Today, a new essay, "Mohawk," under "Essays" in the website. FK 

Finishing the last book on the NDE (near death experience), I was about to get back to more standard fair when the Kindle - snoopy nose that it is - gave me further suggestions, saying, "People who bought this book liked..."  And there was another NDE for only $1.99 - a short one of only 148 pages, how could I resist?  (as an aside, my book, "Dream Weaver" is also available for only $2.99 on Kindle. With 448 pages, a real bargain!)    

Ah, how I wished I had!  "Return from Tomorrow" is by psychiatrist George Ritchie, who explains his wild tale of death in 1943, when he was a soldier- in - training in Texas.  He caught pneumonia in a time before the general use of penicillin, and died - that is, lost his heart-beat, blood pressure, and anything else they measured at the time, to the extent that his body had been covered with a white sheet and was near being rolled to the morgue.  For the nine minutes he was clinically dead, he left his body, unaware that he WAS dead, and roamed around the hospital looking for someone to take him to the bus station.  He was being transferred to Richmond where, because of his college background, he was to begin training as a doctor, and was anxious to not lose any class time.  Soon, however, he found that people could not only not hear him, but actually walked through him.  Going outside, he began to fly towards Richmond, until he realized he did not know the way.  Starting to return, he found himself besides an incredible light who he came to learn was Jesus.  Like Scrooge, he was then shown around as a spirit through a typical North American city in wartime - the difference being that he could see other spirits as well as solid people.  He found the spirits yelling into business phones (besides solid people who could not sense them) trying to get orders in, and dead-eyed factory workers trying to lift things off the belt. Worse, he was taken to a bar full of soldiers who were getting enormously drunk.  All around them were spirits trying to lift glasses of whiskey, although they couldn't, and light cigarettes that they could not hold.  They were desperate and single minded about their obsessions, and when a living soldier collapsed from drunkenness, he saw one of the spirits enter the top of the head and disappear into the soldier.  Flying on, he saw spirits trying to have  sex with real people, pantomiming all sorts of positions and so on in a futile attempt at release.  


In all this, he saw his own selfishness, as Jesus repeatedly asked, "What have you got to show me?  What have you done for me in life?"  In the question, he saw that nearly everything he had done had been for himself - not simply for kindness to others.  He claimed that Jesus felt sorry for the poor  souls, but that it was their own doing, after all - but there were angels all about them as well - perhaps to help?  From earth he flew above to higher and higher realms until he came to the place of love and light - and was forced to return to his body, stunning the staff. 


Thus, in a nutshell, is his story, one that he undoubtedly believed with all his heart.  It is starkly Christian, and one might say the his visions of vice reflected his own moral teachings, but they are also uncomfortably true in a broader sense: so many religions emphasize that we must lose our desire for things of this earth; that, as the Buddhists and Hindus believe, it is this  desire that brings us not only suffering, but keeps us here on earth, condemning us to repeat life for a horrifying infinity of time, unless we consciously purge ourselves of all desire.  


I did not go to bed comfortably, and woke early in the morning with the same question: What have you done for me (for mankind) in your life?  The answer was an uncomfortable "almost nothing."  And where the other NDE books almost guaranteed a comfortable landing in at least a sort of heaven where we would review our lives and learn, here we would be stuck - for how long? - with our cravings, trapped by our own desires.  


I don't know - at the end of "A Christmas Carol," Scrooge asks the spirit of the future, "are these visions of what WILL be or what MIGHT be?"  He is never answered, just as I don't have the answer.  But this is true - this scary story highlights my - and our, if I can say so - basic selfishness.  What good have we done that  would not have some reward for ourselves?  What discomforts have we avoided where we might have helped someone, somehow?  So much lost, so little time.  I now feel like Scrooge on Christmas Eve.  I hope I am not so visited by the spirits, but might that not be necessary?  And might it not be a blessing after all?


On a note to atheists who believe the spiritual are immature people cuddling next to a parent phantom god - there is another side to belief.  It may still seem unreal and silly, but this other side has teeth.  It is not for cowards.  FK                        

Often, ideas as rusty and old as time itself come to me with a personal freshness, which is, for life philosophy, probably for the better.  New ideas for such a thing would probably be superficial or even damaging, if possible at all, for one thing all of humanity has had time to do is think about its existential condition.  New technologies may come and go, and new experiments in government, too - but the 'meaning of life' question has always been with us, and treated with genius beyond the average mind.  So here, I add only my own two cents:

In the book I am finishing, "After the Light," we get the phrase common to new-age type books: we are here to learn.  Why this is necessary at all has always puzzled me, but I can't claim to be able to know all things - and this belief simply rings true.  The old Christian religions had a different bent on it - we were here as a test, of faith and of charity - but still, in the catharsis of absolution, what was bought (as it is put) "with the blood of the lamb," learning becomes key.  We act from selfishness or instinct, only to feel the pang of conscience later; whereupon we beg for forgiveness and vow not to act that way again.  We do, of course, but we try - and with trying get it better - that is, we learn from our mistakes. 

"Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."  Thus Christ's plea for his murderers, and his understanding that we do not know.  We live, as the author of the above book and I both understand, in a Flatland - where perception and thought are dismally shallow.  We do not understand, and the idea, with both the old and new ways, is to learn what we do not understand.  

Thus we come to the old wine - that we are like children.  It's not for nothing that we are called "children of God," for with our ignorance of reality, we are like children with their ignorance of adult reality.  And so it has occurred to me - an old idea as if fresh - that what we long for, what we pray for, and what we think we need, is often like the child who "needs" candy, or a pony, or to skip school.  Adults know better - candy rots the teeth, a pony is expensive and sometimes dangerous, and school is essential (nowadays) to earn a decent living.  Good parents exhort their children to follow their sage advice - and it they don't, they have some way, often painful, of MAKING them follow the advice.  


The comparison with ourselves and children is obvious once we admit that we are ignorant - that we live in a Flatland, or, as Paul put it, we "see through a glass darkly."  And thus the advice given by religions around the world: be humble, just as children are humble before their parents.  Understand that you do not understand, and pray for guidance - to whomever or whatever you may call the source of guidance. We must understand that what we consider important is not so in the grand scheme - not success, money - all that stuff we have been told already but often don't believe.  This is a product of Flatland thinking, and like the candy for the child, the objects of desire are often bad for us in the long run.  And on top of everything, getting what we think we want on the superficial level can make us think we have it all together, and solved - thus the teaching, "it is more difficult for a rich man to pass into heaven than a camel through the eye of a needle (but with God, all things are possible)."  It is not necessarily the wealth itself, if it is not taken by foul means, but rather what wealth does to close our developing perception.  Poverty can do the same, I know, but poverty for the greedy man its own punishment.  


Personally, I had something of a Rock Star personality in my early adulthood.  I would have thought myself complete and sitting pretty if I had a fortune, a gaggle of beautiful women at my service, and a great stash of weed, or whatever other drug was considered cool at the time.  Rock stars got it - and rock stars failed, miserably, over time.  From the Alman Brothers to Jim Morrison to Keith Richards, getting everything they wanted killed or nearly killed them, as it would have me.  Failure to reach my goals of the time, then, was a blessing.  But what have I learned?  I still have my desires (not drugs and a harem anymore - or candy or a new BB gun) and sometimes rail against the lack of their fulfillment.  But should I?  It seems the lesson is to listen for the wisdom of adult - spiritual - guidance.  It is harder to hear now than as a child, but perhaps it is because we lack the openness.  It may well be that we hear anyway, but don't want to admit it - that we are getting the adult version of "no more candy, and study for that test!" and have pushed it away, to listen for the numbers that will give us the winning lottery numbers.  I bet that a lot of us hear them, too - made up by ourselves because we want to believe - when what we really would probably hear if we listened is "do your homework.  You're here to learn."  Oh, it can be tough being a child!  FK                  

I couldn't help it, and got another "Near Death Experience" book on the Kindle, "After the Light," by Kimberly Sharp.  The introduction struck me immediately, where she referred to everyday life as the "Flatland" - exactly how I have expressed it for several years now.  That is, that our consciousness of this life is extremely limited - which becomes clear after certain epiphanies.  For me, the first epiphany came when I was shot in the eye with a BB at age 9 and had a genuine, very clear out of body experience, but there are many other kinds.  The most life-shattering, though, must be the NDE

Here, the sufferer almost always is ushered into a vision of heaven, where he learns far more deeply the truths of the universe (among many other things).  In this book, she focuses on her own experience at age 22, which brings her to change her life radically.  However, she does not really even know why she is doing this.  To explain this unconscious change, she recalls the last thing she remembers from her NDE: a voice telling her, "you will forget everything you have learned here, except as it becomes manifest."  This blog has delved into the frustrating nature of this part of  human existence before - for at times of epiphany we might come to know what existence is about, then forget this knowledge, left then only with the feeling.  This occurs to me as I read these books - I know what they are getting at, as if I've been there myself, but cannot say exactly why.  

This is so in part because the nature of our everyday communication, both with the self and with others, uses a tool, language, that is simply inadequate for transmission of certain ideas.  It is why objective researchers can claim that such experiences are only neural misfirings - because they simply cannot understand what the subject has experienced.  To the subject, there is little doubt - the knowledge, including that of immortality and Divine Presence is absolutely real - far more real than this flatland, this cardboard representation that our daily perception leaves us with.  

This "forgetting" is also because, as part of the inner knowledge tells us, we are here to learn, grow, suffer - all of the above - because our lives here are necessary, and they cannot be meaningful if we have full knowledge of Being.  That would be as if everyone knew the lottery number every day - there would be no game, and nothing to win or lose.  But why?  Why this need for ignorance that makes free will possible, and thus this game?  For this is what creates the misery and treachery in the world - ignorance on a cosmic scale.

For Kimberly Sharp, free will (and ignorance) must be, so that one might choose good over evil.  This is theologically sound as well, for in a limited world, every positive must have a negative - just as to see forms in light, we must have shades of darkness.  But why the game in the first place?  Most theologians agree that the Good is the fundamental, and in eternity must win.  In fact, there is really no contest.  If so, again - why the game?  

This I have yet to figure out, and it may be - and probably is - beyond my reach.  

But these books fascinate me because what is described I feel I know; and just as with Kimberly Sharp, I know as it "becomes manifest." 

One of these truths that have become manifest to Sharp, is that nothing in life is trivial - nothing.  There is no random coincidence.  Without insight, this might lead to paranoia.  But with careful and open introspection, coincidence might then offer us sign posts for our better future.  I know that I can recall many of these, including the meeting with the woman who would become my wife, which has changed almost everything in my life.  

So look with new eyes - the meaning of what you see might well be within you, ready to "become manifest" and lead you to a higher calling.  If nothing is trivial, neither are any of us.  Somehow, the stars are the destiny of all of us, even in this flatland.  FK     

    

       
 

Today, a new essay, "Ice," under Essays in the website.  FK

I couldn't help it - after several weighty books, I had to go to my favorite genre - autobiographical accounts by people who have nearly died and in the process have gone to heaven.  I love them for several reasons: there is usually a redemptive factor involved - that is, the person is changed for the better - often MUCH to the better; the stories are light, easy reading;  and, most important, they give one hope, if even only at the "wish fulfillment" level.  

That latter part does have a downside, I have learned.  There is a Jehovah's Witness who comes to my door regularly (I know, I know; my wife has a true tale of me talking with a Witness for so long that he had to excuse himself from me!) and with whom I have become fiends, although I am not always happy to have my breakfast disturbed  on a late Saturday morning.  Anyway, he once told me WHY he became a Witness.  At about the age of 60 he suffered a massive heart attack and went into a coma for several days.  The experience was frightening in that he at no time ever saw the light, went into the tunnel, spoke with his relatives or any of the life -after- death good stuff reported by such writers.  Instead, there was nothing - or, worse than nothing, an uneasy and meaningless gray.  On the other hand, Jehovah's Witnesses expect heaven to appear here on earth, not in some clouds or another dimension.  They expect the real to be made perfect and the dead to be raised - in its proper  time.  And so his experience was only natural - the end times have simply not come.  Otherwise, he felt that there was no hope for the Heaven he had learned of from his youth.

He might want to know that NDE's occur in only about 20 to 30 % of such cases.  Why this is so, nobody knows.  And, as many have pointed out, even if you are clinically dead, if you come back in the hospital, it is usually not from a miracle, but  from the fact that you were not REALLY dead.

In any case, such stories give me - well, hope is not the only word.  It is also faith - and a comparison, too.  The book I have just finished - it took two nights only - is called "Flight to Heaven" by Dale Black.  He is a pilot who at age 60 is looking back on a horrible accident he had in an airplane when he was 19.  He was the sole survivor, and this alone was a miracle.  Further, he made a full recovery,something the best doctors had thought impossible.  This is all fact.  But it wasn't until months after his accident that he recalled his time in heaven, which was one of harmony, love, colors and music and so on.   I don't mean to demean by the brevity; it is only that the accounts are almost always the same.  Anyway, and this is the faith part - it is in his struggle that he comes to grips with his god (Christian) and learns to "hear" His will - and be humble enough to accept it.  This cuts to the heart of my own problem - how to hear the will of heaven, for it seems so undercut by my own desires that I cannot ferret it out.  When I read such accounts, I see how it is done - and understand it is mostly by faith.  That these people are  successful gives me hope in faith.


The other part is comparative; for at odd moments and in meditation, this sense of perfection - of heaven - has often hit me, although not as dramatically as those with ND experiences.  In this book - good overall, although some might be put off by the author's extremely forthright Christianity - he describes heaven in an excellent way, for it is not only sound and colors and loving feeling, but a permutation of perfection and perfect love, of a timelessness in time.  When I read the description, and others like it, it always hits me: yes, I've been there.  I cannot often pinpoint when, but I know it, and I can know by the description if they have it right (in my humble opinion).  This book, as I have said, does; and so have the last two I have read, by both doctors with no need for additional glory or income - as is the case with this man, a successful pilot and business man.  


In the other two, however, neither of the doctors were particularly religious, one being a self-professed agnostic, too busy to decide if there was a god or not.  That lends additional credulity to the accounts.  Still, the story of the pilot rings true.  A great feel-good book that will help strengthen faith of any sort, I would think - and documented to be true.  


Beyond the book, who wouldn't want to know if they are on the right path?  This is not only a Christian or People of the Book notion - it runs throughout cultures both complex and primitive.  Are you conducting your life by the will of heaven - or, if you prefer, by your true Being?  It always comes back to faith and a certain surrender - a surrender that takes far more bravery than its refusal.  The shaman plunges down or up to the realm of the spirits, the Christian to Christ and heaven, but all only on faith and the courage that they require.  But, as these books tell us emphatically, it is worth it.  It is, this surrender, in fact the only way to truly live a life.  FK   
   

To conclude with "How the West Really Lost God," this morning I read (once again) about the correlation between prosperity, low crime, and the make-up of the family.  Most are probably familiar with the statistics, which are that intact, natural families fair better both economically and socially in all categories (drug use, violence, single teen mothers, etc) and educationally; and that people with higher educations have, naturally, higher incomes, but also are much more likely to marry and remain married.  The link makes sense, but only in a "common sense" sort of way; for, although it is obvious that  two parents can make more money than one, why the differences in crime?  And why the difference between divorced and remarried families with children and those of the natural family?  

The book works to correlate religion and the family, claiming that they form a positive feedback - that is, each supports the other.  Again, we see the correlation, but mostly in a common sense way.  Religion stresses self-sacrifice and denial for the good of others as a moral, God given imperative, which can mean only good things for the duration of the family - and vice-versa, as both call for the same perspective.  But couldn't a single mother stress these virtues all by herself?  The statistical answer is "no."  This does not mean that some don't, but as a whole, religion and intact biological families promote what we most consider to be good social values.

Why this is so depends on an inherent, or deep, understanding of what it means to be religious and a family member.  That the idea of a transcendent and unmoving force legitimizes this lends tremendous weight to behavior and the sense of obligation.  As the author of our book shows, tear one away from the other - or alter one (as was done at he Council of Lambeth for religion - or in changing divorce law or the availability of contraception for family, with both religion and family intertwined) and both are weakened.  And with that, so are the recognized social goods mentioned above.  That this happens is not readily understood by logic - it does not 'have to be, ' but it is.  

For those of us with spiritual bents (such as myself), we see the importance of spirit in our lives, but this is not necessary to recognize the importance of the natural family and religion.  The stats are clear.  And yet - why are so many pushing to alter the fundamentals that have been with us for centuries?  I believe it is from a short-sighted individualism (as opposed to a wise individualism - there is a profound difference), and it seems this attitude is in the ascendant.  And as the author points out, the notion of family and faith are learned primarily in the family.  Once people are taken out of that context, it may be that for many, the notion is lost - forever.  These are things that cannot be taught, but which are deeply experienced.  For instance, in the traditional marriage, cooperation, sharing, and sacrifice, especially for the children, is taken for granted - but it is NOT part of the law.  One can also be selfish and parasitic in a marriage.  We all know that is not how it should be.  But this is learned, and can be lost.

It appears to me that as we irrevocably weaken the meaning of marriage and the solemnity of faith, we are headed down a certain path that has been trodden before: the development of a stronger and stronger state to make up for the absence of the family (financially) and family values (educationally and behaviorally), together with an expansion of personal varieties in life styles.  It is, as the author points out, what the world had under the Roman Empire, although now we have means for an even more intrusive government and greater personal idiosyncrasies.  This is, from my perspective, a negative direction.  From the libertarian and libertine perspective, the negatives are not necessary, and again this is right logically; but statistics (again) disprove this optimism. There is something about the choices made from a simple individual perspective that separates them from those taken from concepts of a bedrock right and wrong and a conviction of responsibility.

If this seems a little too "church lady" for the reader, I understand - it does to me, too.  But there are the numbers - and, more to the immediate point, the examples of the slippery slope.  I would wish a truce at this point in the culture wars, but that does not seem possible.  As one thing changes, a phalanx of people rush in to change others, building on the precedent.  Now there appears to be an avalanche in this direction.  

If only we could fly into the future!  On the other hand, I always recall a phrase from "The Teachings of Don Juan" (decidedly NOT a traditional work).  At one point, Don Juan tells our ignorant author, (paraphrase) "when the Spanish came, the knowledge of sorcery (what we call magic) was brought crashing down.  But that was a good thing.  It had gotten soft and was abused.  Now that it has to be done in secret, those few left must be absolutely impeccable. There is no room left for institutional laziness."  So will those few left from the old school of "God and Family" become better practiced at it?  I don't know.  Sometimes things, like the many arts and sciences of Rome, simply disappear with the culture.  Our descendants will most certainly find out.  FK                            

Back to Mary Eberstadt's book, "How the West Really Lost God;" a fascinating exposition of the links between the social, the economic, the family and religion, but much too complicated for a blog.  It is not that it is difficult to understand, but so complex.  But I can take one example to portray the overall logic in the book.  

The Lambeth Council of 1930  - I had never heard of it, but it was a meeting of the "mainstream" religious organizations to determine the future face of Protestantism.  The initial impulse was this: in the wake of modernity and the changing family, and after the downfall of the monarchies in WWI and a strong revival of democratization, the churches decided it was time to smooth over the harsher aspects of faith and emphasize the good stuff - compassion and acceptance over hard dogma.  As part of this, they decided to soften on the teachings against contraception.  Before, they, like the Catholic Church, had not accepted ANY form of intrusive birth control (as opposed to natural methods of rhythm and abstinence).  Now they were willing to accept it in cases of genetic deformities, possible complications for the mother and so on - all very reasonable.  But to do this, they had to change the concept of sex itself for theological reasons.  Before, it had been viewed solely from its procreative function.  But here, to allow some to have sex with no intention whatsoever of having children, they decided to allow that sex was a "gift of pleasure" valuable unto itself, without the possibility of procreation.  

At the time, the book tells us, many ministers were in open protest about this.  Yet by the early 1950's, many were coming out in favor of universal birth control with some - Billy Graham among them - saying shortly thereafter that contraception was a blessing to reduce population pressure.  In the mainstream, that led to universal acceptance by the late 1950's - just in time for the Pill.  


The Pill is another matter; sticking closely to contraception in general, we are shown that a rule to grant a few the moral right to contraception necessitated a change in philosophy, which led to universal approval only a generation later.  This is because sex was both detached from procreation while being (necessarily) attached to "God-given pleasure."  This was to have only been for a few, but the slippery slope had been overstepped.  If "pleasure" was a principle of God apart from the biological function, why not gay sex? Unmarried sex?  And if the latter, why not gay marriage?  And so it has become, from the slight wavering of clerics in 1930.  Coincident to this, exception given to women who might be at risk also led to another right - abortion.  If women could be excused from procreation to protect their life, why not their emotional well -being?  There is a leap here, but with the ideological push of radical feminists, it became so.  


Reading this illuminates the intransigence of the Catholic Church on these matters.  While such things are too complex to explain to the general public in a Papal address, the leaders are well aware of the slippery slope of Lambeth.  And so, this is something of an answer to Cal Roeker's musings about contraception and abortion as considered by the Catholic Church.  There is little question that abortion is seen as a far greater transgression than contraception, but I am not sure if the Church views them differently officially.  They understand all too well that to give up on one will lead to another - and abortion to the Church is, in most cases, murder.  I believe that they keep the small things intact to protect the large.  Theological pin points came become very large, as they well know in the Church.


These connections run throughout the book, and for the most part I must agree - we were taught in anthropology that even the smallest things in a culture might be of great importance to its overall function, once exposed.  That being said, I am often shocked by the advocacy of many intellectuals towards certain favored causes and changes in our society, including from anthropologists.  We do not really know how a change to age-old customs - gay marriage, for instance - might affect the entire society a generation or two later, but we must assume that such fundamental changes WILL affect us, and, as they most often come willy-nilly, probably in a negative way.
At bottom I suspect an odd form of ethnocentrism - a belief that we, the people of the modern West, are somehow beyond culture, and as such we can change things as we like.  This was Nietzsche's message.  But we are not - and we are not supermen.  

A finishing touch on this book tomorrow, FK 

   
        

Poor Sister Luc-Gabrielle, aka, the Singing Nun.  In the last essay, I had mentioned her record, with the still-famous song, "Dominique," and had then nearly forgotten her again.  But in telling my wife about the comedic incident in childhood that involved her record, she said, "She ended so sadly.  She left the convent and couldn't make it on her own, and I think she committed suicide."  

I was floored - no, not the Singing Nun!  I have for decades kept her image in mind, not often but now and then, as the perfect, beautiful woman, like The Virgin, so wonderful that she was beyond the the grimy mawing paws of mere mortal men like me.  Suicide?  So I looked her up on Wikipedia and found that it was true, and more.  For a short synopsis:

Jeanine Decker, or Sister Luc-Gabrielle, a Belgian, was encouraged by her Dominican order to bring the music she made to a producer, and managed an arrangement with Philips Records in 1961.  By 1963, the year my essay takes place, her album, thanks to the hit "Dominique" (which was in French originally, but had English, too, when I bought the record) had sold over 2 million copies.  Philips had kept most of the profits, while the remainder went to the Order, as is the custom with orders with vows of poverty.  This is a fact summed up by the English words to "Dominique" : "never looking for reward, he just talks about the lord."  The Singing Nun knew.

She left the convent in 1966, to do social work with the lay Dominicans; by her own statements, she left because the order wouldn't let her write any songs that were not happy and uplifting. Once out of the order, she resumed her career, but because she could not use the name contracted with Philips (the Singing Nun) perhaps because she was no longer a nun, she gained no traction.  After this failure, she had a nervous breakdown and then underwent 2 years of psychotherapy.

At about the same time, she moved in with an old classmate, Annie Pechan, with whom, as the blurb puts it, she developed a "VERY close relationship - apparently of a sexual nature.  She had a brief revival in the early 70's, teaming up with a Catholic charity, but that quickly fizzled.  Trying to make a comeback with "Dominique" in the early 80's, she (unbelievably) tried to make a Disco version.  It failed.  Meanwhile, her companion's school for autistic children also became bankrupt.  At that time, the Belgian government began harassing Jeanine for back taxes, even though she had not made anything for herself from her one successful album.  In 1983, the two took overdoses of barbiturates with alcohol, leaving behind a note that stated financial difficulties.  By request, they were buried together in Belgium.

The piece in Wikipedia printed two pictures - one of the Singing Nun with guitar and the other of the tombstone of Jeanine and Annie.  In the first, Jeanine is seated with her guitar - sans nun garb - wearing heavy -rimed glasses.  She is, overall, homely, not alluring to this man at all.  Although she appeared in the Ed Sullivan Show in 1965, I do not recall this homely rendition.  The other picture shows a beautiful stone and memorial to the women, well attended and flourishing with flowers.  Obviously, she has maintained a steady fan base after her death.  

The ironies and idiosyncrasies of her life are many, but two things (besides her disappointing portrait and her love life) strike me most: her continuation of care for social ills, and her need for fame.  

It might be that her need for fame was really a need for cash, but why the nervous breakdown?  Also, hers was not a country of starvation, and she had at least passing skills in several areas - at the very least, of caring for people.  No, I think she needed the limelight as she had once briefly had it.  The irony is that she had already dedicated herself to poverty; and even after leaving the order for artistic reasons, she continued with her prayer and human aid.  She was not a Mic Jagger by any means, and probably a better person in life than I will ever be.   It is probable that she suffered from depression - but suicide for a woman who believed it to be a mortal sin?  And over lack of funds?


I think her position mirrors many of our own: we cherish family and love and life over possessions, yet are driven by social prestige to have more and to need more.  In relation to this, I have discovered something in my readings and in life about the workings of Providence: that it hardly if ever is concerned with wealth at all.  Instead, it is focused on development, not of any kind, but of spiritual development (my Kingdom is not of this earth).  If that is your path, you will be helped - but watch out.  Do not accept that path and expect an easy life, as many successful preachers tell us.  God or "Being" sees, as they say, the Big Picture (to say the least).  This may mean failure from the social standpoint, or illness or any other number of disasters.  In eternity, these are small things.  


I think it can best be stated: if you want wealth, do not expect to get anything besides wealth; and if you want love and/or spirit, do not expect to get anything more, either.  But most of us- myself included- want both.  I expect Sister Luc-Gabrielle did, too.  But our designs, our wants, cannot run against the way things are, anymore than praying for the ocean to part will accomplish anything (unless there are bigger purposes afoot).  I suppose we can decide on one and hope for the other, but they are not equivalent.  Wanting and even working hard for material success will not always bring it; but wanting and working hard for spiritual success I think will always bring positive results in that direction.  For that reason alone, it is obvious as to which side Providence is on.    


My poor Singing Nun.  In my essay, I for once eschewed the darker things for a brighter story of Christmas, which was true to the time it took place.  Yet everything - the life that we in my family would live afterwards, the future of America, and even the future of the Singing Nun - would come to have a darker side.  It is always the case, as it is in reverse as well.  It is the law of Yin and Yang, and the underlying thesis to the practice of Buddhism.  Do not, as the Buddhists would say, depend on anything but Being, that which is beyond all transience.  For those of the West, this would mean: do not depend on anything but God.  And I would add, expect nothing more but what God knows is important in your life - and trust in "It" to find this for you.  Such is the moral found from another of those countless real-life tales, that of my poor Singing Nun.  FK              
           

For today, a new essay, "The Night My Father Shot Santa," under "Essays" in the website.  FK