Saints Alive it's the Buddha

 This past Tuesday Catholics celebrated the feast of St. Josephat.  I started to read a bit about him and I found his history very interesting. Turns out Josephat plagiarized the Buddha.

 Jumpin' Josephat, he even poses like the Buddha.

That's the type of nonsense that can get one kicked out of the University of Enlightenment.

The complete story of Josephat's path to sainthood can be found here. Below is Wikipedia's drive-through version:

According to the legend, King Abenner  in India persecuted the Christian Church in his realm, founded by the Apostle Thomas. When astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, Abenner had the young prince Josaphat isolated from external contact. Despite the imprisonment, Josaphat met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. Josaphat kept his faith even in the face of his father's anger and persuasion. Eventually Abenner converted, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam.

Apparently this story caused a bit of a deja vu for some historians, who began to trace the story back.

It seems the Latin Josaphat was derived from the 11th century Greek Iasaph, which was derived from the 8th century Arabic Yudasaf, in turn derived from the 6th century Persian Bodisav, who originally transcribed the name from the original Sanskrit Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is, of course, the Buddha. 

That is some game of Telephone. Thank goodness my kids weren't in charge, Josaphat would have ended up with some unfortunate name like Pee Pee Poopyhead.

Turns out, Josephat's story is almost identical to the story of the Buddha's childhood and young adult years.

*please hum "Circle of Life" from the Lion King here*

We're all playing the same game. Just with different names.

Convent Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Some things in life are bad                                                                                                               
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse                   
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle                              
Don’t grumble, give a whistle                                            
And this’ll help things turn out for the best ...And ... (Music slides into the song)

... always look on the bright side of life ... (Whistle) 

Always look on the light side of life ... (Whistle)
                                                                               Monty Python

                                                                              

Although I have gotten a bit better at looking at the bright side of things, I am genetically programmed to see the glass as half empty.

It's been a bit of a struggle, fighting a natural pessimism, one driven by an overactive thought process. Life would often hand me lemonade and I would make lemons out of it.

Sometimes good karma disguises itself- by the time you realize it was in front of you, you've moved it to the side.

It can be difficult to stay out of your own way.

Thank God, with age came wisdom. Well, first came anxiety, then bitterness. I believe I am moving into the wisdom stage. Baby steps, baby steps.

Today the convent is bathed in an icy rain, drops dripping off of leaves, railings and rooftops.












It's easy to recognize blessings when I'm here, somehow they are clearer, brighter, much easier to see. I look out the window at the hazy mist and can not be more grateful for the day God has given me.

There's no questioning why I'm here, or wondering what I should be doing instead to better myself and my situation. I still handle some real life work on my Convent Tuesdays, but emails that might normally cause hours of anxiety are handled with a polite out of office reply.

All that anxiety can wait until tomorrow, and by tomorrow the problem may well have resolved on its own.

That lemonade is lookin' mighty tasty.

Convent Tuesday, November 20, 2012

It's very quiet at the convent today, the rooms hushed and still, the silence broken only by the occasional squeak of the sisters' rubber soled shoes as they travel the lengths of the halls.

I asked Mother what everyone was doing for Thanksgiving. She looked mildly amused as she informed me that the sisters would be doing the same as the general U.S. populace- gorging on turkey and lapsing into food comas.

"But wouldn't the sisters want to go home for Thanksgiving?" I innocently asked.

"They are home," was her gracious reply.

Well played, Mother E.

The kitchen sister, who is responsible for preparing an entire Thanksgiving feast for 13 nuns and assorted beasts of the field, was running in and out of the convent all day on forays to the local grocery stores.

One thing these women do not have a problem with is remembering to give thanks. I'm sure Thanksgiving Day at the convent will be full of small blue things, tiny moments of gratefulness piecing together to form a  blanket of warmth and love.

The sisters normally take all of their meals in silence, but Thanksgiving Day offers a break in the routine. I believe the din may be deafening as the sisters dig in to a well-prayed over Tom and all of the trimmings.

I certainly give thanks for being a small part of these women's lives.

From a Small Blue Thing-  a Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Convent Tuesday, November 13, 2012

"A person who has not done one half his day's work by 10 o'clock runs a good chance of leaving the other half undone." Emily Bronte

Given the fact that their day begins at 5:30am, it is certain that the nuns of All Saints are in agreement with Miss Bronte's thoughts on the value of early morning labor.  Each of the sisters here is assigned a task, or several tasks, to complete each day. For most of the sisters the task involves one area of the house- for example, the kitchen, office or shipping. Thus, one gets used to seeing a particular sister in her own particular domain throughout the day.

Sister H is one of my favorite nuns at the convent. She has been a religious for many, many years, entering the Order in her twenties and staying within the same Order for the last 40 years or so. She is extremely gentle and soft-spoken, truly one of the kindest individuals I have ever had the pleasure to know. Her capacity for caring is huge, and she often surprises me by inquiring after someone who I may have mentioned in passing weeks or months before.

Sister H's domain is the laundry room, which is located in the bowels of the convent. 

Surrounded by noise and heat, H works in this room every day, processing an endless succession of black and white habits; washing, drying and ironing each piece. No surprise that the finished laundry exiting this room looks and smells heavenly, as the attention paid to each piece surpasses the attention I pay to my own children.

At the end of a long dark hallway filled with pipes and steam, the laundry room is not a place one would normally expect to find spiritual fulfillment.


H believes, as her fellow religious do, that any task performed, no matter how small, should be performed for the glory of God. She applies herself to what most people find to be an endlessly boring chore with a sense of fulfillment I rarely derive from any area of my life.









Through her patience and the tangible sense of contentment exhibited by every gesture, Sister H has taught me that true grace is not found through the greatest acts, but rather in the seemingly menial chores that fill our every day lives. You never know where you'll find a small, blue thing.

A Guy Named Joe

My dad Joe was a small man with a big personality. By small I mean small, maybe 5' 3" on a good day.  He married my 4' 11" mother and they produced a tribe of Keebler elves, of which I'm the last.

When Joe entered the Navy in 1942 at the age of 19, he did so willingly. This seemingly brave act, enlisting at the height of WWII, was not performed out of a sense of patriotism. Simply put, my dad was hungry. For food. The Navy offered three squares and a nifty white uniform. The possibility that said uniform might someday be soaked in his life's blood was a risk he was willing to take.

In fact, Joe's entry into the U.S. Navy did not mark the beginning of the end but rather the start of a new life. Through the Navy he met a friendly Italian fellow named Frank. Frank introduced Joe to his baby sister, Jean, thus unlocking a series of events ultimately culminating in the development of the great Maryland Elf dynasty mentioned above.

But that is the story of my beginning, which will have to wait another day for its telling. Today I speak of the end of my father's tale.

As I have already mentioned, Joe was vertically-challenged, a fact that did not go overlooked (pun intended) by his superiors. He was given the job of radioman, a perilous position which meant he had to  inhabit the tiny front seat of a two seater surveillance plane for many, many hours at a time.

One of my dad's main jobs was to make sure his plane was immediately hooked to the ship upon landing in the sea. In those days, this type of plane always landed in the sea behind the ship. A cable was thrown into the sea. One end was attached to the plane and it was then dragged alongside the ship.

Joe's job was to haul himself out of the cockpit, crawl along the wing and look for the hook. Once he spotted the hook floating in the ocean, occasionally surrounded by sharks, he would attach the hook to the plane. While the seas of the Atlantic heaved around him. And enemy ships circled. And my father's ship floated away from him on the 10 foot swells.

Perhaps Joe might not have minded climbing out onto the wing if he knew this little lamb chop awaited him.

Not an easy job for anyone, much less a man whose sense of self-preservation once caused him to accidentally push me out of his way while rushing into the house during a lightening storm.

Think Bilbo Baggins in a military aircraft. You get the picture.






But God had something different in mind for my dad, one which did not involve a brave military death in high seas. My dad survived the war, and traveled to the one room Bronx apartment his friend Frank shared with his sister and parents. He swept my 99 lb mother off her tiny Italian feet, and whisked her away to start of a shiny, new life in a decrepit mobile home nestled in a trashy suburban NY trailer park.

Yes, Dad survived the War and went on to live a full middle class life. He took great advantage of the opportunities afforded him by the military, finishing four years of college in three and going on for a master's degree, all on the G.I. bill. After completing his college courses, he and my mom moved from New York down to Baltimore, to a Cape Cod house in the small town of Catonsville. In short succession three daughters were born. Nine years later (oops!) I came along to complete the picture of the American dream.

58 years after the end of WWII my father died after a 2 year struggle with Alzheimer's disease. He was laid to rest in a U.S. military cemetery outside of Baltimore. He was 80 years of age.

At the time of my father's death, a WWII veteran was being buried every 10 minutes. We had to wait 2 weeks for internment, and were not allowed to have a service at the graveside because of the instability of the soil from the newly dug graves surrounding his.

Today I visited my father's grave.






It was a beautiful day and I sat for a long while contemplating my surroundings. Row after row of stone slabs marched before me, each stating the identity and rank of the man or woman slumbering beneath.







Here and there others visited loved ones.

A son brought his mother, coaxing her from the car to stand over her husband or son.

A woman spread a blanket to lie next to her beloved husband, son, brother or friend.






And I sat on the cool ground, absorbing the waning November sun, engaging in a one-sided conversation with the best men I ever knew.

I lay back so I could take in Dad's view of things.

Not a bad spot, as final resting places go.  The guys on either side look like a pretty feisty bunch.

As I headed back to the car I thought of how proud I am of my father, for his service to our country, and for the life he carved out for himself and his family, one paycheck at a time.

I thought of the lessons he learned from a difficult childhood, the forthright manner in which he tackled adulthood, and the quiet joy that shone from his entire being every time he visited with one of us girls in his later years.

Happy Veteran's Day, Dad. Yours truly was the greatest generation.

Convent Tuesday, November 6, 2012

What a slaggard. Only a month or so back into the blogosphere and I've already missed a week.

In my defense I've been a bit busy the last few weeks, what with going away every weekend,

Halloween with the kids,















and Hurricane Sandy, which had a bit of a temper tantrum in my backyard.

Let me explain by starting with a  bit of back story. When we moved into our house thirteen years ago one of our first homeowner dilemmas we faced involved the siamese oak tree growing in the backyard. Joined at the roots, this behemouth was truly two independent trees that had decided to share a space and life together. We loved the joined trees but were concerned they might be unstable. Our dilemma was solved by an overpriced tree "expert", who looked up at the branches, pushed his baseball cap back, scratched his forehead, and declared the trees safe.

He also informed us that both trees were male, a pronouncement that made me immeasurably happy. What can be better than a backyard guarded by two mature trees in a loving gay relationship?

For thirteen years the trees and our family have shared joint ownership of our yard, and our children have grown up under their spreading branches.  Alas, this past Sunday tragedy struck, as Hurricane Sandy caused one half of the pair to completely lift up from its roots and crash to its death.


Those two creatures in the tree are LB and a friend.

Hurricane Sandy must be a religious conservative. I'm assuming she did not vote for Marriage Equality in today's election.

 But I digress. The demise of a loving tree partnership was not the end of the tragedy, as the falling oak also decimated our decrepit swing set ( unless my home insurance agent is reading this blog, in which case, er, I meant to write "brand new" swing set), took out a third of our fence, and crushed one of our bee hives.  

Little bee zombies were probably stumbling all around the yard on All Hallows Eve.

The remaining tree still stands, but is emotionally distraught, leaning listlessly to one side, and moaning quietly into the wind.

I believe it may be drinking heavily.











Today I sit at the convent, gazing at the lovely forested land around me and mourning quietly  the loss of one, and possibly two, of my long limbed friends. I will miss the gift of their shade, and the home they provided to the backyard fauna and my children as well.



Most of the trees at All Saints Convent were unaffected by the storm. Of the trees shown here, six are heterosexual.