Feastday of St. Francis

It's been a rough day.

I am trying to pass a kidney stone.
My new antidepressants are causing anxiety.
I woke up 2.5 hours later than I had planned.
It took a lot just to get into the shower.

When I got out of the shower, and was dressed, my anxiety was bursting and I just HAD to get the FUCK out of the house. One glance at the clock told me I had 10 minutes to get to the noon Mass at our beautiful parish of Sacred Heart. Every time I go, those sweet Franciscans dont disappoint!

We flew downtown, circled the block twice to find parking. Jumped out of the car, hobbled quickly (kidney stone makes me feel like Schmoo trying to walk; kind of doughy and slow) to the church, and it was packed. This is unusual because a weekday noon Mass is usually about half filled. Something was up.

The kids and I slinked into a pew in front of several Franciscan Sisters, and caught up with the creed, and that is when I noticed how beautiful the sanctuary was. Gorgeous flowers everywhere, there were four Friars, all decked out in white for the feast, and a relic of St. Francis stood gleaming in its reliquary before his statue.

Today was the feastday of St. Francis, and these Franciscans were celebrating in style! Truly, a beautiful Mass!

True, I wanted to crawl under the pew at a few points and cry over this dang kidney stone. Its not painful so much as unceasingly uncomfortable. No fever, but I break out into the sweats and feel weak... its not a lovely process. Yet what better place to be (other than the hospital) than where you can ask God directly to get you through the day.

I felt so proud of my kids, who belted out the songs they knew and as always behaved well during the Mass. They recognized the San Damiano crucifix on the white linen chasuble of Fr. Larry.


Later in the day, I was able to reflect on some issues that have arisen. I will simply put them down here in the letters I sent a friend.

My dr referred me to a urologist to dealwith this stone since its not passing.



His referral nurse set up an appt for me with a specialist. The specialist's receptionist called to confrim the appt with me. Its going to be 2 weeks before they can see me. I complained about that . No budging. I said if I still have this stone in two weeks I'd BETTER see someone!


Then she wanted to get proof of my insurance. She had Cat insurance listed. I said, no, its medical card now. I just got divorced and am in transition. She said, Oh! That changes everything. Well, we probably cant get you in for several months then, and that is IF one of our doctors will agree to see you at all.

I was dumbfounded. I just said, "That's completey unethical!"

She stammered and then gave me some bs about medicaid not paying as much as insurance, and I am thinking, yes, this is still unethical!


WTF do you do? She said she would call back tomorrow and try to see what she can do. (not much)


THIS is why you see welfare patients going to the emergency room for everything. If you cant get into a specialist, you have to go to the ER, where they cannot turn you away, and then the ER referrs you to the specialist there (likely to be an intern!). This is fucking nuts.


so, I have no idea what I am going to do now. I guess I use up all my fucking energy tomorrow dealing with something that should have taken me five minutes to deal with. I have to find a list of urologists who WILL take medical card, and then find out which one of them has not yet filled his quota, because even if they agree to take it, they limit how many medical card patients they will take.


There are people who think this is the best fucking country in the world. I beg to differ.

My friend responded empathetically, and the next day I sent her THIS letter.

Well, I dont know exactly what happened, but she called back today and gave me the original first available appt with the specialist.

:)
There are a few things coming together for me right now. We are so powerless in the face of injustice. We can run away and acquiese. We can fight and create more violence. Or we can follow the example of nonviolent intolerance. This was discussed yesterday in this Catholicism program I am doing weekly at a church. Jesus started this lesson with the 'turn the other cheek'. (I am sure there were others who said it too, but this is our western culture that has been exposed to it.) MLKjr used this, so did Gandhi. From what I understand it was after Gandhi studied the bible in England? or South Africa, that he was inspired by the nonviolent protest.

The idea is that we dont run or cower. But we dont fight. We stand there and refuse to be unnoticed. ANd if that means taking a belting or two, we do it. We stand tall. Beat me, but you wont get rid of me that way. You will have to recognize that I am human, and you are human, and we need to deal with each other on that level.

The turn the other cheek thing goes way deeper than what we learned in Sunday school; as usual there is tons of cultural and historical context that changes the whoel story.


I think, I was in the frame of mind, when speaking to this receptionist, that I would not acquiesce by saying, "oh, ok. I am medicaid scum, so I will accept what you say." But I did not fight with her either, calling names or being aggressive. I simply said, "I am here, I wont be ignored, this is wrong, and you need to deal with me."


I dont know if this had an effect or if its just coincidence. But for now, I am inspired becauase for so long I have felt UTTERLY HELPLESS abouit the injustice in the world. Its so big and we are so small. How can it ever be made right? Well, nonviolent intolerance may not fix the injustice, but what it does do is allows us to remain HUMAN in this injustice. And if there is one thing we must maintain in order to keep sane, it is our humanity. We are less human when we cower, less human when we fight. More human when we say, "Look at me. I am human"


Its amazing. Now I understand why Gandhi instructed his followers to stand and be beaten down by the British. Not so they would get beat up, but so that the British had to face them as HUMAN BEINGS. Win or lose- it doesnt matter. We remain human. And that DOES matter.


We try to dehumanize the poor in our country. Say they are less deserving, probably immoral, dont count. Bullshit. I wont stand for that. I may not be able to change it but damn it, I will stand up for their right to be human. FULLY HUMAN.


And that is the differnec between collecting money at church to "feed the poor", and truly WORKING with the poor to see them as human. Which brings me back to Dorothy Day, abouit whom Fr. Barrron talked at this Catholicism program the other night too!!! I was poking the kids and was like, LOOK LOOK! DOROTHY DAY!!!! They got pretty excited. The name of the movie, Entertaining Angels- did you know what it meant? It was how Maurin and Day looked at those they served. They were to treat those who came to them as they would treat an Angel sent from God! The honor and dignity and humanity. I think that is why you would love this mother teresa film too. Its so beautiful. Mother Teresa never tried to convert anyone. She only wanted to allow them to die as humans, not garbage thrown on the street. She knew she did not have the capacity to nurse people back to health (although later on they did!), but for those who were dying, she wanted them off the street, and in a bed, with someone nearby to love them and treat them like a real person who counted. Cant change death. But you can let them be human.


So!!! Today was really fucking hard, but there are lessons to be learned.

I continued to trudge through my day, making the best of things. The priest who gave the homily encouraged us to be grateful for what we have rather than focusing on the crap. Good in theory, but on a day like this, its hard to practice. I do, however, get perked up when I am hanging out laundry on the outdoor line. So that helped some as I savored the experience. Is it sad that this would be a highlight of my day?

And then, the kids and I decided to try making this apple pancake to celebrate the feastday. I have no idea what this particular food item has to do with St. Francis, but its a feastday so we have to make something fun to eat.

It turned out pretty good, even though I scortched some of the apples.

It tastes great, but I must tell you, that its not a particularly photogenic food item. In fact, it looks pretty gross during the whole process. But I will share pics anyway.

http://www.food.com/recipe/baked-apple-pancake-301388

A friend, the same who puts up with my bitchy letters, brought down these tiny, sweet, crisp orchard apples from Wisconsin. Some were only 2 inches in diameter, but they tasted awesome!

Stew them up, carmelizing a bit in their own juices. I had too many to fit in the skillet, so used a stock pot. The plan was if I had extra, I would freeze them for a pie later on.

After the apple had reduced and softened a bit, they went into my 13 inch cast iron skillet for some final carmelizing. As it turns out, all the apples fit just fine. Then you pour on this mostly egg and milk batter, kind of like a fritatta, and put that badboy in the oven. Wow. Look how dirty my oven is!!

When done, it still looks like crap, but if you pick a piece off the side you will notice that it tastes great! While it was baking, I whipped up a little brown sugar glaze.

Flip that sucker over onto a large serving plate and drizzle the glaze on top. Then place it with pretty autumnal decorations so it looks good on your blog. Because, really, its STILL not a photogenic hunk of food.

Yum! 1/3 of this giant apple pancake is now eaten. We had it for dinner. Apples, eggs, milk... sounds pretty healthy to me. :)

There you go. Me waining philosophically. Every day you learn something new.