Mother's Day Storm

The Storm came on Mother's Day. The Storm tore up the northeastern corners of Lancaster County. The Storm went and we were alive— but me, I had begged to die. The Land of Plenty had no privation to starve the body with, but poverty of spirit lashed out at me, like so many tentacles from the maws of Hell opened up, wrapping around my arms and feet, drawing me in. I have come a long way since. I have resumed a state of normalcy. Now it is clear what to do and what to avoid in life. I have met with objectively worse crises and have been able to keep myself above the circumstances. But the events of May 2015 were a watershed; these small events dictated my most important life choices afterwards, my habits, my outlook. And you, you were in the thick of it all.

I have been advised to look to the experiences of Job for spiritual consolation. I can relate to his experiences having smart-ass friends surround him, and attempting rather lamely to rationalize his suffering. For me, I had trouble coping with outpourings of sympathy when my old friend came to her untimely death. I know well-meaning people sent me full-length essays to exhort me to hope, to optimism. Now is the time to announce that I either skimmed through them or did not read them at all, although I appreciate their decidedly unfathomable thoughts. Others shied away from me, as though I were a cursed object— To those people, I say: you stayed silent; you turned away. You pretended I was not there, that I was not hurting. Yes, the demons that assault my mind do not cross a certain boundary. You did not do wrong, but you are no friend.

The day after the accident, I went for mass in the morning, not being able to sleep at all. My friend Benedict can vouch for my account of what happened next, because he was with me, and saw it happen. The good people of La Obra were also there. As per custom, they sat not in a group, but dispersed themselves among their pews, each giving a wide berth to the other, as if they were strangers. Also according to custom, they spent a good few minutes in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament after the end of mass, even after the rest of the churchgoers had dispersed. On this day they stayed even later than usual, after the sacristan had switched off all the lights and we were plunged into darkness. The good people of La Obra changed their seats wordlessly, still maintaining mutual distance, until they formed a ring around Benedict and myself, not importuning me with outpourings of sympathy or words of instruction, but facing Jesus and praying as hard as they could. The good, upright men knew who to run to in times of difficulty. Because of this— three years and six months later— I joined their ranks.

I did feel the expected emotions of sadness, grief, and loss at each turn, but the strongest emotion was one that you might not expect: a feeling of being spooked, a sense of impending doom. I could not and have never since shaken the feeling that one day I too will be hurled into the nether-world without warning. I bore my listeners to sleep wondering out loud if today will be my last. But I do believe, that, if one does not become too obsessive about it, it could be beneficial. The awareness of the fragility of your life is a glimpse of the bare truth of existence. So many habitually cloak that truth with the pursuit of small pleasures, and fall asleep not caring if the a mark has been placed on their head for the Grim Reaper. Me, I am as sensitive to the prospect of death as a World War I soldier crossing no man's land is sensitive to the prospect of a stray bullet, over all of my waking hours.

Then came the Storm, which laid waste to the flimsy shack I built for myself in the wake of the first disaster. What could I do in such a place? My friends are not real, my acquaintances keep their distance. I could die here out of sheer chance; it could be the elements, a freak accident, or a random miscreant like the white supremacist Ignatius Noogent, who haunted my dreams. Who then will find my body, who will weep over it? The voice in my head hissed into my ear: no one. And the gates of Hell opened on me, leaving me clutching at straws.

Let me live, cries Laleh Pourkarim, the poet. Let me live! Let me live a little while more. I live, I live, I live another day again. I am glad I did not die. I am happy knowing there are still things to do. I give thanks for the sun in the sky and the roof over my head. The pursuit of happiness, I throw at the wayside. No time, I mutter. No time. I fear death and I fear it with a passion. I was and am scared out of my wits at being dragged to the wedding banquet underdressed. Eat, Pray, Love? No! Live, Live, and Live. Eat to Live, Pray to Live, Love to Live. I work hard, because I can earn my keep, eat food that does not poison me, and live. I pray so that I can be close to God and live. I love because good friends are precious and genuine friendship keeps me alive. Bad habits do not help me live; they must go! Good things superfluous to the purpose of living, they will get the hatchet as well!

Now, I am making a long stay in Cleveland. I came with no family, no friends, no network to take my falls. I found myself plunged into a culture which encouraged people to be greedy, selfish, miserable, and resort to violence to solve their problems. To these things, I want to say no! I want to be the contradiction; I will be the fly in your ointment. Greed will be the death of Charity, and Selfishness separates me from friendship. Misery leads to despair, and despair will cut me away from the Lord. The wages of sin is death. I have no intention of following the crowds down that path!

I have no choice but trust, to give myself. I do so, because it is that or leave me wilting away inside, like a corpse. I have no choice but to keep the Lord's commandments, because I want to live forever. I went out and conquered my fears of the city and all its wondrous unknowns, because to cloister myself in fear is no way to live. I made the choice long ago; I have no desire to do otherwise. Do you know? I have found my treasure in the field. Do you understand now why I do things the way I do? Of course, I cannot for the life of me expect any response. I write a blog which no one reads. And now it is time to go to bed. Goodbye.

Mackinac Bridge, Michigan

The Story of St. Casimir's Church, Cleveland

To jest moja parafia - Sw. Kazimierz

This is the Polish parish in Clevie's St. Clair-Superior neighbourhood. In earlier times, Polish people from Poznań moved in in large numbers. They got to have their own parish because św. Stanisław, which serves the Warsaw Poles at South Broadway, was too far away. The church was closed in 2009 and re-opened in 2012 after parishioners (and, they say, the patron St. Casimir himself) kicked a fuss. When the bishop came to close the church, Władysław Szylwian pulled the plug on his microphone and became the instant village hero. The uncles and aunties here lured me in with Polish cuisine and have managed to conscript me as parishioner. They also signed me up for their parish school alumni club, but I have no idea how that works.

The neighbourhood of St. Clair-Superior was a literal riot in the '80s and '90s. The pastor was regularly mugged on parish grounds, and the sound of gunfire lulled residents to sleep. Sw. Kazimierz was turned into a fortress with a perimeter of barbed wire, and the stained glass windows, which the hoodlums liked to shoot at for sport, had a bulletproof layer installed. The gangsters have supposedly shot one another all to death since that time, and thus the neighbourhood today is somewhat less exciting than it used to be.