Month: July 2013

Prayer meeting question never asked . . .

. . . but dangerously close to being asked:

In a “theology” gathering of 25 or so members of a nearby parish, we were instructed to do some heavy meditating for eight minutes, each of us at a round table for six or eight. I put my head in hands and went to it. Think of nothing but a word you decide on, hang with it for the whole time, avoiding any thoughts or images or whatever, we were advised.

Centering prayer it’s called, but I spotted it pronto for good old Transcendental Meditation of the ’70s, brought to us by the Maharishi Something, who had a spread in Iowa. I took a course in it for a story, which ran with a memorable head shot of me with my eyes closed. An action shot, you know, of a man meditating.

Tonight I went to it and managed a semi-doze that suited me nicely, until the lady in charge, a liturgy associate type, instrumentally gifted and a leader of song, rang a bell, GONG! to tell us to come out of it.

It was at that point that I was inspired by the spirit of my misspent late middle age to lift up my head, turn to the lady bell-ringer, and ask, “For whom does that bell toll?”

God saved me from such a brutal faux pas, sending a good spirit who (gasp!) provided me with a 1950s-style INHIBITION that saved the evening. Wow.

Close call with jumping dog

Two dizzy females of an age, 7 a.m. OP ave. with shaggy, frisky dog. They fussing with him, I pass briskly, dog leaps at me, bangs (closed) mouth on my hand.

Bumped me, neither bit nor fastened teeth. Women full of apologies, bending over the animal, looking up at me intermittently. What the fuck? I expostulated, turning back several times as I briskly walked away.

Oh the pain of it, psychical not physical. That beast gave me a painful reminder of my mortality. An ode is in order.

The lakefront ride of Maggie B.

Our bike ride took us through the crowds of Fullerton, North ave, Oak St, and Navy Pier. And past that it was a blissful ride down to Promontory Point, where we swam off the rocks. A woman in her 70s told me the water was very nice, much better than yesterday, when it was quite chilly. This was confirmed by another bather of the same age, emerging from the water after swimming in from a far out place. Do you come every day, I asked her. Oh yes, it’s an addiction, she said. Today I swam out to the fifth buoy, then cut towards the beach, then back along the wall. I didn’t bring my goggles, I told her, so I’m not sure how far I’ll go. Do what you can, she said. So I did. Breast-stroked it to somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd buoy, then back to shore with a little backstroke thrown in.

Back on the rocks another bather inquired about what he had heard earlier from my conversation with the ladies. You biked all the way from Lincoln Square, he said? What is that, about 12 miles? I checked w/Cory and told him it was somewhere between 12 and 15. What about you, I asked, did you bike here? Oh I just live down the street. The rock-bathers grew from just a few to over a dozen in the hour we were there. Some teenagers, a serious eastern-European looking distance swimmer, some possible students. Swam, ate pear slices out of tupperware, swam some more, then back on the bikes to head north.

We passed back through the prairie restoration project all along the south shore. A Mayor Daley project, apparently. Well, it’s pretty good, I must say. We encountered concert-goers near Northerly Island, holding out fingers to signal the number of tickets they were looking to score. Phish was the band–a younger cousin of the Grateful Dead. We wove our way through them, ringing bells, and kindly shouting out “on your left” as we passed. The crowds were thinning but still strongly present at North Ave and Fullerton. Runners, bikers, families with kids wandering dangerously close to in front of us.

A beer was desired and the Clocktower Cafe around Addison proved to be the perfect spot. A quiet deck overlooking early evening golfers. It all felt right so I added a portobello sandwich to my order and fed myself. Back on the path, I parted ways with my companions at Wilson and worked my way through Uptown towards home. Just as I walked in the gate I felt the first raindrops coming down. They fall quietly now, as I sit, freshly showered, content from my day.

Wuxtry, wuxtry, read yr Huffington Post about who founded the Jesuits!

The know-it-all uninformed have thought for centuries it was Inigo (later Ignatius) Loyola, the Basque. Sorry, a Huff Post writer has the scoop.

When Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, many Roman Catholics were quick to optimism. Some dared to hope for something of a church renaissance, and for relief, perhaps, in the wake of the bitter reign of “God’s Rottweiler,” Joseph Ratzinger. Much was made of the Jesuit pope’s decision to assume the name Francis because the name recalled to mind the saint from Assisi. However, the founder of the Society of Jesuits was a Francis, too.

This slight boo-boo does not, however, prevent the writer from pontificating about the incumbent and his maybe canonizing his predecessor once removed, Jn Paul II. That said, she does provide food for thought, and I’m sure she’s humble enough to admit that I am right and she is wrong about who founded the Jesuits.

Did Zimmerman do something wrong when he shot Trayvon Martin?

Depends what you mean by wrong.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen raised shrieks from the left and some muffled applause from the right with what everyone tells me was an exceptionally audacious and hard-hitting column. Was it, though?

“I don’t like what George Zimmerman did,” Cohen starts off. Why not? What Zimmerman did was defend himself against a violent criminal (taking assault and battery to be violent crimes, which I believe is the common understanding) who had attacked him [as the jury decided on evidence]. What about that don’t you like, Mr. Cohen?

In the next paragraph: “What Zimmerman did was wrong.” Why was it wrong? The police initially, and the court system eventually, determined that Zimmerman performed an act of justifiable homicide. That might be regrettable, but it’s not wrong in any system of values known to me.

If he was justified, it wasn’t wrong.

I paid special notice to this item, having heard a preacher say it (what happened, vaguely considered) was wrong, by which he meant (or had to mean, in the context) morally wrong, even if, as he told me later, he did not think the jury was wrong, by which he meant mistaken.