Friday Five (Vol. 29) – Barbaric Yawp edition

— 1 —

Yesterday I exchanged a few comments with someone I’d never met before who blogs at Thread of Thoughts. She had kindly commented on something I wrote yesterday and I returned the favor by visiting her blog. I know nothing about her other than what she has written so far, but I’m impressed with how well she’s presented her thoughts to this point. On “Life is too short to be busy…” she posted a media file of a song she recorded of her playing guitar and singing. It fit the mood I was in yesterday. I enjoyed it. And I commented on it. We exchanged a few comments back and forth about how I have been wanting to learn to play before I pick up my guitar, long sitting in the corner of my room, when she said

You don’t have to wait to learn before you pick up and play.

And she’s right of course. And this brought to mind a song that has long been one of my favorites. The lyrics are below, followed by one of four italicized stanzas from Robert Herrick’s poem To the Virgins, to make much of Time. If you’re wondering where you’ve encountered it before (if you have), it was used in this scene from the movie Dead Poet’s Society.

So to that young blogress (and to anyone else no matter your age) I say Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero. Seize the day, counting as little as possible on tomorrow.

And remember the words of that immortal sage, Winnie the Pooh: You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes. In other words, don’t wait to learn before you pick up and play.

Whether persons or goals, it is up to you to take the initiative. Or as Mr. Keating said in that movie, “Sound your barbaric yawp.” It’s never too soon to begin. It’s never too late to start.

— 2 —

I know a girl who was schooled in Manhattan
She reads dusty books and learns phrases in Latin
She is an author, or maybe a poet
A genius but it’s just this world doesn’t know it
She works on her novel most every day
If you laugh she will say…

Chorus:

Seize the day, seize whatever you can
‘Cause life slips away just like hourglass sand
Seize the day, pray for grace from God’s hand
Then nothing will stand in your way
Seize the day

*****

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

— 3 —

Well I know a doctor, a fine young physician
Left his six-figure job for a mission position
He’s healing the sick in an African clinic
He works in the dirt and writes home to the cynics
He says “We work through the night so most every day
As we watch the sun rise we can say…”

Chorus

*****

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

— 4 —

Well I know a man who’s been doing some thinking
He’s as bitter and cold as the whiskey he’s drinking
He’s talking ‘bout fear, about chances not taken
If you listen to him you can hear his heart breaking
He says “One day you’re a boy and the next day you’re dead
I wish way back when someone had said…”

Chorus

*****

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

— 5 —

Well one thing I’ve noticed, wherever I wander
Everyone’s got a dream he can follow or squander
You can do what you will with the days you are given
I’m trying to spend mine on the business of living
So I’m singing my songs off of any old stage
You can laugh if you want, I’ll still say…

Chorus

*****

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Friday Five (Vol. 28) – Dreams edition

— 1 —

As Debbie Harry famously crooned: Dreaming is free. And I thought I’d do a little today, mostly because I woke up with the first song I link to below echoing in my head, but also just to do a little light writing. I’d considered the subject of dreams before as examples of them are scattered throughout Scripture and the lives of the saints. But that involved heavier lifting than I’m up for today.

First up, a song from my daughter’s favorite movie, Tangled. No matter who we are or our situation, we all need a dream. Make it a big one, and be flexible and receptive to change. Like a million other little boys I wanted to grow up to pitch at Fenway Park. Ok, so that didn’t work out…but I found a new dream or two instead.

I’ve Got A Dream – Tangled
Though my face leaves people screaming
There’s a child behind it, dreaming
Like everybody else, I’ve got a dream

— 2 —

“God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission – I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next… I have a part in a great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons…” ~ Cardinal John Henry Newman

— 3 —

Part of getting a new dream is realizing that our dreams are not meant to be kept to ourselves. A great dream is a selfless one…a mission…and it is often in serving others that we awake to find we’ve suddenly achieved a dream of our own even if it wasn’t the one we set out to accomplish. The lyrics I quote below are meaningful to me today as half of my life is behind me and I am the sum of my experiences, both good and bad. When you dream, do not be afraid to fail or make a fool of yourself. You have to put yourself out there.

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your Will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing…” ~ Thomas Merton

Dream On – Aerosmith
Half my life is in books written pages
Live and learn from fools and from sages

— 4 —

“I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.” ~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

— 5 —

Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ~ G.K. Chesterton

Photo source: photos.cleveland.com

And now that I have reached the halfway point (or more) I find that my dreams transition to those of my children. To do what I can to help them not just achieve their own, but to learn how to dream themselves. I find I do this through books, stories, movies and musicals and plays and sonnets and songs. And through fairy tales. Especially through fairy tales. These tales, while seeming to be overly simplistic or idealistic to some, demonstrate over and over again the real life virtues of Fides, Spes and Caritas (Faith, Hope and Love). Of Prudence and Temperance, and of Fortitude and Justice. Without dreams and fairy tales the seven opposites of these virtues flourish (pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust) can flourish. If we, or our children or others we influence in this life, do not learn, practice and share the light of these virtues the gathering darkness will indeed grow more suffocating.

“Fairy tale does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat…giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy; Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

I Have A Dream – ABBA
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see

 

Know these things and do them.

Christ Washing Peter's Feet, by Ford Madox Brown

Each year for the Holy Thursday Mass, twelve men are chosen to have their feet washed as a remembrance of what Christ did for his apostles during the Last Supper. It is also a reminder what Jesus said in the Gospel: “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not great than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you who do them.” (John 13:12-17)

Last night I was one of the twelve chosen in our parish. It is a very humbling thing to have done before several hundred of my fellow parishioners and family. To have my feet washed by Fr. Lyle, a man who has for his thirty-six years as a Catholic priest dedicated his life and so much time to the service of others (including me and my family) seems backwards. Just as Peter protested that he would not have his feet washed by his Lord and Teacher my first reaction was similar. Surely I should be washing Fr. Lyle’s feet. That is how the world would see it to be sure.

I’ve read the cynical writings and comments by many Catholics or ex-Catholics about their priests, usually coming from a more liberal area of the country, and it saddens me. Every priest I know or have come into contact with in the Diocese of Lincoln, Omaha or Grand Island (all in Nebraska) do not share the clerical traits I hear about. Are they human men with human faults? Of course. I’m most fortunate to reside where I do and wish those Catholics and non- or ex-Catholics who sneer at the idea of a humble, servicing priesthood could see and experience what I do daily.

One of the common traits you often hear of regarding the saints is that they were painfully aware of their shortcomings and sins as they increased in their holiness. I do not dare to compare myself with a saint, but I have on occasion received a glimmer of this self-awareness. One wonders if that’s why so many reject and pillory Christianity or water down Christ’s teachings so as to make him nothing more than a great guy who taught some really cool things. Cafeteria Christianity. It is that type of Christianity that does not take to heart the following from Psalm 38, which was a part of this morning’s prayers in the Liturgy of the Hours:

My guilt towers higher than my head;
it is a weight too heavy to bear.
My wounds are foul and festering,
the result of my own folly.

How often is it that our wounds are self-inflicted through our decisions?

The first of the seven Christian virtues listed is Humility. Each virtue has a corresponding capital sin, and in this instance it is Pride. One of the barriers to effective prayer is having a prideful center, or heart. We pray for things we think we need, but they are often merely wants. And when these prayers go unanswered we stiffen our necks and become bitter. Surely it wasn’t me or my prayer that was inadequate and led to the answer I got. I think
the Catechism of the Catholic Church provides a good insight into humility as it relates to prayer when it says:

“Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.” But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or “out of the depths” of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer. Only when we humbly acknowledge that “we do not know how to pray as we ought,” are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. “Man is a beggar before God.” (CCC 2559)

Did you catch that? Humility is the foundation of prayer. And to provide context it says that man assumes a most humbling position: that of a beggar.

As if to drive the point home a few paragraphs later the Catechism says

“If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.” (CCC 2562)

We are called as Christian to imitate Christ. To model our lives after his. Within John 13 we are given just such a lesson. In verses 1-11 Christ modeled selfless service to us. In washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus performs a service normally done by the household slaves. St. Peter, at the time, could not understand why Jesus would want to humble himself in such a way. Jesus’ gesture is a simple and symbolic one which shows that he “came not to be served but to serve”, and that his service consisted in “[giving] his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). It makes clear to all the apostles, and, through them, to all who would enter the Church, that humble service of others likens the disciple to the Master. In verses 12-20 Jesus explains why he did what he did and issues the call to service through humility.

And here is where we see what was perhaps the final straw for Judas. He wanted a Messianic warrior, one who would liberate the Jews from the tyranny of the Roman Empire through the means Judas knew: open revolution. Instead he found himself a disciple of the Messiah who was Love and non-violent. And so, after witnessing Christ’s humbleness and having his feet washed by His Master, he leaves the upper room with thirty pieces of silver in his pocket. Blood money awash in pride.

How many of us filled with such pride, both Christian and non-Christian, feel the same way and choose to leave Christ’s presence?

I read an excellent metaphor today that illustrates this point about humility and service in another way. Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, an English novelist (1803-1873) wrote:

Trees that, like the poplar, lift upward all their boughs, give no shade and shelter whatever their height. Trees the most lovingly shelter and shade us when, like the willow, the higher soar their summits, the lowlier droop their boughs.

We should assume the position of the household slave. Drop not just our physical position but our internal guard as well, and selflessly serve. We don’t have to be as radical and go as far as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, but there surely are ways we can begin within our own households and spheres of influence. We can and should lower our defenses, along with our boughs. To do so takes a lot of courage; courage that many seem unwilling to tap into. It is a courage that leads to freedom.

Bulwer-Lytton’s writing brought to mind one of my favorite lines from Youth And Age by Coleridge and one I quote often. “Friendship is a sheltering tree.”

And so it is, and can be, if we are selfless in our service to others as we are called to be by our Teacher.

****

With humble and contrite hearts (hopefully) we also prayed Psalm 51 in this morning’s Liturgy of the Hours. A penitential psalm of David, it is traditionally known as the Miserere (miz-a-ray-ray) because the psalm’s opening words in Latin are Miserere mei, Deus. (Have mercy on me, O God). It provided inspiration for one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed. Have a listen, and have a wonderful Easter Sunday everyone.

Burning Ships and Slaying Dragons

All love takes commitment. As St. Paul famously wrote in 1st Corinthians 13 “Love bears all things . . . endures all things.” So why won’t we take it upon ourselves to endure for love? In his essay A Defense of Rash Vows, G.K. Chesterton provides us with a clue.

The revolt against vows has been carried in our day even to the extent of a revolt against the typical vow of marriage. It is most amusing to listen to the opponents of marriage on this subject. They appear to imagine that the ideal of constancy was a yoke mysteriously imposed on mankind by the devil, instead of being, as it is, a yoke consistently imposed by all lovers on themselves. They have invented a phrase, a phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two words – ‘free-love’ – as if a lover ever had been, or ever could be, free. It is the nature of love to bind itself, and the institution of marriage merely paid the average man the compliment of taking him at his word. Modern sages offer to the lover, with an ill-favoured grin, the largest liberties and the fullest irresponsibility; but they do not respect him as the old Church respected him; they do not write his oath upon the heavens, as the record of his highest moment. They give him every liberty except the liberty to sell his liberty, which is the only one that he wants.

It is exactly this backdoor, this sense of having a retreat behind us, that is, to our minds, the sterilizing spirit in modern pleasure. Everywhere there is the persistent and insane attempt to obtain pleasure without paying for it. Thus, in politics the modern Jingoes practically say, ‘Let us have the pleasure of conquerors without the pains of soldiers: let us sit on sofas and be a hardy race.’ Thus, in religion and morals, the decadent mystics say: ‘Let us have the fragrance of sacred purity without the sorrows of self-restraint; let us sing hymns alternately to the Virgin and Priapus.’ Thus in love the free-lovers say: ‘Let us have the splendour of offering ourselves without the peril of committing ourselves; let us see whether one cannot commit suicide an unlimited number of times.’

Emphatically it will not work. There are thrilling moments, doubtless, for the spectator, the amateur, and the aesthete; but there is one thrill that is known only to the soldier who fights for his own flag, to the aesthetic who starves himself for his own illumination, to the lover who makes finally his own choice. And it is this transfiguring self-discipline that makes the vow a truly sane thing. It must have satisfied even the giant hunger of the soul of a lover or a poet to know that in consequence of some one instant of decision that strange chain would hang for centuries in the Alps among the silences of stars and snows. All around us is the city of small sins, abounding in backways and retreats, but surely, sooner or later, the towering flame will rise from the harbour announcing that the reign of the cowards is over and a man is burning his ships.

To love and to be loved, as it is with all things worth having, takes work. It involves personal responsibility, character and being a person who is as good as his or her word. No wonder so many people today are failing in this regard. When the dragons come…and they will indeed come…too often the solution of modern man (or woman) is to flee. More accurately they yawn, scratch themselves while rolling over on the couch, and change the channel.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker wrote an article for Crisis magazine that further explores the concept of Love and of getting ourselves off the couch and daring to go on The Quest and to slay those dragons.

This most precious gift of love is the greatest treasure, and is worth the most dangerous quest. If earthly love connects us with eternal love, then it connects us with eternal life, and that most precious gift is something that is not only worth a long journey, it is also worth a fight. It is worth a fight because anything so precious must be surrounded by many thieves. Anything so good must be surrounded by much evil, for evil (be definition) wants to destroy what is good, and that is why the hero bears a sword – because love must be fought for, and to win the love of the fair maiden the dragon must first be slain.

A Profile in Perspective: Garvan Byrne

I know I tend to talk a lot about keeping things in perspective and some may tire of it. Before you do get weary of the subject however, I’d like to introduce you to Garvan Byrne. A boy who at 11 was more of a man than I am at four times that age. He is one of the best definitions of faith I’ve ever seen.

Below is the eight minute edited version. It’s worth your while to watch the whole interview: Part One, Part Two and Part Three. I enjoy watching him draw and talk about his love of art, in particular Snoopy, in Part Three.

Seasons

I always become a little melancholy this time of year. Summer is turning to autumn which means the long winter lies ahead. Baseball season will soon be over (the Red Sox seem determined to end it early this year), and while we will have football to get us through half the winter, it will end in the numbing cold of late January leaving us several weeks before spring training and the boys of summer arrive once more.

But why be so blue? After all, it is among the prettiest times of year. Leaves are turning, there is a clean crispness in the air, and if one is lucky they can catch whiffs of hearth fires burning. I grew up knowing there were four seasons in a year, but really just believed in three: baseball season, football season and (to a lesser extent) basketball season. After becoming a Catholic I learned about another calendar: The Liturgical Year. And, in the Church’s liturgy, it’s the second round of Ordinary Time.

Turning to the sports calendar it’s playoff time and the World Series is on deck. Whether your team is alive or not it is the most exciting time of the baseball season. And the young college football season has kicked off, too. But one can’t ignore the specter of the winter that lies ahead.

Or that’s how I used to be. And that’s why I embraced the liturgical calendar so much. Sure, Ordinary Time sounds well…ordinary. But it’s anything but ordinary. It, and winter, is a time of preparation before the new year, Advent followed by Christmas, will soon arrive.

“We are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song.” – Pope John Paul II

Regarded as the “bleakest” of the seasons, winter serves essentially as the adagio of the calendar year. It stands in much the same place as does the Third Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. Far from being weak, it prepares us, through sorrow, for glory. I no longer find it to be so bleak.

Click to Enlarge

This second period of Ordinary Time (the first part of Ordinary Time is sandwiched between Christmas and Lent) focuses on the importance of the Christ event for the life of the believing community. It celebrates the presence of Christ’s Spirit in the members of his body and looks to the fulfillment of the kingdom that is to come. This period of Ordinary Time not only ends the Church’s liturgical year but also heralds in the new. It shares with Advent a deep concern for the final (The Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell) nature of the Christ event and helps us to view all that happens to us with the eyes of faith. It is in this season that we look back (Pentecost), look around (the continuation of Christ’s mission on earth, the Sacraments, and grace), and look forward (the four last things). By using this approach to examine our lives during this period of Ordinary Time, we uncover a call to urgent living. We come face to face with our own mortality. Seeing that we have only one life to live and that we have no idea when our own final hour will come, a sense of urgency to live our life the best way we know how gradually arises in our hearts. It reminds us that where our treasure is, there also we will find our hearts. (Matthew 6:19-21).

This call is not a call to compulsive living. It does not mean busying ourselves with our work and leaving no time for our relationships with ourselves, others, and God. Living life with urgency does not mean fitting more and more into less and less increments of time. It asks us only to allow God to accompany us in our daily tasks. The call to urgency means that we take a good look inside our hearts and ask ourselves what matters most to us in life.

And here’s where at long last I’ll get to my point.

“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together…” – Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

While I can safely be accused of reflecting on events throughout the year, it is without a doubt during autumn that I do it the most. I don’t know why, but it’s always been that way. And even moreso since I became Catholic over eighteen years ago and began to follow the readings from Scripture at daily Mass. This year is shaping up to be no different. Every year on earth brings more exposure to saying goodbye it seems. I suppose this makes sense as I am getting older. Whether by indifference or due to death, the parting of ways is increasingly prevalent. We grow up, grow old and grow apart. The embers of friendship cool and grow cold, much as the temperatures do outside. Good friends are diagnosed with illnesses that are unpredictable at best.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.

T.S. Eliot, “East Coker” (The Four Quartets)

Facing this reality we may find ourselves reflecting upon our own lives. Of things we did do or should have done. I don’t do this to endlessly beat myself up, but this self-examination is important to assist one in accepting God’s grace, forgiving oneself (often the hardest person in the world to forgive) and moving forward with life. These are “lessons in humility” as Don Henley sang in “The Genie” in 2001 that help us to go forward and answer that call to urgent living that I mentioned earlier.

And the past comes back to smack you around
For all the things you thought you got for free
For the arrogance to think that you could somehow
Defy the laws of gravity
These are lessons in humility
Penitence for past offenses
Consequences, consequences

That is always the part no one likes to think about. Not just judgment from God or from others, but having to judge ourselves. It’s not often pretty, but in the end it bears fruit because we dare to look at that man or woman in the mirror with intensity and honesty.

“I should have gone to confession before driving class tonight. You never know the date or the hour,” my oldest son quipped this week, paraphrasing St. Matthew when describing the capabilities of the other person he was partnered with in his weekly driver’s education lesson on the streets of our town. Apparently she’s more than a little erratic.

Life is often erratic. It’s not all smooth sailing. In the end we make most of our own waves that crash into the boats of other lives and sometimes bounce back harder into our own. Or sometimes they happen for reasons not known to us, but we still have a choice as to how we’ll react to them.

This week I received an email from a dear friend of mine that confirmed she had been diagnosed with cancer. Without giving her away I will quote something she wrote because I found a deep strength within it:

I am past the panic and pity party. I really and truly have turned it all over to God. I have many wonderful friends and family that are praying. And so am I. … My heart and soul are in a better place. I do have cancer. I will have to have surgery. Anything beyond that isn’t certain. … Decisions to be made after we get all the data we need. Plus side, it is early…you can’t even feel the mass. Caught on mammogram. Make your wife stay current with hers. … Also on the plus side, I have some of the most amazing friends. Angels disguised as humans. Anyway, one can never ever get too many prayers so keep them flowing, please.

As Eliot continued in East Coker:

Old men ought to be explorers*
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

(*I would change the first line to read “Older men and women ought to be explorers.”)

My friend is an explorer. She is a prime example of one who is being still while still moving.

This represents one of the paradoxes of the liturgical calendar. For those of us who utilize it, our experience is, at one and the same time, both forward moving and cyclical, an image of an upward spiral. We are journeying upwards towards God through a series of cleansing, transformative and unitive experiences. We are reminded that our journey to God is not merely an individual venture, but one of an entire people: explorers finding their end in their beginning. And that’s nothing to be melancholy about.

*****

Note: There Is a Season: Living the Liturgical Year, by Dennis J. Billy and published by Liguori Publications was used while researching portions of this post.

Three Videos

Two of them are trailers for new movies based upon true events that I cannot wait to see. The third is a video put together by couple for use on a Confirmation retreat in 2006.

First up is the movie trailer for Of Gods And Men. Limited in its theatrical release, the movie will be making its way to Omaha where I have plans to attend with my good friend Fr. H (if we can get our calendars to mesh).  It is based upon the true story of  the French Trappist monks of Tibherine who were kidnapped from their monastery in Algeria during the 1990s.

The second movie is also one I’ve long awaited and based upon a true story. Set for release on May 6, There Be Dragons tells the story of an investigative journalist who visits Spain to research a book about Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei. As he investigates he learns that his own father was born in the same town as Josemaria, but that they were childhood friends who took radically different paths in life. The film is written and directed by Roland Joffe whose 1986 movie The Mission is one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen and a favorite of mine. I’ve read Escriva’s book The Way, enjoyed its meditations and am looking forward to this theatrical glimpse into his early life.

The third video became an immediate sensation at the time of its posting and the response for those wanting to download it so overwhelming that servers kept crashing. The finally had to ask that people send their requests for a burned copy. It gave me chills five years ago. It gives me chills today. It is a beautiful summation of six reasons for being Catholic, reasons that are being affirmed for me during this fruitful Lent of 2011. The song Jesus Christ, You Are My Life was used for World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto. One of my favorite parts of the video is near the end where various saints are shown, many of them favorites of mine. A favorite not listed is St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, who said: “If you care about what people think of you, then you should not have become a Catholic.”

All of these people, the monks of Tibherine, Saint Josemaria Escriva, and the saints listed in the third video, have given us examples of courage to follow. I pray for courage in my own life.

Learning To Fly

A soul in tension, that’s learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try. – “Learning To Fly”, Pink Floyd

There is a fable about the way the birds got their wings at the beginning. They were first made without wings. Then God made the wings and put them down before the wingless birds and said to them, “Come, take up these burdens and bear them.”

The birds had lovely plumage and sweet voices; they could sing, and their feathers gleamed in the sunshine, but they could not soar in the air. They hesitated at first when bidden to take up the burdens that lay at their feet, but soon they obeyed, and taking up the wings in their beaks, laid them on their shoulders to carry them.

For a little while the load seemed heavy and hard to bear, but presently, as they went on carrying the burdens, folding them over their hearts, the wings grew fast to their little bodies, and soon they discovered how to use them, and were lifted by them up into the air—the weights became wings.

It is a parable of course. We are the wingless birds, and our duties and tasks are the very things God has made to lift us up and carry us heavenward. Too many of us look at our burdens and heavy loads, and shrink from them; but as we lift them and bind them about our hearts, they become wings, and on them we rise and soar toward God.

I was reminded of this fable when I received a kind email from a friend containing a link to this story. I won’t say much other than you owe it to yourself to read it in full. One married couple, Paul and Sandy Rogers, were given what some would consider burdens when both of their children were born with a range of serious physical and intellectual disabilities. After some adjustments and time, they didn’t see it that way.

In 1991, the Rogers helped organize a baseball game for children with disabilities. That first game was played on a field in Ridgeland, Mississippi, on a scorching afternoon in August. The 18 children playing had disabilities including Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, blindness, and a wide range of intellectual disabilities. The stands were filled with parents who had never dreamed they would see their children do something as wonderfully ordinary as play a baseball game.

“That was the first team sport activity Claire had ever been able to participate in,” says Charlotte Myers, whose daughter, Claire, has cerebral palsy. “For the first time in her life, she was more than just an observer.”

“I think everyone in the stands cried the whole game,” Mandy Rogers recalls. “Just seeing those kids on the field, having a good time with other kids like them, was really something special.”

It was supposed to be a one-time event, but the game was such a hit with the players and their families that the Rogers organized four more games the following summer. The third year, what had started as a one-weekend event was expanded to an entire season. Paul and Mandy Rogers, an attorney and a stay-at-home mom, found themselves the “commissioners” of a full-fledged baseball league. Given the make-up of the teams’ members, it was only fitting that the league be christened “Challenger.”

They just celebrated their twentieth season.

Next week our city of Lincoln will host the 2010 USA National Special Olympics. The Games will host 13 Special Olympics sports with 3,000 athletes, 1,000 coaches, 8,000 volunteers and 15,000 family and friends on July 18-23. I’ve already checked my calendar and I have a few nights where I will not be watching or coaching a baseball game. Wait…check that. I will be. While there is no baseball on the schedule they will be playing softball at Fleming Fields, a place where I’ve coached Nolan and his teammates in many a game. I’m hoping to bring both of my sons along with me to watch and cheer on these athletes as they strive to live out our their motto: “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”

There is no burden which, if we lift it cheerfully and bear it with love in our hearts, will not become a blessing to us. God means our tasks to be our helpers; to refuse to bend our shoulders to receive a load, is to decline a new opportunity for growth. The Rogers’ lifted their “burdens” and in the process not only set to flight but have allowed hundreds to follow. Next week right here in Lincoln we’ll be blessed to witness thousands more take to the air and to soar.

We will learn much from the experience. We will learn to fly from those who already do.
***

As he or she approaches the plate, each batter’s name is announced over the public address system and walk up music blasts across the field. When “Brown-eyed Girl” plays, the crowd knows it’s Kayla Weaver up to bat. Jon Thomas Barnes takes the plate to the tune of “Big Bad John.” Hearing his name called over the PA system and walking up to the theme from “Superman” is especially important to “Superman” Tyler Cannon, who is visually impaired. The first time he heard his name called, Tyler stopped in his tracks, turned to his father and said, “Did you hear that, Dad? He said my name.”

The Countersign

Today was one of those days where every bit of news I read seemed to be bad and sad. I read of the slaughter of hundreds of Christians in the Nigerian village of Jos by Muslim fanatics, who macheted and shot and burned people fleeing in the night, many of them aged 0 to teenagers. Of predictions that this will be an even bloodier century than the last was by way of martyrs whose only “crime” is being a follower of Christ. And then I read of Father Rick Machette.

I would offer excerpts of this article, or pull portions of it out in order to entice you to read it, but honestly it’s so overwhelming I don’t even know where to begin. This long and in depth article “Love Among The Ruins” about Fr. Machette and his life in Haiti, both before and after the earthquake that has devastated that land, is not for the faint of heart. It is horrible to read in places and if you click the link to view the photos even moreso. But if you look hard you will also find grace. It’s there, as it always is, amongst the cracks quietly shining it’s light in the darkness. As Fr. Rick writes, he strives to “repair the damage done…to make grace present, concretely, in our world.” He calls it the “countersign” to all the evil that seems to engulf this poorest of countries.

You have to look hard, and be willing to look past the evil and conditions so unspeakably foul that they are incomprehensible to us in America. But if you are willing to step outside yourself and do things you had thought yourself incapable of doing, you, too, will find grace in the cracks. It’s there. Don’t look away.

Fr. Rick had also just written a book Haiti: The God of Tough Places, the Lord of Burnt Men that is available at Amazon.com.

This morning I read a quote by Viktor Frankl that was never more true for me than today.

“The last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Fr. Machette, and many like him, live that every day. So can I.

Thinking. Hoping. Living.

“Friends are the pillars on your porch. Sometimes they hold you up, sometimes they lean on you, and sometimes it’s just enough to know that they are standing by.” – Unknown

I present here two profiles in courage. Just two of the thousands upon thousands of examples I could find if I looked hard enough. But sometimes I don’t want to see them. For while their lives lived by example blind me with their beauty, their light also spills over onto the darkness I allow to permeate my own. They serve to remind me that I spend far too much time “thinking” and “hoping” that I will have the “courage” to put pen to paper and follow my dream.

How pathetic I am.

These are people who are. They are following their dream. They do have the courage. At this point in my life I am not worthy of carrying their sandals.

But I can do something. I can continue to read of them…to talk about them…to pass on their stories so that they do not struggle in vain. So that someone may read of their struggle and use it to propel their own selves forward with courage into victory.

Or so that I finally do the same.

The first is Orlando Zapata Tamayo. I read of him in Jay Nordlinger’s Impromptus column of Feb. 19. He is one of those Cuban prisoners of conscience, and he is in very bad shape. He is “in the 76th day of a hunger strike in protest against beatings, harsh treatment and other abuses he endures as a prisoner under the Castro regime, and demanding respect for his human rights.”

But it’s not just Orlando. Read what his mother, at great risk and danger to herself and her son, says.

“So that the world might hear me, I ask for solidarity from our brothers [fellow Cubans]; that they launch themselves along with this mother; that they call for Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s freedom; that they not be afraid of blows, because it is worthier to die upright than to die kneeling.”

Did you get that? It is worthier to die upright than to die kneeling. Powerful words. Courageous people.

The second individual is from Iraq. David Bellavia writes about his encounter with her when he was a soldier in Iraq assigned to protect Iraqi citizens who were exercising their God-given rights to vote for the first time in their lives.

My squad runs through the searing heat and forms a wall of flesh and Kevlar between the incoming fire and the citizens standing in line behind us. They’ve turned out in their finest clothes to wait for the opportunity to cast a vote. For most, this moment is a defining one in their lives. They’ve never had a voice before. This means something to them, and they have used the moment as an object lesson for their children. They appear nervous and take photos. The kids stand with them in line, viewing first hand this revolution in Iraqi civics.

As they came to line up earlier that morning, the men thanked us and clasped their hands over their heads, striking a triumphant pose. Some of the women cried. The kids were on their best behavior.

The gunfire began that afternoon. Insurgents started to shoot them. My unit ran to the road and formed a protective position between the killers and the citizens going to the polls. As we scanned the palm grove in front of us, bullets cracked and whined, then mortars start thumping around us. My squad pushed into the palm grove. I stayed on the road, overseeing their movement and coordinating the heavy fire from the Bradleys.

The firefight ebbs. The mortar fire ceases. A few last stray rounds streak past. A cry from behind causes me to turn. Lying in the road is a young Iraqi woman. I run over to help. She’s caught a round just below her temple. Her stunning beauty has been ruined forever.

She cries, “Paper! Paper” over and over until the ambulance arrives to take her away. An old lady emerges from the schoolhouse-turned voting site, sheets of blue paper in hand. She gives one to the wounded girl, who clutches it to her like a prized possession even as the ambulance carries her away.

The ballot was her voice. All she wanted was a chance to exercise it, just once, before she died.

This woman only wanted to do what far too many Americans take for granted. While I vote each and ever time the opportunity is presented, I ask myself: “what else do I take for granted? Why do I do this?”

Why have I allowed myself to fritter and waste away precious time that I could have used for better purpose elsewhere? I know why. Because I have lacked the courage to face my fears, get into the arena, and to put my comfort on the line. Christ…did I just type that? My comfort! I can never look the Tamayos in the eyes unless I have the courage to change. To stretch.

I told one of my best friends recently that while I find myself with a lot of social friends I have always been a person who has a very tight circle of those I consider to be my confidants. My counsel (council). I find myself paring away the edges and finding my bearing and my strength within those few good people as I continue this Lenten journey of avoiding the “noise” and busyness of social networking sites. It’s only been one week but I am already stronger as a result. I have hundreds of friends whom I enjoy and treasure. I have but a few precious friends whom I adore and cherish and love. They know who they are. They are my pillars. I strive to be one of theirs if I am called by them to do so.

I owe it to them, and to those in this world who breathe courage as I breathe the air, to do better.

It’s time to do as Andy Dufresne said in The Shawshank Redemption: Get busy living, or get busy dying.

It’s my choice to make whereas others have none. Which will I choose?