Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Tribute to Bob Coffey RIP, Tulsa Trad Community Elder

I am saddened to report that one of our own Tulsa Catholic Elders, Mr. Bob Coffey, has passed away at age 71, survived by his wife and four children.  He was a convert, devout traditional Catholic since the 1980s, and one of the original members of the wider Latin Mass community of the Diocese of Tulsa.  Many knew him from daily Mass, kneeling with head bowed low in the back of church, and often giving catechetical information in the church parking lot.  He was also a weekly participant at the St John’s hospital Perpetual Adoration chapel for decades, where I first met him about 20 years ago.  

Many knew Bob as an unabashed traditionalist, a strong Marian devotee, and a man with special personal devotions. Others also knew his love of nutrition and health, which he avidly studied and shared with others. Whether it was about the Faith, politics, economics, lifestyle, or healthy living, his dedication to pursuing truth was motivated by his strong desire to help his family, friends, and acquaintances to benefit from his discoveries.

But there are quite a few things many don’t know about Bob, and I am able to relate them because my wife is best friends with his wife, who approved this tribute.  Bob was a self-employed attorney who dedicated his practice to employment law, defending very ordinary people from unjust treatment in the workplace, some of whom could not pay him. Often his services to the poor were free, and he often staid up very late studying each of their cases.

Before practicing law, Bob was actually a professional gardener.  In fact, he was one of the main gardeners to build up the award winning gardens at Philbrook museum.  With his gardener coworkers, Bob formed a locally followed folk band of which he was the lead writer and singer, waxing poetic about living in the modern world.  A Renaissance Man, Bob also has graduate degrees in literature and Asian studies, having taught as a professor at the University of Tulsa and Oral Roberts University.

A unique man of many talents, and most of all one who put his Catholic faith at the center of everything, Bob Coffey will be greatly missed and remembered by our wider community for years to come.

PS Please have Masses said for Bob, though he did receive the last rites just before dying, which includes the apostolic blessing which remits all purgatory time.

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Seasonal Changes. Blessings, Challenges.

I don't know about you, but I can already tell a difference in my mood and energy levels from the change in the season, daylight savings time, and beginning of the holiday shopping season.  Not sure if it's the Sun going down at a very early 5 pm, the looming annual tensions in the family about holiday get-togethers, or my uncouthe experience the other night buying an I-phone at Walmart, when Black Friday began at 6 pm Thursday night.  Note to self, do whatever you can to order all Black Friday stuff next year online.

But I count my blessings.  Family, the love of a good wife, friends, my avocation and income, and above all else the mercy of Our Savior.  He has seen me through a lot, as He does for all of us, through this Valley of Tears.  But while the valley has its shadows, I am thankful for the Fall season, the beautiful foliage, weekend outings to hike, camp, and fish.  This year we keep the Christmas shopping to a minimum to save for a down payment on a house.  Life is hard some days, but it is good!

Challenges.

This year I have a plan to combat the seasonal affective disorder that seems to affect most if not all of us, as the daylight decreases, our skins become more pale, and our serotonin levels drop as Earth gets further away from the Sun.  Cheerful music in the house, keep as many lights on as possible, but get outside in the daylight as much as possible.  Eat my lunch sitting in the Sun, pray my morning prayers on the front porch.

Our bigger challenge this coming Advent/Christmas season seems to be the god-forsaken secularist version of the Season.  Materialism to its max, while the light of the Manger grows more and more dim each year.

Too, as for many, my challenge is to have Peace of Mind, knowing that my extended family has for years been distant and somewhat at odds with each other.  When part of the penitential spirit of Advent, in preparation for the coming of the Christ Child, is to magnify more and more our love of one another, that becomes a spiritual challenge.  To not give into the turmoil that seems to subtly if not overtly affect many families at Christmas.

So my endeavor this year, as with every year, is to focus on the spiritual center of this Season, to observe the Church's customs of penance for Advent:  prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  The mission will be a deeper conversion of heart to the Mercy of God, shown to the world in the Incarnation, and therefore a deeper peace of mind.

Saturday, November 17, 2018

11/17/19. Saturday Morning Musing. Outdoors, Fitness, World of Work, Francis, Weekend Plans

Outdoors.

Pantheism is a grave error.  Its position is that Nature is literally God, though there are variations.  Nature and God being one thing;  Nature as a literal extension of God's divine essence;  or that all natural things are divine beings.  It is at the very heart of the New World Order, and the vision of Modernism/Liberalism.  Overturning Tradition, doctrine, and dogma, to have a brave new, 21st century world where nations, peoples, races, and religions merge into one borg collective, making Mother Nature its supreme god.  Pardon my political incorrectness, goddess.


The Goddess Tree from the Movie Avatar

As readers of this blog know, though, I like to consider different opinions on a question, like flipping a coin over to read the other side.  Ever since I was a kid, in boy scouts, backpacking, fishing, spelunking, etc, I was raised to revere Nature.  Trash on the side of the road, or a loud, drunken camp of weekend urban campers, these kinds of things were seen as a sacrilege against something sacred.

The Outdoors.  God's creation. Something of no value in comparison to God; but because God created it in His likeness, and man as its pinnacle in His image, then something very much connected to God's essence.  

If God has divine attributes such as truth, beauty, and goodness, 
If Nature is made in His likeness,
Then syllogistic logic indicates that Nature is like the Divine.

It is Divine-like.

When I head out this morning on my Saturday morning hike out at Red Bud Valley park (a must visit during this Fall foliage), I will be contemplating God in his gloriously beautiful Creation.  After all, St. Thomas teaches that part of the way we come to know the Creator is to first know His Creation.

Fitness.

So, a friend challenged me to lose a lot of weight, to get in shape for a 5K St. Patrick's Day race in mid March next year, buying me a myzone heart monitoring belt.  We'll be speed hiking this morning.  Last week I did most days 20 mins of free weights, 30 mins of swimming, and then hit the hot tub to lower my cortisol levels.  Great way to end the work day.

Pray I really get in shape, plus that I can beat this friend at the 5K!

World of Work

The work place, like any other sphere of life, I must remind myself, is part of the larger sphere of modern society.  Helps to Venn diagram it.

The modern, secularist, materialist, ego-centered home/market place/entertainment milieu/thoroughfares, they all overlap, as they do with the workplace.  I have to remind myself that when the central commandments of our society are,

Though Shalt Worship Thyself
Though Shalt Have Absolute Freedom
Though Shalt Enjoy Sexual License
Though Shalt Dominate Others

You can't expect civility, charity, and professionalism to be the status quo in the work place.

That said, especially for us men, is not to fight our pagan coworkers like brute beasts, but to be shining example of the Christian work ethic and Christian professionalism, whether you are a doctor, lawyer, physical therapist, salesman, x-ray tech, etc.

Francis.

I took down his picture from my wall, and put up a nice painting of a town square in 19th century Paris.  Much more edifying and bright addition to our living room.  God have mercy on Francis.

Weekend Plans.

Wrapping up this blog post.  Then hiking at Red Bud, breakfast with said friend, laundry, we shop at the Tulsa Sears closeout sale, meet friends for a picnic at The Gathering Place, then its Date Night!

Tomorrow Mass, eat out, fly-fish at Pretty Water lake for trout in Sapulpa, make tortilla soup, and a fire.  

Have a great weekend!



Saturday, November 10, 2018

Saturday Morning Musings

Greetings fellow lovers of the Catholic Faith, Catholic tradition, and all that is good, true, and beautiful.

Getting chilly here in T-town.  Snow maybe on Monday.  But Oklahoma weather is as predictable as whether or not OU will beat OSU today in their annual "Bedlam" showdown.  My money is on the Sooners.

Lack of charity in all its forms.  Witnessing the daily decent on our local cultures into darker darkness is like watching a sun get pulled into a black hole.  I think that is an actual astronomical phenomenon.

Let there be light.  Christ is the light of the world.  And so forth.  There really is no actual substance in nature that makes blackness a color.  Black is ultimately and merely the absence of electromagnetic waves on the color spectrum.  Even in a black room if you open up your eyes long enough, you will atune to some light.

That seems to be our challenge, when the work place, market place, and cultural mileau spirals deeper into incivility, chaos, and rebellion against Catholic and Christian social order.  

I mean even in the woods around Clear Creek monastery, you have the internet with porn, Pandora playing Black Sabbath across your smart TV app, and condoms sold at the country gas station.  Darkness.

So ends my morning musing, before I stock up on artificial flies for my Sunday Fly-fishing outing tomorrow (still planning to post my outdoors pics).  We are surrounded by what future Catholic historians will surely call the "Second Dark Age," but our mission is to not be stressed or depressed or oppressed by this darkness, but to keep our eyes ever open to the Light.

Happy Saturday and Happy Fall weather.