Praying Before Mass, and Stuff From the Shed

The parish church is the sanctuary where we celebrate Mass. It's also the hall downstairs where we meet. There's the rectory, too. And, in the case of Our Lady of the Angels church, there's a parking lot across the street with a shed in the northeast corner.

Here's what the sanctuary looked like before Mass today. Folks were praying the Rosary when I took that photo. It's a group thing that quite a few of us do: one of those 'options' Catholics have.


Our Lady of the Angels church sanctuary, before Mass. September 5, 2010.

After Mass, Father Statz had a few announcements. Including one about the shed across the street. Stuff, he explained, had been getting put in there for - years. Lots of years. This year we got to the point where more stuff wouldn't fit inside.

The Knights of Columbus in town got a work crew together, and unstuffed the shed. We now had an empty shed, and stuff lying around it.

This was progress, no kidding.

Father Statz said that whatever was in the shed was there to be picked up by whoever wanted to take it away. Also that what was left by this morning was a picked-over lot of stuff.

I took a look at the shed after Mass: Father Statz was right.


Our Lady of the Angels church parking lot, stuff from the shed. September 5, 2010.

Still, someone may have a use for the bits and pieces left. Or decide to haul it to the dump for the church. Either way, it's out of the shed now. Now we can start putting more stuff inside.

The point of this post, if there is one, is that there's more to being Catholic than candles and prayers, meditation and Mass. Sometimes the shed needs emptying.

Somewhat-related posts:

• "Religious Art in the Home: We Like It"
  (August 31, 2010)
• "Photos and Faith in Sauk Centre"
  (August 22, 2010)

Pedophobia? The Doctor has a Point

It's Saturday of Labor Day weekend here in America, so I'll let something I saw in the news do the 'heavy lifting' of this post.

'No Children Until We're Ready,' 'Every Child a Wanted Child:' Sounds So Nice

Wouldn't it be nice, if young people could have the fun of getting married and having exciting and rewarding careers, and not have to put up with changing diapers and finding out why the baby woke up screaming at 3:00 a.m.?

Maybe. It'd also be nice if everybody had the sort of good looks that screen stars have after makeup and photo retouching. Maybe.

These days, quite a few people are able to conceive children and put them in cold storage until after they've had some fun. Then, thanks to techniques that can be put to better uses, if they feel like it, they can see which children have the qualities they want.

The "wanted children" get to live. The others are thrown away and die.

That's nice for the couple: they get to collect more money and live it up while they're comparatively young; and then have kids that meet their qualifications.

It's a little rough on the people who get thrown out with the rest of the medical waste: but they weren't 'wanted,' so it's okay.

Or, not.

Based on my own experience, an unplanned child who wouldn't pass eugenics screening might very well prefer being alive to the alternative.

Afraid of Children? Maybe

If today's western culture isn't afraid of children, we're certainly quite ambivalent toward them. With some reason. Many of us have bought into the idea that the individual - particularly the one we refer to as "me" - is of first importance.

So far, so good: Each of us is important. Even if we don't match some standard of physical perfection, we're still made in the image of God. (December 18, 2009)

Those two hypothetical young people who don't want to be bothered with kids yet are important. And so are the kids they'll have someone throw away a few years from now.

We're all important. Which, I think, is why each of us can't act as if that particular "me" is the only person around - or the only one that matters.

Here's an excerpt from what started me writing this post:

"Italian Doctor Condemns Culture That Fears Children"
Catholic News Agency via EWTN News (September 3, 2010)

"According to an Italian neonatal doctor, 'pedophobia'-the fear of children-is an obstacle to the realization of the full rights of children today. In an article published in L'Osservatore Romano to mark the 20th anniversary of a U.N. convention for children's rights, he made a case for making children, born and unborn, more accepted in society.

"Doctor Carlo Bellieni is a frequent contributor to L'Osservatore Romano on issues of health care, especially bioethics. In a Thursday article to mark the anniversary of the U.N.'s Convention on the Rights of the Child, he addressed a recent report that said children are still 'invisible' two decades after its adoption. The 1990 U.N. convention promoted 54 articles outlining special safeguards and care for the children of the world...."

"...Based on today's worldview, Dr. Bellieni extrapolated, the child only has rights if it meets certain set standards, an idea that he called a 'terrible premise for universal rights.'

"The inability of many to accept the child, said the doctor, derives from the fact that adults today have a difficulty acknowledging human dependence. A child, he explained, 'obliges us to recognize our personal fragility and dependence - something that deep down scares us.'

"Emphasizing that it is 'a scared and phobic society that rejects the child,' he listed several signs the fear of children existing in contemporary culture.

"Children, he said, are no long left to 'simply play' on their own and 'get dirty,' for example. It is 'a pedophobic society,' he pointed out, that only allows a baby to be born after it is submitted to a battery of tests, which sees them as a 'parents' right,' which sees parents 'freeze them as small embryos only to (later) suffocate them with toys to cover their own incapacity to be present.'

"The 'pedophobic culture' also reaches schools, he asserted, pointing to how children are bombarded with information as if they were adults, when the children are just 'desperately in search of free social and creative games.'..."

Sure, kids need to learn quite a bit to make it later in their lives - but they also need, I think, to learn how to be kids. And that's another topic.

Related posts:

• "Is it Wrong to Kill One Person on the Chance that Someone Else Might Benefit?"
  (August 30, 2010)
• "A Social Worker, a Stubborn Latina, and Another Hispanic Baby"
  (May 21, 2010)
• " 'Your Life, Your Choices is Back"
  (August 23, 2009)
• "Face Transplant: We Can Do it, But is it Right?"
  (May 6, 2009)
• "Medical Ethics and Human Experimentation: Why I Take it Personally"
  (February 3, 2009)
• "Human Clones Possible: Don't Worry, They're Just for Parts and Research"
  (February 2, 2009)

Aspergers, Meditation, Tolerance and a Loud Pump

I spent the morning, and part of the afternoon, in St. Cloud, Minnesota, today: getting tested for Aspergers syndrome. Among other things. I know: Aspergers is something that's diagnosed in children. The screening I took for that is clearly aimed at pre-teens. What I'm doing now is following the 'better late than never' principle. About a half-century late, in my case.

I'll be going back in about two weeks. The testing was supposed to be a one-day thing, but after talking with me, the doctor decided that she'd cast a wider net. I sometimes inspire that reaction in people.

All of which explains why I saw a sign that would have read something like "chapel" back when my hairline was near the front of my head.

Not a "Chapel"

A sign in a sort of vestibule reads:

"Welcome
---To Rest
---To Think
---To Pray
---To Be"

I thought having a room like this - and presenting it in this way - was a pretty good idea.


"Meditation Prayer Room" at CentraCare Health Plaza, St. Cloud, Minnesota. September 3, 2010

I also realized that someone could be terribly affronted, offended, and/or appalled at those words. For a number of - reasons? Let's say for a number of points. I'm not convinced that reason has all that much to do with this sort of negative reaction.

I'm exaggerating the points for the sake of clarity and brevity. Not by much, though, in some cases.

• The name of the room is wrong
  • Those rooms are "chapels"
  • Meditation is Satanic
  • Prayer is superstition
• The words in the vestibule are wrong
  (To rest, think, pray, be)
  • "To be?!" That's New Age evil!!
  • Those rooms are "chapels"
  • I don't like it

Most folks, I think, at least in this part of America, have gotten used to the idea that this isn't the fifties or sixties any more, and have the common sense to use the room for the uses outlined: to rest, think, pray, and just to "be" for a few minutes.

The room itself is quite restfully designed and decorated. In my opinion. I hope it's a sunny day two weeks from now, when I come back: I'm curious to see what it looks like with sunlight coming in through the skylight.


Restful colors, water sculpture: and a loud pump. September 3, 2010

That dark shape is a sort of water sculpture - and represents the only criticism I've got for the place. The sound of running water is quite pleasant and soothing - and water has symbolic significance in my background that could start useful meditations.

Just one problem: The pump inside the water sculpture makes about as much sound as the water running over the shapes. I like mechanical sounds, as a rule: but this didn't fit the ambiance.

The stained glass is in a pleasantly abstract pattern - without religious significance as far as I could tell.

The chairs, the colored glass, that sculpture and the loud pump are what first caught my attention when I entered the room. Looking around, I found - what else, in a place like this? Gideon Bibles.


Gideon Bibles: They're everywhere. September 3, 2010

Also a Bible without "Gideon" on the front, and some other literature.

"Meditation Prayer Room" - Why am I Not Offended?

Rooms like that were generally called "chapels" when I was growing up. Then, as now, they provided a place where folks could sit and sort out thoughts, feelings, and memories. It's nice to be able to do that in a quiet setting - particularly if we're either waiting to learn what 'the results' are, or have just gotten unsoothing news.

If it were just for me, I'd like a place like that to have a crucifix where that water sculpture is, pictures of saints on the walls - St. Jude comes to mind - and a basin of holy water at hand. Naturally enough, since I'm a practicing Catholic.

Not everybody in central Minnesota is. We've got Protestants (Lutherans, Baptists, you-name-it), Jews, folks who don't approve of God being around, and - for quite a few years now - Muslims. Also, in all probability, Buddhists and folks who follow quite a few other beliefs.

Millions of people live in this state: and we're not all alike. (U. S. Census Bureau) I like it, but even if I didn't: that's the way it is. It isn't reasonable to expect a public facility to cater to my own preferences - or that of the various groups I'm part of.

Tolerance in America: Sometimes Grudging, but There

American isn't perfect. This country doesn't have a perfect record on anything: from Olympic gold medals to tolerating people who aren't 'regular Americans.'

'Real Americans' have been trying to 'protect' the Anglo-Saxon States of America from Catholics, foreigners and other dangerously un-American influences for centuries. (September 26, 2008) Which I think is rather silly - but then my ancestry and family isn't all that 'pure.' Good thing, too - look what happened to the Hapsburgs. Which is another topic.

Happily, from my point of view, 'real Americans' have been profoundly unsuccessful at keeping everybody who wasn't just like them out. Arguably, one of the reasons that this country has - haltingly, grudgingly - accepted the idea of religious tolerance is that folks who settled here weren't all alike. Many left the British isles so that they could worship the way they wanted: not as their king said they should.

By the time 1776 rolled around, there was quite a patchwork of believers in the 13 colonies - some of whom had been at each others' throats back home. Instead of restarting religious wars, they decided to bury the hatchet. Not, surprisingly, in the other fellow's back.

And that was just with the mostly-English colonists. Those troublesome Irish were already here: but they must have seemed positively British, compared to the waves of immigrants that started sloshing ashore.

Over two hundred years later, we've still got folks coming to America: which I see as a considerable vote of confidence. Yet another topic.

That "Meditation Prayer Room?" Okay: so it would have been called a "chapel" when I was in my teens. I might like a room with its function to contain a crucifix.

I'm just happy that a room like that is there. There are folks who really don't like to acknowledge the spiritual side of human nature - and I see that "Meditation Prayer Room" as an affirmation that people are more than a mass of protoplasm and cultural conditioning.

Sort-of-related posts:

• "Assumptions About Religion, and American Rules of Etiquette"
  (April 14, 2010)
• "Prayer, Medicine and Trusting God"
  (March 4, 2010)
• "Religion Doesn't Cause Intolerance?!"
  (February 27, 2010)
• "Medication for Depression? Yeah: The Catholic Church is Okay With That"
  (February 25, 2010)
• "Jesus Christ, Beer, Tobacco, Idols and Indian Law"
  (February 22, 2010)
• "Hating People: Not a Good Idea"
  (January 22, 2010)
• "Tolerance: Yes, it's a Good Idea"
  (August 3, 2009)