My car was vandalized......

My beloved 2007 Hyundai Accent hatchback (and first new car, ever) was badly damaged sometime on Sunday night by vandals or drunks or someone. I was gone all day Monday to the Cleveland Air Show and came home that night to find the windshield of my car smashed in and a sizeable dent on my front hood. From appearances, it looks like someone fell off the wall separating the parking lot in back of our house from the Wendy's parking lot, landing smack dab on my hood and windshield. I'll bet they were drunk and horsing around or something and just lost their balance. Sadly, our driveway has become the neighborhood short cut path to the Wendy's behind us. Everyone uses it now to get to Wendy's, jeopardizing the security of our vehicles. I frequently find trash and beer cans and bottles in my driveway in the mornings, evidence of people using my driveway as a cut through. Next to Wendy's is a student bar called the "Robin Hood", once an elegant restaurant where students took their visiting parents, but is now something of a sleaze bar where much trouble breaks out on weekend nights. I suspect that people also use my driveway as a short cut to get to and from the Robin Hood as well, as has been evidenced by the number of beer cans and bottles regularly found in my driveway in the mornings. I've complained innumerable times to the city to no avail. It seems the city has no money to enforce laws and codes, but more than enough to acquire property to tear down for development. It makes no sense whatsoever. In the meantime, student housing neighborhoods have more than their fair share of run down housing, trash, noise and security problems on weekend nights. It almost makes me think that the city is looking for our neighborhoods to become enough of a slum that they can spend more money acquiring our properties to put up more trashy upscale development that no one can afford. This seems to have been the prevailing pattern in our city in recent years and it makes me see red every time I think about it. It almost feels like we're being gentrified out of the city in favor of upscale folks who can afford trendy lofts and expensive condos. But in the meantime, residents of and near the neighborhoods that are mostly student rentals have to put up with the yahoos who get drunk every weekend and litter and vandalize private property, and no one's willing to step up to the plate and deal with it accordingly. And some of us have grown weary of coping with this year in, year out, at the beginning and end of every school year and many months in between. Now that my new car has been rendered undriveable and had to be towed to the dealership for repairs, it really makes me angry that this has been allowed to happen and that I can't afford to move to more upscale housing to escape the drunken yahoos who trash my neighborhood each weekend.

VATICAN SPLENDORS

I took advantage of being off work on Tuesday to go up to Cleveland to view the Vatican Splendors exhibit on display at the Western Reserve Historical Society. After settling on the car repairs and receiving my rental vehicle (a very nice Mazda 5 crossover vehicle), I drove to Cleveland to see this exhibit since it is in its final week on display here locally. It was quite spectacular and brought back many memories of my Catholic childhood. Inasmuch as I was wowed by the many beautiful art objects and jeweled sacramentary vessels, papal tiaras, richly embroidered papal robes and other gorgeous items on display, there was something also a tad obscene about such a blatant display of wealth and riches when so many in the world are wanting for basic necessities like food, housing and clothing. I don't personally think that Jesus would approve of such things, myself. Popes have lived like kings in palaces and have dressed in richly jeweled and embroidered robes and pectoral crosses. The Cardinals are like princes, and the bishops are like barons, and basically, you have a feudal system within the Catholic Church that mirrors that of mediaeval life. I suspect that a lot of this comes out of the Middle Ages, when Popes wielded far more power than Kings or Princes did. Unfortunately, it seems that few Popes have realized that the main message of Christianity is to minister to those who are the least of us and to live a life not surrounded by bejeweled wealth but instead to live a life of poverty like those who are suffering in similar circumstances. At least this is what true Christianity means to me. I just think that the Catholic Church can be a bit hypocritical at times, especially when it comes to papal wealth and opulence. So while I admired the beauty and richness of all of those things on display throughout the history of the Catholic Church, still, a part of me felt a bit angry that so much money has been wasted building up such richness and opulence while so many have suffered in poverty and silence for so many centuries. I had to smile when I read that Pope Paul VI, who I grew up with as our Pope, sold the Papal tiara that he was crowned with and gave the money to the poor (how many millions of dollars did that generate, given the heavily jeweled tiaras that were on display?). At least, I thought, one Pope got it. He also dispensed with the richly jeweled papal crosiers that have been the symbol of Bishops (since the Pope is also Bishop of Rome) and instead went with a very simple and humble pastoral cross that was used by Pope John Paul II as well. So at least the modern Popes seem to have gotten it that conspicuous displays of wealth are a bit hypocritical in times when so many suffer in poverty. I was glad that I had a chance to see this exhibit and to see many items which, up to now, have never before been seen in public. I am grateful to the Vatican for opening its doors and allowing us just a small glimpse inside its many treasures. I just hope that this sends a powerful message to people that the real mission of Christianity is not conspicuous consumption, but rather, to minister to those who need it most, the poor and the least of us.