radiologist who was doing the job on me has the name Koleka. She didn’t know what it meant…just the name her parents gave her. So I got in contact with Nomonde, my Xhosa sister, and she said it probably comes from the verb Kholwa, which means believe, so it would mean BELIEVABLE, which can also be understood as dependable, or trustworthy. It is also used in a colloquial way to mean someone who has a soft heart and loves to smile.  I can’t wait to tell her tomorrow what her name means.

Also, on the positive side, our internet is working like a charm now. You can type to your heart’s content and you won’t be interrupted.

People ask about my health and I tell them that apart from this leg with the spasms, I am a very healthy person. Today when the doctor came he took my BP    144/63   wow. What more Could I ask for. But if any of you have some ideas about chronic constipation, any kind of miracle potions, I would be happy if you would let me in on the secret. I understand that this is the situation of a great many seniors, but I think my case is complicate by the lack of peristaltic movement to do the pushing. Sorry to talk about such mundane things but that is my life and the life of many other seniors who are too embarrassed to talk about such things. To be continued. It is past my bedtime and I go early for the MRI tomorrow.

   Let me add something. Last night, at supper, I put my two med.pills in my sweater pocket to be taken closer to   when the action starts with these bloody spasms. But I forgot to take them and went to bed and finally fell asleep  with the action still going. But at 11:20 I was awakened (must have been an angel) and realized that I hadn’t taken my meds and they would, I hoped, slow down the action so I could sleep. I was not supposed to take any food or water from midnight on, so I was just in time before the deadline, to take them with a sip of water, and then went happily back to sleep.

 

June 19, 2021 The MRI is over but I am too lazy and tired and weak to explain now. Later.

 

 June 9, 2021

 

For Catholics, we have gone through the feast of the Trinity….”..we are created in the image and likeness of God”

What that means to me is that we are created for relationship, the triune God , Father, Son and Holy Spirit, loving each other (the height or depth of relationship). It was most obvious during the lockdown, we were cut off from many of our opportunities to meet with, to relate with, them and it became clear, if it wasn’t before that we really are created for relationship…in practical terms, I am tired of virtual hugs, I want the real thing. Just s bit of a reflection on the feast of the Trinity.

    Now comes the feast of the Sacred Heart. Love. We never say, for example…. I love you with all my liver….or I love you with both my lungs….or I love you with all my feet.  The heart is the normally accepted symbol of love,  I love you with all my heart. The rest you can guess.

 

Today was a very special day for me. A friend volunteered to take me to the hospital to book an MRI ( I got the ok from my community to go for it….R 29,200.00   Wow, that’s a lot.) My neurologist, Dr. Wolpe, said that in order to get beyond treating the symptoms, we have to have another look at the brain and spine to see if we can get some indication of where these spasms are coming from. It didn’t show up on the last MRI in 2019, but maybe it will show up now…. My fingers and toes are crossed---please pray for the MRI to show where these spasms are coming from, so that we can start to deal with the cause and not the symptoms.  He also asked me to have a blood test done to see in there was some indication there. That was also done today by one of the local vampires at the hospital. Its her job and she is good at it. So on Monday next week, June 14, I will go into that cavernous machine and this time I will have put the pills under my tongue ahead of time so that it knocks out the spasms. The first time I had an MRI after the knee op, I was give these two little pills to put under my tongue about 20 to 30 minutes before sliding into that machine and I was gone. Never felt or heard a thing. I want that to happen again now. Then on the 30^th of June, I am supposed to get another xray of my knee so that the orthopaedic surgeon can compare   this new xray with the previous one because that one showed what seen to be the femur bone receding from the metal of the knee replacement as there seemed to be a small gap.  Hey, I am falling apart. Ha. So it was a very good day because of the progress regarding my health problems with the spasming knee. Then, When I got back home, I discovered that the internet on off problem was settled. I have been on internet now since 7:30, without interruption and   is now 9:15. Wow. A miracle. and now it is almost time to say  good night. I am closing down now. But there is one more thing before I hit the sack. Another great thing happened today…one of our Mariannhill bishops was just named as the new Archbishop of Durban. He takes over from Cardinal Napier whose resignation has been accepted by Pope Francis as he is 80 yrs. old now and beyond the retirement age of 75. So one of our own Mariannhill home boys has been chosen to head the Durban archdiocese. He is young…64 yrs. old. His name: Siegfried Mandla Jwara.

And now it is time to say good night. 25 past 9.

 

May 29, 2021

 

If you thought the events of Jan. 6 were shocking, what comes next could be far worse.

A chilling new poll by PRRI, the Public Religion Research Institute, found that nearly one in four Republicans (that's tens of millions of people) believe the QAnon mythology that "the government, media, and financial worlds in the US are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles." You might just shake your head and laugh at this nonsense, except that that they also believe that "because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country."

This is no fringe cult. The number of people believing these and other outlandish QAnon conspiracies is enormous. There is a current of poison circulating in American society, threatening its cohesiveness and its social and political order. "If it were a religion," according to PRRI founder Robby Jones, "it would be as big as all white evangelicals Protestants, or all white mainline protestants.

 

 

 

May 19, 2021

 

The Israeli military said it plans to expand its bombardment of Gaza in the coming days, despite growing calls for a cease-fire. 

No intention of having a cease fire. They want to flatten Gaza and teach them not to mess with Israel. That should put anyone else off complaining about Israel not treating people humanly or not obeying international law. They haven’t done so up to now so why should they start now?

 

May 16, 2021

 

I have the solution to the Israeli Palestinian problem.  Blow up the Knesset. Ha.

I get infuriated when I hear Netanyahu talk about beating the hell out of the Palestinians in the name of law and order. He, the Israelis, have been ignoring international law for years now and continue to build more apartments in the West Bank, against international law…. It just continues.

   Now Netanyahu blames the obliteration of Gaza on the rockets coming from Hamas. As I see it, the provocation was the other way round, when the Israeli settlers were evicting Palestinians what had legal title deed to their properties, and then the Israeli police going into the Al Aqsa mosque, a sacred place, to me, was the last straw provocation of the Hamas boys to start shooting rockets into Southern Israel, not the other way around.

    It is useless to expect the Palestinians to stop fighting as long as the evictions go on, and as long as the Israel settlers continue to build more houses in the occupied West Bank. Get the Israelis to stop evicting and building and the Hamas may consider stopping rocketing Israel. It is unrealistic to expect Hamas to one-sidedly stop the rockets when the Israelis continue to break the international law.

    Unfortunately, it is sad that the Palestinians can’t get their act together and act as one, and I wonder about Hamas, how long they will continue to throw rockets at Israel, knowing that the Israelis will continue to bomb, and maybe even invade, Gaza until “not a stone is left upon a stone”. Maybe they should consider some other ways of dealing with the Israelis.

    I support Biden when he says that the Israelis have a right to defend themselves, but  I don’t support him when he doesn’t recognize the fact that the ordinary Palestinians have a right to protest against oppression, and the Israeli continued breaking of the law. UN resolution 446, among many others, regards the occupation of the West Bank anEast Jerusalem, as illegal. And Netanyahu dares to talk about law and order.

 

But let me change the subject now and talk about my health. Many people ask, how are you doing? Well, here is how I am doing.

   My last BP reading was 144 / 61 (not  bad for an 85 yr. old)  No diabetes. General good health.

But when it comes to the knee replacement, it is a different story. It continues to  bug me. The spasms continue though the medication seems to have helped to calm them down somewhat. I was at the orthopaedic surgeon’s last Wednesday, May 12^th. I had a 3:15 appointment in the afternoon. He got around to seeing me by about 3:30. He didn’t finish till  5:15. I have been finding it harder and harder to walk with my one elbow crutch. I am beginning to think that there is a trade off involved here… less pain but more instability on the knee which affects the walking (not sure when or if the knee is going to collapse at any time) The doctor compared three x-rays that had been taken previously, including one that was taken a year ago, all showing that the op was perfect.  The one taken last Wednesday seemed to show a small gap between the bone (maybe it receded a bit) and the metal of the replacement. I said he should just put some cement in there and close the gap. The suspicion was that perhaps that gap was causing the knee to wobble a bit . Inconclusive.  However, he explained that if we wanted to do some repairs on the knee, it would mean removing the replacement (which would not be very easy as it was pretty much pounded into the bones) and putting in a new replacement, and there was no guarantee that things would be better after the repaired replacement. Plus, at my age, it was more risky than, say, a 20 yr. old. So I guess that it answered my question, do I have to hobble around like this forever. The answer is…yes. Breaks of the game. The spasms are part of a different equation. But, he said to come back in 6 weeks (at the end of June) and we would check another x-ray and see it there was more receding from the bone and see where we would go from there. Ah, the joys of old age.

   Otherwise, I still take services at Savannah Park every Sunday and at the Hospital on Tuesday and Friday (the crowd is never more than 3, or 4 o4 5), but it keeps up my relationship with the hospital and it gives me a chance to pray for MY hospital, the staff and patients. It is my commitment to the good (spiritual) health of the hospital and its patients and staff.

   Blessedly, I can still drive and the spasms leave me alone there. Amen to that. Now that the virus has been a bit more quiet lately, I have taken advantage of that, and if the family agrees, to visit several families. I say I am having withdrawal symptoms, I need people. We still observe social distancing, masks and sanitizing, but are not too paranoid about these things, just common sense.

     I think we over 60’s are supposed to be getting our vaccinations this coming week. But, there could be crowds and crowds, so we will have to see how they plan this thing. We may go in a group from here, as we did for the test for positivity or not. We shall see.

      It is getting close to my bedtime so I had better bring this scintillating report to a close. Good night. Try, like me, to avoid corona at all costs. And stay or get well. Love and peace, Cas.

 May, 10, 2021

I think  that this may help people to understand a bit better the discussion / debate about Biden's being a

good Catholic or not.

Cultural gap between US and Rome clear in recent reactions to Biden

• John L. Allen Jr.
  May 9, 2021
  EDITOR

In this May 3, 2021, photo, President Joe Biden gestures as he talks to students during a visit to Yorktown Elementary School, in Yorktown, Va., as first lady Jill Biden watches. Biden has met his goal of having most elementary and middle schools open for full, in-person learning in his first 100 days. (Credit: Evan Vucci/AP.)

News Analysis

ROME – Back in the pre-Covid days of yore, when there still was such a thing as a lecture circuit, one of the more popular talks I gave was titled, “Rome is from Mars, America from Venus: Navigating the Cultural Gap between the Vatican and Main Street USA.” Basically, it explored the different clusters of instincts, perspectives and assumptions in these two cultural worlds, which often lead one to misunderstand the other.

The topic comes to mind again this week, watching reactions to the Biden administration play out on both sides of the Atlantic. In the States, you’d think we’re getting set for an MMA octagon title bout; in Rome, you might think Biden and his Vatican buddies are BFFs.

In US Catholic circles, a debate is reemerging which has lain largely dormant since the last time the Democrats nominated a pro-life Catholic for president, which is the question of whether someone who identifies as Catholic yet breaks with Church teaching on the life issues, especially abortion, should be denied communion.

Last week, that debate was thrust back into the spotlight after Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco issued a pastoral letter calling on such political figures not to present themselves for the Eucharist at Mass, insisting that they’re breaking communion with the Church through the policies they advocate.

The fact that the message came from Cordileone means that that it carries relevance not just for Biden but also House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, another pro-choice Catholic Democrat, since her residence is in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The US bishops’ Committee on Doctrine is said to be working on a broad document about fitness for communion, though it’s unclear whether a draft of that text will be ready for the bishops’ spring assembly in mid-June.

This ferment is consistent with the tone the bishops have set from Inauguration Day, when Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles warned that the incoming Biden administration would advance “grave moral evils,” and that this presents a special conundrum for the bishops because the president is himself Catholic.

Meanwhile, this is not the conversation about Biden that’s prevailed here in Rome over the past week, where the top note instead has been praise for the president’s decision to waive intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines in order to speed up distribution to poorer nations.

That decision may be dividing much of Europe, with European Council President Charles Michel expressing skepticism Saturday that it’s a “magic bullet” and French President Emmanuel Macron saying that if the US really wants to help, it could end bans on vaccine exports and share technology to ramp up production.

Yet in the small piece of Europe represented by the Vatican City State, the reaction has been much more enthusiastic.

In a May 6 piece, L’Osservatore Romano said Biden’s decision marks a “before” and an “after” in the press for global justice.

“The ‘before’ was expressed in the request of India and South Africa, made as long ago as last October, to suspend the property rights to allow mass production of generic vaccines,” L’Osservatore wrote. “That request was sifted and resifted, with producer countries of name-brand vaccines against it and a group of seventy nations supporting it. It’s a ‘before’ in which Pfizer just posted earnings in excess of already high expectations.”

“The ‘after’ will be written beginning with the choice of the United States, which carries weight even though it may not have immediate repercussions,” according to L’Osservatore.

Yesterday, Pope Francis dispatched a video message to a Covid relief concert hosted by Selena Gomez and organized by Prince Harry And Meghan Markle. He lamented the “virus” of individualism that Francis said leads to indifference to the suffering of others.

The pontiff used language widely taken as an endorsement of the Biden policy shift.

“A variant of this virus is closed nationalism, which prevents, for example, an internationalism of vaccines,” he said. “Another variant is when we place the laws of the market or intellectual property over the laws of love and the health of humanity.”

All this is emblematic of a long-standing contrast between the US and Rome, one that reaches back to the Obama years and beyond. In the States, Catholic reaction to a political leader is heavily conditioned by the abortion issue; in the Vatican, many other considerations come into play, especially concerns about justice for the world’s poorest peoples and nations typically left behind.

That cultural gap tends to give rise to prejudices on both sides of the relationship. Vatican types sometimes assume American Catholics are fixated on abortion for political reasons, to promote the broader agenda of the cultural right. (That was the spirit, for example, of the infamous “ecumenism of hate” piece about the American church penned by two close allies of Pope Francis in Civiltà Cattolica in 2017.) American Catholics, meanwhile, sometimes conclude the Vatican is simply flabby and weak on abortion, unwilling to take a firm stand.

What Vatican personnel sometimes struggle to appreciate is that unlike Western Europe, the battle over abortion is still a going concern in the States, so the Church still has a chance to move the needle. American Catholics, meanwhile, often don’t appreciate that the mere fact something is a raging priority for them doesn’t necessarily mean it is for the rest of the world, and the Vatican has a global responsibility.

In any event, fact of the matter seems clear: While America’s second Roman Catholic president may have an ambivalent relationship with the leadership of his church at home, here at the global HQ so far he’s getting a friendlier reception. If nothing else, that dynamic ought to make the announcement of Biden’s pick as his Vatican ambassador, which should come soon, an interesting one indeed.

 

April 25, 2021

   The “guilty” verdict came in from the George Floyd trial this past week. I thoughts revolve around the video that was taken,---by accident she happened to be their at the time---by a bystander, and I believe that it was mainly that video that convinced the jury that Chauvin was guilty of murder. By accident she happened to be on the scene and caught the horrible action on camera. By the way, the official report by the police, before the video was given as evidence was completely different, i..e. not finding him guilty….until visual evidence was presented that couldn’t be denied.  What about those times when there doesn’t happen to be a handy passerby to take a video what is really happening? How do you get to the truth when it is my word against his, the cop against the what….victim, criminal, scum, you pick the word. Whose word with the police department take, one of their cops, or this black whatever?

I guess we need more CCTV cameras around.

 

But the shooting of that 13 yr. old boy in Chicago makes me wonder. The fact that he was 13 yrs. old tugs at the strings of your heart. But he was in an alley at something like 2am with a gun in his hand that had been fire as the residue was still on his hand, one of the ones he raised up. In the video, you can see him with the gun in his hand and, of course, we who watch the video from the comfort of our homes, see it, I am sure, in a different way than the cop who is running down a dark alley, shouting stop…and then, as we can see in the video, the boy drops the gun near that open fence and starts to turn around to put his hands up. Now, as I see it, the cop doesn’t see it as clearly as we do, sitting on our couch chair. When the boy stops running, having dropped the gun, and starts turning around in this dark alley, the cop has less than a second to decide whether he wants to take the chance to lose his life or not.

I wonder what is a 13 yr. old -doing at that time or the morning with a fired gun in his hand. Where are the parents? And he was with an older friend too, who was also arrested. What was a 13 yr. old doing, hanging around with a friend in a dark alley at 2 am with guns. I had better stop.

 

April 5, Easter Monday

April 7, Easter Wednesday     No internet all these days. Frustrating. The mood to put something in the blog, I am afraid will soon pass is the internet doesn’t get connected soon. Happy delayed Easter.

 

April 11, 2021

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday—when Jesus came into the room without going through the door on the Sunday after Easter, the first thing he said is uxolo alube kini---peace be with you.  How could he be at peace with this bunch of cowards…..they all ran away when the police came to get Jesus and Peter, the leader of he gang even swore that he didn’t know the man, when the girl near the fire said, out loud, …you too are one of them. When he said,  peace be with you, what was implied is that he had forgiven them for abandoning him and for Peter even denying him, his best friends, he thought. So forgiveness was one of the topics today. You won’t ever be able to be at peace with yourself, if you still have ugly feelings for those who hurt you. It may take some time (I found that forgiveness is a process), even years, depending how badly one has been hurt, but inner peace won’t come until you resolve that ugly feeling. Enough preaching.

 

I had asked Fr. Tom Szura, our keeper of my J&P socio-pastoral account, to send $2000 to help the people here who have been pretty much wiped out by the lockdown that came with corona. Jobs lost (mostly too, very low paying jobs that people just managed to survive on), kicked out of where they were staying because they couldn’t pay the rent,  no money to buy food or pay for electricity, or water or even for some data to be able to use their cell phones. No money for transport, to the doctor, to the hospital, to the pharmacy, to the supermarket, etc. etc. etc. So that $2000 turned into about R30,000.00  I could help about 20 people with that. That was one thing that kept me busy.

  

Then I  helped Mpume with money to go to the hospital to get copies of all the interactions that she had with the doctors regarding the problem she was having with her eyes, having gone blind already in one eye and now the other slowly going blind too. She had to take someone with her to guide her so I had to pay for transport for 2, there and back. I had given her R1000 to be used for whatever expenses she might find and I thought that that should cover the transport and whatever else. Ha. She had 75 pages of reports that had to be copied. They wanted to charge her R24 per page. Holy moses. That’s R1800. She didn’t have that much so they let her go with whatever she had left after paying for the transport. That is all so that she can apply for disability grant so that she can survive. I don’t’ know how she is surviving now. I just try to help when I can.

 

I have decided to take some things like vitamin pills and other things to help my ageing body and also because we don’t always have a balanced diet. That has to come out of my pension money that is in the coffers of Mariannhill. It goes straight there so that I don’t even see it but I have an idea how much it is when I ask Tom Szura. What do I need at my age. No more night clubs, etc. Ha.

 

I give the occasional haircut. (my motto is, the only difference between a good haircut and a bad one is about 3 weeks.) I have been doing a good bit of reading and I scan the internet, when it works, for good articles that I can share with others. I send out, as I am sure that some of you know, reflections on the scripture readings for the coming Sunday . I think it goes to about 200 people. If you don’t get it and would like to get it send me your email address and I will put it on the list. And if you feel that you don’t really need it, let me know and I will take you off the list.

                                                                                                                                                                                     

Our Parish leader’s about 2  was broken into 3 times in about 2 weeks, once when we were at church. We had aluminum windows put in when some repairs were done to the house, and we discovered that they were very vulnerable for any clever thief who can put a thin blade up the inside of the window and push the handle up without having to break the glass, and with minimal damage to the window. We had to extend the ADT security coverage where the new window was put in and I had to ask my brother for $1000 to help pay for that. We thought that they would be able to sleep now but the third time they broke in it was though another of those aluminum windodws that we hadn’t thought of. Burglar bars are the only answer.

 

I was kept pretty busy preparing the Holy week services In English and Zulu. Lots of fun. Thursday, Mike Pillay, the leader, did the foot washing for me after I blessed the water since I am not supposed to kneel on my knee replacement (I think). And even if I could, I could surely get down, but I know that I wouldn’t be able to get up without a lot of help, and it would be a serious distraction. Friday, we had to adjust the service so that no one was going to kiss the foot of the cross as was the custom, so I just asked people to bow and say a short prayer to keep the protocol for the virus. (Of course, we all wear masks and use the sanitizer at the door (I think that sanitizer is going to become the new holy water….maybe I should bless it.) I knew about the two children but I was only told on Wednesday of Holy Week about the others. I like to prepare well (this was, again, in English and Zulu…..I need time to prepare) I never confirmed before because we were taught this was the Bishop’s job. However, I did remember that the Bishops’ Conference said that adult baptisms should include Eucharist (communion) and confirmation, as in the early days of the church. So many dioceses gave permission to priests to do that and it seems that Mariannhill was one of those dioceses. So I did it. The service is a long one (I won’t explain why here) and it lasted from shortly after 6 pm when we blessed the Easter fire and candle, and continued to bless the baptismal water and renew our baptism promises (when you see the ugly stuff that is happening in our world today….beheadings in our neighboring Mozambique, raping every time a traffic light changes, including even a 4 month old child, eeeeevil. Satan, personified evil is making this world a very dark place to live.) We finished with the baptisms and confirmations around 9pm. My spasm leg was killing me, paining like mad so that I really wanted leave and go home but I couldn’t abandon them in the middle of the service. I think my leg felt that it was being abused because it was standing for most of those almost 3 hours. I want to see the doctor if he or  do something to make the pain of the spasms be reduced or something.

 

 I forgot about Palm Sunday, which included the procession, but I stayed in church because I wouldn’t be able to keep up with them and would just slow them down.

 

I still go to the hospital for a very informal kind of prayer service and a blessing on Tuesday morning at 6:30am (changed from 6am to get more people) and Friday at noon. Even if no one comes I figure that this is my contribution to the heailng team at the hospital ….to pray that God protects them from the man virus , and their families and the patients. I even came to a non virus ward to anoint a sick patient and took the opportunity to remind the patients in that ward that there was no discrimination, I pray for everyone, not just catholics.

(Hey it is time for me to brush my teeth,, put in my eyedrops (glaucoma) and hit the sack.) see you tomorrow, I hope.)

 

April, 12, 2021

 

“Beijing won the right to host the 2022 Olympics in 2015, the same year it cracked down on lawyers and activists across China,” Chinese human rights lawyer Teng Biao wrote earlier this year. “Since then, it has detained journalists; harassed and attacked activists and dissidents even outside China’s borders; shut down nongovernmental organizations; demolished Christian churches, Tibetan temples and Muslim mosques; persecuted, sometimes to death, believers in Falun Gong; and sharply increased its control of media, the Internet, universities and publishers.”

Should we boycott their presence at the Olympics this year because or their disrespect for human rights?  This just came in this morning.

 

A big event… I took Retired bishop Lobinger, 92 yrs. old, to buy a pair of suspenders (braces in UK English). I found the store that sold a whole variety of them on the internet. When we got there, they said they only sell them on line. Bad luck. We went to several other stores with no luck. Finally a young man from one of the stores we had approached told us that there was a little store just around that corner that had them. We went and, sure enough, there she had a variety The store was about 15 feet by 15 feet but they had all kinds of things. So he now happily sports his suspenders.

I also became his doctor’s assistant. I saw a blood stain on the back of his sweater and thought that there must be something that he can’t see that is bleeding there. So I persuaded him to take off his shirt and sure enough there was a deep sore, like a bed sore, but about a half inch across and about of a quarter of an inch deep thee. How it got there is anyone’s guess but I suspect that when he once fell down, he banged his back against his backbone and that got it started. The doctor checks it out every week and I change the bandaid every morning with  a bit of anti something on it to speed up the healing. I am now an unofficially qualified doctor’s assistant.

Time to put this in the blog now. See you all. Easter means hope. When it seemed impossible, God came on the scene and look. Ha. Surprise surprise. They thought it was the end of the story but it was really just the end of an episode, and the story continues.

Take care. LOTs of love and his peace.    Cas.