Split Families Two

Well, she's done it again: today is the day AFTER Christmas, and my son still doesn't have his son. Now we have to pick the boy up at 10 AM this morning. Connor has again missed out on celebrating Christmas with his father's family, and will have it alone later today. For the record, I went back into our calendar and my photo albums, and verified that the only holiday that Ryan has had Connor since Thanksgiving of 2014 was on the Fourth of July, even though six of the holidays this year fell on weekends when he was supposed to have him anyway. And not only has she succeeded in preventing Connor from spending time with his father, she even turns the situation around and blames Ryan for the last-minute change. Unbelievable.  Then she tried to tell Ryan that he had Connor on Thanksgiving, so that meant that she should have Connor for all of Christmas. P.S. he did not have Connor on Thanksgiving - or Halloween, or Labor Day, or even my birthday last March.   She must think we are all idiots. A Court-order visitation schedule is the only option left.  I hope Ryan files the paperwork soon. This all needs to be in writing. She doesn't know how to share, nor does she play well with others.

Split Families

I have two grandsons. Each one is the only biological cousin to the other. My older grandson has parents who are divorced.  His mother is my younger son's former wife. They have legal joint custody on paper, but in fact, my son's ex-wife takes complete control over decisions. On paper, they are supposed to share visitation on major holidays like Christmas, but in fact, we have not seen our grandson for a major holiday since Thanksgiving of 2014.  As a result, he has not seen his younger, and only, cousin in more than a year.  Until my son can take her back to court and force her to change the way she treats him and their son, this is likely to continue. She seems to go out of her way to deny our grandson the opportunity to share celebrations with his father's family, and to get to know his paternal blood relatives. She also changes plans at the last minute, and never seems to be able to make a definite commitment as to pick-up time until the morning of, often resulting is disruption to our schedule and/or our plans.  She did it again today, which is Christmas Day, when our son was supposed to pick up his son at noon.  Suddenly, she needs to have their son with her as she travels from place to place today, and now my son can't pick up his son until this evening, when Christmas is virtually over and the rest of our family is gone. The boy again has missed another chance to see his cousin, as that family comes to us on Christmas Eve, and leaves on Christmas Day to go to my daughter-in-law's family.  2016 is a Leap Year, meaning that the next Christmas will fall on a Sunday. If the planning goes right, my son will have his son on that weekend. Then we may finally get the celebration we have been wishing for. One can only hope.

Electronic Cards

    
I've decided that I don't like eCards. You can't touch them; you can't hold them; you can't save them.  You can print them out, but it just isn't the same as receiving one in the mail. Real cards cost money, the stamp used to mail them also costs money.  That makes real cards a gift, and one that gives joy to the person receiving it. I don't think I will ever send an eCard to anyone, unless it's an invitation to a spur-of-the-moment party or something like that, but if it's an important party, like a wedding or anniversary celebration, I will always send a real card. I love all my friends and family, and my bought-and-mailed cards to them are my gift to them. I guess I'm just old-fashioned that way.
 

The Problem with Democrats

      I watched the second Democrat Debate last night-well, some of it-and continue to be amazed that the candidates still can't call our enemy what it is: radical Islam. Mrs. Clinton did refer to the terrorists as Jihadists, which is about as close as anyone got to labeling them at all, but let's face it: if we can't identify them, how can we even fight them, much less defeat them? France, a N.A.T.O. ally, has just  been savagely attacked by these radical religious extremists, and still the Democrats insist that this is someone else's fight. 
      These monsters have demonstrated again and again that they want to rid to  world of "Infidels", and are willing to die to accomplish that.  If we are going to defeat them, we have to be willing to do the same. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama has been cutting back on the size and abilities of our military forces at the very time that we need to be stronger, not weaker.  Ironically, here in Connecticut, our illustrious chapter of the AFL-CIO has asked their national organization to organize a boycott of and divestment in Israel, a sovereign nation and our only true ally in the Middle East, which has to defend itself regularly from Palestinian terrorists who also want to wipe Israel off the map . Unbelievable.   I think I am going to boycott the AFL-CIO.  Mr. Hollande said it right: France is at war. May God bless them in their fight.

The joy of Family

A son of a cousin of mine got married recently - in Spain. When my cousin first told me about it, I was pretty sure I would not be able to go.  In the first place, it's hugely expensive, and going to Spain for a weekend didn't seem like a good way to spend my hard-earned money, even for a dearly loved cousin.  In the second place, I hate flying, and the thought of spending seven or eight hours in a plane with several hundred other people left me cold, to say the least. In the third place, we really couldn't afford for both my husband and me to go, and I didn't feel up to traveling in a foreign country by myself, especially when I didn't know the language. But two things happened that made me rethink my situation.  First, John didn't want to go anyway, having been to Spain years ago and not being in the least interested in going there again, and second, my daughter Jenny said she would love to go with me, and agreed to make all the arrangements as long as we could stay for an extra day or two so she could see Madrid.  As it happened, it was the best decision I could have made:  the wedding was fantastic, we had a great time both at the wedding and in Madrid, and Jenny and I were able to begin healing a chasm that has arisen between us due to her decision to divorce her husband of two years. My cousin also said that he was very grateful to have us share the celebration with his family, and thanked us often during the weekend for attending. In the end, it was the joy of being with the family at such a happy event that made the trip worthwhile.

"In Order to be a Good Christian, One Must First be a Good Jew"

I first read that statement  many years ago, on the dedication page of a novel whose title now escapes me. I always felt the truth of that statement, probably in part because I have Jewish cousins, and a Jewish uncle, a Polish emigre who married my mother's youngest sister,  whom I naturally felt very close to, even though I am Catholic. I was fortunate to have grown up in an unusually ecumenical family: my mother's parents were Irish immigrants whose six children all married people with different religious backgrounds, and all were welcomed into our family.  This was at a time when such ecumenism was unusual: the decade after the end of World War II  But the reason I mention this is because I recently started reading a book by Peter Kreet having to do with the Bible, and I wanted to share a passage with you in which he articulates what he  calls the miracle of the Jewish people.

The passage occurs during his discussion of Genesis, and it is thus:

"The call of Abraham [by God] in Genesis 12 comes right after the [story of the] Tower of Babel in chapter 11 to contrast man's way with God's way..... How reasonable the Tower of Babel sounds, and how silly the call of Abraham seems!  What a way to fight the serious battle against evil - to pick out one man, flawed like all of us, for a lifelong trek into the wilderness with no road map and no guarantees, only promises.  Yet this is the beginning of history's most public miracle: the Jewish people.  Their survival and continued rejuvenation, their unparalleled flourishing and achievements, out of all proportion to their tiny size and strength, violate every known law of history and sociology.  The more we consider their history, the more we are in awe at divine providence.  The more we open our eyes to see, the more we open our mouths to gasp."

I have read  that passage over and over again, and I am always profoundly moved by the power of his words. He illuminates the details of the Bible with a clarity and directness like nothing I have ever read before. This is just one example. The book is called "You Can Understand the Bible", and reading this book has assured me that he means it. And as for my Catholic faith, I believe that God first revealed Himself to the Jewish people, and they embraced the truth of Him, but when He revealed His Corporal Self, in the Person of His Son, that truth was received not by one people but by many peoples, who embraced that truth as well. As Christians, our first miracle lies in the birth of the Jewish people; our second miracle lies in the birth of Jesus. The history goes on.

The Power of the Media

What upsets me the most about politics these days is how much influence the mainstream media has over the public perception of government, and which party is responsible for gridlock.  This time it's over the funding of Planned Parenthood: Republicans want to defund it for a year so that an investigation can be conducted into its abortion practices.  This seems to be a reasonable request to me, given the awful practices that have come to light about them recently. Democrats in the Senate have already vowed to reject that request, and President Obama has vowed to veto any budget that excludes the funding, and yet the media asserts that it will be the Republicans who will be responsible for a government shut-down if it occurs. This is outrageous to me.  Why are we funding Planned Parenthood anyway? It is not a government program, it's supposed to be a charity. I can't think of another charity that is funded to this extent by the federal government. If there is a government shut-down it will be because the Democrats refuse to compromise yet again on anything that Republicans want, not the other way around, and yet, the media will continue to spin the truth in Obama's favor. Why can't more people see this?