Just Published: Tucks and Me

Tucks and Me would be a good literature match for the study of early 1700s American history.  It is available at Chickadee Hill, Inc. Just follow the link.

It tells the story of Crispus Attucks and his friendship with a young Quaker boy, in 1766-1773 Boston.  While the book is a novel, it is based on several years of research, and has the list of sources used.  The back cover reflects a review by three of the sources used.

“Tucks” as Crispus Attucks is called and Gabriel Bellson the son of a printer have many conversations as they sit at Gregson’s wharf.  Gabe is keeping a journal and Tucks helps correct some of his sketches of harbor ships.  Gabe is full of questions and so Tucks shares his stories as a seaman, as a whaler, and later his father’s story of Africa and of the middle passage to America, and his mother’s story as a Wampanoag, of the praying Indians and King Philip’s war.  In return Gabe shares his family and stories of John Woolman and others who were fighting slavery.

The novel encompasses the Stamp Act, the blockade of Boston Harbor, the Boston Massacre and its trial, and ends with the Boston Tea Party.  The Bellsons are printers, and young Rafael (Rafe), Gabe’s brother, leaves school to learn the trade.  Gabe is the scholar in the family and prepares for Yale.  The family is close knit, the mother, Charity is intelligent and at times helps in the print shop.  The daughter, Sarah, learns wifely skills at her school, and academics at home from her mother.

The Bellson’s print shop does work for Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson, later Governor, as well as Samuel Adams.  Bellson leans toward Adams politically, but abhors the violence and destruction the early mobs have caused.  Rafe reads both sides of the issues as he learns to set type, and after the death of Tucks, joins the Sons of Liberty, and gently leads them into non-violence.

With the harbor blockaded, poverty increases and many families are homeless.  Sarah and Charity vow to relieve the suffering and so begin a campaign of knitting, and homespun to aid others.

While the novel is a story about two friends, it is also a story that encourages:

· Family closeness and trust

· Friendship

· Non-Violence

· Abolition

·  It is a story that shows:

· The horror of slavery

· The horror of war

· The horror of unemployment

· The value of  positive action in face of poverty

It is a story that teaches:

· One must learn from the past

· All actions have consequences, many unintentional

· One can act positively in face of great poverty

· Love of our fellow man is the answer to many problems

CHRIST IN DACHAU -Maximilian Kolbe

Rev. Lenz writes with clarity and forgiveness in this book about a priest's experience in a Nazi Concentration Camp.  The horrors faced by the Germans and Austrian priests were nothing compared to the sufferings of the Polish priests.  The Polish priests were treated much as the Jews were treated in Dachau, but Father Lenz doesn't spend time on the horrors experienced by others in the camps.  He can't, he can only present the sufferings he and his comrades experienced, that was all his being could accommodate.

 2,720 clerics - 2400 Catholic Priests, lay brothers and seminarians, as well as ministers of various other religious denominations - representatives of 134 dioceses and 24 nations, were interned in Dachau concentration camps.  1,034 lost their lives.  (The following is from Fr. Lenz.)

"One of those was Father Maximilian Kolbe.  He took the place of a man with six children.  On June 30th 1941, a fellow prisoner escaped.  So ten other prisoners were chosen at random and ordered to die as hostages.  They were stripped naked and thrown together into a cell in the notorious "death block."  From then on they were given nothing to eat or drink until they died.  As is well known, thirst is an even greater torment than hunger for its victims, causing fever, delirium and ultimate madness.

"Kr. Kolbe led the pitiful group of prisoners in prayer and hymns until they could no longer speak.  After 14 days only he was still alive, whereupon they killed him with an injection of carbolic acid.  An eyewitness describes his face in death as 'radiant like that of a saint.'"

"In the summer of 1942 many of our community were no longer capable of standing or even of
sitting upright.  'I offer my life for my sins and the sins of the world' were the last words of one of my priest comrades.  Priests died all around us and they left us so peacefully, so easily, with such joy.  They just slipped quietly out of our lives, home to God their Creator."

I would like to think I have that kind of faith.  But I have not been tested to this degree.  What about you?

Christ in Dachau

Dear Friends,
As many of you know I've been researching the period of WWI and WWII in Germany for a book I'm calling OTTO.  I've recently picked up CHRIST IN DACHAU  by Rev. John M. Lenz.  Lenz is a Catholic priest writing about his 6 years in Dachau concentration camp.  He maintains the only prisoners hated worse than the Jews were Catholic Priests.  He would also maintain that Christ was with him and others the whole time.  Those who were able to keep their faith, could pray and sing to honor God despite the horrendous conditions and brutal work details.  From the Introduction:
     "The important think to remember, however, is that they were dealt with as a class apart, as a particular menace to the Nazi ideology, and therefore, that their particular story, their reaction to the whole struggle, is doubly significant-firstly because they were priest of God, professional champions of  Christ's Church, and secondly because their gaolers recognized in them the representatives of the most powerful enemy of Nazism.
And, from the Author's Forward:
     "What we priests were forced to endure under the Nazi regime, especially in Dachau concentration camp, is no more than a cup filled from the vast sea of human suffering in the world today.  It is not this suffering as such which is important.  The important thing is to show those who have crosses of their own to bear in life just what the grace of God can do for those who follow faithfully in the footsteps of Christ the Crucified....
     "Dachau is a terrible warning to us all, not only for today but for tomorrow.  God alone knows how real and present the lessons of this book may yet be for us...For it is only possible to profit from the bitter lessons of the past if these events in the history of the world are viewed with the eyes of true Christian faith....
     "This book is not a novel, but a piece of contemporary evidence, it bears witness to an encounter with  Christ, to a recognition of Christ at a time of the bitterest suffering, the fiercest combat with the forces of evil.  It is an inspiring story of priestly devotion and heroism at a time when the Church of God was subjected to danger and persecution..."  Stay tuned for more!!!

I'm Back

     I haven't written for a while, again, this time because I've gotten myself involved in a variety of organizations.  First as Chair of our Pastoral Council,  second as President of our local CCW, third as a volunteer to Brush Creek Mill, and I have organized a writer's group:  Brush Creek Writers.

     I have finished Tucks and Me, and have found a great editor.  She edited the first few pages, then gave me suggestions for revision that will save me editor fees.  If you have a chance to work with Mary Jo Zazueta please do.  You'll find her at www.tothepointsolutions.com.
     I have done a lot of work on Otto, a novel about an SS/farmer who believes and comes face to face with the reality of what was done by his heroes during WWII.
     If any of you have a chickadee photo/design, I could use a good logo.  So far I'm just using a stock photo, see above.  You can find out the other things I've been up to if you check on the link above for www.chickadeehillinc.com.
Talk to you soon!

Shema

Shema:

Shema is the Hebrew word for “hear,” as in

     Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all
     your heart, will all your soul, and with all your might.
This is also the text the Musseim call from their minarets, and the believers stop to pray.

     If our “God is one,” why do we fight each other? Perhaps because of belief of the “one” God? In a polytheistic world the Jews were counter-cultural. Difference breeds a danger in human minds. It is the reason children call names or bully one another. It is difference that leads to misunderstandings and to fights or wars. To be counter-cultural is to present a danger to the smooth agreements that form a society. Something new is a danger for it calls all accepted beliefs into question; it disturbs the status quo and threatens law makers and those who benefit from a society which follows “their” principles.
     Today, as we face all sorts of beliefs, to be counter-cultural and believe in one God is dangerous. To believe in Love is dangerous. In a society focused on “us vs. them,” Love is dangerous. Those who profit from the balance of us and them are against those who believe in Love towards All.
     I often think of today’s society when I think of the Bible’s position on aliens. We are to be kind to them for we were once aliens ourselves. At least in the Americas, only the native peoples are non-aliens, the rest of us came here from somewhere else. So, we are the aliens.
     The reverse is true when it comes to behavior-in a society which presses to remove “In God we Trust,” everything is moral—immorality is moral, is acceptable—for there are no standards. It is the age- old question of “who” is to decide what is acceptable or not, and isn’t everything shades of grey?
     Let someone become a Hero, he is destroyed. His/her accomplishments are nothing if there is one blemish in their life. All models of behavior are to be shot down, removed from their pedestals; the criminal becomes the underdog, the victim. Consequences of any action are “unfair.” Yet, actions have consequences. A society without Love for each member is a society ready to fall.
     Jesus the Christ came to save us, to forgive us. Is it pride to believe we don’t need saving or forgiving? Would He have needed to come, to die, to rise, if humans hadn’t chosen selfishness instead of Love? The real danger is evil, not love.
     Do we still hear? Hear that internal moral voice, or has it been drowned out by desires? In silence we can hear the “still small voice,” the whispering voice, but we have to allow silence; we have to quiet the voices clamoring for action, so we can listen, so we can hear.

Kyrie 2

     Here I am again in A Biblical Walk Through the Mass by Edward Sri.

First: I am constantly amazed at what the Scriptures have to say to me as an individual. Vatican II explained,     
      "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed hem in his task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."
     A new word for me, theopneustos, which means God-breathed. What a marvelous image, God breathing in the minds of men so they could write what needed to be written. I used to just listen or phase out when the scripture was being read during Mass. Since I have been a Lector, I have had to study the words in order to read them with meaning. This has caused me to listen carefully to the words of Mass, and I discover at each Mass, God breathing his meaning in my ear. Sometimes I feel His presence in my mind.
     Another new concept: I’ve always like the Hymn “Lord of the Dance,” but I really understood why “dance” was chosen. I’ve thought of the way some think of life or marriage or even work as a kind of dance – though in these cases the ‘dance’ wasn’t joyful, but required-if one were to win or at least keep from losing.  Since God is Love and Joy follows Love, then His is a joyful dance. Thomas Howard wrote:
     The universe, all creatures and things, all angels and saints, invite us, “Come Join the Dance.” The antiphons of the Mass are early training in the great choreography, in the great ringing antiphon before the eternal perichoressis, the “Dance” of the Persons of the Trinity. The seraphim know this; and in the liturgy we begin to be introduced into this blissful antiphonality. When we respond to the Psalm, we are taking or first steps in the Dance.
     Here the Dance is the joyful praise of God; as when the choirs of angels sing in praise of God in the ongoing Mass of Heaven. Their joy becomes a song or a dance in praise as the saints, angels, and other creatures sing back and forth in their hymn and dance of joy. It is this back and forth chanting of psalms and antiphons that become the dance.

Sanctus:
       Holy, Holy, Holy Lord
To repeat in threes is to find completion. Holy Lord is to recite a name. Holy, Holy is the beginning of action. Holy, Holy, Holy, is praise – the Sanctus is praise – but also a description of the indescribable.

     Lord, God of Hosts
Who are these hosts? Saint, choirs of angels, archangels, seraphim all singing the threefold praise of Holy.

     Heaven and earth are full of your glory
For me, living in the deep woods, the glory of God surrounds me: lakes, streams, oaks and pines each a glorious statement regardless of the seasons – have you ever seen a pint dusted in snow, or the copper oak leaves frosted in the midst of white – and the clouds, sunrises, sunsets, birds at a feeder, the antics of squirrels, the glory of Fall or the budding green in Spring. Even without storms, they suggest the grandeur and the power of God.  So we sing praise - yet, what if like Isaiah we get a glimpse:
     When angels sing, the foundations of the Temple shake and the room is filled with smoke.
He realizes his and our-unworthiness.
     Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips…for my eyes have seen the King,
     The Lord of Hosts!  Holy is His Name.
We, sinners as we are, are still unworthily; we still distrust the alien, the different one, and still aren’t ready to give our all for Love.

Anamnesis and the Passover Sacrifice

Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.

     The purpose of this prayer is to be reminded at this part of the Mass to lift our hearts to God, to forget our worldly concerns, and focus. Focus is difficult for humans with business, home, family, monetary, and time constraints. Yet, we are asked to do that very thing, to forget who we are, what we have to do because “it is just and right.”
As St Cyprian explained: 
     When we stand praying, beloved brethren, we ought to be watchful and earnest with our whole
Heart, intent on our prayers. Let all carnal and worldly thoughts pass away, nor let the soul at that time think on anything but the object only of its prayer. For this reason also the priest by way of preface before his prayer, prepares the minds of the brethren by saying, “Lift up your hearts,” so the people’s response, “We lift them before our Lord,” he may be reminded that he himself ought to think of nothing but our Lord.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem said much the same thing, but warning the Mass participants of the seriousness of this moment in the Mass: 
     “Lift up your hearts:” For in this sublime moment the heart should be lifted up to God, and not be allowed to descent to the earth and to earthly concerns. With all possible emphasis the sacrificing priest exhorts us in this hour to lay aside all the cares of this life, all domestic worries, and direct our hearts to God in heaven who hath so loved men…Let there be none among you, who shall confess with his lips: We have lifted up our hearts, and allow his thoughts to remain with the cares of this life."
What a difficult job to lift up our thoughts when, the cares of the world go out of their way to bring our thoughts to all we have to do, the problems we have yet to solve. If we can take these very tasks to do and problems to solve and lift them to the Lord, what a relief will come. He will take our burdens on himself as he took on our sins. And then, we should “give thanks to the Lord, our God.”
     In the Jewish tradition, giving thanks is the one thing we can give to God that he doesn’t already have. As Philo said:
      We affirm that the activity most characteristic of God is to give His blessings. But that most
fitting to creation is to give thanks; because that is the best it can offer him in return. For when creation tries to make any other return to God it finds that its gift already belongs to the Creator of the universe, no to the creature offering it. Since we now realize that to give due worship to God only one duty is incumbent upon us, that of giving thanks, we must carry it out in all times and in all places.
     We have much to thank him for. Consider all you know and have, then consider what your life would be like if everything you had not thanked God for would be gone. What would you have left?
     In the Passover, the Jews keep a memorial of an historical event, one where God saved them from death of their first born, slavery, and led them out of Egypt and across the Red Sea. Each year, Jews re-live the event. Their prayers are spoken as though they and not just their answers were saved by God, “When You led me out of slavery. When You led me out of Egypt. When You rescued me,” though it was generations ago.
     So in the Eucharist part of the Mass, we too re-live the last supper, knowing the bread and wine are really His body and blood “broken and poured out" on the cross for the Love of us. In the Catholic Catechism explains:
      In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work are united with hose of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire new value. Christ’s sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering.
      If for no other reason than the Eucharist, we should give Him thanks, for His great glory, and sing with the angels the Great Amen!

Hillman

Dear Friends,
     Hillman, Michigan is changing before my eyes.  The downtown has a new bridge, new seating along the way, new trees.  Now we have lovely lamp posts, and all electrical is underground.  The entire town is wi-fi and definitely 21st century.  We still have several empty store fronts, but I have a feeling that will change once the construction is completed.  And so it has, just one place left for sale.
     Brush Creek Mill is one of my volunteer sites.  It is a historical museum, hobby center, community center, and more.  Its River's Edge gift shop contains quality arts and crafts from area artists, and by area we mean North-East Michigan.  The Historical Society has its wide collection here.  The most recent exhibit is photos of regional schools, and photos of various graduating classes.  As many schools no longer exist, a map is also posted with schools marked. 
     I work in the office, paying vendors, creating flyers and brochures, and managing the web site.  The web site requires the most time, and I have the least time for it.  I invite you all to visit us at brushcreekmill.com. to find out more.
     St. Augustine's Catholic Church takes up my other free time.  Located on Veteran's Memorial Highway, I lector regularly, and president of the pastoral council, and soon to be president of our local altar society titled Council of Catholic Women.  I have been reaching out to Catholics who have left the parish, for one reason or another, especially for the lack of Sunday Mass.  Our last pastor was in charge of four parishes spread widely apart, so our Mass was on Saturday.  Our current priest only has two parishes to tend to, and three churches to say Mass for.  One of the churches loves a Saturday Mass, so our Mass is again on Sunday.
      Our little town has a new library, the old health clinic, and has doubled in size.  We won't be losing our Post Office, even if it is closed on Saturdays.  We are proud of what has been accomplished, and what is yet to be done.  We are in Montmorency County, the poorest county in the State, but we have pride, and it is only about 19-15 minutes from our little house in the woods.