I have a twinge of conscience, right now.  Having taught all my life in public school and ten years in private school, I think I know now what education is all about.  I realize that in the heyday of Catholic Education, I had, because of the sisters and brothers, the best public or private education available in the most advanced nation in the world at a cost to my parents of $5.00 a month (I have two brothers).

What am I doing for payback?  There are a few charities available like the American Indian schools, but my pension is not built for a philanthropist.  I look to the Father who provided for me so munificently, and at the very least, every day I say thank you.

When Toussaint L’Ouverture took over the slave revolt in Haiti in 1791, they won, and the white, French plantation owners who survived fled back to France, which was having its own rebellious troubles.  Be that as it may, the victors actually did what the communists we know only talk about doing, share the spoils equally. To do this, the Communists under Lenin established the dictatorship of the proletariat — no freedom there.  But the slaves of Haiti definitely wanted to stay free, and they preceded Karl Marx and Lenin by approximately 100 years.

Everybody would get a fair share, and nobody was to be richer than his neighbor.  That is almost true of Haiti today, Catholic Communism, but who would want to be as poor as the average Haitian?  If you are from a communist country, or at least one that has sneakily permitted select capitalist procedures, you want no part of Catholic Communism.

She was an ominous, mythological creature, sometimes mentioned by the scouts in the deep Catskill woods where I’d taken them for a two-week stay as part of the program I ran for the troop.  She existed only there, and that’s why one of the Tenderfeet asked me to call up his parents to take him home.  She  had reportedly, according to the boys’ stories, killed some scouts in the woods, and the Tenderfoot or new scout told me she shook his platform tent at night.  An inspection of his tent showed a thin string leading from the top of his tent pole to a tree and back to the tent of one of the older, Star scouts.  I had a serious talk with that scout, and the problem was solved.

I could have been a proselytizer, but I was head of a multi-faith troop, and that was out of the question.  I couldn’t tell them of another lady, known to millions as Our Lady, who was almost mythological too, but who had existed about 2,000 years ago as the mother of the man who influenced Western Civilization more than any other man in history.

I was sitting out on the patio one morning when I noticed a dragon fly (yes, I’m sure it wasn’t a damsel fly, which looks almost the same) light with its almost transparent wings on an iron tomato support. It stayed there about five minutes and then flitted away. It came back almost immediately to the same position, facing the sun. It would repeat this several times in forty-five minutes, always resting with the left wings down and facing the sun.

To me this was a mystery, though I’m sure in the annals of nature there is an explanation. We go through life meeting many such enigmas, and yet we are sure we understand life and the possibility of God.

How many times have I suddenly become aware that a prayer or a hope has been fulfilled? We don’t realize what’s going on part of the time. It’s like growing a sunflower; suddenly there’s a big flower on it with seeds, and the time has come to harvest it.

I don’t know if heaven was made for me. I’d probably miss out on half of what’s going on. I’m part Zwingli (the Swiss reformer) and missed out on the Catholic Marian devotion. I didn’t know it could appeal to a man, too (Juan Diego), and so didn’t notice that other road to God. As they said in 500 A.D., “All roads lead to Rome,” paraphrased by “All roads lead to Christ.”