The Flight from Failure to Redemption

This morning at The Catholic Thing I read a piece by Ashley McGuire about writing that really struck home. She writes:

As a little girl, I found it infinitely frustrating that I could not fly. Sure, people can fly in planes, but we can’t fly. It took me a couple of decades to gradually discover that, in fact, humans can fly. Writing is flying. Flying looks like this: keyboard before you, wrist arched from the weight of an eager index finger hovering above a letter. Any letter. Lower and click. And you’re off!

Suddenly you are restrained by nothing. The stars are letters and punctuation. They collide into fantastic supernovas. Your imagination has an engine. Eventually you are pulled back in as everything comes together on a page, leaving ink smudges on your fingertips or crisp black lines on a bright screen. The sweet assurance that your flight was not a dream.

McGuire’s right, and in those moments when the flightpath is clear there are few things as exhilarating as the transfer of lucid thought to paper or screen. Ah, sweet lucidity.

I’ve been in a rut lately when it comes to writing. Last week it seemed my plane would never come out of the clouds. This week I couldn’t coax the plane away from the gate let alone taxi down the runway. This isn’t to say I’ve tried. I’ve written more than one rant or screed but have stopped halfway through them all. I was unable to keep on any discernable path and they all just meandered through the narrative. And what was that narrative? The anger and sadness that is the state of things at Penn State. When I first heard about the grand jury report on ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike In The Morning on my drive to work last week I could hardly believe it. I felt sick to my stomach. So naturally during a slow part of my morning I read the actual grand jury report. And then I walked outside to a bench at the corner of 13th & O Streets and sat in the autumn morning sun to catch my breath, trying not to throw up. Like many people I suppose I then read too much…too many commentaries and articles and opinion pieces. I tried to write my own. I failed, because my indignant and righteous anger kept my shaking hands from conveying any coherency at all to my keyboard.

The targets of my disgust were of course the alleged perpetrator of these crimes, as well as those who covered for him including the head football coach himself. I tried to write about assigning blame to anything I could: the worship of football, the promotion of deviance in our culture, and on and on.

And then there was of course my main target: Mike McQueary. I still have to pause while typing to ensure I stop myself from going off into the narrative weeds once more. Instead of pouring all of that bile onto the screen I am choosing another path.

I know how the Penn State community as a whole feels. Not those who covered this up. Not the few hundred morons who were rioting when Joe Paterno was fired or chanting his name in blind allegiance at the PSU/Nebraska football game a few days later. I’m talking about the over 44,000 current students and over 500,000 alumni and supporters of that university. I know how they feel because I, and a billion other Catholics, lived through it a decade ago. We are still living through it.

We know what it’s like to have the name of the institution to which you belong dragged through the mud because of the actions of horrible men living a double life. We know what it’s like to be further horrified as the scope of the coverup by other men in a position to put a stop to the crimes are exposed. We know what it’s like to dread another day’s newspaper, or the cable news, or the internet, as the wound continues to grow and to bleed. We know what it is to be “guilty by association” even though we had nothing whatsoever to do with the crimes.

It is known to Catholics as The Long Lent of 2002. It has taken a decade to even begin to heal. In time, Penn State will heal as well, but there is still a lot of poison that needs to be expunged from their wound.

We know what it is to continue to be ridiculed and scorned by those with an agenda. To be the butt of jokes. Penn State will learn this as well. It will not be fair. But it will still happen. It does not change who you are as a person. It does not define you or your institution.

There are similarities. Last week we learned of university officials who covered for Sandusky, and we saw students gather around the statue of Paterno and chant and riot. A decade ago, for every bishop who engaged in covering their backsides there were parishes who gathered around Fr. Soandso when his disgusting crimes were uncovered and saying they would stand by him through his unwarranted persecution.

To those of us who will be so quick to condemn an entire university or group of people, whether Catholics or Penn State, I suggest you say to yourself what I finally said to myself a few days ago: “There but for the grace of God, go I.”

When I began to realize that my hatred for a man I’d never met and a man I only knew through a damning grand jury report was burning so white hot that I was losing sleep, that phrase came to me. For while I’d desperately love to believe that had I stumbled onto the scene in the locker room showers that McQueary did I would have become Instant Chuck Norris and dispensed justice, I can’t honestly say that because I wasn’t the one who did. It’s too easy today to be a combox warrior on the internet, thump our chests with braggadocio and SHOUT IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS WHAT WE’D HAVE DONE. But we don’t know. Because it wasn’t us. People do weird things in shocking situations. When an evil is exposed involving someone we don’t know, everybody is so sure that they are a hero who would have beaten the living hell out of the accused and dragged his sorry ass to the local police station. I hope I would have.

In the blogosphere comboxes we are all Dirty Harry. Sadly, history has shown again and again that what the combox warriors say they’d do and the reality of what they do are two different things.

• After sleeping with and impregnating Uriah’s wife Bathsheba, David ordered his commanding officer to put Uriah in the front of the battle and have the soldiers draw back from him so that he would be killed. The commander did nothing. He and David failed.
• When he cried out that he would never deny his Lord, and yet denied him three times before the dawn, Peter failed.

There are too many to list, not all of them biblical of course. German citizens living in towns near death camps. The Chinese populace who walked by the crumpled form of a two-year-old little girl who’d been struck not once, but twice, by passing cars before dying at the hospital. We all fail every day on a massive scale.

Yet redemption can and does come despite all the shame and failure. David and Peter both redeemed themselves mightily. Despite the sneering and the dismissals by its critics the Catholic Church is doing the same. I’m choosing to pray that Mike McQueary, and others at Penn State, somehow do so as well.

The Fall was the result of a simple formula: Pride, disobedience, death. That formula is still at work today.

For those of us blindsided by the events within the Catholic Church, we reminded ourselves that our faith is in Christ Jesus, not in His human messengers, sinners all. When our attention is diverted from the message to the messenger, the object of our faith is obscured and a whirlwind of emotions threatens to upend the foundation of hope we have in Him who saves.

Through it all my foundation never changed because He does not change. I learned long ago to not put my blind trust in men or confidence in man’s princes. I won’t pretend to know who or what the half-million PSU member family puts their trust. It does appear that for too long they put it in men, and in particular one man. A football coach.

“There but for the grace of God, go I.”

Peace, Trust and the One Thing

Earlier this week I posted stories of peace and of trust that also involved the sea. They reminded me of another.

Then he made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. At once [Jesus] spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how [strong] the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”

The story of Jesus walking on the water is recounted three times in the Gospels, by Matthew, Mark and John. It is the story in Matthew that I thought of because it involved Peter and because in my mind it is the perfect example of why we need to have something in our lives to look to as a focal point. A home base. A lighthouse. A truth. We live in an age that tells us there is no truth. Or, that there are many truths, none of them better than the other. Well…which is it? The argument that “there is no truth” is self-refuting. If “there is no truth” then the claim that “there is no truth” itself cannot be true.

Now in this little blog post I’m not going to make an argument one way or the other for what I think Truth is. If you know me or have read me long enough you probably have a good idea of where I stand. Instead what I want to do here is to emphasize that as an individual you have to have some solitary truth or guidepost that you use to steer yourself through the trials of life. This is someone or something that you trust in above all to be your compass when navigating through life’s storms. And yes, it really should be One Thing. To have Many Things will only serve to create confusion and anxiety and relativism. There is only one “N” on our Boy Scout compass. There is one magnetic north pole. Imagine the confusion that would exist if when lost in the woods we pulled out our compasses and the needle kept fluctuating between directions. We have to have One Thing to trust in during times that we’re afraid.

The man sits upright, leans forward, and speaks intensely: “Josip, above all things you must trust it. Trust where it will take you.”

Josip covers his face with trembling hands.

“Are you afraid?” asks the man.

“Yes.”

“In your life, Josip, you will have much to fear. In time, you will come to a length of days, and wisdom, and goodness. You will suffer, and this suffering will bring much good to others.”

“I do not understand what you are saying.”

“You do not need to understand. Only remember: you will be afraid. But do not be afraid.”

In the example from Scripture, Peter is unafraid and able to walk on the water as long as he keeps his eyes focused on Jesus, who is Peter’s One Thing. And so it is with us in our endeavors. Successful businesses have a mission statement. Successful people have an over-arching goal. Where Peter gets into trouble and begins to sink is when he takes his eyes off of Jesus and is distracted by the wind. He has lost focus. He begins to flail and to sink into the water because instead of placing his trust in Jesus he worries more about the distraction of the wind, which wasn’t even the greater danger to him. St. John Chrysostom called this the fear of the lesser danger.

The sea caused his dizziness, but the fear was caused by the wind. The sea was the greater threat, the wind the less. As Peter was struggling with the sea, he was on the point of suffering more anxiety from the violence of the wind. Such is human nature that we so often feel exposed to the lesser danger but experience it as the greater. – The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 50.2.

This is where I think a lot of us get into trouble and off into the weeds because we look to another human being to be this steady rock of truth for us and human beings simply are not capable of it. Not our parents nor even our spouses. Certainly not our celebrities or our politicians. And yet this is where so many today look to put their faith and then cry out when their idols fall from grace.

So one key characteristic of our One Thing is that it must be something in which we can trust. Something steady. Dependable. A rock.

So what about peace? When I asked readers “where do you find peace?” I received the following responses:

Hiking… pretty much anywhere without sidewalks. In my opinion there’s no better place to commune with both the inner and the outer than in the raw of nature.

*****

My most inner peaceful moments are found right after the Sacrament of reconciliation…there is also nothing like being a free spirit in the presence of nature, I find peace and solace there too…which is why I frequently visit the nature world.

I thought these were terrific answers as I feel much the same way about nature. In “the cushion of the sea” we read that

The peace of God is that eternal calm which, like the cushion of the sea, lies far too deep down to be reached by any external trouble or disturbance; and he who enters into the presence of God becomes partaker of that undisturbed and undisturbable calm.

Again I turn to St. John Chrysostom:

For what purpose does he go up into the hills on the mountain? To teach us that solitude and seclusion are good, when we are to pray to God. With this in view, you see, we find him continually withdrawing into the wilderness. There he often spends the whole night in prayer. This teaches us earnestly to seek such quietness in our prayers as the time and place may afford. For the wilderness is the mother of silence; it is a calm and a harbor, delivering us from all turmoils. – The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 50.1.

Jesus withdrew into the wilderness to pray. Thoreau went to Walden to “live deliberately”. Churchill would go to Chartwell to paint and to read. Presidents of the United States go to Camp David.  Where is it that you go to experience a calm harbor?

Full moon setting over Walden Pond

I agree with my readers in that I find much of my peace in nature. I don’t believe you can grow up on the prairies of North America and not appreciate it for its beauty and its power. I’ve also experienced it on the Atlantic shore in North Carolina and in the mountains that surround Missoula, Montana. A long-term goal of mine has been to locate and purchase a cabin property in South Dakota that I can use as a getaway…a place to have time to myself to think and to commune and to write. But if I am unable to be outdoors when I’m needing peace I can also be found alone in our church in a pew reading  or praying by candlelight.

In this life we will all have to brave storms. During trials of faith or fidelity, when we will have to struggle to stay upright and keep our balance, we will need encouragement or a hand stretched out to us. Our One Thing will be a source of inspiration and sustain our wavering hope. Like Peter, we will need our feet set firm on the surface of the water when we begin to sink or be distracted by the lesser dangers. When drowning in our doubts and worries, we will know no fear because of something in which we trust that gives us a peace and clarity of mind.

The late, great Jack Palance played grizzled cowboy Curly Washburn in the 1991 comedy City Slickers. Curly’s Law is defined in this bit of dialog from the movie:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
Mitch: No, what?
Curly: This. [holds up one finger]
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean shit.
Mitch: That’s great, but what’s the one thing?
Curly: [smiles] That’s what you‘ve got to figure out.

Curly’s Law is about doing one thing. But I’m talking about more than doing. Because before we can do anything we have to have a foundation to stand upon for balance (trust) and protection from the storms (peace).

I know what, or more specifically who my One Thing is. He keeps me from drowning whether I’m on the stormy seas or on the dry lands and deserts of this life. We were introduced in a very unexpected way one afternoon thirteen years ago. But that’s another story for another day. This isn’t about me. I didn’t post the first two stories on Peace or Trust for me. I posted them for you.

And so now I’m asking you to take some time to think about you. What, or who, is your One Thing?

A tale of Trust

Continuing from where I left off yesterday, there is another scene that came to mind immediately while reading about the cushion of the sea. In Michael O’Brien’s epic novel The Island of the World Josip Lasta, a boy of twelve, awakes to find himself in almost inhuman conditions. He is in Sarajevo. It is the 1940s and WW2 has ravaged Europe. He is from a small mountain village in Croatia named Rajska Polja, or “Fields of Heaven.” He is his village’s lone survivor of a massacre perpetrated by murderous partisan soldiers. He’s lost his parents, his best friend Petar, his childhood sweetheart Josipa, and his friend and priest Fra Anto. He’s witnessed atrocities and seen things no human being should ever see. Stumbling in a stupor, he makes the long walk to Sarajevo where he is miraculously found and rescued by his mother’s sister. Working in a factory to help with money he has fallen ill with fever. While in this cement dwelling among the sick and the dying, he befriends an old man without arms. A few years before all of this has taken place Josip had journeyed to the coast with his father to see the Adriatic Sea. While enjoying an idyllic day in the sun and lying on the beach with his father Josip had watched with childlike wonder the swallows, or lastavice, who flew around the beach. One of them had landed on his outstretched arm and they had held each other’s gaze for a time before the lastivica had flown away. He had whispered three questions to the bird: “Who are you? Where have you come from? Where are you going?” It was one of his favorite childhood memories.

Now, in the bowels of this hospital, Josip again encounters the lastivica, only he has taken a different form. For five pages the two hold a conversation. For brevity’s sake I’m going to skip ahead in their dialogue.

On the first day Josip asks the old man his name. The man refuses to give it.

“Can you not tell me your name?”

“I can tell you my name, and I will tell you if you choose it. But I ask you to choose a higher way.”

“Why is it higher?”

The man lifts his arms—the stumps performing their task instinctively.

“It is higher because it will take you upward.”

“To where the lastavice fly?”

“Yes.”

“You do not have to tell me your name. You have already done so.”

“I have already done so? Tell me, Josip, what is my name?”

“You are the Lastavica of the Sea. I am the Lastavica of the Mountains.”

“Yes, you have understood. But you are more: you are the Lastavica of the Fields of Heaven.”

The next day, Josip asks the man about his family. The man refuses to answer, only telling Josip that he has lost his wife, son and daughter to the war.

“They are forever the family of the Lastivica of the Sea. That is their names.”

“If we meet again, will you tell me their names?”

“I will tell you, if the wind decides we are to meet again.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“It is not our task to question it.”

“I do not trust it.”

The man sits upright, leans forward, and speaks intensely:

“Josip, above all things you must trust it. Trust where it will take you.”

Josip covers his face with trembling hands.

“Are you afraid?” asks the man.

“Yes.”

“In your life, Josip, you will have much to fear. In time, you will come to a length of days, and wisdom, and goodness. You will suffer, and this suffering will bring much good to others.”

“I do not understand what you are saying.”

“You do not need to understand. Only remember: you will be afraid. But do not be afraid.”

“What can this mean! Tell me what it means!”

“You will be afraid. But when you are afraid, do not be afraid.”

Josip is choking back his sobs; he is no longer the Lastivica of the Fields of Heaven. He is only a boy with nowhere to go, other than a place where a wolf wants to kill him.

“Look, Josip”, says the man of the sea. “Look at the wall.”

With his one good foot he nudges Josip, pushing him gently, making him turn to face the opposite wall. The bar of light is climbing higher now.

“Do you see?”

Josip shakes his head.

“Surely you see”, says the man.

“I see the light, but the walls imprison it.”

“The light has entered the prison. Nothing can keep it out.”

“If there is no window, the light cannot enter.”

“If there is no window, the light enters within you.”

The parable of peace and this tale of trust have in common another element: the sea. These three elements together reminded me of another story. And that will be the final installment of this little series.

To be continued…