Morning Star

"She had just lost her baby.  It's been three hours.  And she was still holding on to it." I looked at Carlos carefully. He was the head of the Women and Infants Department at the hospital, 15+ years a chaplain, and a nurse. "I told her it was time to let go.  Time to let God take control.  Time to take control of myself.  Blah, blah, blah, you know what I mean," Carlos continued in a playful tone.  A smile was beginning to break on his face. It was not usual for Carlos to view death as someone else's loss. He was a man of deep sensitivity. "She looked at me after I was yakking my mouth for almost 30 minutes... Then I smelled it... Gas!"  He stopped as giggles began to engulf his sentences. "Then she looked at me and said, 'Some things you can't control!'" ps.  Memories of my days as a chaplain at the hospital. Photo Credit:  http://www.xda-developers.com/android/get-more-control-of-your-htc-sensation-with-t...

"There were a lot of priests in there," Lyly noted. "And a bishop.  5 priests and our auxiliary bishop," I added. The room was jam-packed. Although the workshop was set in mid-afternoon, not one person nodded off. A multi-billion dollar industry. Minimal regulations. Innovative research. "We say we're going to get married and have children," Angelique Ruhi-López said. "Perhaps we might want to consider saying that we receive children," Carmen Santamaría, her co-speaker shared. "If it is to have children, then we feel entitled to them," Santamaría continued. "Hence, all these procedures to have a baby.  Have you seen the adds for egg donors?  $5,000.00 - $10,000.00.  And these young women take drugs to hyperstimulate their ovaries so that instead of producing one mature egg a month, they are producing 10-20.  Do we know the effects of pumping drugs into young women?  No.  Yet, it is still being done," Ruhi-...

She did ask if I had read it. I did.  In high school. She gave it to me anyways. A Separate Peace. A story of two teenage friends. Boys who were roommates. Then one became jealous. As usually happens. And the other unawares. As it is usually. They both climb a tree one day, together. As they had the whole summer. They were suppose to jump off the limb, together. Into the river below. As they had the whole summer. For an inexplicable reason, one jounced the branch. Ever so slightly. The other, a natural athlete, fell and broke his leg. Never to walk properly again. Much less play sports. Maybe the reason wasn't so inexplicable. Maybe it was like the war that was happening around them. World War II. Where people shoot each other for reasons they don't know. The book doesn't end there. The one who broke his leg, fell again. And dies. What goes through the heart of the one who is still alive? The friend who wonders at what makes himself jo...

"Sister, I have a question to ask you." Trinh looked at me pointedly. Hundreds of students were filing out of the school's main doors. "Go ahead."  My eyes darted to a parent who seemed to be hunting for a lost child. "Well, Hùng was wondering if you designed your community's website." "Yes, I did.  But I don't volunteer that information because I already have enough work here." "You, have work?" she responded with a mischievous smile. Trinh was one of 72 catechists who help teach over 900 students in Sunday School at Giáo Xứ Đức Mẹ Hằng Cứu Giúp in Garland.  The church had just dedicated a new education center at the start of the school year. "Oh, I don't have any thing to do.  All these parents read the church's newsletter or goes on our school's website and so they know what's going on.  They don't call me and ask me for information that is already given.  They take their kids to scho...