Paul McSorley's Jottings

As September drew to a close I had a “first”! I participated in the ceremoney of ordination. It was a member of our church as a Lutheran Minister. Her name is Jennifer Amos. I had attended and watched some seven ordinations in my lifetime. Four were my brothers to the priesthood in the Catholic Church; two were as ministers in the Lutheran Church one woman and one man. I also watched the installation of my son-in-law, Tom Baker as a Deacon in a ceremony much like an ordination. But I never had the honor of participating until now.

As part of the ceremoney the ordained receives five stoles, each of a different color and are presented to her by people she or he chooses. The last color to being given and placed around the neck is the red one. This is the one I gave to her saying: “ Jen, on Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples and gave them tongues of fire. Be bold in proclaiming God’s message of grace. Also as Christians who follow a Lutheran tradition, stay grounded in your heritage of Grace, Faith and Word.”

We now have three previous members of our church ordained and two still studying. Having five young people out of any congregation who decide to become ministers is quite an outstanding feature. We had three seminarians when I wrote the history of our congregation from 1990-2005, the last twenty-five years. In it I wrote: “The purpose of a Christian church is to bring Christ to the community, its world; it is not only to build new facilities. Its members, now members of the body of Christ, take what they have learned and bring it with love to the community outside the church walls. How better is that purpose fulfilled than when its members bring Christ into their lives with such force and love as to want to dedicate their lives to serving Him and bringing Him to others. The fact that three of LCC members have directed their lives to ordained ministry demonstrates that the church is carrying out its mission. Ours is a history for which to be thankful, and it provides the opportunity to acknowledge that the leaders and church community are doing something right!  The challenge is to continue such growth in 2005 and beyond.”  Now in 2009 it is evident with two more members seeking ordination that the mission is continuing to be carried out.

In my reading recently some articles got me thinking. The “NY Times Magazine” had one entitled  “Is there a right way to pray?” That such a question would be in a magazine like the N.Y. Times was itself a surprise and caused me to want to read it. It was written by a reporter of Jewish background who called himself a “Sam Cooke Agnostic” I don’t know who Sam Cooke is but I always get thinking of the word agnostic’s meaning when I hear it.  The word is defined as “person who believes that nothing is known or can be known” That to me raises the question “How does he or she know they are an ‘agnostic’ if it cannot be known?

The author’s title indicates immediately he doesn’t have the slightest idea what praying is all about. Seeking the help of God and thanking Him are just some of the reasons we pray. There is never a “right or wrong” way.  He then visits all types of churches and places where in some public prayer is employed and even special people who make it a thing in their lives to help others in their praying. The organization is called ‘Spiritual Directors International’.  They state that their purpose is to help people learn to pray. They state the reason for this is, “They want to learn how to pray, but feel awkward in a house of worship” Could it be that  ‘they feel awkward” because many “house of worship” are no longer that. Where better to think of the Almighty and call on Him then in the presence of a quiet place surrounded by people calling on God the same as you are?

The ‘feeling awkward in a house of worship’ reminds me of an incident I read about where  a churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper. He complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. “I’ve gone and done it for 30 long years now”, he wrote, and in that time I have heard something like 3000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them. So I think I’m wasting my time and the preachers are wasting theirs too.”  He got a response, which I liked. “I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this…They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. If I had not gone to church for nourishment I would be spiritually dead today! When you are DOWN to nothing…God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible!”

The agnostic author, in the NYTimes magazine, talking about prayer goes on to say, “…I have never been able to pray and mean it. On two occasions when it appeared I was going to die, I didn’t give God a thought…I saw this as a confirmation of my freedom from superstition”. So the “agnostic” who can’t know anything somehow does “know” that he is free of that ‘superstition’ called God. He doesn’t visit any of the protestant or catholic churches or attend any services in houses of worship. So is it any wonder that he doesn’t understand or see really what prayer is!  He does visit one of the trained directors of the Spiritual International. He went there with the understanding he didn’t have to believe in God to learn how to pray?  To whom then do we pray?  She tells him that ‘sometimes intellect is a block to spirituality’ We should all strive to discover our spiritual side. What for example is meaningful in your life? Later she sends him an email saying, “Life is about living out the questions – not necessarily coming up with the answers… I would hope that your would find yourself moving to a deeper level of questions, insights, spiritual growth, and with that a yearning for the Presence of the Divine. Prayer would naturally be a part of that process..” He finally decides “…I was probably never going to become a praying man. But if, by some miracle, I ever do, I hope my prayers like the prayers of these kids I met at the Love church in Berkley Springs. Straight-up Gimmie! on behalf of people who really need the help.” Apparently to him this is the ‘right’ way to pray, i.e. ask for something to be given. It is apparent that this reporter lacks even the basic knowledge of what prayer is all about as well as the ability to go to the right place to find it.

I am reading a biography of “Einstein”. It is tough reading in many places for me since it is into physics and such of which I am not with much knowledge. I was glad to see that he, Einstein, didn’t like geometry nor math and he didn’t get top marks in those courses. “During his four years at Polytechnic, he got 5 0r 6 (on a 6 point scale) in his theoretical physics courses, but got only 4’s in most of his math courses, especially those in geometry”. It is one thing we have in common, but beyond that there is a whole other world where Einstein dwells. The author, Walter Isaacson, says, “He did however retain from his childhood religious phase a profound reverence to the harmony and beauty of what he called the mind of God as it was expressed in the creation of the universe and its laws.” So a guy with brains like Einstein’s still can see God in the creation of the world! (There is a chapter in the book on Einstein’s belief in God.)

This thinking about God and his creations brings back to a cartoon I once saw. It was a Charlie Brown comic strip.  In it there two characters, one Charlie and a friend looking at the sky full of stars. Charlie says, “Let’s go inside and watch TV. I beginning to feel insignificant” How true that is!  Then there is a bumper sticker that got me, it said, “If you are going to live like there is no God, you better be right!”

My health is improving. I am walking with less heavy breathing. The swollen legs and rash are almost gone. The doctor said when I am able to walk around the block I will be as well as I can be with this condition. I am still a good ways from that. We see him in November. Until next time, Pax Tecum !

School Days! School Days!
Good old ‘golden rule’ days.
Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic
Taught by the tune of a hickory stick!

It’s that time again! School is back but without the ‘hickory stick’. In fact here in Florida it began in late August, not September. But for me School and September were synonymous for at least 20 years. It should have been 19 but I was held back in the first grade. (Notice I didn’t say I ‘flunked’)  It was interesting to learn recently that my oldest brother Frank,  the first boy, moved forward from First Grade into Second soon after he entered school. It seems Mother, being a former teacher, decided to teach Frank her first child and son. It turns out she did such a good job that the teacher in First Grade suggested he be moved right up to the 2nd. My return to First grade had a reward. Because I met Gerry Connell and we have been friends ever since!

After all those 20 years of school I went off to the Marine Corps Schools to be commissioned. I had been drafted in 1947 under the Selective Service Act but got deferments right through College and Law School. Even after I was commissioned I had to go back to school! I was ordered to the naval base in Newport, R.I. to attend a school on the new Military Code. (Uniform Code of Military Justice) It had become law in 1947 and was working its way through the military. I had another surprise in attending that school. I met Jean Green another lawyer from Philadelphia. He had too just been commissioned at Quantico but in another platoon. We roomed together.

My meeting and knowing Jean Green enabled me to spend my last days in the service at the Philadelphia Naval Base.  I was thus able to retake the Pennsylvania Bar exam, which I had failed in 1954. I had passed the DC bar exam so for the Marines I was a lawyer. What happened that brought Jean back into my life was this: I was serving as an aide-de-camp to General Earnshaw, then commander of the Lejeune Marine Base. I had been his aide since late 1955. As 1957 was coming to an end the general decided it was time for him to retire. He asked me where I would like to next serve. I told him I would let him know and called Philadelphia Naval Base to see if they might have an opening. Much to my surprise there was Jean Green the only Marine on the base in charge of the Brig and administration of discharges. He, Jean, also wanted to get out of the service early so he could take a tax course. So I helped him do so and after the General’s retirement transferred to Philadelphia Naval Base!

In the final two months of my last year of college I switched positions. I became a teacher. I had Education as a minor and knew the Education Department director as a friend of my family. He was the one who made the appointment possible. It also would satisfy the State requirement of practice teaching to have me certified in Pennsylvania as a teacher. I was to teach high school freshman, a class of about 40, in a parochial school.  The school was located in a tough neighborhood. I taught everything except religion. One of my memories of it is that I found keeping the wise guys and big mouths quiet was a job. Fortunately having attended catholic schools all my life up until then I knew that disciplining a rowdy student was common and allowed. So I did so with a couple of such boys. I made them get out of the seat and kneel on the floor with arms outstretched until I said they could return to their seats. I had maybe two such boys I had to so discipline.  By coincidence some two years later while attending Pennsylvania Law School, I earned a little additional cash by selling programs at football games. At one of the games I looked up with surprise to see some of my ex-students coming down the aisle. Two of them were those I had made kneel. I was just regretting such action when they all politely came up and stopped and said, “Hello Mr. McSorley” with not a bit of rancor or revenge.

Homosexuals and homosexuality have been subjects of much discussion these days. The ECLA had a convention in late August to consider allowing homosexuals to be ordained as ministers. It voted to do so but it was a split vote. Prior to the convention a good friend and former pastor, Lin Houck, sent me written opinions from both sides of the question. One was written by a former bishop another I believe was the author of theological books. Each of their documents were five to six typed pages.

A couple of years ago, in 2007, one of my favorite theologians, Luke Timothy Johnson, wrote about homosexuals. I loved the way he introduced the subject, he wrote: “…there is more than enough sexual disorder among heterosexuals to fuel moral outrage. The church could devote its energies to resisting the widespread commodification (creating articles for sale) of sex in our culture, the manipulation of sexual attraction in order to sell products. It could fight the exploitation of women and children caught in the vast web of international prostitution and pornography…It could name the many ways that straight males enable such distorted and diseased forms of sexuality”

The opinion of Herbert W. Chilstrom, one of those forwarded by Lin Houck, makes this rather salient point. He writes, “Like you, I knew our decision to ordain woman and retain divorced pastors on our rosters were not decided exclusively on the basis of a few biblical texts or our long standing tradition in either area…Furthermore, plain reason and our experience with the work of some women and some divorced pastors led us to include both on our rosters…when I saw the kind of ministry being done by gay and lesbian person…convinced me I must change my stance.”

The opposing theologian was Carl E. Braaten, and he wrote, “…you use in judging matters theological and ecclesial…‘reason and experience’. They trump Scripture and Tradition…Scripture and Tradition must pass the test of your reason and experience not the other way around” He goes on to lament what he sees a “liberal Protestantism” and that he considers as heresy! But Braaten never explains how the ELCA accepted women and divorced pastors based on his reasons, i.e., Scripture and Tradition. He spends more time lamenting the fall of ECLA into “Liberal Protestantism” than the question of ordaining gays and lesbians! He says, “When I approved the ordination of women, which I did early on, I did not do so on the basis of my “reason” and “experience”. There are better biblical and theological arguments.” But he doesn’t give any nor does he give any theological arguments against ordaining gays!

Another document I read was by Pastor Chuck Olmstead. He ignored all the theological, etc. reasons and simply says, ‘our focus is the mission Jesus Christ. We are congregation  (church) reaching out beyond itself locally, regionally, and globally focused solely on its mission  “to encourage all people to know and love Christ”

Theologian Luke T. Johnson points to things we no longer follow that are in scripture, like slaves, slavery and women being ordained. “I think it important that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of scripture and appeal to another authority when we declare that same sex unions can be holy and good…We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience of thousands others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God created us. By so doing we explicitly reject as well the premises of scriptural statements condemning homosexuality-namely that it is a vice freely chosen symptom of human corruption and a disobedience to God’s created order.”

I have often wondered where people got the idea that homosexuality was something people brought on themselves. Luke Johnson sees it as a reflection of the scriptural statements. I have often asked those who condemn homosexuals as to why and the clear implication or answer is that they brought it on themselves. That has never been to my knowledge proven as a fact and Johnson’s conclusion that they were created that way makes more sense. So as God created many with human conditions, like blindness, or brain disease, we should treat them as Jesus said, “Love one another”.

This subject and how we read the Bible, could take another ten pages and never be fully covered. I might add some of those thoughts in my October Jottings. Until then Pax Tecum!

The picture shows the wind really blowing, bending those palms and creating waves that could be the beginning of a hurricane!  We have be been blessed so far this year with no hurricanes and little news about possible forthcoming hurricanes. We have had what we call normal summer weather, high temperature and thunderstorms almost daily. It doesn’t mean we won’t have a fall hurricane season but we can still hope it doesn’t materialize.

I feel I am improving in my health. I am still housebound. I go out only when June needs a ride somewhere and to church. Naturally too, I don’t believe the healing is coming fast enough so I have to watch my tendencies to overdue it. It is frustrating when you feel so much like yourself when sitting down for a while that when you try to walk a little more then usual without the walker, back comes the breathing problems. Being 80 years old I guess I shouldn’t complain when I see many younger men having more than just breathing problems. So we continue to be grateful for what we have and of course hope it gets better.

My son-in- law Tom Baker put some old audiotapes my brother Dick made of interviews with my mother and others. Dick speaks in some of his interviews of writing a book about how people could learn from mother’s actions how a good Catholic mother should handle parenting problems. But he apparently gave that up when Mother died in 1952 and decided to write a book on the “story of her life” and titled it “The More The Merrier”. Most of the interviews were between 1948, the year of Mom’s heart attack and hospitalization, and her death in 1952. At only one point in the some 73 tapes (of about 5-8 minutes each) did he mention a date and that was in 1951. It is my intention to talk about some of the material in these and future jottings. One thing I did learn is that I was mistaken in my previous jottings indicating that mother just wanted to be a teacher, and that is why she kept us busy in the summer time. The facts are she was a teacher. She taught for five years. She only stopped when she married Dad. She did as I noted win a right to attend the academically famous Girl’s High by passing a test. But after high school she went to Normal (Teaching) School two years and then taught first graders for five years. She had 50 to 60 first graders in the classes but she also had the help of another teacher. They split the day. One teaching the other going up and down the aisle to see how well the children were getting it. All the tapes were not of Dick interviewing. Two sets of them were talks given by Marge and Dan Walsh to groups in their parish on sex-education for children. On one tape Dick does give a date and it is December 6,1951. The tapes talk a great deal about how she cared for the children, starting with them as babies and then on. There is not as much about her life except one tape with Madeline, Dad’s sister, whom we called Madge. On that one they talk about friends of Mom’s and how Dad’s and Mom’s family met.

Frank McCourt has died. He is the author made famous by “Angela Ashes” The story of his early life in poverty in Limerick, Ireland. I still remember his story about his first communion. His mother and grandmother took him. His Grandmother was to host his special First Communion breakfast. They got to the church just in time for him to receive. He then goes to his grandmother’s for the big breakfast. He over eats and gets sick and runs out into the backyard and vomits. His grandmother is raging that God is now in garbage in her back yard! His grandmother takes him back to church and gets a priest to hear his confession. The priest tells him wash the host away with a little water. Grandma makes him go back and ask the priest if it should be holy water? He goes back and the priest is of course is surprised but tells him to use ordinary water and don’t bother him again. Grandma calls the priest a “bloody ignorant bogtrotter” McCourt also talked about the problem he had in receiving the communion wafer. I remember my own lessons in receiving first Holy Communion in a Catholic Church, which used the wafer. It was repeated to us many times not to let the host rest too long on your tongue but immediately swallow it. Of course McCourt doesn’t do that and it sticks for a while to the top of his mouth and then he finally gets it down. His grandmother taking him to confession also reminded me of our Dad taking my sister Anne and I to confession after we had been caught shoplifting in the local 5 & 10. In fact, Anne mentions the event to Dick when she is interviewed on the tapes mentioned above.

I mentioned in the beginning of these thoughts about living with my ailments I have since there are so many younger than I suffering a great deal more than I. After saying that I came across an article in the magazine “Christianity Today” that verified that. It is a testimony by a Harvard Law Professor, William J. Stuntz. He tells of having a back injury that required “two operations, dozens of injections, physical therapy, psychotherapy, and thousands of pills, my back and right leg hurt every waking moment, and most of those moments, they hurt a lot.” He then endures the break up of his marriage and then in 2008 the doctors found a “large tumor in my colon; a month later, films turned up tumors in both my lungs”. He then has two cancer surgeries and six months of intensive chemotherapy. “Cancer will very probably kill me with the next two years. I’m 50 years old” (Emphasis added) He goes on to testify that he still has great Faith in the Lord. He states: “God’s Son did something similar by taking physical pain on his divine yet still human person. He did not render pain itself beautiful. But his suffering made the enterprise of living with pain and illness larger and better that it had been before ”.  After reading this testimony I can hardly complain about a breathing problem. How he, the author, continues to teach is in itself a miracle of great determination!

I came across an old quote by John Mortimer. He is an English Barrister, playwright, novelist, and creator of “Rumpole of Old Bailey”. He wrote a biography entitled “Murders and Other Friends”. He mentions in there about his planning at one time to write a column and was considering using the title “Jottings of an Old Barrister”, or something like that. But then he came across a statement in another book about the author writing a column called ‘Jottings’. He reads that the column is filled with “random and frequently pretentious thoughts.” So he doesn’t use that title. It made me wonder if my jottings are filled with frequently random and pretentious thoughts? I don’t think so since most of the time I am reporting what others wrote, or I did, or family or friends did. It caused me though to go back and look to see when I started using that title. A review of the years 1992 to 1994 indicates the title was used once in ’92. Some of the others I used that year were “Memories”, “Paul’s Ponderings”, and “Paul’s Perambulations”(!) In 1993 I used it only once. One issue entitled “August Amblings” was eleven (11) pages! In 1994 I used the title Jottings in all but one month. The month of November I called it FOB (Father of the Bride), since my daughter Mary was married on the 12th day of that month. It was also the year I reduced the writings to four pages. I still recall my sister Therese, a Holy Child nun, commenting: “What do you do with all the paper?” I am sure she got plenty of suggestions.

August 15th will be the day to celebrate our marriage of 28yrs! I thank the Lord for such a loving and caring spouse who has taken care me ‘in sickness and in health’ all these years! In addition to that she brought me back to Faith for which I am eternally grateful.

We wish Mary Mac (June’s sister), my daughter Mary, and sons Paul and Dan, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Till next time Pax Tecum!

The month of July was for many years spent in Sea Isle City, New Jersey. The address was 11-45th St. and it was the second house from the beach. Tivanni’s owned the house between the boardwalk/ beach and us. They had a bocce ball court that ran from 45th Street along the side of our property all the way to the next property. When I would look out my third floor window towards the beach and the ocean, I could also look down and watch our neighbors playing bocce ball. But I usually couldn’t understand a word they were saying since they shouted at each other in Italian.

Sea Isle City is located south of Ocean City and north of Avalon on the Atlantic Ocean. The house was sold sometime in the 50’s and I believe my Dad purchased it in 1917. I think that because my oldest brother, Frank, who was born in 1913, spoke of his days as a boy going to Sea Isle. He later met members of the Oblates of Mary, a missionary group of priests, who vacationed there in those days. This was in the late 20’s. He had spent a year around that time in the Archdiocesan seminary in Philadelphia but left after that year. He was still interested in a priestly vocation and these Oblates gave him another view. He ultimately did join them and was ordained an Oblate in 1939. He spent the rest of his life as a missionary in the Philippine Islands ending up as the bishop of the Sulu Islands.

The house was very large, some three stories of living space and then an attic and a full basement. The basement held the shower where we went, sometimes seemingly in the dark, to rinse off after a visit to the beach. It had a porch that started on 45th street front and then ran the length of the house on the beach side to the rear and the across the rear of the house.

The house was covered in a material I had never seen before or since, slate. Slate is described as ‘a fine grained metamorphic (changed form) rock that splits into thin smoothed surfaced layers’, I suppose the reason is that it was too expensive or there just was not enough slate to use.  The porch was about eight to ten feet above the ground. From the porch floor to the ground there was wooden painted lattice works.  Many times with friends and classmates we painted this latticework and the porch. It gave me companions in the days when all of my brothers were gone and only a few sisters remained at home.

July was the month of my Dad’s birthday. It was one of the days, or the weekend nearest it, that would bring him down to the shore. He did not like the beach or shore. I can’t recall ever seeing him on the beach. For his birthday those still at home and at the 45th street house had to memorize a verse, or a prayer, etc. We would then recite it when he came. My mom had been such anexcellent student that she was the first from a parochial school system to enter Girls High in Philadelphia. Girls High was a school of outstanding academic students only. As a result she was thinking of entering the teaching profession. But then she met and married dad. The memorization idea was her way of being sure that her children did something mental while on vacation. The house was sold in the 50’s.  My mom had a heart attack in 1948 and never really was herself again and died in 1952.

With the sale of the house it would seem that my days at Sea Isle were finished. However in the seventies I started to run to lose weight and ended up running races of various distances from then on up to the 90’s. In the seventies there was a race held in Sea Isle. It started as a lifeguard’s competition and grew to a general run of the island. Interesting enough it started at ‘45th street’. The house was gone by the time we started these runs. But sometime in there my eldest sister Winifred and her husband purchased an old building that had been a bakery on 45th street closer to the main artery, Landis Avenue.  We used the house on a couple of occasions to change and shower. The run started on the boardwalk and went north to the end of the boardwalk and then onto the beach and it ended in an area called Strathmere. You turned around ran back on the beach to the boardwalk and then down the boardwalk to where it ended around 55th street. Originally you would then go down that street to Landis Avenue and head south to the end of the island at Townsend’s Inlet. Turn around and back to 45th street for the finish. It was quite a run and got tougher later when they took out the part of going down to Landis Avenue and you did the last part of the run on the beach. Hopefully we always prayed it would be low tide so we would have some semi-hard sand, but it didn’t always work out that way. They were my last days in Sea Isle City.

When our church has a rummage sale it also sells books. At one of them I saw a pocket book that caught my interest: “Charles Colson Loving God”. The name was familiar since I have lived through the Watergate scandal of the 70’s.  The book was published in 1987 and I supposed it was about Colson’s conversion to Christianity or to Faith. It was that and more. It was inspirational in its form and educational in all the examples he took from the Bible and deep traditions of the Christian faith. One thing that I thought I would read about was his family and his life after Watergate. It was not there. He did found a Prison Fellowship Ministry that still continues today. Another thing I learned is that he was imprisoned not because of his participation in Watergate matter but for devising a scheme to get and disseminate derogatory information on the Pentagon Papers Defendant, Daniel Ellsberg in 1971. At forty-three years of age he was special counsel to the President!

He had some great stories in the book. One I liked in particularly was that of having Barabbas and the two thieves who died with Christ together in a cell room discussing their beliefs. One was named David and the other Jacob. Then things began happening when they heard Barabbass name being shouted outside by the crowd. David sometime earlier had seen Christ in action. He talks about Christ coming into Jerusalem on a donkey and all the people talking about his miracles, preaching, etc. indicating he was the long awaited Messiah.It ends, as does the actual story, with David asking Christ to remember him when he comes into his paradise. Colson has seemingly written a book every year since then. The list I learned from the Encyclopedia comes right up to 2008!

Another book I read and liked was by Frank Collins, MD. He was in the news again this week. He was named by President Obama to head the NIH. The book he wrote was entitled “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief”. It was a best seller. Collins has been the head of the human Genome Project for some years. He can certainly qualifies for the name ‘genius’. He graduated from high school at 16. He wen to the Univ. of Va. and earned a degree in Chemistry. After graduation he earned a PHD in physical chemistry. He enters medical school and becomes a doctor. He became the head of the Human Genome Project. He is one of the world’s leading scientists. He became an agnostic. He was convinced that everything in the universe could be explained on the basis of equations and physical principles. He was an admirer of Albert Einstein. He fell in love with medicine. He learned more about the DNA code, which led him to eventually be the head of the project. As a doctor he experienced the care of patients. It was a new relationship to people, i.e., ill person and healer. He found himself struggling to keep his professional distance as advocated. But he begins to notice the spiritual aspects of the dying patients and their faith. He is confident that any full investigation of a rational basis for faith would deny the merits of belief. He stills has questions. He is given a book by C.S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” and begins to have belief. He writes, “Science is the only reliable way to understand the natural world, and its tools when properly utilized can generate insights into material existence. But Science is powerless to answer such questions as “Why did the universe come into being? What is the meaning of human existence? What happens after we die?” Humankind seeks answers to these profound questions. So we need to bring all the power of both the scientific and spiritual perspectives to bear on understanding of what both seen and unseen. The book is his answer. He later incidentally meets Charles Colson and they become friends. But they do not entirely agree on all the things of Christianity!

Until next time, Pax Tecum!

In the month of March a good friend of ours went to the Lord. He was Lewis Hagerman. He and his wife Joanne have been friends since we moved here. Early in those years we also met their son Lewis under rather unusual circumstances. We had him as a helper in our yard work. The way it happened is that the Youth Leader at church in order to raise money for activities, auctioned off the young men’s time, a day, to help wherever they could. We were the highest bidder for Lew. He was I’d guess 14-15 years old at the time when he came to help us. It just happened that the day he came was the same day we were having delivered a pygmy Palm tree. We had been assured when we purchased it that they would not only deliver it but also plant it. The delivery came with a driver and no helper. The driver then asked for help. Fortunately Lew was there and so we had the tree planted.

Lew senior comes to mind because in the program presented at his memorial service there appeared this quote:

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well-preserved body, but to skid in broadsides, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming WOW—what a ride!” (Anon.)

Lew suffered from cancer the last years of his life. It ate away his body. The quote is very applicable to the way Lew lived. He had no doubts that he would meet the Lord upon his journey’s end. So that that was more important than the body being well preserved. We visited him about a week before his death while he was under hospice care. He was admittedly looking very worn but his spirit was still there and we enjoyed his company and that of his children and his wife, Joanne.

The description of life’s journey in the quote is very applicable to me these days.   That once ‘well preserved body’ is slowly being used up. This body that ran a number of marathons and even a couple 50 K’s (31+ miles) is finding it tough now to even bend over and clip his toenails! But then being eighty years old should explain some of the loss. When I see others ten or more years younger struggling with their health I know I really have been blessed.

In the month of May just passed I reached that 80th birthday. When June reached her 70th we hosted a dinner to celebrate at a local restaurant. We had up to 30 or more friends attend. So we decided to do the same for my 80th. I prepared the invitation and we created a list of some thirty plus friends whom we would invite. Then June told me it would need to be on the 9th of May not the actually birthday the 16th. I assumed that the date change was due to the 16th not being available – later I found out the real reason for the change!  We received acceptances from the thirty or more friends and June who was in touch with the restaurant took care of notifying them. Then came the day, the 9th of May—I got one surprise after another as the day progressed! My children starting with the youngest boy, Danny started to appear until I knew that all but two would be with us at the dinner. I then asked June if the last two would also be present – and she admitted they would, for by now she was tired of keeping secrets. What a surprise! Then I received even another one when I arrived at the restaurant and found that three grandchildren would also be with us. The reason for the date change also became clearer. On the week after my birthday, on the 23rd, our first grandson, Tommy, was getting married. It was to be in Atlanta, GA. So in order to avoid my gang travelling two weekends in a row June changed the date of the dinner to the 9th. I unfortunately due to needing oxygen, etc. could not travel up to Atlanta to attend. But I was there in spirit!

The next day my children came to our home and showed me a DVD they made of interviews with friends and my sister Rosemary. There was one scene with all lawyers who were related to me. It was a fun to watch and listens especially three grandchildren, Aiden, Alex, and Owen tell of memories of their Pop-pop!

Thomas More (1478-1535) saint, author and lawyer, has been a name familiar to me since High School. Our high school, West Catholic, competed against St.Thomas More High School in track, basketball, and football. Both high schools were located in West Philadelphia. Then later when I became a lawyer I learned of an organization called “The Thomas More Society”. It was for Catholic lawyers. I would have qualified at that time for membership but I can’t recall that I ever joined that society. Recently I came across a book I had picked up over a year ago entitled “Portrait of Courage” by Gerald Wegemer. It set forth the life of Thomas More. He was an intellectual, prayerful lawyer father during the reign of Henry VIII of England. He lived in a period of historic turmoil referred to as the Reformation years. He is still remembered as the author of “Utopia” a story of an ideal community. It a word that is still used to day to describe the imagined perfect place like paradise, heaven, bliss, never-never land, etc. He as a young man was a page in the house of the then Chancellor of England and got to meet an even a younger man Prince Henry. This would be the Henry as King who would order his execution. This book was published in 1995. While I was reading it I found in the New York Book Review magazine a review of a book entitled “A Daughter’s Love: Thomas More and his Dearest Meg” by John Guy another biography of Thomas accenting his daughter and her intellectual feats and her love of her father. She had many visits with him when he was a prisoner for many months before his execution.

She tried to convince him he should take the oath that the King wanted. In effect that would be acknowledging his right to divorce and marrying Anne Boleyan and that he was the head of the Church. Many of the English Catholic hierarchy had done so. So, argued his loving daughter, than so should he. He said his conscience wouldn’t let him do it. In one of the books they referred to Thomas as a “conscientious objector”. It is of course an apt description of his behavior but in the years past whenever we heard about a conscientious objector it was usually in the attempt to avoid service, not accepting punishment for your beliefs.

Among his other writing Thomas wrote a life of King Richard III. He got most of his information from relatives that lived under Richard and his tyranny. It is believed that a lot of the material in the Shakespearean play “Richard III” was based on this information. His daughter could read and write in Latin and Greek. She translated from Latin into English a book written by another famous name of the times, Erasmus. The book was on the Our Father. She had it published under a male pseudonym, since woman were not either expected nor permitted to do such things. As the play and the movie suggest Thomas More certainly was a “Man For All Seasons”!

June is, or used to be, the month of graduations. On June 7,1947 I graduated from High School but none of my family were there to celebrate with me. They were all at my brother John’s wedding to Patricia Sheehan. That marriage produced five children only one of which, Gregory, survive in 2009. Richard, the oldest son, led us to Florida and to the area where we now reside. He and his wife Shirley brought a house in ‘Shore Acres’ of St. Petersburg, Florida. His wife still owns that property. We visited and lived there many times from 1991 on. In 1996 we decide we should buy a place to come to live in retirement. So we walked around ‘Shore Acres’ of St. Pete’s and ultimately found the house we now call ‘home’. We have now lived here for close to twelve years thanks to Rich and Shirley’s venture.

Until next time, Pax Tecum!

“Listen my children and you shall hear
of the midnight ride of Paul Revere”

So begins the classic story-telling verse by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I always believed, as I am sure many others did that this was history in verse form. But it turns out it was not an accurate report of the events that led to the battle at Lexington. The first surprise is that Paul never made it to Concord and to Sam Adams leader of the Sons of Liberty. He was captured by a British patrol but fortunately a Dr. Prescott was also aware of what was happening did make it and warned Adams. In addition there were other riders that night beside Paul and Doctor Prescott. The information about the lights from the church tower were not as reported. They were signals given by Paul Revere not to him. All of this does not in any way, and never has, diminished the poem the ‘Midnight Ride of Paul Revere’. “While it is true that Revere was not the only rider that night, that does not refute the fact that Revere was riding and successfully completed the first phase of his mission to warn Adams and Hancock.”

Incidentally, there were two other historic rides during that period of history that were successfully and bravely completed. One now has been commemorated with is his figure on the newly minted 1999 Quarter. He is Caesar Rodney who rode through the night some eighty miles, from New Castle, Delaware in July 1776 to reach Philadelphia in time to cast a vote on July 2, for Delaware at the Continental Congress in favor of the motion to declare our independence from the Crown. Caesar was an outstanding citizen of Delaware and served as the Speaker of their Legislature, was Governor, and a Justice on their Supreme Court.

In the early 70’s I ran a race from Caesar Rodney Square in Wilmington. There was a statue of Caesar on a horse in the middle of the square. The race was a half a marathon and was held early in April as I recall. It was usually a warm up for those guys who would be running Boston later in the month. The run went through the Dupont Estates and was not too hilly. I never learned of Caesar Rodney and his feats when I ran these races.  I never read what the plaque under the guy on the horse said. I guess I first learned about his deeds when he was pictured on the quarter. When I first read the material about how the poem, “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” was not historical fact it referred to the single men rides at the same historical time which were not recorded in verse. One of those was Caesar Rodney’s. Apparently he had to ride all night to get the signed agreement of the Delaware legislature re the independence declaration before the Continental Congress that day, July 2,1776. It is probable that if he hadn’t, that the motion to declare such independence would have been tabled again and we would needed to have wait for a third attempt. So his ride and arrival made possible the Declaration on that date (even though we celebrate it on July 4th).

Another significant ride in that period was one by Jack Jouett. He did a forty-mile dash through woods and wilds to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Legislature. At that time Jefferson was the Governor of Virginia. He wanted to warn them that British troops were heading their way. They had been chased out of Richmond by the British earlier and were in Charlottesville. But then the British decided to attack them there. Jouett made the ride first to Monticello; Jefferson’s home, and then over to Charlottesville to warn the legislature. Someone wrote a poem to honor his ride and it appeared in Charlottesville Daily Press in 1909. It started in these words:

“Hearken good people: a while abide
And hear of stout Jack Jouett’s ride;”

The poem is nowhere near the rhythm and lyricism of Longfellow’s and it is probably one of the reasons why most never heard of him or his ride.

Arlen Specter is back in the news. He changed his party designation from Republican to Democrat. He did it for the usual reasons Arlen does things, namely to take care of Arlen. A party designation was and is necessary to run for office, but it never meant a thing to Arlen. The number of registered Democrats in Pennsylvania jumped to 600,000 against 200,000 Republicans. This result came about due to the work of the Obama volunteers and the failure, I think, of President George Bush to acknowledge that the Iraq war was a mistake.

Arlen and I are contemporaries. He has been in politics since 1965 when he was Democrat appointed Assistant D. A. In 1965 he ran for D. A. on the Republican ticket even though he was still a registered Democrat! He changed his party designation when he won – this changing was continued right up to 2009. He has been an U. S. Senator since 1980. So the ‘big’ news is really not ‘big’ at all since it something Arlen has done many times in the past. In the year 2000 he published a memoir or biography entitled “Passion for Truth”. Its sub titles were “From Finding JFK Single Bullet to Questioning Anita Hill to Impeaching Clinton”. In a review of the book by Tom Ferrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer, said the book title was misnamed since the ‘search or journey’ of the Senator had been for “self-aggrandizement fueled by unbridled ambition’ Another review said that the book was an “ … unflattering autobiography. Only someone with the egotistic talents of Arlen could have achieved such a goal.”

In looking up information on Arlen I found something out I never knew, nor recall it been noted by the press, i.e., he has two sons. I don’t recall that their names and what they were or are doing have ever come to light. I suppose that is not unusual for a public official but it was surprising news to me. In an earlier Jottings I mentioned running into Arlen at a bar in Chestnut Hill. I was there after running some races at Ursinus College track. It was in 1974. He was at the end of the bar with Hillel Levison, the then City Manager under Mayor Frank Rizzo. I said hello and then got a comment from Specter to the effect that “there was McSorley still waiting in the wings”. He was referring to my failed attempt to win the Legislative seat in 1966. I assured him I wasn’t waiting… I was then a Commissioner on the Jury Commission and enjoying practicing law. It occurred to me that something might be going on between Arlen and Hillel since Hillel was a Democrat and his boss Frank Rizzo was running for second term on the Democratic ticket. My thoughts were that they were cooking up something re the campaign but then that was just a bad habit I had when thinking about Arlen and his politics. He was after all at that time the elected U. S. Senator from Pennsylvania and had a legitimate interest in the campaign for Mayor in its major city.

My breathing has not improved. I am on oxygen all the time. My diagnosis now is “pulmonary hypertension”. It is an increase in the blood pressure in one or more of the pulmonary blood vessels. Though they did not need to tell me, it leads to ‘shortness of breath, dizziness, fainting, and “other symptoms all of which are exacerbated by exertion”. “Pulmonary hypertension can be a severe disease with markedly decreased exercise tolerance and heart failure.”

We were prescribed a medication called “Letairis”. We then learned that a medical assistance group called “Caring Voice Coalition” was agreeing to pay for the part of the price of the prescription that we would have needed to pay. We had been advised it was very expensive- but nearly had heart failure when the organization disclosed to June that a month’s supply could cost five-thousand dollars!  It stunned me. I wondered when we learned this news how people with the disease could handle it without the aid of such a coalition! The drug is new having been approved by FDA only in 2007. I pray it works in a very short time!

The good news is that it is not the aortic valve or the work of the heart that is causing the oxygen loss. Now if this drug works we may even be walking around the block again!

Until next time keep us in your prayers and Pax Tecum!

“April is the cruelest month,
breeding Lilacs out of the dead land,
mixing Memory and desire,
stirring Dull roots with Spring rain.”

April means Spring is here and along with it a new life in all that surrounds us. It is a resurrection of the old.   Sometime ago I read the verse cited above and I couldn’t figure out why April was the ‘cruelest’ month. But recently it was pointed out to me that the poet called it such because come April there is new life all around us. Such a happening reminded the poet and us, that we are mortal. We don’t get a new life come Spring. Such a reminder to Eliot, a rather glum poet, was why it was ‘cruel’. As March ended I had an additional reminder of my mortality. I spent the last few days of the month back in the hospital. It appeared that I was heading for another attack of pneumonia. Thanks to the caring persistence of my loving wife I ended up in the emergency room and then the hospital. I came home late on the last day of March.

The Spring we see around us could also remind us that we would someday be reborn in eternity. That is certainly more encouraging thought than the one the poet expresses. Spring means Easter is coming. Easter comes with a resurrection and gives hope to all our doubting.

One of my favorite writers and thinkers, as you probably know if you’ve read any of these Jottings, is C. S. Lewis. He was a contemporary of T.S. Eliot. In fact they were both “outsiders” in England. Lewis had come from Ireland and Eliot from America. Lewis had written poetry early in his life and even published a book of such under a pseudonym.  But he never pleased himself with his poetry and didn’t pursue it. Eliot became rather famous in London with his new style of poetry. A commentator reports Lewis reaction thusly: “Eliot’s poetry profoundly dismayed Lewis… This would never change. There was not question of jealousy, Tolkien (J.R.R. Tolkien, a close friend of Lewis’) would say, but there was certainly a clash between two worlds: the classical and the traditional versus the free and the modern, ‘stock responses’ (solid forms and shapes, conventional symbols) versus new images and subjective thought associations, that according to Lewis testified only to ‘sensibility in decay’.

Garrison Keillor, journalist and humorist, reported in one his recent columns about some claims for disability. It seems he read about people getting tax-free income for disabilities that hardly seemed to amount to such. He cited for an example a policeman in Maryland who twisted his back was given a disability release. He then passes the physical for being a school guard and takes on that job. In other cases he cites disability being given for such ailments as motion sickness, acid reflux, and halitosis! He then complains that as a member of The Authors Guild he should be getting disability protection. “In my line of work, disability comes down to two things, memory loss and something else, I forgot what” I certainly can sympathize with him about that disability! I not only forget words but ideas that I wanted to write in these ramblings. I have the additional handicap of being a bit older and it seems that memory is one of things that goes first. I lament, as do others, that the fat cells in the body don’t seemed to disappear as quickly as the brain cells!

In between reading fiction by Paterson and Grisham, I’ve been reading a biography of Thomas More, entitled “Portrait of Courage”. More, “The Man for All Seasons”, is the author of the classic novel “Utopia”. I learned of many other books he had written. One was the life of “King Richard III” which became the basis for the Shakespeare’s play about the King. More obtained most of his information about Richard from his relatives who had lived under the King or shortly thereafter. More was executed by Henry VIII for his failure to agree to the marriage of the King to Anne Boylan and his founding of a new church. I am still in the process of reading it but some things impressed me already. One was a line in the introduction that read: “More was a great talker and constant joker. Such qualities can endear, but they can often irritate. When moderated they can become virtues, but when indulged in they necessarily cause strife.” It was a reminder to me of my urge to tell stories is something I really should control a bit more than I do. One thing I try to do is suggest to myself that I am just dosing out a tranquilizer, i.e. humor, which is the one tranquilizer without any side effects. It is an interesting excuse but nevertheless is still that i.e., an excuse. On Sunday April 5th the NYTimes Book Review reviewed a book entitled “A Daughter’s Love: Thomas More and His Dearest Meg” by John Guy. It indicates that Thomas More’s life remains a topic of interest.

Another thing I read reminded me that  “history repeats itself”. In 1517 there occurred what was called “Evil May Day” There was a tension between foreign and native residents or as in our day between citizens and immigrants. A riot broke out. The best description of the events was by Shakespeare. The Mayor and two Earls spoke to the crowd with out success. Then More addressed them with success, at least temporarily.

“If you yourselves were exiled from your homeland, Would you be pleased to find a nation of such barbarous temper that breaking out in hideous violence would not afford you an abode on earth, whet their detested knives against your throats, spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God owned not nor made not you…?”  Similar words could apply today of the manner in which some consider immigrants. History does repeats itself.

More was qualified as a lawyer at the Lincoln’s Inn. Now I have heard of the various Inns, or law schools, in England but Lincoln being a name back in 1500 was a bit of surprise. I wondered if it had any connection to our Abe Lincoln. A bit of searching told me really nothing in that it noted, “The Honorable Society of Lincoln’s Inn is said to take its name from Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln who died in 1311. However, the origins of the name may easily be derived from Robert de Chesney, Bishop of Lincoln who acquired the
‘old Temple’ on the site of the present Southampton Buildings in 1611, he was the king’s Chancellor…”

I never thought of “Lincoln” as being such an historic name (other than in America) certainly not going back as far as 1161. I never read that Abe bothered to find out anything about his genealogy since he spent most of him time planning and being ready for the future. Typically a very practical guy, I came across a quote of his epitomizing this. In his first campaign he said: “If elected I will be thankful. If beaten, I can do as I have been doing, work for a living.” It is a wonder that those who love to deride politicians never came across this statement to use to show that politicians ‘don’t work for a living’!

April is still considered a cruel month for some in that it is the month in which our income taxes are due. We could not believe that here people out there still trying to contend that ‘income taxing’ is unconstitutional. The 16th Amendment permitting it was passed in 1913. The amendment grants “…the power to lay and collect taxes on income…without apportionment among the several states” There are several organizations of ‘tax deniers’ who try argue that income taxing is unconstitutional or that they don’t fit the definition of a ‘person’ as used in the Internal Revenue Code.  All of which has led to many of them be prosecuted for failure to pay taxes and ending up in the penitentiary. So for them April is a very cruel month!

We  continue to be restricted in our movement and breathe with oxygen pumped in, so any and all prayers are appreciated. Pax Tecum!

CAESAR: Who is it in the press that calls me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry “Caesar!” Speak. Caesar is turned to hear.
SOOTHSAYER: Beware the Ides of March. (Julius Caesar 1.2)

Though so warned he did not listen nor heed.  Many years ago we were ‘beware’ of the ides of March since on that day our Income Tax was due. The warning by the IRS was enough for us to heed. We made sure we met the deadline. It also should have reminded me to be aware of “ides plus two”, March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day! Usually, before 1992, I spent a good deal of time drinking too much. In that year with the help of my loving and caring wife and AA I gave up drinking. But for many years before that, I like Caesar, did not listen nor heed the warnings I received. It wasn’t till after I sobered up that I learned anything about St. Patrick. In 1995 I received from my daughter Mary, copy of Thomas Cahill’s “How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe”. His opening sentence was so true. “The word Irish is seldom coupled with the word civilization.”  But then he goes onto explain how Rome and its empire fell and European barbarians descended on the Roman cities, looting artifacts and burning books. The Irish, who were just learning to read and write, took up the great labor of copying all of Western literature. These scribes served as means through which the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultures were transmitted to the tribes of Europe. Without the scribes what happened in history next would have been unthinkable. By these acts the Irish could be said to have saved the old and begun a new civilization called “Medieval”. They alone by their actions inspired and led by Patrick preserved the best of the ages of the Roman Empire. There was cause to celebrate such acts but there is not a word in the book reporting that drinking as much as you can was the way that was done. One of the thoughts in the book, which stayed with me was this:  “Patrick’s gift to the Irish was his Christianity- the first de-Romanized Christianity in human history, a Christianity without the sociopolitical baggage of the Greco-Roman world, a Christianity that completely incultrated itself into the Irish scene. Through the Edict of Milan, which had legalized the new religion in 313 and made it the new emperor’s pet, Christianity had been received into Rome, not Rome into Christianity! Roman culture was little altered by the exchange, and it is arguable the Christianity lost much of its distinctiveness.” This is one of Cahill’s main points in the book; namely that Patrick brought a new type of Christianity into being. One that he argues is the ‘real’ Christianity. It seems that a ‘new type’ of Christianity is not accurate. It is more like going back to the Christianity of the years prior to 300 AD.

One of the writing referred to in Cahill’s book is Patrick’s “Confession”. In 2004, thanks to another daughter, Mary Lou, I received a book entitled “The Wisdom of St. Patrick” by Greg Tobin. In it St. Patrick’s written record the “Confession” is expounded upon to show us how we might think and feel. The author expresses his “intention is to glean some relevant spiritual principles from the saint’s writings and to comment there upon, to identify how Patrick’s own life and times were reflected in his writing, to find application in our daily life -”. He does this by taking different virtues and conditions alluded to by Patrick in the confession and ask us to think of how Patrick explains them. It is the type of book that at anytime you can pick it up turn to anywhere in it and it starts you thinking of how you are applying the virtues or the gospel in your life.

The day before the ‘ides’in1972 my Dad died. He died in my home and I last saw him when I took him home that morning after attending Mass, his daily habit. I talked about a marathon I was going to run in New York. He expressed very little interest in the event since for him such running was beyond necessity. He was a walker most of his life and keep in shape in that manner. Now at 85 he did very little. He was laid out on St. Patrick’s Day. In those day they had the casket open and it sat between where the pews ended and the altar rail was. He caused my sister Winnie a bit of a problem in that he had worn only a black tie from the time my Mother died, in 1952. Professionals then wore a coat and tie daily. Being buried on St. Patrick’s Day she wanted him to be wearing a green tie. She was fortunate to find that her husband Paul had one and it was used in place of his usual black one. So also was continued the tradition of St. Patrick’s Day, even in his coffin, for the ‘wearin’ of the green’.  There was a song using those words that I recall and a tradition in those days that the first McSorley to play it on the piano that day got a buck! I never made any money that way.

The marathon referred to was the one held in New York. It was either the original New York Marathon or maybe its second. It was held in Central Park in those days not run through all of the boroughs of New York. It started at “Tavern on the Green” and you did three laps around the park each for me taking about an hour. It was the one where I had the company of two of my older brothers, Patrick and Jim, both priests. They had been with us for my Dad’s funeral.  I reported on it before that my brother Pat thought ‘marathons were great’ since he and Jim sat in the Tavern and came out each hour as I passed the starting line!

We now have a new memory of the month of March. This month we were the objects of an unsuccessful scam. I answered the phone and the voice told me it was my grandson David. His voice was a bit strange but he explained it by saying he had a cold. As my good wife pointed out later that certainly shouldn’t have given him a somewhat British accent! He told me he was at a pay phone in St. Jerome, Quebec. He was being allowed to call though he was in jail and 20 people were waiting to use the phone. He said he was up there with a few friends (whose names we got later) skiing and had a car accident. Here was another point that should have clued me in since I never heard my grandson even talk about skiing. But I failed again. He said since he had been drinking (only one beer, of course) he was charged with a DUI. Our grandson is an alcoholic and had had a couple of DUI’s. The caller went on and said he had a lawyer named Cohen, and asked if I knew him. Indicating whomever it was calling knew I was a retired attorney. The bottom line was that his lawyer had made a deal that if they paid all the damages he would be released! The damages he said came to $5200! At that point I turned the phone over to June who in short order told them no way without more evidence would she send any money. He, the caller, then said his lawyer would call back in an hour. As soon as he hung up June called David our grandson. He was at work in Aberdeen, MD. Thus confirming it was a scam. When the caller called back he said he was the lawyer and kept trying to get June to send money by wire. He wouldn’t give us an address. Then he started to lower the amount. He wouldn’t acknowledge whether he had identified the David as David Hopkins. Eventually June wore him down and he hung up. We had hoped we could get an address or something but didn’t succeed.  The scary part is the things that they knew, e.g., our house phone number, knew June’s first name, knew David had had one DUI, knew he would say he didn’t want his parents to know, etc. We learned later that most of what they knew could be found on the Internet! But once again thanks to the knowledge and stamina of June we were saved!

As we approach the middle of the month of March, I noted we have another Friday the Thirteenth. I don’t suffer “from a fear of calendrical calamity on that day” People who do so are know as ‘friggetriskaidekaphobes.’ (phew!)

Not the kind of name you would usually call or yell at a person ! I learned all this from an article in the newspaper that was noting 2009 was a year of three Friday’s the Thirteenths: One in February, One in March and One in November. The last time this occurred was in 1998 and the next time will be in 2012. All this important (?) information about the calendar I was sure you would want to know!

Until next time, Pax Tecum!

The Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States and all the events surrounding it seemed to swallow up the last days of January. The event even became a part of our Sunday service on the 25th in that the preacher, our young intern, used the event as an analogy. The gospel story for the day was of Jesus passing the fishermen Simon and Andrew and telling them to ‘come follow’ him and he would make them fishers of men.  It was the ‘inauguration’ of Christ’s ministry. Both the new President and Christ offered tools to carry out their mission, The intern  said, Christ by way of the beatitudes, parables, and the acts of the early Church. The new President offered a change in the ‘divided house’, by a renewal of the individual’s ability to do so – “you can”! He gave us reasons to hope using the words of George Washington, “that in the depth of winter of our hardship when nothing but hope and virtue could survive..that the country..came forth to meet it”

I later pointed out to the Intern, Aaron DeBendetto, that he omitted one other ‘inauguration’, namely his becoming a father and ordained Minster. He and his wife Meredith are expecting a daughter this month!

We had some first for the McSorleys in this campaign and inauguration. Grandson Tommy marched in the parade. His Mom and Dad, and sister Linda all went to D.C. to watch the swearing in ceremony. His Uncle Bill also went to watch the country receiving a new president. His dad and his uncle both worked for Obama’s election for over a year before it occurred. During that Tom had a picture taken with the then candidate Obama. Grandson Tom was a participant in the parade as a member of the Americorp. It is, as I understand it, an organization of young college grads that take on jobs like Tom did in “Teach America”. He was selected for the parade in a lottery, which picked 150 of the organization as participants. He incidentally carried the state flag of Florida in that march. We tried to catch a glimpse of him as he marched past the President and Vice President and their wives, but they weren’t on camera long enough to do so.

In all the years I was active in politics I never went to an inauguration. The closest I ever got to a President was watching John Kennedy coming north in a convertible on Broad Street in Philadelphia during his campaign in 1959. My Dad and I left our law office, also on Broad Street, and went down to see him drive by. He gave us a wave! But Tom, his wife Donna, daughter Linda, and Bill weren’t the only ones to see an inauguration for the first time since the crowd on the Mall was the largest ever for such an event.

Putting Kennedy and Obama together in this writing brought back another thought: They were as far as I know they only Presidents, other than possibly Thomas Jefferson, who at the time they were inaugurated had published a book. In fact Obama had published two: “Dreams of My Father”(1995) and “The Audacity of Hope” (2006)

At the end of October 2008 on the advice of a respiratory specialist, I took a sleep test. From that test it was determined that I stopped breathing up to 15 times or so an hour. The specialist thus recommended that I start inhaling oxygen as I slept and the rest of the day. So began my being tied to a leash. When I sleep I use a mask to receive the air and a machine humidifies it before it is blown into my system. I have mentioned this condition before but then the climax has to be that my son-in-law and good friend, Ron Yake, sent me a book entitled “THE INVENTION OF AIR” by Stephen Johnson. It has a subtitle. “ A Story of SCIENCE, FAITH, REVOLUTION, and THE BIRTH OF AMERICA”. “The book came to me early January and I thought it appropriate that Ron should send me something about “air” in view of it now being provided to me by machine to make up the loss of it being circulated in my body. The book is a biography of Joseph Priestly and an early inventor, minister, and politician in the time of the American Revolutions.  He dabbled in electricity before hitting upon oxygen. Now the title alone, “Invention of Air”, is a bit amusing in that he didn’t do so. Air is there, and here, etc. and we along with the animals and plants use it. As the author notes, “…there was little reason to think there was anything to investigate: the world was filled with stuff – people, animals, plants, sprigs of mint – and then there was the nothingness between all the stuff. Why would you study nothingness when there was such a vast supply to explain? There wasn’t a problem in the nothingness that needed explaining…the lack of a clear problem kept the questions at bay, and the lack of questions left the problems as invisible as the air itself.”  But maybe, says the author, it was because now in 1770 they had new tools with which to explore it. One particular tool that brought this about was an ‘air pump’. It could create a vacuum, or absence of air, and a candle would go out, etc. And so goes the story of Priestly getting into trying to discover just what was this ‘stuff’.

The book was the subject of a review in the New York Times Book Review for January 25,2009. I can not remember ever owning a book before it was so reviewed. I have, in the past, because of the review gone out and purchased a book. So Ron gave me another ‘first’! I recall the name Joseph Priestly from my readings of the life of Jefferson. However I didn’t recall him as specifically being the one who led Jefferson to becoming a Deist. The beliefs of Priestly caused his home to be destroyed in England and his leaving for America. Even here he had, after being well received and praised for his work, a run-in with Adams and the politics of the day nearly causing for him another ouster. His friendship with Jefferson and Jefferson becoming President in 1801 solved all those problems.

Priestly didn’t believe in the divinity of Christ. Jefferson didn’t either. Jefferson took the New Testament and cut out the sayings and acts of Jesus that to Jefferson made Him to be a ‘good moral teacher’. He put these items in vertical rows, the first in Greek, the next the Latin and last row in English. This was his “New Testament”. This editing by Jefferson reminds me of the analysis by C.S. Lewis. Lewis asks, how could Christ be a ‘good moral teacher’ if he lied? He says this because in the gospels Christ  said, he was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies some twenty one times; he said he was the ‘Son of God’ twenty times; the ‘Messiah’ or ‘Christ’ seventeen times, etc. You could go on and enumerating all the statements he makes of being the Savior, the Son of Man, etc. So the ‘selective’ reading by Jefferson and others, with claims of him being a good moral teacher lose their validity. Priestly and Jefferson don’t seem to be very ‘scientific’ when it comes to checking out Christ’s divinity. Their overlooking his claims of his divinity in effect ignores what are stated facts.

Sometime ago I lost my wedding ring. It falls off my finger when my hands get cold. It had happened before but I then saw it drop off or heard it hit the ground. This time I couldn’t find it. I left messages at the places I had been that day. It became the subject of a story.  That I was on a leash now because I lost my wedding ring and June put me on that leash. Actually she didn’t tell anyone that, but I made believe she did. Then I was lucky and found the ring. It was in the car door on the driver’s side. I must have been looking for something in the pocket like section on the side of the door and the ring fell off. Until the weather warms up I’m keeping it on my key ring. Oh! Yes! I’m still on a leash but this time just to keep the oxygen coming into my system.

Until next time, Pax Tecum!

“Janus, the Roman god for whom January is named, is a twin faced deity, the god of gates and doorways. He is a god of transition. This New Year’s Day, many must feel the two views look about the same for Janus: One face looks upon the economic havoc of 2008; the other sees more of the same for 2009. But there is reason to hope. The moment of sobriety, for all its inherent pain, offers great promise. In it, leaders have the opportunity to help focus us on common goals, eliciting self-sacrifice and ingenuity, for a brighter future.” (St. Petersburg Times, 1/1/09)

The thoughts expressed in the above quoted paragraph were similar to what I wanted to write that I just made them part of this Jotting! As I look forward, I hopefully see some good things are going to be happening in 2009. Looking back I see many things for which to be thankful.

The pastor at the first service of the year alluded to “Janus” and added something I had never heard of before. It was that the face looking back is an ‘old’ one and face looking forward ‘young’. This makes sense since the past is always old and the future young!

“Tempus Fugit!” (Time Flies!) Or so it seems when you are at my age. Even though I am less active than when I was younger, I still find getting all my projects done in the prescribed time gets tougher and tougher. In looking back to review what has passed, it occurs to me that it is too bad I don’t keep a diary or journal. Well, the thought is a good one but experience has taught me it doesn’t fill the bill most of the time. I did keep a journal in the years 2001 through most of 2004, but when I went back to read them I found more trivia than important memories. I recently came across two of my favorite writers, P.D. James and C.S. Lewis commenting on keeping a diary or journal. C.S. Lewis writes, “…a diary is nothing so useful as I had hoped. You put down each day what you think is important, but of course you cannot each day see what will prove to have been important in the long run.” P.D. James the author of some eighteen books who wrote one entitled “A Time To Be In Earnest”. The book was a record of her life from age 77 to the 78. She has just published (2008) another entitled “The Private Patient: An Adam Dalgliesh Mystery”.  I note in the info about her in that book that she was 80 years of age in the year 2000, so she is publishing this one in 2008 and 88 years of age! The title to the book “A Time to be in Earnest” is taken from and adage by Dr. Sam Johnson which reads, “At Seventy Seven, it’s time to be in earnest”. In the book, “A Time to be in Earnest” she agrees with Lewis that keeping a diary is difficult since you must determine each day what is ‘important’ enough to record. She doesn’t bother with daily reports in the book but generally scans weeks or so at a time. She concentrates on evens as the happened within the year. Lewis had one good comment about keeping a diary. I brought even more appreciation to him of the biography of Dr. Johnson by Boswell. He writes: “The only good I got from keeping a diary was that it taught me a just appreciation of Boswell’s amazing genius. I tried very hard to reproduce conversations, in some of which very amusing and striking people had taken part. But none of these people came to life in the diary at all. Obviously something different from mere accurate reporting went into the presentation of Boswell’s Langton, Beauclerk, Wilkes, and the rest” (All are men with whom Dr. Johnson chats in Boswell’s biography) It is an interesting coincidence that both authors in talking about keeping a diary end up mentioning Dr.Samuel Johnson. I learned in reading P.D. James’ book on the year from 77 to 78 that she was and is an ardent fan of Dr. Johnson and considered him a better writer than William Shakespeare!

We had many wonderful things happen in 2008 so it is difficult to class one as more wonderful than another. One that I have mentioned before in these Jottings but still calls for comment, is the sacrifice, the graciousness, and love exhibited by June in going north for nearly two months to a take care of Katherine, my former spouse. Katherine had another knee operation and would be incapacitated for some time. June had taken care of her after her first knee operation. Son once again she lived with her, fed her and many relatives and friends, saw she got her vitamins and medicine, and tried to make her take some exercise. There is no classifying these actions. They are the acts of a loving and caring woman that I have been blessed to call my wife.

While we were up north we also got to attend the graduations of granddaughter, Kate Bake, Linda McSorley, and Kelly Golden. Kate and Linda went on to college, Kate to Princeton, and Linda to Fordham. Kelly went to a job in Baltimore. We also had the opportunity while down in Maryland to spend some time in Shirley McSorley’s home in Northeast, MD. We had our twin grandsons, Dave and Sean Hopkins, join us there for a time. They were back to living together in Aberdeen, MD. June also managed to make some extra food for them to take along when they returned to their apartment. We ended our stay up north at our favorite New Jersey shore resort, Avalon. It was a gift of a week there from son Bill for Christmas. We had many visitors, some staying and others passing through. We left there on June 16th and arrived home in Florida on the 18th.

The election of a black man as President is of course an historic event. We noted this in our November Jottings. But there is another somewhat historic event in his election in that the White House now has two young children also living there. In my lifetime there have been other children living with their parent President, but not as young as I recall. The last time such young children resided there were with John Kennedy. It is interesting that the one surviving child and member of that family, Caroline is now seeking take Hilary Clinton’s place as the Senator from New York. Unfortunately comes the thought of how John Kennedy ended his stay, i.e., being assassinated which we hope and pray will not be Obama’s fate.

Another war rages as we write. This one is between Israel and Palestinians, or Hamas. The United Nations among others condemned it with a 14-0 vote for a cease-fire. The U.S. abstained! Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State explained that U.S. ‘fully supported’ the vote but because of the negotiations between Egypt and Hamas they had abstained. How do you “fully support” a resolution but abstain from voting for it? Couldn’t we have voted in favor of it and then spoke of our continued support of the negotiations? I learned later that Condoleezza Rice was the initiator of the resolution! Then she was ordered to not vote for it by the President. The Press alleges he did so at the request of the Prime Minster of Israel! It reminds me of the way Bush treated the UN in 2003 when they informed Colin Powell that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq nor were they believe any ‘terrorist’ residing therein. Their message was ignored then and now the President says, “Not finding weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment” He fails to mention the evidence he had from the UN in 2003 but as with other UN actions he ignored it. It is a wonder that he even bothered to continue having a representative as part of the UN. His actions as I recall were one of the reasons Colin Powell left the office of Secretary of State. It is no wonder that most of the nation in the last two and half years, according to Gallup Polls, lost confidence in the leadership of President Bush.

I would never have made it as a diplomat. We assume these actions are politically motivate, but then aren’t they all – regardless of who is President? Obama claims that won’t be so in his administration but only time and history will prove that. I am happy I am not obliged to answer that question and look forward to a New Year, a New President, and New Ideas to help us live happier and better lives in the “land of the free and home of the brave”!

We wish you all good health and happiness n the year 2009 and until next time Pax Tecum! (Peace be with you!)