The Curse of the Baby Jesus

Hello, friends. This is one of those "I told you that story so I could tell you this one" moments.

First, though, I just finished knitting something that involves non-knitting construction. It is a tablet pyramid, but without the foam or poly-fil, it looks like a really depressed throw pillow. So, there is that.

So, in order to read today's post, you need to catch up on a post from 10 years ago. The Original Baby Jesus Story can be found here. I recommend reading it before going any further.

"Life-sized Baby Jesus" has been a haunting theme in my life for decades. I am Catholic, but I am the generation after the Guilt Catholics, so I can have a bit more lighthearted of a sense of humor about the stiffness of the church. It turns out, so can my mom and my aunt.

Also, my friend PJ, who is mentioned in the other blog post, has found that the phrase is an accurate depiction of life in the front yard of Chicago homes, vivid enough to be used to describe a horrific scene at Midway Airport. The phrase does not have to be humorous to be compelling.

My aunt is visiting from Florida this week, and it is more of a power-visit, racing against the clock to get their genealogy papers in order. I of course volunteer to help, whenever this comes up. I have a subscription to newspapers.com, and it is the best $150 per year I spend, including 7-Eleven coffee every morning. I looked up obituaries for them.

What made this super-duper fun is that they were looking up the Drzastwa family, so of course I got to flex my Duolingo Polish muscles. And by "flex," I mean that I could pronounce the words correctly and then say something like, "Ooh...this is the social page and the report says they were visiting friends out-of-town!" It felt like a hell of an accomplishment to learn enough of a Slavik language in a year and a half to do that.

Over the weekend, I opened the cabinet with the garbage can, so I could throw something away. Amid the papers on the dining room table going to a shredder box, and all of the organized piles of things they were keeping placed neatly in a line along one side, the garbage can held an interesting treasure. Sticking out from the side of the plastic bag was a bejeweled crown. I figured it was a silly old liquor bottle from the 1970's. Oh, no...friends, it was a porcelain Infant Jesus of Prague doll.

I walked down the hall with it in my hand. Jesus was missing one jewel from his crown, and his blessing hand had broken off, so there was a gaping hole in his right side (of course, Jesus would be depicted as both white and right-handed...why make him the Israeli lefty that he most likely was?). I see my mom and my aunt walking toward me, so I gestured to the statue. "Was this the one from Aunt Starlene, or the one from your mom?"

And...the can of emotional worms was open. This post should have come with a trigger warning, sorry.

My mom unintentionally raised her voice. "No, no...oh no. This is a third one! You should have heard me when I opened the damn box and found this thing...it was like, 'Are you kidding me?'"

So, take away the humor for a second. This is a box my mom most likely had opened in the past. It was full of her parents' financial records, other genealogical copies, and old photos. But, behold! Yet Another Infant Jesus Of Prague! Hence, the curse. I can trace the other two, but this one, I am certain, was plopped in there by a dead relative, and it was their way of saying "quit reading our Polish-language obituaries already."

Well, it turns out there was an entire box of Catholic shit accompanying this doll, including his Liberace-style regalia, clearly handmade with love and gorgeous stichery, if you could separate the fact that it is used to dress a porcelain religious figure with only one hand. 

There was a blessing from the Pope, most likely brought by Father Tom when he was visiting from California (he was my great uncle). There was a blessing from the Pope for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. 

There were rosaries upon rosaries upon rosaries.

There were two random medals, Our Lady of Olives, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. We do not know their purpose in my grandmother's life, but there must have been one.

And...then there was the last photo, below. The item in the bottom left contains a seven-foot long rosary in the twist-off portion of the bottom. Then, there is the cross, the teeny Infant Jesus of Prague (I think...might be a Cardinal), the personal holy-water thermos on the right (there is a proper name for that, too), and then the thing at the top.

The item at the top is some sort of dildo-shaped box with pop-open doors, and Jesus appears like a music box to pray at you or something. What is amazing about this item is it can also be found in Joel Dovev's book, Crap At My Parents' House. Joel, I feel you.

I reached out to my friend Father Jim, who is a priest in the city. He already knew about the two original baby Jesus dolls, because when I was in his rectory once, he jokingly asked if I wanted a life-sized bust of Pope John Paul II, so I explained to him that my mom would LOVE it. The Pope landed in Mom's freezer, and it took her a few weeks to find him. 

As you may have read above, my mom was not too pro on throwing out Baby Jesus, but this third one was akin to Phoebe trying to get rid of the beeping smoke alarm on the television show "Friends." I understand why it was in the trash. I asked Father what the proper way of disposing of a porcelain Infant Jesus of Prague doll with a broken and missing blessing hand was (it should be noted that my aunt looked for the missing blessing hand in the box, and it was not there; further proof this was just a curse from a dead Polish relative). He said that the proper way was to destroy it and bury the dust.

Well. The can of worms was suddenly an art project.

This turned into the highlight of my aunt's trip. They went up to my mom's "wooden house" in Michigan, and when I called to ask what their plans were, they had really done their due diligence on how to contain Jesus' pieces. They had discussed how to keep the dust contained, how to get the larger pieces into smaller pieces for easy burial, and the best type of earth in which to bury the dust. Their original plan was to roll over it with the car.

I liked that idea, but with a house like that one, I also felt they were missing a golden opportunity to toss it off of a loft. 

Friends, here is the ceremonial pulverization of the Third Infant Jesus of Prague, in three parts. It was not smooth sailing, as it turned out; the head was on some sort of "wire lollipop." Enjoy.

https://youtu.be/QGzZuxuCIQg

https://youtube.com/shorts/FtWXUSogxJY

https://youtu.be/NU9OajXv9uo

Oh...and please, pray for us.

Swatching and Those Red Cups

Good morning from Chicago! I am sitting in my sun room, which is not particularly sunny during autumn and winter, and I had a dream last night that someone tried to hit me with their car while I was swimming (because that is how my brain works).

Also, I touch upon swatching about once a year in either my column or the blog, because yes, it is that important. Here are my top eight reasons I think you should swatch:

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-top-eight-reasons-to-swatch

Many of you know that I work for Starbucks now. After Cascade, I wanted a sort of breather. I have worked for Walmart, Gap, Inc., and Nordstrom as well, because working for large, established companies means that if you ever need or choose to go back to them for employment, you can do it in almost any city where you land. This time around, it was Starbucks.

And I have yet to encounter a customer who cares that our holiday cups are red, or that they do not say "Merry Christmas!" on them, with a bunch of snowflakes.

While I am not a representative of the company in the sense that I have authority to speak on their behalf, I do have opinions about this as an old-fashioned human being that I feel may benefit others in their quest to get large companies heard, due to my employment history. I got into a rather colorful discussion about this on facebook, and I have come to a few conclusions that I thought I would share:

1.  Telling the barista that your name is Merry Christmas is all sorts of dumb. If you are protesting in outrage, then please explain to me why you are continuing to give the company money every day. Also, the barista will write almost anything you like on your cup, because if it is rush hour and your drink is being plopped onto a counter with six other drinks within mere seconds of each other, then we want to make sure your own drink is the one that heads to the train station with you.

2.  Continuing to talk about it on social media is all sorts of dumb. Many of your social media friends, believe it or not, are not Starbucks regulars. But suddenly, all of these people who never walked into a Starbucks, but most likely pass one every day if they live in a community of more than about 12,000 people, feel compelled to walk in and look at these red cups, live and in the flesh. Then, I know what happens becuase I am also a customer of Starbucks:  "Ooh! Chocolate croissant!"

3.  Worrying about it in the first place is all sorts of dumb. Do you have little kids? Are you living paycheck to paycheck? Do you need a new roof? Is your next-door neighbor worried that her kids do not have the proper winter gear for the upcoming weather? Did you hear about the gunshots in the Gresham neighborhood? From where I am sitting, all of these topics are more important than red cups at Starbucks, and yet they are not anywhere more forward than your cerebral cortex. Ask yourself why.

4.  The media reporting on it in the first place is all sorts of dumb. Speaking of gunshots, a nine-year-old boy was gunned down in a targeted gang shooting this weekend. How about we stop the stupid red-cup conversation and talk about where his parents were, the fact that the educational system let us down, how it may be horrible that it was gang-related but that little boy was still someone's child and family member, or even how we can use money we spend at Starbucks to help curb gang violence in our communitites, if you are still interested in "protesting?" And yes, here I am talking about it in the so-called media, but I am trying to nip it in the bud with this post.

5.  Hypocrisy regarding this topic is all sorts of dumb. Part of the facebook discussion (my facebook page is public, by the way, so feel free to read it) revolved around Christians saying, "Why me?" as a majority religious voice. Well, call me crazy, but victimhood is not exactly a fundamental Christian value. Why you? I, as a Catholic, can answer that question with everything from, "Why anybody?" to "What makes you think this is aimed at any one particular religious group in the first place?" If your brand of Christianity teaches entitlement, publicly-traded corporations using their reach as a platform for your agenda, or God taking care of you in the way YOU see fit instead of how HE sees fit, then you need to re-evaluate how you identify as a Christian. Just like you cannot shout "Less government!" while simultaneously complaining that the government needs more regulation on a certain issue, having it both ways just is not possible.

If you actually, truly are offended by Starbucks and their festive cups, here is my advice to you:  stop drinking their coffee, write a letter to CEO Howard Schultz, and send it to the corporate office. Or go to the website and offer your feedback. And the next time all six of you are "outraged" over desensitizing Christmas (my fancy algorithm in my head literally suggests the number of outraged people is less than ten), wear a string on your finger to remind you of that as you are standing in line for a television at 50% off on Thanksgiving night.

Also, if everybody lives like a true Christian (I mean values-wise, not converting anyone and everyone to Chritianity), then nobody will give a crap what Starbucks does on their cups. I only know my own personal relationship with God, but I have never been given any indication that He asked a Board of Directors at Starbucks to take "Merry Christmas!" off of their cups. But I am guessing that if any messages were received, it was more of a "giving" message than a "taking" one, as illustrated by the fact that veterans can get a free tall coffee tomorrow, on Veterans Day, as a thank-you for their service.

A Catholic nun from Chicago just won "Chopped," and she plans on using her $10,000 to help feed the homeless and underprivileged. That, my friends, is Christmas. Knitting mittens and hats for school-aged children in Nekoosa, Wisconsin so that parents do not have to skip a meal to afford winter clothes? That is Christmas. Celebrating the birth of Jesus by attending church, donating money and time to causes for people less fortunate, and re-telling His story regarding teachings of tolerance, acceptance, and unconditional love? That, from what I have learned, is Christmas. And I have worked a Black Friday for Walmart, so I have seen people drop their morals and values for material possessions literally in an instant.

Starbucks? Starbucks is coffee. And it is damn yummy coffee. Words on a coffee cup? Put it to bed.