Today’s U.S. weather: fire in the west, winter storm in the south. (January 9, 2025)
Former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral was at the top of my news feed briefly, earlier this morning. Then the California wildfire headlines bobbed back up: reminding me that living in the frozen north does have advantages.
We’re getting a little very light snow, here in central Minnesota. I see that as a good thing, since it (1) looks nice, and (2) lowers the odds that we’ll be having blowing dust when the sky clears and the wind picks up.
Later on, come spring, it’ll melt, adding needed moisture to the soil. Unless, of course, it melts too fast and we get flooding. Which does happen now and again.
But even though my part of the country has blizzards, floods, the occasional tornado, and (happily) even less frequent dust storms — I prefer living here.
Places like Los Angeles are shining centers of commerce and culture; and, in the case of Los Angeles, are home to the Oscars. But out here we’ve learned to build around our area’s hazards. This town has snowploughs and fire trucks, and equipment designed to handle water-related emergencies.
First off, I don’t know the dog’s name. Ulysses was the name I had for him.
He, or maybe she, was the sort of dog I think of as a hound-dog: medium size, long legs. Bear in mind that I don’t know much about dog breeds.
I didn’t call him Ulysses for the way he looked, but for the way he acted.
That brings me to what’s still one of my favorite poems: Tennyson’s “Ulysses”.
The Sceptre, the Isle, and the Daily Grind
My Facebook page (Brian H. Gill) header: “To follow knowledge like a sinking star….”
The title character’s chucking his family and civic responsibilities doesn’t seem admirable.
On the other hand, maybe turning the reins over to Telemachus was a win-win. At least for the folks who’d had Ulysses as their ruler.
Some folks are cut out for the daily grind of an administrator, others are like Ulysses. Tennyson’s title character looks at the good life he’s living, then at —
“…that untravell’d world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move….” (“Ulysses ” , from “Poems”, Alfred Tennyson (1843) via Wikisource)
— and he wants something more than meetings, agendas, and the drudgery that comes with “the sceptre and the isle”.
I see his point, which is why I used a couple lines from the poem for my Facebook page’s header image.
“…this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.…” (“Ulysses ” , from “Poems”, Alfred Tennyson (1843) via Wikisource) (emphasis mine)
But that’s not why I thought “Ulysses” when I saw that dog.
A Happy Dog
This was back in my teens. My mother was spending time with my grandmother, her mother, at a nursing home, and that’s another topic. Several, actually. The point is that my folks and I were driving up and down North Broadway in Fargo quite a bit.
One of the houses we passed had an unremarkable front yard. Unremarkable, that is, apart from the dog enjoying its grass and sunshine.
That, by itself, wasn’t particularly remarkable either. Quite a few dogs will enjoy being outside, and stay within a specified territory: defined by the owners or the dogs, and I’m drifting off-topic again.
What set this dog apart from most were his back legs.
They may have started out matching his front pair. But by the time we were noticing him, they’d gotten stuck in a configuration that worked fine for sitting.
When the dog wanted to move, however, he didn’t walk or run: he bounded. Planting his front paws, he’d hop his back end forward, sit, and repeat.
His movements weren’t elegant, but he could make pretty good time: and didn’t seem a bit concerned about his alternatively-graceful gait. In fact, he seemed like a happy dog who enjoyed his time outside.
The way he worked around his immobile hindquarters reminded me of Ulysses in Tennyson’s poem:
“…Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” (“Ulysses ” , from “Poems”, Alfred Tennyson (1843) via Wikisource) (emphasis mine)
Granted, I was assigning human qualities to an animal. Dogs aren’t people.
But I don’t see a problem with admiring his apparent determination “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”. And how, even with odd-looking hind legs, he enjoyed being a dog.
Just as I enjoyed being a human, despite having a defective hip joint. And that’s yet another topic.
More — mainly about animals, family, and coping with quirks:
Evening Mass at St. Paul’s, Sauk Centre. (December 28, 2024)
As I said Saturday, getting to Mass is a big deal for me.
I stayed in all day Sunday, and probably will do the same today.
That’s doubly frustrating, since Sunday morning Mass is one of the two times I get out each week, and I prefer doing my weekly errands Monday afternoon.
But Saturday night and Sunday morning we had freezing fog. There was more in today’s forecast, and looks like we’re in for another session this afternoon.
Getting to Mass is a big deal, but so is avoiding accidents.
Good news: no fog in tomorrow’s forecast, and we’ll see temperatures well below freezing.
More good news: Parishes on the Prairie, our cluster of parishes — there’s a story behind that, which will wait for another time — records the Saturday evening Mass at St. Paul’s the other parish in town, so I could join the “online celebration of the Eucharist” Sunday.
With an “online celebration”, I miss out on the most important part. But it’s what I could do, and it’s better than nothing:
Be aware, if you play this, that the audio level and quality is very uneven. I don’t know what the problem was there.
The humming you’ll hear throughout isn’t just in the video. Fr. Greg mentioned it, along with apologizing for the elevator being out of service. The latter would make it difficult for folks in my situation to get up to the sanctuary.
Anyway, the humming might have been coming from the organ: but it wasn’t. And I’m drifting off-topic.
Two Women, Two Children, and an Important Mission
Before I get back to sitting by the window with a cup of coffee and a P. G. Wodehouse story, something from the Old Testament, and something from the Gospels. Along with my take.
“She conceived and, at the end of her pregnancy, bore a son whom she named Samuel. ‘Because I asked the LORD for him.’
The next time her husband Elkanah was going up with the rest of his household to offer the customary sacrifice to the LORD and to fulfill his vows,
Hannah did not go, explaining to her husband, ‘Once the child is weaned, I will take him to appear before the LORD and leave him there forever.'” (1 Samuel 1:20:22) (emphasis mine)
I haven’t dug into whatever socio-cultural context that bit reflects, or what folks have been saying about it over the last couple dozen centuries.
One thing I did notice was something that would have been unusual, at least, in the culture I grew up in.
Hanna, mother of Samuel, TOLD HER HUSBAND where their son would be living.
Now, my mother might have done something like that — not dropping me off at a temple, but rather telling my father where I’d be going.
But she was emphatically not of the ‘barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen’ persuasion where her role in the household was involved. Or outside the household, for that matter.
My father wasn’t the ‘henpecked husband’ stereotype character — can’t say I’m sorry to see that stock character having been de-emphasized — but he acted as if my mother was a ‘real person’. Which, of course, she is. And that’s another topic. Several, actually.
The Gospel reading was Luke 2:41–52: a vignette called Finding in the Temple, The Boy Jesus in the Temple, and probably more monikers.
There’s a lot going on there, but I’ll wrap this post up with something that strikes me about what happened.
Mary and Joseph’s mission was being parents for the Son of God. They both knew this.
Then, on a fairly routine annual trip to a big city: THEY LOST HIM!!
Under the circumstances, I think Mary’s remarks were extremely calm: even understated.
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying this Christmas season.
Number-two daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were here last weekend for part of a day, the night, and part of the next day.
We stood and talked. We sat and talked. Then we slept, and did more of the same the next day. Somewhere along the line we exchanged presents. Granddaughter and I watched a few episodes of “Shaun the Sheep”. The latter is a must-do, and has been since rather early on.
Our Christmas get-togethers are on a vastly smaller scale than those held by Aunt Jule and Uncle George. I talked about those family feasts last month.
Our house isn’t quite as big as theirs, which is a story for another time. Besides, my wife and I aren’t Aunt Jule and Uncle George. We do and enjoy what we can. What we can’t — we don’t.
We’re not all alike. That’s okay. We’re not supposed to be all alike, which is also okay. And that’s another topic.
Mass in Minnesota: Freezing Fog and Celebrating Anyway
I’d been planning on getting to the Christmas morning Mass at our parish.
Number-three daughter came to my desk Tuesday, pointing out that freezing fog and/or drizzle was in the forecast. And, on a more practical note, she wondered if I’d prefer getting to the Christmas Eve Mass. She had a valid point.
Freezing fog and/or drizzle isn’t a problem by itself, aside from being cold and restricting visibility. When it lubricates streets and sidewalks: that’s a problem. Particularly for someone with my pedal dexterity.
So I decided, finally, that not risking a fall made sense. Then I asked about shuffling my/our eating schedules, had an early evening meal, and got to the Christmas Eve Mass about 40 minutes ahead of time.
I found an empty parking spot only a block from Our Lady of the Angels. Which, for Christmas Eve, is doing pretty well. If I have to do this another year, I’ll try getting there an hour early. As for this year’s one-block walk, I’ll regard it as extra exercise for the day.
Babies and Expectations
For me, Christmas is a big deal: and one of our holy days of obligation. Those are days when we’re expected to be at Mass. Unless I’ve got good reason for not being there.
Good reasons include but are not limited to being sick, or being obliged to care for an infant who can’t be brought to church. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2181)
Just having a baby in the house doesn’t mean not going to Mass, by the way. I can count on hearing an infant or two almost every Sunday.
On the other hand, the small one behind me Tuesday night slept through everything. The older sister didn’t, and that’s yet another topic.
Or maybe not so much. I really don’t mind hearing that we’ve got families among us. With kids who have good, strong lungs.
One more thing about holy days of obligation.
As a Catholic, I’m expected to be at Mass. But if I’m not there, the immediate consequences are missing out on Mass that day: period.
That said, if I skip Mass on purpose, because I don’t feel like it or whatever — I’ve already got problems that need attention. And that’s a whole mess of additional topics.
As it is, I like Christmas (Eve, for me, this year, which counts as Christmas Day — it’s complicated).
I’ll try that again.
As it is, I like our Christmas Mass. The music. The people — individuals and families. That whacking great evergreen behind the altar, covered with lights. And being there to celebrate, worship, and receive our Lord.
Since it’s Christmas, we’re celebrating our Lord’s birth.
It’s a pretty big deal. I’ve talked about this before. There’ll be links near the end of this post.1
Holiday Weirdness
Rotisserie revolution: Sir Loin and two turnabout turkeys. Victorian Christmas card. (ca. 1890s)
Sauk Centre is a very ‘Catholic’ town. But we’re also a town in America.
Folks living in the next block north of our house have inflatable yard decorations out and lit up for this Christmas season. So, on my way to Mass, I drove by Baby Yoda and SpongeBob SquarePants wearing a festive Santa hat.2
Baby Yoda is holding what I’m pretty sure is an orange Halloween treat bag.
Meanwhile, on our block, one of our neighbors has set up a huge wire mesh snowman covered with tiny white lights, and sporting orange lights on its mesh-carrot nose. I haven’t measured it, but I’m guessing the thing’s some 15-16 feet tall.
How they disassemble and store it, I have no idea. But they’ve had it spreading cheer along this side of the street for a few years now: so obviously they have their methods.
Another neighbor, across the street, has a more traditional monochrome array of red lights across their home’s front. Elsewhere in town I’ve seen assorted manger scenes and colored lights on display.
With or without a Santa hat, I don’t see anything particularly Christmassy about SpongeBob SquarePants. Apart from that look of indefatigable cheerfulness.
But that household’s yard decorations are nice and colorful. Plus, between Spongebob’s hat and Grogu’s complexion, they’re adding this culture’s traditional red and green colors to their part of the street.
Make that lighting their part of the street. Grogu and SpongeBob glow in the dark. Brightly. I suppose I could indulge in virtue signaling by denouncing that effort to cheer up our midwinter.
But — no. There’s enough screed shrieking around already. Far too much. Besides, I like how they help light up these long winter nights.
Meanwhile, at Our House
Christmas Eve where I live: ’tis the season!
This household has nothing outside for Christmas this year. We’ve none of us been particularly well.
But my son set up our Christmas tree in the living room. Along with shepherds, sheep, angels and the stable/creche scene. Number-three daughter put those three “JOY” snowmen on the keyboard.
My son also set up our Advent calendar. It’s one of those fold-up card stock things, unfolding into a Dickensian Christmas scene — showing old-fashioned shops, anyway — Christmas Carol, post-ghost, Dickensian; where everybody’s cheerful.
That reminds me —
Two Incidents After Mass
I’d been moving toward the back of the church Christmas Eve, when someone came up, expressing hope that what she said wouldn’t be offensive. Then she asked if I’d like her to get my car.
That wasn’t an offense, that was an offer, and I said so. She’d seen me walking toward church, and made not-inaccurate assumptions about my mobility.
Thanks and the keys followed, with her assurance that she wasn’t a car thief — which wasn’t a big concern for me.
For one thing, this is Sauk Centre: we’re not exactly a high-crime area. For another, if she did abscond with the rusting hulk of a van we have, the consequences for her would be much more serious than for me and the household.
Her words and my assumption matched reality. She drove up with the van, returned the keys and began looking for her husband. I drove back to a very pleasant Christmas Eve evening with my wife, son, and number-three daughter.
Before I wrap this up, a conversation between a couple guys after Mass, outside the church, last Sunday:
“Any words of wisdom?”
“The girls are the brains, I’m just getting the truck.”
Looks like I’m not the only one who feels that way. Sometimes, at least.
Desolation, Dissatisfaction, Depression, and a Prayer
Caspar David Friedrich’s “The Abbey in the Oakwood”. (1809-1810)
Again, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying this Christmas season.
But this is also a bad time of year for me. That’s probably due in part to something that happened when I was 12.
“…my mother had a severe stroke. I’m told that I was with her at the time, and accompanied her in an ambulance. My father tells me that he blamed me. That’s understandable. Dealing with me can be stressful….” (“Ritalin, the 2020 Summer Olympics, and Me” > Delayed Diagnosis (August 7, 2021))
The point is that I’ve been dealing with depression at least since I was 12, and didn’t get diagnosed until I was living here in Sauk Centre.
That — and an intercessory prayer chain giving me a couple ‘pray about this’ items for specific individuals dealing with depression — finally prodded me into looking for appropriate prayers.
I found this:
“O Christ Jesus When all is darkness And we feel our weakness and helplessness, Give us the sense of Your Presence, Your Love and Your Strength. Help us to have perfect trust In Your protecting love And strengthening power, So that nothing may frighten or worry us, For, living close to You, We shall see Your Hand, Your Purpose, Your Will through all things. Amen.” (From St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Prayer Against Depression, Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida)
Saint Ignatius of Loyola isn’t one of those storybook saints, with the inhuman buoyancy of SpongeBob Squarepants, but without the cartoon character’s brooding intellect.
On his way to becoming a Saint, he went through a really rough patch.
I can see how folks might miss that facet of his life, though. Wikipedia ‘s Ignatius of Loyola page mentions his experience with “desolation and dissatisfaction” in a single sentence before moving on to joy, peace, and the rest of his life.3
I’ve talked about Saints, holiday celebrations, and why Christmas matters, before.
This time around, I’ve organized and labeled the links:
My father told me that a few generations back, his forebears got stuck with farmland near Lake Michigan. It wasn’t a marsh, but it wasn’t particularly good for growing crops, either.
They found someone who’d buy the place and moved west. Again.
Time passed.
My father’s father got hired at a construction site, working there until someone dropped a crane on him and several of his colleagues. Unintentionally.
I gather that the crane operator relieved the tedium of his job by what he might have viewed as a harmless drink or seven.
At any rate, folks were sorting the resultant mess out into live bodies, dead bodies, and inorganic debris when a rescuer noticed that one of the dead bodies was bleeding.
I haven’t verified this, but I’ve been told that dead bodies don’t bleed: and that this is why my father’s father got reclassified as not-dead. Under the circumstances, not being dead strikes me as good news. Moreover, most of him had been pulled out in one piece.
One of his legs, on the other hand, stopped being a leg somewhere above the knee. But medicos found enough extra skin to cover the stump. Which I’ll also see as good news.
If there’s a story about how he got equipped with a wooden leg, I don’t know it. But I do know that a knack for refocusing, plus maybe skills picked up in construction work — with a fair portion of determination — helped him make a living as a woodworker. And that’s another topic.
Meanwhile, that land near Lake Michigan changed hands quite a few times. Can’t say I blame the owners. It really wasn’t good farmland.
But if the family had somehow managed to hang on to it, they’d now own a sizable chunk of Chicago.
——————————
I could try coming up with morals for my family’s stories: particularly how these ancestors avoided owning some of the choicest real estate in the Midwest. Maybe something along the lines of ‘wealth is a burden’, or this bit from Proverbs:
“It is better to be humble with the poor than to share plunder with the proud.” (Proverbs 16:9)
I won’t, since then I’d feel obliged to start talking about context. Which would involve Sirach 29, loans and neighbors, truth and beauty — basically, it’d be more effort than I’ve planned on for this week.
So here’s the usual link list of family-related good news and other experiences:
Something new each Saturday.
Life, the universe and my circumstances permitting. I'm focusing on 'family stories' at the moment. ("A Change of Pace: Family Stories" (11/23/2024))
I was born in 1951. I'm a husband, father and grandfather. One of the kids graduated from college in December, 2008, and is helping her husband run businesses and raise my granddaughter; another is a cartoonist and artist; #3 daughter is a writer; my son is developing a digital game with #3 and #1 daughters. I'm also a writer and artist.
I live in Minnesota, in America's Central Time Zone. This blog is on UTC/Greenwich time.
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Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
