Yesterday was our 32nd. wedding anniversary. I am not much for ceremony and neither is Leon, neither do we do the expensive-gift-dance, ( I need a diamond ring or a mink coat like I need a second head. i.e. not at all, thank you all very much !)

We went out to Jimmy Macs*, a red-neck place to be if there was ever one - and we are both red necks, and proud of it, and, then we went to Sportco  and bought plastic tackle boxes for one another : he is using his for his black-powder (gun) supplies and mine is going to be a storage place for the tools/stringing materials and other general basic beading supplies.

 We both shoot only paper, by the way, I've never mentioned that hobby but we don't get out to the shooting range very often, any more. It is about 25 miles from here, perhaps a little less and costs a lot of gas. I have told Leon, though, that I must shoot at least once a year or I will grow afraid, once again ... it's a bit of an exaggeration but I honestly love my little 22 and need to hear it bang, now and again. Do I shoot well? Well. sort of... the worms are not quite in the danger they were back in the 1990's.
We don't hunt. I think we would if we needed to but we don't- I have a really soft heart when it comes to animals and Leon grew up among hunters when he visited his uncle's farm but his immediate family lived in one of the cities of the Tidal Virgina in his youth so hunting never became one of his constants. I suspect if his dad had lived longer and Leon grew up in upstate Virgina, as he would have, he would have acquired a taste for the sport.
 I grew up in a hard working, citified family of Italian Immigrants, not much use for guns or hunting, there, sad to say because I would have loved to get out into a forest, as a kid.
Well, anyway, we came home and enjoyed the day. I cleaned up my study - the room you see in the 'gifts-2007' pictures - it had gone from small wreck to big disaster in a week and I could barely sit at the computer so it was time to straighten it up and just make it a cluttered room, once again ! But don't get me wrong, it was a lovely day, the work was fun and Leon visited often as I moved, dusted and generally made order out of chaos. Later we worked together on projects and watched old Marx Brother's movies and if heaven exists and I believe it does, a good example of it was, yesterday, in this house.
A note about red-neck-ness : I do not use the term derisively as many do, I am proud to be married to a man whose family worked the land, here in America, just as my family worked the land of Italy for generations and it is obvious that his dad wanted to live out in the country : that is where he built his home and would have lived if death had not intervened.  My family only became city-folk here in America, after arriving in 1920.  Farming and hard work are honorable and good for the soul. I mock those who think themselves superior to the farmers, maids, nurses, cooks, technicians, electricians,machinists, custodians, fishermen, police, firemen, seamstresses, laborers, military, dishwashers, cowboys, stonemasons, railroad workers and kitchen helpers of the world. We hard working people make civilization possible... the elites of any society could be killed in second and the society would merrily go on... but what if all the Red Necks - the guys who work for their dollar, left, suddenly ... everything would fall apart. Red neck - you get your neck red working in the sun - (though I would have delighted getting a little more sun when I was maid!) should be a compliment, not an insult. We do not value our red necks any more.. My dad had one and he worked on the railroad and as a machinist during the war and later in life as a church custodian... all honorable, hard jobs that must be done if everything is going to hold together in the thing we call civilization. My husband is a computer programmer and works around the modern versions of the same machines my dad worked and his red neck is more metaphoric than real... but just as mentally real as those of his ancestors. He is a proud southerner and I am proud of him.  So, you,all, feel superior to us because we are conservative, hard-working middle class people living in a small house and driving in a truck... mock us for our red necks and traditional family lives - but don't try surviving without us... you would be dead in a week ! ( I mean YOU, media elites, entertainers & college professors, etc. you can not surrive without all the human beings that do all work for you so you can smell pretty, think classy thoughts and look good !)

So - another year has passed. I remember that day very well and best and smartest thing I ever did was marry Leon.  My life had no meaning, no direction, heck, I didn't think it really my own until I found my dear man. Thank God for Leon and for all the years we are given to live as man and wife. I wouldn't trade my dirty dishes, cat boxes and small house for all the wealth of this world; all the mansions, fame or power of this world mean nothing without love and companionship. I have what I want and it is right here in this house, reading the news at his computer!

*http://www.jimmymacsroadhouse.com/

We bought it yesterday and it sits undecorated, quite pathetic in its barren state... Leon is sick with a cold/flu, so the house is quiet and he is resting, sneeze, sneeze, cough, cough... I will be decorating all day. Well, must go and deck those old halls. OH, Joy, joy, joy, dearest friends, all ... cold or not 'tis the season to be jolly !

Our 32nd. anniversary is Thursday... don't know how many anniversaries I was either sick or fighting off a cold/flu.... so its nothing new. It doesn't seem possible ... 32 years? Best darn thing ever to happen to my life was and is, Leon.

I thought I would write just a word about John F. Kennedy - this is the anniversary of his assassination in Dallas in 1963 - another day that will live in infamy as long as there is an United States. I know my generation won't forget it.
Historically, I am not sure what to think about Kennedy, now. I am a republican/libertarian  but I don't see him in the same light as I see a Clinton - either of them - or a Pelosi or any of the modern liberals. They are nearly communists. They are certainly socialists. J.F.K. was neither and was the sworn enemy of communism.  I would not fear living in an America run by J.F. K.
I believe he was a brave, honest man - not a great president, but a very good one, he did his best in the dark days of both his personal and  professional lives, and that is the most any of us can give or do - our very best.
 I admired him as a young girl of 12. My parents just about wept for joy because he was the first Catholic president, something very important to both of them, devote Catholics till death, as they both were.  I know now that he cheated on his wife. (What is about democratic presidents and their .... ah... ah... pants?) and that he nearly brought us to the brink of World War III - though, I might defend him, saying that it was Russia's attempt to arm Cuba with missiles that really brought us to that terrible abyss.

Its just, well, as I reading the news, I noticed the date and well, I needed to say SOMETHING.

He was a young man. I don't believe the conspiracy nuts, they are mostly people with far too much time on their hands - I don't have that kind of personality and I don't think it really matters any more, either, the man is dead. Let us mourn his loss, learn from his life and honor his memory.  One man, one gun, 2 shots. Its all that takes to kill any man, even a great man and leader.
I was in class this day 44 years ago. I must have been in the 6th grade - not sure about that. Monsignor Vogt entered the class room late that day - it was a Friday, please, remember... He announced the president was shot. He said the 3 other men had been shot and a police officer in Dallas TX. He left. I can't remember what happened, what the teacher said, what we did, walking home... etc. We were dismissed for the day. I went home and turned on the T.V.  - for the next few days we watched, wept and with the rest of America tried to understand and comprehend what had happened. I was watching T.V. with my mom when Oswald was shot before God and the cameras of the national news organizations. We had been watching the burial, also.
 I shouted - and the deed was done, already.
 I still think of the day Kennedy was shot with deep tears that never seem to completely dry up. I think, with 9/11 it was the greatest shock of my life as an American... 9/11 is more horrific but the Kennedy assassination was more - personal.   I have lost family members and nearly died once or twice, myself - but the social shocks that millions suffer with me seem far worse.
Politics will only go far, dear people. I can't hate Kennedy like liberals hate Bush. I don't hate Clinton, or the Clintons, either -- but I do think J.F.K. was a greater man than either of the Clintons, though  - there was a quality which made him stand out, a nobility of spirit, perhaps. He wasn't perfect but none of us are... he wasn't sordid, either and he didn't drag the country or his wife and family through slime. He was never a joke. I think he respected himself, the office of president and his wife more than Bill Clinton ever did any of those things --- and  I think that is why he is now nearly mythic in our imaginations and why I wish to remember him.
I want to remind you today to remember him, also.

A friend recently commented that I tend to look to the past and was very conscious of history. I agreed and said that it was because my conversion to Christianity (which was more a conversion to Christ and not the religion!) was the pivotal moment in my life that changed everything; the defining moment of the second half of my life and it happened on a certain day at a certain hour, and yes, I am not likely to ever forget it or fail to mark its passing each year. It gave me a history worth remembering.

Her comment caused me to think about the subject of personal history and how we store away our personal history in our minds and hearts. We all celebrate our birthdays and mark the day we entered physical life as important. We don't seem to acknowledge another date until we graduate from High School, but even that is a minor date in the calendar of our lives. The next big date is our wedding day - the day we unite the pattern of our life to another's and become one pattern. This we mark with a yearly anniversary - mine is at the very beginning of winter, December 2o, and, yes, its been 31 glorious years! And, of course, there will be our death, which we will not mark, though, we pray others will.

Above you see the pattern of DNA - the very chemical substance of life. Why do I choose that pattern for an essay about the spiritual path? I will answer you in a circuitous manner:

The pattern that most people use to imply a spirituality is a closed pattern, the labyrinth and is seen as a walking in a pattern that turns in towards a center. I think Christians like this pattern because it reminds them that the Triune God is the center purpose of all spirituality and that Love is the law that we live by. It also reminds them( and me) of the Christian year - the series of festivals, feast days and anniversaries (Christmas, Easter, Palm Sunday etc.) that are celebrated every calendar year. It is a closed in system that repeats itself, endlessly - I, too, like the old calendar that they repeat each year; their labyrinth of remembering.

It is important to every Christian because we are attempting to become LIKE Christ- to imitate his love, mercy, goodness and purity of heart and if we intend this it makes sense to mark his own life on our calendar the same way you see the calendars that mark the big days in, lets say, the Lord of the Rings. Christ's great days : his birth, spiritual awaking (Baptism), and death are holy to us because we intend to make them our own - we wish to become roses on his vine of love and one way to do so is to remember his pattern/life.

But, and this is why I added the DNA picture above, (and I apologize for my amateur's way of doing so !) there is, after we awaken our own path, our own calendar of remarkable days that mark our spiritual paths. They are very personal things and I celebrate each of them in a very personal way. I mark my days and remember and by remembering I hold sacred what happened to me and what it means. I mark these events so I will not forget them, because I must not forget them. They are my faith moments - the ones I recall when my trust (Faith) in Christ is troubled. They are very important to me because they are not only moments in my life : they are my weapons in my fight against the darkness both within myself and the darkness exterior to myself.

Faith is not believing facts about a person/God/religion - I must emphasize this as strongly as possible - once you take those first few steps on the spiritual path you are almost entirely all alone except for Christ and you must trust Him beyond any or you will falter and fall. No one is going to help you if HE does not, no one will care if He does not - you are on your own, except for Him. No one can fight your fights for you, or ,as Paul said, run the race for you - The spiritual life is YOURS --- live it or fall to earth and die from the grief of losing what you wanted more than physical life. The hardest thing to do after a full life as a humbled person is to stand up against the forces of darkness and be STRONG - to say No and mean NO. Your confidence, at first is -1 but it must grow or the darkness will defeat you or even turn you into darkness. This is why remembering the past is so important to faith/trust.

To grow in faith you remember what happened before; every time you trusted Christ and He proved His love to you, every time you had some mystical experience that shocked you and changed your heart and mind radically you gain another tool on the long spiral upwards. You have a tool that will give you strength when you need it most. It and your desire for the Divine one are the only real tools worth anything in a spiritual life. (and, yes, the Bible's words can be useful, but they are exterior to you unless they dig really deep into your soul !)

Like the Jews who mark every year their great days of Faith and the Christians who mark Christ's life on the modern calendar a person who walks a spiritual path remembers and in remembering grows stronger with each step and each step takes the mystic another step up the great spiral of evolutionary growth, up, up to what end, we do not know - hence, for me, personally, the spiral of my own DNA is not only physical truth of a chemical unity that makes me human, it is a spiritual symbol - an image that implies a great truth of my spiritual life.

I see my days marked on a spiral ever upwards towards what end, I can only imagine - it is not the closed spiral of the churches, it is the open spiral of spiritual/ physical evolution. I take it for granted that spiritual evolution and physical are linked.
I will share with you all now a few of my special days :
a day early in the year : I died this day in a past life. I remember it very well and I mark it as my "immortality day" when I remind myself that my soul is immortal and never dies, it cannot be destroyed by anything mortal men do it.
April 22 (1984) - My reconciliation day. I had an experience of Christ/God/Spirit and became reconciled to my Father/Mother in a vision of light and love. I consider this day my spiritual birthday and try to celebrate it as such.
May 1 (1983) my heart chakra awoke that month and I realized I was experiencing the Kundalini Fire and I dedicated myself to a spiritual life and began a search for a spiritual home.