A Mystery -- the Church -- and *Murder*

Now -- me?  I’ve had some pretty tough cases in my time.   But few have reached the complexity of the assassination/heist documented by my trusty drinking-buddy Dr Justice, here:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/04/paschal-scandal.html

Dr J isn’t really as dumb as he looks, but he does seem to have missed the key point here.  Why photoshop-off the picture of the wristwatch?  Obviously so that those investigating the assassination, having access only to the photoshopped version of the fatal session in the locked room, would not realize that the patriarch had been wearing a wristwatch before his demise -- and which, afterwards, was not found on the corpse.  So that the assumption would be that the motive was personal, or for religious rivalry, or perhaps just some atheist that hated the Church.  No-one would ever guess that the crime was committed to make away with the hidden contents of the watch. 

Pretty neat, in theory:  but the criminal’s failure to shop-off the tabletop reflection of the stolen item  provided the key to the whole case.

Murphy’s Dream

Once Murphy dreamt  the strangest dream.

A stranger came up to him in a bar, and said:  “You will have three daughters.”

And Murphy replied:  “That is beautiful to hear;  but how could that be?  I am not married to any wedded wife.   Nor can that ever come about;  for I am a detective, and in no wise permitted to marry.”  And Murphy went sorrowing away.

Yet the next day -- There there were!  His daughters three:  Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience.  And Murphy loved his daughters, with his whole heart.  

Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience were their names;  and they were

   => as lovely as the day is long;

    => as high as the moon in the sky;

     => as deep as the fish in the sea.

Life with them was not always easy; being a parent seldom is, and he had little enough of his own that he might share.  But he loved them, and served them, till he grew old in their service, and ancient of days.  His hair grew very white, and his mind grew very tired.

Then when his time came to depart this life, his daughters laid him tenderly in his shroud, and wrapped him with their gentle hands.

Murphy told this dream to his brother, Joey;  and Joey did not know what that dream might mean.   But he did know one thing:  “That is a very good dream, Murphy,”  Joey said.

And so they gave thanks for that nice strange dream.

They give thanks for many, many things.

Lenten reflections

Murphy is observing Lent;  and for now, has nothing to say.

For a review of last season's reflections, click here.

Murphy: On Liberty

Don’t get me wrong -- it’s not like I’m knocking freedom; in America, that’s like knocking apple pie.  But half the time it’s really a weasel word.

Look -- you got Free Will, no matter what.  Even if you’re in prison.  It’s a gift from God, flat out, and can’t be cancelled.   But half the time, if a guy or often a gal  starts using that word “free”, it’s cause there’s some responsibility they don’t want to live up to.  But they don’t got the guts or the decency to just say,  I’m too lazy, or, I’m too bored -- instead they run the old Freedom flag up the flagpole.

“I’ve got to be free -- I’ve got to me!”   No -- wrong; you don’t got to be you, whatever that means.   If you’re married, you got to be a good husband or a good wife, period.  If you’re in the Army, you got to be a good soldier.   If you’re in prison -- well, you gotta do your time.  Even if you’re a yegg -- you got to crack that safe and crack it fast and nice ‘n’ silent, you don’t got to express your very own special personality doing it.

Hey, free is okay -- not knocking it.  Sure beats the machines.  Only, free to do what.  You really are free -- free to kill, free to poison the well….  plain freedom doesn’t get you very far.  If this “free” is going to be anything better than getting comped on a room in Vegas, you better use it for something that matters.  Like, you marry a woman and get her with child, who you guard with your life, without question.   Or you work long late hours in a laboratory, doing what is needed, while people laugh at your pocket protector.  Or -- God forbid, but it happens -- you deploy, and face the bombs and the bullets, when they have to be faced.

Yeh, free.  Thank our God, I’m free not to be me -- not to be just plain small me-me-me-Murphy;  puling whining Murphy,  dreaming scheming  grinning sinning Murphy.  I’m free to try to be something more than that.  Free to stand with my comrades, blocking the pass; to stand for what our fathers knew is best about this country;  to stand with my bride at the altar;  to stand and then kneel, making offering of my will, before the gaze of our Savior -- kneeling, head bowed, like any serf or any slave -- the freedom to yield, and to accept amazing Grace.

I have free will and I am free.  But sometimes, our prayer must be:
Thy will, not my will, be done.

 

Murphy on Absolution

They sat amazed  amid the litter  left from last night’s excess.

            “Y’know Joey, it’d be really neat, you  &  me  were each priests.  Cause then, you did stuff like what you did, I could say:  Te absolvo.  And, I did stuff like what I did, then you could say:  Te absolvo.”

            And Joey, innocent of Latin, but catching the drift, said:

            “But I do, Murphy;  I already do.”

Murphy on horticulture

            “…But what baffles me is, how you can live in a place like this-- nothing but dust and desolation,  surrounded by tenements, so far from gardens.”

            Murphy is quick to react.  “Gardens what?  Gardens nothing!  Sure we got ‘em!  We got an urban garden!”

            Her reposeful face carefully registers a puzzled expression.

            “Just look outa the window!  Whaddaya see?”

            She peers.  “No gardens.  No foliage, even.  Just flat asphalt and cracked sidewalks.”

            “Egg-zack-ly!   Cracked sidewalks!  And whaddaya see growin up through the cracks?”

            “Just … weeds….”

            “’Weeds’… Look, I know, you got your garden, got your azaleas, whatever, then these uninvited guys start dropping by, crowding your ‘zaleas out, you call them ‘weeds’.  That’s fine;  I get that.  But when all you got is cracked sidewalks, and asphalt baking in the heat, then whatever can push its funky head up outa that crack, and grow green -- that’s no weed, sister, that’s a miracle.”

            Murphy glared, and stared out the window.  And the blessings he poured down upon those weeds, were like a fierce firehose of love.

In Praise of Camels

Time was, time was -- and that time is not now -- when any farmer or laborer, for the price of less than a stack of flapjacks, could buy a deck of smokes that’d do you proud.  You plunk down your two bits, they fork over two packs.  Crisp and fresh from the fields.

And the best of them all, was original, unfiltered Camels -- a unique and brawny blend  of fine domestic and Turkish tobaccos.  You’d carry the pack in the rolled-up sleeve of your T-shirt;  and when the sun was high in the sky, and it was time for a break, you might set down the plow, or find a place to sit on the embankments flanking the tracks, and you’d mop your brow with your bandanna, and knock back a Coke --

and then pull out a smoke.

The wooden lucifer you’d light  with a flick of the fingernail,

and you’d sigh as the flame leapt to life,

then draw it in -- come to me ! --

as you inhaled through the tube of expectant tobacco,

awakening from its long slumber

now alive and alight -- :

and like a dancer   whirling   and twirling her veils,

instantly began to release (sweet relief)

the waves and wafts of sweet frankincense,

that had lain fast in their  caskets of teak,

awaiting the touch of the groom.

And you sigh and give thanks,

sweetly sucking down the golden smoke,

down deep  into the lungs  where it belongs;

then blowing it out  in wreaths of rings,

which float off, expanding, till they rise to the skies,

and delight the choirs of angels.

It doesn’t come like that anymore.

First they stuck on filters, made of, I don’t know, asbestos or something --

something God never intended to touch our lips.

So everyone sickened and died.

Next they started spritzing the growing leaves

with ever-deadlier pesticides,

till it all became a byword for death.

Roasting and toasting,

slowly turning  in Hell,

are the souls of the tobacco-magnates.

Yet sweet and pure   as on the Seventh Day

is the unspoilt blossom

of God’s green earth.

And when He on that Day

shall call Christians from the grave,

then the plowboys and gandy-dancers,
teamsters and counter-jumpers,
wainwrights and boiler-makers,

will rise from the mold,

and ascend like smoke

unto Him.

Gratias agimus tibi, Domine.