Usually I think of novels as a pleasant way to while away (meaning waste) some time.  So, when I was given The Shack by a friend I was willing to read it, so we could discuss it, but I didn’t expect too much.  Twenty-four hours later I have not only finished reading The Shack but feel the need to blog about it and tell the world that this is an unusual and worthwhile book.

The Shack is a New York Times best-seller by Wm. Paul Young (Windblown Media, July 2008).  The subtitle, Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity capsulizes the plot:   Mack’s beloved daughter Missy is abducted, brutalized and killed and he lives under The Great Sadness, mad at God and the world.  Then God (aka Papa) writes him a note and invites him for a weekend to The Shack where Missy’s red dress and blood had been found on the floor.

This is a book that attempts to clarify imaginatively the way God works in the world – how he brings good from evil (though he doesn’t cause evil), how we have free will to follow God, or not – difficult questions that folks have grappled with for ages.  At one point Mack awoke from a dream and remembered:   “He was still at the shack with those three interesting characters, all of whom thought they were God.”   The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were present at The Shack in human form.  While many people think of God, the Father, as an old white man with a beard, Wm. Young prefers to present the human manifestation of God as a young black woman.  After all, we are all — young, old, male, female, black, white — made in the image of God.  Why not?  As God herself says to Mack:  “I am holy and wholly other than you.” Read the rest of this entry »

I went to a Life in the Spirit Seminar the other night and the speaker was telling about a time  when she had sold her house and had certain plans for the money but her ex-husband’s parents wanted her to do something else with it.   She said when she brought the matter to prayer the Lord told her “Honor your father and your mother.”  She told the Lord she didn’t think he understood — these were not her parents, these were in-laws.  She had children and she had to provide for them and they needed a home, etc., etc.   And the Lord said, “I love your children more than you do.”  She heeded the voice and things have worked out well.

Time and time again when someone gives witness to a remarkable turnaround or rescue or healing they will say, “God said…”  and I wish I could collar them and ask “exactly how” did God speak.  “Did you hear an actual voice  or was it just a feeling in your gut?  Exactly how did God
tell you? “

Long ago, in my early days in a prayer group, I was freed from my agoraphobia.  I was ever so grateful and felt I had to witness to that wonderful healing but I hated, hated, hated speaking in public.  I “just happened” to read in Sirach 4:31: “Do not let your hand be stretched out to receive and closed when it is time to give.”   This really spoke to my heart and impelled me to speak up in the group and tell what God had done for me.   So God ‘kinda’ spoke to me but that’s not what I understand when someone says “God told me…..”

Here was my opportunity.  I had available a Godly woman, teaching about the workings of the Holy Spirit, saying that ‘God told her…’.  I expected truth from her.  So, of course, I asked, “Just how did God tell you?  Did you hear a voice?”  She explained that she had heard no voice, the words had just sort of come into her mind.   This I completely understand as I have written previously about a similar experience of my own.  But I would believe that God sometimes actually speaks in words to some people if I had never had a similar experience myself.  There is just too much testimony to this from many trustworthy people, both in the bible and over the years of Christian history.

God called Samuel three times and Samuel thought it was Eli calling.  On the third try, he said “Speak Lord I’m listening.”

In the New Testament God spoke to Peter while he was on the roof waiting for lunch. God said, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” (Acts 10:15)

In my copy of the “Notebooks”  of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska the words of Jesus are in bold type.  The text of her “Notebooks” is over 600 pages long and almost every page contains words in bold type.   Jesus had a lot to explain to her about his mercy, and the portrait he wanted to
have painted depicting his mercy.

Consider Christ Otto who writes:    “Three weeks ago I was doing my usual routine of prayer, Bible study, and quietly listening to God. Usually I begin the day with ‘Lord, what’s on your agenda today?'” he explained. “That day, my mind wandered a little, and I imagined hundreds of red envelopes in the mail room of the White House. On the back, a simple message stating that each envelope represented an innocent life lost. I took that idea, and sent it in an email to my 120 ministry supporters. They in turn, sent it to their friends.”   The rest, as they say, is history.  President Obama  received thousands of red envelopes at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in February of this year.

How does one discern God’s will if there are no words and no visions?   Wayne Jacobsen of Windblown Media which brought us the best seller, The Shack writes:

I have a running conversation with him about everything in my life and express my desire to follow his will at every turn. I immerse myself in the story of Scripture, learning how he thinks and acts. I have a steady diet of what God is showing others by what I read and listen to, and the conversations I have with others on this journey.

So how do I sort out his nudges from my own thoughts? Most nudges I get from his Spirit are simple ways of loving and serving people around me. I am not too worried about getting those wrong. There aren’t many downsides to serving others. But to have some measure of confidence to step out in a larger action he may be asking of me, I look for four things to to come into agreement:

1. An intuitive, growing conviction of his leading over time.

2. Affirmation in the truth and example of Scripture that this is how God works.

3. Confirmation from other brothers and sisters as I discuss it with them.

4. And the reality of unfolding circumstances.

When those voices are in synch, I have greater confidence that I am following him. But you know what? Sometimes all of these line up and I still get it wrong. That’s why people born of the Spirit rarely use language like, “God told me to…”, and will instead talk in terms of what they sense…..And while I’m willing to pay the consequences for being wrong, I also know he can weave my mistakes into his purposes.

How does God speak to us?  He has spoken throughout the ages through his prophets.   God spoke by sending his Word, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  He inspired the words of scripture and established a church to protect and interpret these words. He speaks through prophecy, dreams and visions.  (Acts 2:17)  He leads us through signs and coincidences.   He speaks through the saints.  He speaks through the testimony or ordinary people.  He can speak through an actual voice, or an interior voice, or an inner feeling.  The heavens themselves proclaim the glory of God.  He even spoke to Balaam through an ass!  (Numbers 22:28-30)

LISTEN.

~~~

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. — John 10:27.

If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. — Psalm 95.

I have taken a particular interest in the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) phenomenon since my grandson, Sage, became involved in Occupy Boston. So far I have only published Sage’s explanation of why he is doing what he is doing.  I know the spirit behind the Tea Party, but I was worried about where OWS was coming from, especially since it sprang up full-blown in the major cities of the world on September 17.

Meanwhile S17 is surging ahead internationally. Simultaneous occupations of financial districts are now being planned in New York City, Madrid, Milan, London, Paris and San Francisco. With a bit of luck, this list of participating cities will expand.

If we can pull together just the right mix of nonviolence, tenacity and strategic smarts, S17 could be the beginning of the global revolution we’ve all been dreaming about for so long … wouldn’t that be lovely.

August 10:

A movement is suddenly springing up from nowhere (ah-huh) to take on the free enterprise, “capitalist” system. In America, they are especially targeting Wall Street, a place still somewhat constitutionally sovereign to the U.S.A. and not thoroughly controlled yet by authoritarian global collectivism.‘U.S. Day of Rage’ Being Orchestrated for ‘Worldwide Democracy’ (think pseudoanarchist, neo-Marxist, globalist) (read more)

This was posted on August 17:

A group of American radicals are planning a “day of rage” targeting Wall Street and U.S. capitalism.

The upcoming protests, replete with a planned tent city slated for downtown Manhattan, is closely tied to the founders of ACORN and leaders of major U.S.unions, including the SEIU.

There are indications the protesters are training to incite violence, resist arrest and disrupt the legal system. (read more)

See also Adbusters and The Brains Behind Occupy Wall Street.

By way of background on Days of Rage see this excellent documentary on the Weather Underground.

Sage has written on Facebook about his experience with non-violent protest:

Sage Radachowsky
In 2001 I was arrested for protesting the bombing of Afghanistan with wholesale civilian-killer bombs. A Vietnam veteran in his 50s was pepper-sprayed in the face and he couldn’t breathe. He had asthma and his throat tightened up .. he was gasping for breath. They also kicked him in the chest against a fire hydrant, repeatedly, and broke two of his ribs. That was Hartford, Connecticut, October 25th, 2001. We marched from Bushnell Park to Senator Lieberman’s office. I held a sign that said “Don’t bomb innocent people” and got two felonies for that “crime”.

They said I was throwing bottles and inciting to riot. I was just standing quietly with my sign. The cops lied, and I think it is important to note that this does happen sometimes. They apparently colluded to make their police reports match, and wrote the story about how the protestors were throwing things and being violent. They also took all of our cameras and destroyed the film and videotapes, so we didn’t have the visual evidence to dispute there story. I repeat the story just so people know that this kind of things happen, and not to always believe the police side of a story.

Sage.Rad
Thanks for the article. In regard to my arrest in 2001, I was simply holding a sign in front of Senator Lieberman’s office in Hartford, that read “Support Human Rights (don’t bomb innocent people)”. I was arrested by police who put me in a headlock, threw me to the ground and cuffed me and put me in a paddy wagon. I was given $35,000 bail so my friends ended up paying $3,000 to a bail bondsman that we never get back. I was on trial for 8 months for two felonies that were complete fabrications.

The following quotes are taken from Sage’s Facebook page. They are certainly not all-inclusive but are chronological.

Sage's Tiny House

Among those in Occupy Boston’s Winterization Working Group is Sage Radachowsky, a biochemist who conducts research at Harvard’s Girguis Laboratory. He’s been sleeping in what he calls his “Tiny Tiny Home on Wheels,” a coffin-like structure that he says has been keeping him “so warm that I often sweat at night and need to remove layers.”

November 8, Sage’s birthday:

The Occupy Boston Winterization and Fire Safety Working Group has brought together some of the best minds of the OB movement, and possibly in all of New England, to work as a single, well-oiled machine. Read the rest of this entry »

This is Sage, my grandson, who likes to live simple, green, and magical in his tiny house in Boston. (Don’t you love that cedar siding?)

He also makes guitars.

And gets light from microbes

Just a simple — and sage — guy.

~~~

The house moves.  And Sage sings about it.

Much later (May, 2013) Sage was visited by a couple from Lisbon interested in tiny houses.  Here is what they wrote about his Gypsy Waggon, translated (loosely) from the Portuguese.

I read the translation and see a view of myself from far away … it is a very nice view .. thank you to Paulo and Catarina for visiting from Lisbon .. and seeing me with fresh eyes while my own have sometimes gotten jaded and faded .. feel hope and motivation .. i like how Roslindale is “a neighborhood almost chic” and golf balls are “small white balls come here to stop as meteorites from a hostile galaxy” ..

“” The ecological consciousness, the philosophy of do-it-yourselfers, the financial crisis and the real estate sector were the conditions for the movement to break out. In the U.S. and all over the world, more and more people choose to build their own home, tiny, and live in it. Just feel like owners of their lives

Since the address is odd. “Backyard No 50 Street W …” Yard of the number 50? Sage Rad lives in a backyard? No doubt, it is here. The number 50 corresponds to a huge house, wood, identical to all others in Roslindale, a neighborhood almost chic not far from downtown Boston. But access to the garage is covered by an old Dodge van with a stranger pegged wood. Next door there is a bike with a trailer too long where you can get a person. And then the cabin.

This is the abode of Sage, one wooden shack he built himself four years ago in a backyard borrowed. There are also materials all around, and trash, boards, logs, tables, mirrors, buckets, chairs and tables, services porcelain, plastics, clocks, vases, ladders, lamps, guitars, chickens …

Your world escapes any logical arrangement. Or so it seems. Includes the cabin and the land around it, and the garage converted into workshop. Adjacent to your yard, there is a huge golf course. Sometimes, small white balls come here to stop as meteorites from a hostile galaxy. Never returns.

Inside the small house chaos reigns. It is the first impression. But there is a stove for cooking and a stove to heat. Electricity is provided by solar panels installed outside. A bed, a bunk bed, shelves and walls with hundreds of bottles, cans, containers, knives, kitchen utensils, fruit, turnips, onions, eggs, cups and teapots, paintings, paper hanging. Underneath the bed is the place of clothing. It’s hard not to consider that is crumpled. On top of the mattress and sleeping bag behind the wrinkled, have the books, lined up like a showcase. Featured at the head, The Origin of Species, Darwin.

The chickens roam up on the shelves of food, pecking here and there, flitting through the house. Sage Rad (short for Radachowski, your apelino Slovak) sits on a bench and makes coffee. Beard, shaggy hair, 39 years old, a t-shirt with colored spots and the phrase “Legalize Life”. It would be easy to tell who has a crazy look. Too easy.

Your lifestyle is radical. Do not agree with the present organization of society, so decided not to spend money. Get everything in other ways. “I have what I need. Food, water, shelter, warmth. I try to simplify my life as much as possible. ” It has everything but does not buy anything. “This is my way. I’m going to look for food in garbage containers, food cultivation, gathering food in the forest. Chickens give me eggs, honey bees. There are ways to get food. Does not have to involve money. I live here, paid a small income, but hopefully not have to pay anything in future. To be free, I have to live on the margins of the system. ”

To show that this is true, will get some cabbage leaves stored in a pile of manure. Caught them in the trash and will cook them, explains. Almost everything that has been caught and that consumes the trash. The materials to build the house, clothes, shoes. “I still buy some things, but not much. I would spend a whole year without buying anything. ”

What is your profession? “Carpenter” answers. He adds with a sheepish grin: “I also work at Harvard in the field of electronics.”

In the world’s most prestigious university, Sage Rad is involved in important research project. Is it better to be explaining: “At this time with a Chinese teacher working on a project to produce water purification technology, which will be applied in China. Remove arsenic from water, eliminate pollution. Working with microbes and electricity. Microbes are electric. The process is called bio-electrosíntese and basically consists of living microbes have a piece of graphite in the slurry. Another electrode in the water produces some metabolic reactions that help purify water. ”

At university, he was asked to work full time, but he refuses. Will there only one hour per day. We also offered jobs in large companies, not accepted. Has worked in software and high technology. Let all the carpentry. Builds houses and paint walls. Another activity that is engaged in the construction of guitars. Already have many hanging in the workshop. The format is strange, invented by him, and serves two purposes: ease of transport on the bike, and the production of a unique sound.

For this purpose, Sage surrendered to the deep study of acoustic science. After many experiments, invented their own techniques. Inside the box resonance places a wooden structure shaped Nautilus, inspired by investigations of Leonardo da Vinci. And to tune the instrument arm adopts models approximate tonal scales, following the example of Bach’s tuning in Well-Tempered Clavier, because the song explains, completeness and accuracy are not the same.

“Many builders guitars use mathematical models to define the measures of the frets. But the music mathematical formulas do not work. You need to find some imperfection. Everything is compromise. ”

Grab one of the guitars and start playing. The sound is pure and perfect pitch. Performs Cantata 147, Jesus, Joy of Man, Bach, interpreted blameless, clean, moving.

As with so many other things he can do, Sage did not learn music. It comes from a poor family, and, after high school, he studied Anthropology at the University of Connecticut. But soon traveled to Nepal, where he lived in villages, teaching sociology, English and Computer Science. Where’d you learn that?

Prefer to explain how she learned to live simply, in the nine trips he made to the Himalayas. On his return he began working in carpentry, construction of houses. “I have built many, for others, but had no chance to build my own home. This shows how the system is not right. Have to pay simply to exist on this planet. We were born here. Because we have to pay for the privilege of living here? I believe we can build our own home. But the fact that some people possess the land and others have to pay just to exist is not right. Is not moral or ethical. ”

One day Sage found a book about the life of Gypsies. It was then decided to build his tent. Even created a site on the net called Gypsyliving.org , but as has not paid the annual fee for accommodation, canceled it.

It took four months to build the house, working only on Saturdays and Sundays. Live here, alone but not lonely. “Nothing like that. What I need is more time alone. People are always visiting me. Spend some time alone, but I need more. I’m still in the system, and wasting a lot of time to make money. Each day brings more cards in the mail. Accounts of the Government. I try to have more time for me, cutting the things that mean nothing. I do not need more stuff. I just need more time. ”

In the backyard there is a roost with nine chickens and a bee hive. Sage that was built, after much study on their own, as is his habit. Shows the book that’s been read – The Democracy of Bees, Thomas Seeley. “They have a process of decision making. Bees have more democracy than the U.S.. ”

Want to show the hive, but when it gets there waiting for a terrible surprise: all the bees had died. Soon finds an explanation: “It was pollution, chemicals. Stress. ” Removes the boards of the tenement, with a razor, and finds thousands of dead insects inside. But also swollen combs of honey, which brings home. His eyes no longer seems crazy, just immensely sad and human. Makes plans to capture a new swarm by the flowers of spring, and build a new hive. “It is a sweet tragedy,” he says, sucking his fingers full of honey. “I will build a hive very good, so they want to go there to live. Bees choose their own home. ”

Sage Rad chose this cabin and does not intend to ever go back to living a “normal” house. Will build another hut for his girlfriend, and maybe one day buy land where they can live a few dozen people, each in their tiny house. Sage thinks it will be possible, because not alone. Despite all their uniqueness, belonging to a movement.

I suppose it’s to be expected when one has suffered from police brutality it would eventually turn up in one’s musings.   The date was  June 17, 1989.   The place, Summit Women’s Center,  West Hartford CT.    On April 1, 1989, a rescue had taken place at the Summit Center.  (A “rescue” may be defined as an attempt to prevent the killing of babies in the womb by non-violent, passive means.) When it was learned that the rescuers had been brutalized by the West Hartford police, a bigger, better rescue was planned for June 17.

On June 17, 1989, the Center was prevented from performing any of the scheduled abortions. On both days the demonstrators’ unruly conduct required the intervention of approximately forty West Hartford police officers of the Town of West Hartford (“Town”)–a third of the town force.

I was in the June 17 contingent.   Over 250  of us invaded the abortion clinic facilities that morning and sat down.  In due course the police arrived and started to remove us.  We expected brutality and we got it.   Afterwards we were asked to write down exactly what we experienced  while it was still fresh in our memory.   I wondered whether to include on this blog the whole report, which is quite detailed,  but decided I would, just for the record:

Dorothy A. Vining, age 65, Baby Jane Doe #91, 6/17/89

We arrived at the Summit Women’s Center about 8 AM and immediately entered a side door and went up a number of flights of stairs and through an open door into the “clinic.”  I personally sat down in a hall behind a door which had been somehow secured.  We heard the sound of someone removing the hinges of the door and then the police started to remove us.  They would drag each person down a hall to a corner and then we would hear screams from around the corner but could not see what was happening.  When they reached me one officer said, “This one next,” and I was dragged by my clothing down to that corner.  They snipped the tape off my left hand.  I had protected my right hand with an orthopedic splint of leather and velcro as I have had wrist problems in the past and do typing for a living.  [A friend of mine had suffered nerve injury during the April 1 rescue.]  I told the officer this was a real splint and I really had a bad wrist.  He told me to get up and walk.  I said they could move me without injuring my wrist.  He said “no” and tossed the splint aside, as well as my purse.  This contained my  glasses, a camera, some money, etc.  I have not seen it since.

Then I went around the corner.  An officer behind me raised my left arm over my head and down behind my back and I shrieked with pain.  [I did not know this was a move that the human body is capable of!]  This particular maneuver had no purpose that I could see other than to hurt me.  They then cuffed my hands behind me quite tightly and somehow applied pressure that popped me up in the air, again screaming with pain.  [I still have in my possession a tape showing me being taken down the hall and the subsequent two screams are quite audible.]  They walked me backward to the elevator and outside, still applying pressure but lessening it somewhat as we got outside and were visible to others.  I cried out again when they pulled my head back for the picture and my picture shows me with my mouth wide open.

Coming off the bus was the same story with me walking half bent over with  them lifting up on the cuffs.  I was put down on flagstone or tile in the courthouse.  The cuffs were removed, my glasses, my shoes, as well as everything from my pockets.  A woman officer patted me down, recuffed me, and I was dragged into the courtroom and dumped.  The time was 11:30.  I was later dragged the length of the courtroom by one arm (the right).

We just sat around and watched the victims accumulate.  I had been there nine hours before any water appeared  and in the cuffs four hours before they were removed.  By that time my hands were quite swollen but when one of the women asked an officer to remove them he said I had enough room.  We had no food whatever until 8:30, and of course slept on the floor or benches, wherever we could find room.

On Sunday, 6/18, breakfast consisted of an egg and sausage sandwich, with milk or soda, and after 24 hours without food was greatly appreciated.  There was no lunch and supper consisted of two slices of white bread and a single slice of baloney.  No drink — just water, then another night on the courtroom floor.

Monday, 6/19, we got another sandwich about 8:30 for breakfast.  Judge Norco presided and the few people who chose to give their names and bail out were disposed of.  They were then left with over 100 people who had no names and would not move.  Gradually as the day went on they matched the pictures with names and we were taken rather roughly forward.  Lawyer Altham asked us to mention any injuries we had received.  At one point an officer kicked a man and Altham called it an “outrage,” saying he had seen it himself.  Judge Norco said something like “don’t let it happen again.”  Later, toward evening, they brought in some of the men from upstairs and we could hear them screaming as they approached.  One in great pain lay on the floor and a medic was asked to look at his arm.  The medic said his shoulder was not dislocated.  When asked if his arm could be broken, he replied, “I don’t have x-ray eyes.”

When Father Norman Weslin was brought in all order in the courtroom vanished and  someone  started a rosary with most of us gathered about him.  At the last decade someone asked Father to lead it, which he did, battered as he was.  It was a very moving scene.  Another powerful scene was on Saturday when a man was brought into the courtroom in great pain and there was a near riot as we rose up in outrage.  A young girl with the pen-name DAB reminded us of our non-violent stance and prayed for peace to descend.  It was a very powerful prayer and the peace was almost tangible.

By 7 PM Monday I still had not been identified and was re-photo’d, and given the letter F, and a court date of June 21.  Atty.  Altham moved for dismissal but Norco said they could hold us for 24 hours to see if they could identify us.  There were two other women in the same boat and several men.  Consequently we arrived at Niantic prison quite late.    We had been put on chairs with wheels to get on the bus and got off the same way .  En route, Lt. Davis, of Niantic, said that many of us had injuries and assured us we would not be hurt at Niantic.  He said his job was to see that we remained safe and well until we bonded out or  our court date arrived.  He also said that a person without a “dream” was a nothing in his book.

At Niantic we were given a sandwich and “juice” and asked about injuries and medical problems.  I told them my shoulder had been injured (it was comfortable at rest but I could not lift anything or make certain movements without pain.)  I expected it would heal with time.

I have no criticism of Niantic.  On Wednesday, when I and Peggy and Siena had to go back to West  Hartford,  they woke us at 6 AM and we left at 7 on a bus with other inmates, in both handcuffs and foot shackles.  We went to Hartford via New Haven, Bridgeport, and Meriden and finally arrived at 11:30 for court.  Siena was still going DM [defenseless mode] and we were informed that they weren’t going to move us anymore and if we wouldn’t move to go to court we would be cited for failure to appear and get another felony on top of our felony and that could go on a long as we liked.  Various inmates helped move Siena so we wouldn’t be left behind.  The Hartford officers said “Get her out of here,” and the West Hartford officers said, “We aren’t moving her.”  She is one gutsy little lady.

On the way to court I had the opportunity of talking with a girl, Beverly, who cried as she told me of an abortion she had had several years earlier (because she was on drugs) and told me of her rape.  She said when she is scared she feels it in her womb  (I suppose because that is where she had been injured.)  The results at court were that Peggy and I were identified and Siena was set free.  I was not present but was told Siena had pleaded guilty and burst into tears and said she wanted to go back to Niantic.

We were asked many times where our shoes were.  The inmates felt it was not right that we did not have shoes.  “Shoes is not personal property; shoes is clothing!”   There was strong pro-life sentiment among the prisoners and even many of the officers (but they did not approve of having to carry us around.)  They suggested that we thereby hurt our cause.  On the way back to Niantic two of the girls gave us woven crosses that the men make (I don’t know where) and another girl walked out of her shoes and made me take them.  She said she had more and was being freed in six days.

I bonded out on June 28  because my ears were ringing, I had a bad head cold and sore throat, I couldn’t sleep for coughing, and I felt I had left my 94-year-old mother long enough.  Bonding out was uneventful but expensive. My son, daughter-in-law and their two children came for me.  Unfortunately my shoulder, which had been smouldering, flared up as soon as I tried using it.  On June 30th I visited orthopedist, Dr. Fornshell,  (after two nights of extreme pain), had it injected with cortisone, put in a sling, with Naprosyn and Tylox prescribed.  I hope this will help explain why my typing is so lousy.  I am hoping that by July 1 I will be well enough to return to work.  They are considerably upset with me.

After more cortisone and physical therapy, my shoulder has since returned to normal.

So much for passive resistance!  No wonder the West Hartford police took off their badges.  They didn’t want to be held accountable for what they were going to do.  I have limited this report to my personal experiences because to write about the abuse  others  suffered would be much too long.

Thomas Droleskey made the following comment about the aims of Operation Rescue:

The “something” that simultaneously galvanized and polarized the pro-life community was Operation Rescue. Rescue galvanized many in the pro-life community as it held out the hope that massive sit-ins and blockages of abortuaries might singe the conscience of the nation. It polarized others in that same community, especially those who believed that we had been making “progress” in the 1980s and that we had to work through the electoral system to effect change incrementally, pragmatically. Some Catholics were critical of the whole concept of Rescue, arguing that it was wrong to adopt the tactics of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, worse yet to entrust the leadership of such an enterprise to evangelical Protestants who believed that they had the responsibility to take Catholics out of the Church to “save” them. Despite the polarizing aspects of Rescue, however, many thousands of Catholics were among those who were arrested at rescues between late 1987 and 1994, the time that Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Bill (FACE), with the help, it should be noted, of a few supposedly “pro-life” senators and representatives (could you imagine them voting for a “Freedom of Access to a Concentration Camp Bill”)?   A lot of Catholics were involved in the high-level leadership of local rescues.

Posted  by John R.  Kladde,  Director, CT Pro-Life Action Network,  April 2004, when he announced that our case against West Hartford police would finally come to trial:

A quick recap of the case: It took 3 years to file the case. It took five complaints and 8 years to finish the pleadings to start the case. Then it’s taken 4 years and three appeals of motions to dismiss to get to trial. There will be no other activity besides jury selection and trial. Bear in mind, this will be the only full jury trial in the history of Rescue.

West Hartford won, of course.  We weren’t cooperative;  they had to hurt us.  So  much for passive resistance!

Below – a glimpse of Operation Rescue in action.

~~~

It is easy to look back on those who broke the law [in Scripture] and praise them. But when the same challenges that they faced face us, we find it difficult to acknowledge that sometimes the law must be broken. That’s because now the sacrifices will be made by us. I have never broken the law. I have never been arrested. But I simply cannot guarantee that I never will. — Fr. Frank Pavone
I have heard some say that Operation Rescue is damaging to the Pro-Life Movement.  Who can be angry with an honest judgment?  I can’t — but I can disagree.  Were I ever tempted to agree I would look again at pictures of people like Bishop Lynch and Bishop Austin Vaughan, for whom my respect is unbounded, and whos integrity I rust completely.  — Cardinal John J. O’Connor

Jack LaLanne, born in 1914,  is world famous for body building, strength feats, and, at 95 is “extremely flexible, and has a mind and a wit as sharp as a tack.”  His wife says she has known him for 60 years and has never known him to be sick.   Why wouldn’t I want to read his new book, Live Young Forever: 12 Steps to Optimum Health, Fitness and Longevity?  He says, “We can refuse to let age run its plan of plummeting decline.”

Perhaps I can’t, by taking thought, add to my stature one cubit, but possibly – just possibly – I can make my remaining years healthier.

So I ordered this handsome  slick paper book with gorgeous photos of Jack’s perfect body.    His last famous feat was at the age of 65 when he swam Lake Oshinoko in Japan, shackled and cuffed, pulling 65 boats loaded with 6500 pounds of wood pulp. “At the age of 80 I could still perform hundreds of non-stop push-ups.  I felt no different than I had at 25.”  His waistline at 80 was 27-1/2 inches.

I looked forward to reading Jack LaLanne’s 12 steps to optimum health, hoping for some little nugget I didn’t know about, some word of wisdom to change my life for the better.  Briefly, here are his 12 steps:

1.  Motivation.  Figure out if you really want a healthy body — then go for it.  ”Seeing your own progress is the greatest motivator of all.”

2.  Keep away from killer habits – smoking, drugs, coffee and alcohol abuse, how to reduce stress.

3.  Personal care.  Hair care, skin care, dental care, eye care.

4.  Eating clean. Jack writes that  what you eat today is walking and talking tomorrow.  He says all the usual things about choosing foods that are  fresh and natural and gives sample meals.  Then came the surprise:   Jack eats out with his wife every night of the week except Monday.   And how do you get what you want when you eat out?  “Explain with gentleness that you want your fish without sauce, the vegetables have to be steamed, no butter added.  Take your baked potato without butter or sour cream.  No dressing on the salad…When you have soup it has to be broth-based as opposed to cream-based…Gravy is a no-no.  Want a dessert?  How about berries or a fresh fruit salad?”

It is clear this man is serious and disciplined!  He says he has always taken vitamins on a daily basis but makes no attempt to tell you what vitamins and/or supplements to take.   Jack  is well known for promoting juices for better health and selling his brand of juicer.  Fruit and vegetable juices are undoubtedly sources of many needed and vital nutrients.   My only question, is why not liquidize the whole item (except for peach pits, banana peels and the like) and drink the whole thing, getting all the fiber and other nutrients hiding out in the matrix surrounding the juice?  Need I add that I have written about my own Homemade V8 and kefir fruit smoothies previously.

5.  Maintain perfect posture.

6.  Do’s and Don’t of Water Drinking.  Drink lots of filtered water.

7.  The importance of stretching. LaLanne writes:  “I enjoy my stretching because I love the rewards of feeling flexible.  I’m as loose as a goose.”  He illustrates 12 stretches.   Stretch cautiously, don’t bounce, work on the more stubborn areas

8.  Find some energy.   How?   “I will take a mid-day nap of 30 minutes if I feel like it. ”

9.  Be in a steady relationship.  “My greatest joy has been loving, laughing and working alongside my beautiful Elaine for some 60 wonderful years.”  Dr. Laura Schlessinger  always says:   “Choose wisely; treat kindly.”    Jack LaLanne says the same thing: “Be kind to one another…..Choose your mate wisely…”  “If you have second thoughts about whether you could be loyal to your future spouse, then don’t get married.”

10. Work out. Jack says:  “If you are on my side of 50 you should probably start with a weight that allows you 20 reps.”  “There has to be a degree of gentleness with your first few workouts.”

11.  Never retire.

12.  Consume plenty of fruits and vegetables.  He talks in detail about various fruits and vegetables and their benefits.

The book closes  with a picture story of Jack’s life accomplishments.  I have decided this is the perfect Christmas gift for my grandson who shows some interest in body-building.   If Jack can’t inspire him, nobody can.

And what nugget have I gleaned from Jack for myself?  Only that I should do what I know I should do.    Eat what is good for me, not what appeals to my sweet tooth.  Exercise even when I don’t feel like it.  It is all so simple — and so hard.

This Jack LaLanne video is dated March, 1997:

Jack LaLanne is discipline personified.  Discipline is where we are all slackers.  Jack inspired me to do 10 minutes of gentle stretching.   Try it – you’ll be amazed at the difference in the way you feel.   Just think what could happen if you went for the whole enchilada and followed all of his 12 steps!  It is never too late to improve.

~~~

They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall still be full of sap, still green.   – Psalm 92:14

When Olive Riley of New South Wales, Australia, died on July 12 of this year at the age of 108 she made the news as having been the world’s oldest blogger. Her blog, titled The Life of Riley, and In Memory of Olive, is still available here.

Olive’s first post, dated February 16, 2007, reads: “My friend, Mike, has arranged this blob for me.” (A note at the end of Olive’s blog says it is produced with “writing assistance by Mike Rubbo”.) In Mike’s absence, Eric Shackle, a retired Sydney journalist, helped Olive with her blog. Between them, there are 75 posts, the last ones describing Olive’s funeral as well as reporting the discovery of another old blogger who died at 109 in January, 2008. The latter, an American, Ruth Hamilton, was assisted in her blogging by Bill Shafer of WESH.Tv. In truth, Ruth did not have her own blog but was a user on another site — Growing Bolder – found here. You’ll see a nice big picture of Ruth as soon as you log on.

Both of these “oldest bloggers” had others who actually did the writing for them and both have now died. As far as I can determine, the mantle for the world’s oldest blogger now falls on Maria Amelia Lopez of Spain, who suddenly became a cybercelebrity when her grandson, “who is very stingy,” gave her a blog for her 95th birthday. It is, of course, in Spanish, and according to the latest entry at the age of 96 in July, 2008, “Maria Amelia dicta y su nieto escribe.” (Maria dictates and her grandson writes.) She has received the Spanish BOB (best of blogs) award and can be found here along with a picture of her 96th birthday party on 23/12/07. Read the rest of this entry »