Who Said That?

     Have you ever awoke to a barrage of accusations?  A voice speaks to you the moment you open your eyes, "You hypocrite!  How can you call yourself a Christian when you committed that sin?  And the way you treated your spouse--God will not accept  you.  What about the lie you told to cover up your indescretion?  Sinner!  You always do that.  You'll never finish that project.  You're lazy.  You'll never change."
     This voice is an intelligence who knows my inner life and parades my faults before my face in my waking moments, a time when I am most vulnerable.  I have just awoke from a peaceful sleep, so I know it's not my voice and God doesn't speak like that.  It is the devil, the accuser of the brethren.  He often mentions sins that God has already forgiven or some flaw in my character.
If I lie there, the attack continues.  If I am foolish enough to accept his words and fall back to sleep, I allow them into my soul and they affect my day and my perception of self.
     Here's what I do:  Get out of bed, wrap myself in a blanket, making a hood like a monk's.  I light a candle and sit on a low stool next to my window.  The sill is low enough to serve as an armrest.  This is my secret place, an alcove in my bedroom.  I pick up my weapon.
     The rosary begins with the Apostles Creed and the Our Father.  Also said are the Hail Mary, Glory be and a Mystery is recited before each decade of ten Hail Marys.  These prayers are not vain repetitions, but are prayers of the Gospel, and not unlike Psalm 136 in form.  I find as I recite these well known prayers, that a second channel opens up for me to offer thanksgiving, praise, and requests to heaven.  People and concerns are brought to the throne of grace during the recitation of the rosary prayers.  I know of no other activity in which I can concentrate upon two things simultaneously.  The devil is locked out and flees. The morning and the day are given to God.
     You don't have to be Catholic to pray the rosary.  It may be awkward at first, but soon your rosary will become a vital part of your prayer life.  You can buy a plastic glow-in-the-dark one like mine at a Catholic bookstore for less than a dollar.  If you want to know more about the rosary and how to pray the rosary, this link will help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL5Izv6_RLo

To Be or Not to Be

  





       The year was 1888.  Harriet DeHaas had just finished performing in a play from a Shakespearean repertoire at a London theater.  Stepping outside the stage door after the curtain call, she was visibly upset.  Earlier, Harriet had an argument with her boyfriend and now she needed some solace and fresh air.                                                               

      A gentleman walking by heard her sobbing.  "There, there," he said as he reached for her hand.  He offered to escort her home and she agreed.  Harriet told him about the spat she had had as they walked the few blocks to where she lived.  When they arrived, Harriet said to the man,  "It's so kind of you to walk me home, sir, with Jack the Ripper out and about."  The man nodded, smiled and said, "Madam, you have just met him," and walked away.  

     This story was told to me by my Aunt June who heard it from her grandmother, Harriet.  That explains the box of tiny red leather-bound books of Shakespeare's plays that were probably thrown out with my baseball cards.

  

Not Tonight, Boys

     I was nineteen and a freshman at Gannon College.  On the coming weekend, an outdoor rock concert was happening near Zelienople, Pennsylvania, a hundred miles south of Erie.  It was one of those mini Woodstock venues on someone's farm.  I hitchhiked alone to the place, knowing I would likely meet some new people there.  It would be one, big three-day party!

     The weather was perfect and bands played throughout the day, and we smoked a lot of cannabis.  What an unreal world it was.  Nothing mattered when you were high.  There were no boundaries.  Imagine an alternate universe, a fantasy land where time stood still; or did it drag on?  Dragon?  Drag on this.  People morphed into hideous caricatures of themselves and they changed constantly.  This is why stoned people laugh all the time.  They can't get a grip on reality; nor do they want to.  It's unbridled entertainment as long as the smoke doesn't clear.
     The zeitgeist was that everyone took care of everyone else in this mellieu of casting off authority.  No one worried about security because we were better than our parents' generation, and we didn't need all of their values.  Or so we thought.  Although I had long hair and enjoyed the trappings of the hippie lifestyle, I saw the hypocrisy and it bothered me.  The new world was groovy in theory, but when it came time for self-sacrifice to foster the ideals, suddenly everyone got back to normal.  At Gannon, the Student Government invited some guru from India to speak.  The whole auditorium seemed mesmerized by this cosmic goodness, but he didn't say anything that you could get a handle on.  I kept thinking about the Son of God, whom I couldn't deny, and finally, I got up and left, without breaking his spell.
      A motorcycle gang called the Brigands made a strong appearance at the outdoor concert.  Their attitude was not one of  "peace and love, man";  they had their fun at the expense of others.  The Brigands ran rough-shod over the hippies who could only plead, "Don't hassle me, man."  It was Spring, 1971.
     I was smoking marijuana with a few people in a tent and spinning some bardic tale.  They were easily entertained and I found I enjoyed storytelling as I flashed back to the maharishi's enchantment.  The story went nowhere, but it didn't matter, because none of us had any attention span.
     Somewhere outside the tent, the Brigands were getting rowdy.
     I'm a laid-back kind of a guy who keeps to himself, but once in a great while I do something completely out of character, insane and risky.  Why?  I don't know why.  It's just quirky and it scares me when I think about it.
     I threw back the tent flap, singled out the leader and I began pushing him in the chest and yelling, "Why don't you keep the noise down.  You wanna fight?"  He was about my size and he was as totally surprised at my bizzare behavior.  I had a half smile and looked him in the eye, he smiled and went along with my game and we started to wrestle.  Some gang members laughed and others seemed bewildered.  We ended up on the ground and the guy I wrestled told the others, "Hold him."
      I told you it was risky.
     As two of them pinned me to the ground, I lost my pants.  I guess I deserved that.  After a few seconds of humiliation, I got my britches back and the leader came over and hugged me.  I had somehow gained his respect.  The people in the tent had disappeared.  We talked for a while and he thought I should join the Brigands.  I said, "No, I didn't want to."   "Well, think about it," he said.

     Later that day,  the gang wanted to play baseball and needed a backstop.  One of the Brigands selected a VW microbus whose owner whined, "Just be careful of the windows."  Wielding a baseball bat, the guy broke all the windows to the amusement of the others, then said,  "Now you don't have to worry about 'em!"  I began to see who was in charge here.  I was seeing anarchy, firsthand and up close.
     That night, after the last band had left, someone was strumming a guitar on the stage and the Brigands formed a circle and danced to the acoustic rhythm.  Suddenly one of them yelled, "Get her."  Two of them picked up a woman in her late twenties, carried her from the stage and threw her to the ground.  As the crowd gathered, one of the gang had pulled off her pants while two others held her down.   Desperate, she cried out.as the man who prepared to rape her played the crowd  People laughed.
      I had never before seen sex performed live and it was going to happen tonight in the middle of a mob.  I made my way closer.  I made a choice.
    
"Begone unclean spirit; be ashamed, miserable wretch; thou art very filthy indeed to suggest such things as these to me."  ...Thomas à Kempis


"The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?"  Ps. 26: 1
    

1984

     I went to the woman, picked her up by the hand, and said, "Who's got her pants?"  Terrified, she ran away into the night.  I ran after her and caught up to her, held her and said, "Jesus will help you."   I found a blanket on the ground and covered her.  She wept and said, "I should have never come here.  I have to get home to my kids."  Her friend came to her and said she would see her safely home.
     Minutes later, a few of the gang found me and placed me in the custody of the rookies, so they could assemble the others for my trial.  After they left, I looked around at the young bloods and said, "Did you guys see what happened?"  One of them answered, "Yeah, but don't think about leaving, because they'll come after us."  I said, "You guys are &#+$@!-up. You'll just have to deal with it."
     I don't know how, but I just walked away--far away, and no one came after me.  I went quite aways into the woods that night.  I didn't sleep.  At dawn, I made my way back to the road and hitched a ride out of that hell.  1971 was the last time I had any drugs.
     Years later, Linda, a mother of four, who once ran with bikers, listened as I told her this story.  She said, "Scott, they were going to kill you."  A neighbor, Randy, who knew some members of the Brigands said, "You're that Scott?" after I related what happened to me twenty years earlier.  It made me wonder if I had a price on my head.  After all, I evaded Brigand justice by not appearing at their kangaroo court.  I'm not worried.  Anyone who wants me will have to get through my head of security, my guardian angel.


Names have been changed to protect the innocent and to dissuade the guilty.