Greetings! An introduction is in order.

Good morning! Welcome.

* Please forgive the grammatical errors. I'm a writer not an editor. If you understand Dr Seuss, you'll get through this fine. 

An introduction. A little history about the gal typing these words out. My name Is Lisa Koo. I'm a non-denominational ordained minister as of October 2024.

There’s so much to catch up on but we’ll take it all in stride. First, I should mention I’m a protestant, Lutheran. I grew up Lutheran thanks to my sainted grandmother Louise. My dad (from Utah, naturally) was raised devout Mormon. His then wife Vickie, not my biological mom, was raised Lutheran. Grandma Louise is Vickie’s mom. My dad and Vickie met serving in the Air Force. To put it mildly, Dad was a bit of scoundrel in the Air Force and as a civilian, but we’ll get into that later and as time goes on. 

I did not have a good relationship with Vickie growing up. She was extremely unstable and abusive to everyone and for some reason we all took it for many years, but I absolutely adored Grandma Louise. She played organ in her church. She had a large garden. She loved art. She bought me paint-by-numbers in hopes I would get into painting. In the summers I would paint on Grandma Louise’s porch with her little white dog, Taffy, at my feet as she pruned her flower garden. I was so happy. Grandma Louise was everything I wanted in a female role model. Although widowed young, Grandma Louise was calm, creative, and a joy to be around. She was extremely fashionable. She had outfits for every occasion. She wore stylish hats. She wore stylish gloves when she left the house. She wore a different pair of leather gloves for driving, of course. She loved Sunday drives after church. She drove a white Cadillac. Grandma Louise believed ladies ought to look like ladies. It was a different time then. I just adored this beautiful, charming lady. My grandma was widowed and never remarried. Never dated. She loved her husband until the day she died. This deeply affected me. 

My relationship with Grandma Louise strengthened from just a holiday-grandma to every-weekend grandma after what I call “a visitation” or “a sudden awareness” if you prefer. I was about seven years old when the “sudden awareness” happened. The next morning (short story version) I marched up to my dad and Vickie and demanded to know why we didn’t go to church. My parents decided to raise my brothers and I non-religious. I’m now 55 years old. 56 in January 2025. Back in the 70’s parents didn’t talk to their children; they reacted to their children. In response to my demanding query about church my parents sent me to Grandma Louise every weekend thereafter for Sunday school, group, church, and a few summers in Bible camp. In all honesty I couldn’t have been happier. And since I was one of those kids who loved to read, I was in absolute Heaven with all the Biblical books grandma Louise gave me over the years. Life with Grandma Louise was so peaceful. We truly saw ourselves in each other. I saw the woman I hoped to one day be. Grandma Louise saw the little girl she once was. But then, as with all great tragic love stories, bitterness and jealousy would invade our happiness and tear us apart.

When I was twelve years old Grandma Louise had asked my dad and Vickie if I could come live with her full time. Grandma Louise plead her case to my parents. I was happy with Grandma Louise. We got along perfectly. I would get the education I wanted and who better to mentor me in receiving it. Grandma Louise even offered to finance my college after graduating high school. My dad thought it was a wonderful idea. He appreciated the offer and was grateful for Grandma Louise’s kindness and generosity. But Vickie, she was infuriated. She felt spited. “Why didn’t you make the same offer to me?! Why didn’t you love me this way?! I’m your daughter not her!” Vickie’s spite and jealousy tore my relationship with grandma Louise apart. The last tearful conversation I had with Grandma Louise she said, “Try to make the best out of a bad situation, sweetheart. It’s what your father’s doing.” And just like that, Grandma Louise went back to being only a holiday-grandma. I didn’t know until years later that Grandma Louise proposed I come live with her. Grandma Louise wanted to surprise me not thinking my parents would actually turn down her offer. My dad was the one who told me years later when I was in my 20’s during a heartfelt father-daughter phone call. Back then however Vickie told me the reason for Grandma Louise returned to a holiday-grandma was because she had grown sick of me. But I knew better. “Try to make the best out of a bad situation, sweetheart. It’s what your father’s doing.” Grandma told me.

I can still recall words exchanged between Grandma Louise and my dad when I was little. Grandma Louise would scold dad, “You know where babies come from. You did this to yourself.” I myself have said those exact same words to both men and women over the years. After Vickie tore Grandma Louise and I apart I became extremely resentful and rebellious. I was twelve years old now and only getting older. I was out of the Lutheran church. Strayed from the flock as they say or rather held back from joining the flock. Vickie was no longer able to physically abuse me, but she was still my legal guardian until I turned eighteen. She was a skinny woman maybe 100 pounds. Her only exercise was occasionally sweeping and mopping the floors plus she smoked two packs a day and had started a drinking problem. By the time I turned thirteen years old the mere sight of Vickie ruined my day and I let her know it, loudly. I later learned my dad had a mistress back then with whom he bought a second house and had started a second family. Vickie knew. Dad told her apparently. But Vickie told my dad she wasn’t going anywhere. So, whether dad thought it was a good idea that I live with Grandma Louise because he was thinking of my well-being or his, I will never know. Either way dad should have stood up for me, or so I then thought.

I knew about dad’s mistress but not the house and kids. He eventually divorced Vickie and married his mistress when I was seventeen years old. I didn’t know about his other kids however until dad died in 2015 and his widow mentioned it in his Legacy announcement. Talk about shocking, but then again, knowing dad, maybe not so much. I still to this day have never met dad’s other children who would be around my age.

And for all this, back then, from the time I was thirteen until I was fifteen years old, there was no living with Vickie in peace. I’m sure I contributed to her drinking problem. “I’m afraid of her!” Vickie screamed at my dad, meaning me. So rather than sending me to live with Grandma Louise, dad sent me to live with a Catholic family. Well, they were ceremonial Catholics, I call them. Sunday-Easter-Christmas Catholics. Private school, Catholics. Pretty, well-dressed, Johnny Walker highballs at noon, Catholics. I was the only one who read a Bible and prayed in that house. From fifteen to eighteen years old I lived with this family and for a brief, very brief moment in time I considered serving the Catholic church for the rest of my life. I eventually came to my senses of course. In the 80’s the Catholic church to me was what social media is to kids today. The Catholic church held a flashy fascination over me. I was hypnotized by the opulence and grandeur of it all. And then a few years later, by the time I turned eighteen, I was reminded of why I loved Lutheranism so much... baptism, communion, reading my Bible and praying, is how I receive oneness with Christ. Immediately after taking a second look around with eyes wide open, I was disgusted by the Catholic church’s opulence and grandeur of it all. Glitter and glam, how phony. Now, please keep in mind this is where I stand. This is the hill I will die on. Too many wars, all started by men I might add, have broken out between Catholics and Protestants. I personally do not care what your denomination or non-denomination is. First and foremost, are you a compassionate, patient, aware, considerate and mindful human being? That’s what I care about more than anything else. Character matters first. Live and let live. All things in moderation. Good health. Balance. The ten commandments which really doesn’t need to be Biblical. You know what’s right and wrong. You know. 

Kids today are smarter than my generation ever was. Case in point, how many under 30 millionaires are there in America today? Know how many there were in my generation, NONE. Kidding. There may have been a few who inherited.

In my 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s I stepped away from the church. I married a man who wasn’t religious, but everything looked great on paper. I am divorced. I would like to remarry one day.

In my 50’s I have been called back to the Lutheran church. Funny thing about being a protestant, the Catholics scream, the non-religious scream and I’m just over here silently peacefully, doing my thing. But I’m compelled by a nagging resoluteness to do more, be more, and since I’m a better reader and writer than entertainer, here we are. Not everything here is about religion. Some things are especially when Catholics scream, I am compelled to reply. I once lived among a community of Catholics for a short period of time and that was plenty. The purpose of starting my website this way is to let you, dear reader, know I came from a very broken home but, I have lived a long time and through experience, Christ and prayer, I am more cerebral than rightist, to hear you and perhaps give advice if you care to listen. 

I’m also from Minnesota and say things like, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Interestingly enough, even though dad and his mistress, Caroline, were both married when they started their affair and family way back in the 80’s, Caroline is Catholic (not sure what kind of Catholic, hmm?) therefor dad converted to Catholicism as well. That was a deal, let me tell you. But it made dad happy, so I did my part to see to his happiness. I could be bitter, sure. I could scream, "Why didn’t you stand up for me when I needed you!” But then I would be no better than Vickie and look how her life turned out. She died alone in 2023 of lung cancer. For the whole of her adult life, she refused to believe cigarettes gave you cancer. Even in the hospital on her deathbed she fought with doctors and screamed she didn’t have lung cancer it must be something else. "Now cure me! Earn your diplomas!"

I believe life happens the way it's supposed to. You endure pain and suffering as you do because it is the only way to prepare you for what lies ahead, good or bad, life or death, yours or someone close to you. I believe I lived the way I lived to better serve others. I believe that is what Christ chose for me back when I was seven years old. I believe Christ gave me a solid foundation and then made certain I went out into the world and experience the things I have so that I may come back to Him mentally armed and ready to serve Him and those lost to Him. Make no mistake, I have no interest preaching you into joining the church. I have no interest dancing or cleverly performing for you in hopes of seducing you into joining the church. I serve Christ. That is my calling. And He told me, “Talk to the people. Let your words be their choice to read or not read, hear or not hear. Be an option. Talk to the people.” I have my opinions, philosophies, and Faith. I don’t know everything, nor will I ever claim to. I am a servant and pupil of this earthly world for Christ. I believe humans are individuals with individual needs and rightly so. Let’s hear a Catholic say that! I like giving Catholics ribbing from time-to-time. God knows Catholics rib Protestants every gosh-dang chance they get. In fact, I’ll end this intro blog with my first Catholic ribbing:

Catholics, especially Catholic priests, don’t worship the Virgin Mary. (Big sigh. Here we go!) God’s Adam was sinful, disobedient, and unworthy to be His son. God then chose the Virgin vessel Mary who was pure and without sin to birth into the world God’s true son Jesus Christ, and then... Virgin Mary was cast aside.

As we say in Minnesota, what the serious heck?  Use Virgin Mary and cast her aside?! Heck no you didn't!

Mary was just God’s breeder according to, I’m guessing, at least 90% of Catholic men. Aaand that’s all you really need to know about these dancing Catholic priests on Tik Tok, ladies.

There are Catholics who do worship Virgin Mary. I suspect because they had strong powerful moms and/or sisters, God bless them!

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is

with thee; blessed art thou among

 

women and blessed is the fruit of thy

womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of 

God, pray for us sinners, now and at 

the hour of our death. Amen.