March Madness - - - Pope Watch Vs Wxr Watch

              The weather in Rome will be rainy all week, the sun will not even peak out until Friday.

Okay, I will admit it. I am one of those Jewish girls who has always been fascinated by the Catholic Church. I've always valued anything that was "God Centered" and "Cause Oriented" and wrongly thought of it as the "Orthodox Version" of the "Christian Religion."

Into quotes today, maybe I'll look online for some good quotes from Popes.

To be fair, over time and instruction from several good Christian friends who explained to me that it is a different religion I do understand how it all works. But, in my simplistic Jewish childlike mind I thought of Catholic like Hasidim, Baptist as Orthodox, Christians were kind of like Conservative Jews and Protestants and Lutherans as Reform.   There is a sort of historic logic there. Stop laughing.

So, the weather is mild and Triton was a "wash out" and the next storm is a good week away from creating valuable weather writing so I'm watching for smoke.

There are webcams and Pope Alerts... www.popealarm.com and there is always Twitter.

Hey when www.wral.com leads off with a story on the election of the Pope in a state that is not predominately Catholic during March Madness... that is a big news story.

http://www.wral.com/media-watching-for-results-of-papal-conclave/12210793/


The world we live in is so funny. Cardinals tweet their blog posts. Maybe we are all more alike than we want to believe. And, what do we all believe is the bigger question.

Cardinal Dolan ‏@CardinalDolan

Greetings again from Rome, the Eternal City, the city of Saints Peter and Paul! http://blog.archny.org/index.php/electing-a-new-bishop-of-rome/ …

Details

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Next time I make a tweet so I can post my blog, I will feel less guilty. If he can do it..so can I ;)

So, the Cardinal is a blogger and as always he writes eloquently as well as from the heart with a touch of a whimsical sense of humor. It must be such a huge event for him to participate in such a historical gathering that often rarely happens.

I remember watching for smoke with my ex-husband in an apartment years back. Both of us America kids working as Lubavitch Shluchim while taking care of our first baby and curiously, watching and waiting for the right color smoke to appear. People who answer a calling can I think better understand others who have such a calling even if the religion that is calling you is different. The commonalities exist....  prayer that you are doing the right thing, the need to serve others properly and get it right ... the urgency of the job and the needs of your congregants or students whose life emergencies do not exist on a 9 to 5 time clock. The sense of history and the value of a leader who leads a worldwide movement and the needs of his followers to be able to connect with him and be a vehicle to help others in the correct way.  History, religion and the power of the moment all colliding at once.

Prayers can be soothing in any language when sung with real devotion.

The Pope becomes a world leader who is looked upon for help by people as far away as South America and Vietnam. We become ethnocentric so often and forget that the there are Catholics everywhere. Just as there are 7th Day Adventists everywhere, especially in the Caribbean.

Growing up in Miami the first Catholics I knew were Irish. A short time later the Catholic Church in Miami became a Cuban institution in many people's minds.

This history of St. Peter and Paul in the Road Section of Miami IS a history of Miami in ways.

http://orthodoxpeterandpaulmiami.org/sspphistory.html

Worth reading for any real Miamian reading this blog today.

My two little girl friends with long blonde white poney tails would disappear into that big stone building for school as I went to Public School down the way. Somehow it seemed exotic and mysterious that they went to the big religious school that was used as a location shot in the movie




From the website on history above:

"We were constantly on the lookout for a proper place to establish our own church. In August 1954 attention was called to a mansion located at 1411 S.W. 11 Street. The mansion was originally built in 1927 for John Bernard Reilly - the first elected mayor of Miami. With the purchase of the property in the fall of 1954, we then adopted and recorded our charter in November 1954, by-laws were in place December 1959 and in 1957 the Sunday School was established with 20 children enrolled. On November 20, 1960, the property was paid for and a "Burning of the Mortgage" banquet was held."


The FIRST ELECTED MAYOR OF MIAMI....

That's the "ROAD SECTION OF MIAMI" where I grew up... my grandfather built homes and I lived in the shadow the three big religious buildings.

St. Peter and Paul seen up above.



Greek Orthodox Church on Coral Way:

Beth David on Coral Way.




Catholics, Jews and Greeks in old Miami in the 1960s living at the Sweet El apartments that now sell as condos... comically so somehow.



So, that was my world and the Pope was to me that man in Rome who they always spoke about.

When people make fun of the Pope...they make fun of other religious leaders too. You either respect it or you don't.

The Pope elected this year will be pushed to deal with social values that the Church has views on as well as political ones and I am sure somewhere there is someone at TWC.. possibly Cantore..who is hoping he will address Global Warming. As if the Church doesn't have enough critics now...

Seems in the old days weather was a safe topic and religion was not.

Nowadays religion is easy and the weather is not.

As a Miami girl I would love a South American Pope... or one from America or Canada, but could such a thing happen?

Either way I'll be here blogging, watching, tweeting and wondering and also praying. If the prayers of a Jewish Miami Girl living for now in Carolina are worth while ... as people of the Catholic faith need a leader that can help them navigate their way through the questions of faith that weigh heavy on all of us whether we discuss it with others or whether we hold those questions deep inside.

And, hey....there isn't anything going on in the Tropics to watch and as of yet I don't have a real favorite in the NC College Wars. If I have a child who attends a college here then that may change. I do lean towards Carolina Blue as a writer they have an edge in the literary world.



Besos Bobbi

Ps... if you want to weave together worries on the Pope being elected while a comet is in our skies.. many are and many do connect those dots here is the link for you:

http://news.yahoo.com/papal-election-triggers-doomsday-theories-114858611.html