Today I retrieved my car after quickly bringing it to the dealer to fix a number of items that fell amiss during these pandemic days.  The bill was just a few dollars over $1,000.00  Note: I’m still waiting for my ship to come in.

That term dates back to New England’s Flying Cloud days (clipper ships) when locals invested on ships that sailed to China and came back with treasures in spices and cloth.  Only I’ve invested in a talent, which, sadly, hasn’t yet bloomed to the proportions I’d like.

The Lord is good, however, and with his help I may snatch success from the jaws of disaster.  History tells us how Beethoven would never have composed like he did (the famous Ninth Symphony is considered revolutionary) if he had not fallen deaf.  I may be on the road to deafness, but I’m not a composer.

Kiri Te Kanawa, the Australian aborigine, had a voice as clear as a bell, and a church bell, I might add.  To hear her sing Gounod’s “Sanctus” is to hear music fit not only for God, but us humans awed by his works, including her voice.  The disc that carries that precious swatch of melody also carries Franck’s “Panis Angelicus.”

I heard it first on my wife’s soundbox the sunny morning after we got eight more inches of snow.  All ailments and sorrows were forgotten as I listened to that pristine voice render in music the part of the Mass that precedes the reason people come.

Kiri had the finest teachers her people could find for her, and with her God-given talent and voice, that was dynamite.  She became an opera singer of repute, hitting all those high notes without a hitch.  What a wonder of Creation!

As the populace gets more educated, professionals are finding themselves more open to criticism.  When I had the cut in my temple stitched by a PA at a local hospital, a relative viewed the finished product, and asked, “Why didn’t she put in a fourth stitch at the upper end?”  There was room there, and it bled there.

Of course, the PA may have had a reason.  Who knows, maybe that was close to an auditory nerve, or something like that.  The final test will be, “Did it heal?”

Criticism works when it is diluted by the mental charity associated with smooth-running organizations, which have somewhat internalized the camaraderie espoused by the founder of much Western thought, Jesus Christ.  This internalization  has helped our civilization for about 2,000 years.

Almost everyone knows hospitals started in Western Civilization through monks and nuns.  A few started in Asian civilizations, but they never multiplied as in the West.

I was in a hospital today, and admired how it was an example of how far we’ve come since the Year I.  There were white and black nurses, PA’s and doctors all working together to help patients from varied races and backgrounds.  Nobody was out to do another in.  There were no spears, knives and the only firearms were on security.

I attribute it all to the man who healed the blind and died to bring his preaching to a head.  He envisioned a kingdom where people did good deeds and lived by the Laws of Moses.  His name was Jesus Christ.

One student in particular was unattentive to or ignorant of the nun’s age.  She walked with a hitch and her habit could not hide a few gray hairs.  But Damon compared her to some of the younger nuns he’d had, who spotted everything as though they had eyes on the back of their heads, and put a stop to mischief.  This elderly Sister Marie’s voice was even slower, as were all her movements.

She sought help from the only succor she knew, her divine Lord.  She stood Damon up against the wall of the classroom and asked him to recite the Our Father.  Some of the students, wise in the ways of the world, but incompletely schooled, said it was an exorcism.  It didn’t take.

Her travail came to an end with the school year.  Damon went on to higher grades and eventually high school, where he played football but got a beating (for mistreating that teacher?) from boys who didn’t even know her.  Life just evens out that way.