Day: August 21, 2018

I am very happy to report that Kelly Patrick, a veteran certified nurse’s aide at the Mansion Assisted Care Facility, moved out of her tent yesterday (and burned it) and into her new home, a bright and comfortable three bedroom double-wide in Salem, N.Y.

It was a long and hard journey for Kelly from the tent to her new home, where she will live with her daughter and grandson. They all spent this stormy and wet summer in a small camping tent. Kelly, a loving and conscientious caretaker of elderly people, lost her apartment when the landlord decided suddenly to sell the building.

She had run into some difficulties and did not have enough money to pay her bills, especially when she had to help her daughter care for her grandson, who was seven. Kelly fell behind and could not catch up, she did not have enough money to pay for the deposit and first month’s rent on a new apartment.

She eventually found a place – this trailer – but she did not have the $1,800 to rent the apartment, it costs $900 a month. Kelly refused help for months, I repeatedly asked if I could  help her, she repeatedly turned me down.

I persisted, the people who care for our mothers sometimes need some care themselves. The mansion staff is full of good people, Kelly is one of the best. None of them make much money, nor do caregivers all over the country.

Slipping into financial trouble during a time of stagnant wages and obscene corporate profits is an American story, all too familiar. I vowed to get Kelly out of that tent, I couldn’t sleep thinking about it.

Finally, after a tree limb came through the tent like a spear in a torrential thunderstorm, Kelly relented and said she had to get her and  her family out of the tent. So the Army Of Good rallied and we had the money in a day or so, plus several hundred extra dollars for some necessities for her home.

This is a triumphant week for the Army Of Good. Yesterday the soccer team went to Ramblewild, for a confidence building forest adventure. Today, they went to the Great Escape Amusement Park for fun. This weekend, we helped find homes for two homeless and very needy dogs, Jen and Albert.

And this morning, Kelly was in her new home, cleaning up and getting her cable installed.

I thank you so much for your help. This was a very big deal for me, for Kelly, for the Army Of Good, for the Mansion residents, for her grandson, for all the people who believe in doing good for one another.

In America, we are all supposed to have an open field, so many people have died for that idea. Part of this work is keeping that idea alive.

Everybody who is good is looking for good. “Let us go elsewhere, In to the neighboring country towns, so that I can proclaim the message there, too, because this is why I came,” said Jesus. To drive out the devils, and  help the poor and vulnerable.

I have no idea whether or not Jesus was the son of God, he is not a God to me, but a very special human being who helps me understand where I should go and what I should do. He touches the God in me.

Thanks for helping Kelly. I believe this to be the high watermark of the Army Of Good, it is so much better to do good than argue about what good is.

Two weeks ago, Sylvie requested five or six tote bags. I bought her several and asked the Army of Good to offer some. Sylvie got plenty of tote bags. She is a little mysterious about exactly what she will do with them, I think she will use them for her correspondence – she loves to get and mail letters – and also for her religious literature.

She is a devote member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Sylvie is one of my favorite people in the world, she is a fierce individual and she told me today that she got some criticism for stacking some of her new tote bags on her walker.

“Some people have suggested that I am a bag lady,” she huffed. “I think they are just kidding, Sylvie,” I said, “perhaps they are suggesting you are a tote lady.”

“Thank you, John,” she said, “I will have to think and pray on that.” If you wish to write Sylvie, it will please her greatly. I gave her several boxes of new notecards and some envelopes and stamps this week.

You can write her care of Sylvie, The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. She will do her best to respond, although some of her letters get returned to the Mansion, she then considers them prayers.

I am  beginning to discover the spirituality of fish, which is, if course, a mirror and reflection of the spirituality in all of us.

I need a spiritual point of view.

I need, in the full transcendence of my own ego and my preoccupation with self,  to drop out of that limiting self-consciousness in simple and ordinary contemplation.

Somehow, the fish help me to get there, perhaps because they seem so un-self-conscious and un-preoccupied with anything but their own survival. Once in a while, they come face to face with their own reflection, and they seem contemplative.

They don’t think about everything they do, they just do it.

I believe a life without a quiet center easily becomes self-destructive, at least in my own life. Everywhere I look, every day on every kind of news, on all sides of conflicts, there is much action and little quiet centering or true reflection.

In our world, it is considered irrelevant  and weak not to act quickly and strongly.  Those who think rather than shout are pushed to the edges of life, mostly ignored, pushed aside by the shouters.

I am learning that I need a central point of stillness, a lonely place so that my life and actions are creative rather than destructive to me and others.

This is a goal I often fail to achieve, but I never stop trying to get there, and I sometimes succeed.

As in today, watching our new fish in our new fish tank. I need to go beyond psychology and so-called self-awareness into the center of my existence, my lonely place, where it is finally silent and always beautiful.

I love it there, it is a holy and healing space. It’s so curious, because my lonely place is never lonely. I have always been the most alone among the most people.

“In the morning,” a prophet wrote of a great priest, “he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there.” Thomas Merton wrote of the “lonely place” where he went off to find God and follow his will.” That is where he found his purpose.

I go to my lonely place to find me, and follow my will. Isn’t it somehow the same thing?

In that place, I am  fine, I am accepted, I am as good as me. There, I have faith in myself, I need no approval from others, I can return to life and get on with the essential work of being connected to community.

The painting above was the last painting done by Bob Mather, who died over the weekend. It will be on display at the Mansion Art Show Thursday.

A few months ago, we thought the Mansion had enough art supplies to last a decade, but your gifts and supplies and donations have sparked a great art renaissance in the Mansion Activities room, and art has become a daily, major and critical activity.

This week, Julie Harlin, the Mansion Activities Director, has posted a new Amazon Wish List that focuses on the new reality, they are running out of art supplies and need some support for their work spaces.

They also need some help with parties and gatherings – cups, napkins, spoons, nothing expensive.

Some of these items can be purchased on the  New Wish List – paint, paper cups, napkins.

Some can be donated from the outside – watercolors, acrylic paint, paper, brushes – among other things. The list ranges in price from $6 to $12.

The Mansion Amazon Wish List has four items when I last looked. Three disappeared immediately. This list is very simple.

Take a look and see if anything interests you, and if you have any access to basic art supplies, Julie says they can use them. Art is a big deal at the Mansion, their art show is going to be held at 6 p.m. Thursday, I’ll be one of the judges.

The Wish Lists have become a fundamental source of supplies and support for the Mansion residents. The art work has also  triggered more gatherings.  I thank you for supporting them, and hope you’ll take a look at this one. Thanks.

We have a tankful of spiritual fish, calm, ethereal, calming. In the afternoon, I have a quiet hour, I sit listening to music if I have the time, and I spent a few minutes watching my spiritual fish, a kind of meditation. It is very calming for me and grounding especially in these somewhat edgy times.

I have also realized there are some beautiful photographs to be  had in this tank and I’ve begun experimenting with how to capture these soothing images.