Monthly Archives: October 2020

And God Said, ‘I Get It’

Pope Francis speaks at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli during an inter-religious ceremony for peace in Rome's Capitoline Hill on Tuesday.

It was easy to miss amid all of the political braying that is October in an election year, but the Catholic Church did something seismic today.

It acknowledged reality.

Forgive the misquote, but I’m pretty sure this is on the scale of the loaves and fishes. Because it was a hard reality for the religious: Gay people exist. And God’s cool with it.

Pope Francis, who is becoming Catholics’ Rebel Without a Pause, broke the news Wednesday to those whose faith mandates bigotry.

“Homosexuals have a right to be part of the family,” the pontiff said in Francesco, a documentary about his life. “They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.

“What we have to create is a civil union law,” he added. “That way, they are legally covered.”

First off: Hell yeah! The pope granted an interview? To a documentary film crew?? All Fran needs now are a pack of smokes, some Chuck Taylors and a skateboard, and I’m converting.

Chuck Taylors | Boys converse, Chuck taylors, Sneakers

The comment also underscored an inescapable truth that’s perhaps just as uncomfortable for the religious and conservative: History always drifts to the political left. It can’t help it.

Take any U.S. political or societal issue over the decades: women’s rights, minority rights, gay rights, animal rights, guns, weed, porn, language, ad nauseum; we are more liberal on that issue than we were a generation ago. I cannot find an exception.

You can’t unlearn enlightenment. You can only choose to ignore it.

Which is what The Catholic Times has apparently done. After learning of Pope Kickass’ comments, I checked out the popular publication, dedicated to Roman Catholics worldwide, to see their take it all.

I discovered that the CT is a weekly newspaper, so I could forgive it not having a piece on Francis’ bombshell. But I found something more disturbing. This picture and promotion:

Surely, I thought, this was simply click bait. The headline “Is it sinful to vote for Joe Biden?” had to be an editorial ruse.

But no: this from Paprocki’s column, which pointedly cites the Biden-Harris pro-choice stance: “In order to justify voting for a proponent of abortion, one would need a proportionately grave reason that outweighs the killing of 860,000 babies per year.”

He continued: “Note also that I am not saying that you must vote to re-elect President Donald Trump.”

Uh, yeah you are. This is the sort of semantic soft shoe that allows religion to skirt modern-age questions with Iron Age answers. Instead of telling readers to come up with a reason “proportionately grave” to the killing of 860,000 babies, how about just being honest with people? Your religion mandates that abortion is an atrocity, and your political interests must align with Republicans, even if it means Trump. We can at least be honest on that level, can’t we?

Interesting, too, that he did not bother to ask what seems a basic Catholic question — or implore his readers to ask it themselves: Which candidate is the better Christian?

But I’m not a theist, so what do I know? So we’ll turn it over to someone who is. Bruce Morrill, the Chair in Roman Catholic Studies at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University, said Wednesday’s papal wokeness is “not surprising coming from Pope Francis because of the trail of individual statements he has made here and there over his papacy.”

Morrill, a Jesuit priest, added that one of Francis’ characteristics was “that he likes to speak and act on the principle of mercy.”

Amen.

What I Miss

Crow | The HollywoodBowles

The only failing of dogs is that they don’t outlive us.

That’s become acutely clear over the past day. There’s a ringing in my ears, as if a flash bang went off in the house. I know it’s the tinnitus of absence. But there’s a larger void.

For the first time in my adult life, I’m without a canine companion. And that’s only because I count my college days as adulthood. Esme’s northern passage also marked the end of a duo — Teddy & Esme — the first buddy-cop movie to ever play out before me in my 8 dog years.

While my parents were never animal nuts, my sister and I are, particularly for wolf cousins. Caroline and I are of one mind on this: Cruelty to animals should be punished twice as severely as cruelty to humans. At least humans have therapy.

I guess that would have made Ezzie a therapy dog, because god knows she was an emotional salve. While Teddy was easily the alpha dog — from his size to his cartoonish personality — Esme set the rhythm of every day I’ve spent in this house since we moved here in 2009.

If I were lost in a column here in the office, Ezzie would stroll back to remind me: It’s dinnertime, dummy. Fetchtime, too. Oh, and bring a baggie; I left something warm for you in the backyard.

A Breakfast of Champions | The HollywoodBowles

Without a word, she was the crossing guard. She taught me: close doors; latch the gate, pick up your shit, check your suit for fur so you don’t look a corporate tool for Big Dander.

So it goes with all furred family members, it seems. What miracles! that meeting of the mind across species. That we would evolve to have the same endgame in mind: a safe, loving home that stands until the carousel stops. A home so intricate-yet-synchronous we could only hope for such symbiosis with homo sapiens.

And let’s bow back to our furred roommates for a moment. No matter your shortcomings, real or imagined, no matter your demons, manifest or budding, No. Matter. What. You are a rock star, they tell us. You hang the moon every night.

There’s something about that surreal bond that sets off meth-level dopamine hits in my brain. Maybe that’s what I’m jonesing. The problem with losing a love is that you can picture what you remember, but cannot see what you really miss: that aura of presence.

And I realize, here in the office, where nothing reminds me of the setting sun except memory and a wristwatch, that the question really isn’t a question at all: Another hound will roam these grounds someday.

Maybe two.

Archives for November 2014 | The HollywoodBowles - Page 2

Esme Bowles (4/10/09-10/19/20)

Esme was the smartest dog I ever knew.

She literally taught herself to fetch. Watched Teddy — he would just chase a thrown ball, taste it, and run to the next distraction. Ezzie figured out as a puppy that if she brought it back to her human, he would be tickled and throw it again. And again.

For Esme, with Love and Slobber | The HollywoodBowles

She’d learn to sit and find a toy on command. If Teddy did something he was not supposed to — like crap on the couch or eat my leather wallet — Esme would actually leave the house when I awakened. I would come to learn Teddy had misbehaved through her cues: If I heard her exit when I walked in from the bedroom, I’d know to brace myself.

Esme was perpetually cold. She’d laze on her back in triple-digit Valley heat.

Teddy | The HollywoodBowles

She treated guests as if she’d never had company in her life.

Teddy And Esme | The HollywoodBowles
Esme, teaching my aunt Lessie how to fetch.

She loved the car as much as her brother.

dogs in car
Freedom!

She did not mind a little 420.

Esme | The HollywoodBowles

She stood her ground, regardless of size.

A Confederacy of Dunces; Teddy; Esme

And she stood guard.

Fred Flintstone | The HollywoodBowles

Her favorite thing, though, had to be the 5 p.m. fetch. Since we both required evening meds — her for a brain tumor, me for the transplant — we’d rush our way through our evening doses to beat a path outdoors.

There, we’d play Esme’s version of fetch. More of a hide and fetch, I’d say.

Any dog can chase a ball and bring it back. Esme preferred you hide the toy and send her on a search mission. She would do this for more than an hour, and I usually wilted in the sun before she.

The night before she died, Esme did something for the first time in her life: made a noise.

I knew Esme for 11 1/2 years, and not once did I hear her bark. Not. Once. She may yip the rare dream, and snored like a motherfucker. But she made Dirty Harry look like a gossip queen.

Last night, though, she gave a soft, sustained whimper. Twice. I came to her bed to see if she was dreaming. Her eyes were wide open, her head against a blanket. I sat next to her and scritched her belly. The whimpers stopped. I rubbed her until she nodded off.

She was reminding me the time.

“I know,” I told her.

She knew too.