Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Visitor Part II_The Visitor Returns, Unchanged

Jean Purcell

Wikipedia image

I wanted to run things by Elizabeth, to find out if maybe she remembered meeting Ruth's odd granddaughter. Anywhere. When I called, I went into messaging.

When E called back, I gave her a blow by blow of Catherine's visit.

At one point, E defended Catherine. Even after she learned that Catherine had refused to believe that she is my daughter.

My slanted profile of Catherine ended in a kind, I thought, nutshell: "She has a very bad way of expressing herself."

"Maybe she's the nervous, impulsive type," E said. "Or, as you say, not a good communicator. It's a shame. I know you and her grandmother Ruth were so close."

"Close, yes. But you are my daughter!"

"But Mom," she continued, "this isn't new, is it?"

"Yes it is, E, in its harshness. She was so insistent, almost brutally so!"

"I don't know if I've ever met her. I meet so many people, and I can't remember everyone. I wish I could help. But my identity our family is unchangeable, thank God. I mean it, nothing anyone says can change that for any of us."

She said it so sweetly, then said she needed to go soon.

We said goodbyes and I reflected how my daughter, who grew up under...now a cloud, but a challenge, daily...became so unusually successful as a neurosurgeon, and how she is able to slough off non-medical matters, even rejections. I wished I could do as she does. So like her father.

Why would anyone have the nerve to insist so vehemently that E is not my daughter? It felt like my blood pressure was rising, my heart pounding, but I kept wondering: "Is Ruth's granddaughter jealous of E? Is she a trouble-maker, a deranged woman, even dangerous?"

I wished Ruth were still alive so I could talk to her about this. The fact that Ruth and I had been friends...was her granddaughter jealous of that? Was that why she had come to meet me, with no idea about "Dr. Ransom"? Ruth and I had known each other in a small town not far from Atlanta, then not quite the big city it was now. Surely she knew about us because Ruth's family had passed down the information to everyone...about our friendship.

Catherine and my daughter were almost contemporaries, E a bit older of the two,I figured, and both in the medical arena. E's last name, since she married, is not the same as mine. She's been known as Dr. Ransom for over eight years. I had other suspicions beyond jealousy, likely more obvious explanations.

E called again the next day. "Why don't you invite her for dinner? Or take her to that 'down home' place you're always talking to me about."

"I don't want to see her again."

"You what?! You must have been afraid! Forget what I said about inviting her, then."

"I was not afraid. I was insulted." My brain was turning around how E never quits trying with some people. I had not been afraid, exactly. I had felt angry and baffled at the same time. The experience had been insulting! Like being called a liar...except for the parts of the truth that I knew could elicit disbelief.

"But not almost violent objection!" I blurted.

E must have imagined the opposing wheels turning in my head.

"I have to go in a minute," she said. "I want to be sure you'll be all right."

"We'll see. I might invite her to dinner after all."

What in the world a meal together could accomplish was way out there for me. E had suggested I invite her brothers and their families. I stood, phone in hand, and mused, thinking ahead. With everyone around the table, nine of us.

She might feel overwhelmed. I sighed to myself. But then you'd have reinforcements, I told myself. What do you think Ruth would say?

Ruth might urge, "Let it go!," shake her head, eyes, closed, and laugh as if to say, "what can you do?"

I found the business card Catherine had left on the hall table, still lying there in a bowl. She'd put it there before we had talked about E's relation to me.

Catherine said she could come to dinner if it could be the next week. After that, I called Robert's wife and Elton, my younger son to invite them.

Our visitor came two Friday nights later, and my sons came with their families. I told them no more than that our guest was Ruth's granddaughter.

Catherine seemed to enjoy the food and the company after she came out of a brief clam-like phase at first. When I mentioned talking with E, she almost withdrew into a shell again. She lowered her head over the table as if praying, but I doubted it.

What is wrong with her! I felt exasperated and blocked. She's so resistant, I thought, and then, to my surprise, I suddenly felt sad for her. It was a specific sadness that I had not felt for anyone for a long time.

At dessert, Elton asked her, "Did you see the family gallery?" He assumed not and arose quickly, motioning for Catherine to go with him.

"Excuse us for a minute, everyone?" He winked at me. He was so natural, and I was glad I had not told him anything specific about the short history of Catherine and me.I suspected he wanted to be sure she "met" E.

My younger son and our guest came back and I knew that she had seen E's photographs in the family lineup along the walls of the bedroom wing.

The evening ended nicely, I had to admit, and before our guest left I urged her to give her mother and daddy our greetings. She nodded and then left, after saying she'd had a good time.

Had she?

She had said nothing all evening about E, whom she still believed, I knew, could not be my daughter. And, she'd not said a word about the medical field, her career, or anything else about herself except her cats, Nucleo and Chromo.

What a CIA-type girl!

Next: The Visitor Part III_(untitled)

Short Story in Progress with Pen Name
Short Story Part II discussed

Friday, March 09, 2012

Author Jane Bullard Answers via YouTube

One of Jane's favorites_ Image by Puzzler4879 via Flickr

Not All Roads Lead Home author, Jane Bullard

Jane Bullard Interview 1_YouTube

The Visitor_I

Free use_Image via Wikipedia

The is the first of three draft installments for my draft of short story, The Visitor. The final version will be posted here or offered as a free BlogInPrint novella.

On that blustery day at the end of an otherwise mild March, I made a fire and sat near its warmth holding a hot cup of tea for added measure of comfort. The doorbell interrupted the rare solitude I'd managed to make for myself.
I went to the door and opened to see, through the glass, a woman probably in her mid-thirties, of neat and professional appearance and a hint of familiarity. Instead of turning away, thinking it a sales call, I caught myself realizing the stranger's somewhat unsettling likeness to Ruth, bringing reminders of what seemed a lifetime ago.

I stared at her while pushing the glass door halfway open. At the same time the visitor spoke: "Hello, my name is Catherine Wells Frank. I think you knew...my grandmother?"
"You're Ruth's granddaughter?" I replied, exchanging one question with another and thereby answering her. She nodded, told me her name, and that she was in the area on business.

My manners left me and I kept looking into her eyes as if keeping her as a likeness of long ago.

"Yes, I knew your grandmother," I said, and she nodded, then waited, standing there, looking at me through the glass. Immediately, I awoke from the surprise.
"Please, come in," I opened the door, and she stepped inside.

She refused a cup of tea or anything to drink, but she did accept a seat near the fire. She only was curious, she said, for she had heard of me and my family for a long time and was in the area, so why not stop by. She knew that I had known her grandmother. She was right about that. I had known her grandmother possibly as well or better than her own family had. Our paths had kept crossing that closely, by routine and by choice.

"I can't explain why I looked you up," she explained, "but I'm in this area from time to time...working with surgeons at Pennsylvania Hospital."

"Well, then, tell me about yourself," I said, and I was eager to hear. I had had no contact with Ruth's family since her death 10 years before.

Catherine spoke first about why she was in the area and her connection with medical diagnostics and equipment design and testing. It sounded interesting, and so we talked briefly about her experiences, then family news. It did not surprise me when she included events of note where she had grown up, where I had met Ruth.

She told me about learning to play the piano at Grandmother Ruth's.

"I loved playing Bach. I know people laugh at that, but I still get a thrill when I recognize a Bach Two-Part Invention without being told what it is!"

"There's a piano in another room. Would you like to play?"

Catherine blushed, then giggled.

"I'm am so very rusty, got out of touch, probably my 'Chopsticks' now would make our ears shriek...But thank you for the offer."

That sounded so like Ruth, her quiet, subtle fun.

I laughed with Catherine and prompted, coming down from a good chuckle: "You should write," I said.

"I do," she said. "I get so much material from doctors telling me about patients' comments and questions. They're not mean but hit the nail on the head. I send them to a couple of journals, insider stuff, and some are cartooned as well. It's fun."

She launched into a couple of quick examples. Then looked at me seriously.

"Enough about me, tell me about your family," she urged. "I only know what we last heard from you, after Grandmother died."

"You are so like Ruth!" I said, remembering Ruth's little stories and also her drawings. Then, I told Catherine about my husband's death, the five grandchildren living nearby. I felt such rapport with the young woman sitting before me. I felt blessed in a rare way, with the mixture of past and present that we shared. Was this going to become a sort of friendship, between us, I wondered? Ruth would almost have danced to hear such a thing!

"I have two sons, as you may know, and a daughter who is married...no children...yet," I added, smiling and trying to convey my hope. "She is in the medical profession, too. A surgeon. That's her photo behind you, on the table over there." I indicated the elaborate French antique that Elizabeth had given to her father and me in her second year of medical practice. Elizabeth's wedding photo was there.

"That's Dr. Ransom! She's not your daughter!" Catherine exclaimed, then caught herself before saying more. I felt she had lots more to say.

I objected, glaring at her: "Yes! She is my daughter!"

"That cannot be so," she said. "I don't understand."

She rushed to add that she had seen Dr. Elizabeth Ransom, now a well-known, break-through neurosurgeon. Their paths had crossed at professional awards ceremonies and conferences.

"My research relates to neurological diseases," she added. "But," she insisted, "She cannot be your daughter!"

How rude she was, how unlike Ruth, and how angry she was making me!

"I think you should leave," I said, trying to hold back my temper...almost failing.

She seemed not to have heard me and tried to turn the subject to my sons and grandchildren.

I could not cooperate, my thoughts churning. Why is she so angry?

Maybe she was not mentally all there. Why had I allowed this stranger into my home?

Those ideas ran through my mind while she talked on and on about new topics, such as a book she was writing, speaking engagements, successful projects, and I wondered, then, if perhaps she was in competition with Elizabeth's achievements.

The visit could not last long, given its odd turn. When I stood and indicated I had an appointment, she said only, "So do I."

The oddity grew when our paths crossed again at an evening event two nights later. Catherine tried to smile at me and I tried not to frown at her or make a worse face. She walked over to me, but all I could think of was my daughter and this woman's strangeness. Only the connection with her grandmother, Ruth, if there really was one, prevented me from ignoring her. h

She tried to be friendly, but when someone joined us she introduced me mentioned nothing about our brief history through her grandmother...and beyond.

Her friend, in another surprising coincidence, turned to her, excited: "Did you know that Dr. Ransom might be able to speak at that Johns Hopkins symposium?"

Catherine nodded, saying nothing in response. Her friend looked puzzled and stood with us, silently. Nervously, she left us, alone again.

Catherine bothered me the next week, showing up as before, without a phone call. I saw her through the front window as I walked to the door. I gazed at her through the glass door and then, after brief hesitation, I opened it.

"I was in the area again," she said, "and I thought to drop by."

"Oh, Elizabeth is coming by soon. You can officially meet her."

I was being very bad, as Elizabeth would say, for it was not true. I wanted to see Catherine's reaction.

Her face appeared to freeze, then relax enough for her mouth to form the words, "I should leave, then."

"Why not come in for a few minutes," I offered. What other kind of test could I give her, I wondered. Our family history is well-known, more than her family's in fact, and I wondered if she did not like to think of Elizabeth as being connected from a somewhat historic family, albeit from generations past. If jealousy was her problem, the news that Elizabeth was connected to our family could be the reason for her odd behavior.

She did not stay long. I cut our visit very short, with no excuse. The wedge that had appeared earlier had grown larger and harder from my perspective. It made no sense to allow her to remain any longer in my home, a woman who rejected my connection with my own daughter. It would make no sense to invite her in, and I did not want to do it. It would be wrong, because it would mean that I disrespected my daughter as who she is, in the family. What if _____ arrived as we were talking? I would embrace her, introduce her more familiarly, in person, and I knew in my heart that our guest was capable of saying something insulting, an exclamation of disbelief.

Our family is close, open to all, except in this kind of instance. Discord, disagreement, and eventually arguing would ensue, I felt then. I had rarely turned away anyone before this, yet I knew it is right to do so now. It would be dishonest to do otherwise. She distrusted me, I disliked her.

This experience was wrenching, and my thoughts returned to it often. Then, it occurred to me just this morning that that experience is like a glimmer of insight into the mind of God. People deny that Jesus is His Son. That helped me calm myself. I felt so protective of my three children, now two men and a young woman. I felt especially protective toward my daughter, and she toward us.

I am so very human. Yet, I see now a new way perhaps to understand God and His insistence that Jesus be accepted as His Son. I am a mother, a parent in an unusual, yes...an unusual family.

I had often felt that God seemed stern by insisting that Jesus be acknowledged as who He is. This experience was opening my eyes about that. And, it was over. I would forget it eventually and move on.

The Visitor is a short story installment. Next: The Visitor Part II_The visitor returns, unchanged *

For more information: info@opinebooks.com

*The Visitor Part II

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

CHURCH-STATE MATTERS AFFECT 2012 U.S. ELECTION

Executive Office of the President Seal (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” (from the First Amendment to The Constitution of the United States). The popularity of "separation of church and state" does not rule out different interpretations of what this part of the amendment intended, when written.
   What's the problem? We know the framers of The U.S. Constitution fled powerful royal, political, and legal ties between governments or rulers (the State) and Religion. The new political landscape of the new republic must, the framers saw, maintain clear distance between the State and religion. One should not be allowed to co-opt the other. Any alliance or assimilation efforts would receive fast and furious push-back.
     That's my take on it.
      Voter instincts are on high alert now because it's a federal election year. We pay close attention to candidates' records and words. We want to know about candidates' vision of the country and government... and their words. How have they done in the past? What are specifics about how they intend to make things better nationally?
     U.S. voters heat up at signs we might slide, as a nation, in the wrong direction on the constitutional "separation of church and state" guarantees. I know, I know..."separation of church and state" is not a constitutional phrase. I get it. But we use shorthand all the time to name complicated affirmations. "Church and state" is our way of speaking about specific guarantees of freedoms that are in the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Let's look at three seemingly small actions in February 2012 that deserve magnification:

A presidential mandate co-opted religious institutions to ensure contraception access to employees or persons in care,

A potential party nominee's beliefs about contraception clouded the mandate issue,

The incumbent president quoted words of Jesus as authority for controversial tax policies.

   These matters seriously affect separation of religion and government, "church and state," "the sacred and the secular"--whatever terms we use. Trying to mix the two closely, intimately, makes voters think of the proverbial oil mixed with water, water with oil.
   First, an executive office mandate to co-opt religion deals with providing contraceptives, regardless of moral and religious beliefs. President Obama issued the mandate, ordering religious institutions' hospitals and outreach programs to provide contraception access regardless of their religious beliefs. If carried out, this would affect Catholic and Jewish institutions, and others. The government mandate on religious institutions could face high court review.
     Second,a potential Republican nominee's beliefs about contraception raise concern about how he might view the religion and the state separation clause of The Constitution of the United States. He could have handled the matter successfully without seeming to "preach beliefs" to voters.
     Instead, Senator Santorum talked as much about the religious basis for his beliefs about contraception during interviews about the contraception-provision mandate. He thereby opened a door for voters to question if he might push his views using personal religious beliefs as his authority, when much more would be required of any president.
     So I can't figure why the senator chose to speak as much or more about the matter of contraception than the matter of a mandate coercing religious institutions to make them available. He lost a terrific chance to elaborate on religion-state issues of the contraception mandate to religious institutions; he could have done that with strong legal arguments and conviction.

     Finally, early in February at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama said, paraphrasing Jesus' words*: "...'for unto whom much is given, much shall be required’" to give highest authority to his controversial plans for higher tax rates to "the wealthy" or "the rich" than to others.
   But, the way the President used the scripture has interpretation and context problems: the biblical parable speaks of things given for a time (gospel of Luke 12: 40-48 has the details), while taxes deal with things earned, income worked for; Jesus' parable describes a relation between master and servant, the President's relation to citizens is public servant and the people, another big difference.
     What is critically important about this is that Jesus was not even talking about taxes in Jesus' words the President quoted. Jesus was answering a question about the kingdom of heaven and the Lord’s return.

      We're human and we interpret religion-state and state-religion issues in the "separation clauses" differently, and many people disagree about the meaning. This mighty document, The Constitution of the United States, ensures there shall not be any church-state union; that, however, does not prevent efforts to get around the guarantee.
     The framers of The Constitution affirmed human freedoms as God-given and sacred. We know why they drew the line at coercion of religion on government or government on religion: they had lived under government-religion alliances, and they knew of other examples too; they knew that extreme tensions, pressures, and even bloody conflicts arise over alliances or assimilation of religion and government.
     Think about it: as fought-for democratic rights, current elections fulfill a guardian-of-freedoms tradition. Whatever American's think or believe about “how to govern," most agree that we want to have a say, as free people, in the continuing security of the freedoms and rights secured for everyone by The Constitution. Of course we want to guard God-given freedoms! It may sound corny to some, but we do put freedom and country before political parties. We are a religious nation with a national inheritance as a free people apart from government.
     Americans used to wake up and rise up when national and individual freedoms, including religious ones, were put at risk. We see some of that spirit returning in this new century. We sense a treasured duty toward elections, candidates, and speech, plus religious and other freedoms, and politics...they're all part of "American DNA."

______________________________________

*Source on context of Luke 12:48--For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more--is in verses 40-48:

⁴⁰Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
⁴¹Then Peter said to Him, “Lord, do You speak this parable only to us, or to all people?”
⁴²And the Lord said, “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season?
⁴³Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.
⁴⁴Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has.
⁴⁵But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk,
⁴⁶the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
⁴⁷And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.

⁴⁸But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.

Context Scriptures-Source: New King James Version of the Bible published by Thomas Nelson; Biblegateway.com, Words of Jesus in a parable, the kingdom of heaven and the return of the Lord

Thursday, February 16, 2012

WASH POST COLUMNIST DEFENDS 'BEING THERE' WITH GOVERNMENT

"...many people do humanitarian work from deep faith."_FEMA_Image via Wikipedia

2/16/12

12_The Washington Post) about recent controversial mandates for contraceptives to be paid for through religious helping institutions although this goes against the beliefs of some. There are deeper background facts than Mr. Dionne provided regarding similarities between government "help" and Church outreach.

Defending the Church’s helping role in society, Mr. Dionne, a Catholic, wrote: "When it comes to lifting up the poor, healing the sick, assisting immigrants and refugees, educating the young… comforting orphaned and abandoned children…the church has been there [my emphasis added] with resources and an astoundingly committed band of sisters, priests, brothers and lay people….make the words of Jesus come alive every day.”

More than 'being there,' the Church was 'there' first. Mr. Dionne noted the Church’s assistance to "immigrants,” a modern synonym for strangers, that in scriptures are "strangers among you" and "strangers in the gates." To say that the Church has “been there,” as Mr. Dionne wrote, is not precisely correct; the Church led there. Synagogues and then the Church were there long before empires and governments got there. I imagine that Mr. Dionne intended to paraphrase the prophet Isaiah and other scribes. They cannot be left out of historical perspectives on helping the poor and others. You can read, for example, Isaiah chapter 58 and 61. Faithful believers led, and before Stephen became the first Christian martyr he led the first work of Christians to help widows and others in need. The Church led in education, as well, and many priests and others died for the cause of evangelism and these ministries.

Secular entities like governments began to follow this path centuries later. Secular efforts since have tried to imitate Judeo-Christian initiatives outside religious or spiritual identification.

However, the secular cannot co-opt what religious entities deem to be sacred. First leaders of this country saw the separate motivations or tactics likely to appear between sacred and secular works, and wisely separated church and state. The Church has its gospel works to do. When in its right spiritual mind, it is uniquely alive and present in the midst of societies and apart from their governments. Religious freedom is at the core of American design and American distinctiveness.

In defining their missions, religious institutions are not under the secular, especially government. National and local governments are not to be allowed to cross a line to gain control or direction over the Church, its teaching, worship, and serving ministries.

Churches became subject to recurring conflicts when they began to receive public monies in payment for operational ministries. The Church, by circumstance and/or choice, has come to rely often on private payments and public reimbursements for rendered services. Hence, private works by Christians and/or the Church are fewer than ever, for most of the health ministries can not operate free of government oversight. The cases of Christian institutions grossly breaking their own moral and legal codes have given good reason for government diligence. The culture war that Mr. Dionne writes about arose recently when "church and state" joined forces. This is not to criticize those actions, but to point out the potential dangers of such collaboration, such as reimbursing religious entities for services without strings attached.

As a Christian non-Catholic, I believe that godly Christians and their institutions should react strongly to God's calling through the Church and its spiritual history. That is what E.J. Dionne Jr. and others are saying now. The historical background, whether inside or outside church buildings and worship, should be known and acknowledged as God-initiated. When secular entities imitate the calling of the Church to help the poor and others, they are free to do so. Yet, they will always do it differently, on a purely human scale. Sometimes, governments look to the Church for help, including emergencies, refugee assistance and resettlement, for example, and other needs. What the culture calls humanitarian work is what God put first before His people to do by faith and selfless service. It is not surprising that many people do humanitarian work from deep faith. Today, the mixture of public money with beliefs, as in mixing public funds for insurance payments to religious caring institutions, does continue to cloud the matter. Ways must be found for solutions that do not interfere with religious freedoms.

Leaders outside the Church know that without the service of religious institutions the nation would have poor, homeless, and others in greater need on a scale unimagined. One duty of each person who desires religious freedoms is to speak out about the leadership history of the Church. This divine institution imperfectly working on earth led the way there by a repeated divine mandate to care for the homeless, the poor, the neglected, the voiceless, and the weakest, and to seek to heal.

For people of faith, speaking out about these things can and must be done within and, one hopes, above the fray of political and cultural designs, trends, and wars.

Ed. note: "Church" and "the Church" here refer to all entities of worship and service and care institutions and groups that hold firm belief in Jesus Christ as risen and living Lord.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Visitor Part II_The Visitor Returns, Unchanged

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