The Chalice & The Sewer, or a Miracle in South St. Paul

A Catholic church in St. Paul, Minnesota, may have a bleeding eurcharist on their hands. This quote from the Star Tribune caught our interest as the chalice & the sewer are both subjects of LoSian concern:

...it [the dropped eurcharist] was placed in a chalice-like container with water so it would dissolve. Then it was to be poured into a special sink not connected to the sewer system.

The miracle was reported by a former soldier priest who took the pics at the top of this post--two callings that require incredible personal sacrifice, but immediately reminds us of the Knights Templar and sets our lizard brains to conspiracy-minded reflexive defensive posturings ("Duck! Xe's got us lined up in their Trijicon!").* An encounter with an army chaplain supposedly kick-started Heller's "Catch-22". I can imagine why.

At any rate, the supposed miracle is being investigated by biologists. I have no idea why biologists would investigate this. What possible good outcome can they envision? If they report it as natural phenomena, well, they just crushed the spirits of the hopeful. And if they report it as a miracle, won't their biologist badges be revoked? And who pays for the lab time?

The "miracle" will almost certainly wind up to be another case of serratia marcescens, a bacteria that looks red and keeps popping in these cases, apparently altering the course of human history.

It seems to be relevant to this story that 21 churches are slated to close in twin cities--including St. Augustine which has reported the possible miracle. When I asked Daurade for his take on this story, he said that "I'd like to see you talk about the merging of churches and how a miracle could boost one church's claim against another. then relate the numerous examples where this was happening, dueling claims to have a certain saint's relics, the traffic of relics etc....something like that?" Well, yeah, I'd like to see something like that, too, but I lack the historical knowledge, so I'll let you share your own stories in the comments.

Meanwhile, the Virgin's appeared in Green Bay, WI!

And boy-oh-boy don't them there pics that the chaplain took look like an eye-nipple?

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* An interesting game (that I suspect David Foster Wallace of playing) is to see how many characters (i.e., not letters) you can type in a row without breaking standard grammatical conventions. I have to take this moment to brag on the !").* 5-character combo that led to this footnote. I confess that the asterisk is pushing it (conventions-wise), but 5 in a row is pretty damn good.

Smiley Face Killers

Some nine months back, the LoS reported on the Mississippi River's apparent appetite for death.

And now we learn with fear and sadness that Christopher Jenkins, supposedly a victim of accidental drowning in the Mississippi near downtown Minneapolis on Halloween of 2002, was perhaps a victim of the Smiley Face Killers:




From CNN.com:

In all, the investigators say they've connected the bizarre drowning deaths of at least 40 college-age men across the country ... connected by a creepy symbol left near the water's edge: a smiley face painted on trees and other surfaces ... The most sinister was found in Iowa ... drawn in red with a devil's horns. Next to the smiley face was a note that read, "Evil Happy Smiley Face Man." ... The detectives say the string of deaths could be the work of more than one killer because some of them took place on the same day in different states. "It's so widespread. We have so many different victims in so many different areas," Duarte said. "It would, in my view, be impossible to be one person."

Let's repeat that last statement from Detective Duarte: "It would, in my view, be impossible to be one person."

Now let's jump west to British Columbia, where four sneaker-wearing severed right feet have washed to shore in British Columbia in less than one year.







What the?!? Four severed *right* feet washed to shore!?! Four?!?

Let's repeat, again, that last statement from Detective Duarte: "It would, in my view, be impossible to be one person."

An astute blog-reader recently noted this pair of quotes from Charles Manson and David Berkowitz (Son of Sam):

What about your children? You say there are just a few? There are many, many more, coming in the same direction. They are running in the streets -- and they are coming right at you! -- CM

There are other 'Sons' out there -- God help the world. --DB

With that in mind, consider the gruesome case of the Happy Face Killer, currently incarcerated for eight murders, a string of crimes committed while the killer taunted the police with notes inscribed with a smiley face.

Again, Detective Duarte: "It would, in my view, be impossible to be one person." Say it three times and it's true.

Thank you, Detective. I will sleep soundly as I dream of the Happy Face Killer bilocated, roaming and killing while quietly incarcerated.

The face of the LORD is against them that do evil -- Psalm 34:16

God help us.

Sacred Waters

How we take care of the water is how it will take care of us

– Eddie Benton Benais, Grand Chief of the Mdewiwin (Medicine) Society, Anishinabe spiritual elder

“She keeps men faithful to their wives and will judge and kill men who violate the sanctity of marriage if called upon to do so, because her husband was unfaithful to her, causing her to commit suicide, and to hate and punish all unfaithful men.” So writes Cat Yronwode on Santisima Muerte, going on to note similarities with La Llorona, ghostly haunt of the North American southwest. The tales of La Llorona are wideflung and varied, adopted to regional cultures and landscapes. “At any rate,” Wikipedia noting the common thread that strings these tales together, “La Llorona chooses to murder her children, almost always by drowning, either to spare them a life of poverty, to free herself to seek another man, or for revenge against their absent or stray father.”

This turned our minds to the tale of Ampato Sapa—whose name is Dakotan for “Dark Day”:

“A young Indian woman sat in a little canoe with her two small children, and rowed it out into the river in the direction of the falls [...] She sang in lamenting tones the sorrow of her heart, of her husband's infidelity, and her determination to die. [...] Her voice was soon silenced in the roar of the fall. The boat paused for a moment on the brink of the precipice, and the next was carried over it and vanished in the foaming deep. The mother and her children were seen no more. The Indians still believe that in the early dawn may be heard the lamenting song deploring the infidelity of the husband; and they fancy that at times may be seen the mother, with the children clasped to her breast, in the misty shapes which arise from the fall around the Spirit Island.”

Today these falls—the only on the upper Mississippi river—lay in the heart of Minneapolis, but numerous native traditions imbue this region with Geomantic sacredness. Let your imagination flow with Sapa’s spirit downstream: After crashing over the falls, home to Oanktehi, a Dakotan god of waters and evil, you gust past Spirit Island, where legend has it that Dakotan women came to give birth; a few miles tumble by rushed before the rapids slowly subside as the bluffs rise above you; a few lazy miles further and you feel Minnehaha’s cold splashing into the river; Minnehaha Falls, revered as “a sacred place, a neutral place, a place for many nations to come,” babbles through the hills on your right, hidden by trees and terrain; floating on another mile or two, you carve through a deep river gorge and far overhead flows Cold Water Springs “from which the sacred water should be drawn”; you spin, sailing by Pilot Knob, “considered to be the center of the world by the Dakota,” curving sharply as the Minnesota River (“Mdote Minisota”) confluence shoves the powerful Mississippi northwest; crossing into modern-day St. Paul you drift a few miles further, passing Carver’s Cavern (now gone, destroyed for a railroad), where the Dakotans held tribal councils, their burial grounds soaring above you on Dayton’s Bluffs.

Jump forward in time and the first white face on the scene adds a new sacred tie: Father Hennepin, Franciscan explorer, christened the falls St. Anthony after his patron saint Anthony of Padua, “Hammer of Heretics,” bilocationist, and finder of things lost. (Ampato Sapa knew the falls as Minirara, or “curling water.”) As time marches forward, the city of Minneapolis slowly erects itself around Minirara, harnessing the fall’s power to drive sawmills, textile plants, and grain mills; progressively taming the falls with locks, dams, skirts, and bridges; and eventually obliterating Spirit Island in the process of civilizing Old Man River.

Pause for a second. Consider the drownings of La Llorana and Ampato Sapa, the sacredness of water across so many cultures, and the theme of revenge. Faithful readers will recall that recently, while reporting on Gargantuan (who “lived at the bottom of a well where people came to throw stones at him, hitting him in the head”), we told of “a young woman, a bread maker, [who] once went to a sacred fountain to get water for her dough and as she lifted the bucket the water turned to blood.”

“Folklore has it that sacred water used for profane purposes leads to punishment and pollution of water,” we wrote, asking, “was she the last remnant of a pagan culture?”

We found our answer in an echo. Check this out: “A Minneapolis city employee got a gruesome surprise as he was cleaning the city's sewer line. A manhole near a medical laboratory began spraying human and animal blood into the face and mouth of Ron Huebner […] ‘Blood just all over my face, in my mouth, I could taste it. It was terrible. I had it in my mouth and I kept spitting and I couldn't get rid of it’.”

The Associated Press goes on to report that “the Metropolitan Council, has confirmed that the blood was indeed a combination of both animal and human matter […and that] nearly fifty different organizations possess permits allowing them to dispose of those kinds of wastes.”

Just to recap: That’s human blood, dumped by permit into the Mighty Mississippi, just upstream from Oanktehi’s sacred home in Minirara Falls (now both dammed and sainted) where Ampato Sapa killed herself and her children before haunting Spirit Island (obliterated by engineers), a few miles up river from the Dakotan tribal council caverns (sheered away for a rail road) and burial grounds (now a city park).

July 26, approximately four months following the bloody baptism, a storm raged in drought-ridden Minneapolis. A crew repairing the sewer fled to the surface for their lives. Two didn’t make it out alive; their drowned bodies washed into the Mississippi.

Six days later, the interstate 35 W bridge, spanning the river a few blocks south of the falls, collapsed: Cars, rebar, people, concrete strew into the river; thirteen killed, a hundred more injured. A “main artery,” President Bush said. Severed. Curiously, few seem to have noticed that another artery has also been severed: River traffic, barges, no longer course through the heart of Minneapolis, blocked by the ruins—though the water continues to flow, churning through her breast.

Love, too, courses through the heart. Sever this artery, and answer to La Llorona—a familiar tale of coursing love, broken promises and broken hearts, and appeals for revenge. La Llorona—“the weeping”: Vengeful saint for the jilted; her tears continue to flow.