In the Absence of Words ....

All that is heard need not be spoken?

As I watch the casket of Rep. John Lewis being escorted into the nation’s capital by the military honor guard (on television), I reflect upon the visitation, funeral and burial of my own father, a retired military officer himself … another who dedicated a vast portion of his life in service to our great nation, a little over a week ago.  The inspirational speeches honoring the man and the legacy of Representative John Lewis ensue and I think on the wonderful legacy my father leaves behind, but sadly there were no speeches given on my father’s behalf … no loved ones were given (or took) the opportunity to speak publicly about the way Robert had touched their lives.  Such is the way of the Catholic Rite of Passage.  For the parting observances and ceremony in the Catholic funeral are not meant to console the living, I am told.  Rather, the Catholic tradition/mass is meant solely to prepare the soul of departed for what comes next.  I suppose, being a devout Catholic, my father approved of the order of events surrounding his funeral rite.  That should give me comfort?  I am happy that my father was able to buried with military honors, even though only eight family members were allowed to attend the burial ceremony, thanks to covid-19.  We were unable to watch the actual burial –also due to covid-19.  The send-off ceremony was conducted at an outdoor chapel, after which my father was loaded into a white utility van and driven off to his burial site for burial by men, strangers to him … men in hardhats, with cranes and ladders.  We can return to visit his grave once the headstone has been installed, but I will be back home on the other side of the country by  then.

My father’s passing happened so quickly and it was rather unexpected for all of us, including him.  The upside, I suppose is that he did not suffer long.  Sitting here in the aftermath of this hurricane, however, the latter does not feel like much of a consolation to those of us left behind, but perhaps in time it will?  I am grateful that the priest who presided over my father’s funeral mass knew him well and considered him a dear friend, for my father was very active in his church community.  Still, somehow, this friend’s words do not completely fill the void that is left behind in the absence of sharing comforting words, stories and memories by loved ones during any one of the visitation, funeral mass or burial service.  A solemn acceptance seems to permeate the being of those choosing to worship in the Catholic tradition and this is not a trait I happen to share, hence my departure from the Catholic faith over a decade ago. Questioning, rather acceptance, is at the very core of my being, and the Catholic faith failed miserably to adequately address the multitude of questions I have. For me, these questions are the biggest part of the spiritual journey I am on.  Yet, I still respect the right of others to choose the manner in which they will to pursue their own spiritual journey.

I am grateful for my sixth sense, for it helped me through this dark time, especially during the hours surrounding my father’s passing.  I have said before that “Death and Isabelle are old friends,” I just wish I had been given a bit more notice in this particular instance.  Still, we none of us are promised a tomorrow, I now understand this on a visceral level.  I was able to spend an hour or so with my father, while he was still awake and conscious, the evening before his passing, when he came home from the hospital to spend his final hours in the loving comfort of family.  Then I took turns sitting with my father, along with my two sisters, throughout the night.  I was the last person to speak with him, holding his hands, before he lost consciousness.  Some would have thought this closing of his eyes was merely a return to sleep, but my sixth sense knew at that very moment –by way of his spirit-- that those would be the last words my father would utter in this life.  My father opened his eyes so wide, and he squeezed my hand.  My father was telling me to SEE, with my sixth sense, so that I could explain/communicate to others his thoughts and wishes in the absence of his own words/consciousness (as we know it) during the final hours of his passing.

I did SEE … I was able to explain where my father was at during his process of crossing over, even to convey his wish of hearing a favorite song, “Country Roads”, by John Denver … which provided us all a moment of levity during his passing as everyone in the room joined in with singing.  The Irish tradition of going around the room and toasting with whiskey, recalling fond memories and sharing stories had us all swinging between rolling laughter and sobbing tears.  I feel as if I was able to minister to my father’s spirit as well, letting him know that we would all be alright and that this body was not who he was meant to be any longer, as we all laid hands on him in an effort to convey energy and our LOVE.  Near the end, I felt my father reconnecting with the spirits of loved ones passed, and then I felt his period of hesitation as he worried about leaving my mother behind.  It was as if his spirit had one foot on each side of the great divide.  It was then that he asked me to convey a promise to my mother and I later did.  I have felt my father’s presence and heard his voice, from time to time, in the days since his passing, even giving me passcodes to accounts that he had failed to leave behind for my mother.  The past few days, however, my father has been quiet.  I suspect his spirit is coming to terms with the fact that things are not quite exactly as his faith/religion had led him to believe.  There are so many questions I want to ask him about this, but in a way I think I already have most of the answers my spirit is capable of understanding in its present form. I also know, in my heart, that those with whom we share a bond are forever with us in spirit, we are eternally connected by way of our ‘heart strings.’ As such, my Dear Father, it is not goodbye, but merely until we meet again.  This is why I wore white to your funeral, for you have been reborn, your passing from this life is not the end ….You're off onto your next great adventure!

Mothers and Daughters ... Fathers and Sons

A daughter is inclined to misunderstand her mother until the day she, herself, becomes a mother, I think.  Such is the cycle of Life, thoroughly brutal when viewed through the myopic lens of TIME, but with perspective most assuredly laced with anchoring moments of profound beauty and opportunities for transformative growth, if we can somehow manage to weather its erosive storms.  And make no mistake, each storm will leave its mark, a time-worn guidepost of your journey home.

Image Source

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin


No upbeat post for "Happy 4th of July" wishes this year ... Too many losses of innocent lives to senseless violence over the weekend.  One thing Mothers across this great nation, and around the globe, have in common:  WE ALL VALUE LIFE, having brought life into this world ourselves.  Perhaps Mothers hold the key to stemming this tide of violence that is taking far too many of our  young long before their time?

Best quote I heard over the weekend came from a Black Man who lost a child to this red tide of violence "How is anyone supposed to take us seriously, when we don't even value our own Black lives?"

What if we could all shift our perspective from seeing only skin color, through the lens of misunderstanding, hatred and retribution, to instead seeing one another as someone else's mother, father, daughter or son?  Surely, we have far more in common than division by means of the mere color of our skin will ever allow?

Change YOUR BRAIN: Change YOUR LIFE ......

He who controls speech has a stranglehold on thought ... Be careful what you wish for?  I think the time has finally come for people in our nation to sincerely take ownership of their pursuit of truth.  Stopping regurgitating what is being fed to you via the mainstream.  Dare to color outside some lines in order to get at your own version of truth; I guarantee, this pursuit of truth will not only change your brain (use your brain), it will forever and irrevocably change your life --and the lives of those around you-- FOREVER!!

In the aftermath of the loss of two young Black lives here in Seattle city, I find myself heart-sickened and I seriously cannot help but wonder:  If Black lives matter, why don’t the lives of these two young men, 19 year-old Horace Lorenzo Anderson and yet-to-be-identified 16 year-old, seem to matter to protesters, the mainstream media and Seattle City leaders? The message being sent by those up in arms, out on the streets protesting and occupying the former CHOP Zone in downtown Seattle seems to be that ‘only certain Black lives matter’ ... Those lives being the Black lives that can be used to advance a political agenda, namely the Black lives who die at the hands of law enforcement officers.  I say this because these two most recent Black lives lost were not taken at the hands of rouge police officers; rather these young lives were tragically, albeit ironically, taken by those occupying the CHOP Zone, the very people protesting because “Black Live Matter.”  Then these same protesters refused to let emergency responders into the CHOP zone to provide timely medical treatment and transport to a hospital.  But no one --outside of family and friends-- here in the Seattle City area seems to be ashamed of this tragic and untimely loss of innocent lives? No one has taken to the streets protesting in the aftermath of the senseless, tragic and untimely deaths of these two young Black men. How utterly sickening and sad?! And the deaths of other innocent young lives spans across the country, most notably in Chicago, Illinois. But the media are not even covering this ongoing tragic loss of  life.

But perhaps the loss of these precious young lives will serve as WAKE-UP CALL to EVERYONE as to the true nature behind the Beast that has now become occupying/”Defund the Police!” movements around the country (e.g., Seattle, Minneapolis, New York City). WAKE UP, PEOPLE!  This movement doesn’t care about YOU! The movement doesn’t really even care about Black lives. Rather “Black Lives Matter” (BLMA) has co-opted your initially peaceful and wholly justified movement (i.e., rooting out bad cops and reforming a system that at times appears to disproportionately take Black lives) in order to advance a radically Leftist agenda --an agenda shared by those on the Left well beyond the scope BLMA!-- an agenda that would see a truly subjugating and warped vision for America come about by way of toppling the very institutions that serve to provide the cornerstone of stability for order in our society, namely law enforcement and local government.  

Make no mistake, without the above institutions our laws and our United States Constitution become nothing more than useless words written upon scraps of ‘paper’, as order will give way to outright chaos. If the radical Left succeeds here, it will become every person for himself, until the Marxist order conveniently steps in to upright the ship they have very decisively and systematically worked to topple over the course of decades, through various vehicles of destruction ... the latest one being BLMA.  And if you thought slavery was bad, Marxism will become the slavery for the modern-day era.  It will reach out to swallow up every man, woman and child of EVERY RACE, CREED AND COLOR until absolute submission to those in charge is achieved. In this new form of slavery, the leaders --those ‘looking out for us’-- will have A LOT and all the rest of us will equally HAVE NOT.  Should you dare to think for yourself or to dissent from the approved thought/order you will be flat-out crushed! And the only people who will have the guns in this Marxist-scenario will be the criminals and the puppets working for those in charge. If you thought a few rogue cops were bad, just wait until you experience the wrath of those in charge of enforcing total submission under this new perverted world-order.  Free-speech/Free-thought will become extinct, relics of a distant past all too soon forgotten.  America will finally be united as we citizens all will equally HAVE NOT, subject to the whims of our leaders (a.k.a. masters) --who by the way will no longer be elected.  How’s that for a new, equitable vision for America?  I mean the irony here is just palpable ... How can people not logically follow the steps: from co-opting protests, co-opting education/thought and free speech/media/social media, on through to present attempts at dismantling law enforcement in our ordered society, right on through to the end objective of outright revolution and an end to America as we know it today?  The United States of America, despite its many faults is one of the greatest, longest lasting models for “consent by the governed” in the entire history of this Rapidly Spinning Blue Planet.  But therein lies the our Achilles heel: our History ....

I truly believe that at the heart of this profound inability of people --particularly younger people-- to process longer term consequences, across the board, lies an intended dismantling of our nation’s history.  That’s why the BLMA movement is out to topple statues and monuments across the nation. They’re not even just tearing down statues of Confederates and slave owners; in their ignorance they are pulling down statues of abolitionist --the definition of “abolitionist”, is those ardently fighting  to put an end to slavery!-- Union Army leaders --those who fought against the Confederate slave owners-- along with other non-racist historical figures (e.g., Francis Scott Key, composer of “Star Spangled Banner” .. our national anthem).  This dismantling of our nation's history is systemic and its been going on for decades, starting in early childhood education, on up through high school and into our colleges and universities.  Bottom line:  If you don’t know or understand your history, not only are you destined to repeat it but more importantly you can’t see just HOW VERY FAR WE HAVE COME since the days of slavery, through the Civil Rights Movements, on up to the present time.

Are we a totally perfect nation?  No we are not; We still have work to do, but most of us get this.  As such, average U.S. citizens are more than willing to roll up our sleeves, to have some serious interactive discussions --not just mono-syllabic, mantra-driven shouting matches-- and then get down to working together to get the rest of this equitable nation-building DONE! --[sadly, the latter don’t seem to be traits shared by our current U.S. Congress ... witness the U.S. Senate's inability to come together in order to pass guidance/ legislation on "law enforcement reform." This thanks to Senate Democrats who refused to come to the table, even with the offer of unlimited amendments!  Senator Tim Scott's initial bill may not have been perfect, but few bills seldom are.  Still Senator Scott's bill could have served as a timely and much needed starting point for further discussion and amendments.  I think, at the end of the day, Senate Democrats just wanted to postpone any true resolution so that they can run on "law enforcement reform" in the upcoming election. ]  That is the true beauty of America, our differences when honored have the power to make America shine! America is not about conformity to the fleeting whims of the very vocal minority.  America is about freedom of EVERYONE --regardless of race, creed or color.  America is about our God-given right to pursue our own unique versions of LIFE, LIBERTY and HAPPINESS.  In America, one size doesn’t fit all!  The Left knows this fact well and that is why their rhetoric is consistently rife with messages of division, identity and disunity.  United, America stands; divided it will inevitably fall.  This is exactly what the extreme LEFT have been hoping and planning for, for decades now and today, now more so than ever, they are so very close to finally achieving their objective??? So then, the question becomes: will you continue to be a willing, silent pawn in their master game? Or will you finally wake-up and speak out for an America that is worth saving!!! Two things can be simultaneously true: 1) Black lives matter (because ALL lives matter) and 2) American ideals of LIFE, LIBERTY and HAPPINESS are worth fighting for.  These two ideas do NOT have to be mutually exclusive ... Philosophy 101. Instead of acquiescence to the will of the crowd, why  not dare to be the lone voice of reason in a crowd gone MAD!

My heartfelt sympathies, thoughts and prayers are with all families who of those who have been injured/those injured and those who have lost loved ones during these times of violent protest and destruction.  May God keep, Bless and guide you all during these difficult times!

Sorry for so many typos!  My hand is much better now, just forgot how to type, I guess???