Introduction
Katara Deboise Johnson, was born to parents Herbert Robinson and Linda Johnson on February 19, 1983, in Georgetown, Texas. With 4 additional siblings, Katara would eventually relocate to Taylor, Texas, where she would continue to grow and thrive into adulthood.
Known as “Tara” by family and friends, Katara was described as outgoing, smart, popular, hard working, reliable, and extremely independent. Early on, she acquired a deep love for sports, basketball in particular, and was a devoted member of her local church. Katara’s straight A’s at Taylor High School, and her athletic ability on the court, eventually led her to receive a full College scholarship to Central Christian College in McPherson, Kansas. Despite turning down the scholarship in order to remain close to home, Katara worked diligently as an assistant manager at her local Taco Bell.
Timeline
On August 25, 2004, Katara worked and completed a closing shift at Taco Bell, located at 2009 North Main St, Taylor, Texas, 76574. After her shift ended, she drove to her mobile home off of North Dolan Street, where she lived alone. (Note, the distance from the Taco Bell to Katara’s mobile home is less than a 5 minute drive.)
The following day, after not hearing from Katara for several hours, Katara’s grandmother and 6 year old nephew decided to stop by her home—only to discover a gruesome scene. Katara would be found lying deceased in her hallway from an apparent gunshot wound.
Investigation
During the earlier hours of the investigation, neighbors confirmed seeing Katara arrive home, but would also notice her red Mitsubishi Lancer gone mere hours later—eventually to be found at the Thorndale Community Pool, about a 13 mile distance away from Taylor and into the neighboring county. In regards to the crime scene, Katara’s family reported that there was no blood inside of the residence, and no obvious signs of a violent struggle. Investigators later discovered that the back door to the trailer was unlocked, and slightly open.
Conclusion
Katara was 21 years old at her time of death, and she would be 40 today if her life wasn’t abruptly and unfairly taken from her. Despite the setbacks, the frustration, and the lack of answers, Katara’s family hasn’t given up their fight to one day bring Katara’s killer(s) to justice. They do everything they can to make sure Katara isn’t just another unsolved case or a forgotten victim in the system.
“Katara was a very beautiful person. She loved everybody, and everybody loved her. My mother is on one side of her, I’m on the other side of her, she’s right in the middle…if there had been some kind of noise, we would’ve heard. She was special, and she’s going to be missed.” Rodney Johnson, Katara’s uncle, told KVUE News.
In August of 2019, the Cold Case Unit at the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office, began assisting Taylor Police with Katara’s investigation, testing apparent DNA samples on “some items” according to Taylor Police Chief, Henry Fluck. The results of that testing is unknown, and as of today, this case has no promising leads and remains unsolved.
If you have any information in regards to Katara’s case, or would like to submit a tip, please contact any of the following:

1. Taylor Police Sgt. Sam Brister, (512) 352-5551
2. Williamson County Crime Stoppers, 800) 253-7687
3. Texas Rangers, (800) 346-3243

Sources
Texas Rangers/DPS Website
Austin American-Statesman
KXXV News

The title is self-explanatory but I felt that the topic deserved its own post.
The Catholic Church has “dogmas” and “doctrines”. A doctrine can change but a dogma cannot. The Four Marian Dogmas of the Catholic Faith are:
1. Mother of God
2. Immaculate Conception
3. Perpetual Virginity
4. Assumption
—but today I wanted to talk about the 5th one that doesn’t exist: Co-Redemptrix.
MEDIEVAL ORIGINS
While I was not able to pinpoint exactly when this title first began circulating(that’s how deep this rabbit hole goes) what we do know is that it seems to be of medieval origin[5th to 15th centuries] and began as rather a “synthesis” of various patristic and medieval statements:
St.Irenaeus(130-202AD)
“Just as the human race was bound over to death through a virgin, so was it saved through a virgin: the scale was balanced — a virgin’s disobedience by a virgin’s obedience”
St.Ambrose of Milan (339-397):
“Let us not be astonished that the Lord, who came to save the world, began his work in Mary, so that she, by whom the salvation of all was being readied, would be the first to receive from her own child its fruits”
St.Jerome (343-420)
“Death came through Eve, life through Mary”
I could go on(really), but you get the idea.
Obviously there is a way to read these kinds of statements that does not compel one to conclude the title of “Co-Redeemer” and I’m sure some of you OCD types already started doing it in your brain(I’m the same way, you’re not alone). Nevertheless, it was ultimately popularized by the Franciscans and resisted by the Dominicans but by the 16th century the movement to make it a doctrine had all but died out.
A BRIEF WORD ON THE PREFIX “CO”
One thing that has to be addressed is the prefix “co”. We use this prefix most commonly about the people we work with. We call these people “co-workers”. My boss can be properly called a “co-worker” but that does not imply that we are “equals”. What this means is that in no way did the title of Co-Redemptrix ever mean to it’s proponents that Mary was “equal” to God and thus she also still needed a Savior.
PAPAL SANCTIONS
The title “Co-redemptrix” enjoyed an exceptionally brief resurgence, receiving Papal sanction under Pope St. Pius X(1903-1914) by his approval of its use in a decree of the Congregation of Rites concerning the Feast of the Seven Dolors:
“the devotion of the Sorrowful Mother may increase and the piety of the faithful and their gratitude toward the merciful Co-Redemptrix of the human race may intensify.”
His successor, Benedict XV(1914-1922) in his decree to the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (section on indulgences), Sunt quos amor, June 26, 1913 praises the custom of adding to the name of Jesus the name of ‘His Mother, **our coredemptor, the blessed Mary’.
Now from there things get a bit iffy because Pope Pius XI says in Explorata res(1923):
”The Virgin participated with Jesus Christ in the very painful act of the redemption”
But “participating” with Christ in his act of redemption does not really equal “Mary is a Co-Redeemer” and this is—in all actuality—a repeating of the same kinds of patristic and medieval statements noted at the beginning of this post which could themselves be read in such a way so as not add-up to “Mary Co-Redeemer”.
SO WHAT EXACTLY DOES IT MEAN?
To quote St.Maximillian Kolbe the title of Co-Redemptrix…
”…denotes Mary’s regular and unique sharing (although subordinate and dependent) with Her Son in the saving work of redemption for the human family.”
This was the best definition of the title I have ever found. The title itself was only intending to spotlight Mary’s “regular” and unique sharing in Our Lord’s work of redemption.
THAT MAKES IT BETTER RIGHT?
Well, no. To cite the late Pope Benedict XVI, who was still only a cardinal at the time:
“….the formula “Co-redemptrix” departs to too great an extent from the language of Scripture and of the Fathers and therefore gives rise to misunderstandings. ...Everything comes from Him [Christ], as the Letter to the Ephesians and the Letter to the Colossians, in particular, tell us; Mary, too, is everything she is through Him. The word “Co-redemptrix” would obscure this origin. A correct intention being expressed in the wrong way.”—Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, God and the World: A Conversion with Peter Seewald. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2002, p. 306
In other words, I would actually agree with St.Kolbe’s description of what the title means but the title itself is what is actually problematic, as Pope Benedict XVI pointed out. To cite him one final time:
”A correct intention being expressed in the wrong way.”
Like Benedict, I don’t think it is problematic to state that Mary “uniquely participated in Christ’s mission of redeeming humanity” so long as we are clear that the mission was his alone. She was just playing a unique role in it. In fact, that is already how the Catholic Church understands Mary’s role in salvation history and we don’t need a title that says that with the added benefit of also conveying a sense of heresy.
IN CONCLUSION
Yes, there is a LONG back and forth history regarding this title by a few fringe theologians within the Catholic Church and a couple of(brief) pontificates. It has NEVER been a dogmatic teaching of the Catholic faith, nor shall it ever be, and to quote Pope Francis when asked to comment on this title which has never had sticking power within Catholic teaching:
”Let’s not get lost in foolishness”—Dec.2019

It isn't use of the word "worship" in reference to Mary. It is the act of worship to Mary. Let's say I tell you that in my house, I have a statue of a woman. But not Mary; my statue is of Athena. And let's say I tell you that everyday I kiss my hands and touch the statues toes. And let's say that when I'm worried I look at the statue and ask for protection. And let's say that I go to a temple service with similar statues of Athena everywhere and pray asking for help and mercy from Athena. Let's say that I use such terms as "Ever-Virgin Athena" and "Our Lady Athena" and "Sweet Mother Athena" or "Athena Queen of Heaven". "Athena Queen of Angels" all throughout my prayers. Heck, sometimes I even leave flowers in front of her statue in honor of Athena, or when I need a great blessing. What am I doing to Athena?
I have started to feel like much of the Catholic Church is committing idolatry, because you can say you venerate Mary, not worship her, but actions speak louder than words.
Even the sign of the cross, based on the angle, as far as i can tell, the cross is upside down like that of St. Peter. Why make Peter’s cross instead of Christ’s? The cross of Christ is the symbol of Christianity, not the cross of St. Peter. I’m not saying we should ignore the teachings of the apostles, but we definitely need to give more attention to Jesus than the apostles and Mary and the saints, which many fail to do.

Hello Fathers!
I had a quick question about the Sign of the Cross. As I was reading some of the Church Fathers, I read that many of the early Christians (Tertullian, St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. Cyril of Jerusalem) used to originally sign themselves on the forehead (similar I think to what the priest does before the Gospel reading?) and that this is the earliest form of the Sign of the Cross taken from the Revelation and the Book of Ezekiel. I read on New Advent that this practice eventually developed into the full body Sign of the Cross that many Christians in both the Catholic Church and other traditions now do. I am wondering if it would be ok to do this practice? I love the "large" Sign of the Cross, but something about the little one traced on the forehead is beautiful to me. What do you Fathers think about this? Is it permissible to do this "little" Sign rather than the "large" Sign?
May our Lord bless you all

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/157-Water-St-SW-Bolivar-OH-44612/123674113_zpid/?
Ohio still keeping it classy; catholic church must have more lawsuits to pay down this one is accepting cash OR PORTFOLIO lending!!

The word “worship” means:
“condition of being worthy, dignity, glory, distinction, honor, renown,”
Since the word “worship” is so synonymous with the word “honor” it is important to ascribe different levels of what it means to “honor” a person, place or thing. This better clarifies certain instances we find in scripture such as this one:
(Genesis 41:6)
“Joseph was the ruler of the land. He was the one who sold grain to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed to the ground in front of him”
This kind of worship was acceptable and it did not paint Joseph in a negative light. Contrast that to the incident with Cornelius:
(Acts 10:25-26)
“25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
As we can see, in the former case bowing was not a misplaced thing to do while in the later it was. The Catholic Church, owing to these kinds of examples found in scripture, deemed it prudent to outline a teaching on honor itself, so that we the faithful might be able to understand the role of honor in our spiritual lives. This is that teaching👇:
There are are 3 types of honor that are due to those who are holy:
Dulia. This is the honor and recognition which we accord to the saints. Perhaps they died as martyrs rather than deny God; or they worked great miracles, since their friendship with God meant that He granted their prayers for healing or restoration; or they simply, as Therese of Lisieux, lived holiness in their own “little way.”
Hyperdulia. This is, to put it simply, lots and lots of dulia. This is the very special honor we accord to Mary, the Mother of God.
Latria. This is true worship, and is given only to God. St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, writing in his Summa Theologiae (II-II, q. 103, a. 4; III, q. 25, a. 5), explained:
”In more technical terms used by the Tradition to draw this important distinction, devotion to Mary belongs to the veneration of dulia, or the homage and honor owed to the saints, both angelic and human in heaven, and not to latria, or the adoration and worship that can be given only to the Triune God and the Son incarnate. Because of her unique relationship to Christ in salvation history, however, the special degree of devotion due to Mary has traditionally been called hyperdulia. While latria is owed to her Son by reason of unity of his divine and human natures in the Person of the Word made flesh, hyperdulia is due to Mary as truly his Mother.”
IN CONCLUSION
There are no doubt some who will read this and remain unchanged in their views about the Catholic practice of praying to Saints and other related honorific activities. I don’t expect anyone to fall to their knees, tear their shirt and call out “oh what a fool I’ve been!”—but if that happens then by all means, let me know. That would be hilarious😂🙂. I do hope, however, that this helps someone understand our theology better so that the next time someone says “Catholics worship Mary!” you may inform them that we honor her and that this type of honor(hyperdulia)is not the same kind of honor(latria) we as Catholics render to God alone.

DPW Update:
The Department of Public Works (DPW) Highway Maintenance Construction Section (MCS) has been working pre-typhoon ensuring the roadways remain accessible for emergency responders and essential government workers. Work was focused at the following sites pre-storm, that have been prone to flooding and heavy vegetation foliage:
Polaris Outfall Southbound, Piti
Finile Drive, Hågat
RR Cruz Subdivison, Hågat
Barcinas Manel Channel and Culverts, Malesso’
Patpuguan Bridge, Malesso’
Routed Roads (1, 4, 2, 10, 16, 15, 3, 9) – Island-wide
Storm Drainage Grills – Island-wide
Line Ditch Swells Along Rt. 11
Rt. 16, Maina Line Ditch
Upon the passage of Typhoon Mawar and at first daylight, crews from DPW’S MCS continued efforts in clearance of debris on major roadways which allowed the quick response from the Government of Guam and counterparts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to conduct damage assessments. The following sites were:
Rt. 4, Malesso’
Rt. 4, Chalan Pago
Pago Bay, Rt. 4
Rt. 4, Yona
Rt. 4, Ipan Talo’fo’fo
Rt. 4A, Talo’fo’fo
Layon Landfill, Inalåhan
Rt. 2, Hågat
Rt. 2A, Hågat-Humåtac
Rt. 17, Santa Rita-Sumai
Portions of Rt. 5 and 17m, Santa Rita-Sumai
Rt. 1 – Upper Tumon
Rt. 1 – East and West Hagåtna
Daok Strip, Hagåtna
Rt. 4, Sinajana to Ordot
Rt. 15, from Mangilao to Perez Acres, Yigo
Rt. 6, Maina
Snake Road to Nav Hospital, Maina
Rt. 15, Mangilao
Rt. 8, Maite Plumeria Hotel
Rt. 1 Dededo Micro Mall to Rt. 1 Yigo
Rt. 15 from Carnation up to Upi Elementary School, Yigo
Rt. 27, Macheche to Late Heights, Dededo and Mangilao
Rt. 29, Gayinero to Rt. 3 and Rt. 9, Yigo
Supported GWA - Access to 20+ Well sites island-wide.
As the island moves towards recovery, DPW crews continue to work removing debris throughout the island.
GWA Update:
As of 10 a.m., the Guam Waterworks Authority (GWA) provided the following update on water restoration progress:
Northern Region:
Currently 50% of operable wells are on-line
Northern water system is operating normally
More wells are being restored to island power as GPA continues to restore circuits
GWA continues to operate all available wells to increase reservoir levels throughout the northern system
Tumon and Tamuning have water, but low pressures persist causing outages in some areas until reservoir levels can be increased
Central Region:
Connection to Navy-supplied sources at Santa Rita-Sumai and Nimitz Hill has been restored
With the exception of Finile and Santa Ana areas, service was restored to Santa Rita-Sumai and Hågat
Talo’fo’fo main village has been restored, with minor outages being reported as crews are assessing for any line breaks
Service on Cross-island road area restored up to Our Lady of Peace
Southern Region:
Southern water system will operate at reduced capacity until damaged control equipment at the Ugum Surface Water Treatment Plant is resolved
Water services were restored from Ipan to Inalåhan
Main break repairs completed in Inalåhan
Restoration of Malesso’ and Humåtak is ongoing
GWA has deployed nine (9) 6,000 gallon Flexible Potable Water Tanks in:
Santa Teresita, Mangilao
Mongmong-Toto-Maite Mayor’s Office
Dededo Mayor’s Office
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Inalåhan
Malesso’ Pier
Hågat Mayor's Office
Chalan Palauan, Dededo
Sinifa, Santa Rita
Mount Santa Rosa, Yigo
Additional tank deployments pending for other sites once additional containers and chassis are made available. Once the tanks are depleted, they will be refilled and returned to service at locations still without water.
At this time, the water tanks listed above are accessible 24 hours a day/7 days a week. Once the tanks are depleted, they will be refilled and returned to service at locations still without water. Residents island-wide who have water service are advised to conserve and limit use for cleaning, bathing, and cooking in order to conserve water to allow reservoir levels to increase.
As a precaution, water obtained from these designated locations must be boiled for at least three (3) minutes prior to consumption. A precautionary boil water notice remains in place due to possible bacterial contamination in the water that can occur when increased run-off enters a drinking water source following heavy rains.
Boil Water Notice Tips:
DO NOT DRINK THE WATER WITHOUT BOILING IT FIRST.
Bring all water to a boil, let it boil for three (3) minutes, and let it cool before using or use bottled water.
Boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes, and food preparation until further notice.
Boiling kills bacteria and other organisms in the water.
For information, contact GWA’s 24/7 phone line at (671) 646-4211 or facebook.com/guamwaterworksauthority.
GTA Restoration Update:
GTA is actively working 24/7 on post-typhoon restoration. The core network is operational with stable off-island internet, but there are outages in wireless services in certain areas. Priority is given to larger sites serving residential and business customers. GTA is also prioritizing restoration to public safety and health facilities. However, the lack of island power and fuel shortages are causing some challenges for the restoration process.
To support customers, GTA is waiving disconnection fees and freezing disconnections until further notice.
Updated operating hours are Micronesia Mall (10AM-6PM) and GTA Support Center (7AM-7PM), while the GTA Experience Center and retail locations remain closed. For assistance, please contact the support center at 671-644-4482, visit www.gta.net, or email [email protected].
Docomo Pacific Restoration Update:
Docomo Pacific has been working with its technology crews to make island-wide assessments in Guam, Saipan, Tinian and Rota since Typhoon Mawar.
For Guam customers, the majority of cell sites did not suffer major damage due to Typhoon Mawar. The primary issue at this time is getting island power restored to the sites. Docomo Pacific is working closely with Guam Power Authority to restore services. Generators have been deployed at strategic sites to maximize coverage, and to ensure a stable power supply for as many mobile sites as possible.
The fiber network for southern villages supporting several mobile cell sites has sustained storm damage. This means that even if these sites were powered with a portable generator, there is no mobile service connectivity at this time. This is on the list of high priorities, along with restoration to public safety and health care facilities. No disconnections were announced until further notice, as well as no data caps for all mobile data customers and load-free prepaid service.
IT&E Restoration Update:
IT&E is working around the clock to restore services. Generators have been deployed to undamaged cell sites that can be accessed safely and that have connectivity to the network. Southern cell sites suffered significant damage from the typhoon. IT&E is unable to provide a timeline for restoration at this time, but is working to deploy a solution.
All prepaid subscribers get unlimited service, regardless of prepaid plan. Data caps have been lifted for all postpaid subscribers and tethering is available for all postpaid subscribers, free of charge. Service suspension due to nonpayment is postponed until further notice.
For the latest service updates, subscribers are encouraged to check IT&E’s official social media pages. Service-related issues can be reported by calling (671) 922-4483 or sending a direct message on official social media pages.
Visit the following links for the latest advisory information:
GHS/OCD Website: https://ghs.guam.gov/
GHS/OCD Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GHSOCD/
JRM Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jrmguam
For more information, contact the Joint Information Center at (671) 478-0208/09/10.

New Tag #627
Old Tag #626
St. Gregory Armenian Catholic Church Mountain & Verdugo
Old Tag Post
Rules of the Game

Event Links - here

• Reddit randomly blacklists certain URLs, some of which come up with events, and that causes these posts to get removed without explanation. It is not feasible to figure out why so a separate page with links for details, if desired, is available.

Monday - 5/29

• 11:00 AM - Fish City Grill - Memorial Day at Fish City Grill and Half Shells
  
• 6:00 PM - Taqueria Mexicano Bar & Grill - Open mic night with Michael Saldana
  
• 7:15 PM - Bicycle World Waco - Monday Night Lights Mountain Bike Ride
  
• 7:30 PM - Lakeside Bar & Live Music - Trivia
  
• 8:00 PM - Stay Classy - Open Mic Night
  

Tuesday - 5/30

• 8:00 AM - Crying Shame - Towne Tuesday Open Mic
  
• 5:00 PM
  
  • Hemingway's Watering Hole - Cocktails with Jen!
  • Stay Classy - Dave Innis’s Tuesday Night Piano Happy Hour
• 6:00 PM - Art Center Waco - Of Warm Impermanence: Nathan Clark and Vy Ngo Exhibition
  
• 7:00 PM
  
  • Crying Shame Bar - Songwriter night with Towne Adams
  • Southern Roots - Smarty Pints Trivia
  • Waco Ale Company - Music Bingo
• 8:00 PM - Dancing Bear Pub - Booze Clues
  

Wednesday - 5/31

• 9:00 AM - Startup Waco - The Meetup @ Startup Waco
  
• 10:00 AM - East Waco Library - Free One-on-One Job Skills Training
  
• 5:00 PM - Stay Classy - Cen-Tex Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Office Hours, After Hours
  
• 6:00 PM
  
  • Art Center Waco - Of Warm Impermanence: Nathan Clark and Vy Ngo Exhibition
  • Bare Arms Brewing - Trivia
  • Lounge '93 - Jon Fox
• 6:45 PM - Southern Roots - Waco Run Club
  
• 7:00 PM
  
  • Brotherwell Brewing - Music Bingo
  • Last Chance Bar - Open Mic Night with James Hollingsworth
• 7:30 PM - Freight Bar - Name That Tune Music Bingo
  
• 8:00 PM
  
  • Hemingway's Watering Hole - Witty Wednesday BuzzTime Trivia
  • Stay Classy - Central Texas Jazz Society Jazz Jam with Chuck Jennings Quartet

Thursday - 6/1

• All Day - Extraco Events Center - Texas Ranger Bicentennial BBQ Cookoff & Concerts
  
• 10:00 AM - South Waco Library - Free One-on-One Job Skills Training
  
• 5:00 PM - Stay Classy - Piano Happy Hour with Dave Innis
  
• 6:00 PM
  
  • Art Center Waco - Of Warm Impermanence: Nathan Clark and Vy Ngo Exhibition
  • The Tipsy Lion Bar & Grill - Open mic night with Lucas Jon Turner
• 7:00 PM
  
  • Brotherwell Brewing - Trivia
  • Clicks Billiards - Darts Tournament
  • Old Chicago Pizza + Taproom - Touch of Grey
  • Sul Ross Senior Center - Ragland Country Band - Boot Scootin’ Dance Club
  • Texas Music Cafe - Songwriter night with Jonna Mae
  • The Backyard - Songwriter Thursday
  • Truelove Bar - Trivia
• 7:30 PM - Indian Spring Park - Shakespeare in the Park: Julius Caesar
  

Friday - 6/2

• All Day - Extraco Events Center - Texas Ranger Bicentennial BBQ Cookoff & Concerts
  
• 5:00 PM
  
  • Bonds Alley - Bond's Alley Art Festival and Gospel Jubilee
  • Sistrunk Fine Art Gallery - Frank Exum (guitar)
  • Sistrunk Fine Art Gallery - “The Things That Are Lovely” by Dorrie Ann Cobb
  • Valley Mills Vineyards - Crawfish Boil
• 6:00 PM
  
  • Art Center Waco - Of Warm Impermanence: Nathan Clark and Vy Ngo Exhibition
  • The Backyard - John Dempsy
• 7:00 PM
  
  • Hilton Waco - Greg Bashara and Evan Klaras (jazz)
  • Schoepf's Bbq - Jason Eady with Matt Castillo, St. Mary’s Catholic School (Temple) benefit show
  • Tokio Store - James Hollingsworth
• 7:30 PM
  
  • Indian Spring Park - Shakespeare in the Park: Julius Caesar
  • The Hippodrome - Fleetwood X: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac
• 8:00 PM
  
  • 207 W Commerce St - J.D. Johnson
  • Bare Bones BBQ - William Beckmann
  • Blue Dog Wine & Martini Bar - Markus Miller
  • Smiley's Night Club - Los Pecadores Del Rio Conchos, La Alizana Norteña

Saturday - 6/3

• 9:00 AM - Redwood Shelter - Waco Run Club
  
• 12:00 PM - Barnett's Pub - Reverend Nathon
  
• 6:00 PM - Art Center Waco - Of Warm Impermanence: Nathan Clark and Vy Ngo Exhibition
  
• 6:30 PM - Pivovar - Touch of Grey
  
• 7:00 PM - Dr Pepper Museum - Dr Pepper Paranormal Experience
  
• 7:30 PM
  
  • Brazos Theatre - Improv's a Beach comedy show - Brazos Theatre
  • Cultural Activities Center - Carrie Rodriguez - Texas Music Series
  • Indian Spring Park - Shakespeare in the Park: Julius Caesar
• 8:00 PM - Tokio Store - Tanner Sparks
  
• 8:30 PM
  
  • Stay Classy - Joel & Deon Q – Live Music
  • The Backyard - Devotional: The Depeche Mode Experience

Family Events - link here

• Not just for families/kids - contains family-friendly events like Farmers Market, Food Truck Showdown...

Welcome back to another Pick'Em thread!
This post can be used to discuss your picks for 05/29/2023. If you have any feedback or suggestions on improving the thread further, drop a comment below or message the moderators.
Don't forget: picks must be submitted during the twelve-hour window before Noon EDT on game day, you can only make one selection per day, and missed days count as losses, so choose wisely and don't delay!
Games for Monday, 05/29/2023:

Matchup and Team Records	Probable Pitchers (Season ERA)	Estimated Win Probability
Cleveland Guardians (23-29) @ Baltimore Orioles (34-19)	Logan Allen (3.31) / Tyler Wells (3.47)	46% / 54%
Texas Rangers (33-19) @ Detroit Tigers (25-26)	Nathan Eovaldi (2.60) / Matthew Boyd (5.74)	57% / 43%
Kansas City Royals (16-38) @ St. Louis Cardinals (24-31)	Josh Staumont (4.76) / Adam Wainwright (6.33)	35% / 65%
Tampa Bay Rays (39-16) @ Chicago Cubs (22-30)	Taj Bradley (4.44) / Marcus Stroman (2.95)	57% / 43%
Colorado Rockies (24-30) @ Arizona Diamondbacks (30-23)	Karl Kauffmann (9.35) / Ryne Nelson (5.02)	39% / 61%
Minnesota Twins (27-26) @ Houston Astros (31-21)	Sonny Gray (1.82) / J.P. France (3.43)	42% / 58%
Pittsburgh Pirates (26-26) @ San Francisco Giants (27-26)	Rich Hill (4.27) / Anthony DeSclafani (3.43)	41% / 59%
Atlanta Braves (31-21) @ Oakland Athletics (10-45)	Michael Soroka (-) / Paul Blackburn (-)	68% / 32%
Los Angeles Angels (28-26) @ Chicago White Sox (22-33)	Griffin Canning (4.95) / Michael Kopech (4.24)	51% / 49%
Washington Nationals (23-30) @ Los Angeles Dodgers (32-22)	TBD (-) / Bobby Miller (1.80)	30% / 70%
New York Yankees (32-23) @ Seattle Mariners (28-25)	Domingo German (3.75) / Bryce Miller (1.15)	52% / 48%

1. All columns are Away / Home. Records are typically current as-of the time of posting, and do not always contain the matchup results from the day of posting.
2. A bolded matchup means that there is a "Probability of Precipitation" greater than 50% in a non-domed stadium at the time of this post.
3. An italicized matchup means that it is Game 2 of a doubleheader, which for Pick'Em purposes will not be applicable (only Game 1 is counted, but Game 2 is still included above so that you can be aware that pitching management may be different than a non-doubleheader game day).
4. Probable pitchers and stats sourced from mlb.com (via the MLB-StatsAPI); weather data soured from the OpenWeather One Call API.
5. Estimated chance of winning percentages sourced from FiveThirtyEight’s 2023 MLB Game Predictions, an ELO-based, easy to understand ratings system.

Details such as probable pitchers, winning odds, and match certainty are subject to change. Note that a pick for a team in a cancelled game (weather or otherwise) is automatically counted as a correct guess.
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I’m an MS4 that fully matched DR this year. I had 21 interviews for DR and matched my top 3 for both DR and intern year. I wanted to share some of my thoughts/reflections/things I wish I knew applying into diagnostic radiology this past cycle. There have been writeups in the past but in the era of virtual interviews, mass applying, and record application numbers, I thought I’d talk a little about how I think the application landscape is changing for radiology and my lowly n=1 opinions on how rads hopefuls can prepare themselves. This is colored mostly by personal experience so obviously take it all with a tablespoon of salt. Everyone’s story is different, I’m just sharing what I learned from my journey.
This year, there were 0 unfilled spots for DR and 2 for IR (those spots were programs that didn’t participate in the main NRMP match cycle, and one nucs med spot that’s being internally filled). For reference, the only other specialties that also filled completely were ortho and Plastics. Neurosurgery, ENT, and Derm all had unfilled spots. This isn’t to suggest that DR is now more competitive than those fields (it’s not, those fields are still far more self selecting and you don’t need to be proficient in softball to match) but just emphasizes how cutthroat the field has gotten in the past couple of years.
Disclaimers: I’m writing from the perspective of a (low tier) USMD. If you’re a DO or IMG, you can probably learn stuff from this info as well but truthfully I’m not fully familiar with all the extra hurdles DOs and IMGs go through to match DR and I don’t want to espouse misleading information for you guys. Connecting with matched DO’s and IMG’s on the discord or spreadsheet will be in your best interest. Also, I only applied DR. The broad strokes advice may still apply here but IR is pretty different in terms of your application and approach so if you’re gunning for integrated IDR you may not glean much from this.
--------------------------------Application Foundations--------------------------------
School Rank: Yea no shit this matters. In general USMD >> DO >>>> IMG except for a couple programs that are IMG heavy (Mercy catholic, Yale bridgeport as examples) No, this isn’t Yale’s main program you prestige whore If you’re at a T20 why are you reading this. You’ll match by virtue of existing. Go outside.
DOs and IMGs really struggled with the match this year and it will not get better. If you’re a premed reading this and choosing a school and you’re at all interested in DR or any other competitive specialty then attending an MD school with an attached academic centehome program is your best bet.
Step 2
With step 1 now P/F this will be the big number programs use I think. My general benchmark estimates:
Sub 240- would consider this to be a genuine weakness/borderline red flag in your app, I’d make the effort to compensate in other areas of your application
240- will probably put you among the weaker end of radiology applicants, but not unworkable
250- baseline goal you should shoot for, basically the average range of matched applicants
260- a great score, theoretically makes you competitive for any program in the country depending on the rest of your app
270- 🤓
If you fail step 2 or step 1, your app is dead in the water.
I’m gonna get like 50 comments saying shit like “well I know xyz student who matched UCSF rads with a 196!!!” yea well as you can see by the length of this post scores aren’t everything. Anyone can match with anything theoretically. But these score benchmarks at least let you get an idea of your competitiveness relative to the rest of the pack, which is important for building the rest of your app. Bottom line: P/250 should be ok as a USMD. P/260 is ideal tho. DO’s should shoot for P/260 as a baseline I think.
DO’s- take both steps. Yes, even though step 1 is P/F. This is non negotiable. Programs do not give a single shit about COMLEX even if their site says they accept it.
Clinical Grades
Don’t need perfect grades, but honor as many as you can. Do whatever is necessary outside of academic dishonesty. Practice your head game. This isn’t a guide on how to honor rotations, those exist elsewhere. Honors in big rotations (IM, surgery) mean more than smaller ones. How much Honors vs HP vs P impacts you depends on your school’s grade breakdown. If you’re High passing when 45% of your class is honoring that’s less than ideal. If only 5% of your class honors then HP is fine. If you’re Passing and your school is P/F then you’re chilling. DON’T FAIL A CLERKSHIP. You probably will not match. If your school publishes shelf grades in your MSPE, don’t fumble those. Avoid shitty MSPE comments and try to get those scrubbed from your record.
Preclinical Grades
Don’t matter as much as clinical grades, especially if they don't factor into AOA. Doing well in preclinicals doesn’t hurt though, and being bottom quintile certainly won’t help. Don’t fail anything. Probably not as big of a deal as failing clerkships but you don’t want any red flags in your app no matter how small.
AOA
Nice to have. I was AOA and had several programs comment on it. If you’re squinting for patterns mostly community programs and lower tier academics actively mentioned it (“Congrats on AOA” or “I see you’re academically strong, since you’re AOA” and comments of that ilk were what I heard). The big name programs I interviewed at did not mention it, so not sure if they care. If you’re gonna rant about how AOA is a diversity award/popularity contest go soapbox somewhere else. You definitely do NOT need AOA to match radiology (the vast majority of people that match don’t, I was the only rads match from my school in AOA). I’m just commenting on my thoughts on how much it impacts your app, not making a political statement.
GHHS
No one gave a shit. This is a mickey mouse award
Research
Do something. This isn’t ortho, you don’t need 20 first author papers in the field. But do something. Does not have to be rads related, unless you’re gunning to match Stanford/UCSF/MGH/NYU or the like. For reference, I had several pubs/presentations/posters in non rads fields that were based on interesting clinical/translational studies. I also had 2 first author radiology case reports. Every interviewer asked about the clinical projects. No one mentioned the case reports. Obviously rads clinical research would be the ideal, but the point here is to not only demonstrate academic productivity, but to have something interesting/memorable to talk about in interviews. 20 case reports isn’t a conversation starter. Original research, even in another field, is a conversation starter. Original rads research is harder to do as students generally can’t read scans which is a big part of most studies but if you can swing it it’s awesome.
Can’t comment for sure on numbers, NRMP says like 8 total items which sounds about right. I’d try to do like 1-2 clinical research projects (in any field, no need to be super anal about radiology) and then fill the rest with case reports. ACR case in point is a good place to pump those out if you have a good mentor (RIP RSNA case reports). Radiology Case Reports has a publishing fee but turnover time is like 1 week so you can really go hard in that journal if your department pays for it.
Former surgical subspecialty switchouts/dual apps, you’ll be okay (I was one of those) Radiology accepts people like you all the time, including residents that match these fields then regret it. I wanted to do a surgical subspec before rads and had a decent body of research in that field. Bonus points if that ENT work you did looked at imaging, It’s an easy pivot on interviews! Like I said before, this isn’t ortho. Research productivity doesn’t compensate for poor grades and scores, and you can’t kill an away like you could in surgical subspecs. So make sure your raw grades/scores are good as they build the foundation of your app. Good grades/scores with low research >> great research with shitty grades/scores.
Bonus: If any research work you did involved coding, statistical programming, or machine learning, try to swing it as a budding interest in AI. Many programs, especially academic ones, get their dicks hard the minute someone mentions AI/deep learning models.
Conferences: Unfortunately, networking is becoming more of a thing in radiology as is the fate of any competitive field in a world of less objective metrics. If you can present at RSNA or ACR or SIR or any other conference, absolutely take the opportunity. Introduce yourself to as many PD’s and APD’s as possible, plant the idea of your existence as a seed into their subconscious. If you have nothing to present, I don't know how much value these conferences would have though unless you're a rizz god or somethng. I can’t comment on this too much because I did literally none of this but if your above application metrics are weak then I’d highly recommend doing this. As a terminally online introvert with the personality of a cement block I think networking is cringe but you gotta play the game. IMGs/DOs should especially be trying to do this.
Extracurriculars/Work Experience
No one really cares about interest groups. No one cares if you worked in the student clinic. Programs do care if you did an interesting service/leadership activity. I had one cool service activity I did in preclinicals that got brought up in every interview (wasn’t rads related at all). Make sure you can speak well on what the activity entailed and how you personally contributed.
Nontrads with previous work experience, wear it like a badge of honor. It makes you more interesting as an applicant. I can’t comment on it firsthand because I went straight through but anything that makes your story more than “I was premed in college and now I’m in medical school” is gonna be a talking point on interviews.
--------------------------------Building your App--------------------------------
Letters of Recommendation
IMO the best setup for this is 1 radiology letter and 2 nonradiology clinical letters. Assuming all you did was a rads rotation and little else, a radiology LOR is going to inherently be weak. Students don’t do much besides shadow on rads rotations and everyone knows it, so what’s it gonna say? “Oh student X sat there like a good little boy/girl and didn’t fall asleep in the reading room please RTM them :)” -yeah not the best letter pal. Your clinical letters on the other hand can actually speak to your ability as a medical student so they can be more impressive. The specialty doesn’t matter too much, just make sure they can speak strongly on your ability as a future resident.
If you’re wondering how to get a good rads letter, the best answer is to do research with a rads mentor. Then they can say that you’re academically productive and worked well on projects which makes your letter nicer. If you do research with multiple rads mentors, that’s the only instance in which I’d get a second Rads letter.
How you set up your 4th year rotations should depend on what you need. If you aren’t sure about getting a good nonrads letter, do a Sub I, especially in IM or Surgery- I really really recommend this as a great way to get a good letter or two. If you’re a newer switch into the field do a rads rotation to get a letter. Honestly your rads letter is more of a checkbox at that point than anything else but having one at least confirms you’re not blatantly backup applying.
Dual/backup appliers should get try to get one rads letter from a rotation. Also, make sure your other letters don’t say how great of an orthopedic surgeon you’re gonna be lol don’t get snitched on by your own homies
Away Rotations
Ding ding ding the big million dollar question. You probably scrolled to look for this. I am of the opinion that yes, you should do an away if you can. This is coming from someone who didn’t do one. Now, they aren’t mandatory like they are for surgical subspecialties, but you should try to fit one into your schedule if you can. With step 1 going pass fail and the increasing number of apps, programs are looking for more ways to separate applicants from the flock. Away rotations can be your key. Some general guidelines:
1. DO A ROTATION AT A PROGRAM YOU WOULD BE ALREADY BE COMPETITIVE AT. Doing an away at a rotation at a program does not guarantee an interview. This may sound lame, but think about it- all you do on most DR aways is shadow, or maybe take an exam or present on a topic. That’s nice but it tells a program nothing about how good you’d actually be as a resident.This is why I made a big deal of being able to assess your relative competitiveness as an applicant. Use texas star and residency explorer to get a better idea of this- if you’re in the upper 25% of matched applicants statistics then it’s probably a good idea to do an away there. Don’t rotate at UCSF or MGH if you’re a DO or have below average stats- you’re not gonna get an interview and you’re gonna waste everyone’s time.
2. Aways should not take precedence over important application building rotations. If you need a non radiology letter and you’re debating between doing an away vs doing a sub I in medicine, the answer is the sub I. A strong application with no aways > weaker app with an away IMO. Getting letters from aways is hard to say. Do it if you don’t have a home program. Otherwise, it’s probably more valuable to build a strong connection to your home program and get radiology letter(s) there.
3. If you’re looking to match in an area that you have no educational/personal ties to, do an away there. If you’re from the midwest and want to match in NYC, do an away in NYC. If you’re looking to match to california and aren’t attending medical school there, do an away in Cali. Unless you’re a superstar candidate you will probably see poor yields in areas outside of your med school/hometown area so an away can help boost yields. That being said, rule 1 takes precedence here.
4. I don’t recommend getting LOR’s from away programs. The big exception here is if you don’t have a home program, in which case then you should. It’s just that these letters are probably gonna be mid at best and home rads letters where the PD/writer knew you for longer will probably be of better quality. Again, everyone is different-maybe you really really vibed with an away faculty and want a letter from them. If you are confident it’ll be a really quality letter, then go for it. But don’t strategize your app around getting letters from MGH or NYu or Stanford and thinking this is like surgical subspecs where you do aways at places for great letters- it’s not.
Make sure to apply early and broadly- it’s first come first serve for most programs. If you haven’t finished your app and submitting to programs already, you’re probably running late. Oops, probably should probably have submitted this sooner. This is what League of Legends does to you folks. Try to do research and ask around about what programs highly value away rotators. I have some leads but there are definitely many many others out there.
NYC- Mt. Sinai Icahn SOM- great away experience, gave interviews to away rotators
PA- Einstein Philly- highly highly values away rotators/demonstrated interest in the program
CA- Santa Barbara Cottage- gave interviews to away rotators, great “foothold” program into CA
CA- Cedars Sinai- another great “foothold” program into CA
Shoutout to these programs for doing the exact opposite:
Wash U St. Louis- rejected an away rotator 3 weeks into the away (per name and shame)
UMD- did not provide interviews to multiple away rotators
FYI both programs I listed above are great places to train at, and programs are under no obligation to give interviews to away rotators, especially in DR. Just know if you rotate there that you should prepare for this possibility.
Post-ERAS submission aways are probably still valuable especially early on in interview season. The only thing is that you won’t be able to get LORs from those but I think LOR’s from away rads programs are almost guaranteed to be mid at best so I’d recommend not building your app around those unless you have no home program.
Signals
The other million dollar question. This year apparently applicants get 6 gold and 6 silver signals. I think the best thing to do with signals is just send them to where you wanna go. I have no clue why anyone would want a silver signal, but I don’t think it’s worth the headache of trying to mindgame which programs are getting silvers and which are getting golds. Send your golds to the ones you really like, and your silvers to the ones you also like but maybe not as much. Don’t overthink it.
My only advice regarding signals is to NOT signal big name academic centers. UCSF, NYU, MGH, Upenn, etc do not put much weight into signals. They know everyone wants to train with them so they get their pick of the litter. Sending a signal to them is likely throwing your signal in the trash, especially if your application metrics aren’t at or above their matched averages. I think you get the most bang for your buck from signaling smallemid tier academic centers and community programs. That being said, I’m not your dad. Signal who you want.
PS ask your home program if they want you to signal them. Some don’t but others are dickheads and want one of your signals. Make sure you know.
Hobbies/Experiences
Damn i dont know what the fuck they’re smoking at AAMC with this change but I guess I can talk about it. Sounds like common sense but talk about shit that’s actually meaningful and you can talk freely and confidently/passionately about in interviews. Especially now since you have limited space. The student clinic you and 1000 med students volunteered at probably doesn’t mean much. Oh, you led the student clinic? Well that’s a lot better, you should talk about that. Activities where you took a leadership role are always gonna be more meaningful and interesting in interviews than stuff you were just a floater in. Gonna copy and paste a comment I made a while ago about putting research as experiences in your ERAS. Applies to any specialty I think:
Publications and "experiences" are different parts of your ERAS application, with Pubs having no cap. You can enter any publication as a "research experience" but you'll need to think a little harder about which ones you wanna put in.
For example, if you do a small filler case report and it gets published in a smaller journal, this is a publication and should be in your ERAS publication section. You could enter it as a research experience as well, where you describe the process you went through to get it written and published. However, this would not be a very meaningful experience and a waste of one of your ten entries.
Let's say you lead a longitudinal translational research project in your field of interest that gets presented at a conference as an abstract, and then subsequently published in a large journal. Both the abstract and the pub will, again, go in your ERAS pubs section. However, this would also make a great research experience to use in your experiences tab. You could talk about how you led the project, the role you played in completing it, where it was presented, etc. This would make for a strong candidate in your experiences tab.
TL;DR: Smaller filler projects are pubs but shouldn't be listed in experiences. Larger important projects should be publications and also listed as a research experience. Hope this makes sense.
I would highly highly recommend including some space for hobbies in your eras. DR interviews are like 80% hobby talk, 10% why rads, 10% random shooting the shit. You don’t need to have insanely interesting hobbies- even mundane stuff is great conversation food. I talked about TV (almost spoiled an interview on Better Call Saul's ending) and manga (Chainsaw Man my love) in some of my interviews. Just be sure you’re genuine in those interests and can talk about them. Don’t fabricate a hobby like underwater basket weaving to make yourself look cool because if you sound fake then that’s gonna be an almost instant DNR. My home PD told me a story of a great applicant they DNR’ed because he said he loved fly fishing in his hobbies section and our PD (who loves fly fishing) asked about it he couldn’t talk anything about it. because it was made up. Yeah, don’t do that.
Probably 2-3 hobbies and elaborate a little on each. Don’t just say running- were you on any competitive teams? Did you run a marathon/halfy/5k? Give some meat to it but not your whole life story.
Personal Statement
I feel very unconfident in talking about this part so I won’t say too much. I was told my PS was good but no one really commented on it in interviews. I think the 10/80/10 rule applies here- 80% of PS’s don't move the needle in any way, 10% are profound, 10% suck ass. You’re not gonna be in that top 10% most likely so just try not to be in that bottom 10%. Spell check, and don’t talk about how you wanna do rads because of lifestyle or because you “Like PUZZLES” -it’s generic as fuck. Have as many eyes on it as possible- your mentors, your friends, your parents, your parole officer, Dealer Jim- get as much feedback on it as possible. Just make sure it doesn’t suck or unintentionally reveal any personality disorders- that time you lit a live squirrel on fire and looking at the bones made you interested in Xrays is probably not a good radiology PS.
Conclusions/I skipped to the bottom
Rads is getting pretty competitive. I’d say it’s not on the level of the surgical subspecs/derm but probably the most competitive one of the remaining ones. It’s still not too bad if you’ve built a decent app- I’m not gonna hype it up like the psych and gas doomposters, but it’s not a walk in the park like it was pre-COVID. Especially if you’re a DO or IMG….
My spicy prediction we will see a small dip in application numbers this cycle- ChatGPT “concerns” and people realizing it’s not a safe backup may cause a small decrease in app numbers- but the process is becoming more opaque with tiered signals and more importantly P/F step 1.
TL;DR:
-GET GOOD STEP 2 SCORE. 250+ goal, 260+ ideal if you want to feel safer but I don't think there's really a safe score nowadays
-GOOD GRADES IN MEDICAL SCHOOL- honors and HP’s, don’t low pass. DON’T FAIL ANYTHING. Be top tertile/quintile/quartile/kitchentile or whatever your school does.
-DO SOME RESEARCH- a couple case reports and a independent project or two that you can talk about is your goal. Don’t need 10+ pubs like an ENT manwhore but don’t have nothing.
-DO AN AWAY AT A TARGET RANGE PROGRAM. Know your competitiveness and choose your away intelligently. Don’t ego it. Do it in a region you’d potentially like to match in especially if you don’t have prior ties. Again, not mandatory but it can really help.
-BE A REAL PERSON- you’re not a stat stick. Mention hobbies, ecs, prior jobs that you can talk about in interviews. The first 3 points get you the interview- it’s these last two points that get you the match.
I hope this helps a little. I wish I wrote this in march post match because then some of this advice would have been more timely like the aways but what can you do.
I might do a part 2 on interviews and rank lists and what I think you should look for in a program so let me know if that's something you might be interested in. I feel like those are later cycle questions and wouldn't be super relevant right now. Plus I've already procrastinated on writing this up when I said I would so I try to write that this shit is never gonna get done.
Other matched rads people feel free to chime in/correct me/share your experiences. I don't claim to be a know it all for this process by any means I still wonder how I managed to pull the devious heist on the program that matched me.
I’m willing to take DM’s if you have more specific/personal questions but no butthole pics please.

FT-Pens: St. Louis CITY 2 2-2 (5-4 pens) North Texas SC

St. Louis CITY 2 scorers: Aziel Jackson 2', Michael Wentzel 25', Max Schneider 91' (PEN), John Klein 92' (PEN), Isak Jensen 93' (PEN), Wan Kuzain 96' (PEN), Selmir Pidro 97' (PEN)
North Texas SC scorers: Nayrobi Vargas 41', Diego Pepi 62', Diego Hernandez 92' (PEN), Henri Santos 93' (PEN), Diego Pepi 95' (PEN), Carl Sainté 97' (PEN)
TV/Streaming: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass

Lineups

St. Louis CITY 2
Michael Creek, Owen O'Malley (🔄 Sergio Rivas, 82'), Jonathan Bell, Michael Wentzel, Selmir Pidro, Miguel Perez (🔄 Wan Kuzain, 63'), Akil Watts (🔄 AJ Palazzolo, 82'), Max Schneider, Aziel Jackson (🔄 Nathan Ferguson, 82'), Faysal Bettache (🔄 John Klein, 74'), Isak Jensen
Subs: AJ Palazzolo, Larsen Hackworth, Wan Kuzain, Dida Armstrong, Sergio Rivas, John Klein, Fritz Volmar, Nathan Ferguson, Christian Olivares
North Texas SC
Julian Eyestone, Alejandro Araneda, Henri Santos, Will Baker (🔄 Manuel Caicedo, 71'), Tyshawn Rose, Carl Sainté, Alejandro Urzua (🔄 Diego García, 72'), Theo Henrique (🔄 Diego Hernandez, 61'), Anthony Ramirez (🔄 Diego Pepi, 61'), Nayrobi Vargas (🔄 Santiago Ferreira, 85'), André Luque
Subs: Justin Stewart, Diego García, Diego Hernandez, Santiago Ferreira, Manuel Caicedo, Diego Pepi
^{Last updated: May 28, 07:08PM. All data via mlssoccer.com. Opta ID: 2358514}

My husband's grandmother lives with us. She had to move in with us because she had an aneurysm back in December. She has limited mobility and couldn't live on her own.
The issue that comes up is she is SUPER old school on gender rolls. She expects me to take care of our 1 year old, cook dinner for 4 every night, clean house all by myself, run all the errands she needs me to run. She expects me to not ask my husband for help in any way. I have anxiety depression and ADHD and so doing all this in a day really freaks me out. Causes my anxiety to go through the roof because if I don't get it done she screams at me about how I'm not doing what I need to get done.
All this I have a hard time looking past but she couples this with her new found religion. Me and my husband are agnostic and she was until her aneurysm. Since then anything and everything that has left her mouth has been either talking down to me or been religious garble. The other night she was talking to me and said that her friend was in the hospital. We said that we were sorry to hear that and we will keep her in our thoughts.
She flew off the handle and said "do y'all not know that the aneurysm fatality rate is like 98%. With me still being here don't you think there has to be something out there. Are y'all saying I should be dead? If it wasn't for God I would be dead". I told her firmly that if it wasn't for the doctors and nurses she would be dead. No amount of god would save her if it was her time to die. She got even more pissed saying that she couldn't believe that we are denying his existence even though she is proof. I told her she needed to drop the subject or I would pack a bag for me and my son, if my husband wants to follow he could but I'm not going to be verbally abused in my own home.
She said that for all she's done for us (which is like 20 to 30$ of groceries a month because she can't afford much) that she's ashamed. That she would hope that her "living by the grace of God" would help us see the light. My husband right then and there pulled up the fatality rate of an aneurysm and it was like a 50/50 shot (according to google). She then started spitting out other reasons she should be dead. We told her that none of it proves a god. I should have died at the age of 5 when my mother saw I was having an allergic reaction in my LUNG and she decided that she wanted to eat her BBQ before taking me to the hospital. Did that scare me into 100% believe without a doubt that there is a god?
I'm sick of this. It's day in and day out with her. I've started going to a physiatrist recently. But this is just getting so far in my skin that I don't want to look at her. I have to walk on eggshells all the time. She keeps telling me I'm going to go to hell(which in genuine Christianity is horribly frowned upon and is actually one of the fastest tickets to hell). My husband doesn't want to send her to her bio kids because they have issues of their own. She has literally no where to go. But I'm getting sick of her being here. She says she doesn't want to ruin the friendship we have but then she pulls this shit and tries to make me feel like an idiot.
My grandmother is Catholic and yet she knows I'm agnostic. She loves me. Treats me like she treats others. She doesn't belittle or talk down to me. She'll tell me about things that were said during church and in her church group. She doesn't make me feel like I have to be religious to be loved by her. My grandmother is what I dub a true Christian because what she does is her business and what I do is mine. Yeah she'll put her input in (she was so happy when I got on birth control because 'young people can be stupid').
Why is it that in a country with freedom of religion, we don't seem to have a freedom of religion around our peers without being austrosized? (I guess because I live in good ol' Texas that's like 75% christian pop)
I love this woman. I really do. Some days she makes it harder to do the things I need to get done in a day because she's being overbearing and even in the comfort of my own home (not very comfortable with someone breathing down my neck) my anxiety spikes with how frequently she yell and screams at me. I tell my husband and he says he'll deal with it, but then never does.
The reason I have a hard time talking with high emotions is I come from an abusive back ground. When my mother got angry it didn't matter at who she would beat me. Same with my father only he also would yell and scream at me. If I did something to piss them off they would yell and scream at me and they would both beat me. If I did anything that wasn't what my mother wanted me to do as above would happen. It has stunted my social ability.

Hey all,for almost a year now I've been composing a document based on theological and scientific findings related to Human Sexuality and Social issues and their place in the Catholic Church.Since I am writing this based upon a marginalized community it would seem bias and unjust if I published this document to Bishops and Church Leaders without the advice and consul of the community itself.I want to ask for help and even consider co-writers from this community.It may sound naive,but I believe this document and writers like this can inspire the kind of Just and Unrebellious change the Holy Spirit desires,I think there is a real problem in our Church and the decline of Religiousness is a serious threat to the world with Reformation being the solution,May God forgive me if im wrong but what can I do if im right? So please,any and all help regardless of Religion or Self is appreciated,my plan is to send this document out to several Church Leaders and Theologists once this document is well developed and consuled.
I also apologize,this is quite a long document!
Here is the text:
lus corporis A collage of opinions and facts alike on the use of gender and sexuality in today's world and how the Catholic Church can "Listen,Reason,and Propose" as said in "Male and Female He Created"
"What you are now,I once was,What I am now,you will be." -Father Mike Shmitz

 Disclaimer 

This document should not be taken as Anti-Catholic or Heretical,I,the author, fully believe and agree and have Faith in the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church,as of now Current Church Teachings describe Homesexual acts and the "LGBTQ+" Community as sinful,and therefore this should be taken as Christian law,this document is a proposal,rather then a "93 Theses" and should not be acted upon until declared Canonical or False by the Catholic Church.Another fair argument to bring up is that I as an individual writing this may be,in my innocenc,biased towards subjects I consider indisputabl,such as abortion,despite this I will do my best to providea neutralargumentbased on facts and testimony outside of my own self. Additionally,please feel free to criticize or disprove anything stated in this document aswell.I thank you for your time in listening to me, and may God's peace be with You,always.

 Chapter One On Current Catholic Church Teachings 

1.Pope Francis and the Churchs currently teach that God Created Man and Woman,and while Genders role in Society and biology can be distuginshed,they must not be separated,additionally Masculinity and Femininity are created by the body,and are two pillars that hold up society.

1. Pope Francis has been considered very radical and liberal on the Catholic Churches stances concerning the LGBTQ+ community,while he has condemned abortion,calling it "The same thing the Nazis did but with White Gloves"

3.LGBTQ+ Catholics are not permitted certain Sacraments in the Church,not out of discrimination,but because the Church believes they cannot truly lead a full life of Christ and guiding others to Christ if they continue to deny the Church's teachings and the Word of the LORD.
4.The Catholic Church has been critzied for not taking the opinions of LGBTQ Catholics on certain documents concerning the topic,however until proclaimed Infallibile under the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility,these documents are technically still up for slight discussion as said in Male and Female He Created them,with"Listen,Reason,and Propose",however they are Church Teaching and must still be followed

1. The lives of every single person from conception to natural death are sacred and matter greatly to the Church,that must be clear as the Church has been accused of discrimination,the People of the Church(Failable) and The Church(Infallibile) must be distuginshed

6.Transgender people and members of the LGBTQ community often feel true disorder and uncomfort on their current identities, and many LGBTQ Christians believe they are acting in the full authority of God,through Jesus Christ our Savior
7.Gender Disorder is something many people go through in life,especially during puberty and teenage years
8.A potential theory for the rise in Transgenderism is the decrease of testosterone due to products that take it away,and an increase in estrogen levels from birth control pills and etc flushed in our water that filters cannot take away,even the US Ground Water Authority agrees with the Estrogen Increase in Public Water via Contraceptive Pills.

1. The Church teaches that God created man and women and that the sacrament of Holy Matrimony can only be celebrated by a true Male and true female
   

    Chapter 2 

   A statement on the ex cathedra status of LGBTQ and the Church's stance on Homesexuality
   

The Catholic Bible has a few mentions of homesexuality, such as 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
"Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes* nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God"
However,when reading the footnote given by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops You will find that the Greek word translated as boy prostitutes may refer to catamites, i.e., boys or young men who were kept for purposes of prostitution, a practice not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world. In Greek mythology, this was the function of Ganymede, the “cupbearer of the gods,” whose Latin name was Catamitus. The term translated sodomites refers to adult males who indulged in homosexual practices with such boys.Refers to the boy prostitutes and sodomites,also translated as homesexuals,refers only to the act of lustful homesexuality,and while homesexuality may be lustful,some homesexuals claim the love the feel is true romantic and unified love
However, when reading Romans 1:26-27 St Paul States
Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural,27-and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity."
This shows us that St. Paul describes the act of Homesexuality as Unatrual,however, when St Paul describes, "and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity." He does not specify necessarily that the act of true unification of flesh between the same sex as sinful,however he does describes the act of Man and Woman's relationship as natrual,this should be noted as this suggests Saint Paul is saying that a Man and A Man,or vice versa,cannot have true sexual unity,however this interpretation is quite "wishy washy."
In Ephesians 5:31-33, St. Paul states
For this reason, a man shall leave [his] father and [his] mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.”x
32-This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church.33-In any case, each one of you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband.
The footnote given by the USCCB states " prostitute: the reference may be specifically to religious prostitution, an accepted part of pagan culture at Corinth and elsewhere; but the prostitute also serves as a symbol for any sexual relationship that conflicts with Christ’s claim over us individually. The two…will become one flesh: the text of Gn 2:24 is applied positively to human marriage in Matthew and Mark, and in Eph 5:29–32: love of husband and wife reflect the love of Christ for his church. The application of the text to union with a prostitute is jarring, for such a union is a parody, an antitype of marriage, which does conflict with Christ’s claim over us. This explains the horror expressed in 15b. "
This shows that the USCCB belives Saint Paul meant that Marriage demonstrates the love of two flesh as a reflection of the love of Christ and his Church.Testimony from Homesexuals argues that the love two homesexuals feel for each other is real and just love,like Christ and his Church,whether or not this is real or a delusion caused by a psychological disorder,only The Lord knows for certain as of now.
One issue on the approvment and justification of Homesexuality given by the Bible is when Saint Paul states "Female gave up Natrual Relations,likewise did the Males" Saint Paul is specifically referring to the union of male and female as natrual and anything otherwise as unatrual,this could technically be countered by saying that Saint Paul did not mean that the act of homesexual love was unatrual,but the abuse of it was,however this is slightly unclear
The footnote on 1 Timonthy 8-11 by the USCCB states
"Those responsible for the speculations that are to be suppressed by Timothy do not present the Old Testament from the Christian viewpoint. The Christian values the Old Testament not as a system of law but as the first stage in God’s revelation of his saving plan, which is brought to fulfillment in the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ."
This reveals to us that the act of Homesexuality as it is described in the Old Testament as sinful is not necessarily Christian Law, but rather part of God's First stage of Salvation

 Chapter 2 Conclusion Therefore,while definitively not Infallibile,the conclusion of this document is that there is no definitive New Covenant Biblical bases for the disapproval of Homesexuality,however Christ gave the Church the authority to proclaim Christ Teaching,and therefore,just because it is not in the Bible doesn't mean homesexuality is in line with The Teachings of Our Lord and Savior,Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Chapter 3 On "Non Binary," "Third Genders," and "They/Them pronouns," 

Genesis 1:27 states -
27-God created mankind in his image;
in the image of God, he created them;
male and female* he created them
The footnote given by the USCCB states
"Male and female: as God provided the plants with seeds (vv. 11, 12) and commanded the animals to be fertile and multiply (v. 22), so God gives sexuality to human beings as their means to continue in existence."
Also, note that Genesis states that man and women came from each other and were once One.This has potential to theological development, but more time and research is needed to process this.
Based on this,this document can this not justify that the Catholic Church can recognize "Third Genders,or Non Binaryness" as God Created only two Genders Male and Female.A mix of the two sexes may be possible,but more evidence is needed to even consider this seriously.

 Chapter 4 On the Ordination of Women 

You may have noticed Genesis states that "God Created Man and Woman in his image" this could be a reasonable argument for the Holy Ordination of Women,however it should be noted that while Jesus had many Female Disciples,he did not have any Female Apostles.
The following information,Passages, and reference belong to the Catholic.com Website in an article written by Jason Evert
1 Corinthians 12:5-9 states
There are varieties of service, but the same Lord . . . All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. . . . If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. . . . If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single organ, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. . . . Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles . . . Are all apostles?” (1 Cor. 12:5–29).
This shows us that while Saint Paul may have said "Women or Man,No matter" he was referring to the role of all of us as the Body of Christ,while not everyone is subject to every role,everyone has a different role in the Body of Christ,this Biblical Passage could also be used to argue that God designated and designed each Humans role in the Body of Christ at Birth and that Role should not be reconstructed
It should also be noted that the Bible refrences a female "Phobe" who is a deacon.Combine that with the matter that Temporary Diaconate is not full Preistly Ordination and the lower case ordination of Women may be possible in the form of temporary Deacons.
Pope John Paul II declared, “Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32), I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful

 Conclusion 

Therefore, this document is in agreement that the Ordination of Women Onto the Holy Ordination and the Sacrament of Holy Orders is declared definitively incorrect,however, female Diaconate may be Scripturally,Theologically,and Spirtualy possible.

 Chapter 5 On Transgenderism and the use of Hormone Replacement Therapy(HRT) and Sex Reassignment Surgery(SRS) 

1.The Bible doesn't give any clear insight on the Early Churchs exact position on Gender Ideology,therefore we as the Body of Christ must primarily rely on current medicial and psychological findings aswell as Church Teachings rooted in Scripture and Tradition
2.The Catholic Church currently teaches that one is born and conceived Male or Female,and that to try and change this is an act of disobedience of God's Ultimate Design of Humanity,Catholic and Christian Transgenders claim they are not acting out of disobedience,but rather are medically aligning their "God Given Identity" with their Physical Form.

1. This should be taken relatively seriously, however,as most medical and psychological institutions agree that "Gender Dysphoria" is not simply a disorder but a realization of one's true identity and a genuine medical concern

4.The use of pronouns that do not align with a Person's God-Given Gender is prohibited by the Church,however a Male living a Feminine life style while recognizing he is still a Male at Birth,and vice versa,is not taken as an act of disobedience toward ones own biological gender by the Church
5.New Ways Ministry,A organization dedicated to building a bridge between the LGBTQ Community and the Catholic Church(not necessarily in full Communion with the Church)seems to support idea of Gender Ideology,however evidence to suggest anything further is low.

1. Tia Michelle,an openly intersexual and transgender,received support from her Preist at the idea of becoming a Nun,Tia has stated that there is nothing stated in the Bible that undermines the credibility of Christian Transgenders and that,like aerospace engineering,our modern idea of this concept did not exist at the time of the Bibles writing.The Catholic Church has not responded to this case at the time of writing.
   
2. Pope Francis famous "Who am I to Judge?" quote on Gay Preisthood suggests his openess to the idea od acceptance of an "LGBTQ" lifestyle,however this quote was directed toward Homesexuals and does not mean the Church support the use of HRT or SRS,additionally Pope Francis was likely referring to the fact that homesexuality in itself isn't sinful,rather the act upon this tendency is the sin in question.
   

8.The LGBTQ Community,especially the Transgender community revolve heavily around the arguably selfish idea that their attraction and change is based on what they desire and their feelings and what makes them happy.This is contrary to Church Teaching because God's will and Feelings are more important than ours.However it should be noted that some people do feel very strongly about their identity and believe it is in Communion with God's will and The Salvation of the World,and that one's own medical and mental needs are permitted to be fulfilled by the Church.

1. Something to point out is that all Catholics believe in the Reuninfication of Body and Soul at the Second Coming,this could be taken to suggest that Body and Soul are 2 different things that can be separated in the form of Transgenderism,or that Body and Soul are 2 things that work together in harmony with each other.However,in Catholic Teaching,while on Earth you are your body,and so to separate solid and biological sex with a social "twin",Gender, could be harmful,we may even be seeing the effects of this rapid accepting of this ideology today.
   

    Conclusion 

   Therefore,as the act of conforming to one's psychological and medical identity is described as Gender Ideology,the act of using HRT,SRS,and Opposite Sex Pronouns should very much be up for open debate and change in the Church based on current medical and psychological findings.
   

    Chapter 6 On Abortion and Sexual Intercourse 

The Catholic Churches stances on abortion are very clear,the act of purposeful termination of a human fetus is to commit a serious sin,that of murder.However many people disagree with this as they claim that decision is the right of Woman,and not the Church.This can be proved false,as any Child that has the potential to be born,albeit even with serious medical conditions or without a biological family to support them,has the right to live.Even Science supports the Pro Life Movement,as life begins at conception in the scientific world aswell.However,a Child who ends up in one of these difficult situations is the moral and just responsibility of society to raise and educate,we do not kill people with Cerebal Palsy because of their condition,even if they suffer because of it,do we? We do not terminate the life of someone in foster care,do we not?Also,Groups Like Catholics for Choice seem to have no Scriptural or Theological bases for their beliefs and claim that the majority of Catholis believe in abortion,however likely the majority of lapsed Catholics are the ones who believe in this act of murder,however evidence to prove this is lacking,although likely.However in very rare and specific circumstances,(eg,the mother and child are both in danger) and unintential death of the child may occur.This shows that while abortion is a serious act of murder,in certain very specific situations,some form of "abortion" may have to occur.Also,any Religion that claims and abortion is mandatory is wrong,while religious Freedom is a God-Given right,nowhere should the act of innocent murder be a freedom of humans.Therefore it is with confidence I can conclude that the act of abortion,while in many situations may be desirable as pregnancy is a very,very difficult Miracle to go through,is wrong and the Catholic Church has no right to agree to or support this act of murder unless a very specific circumstance occurs,unintential in this case.
The Act of In Virto Fertilization,while may seem Unitive,is not considered such.The Gift of life in the form of Sexual Intercourse is required for a relationship to be Unitive,as this is what God has desired for us.However the Church must be empathetic with infertile couples and hear their situations and stories out.Using Contraception during Intercourse may be Unitive,but it is not open to the gift of procreation and life,and therefore cannot be supported by the Catholic Church.However,Couples who cannot conceive naturally but do not lack the procreative and unitive intentions could potentially be a reason for just changing of this teaching,and should be listened to,aswell as those who are victims of Rape and Incest so long as the Contraception is not in the form of Murder(abortion).
Additionally,the Sacrament of Marriage is required for two to become one flesh,this is transparently stated in the Bible by Jesus Christ Himself,and therefore the Church must never conform to the Societal acceptance of Pre Marital Intercourse and the related social and medical,including mental, issues caused by such acts.

 Chapter 7 On Asexuality and Aromanticness 

The Catholic Churchs stance on Asexuality is clear,No person is without the desire of the gift of life,to not have any sexual stance is impossible,however the Churchs Clergy practices the desire to not have sexual or romantic relationships,therefore Sexual Aromantancy is fine,However Nonsexual Asexuality is non existent as God made all Humans in his image,even the infertile.

 Chapter 8 A conclusion on these findings 

Therefore Brothers and Sisters in Christ,I believe I can say with confidence that while writing this,I have felt the support of the Holy Spirit through me,whether that means an approval of my proposals,or a desire for this document to be proven false,I am not sure,but with the full confidence of The Most Holy Trinity,I can say that the Church’s stance on Homesexuality,including Lesbianism,is very much up for discussion and Biblical discourse,additionally it may be said that these findings can be proven "Natrual" (However,see section on Saint Paul's "Male and Female gave up Natrual Relations and turned to unatrual relations with their same sex."),Additionally the Church’s stance on Gender Ideology can be considered medically,psychological,and theologically incorrect in certain instances,Being Non Binary(No Gender) on the other can be said as with confidence wrong as God Created just Man and Woman,although certain Catholics and Non Catholics alike disagree with this and should be heard out.Also keep in note the specefic mention of Man and Women coming from each other from One.The Combination of Two Genders/Sexes may be possible if proven Solid based on Medical and Psychological findings.Premarital Intercourse,Non Unitive,and Non Pro Creational intercourse can be said as wrong as Marriage,Unity,and Procreation are required for the proper,just,and God Given use of Sex.Abortion,however I can say with confidence is murder,as there are ways around it and ways to help Children who are saved from the Abortion Holocaust,whether Society has the ethical and morality to take these steps is unclear to Man,unfortunately.Aromanticness,the desire to refrain from sexual and romantic relationships is already practiced by Church Clergy,however the idea that a person cannot have some form of Sexual Drive or Desire,even if smaller than others,is wrong.The Ordination of Woman into the Holy Orders of Preisthood has been definitely declared as outside of the Churches Authority by John Paul and until the Church takes a different stand in this,this should be considered Christian Law,albeit up for some slight discussion.
Therefore Brothers and Sisters,as God has given us free will and reasoning to further the Church in her Glory,I formally conclude this document "lus corporis"(The right of the body),and propose this to the Catholic Church:The Right of the Body belongs to God,however based on Medical,Psychological,Theological,and Biblical findings,the definition of what we consider to be altering God's Ultimate Design for us all is very much up for discussion and debate
I thank you for taking the time to read this letter,and once again emphasize the importance of following current Church Teaching as Christian Law,even if that Teaching or Teachings are debatable,Because the Vatican must listen to the pleas and cries of the Body of Christ,Amen.

 "Be strong and courageous for the Lord is with you," 

• Joshua 1:9

PODCAST: https://ayearofwarandpeace.podbean.com/e/ep1572-hail-and-farewell-george-moore-vale-chapter-112/
PROMPTS: George does not care about you, whatsoever.
Today's Reading, via Project Gutenberg:
Borde could not enlighten him on that point, and I suggested that he should make application to the publisher of his Prayer-Book and get his money back. There is nobody. I said, like him. He is more wonderful than anything in literature. I prefer him to Sancho who was untroubled with a conscience and never thought of running to the Bishop of Toledo. All the same he is not without the shrewdness of his ancestors, and got the better of Archbishop Walsh, and for the last five years Vincent O'Brien has been beating time, and will beat it till the end of his life; and he will be succeeded by others, for Edward has, by deed, saved the Italian contrapuntalists till time everlasting from competition with modern composers. He certainly has gotten the better of Walsh. And I thought of a picture-gallery in Dublin with nothing in it but Botticelli and his school, and myself declaring that all painting that had been done since had no interest for me.... A smile began to spread over my face, for the story that was coming into my mind seemed oh! so humorous, so like Ireland, so like Edward, that I began to tell myself again the delightful story of the unrefined ears that, weary of erudite music, had left the cathedral and sought instinctively modern tunes and women's voices, and as these were to be found in Westland Row the church was soon overflowing with a happy congregation. But in a little while the collections grew scantier. This time it couldn't be Palestrina, and all kinds of reasons were adduced. At last the truth could no longer be denied—the professional Catholics of Merrion Square had been driven out of Westland Row by the searching smells of dirty clothes, and had gone away to the University Church in Stephen's Green. So if it weren't Palestrina directly it was Palestrina indirectly, and the brows of the priests began to knit when Edward Martyn's name was mentioned. Them fal-de-dals is well enough on the Continent, in Paris, where there is no faith, was the opinion of an important ecclesiastic. But we don't want them here, murmured a second ecclesiastic. All this counterpoint may make a very pretty background for Mr Martyn's prayers, but what about the poor people's? Good composer or bad composer, there is no congregation in him, said a third. There's too much congregation, put in the first, but not the kind we want! The second ecclesiastic took snuff, and the group were of opinion that steps should be taken to persuade dear Edward to make good their losses. The priests in Marlborough Street sympathised with the priests of Westland Row, and told them that they were so heavily out of pocket that Mr Martyn had agreed to do something for them. It seemed to the Westland Row priests that if Mr Martyn were making good the losses of the priests of the pro-Cathedral, he should make good their losses. It was natural that they should think so, and to acquit himself of all responsibility Edward no doubt consulted the best theologians on the subject, and I think that they assured him that he is not responsible for indirect losses. If he were, his whole fortune would not suffice. He was, of course, very sorry if a sudden influx of poor people had caused a falling-off in the collections of Westland Row, for he knew that the priests needed the money very much to pay for the new decorations, and to help them he wrote an article in the Independent praising the new blue ceiling, which seemed, so he wrote, a worthy canopy for the soaring strains of Palestrina.
Unfortunately rubbing salt into the wound, I said. A story that will amuse Dujardin and it will be great fun telling him in the shady garden at Fontainebleau how Edward, anxious to do something for his church, had succeeded in emptying two. All the way down the alleys he will wonder how Edward could have ever looked upon Palestrina's masses as religious music. The only music he will say, in which religious emotion transpires is plain-chant. Huysmans says that the Tantum Ergo or the Dies Irae, one or the other, reminds him of a soul being dragged out of purgatory, and it is possible that it does; but a plain-chant tune arranged in eight-part counterpoint cannot remind one of anything very terrible. Dujardin knows that Palestrina was a priest, and he will say: That fact deceived your friend, just as the fact of finding the Adeste Fideles among the plain-chant tunes deceived him. For of course I shall tell Dujardin that story too. It is too good to be missed. He is wonderful, Dujardin! I shall cry out in one of the sinuous alleys. There never was anybody like him! And I will tell him more soul-revealing anecdotes. I will say: Dujardin, listen. One evening he contended that the great duet at the end of Siegfried reminded him of mass by Palestrina. Dujardin will laugh, and, excited by his laughter, I will try to explain to him that what Edward sees is that Palestrina took a plain chant tune and gave fragments of it to the different voices, and in his mind these become confused with the motives of The Ring. You see, Dujardin, the essential always escapes him—the intention of the writer is hidden from him. I am beginning to understand your friend. He has, let us suppose, a musical ear that allows him to take pleasure in the music; but a musical ear will not help him to follow Wagner's idea—how, in a transport of sexual emotion, a young man and a young woman on a mountain-side awaken to the beauty of the life of the world. Dujardin's appreciations will provoke me, and I will say: Dujardin, you shouldn't be so appreciative. If I were telling you of a play I had written, it would be delightful to watch my idea dawning upon your consciousness; but I am telling you of a real man, and one that I shall never to able to get into literature. He will answer: We invent nothing; we can but perceive. And then, exhilarated, carried beyond myself, I will say: Dujardin, I will tell you something still more wonderful than the last gaffe. II gaffe dans les Quat'z Arts. He admires Ibsen, but you'd never guess the reason why—because he is very like Racine; both of them, he says, are classical writers. And do you know how he arrived at that point? Because nobody is killed on the stage in Racine or in Ibsen. He does not see that the intention of Racine is to represent men and women out of time and out of space, unconditioned by environment, and that the very first principle of Ibsen's art is the relation of his characters to their environment. In many passages he merely dramatises Darwin. There never was anybody so interesting as dear Edward, and there never will be anybody like him in literature ... I will explain why presently, but I must first tell you another anecdote. I went to see him one night, and he told me that the theme of the play he was writing was a man who had married a woman because he had lost faith in himself; the man did not know, however, that the woman had married him for the same reason, and the two of them were thinking—I have forgotten what they were thinking, but I remember Edward saying: I should like to suggest hopelessness. I urged many phrases, but he said: It isn't a phrase I want, but an actual thing. I was thinking of a broken anchor—that surely is a symbol of hopelessness. Yes, I said, no doubt, but how are you going to get a broken anchor into a drawing-room? I don't write about drawing-rooms. Well, living-rooms. It isn't likely that they would buy a broken anchor and put it up by the coal-scuttle.
There's that against it, he answered. If you could suggest anything better—What do you think of a library in which there is nothing but unacted plays? The characters could say, when there was nothing for them to do on the stage, that they were going to the library to read, and the library would have the advantage of reminding everybody of the garret in the Wild Duck. A very cruel answer, my friend, Dujardin will say, and I will tell him that I can't help seeing in Edward something beyond Shakespeare or Balzac. Now, tell me, which of these anecdotes I have told you is the most humorous? He will not answer my question, but a certain thoughtfulness will begin to settle in his face, and he will say: Everything with him is accidental, and when his memory fails him he falls into another mistake, and he amuses you because it is impossible for you to anticipate his next mistake. You know there is going to be one; there must be one, for he sees things separately rather than relatively. I am beginning to understand your friend.
You are, you are; you are doing splendidly. But you haven't told me, Dujardin, which anecdote you prefer. Stay, there is another one. Perhaps this one will help you to a still better understanding. When he brought The Heather Field and Yeats's play The Countess Cathleen to Dublin for performance, a great trouble of conscience awakened suddenly in him, and a few days before the performance he went to a theologian to ask him if The Countess Cathleen were a heretical work, and, if it were would Almighty God hold him responsible for the performance? But he couldn't withdraw Yeats's play without withdrawing his own, and it appears that he breathed a sigh of relief when a common friend referred the whole matter to two other theologians, and as these gave their consent Edward allowed the plays to go on; but Cardinal Logue intervened, and wrote a letter to the papers to say that the play seemed to him unfit for Catholic ears, and Edward would have withdrawn the plays if the Cardinal hadn't admitted in his letter that he had judged the play by certain extracts only.
He wishes to act rightly, but has little faith in himself; and what makes him so amusing is that he needs advice in aesthetics as well as in morals. We are, I said, Dujardin, at the roots of conscience. And I began to ponder the question what would happen to Edward if we lived in a world in which aesthetics ruled: I should be where Bishop Healy is, and he would be a thin, small voice crying in the wilderness—an amusing subject of meditation, from which I awoke suddenly.
I wonder how Dujardin is getting on with his Biblical studies? Last year he was calling into question the authorship of the Romans—a most eccentric view; and, remembering how weakly I had answered him, I took the Bible from the table and began to read the Epistle with a view to furnishing myself with arguments wherewith to confute him. My Bible opened at the ninth chapter, and I said: Why, here is the authority for the Countess Cathleen's sacrifice which Edward's theologian deemed untheological. It will be great fun to poke Edward up with St Paul, and on my way to Lincoln Place I thought how I might lead the conversation to The Countess Cathleen.
📷
A few minutes afterwards a light appeared on the staircase and the door slowly opened.
Come in, Siegfried, though you were off the key.
Well, my dear friend, it is a difficult matter to whistle above two trams passing simultaneously and six people jabbering round a public-house, to say nothing of a jarvey or two, and you perhaps dozing in your armchair, as your habit often is. You won't open to anything else except a motive from The Ring; and I stumbled up the stairs in front of Edward, who followed with a candle.
Wait a moment; let me go first and I'll turn up the gas.
You aren't sitting in the dark, are you?
No, but I read better by candle-light, and he blew out the candles in the tin candelabrum that he had made for himself. He is original even in his candelabrum; no one before him had ever thought of a caridelabrum in tin, and I fell to admiring his appearance more carefully than perhaps I had ever done before, so monumental did he seem lying on the little sofa sheltered from daughts by a screen, a shawl about his shoulders. His churchwarden was drawing famously, and I noticed his great square hands with strong fingers and square nails pared closely away, and as heretofore I admired the curve of the great belly, the thickness of the thighs, the length and breadth and the width of his foot hanging over the edge of the sofa, the apoplectic neck falling into great rolls of flesh, the humid eyes, the skull covered with short stubbly hair. I looked round the rooms and they seemed part of himself: the old green wallpaper on which he pins reproductions of the Italian masters. And I longed to peep once more into the bare bedroom into which he goes to fetch bottles of Apollinaris. Always original! Is there another man in this world whose income is two thousand a year, and who sleeps in a bare bedroom, without dressing-room, or bathroom, or servant in the house to brush his clothes, and who has to go to the baker's for his breakfast?
We had been talking for some time of the Gaelic League, and from Hyde it was easy to pass to Yeats and his plays.
His best play is The Countess Cathleen.
The Countess Cathleen is only a sketch.
But what I never could understand, Edward, was why you and the Cardinal could have had any doubts as to the orthodoxy of The Countess Cathleen.
What, a woman that sells her own soul in order to save the souls of others!
I suppose your theologian objected—
Of course he objected.
He cannot have read St Paul.
What do you mean?
He can't have read St Paul, or else he is prepared to throw over St Paul.
Mon ami Moore, mon ami Moore.
The supernatural idealism of a man who would sell his soul to save the souls of others fills me with awe.
But it wasn't a man; it was the Countess Cathleen, and women are never idealists.
Not the saints?
His face grew solemn at once.
If you give me the Epistles I will read the passage to you. And it was great fun to go to the bookshelves and read: I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Edward's face grew more and more solemn, and I wondered of what he was thinking.
Paul is a very difficult and a very obscure writer, and I think the Church is quite right not to encourage the reading of the Epistles, especially without comments.
Then you do think there is something in the passage I have read?
After looking down his dignified nose for a long time, he said:
Of course, the Church has an explanation. All the same, it's very odd that St Paul should have said such a thing—very odd.
There is no doubt that I owe a great deal of my happiness to Edward; all my life long he has been exquisite entertainment. And I fell to thinking that Nature was very cruel to have led me, like Moses, within sight of the Promised Land. A story would be necessary to bring Edward into literature, and it would be impossible to devise an action of which he should be a part. The sex of a woman is odious to him, and a man with two thousand a year does not rob nor steal, and he is so uninterested in his fellow-men that he has never an ill word to say about anybody. John Eglinton is a little thing; AE is a soul that few will understand; but Edward is universal—more universal than Yeats, than myself, than any of us, but for lack of a story I shall not be able to give him the immortality in literature which he seeks in sacraments. Shakespeare always took his stories from some other people. Turgenev's portrait of him would be thin, poor, and evasive, and Balzac would give us the portrait of a mere fool. And Edward is not a fool. As I understand him he is a temperament without a rudder; all he has to rely upon is his memory, which isn't a very good one, and so he tumbles from one mistake into another. My God! it is a terrible thing to happen to one, to understand a man better than he understands himself, and to be powerless to help him. If I had been able to undo his faith I should have raised him to the level of Sir Horace Plunkett, but he resisted me; and perhaps he did well, for he came into the world seeing things separately rather than relatively, and had to be a Catholic. He is a born Catholic, and I remembered one of his confessions—a partial confession, but a confession: If you had been brought up as strictly as I have been—I don't think he ever finished the sentence; he often leaves sentences unfinished, as if he fears to think things out. The end of the sentence should run: You would not dare to think independently. He thinks that his severe bringing-up has robbed him of something. But the prisoner ends by liking his prison-house, and on another occasion he said: If it hadn't been for the Church, I don't know what would have happened to me.
My thoughts stopped, and when I awoke I was thinking of Hughes. Perhaps the link between Hughes and Edward was Loughrea Cathedral. He had shown me a photograph of some saints modelled by Hughes. Hughes is away in Paris, I said, modelling saints for Loughrea Cathedral. The last time I saw him was at Walter Osborne's funeral, and Walter's death set me thinking of the woman I had lost, and little by little all she had told me about herself floated up in my mind like something that I had read. I had never seen her father nor the Putney villa in which she had been brought up, but she had made me familiar with both through her pleasant mode of conversation, which was never to describe anything, but just to talk about things, dropping phrases here and there, and the phrases she dropped were so well chosen that the comfort of the villa, its pompous meals and numerous servants, its gardens and greenhouses, with stables and coach-house just behind, are as well known to me as the house that I am living in, better known in a way, for I see it through the eyes of the imagination ... clearer eyes than the physical eyes.
It does not seem to me that any one was ever more conscious of whence she had come and of what she had been; she seemed to be able to see herself as a child again, and to describe her childhood with her brother (they were nearly the same age) in the villa and in the villa's garden. I seemed to see them always as two rather staid children who were being constantly dressed by diligent nurses and taken out for long drives in the family carriage. They did not like these drives and used to hide in the garden; but their governess was sent to fetch them, and they were brought back. Her father did not like to have the horses kept waiting, and one day as Stella stood with him in the passage, she saw her mother come out of her bedroom beautifully dressed. Her father whispered something in his wife's ear, and he followed her into her bedroom. Stella remembered how the door closed behind them. In my telling, the incident seems to lose some of its point, but in Stella's relation it seemed to put her father and his wife before me and so clearly that I could not help asking her what answer her father would make were she to tell him that she had a lover. A smile hovered in her grave face. He would look embarrassed, she said, and wonder why I should have told him such a thing, and then I think he would go to the greenhouse, and when he returned he would talk to me about something quite different. I don't think that Stella ever told me about the people that came to their house, but people must have come to it, and as an example of how a few words can convey an environment I will quote her: I always wanted to talk about Rossetti, she said, and these seven words seem to me to tell better than any description the life of a girl living with a formal father in a Putney villa, longing for something, not knowing exactly what, and anxious to get away from home.... I think she told me she was eighteen or nineteen and had started painting before she met Florence at the house of one of her father's friends; a somewhat sore point this meeting was, for Florence was looked upon by Stella's father as something of a Bohemian. She was a painter, and knew all the Art classes and the fees that had to be paid, and led Stella into the world of studios and models and girl friends. She knew how to find studios and could plan out a journey abroad. Stella's imagination was captured, and even if her father had tried to offer opposition to her leaving home he could not have prevented her, for she was an heiress (her mother was dead and had left her a considerable income); but he did not try, and the two girls set up house together in Chelsea; they travelled in Italy and Spain; they had a cottage in the country; they painted pictures and exhibited their pictures in the same exhibitions; they gave dances in their studios and were attracted by this young man and the other; but Stella did not give herself to any one, because, as she admitted to me, she was afraid that a lover would interrupt the devotion which she intended to give to Art. But life is forever casting itself into new shapes and forms, and no sooner had she begun to express herself in Art than she met me. I was about to go to Ireland to preach a new gospel, and must have seemed a very impulsive and fantastic person to her, but were not impulsiveness and fantasy just the qualities that would appeal to her? And were not gravity and good sense the qualities that would appeal to me, determined as I was then to indulge myself in a little madness?
I could not have chosen a saner companion than Stella; my instinct had led me to her; but because one man's instinct is a little more clear than another's, it does not follow that he has called reason to his aid. It must be remembered always that the art of painting is as inveterate in me as the art of writing, and that I am never altogether myself when far away from the smell of oil paint. Stella could talk to one about painting, and all through that wonderful summer described in Salve our talk flowed on as delightfully as a breeze in Maytime, and as irresponsible, flashing thoughts going by and avowals perfumed with memories. Only in her garden did conversation fail us, for in her garden Stella could think only of her flowers, and it seemed an indiscretion to follow her as she went through the twilight gathering dead blooms or freeing plants from noxious insects. But she would have had me follow her, and I think was always a little grieved that I wasn't as interested in her garden as I was in her painting; and my absent-mindedness when I followed her often vexed her and my mistakes distressed her.
You are interested, she said, only in what I say about flowers and not in the flowers themselves. You like to hear me tell about Miss —— whose business in life is to grow carnations, because you already see her, dimly, perhaps, but still you see her in a story. Forget her and look at this Miss Shifner!
Yes, it is beautiful, but we can only admire the flowers that we notice when we are children, I answered. Dahlias, china roses, red and yellow tulips, tawny wallflowers, purple pansies, are never long out of my thoughts, and all the wonderful varieties of the iris, the beautiful blue satin and the cream, some shining like porcelain, even the common iris that grows about the moat.
But there were carnations in your mother's garden?
Yes, and I remember seeing them being tied with bass. But what did you say yesterday about carnations? That they were the—
She laughed and would not tell me, and when the twilight stooped over the high trees and the bats flitted and the garden was silent except when a fish leaped, I begged her to come away to the wild growths that I loved better than the flowers.
But the mallow and willow-weed are the only two that you recognise. How many times have I told you the difference between self-heal and tufted vetch?
I like cow parsley and wild hyacinths and—
You have forgotten the name. As well speak of a woman that you loved but whose name you had forgotten.
Well, if I have, I love trees better than you do, Stella. You pass under a fir unstirred by the mystery of its branches, and I wonder at you, for I am a tree worshipper, even as my ancestors, and am moved as they were by the dizzy height of a great silver fir. You like to paint trees, and I should like to paint flowers if I could paint; there we are set forth, you and I.
I have told in Salve that in Rathfarnham she found many motives for painting; the shape of the land and the spire above the straggling village appealed to me, but she was not altogether herself in these pictures. She would have liked the village away, for man and his dwellings did not form part of her conception of a landscape; large trees and a flight of clouds above the trees were her selection, and the almost unconscious life of kine wandering or sheep seeking the shelter of a tree.
Stella was a good walker, and we followed the long road leading from Rathfarnham up the hills, stopping to admire the long plain which we could see through the comely trees shooting out of the shelving hillside.
If I have beguiled you into a country where there are no artists and few men of letters, you can't say that I have not shown you comely trees. And now if you can walk two miles farther up this steep road I will show you a lovely prospect.
And I enjoyed her grave admiration of the old Queen Anne dwelling-house, its rough masonry, the yew hedges, the path along the hillside leading to the Druid altar and the coast-line sweeping in beautiful curves, but she did not like to hear me say that the drawing of the shore reminded her of Corot.
It is a sad affectation, she said, to speak of Nature reminding one of pictures.
Well, the outlines of Howth are beautiful, I answered, and the haze is incomparable. I should like to have spoken about a piece of sculpture, but for your sake, Stella, I refrain.
She was interested in things rather than ideas, and I remember her saying to me that things interest us only because we know that they are always slipping from us. A strange thing for a woman to say to her lover. She noticed all the changes of the seasons and loved them, and taught me to love them. She brought a lamb back from Rathfarnham, a poor forlorn thing that had run bleating so pitifully across the windy field that she had asked the shepherd where the ewe was, and he had answered that she had been killed overnight by a golf-ball. The lamb will be dead before morning, he added. And it was that March that the donkey produced a foal, a poor ragged thing that did not look as if it ever could be larger than a goat, but the donkey loved her foal.
Do you know the names of those two birds flying up and down the river?
They look to me like two large wrens with white waistcoats.
They are water-ouzels, she said.
The birds flew with rapid strokes of the wings, like kingfishers, alighting constantly on the river, on large mossy stones, and though we saw them plunge into the water, it was not to swim, but to run along the bottom in search of worms.
But do worms live under water?
The rooks were building, and a little while after a great scuffling was heard in one of the chimneys and a young jackdaw came down and soon became tamer than any bird I had ever seen, tamer than a parrot, and at the end of May the corncrake called from the meadow that summer had come again, and the kine wandered in deeper and deeper and deeper herbage. The days seemed never to end, and looking through the branches of the chestnut in which the fruit had not begun to show, we caught sight of a strange spectacle. Stella said, A lunar rainbow, and I wondered, never having heard of or seen such a thing before.
I shall never forget that rainbow, Stella, and am glad that we saw it together.
In every love story lovers reprove each other for lack of affection, and Stella had often sent me angry letters which caused me many heart-burnings and brought me out to her; in the garden there were reconciliations, we picked up the thread again, and the summer had passed before the reason of these quarrels became clear to me. One September evening Stella said she would accompany me to the gate, and we had not gone very far before I began to notice that she was quarrelling with me. She spoke of the loneliness of the Moat House, and I had answered that she had not been alone two evenings that week. She admitted my devotion. And if you admit that there has been no neglect—
She would not tell me, but there was something she was not satisfied with, and before we reached the end of the avenue she said, I don't think I can tell you. But on being pressed she said:
Well, you don't make love to me often enough.
And full of apologies I answered, Let me go back.
No, I can't have you back now, not after having spoken like that.
But she yielded to my invitation, and we returned to the house, and next morning I went back to Dublin a little dazed, a little shaken.
A few days after she went away to Italy to spend the winter and wrote me long letters, interesting me in herself, in the villagers, in the walks and the things that she saw in her walks, setting me sighing that she was away from me, or that I was not with her. And going to the window I would stand for a long time watching the hawthorns in their bleak wintry discontent, thinking how the sunlight fell into the Italian gardens, and caught the corner of the ruin she was sketching; and I let my fancy stray for a time unchecked. It would be wonderful to be in Italy with her, but—
I turned from the window suspicious, for there was a feeling at the back of my mind that with her return an anxiety would come into my life that I would willingly be without. She had told me she had refrained from a lover because she wished to keep all herself for her painting, and now she had taken to herself a lover. She was twenty years younger than I was, and at forty-six or thereabouts one begins to feel that one's time for love is over; one is consultant rather than practitioner. But it was impossible to dismiss the subject with a jest, and I found myself face to face with the question—If these twenty years were removed, would things be different? It seemed to me that the difficulty that had arisen would have been the same earlier in my life as it was now, and returning to the window I watched the hawthorns blowing under the cold grey Dublin sky.
The problem is set, I said, for the married, and every couple has to solve it in one way or another, but they have to solve it; they have to come to terms with love, especially the man, for whom it is a question of life and death. But how do they come to terms? And I thought of the different married people I knew. Which would be most likely to advise me—the man or the woman? It would be no use to seek advice; every case is different, I said. If anybody were to advise me it would be the man, for the problem is not so difficult for a woman. She can escape from love more easily than her lover or her husband; she can plead, and her many pleadings were considered, one by one, and how in married life the solution that seems to lovers so difficult is solved by marriage itself, by propinquity. But not always, not always. The question is one of extraordinary interest and importance; more marriages come to shipwreck, I am convinced, on this very question than upon any other. In the divorce cases published we read of incompatibility of temper and lack of mutual tastes, mere euphemisms that deceive nobody. The image of a shipwreck rose up in me naturally. She will return, and like a ship our love for each other will be beaten on these rocks and broken. We shall not be able to get out to sea. She will return, and when she returns her temperament will have to be adjusted to mine, else she will lose me altogether, for men have died of love, though Shakespeare says they haven't. Manet and Daudet—both died of love; and the somewhat absurd spectacle of a lover waiting for his mistress to return, and yet dreading her returning, was constantly before me.
It often seemed to me that it was my own weakness that created our embarrassment. A stronger man would have been able to find a way out, but I am not one that can shape and mould another according to my desire; and when she returned from Italy I found myself more helpless than ever, and I remember, and with shame, how, to avoid being alone with her, I would run down the entire length of a train, avoiding the empty carriages, crying Not here, not here! at last opening the door of one occupied by three or four people, who all looked as if they were bound for a long journey. I remember, too, how about this time I came with friends to see Stella, whether by accident or design, frankly I know not; I only know that I brought many friends to see her, thinking they would interest her.
If you don't care to come to see me without a chaperon, I would rather you didn't come at all, she said, humiliating me very deeply.
It seemed to me, I answered, blushing, that you would like to see ——, and I mentioned the name of the man who had accompanied me.
If I am cross sometimes it is because I don't see enough of you.
It seems to me that it was then that the resolve hardened in my heart to become her friend ... if she would allow me to become her friend. But in what words should I frame my request and my apology? All the time our life was becoming less amiable, until one evening I nipped the quarrel that was beginning, stopping suddenly at the end of the avenue.
It is better that we should understand each other. The plain truth is that I must cease to be your lover unless my life is to be sacrificed.
Cease to be my lover!
That is impossible, but a change comes into every love story.
The explanation stuttered on. I remember her saying: I don't wish you to sacrifice your life. I have forgotten the end of her sentence. She drew her hand suddenly across her eyes. I will conquer this obsession.
A man would have whined and cried and besought and worried his mistress out of her wits. Women behave better than we; only once did her feelings overcome her. She spoke to me of the deception that life is. Again we were standing by the gate at the end of the chestnut avenue, and I remembered her telling me how a few years ago life had seemed to hold out its hands to her; her painting and her youth created her enjoyment.
But now life seems to have shrivelled up, she said; only a little dust is left.
Nothing is changed, so far as you and I are concerned. We see each other just the same.
I am no more to you than any other woman.
She went away again to Italy to paint and returned to Ireland, and one day she came to see me, and remained talking for an hour. I have no memory of what we said to each other, but a very clear memory of our walk through Dublin over Carlisle Bridge and along the quays. I had accompanied her as far as the Phoenix Park gates, and at the corner of the Conyngham Road, just as I was bidding her goodbye, she said:
I want to ask your advice on a matter of importance to me.
And to me, for what is important to you is equally important to me.
I am thinking, she said, of being married.
At the news it seems to me that I was unduly elated and tried to assume the interest that a friend should.

To celebrate the "Return" of the "Big Gold Belt" on Raw, I thought I'd make a history combining all title runs from the first world heavyweight championship, through it's time in the NWA, its two off shoots in WCW and its appropriation by WWE. All lineages combined, all vacancies ignored, all reigns recognized and all champions holding the belt once.
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Name	Date	Location	Days
George Hackenschmidt	May 4, 1905	New York, New York	1,065
Frank Gotch	April 3, 1908	Chicago, Illinois	1,824
Americus	March 13, 1914	Kansas City, Missouri	55
Stanislaus Zbyszko	May 7, 1914	Kansas City, Missouri	176
Charlie Cutler)	January 8, 1915	N/A	178
Joe Stecher	July 5, 1915	Omaha, Nebraska	644
Johan Olin	December 11, 1916	Springfield, Massachusetts	142
Earl Caddock	April 9, 1917	Omaha, Nebraska	1,026
Ed Lewis)	May 2, 1917	Chicago, Illinois	34
Wladek Zbyszko	June 5, 1917	San Francisco, California	5844
Wayne Munn	January 8, 1925	Wichita, Kansas	1360
Gus Sonnenberg	January 4, 1929	Boston, Massachusetts	705
Ed Don George	December 10, 1930	Los Angeles, CA	1693
Danno O'Mahoney	July 30, 1935	Boston, Massachusetts	216
Dick Shikat	March 2, 1936	New York, New York	54
Ali Baba)	April 25, 1936	Detroit, Michigan	48
Dave Levin)	June 12, 1936	Newark, New Jersey	109
Dean Detton	September 29, 1936	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	273
Bronko Nagurski	June 29, 1937	Minneapolis, Minnesota	507
Jim Londos	November 18, 1938	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	2628
Orville Brown	July 14, 1948	Des Moines, IA	501
Lou Thesz	November 27, 1949	Los Angeles, California	2300
Leo Nomellini	March 22, 1955	San Francisco, CA	359
Whipper Billy Watson	March 15, 1956	Toronto, ON	609
Édouard Carpentier	June 14, 1957	Chicago, IL	153
Dick Hutton	November 14, 1957	Toronto, ON	421
Pat O'Connor)	January 9, 1959	St. Louis, MO	903
Buddy Rogers)	June 30, 1961	Chicago, IL	145
Killer Kowalski	November 22, 1961	Montreal, Quebec	254
Bruno Sammartino	August 2, 1962	Toronto, ON	16
Bobo Brazil	August 18, 1962	Newark, NJ	1239
Gene Kiniski	January 7, 1966	St. Louis, MO	1131
Dory Funk Jr.	February 11, 1969	Tampa, FL	1563
Harley Race	May 24, 1973	Kansas City, KS	57
Jack Brisco	July 20, 1973	Houston, TX	500
Giant Baba	December 2, 1974	Kagoshima, Japan	373
Terry Funk	December 10, 1975	Miami Beach, FL	1350
Dusty Rhodes)	August 21, 1979	Tampa, FL	616
Tommy Rich	April 27, 1981	Augusta, GA	143
Ric Flair	September 17, 1981	Kansas City, KS	355
Jack Veneno	September 7, 1982	Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic	122
Carlos Colón	January 6, 1983	San Juan, Puerto Rico	487
Kerry Von Erich	May 6, 1984	Irving, TX	1238
Ron Garvin	September 25, 1987	Detroit, MI	515
Ricky Steamboat	February 20, 1989	Chicago, IL	502
Sting)	July 7, 1990	Baltimore, MD	257
Tatsumi Fujinami	March 21, 1991	Tokyo, Japan	116
Lex Luger	July 14, 1991	Baltimore, Maryland	363
Big Van Vader	July 12, 1992	Albany, Georgia	21
Ron Simmons	August 2, 1992	Baltimore, Maryland	10
Masahiro Chono	August 12, 1992	Tokyo, Japan	145
The Great Muta	January 4, 1993	Tokyo, Japan	48
Barry Windham	February 21, 1993	Asheville, NC	210
Rick Rude	September 19, 1993	Houston, Texas	178
Hiroshi Hase	March 16, 1994	Tokyo, Japan	123
Hulk Hogan	July 17, 1994	Orlando, Florida	42
Shane Douglas	August 27, 1994	Philadelphia, PA	85
Chris Candido	November 19, 1994	Cherry Hill, NJ	97
Dan Severn	February 24, 1995	Erlanger, KY	247
The Giant	October 29, 1995	Detroit, Michigan	29
Randy Savage	November 26, 1995	Norfolk, Virginia	974
Goldberg	July 6, 1998	Atlanta, Georgia	174
Kevin Nash	December 27, 1998	Washington, D.C.	78
Naoya Ogawa	March 14, 1999	Yokohama, Japan	29
Diamond Dallas Page	April 11, 1999	Tacoma, Washington	167
Gary Steele	September 25, 1999	Charlotte, NC	57
Bret Hart	November 21, 1999	Toronto, Ontario	56
Chris Benoit	January 16, 2000	Cincinnati, Ohio	8
Sid Vicious	January 25, 2000	Las Vegas, Nevada	83
Jeff Jarrett	April 16, 2000	Chicago, Illinois	9
David Arquette	April 25, 2000	Syracuse, New York	75
Booker T)	July 9, 2000	Daytona Beach, Florida	71
Mike Rapada	September 19, 2000	Tampa, FL	6
Vince Russo	September 25, 2000	Uniondale, New York	50
Sabu)	November 14, 2000	Tampa, FL	12
Scott Steiner	November 26, 2000	Milwaukee, Wisconsin	149
Steve Corino	April 24, 2001	Tampa, FL	91
Kurt Angle	July 24, 2001	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania	6
The Rock	August 19, 2001	San Jose, California	26
Chris Jericho	October 21, 2001	St. Louis, Missouri	55
Shinya Hashimoto	December 15, 2001	McKeesport, PA	186
Ken Shamrock	June 19, 2002	Huntsville, AL	49
Ron Killings	August 7, 2002	Nashville, TN	26
Triple H	September 2, 2002	Milwaukee, WI	76
Shawn Michaels	November 17, 2002	New York, NY	236
A.J. Styles	June 11, 2003	Nashville, TN	401
Randy Orton	August 15, 2004	Toronto, ON, Canada	231
Ray González	April 3, 2005	San Juan, Puerto Rico	>1
Batista	April 3, 2005	Los Angeles, CA	77
Raven)	June 19, 2005	Orlando, FL	126
Rhino	October 23, 2005	Orlando, FL	112
Christian Cage	February 12, 2006	Orlando, FL	49
Rey Mysterio	April 2, 2006	Rosemont, IL	231
Abyss)	November 19, 2006	Orlando, FL	133
The Undertaker	April 1, 2007	Detroit, MI	37
Edge)	May 8, 2007	Pittsburgh, PA	70
The Great Khali	July 17, 2007	Laredo, TX	46
Adam Pearce	September 1, 2007	Bayamón, Puerto Rico	303
CM Punk	June 30, 2008	Oklahoma City, OK	33
Brent Albright	August 2, 2008	New York City, NY)	84
Blue Demon Jr.	October 25, 2008	Mexico City, Mexico	29
John Cena	November 23, 2008	Boston, MA	196
Jeff Hardy	June 7, 2009	New Orleans, LA	296
Jack Swagger	March 30, 2010	Las Vegas, NV	110
Kane)	July 18, 2010	Kansas City, MO	212
Dolph Ziggler	February 15, 2011	San Diego, CA	19
Colt Cabana	March 6, 2011	West Hollywood, CA	48
The Sheik	April 23, 2011	Jacksonville, FL	148
Mark Henry	September 18, 2011	Buffalo, NY	91
Daniel Bryan	December 18, 2011	Baltimore, MD	105
Sheamus	April 1, 2012	Miami, FL	215
Kahagas	November 2, 2012	Clayton, NJ	67
Alberto Del Rio	January 8, 2013	Miami, FL	67
Rob Conway	March 16, 2013	San Antonio, TX	294
Satoshi Kojima	January 4, 2014	Tokyo, Japan	407
Hiroyoshi Tenzan	February 14, 2015	Sendai, Japan	196
Jax Dane	August 29, 2015	San Antonio, TX	419
Tim Storm	October 21, 2016	Sherman, TX	414
Nick Aldis	December 9, 2017	Sewell, NJ	266
Cody	September 1, 2018	Hoffman Estates, IL	1093
Trevor Murdoch	August 29, 2021	St. Louis, MO	167
Matt Cardona	February 12, 2022	Oak Grove, KY	273
Tyrus)	November 12, 2022	Chalmette, LA	196
Seth "Freakin" Rollins	May 27, 2023	Jeddah, Saudi Arabia	1+

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