PRAY FOR GREELEY



(From the Sun-Times) The Rev. Andrew Greeley got stuck in a traffic jam on the Kennedy Expy. for 90 minutes recently, and the hassle persuaded the best-selling novelist to take the L next time.

He tried to do just that after giving a lecture in Rosemont on Friday (11/7), but his jacket got stuck in a taxi door when he was dropped off at the Rosemont CTA station.



Father Andrew Greeley, best-selling author and Sun-Times columnist, fractured his skull yesterday in an accident. He is in critical condition at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.



As the cab began to pull away, the 80-year-old priest fell to the ground and hit his head, fracturing his skull. He was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where he was in critical condition, friends and family said Saturday afternoon.

"Right now he's critical but stable, very stable," niece Laura Durkin said. "Doctors are hopeful and pleased with his progress from [Friday] to [Saturday]."

Greeley, who was wearing a Barack Obama baseball cap when he fell, suffered bleeding on the brain.

Doctors installed a monitor in his skull to gauge pressure on his brain, said his friend and attorney Terry Goggin.

How about this one for starters: "Lord, we need Greeley right now more than You do, so if You wouldn't mind, let him keep his wits and stay with us a little longer, please?"

A WORD ABOUT ‘TEH GAY’ AND THE SERMON THAT SHOULDA BEEN GIVEN



LOST is a practicing-yet-battered Catholic. LOST and Mrs. LOST (24 years, married in the church) and the two, not-so-little-anymore LOSTs watched in dismay here in southern California as the odd coalition of Mormons and Knights of Columbus collectively whipped up a frenzy of "support" for prop 8, using their children as props at intersection sign-waving campaigns, and using the most base and untrue of arguments (e.g. failure of the initiative will expose churches to "discrimination" lawsuits by gay couples - forcing churches to perform same-sex marriages, that kids will be taught in primary grades that same sex marriage is on equal dignity with heterosexual marriage, that forced "field trips" to gay weddings will become a staple of first grade classes everywhere, and the like). Each of these arguments were insipid and apocryphal, but echoed loudly throughout the landscape. Ask a devout "Christian" about Christ's express condemnation of homosexuals in any of the 4 Gospels; LOST did this several times during the Fall's "Silly Season." Sometimes there was no answer, often, Paul's letter to the Romans was mentioned. LOST was quick to remind those so responding that Paul was not Jesus, and in fact was the quintissential convert, making up for a multitude of past transgressions following his transformation on the Road to Damascus. Indeed, in today's liturgy, we found Paul telling the Corinthians that "those who destroy the temple (of their bodies) will be destroyed." Quiver, Twinkie lovers. The LORD wants you to eat broccoli and run some windsprints before doing some heavy ab-work - the core must stay strong; okay, okay, LOST digresses.

LOST's favorite extrapolated answer came from one who cited, "Jesus tells his disciples that 'that is why a man shall leave his parents and cling to HIS WIFE and the two shall become one flesh' - that this infers that Jesus - well chronicled as a Savior willing and able to verbally dress down of his time so deserving (ask the Pharisees). was implicitly condemning same sex marriage since "man" and "wife" were used.' Sounds a lot like the Scriptural equivalent of activist judges, "legislating from the pulpit" instead of the bench. Surely the Almighty has greater aspirations for our efforts - fighting poverty, disease, suffering, ignorance, war, torture, greed, dishonesty to name a few, rather than spending millions of dollars in a duplicitous campaign that divides people, and seeks to keep another group of His creations ensconced in the status of second class beings. LOST don't believe the God of his father, the one LOST was raised to revere, praise, worship and give thanks to, seeks that of anyone, anymore than LOST believe that He seeks our compliance with any one of dozens of arcane dictates of the Old Testament.



Which of course, brings up the other half of the matter. At today’s Sunday Mass festivities (okay, being a bit facetious because the mood of the congregation resembled bingo hour at the K of C Hall 45 minutes after the bar ran dry), one of our Deacons – not quite priests who get to do many but not all of the priest-y stuff – delivered the post-election homily. It was expected that this one – already on LOST’s s-list for obliquely referring to litigating molestation victims as “those who unjustly took advantage of the situation (hear hear, how do I turn my forced buggery at 9 into a pile of cash at 35? There’s an informercial opportunity worthy of Guthy-Renker or Ron Popeil isn’t it?). Anyway Deacon twisted tries to exhort the worn out faithful by bringing up the election, multiple times, and exhorting them at least once with “we have to try to remain upbeat . . . .” Remain? LOST is sitting in the back benches with the ghost of LOST’s Dad, and thinking to himself hell, I’m ecstatic, and why the hell aren’t you? The country has a Catholic Vice-President. Now, Halley’s Comet’s been around earth more times in the last 225 than that has happened. And the new President is black, or at least partially so. That alone is not cause for celebration? America has grown up enough to permit an African American to sit in the big chair at the head of the table, and run the big train set. Ignore the fact that the last guy in that chair tore up the tracks and wrecked three or four of the best train cars; we’ve grown considerably. Oh, but as always in the sick demented minds of the Shiite Catholics, it comes down to abortions, doesn’t it? Even there, there is cause for optimism. Despite President Obama’s express rejection of banning abortions – the only plank that is apparently acceptable from a Democrat by the mullahs of the rightwing Episcopacy, he has publicly stated over and over that an agreeable goal can and should be limiting the number of abortions performed in our country. When one considers that the McCain of his first 71 years on the planet – and certainly the McCain of the 2000 run - - was essentially a pro-choice guy, Obama’s stated goal should be cause for something more than mere polite golf claps from the kneeling rank and file. That notion, coupled with the fact that America may finally push to get itself out of Iraq and lessen the destruction in the Mid East, restore its own infrastructure and get idle people back to work, and emphasize taking care of those already here with medical care and increased economic opportunities, there was ample reason for the good Deacon to express at the very least, joyful optimism, rather than the gloomily repeated “let’s pick ourselves up and try to be positive, losers” refrain that was opted for. That would be change worth pushing for in anyone’s house of worship.

ANOTHER REASON WHY IT ALL MATTERS

Yes, the hype over the hope is dissipating, and some in the media seem anxious to blow past the honeymoon and demand a cabinet, staff and a program though inauguration is 2 1/2 months from now. History has been made, and the hysterical cries of “socialism” and “Commie” have been, if only for a short while, stilled or stalled.

But in this context it is important to recall an equally important reason why this result is so important, so meaningful, and so necessary:



IN 2004 a senior, unnamed aide to the Bush Administration told the New York Times writer Ron Suskind that guys such as Suskind were "in what we call the reality-based community". The aide defined this as comprising people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality".

"That's not the way the world really works any more," the aide continued. "We are an empire now,

















and when we act, we create our own reality.




















































And while you are studying reality judiciously, as you will,




















we'll act again, creating new realities,


















which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out.


We are history's actors,



















and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do."



Yeah, and you might have gotten away with too,



if it hadn’t a been for them meddlin’ kids.

SUNDAY STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS, ‘TOP OF THE LANE’ EDITION

Two days away from the big day and it can’t get here too soon. The polls all scream that change is in the works, and President Obama may find himself in that “be careful what you wish for” place we’ve all been allegorically cautioned about, but better him than an embittered old man with a hair-trigger temper, backed up by a complete air-head, right . . . Football season sucks, can’t even root root root for the Bruins, ‘cause this just ain’t quite their year . . . funny how the religion to most recently give up polygamy as an acceptable lifestyle is out on the forefront to “protect” and “restore” marriage – almost as funny as the fact that the old guys who dress like pirates and have to pee to sit down (Yep, that’s YOU, Knights of Columbus) are acting as willing sidemen in that effort, urged on by the clergy and hierarchy of the universal church. LOST thinks that handing out annulments to well-connected donors to obliterate their twenty-year old marriages is a greater threat to his quarter century union than any pair of Bob & Jims who want to pick out curtains and tie the knot, but LOST and his straight-but-not-narrow brood seem to be in the minority in this neck of the red woods . . . should not falling for the b-grade radio version of “Punk’d” not sound the political death knell for a Vice presidential candidate? LOST thinks so . . . but then that ballot’s already been mailed in . . . all children under thirty should read (or have read to them) “The Last Campaign” by Thurston Clarke, it’s a great history lesson, even if you know the hero dies in the end . . . it was 90 degrees yesterday in San Diego on All Saints’ Day, and it rained today (70 degrees) but the jury is still out on human impacted climate change? Only for repubtards, I’ll wager . . . does anyone else think that if the John McCain who appeared on SNL and the Al Smith Foundation dinner and David Letterman had showed up to the debates that he might still have a chance in this race? . . . NBA basketball season is too long – ditto the MLB Season, but at least they get Christmas time off . . . speaking of Christmas, is anyone in the mood for these commercials yet? At the moment, with the stock market forcing the adjustment of LOST’s retirement age up to the same level as the octane rating for the primary ride (“87”), apparently not. This is gonna be a lean one ‘round these parts, for sure . . .