Unclogging the drain

There’s a lot of construction going on downtown and apparently somebody made a boo-boo by cutting through a power line. Our entire office building went dark (as did a large portion of downtown Lincoln) and while the power was off for only ten minutes we’re still waiting for our networks to get back online. So while I wait I’m going to try to get this stuff that’s been collecting in my head and on scraps of paper into some sort of coherent form. Forgive me my bullet points.

• It seems I’ve become aware of a lot of death lately. People I know, people I don’t know, people who I don’t know but are known by people I know. From infants to teenagers to adults. Every one of them someone’s child. Every one of them leaving behind a grieving parent or parents. Death is a part of life…the great “circle of life” and all that. I get it, believe me. As a Catholic I believe I’m more acutely aware of it than I ever was pre-Catholicism and I’m glad my children don’t think of death as some foreign icky thing to be avoided at all cost. I wish I had more time to explain this now but unfortunately I don’t.
• Back to the recent awareness with death. A good friend of mine lost a son recently. He was in his twenties. Stacye is a writer and once some time passed she did as I knew she’d do: she wrote about it. And then did so again. And again. Beautifully in fact, and with the grace I knew she possessed. Naturally she has cut way back on posting things on Facebook and writing in general, at least publically. She may be keeping a private journal of her own thoughts. I hope she is. Because if I’m right she needs to write…needs to bring order to her thoughts and the swirling whirling emotions that have surrounded her in this time.
• Confession: I really hate writing. I hate it for the very reason stated above. Because I find myself almost hourly finding a subject to write about, some of them even interesting, that I want to share with others. But also that I want to share with myself and in some small way bring an order to the massive globstopper in my brain that seems to clutter up the place. I have to write it down as a means of eliminating clutter, and if I can help someone along the way by means of an understanding than it’s a bonus, baby. By placing it in the trash, or at times the recycling bin, I am able to keep it from growing out of control and stinking up the place. But damn it I wish it wasn’t that way sometimes. I wish I could just take something in by means of one of the senses and immediately let it go. But instead it ferments too long and then I don’t get wine. I get grape juice. And really crappy grape juice at that that leaves nothing but a headache behind. So I hate writing.

Not being able to write didn't work out so well for this guy.

• And that is precisely why I love to write.
• About the same time as my friend’s loss the dad I know across the street from our house also lost a child, his 16-year old son. I’ve written a little about it here. A few weeks later he and I were standing on his curb talking. While we spoke he kept glancing into my front yard where my two youngest were running and screaming and playing. “They grow up so fast, Jeff,” he said. And then he told me three things: “Play with your kids. Take them out for ice cream. Remember all of it.” And then he hugged me and went inside his house.
• Here’s what’s been marinating since he told me these three things. I am a steward of my children. I think all parents know this on some level. My oldest is 16, but I’m making a note to ask my friend Stacye sometime how she feels about it. My guess is that it never stops. As a Christian when talk turns to the principles of stewardship we mention three: time, talent and treasure. Time is another word for prayer; Talent is our service towards the Church and our fellow man; and Treasure is our tithing or monetary contributions towards worthy causes. So for weeks now I’ve been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and write a clever blogpost about what this father said to me, kids, parenting and stewardship. The closest I came was
  • Time = Remember all of it.
  • Talent = Play with your kids.
  • Treasure = Take them out for ice cream.
• Or something like that. Either way, I thought his advice was pitch-perfect. But I couldn’t seem to unclog the drain and write it down.
• In both instances, Stacye and the dad across the street, I failed to reach out to them. I don’t know why I froze up when it counted, but I did. I told myself that I’d give them time to get through the first few days and week or so of numbness and being overwhelmed by it all, including all of the visitors and well-wishers. After that initial rush we are left alone, and that is when we need someone the most. So I waited. And then I began to feel I’d waited too long. Then I felt uncomfortable for having waited too long and I certainly couldn’t call or talk to them then, right? I cannot believe how poorly I did at this. Fail.
• A little over a week ago this email landed in one of my inboxes: “Special prayers are needed for Kirk N. and Family (wife Tania, sons Jordan, Ethan, & Gabriel) as they lost their unborn baby girl Thursday night. May God fill their hearts with strength & courage during this time of extreme sorrow.” Almost to the second I got a text from my wife to call her. She’d heard the news too.
• I didn’t meet Kirk until last fall when he initiated a men’s Bible Study/Prayer program at our parish called “That Man Is You”. We met for 13 weeks in the fall, took a break for Christmas/New Year’s, and just finished up the 13 weeks of the spring “semester.” We met every Wednesday morning from 6:30 to 7:30am (“we” being around 50 men) and it has been a real blessing to us men and our marriages, relationships, etc. Kirk is a quiet, unassuming man who once you get to know him…well, let’s just say the well runs deep within him. He’s one of those guys who doesn’t say much, but when he does you want to listen.
• Kirk’s wife Tania had just entered into the Catholic faith at the Easter Vigil under two weeks ago. A week ago on Wednesday morning as our prayer group was finishing up I asked Kirk how the Vigil had gone. He smiled broadly and said it was fantastic and that the boys (in grades 7, 4 and 1) were all so happy for their mom. And in just a few weeks they would be welcoming their new daughter. Life was wonderful.
• Except that twenty-four hours later it wasn’t so wonderful. Having noticed that she hadn’t felt the baby move that day Tania went to her doctor. There she received the worst news any of us could receive. For reasons unknown her little girl had died. Sunday morning at 3am she was induced and delivered little Sophia Gianna Therese. Our pastor was there to baptize Sophia and mourn with the family. Gianna was the confirmation name Tania had chosen when she became Catholic just a week before. St. Gianna Beretta Molla, pray for them.
• I found a short, beautiful poem when I was writing this.
• Yesterday morning I attended the funeral Mass for little Sophia. Her dad and her grandfather carried her tiny white coffin to the front of our church where it rested on the tiniest funeral bier I’ve seen. I went early, so as to sit in the pew alone with my thoughts. I prayed the Office for the Dead from the Liturgy of the Hours. The last lines of the opening hymn are

In him all our sorrow,
in him all our joy.

In him hope of glory,
in him all our love.

In him our redemption,
in him all our grace.

In him our salvation,
in him all our peace.

• I find Catholic funerals much more comforting, and I suppose that comes as no great surprise. I do because like a proper Catholic wedding, the main reason we are there is to honor God. God is the center and the emphasis of the event. Not the bride or the happy couple. And not the honored dead. Of course, they are prominent and we are there to honor them and their memory, but the focus remains on God and our faith, whether within the Sacrament of Marriage and the union of the man and woman, or in the hope of joining Christ in the Resurrection.
• The readings, music, and homily by Fr. Johnson were perfect. I was a mess through the first part of the Mass but I composed myself and focused on the liturgy. That was a tremendous help.
• And then the three brothers processed to the front with the offeratory gifts before the Liturgy of the Eucharist while the pianist sang a moving version of Ten Thousand Angels. Cue water faucets.
• For some reason I thought back to when I was a teenager and my thoughts turned to funerals. I remember thinking that for my own funeral I wanted something angst-ridden like Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” or “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas played at my funeral. Thank God that didn’t happen.
• And not just because of the crappy funeral music. But because I’m still, you know…here.
• If I were to choose now, I’d lean more towards having a slower version of this song played at my funeral Mass. That and a little Mozart for good measure.
• Kirk said a few brief words at the end of his daughter’s funeral about how much the family had appreciated all the prayers to give them strength to get through this time. He mentioned a quote by Saint Faustina that he’d read in her diary (a book I highly recommend as one of the pillars of spiritual reading). I wish I’d captured it correctly, but paraphrasing her she’d said “Sometimes God creates children for his own purposes.” Kirk said it brought him great comfort to think that perhaps that was his daughter’s role.
• While I can’t recall  the exact quote above, I did find this one from an early Father of the Church, St. Gregory of Nyssa:

Well, your child may have departed from you, but he has gone to Christ the Lord. For you his eyes have been shut, but they are opened to the eternal light: he is gone from your table, but is now added to the table of angels. The plant was uprooted from here, but planted in paradise. From the earthly kingdom he was transferred to the heavenly kingdom. You see what was exchanged for what. Are you sad because you no longer see the beauty of the face of your child? But this happens, because you do not see the real beauty of the soul with which he rejoices in the heavenly feast. How beautiful indeed is the eye that sees God! How sweet indeed is the mouth that is adorned with divine melodies!

• All of these events remind us that life does go on. It really is a big, and whole, circle. We’re born, we live, we die. We recently spent forty days of preparation for Easter, experiencing the triumph of Palm Sunday, and the agonies of Christ’s Passion. We celebrated the victory of Easter and the Resurrection, and thus began fifty days of celebration. Forty days to prepare for a fifty day party. I’ll take it. But even during the party there will be reminders that the struggle on this earthly plane continue. Since Easter we celebrated Divine Mercy Sunday, children have received their First Holy Communion, prayer groups continue as do weddings and funerals. We have mourned and we have celebrated. We continue to be the best stewards we can be. We are the Church Militant on earth, waiting to ultimately join the Church Triumphant in Heaven.
• Last thoughts: After the funeral I went home to change for work. The house was empty except for our beagle puppy Buster, so I took him out to the backyard to enjoy some sunshine before I had to drive to work. I sat on the park bench in the little garden area (a work in progress) while he frolicked in the warm sunshine, rolling around in the grass and soaking in every ray of the sun possible.
• While I sat there a squirrel perched in one of the tall evergreen trees in our fence line chirked angrily at Buster. And I mean this squirrel went off. I laughed out loud because years ago when we still had our first dog, Fenway, we rented a house that had a large oak tree in the middle of the small back yard where he would trap squirrels. They were climb down to the lowest branch possible and chew him out for treeing them. I love that memory. Looks like I’ll be hearing more of it (the chirking) going forward.
• Sitting on the weatherworn bench I make a note to myself to replace the wood slats. These are getting a little weak having been exposed to the elements for a few years. Twelve small pieces of lumber should do the trick. And then I decide it’s time to build the wooden arbor trellis over the bench, too. And thus a summer project is born.
• Is there anything more wonderful than working with our hands? For my money there is nothing more satisfying than creating or working on something in this manner. It’s almost divine. Maybe it is.
• Before going inside I decide to join Buster for a roll around the grass and soak up some of the sun’s rays. Why should he have all the fun? So I do. Therapy.
• I hate writing. I love it so.

***

Plunger to the face image source.

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

 

Balloons and Candles

Dressed in my parka, hands stuffed into my pockets I walk the path through the park a few blocks from my home. A third of the way through the park I veer off to my left, across the grassy field and towards the line of trees. Once through the other side there emerges in front of me a small grassy hill which I climb under the moonlight and stars. And once I reach the top I am able to look down into the ravine where I see the flickering light of candles, one hundred or more, held in silent, shaking hands. I stand there, an outsider, not sure whether I should go down. I do, descending into the bowl-shaped ravine and stand several feet outside the circle of people and notice for the first time that many are wearing blankets over their shoulders. It seems that few of them are adults, but mostly teenagers are present. Hearing no sounds I turn back to my left to continue up the other side of the bowl and towards what appeared to be a makeshift shrine of sorts, with many candles blazing on the ground in the grass. There are two balloons there, held in place by strings tethered to the ground.

I approach and recall that this is the slope that my kids and I will ride our sled down at high speeds when the heavy snows of winter come. Many times I’ve wiped out, the sounds of my grunts meshing with the laughter of my boys as they look down at my sprawled form from their perch at the summit.

There is no snow here today, the foot of snow we received two weeks ago having melted away in the warm, sunny days of the past two weeks. Now there is only brown grass. Brown grass. Balloons. And candles. There is one other shape that I can now begin to see due to the fragile light of the small candles. An easel stands here, holding a large black and white photo of a smiling face. I recognize the face of my neighbor’s sixteen-year-old son.

It is the face of a boy who took his own life a few days ago.

I can’t stand here long, because in looking at him I see my own son, also sixteen, and I begin to sob. Standing here I remember the loud, innocent laughter and shouting as both boys played together when they were eight years old. We had just moved in across the street and they were playing with this boy’s older brother. All three were laughing the laughs of lazy childhood summer days.

That was the last summer our kids played together. Our sons moved in different circles socially, each with their own friends in this larger city. But I watched the comings and goings of this child as he grew into a teenager. Troubled, it seems, and carrying the weight of his own demons who finally drove him to make one last and desperate act.

I take a last look at the smiling face of my neighbor’s dead son and walk again to the bottom of the bowl, silently I pass the teenagers, friends and fellow students of the boy, and walk back up to the top on the other side. And here I stand, silently looking down, my hands in my pockets, praying for them all.

Dear God, let his pain be gone and his soul at peace. In your divine mercy, I ask for forgiveness for this child of yours who was so confused and burdened by the pressures of this life that he felt there was no way he could continue.

Lord, hold his family in your arms and lift them up during their time of need.

Please support his dad, a good man, grieving his son far too soon.

Lift up his brother, who lost his mom a few years ago and now his brother. Be his strength and help him to be strong.

Dear God I pray for his grandmother, in whose house they all live. She’s seen so much pain come to her son and his family. Please help her in this time of need and going forward.

I begin to softly pray a rosary beneath the moon but am interrupted as a group of the kids place themselves by the boy’s photo and begin to talk. They want to say a few words about him and invite others to do the same. I listen as these kids go through the motions of their grieving and witness their struggle to make sense of the senseless.

Jesus, lift up and guide these children here below me. Sad, confused and hurting. Help them to see that life is not this dark, and that here beneath the night sky there is a moon reflecting but a small piece of that light. Let them know that there will be a sunrise tomorrow and the sun shall once again warm their faces if they turn towards the light.

Lord let them turn to your light, and be warmed by your loving embrace.

My prayer ends and I turn to begin the walk back towards the tree line, into the park, and towards home. The cars that lined our small street all day to bring words of comfort and hot dishes of food are now gone. Inside is a family immersed in their grief. As I walk into my driveway I resolve to pay my respects tomorrow and in the days to come.

Lord, let me reflect your light somehow and warm their faces. Make me your instrument.

Eternal rest, grant unto him O Lord
and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace. Amen.

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.

The Ferris Wheel

The wing and the wheel are gonna carry us along
And we’ll have memories for company… long after the songs are gone.
~ The Wing & The Wheel (Nanci Griffith)

Credit: jupiterimages.com

Last night I described my recent relationship as a father to my oldest son thusly:

We connected, and then went around on the big circle that we wind up on these days. We start off far apart, draw closer, and then go round again…winding up apart.

I was thinking of a Ferris Wheel. This morning I awoke with the image even more engrained in my mind.

In this life we walk hand in hand with our little ones through the Carnival of Life. We try to guide them through life’s midway, a maze of vendors screaming at your kids to “play” this and “try” that. Games of chance that fleece them of their money or worse, their dignity as human beings. You hold their little hands tightly, calmly teaching them about why they should avoid such things, at times not shielding them so they can see the ugliness with their own eyes.

A few steps past the last vendor finds us staring up in the sky. We are at the foot of the Ferris Wheel. In the small town carnivals of my youth this was always the most distinct landmark as it was usually the tallest ride. As time has gone on it is no longer the most popular or viewed as the most dangerous of rides in a thrill-seeking culture such as ours. It’s kind of slow and a little boring. Our child looks up with us with pleading eyes and asks to ride it. As you’ve ridden it with them before you nod and begin to walk to the waiting car with them. They stop and turn to look up to you. Silently they say with their eyes that this time they want to go solo.

“I’m going to pre-school now, Daddy. No worries. I’ll just go around once.”

And so he gets on while we stand, feet firmly planted to the ground. He’s a little nervous but also excited as he grips the bar and his feet dangle in the air because he’s not quite tall enough to rest them on the car’s foothold. The wheel starts to turn and he’s taken away from you, going backwards and upwards with the wide-eyed look of one who is tasting his freedom for the first time. Up to the top he goes, and finally down towards you and the ground. The ride stops. He exits the car and runs towards you excitedly and once more puts his little hand in yours, but you notice that it seems to be a little bigger as you hold on.

“It’s my first day of school, Dad! Kindergarten will be awesome!”

Away from you while going upwards he climbs, this time going around twice. As he makes his second circle you notice that his feet are not dangling and now rest on the car’s foothold. Taking his hand after the ride his lengthier fingers now more easily entwine with your own.

The first sleepover finds him on the ride again.

Again as the teenager.

High school.

Graduation.

Each time the Ferris Wheel ride goes a little faster. Each time the number of circles increases. And each time he steps off he walks back to you a little taller and with less enthusiasm. Finally he stops putting his large hand into your own. And each time as you walk through the midway with him he seems intent to listen to what the carnies are pitching. And you pause to look at your reflection in a booth’s sideshow mirror to see that you have gotten softer around the middle, more gray is on your scalp, and your stride is not as swift.

You have more than one child. This is not happening in a vacuum. As you place the older child on the Ferris Wheel for his umpteenth time you turn and put your pre-schooler on it for her first trip round. As she gets on the ride your middle child is in the car paused at the wheel’s apex. You shield your eyes and looking up you notice that his car is beginning to swing more carefree at the top as he breathes in the sweet air of freedom and no cares, and takes in the view of limitless possibilities for the very first time.

You step back and place your feet on the familiar ground.

And let go.

*****

This morning I read from Psalm 139. Among many things it says “You know me when I sit down and when I rise up.” And I thought of the Ferris Wheel. Verses 1 through 18 read as a son talking to his father or as a child to the parent. I read it even now and I see that I am the son speaking of and to his heavenly father. Reassuring myself of His love, and of the relationship we share.

But I know something else. I am called to be a father. I am in truth already a dad. A very human and earthbound dad, being more humbled with each passing day. While I will never be the omnipotent father as God is to me, I can be and will be an earthly father to my children.

I will help them to “search out” their path.

I can offer my hand to “lead” them. In my right hand I “shall hold” them. No darkness is too dark for me to ever stop searching for them when they get lost. The “night is bright as the day.”

And when the time is right I will take a deep breath and find strength as their dad by trusting in my Father. I will step back and place my feet firmly on familiar ground so that they always know where to find me.

And I will try to let go.

Reeds

Lent arrived early this year.

For reasons that shall, for now, remain known only to me I’ve not found the strength nor the desire to write anything this week. I have been in the midst of a storm that has caused the loss of sleep, the straining of a relationship that I hold very dear, and also a lot of prayer. Indeed, I took Monday off from work in order to spend a day in solitude and reflection before spending a few hours on my knees in a convent chapel. The Blessed Sacrament was exposed there for adoration, and a nun in a pink habit borne out of obedience to her vows is always present. I alternately sat, knelt, and paced while after a time another nun would come to relieve her and begin a vigil of her own.

The worst feeling I’ve known as a father is to be unable to help one of my children. As an American male we are immersed in a culture that tells us we can fix anything and fix it rightnow. When this doesn’t work we become stubborn and prideful in our attempts to slam our square peg of an obvious solution into the round hole of a problem. We stiffen our necks. We succumb to our pride. We further damage the very ones we are trying to help. And when nothing works we fall into despair and feel the sting of being a failure as a father. This of course, is a lie.

Satan has been attacking the family since the Dawn of Time. Specifically he loves attacking the concept of fatherhood. Take a look around our culture today. I’d say he’s been pretty successful. On Monday during the first hour of silently sobbing and spilling many tears over the pages of the book from which I was trying to read I had convinced myself after weeks of not being able to “fix” this issue that I was indeed a massive failure as a dad. I had failed my son. He deserved better.

You could almost see the sneering lips curl into a smile from the demon on my shoulder.

During his time in the desert Scripture records that Christ was tempted three times by the devil, who used as a weapon the scriptures themselves, though out of context. Typical, really. And if you take a look around you (I’m thinking specifically of certain politicians here) you will see this tactic is still being deployed today. But if we are to learn a lesson from this story it is that the way to counter those lies is with Scripture. This is exactly what Jesus did three times. And on the third time he was left alone to be tended by angels.

Here I began to write a little meditation on this passage from the 4th chapter of St. Matthew, but decided against it. What I will instead write is that I took this lesson to heart and for the first time in a long time really leaned on Scripture for support. Yes, I know the Bible. Yes, I read and study the Bible. But too many times I have not really searched through it for answers to life’s problems or even for comfort. I would engage my head but not my heart. But before I left that pew and that chapel I recalled something written by St. Anthony of Padua: “Earthly riches are like the reed. Its roots are sunk in the swamp, and its exterior is fair to behold; but inside it is hollow. If a man leans on such a reed, it will snap off and pierce his soul.”

I’ve leaned on enough reeds in my life to see the wisdom and truth in this. I bear the scars of being pierced many times as they’ve snapped.

It was late in the afternoon when I drove home thinking about this line and what it might mean. Shortly after my arrival I received my first answer. On my bedroom pillow my wife had left me a handwritten note that simply said:

Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. (Romans 12:12)

Below that she had written:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord. (James 1: 5-8)

Because I’m a stubborn thick-headed son-of-a-bitch, I received the final mallet blow upside my skull that night before bed when I read the following in an Ignatian Prayer book I had picked up from my bookshelf:

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the Lord… (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

Ok God. I got it. It’s time to stop leaning on the reeds of my own understanding and find something stronger.

I did. Angels have come. And so far that has made all the difference.

(To be continued…)

A Memoir of Love and Loss: Wish You Were Here

My inspiration to begin writing a blog is a woman I first encountered a decade ago on the interwebs. When I first read Amy Welborn at In Between Naps two things struck me. First, she was prolific! My God that woman wrote. And wrote. And wrote. I don’t know how she found the time. But more than that she was wonderful. To write that much and keep it interesting, entertaining and thought-provoking? I didn’t think it was possible, but there it was right in front of me each day, or several times a day. Remember, this was over ten years ago. Blogs were still a relatively new thing for most of America and only beginning to come into their own. I enjoyed reading Amy and she became a friendly voice to sit with each morning over coffee when I’d read her during a morning break in my day. Because of her I discovered more voices such as Jeff Miller over at The Curt Jester, and Elizabeth Scalia aka The Anchoress. I still read both regularly and you can find them on my blog roll to the right. She was the inspiration for what a few of us who own Catholic blogs refer to as the Welborn Protocol when it comes to blog comments. I admit I’ve never had to enact it as I don’t garner too many comments. But by golly if I ever grow big enough I will.

About a year or so after I started reading Amy at IBN she started a new blog named Open Book. This is where I thought Amy really grew as did her audience. At IBN I witnessed the care and interaction that occurred between Amy and her readers in the comboxes. At Open Book it progressed even more. Amy was having a conversation with us instead of just talking at us. Her family was growing and she continued to author many Catholic books for her publisher Our Sunday Visitor Press.

In 2007 she made the decision to change again and began to blog at Charlotte Was Both. While her first two blogs were the reason I decided to begin my first blog over at Blogger, it was CWB that cemented my desire to begin anew at WordPress. Her husband, Michael Dubruiel was himself a prolific author and blogger. I found myself reading him as well. While I was writing a series of forty 1-2 page bulletin inserts on the Mass I used one of his books as a resource. Michael and I exchanged a few emails during this time as I had a few questions for him. He was more than courteous and helpful.

Three years ago today Michael died. His obituary is here. It was sudden, unexpected, and occurred while he was exercising at his gym. Within seconds on that fateful morning he was gone at the age of 50. Amy had recently left Charlotte Was Both to begin writing for a brief time at BeliefNet. Her pieces about Michael’s death are archived here. From her example I learned many things and cried many times along the way. I’d never met either of them, but I felt as if I knew them personally. Thus is the power of the internet and our ability to connect in a shared humanity.

Next week Amy’s latest, and perhaps most personal book will be released. It is a book I’ve had on my wish list for months when I first learned about it late last summer. Wish You Were Here: Travels Through Loss and Hope is a story about Amy’s trip to Sicily with three of her children, taken five months after Michael’s death.

Her journey through city and countryside, small town and ancient ruins, opens unexpected doors of memory and reflection, a pilgrimage of the heart and an exploration of the soul. It is an observant and wry memoir and travelogue, intensely personal yet speaking to universal experiences of love and loss.

Along the narrow roads and hairpin turns, the narrative reveals the beauty of the ordinary and the commonplace and asks stark questions about how we fill the empty places that a loved one leaves behind. It is a meditation on the possibility of faith, one that is unflinching, uncompromising, and altogether unsentimental when confronted by the ultimate test of belief. This book is not only a well-told memoir, but a testimony to the truth that love is stronger than death.

There is a Kindle version as well so I haven’t decided the form in which I’ll purchase this book. I’m in between books right now but have long planned to read Amy’s when released. In the interim I’m re-reading Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son. By next week I’ll be reading along with Amy and her children and visiting with old friends and bittersweet memories.

Pillars

“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

Having read posts from Psychevida and Thoughts On Theatre about friendship and gratitude over the past 24 hours has spurred me to begin culling together about twenty quotes, anecdotes and writings I’d stored away for the past year on the subject of friendship.

A few years ago I had a discussion with a wonderful friend of mine about language and terms of endearment. Suzi was born in Jordan before immigrating to America at the tender age of one with her parents. We spoke of language and the meaning behind words. While in America we casually throw around terms of endearment such as babe, honey or sweetie, the Arab people use words with much deeper meaning. She told me that in Arabic they use terms such as “my soul” (rouhi), “my heart” (albi), “my eyes” (ouni), or “my love” (habibi – when referring to men and habibti – for the women).

Friends, and many things, have been on my mind of late. Last night I finished the Michael O’Brien novel The Father’s Tale around 12:30am. As I closed the book with much satisfaction I was also a little sad as I was saying goodbye to characters I’d grown to love for the past 2-3 weeks of reading its 1,072 pages. “I’ll get to revisit them when I read it again,” I said to myself while turning off my bedside lamp. But then another thought crept into my head. The one that says I’m getting older…time is more precious. Indeed it is running out. Don’t spend it revisiting things you’ve already done. Move forward.

Remember how when you were younger you could just waste an entire day? Week? Month? A whole summer vacation! You had all the time in the world. Before being old enough to get a summer job you could listen to the same cassette tape or album(!) over and over and not think twice about it. I used to read the same comic books again and again until they were memorized before I hit 13. Or spend a day watching MTV (when they still played music videos).

I can no longer do that. I have responsibilities as a husband and father. This keeps me from listening to music all day (now on an iPod). Or watching MTV (which is unbearable for five minutes, let alone five hours). And as for reading? I’ve accumulated such a library of books that I know in all likelihood I’ll read each volume just once. Alas, there are several that I may never read.

This brings me back to friendships.

Have you ever thought about all of the people you have encountered during your lifetime? The people you’ve passed on the sidewalk, nodding with a smile or making eye contact. Those for whom you’ve held a door open. Those who have done the same for you. People with whom you stand in line at a checkout counter, or those who stand or sit around you in a theater or while awaiting to be seated in a restaurant. And on and on and on. I wonder how many individual human lives have we had the opportunity to encounter over the course of our years? If we’re lucky we have 2-3 or more deep, rich friendships. Friends to whom we can go to and talk with about anything, no matter how long the interval was between conversations. If we’re blessed we share a bit of ourselves each day with those with whom we come in contact, whether by our own initiation or theirs. I’ve written of these moments before in this post, but today I’d like to add another such moment if you’ll indulge me.

I have developed a bad habit: every morning around 9:30 I leave my 3^rd floor desk to walk two downtown blocks to a Starbucks. I became addicted to Peppermint Mochas during Christmas 2010. When informed by my barista that I can have them 365 days a year at their location I got hooked. What’s worse is I add a blueberry streusel muffin to this routine a few days out of the week. I don’t even want to know how many calories it is. I don’t care. Just gimme that muffin.

I frequent the place enough that I am on a first name basis with several of the employees. There’s Karen, whose children attend the same high school as my oldest son. There’s Cayleigh, a young woman who has begun to train for and compete in 5K, 10K and half-marathons. There is also Tina.

While standing in line yesterday and talking to Cayleigh about her training while Karen was making my addiction, another employee was excitedly talking to the female customer yesterday. They obviously knew each other. This customer had just shared the news that while she and her husband where in their early to mid forties they had finally, and unexpectedly, achieved pregnancy. They had given up after years and years of trying and now were glowing and scared and excited about having a baby. Tina, who was standing nearby, congratulated the woman and with a slight sigh shared that she and her husband had been trying for years but with no success. After the newly pregnant woman walked away I told Tina how my wife and I had tried for years after the birth of our first born. Of how we rejected our then OB-GYN’s solutions that went against our faith. And of how we found a wonderful pro-life doctor who had a lot of success in helping couples. There is no guarantee of course, but we did have two more children after he became our doctor. Tina smiled, wrote down the information I provided about the doctor and the name of his clinic, and Karen confirmed what I had told Tina about this doctor.

I said that to say this: at the age of forty-four I don’t know that I have 2-3 of those friends whom I can go to when absolutely necessary. Those with whom I have a long history of shared experiences. It seems that during the past decade of child-rearing and employment on my part and on theirs, those relationships have withered on the vine. However, I am constantly encountering those smaller moments of serendipity and of grace each day that keep a smile on my heart and my balance intact. I’ve learned to appreciate them and be open to them for if I didn’t I would be all the poorer.

To all of you who I’ve been blessed to know I say: You are all in my heart. You made me who I am and are making me who I will be. And I hope I lift you up often as you lift me. I can be a heavy load to lift at times. All of you have been there to hold me up at various times in my life. Some of you have leaned on me now and again also. I thank you for the opportunity to do both. Thanks you to the rest for standing by. You never know when we’ll need each other my albis, but I’m damned glad to know you’re there.

To you whose names I never learned and whom perhaps I will never meet again: as I traveled through your lives, you gave a stranger your kindness, music, food, thoughts, prayers, and stories of sorrows and joys. I thank you for the grace-filled glimpses into your lives.

And to you whom have moved on, but whose essence remains in my heart, I echo what Nanci sings here, in one of my favorite songs of all time:

But lost to me are how the lives of friends go
Like autumn leaves in Oklahoma wind

In the song’s final lines, she sings: “I’ll come to miss a few.”

As I approach the late summer days of my life, I find that I do. I miss a few.

[Postscript: Having compiled all the snippets of quotes and stories together, I will be posting them in smaller portions over the course of the next week or so. They do no one any good buried in a closed document on my hard drive. They need to breathe.]

Enough

The first time I ever heard this, I just wanted to drop to my knees in prayer and penance. I literally stopped doing whatever-it-was-that-was-important-at-the-moment and was immersed in the sounds of total peace. You can read more about the “Miserere mei, Deus” by Gregorio Allegri here. It’s truly gorgeous.

I have been listening to this piece to drown out the din and the chatter of the news. I’ve been using it especially to block out the comments left in comboxes across the internet in this the “age of the rant.” It is my way of shouting “Silencio!”

Enough already.

I’ve come to believe that we are a most unserious people living in a most serious age. The Age of Me. The age of faux compassion. The age of emotion over facts, style over substance, feelings uber alles.

We are living in a time where Bill Maher, Joy Behar, Stephen Colbert and Bill O’Reilly are considered the best and the brightest among us. Too many strive to emulate them.

I read, and remain silent. I remain silent as people rant and rave on about the-way-things-ought-to-be-according-to-them. I’ve participated in this foolish exercise myself now and then. I’ve learned to avoid saying things in certain online forums. Indeed, I cannot even blog in one such “salon that shall be open” because I’m a conservative. And horror of horrors! I’m a practicing Roman Catholic! I mean really! Didn’t people like me die out during the last crusade? Shouldn’t we have? According to many on that site and elsewhere the answer is yes.

Look, I can hear the clucking of tongues and rolling of eyes when I post or speak out against the latest tirade of bigotry, usually presenting itself in anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic tones. I get that. That spirit of the world has been here long before I arrived and will continue long after I’m gone. Its playbook really hasn’t changed through the millennia:

1. attack authority
2. attack tradition
3. belittle your opponent
4. assert the importance of me

What? You thought the 60s generation somehow had an original thought all these years? Puh-leeze. That’s the way it started in the Garden of Eden, and it hasn’t varied one iota since then.

But enough already.

This evening I was doing some reading after my son’s baseball game and came across this quotation:

Purity of heart silences our unruly passions, our clouded egoism. Humility is born from the truth of ourselves, which we contemplate in the mirror of the Word of God. It is humility that does not give rise to despair but to hope, hope that confides everything in God, not resenting but loving the One who gives us all, the humility that gives us himself. Humility disposes us to receive his gifts, his fortitude, his inspirations, a participation in his knowledge and his love.

From the “Miserere”: Cor mundum crea in me, Deus: et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis. Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me.

I’m currently finishing the draft of the introduction to my book. I’ve got several chapters in draft form, and others written in pieces. This is what’s important to me now. Not the din. Not the chatter. Not having to be tolerant in the face of the intolerance of others.

This book is for my kids. I’ve only so much time to finish it. To accomplish this I have found that I require silence. I also require a clean heart while writing from my heart these letters to my children’s hearts.

With God’s grace I’ll have that Hope and that Humility. I will strive to find that silence in my heart and my mind in order to project that peace outward. I will listen to Allegri, read what is good and true, and as Whitman did I shall look up at the stars now and then. At times I’ll even do so with my children.

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

– Walt Whitman

©2011 Jeff A Walker. All Rights Reserved.

The Pink Arrow

Sophia means “wisdom” in Greek. She was the legendary mother of the virgin martyrs Faith, Hope and Charity. Three days after their deaths she is said to have passed peacefully away while praying by their tomb, and is thought to be the personification of an allegory. Meaning, I guess, that if we lose the first three, wisdom is doomed to follow. Or, wisdom exists only because of the three things it has given “birth” to. Jeez…that’s a little deep, eh? I’ll stop before I hurt myself.

The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard has reminded us that “we know backward, but we must live forward.” And so we must, but I’m taking a moment today to sneak a peek back. Doing so reveals to me my “forward.”

Just four short years ago our bit of wisdom arrived. On Valentine’s Day 2007 Sophia Rose entered this world. And with her arrival came the sense that our lives had changed forever.

I recall writing that I had “found my vocation.” Our vocation is not only the way that we love God but also the way that God loves us. In Ephesians St. Paul exhorts us to “live a life worthy of the calling” we have received. Thomas Merton, a 20th century Trappist monk wrote “a man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about living and begins living.” I believed I had finally found mine. I still do.

God’s invitation to live out our unique vocations is part of what makes the world so rich. “How gloriously different are the saints,” wrote C.S. Lewis. Problems arise when we begin to believe that we have to be someone else to be holy. We try to use someone else’s map to heaven when God has already planted in our soul all the directions we need. In that way, we ignore our own call to sanctity. When admirers used to visit Calcutta to see Mother Teresa, she would tell many of them, “Find your own Calcutta.”

Mother Teresa not only had her order of nuns, but she also had an order of priests and brothers. One of the brothers came complaining to Mother. He was mad at his superior because the superior asked the brother to do something other than what he wanted to do, so he got very frustrated. He went running to Mother and said, “Mother, my vocation is to work with lepers.” Mother said, “Your vocation, Brother, is to belong to Jesus. That is your vocation. That means you will do anything He tells you. If you belong to Jesus, you will be His fool.” Mother was echoing St. Paul when he says:

Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool so as to become wise. – 1 Cor 3:18

This is a difficult concept for we Americans in this secular age. We’re not a terribly humble bunch. We refuse to submit ourselves to any authority, let alone something from as “antiquated” and “irrelevant” as Scripture. So we continue to fumble along in the dark, pissed off when things don’t work, convinced that we were right, someone else was wrong, and the way to get our way is to sue someone or completely tear down their character. Just read any story online in your local paper or favorite website for news these days, paying special attention to the comment boxes. It used to be rare to see so much ignorance on parade. Now it is our national pastime.

Thomas Merton, in No Man Is an Island wrote: Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our time doing such things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?

It’s no secret that I love to write. For the past few years I really believed I had at long last found my vocation. What I was made for. Once I figured that out, however, I began to try too hard. I put too much pressure upon myself to “perform.” I had forgotten the cardinal rule of writing: above all write for yourself. Once you begin to write for a specific audience or people the vocation can become an albatross about your neck. Mine grew quite heavy. I have learned and been reminded that it is not necessary that we succeed in everything. A man can be perfect and still reap no fruit from his work, and it may happen that a man who is able to accomplish very little is much more of a person than another who seems to accomplish very much.

Merton reminded me that fame is not the reason one writes. The burning desire for fame is of course a manifestation of pride, a pride that seeks not the hiddenness of the desert or the humility of the unseen act, but the adulation of others. Ultimately it is a destructive mind-set, since one can never receive enough acclaim to satisfy the craving for attention or fame or notoriety. Inexorably, it leads to despair and so must be resisted. But while the path to humility is necessary, it is a difficult one to tread. In Henri Nouwen’s words, one strives to seek the freedom to be “hidden from the world, but visible to God.”

And I wonder if the more hidden the act, the more valued it is by God. I am reminded of the legend of a master sculptor in one of the great medieval cathedrals of France. The old man spent hours and hours carving the back of a statue of Mary, lovingly finishing the intricate curves and folds of her gown. But, someone asked the sculptor, what’s the point? That statue will be placed in a dark niche against the wall, where certainly no one will ever see the back of it.

God will see it, he answered.

I long for that kind of holiness. But I am very far from it. To find that type of holiness and success in my vocation leaves me with little to no time for blogging. I also prefer to write for myself for now, as well as for my children. It was with this intention in mind that I began a project in November. It is a love letter of sorts to my children. Actually, it’s twenty-six letters. Will other eyes read them one day? Perhaps. But I find that the words have come easier by sitting down to write them in long hand with pen and paper, addressed to my kids, before typing it into my computer.

On Friday night when I arrived home from work my daughter did what she often does. She gets a running head of steam and flies towards me, arms outstretched, for what I have dubbed the “Sophie Sassafras Slam-bam Hug” (Sassafras being her family nickname). I scoop down and fling her up into the air to a chorus of giggles. Lately she’s been insisting that she is no longer a little girl, but as she is turning four on Monday she is in fact a “big girl.” Holding Sophie tonight parallel to the ground and looking up at me I asked her “Where’s my little girl? Who is this big girl in my arms? Where is my little girl?”

“Is she under here?” I lifted up her shirt and blew a raspberry on her tummy to squeals of laughter. “No dad! I’m right here. I’m a big girl!”

I turned her over to face the ground and repeated the question as well as the raspberry on her lower back. “Is my little girl back here?” More squeals of delight. “No! Dad, I’m a big girl!”

Holding her in my arms so we are face-to-face I repeat the question. “Where is my little girl?”

Sophie took my face in her hands and with her blue eyes looking into mine she smiled and said “I’m right here, dad.”

And so she is.

In the Psalms there is a verse for fathers that while especially true in the more agrarian society of three thousand years ago when many hands were needed with the flocks or the crops, it still holds truth today.

Children too are a gift from the LORD, the fruit of the womb, a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quivers are full. They will never be shamed contending with foes at the gate. (Psalm 127:3-5)

My sons are young, strong arrows and in my mind’s eye I imagine them as being green in color as they are still maturing. And then I have that younger, other arrow. It is lightly covered in glitter and has just a hint of a pink outline highlighted on its feathers.

These arrows are my vocation. Many secondary vocations come from this quiver. Writing is distant among them.

They are my faith, my hope and my charity. They are my Calcutta.

I am a willing fool. This is my Wisdom.

©2011 Jeff A Walker. All Rights Reserved.