| Rating: | ★★★★ |
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Friday, December 9, 2011
NIGRIV's SPACE - no kids allowed ! - SANTA CLAUS IS SPECIAL . . . PLEASE READ & PASS IT ALONG!
http://nigrivyob.multiply.com/journal/item/276
| SANTA CLAUS IS SPECIAL . . . PLEASE READ & PASS IT ALONG! | for everyone |
I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid.
I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!"My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her "world-famous" cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true.
Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. "No Santa Claus?" she snorted...."Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!! Now, put on your coat, and let's go."
"Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun. "Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.
I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping.
For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.
I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church.
I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class. Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out to recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough; he didn't have a good coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat!I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that."Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. "Yes, ma'am," I replied shyly. "It's for Bobby."
The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.
That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) in Christmas paper and ribbons and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it.Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially, one of Santa's helpers.Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."
I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his door and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma.
Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.
Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were -- ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.
I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside:$19.95.
May you always have LOVE to share,HEALTH to spare and FRIENDS that care...
And may you always believe in the magic of Santa Claus!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
On the Culture : Growing Up in Catholic Orphanages - Catholic Culture
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otc.cfm?id=900
By Dr. Jeff Mirus | December 05, 2011 6:20 PM
Growing Up in Catholic Orphanages
By Dr. Jeff Mirus | December 05, 2011 6:20 PMFrom all you’ve heard about the Irish Church and abuse problems elsewhere, you might think this is a horror story, but it is not. A man named Edward Rohs, who coordinates mental health services for the New York City Field Office of the New York State Office of Mental Health, has just written a book about growing up in New York City’s Catholic orphanages, which is where he was raised to adulthood. The book, just out from Fordham University Press, is appropriately entitled Raised by the Church.
Rohs’ account combines the history of orphan care with his own experience for the first eighteen years of his life (he was born in 1946), and also later experiences when he returned in various capacities to work in the system. The story is fast-paced, frank and clear about the good, bad and ugly of institutional care. But what strikes the reader is that the good predominates. This is not a story about child abuse, let alone child sexual abuse. It is mostly a story about the selfless efforts of priests, brothers, sisters and lay workers to raise children reasonably well in over-crowded and over-taxed facilities, doing the best they could with very meager resources, and really caring about their kids.
I don’t mean to hide what is bad. In addition to normal institutional problems that can scarcely be avoided—for, after all, it is better to be raised in a loving family with both a mother and a father—Rohs recounts one-and-a-half occasions when he was sexually abused or witnessed sexual abuse. The “half” case is one in which a young layman took a job supervising the recreation periods at one of the orphanages, and proved to be somewhat sadistic, imposing strange punishments which were certainly designed to humiliate, even if they may not have been sexually motivated. Rohs himself is not sure, and eventually this person was judged unsuitable in that role, and was moved to a position as a driver.
The full and certainly obvious case occurred when Rohs was befriended by a visiting brother from another place, a brother who followed up a prolonged period of “buttering up” with an attempt to sexually abuse Rohs one night in the dormitory while Rohs was asleep. Rohs’ alarm was so palpable when he awoke, that the brother fled. On one later approach, the brother was driven off by Rohs’ shouts (which failed to rouse the other sleeping boys). That was the end of it, at least for Rohs, and the visitor eventually went back where he came from.
It is instructive that, in both cases, neither Rohs nor any other child went to an adult to report the problem. As you might expect, this failure to report to an adult is something that abusers rely on. In addition to feeling shame and not wishing to be exposed (another argument, I think, for the natural law), children are intimidated by abusers and they also presume that no one will ever believe them—an assumption which even today is too often justified, and not just regarding sexual abuse.
In any case, the life of Eddie Rohs growing up in the Catholic orphanage system in New York was not dominated by these unfortunate incidents. In general, he gives enormous credit to those who staffed these institutions, and he has kept warm ties with many of them since he “graduated”.
I was sorry to see no significant spirituality in this book. Rohs was raised Catholic in the orphanage system, and he had profound respect for the sisters and brothers who cared for him at various stages. He remained close to one of the earliest nuns to care for him, along with her lay sister who also befriended him, until both died. Yet judging from this book, at least, the system of values he internalized seems ultimately to be drawn more from self-help books than any deep reliance on God or grace.
I am not judging this only by the deafening silence concerning the spiritual life, which one would hope would prove of inestimable value in these cases. The book actually begins with a listing of the author’s own “ten beliefs for success”. Sadly, they are pretty shallow and, ultimately, fairly silly—though some of them might be marginally useful, in a wholly secular way, to someone who is combatting a lack of a sense of self-worth, which may be common among those raised in institutions.
I don’t know if this means Rohs has simply become a model of modern Western manhood, convinced that religion is too private to merit mention, or if it means that none of the religious elements of his institutional upbringing ever blossomed into an interior life. Whatever the case, I was not really looking for spirituality in the book. I was looking for an honest account of what it was like to grow up in the Catholic orphanage system from someone who was motivated neither by a desire for financial gain nor by a thirst for five minutes of fame—from someone who simply wanted to recount his own prolonged first-hand experience with the efforts of the Catholic Church to do something for the many children who were abandoned then, and who are still being abandoned now.
What I was hoping to find, in our lurid age, is exactly what I did find. Rohs has extensive experience with almost every side of the problem of raising abandoned children. He has much to say about the strengths and weaknesses of various systems. But he is also a realist, and that shines through in the single most important fact about this book: Edward Rohs is not angry at the Church which raised him. He is grateful.
Friday, December 2, 2011
British Humour
This is real British Humour.A big earthquake with the strength of 8.1 on the Richter Scale has hit Pakistan.
Two million Pakistanis have died and over a million are injured.
The country is totally ruined and the government doesn't know where to start with providing help to rebuild.
The rest of the world is in shock.The USA is sending troops to help.
Saudi Arabia is sending oil.
Latin American countries are sending supplies.
New Zealand is sending sheep, cattle and food crops.
The Asian continents are sending labor to assist in rebuilding infrastructure.
Australia is sending medical teams and supplies.Britain, not to be outdone, is sending two million Pakistanis as replacements...
God Bless British generosity.
Childbirth at 65
Childbirth at 65 With all the new technology regarding fertility recently, a 65-year-old friend of mine was able to give birth.
When she was discharged from the hospital and went home, I went to visit. 'May I see the new baby?' I asked
'Not yet,' She said 'I'll make coffee and we can visit for a while first.'
Thirty minutes had passed, and I asked, 'May I see the new baby now?'
'No, not yet,' She said.
After another few minutes had elapsed, I asked again, 'May I see the baby now?'
'No, not yet,' replied my friend.
Growing very impatient, I asked, 'Well, when can I see the baby?'
'WHEN HE CRIES!' she told me.
'WHEN HE CRIES?' I demanded. 'Why do I have to wait until he CRIES?'
'BECAUSE I FORGOT WHERE I PUT HIM, O.K.?'
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