EVERYTHING IS ALL YOUR FAULT AND YOU SHOULD SUFFER FOR IT

Taking a hot air balloon ride is romantic in the minds of some, but they can be dangerous at times. They may not be as dangerous as driving the Los Angeles freeways, but accidents do happen. More than a dozen years ago, a balloon owned by a small private company met up with some unfriendly winds and dumped some tourists out of the gondola and onto the tarmac at Kirtland Air Force Base. At least one person died.

One of the people injured in that accident was a friend of mine, an elderly lady with an adventurous heart who has undergone quite a few surgeries and continues to suffer from serious chronic pain and other issues as a result of that horrible accident.

Recently, she told me that a friend of hers is blaming her for getting onto the hot air ride to begin with, and this "friend" has no sympathy for her. Evidently, according to that friend, the accident is all her fault and she deserves to undergo years and years of surgeries, pain and disability for being so stupid.

Her relatives are also loathe to help her because she tithes to her church and they continually criticize her for it! Apparently, she is expected to surrender her religious practices and values in order to earn the sympathy and help of family. They are nonbelievers and do not attend church, therefore she must be just like them. It's as if she has to make a deal with Satan in order to get her needs met. Give up your religious practices, and you can eat.

Many Americans have come to the place where their first instinct is to blame and shame people for whatever misfortune has befallen them. The poor are routinely castigated and accused of a catalog of character defects and "bad life choices" that contributed to their condition. Never mind that these social judges pretend to be Christian and that Jesus loves the poor and vulnerable above all people.

"The meek shall inherit the world," not the arrogant, self-important people who treat others with contempt for making mistakes. Choosing to experience the freedom and beauty of nature by taking a hot air balloon ride is not a sin. It may not even be an error in judgment. I wouldn't choose to get into the gondola, but my interest in risk-taking games and rides is extremely low. Other folk, however, like excitement and adventure and may not even perceive a balloon ride as something risky. Some people even jump out of airplanes with parachutes. That's not my scene, but I would still feel terribly sorry for the guy whose chute malfunctions and he ends up spread across the landscape like peanut butter on a crispy cracker. A sizeable number of people, however, feel nothing but contempt for those whose later years don't find them in a mansion stuffed with gold-leaf covered furniture.

If you are needy, due to disability, poverty, or both, you are looked down upon, blamed, shamed, and discounted.

Where does this hard heartedness COME from? How can people like this look at themselves in the mirror in the morning? Even if one is not Christian, where is the compassion that famously resides in the heart of man?

I have experienced different versions of what my friend is enduring now.  Long ago, when I first became disabled, I remember a conversation with a supposedly good friend of 30 years' duration. When I told her I had become disabled and that my Social Security was not going to be enough to get all my needs met, she asked me in a withering and overbearing tone, "If Social Security isn't enough to live on why did you decide to retire?" The word "retire" hit me like a fat, wet mackerel to the face, as I hadn't used that term at all. She had substituted it for the word "disabled" in an effort to make me sound bad and irresponsible. Her immediate response to hearing that I was disabled was to blame me, as if I had chosen to be sick and stop working.

Another odd thing that immediately started is that a number of people began calling me "kiddo," as if I am one of their children, even though we are very close in age. No one ever called me "kiddo" before I became old, sick, poor and needy. I regularly ask people not to call me this, but it continues to happen. Calling someone a child, blaming them for their illnesses and then demanding that the needy person live according to the dictates of others seems to be part of the general package that is thrust upon people like my friend and me.

Fortunately, I have several Catholic friends who walk with Jesus and whose kindness and generosity has kept me from being in much worse condition than I might be otherwise. Others are not so lucky and I do what I can to help when I can, even though my resources are puny.

Contrary to popular myth, "the government" doesn't supply every need of the poor and disabled, nor are there huge numbers of "fakers" who are "milking the system." The millions of poor people living in America today are mostly elderly and disabled people who have spent their whole lives paying taxes and paying into Social Security, doing what they were supposed to do, being upstanding citizens, only to be blamed and skewered with really mean lies at the fag end of their lives.

Grandmas and grandpas are struggling through their supposedly golden years because they had the bad taste to end up poor and/or disabled. It makes me sick, really, every time I hear one of these stories from one of my friends or neighbors, and the only thing that soothes me is the knowledge that God knows all and sees all and that the poor and vulnerable will spend eternity with Him, bouyed up with eternal kindness, eternal generosity, eternal peace and painlessness.

I do not pretend to know what will happen to the people who harass, lie about and criticize the vulnerable and sick in our society. The harassers frequently tell me they are sure they are going to heaven. We shall see.

In the meantime, I pray for my friend and all the other disabled and elderly people she represents. Please join me in those prayers.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose Parnell

MOTHER TERESA'S SHOES

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, kneeling on the hard floor, praying

Sometimes when I read about the privations that saints have endured, I despair of ever becoming one. While the saints are deliberately choosing pains and sufferings, I am doing everything I can to avoid the pains and to get my needs met.

Currently I am having problems with severe osteo arthritis throughout my body, including growths in my feet and fallen arches.  I have always had problems with my feet, as they are misshapen.  They are very wide over the metatarsals but narrow in the heel.  One foot is an inch longer than the other.  I've had terrible foot pain for the last 53 years.

Doctors, podiatrists and shoe experts have been telling me that I need to have shoes made specifically for me throughout my life, but I have never been able to afford it, so I have tried to "make do" with different shoe styles, including some versions of Birkenstocks and the vaguely affordable Crocs. Now that Crocs has changed their styles to conform to a new, slimmer line with a harder plastic shell, I can no longer wear them.

Walking has become a nightmarish trial.  Every step feels as if someone has taken a hammer to my feet, knees, hip and back.  Even when my legs are elevated, I experience a sharp, pounding pain in the left foot and ankle which I have broken 5 times since I was 11 years old.  Disfigured with masses of twisted purple and blue veins, along with large areas of swelling, my legs look almost as bad as they feel, despite the recent loss of 47 or more pounds.

Mother Teresa's feet

Looking at Mother Teresa of Calcutta's feet, I can only imagine the agony she must have endured with long hours on her feet, caring for the poor and dying, wearing shoes that not only did not fit her but also twisted her toes into bizarre conformations.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta's foot, shod in old sandal

I read a story some time ago about how Mother Teresa would choose her sandals when she needed them.  From the donation box, she would pick the most worn out, ugliest and poorest made sandals for herself.  While I am complaining about not getting my needs met with regard to shoes, I have her example before me: a woman so self-effacing and humble that she picked the worst of the worst for herself, even though it likely caused her tremendous physical pain and most certainly caused malformation of her bones.  We can see the twisting of the toes.

Lacking the fortitude and saintliness of Mother Teresa, I cannot even aspire to her example.  I just can't.  The physical pain is a huge distraction and presents a sizable limitation in my mobility.

While I can't follow her example, I can learn from it, though.  Certainly, her example is a lesson in humility.  Her choice to emulate the poorest of the poor, the most humble and vulnerable of humanity, is also a great lesson in gratitude and an adjustment in perspective.  No matter how much pain and privation I am enduring at this point in time, it is nothing compared to the plight of many thousands of people in the world today.

If I do manage to get some shoes made for me, I will remember to walk a few miles for the sake of others and in service to the poorest of the poor.  I will remember to be grateful, once again, for having been born in a country with a fairly high standard of living.  I will remind myself to keep rein on my ego and not let it get carried away with itself.    Please help me with your prayers.

God bless us all.

Silver "Rose" Parnell
(c) 2015

GARDENING FOR THE HOME-BOUND HERMIT

View from the back side of my apartment

I have been sick for the last 2 weeks with an awful stomach bug and have pretty much planted myself in the recliner next to the picture window.  If I was up to getting out of the house and standing at the boundary fence that separates our property from the canal, I would be able to see the Albuquerque Country Club golf course, above.  Considering that I live in subsidized housing, it is ironic that my immediate neighbor is an exclusive club that provides a playground for the ultra rich.  But my view is of a dead yard that used to support plants and grass.

Just over the black wrought iron fence, is a canal that is full of life.  It is home to multitudes of fish, fowl, and creatures.  We have everything from giant carp to trout, as far as fish are concerned.  Giant plate-sized green turtles live in that brackish water, sunning themselves on pieces of concrete.  One has to walk to the fence and peer over and down to see any of this, however.

The turtles in the canal look very much like

this one.

The occasional black-crested night heron will visit, and twice I saw the very shy green heron.

Black crested night heron that I managed to snap

while he was fishing!

I happened to catch sight of a very elegant snowy egret once.  It was standing in the middle of the water so that it appeared to be floating, its legs were so long.  His stark white plumage reflected brilliantly in the rushing water that was fed by pipe from under the ground.

I have been lucky enough to have many opportunities to watch the neighborhood beavers and their babies, when dusk begins to settle and they come out to forage.

This is a nice size beaver, but the mama beaver

who has lived here for years was MUCH bigger

the last time I saw her.

We used to have quite a lot of ground squirrels, muskrats and ugly big sewer rats, but a diamond back water snake moved into the territory in the last couple of years and has grown HUGE on those little critters.  I can't imagine anything big enough to eat him, not even the hawks that make their nests in the cottonwoods on the golf course of the country club.  He'll probably be with us a long time.

This is a picture of a SMALL diamond back water

snake.  The one living in the canal behind my 

apartment complex is about 5 feet long.

That snake also eats the goose eggs, if they nest too close to the water.  A friend and I had to chase it off a nest last spring, where it had already eaten one egg and was tucking into a second.  It will sometimes try to snag a gosling from underneath when it is swimming, and I have witnessed the goose parents battling with it in an effort to save their baby.  Thanks be to God, the baby escaped.  I know that these snakes have to eat SOMETHING, but I wish they would stick to the sewer rats and leave the sweet goslings alone.

Goose parents and the 4 remaining goslings that the snake

didn't manage to catch.

The Albuquerque Country Club is constantly making efforts to eliminate the geese that we love so well.  For a while, they had a border collie chasing them off.  Sometimes they have tried to run them down with those silly golf carts.  I even caught two of their employees swinging at them with golf clubs!  Beating the geese is illegal, but when I yelled at them to stop, they said it was private property and I should just shut up.  I called the police.

one of my goosy friends

In stark contrast to the excesses of the wealthy on the other side of the ditch, the yards of the poor apartment dwellers are bare dirt, covered by a weed tarp on which is a meager layer of cement "crusher fines" that have been dyed to imitate the color of natural earth, or adobe.  Ever since the management ripped out the grass and trees and stopped watering the bushes until they just died of thirst, the asthma I had not seen since I was a small child came rampaging back into my life.  Dust, dirt and chemicals are the culprits.

When I moved into this apartment complex 10 years ago, there were beautiful giant trees growing out of the banks of the canal and shading our yards.  All along the wrought iron fence in front of those trees was a lovely little dirt walkway lit by charming white globes.  There was a peacock living on the property.  Many lovely bushes like lavender, rosemary and honeysuckle, were planted among bright spots of grass.  It was cool, inviting and natural.  Then someone got stingy.  The giant trees were ripped out and replaced with cement blocks and wire screen, leaving our apartment without windscreen or shade.  The charming globe lights were completely removed, leaving much of the property pitch black at night.  The dirt path was replaced with roughly manufactured gravel that gets in your shoes within seconds of stepping on it.  The sprinkler system was shut down, with the exception of a very small patch near the postal boxes.  Grass and bushes died quickly, then giant machines spent 3 months tearing up the back yard and turning it into a wasteland of chewed up concrete and rock.

Looking at my back yard, which is the view from my living room "picture" window, I feel bleak, hot and dry.  I long for the greenery I left behind in California, but I have no people there any more, and nothing to draw me back there, even if I could afford it.  I used to carry a quote from the Bible in my purse.  It was from Hosea and said something like, "I will draw her into the desert, and there I will speak to her heart."  I sometimes try to comfort myself by imagining that the Lord has called me here to speak to me in that way, but a yard full of crushed concrete does not a desert make.  The real desert is beautiful.  This is not.

If and when I have the funds to do some work on the "garden," I plan to install a meditation garden of sorts that will be an inspiration to everyone that walks by.  I have gotten permission to plant a couple of trees, but I have to buy the trees first, and then our gardener will install them, digging through the crusher fines and the weed screen to the dirt below.

A unique feature of my back yard is that the apartment building casts a long shadow over it, starting at about 12:30 in the afternoon, and completely shading it by about 3 or 4 O'Clock.  Any trees planted here have to be QUITE resilient, since it is very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter in this high-desert location, but they won't get continual sun.  The gardener is advising cypress evergreens, and tells me they are very hardy and can withstand the conditions.

These Italian Cypress will grow tall and thin, staying within the bounds of the garden, with occasional pruning by the gardeners.  Between these two cypress, my dream is to install a grotto, within which I will place a large statue of our Blessed Virgin Mother.  Of course, I will have to anchor it to something REALLY heavy, otherwise someone will walk off with it.  One would not imagine that a religious person would STEAL a religious statue, but stranger things happen here in New Mexico.  Thieves and robbers, their bodies emblazoned with full color images of our Blessed Mother of Guadalupe, apparently find no disharmony between the religious symbolism they wear on their bodies and the regular breaking of nearly every commandment our Lord holds dear.  Then there are the homeless people that live in the Bosque, underneath the trees, just a few yards from our apartment complex.  A police officer told me once that there are 200 people living there.

The Bosque near my apartment complex

In the Bosque there are  a mix of people, but many of them are wanted by the law, mostly for drug crimes.  Some are homeless who don't want to be limited by the rules and inconveniences of the shelters.  Several have told me that their belongings are regularly stolen while staying in the shelters.  Others just want the freedom to smoke pot, drink, and do their drugs in peace.  A sizable number are outdoor enthusiasts that will not trade the beauty of the natural environment for the deeply depressing institutional environment of a homeless shelter.  They remind me of the hobos that rode the rails during the big depression in the early years of the 20th century.

Denizens of the Bosque regularly move through the apartment grounds late at night, stealing anything that will be useful, such as patio furniture and cushions.  A little statue of a fairy angel was once stolen during one of these midnight raids.  Maybe the camp site needed a mascot.  I really miss that little statue, as it added a bit of whimsy to the garden.  Clearly, though, whatever improvements I do make have to be too large to cart away and of no use to the Bosque gangs.

I particularly love this statue. I have no idea how really big it is, nor how much it would cost, but this is exactly what I have in mind for my grotto between the trees.  I imagine sitting in front of it during a cool evening, cup of tea in hand, meditating on the Lord, and perhaps doing a rosary or two.

It is no coincidence that religious institutions are typically very beautiful.  God is the ultimate beauty, and whatever beauty we find here on earth comes from Him and reminds us of Him at the same time.  Beauty, especially the natural beauty of flora and fauna, speak to my soul and help to order it into harmony with the Lord.  In it, I find the type of tranquility that predisposes me to feeling His presence and hearing his voice.  Sometimes I think that this sensitivity and need for the beauty of nature is peculiar to artists, but I suspect that there are gifts here for everyone.  Since my garden is on display for all my neighbors to see, I want to inspire others to feel what I feel and stretch their hands and hearts toward the Lord.

When I was a young working woman, my apartment was rather spare and utilitarian.  My apartment was little more than a pit stop.  With 9 hours at work, plus 2 hours of commuting each day, there wasn't much of an opportunity or need to feather my nest.

Nowadays, I have to seek ALL of my stimulation and activity within the four walls of my apartment because arthritis has settled into all my old injuries and I now have mobility problems.  Developing the garden expands my usable living space and gives me an opportunity to get out of the house on a regular basis without actually having to get in the car and go somewhere.  I have nowhere to go, other than church, and if there was somewhere to go, I couldn't afford it anyway.

Scientists understand that all creatures, including us humans, have a hard-wired need for stimulation.  Even animals caged in a zoo, though given really nice enclosures that cater to their physical needs, also require natural elements (such as what I am craving now), as well as activities that challenge their minds.  Zookeepers in the western world do what they can to provide these activities by hiding treats in what they call "enrichment balls" and hiding meals in the enclosure, so that their hunting instincts can be aroused and satisfied.  It would be a sad bear who was relegated to a cage for all its life.

What many do not realize is that, while calories, clothing and a roof over one's head are enough to keep us barely alive, in the strictest meaning of the word, there is no life in that kind of life.  Beauty is necessary.  Connection with other living things; plants, animals and people, are necessary.  Mental stimulation provided by hobbies and crafts are necessary.  Culture is necessary.  Most important of all, connection with God, the ground of our very being, is essential.  Many people ignore these needs when contemplating what to do about the poor.

As a disabled and mostly home-bound person, what I feel most keenly is alienation from what is most natural.  Aside from the dearth of people in my life with whom I can commune face-to-face, I miss my service dog.  I miss greenery, and walking out into the garden in the late afternoon to water and prune, pick at the weeds and breathe in the damp earth and plant fragrances.  I need these things.  We all do, to some degree or another.  Replacing the service dog whose companionship and protection are sorely needed, will be extremely expensive, since I have to have a hypoallergenic dog.  In the meantime, I have a cat that a friend gave me as a kitten 11 years ago, who is dying of kidney disease and whose care and prescription food is bankrupting me.

I have been sick with a stomach virus for 2 weeks now, a portion of which I spent in the emergency room and at the doctor's office, it was so severe.  The rest of the time, I have been sitting in my recliner next to the picture window and gazing out onto the bare dirt of my back yard, wishing I could do something about it.

To my regret, I am unable to live like Mother Teresa of Calcutta who, along with her nuns, endured the conditions of the poorest of the poor.

This kind of asceticism is beyond my physical capacity to endure.  I suspect that the knowledge that one is doing something holy and pure, having the support of one's sisters and an organization, go a long way in helping the sisters deal with this sort of life in the emotional and psychological sense.  My chronic illnesses, pains, isolation and relative poverty are enough asceticism for me, and I suspect that the Lord does not expect more.  He knows I am not able.

No, I am an ordinary sort of person, trying my best to pray continually and to follow Jesus in all things, enlisting the help of Mary and the other saints and the angels for their assistance and intercession, sitting here at my picture window, looking out over my dead yard and the lush playground of the rich beyond it.

Silver Rose Parnell
(c) 2015

DRIVING MISS RUBY

I have a great friend in my apartment complex.  She's only a few years older than I am, but she's a little more banged up.  She was in a terrific hot air balloon crash about 10 years ago and they put her back together with metal rods, chewing gum, and band aids.  Recently, she has had to give up driving, and I try to invite her to accompany me every time I go shopping because she is generally stranded.  She's also not eating properly, has never learned to cook, really, and needs some help with her nutrition.

Going shopping with her is a scream because she wanders off and spends an inordinate amount of time reading all the labels and "pricing" things she is not going to buy that day.  She often cannot find things that are right on the shelf in front of her.  It takes forever.  I am always losing her.  The other day I lost her at a new Walmart.  I forgot to bring my cell phone, so we couldn't call one another to coordinate our locations in the store.  FINALLY, when I met up with her, I had a shopping cart full of things, I was ready to check out, and she had 4 items...but she needed one more.  I checked out and waited half an hour for her to appear again.

Today we went to Sprouts market for vegetables, and it was a circus.  She was revved up and chattering like a magpie while I, accustomed to proceeding in a leisurely, quiet fashion, was not in the mood.  I yelled at her at one point and had to apologize, at which point she told me that it was such a treat to get outside the apartment that she just gets EXCITED.  She was enjoying the fun trip.  Well, then I felt really crappy.  I had gotten mad at her expression of happiness.  Sigh.

The young girls at the produce department laughed at the two old biddies behind their hands.  I tried to explain to Ruby the fruits and vegetables needed to make a nutritious juice drink using my Jack La Lanne juicer.

Ruby is so scattered she went off on a tangent, taking two produce workers away from their jobs to ask them if the apples were on sale, after I told her they were not.  Then she asked if there was a senior discount.  They were very patient with her.  Meanwhile, I stood there, mortified, holding a bag of carefully selected apples, waiting for her to stop fiddling around.  She stood there, yammering to the produce workers, as if engaging them would make a discount appear out of nowhere.  Finally, she stopped talking.  They politely waited.  She stood there.  They looked at me.  Hysterical.  I dragged her away.  She argued about the number of apples I had chosen.  Everything is like pulling teeth....from a magpie.

Dismayed at the rising cost of food, even in this market that used to be very affordable, I grew anxious about whether or not I would have enough money to purchase the staples I needed: garlic, onions, ginger, leafy veggies, yellow veggies, tofu, mushrooms...and something else I had forgotten.  I wondered if I would have enough money for food for the rest of the month.  Ruby wandered off to buy a birthday card for her granddaughter, while I continued to toil in the vegetable department.  My PTSD kicked in and I lost my concentration.  It was so clear in my mind what I needed to get BEFORE I walked into the store, but the increasingly crowded store had made my mind turn to mush on high alert, if you can picture that.  I had to collect myself.

After I took a tour of the store and found her, we got to the checkout line, and she didn't have quite enough to pay for her portion, so she gave me what money she had and put aside a selection of items to pay for with her debit card, on which she had $14.  The bill was something like $23, however, because she had misread the price of the birthday card she selected which was more than $7!  This happens to us all the time.  Money is so tight on Social Security income that, when we miscalculate our purchases, we often have to pay from two different methods: a little cash, the remainder from a bank account with the debit card.  Sometimes we have to return an item and have it deducted from the bill.  Sometimes when she gets the bill, I have to lend her money.  Sometimes she lends me money.  It does get embarrassing, at times, but today we presented such an entertaining production that the stock clerks and the cashier just smiled at us and endured our bickering and fumbling with extremely good nature.

When we got back to the apartment complex, I drove her as close to her apartment as possible, and she went in and got her little shopping cart, then loaded her stuff into that.  I went home and unloaded all of my veggies from my trunk into my kitchen.  Ruby came BACK over to my house, and I made a lovely dinner of bagel, cream cheese, tomato and onion.  This has become a monthly routine, when I do my major shopping trip.  Ruby commented that we had had a really fun day, and I felt badly again that I had gotten so irritable with her.  Chronic, unremitting pain makes me grumpy.  I could have taken a pain pill, but then I would not have been able to drive.  Catch 22.

Most of all, I get disappointed in myself that the God consciousness that is so effortless while alone in my apartment just EVAPORATES when I get stressed and I am bungling my way through errands or other business exchanges.

She went home.  I drank a cup of tea, rather HALF a cup of tea, and promptly fell asleep in my recliner despite my cat's efforts to wake me by stomping his 16-pound royal furriness all over me.  It is odd to realize that just one shopping trip can now completely wipe me out and keep me aching for days afterwards.  I've been disabled for 10 years and I still can't get used to it.  It is almost as if I do not believe it, even though I know better than anyone that it is true.  I keep trying to do as much as I did when I was 30, and then I'm surprised when it doesn't work out.  I pictured a completely different life.

No one anticipates becoming disabled.  That's the thing.  You get injured in a hot air balloon crash, like Ruby, or you gradually start to get sick, struggle to stay employed, stay above water.  You swim and swim until you have to get out of the water or you will drown.  You do not have a choice about it.  When I finally went on disability, I had been sick for about 10 years, and my finances were completely depleted.  One of my old friends, on learning that my disability benefits had been approved, asked me, "If you can't afford to live on the monthly income, why did you retire?"   Retire? Ridiculous question.

The able-bodied just don't get it, but Ruby and other disabled people DO know what it is like to desperately try to maintain one's independence and the illusion of normalcy.  Both of us dressed to the nines today, with lipstick, jewelry and everything.  You'd never know that she was down to her last $14 and I was down to my last $80, even though I just got paid.

This is one reason why I am grateful for people like Ruby in my life.  We're in the same boat and we can laugh about our circumstances.  We're both religious, so we can also forgive one another our idiosyncrasies and see the humor in them.  Best of all, we are each grateful for the blessings we retain, the things that really matter that have nothing to do with how much money one has or how much physical health.

What we have in common, aside from our artistic natures, disability, pain and poverty, is Jesus, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Silver Rose