Because of a shoe , a game was lost at DUKE

There's an old proverb that goes : Because of a nail, a  war was lost.  (does anyone know how that goes?)

We saw a version of that the other night when in the first  few minutes of play the heralded ZION WILLIAMSON  fell down with his knees akimbo and his left  foot peeking through his Nike sneaker.
Nike stock dropped the next day, but  more immediately  conjecture  flew about the future of the player from Duke who  was expected to be the number one draft choice in the NBA.
Since then Duke play has been more erratic.  But they are having the  experience of  creating a new game plan that does not include ZION TO THE RESCUE and the talents of the other rookies on the team are developing and on better display.  Best of both worlds?? Zion returns to a more confident and seasoned team and they get to the FINAL FOUR.

THEN AGAIN THERE IS THE DEBACLE IN BOSTON

The Celtics have  not yet  recovered from the  much awaited return of  Kyrie Irving and  Hayward.  But there is no joy in Mudville--oops wrong sport--but same outcome.
Kyrie looked last night like he was too bored to play against the  Raptors.  There seems to be  a great discord and  nothing people in and outside of the team say seems to heal it.  I guess the players who were so great and heralded last year thought that they would still be that way when the best player returned..  But that did not happen--of course Kyrie is their best player--but the other players want to be given some  part where they can shine   in the play and not  just be a supporting cast waiting in the wings--or on the bench in this case.

Of course this is where the coach usually can help, but not if it is true as reported that Coach Brad "rarely intrudes into the locker room."  If he doesn't, then there is no one moderating the discussions or actions there.  
Well, I  fear it is too late for this  season unless the formidable LUCK OF THE IRISH  falls down from the rafters and grants them a Leprechaun's rainbow to lead them to the  NBA finals. 
It is a LONG SEASON.

UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE RUNNING AMOK

When you read that title what came to mind?

Was it -- Billionaire owner of  several professional teams visits young Chinese  sex slaves for 70 dollars per hour at Florida  strip mall.
Or was it -- Returning actor in prominent TV Series where he plays an African American homosexual hires two Nigerian  brothers who pretend to beat him and call him a homosexual  and pretend to be  Trump supporters. 

And these two instances  are caught on tape.  Did a signal go off somewhere? Go out and take advantage of your prominence and wealth and celebrity  and damn the consequences.

Or how about this ? 
Even closer to home--
Major benefactor at Ivy League University holds secret and  exclusive dinners for the richest students in local restaurant. These dinners are facilitated by the University and result in the richest students also getting assigned the best  rooms which are supposedly distributed through a lottery.

Or Roman Catholic Priest forces sexual acts on  penitent who is underage in the confessional.

Or priest rapes and impregnates a nun and forces her to have an abortion.

HOW LOW CAN WE GO?

Don't even ask that question because some take it as double dare to go and do worse things

All of these  and so many acts that you can probably add as you read this short list  are evidence of a tidal wave of unchecked privilege that seems to be sweeping like a tsunami of filth across the world.

What do they all have in common?
They are all flagrant examples of  UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE

Privilege can arise  in many guises.--

The Privilege of Wealth
The Privilege of Race
The Privilege of Class
The Privilege of  Gender.
The Privilege of Nationality
The Privilege of Youth
The Privilege of Clerics 
The Privilege of High Office or Rank


Pope Francis tried to  address the problem  at the close of a Summit on  abuse he called at the VATICAN:
"In people's justified anger, the church sees the reflection of the wrath of God, betrayed and insulted by these deceitful consecrated persons."

THE WRATH OF GOD 
Do you believe in that or are you snickering?  I do believe in God and in his WRATH

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on

New thoughts about Ed Hogan

CASTING BREAD UPON THE WATERS OF TIME
A blog entry that I posted over a year ago about Ed Hogan of the CYO was recently brought to my attention  by someone related to the subject of the blog.
Ed Hogan's daughter wrote to me and  was pleased that her  father whose birthday was Valentine's Day should be remembered as the same kind, wonderful person he was. 
 I am  so glad that the blog has served its  purpose. It is  my fervent hope when I write an entry especially one that names a  real person from the past that someone in the future reads it and can relate  to a dear one in  his or her background. For every word that I have written about Ed Hogan and each kind act I recall, he himself  enacted on a daily basis so many more. 
Even in detailing our brief encounters, I could have mentioned how once he became aware of the need of the disabled young, he actually organized a dance class and a bowling night that my sisters also participated in. 
Here is the earlier entry:

The Father Barry  CYO  on Denver Street in Pawtucket

Everything seemed to change in 1949-50 but it wasn't all bad.  Disaster would  wait until 1953 to strike.
But something new came into our lives when my mother became aware of the CYO Center on Denver St near the  convents of the Sisters of Mercy and the White sisters--both now obliterated.

I don't know the extent of their programs now but I think  the CYO building is still there.  
No it is not --I just  drove by to check and it  has been torn down also to make way for what looks like a new gym building for Saint Raphael Academy.

But in 1950 -52  I do know that under the direction of Mr Ed Hogan they ran a day camp at Goddard Park in the Summer months.  AND that he added a special two week camp for handicapped children--and he decided that could include my two sisters Janie and Sheila.
I do not know how  my mother applied or even learned of this camp--it must have been someone in the parish or  maybe through the good offices of JENARITA FOX, a Special Ed teacher  of a class at Grove St School that my sisters attended.

My mother took it all a step further and brought me to  meet Ed Hogan and asked if I could also attend the camp--that I loved to swim and had never been to a camp-- and that at home I was in charge of my  two sisters. So he made me a "Junior Counselor" for two weeks and I was allowed to  attend the camp  free of charge and to help with the handicapped campers. 

We were so happy to see a CYO bus pull up at our front door and  we would all three run down the stairs and get on the bus. We carried little bags that held our towels and bathing suits and swim caps. And each of us had a lunch box. 
 I was beginning one of the greatest living and learning experiences of my 7 years,  My sisters were with other children who had difficulties--not just Down Syndrome but some were deaf and dumb and some were autistic, and some simply refused to speak.

My job was to  help with lunch, to step in if there were any fights, and to help the campers get into their swim suits and  shower and change back into clothes after the swim.  I also helped with ARTS AND CRAFTS.  I learned a few new things like knitting, clay work and  advanced Gimp.

The Camp operated with a BUDDY SYSTEM and it was my job each  hour to blow my whistle--YES I HAD A WHISTLE!-- and to do a Buddy Check.  This was especially crucial if we were in the water.  If anyone was not near  his buddy, we would take both children out of the water. That worked well and most were always close to their BUDDIES.

Will it surprise anyone if I say that my sisters loved it-- especially Janie.  She loved company and she loved to talk--like me.
So she would babble without let up to the children who would not talk.  NO INTERRUPTIONS!
There was one  silent  little boy who was fearful of just about everything.  Janie would lead him everywhere and never stop talking about what was going on.
One day in the locker room after the swim a little miracle happened-- I was helping Janie and Sheila get dressed, and I was buttoning their pinafores.  The boy was struggling nearby to get out of his wet t-shirt, with it over his head, he yelled out the first words he had spoken in years  HELP ME, JANIE.

WE all heard it and someone ran out to get a  Senior Counselor--
but that day he said no more.  In fact he started to cry as we all crowded around, and Janie said  "Leave him alone."  And we did and Janie took up her usual tasks: Drying him off, adjusting his clothes and babbling about the day. When  he came  back the next day, he still would not speak when prompted, but with Janie  he would repeat some of her words or just laugh along.
That Camp ended too soon for all of us.
I, who was so busy trying to hide my shameful stuttering, came to wonder if that Boy's silence was not just an extreme form of  STUTTERING FEAR --he avoided all speech.
And I vowed  not to  avoid speech, but  the big lesson that I learned was how much anyone hates to be always on the receiving end of HELP and CARE.  
Each of  us longs to be  useful and to help. The  BUDDY SYSTEM is a brilliant  antidote to pity and self pity. Everyone is helping someone else.
The CYO CAMP was Ed Hogan's  way to help my family and so many people in Pawtucket  to learn how to help themselves by helping others.

DOROTHY DAY LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES--YES

Some thoughts on the QUESTION 
WHAT IS LOVE -- FOR DAYS AFTER VALENTINE'S DAY

I have been thinking about Saints or those considered for canonization who passed through Rhode Island.  So far I have come up with a short list that includes:  Mother Francis Xavier Warde, the Berrigan Bothers, Thomas Merton, Andre Bessette, and Dorothy Day. My personal nominees  are Henry Shelton, Sister Mary Michealeen and Brother Cajetan Cyril. 
My mother admired Dorothy Day and subscribed to the CATHOLIC WORKER  AND  she read aloud to me from Merton's Seven Story Mountain.  So that gives those two  extra  status in my book.
Dorothy Day wrote and cared about the spiritual source of human love and she found  some compelling insights in the Russian Orthodox Theology. 

Dorothy had developed a friendship with Helene Iswolsky, a Russian emigré who had come to know the monks at St. Procopius. The friendship between the two women was natural because of their shared personalist background. Iswolsky was the daughter of the Russian ambassador to France during World War I. Later, in France, she had joined Emmanuel Mounier in his personalist circles after Nicholas Berdyaev had looked her up (they were both Russian emigrés) and invited her to discussion groups at his apartment. It was in France that Iswolsky had become Catholic. (Miller, p. 361). Iswolsky encouraged Dorothy’s interest in St. Procopius and in Eastern liturgy and theology.

Dorothy had been affiliated with the English Benedictine congregation at Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where Ade Bethune, Catholic Worker artist, was a Benedictine Oblate from around 1942 until at least 1946. She later changed the locus of her affiliation to St. Procopius, and it was on April 26, 1955 that Dorothy became an oblate of the Benedictine Abbey in Lisle, Illinois. (Merriman, 101-104).

Among other writers on Eastern, and specifically Russian spirituality, Dorothy quoted on several occasions G. P. Fedotov’s Russian Spirituality. In an article on “The Incompatibility of Love and Violence” in the May 1951 CW she related a scene in that book to Peter Maurin’s reaction when some of the intellectuals or people in charge of CW houses acted against principles of the Catholic Worker, his principles:

On two occasions Peter almost left the Catholic Worker which he had founded. Once when some of the young intellectuals wanted to throw out the “dead wood,” “the rotten lumber,” (meaning the poor) and concentrate on the “message,” on propaganda. And once when two of the men who were in charge of the house struck others.

 In his horror and indignation he spoke strongly. On the first instance he arose from the round table where the discussion was going on and said, “let us go, let us leave this to them,” like the retiring abbot in the writing of G. P. Fedotov’s collection of Russian Spirituality. And on the other occasion he stated strongly that if he ever again saw evidence of violence such as he had just witnessed, he would leave the work.

It may have been Helene Iswolsky who introduced Dorothy to the great Russian theologian, Vladimir Solovyov. (Hans Urs von Balthasar later chose him as one of the models in hisThe Glory of the Lord, Vol. III, Lay Styles (Ignatius Press), and John Paul II points to him as one of the sources from which Catholic thought can be enriched in his encyclical Fides et Ratio.). Helene gave talks at the Worker on Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Solovyov, putting together the ideas of these authors. One of the occasions is recounted in “On Pilgrimage,”CW, October 1949:

“The first week in September we had Helene Iswolsky at the farm at Newburgh, giving a course on Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Solovyov, the three great Russians. ‘In a field where poison grows,’ she began her course, ‘you will find its antidote. The same soil produces both.’ She spoke of Solovyov who told of the glories of the Incarnation, and is the link between the east and the west. She spoke of the three great men who emphasized the dignity of the human person. ‘To love Russia,’ Berdyaev said, ‘is the way of the cross.’ These three men wrote of the struggle of man towards God and to all of them the golden key which opened the doors of prisons and led out of darkness was the key of love. To listen to such talks is not only to learn more of Christ, but to learn to love the Russians who are truly Christ-bearers in their sufferings and poverty. 

In February 1942 when Dorothy was under attack for her pacifist stand, she spoke of love, the love of Christ which was so different from the starving of whole populations or the bombardment of open cities. She insisted that “love is not killing, it is the laying down of one’s life for one’s friend.” And then she quoted at length from Dostoevsky’s monk, Fr. Zossima. She said she quoted him because the accusation “holier than thou” was also made against the Catholic Workers, who must, like everyone else, admit guilt, participation in the social order which had resulted in the monstrous crime of war.

“Hear Fr. Zossima, in the Brothers Karamazov: ‘Love one another, Fathers,’ he said, speaking to his monks. ‘Love God’s people. Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of coming here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others, than all men on earth… And the longer the monk lives in his seclusion, the more keenly he must recognize that. Else he would have no reason to come here.

“Do you remember that little story that Grushenka tells in The Brothers Karamazov? “Once upon a time there was a peasant woman, and a very wicked woman she was. And she died and did not leave a single good deed behind. The devils caught her and plunged her into a lake of fire. So her guardian angel stood and wondered what good deed of hers he could remember to tell God. ‘She once pulled up an onion in her garden,’ said he, and gave it to a beggar woman. And God answered, ‘You take that onion then, hold it out to her on the lake, and let her take hold and be pulled out. And if you pull her out of the lake, let her come to Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is.’ The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her. ‘Come,” said he, “catch hold and I’ll pull you out.’ And he began cautiously pulling her out. He had just pulled her out when the other sinners in the lake, seeing how she was being drawn out, began catching hold of her so as to be pulled out with her. But she was a very wicked woman and she began kicking them. ‘I’m to be pulled out, not you. It’s my onion, not yours.’ As soon as she said that, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and she is burning there to this day. So the angel wept and went away.'”

Dorothy added her comment, “Sometimes in thinking and wondering at God’s goodness to me, I have thought that it was because I gave away an onion. Because I sincerely loved His poor, He taught me to know Him. And when I think of the little I ever did, I am filled with hope and love for all those others devoted to the cause of social justice” (Robert Ellsberg, ed., Selected Writings of Dorothy Day, 1983, 1992, pp. 5-6).

Dorothy especially quoted Solovyov regarding his book, The Meaning of Love. In 1948 she wrote, “Recently I have been reading The Meaning of Love by Solovyov, and he refused to accept the idea, so universally accepted, that love is an illusion, a lure, succumbed to so that the purpose of procreation is fulfilled, and then vanishing” (On Pilgrimage, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1999, p. 199).

Now we are finally getting to why I think Dorothy  Day has something to say that is crucial for  our understanding of the experience of LOVE.

Reflecting on the difficulty of continuing to love when the first special emotion and idealization of the loved one has passed, Dorothy looked to Solovyov for insight.
 She quotes him at length:

“It is well known to everyone that in love there inevitably exists a special idealization of the beloved object, which presents itself to the lover in an entirely different light from that in which outsiders see it. I speak here of light not merely in a metaphorical sense; it is a matter here not only of a special moral and intellectual estimate, but moreover of a special sensuous reception; the lover actually sees, visually received what others do not. And if for him too this light of love quickly fades away, yet does it follow that it was false, that it was only a subjective illusion?"

This is DOROTHY'S  big question?  Was the glimpse of something wonderful in the beloved an illusion?

 Or is it a case of the veil of appearances shifting and the   arrow of love piercing it and allowing lover and beloved to see the God Within for a moment?

Solovyov expands this insight:

“…Each man comprises in himself the image of God. Theoretically and in the abstract, this Divine image is known to us in mind and through mind, but in love it is known in the concrete and in life. And if this revelation of the ideal nature, ordinarily concealed by its material manifestation, is not confined in love to an inward feeling, but at times becomes noticeable also in the sphere of external feelings, then so much greater is the significance we are bound to acknowledge for love as being from the very first the visible restoration of the Divine image in the world of matter….

 You have been very patient to read this far;  I had to re-read this material many times before it sunk in.
--here's a lighter treat--

Today I read a sassy poem by  Frank O'Hara that gives some of the intimate details  of these  divine eruptions--

Travel

Sometimes I know I love you better than all the others I kiss it’s funny but it’s true and I wouldn’t roll from one to the next so fast if you hadn’t knocked them all down like ninepins when you roared by my bed I keep trying to race ahead and catch you at the newest station or whistle stop but you are flighty about schedules and always soar away just as leaning from my taxicab my breath reaches for the back of your neck

PEGABUS FOUND--ALL'S WELL IN THE BUCKET

Dear Readers,
I would be remiss if  I did not tell you that RIPTA responded today and solved the mystery.
Here is our exchange on Email.

Customer Service		9:23 AM (4 hours ago)
Hi Norma, Sorry to hear about confusion, I can assist you. We were informed it was posted on about 100 digital bus boards for a month and was taken down yesterd

Norma Jenckes		11:56 AM (1 hour ago)
Hi Customer Service, Thanks for this rapid and welcome response. I do believe you and must admit that it was the limitations of my informants. I am sure that th

Customer Service <CustomerService@ripta.com>	1:11 PM (17 minutes ago)
to me

You’re welcome.

We will indeed pass along said information for consideration, we appreciate your input.

Best,

RIPTA

PHANTOM PEGABUS IN THE BUCKET

LIKE THE FLYING DUTCHMAN THIS BUS FOR POETRY CANNOT YET  BE SEEN 


Here is a letter of complaint that I just sent to RIPTA  about a missing bus in Pawtucket.

I and all my friends who ride RIPTA daily have been unable to find a certain bus --the one with the POETRYINMOTION  poem on it. They have called and complained to me because I Am the  Guilty Poet who  won the poetryinmotion conetst with my poem "I AM WITH YOU IN PAWTUCKET: CIRCA 1959". Poet Laureate Tina Cane promised to go on the bus and take a pic for me--I am disabled and cannot ride the bus anymore.
So I feel a little foolish, but you, RIPTA, did  send out a press release about my award and you did promise it would be on a bus.  SO did that  BUS--let's call it PEGABUS --get lost?
 Or is it the stuff  of legend? Will it only appear when the corruption has left the STATE HOUSE and the Independent Man  is  safe  to ride buses again? --something like the FLYING DUTCHMAN or Charlie on the MTA? Or ZORRO?
PLEASE DO INVESTIGATE THIS LOST BUS MYSTERY.
 Cheers, Norma Jenckes

A VALENTINE FOR MARGARET

THE REDDEST ROSE IS FOR MARGARET

Thinking of my mother and wishing I could  present to her  a gift : a sort of  bouquet of poesie.  That is after all one of her life long gifts to me. 

 Although the actual conditions of our  life in Pawtucket were poor; the atmosphere that my mother Margaret created was rich -- it is what people now call cultural wealth. She had that in spades, and she cultivated and added to it daily.  She never tired of detailing  Ireland's rights and England's wrongs.  So much so I still find my self most recently arguing back to the  television series on Victoria --especially when it tries to sweeten her attitudes towards Ireland and Scotland.  However my mother did prize the English poets  and did  enjoy and often sing some old English song.  One of them I have  copied here:
Another earlier way of saying it's TWILIGHT TIME. You can hear it sung on YOU TUBE.

Gloaming | Definition of Gloaming by Merriam-Webster

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gloaming

The roots of the word trace to the Old English word for twilight, "glōm," which is akin to "glōwan," an Old English verb meaning "to glow." In the early 1800s, English speakers looked to Scotland again and borrowed the now-archaic verb gloam, meaning "to become twilight" or "to grow dark."

IN THE GLOAMIN'

In the gloaming, oh my darling
When the lights are soft and low
And the quiet shadows, falling,
Softly come and softly go
When the trees are sobbing faintly
With a gentle unknown woe
Will you think of me and love me,
As you did once, long ago
In the gloaming, oh my darling
Think not bitterly of me
Though I passed away in silence
Left you lonely, set you free
For my heart was tossed with longing
What had been could never be
It was best to leave you thus, dear,
Best for you, and best for me
In the gloaming, oh my darling
When the lights are soft and low
Will you think of me, and love me
As you did once long ago


I was always puzzled  by this song.  It is a song about longing and holding onto  that languorous feeling  long  after you have let go of the person who inspired it. The singer still addresses the absent one as darling and dear,  She refuses to let  bitterness or regret enter the  picture. At least the memory must always be untarnished even if the  subject of that memory had to be shorn.

I have written often of the tremendous power the sons and lyrics of Tom Moore held for my mother especially when they  were put to music and sung by a  great Irish  tenor like John McCormack, 

I was reminded of that recently when I watched again  the incredible tribute to the excesses of mother-love  directed and written  by Martin McDonough.  It is called "Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing Missouri" but it is the song that  plays under the opening and closing credits that gives the game of  Irish mother idolatry away.

We hear Tom Moore's LAST ROSE OF SUMMER sung by the soprano Renee Fleming

Last Rose of Summer 'Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions are faded and gone; No flow'r of her kindred, No rosebud is nigh To reflect back her blushes, Or give sigh for sigh. I'll not leave thee, thou lone one, To pine on the stem; since the lovely are sleeping, Go, sleep thou with them; Thus kindly I scatter Thy leaves o'er the bed Where thy mates of the garden Lie senseless and dead. So soon may I follow, When friendships decay, And from love's shining circle The gems drop away! When true hearts lie wither'd, And fond ones are flown, Oh! who would inhabit This bleak world alone?

That movie is about a mother who is driven mad by the brutal rape and murder of her young daughter. The movie asks dramatically the question posed in the last lines of the song:
WHO WOULD INHABIT THIS BLEAK WORLD ALONE?
She was not violent, but my mother shared that movie mother's fierce love for her daughters. She was a lioness. I recall her throwing out of our tenement any social worker who advised her to place me and my sisters in state care.
My mother was first and last a poet, an Irish BARD
So we must end the bouquet with a special poem by her favorite Yeats

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

I don't know if any man ever loved  "the pilgrim soul" in Margaret; the love lives of our parents are an impenetrable mystery to their children.  I do know that she had a pilgrim heart  and that through poetry she tried to pass that on to me.

SO FAITH, HOPE, LOVE  REMAIN, THESE THREE;

BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE. (Cor:13,13) 

Celtics and The Lakers and Rondo's Redemption

I AIN'T A RAGIN' ANYMORE

Did we see  a Basketball miracle last night?  When Rajon Rondo managed to make a basket that  won the game for his Lakers against his old home team the CELTICS?

After the game, COACH  Brad amazed me by saying that the  Basketball Gods rewarded the right team,  when they gave the game to RONDO AND LEBRON,

Yes, and that pair might just be an unbeatable duo if they can stay tight and forget the regrettable spitting  tantrum of Rondo against Chris Paul--James' good friend. 

 This morning on GET UP I hear an account that Rondo initiated  two  leadership  activities recently.  He  showed the  Lakers again the tape of their Christmas Day meeting with the Warriors.  He pointed out what they did  right and what they did wrong. The day before the Celtics game  Rondo took over a gym at Emerson College and held an  unplanned  game with  all of his team.  They played many different lineups like a pick up game and they  became  cheerful and competitive.

Here's how WIKIPEDIA describes Rondo since Xmas:
On December 25 against the Golden State Warriors, after just three games back from his hand injury, Rondo suffered a sprain to his right ring finger.^[174] He underwent surgery three days later and was subsequently ruled out for an estimated four to five weeks.^[174] He returned to action on January 24, 2019, after missing 14 games, recording 15 points, 13 assists and six rebounds in a 120–105 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.^[175] On January 31, he had 14 points and 13 rebounds in a 123–120 overtime win over the Los Angeles Clippers.^[176] On February 7, he hit a 20-foot jumper as time expired in Boston to lift the Lakers to a 129–128 win over the Celtics, as he finished with 17 points and 10 assists. It was his first career go-ahead field goal in the final 10 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime.<sup>[177]


I want to emphasize that last sentence:</sup> It was his first career go-ahead field goal in the final 10 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime.

After the game Rondo said that he had a 
dream that he ended a game  with such a field goal.

Well last night the dream came true.  AND watching
 that dream unfold  were spectators like Bill Bellichek,
 Sony Michel and other  Patriot players in the stands.

You know Rondo even looked different last night--
younger, lighter on his feet and even more  handsome
without the  usual scowl.

Maybe the bright Lakers uniform is his 
color--he looked good in it last night.

Brigid is the FIRE THE CELTIC QUEEN THAT REIGNS IN FEBRUARY

Brigid the CELTIC QUEEN

She is of concern to the three functions respectively; first function as a poet, the second as a smith of weapons, and the third function as a healer and cunning woman, a Bean Feasa. In each of these roles, she is the fire. Among poets, she’s the fire in the head, among healers, she’s the compassion fire in the heart, and among smiths, she’s the fire in the hand. As the exalted one, she’s the fire, the briga power in the fire, which raises itself up. As the daughter of Dagda, whose many names include Aed(Fire), she is the Irish Agni which brings forth other gods, or at least skilled feats of magic in each of these three professions as Fire Tender. Dagda is Lord of Knowledge, and she gives access to it. Brighid’s popularity is due to her being a tri-functional goddess. She has a number of mystical animals and is particularly fond of animals and newborns.

Her feast day on February 1 is associated with the Irish  celebration of IMBOLC. That  feast marks the first day of Spring in Ireland and is also a day  when ewes come into their milk and baby lambs are  nourished. SO Brigid  helps new mothers  and new lives.  She is associated with fecundity and she is also  considered the patron of BARDS  and Poets and adds to their fecundity and creativity.

Her  spiritual power is divination: she has the vision to foretell future events.  For these  prophecies she sometimes relies on certain animals who were consulted by Druids to foretell the future.  We see a remnant of this belief  in the Germanic continuation of consulting animals as they leave their winter dens.. This survives in Pennsylvania in the predictions of GROUND HOG.  Phil did not his shadow this year and so  winter should abate soon.

The first days of February also play a big role in the Christian calendar.  In the Western Christian Church the date is celebrated as THE PURIFICATION   That is the day when following Jewish custom Mary brings her newborn  to the Temple 40 days after birth and herself undergoes a ritual of  cleansing after birth that enables her to return to   the Temple for prayer and services.  In the Eastern Christian tradition  the same day is  celebrated as the feast  of Mary Presenting Jesus to Simeon: bringing her first born son to the Temple in commemoration of the time when the  first born  in Egypt were  taken  by the Angel of Death.
In the Roman Catholic  calendar  it is called The Presentation of the Lord on  February 2 and also Candelmas when all the candles for the next year are  blessed.

That brings us back to Brigid's ancient  role as patroness of the returning light and of fire.  My own  mother died on the First of February and I recall that my first thought was one of wonder and pious expectation  that The Irish Celtic Goddess Queen now a Catholic Saint would escort her  devoted follower  into heaven.