My Dear Child,
Let me tell you how to rule:
Small moments where beauty collects that could have been missed but aren't:
these are gifts, young man.
Cherish them while you have them and dwell on them a little while after they're gone.
Then put them away with all the others.
You may pause for a moment to marvel,
to behold the great sight of all these moments together,
but move on.
Don't hold them in your hand after they spoil.
Set them down and step on top of them, for they are your throne;
they cannot lift you higher if they're still in your hand.
If you clutch them to your breast,
you will never see any more than those few you can hold.
Wandering around with your hands full like an fool;
like a sinner.
Just let them go
and be free.
Look to the sky, my beloved, and see.
See the way it all works;
things as they are.
In the top floor of the tallest building,
there sits the richest man in the world.
He looks across the land,
and thinks that it is his.
He sneers a challenge at the sky,
and waits for his answer.
Waits until death.
But look higher,
and see the brave who fly amongst the clouds.
They, though higher than the rich man,
understand the power of the Heavens,
and respect the wind, the clouds, the lightning, and the rain.
Though these brave souls soar above all lands and men,
they do not venture to possess them.
For they know that a single breeze,
a single strike from a cloud,
or even the mere presence of ice,
could send them careening from their throne.
Some day, my son, you will inherit my kingdom.
And when that day comes, I implore you:
heed the wisdom of the men of flight.
And you will be fit to rule.
-your loving Father
Thursday, July 24, 2014
The Tyranny of Familiarity, (or why it took me four years to stop worrying and love Home)
Over the years I have grown increasingly aware of the fact that I simply do not understand this place called "home".
It's deceiving, because you really think you do know all about home. That's like, the definition of the place.
Wrong.
Home is a tricky thing to define. I once gave the definition of home as the place where I've set my journals down. But today, I'll set the definition as that place where you grew up and where your family still lives.
For me, very clear and brilliant thoughts almost never occur in the armchair. I can't just sit down and think, expecting witty connections to just occur.
Instead, they happen while I'm doing things. It would be a rare occasion that my mind is actually focused on the activity before me. It's always wandering, and it does its best wandering while my hands or ears are occupied. The thoughts will come while I'm walking to class, or during a homily, or (sadly) while someone else is talking. They'll pop into my head and demand attention, and who am I to refuse?
So if you'd look, 2 years ago you'd have said that I was at the pub in Donegal talking to Mario, but in reality my attention was actually on the nature of going home. Spinning around, making clever observations and struggling against the cloudy monstrosity of language to find clever ways to express them.
For a child, going home is the natural end to the day.
For an adult, going home is an intensely complicated affair.
Going home has the potential to be one of the most satisfying as well as frustrating experiences an adult can have. Home is the comfortable host of many happy memories, so going home should be a peaceful and warm experience.
But of course, soon into college I recognized that it was exactly NOT peaceful and warm. It was often nerve-racking and difficult, and above all it was annoying. Something about going home was supremely annoying, and I really couldn't put my finger on what that was.
However, there in the pub with Mario, it all made sense. You see, he had just given me the honor of watching him go home. I accompanied him across the Emerald Isle to his tiny hometown. We drove for a very long time through a valley, until we could turn and climb the right-hand slope and arrive at his house.
And that's when everything changed.
You see, the Mario I knew was very calm and excellent with people. He strongly disliked conflict, and was very good at defusing a tense situation.
It took 4 hours for this to completely change. In 4 hours, he had a domestic with his dad and we were kicked out of the house. 4 hours, and his character completely changed.
His mom sat with me in the kitchen the whole time, nursing her tea while the hot Irish tempers pounded against the wall. She smiled her soft knowing smile, and meekly said, "some things never change."
"SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE?!" I raged inside my head later that evening at the pub, back with the Mario that I had come to know. "Do you even know your child?!"
That's when it occurred to me: no, she doesn't know him. Not anymore. Mario had been away from home for quite some time now, and all that while he'd been growing and changing and getting to be more of himself.
And all of this happened away from the eyes of his parents. To them, a child left home and a child returned. It's like they set a book down, and when he returns they simply pick the book right back up and the characters and setting and plot are all exactly as they were when they put the book down.
The problem is, homecoming is not like picking up a book where you left off. They didn't account for the change in Mario, 'cause they didn't see it happen. He had changed immensely, but their Expectation remained exactly as it was.
Expectations are dangerous things. They prime you for an experience, forming the kind of embrace that you open to an event. And therefore, they begin to form experiences.
I'm really susceptible to expectation. It's supremely annoying, watching myself change the frequency of my voice and my grammar and the very way I form thoughts just to meet an expectation.
Like with Matt.
Matt sees me as a snot-nosed sophomore. It was the first thing he saw of me. And he saw this through the eyes of his return from the novitiate, so he looked back at this image from his past (me) from which he had grown immensely and he snarled with a knowing disgust. I was the image of his juvenile days, and there I have remained ever since.
And though I think and act as if I've grown out of that Sophomore Self, Matt hasn't stopped expecting it from me. And therefore, when I talk to Matt I watch in frustrated amazement as my maturity evaporates and I bend to meet his expectation.
(what a delightful scheme I've crafted to avoid blame for not being genuine in conversation)
So when one goes home and meets the expectations of home, a war begins. The expectation is that the book can be picked up: the 18-year-old that left will simply be returning.
Within hours, the years of intense growth all-of-a-sudden threaten to evaporate. But you dig your feet in. First, you avoid the problem. You withdraw into your room and sleep, or sneak a book out for a walk and sit in the park for hours, or jam your evenings full of dinners with friends who understand the problem.
But you can't avoid the interaction and eventually are forced to spend your time in the Expectation Chamber. And in the Chamber, you become ornery and short and attempt to cut the conversation away with rudeness.
If you're like Mario, you might even start yelling and get kicked out of the house. But his mom was wrong. Things have changed. He's no longer yelling because he's a hormonal teenager. This time he's yelling at the Expectations. He's at war, and this is his defense.
I think that's partially why I got my tattoo. No, not to prove to the Expectations that things really have changed. Really, I didn't even plan on telling my parents. It was for me, so that when I retired behind a closed door I could lift up my shirt and see the mark of my change. There, unmistakably, the permanent sign (of ideas that all arose after my departure from home) would call me out of the Expectations and back to adulthood.
The tattoo wasn't just a mark of rebellion; it was armor for battle.
But a weird thing happened this last time I've come home: there was skim milk in the fridge.
My family is a 2% family. We've been getting 2% for decades. Good, healthy milk.
So you can imagine my shock when I opened the fridge to find skim milk. The healthy bug hit the house, and somehow healthy milk was a casualty.
And then I realized: home is changing too. All this time I thought my parents were the villains, tainting my homecoming with Expectations. Right then, I realized that they too were warring against the tyranny of failure-to-recognize-change. My tyranny.
I expected that home was a place that was necessarily familiar. And sure, Familiarity can be an important ingredient in establishing the place called home, but eventually, Familiarity will fall to Change, and your family will start buying skim milk.
But the next day is really when the worlds collided.
I was upstairs, but the sound traveled. The conversation reached my ears. They were discussing my tattoo. And they were...oddly ok with it.
(In a young house filled with young children, the absence of those children is a reprieve. In an old house filled with visiting-children, the absence of those children is an opportunity to discuss them.)
The day before, I realized that home had changed. My parents are older and the house bears the signs of Empty Nest. Diets have started to change, and so have the characters that embraced them. And yet every time I returned I expected the place of familiarity. I had expectations and Home warred against them. But now I was ready to see home for who it had become.
And home was ready too. The tattoo was shocking, because they could see that I've changed. It was inescapable. But they adjusted quickly. The Expectation Josh would never have done that, so clearly we are no longer dealing with Expectation Josh.
So, for the first time in 4 years, I'm in the beginning stage of a healthy homecoming. Healthy for me, and healthy for home.
Just in time to disappear forever.
It's deceiving, because you really think you do know all about home. That's like, the definition of the place.
Wrong.
Home is a tricky thing to define. I once gave the definition of home as the place where I've set my journals down. But today, I'll set the definition as that place where you grew up and where your family still lives.
For me, very clear and brilliant thoughts almost never occur in the armchair. I can't just sit down and think, expecting witty connections to just occur.
Instead, they happen while I'm doing things. It would be a rare occasion that my mind is actually focused on the activity before me. It's always wandering, and it does its best wandering while my hands or ears are occupied. The thoughts will come while I'm walking to class, or during a homily, or (sadly) while someone else is talking. They'll pop into my head and demand attention, and who am I to refuse?
So if you'd look, 2 years ago you'd have said that I was at the pub in Donegal talking to Mario, but in reality my attention was actually on the nature of going home. Spinning around, making clever observations and struggling against the cloudy monstrosity of language to find clever ways to express them.
For a child, going home is the natural end to the day.
For an adult, going home is an intensely complicated affair.
Going home has the potential to be one of the most satisfying as well as frustrating experiences an adult can have. Home is the comfortable host of many happy memories, so going home should be a peaceful and warm experience.
But of course, soon into college I recognized that it was exactly NOT peaceful and warm. It was often nerve-racking and difficult, and above all it was annoying. Something about going home was supremely annoying, and I really couldn't put my finger on what that was.
However, there in the pub with Mario, it all made sense. You see, he had just given me the honor of watching him go home. I accompanied him across the Emerald Isle to his tiny hometown. We drove for a very long time through a valley, until we could turn and climb the right-hand slope and arrive at his house.
And that's when everything changed.
You see, the Mario I knew was very calm and excellent with people. He strongly disliked conflict, and was very good at defusing a tense situation.
It took 4 hours for this to completely change. In 4 hours, he had a domestic with his dad and we were kicked out of the house. 4 hours, and his character completely changed.
His mom sat with me in the kitchen the whole time, nursing her tea while the hot Irish tempers pounded against the wall. She smiled her soft knowing smile, and meekly said, "some things never change."
"SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE?!" I raged inside my head later that evening at the pub, back with the Mario that I had come to know. "Do you even know your child?!"
That's when it occurred to me: no, she doesn't know him. Not anymore. Mario had been away from home for quite some time now, and all that while he'd been growing and changing and getting to be more of himself.
And all of this happened away from the eyes of his parents. To them, a child left home and a child returned. It's like they set a book down, and when he returns they simply pick the book right back up and the characters and setting and plot are all exactly as they were when they put the book down.
The problem is, homecoming is not like picking up a book where you left off. They didn't account for the change in Mario, 'cause they didn't see it happen. He had changed immensely, but their Expectation remained exactly as it was.
Expectations are dangerous things. They prime you for an experience, forming the kind of embrace that you open to an event. And therefore, they begin to form experiences.
I'm really susceptible to expectation. It's supremely annoying, watching myself change the frequency of my voice and my grammar and the very way I form thoughts just to meet an expectation.
Like with Matt.
Matt sees me as a snot-nosed sophomore. It was the first thing he saw of me. And he saw this through the eyes of his return from the novitiate, so he looked back at this image from his past (me) from which he had grown immensely and he snarled with a knowing disgust. I was the image of his juvenile days, and there I have remained ever since.
And though I think and act as if I've grown out of that Sophomore Self, Matt hasn't stopped expecting it from me. And therefore, when I talk to Matt I watch in frustrated amazement as my maturity evaporates and I bend to meet his expectation.
(what a delightful scheme I've crafted to avoid blame for not being genuine in conversation)
So when one goes home and meets the expectations of home, a war begins. The expectation is that the book can be picked up: the 18-year-old that left will simply be returning.
Within hours, the years of intense growth all-of-a-sudden threaten to evaporate. But you dig your feet in. First, you avoid the problem. You withdraw into your room and sleep, or sneak a book out for a walk and sit in the park for hours, or jam your evenings full of dinners with friends who understand the problem.
But you can't avoid the interaction and eventually are forced to spend your time in the Expectation Chamber. And in the Chamber, you become ornery and short and attempt to cut the conversation away with rudeness.
If you're like Mario, you might even start yelling and get kicked out of the house. But his mom was wrong. Things have changed. He's no longer yelling because he's a hormonal teenager. This time he's yelling at the Expectations. He's at war, and this is his defense.
I think that's partially why I got my tattoo. No, not to prove to the Expectations that things really have changed. Really, I didn't even plan on telling my parents. It was for me, so that when I retired behind a closed door I could lift up my shirt and see the mark of my change. There, unmistakably, the permanent sign (of ideas that all arose after my departure from home) would call me out of the Expectations and back to adulthood.
The tattoo wasn't just a mark of rebellion; it was armor for battle.
But a weird thing happened this last time I've come home: there was skim milk in the fridge.
My family is a 2% family. We've been getting 2% for decades. Good, healthy milk.
So you can imagine my shock when I opened the fridge to find skim milk. The healthy bug hit the house, and somehow healthy milk was a casualty.
And then I realized: home is changing too. All this time I thought my parents were the villains, tainting my homecoming with Expectations. Right then, I realized that they too were warring against the tyranny of failure-to-recognize-change. My tyranny.
I expected that home was a place that was necessarily familiar. And sure, Familiarity can be an important ingredient in establishing the place called home, but eventually, Familiarity will fall to Change, and your family will start buying skim milk.
But the next day is really when the worlds collided.
I was upstairs, but the sound traveled. The conversation reached my ears. They were discussing my tattoo. And they were...oddly ok with it.
(In a young house filled with young children, the absence of those children is a reprieve. In an old house filled with visiting-children, the absence of those children is an opportunity to discuss them.)
The day before, I realized that home had changed. My parents are older and the house bears the signs of Empty Nest. Diets have started to change, and so have the characters that embraced them. And yet every time I returned I expected the place of familiarity. I had expectations and Home warred against them. But now I was ready to see home for who it had become.
And home was ready too. The tattoo was shocking, because they could see that I've changed. It was inescapable. But they adjusted quickly. The Expectation Josh would never have done that, so clearly we are no longer dealing with Expectation Josh.
So, for the first time in 4 years, I'm in the beginning stage of a healthy homecoming. Healthy for me, and healthy for home.
Just in time to disappear forever.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Theo-lithography
"Let ev'ry creature rise and bring Peculiar praises to our king."1
Oh Isaac Watts, you dog. You go and take something so usual and make it so fantastically extraordinary. Of course our praise is peculiar! What a lovely thought!
11:45 and I'm going home from Simpsonville. The most wonderful thing about heading home at this hour of the night is the lack of traffic. I can take ANY route I wish. Every route opens before me like a wonderful opportunity, each screaming my name and begging me to follow.
Naturally, I took Batesville Rd. I was feeling pensive, and the most secluded and windy road is the only choice for such a mood. I can push my car's limits around the curves without the anxiety of traffic or cops with the windows down and the brights up. In a metropolitan area of 800,000 people, I only saw 3 cars on my whole journey.
Few can truly enjoy this road, following it's curves from Simpsonville all the way to Greer. This is pleasure that is singularly mine.
The great thing about Batesville Road is that in the dark the twists and turns all look the same. You accelerate into curve after curve and truly lose yourself on the journey.
And just when it seems like you've been on the road just a little bit too long, you are suddenly next to the graveyard next to the Gurn's neighborhood.
That's when you pass the first Publix. Right there is where the road tries to trick you by turning into Pelham Road, but you know to take the right turn onto the small street that becomes Batesville again.
More curves bring you closer and closer to the distant smell of the county landfill, and before you know it you cross the bridge over the highway. It's one of those small bridges that narrows, and even though you're passing over a piece of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway Network, you barely even notice. The bridge is just as insignificant to you as it is to the speeding semi trucks beneath you.
And all of a sudden you tear out of the trees and pass the second Publix. Almost there. Watch for the left turn to take you through the Thornblade Golf Course.
It's muscle memory now. Right then left then the Roller Coaster Hill. Downdowndown to the bottom and then coast upupup to the top. Stop. Downdowndown into the trees and then coast upupup into your neighborhood.
Who would imagine what fond memories could sprout from a well-traveled route home? The prodigal son must have had this experience on the road to his father's house...
But my mind wasn't on the drive. It was on Emily. A beautiful soul, one that taught me what it means to be meek and humble of heart. Literally, I learned the meaning of that phrase by watching her.
Emily recently discovered a new passion, and it has torn her life apart (in a good way). The passion brought years of work into jeopardy, and caused her to abscond from reasonable and economical future plans in pursuit of it.
That passion is art. Printmaking, to be more precise. An art that I have, until very recently, neither understood nor respected.
But this evening we sat in the living room and she brought our her portfolio. She opened a giant black bag and pulled out piece after piece, explaining how each one happened and why she loved it so much. It was joyfully intimate, seeing her portfolio open on the carpet and gazing down on the pieces of paper that violently threw her life into such a headspin.
"It's frustrating, because I just can't see how I could do this with my life. It seems selfish, and not like I'm serving God."
Printmaking. A rather peculiar medium, in my opinion.
I've never thought much of prints like these, and yet as I sit there on the carpet listening to her explain each one to me I'm astounded. I love them. Each one is so unique, a product of intense internal preparation and precise chemical expression. They're beautiful, I whisper to myself in amazement.
And speeding around curves of Batesville Road, it occurred to me: what a peculiar way she has chosen to praise the Lord.
It must be praise. Because each print is pregnant with the testament of hearty labor that lovingly captured an aspect of her soul, pressed out of stone by patience and transferred onto paper for my enjoyment.
This is her peculiar praise, and it most definitely serves the Lord.
And I am certain that He is pleased.
1. From the last verse of the hymn "Jesus Shall Reign" by Isaac Watts.
Oh Isaac Watts, you dog. You go and take something so usual and make it so fantastically extraordinary. Of course our praise is peculiar! What a lovely thought!
11:45 and I'm going home from Simpsonville. The most wonderful thing about heading home at this hour of the night is the lack of traffic. I can take ANY route I wish. Every route opens before me like a wonderful opportunity, each screaming my name and begging me to follow.
Naturally, I took Batesville Rd. I was feeling pensive, and the most secluded and windy road is the only choice for such a mood. I can push my car's limits around the curves without the anxiety of traffic or cops with the windows down and the brights up. In a metropolitan area of 800,000 people, I only saw 3 cars on my whole journey.
Few can truly enjoy this road, following it's curves from Simpsonville all the way to Greer. This is pleasure that is singularly mine.
The great thing about Batesville Road is that in the dark the twists and turns all look the same. You accelerate into curve after curve and truly lose yourself on the journey.
And just when it seems like you've been on the road just a little bit too long, you are suddenly next to the graveyard next to the Gurn's neighborhood.
That's when you pass the first Publix. Right there is where the road tries to trick you by turning into Pelham Road, but you know to take the right turn onto the small street that becomes Batesville again.
More curves bring you closer and closer to the distant smell of the county landfill, and before you know it you cross the bridge over the highway. It's one of those small bridges that narrows, and even though you're passing over a piece of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway Network, you barely even notice. The bridge is just as insignificant to you as it is to the speeding semi trucks beneath you.
And all of a sudden you tear out of the trees and pass the second Publix. Almost there. Watch for the left turn to take you through the Thornblade Golf Course.
It's muscle memory now. Right then left then the Roller Coaster Hill. Downdowndown to the bottom and then coast upupup to the top. Stop. Downdowndown into the trees and then coast upupup into your neighborhood.
Who would imagine what fond memories could sprout from a well-traveled route home? The prodigal son must have had this experience on the road to his father's house...
But my mind wasn't on the drive. It was on Emily. A beautiful soul, one that taught me what it means to be meek and humble of heart. Literally, I learned the meaning of that phrase by watching her.
Emily recently discovered a new passion, and it has torn her life apart (in a good way). The passion brought years of work into jeopardy, and caused her to abscond from reasonable and economical future plans in pursuit of it.
That passion is art. Printmaking, to be more precise. An art that I have, until very recently, neither understood nor respected.
But this evening we sat in the living room and she brought our her portfolio. She opened a giant black bag and pulled out piece after piece, explaining how each one happened and why she loved it so much. It was joyfully intimate, seeing her portfolio open on the carpet and gazing down on the pieces of paper that violently threw her life into such a headspin.
"It's frustrating, because I just can't see how I could do this with my life. It seems selfish, and not like I'm serving God."
Printmaking. A rather peculiar medium, in my opinion.
I've never thought much of prints like these, and yet as I sit there on the carpet listening to her explain each one to me I'm astounded. I love them. Each one is so unique, a product of intense internal preparation and precise chemical expression. They're beautiful, I whisper to myself in amazement.
And speeding around curves of Batesville Road, it occurred to me: what a peculiar way she has chosen to praise the Lord.
It must be praise. Because each print is pregnant with the testament of hearty labor that lovingly captured an aspect of her soul, pressed out of stone by patience and transferred onto paper for my enjoyment.
This is her peculiar praise, and it most definitely serves the Lord.
And I am certain that He is pleased.
1. From the last verse of the hymn "Jesus Shall Reign" by Isaac Watts.
Monday, July 14, 2014
#parishlife
What is a parish?
The people who go to my church.
The other people at Mass on Sunday.
The church and the school and the people that go to them.
Ask a few Catholics what a parish is, and they'll give you a host of answers. Most of them will say something like what was written above. Perhaps something a shade more intimate.
But ask a priest, and get a different story. He'll probably say one of two things: either it's a "flock" or a "family" (the really good priests will say both).
That's because these are his two main duties. He's been ordained to be a shepherd (which is the root meaning of the word "pastor"). He tends to his flock, seeing to their safety and making sure they grow strong and healthy.
He's also been given the name "father" to precede his own, and is expected to act as a father would to his family. He provides for them, guides them, and cares for them. He loves his parish like a father would his children.
And for a priest, a parish really is his family. His actual family. Seriously. The way you view your husband or wife or kids? That is how the priest do.
First, he's madly in love with his parish. He's given his entire life for them. He's made a host of heroic sacrifices just to give them every part of himself. The parish is his spouse, and he provides for them in the most important of ways.
Secondly, he's terribly annoyed by them. Just like you get with your family. All those little quirks and excuses and complaints; oh yah, these get on his nerves. But that's part of being a family. He complains about his parish to other priests like a father complains about his family to the guys.
Third, he's incredibly loyal to them. A priest usually hates spending time away from the parish. If he's gone, he's usually thinking about the different families and the rectory and the things that he might be missing. It's rather obnoxious actually. You can't go anywhere without him talking about this and that parishioner and whatnot. And he'll defend his parish to other priests like a father will defend his family to the guys.
Fourth, he grows as a person for the sole purpose of better providing for his family. He stays healthy so he can be flexible with his time and attention. He studies scripture and the spiritual life and the news and literature and everything just so he can better instruct his family in the beauty of the Gospel. He's forgone marriage and the miracle of sex in order to give his entire self to them. Like a father with his wife and children, the priest does not live for himself. Every decision is made with the well-being of his parish in mind.
The sacrificial love of a priest is extraordinary. And for him, the parish really is his family. He needs the people like a father needs family.
Every once in a while, people get it. They realize that the parish is a family.
And that's a beautiful moment. The love is requited, and they become exemplary members of the parish community.
And their gifts can be absolutely wonderful.
Like this morning. Joe was a Extraordinary Minister and was going up the aisle before Communion. He stopped when he got to me, gave me a hug, and said "you go." He wanted me to take his place. He told me, "it's your last week, and you deserve it."
Joe loves being an Extraordinary Minister. Loves it. He has the biggest smile on his face when he does it, because he understands what he's doing.
And in that moment, he wanted to give me a gift. This gift was immensely valuable, like the old woman with the two coins. This was a gift given from the heart, and it brought a tear to my eye (I hope people didn't think I was sick, sniffling while saying "the Blood of Christ").
This summer, I left my college, my friends, and my family. I moved across the country and into the rectory of a strange place. I had no choice but to imitate the pastor, and therefore found myself embracing the parish as my family.
And Joe got it. In two words, he gave me the most perfect gift imaginable.
Parish life is pretty grand, if you ask me.
The people who go to my church.
The other people at Mass on Sunday.
The church and the school and the people that go to them.
Ask a few Catholics what a parish is, and they'll give you a host of answers. Most of them will say something like what was written above. Perhaps something a shade more intimate.
But ask a priest, and get a different story. He'll probably say one of two things: either it's a "flock" or a "family" (the really good priests will say both).
That's because these are his two main duties. He's been ordained to be a shepherd (which is the root meaning of the word "pastor"). He tends to his flock, seeing to their safety and making sure they grow strong and healthy.
He's also been given the name "father" to precede his own, and is expected to act as a father would to his family. He provides for them, guides them, and cares for them. He loves his parish like a father would his children.
And for a priest, a parish really is his family. His actual family. Seriously. The way you view your husband or wife or kids? That is how the priest do.
First, he's madly in love with his parish. He's given his entire life for them. He's made a host of heroic sacrifices just to give them every part of himself. The parish is his spouse, and he provides for them in the most important of ways.
Secondly, he's terribly annoyed by them. Just like you get with your family. All those little quirks and excuses and complaints; oh yah, these get on his nerves. But that's part of being a family. He complains about his parish to other priests like a father complains about his family to the guys.
Third, he's incredibly loyal to them. A priest usually hates spending time away from the parish. If he's gone, he's usually thinking about the different families and the rectory and the things that he might be missing. It's rather obnoxious actually. You can't go anywhere without him talking about this and that parishioner and whatnot. And he'll defend his parish to other priests like a father will defend his family to the guys.
Fourth, he grows as a person for the sole purpose of better providing for his family. He stays healthy so he can be flexible with his time and attention. He studies scripture and the spiritual life and the news and literature and everything just so he can better instruct his family in the beauty of the Gospel. He's forgone marriage and the miracle of sex in order to give his entire self to them. Like a father with his wife and children, the priest does not live for himself. Every decision is made with the well-being of his parish in mind.
The sacrificial love of a priest is extraordinary. And for him, the parish really is his family. He needs the people like a father needs family.
Every once in a while, people get it. They realize that the parish is a family.
And that's a beautiful moment. The love is requited, and they become exemplary members of the parish community.
And their gifts can be absolutely wonderful.
Like this morning. Joe was a Extraordinary Minister and was going up the aisle before Communion. He stopped when he got to me, gave me a hug, and said "you go." He wanted me to take his place. He told me, "it's your last week, and you deserve it."
Joe loves being an Extraordinary Minister. Loves it. He has the biggest smile on his face when he does it, because he understands what he's doing.
And in that moment, he wanted to give me a gift. This gift was immensely valuable, like the old woman with the two coins. This was a gift given from the heart, and it brought a tear to my eye (I hope people didn't think I was sick, sniffling while saying "the Blood of Christ").
This summer, I left my college, my friends, and my family. I moved across the country and into the rectory of a strange place. I had no choice but to imitate the pastor, and therefore found myself embracing the parish as my family.
And Joe got it. In two words, he gave me the most perfect gift imaginable.
Parish life is pretty grand, if you ask me.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
what is this gospel thing, and where do I get one?
"You're missing the point."
That's what I should have said. But I was caught off guard by the question and my mind raced in defense, rather than in patience. And therefore I missed the point as well.
He came out swinging. I'll call him Phil. It was at Bible Study--the morning session, so the median age was 75. The small room filled with silver haired saints still trying to feed themselves on the Word.
We were doing the Rich Young Man. Eye of the needle and whatnot. We read the story and Bob Barron said his piece, and then it was time for discussion.
Phil came out swinging. "I just don't get this. How can a millionaire give millions away to the poor if he never made the millions because he was always giving it away? People need to get rich to give riches away. You can't condemn a good person for having money!"
Agreement ran around the circle. And we hemmed and hawed and did our best to explain what it means to have a spirit of unattachment and simplicity and thirty minutes later we hopefully made a point or two. But Phil wasn't satisfied; you could tell.
And he should have been confused. We didn't do him justice. How? By trying to answer his question.
Last week, a bunch of nuns had us over for dinner.
It was awful, in the not-nice definition of the term.
They live across the street from the parish but you hardly ever see them. I know who they are because they're the ones that change the "Father" to "Lord" and the "Him" to "God" during Mass. (Ok, so I'm totes for certain types of gender correcting in Catholic liturgy. I don't think it's completely necessary, because when I see that "God came to save man" I know that it means mankind. But if our language could be more hospitable, then that's fine. But taking license to change the words yourself? That I am NOT ok with. Let people who know what they're talking about argue with other people who know what they're talking about to determine the meaning of that Greek word; don't think for a moment that you, the average Joe/Jo, should feel comfortable reinterpreting scripture so it sounds better in your ears. And as far as not liking the term "Father": deal with it. I understand that God is infinite and probably transcends the assignment of gender, but we are most definitely NOT infinite, so Christ instructed us to call him Father. Regardless of whether or not God transcends gender, he chose to reveal himself as Father and Son and Spirit to us, so get over yourself and refer to him by the name he used to introduce himself!)
We had dinner with them. Bunch of seminarians sitting around a table of pant suits and butch haircuts.
They asked us why we receive communion on the tongue. And thus began their rant. Not at us, but in general.
There came a point when Sister To My Left said, "Well, the God I'm looking at doesn't care if you believe [insert church tradition or Canon here]."
You know Sister, we have a name for the God you're looking at. We call him Baal. Legion. Beelzebub.
Satan.
Death hung in the air around the dinner table. Her words were death.
I desperately wanted to flee. To run. Out of the room and across the threshold and down the steps and across the street and into the arms of The Church. I certainly didn't find The Church there in the convent.
Sure, there was a church, but not The Church.
I know where we went wrong at Bible study: we did what we were trained to do. I've just spent 4 years studying philosophy in the classroom and at the dinner table. A bunch of people sitting around asking questions with no real practical application and giving answers with even less regard for the practical.
I've been trained to stick my head in the clouds to solve a problem. The sight of a homeless man sends me into a spiral up and out of the room until my head is in the clouds and safely removed from the man before me. Only then, far away from the poor, can I wrestle with the troubles of poverty.
I start coming up with theories and ideas to solve the problem of poverty. But the problem is, I've done nothing for the man in front of me.
Sure, if he asks I might accept the challenge to communicate to him the intellectual conclusions I've made about how he got where he is and how I plan to lift him and all his brethren out of their unfortunate situation.
Philosophy didn't teach me how to solve a problem, it taught me how to create a Platform. A homeless man in front of me can't be solved with an outlook on life. The only way I can do anything for him is if I forget that nonsense, bow down to him, and serve him. He can't feed or clothe himself on my ideas.
The Gospel's first manifestation in our lives isn't supposed to launch us into a debate about grand life questions. Good news isn't the sterile object of a thought-experiment. It's personal and life-changing.
Life-changing. Good news means change. Something is changing, for the better.
I should have told Phil he's missing the point. He was asking the wrong question. The passage made him uncomfortable, and he turned that discomfort into a thought-experiment dealing with the moralty of an unnamed "rich man" acquiring wealth. And rather than bring it back to his own life, giving him the opportunity to deal with the change this Good News required of him, I swung into a philosophical defense. I tried to make the story palatable, rather than true.
I should (yes, I meant to say "should") have pushed him. "Well Phil, rather than discussing a hypothetical rich man, look at it this way. If Christ's challenge to give everything you have to the poor makes you uncomfortable, then why? Look at your life and identify what it is that makes that challenge so difficult. Don't try and accuse Christ of failing to understand philanthropy; look at your own life and find out what this passage requires of you. What does it change? Get your head out of the clouds, start looking at the ground in front of you, and figure out what you need to do with that ground in order to address the discomfort."
The problem with Sister To My Left is that she's spent so much time with her head in the clouds contemplating the general philosophical questions of the faith that she's lost touch with the word Gospel. She sees the world through the lens of grand philosophies, and those lenses have begun to obstruct her vision. She no longer sees reality; just thought experiments. She no longer hears the cry of the actual poor, but rather the ones she's created in her own mind.
And so she starts telling me about this god that "she's looking at", and it bears no resemblance to the actual God. Because she's no longer actually looking.
She has eyes but she cannot see; ears but she cannot hear.
That's what I should have said. But I was caught off guard by the question and my mind raced in defense, rather than in patience. And therefore I missed the point as well.
He came out swinging. I'll call him Phil. It was at Bible Study--the morning session, so the median age was 75. The small room filled with silver haired saints still trying to feed themselves on the Word.
We were doing the Rich Young Man. Eye of the needle and whatnot. We read the story and Bob Barron said his piece, and then it was time for discussion.
Phil came out swinging. "I just don't get this. How can a millionaire give millions away to the poor if he never made the millions because he was always giving it away? People need to get rich to give riches away. You can't condemn a good person for having money!"
Agreement ran around the circle. And we hemmed and hawed and did our best to explain what it means to have a spirit of unattachment and simplicity and thirty minutes later we hopefully made a point or two. But Phil wasn't satisfied; you could tell.
And he should have been confused. We didn't do him justice. How? By trying to answer his question.
Last week, a bunch of nuns had us over for dinner.
It was awful, in the not-nice definition of the term.
They live across the street from the parish but you hardly ever see them. I know who they are because they're the ones that change the "Father" to "Lord" and the "Him" to "God" during Mass. (Ok, so I'm totes for certain types of gender correcting in Catholic liturgy. I don't think it's completely necessary, because when I see that "God came to save man" I know that it means mankind. But if our language could be more hospitable, then that's fine. But taking license to change the words yourself? That I am NOT ok with. Let people who know what they're talking about argue with other people who know what they're talking about to determine the meaning of that Greek word; don't think for a moment that you, the average Joe/Jo, should feel comfortable reinterpreting scripture so it sounds better in your ears. And as far as not liking the term "Father": deal with it. I understand that God is infinite and probably transcends the assignment of gender, but we are most definitely NOT infinite, so Christ instructed us to call him Father. Regardless of whether or not God transcends gender, he chose to reveal himself as Father and Son and Spirit to us, so get over yourself and refer to him by the name he used to introduce himself!)
We had dinner with them. Bunch of seminarians sitting around a table of pant suits and butch haircuts.
They asked us why we receive communion on the tongue. And thus began their rant. Not at us, but in general.
There came a point when Sister To My Left said, "Well, the God I'm looking at doesn't care if you believe [insert church tradition or Canon here]."
You know Sister, we have a name for the God you're looking at. We call him Baal. Legion. Beelzebub.
Satan.
Death hung in the air around the dinner table. Her words were death.
I desperately wanted to flee. To run. Out of the room and across the threshold and down the steps and across the street and into the arms of The Church. I certainly didn't find The Church there in the convent.
Sure, there was a church, but not The Church.
I know where we went wrong at Bible study: we did what we were trained to do. I've just spent 4 years studying philosophy in the classroom and at the dinner table. A bunch of people sitting around asking questions with no real practical application and giving answers with even less regard for the practical.
I've been trained to stick my head in the clouds to solve a problem. The sight of a homeless man sends me into a spiral up and out of the room until my head is in the clouds and safely removed from the man before me. Only then, far away from the poor, can I wrestle with the troubles of poverty.
I start coming up with theories and ideas to solve the problem of poverty. But the problem is, I've done nothing for the man in front of me.
Sure, if he asks I might accept the challenge to communicate to him the intellectual conclusions I've made about how he got where he is and how I plan to lift him and all his brethren out of their unfortunate situation.
Philosophy didn't teach me how to solve a problem, it taught me how to create a Platform. A homeless man in front of me can't be solved with an outlook on life. The only way I can do anything for him is if I forget that nonsense, bow down to him, and serve him. He can't feed or clothe himself on my ideas.
The Gospel's first manifestation in our lives isn't supposed to launch us into a debate about grand life questions. Good news isn't the sterile object of a thought-experiment. It's personal and life-changing.
Life-changing. Good news means change. Something is changing, for the better.
I should have told Phil he's missing the point. He was asking the wrong question. The passage made him uncomfortable, and he turned that discomfort into a thought-experiment dealing with the moralty of an unnamed "rich man" acquiring wealth. And rather than bring it back to his own life, giving him the opportunity to deal with the change this Good News required of him, I swung into a philosophical defense. I tried to make the story palatable, rather than true.
I should (yes, I meant to say "should") have pushed him. "Well Phil, rather than discussing a hypothetical rich man, look at it this way. If Christ's challenge to give everything you have to the poor makes you uncomfortable, then why? Look at your life and identify what it is that makes that challenge so difficult. Don't try and accuse Christ of failing to understand philanthropy; look at your own life and find out what this passage requires of you. What does it change? Get your head out of the clouds, start looking at the ground in front of you, and figure out what you need to do with that ground in order to address the discomfort."
The problem with Sister To My Left is that she's spent so much time with her head in the clouds contemplating the general philosophical questions of the faith that she's lost touch with the word Gospel. She sees the world through the lens of grand philosophies, and those lenses have begun to obstruct her vision. She no longer sees reality; just thought experiments. She no longer hears the cry of the actual poor, but rather the ones she's created in her own mind.
And so she starts telling me about this god that "she's looking at", and it bears no resemblance to the actual God. Because she's no longer actually looking.
She has eyes but she cannot see; ears but she cannot hear.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Bitter, hold the sweet.
Keep the room clean.
Move to a new place for a little reprieve. Fresh sheets, fresh floor, fresh deskspace. It's all been polished and dusted and vacuumed and disinfected and now it's yours.
It's fleeting, though. For a while it smells clean and it's neat and it's tidy.
And then you arrive. Success for a little bit, but it's rather effortless if we're being perfectly honest. It's easy to keep things in order when they start that way.
But the slip will come. So slowly that you'll allow it. First a shirt you plan to wear again on the chair by your bed. Then a couple papers on the desk. You'll get to them soon, so it's ok. You're in a hurry his morning, so a cursory flattening of the sheets will do; not military precision bed-making, but it will do for today.
Laundry's out of the dryer but you're so tired that you might as well do it in the morning because you're kind of tired.
Then one day you get home in the afternoon and realize there's what you would call a Miniature Mess. But you can handle this. It's only miniature, so no worries. Now is not the time for real concern.
Then it happens. A really bad night. A good one for you, but not for the room. You get home from hours at the one pub and then the other pub. Tear in the doorway, of course, because there's no other way to do it. But once you're in, your lost for a sec. The room spins a bit, but you correct. Then it spins again.
Survival Mode. Water. Bed. Rush to the sink and fill the glass. gulpgulpgulp. Another! gulpgulpgulp.
Alright, now you're good. You brush your teeth but who really remembers to rinse out the sink in Survival Mode?
You stumble toward the bed, each step a little lighter as an article of clothing soars to a different part of the room. Coat to the chair; shoes at the closet; shirt to your left, pants to your right. And you sink into the cotton and the bedsprings like a cherub on a cloud.
Wake. Oh no. This has now graduated to a bonafide Mess. But you're in a hurry, of course, and the headache is the real crisis. Is that mud you tracked in? Ignore it. You shovel the clothes to a pile in the corner. You'll permit a small pile there, because you can't see it from the doorway.
By tomorrow, another pile gains real estate behind the bed under the same pretense. This is getting out of hand, don't you think?
"I'll get to it soon," you say, and that's nice enough for now. Meanwhile that mirror is getting disgusting.
Right about then is when the smell sets in. No problem, you open a window. "I need to really get to this." But not now. Now, of course, it is time for a nap. Have you really not washed the sheets since you moved in? Your nose can tell.
In the morning you step on a pen and the pain wakes you up.
It's time. You shovel all the clothes into the hamper. Don't matter if it's clean or dirty; cut down the weeds with the wheat and sort em later. Put the sheets in there too. This aught to be two loads.
Grab a paper towel and scrub the mirror. These books can go back on the shelf. These papers can be thrown away. Now, I wonder where they keep the bathroom in this place. Finishing touch: shoes all in line in the closet.
But once a mess is made, it knows how to be remade. It makes short work. You just cleaned, right? So why be overthetop stickler about putting away that shirt that you want to wear tomorrow?
In a week, your lack of diligence brings you right back to the Mess.
Yah, this is all about sin. The whole thing. Allegory, every bit of it.
A guess a good Christian should favor the term "parable".
Once, my little sister and I had pow-wow in her room. We decided that the cleanliness of our room is an excellent barometer for our spiritual lives. When you assent to disarray, you've probably already done so Inside.
Well, today is a room clean day.
Move to a new place for a little reprieve. Fresh sheets, fresh floor, fresh deskspace. It's all been polished and dusted and vacuumed and disinfected and now it's yours.
It's fleeting, though. For a while it smells clean and it's neat and it's tidy.
And then you arrive. Success for a little bit, but it's rather effortless if we're being perfectly honest. It's easy to keep things in order when they start that way.
But the slip will come. So slowly that you'll allow it. First a shirt you plan to wear again on the chair by your bed. Then a couple papers on the desk. You'll get to them soon, so it's ok. You're in a hurry his morning, so a cursory flattening of the sheets will do; not military precision bed-making, but it will do for today.
Laundry's out of the dryer but you're so tired that you might as well do it in the morning because you're kind of tired.
Then one day you get home in the afternoon and realize there's what you would call a Miniature Mess. But you can handle this. It's only miniature, so no worries. Now is not the time for real concern.
Then it happens. A really bad night. A good one for you, but not for the room. You get home from hours at the one pub and then the other pub. Tear in the doorway, of course, because there's no other way to do it. But once you're in, your lost for a sec. The room spins a bit, but you correct. Then it spins again.
Survival Mode. Water. Bed. Rush to the sink and fill the glass. gulpgulpgulp. Another! gulpgulpgulp.
Alright, now you're good. You brush your teeth but who really remembers to rinse out the sink in Survival Mode?
You stumble toward the bed, each step a little lighter as an article of clothing soars to a different part of the room. Coat to the chair; shoes at the closet; shirt to your left, pants to your right. And you sink into the cotton and the bedsprings like a cherub on a cloud.
Wake. Oh no. This has now graduated to a bonafide Mess. But you're in a hurry, of course, and the headache is the real crisis. Is that mud you tracked in? Ignore it. You shovel the clothes to a pile in the corner. You'll permit a small pile there, because you can't see it from the doorway.
By tomorrow, another pile gains real estate behind the bed under the same pretense. This is getting out of hand, don't you think?
"I'll get to it soon," you say, and that's nice enough for now. Meanwhile that mirror is getting disgusting.
Right about then is when the smell sets in. No problem, you open a window. "I need to really get to this." But not now. Now, of course, it is time for a nap. Have you really not washed the sheets since you moved in? Your nose can tell.
In the morning you step on a pen and the pain wakes you up.
It's time. You shovel all the clothes into the hamper. Don't matter if it's clean or dirty; cut down the weeds with the wheat and sort em later. Put the sheets in there too. This aught to be two loads.
Grab a paper towel and scrub the mirror. These books can go back on the shelf. These papers can be thrown away. Now, I wonder where they keep the bathroom in this place. Finishing touch: shoes all in line in the closet.
But once a mess is made, it knows how to be remade. It makes short work. You just cleaned, right? So why be overthetop stickler about putting away that shirt that you want to wear tomorrow?
In a week, your lack of diligence brings you right back to the Mess.
Yah, this is all about sin. The whole thing. Allegory, every bit of it.
A guess a good Christian should favor the term "parable".
Once, my little sister and I had pow-wow in her room. We decided that the cleanliness of our room is an excellent barometer for our spiritual lives. When you assent to disarray, you've probably already done so Inside.
Well, today is a room clean day.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Wit and the Spiritual Life; An Essay
 |
| This entire post exists thanks to the fact that I couldn't just lay on the bow of a yacht without bragging about it to my friends. |
Today I was in the midst of a
rather sardonic exchange with a good friend when the wit struck a little too
close to home and touched a tender nerve.
The result was a backpedaling of both parties, one in embarrassment for
an overreaction in a friendly conversation and the other in embarrassment for
the truth exposed in the biting sarcasm.
Ultimately, the dialog concluded with the question of whether or not
sarcasm is healthy for the spiritual life.
The question itself alerted me to
the fact that I did not have a complete mastery of the terms at hand, as I
felt entirely comfortable using wit and sarcasm interchangeably. Therefore, my first mental excursion
was into the pages of Merriam Webster for clarity. Under the entry for wit, there was a section devoted to the
confusion of the different terms of the subject, proving immensely helpful, if
merely by suggesting the direction of the present essay.
I will first define the terms. Wit
is the perception of analogies between dissimilar things and expressing them in
quick, sharp, spontaneous observations.
Humor is the perception of
comical, ridiculous, or ludicrous elements of a situation and expressing them
in a way that makes others see your perception as well. Irony
is the implicit humor in the contradiction between what is meant and what is
expressed. Finally, sarcasm is a non-subtle expression of
irony that is used harshly or bitterly for the purpose of wounding or
ridiculing someone.
Having a better understanding of
the terms, I decided that I would answer a more interesting question: Between
sarcasm, irony, humor, and wit, which of these practices (if any) are unhealthy
to the spiritual life?
I begin with sarcasm. This, I believe, is the easiest
practice to expose for its objective
evil. The purpose of sarcasm is
ridicule. It is meant to be harsh
or to inflict pain. It seems,
therefore, that the motivation for sarcasm is necessarily uncharitable. No matter its secondary purpose (such
as the attempt to illuminate someone’s error for them), the primary method by
which sarcasm is employed is the infliction of harm on a person. In other words, while its motive might
not be rancor, its means necessarily are,
by definition. It is sideways
speak, where the less-than-subtle undercurrent of “you fool” accompanies each
word. This seems to directly
parallel the warning given by Christ in Matthew: “whoever says ‘you fool’ [to
his brother] shall be liable to the hell of fire.”
But unlike sarcasm, the other three
practices are not meant to cause harm to a person. They have other purposes. Irony is meant to point out humor in a discrepancy. For example, examine one of irony’s
common manifestations: satire.
Satire is defined as the use of irony to ridicule an institution or
political philosophy. Satire
points out a contradiction in an institution, and, even though it often seeks
to ridicule that contradiction, it is not meant to harm a person but rather an
institution. Pointing out irony in
an institution protects human beings from the institution’s shortcomings. Irony has a real potential for
good, and since it’s means is not (necessarily) the direct derision of a human
being, I cannot claim that it is objectively bad.
Humor seems even better than irony. According to its definition, humor is
intended to encourage two virtues: humility and empathy. First, it involves the recognition of
ridiculous aspects of situations or events, which is often only accomplished
through an exercise of humility.
Then, it seeks to cause individuals to empathize with one another. Both of these seem like laudable goals,
and I am left not only denying its objective evil, but I believe it to be a
necessary and healthy part of life.
Indeed, the Great Gilbert Keith Chesterton considered humor an essential
part of a healthy spiritual life.
When talking about angels (who, by the way, are not just holy, but experiencing the perfection of
beatitude), he said: “Angels can fly because they take themselves
lightly.”
Wit, the final practice under the
scrutiny of this essay, was the hardest for me to handle. When faced with the difficult
rediscovery of a term, I have a favorite practice: going to brainyquote.com,
typing in the word, and seeing what the Great Writers of the past have to say
on the subject. When it
comes to wit, the Greats are decidedly undecided. However, upon closer examination (and discarding certain
voices that I simply do not trust [can you believe that they dared put
Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson, and John McCain on the same page, right next to
one another?!]), it seems that many of those who distrust wit (particularly the
ancient Greeks, or at least their translators) seemed to suffer the same
confusion of terms that I did when I began this academic journey. Wit, as understood by Merriam Webster,
seems much closer to the trusted words of the Great Mark Twain: “Wit is the
sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have
any union.”
As Merriam Webster and Mark Twain
define it, wit is merely a synthesis of ideas. It brings two unlikely subjects together and expresses the
analogy with brevity. It does not
(necessarily) involve an uncharitable motive or means. It is an exercise of the intellect. A witty exchange is one that requires a
high level of mental aptitude, and usually reveals aspects of a subject that
would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
Wit, therefore, can be both helpful and laudable.
I will now address a clear
difficulty to embracing irony, humor, and wit as helpful and potentially
healthy for the spiritual life, before now unmentioned except for brief
allusions in parenthetical remarks (you thought I missed it, huh?). These three practices, while helpful
and potentially healthy, also have the potential to cause harm. It is extremely easy for each one of these
practices to slide into sarcasm.
And to make matters worse, this potential varies with each
individual. For instance, the line
between humor and sarcasm is very thin when the object of the humor is a
particularly ill-humored individual.
An example would be the conversation with my dear friend that prompted
this essay: humor quickly became sarcasm, and harm was had by myself. A person with thicker skin and better
humor would have not been so easily offended, and the remark would have
remained within the boundaries of humor.
But, since it was I who was receiving the joke, the words became poisonous and caused
difficulty in communication. The
line between wit-and-sarcasm, humor-and-sarcasm, or irony-and-sarcasm is a dangerously
fluid boundary, which fluctuates according to the participants involved and
situations discussed.
Therefore, in this essay I conclude
that sarcasm is unhealthy for the spiritual life. It reinforces a flight from charity and necessarily harms its
recipient. The exchange of wit,
the use of humor, and the application of irony are practices that are
potentially spiritually healthy, provided that they are used with careful
attention to the persons involved and the situations being discussed. Like almost all things in the human
life, this answer was both unexpected and requires a heightened responsibility
in one’s daily interactions.
That’s how I know this was a
fruitful activity.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
it's just spheres and orbits, right?
 |
| Sunset on the Pacific. That's me in on the right side. |
Every once in a while, you feel guilty for experiencing things that are just so beautiful. Like a couple nights ago, when I got to see the sunset on the beach.
I wasn't really gonna write about it, but we prayed Vespers and the Responsory was "Tell all the nations how glorious God is. Make known his wonders to every people."
Fine. I'll write about it.
First, the fear. A lot of fears accompanied me before arriving. What if it's cloudy? What if we don't make it in time? What if it's not actually that beautiful?
Well, the fear about time was pretty well founded. We were racing up the coast, trying to find a beach. We could see the sunset, but we wanted to get out and go to the water and Highway 101 just wouldn't give us any good turnoffs. We were chasing the sunset.
But then we saw it. Emerged from a tunnel and saw Beachpoint Lane, a tiny road that ran perpendicular to the coast just south of Cannon Beach. We took the turn with screeching tires and parked by the road. A couple of beers in the backpack, and off we go. 30 min to sunset, and we walk over the hill.
One of my fondest professors from college talked about an argument he had as a boy. He watched the sun set over the ocean and wanted to call the colors "seraphic". His friend took offense at the term.
I certainly don't. I would definitely favor seraphic. Mainly because the colors sang in the way I'd imagine angels sing. Beautiful in a terrifying sort of way, and one simply cannot remove one's gaze. A couple times, with tears in my eyes, I asked the vista if it would be ok if I turned away.
(The answer, by the way, was a resounding no.)
All fears proving irrational, I was overwhelmed by Peace. It was spectacular. I simply stared at the sun's expiration and everything else ceased. I heard no thoughts, only the crashing of the waves.
(By the way, have you ever taken a bit of time to really listen to the waves? There are several levels of sound. There's this base level of roar that is more felt in the pit of the chest than is actually heard. This low murmur suggests that the the sand is taking a beating much more fearsome than you first thought. Then there's this middle level of waves crashing 40 feet off the coast, the water negotiating with itself about who gets to assault the shore first. Finally, there's the light whisper of the tide as the flattened sheets of foam calmly tiptoe up the bare sand towards your feet. I'm amazed at this mostly because the sound made by 200 people talking at once [like an audience waiting for a play or speech to start] is almost identical to the waves.)
Then, to my right I heard fireworks. It was the 3rd of July, and 2 miles north the Cannon Beach Sandcastle Competition was celebrating its completion. Thousands of dollars of fireworks exploded to my right, each burst looking to be about the size of a golf ball held at arm's length.
But I didn't care. The show of gunpowder and explosives was absolutely pitiful when compared to the horizon that was burning up in every seraphic shade between purple, red, orange, and yellow. I laughed at how puny and insignificant the explosions were when placed next to this masterpiece.
It made me feel a little like prayer was futile. Pitiful offerings made to the Fullness of Wonder. I laughed at this thought, and decided I would make my own offering. I pulled the pack of Marlboro's from my pocket and burned a cigarette. An offering of incense to this Majesty I so unfairly stumbled upon.
Tears came to my eyes. This must be what heaven is like.
And still, the colors wouldn't let me go.
Now that I've seen the sun rise over the Atlantic and set over the Pacific, I can in good conscience say that I've seen all of America. I've made it from one bookend of the country to the other. Sure, there are many books on the shelf that I have yet to pull out--many pages left to read. But I've traced my finger from one binding to another, moving all the way from left to right, and in an odd way this feels like the first victory towards conquering the bookshelf.
Eventually, the sun set far enough that the colors faded to black, and I was released from the beach. We drove the rest of the way to the house where we were staying. A little cabin one block from the beach. We arrived in the cabin and I realized something. The whole back of the cabin was windows. It was pitch black, but I knew that something in the blackness was worth seeing. Why else would you build a whole wall of windows? So I chose to sleep on the couch right in front of the windows.
And boy was I right.
I awoke at 5:30. A handsome beam of light tickled my eyelids and coaxed me from sleep. I opened my eyes very slowly. My eyelids barely had time to move out of the way of the surge of tears.
It was beautiful. Behind the cabin was a large lake, and a thick fog hugged the motionless water. The fog moved slowly across the surface at the same speed that cars move when you see them through an airplane window. The opposite bank was colored with tall, old trees. Through the mist, I could see the trees mirrored perfectly in the water.
At a certain point, the trees parted, and here is where the sun chose to rise. It was almost like terrestrial subjects making way for their celestial king. The light beams shot through the openings in the branches and landed on the lake's surface. The mist, doing its part, accented the crepuscular rays and gave them such fullness that one could almost grab hold of them.
And I hadn't even moved from my bed yet.
I snapped a quick picture and then went outside to say Lauds. And to me the Prophet whispered, "For thus says the Lord, the creator of the heavens, who is God, the designer and maker of the earth, who established it, not creating it to be a waste, but designing it to be lived in: I am the Lord, and there is no other."
No kidding.
 |
| The view when I woke up. Literally, I took the picture while laying in bed. |
showers and wineskins
"Take warning, fellow associate of the
fraternity of this shower: only the fool believes that the
tangible dirt and grime of the external world is the sole thing carried away by the
drain. The wise man sees more than
is before his eyes; he is spectator to a world at work within this temple of
tile and glass. And what does he
see here? A curious theater of mystical
exploit, where actor and audience are ominously fused. As he retells the histories of old and
weaves glorious dramas yet to come, the water permeates the pores of his soul
and washes away the ethereal impurities unknown to simpleton gaze. Keep in mind this solemn task, good
sir, as you step into this vault of enlightenment."
I wrote these words on the shower door in my brother's apartment. He had a glass shower, and he wrote things on it in dry-erase marker. So one day I grabbed a marker and scribbled this (backwards, so it could be read from inside the shower) on the door. It filled the whole door. 6 months later, I returned to his apartment and it was still there, which is one of the greatest compliments I've ever been given.
If for some reason Jesus had come to the earth at the present time, would he have used modern day analogies instead of the old ones? Like, instead of, "don't put new wine in old wine skins" he might have said something like, "don't eat a steak dinner at McDonald's" or "don't put freshly laundered clothes on before taking a shower." (As much as I cringe that McDonald's might have ended up in scripture, it would have been kinda neat.)
Don't put on clean clothes before you take a shower. It's good advice. Clean clothes are, for some reason, aesthetically perfect. The fresh smell and crisp clean feel. How dare I desecrate the holiness of clean clothes with an unclean body? I just can't. It would simply be wrong. And if Jesus had been around, it would have been biblically immoral.
Showers are pretty special as well. For me, a shower is not just a place that one cleans one's body. It's a vault of wonder in which the secret thoughts of my life can be uttered at a low volume and examined out in the open. New ideas are turned over, scrubbed from error, and clean prose is left behind. Any troubling things can be discarded and washed down the drain. Sometimes I remember things that happened, replaying the entire situation in the comfort of my private rainy fortress. It's like confession or spiritual direction, but it happens every day.
I love walking into a bathroom shortly after someone took a shower. You know what it feels like. It smells nice, like Pert and Garnier and Old Spice, and the air is thick with humidity. But it's not just hot perfumed water that hangs in the air; the thoughts and stories of the shower-goer are there too. They are all floating in the air, and they smell nice, and the experience is almost too intimate for it to be comfortable.
Walking into the bathroom shortly after someone showered there is what I imagine it must feel like to enter someone else's mind. When I was a kid, I sometimes imagined walking out of my head and into someone else's. Entering their brain was like walking into a thick cloud of swirling colors and sounds. And it felt and smelt like it does when you walk into a bathroom after someone's showered. Thick and humid and lovely in an odd sort of way.
But anyway, imagine that wonderful post-shower feeling of clean. So fresh and wonderful, both internally and externally. How inappropriate it would be if you dried off and put on your dirty clothes. Just wrong (and if Jesus had been around during our time, biblically immoral).
No, it must be ordered. Clean bodies must be put it clean clothes, just like new wine must be put in new wine skins. Jesus said so.
let the little ones come to me
I guess I would have gone with, "My nose is numb" or something like that. She totally schooled me. "It hurts right here," she managed to get out between her sobs. "It feels bad like if you have a really huge sneeze or if you just woke up from a dream."
Yes. That is EXACTLY how it feels, Caroline. Like you just woke up from a dream. A really intense dream that for some reason was robbed of its power over you and suddenly you lift your head from the pillow in a daze and your face is arrested with a feeling akin to being hit in the face with a big rubber ball.
Caroline is a unique type of human that you can find in any parish: a child. A 10-year-old child sitting in the nurse's office trying to explain to me how the soccer ball to the face is affecting her afternoon.
She was exhibiting a special talent that young people have: honesty so honest that they don't even know how honest it is. She's hurt, and she wants to communicate how it feels. So she uses her memories, and doesn't dress a single word with any anticipation of "what they're looking for."
She just scoops up the world around her, and pours it all back out at you. Like children do.
Kids are impressionable. Scary impressionable. I led music at Vacation Bible School. I found myself in front of 60 kids singing songs I haven't heard since I attended vacation bible school myself. 15 minutes with the kids, teaching them the signs to "Shine, Jesus Shine" and "Awesome God" and "Father Abraham had many sons".
Andrew has two kids in VBS. This afternoon, I visited Andrew's house. I kinda had to, on account of I broke his clavicle a couple weeks ago.
Yes, I broke his collarbone
No, I didn't do it on purpose.
Yes, I feel bad.
No, his wife IS NOT pleased with me.
So he has three kids and the whole family is moving tomorrow. He got bunk beds from IKEA for the girls and (due to the busted clavicle) he couldn't set it up on his own. So I went over to help.
I got there, and the girls were singing songs from VBS earlier.
"Our God is an awesome God."
Pause 3 seconds...
"Our God is an awesome God."
Repeat. Over and over again. Every three seconds. For 2 hours. "It could be worse," I told Andrew. And my mind went back a week to Debi's van. She was taking us out to dinner. I got in the van, closed the door, and buckled up.
"Josh?" says the 4-year-old voice in the back seat.
"Yes Sammy?"
"Do you wanna hear the song I made up?"
Creativity. Must encourage. Early and often. "OF COURSE I'd love to hear it!"
(to the second line of the tune 'Father Abraham Had Many Sons') "And many sons had Faaaather Taco." Pause 3 seconds. "And many sons had Faaaather Taco." Repeat.
"That's very nice Sam!" I said, trying to end his performance. But it didn't work. He kept repeating it. Then his mother turned around and looked at me. The look was accusative. She's blaming me. Clearly, he'd been singing this over and over for hours.
Kids are tender and impressionable, especially when you're an adult who listens to them and treats them like another adult. Those are the one's I've remembered. Like Cousin Kristie, who sat with me for hours listening to me talk about 5-year-old stuff. She was 25 at the time. She told me we could get married, which I agreed to of course. Marriage meant that she was special, and that our friendship was unique and no one else could understand us.
(I remember when she actually married Tim. I felt betrayed. My parents wouldn't let me go to the wedding because they were seriously worried I was going to shout "I object!" [I was a wonderful child])
But Kristie treated me like an adult. She listened to me and laughed at my stories, and she asked me questions that other adults only asked each other. And whatever she said was law, and some of those laws stayed with me until today.
Aware of this, I'm always hyper-conscious around children. I'm always assessing the situation for ways that I can share with them a piece of advice about building blocks or legos that is shrouded in a deeper profundity that they'd only understand if they remembered the phrase when they're older.
Yes, I'm trying to manufacture deep moments 15 or 20 years down the road.
It's kind of fun, really. At any moment, they might soak in what I just said. The thought goes in their ears and plants itself somewhere in the folds of their brain, where it comes out from time to time. And in 20 years when the thought pops out again, they might realize I wasn't just talking about tying shoelaces. I was trying to communicate to them some deep secrets of life.
(Then there are times when I abuse this power. Like yesterday, when the drama teacher had the kids saying practice Masses and I paced around the room telling each little boy that he looked really cool as a priest. Shameful, I know.)
God does this too, you know. Seemingly insignificant things like sunsets or tadpoles growing legs turn out to hold an immense wealth of truth, and you didn't even know it.
Children. I wish that teaching them how to write didn't coincide with the cultural connivance to destroy their innocence. What beautiful stories they could write! Truths of the world so plainly recorded that the sentences would be uncomfortable to read. If only they could write stories before they're shaped by their parents' offhand comments or the TV commercials or the shrewd encouragements of a seminarian.
I'd read that book.
Twice, probably.
Yes. That is EXACTLY how it feels, Caroline. Like you just woke up from a dream. A really intense dream that for some reason was robbed of its power over you and suddenly you lift your head from the pillow in a daze and your face is arrested with a feeling akin to being hit in the face with a big rubber ball.
Caroline is a unique type of human that you can find in any parish: a child. A 10-year-old child sitting in the nurse's office trying to explain to me how the soccer ball to the face is affecting her afternoon.
She was exhibiting a special talent that young people have: honesty so honest that they don't even know how honest it is. She's hurt, and she wants to communicate how it feels. So she uses her memories, and doesn't dress a single word with any anticipation of "what they're looking for."
She just scoops up the world around her, and pours it all back out at you. Like children do.
Kids are impressionable. Scary impressionable. I led music at Vacation Bible School. I found myself in front of 60 kids singing songs I haven't heard since I attended vacation bible school myself. 15 minutes with the kids, teaching them the signs to "Shine, Jesus Shine" and "Awesome God" and "Father Abraham had many sons".
Andrew has two kids in VBS. This afternoon, I visited Andrew's house. I kinda had to, on account of I broke his clavicle a couple weeks ago.
Yes, I broke his collarbone
No, I didn't do it on purpose.
Yes, I feel bad.
No, his wife IS NOT pleased with me.
So he has three kids and the whole family is moving tomorrow. He got bunk beds from IKEA for the girls and (due to the busted clavicle) he couldn't set it up on his own. So I went over to help.
I got there, and the girls were singing songs from VBS earlier.
"Our God is an awesome God."
Pause 3 seconds...
"Our God is an awesome God."
Repeat. Over and over again. Every three seconds. For 2 hours. "It could be worse," I told Andrew. And my mind went back a week to Debi's van. She was taking us out to dinner. I got in the van, closed the door, and buckled up.
"Josh?" says the 4-year-old voice in the back seat.
"Yes Sammy?"
"Do you wanna hear the song I made up?"
Creativity. Must encourage. Early and often. "OF COURSE I'd love to hear it!"
(to the second line of the tune 'Father Abraham Had Many Sons') "And many sons had Faaaather Taco." Pause 3 seconds. "And many sons had Faaaather Taco." Repeat.
"That's very nice Sam!" I said, trying to end his performance. But it didn't work. He kept repeating it. Then his mother turned around and looked at me. The look was accusative. She's blaming me. Clearly, he'd been singing this over and over for hours.
Kids are tender and impressionable, especially when you're an adult who listens to them and treats them like another adult. Those are the one's I've remembered. Like Cousin Kristie, who sat with me for hours listening to me talk about 5-year-old stuff. She was 25 at the time. She told me we could get married, which I agreed to of course. Marriage meant that she was special, and that our friendship was unique and no one else could understand us.
(I remember when she actually married Tim. I felt betrayed. My parents wouldn't let me go to the wedding because they were seriously worried I was going to shout "I object!" [I was a wonderful child])
But Kristie treated me like an adult. She listened to me and laughed at my stories, and she asked me questions that other adults only asked each other. And whatever she said was law, and some of those laws stayed with me until today.
Aware of this, I'm always hyper-conscious around children. I'm always assessing the situation for ways that I can share with them a piece of advice about building blocks or legos that is shrouded in a deeper profundity that they'd only understand if they remembered the phrase when they're older.
Yes, I'm trying to manufacture deep moments 15 or 20 years down the road.
It's kind of fun, really. At any moment, they might soak in what I just said. The thought goes in their ears and plants itself somewhere in the folds of their brain, where it comes out from time to time. And in 20 years when the thought pops out again, they might realize I wasn't just talking about tying shoelaces. I was trying to communicate to them some deep secrets of life.
(Then there are times when I abuse this power. Like yesterday, when the drama teacher had the kids saying practice Masses and I paced around the room telling each little boy that he looked really cool as a priest. Shameful, I know.)
God does this too, you know. Seemingly insignificant things like sunsets or tadpoles growing legs turn out to hold an immense wealth of truth, and you didn't even know it.
Children. I wish that teaching them how to write didn't coincide with the cultural connivance to destroy their innocence. What beautiful stories they could write! Truths of the world so plainly recorded that the sentences would be uncomfortable to read. If only they could write stories before they're shaped by their parents' offhand comments or the TV commercials or the shrewd encouragements of a seminarian.
I'd read that book.
Twice, probably.
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