Abbey-Roads2

Expensive friends.

Caryll Houselander calls them psychologically expensive, today we may refer to them as high maintenance or needy.  We all have them in our lives - some of us may even be these friends.  I for one thought most of my friends were such as these, and then I found out that sometimes I have been a fairly demanding - okay, expensive friend as well. 

Out of the”group” of close friends I’ve had since childhood until now, 4 have some form of mental illness - well, depression or another mild form of personality disorder.  (IMHO)  Another member of the group is a highly functional pathological liar, 2 are/were gay, and 1 is/was bi-sexual.  Three oot of the 10 had been sexually abused as children.  Only 3 out of 10 are ‘devout’ Catholics, while 2 others are Sunday Catholics.  All of those who are married have stable happy marriages with children, and 9 out of 10 of these friends have been relatively successful in their careers.  Strangely, only 3 out of these 10 people could be categorized as psychologically expensive - the others do very well.  The pathological liar is the one closest to the high maintenance friends, and she only lies to get herself out of troublesome situations the expensive friends tend to create.  (So, maybe her lying isn’t so pathological after all.)

Anyway - they are a fun group and I love them dearly.  Although I wonder why I’m never invited to their parties any more.  (The liar slipped and told me about the holiday party she had the week before Christmas. She had some lame excuse that I would have been invited but I never answer the phone and I never show up anyway.  Yeah!  Right!  What a liar!  If I would have known about it I could have called the cops to raid it.  I’m so sure it was boring anyway.) 

This is one post in a series I’m doing on friendship. 

And on the third day… I finally got back on this %*&&# blog.  From time to time, I get locked out - so if I haven’t posted on any given day, check out the other Abbey - I’ll be posting there.

Singin’ in the reign…

You know how those middle-school music teachers,  Marty Culp and Bobbi Moughan-Culp on Saturday Night Live, entertained us by singing their pop-rock songs straight?  How they slowed down the tempo, Bobbi singing classically, enunciating each word clearly?  Well, anyway - it occured to me that sometimes dissident Catholics may put on a similar act.

They can sound sweet, well-meaning, even ‘orthodox’ - but their lyrics are still twisted.  They may look straight and conservative - but they are still pushing the envelope for change.  Other great examples of this marketing of evil technique are the hypocrites running for the 2008 presidential nomination, competing in the Iowa caucus, saying whatever they need to say to come out on top.

I suppose we ought to be well acquianted with this type of duplicity by now, having endured so many bishops and priests in sheep’s clothing over the last several years.  Yet maybe we’ve become too accustomed to this sort of manipulation, to the extent we are taken in more easily by the Stepford clone act when it is continually rerun for us.