#but we were talking about confirmation and the letters our churches made our parents write to us

[reginaofdoctorwho]

i am the only bitch ever to consider rejecting someone because their mom is too nice. only unique experience (please prove me wrong with advice)

[silent-era-of-cinema]

Hans Walter Conrad Veidt (22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was a German actor best remembered for his roles in the films Different from the Others (1919), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and The Man Who Laughs (1928). After a successful career in German silent films, where he was one of the best-paid stars of UFA, he and his new Jewish wife Ilona Prager were forced to leave Germany in 1933 after the Nazis came to power. The couple settled in Britain, where he took British citizenship in 1939. He appeared in many British films, including The Thief of Bagdad (1940), before emigrating to the United States around 1941, which led to his being cast as Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942).

Hans Walter Conrad Veidt was born in his parents' home at Tieckstraße 39 in Berlin to Amalie Marie (née Gohtz) and Philipp Heinrich Veidt, a former military man turned civil servant. Veidt would later recall, “Like many fathers, he was affectionately autocratic in his home life, strict, idealistic. He was almost fanatically conservative.” By contrast, Amalie was sensitive and nurturing. Veidt was nicknamed 'Connie' by his family and friends. His family was Lutheran, and Veidt was confirmed in a ceremony at the Protestant Evangelical Church in Alt-Schöneberg, Berlin on 5 March 1908. Veidt's only sibling, an older brother named Karl, died in 1900 of scarlet fever at the age of 9. The family spent their summers in Potsdam.

Two years after Karl's death, Veidt's father fell ill and required heart surgery. Knowing that the family could not afford to pay the lofty fee that accompanied the surgery, the doctor charged only what the family could comfortably pay. Impressed by the surgeon's skill and kindness, Veidt vowed to "model my life on the man that saved my father's life" and he wished to become a surgeon. His hopes for a medical career were thwarted, though, when in 1912 he graduated without a diploma and ranked 13th out of 13 pupils and became discouraged over the amount of study necessary for him to qualify for medical school.

A new career path for Veidt opened up in 1911 during a school Christmas play in which he delivered a long prologue before the curtain rose. The play was badly received, and the audience was heard to mutter, "Too bad the others didn't do as well as Veidt." Veidt began to study all of the actors he could and wanted to pursue a career in acting, much to the disappointment of his father, who called actors 'gypsys' and 'outcasts'.

With the money he raised from odd jobs and the allowance his mother gave him, Veidt began attending Berlin's many theaters. He loitered outside of the Deutsches Theater after every performance, waiting for the actors and hoping to be mistaken for one. In the late summer of 1912 he met a theater porter who introduced him to actor Albert Blumenreich, who agreed to give Veidt acting lessons for six marks. He took ten lessons from him before auditioning for Max Reinhardt, reciting Goethe's Faust. During Veidt's audition, Reinhardt looked out of the window the entire time. He offered Veidt a contract as an extra for one season's work, from September 1913 to August 1914 with a pay of 50 marks a month. During this time, he played bit parts as spear carriers and soldiers. His mother attended almost every performance. His contract with the Deutsches Theater was renewed for a second season, but by this time World War I had begun, and on 28 December 1914, Veidt enlisted in the army.

In 1915, he was sent to the Eastern Front as a non-commissioned officer and took part in the Battle of Warsaw. He contracted jaundice and pneumonia, and had to be evacuated to a hospital on the Baltic Sea. While recuperating, he received a letter from his girlfriend Lucie Mannheim, telling him that she had found work at the Front Theatre in Libau. Intrigued, Veidt applied for the theatre as well. As his condition had not improved, the army allowed him to join the theatre so that he could entertain the troops. While performing at the theatre, his relationship with Mannheim ended. In late 1916, he was re-examined by the Army and deemed unfit for service; he was given a full discharge on 10 January 1917. Veidt returned to Berlin where he was readmitted to the Deutsches Theater. There, he played a small part as a priest that got him his first rave review, the reviewer hoping that "God would keep Veidt from the films." or "God save him from the cinema!"

From 1917 until his death, Veidt appeared in more than 100 films. One of his earliest performances was as the murderous somnambulist Cesare in director Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), a classic of German Expressionist cinema, with Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover. His starring role in The Man Who Laughs (1928), as a disfigured circus performer whose face is cut into a permanent grin, provided the (visual) inspiration for the Batman villain the Joker. Veidt starred in other silent horror films such as The Hands of Orlac (1924), also directed by Robert Wiene, The Student of Prague (1926) and Waxworks (1924), in which he played Ivan the Terrible. Veidt also appeared in Magnus Hirschfeld's film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others, 1919), one of the earliest films to sympathetically portray homosexuality, although the characters in it do not end up happily. He had a leading role in Germany's first talking picture, Das Land ohne Frauen (Land Without Women, 1929).

He moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s and made a few films there, but the advent of talking pictures and his difficulty with speaking English led him to return to Germany. During this period, he lent his expertise to tutoring aspiring performers, one of whom was the later American character actress Lisa Golm.

Veidt fervently opposed the Nazi regime and later donated a major portion of his personal fortune to Britain to assist in the war effort. Soon after the Nazi Party took power in Germany, by March 1933, Joseph Goebbels was purging the film industry of anti-Nazi sympathizers and Jews, and so in April 1933, a week after Veidt's marriage to Ilona Prager, a Jewish woman, the couple emigrated to Britain before any action could be taken against either of them.

Goebbels had imposed a "racial questionnaire" in which everyone employed in the German film industry had to declare their "race" to continue to work. When Veidt was filling in the questionnaire, he answered the question about what his Rasse (race) was by writing that he was a Jude (Jew). Veidt was not Jewish, but his wife was Jewish, and Veidt would not renounce the woman he loved. Additionally, Veidt, who was opposed to antisemitism, wanted to show solidarity with the German Jewish community, who were in the process of being stripped of their rights as German citizens in the spring of 1933. As one of Germany's most prominent actors, Veidt had been informed that if he were prepared to divorce his wife and declare his support for the new regime, he could continue to act in Germany. Several other leading actors who had been opposed to the Nazis before 1933 switched allegiances. In answering the questionnaire by stating he was a Jew, Veidt rendered himself unemployable in Germany, but stated this sacrifice was worth it as there was nothing in the world that would compel him to break with his wife. Upon hearing about what Veidt had done, Goebbels remarked that he would never act in Germany again.

After arriving in Britain, Veidt perfected his English and starred in the title roles of the original anti-Nazi versions of The Wandering Jew (1933) and Jew Süss (1934), the latter film was directed by the exiled German-born director Lothar Mendes and produced by Michael Balcon for Gaumont-British. He naturalised as a British subject on 25 February 1939. By this point multi-lingual, Veidt made films both in French with expatriate French directors and in English, including three of his best-known roles for British director Michael Powell in The Spy in Black (1939), Contraband (1940) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940).

By 1941, he and Ilona had settled in Hollywood to assist in the British effort in making American films that might persuade the then-neutral and still isolationist US to join the war against the Nazis, who at that time controlled all of continental Europe and were bombing the United Kingdom. Before leaving the United Kingdom, Veidt gave his life savings to the British government to help finance the war effort. Realizing that Hollywood would most likely typecast him in Nazi roles, he had his contract mandate that they must always be villains.

He starred in a few films, such as George Cukor's A Woman's Face (1941) where he received billing under Joan Crawford's and Nazi Agent (1942), in which he had a dual role as both an aristocratic German Nazi spy and the man's twin brother, an anti-Nazi American. His best-known Hollywood role was as the sinister Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca (1942), a film which began pre-production before the United States entered World War II. Commenting about this well-received role, Veidt noted that it was an ironical twist of that that he was praised "for portraying the kind of character who had forced him to leave his homeland".

Veidt enjoyed sports, gardening, swimming, golfing, classical music, and reading fiction and nonfiction (including occultism; Veidt once considered himself a powerful medium). He was afraid of heights and flying, and disliked interviews and wearing ties.

In a September 1941 interview with Silver Screen, Veidt said,

I see a man who was once for years studying occult things. The science of occult things. I had the feeling there must be – something else. There are things in our world we cannot trace. I wanted to trace them. The power we have to think, to move, to speak, to feel – is it electricity, I wanted to know? Is it magnetism? Is it the heart? Is it the blood? When the body dies, where is all that? Where is the power that made the body live? No one can tell me it is not somewhere. If you believe in waves, which you must believe after you have the radio, why couldn't human beings contact the wave lengths of someone who is dead? ... this is the kind of thing with which I was, for many years, preoccupied. This is what I tried to find, the answer. I did not find it. But in looking for it there was etched, perhaps, on my face, some hint of the strange cabals I kept with unseen and unknown powers. I did not find it, I say. But I found something else. Something better. I found –faith. I found the ability, very peaceful, to accept that which I could neither see, nor hear nor touch. I am a religious man. My belief is that if we could help to make all people a little more religious, we would do a great lot. If we would pray more ... we forget to pray except when we are in a mess. That is too bad. I believe in prayer. Because when we pray, we always pray for something good.

He went on:

I must tell you something that will disappoint you ... far from being one engaged in strangle rituals of thought or action, what I like best to do is sit in this small garden, on this terrace, and – just sit. Sometimes, I confess, I think a lot; about my past. About my parents who are dead. I like to dream, to go away ... At other times, I sit and read. I read, often, a whole day through. I play golf. I used to be a golf fiend. Now I am not a fiend even on the links. Now I play because it is relaxation. I like the beach very much, the sea. I go to the films often, to the neighborhood theater, my wife and I. Sometimes we go to the Palladium, where there is dancing. It is an amazing sight to me to see young people, how they are like they were thirty years ago, how they hold hands, how they enjoy their lives. To me, the most beautiful thing in California is the Hollywood Bowl, the Concerts Under the Stars. For me, it is a terrific experience. I have never seen an audience in my life like that. 30,000 people, simple people, most of them, listening to music under the stars. I have never seen 30,000 people, simple people, so quiet. I like to think of them as a symbol that one day there may be that oneness for all mankind....

On 18 June 1918, Veidt married Gussy Holl, a cabaret entertainer. They had first met at a party in March 1918, and Conrad described her to friends as "very lovely, tall, dignified and somewhat aloof". They separated in 1919 but attempted to reconcile multiple times. Holl and Veidt divorced in 1922.

Veidt said of Holl, "She was as perfect as any wife could be. But I had not learnt how to be a proper husband." and, "I was elated by my success in my work, but shattered over my mother's death, and miserable about the way my marriage seemed to be foundering. And one day when my wife was away, I walked out of the house, and out of her life, trying to escape from something I could put no name to."

After his separation and eventual divorce from Holl, Veidt allegedly dated his co-star Anita Berber.

Veidt's second wife Felizitas Radke was from an aristocratic Austrian family. They met at a party in December 1922 or at a Charleston dance competition in 1923. Radke divorced her husband for him, and they married in April 1923. Their daughter, Vera Viola Maria, nicknamed "Kiki", was born on 10 August 1925. He was not present at her birth due to being in Italy working on The Fiddler of Florence, but upon hearing of her birth, he took the first train to Berlin and flailed and wept as he first met mother and child at the hospital; he was so hysterical from joy they had to sedate him and keep him in the hospital overnight.

Emil Jannings was Viola's godfather and Elisabeth Bergner was her godmother. She was named after one of Bergner's signature characters, Shakespeare's Viola. The birth of his daughter helped Veidt move on from the death of his dearly loved mother, who had died of a heart condition in January 1922.

From September 1926 to 1929 Veidt lived with his wife and daughter in a Spanish-style house in Beverly Hills.

Veidt enjoyed relaxing and playing with his daughter in their home, and enjoyed the company of the immigrant community, including F. W. Murnau, Carl Laemmle, and Greta Garbo, as well as the American Gary Cooper. The family returned to Germany in 1929, and moved several times afterwards, including a temporary relocation to Vienna, Austria, while Veidt participated in a theatrical tour of the continent.

Radke and Veidt divorced in 1932, with Radke citing that the frequent relocations and the separations necessitated by Veidt's acting schedule frayed their marriage. Radke at first granted custody of their daughter to Veidt, but after further consideration he decided that their daughter needed the full-time parent that his work would not allow him to be. Conrad received generous visitation rights, and Viola called her summer vacations with her father "The Happy Times". She stayed with him three or four months of the year until the outbreak of World War II.

He last married Ilona "Lilli" Barta Prager (or Preger), a Hungarian Jew, in Berlin on 30 March 1933; they remained together until his death. The two had met at a club in Berlin. Veidt said of Lilli in an October 1934 interview with The Sunday Dispatch,

Lilli was the woman I had been seeking all my life. For her I was the man. In Lilli I found the miracle of a woman who had all to give that I sought, the perfect crystallisation in one lovely human being, of all my years of searching. Lilli had the mother complex too. But in the reverse ratio to mine. In her, the mother instinct was so powerful that she poured it out, indiscriminately almost, on everyone she knew. She mothers her own mother. Meeting Lilli was like coming home to an enchanted place one had always dreamed of, but never thought to reach. For her it was the same. Our marriage is not only flawless, it is a complete and logical union, as inevitable as daybreak after night, as harmonious and right as the words that exactly fit the music. My search is finished. The picture in my mind of my mother is of a woman great and holy. But it is a picture clear and. distinct, a deep and humble memory of a woman no one could replace; but now it is not blurred by the complex which before had harassed my mind.

Veidt and Lilli arrived from London at Los Angeles on 13 June 1940 and resided in Beverly Hills, where they lived at 617 North Camden Drive.

Even after leaving England, Veidt was concerned over the plight of children cooped up in London air raid shelters, and he decided to try to cheer up their holiday. Through his attorneys in London, Veidt donated enough money to purchase 2,000 one-pound tins of candy, 2,000 large packets of chocolate, and 1,000 wrapped envelopes containing presents of British currency. The gifts went to children of needy families in various air raid shelters in the London area during Christmas 1940. The air raid shelter marshal wrote back to Veidt thanking him for the gifts. Noting Veidt's unusual kindness, he stated in his letter to him, "It is significant to note that, as far as is known to me, you are the only member of the Theatrical Profession who had the thought to send Christmas presents to the London children."

Veidt smuggled his parents-in-law from Austria to neutral Switzerland, and in 1935 he managed to get the Nazi government to let his ex-wife Radke and their daughter move to Switzerland. He also offered to help Felizita's mother, Frau Radke, of whom he was fond, leave Germany. However, she declined. A proud, strong-willed woman who was attached to her home country, she declared that "no damned little Austrian Nazi corporal" was going to make her leave her home. She reportedly survived the war, but none of the Veidts ever saw her again.

Veidt was bisexual and a feminist. In a 1941 interview he said,

There are two different kinds of men. There are the men men, what do you call them, the man's man, who likes men around, who prefers to talk with men, who says the female can never be impersonal, who takes the female lightly, as playthings. I do not see a man like that in my mirror. Perhaps, it is because I think the female and the male attract better than two men, that I prefer to talk with females. I do. I find it quite as stimulating and distinctly more comfortable. I have a theory about this – it all goes back to the mother complex. In every woman, the man who looks may find – his mother. The primary source of all his comfort. I think also that females have become too important just to play with. When men say the female cannot discuss impersonally, that is no longer so. When it is said that females cannot be geniuses, that is no longer so, either. The female is different from the male. Because she was born to be a mother. There is no doubt about that. But that does not mean that, in some cases, she is not also born a genius. Not all males are geniuses either. And among females today there are some very fine actresses, very fine; fine doctors, lawyers, even scientists and industrialists. I see no fault in any female when she wears slacks, smokes (unless it is on the street, one thing, the only thing, which I don't like), when she drives a car ... when men say things like "I bet it is a woman driving" if something is wrong with the car ahead – no, no. These are old, worn out prejudices, they do not belong in today.

In the 1930s, Veidt discovered that he had the same heart condition that his mother had died from. The condition was further aggravated by chain smoking, and Veidt took nitroglycerin tablets.

Veidt died of a massive heart attack on 3 April 1943 while playing golf at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles with singer Arthur Fields and his personal physician, Dr. Bergman, who pronounced him dead at the scene. He had suddenly gasped and fallen over after getting to the eighth hole. He was 50 years old. His ex-wife Felizitas and his daughter Viola found out about his death via a radio broadcast in Switzerland.

In 1998, his ashes, along with his wife Lilli's, were placed in a niche of the columbarium at the Golders Green Crematorium in north London.

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

17th March >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on:

Mark 16:15-20 for The Feast of Saint Patrick

   And on

John 5:17-30 for Wednesday, Fourth Week of Lent

Feast of Saint Patrick

Gospel

Mark 16:15-20

Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News

Jesus showed himself to the Eleven and said to them:    ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned. These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils; they will have the gift of tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay their hands on the sick, who will recover.’    And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven: there at the right hand of God he took his place, while they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it.

Reflections (4)

(i) Feast of Saint Patrick

This time last year, we could not have imagined that we would still be in lockdown the following Saint Patrick’s Day. It has been a difficult year for so many people, especially for all whose loved ones have died because of the pandemic. The restrictions and lockdown twelve months ago came suddenly. So many events had to be cancelled at short notice, including here in the parish. I was looking at the Newsletter I had written for Sunday, 15th March, last year. It mentioned a number of events coming up in the following week, a Lenten talk on 18th March, the meeting of the Film Club on the 19th March, a meeting of Teen Hope on the 22nd March, a week of Guided Prayer in the parish beginning on 22nd March, a meeting of the Parish Pastoral Council on the 23rd March,. None of those events happened. It was as if our personal and communal landscape changed suddenly overnight.

As I was reading again the Confession of Saint Patrick, it occurred to me that he must have had a similar experience the day he was taken captive. It is evident from his two writings that have come down to us that Patrick came from a reasonably privileged background. His father was a town counsellor who had a comfortable house with many servants. Patrick says that he was born free, of noble rank. Then suddenly, his personal and communal landscape radically changed. At the age of sixteen, he was taken captive with others and brought to Ireland. As he says, he found himself among strangers. Gone were his comfortable home, his loving family, his freedom. He was now a slave, with no rights or protection. He was lost, without friend or future. It is hard to imagine the impact of such a traumatic experience on one so young. Yet, as he wrote his Confession in his old age, he recognizes the great gifts that came to him during this painful and lonely time of exile. Although his grandfather was a priest, and Patrick had been baptized, he acknowledges that as an adolescent he ‘did not know the true God’. He said he had turned away from God. However, in exile, while herding sheep in all kinds of weathers he had the most extra-ordinary spiritual awakening. Looking back, he speaks of the ‘great benefits and graces the Lord saw fit to confer on me in my captivity’. He speaks of the Lord’s ‘wonderful gifts, gifts for the present and for eternity, which the human mind cannot measure’. He goes on to say, ‘my faith increased and the spirit was stirred up so that in the course of a single day I could say as many as a hundred prayers, and almost as many in the night’.

Many years later, he finally broke free of his captivity and made his way home to his family. Having been profoundly touched by God in the years since he left his family, he was now sensitive to the presence and the call of God in his life. Some years after returning home, he heard the Lord’s call to return to the land of his former captivity to preach the gospel. He trained for the priesthood and arrived back in Ireland, this time as a free man, or, perhaps more accurately, as the Lord’s slave or servant. He speaks of himself now as a ‘stranger and exile for the love of God’. He writes of ‘the people to whom the love of God brought me’. His mission in Ireland was fraught with dangers and difficulties of all sorts, including at times opposition from leading members of the church in Britain who had authorized his mission to Ireland. Yet, his two writings are full of a strong sense of God’s protective and guiding presence in his life. He was very aware of all the Lord was doing through him, in spite of setbacks. He writes, ‘I am very much in debt to God, who gave me so much grace that through me people should be born again in God and afterwards confirmed’. He asks, ‘What return can I make to God for all his goodness to me? What can I say or what can I promise to my Lord since any ability I have comes from him?’ Writing towards the end of his life, Patrick could see the many ways the Lord had worked powerfully through his painful experience of exile as an adolescent. Because of that traumatic experience of loss, the gospel was brought to what Patrick calls ‘the most remote districts beyond which nobody lives and where nobody had ever come to baptize, to ordain clergy or to confirm the people’.

Patrick’s life teaches us to be attentive to the ways that the Lord may be surprisingly present in situations of great struggle that seem devoid of any value at the time. Whereas it is never the Lord’s desire that misfortune should befall us, when it does come our way, he is always there with us, working among for our good and the good of others. Perhaps our very vulnerability at such times can make us more attentive to what the Lord may want to say to us. Patrick’s experience of exile made him alert to the Lord’s call at different moments of his life. Our own experiences of exile and loss, whatever form they may take, can help to make us more alert to the Lord’s loving purpose for our lives.

And/Or

(ii) Feast of Saint Patrick

 The Confessions of Saint Patrick is one of two written works that have come down from him. They are very far removed from us in time, Patrick having written them towards the end of his mission in Ireland sometime in the mid to late fifth century. Yet, it is a very personal document, a personal statement of faith, and, it can continue to speak to us today, almost one thousand six hundred years later.

 He speaks in that document of his two periods of time in Ireland, the first during which he was a slave of a slave owner, and the second when he was a slave of the Lord, faithfully doing the Lord’s work as a bishop. Patrick’s father was a deacon of the church and his grandfather was a pries; they were reasonably well off. He said in his Confessions that at the time of his captivity by pirates at the age of sixteen he was ‘ignorant of the true God’’ and had abandoned God’s commandments. It was while he was in captivity in Ireland, in an alien land, that the Lord touched his heart. As a result, he came to see his time in captivity as a blessing. He uses a striking image to express his spiritual awakening during his time of exile, ‘I was like a stone lying in the deepest mire; and, then, he who is mighty came and, in his mercy, raised me up’. He spells out in some detail how this spiritual awakening transformed him, ‘I prayed frequently each day, and more and more the love of God and the fear of him grew in me, and my faith was increased and my spirit enlivened... come rain, hail or snow, I was up before dawn to pray... I now understand this: at that time the Spirit was fervent in me’. In his Confessions he is giving thanks to God for this reawakening of faith that occurred in him. He declares, ‘I must not hide that gift of God which he gave me bountifully in the land of my captivity, for it was then that I fiercely sought him and there found him’. The God to whom Patrick had been so indifferent in the comfort of his own home, he became passionate about when he was torn away from all he knew and loved. Perhaps this experience of Patrick might resonate with us. It can be the darker experiences of life that open us up to the Lord more fully. When what we treasure is taken from us we can become more sensitive to the Lord’s presence in our lives.

 After six years in captivity he ran away from his master and after a journey of two hundred miles he boarded a ship which sailed to Gaul. He finally made his way back to his family in Britain. He writes that his parents ‘welcomed me home as a son. They begged me in good faith after all my adversities to go nowhere else, nor ever leave them again’. Patrick must have presumed that he was home among his own for good. Yet, he then had this powerful spiritual experience which sent him back to the very people who had taken him captive. He had a vision in which a man called Victorinus came to him with innumerable letters and as he read one Patrick said that he thought the heard the voice of those who live around the wood of Foclut which is close to the Western Sea shouting with one voice, ‘O holy boy, we beg you to come again and walk among us’. He was ordained priest and then appointed bishop and travelled back to Ireland to begin his mission. Looking back over his mission towards the end of his life, he was very aware that his second coming to Ireland was no more his own decision that his first coming. He says at the end of his Confessions, ‘It is not I but Christ the Lord who has ordered me to come here and be with these people for the rest of my life’. He had a very successful mission in Ireland but, clearly, it cost him a great deal. He writes that ‘not a day passes but I expect to be killed or waylaid or taken into slavery or assaulted in some other way’. Patrick’s sense of being called to this work, even though he knew in advance it would cost him so much, is very striking. He encourages us all to be open to the Lord’s call in our own lives. ‘What is the Lord asking of me?’ is a question worth pondering. Sometimes, as in the case of Patrick, he may be asking us to do something that, from a merely human point of view, doesn’t make a lot of sense. To become aware of what the Lord may be asking of us, we need to give ourselves time and space so as to listen to him.

And/Or

(iii) Feast of Saint Patrick

We are very fortunate that the story of Patrick has been preserved in two short Latin letters which he himself wrote in his old age, a letter to the soldiers of Coroticus, the leader of a tribe in Wales, and his own Confessions. In these invaluable documents, Patrick describes himself as a Briton of the Roman nobility who was kidnapped from his family villa by pirates and taken to Ireland when he was about sixteen. His grandfather had been a priest and his father a deacon, so Patrick was raised in a Christian home. However by the time of his capture at the age of sixteen, he had lost his childhood faith and had become an unbeliever. He writes, ‘I was only a young man, almost a speechless boy, when I was captured, before I knew what I ought to seek out or avoid’.

 Nevertheless, several years of brutal slavery in Ireland turned him into a fervent believer. During that traumatic period of exile and slavery he had a spiritual awakening. His time of exile was a spiritual watershed in his life. Looking back on his life before this conversion moment, he says that he was ‘like a stone stuck deep in the mud’. Continuing with that image, he speaks of his spiritual awakening as a time when the Lord ‘in his mercy lifted me up and raised me on high, placing me on top of a wall’. In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, it is interesting that Patrick speaks of this turning point in his life as an experience of the Lord’s mercy. He had a strong sense that it was the Lord rather he himself who brought out this change in him. He writes, ‘I must not conceal the gift of God that he has given me in the land of my captivity’. He found in himself a great need to pray, ‘In a single day I would pray a hundred times and the same at night, even when I was in the woods on the mountain’.

 This spiritual awakening had enormous consequences not just for Patrick but for so many others in the land of his captivity. After several years of brutal slavery in Ireland, he heard the voice of God telling him to flee back to Britain. Against all the odds, he managed to escape to Britain and eventually made his way back to his family. However, after some time he heard the voice of God again calling him to return to the land of his captivity to proclaim the gospel to the very people who had enslaved him. He did not set out on this mission immediately but trained for the priesthood, possibly in Auxerre in Gaul. He was quickly appointed bishop and sent on his mission to Ireland. The sense we get from his writings is that he gave himself wholeheartedly to sharing the gift of faith he had rediscovered with those who had never heard of Christ. He writes in his Confessions, ‘I spent myself for you all... I travelled among you everywhere risking many dangers for your sake even to the farthest places beyond which no one lived. No one had ever gone that far to baptize or ordain clergy or serve the people’.

 I always try to reread the two writings of Patrick that have come down to us as we approach his feast day. Every year something new in them strikes. The gospel reading for the feast of Saint Patrick this particular year made me more sensitive to one feature in particular of Patrick’s writings. In the gospel reading Peter has an overwhelming sense of his own unworthiness, ‘Depart from me, Lord; I am a sinful man’. Simon Peter seems to have had a realistic sense of his own past and present failings. Yet, this did not deter the Lord from calling him, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on it is people you will catch’. Patrick also had a very strong sense of his own limitations and of his failings. He begins his letter to the soldiers of Coroticus with the sentence, ‘I am Patrick, a sinner and a very ignorant man’. He begins his Confessions in a similar way, ‘I am Patrick, a sinner and a very unsophisticated man. I am the least of all the faithful, and to many the most despised’. At one point in his Confessions he shares an experience of temptation, using a striking image: ‘While I was sleeping that very night, Satan greatly tempted me. I will remember the experience as long as I am in this body. Something like a huge rock seemed to fall on me so that I couldn’t move my arms or legs’. S little further on he writes, ‘He is strong who tries daily to turn me away from my faith and the pure chastity that I have chosen to embrace to the end of my life for Christ the Lord. But the hostile flesh always drags me toward death, to those enticing, forbidden desires’. He is very honest about his personal struggles to remain faithful to the Lord’s call. There is a great realism about his writing. Yet, those struggles did not discourage him. They brought home to him his total dependence on the Lord. He ends his confessions with the acknowledgement that ‘any small thing I accomplished or did that was pleasing to God was done through his gift’.

 Patrick, like Peter in the gospel reading, is an encouragement to us all. He reminds us that the Lord does not ask us to be perfect before calling us to share in his work. He can work powerfully through us, weak as we are, if, like Patrick, we have a generosity of spirit and a recognition of our dependence on the Lord for everything.

And/Or

(iv) Feast of St. Patrick’s Day

 About four years ago I climbed Croagh Patrick for the first time in the company of my sister and brother-in-law. They both live in Southern California. Patrick, who is from the United States, was determined to climb Croagh Patrick. He was recovering from cancer at the time, and, in spite of a very bad back, he wanted to make this climb in thanksgiving for having come through his surgery and treatment so well, and, also, as a form of prayer of petition for God’s ongoing help. We managed to get to the top, just about.

 The Croagh Patrick climb is one expression of the cult of St. Patrick that has continued down to our time. We venerate Patrick today because he spent himself in proclaiming the gospel on this island, bringing Christ to huge numbers of people. He says in his Confessions, ‘I am very much in debt to God who gave me so much grace that through me many people should be born again in God and afterwards confirmed, and that clergy should be ordained for them everywhere’. In amazement at what God had done through him, he asks, ‘How then does it happen in Ireland that a people who in their ignorance of God always worshipped only idols and unclean things up to now, have lately become a people of the Lord and are called children of God?’

 On his feast day we give thanks for Patrick’s response to God’s call to preach the gospel in the land of his former captivity. His first journey to Ireland was not of his own choosing. He was brought here as a slave at the age of 16, having been cruelly separated from his family and his homeland. This must have been a hugely traumatic experience for a young adolescent. He says in his confessions: ‘I was taken captive… before I knew what to seek or what to avoid’. Yet, out of this difficult experience came great good. Although Patrick had been baptized a Christian in his youth, he had developed no relationship with Christ. The faith into which he had been baptized had made no impact on his life. It was only in his captivity that Christ became real for him. In the land of his exile he had a religious awakening. He tells us: ‘When I came to Ireland… I used to pray many times during the day. More and more the love of God and reverence for him came to me. My faith increased… As I now realize, the spirit was burning within me’. That spiritual awakening had enormous consequences, not only for himself but for the people of the land where he was held captive.

 The Lord somehow got through to Patrick during the rigours of captivity in a way he had not got through to Patrick during his reasonably privileged upbringing at home. Patrick uses a striking image to express this transformation in his life: ‘Before I was humbled I was like a stone lying in the deep mud. Then he who is mighty came and in his mercy he not only pulled me out but lifted me up and placed me at the very top of the wall’.

 Patrick’s own story brings home to us that the Lord can work powerfully in dark and troubling times. In the course of our lives we can be brought places that we would rather not go. We might be separated from someone or some place that has been very significant for us. We find ourselves isolated and adrift, in unfamiliar and threatening territory, unsure of our future and with regrets about the past. Patrick’s story reminds us that when we find ourselves in such wilderness places, the Lord does not abandon us. Rather when we seem to be losing so much, he can grace us all the more. Patrick says in his confessions: ‘I cannot be silent… about the great benefits and graces that the Lord saw fit to confer on me in the land of my captivity’. When we are brought low, for whatever reason, the Lord will be as generous with us as he was with Patrick. If we remain open to the Lord in such times, as Patrick did, the Lord will not only grace us but he will also grace many others through us.

 Patrick’s experience teaches us to be alert to the signs of God’s presence even in difficult times. Patrick’s story reminds us that the Lord continues to work powerfully in what appears to be unpromising situations. In this morning’s gospel reading the prospects for a great catch of fish seemed very slim to Peter and his companions. After all, they had worked hard all night and had caught nothing. Yet, Jesus saw great prospects where Peter and the others saw little of promise. When Peter and the others set out in response to the word of Jesus they saw for themselves what Jesus could see all along. The Lord is always creatively at work even in the most unpromising of situations. However, if his work is to bear fruit, he needs us to set out in faith and hope in response to his word, as Patrick did when he left his home for a second time to come to the island of his former captivity. We pray this morning for something of Patrick’s courageous and expectant faith.

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Wednesday, Fourth Week of Lent

Gospel (Except USA)

John 5:17-30

The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and all who hear it will live

Jesus said to the Jews, ‘My Father goes on working, and so do I.’ But that only made them even more intent on killing him, because, not content with breaking the sabbath, he spoke of God as his own Father, and so made himself God’s equal.    To this accusation Jesus replied:

‘I tell you most solemnly, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees the Father doing: and whatever the Father does the Son does too. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does himself, and he will show him even greater things than these, works that will astonish you. Thus, as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to anyone he chooses; for the Father judges no one; he has entrusted all judgement to the Son, so that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father. Whoever refuses honour to the Son refuses honour to the Father who sent him. I tell you most solemnly, whoever listens to my words, and believes in the one who sent me, has eternal life; without being brought to judgement he has passed from death to life. I tell you most solemnly, the hour will come – in fact it is here already – when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and all who hear it will live. For the Father, who is the source of life, has made the Son the source of life; and, because he is the Son of Man, has appointed him supreme judge. Do not be surprised at this, for the hour is coming when the dead will leave their graves at the sound of his voice: those who did good will rise again to life; and those who did evil, to condemnation. I can do nothing by myself; I can only judge as I am told to judge, and my judging is just, because my aim is to do not my own will, but the will of him who sent me.’

Gospel (USA)

John 5:17-30

As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also does the Son give life to those whom he chooses.

Jesus answered the Jews: “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.    Jesus answered and said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do also. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes. Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life. Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to the Son the possession of life in himself. And he gave him power to exercise judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation.    “I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”

Reflections (3)

(i) Wednesday, Fourth Week of Lent

At the end of today’s gospel reading, Jesus declares, ‘my aim is not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me’. Jesus’ life is shaped by the will of his Father, and that will is that all men and women would find life through believing in Jesus. As the evangelist says a little earlier in his gospel, ‘God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’. In the words of today’s gospel reading, ‘the Father, who is the source of life, has made the Son the source of life’. God wills life and that is why Jesus says elsewhere in John’s gospel, ‘I have come that they may have life and have it to the full’. This is also the image of God we find in this morning’s first reading. Just as a mother cherishes the child of her womb and gives life to her child, even more so does God cherish us and work to bring us to fullness of life. God guides us to springs of water. When we pray in the Our Father, ‘your will be done’, we are praying that a culture of life would prevail over a culture of death. We are also committing ourselves to doing God’s will by protecting life, by bringing life to others, by helping others to life fully human lives, lives that are shaped by the Holy Spirit and that lead ultimately to eternal life.

 And/Or

(ii) Wednesday, Fourth Week of Lent

In yesterday’s gospel reading, Jesus asked the paralysed man ‘Do you want to be well again?’ Jesus is often portrayed in the gospels as probing what it is that people really want. At the very end of this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus declares what it is that he wants. He says, ‘My aim is to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me’. Jesus is saying that he wants what God wants and that his will is in perfect harmony with God’s will. He expresses this deep desire within him in a different way at the beginning of this morning’s gospel reading when he declares that the Son, ‘can do only what he sees the Father doing’. As the Father gives life to all who are open to receive it, so too does the Son. Our calling is to be in perfect harmony with Jesus, as Jesus was in perfect harmony with his Father. We are to want what Jesus wants, to do what Jesus does, so as to become his presence to others, as Jesus was the Father’s presence to others. As Jesus witnessed to the Father, we are to witness to Jesus. It is a noble and challenging calling. We can only begin to respond to it if, in the words of the gospel reading, we listen to Jesus’ words, we hear the voice of the Son of God and allow that word to shape and mould us. Then we too can begin to be life-giving in the way Jesus was and is.

 And/Or

(iii) Wednesday, Fourth Week of Lent 

One of the most striking images of God as mother is to be found at the end of today’s first reading. ‘Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the child of her womb? Yet, even if these forget, I will never forget you’. A mother’s love for the child of her womb is tender and life-giving. A mother loves her child as she loves herself because for nine months her child was an integral part of herself. Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, God declares that his love for his people is even stronger than a mother’s love for her child. What an extraordinary statement! Surely the Jewish Scriptures come close here to that profound declaration in the first letter of John, ‘God is Love’. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks of God as ‘my Father’ in a way that is typical of this fourth gospel. Yet, it is the Father as life-giver that Jesus highlights in speaking of God, ‘the Father raises the dead and gives them life… For the Father, who is the source of life, has made the Son the source of life’. Jesus is saying that such is the communion between himself and God that he is as much the source of life as God. Jesus is the Life-Giver. He came that we may have life to the full. This ‘life’ in its fullness will only be ours in eternity, but we can begin to live with this life here and now, insofar as we listen to the words of the Son and live by them. Whenever we allow the Lord’s word to make a home in us, shaping our lives, we will not only draw life from him, but our lives will become life-giving for others.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

[gnomesagetion]

Missing Gears Chapter 1

Things always go wrong when something good happens. For example: The Thunderbirds were just starting up when Gordon Tracy was the only survivor of a holfoil crash. An engagement of a Tracy son and an ex FBI agent when someone is out to get International Rescue. But sometimes good things come from the bad things in our lives.

Read on: Fanfiction.Net AO3 Wattpad

Naomi and Virgil stood hand in hand outside a church in Matamata, New Zealand. Three weeks earlier Virgil had proposed to Naomi at a New Year’s party with her old team at the FBI. Three days later they had decided that they wanted to get married at Naomi’s old church in her hometown. A week after that, Naomi had started packing her stuff for her move to Tracy Island. Although Jeff Tracy had told the couple that he was perfectly fine with Virgil moving back to America to live with his soon to be wife, both Naomi and Virgil wanted to live on the island. So that Virgil could continue working for International Rescue. So that Naomi could join International Rescue.

“You okay Nomey?” Virgil asked his fiancé “Yeah. Just nervous. I haven’t been here for over 20 years. I don’t even remember who was running the office,” “You were barely six when you left,” “Yeah. And I barely remember anyone from here. And like 60% of the church was at the funeral,” “So let’s get this over and done with,” “Yeah,”

Naomi knocked on the office door. A short women opened it. She looked very familiar to Naomi “Hi, can I help you?” She asks “Um… Hi, I’m Naomi Winchester and this is my fiancé Virgil Tracy. We were wondering if we could have our wedding here,” “Come on in, I’ll see what I can do,” The women showed the couple into the office “I’m Philippa Winchester by the way,” Naomi laughed a little. “I think my cousin on my dad’s side has a wife called Philippa,” She explained “It’s not every day this sort of thing happens,” “What’s your cousin’s name?” “Err… It can’t be Nat or Theo because I know for certain they’re still bachelors. Maru is who knows where doing who knows what. Brian, David and Kelvin all have a different last names. Anthony lives in Rotorua while Jeremy is in Wellington. So that leaves Sam and Matthew,” Naomi counts on her fingers “I think its Matt but I can’t be sure. I haven’t seen any of my cousins since I was like six,” “So you’re the cousin who moved to America,” “Yeah. Wow. Are you and Matt living here?” “On a farm out on Taihou South,” “Cool,” “Anyway, besides the mini family reunion, you two want to get married here,” “Yeah. Naomi grew up here and we thought it would be nice if we married in Naomi’s hometown,” “So what date are you thinking about?” Philippa asked, logging onto the computer. “We haven’t…” “July 14th,” Virgil interrupted “No more tears of sadness,” “A winter wedding?” “Why not?” “You just want it to be easier to remember my birthday,” Naomi bantered with her fiancé playfully “Have I ever forgotten your birthday?” “No. But your brother has,” “So we have nothing planned or booked on Wednesday 14th July this year, would you like us to book you in for the day?” Philippa asked “Yes please,” Naomi and Virgil said in union. A tall boy walked through the door. “Hey Mum,” He looked up and saw the two visitors in the office. “Caleb, this is your dad’s cousin Naomi and her fiancé Virgil,” Philippa told her son “They’re planning to have their wedding here in Matamata,” “Hey,” Naomi said “Nice to meet you,” “You too,” Caleb said “I’m going to Uncle Sam’s now Mum. I’ll be back on Thursday,” “Okay. See you then,” Naomi sighed. “I completely forgot how many people there are on my dad’s side,” “Well the church will be big enough for the whole family,” Philippa told the couple “That’s true,” Naomi agreed “So anything else we need to do before we leave?” “Yeah, just your address and payment details,” Philippa told the couple. Virgil grabbed the pen and paper. “Remember most of the payment for the wedding is coming from my bank account,” “I’ll pay for the venue – you save it for the dress,” Naomi rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll contact you guys later with more details,” “Thanks Philippa,” Naomi told her cousin’s wife “No problem. But don’t be surprised if you get a wedding present from the church,” The three adults laughed. “See you around,” Virgil said “We’ve got a few more jobs to do before we head home tomorrow,” “Of course, I won’t keep you any longer,”

15 minutes later, Naomi pulled into a driveway. A blue letter box stood on a wooden post at one end. At the other end, an old house from the 1970s stood. “Welcome to the Winchester farm,” She told her fiancé “My childhood home,” “It’s beautiful,” “For an old house. That my dad helped to build when he was nine,” Naomi said “That shed must have been put up after I left though. I don’t remember that being there,” “I think we should go talk to the occupants, they must be wondering whose car this is,” Virgil suggested. “Good idea,” They got out of the car and went up the concrete steps. They walked along a path to a set of orange wooden steps. “My poppa made these before he died,” Naomi explained “The only way down before these were made were the steps on the other side and the front porch,” “You really remember all that?” “Of course I do. I always was a bright kid,” Naomi took a deep breath and knocked on the front door. A teenage girl opened the door. “Can I help you?” “Um Hi, I’m Naomi. This is my fiancé, Virgil, are your parents’ home?” “Yeah,” The girl answers “Mum! Someone’s at the door for you!” An older women appeared. “Hi, you must be the landlord’s niece,” The women said “I’m Kristen Jones, we’re renting the house at the moment,” “I’m Naomi Winchester, this is my fiancé, Virgil,” Naomi introduced herself and the middle Tracy. “Come on in,” Kristen said.

Kristen handed Naomi a glass of water and Virgil a cup of coffee. “Congratulations on your engagement,” She told the couple “So when’s the wedding,” “July 14th,” Naomi told the women “We’re having it at the bible church in town and we were wondering if we could use the house for the night since neither one of us own property here in New Zealand,” “Well we’re on holiday in Australia at that time so feel free to use it for a week if you need to,” Kristen said “Mr Turner explained the situation to us over the phone a few days ago,” “Thank you so much Kristen,” Virgil smiled “This means a lot to us,” “No problem,” “We’ve got the wedding venue done as well as a place to stay. Still need to worry about the cake, catering, the dress and the people in the wedding party and people invited,” “I’ve got a friend who does catering, I’ll give you her number,” Kristen said, writing down a number on her notepad “Just tell her that Kristen Jones gave you the number,” “Thank you again Kristen,” Naomi said, handing over a card “Here’s my number if something crops up. Obviously I don’t work for the FBI anymore,” “Thanks, I hope you two can get everything ready in time for your wedding,”

Cameron Muter sat in his apartment, reading the latest issue of New Life. The cover story was the announcement of Virgil Tracy and Naomi Winchester’s engagement. While the news of their engagement had been released some weeks prior by The Maze, the Tracy family had only just officially confirmed the fact. It had a photo of the middle Tracy son holding his bride-to-be gently. He had extra reason to. The lucky girl’s right arm was in a dark blue sling. The article stated that the 29 year old had recently been caught in crossfire while saving the fourth Tracy son. Cameron sighed. It would have been better if that Tracy had died when he was supposed to. It would have meant that the Tracy family would have to go through even more pain that they were originally going to go through. Because of the red haired son, Jeff Tracy was going to have to watch his first daughter-in-law perish alongside all of his sons. Cameron picked up his phone and dialled the number at the top of his contacts list. His only contact. “Good evening sir, I’m afraid to report that this time, it seems, that the rumours of a Tracy bride were true,”

[the-record-newspaper]

The Killing of Rhonda Hinson Installment VII

Greg McDowell and Rhonda Hinson

By LARRY J. GRIFFIN                                                                                            Special Investigative Reporter

I hope you’re still exercising a lot and eating less food.  Maybe you can start taking vitamins to make up for what you don’t eat.  Are you going to be at least 2 lbs. lighter when I see you Friday?  Remember, no cheating.—Greg McDowell letter to Rhonda Hinson, December, 1981

Jill Turner-Mull was elated that Fall Semester, 1981 at Western Carolina was drawing to a close—she said as much to her best friend, Rhonda Hinson, in a 169-word missive penned on December 8th. The only specter looming between her and Christmas vacation was the inevitable battery of end-of-semester exams.

“I have so many tests these next two weeks, I think I’m just going to pull every hair out of my head.  I’ll be so glad when Dec. 18 gets here,” she writes.  

Her roommate, Katie Hudson [Purgason], was going to complete exams earlier and would leave campus on December 14th; so, Jill faced the prospect of being alone in their dorm room—she was less than excited about it.  “Katie is getting to leave Mon. December 14 because she doesn’t have anymore exams. I’m going to be by myself.  I’ll be so lonely.”

Jill’s boyfriend, Mark Turner, who would be completing his Fall Semester at Elon College, was to travel to Cullowhee to retrieve her.  “Mark is suppose [sic] to come get me then, but I’m trying to talk him into coming up here earlier say, Wed. [16th] or Thursday [17th].  [In his first interview with law enforcement on January 4, 1996—over 14-years subsequent to Rhonda’s murder—Mark Turner stated that he “thinks he returned home on December 17, 1981...” and was looking forward to being with Jill Turner.]

It was the next day—December 9th—that Jill placed the chartreuse envelop, destined for 1009 Hillcrest Street, Valdese, in the campus mail.

Greg McDowell was also looking toward the completion of the Fall Semester at N.C. State.  He too had been studying for exams when he wrote to girlfriend Rhonda a few days before he would be traveling westward to Burke County and to her. “…I’ve been so busy studying for final exams this week.  All I do is eat, sleep, and study for those exams.  I miss you and I love you very much.”

After expressing amorous aphorisms, Greg inquired after Rhonda’s exercising and food consumption:

…I hope you’re still exercising a lot and eating less food. Maybe you can start taking vitamins to make up for what you don’t eat.  Are you going to be at least 2 lbs [sic] lighter when I see you Friday! Remember, no cheating.  I can’t wait to see you Friday.  I’ll be home for a long time and we’ll spend Christmas together this year.  I love you very much and I’ll see you Friday.  I have to go study now.  

I love you Forever,

Your B + U man [Brontosaurs and Unicorn]

During the Summer and Fall, 1981, “…Rhonda had grown increasingly sensitive about her weight, and Greg’s remarks seemed to really hurt her but also seemed to make her eat even more,” her mother, Judy Hinson wrote in her personal recollections:

She said Greg made smart remarks about her eating and called her a fat pig….If Greg was here at meal time, she’d would either get a plate and stand beside the refrigerator so he could not see her eat or run in the kitchen and pack her mouth full when he was not looking.  This upset me and I told her so….

Rhonda Hinson stood 5’ 6” tall and weighed 130 lbs. In 1981, body-fat measures; e.g., Body Mass Index (BMI) and Waist-to-Height Ratio (WHtR) had yet to be popularized.  However, when Rhonda’s height and weight data are entered into a BMI calculator, the resultant value is 21.0.  The “normal weight” range is, 18.5—24.9.  Though this measure does not account for body type, specifically muscle and bone distribution, it certainly adjudges a person of Rhonda’s stature to be well within the “normal” range.  

On Sunday December 13th, Rhonda—who was slightly older than Greg, Jill, or Mark—turned 19-years-old.  Greg came home from N.C. State that weekend for her birthday celebration; however, neither Jill nor Mark was able to travel to Valdese for it.  And Jill Turner-Mull gave her best friend a “heads-up.”  She writes, “Me [sic] and Mark aren’t coming home this weekend; but, when we get home, we’ll all have to go out.”

Sometime subsequent to arriving home from school circa, December 17th, Mark Turner journeyed to the “new” Valley Hills Mall in Hickory to select a gift for his girlfriend, Jill.  He admitted to “putting Christmas shopping off to the last minute;” so, he asked Rhonda to accompany him.  While browsing in a store on the second floor, they selected a “blue sweater” for Jill and “maybe Rhonda buying Greg a coat.”  

Jill Turner-Mull recalled talking to Rhonda on Saturday, December 19th but averred that she never mentioned the eleventh-hour shopping excursion with Mark.  And she doubts that an additional gift was purchased for Greg—Rhonda had previously boasted to her, during a luncheon over the Thanksgiving holidays, about having completed all her Christmas shopping early.  

The date and substance of the shopping trip notwithstanding, Rhonda—at some juncture—removed her gray, hooded sweatjacket and tossed it in the backseat of Mark’s gold-colored Buick.   Fourteen years later, he recalled Rhonda’s leaving the sweatjacket with the initials embossed on one side:  HH WTC [likely, Hinson and Harris:  Women’s Tennis Champions].  

To commemorate the season, Hickory Steel scheduled a Christmas party for all employees for Tuesday evening, December 22nd.  A sign-up list was being circulated amongst employees.  Rhonda affixed her signature to it.  

“When Rhonda first mentioned the Christmas party, she didn’t know whether she was going or not,” Judy Hinson recorded in her personal recollections.  “…She told me that Betty [McDowell] kept asking for the list so she could see who was going.  Finally…they had to let her see it.  When she saw Rhonda’s name, she put her and Charles’s name down.  On Sunday after church when they went out to lunch, Rhonda said Betty told Greg she would get his suit pressed to wear to the party.”

Though she remained reticent at the time, Rhonda had already decided that she was not going to ask Greg to accompany her, and if he opted to attend the party—with his parents—she wasn’t going, and told her mother, Judy, as much.  “Rhonda was growing tired of Greg’s arrogant attempts at controlling her—where she went, who she talked to—everything.  She said, ‘Mom, if he goes with me, then I am not going to be able to talk with anybody—he is so jealous that he will question me every time I talk to someone.’ My daughter didn’t want the hassle.”

The week before she was killed, Rhonda received her first Christmas bonus from Hickory Steel.  If she even entertained the notion of attending the company party, she realized that she didn’t have any appropriate clothing to wear.  So, “she decided she would spend it all on an outfit to wear to the party,” Ms. Hinson recalled.  “On Saturday [December 19th], she asked me to go shopping with her.”

Though her boyfriend was home from college, Rhonda knew that she could not shop for clothes with him.  “Everytime she got her check, she bought something for Greg; but if she bought for herself and he found out, he said she was being wasteful and would get mad….If Rhonda bought new clothes she would hide them from Greg. He told her that a person only needed three changes of clothing.  Rhonda loved new clothes but when she went out with Greg, she could not wear anything new. She said she had to wash anything she bought before she wore it so Greg would not know it was new,” Ms. Hinson recollected.    

The Saturday shopping trip was a memorable one. The plan was to travel to Morganton to find an outfit; but despite their best efforts, Judy and Rhonda could not find anything that she liked.  So, they returned to the stores on Valdese’s main street—again no luck.  “We went to Hickory to the new mall,” Judy remembered. “She tried on lots of clothes; we laughed because she tried on really far out things that we knew she would not buy. She bought our lunch and we laughed and talked.  We then went to the old mall [Catawba Mall].”  

Rhonda’s mother noted that each time they entered or exited her new Datsun, she locked the doors.  

“That whole day, neither Rhonda or [sic] I mentioned Greg.  She was happier that day than I had seen her in a long time,” Judy observed.  

The day-long shopping excursion produced no satisfactory results; so a weary mother and daughter journeyed home.  “I said, ‘Rhonda it is late, about 5 p.m.  …We should have called your dad; he’ll be worried about us.’  ‘I’ll take care of dad.’”  

Then her mood abruptly changed.  “Oh God, if Greg has called, he will really be mad,” Rhonda exclaimed to her mother.  

“It was like she panicked then.  She began to drive really fast.  I told her we were so late already; there was not any point to rushing now.  She stopped laughing and talking then.  She turned the radio on and was quiet the rest of the way home.”

When Rhonda and Judy arrived back home, Brother Robbie confirmed his sister’s prescient fear.  “Rhonda, you had better call Greg.  He has been calling all day and I think he is mad.”

Rhonda Hinson had less than 72-hours to live.    

[seniorbrief]

My Father Was the BTK Killer. Here’s Why I Managed to Forgive Him.

Travis Heying/Wichita Eagle

The man knocked on Kerri Rawson’s door around noon on February 25, 2005. She looked out at him from inside her apartment near Detroit—he was holding an FBI badge.

She almost didn’t answer. Her father, a code compliance officer in Park City, a suburb of Wichita, Kansas, had taught her to be wary of strangers, and this one had sat in his car for an hour outside her home. But she decided to let the FBI agent into her kitchen, where she had made a chocolate Bundt cake. From then on, the smell of chocolate cake would make her queasy.

The man asked if she knew what BTK was. Yes, she did. BTK—Bind, Torture, Kill—was the nickname for the serial killer who had scared her mom decades ago and who was responsible for murdering ten people in Kansas between 1974 and 1991.

The FBI guy was her dad’s age, in his late 50s, wearing glasses and a necktie, nervous. Kerri was a 26-year-old substitute teacher taking a day off, still in her pajamas. The man said her dad had been arrested as a BTK Killer suspect. He needed to swab her cheek for DNA. (Here are the strangest unsolved mysteries in each state.)

At that moment, in Park City, Kerri’s mother, Paula Rader, 56, sat down to lunch at home, waiting for her husband, Dennis. Cops rushed in, guns drawn. A week later, Paula’s lunch still sat uneaten in the house she had shared with Dennis since the early 1970s. She’d never sleep there again.

Cops arrested Dennis as he was driving home for lunch. In Wichita, officers picked up family and friends for questioning. At the police station, Paula defended Dennis. Back in Detroit, Kerri yelled at the FBI agent. The last time she had seen her dad was in Park City at Christmas. He’d looked sad. She remembered his bear hug, how he smelled, his brown uniform. This could not be true, she told the man. Dad had called last night, asking if she’d checked the oil in her car.

At that point, she did something she would do many times over the next seven days: defend and then doubt her father at the same time. She told the agent about Marine Hedge. Hedge, 53, was a grandmother with a silky southern accent, five feet tall, weighing no more than 100 pounds. She’d lived six doors down from the Raders and disappeared in 1985, when Kerri was six. Hedge’s body was later found in a ditch. Paula had been fearful. “Don’t worry,” Dad had said. “We’re safe.”

Kerri remembered that when Hedge disappeared, her dad wasn’t home. “It was stormy, and I didn’t want to sleep by myself. My mom let me in her bed—that’s how I know he was gone.”

After the FBI agent left, she took down a picture of her father from the hallway and stuck it in a closet. She Googled “BTK” for proof that he was innocent but then told her husband she was matching her memories to BTK’s murder timeline, wondering if her whole life might be a lie.

The next day, police and politicians gathered in Wichita’s city hall. “BTK is arrested,” the police chief announced. Kerri was furious when she learned that to link her dad to the BTK Killer, cops had obtained one of her Pap smears taken years before at Kansas State University’s clinic. They used it to confirm that the Rader family DNA closely matched DNA in the semen that BTK left at the scene of a quadruple homicide in 1974. The FBI guy had asked Kerri for a cheek swab so he could double-check her DNA.

The first nights, Kerri and her husband, Darian, slept as if one of them needed to be on watch—she on the couch, he on the floor. TV crews camped outside, and when Darian drove to work, they followed.

Darian watched his wife change. Athletic and nearly five foot ten, she was no girlie girl, and he loved that. She could walk for days carrying a backpack. But now, she was the BTK Killer’s daughter. She even looked like her dad: same dark hair, same eyes. She shared his middle name, Lynn. She felt as if she’d done something wrong.

Courtesy Kerri Rawson

Kerri searched her memories. The night of Hedge’s murder, Dad had taken Brian, her brother, on a Boy Scout campout. Was it an alibi so he could sneak out and murder their neighbor? In 2004, around Christmas, after BTK threatened in letters to the police and news outlets that he would kill again, Dad had driven her to the airport to pick up her brother. But Dad had wandered off. Was he mailing one of those letters? Watching the news to see if he was mentioned? She minutely analyzed her whole life.

Kerri remembered how he spoke sharply if she sat in his chair or failed to put her shoes away. Cops said BTK made strange marks in his communications to them. She recalled weird marks Dad made on newspaper stories. “Code,” he’d called it.

Three days after her dad’s arrest, Kerri flew back to Kansas City. On the plane, she escaped by reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. But on her layover, she saw her father’s face on the airport’s TV screens.

Mike Clark, the family’s pastor, visited Dennis Rader in jail a week after his arrest. Clark called Paula afterward, and Kerri watched her mother take the call, with a yellow legal pad in her hand. Paula wrote, “He’s confessing,” and underlined it as they talked.

It was true. He had murdered the Oteros: a mom, a dad, and two children, ages 11 and 9. He had tortured victims, sexually defiled several. He had taken Hedge’s body inside Christ Lutheran Church, where he was congregation president. He posed her and took photos. BTK had started his crimes in 1974, before Kerri was born.

Everybody assumed the BTK Killer was a sadistic genius. But the real BTK is an ordinary, inarticulate doofus, Darian thought. And a good dad, Kerri said. With Paula, he’d taught the kids’ godliness. Kerri had two college degrees; Brian, her older brother, had been an Eagle Scout and was training to serve on U.S. Navy nuclear submarines.

Dennis couldn’t understand why no family members visited. Kerri wrote him: “You have had these secrets, this ‘double life’ for 30 years; we have only had knowledge of it for three months … We are trying to cope and survive … You lied to us, deceived us.”

The family dreaded a trial, where his crimes would be described. Dennis pleaded guilty to spare them. Kerri felt relieved until the plea hearing. Her dad told a TV audience at length how he had killed people, lingering over how he’d murdered the Otero kids. He seemed to enjoy the story. He even brought up Kerri. “Joseph Otero had a daughter; I had a daughter.”

One night the next year, while Darian slept, Kerri lay beside him and wrote her father.

“Should I tell you that I grew up adoring you, that you were the sunshine of my life … true, even if it is coming out jaded and bitter now … Sometimes I just want to go out and buy the biggest, buttery tub [of popcorn] I can find and wave it in your face and say, ‘Ha, you won’t ever have this again’ and ask was it worth it? In the next breath I want to ask if you’re staying warm at night … I’m so sorry that you’re alone in that small cold concrete cell and sometimes I just wish I could give you a hug.”

She never sent that letter. And when her dad wrote, his letters sometimes went into the trash, where she dumped cat litter on them. Other times she’d write, and he would not reply, later telling her he’d been busy.

Dennis committed his first murders at age 29. At age 29, Kerri became a mother, and suddenly she truly despised her dad. In 1974, he had killed two children. In 1977, he had strangled Shirley Vian while her six-year-old son watched through a keyhole. In 1986, he killed Vicki Wegerle as her two-year-old stood in a playpen. “Man hurt Mommy,” the child told police. Kerri stopped writing to her father and cut him out of her life.

Sue Parker, a therapist, treated Kerri for five months in 2007. Parker saw a woman with above-average intelligence, poise, and post-traumatic stress. (Kerri gave permission for Parker to be interviewed for this story.) Many factors determine how well people can recover. “It’s about the severity of the trauma and how long it goes on, but it also depends on the coping mechanisms the victims have … their support system, who they have around them,” Parker said.

Kerri had had good people around all her life, Parker thought. A loving husband. Church. Friends. And good parents. Not just Mom. Dad too.

Courtesy Kerri Rawson

The cops said Dennis Rader fancied himself a James Bond character with cover stories—Boy Scout volunteer, congregation president. But the BTK Killer had also been a good dad, Parker said. “Maybe it was all a cover story,” she added. “But if it was, it was a cover story that actually worked.”

While betrayed on a level only God can understand, Parker said, Kerri seemed healthy and strong when she left Parker’s care. After her daughter, Emilie, was born, Kerri clung to teachings about God’s love. But when a sermon on forgiveness was announced at church, she stayed away. She had a second child, Ian, in 2011, but her dad’s betrayals kept poisoning her life. When Emilie was five, she asked her mother where her grandfather was.

“In a long time-out,” Kerri replied.

Could Kerri see him? Emilie asked.

“It’s a really long time-out,” Kerri answered.

One day at church, Darian and Kerri listened to a woman describe being raped. She said she forgave not to help the rapist, but to lighten her own suffering. Kerri talked about that idea for days. In August 2012, she announced at church that her father was a serial killer and told her story. “I have not forgiven him,” she said. Marijo Swanson, a friend, talked to her. “If we choose not to forgive or not work at healing from the betrayal,” she told Kerri, “we continue to give the other person power to control us and our feelings.”

That fall, Kerri suffered a fracture in her tibia. She was laid up for weeks. Shortly afterward, forgiveness poured over her one day. She sobbed so hard while driving that she had to pull the car over. The anger was gone. In December, Kerri wrote to her dad for the first time in five years. She told him she would never forget his crimes or be at peace with them, but she was at peace with the man who had raised her. Then she wrote of her life and of the grandchildren he would never meet. “I don’t know if I will ever be able to make it for a visit but know that I love you and hope to see you in heaven someday.”

After that letter, Kerri changed. “Before she forgave him, she thought of herself as BTK’s daughter,” Darian said later. “But as soon as she forgave him, she was Kerri again.”

In February 2013, Kerri spoke at church. “[God] told me, ‘You have a dad problem; you have a trust and obedience problem. You trusted and obeyed your earthly father, and he hurt you, so now you’re holding out on me. Let’s fix that.’”

She said, “I told Him that ‘I love you.’ He said, ‘Then show me.’”

Courtesy Kerri Rawson

And so she had done it, she told them. She had forgiven him. She wrote again to her father, telling him once more that she forgave him. Her father was stunned. “Forgiveness is there between the lines,” he wrote in his rambling style. “She recalls all that we did as a family—many good memories, and that helps her make the day. That is true love from a daughter’s heart. What else can a father ask for.”

That was not the end to Kerri’s struggles. In September 2013, Stephen King said in a TV interview that he’d written a story inspired by the Rader family called “A Good Marriage,” about discovering a monster in the house. Furious, Kerri gave her own interview, lashing out at King. Among people giving her rave reviews: Dad.

“She reminds me of me,” he wrote to the Wichita Eagle. “Independence, fearless, uses the media. I was touch[ed] by it … People reading … will see we had a ‘good Family.’ Nothing to hide; Only me with my ‘Dark Secrets.’ Like she said, I was a good Dad, (but only did bad things).”

Memories came back to Kerri. In 1996, the Raders had lost a cousin to a car wreck and were losing a grandfather to illness. To comfort the family, her mom made manicotti, but the Raders got into a fight at dinner. “We had this old rickety table and someone—I don’t remember who—pounded on it, and the legs broke and all the dinner came crashing down … My dad was so angry at my brother, he put his hands around my brother’s neck and started to try to choke him. I can still picture it clearly, and I can see the intense anger in my dad’s face and eyes. Close to manic.”

For Kerri, life continued to be complicated. “I fight my dad sometimes in my dreams, never understanding who let him out of prison,” she said. “I’m always very fearful of him and very angry in my dreams. Sometimes I’m even fighting for my life or frantically trying to convince others of the truth.”

On a bitter morning in January 2015, Kerri is in Wichita. “Coming back here to Wichita is like stepping into enemy territory,” she says. She wonders whether people might recognize her, and she talks about forgiveness. “I feel bad for the 30 years of … bad things because of one man, my dad … I forgave him. But I didn’t do that for him,” she says. “I did it for me.”

She returns to her old block and points. “There’s my grandma’s house, and there’s where Mrs. Hedge lived … And here is where our house was.”

It is a vacant lot. The city razed the house to discourage gawkers. “To get to my grandma’s house, I had to walk past Mrs. Hedge’s house, and now [at age six] I was afraid. And the guy who killed her was living in our house.”

She shows where a tree house stood, built by her dad. She indicates with her arms how big his garden had been. “He turned my bedroom into a nursery for plants when I was three, and I’d sleep with my brother in the bunk bed. I was so annoyed with my dad. But now you realize that kept him out of trouble. He was trying to stop. So it was plants—or murder.”

She points to a depression in the grass: the grave of Patches, a pet dog long dead. The cops were so suspicious of the BTK Killer that they had dug up the dog’s remains to see whether BTK had buried any secrets with them. He had not.

But nothing about her life was spared, Kerri says. Not even the graves of long-dead dogs.

Next, find out the most notorious criminals in each state.

Original Source -> My Father Was the BTK Killer. Here’s Why I Managed to Forgive Him.

source https://www.seniorbrief.com/my-father-was-the-btk-killer-heres-why-i-managed-to-forgive-him/

[astridstorm]

More Solid Than Stone? A Reflection on God and Gender

Talk Given to the United Methodist Women in New Rochelle, NY on September 28, 2018

What an honor it is to be with you today. Thank you, Barbara, for inviting me, and to all of you for such a warm welcome.

I've been an Episcopalian for over twenty years; before that I was a Baptist. The Methodist church, though, I have interacted with at various points. Growing up in Ohio my best friend's family was Methodist, and her church was one of the first in our community to have a woman pastor. I credit that pastor with showing me that women can do this work when I would otherwise have had no idea. I certainly didn’t have that example in the church of my childhood.

More recently, my sister and her family as well as my parents have all become Methodists out in the Midwest, Kansas. My mother served as a delegate to her annual conference a few years ago and will again next year. (Though I’m quite sure she doesn’t always vote the way I and probably many of you here wish she might.)

I spent a number of years on the Episcopal Methodist Dialogue Committee in the Diocese of New York, and chaired it for two years. We met around four times a year to pore over documents and talk about what we share in common and where we differ.

And on a larger level, we're connected through our history. Your founder John Wesley was an Anglican -- what we in this country call Episcopalian -- and he lived and died an Anglican. Most of us are not proud of the fact that our church at that point, 18th century, couldn’t accommodate the growing Methodist movement within it. You were way ahead of us on social issues, most notably the abolition of slavery both in this country and in England. When pastors were needed out on the frontier, you were the ones that raced on horseback to serve in far greater numbers than we.

So I’m an admirer of your tradition and it’s possible I even have you to thank for my being a priest at all.

I’ve been told that the choice of topic for today was wide open, and one of you sent me a few links to the sorts of things that the United Methodist Women are involved with. So I think I’ll be within range here. The issue I’ll talk about is one that is at the forefront right now of our discussions in the Episcopal Church, and will probably be debated and fought over for the next at least ten to twenty years. It’s by no means unique to our church nor is it a new topic: the use of gendered language for God.

Now let me say one thing about the way the Episcopal Church works which is, I believe, a little bit different from Methodists. Our Book of Common Prayer, which came out of the Reformation in 1549 but has been revised several times since then, is THE unifying document of our tradition. When we do approve a revision every fifty or so years, it has to be agreed upon by the majority because everyone will be using it. From the very beginning of our history, the most strenuous fights in our church have been over prayer book revisions because so much is at stake.

In past revisions of the prayer book, fights have been over going from Thees and Thous to You, changing rhythms and cadences, adding prayers with slight theological differences to reflect the changing times. Stuff like that. This time, it’s the language we use for God. And while there’s an expected uniformity or worship not asked of in all traditions, these are debates other denominations have had (and are having) as well. Including your own, I know.

Now to be honest, this is not a topic I’d taken much interest in in the past. At Divinity School I was surrounded by such famous feminist theologians as Letty Russell, Serene Jones, Margaret Farley. I took classes from two of them, but never on women’s issues. I would probably even say I tried to avoid the subject.

But then I became a priest, a rector, a mother, I reached my thirties then forties, and I started to look around me: at male colleagues as they moved up the ladder. At women colleagues who didn’t. For a brief time I had a boss who treated his women employees differently from the men. I got away from that situation by moving myself upstate to a tiny struggling church where I worked for next to nothing, but where I was the boss (that ended up being a miraculous and happy time). The woman who after 10 years took my place admitted to similar circumstances with her former boss. In fact, she endured far worse.

The experiences many of us women were having were confirmed by a study in the Episcopal Church of women clergy. That was back in 2009 so I suspect a bit has changed then, but I remember when that report came out. I was in my struggling church up the Hudson River. The report, named “Called to Serve,” examined the status of women by looking at the ratio of ordained women to men in leadership positions, pay disparities between women and men in comparable positions, geographical locations of male and female clergy (women, they found, were likelier to be in smaller rural churches than men, where they also made less money). The Methodist Church did a similar study in 2006, with results very much the same as ours.

Things have changed since both these studies were conducted, but more recent reports, at least in our church, suggest Not very much.

Like feminists in the church I once had little to do with, I began wondering about root causes, and why these problems persisted after forty years of women’s ordination (longer for you Methodists). It was inevitable that sooner or later I would begin to wonder whether the liturgy might play some role in keeping women from moving forward.

Is there a link between gender disparity in deployment and the language we use for God?

Is there a link between the pay gap and the language we use?

Is there a connection between the liturgy as it now stands and the anonymous letter I got after church one day telling me that I’d used up all my political capital in just being a woman, that I better not ever try to talk about world events or our current political leadership in church?

There are many deep seated structural forces that make it difficult for women in this profession, as in other professions. I just never wanted to admit that this might be one of them.

The language of worship then matters. The language of prayer matters. Wil Gafney, a professor of Hebrew at Brite Divinity School in Texas and one of the standard bearers of this issue in our church recently said “As long as ‘men’ and ‘God’ are in the same category, our work toward equity will not just be incomplete … I honestly think it won’t matter, in some ways.”

I don’t think I’d take it that far, but more and more, I’m not sure.

Think about what people experience the most, of church. They come to church on Sundays. Services. Theologians for years have been mixing up pronouns and metaphors for God, but most people don’t read theology. They hear the priest (or minister) preach, they hear the words of the service, the prayers, and then they go home, back again the next week. It’s HERE that we learn the language for God that we take out into the rest of the world with us. The language that shapes not only what we think of God, but what we think of our church, others, ourselves. We encounter it most in public worship, “liturgy.” That word, liturgy derives from two root words in the Greek, laos and ergas: work, and people. Liturgy is “the work of the people.”

In one of the most famous books on this topic, She Who Is, theologian Elizabeth Johnson writes “The symbol of God does not passively float in the air but functions in social and personal life to sustain or critique certain structures, values, and ways of acting.” And then, as she says multiple times, a refrain, really, throughout her introduction to that book “The symbol of God FUNCTIONS.”

Are there multiple factors keeping women leaders from moving forward in the church at the pace we should expect? Yes. But this is surely a significant one that we have to take more seriously.

At this point I’m curious -- maybe just a show of hands -- who practices inclusive language in your church. And I mean, regularly hears pronouns like “she” along with “he” OR whose pastor doesn’t refer to God as any gender.

And who’s not sure?

How many of you are Methodists? Other denominations? Congregational?

Other religions? Reform Judaism, as I understand, is way ahead of us on this matter.

There are certainly groups in the Episcopal Church that use authorized liturgies with more variety of language for God, but I doubt many people in the pews even know that. I’d be surprised if anyone in my congregation is aware of this issue.

The burden for Episcopalians, at least, is tradition. The aesthetic of tradition, which is important in many Episcopal Churches. Near the entrance of my church is a sign with a slogan I recently came up with: “Traditional Worship, Modern Values.” I thought it was catchy. But I’m also aware that “traditional worship,” worship that has for so long identified God as predominantly masculine, butts up against “modern values” when it comes to this issue.

But it doesn’t have to. There are myriad images of God in Scripture, male, female and neither. In one of my favorite passages from Deuteronomy, God goes from being a father to a mother, all in the span of just a few verses. Likewise in Luke’s Gospel, God goes from being the (male) shepherd looking for a lost sheep to a woman looking for a lost coin -- again, in the span of just a few verses.

There are myriad images of God in church tradition, too. St. Anselm, St. Clare, St. Julian of Norwich, all used diverse pronouns and images for God.

So there is really no excuse, not even tradition, and certainly not aesthetics, for failing to expand our language and understanding of God. Keep Lord, Father, King, he and him, but add or sometimes replace them with Mother, Midwife, she and her. Or Rock, Fortress, Light, Creator, Righteous One.

“The Lord is risen indeed” becomes “Christ is risen indeed.”

“Blessed be his kingdom for ever and ever” becomes “Glory to God for ever and ever.”

“In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit” becomes at points “Praise to the Holy and undivided Trinity.”

Or this lovely blessing, which picks up on the fact that “Spirit,” in the Greek of the New Testament, is feminine. Again, what’s new is old.

“May the blessing of the God of Abraham and Sarah, and of Jesus Christ born of our sister Mary, and of the Holy Spirit, who broods over the world as a mother over her children, be upon you and remain with you always.”

Examples like this abound. I’m guessing you Methodists have many more than we because you have more local autonomy over issues of worship. Masculine language can be reduced, and other images (from tradition) come in to take its place. Not solely, but to balance it out. And tradition is reinvigorated, not compromised.

But this will be a challenge. Once again quoting Elizabeth Johnson in She Who Is: “More solid than stone, more resistant to iconoclasm than bronze, seems to be the ruling male substratum of the idea of God cast in theological language and engraved in public and private prayer.”

More solid than stone, more resistant than bronze. Women (and men): There is work to be done.

[imgilmoregirl]

A Rose of the Forbidden Love

AO3 Link

Notes: Oh, I'm so sorry with the delay of this fic. I got really caught up writing my new on The Miracle, it has been quite an addiction writing it. But we are almost done here, I'd say another four chapters or so. I hope you're liking it!

Chapter Fourteen

Fiona was spending more time in Rose's apartment than she would like her to. There was a part of her that still couldn't believe her good intentions as nicer as she had been lately, mostly because whenever she made a question about her parents' past Fiona would start a whole monologue about how much of a bad person Belle French was. She seemed to be decided to convince Rosalie that her mother had given her up willingly, although the story Belle told her implied the very opposite.

“I would have helped, you know,” Fiona said in a certain afternoon. “I told Isabelle that she should stay in my home, that I would care for her and the child, she just shouldn’t keep seeking for Adam once he was a priest, but she didn’t hear me. I woke up one morning and she was gone.”

If she was feeling brave enough, then Rose might have gone to her mother and asked for the truth, but there was a lot going on at the moment and with Victoria threatening Roland constantly she got to make some decisions and not only for her sake, but for Izzy’s too. She had sent a message to Roland, telling him to come over as soon as he could, because she needed to discuss a few things with him. Rosalie had been waiting for really long when the doorbell rang and she pulled Izzy down to the Moses’ basket, walking to it promptly, but who she found there wasn’t exactly who she was expecting.

“Regina?”

The short haired woman gave her a tiny smile. From all people, Roland’s mother was the last one she thought could appear by her door and she started to wonder if he had send her there.

“Can I come in, please? I need to talk to you about something.”

“Mm, sure.”

She opened the door completely, letting the elegant woman walk inside her tiny apartment wearing her fancy red dress and black high heels. Rose stayed frozen in place for a moment without know exactly what to do as Regina took a few steps to into the living room her gaze falling to the Moses’s basket as Rosalie finally moved to close the door. Bending down, Regina pulled the pink blanket away from the baby to get a better view of her and smiled.

“Is that my granddaughter?”

“Yeah,” Rose said, coming right to her side and picking the child, lifting her. “Meet little Izzy.”

Regina gesticulated into the baby’s direction, asking to hold her and Rose handed Izzy to the new grandmother. Her smile became bigger. The short-haired woman took a seat on the couch, cradling the baby gently in her arms and touching her flushed cheeks.

“She is perfect,” Regina murmured, astonished, before looking up at Rose, her expression changing. “I came to say that I’m sorry for the things I’ve said to you that day at the company. I was angry with my son, I thought I knew what was right for him, but I didn’t.”

“That’s alright, Regina, I understand.”

And she really did. Roland had been irresponsible and even though he now knew that Ivy’s child was never truly his, it still didn’t change the fact that he had been sleeping with two women at the same time. So, out of the two of them, their parents needed to chose one relationship to support and obviously it wouldn’t be the one with the orphan girl. Rosalie would be totally capable of understanding Belle’s point of view too, if she hadn’t spent months snapping at her for literally no reason.

“So,” Regina started, sounding a bit unsure, “would you come back to the company?”

“What?” Rose blinked.

From her spot on the couch, Regina shrugged. She was smiling at the baby again, as if she was bewitched by her granddaughter and Rose was glad to know that at least her daughter was now accepted into her Roland’s family. Of course, she knew that Henry already liked her and had tried to help his brother a thousand and one times, but yet, Regina’s approval was really important.

“You’re still one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen and pregnancy didn’t make much damage in your body. I would like to have you modelling for us again.”

Rosalie couldn’t help but ask: “Did Roland send you?”

“No, he doesn’t know that I’m here.”

Oh. Another thing occurred to her and Rose knew her face had gone pale a great number of “what ifs” passing repeatedly through her mind. She worried at her lip, unsure if she would like to hear that answer or not but knowing that she should make the question anyway.

“Was it Ms. French then?”

“Nobody but my husband is aware of this visit,” Regina assured. “Come back Rose, you’ll do good for yourself.”

She took a deep breath and tried not to think much before she nodded. Yes, she would be back.

When Gold had called her and said the address, Belle thought she would find him in a coffee shop or something like that, but instead she ended-up parking her car in front of purple inn. She furrowed at it, looking at the street’s name and number for the second time, finding that she was in fact in the right place. The brunette made her way inside anyway, asking for the old woman by the counter which was Gold’s room, she smiled, saying that he was waiting on the number four.

Making her way upstairs, Belle knocked on the door and it didn’t take more than a few minutes for Gold to open it. Her breath got caught on her throat when she noticed his priest jacket and the collar thing where gone and he was only wearing a white shirt, the first buttons of it completely undone.

She tried to make up a good phrase in her head, but the only thing that came through her lips was: “Why are you in a hotel?”

Adam chuckled, gently grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her inside before the door locked behind them, his hands went then to both his pockets, burying deep as his eyes met with hers.

“I was living in the back of the church, but since I’ve sent letter to Vatican and they answered back confirming my resignation was done, I don’t have a home anymore.”

Belle blinked. A cold, bubbling sensation settled on her stomach a kind of excitement she thought she couldn’t quite feel anymore, even more now that her life was turned upside down. Oh, God forgive her, but she was so damn happy with this that she might jump with joy.

“You resigned?”

“Aye, sweetheart, and that’s why I asked you to come here, so I could kneel in front of you,” Gold said, going on one knee, taking a red velvet box from inside his pocked and opening it to display a piece of white gold and diamonds, “show you this ring and propose to you.”

“Oh my…”

“Isabelle French, will you be able to forgive me for everything and become my wife.”

She nodded frantically and he slid the ring to her finger as she pulled him up into at tight hug, kissing his whole face and saying repeatedly: “Yes! Yes, yes!”

When their lips met the kiss was messy and breath-taking, Belle clinging to him as Adam gave himself fully into it for the first time ever since they first dared a contact after meeting again. She moaned against his mouth, her too close to his and yet to far, Belle wanted it all and started to move them to the bed as she kissed down his jaw, her hands going down to his belt.

“We shouldn’t do this before we get married.”

“You know I’m hardly a virgin,” Belle murmured, noticing how lusty she already sounded. “Just make love to me, Adam.”

He looked at her beautiful blue eyes and found himself unable to deny it. Adam had been fantasying about this moment for forever now so he laid her down and they undressed each other, enjoying the sight before they dived into passionate kisses. When they were finally joined, panting at the sensation, they made love promises knowing this time they would be able to keep them.

Roland came over that night and Rosalie said him she couldn't get engaged into a relationship until he was properly divorced and Victoria had been calmed down, he mourned a bit, but he knew that she was right so the boy only promised to make it quickly so they could finally be together. In the very next day Rose found a nanny, a girl named Ashley and prepared herself for her first day back to the company on Monday. She still had a few fancy clothes in her wardrobe that she had been provided with while modelling and chose the best outfit she had: black trousers, white jacket, white heels and a blush-pink blouse.

Sabine encouraged her a lot when all she did was to step back, call Regina and say that she couldn't do it, mainly now when she had to leave her baby at home, but Rose was convinced to do so. She hadn't told her father about it, but Neal knew it and she was pretty sure that sooner or later he would let it slip through his mouth, but she couldn't give much thought to it or she would drown in the madness of her on mind, filled with so many doubts. Meeting with Ms. French would already be hard enough for her, but Rosalie remembered the places she used to stay at in the company and she would certainly avoid them.

So, in that morning, Rose went to Robin's office, finding him discussing some new dresses styles with Gideon. She sighed at her lack of lucky, because from all people it was Ms. French's son in there. Rosalie cleaned her throat anyway, making both of them look up at her.

"Ms. Weaver, what a pleasure to see you," Robin exclaimed cheerfully. "You look stunning as always and I'm glad you do, because we will be taking some pictures today and I want you wearing our newest masterpiece, designed by Belle herself."

"I think you'll love the dress," Gideon said, noticing her discomfort when Robin spoke about his mother. "Alice will help you downstairs."

Rose nodded.

"Thank you for hiring me again, Mr. de Locksley."

As quick as she could, Rosalie turned around getting out of the room and going down to the make-up and dressing room, where Alice jumped on her, hugging Rose close and calling her sister at each sentence she spoke. She showed her a gorgeous silver dress and let Rose pull it on before the photographer appeared to start the shooting. And she had to admit it was good.

While standing in their Rose felt like a princess, more alive than in all those dark days that started with her daughter's kidnapping. She smiled, she laughed, she made serious faces and, in the end, she was feeling herself again. Now, she knew who she was and it wasn't what people thought her to be. What she didn't realise, however was that Belle had been watching the photoshoot and only when it was over and the other were going back to the backstage, she saw her there standing with a glowing smile on her lips. She tried to ran away, but Belle's voice s her.

"I didn't know you were back."

"Regina and Robin hired me," Rose shrugged. "I hope that doesn't make you mad at them."

"No, of course not," Belle guaranteed. "I'm glad to see you here."

Well, I'm not, Rose thought, but didn't say anything. Maybe it had been a bad idea to come there, maybe she shouldn't have accepted the job if she knew that she wasn't ready to see her birth mother every single day. When Belle took a step into her direction trying to touch her face, but she shifted back.

"My child..." Belle trailed off.

"I've already told you I'm not your child."

Belle lifted her hand showing her a big solitary ring.

"Your father and I are engaged."

Swallowing these worlds Rose felt her vision blurry with tears. Gold could forgive everyone for everything, he could love endlessly and give comfort to the ones who needed it, but Rose was nothing like him. She was cold like her mother, so she turned around and went away.

[yorkshirewerewolf]

THE YORKSHIRE WEREWOLF'S TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED, UNEXPLAINED OR UNTRUE YOU DECIDE ? (Parental guidance recommended)

Let me take you back in time. The year was 1865, and the world was shocked by the news of tall hat wearing American President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated while judging the forerunner of “America’’s got Talent” ( he would bang on a large a gong if the act was shite) at a theatre somewhere in the States. But this was not the end of the the President. Documents and a photograph album found in the loft of a recently renovated cottage situated in the east coast village of Hornsea would shed a light on an amazing episode, up until now hidden from public view. Our story begins when Mrs Jemima Mulkinshaw, 82 the owner of “Cheese Cottage” near Hornsea contacted me, the story teller, with her frankly earth shattering claims. The following are the actual words spoken by the old person but transposed into words on a word processor document for your benefit. “ The builder found these documents hidden in the roof. Probably by my Father, who I am certain never wanted me to find them, in fact he wrote on the folder ” Don’t let my ‘effing daughter see these here documents". I have read and studied the contents of the file, and I have had their authenticity confirmed by a former antique expect who wished to remain anonymous, the star of many BBC TV series, like “Tat in the Attic, Antiques autopsy” and an episode of “Lovejoy”. The contents alter history as we know it. Here begins the stunning story. It was 1865 again, and Abraham Lincoln, tired and frankly pissed off with being President, wanted out. He couldn’t abdicate as he wasn’t British and his vanity stopped him from just saying I quit, so he contacted an old wrestling buddy ( Lincoln had won 300 wrestling matches and only lost two) Andrew Roake, who was head of a shady government agency specialising in relocation of witnesses. Abe poured his heart out according to the document, and basically needed to escape being a husband, a family man and the first Mister of America. Andrew came up with a plan; he would hire an out of work actor to fake an assassination while Abe was in front of lots of audience members. Then they would smuggle him out of the country to start a new life in Australia. It would cost a few dollars but clever Abe had stashed tonnes of confederate gold and silver in secret location’s so dosh was not a problem. So the scene was set, and John Wilkes booth resting actor carried out the fake murder, and the body of the 'dead’ president was exchanged with a lookalike corpse while Abe was swiftly extracted from the area and arrived at the docks were the tea clipper 'HMS Bell’ and its crew waited to set sail for the new new world of Australia. The ship’s cargo was made up of food, water and a shit load of gold and silver. As Abe watched from the crows nest as the ship set sail he wrote “….as I spied the land of the free slowly fade into the horizon I had tears in my eyes as I realised I had not laughed this bloody hard in years! Good riddence America and G'day Australia !” For the rest of the world Abraham Lincoln had died a hero of the people, unfortunately in the confusion, John Wilkes Booth failed to escape and went on the run. 12 days later, he was was shot by Mr Boston Corbett a Union soldier and great great grandfather of Harry Corbett the puppet master of sooty and sweep fame. Then fate would deal a mighty blow. A massive storm at sea battered the HMS Bell and the ship was thrown miles off course. Then the main sail was ripped from the mast and the ship was dead in the water. With no other options Captain Kirk gave the order to abandoned the ship. A cry of “women and children first!” went up. As there was only the cabin boy Harry Otter and the mysterious Lady fanthorpe (who was in fact abe in disguise) the two boarded the lifeboat along With A chest containing everything abe could shove in it. Due to the weight, no one else could fit in the small boat and swiftly Abe cut the ropes, leaving an angry mob shouting abuse as Abe forced young Harry to paddle faster. The cross dressing ex president and the bemused cabin boy watched in horror as a mini typhoon pulled the ship down into the doldrums and a watery death awaited all the crew. Lloyds of London received this telegraph message; “++++ URGENT+++WITNESSES SAW SHIP SINK+++STOP+++ALL CREW SUCKED OFF+++STOP+++BY STRONG WIND+++STOP+++THE BRAVE CAPTAIN WENT DOWN ON THE BELL+++END” 31 days later, Abe found himself on a beach. His small boat had finally ran a ground on dry land. He had managed to survive on meagre rations. And after 5 days at sea, abe found Harry rummaging through his trunk. “ YOU AIN’T NO LADY MISTER, I DO BELIEVE SIR THAT YOU ARE ACTUALLY MR LINCOLN WHO I BELIEVED TO BE DECEASED, SAY IT AIN’T SO?” Abe wrote that it was this exact moment that made him feel a failure, a fraud, a film flam man etc.That the truth spoken from this innocent chubby young child…hell’s bells that kid is so fat…. Abe fired the small Derringer pistol; both bullets hitting poor Harry right between the eyes. Thank’s to Harry, Abe managed to survive the ordeal (he wrote later that he tasted of lamb?). Now, washed up on an unknown island, Abe used up all the strength he could muster, dragging his trunk up the beach before hiding it in a cave. He then reluctantly changed from the ladies outfit into a ships crew uniform he found in the boat and ventured inland. Soon he was met by a young woman smoking fish near a cottage by the sea. Abe assumed this was commonplace as tobacco products might be hard to find in the new world “TIS this Australia sweet lady?” She puffed on her Clay pipe then replied “'Tis it buggery, this is God’s own country, Yorkshire! You yanky Twatt! ” Abe wrote how shocked he was by this revelation. Miles away from the new world of his dreams and his vast fortune lay at the bottom of the sea. The woman he was conversing with was Gertrude Mulkinshaw, a spinster living alone in “Cheese cottage”. Abe introduced himself as “John Smith” a sailor who had jumped ship and was on the run from the American navy. They began to talk and soon found that they had a lot in common. Both had wooden false teeth, Gertrude was All Yorkshire woman’s wrestling champion (undefeated). She said she made a living making curd cheese and smuggling opium and absinthe from France. Although she was not a conventional beauty, over the coming months,Abe and Gertrude fell in love and after a year they married in Hornsea Parish Church. They had a daughter and continued to live in the secluded cottage. Twenty years passed, and a strange American traveller turned up on the doorstep of “cheese cottage”. He was invited in by a suspicious Abe as Gertrude and her daughter had gone to Whitby to sell some cheese and opium at the local market. The man handed Abe a letter of introduction. It was from his old friend Andrew Roake . Inside the envelope was a newspaper clipping from the Hornsea Gazette, the local newspaper. It featured a sketch of Gertrude and Abe attending the Hornsea women’s wrestling competition, which was won by Gertrude. In the letter, which was attached to the clipping, Mr Roake had summised that Abe could have survived the sinking of HMS Bell and was alive and living here, in England. If it was Abe, Roake asked if he would he be kind enough to help the person delivering this letter who was another of his clients who wished to start a new life. Abe asked the stranger his name “ I am, Mr president sir, William H Bonney, better known as the outlaw Billy the kid.” Billy went on to tell a familiar story. He too had become sick of all the bullshit going on around him and had paid Andrew Roake a large amount of stolen cash to relocate him before some young buck tried to shoot him. Billy then dropped a bombshell. Roake’s intent was not honourable. The double dealing son of a bitch planned to blackmail Abe or reveal his true identity.These two infamous men sat drinking warm beer, eating Yorkshire curd tarts and exchanging tales from their previous lives until Gertrude arrived home., Abe was ready to introduce his new friend and reveal his secrets. Earlier, he told her, the two men had gone under cover of darkness to the beach to retrieve Abraham’s trunk hidden all these years from the cave. Then Abe told his wife the truth about his real identity. At first she thought he was smacked off his tits on opium but when he showed her the contents of the trunk, documents, medals and shit loads of gold and silver coins. She believed. It was during that night the three of them agreed a plan. Billy would telegraph back to Roake saying it was all a case of mistaken identity. For this, Abe would split his treasure 3 ways. All of them were in agreement and the documents were hidden by Abe whilst the remaining items were burnt. With his share of the loot, Billy travelled to Kingston upon Hull and bought a tavern in the city centre naming the hostelry “ye old Bonnie Boat” Abe and Gertrude ended the drug smuggling business and opened a factory in Hornsea making curd cheese in bulk. Gertrude would go on to write several books one of which “for the love of cheeses” would become a best seller in Wales. Abraham Lincoln or John Mulkinshaw as he became knownlocally , became a philanthropist, funding many charitable ventures, especially setting up a school for ship’s cabin boys in memory of “Chubby Harry”, his savory saviour. The opening of school was tainted by inference in the local press that John was under the influence of narcotics when he cut the ribbon at the ceremony. The newspaper headline was “HARRY OTTER AND THE PHILANTHROPIST STONED?”

Jimima Mulkinshaw, the alleged daughter of Abe, herself never married instead becoming a prostitute. This was not her own choice of employment but unfortunately she misspelled 'werehouse’ on her place of work form. On here retirement she moved back to cheese cottage and it was during the renovation this family secret came to light. She produced the final piece of the jigsaw; this photograph shown above. It shows an elderly Abraham greeting William outside cheese cottage on Abe’’s 100th Birthday, Abe was awarded a medal from Queen Victoria for services to the opium trade and he was ironically given the “Golden Teet Owl” medal, the highest award given to someone who was “a right good Yorkshireman!” Both men had lost their American drawls and had full Yorkshire twang. William was still the proud owner of his Public House had also been working part time as a hired hitman. Andrew Roake never attempted contact either men and legend says he used his vast, ill-gotten wealth to buy a remote island where he set up home with a french ex assassin Dwarf. This was this last meeting of the two old friends…

Postscript. Sadly, the expert who authenticated this collection events was arrested for making fake copies of dvds (mostly box sets of the BBC TV series 'Lovejoy’) and is serving 5 years in prison. I therefore submit this tale for your delectation and for you to decide it’s validation.

Copyright 2017 The Yorkshire Werewolf