A Bed Undefiled

I've never liked staying in hotels, especially when traveling, and especially when I'm alone. I don't know why; I guess there is an air of collective loneliness, targets of temptation when one is alone. I've stayed in budget inns and three hundred dollar a night five star hotels, but the sterile aura is the same--it is not home, and it is not my bed. I try to stay in monasteries or with friends, even when traveling for work when they are footing the bill. When I do need to stay in a motel or hotel, I try to carry holy water with me (though I forgot it on this most recent trip).

So, I don't like staying in hotels, especially alone. I feel like a target for the devil--not because I'm looking to be unfaithful, or am uncomfortable being alone, but because these spaces tend to hold for me a kind of uneasy spiritual air of everything that ever happened there, like a house that has been smoked in for thirty years where the smell of stale smoke and tar stains on the wallpaper just never really get out.

I'm very sensitive to my environment, as well as inter-personal energy. It sounds strange, but within five minutes of meeting someone new, I almost always either feel repelled or attracted by them; that is, if they have good energy, conversation is engaging and I feel at ease; if I pick up on an uneasy energy, or a disingenuousness, I shy away. This all happens within a few minutes, like a weird Spidey sense, both with people and with places.

When someone decides to have an affair, seek out a prostitute, order porn on Pay-Per-View, hook up at a conference, or engage in self-abuse, many times it happens in hotel or motel rooms. The fact that such places serve as a kind of 'neutral territory,' a quasi-moral DMZ, makes them prime meeting space for potential indiscretions. You've heard the expression "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," as if the geographic local or intoxication makes opportunities for indiscretion 'not count' somehow. But we do not live in a moral vacuum; they do indeed 'count' in the moral economy.

Even quote-unquote 'good' sex is shallow, empty, and an affront to human dignity when it is in violation of the moral law--that is, outside the sacred covenant of marriage. In affairs and indiscretions, people use one another--not only their bodies in a counterfeit way, but in the avoidance of responsibilities and suffering in their current situations. Affairs feed on fantasy, much like the strip club or any kind of engagement with a prostitute. Of course there can be emotional affairs that are a different (but no less hurtful) betrayal, even when they are not physical. But physical affairs carry with them a desperate kind of longing to escape--escape one's wife or husband, one's responsibilities, the drudgery of everyday life. They are addicting in the sense that they are exhilarating--sin always is in some degree.

But they can not, by definition, be self-sustaining. They rely on fantasy and escape and a kind of manipulation, even when consensual, because they are self-satisfying. And self-satisfying endeavors always end in dissatisfaction and even disgust eventually.

Whereas the pleasure and misplaced satisfaction in adulterous sex degrades over time, married sex--when it is chaste, open to life, self-emptying, and respects the dignity of the other--has the potential to improve and deepen over time, much like (if you'll excuse the cliche) a fine wine. Scripture admonishes us to "keep the marital bed undefiled" for good reason--sex within marriage is a kind of sacred communion, a mingling of flesh and spirit, that is so powerful that it has the potential to bring forth new life and new souls into existence.

But how can you have sex with the same person for ten, twenty, thirty years and not get 'bored?' How can precluding things like anal sex or oral sex or other aberrations not in accordance with Natural Law be creative? If sex within marriage was purely a physical act, that may very well be true. But anyone who has been married for some time knows that your relationship and communication is the barometer for your sex life. When you are sacrificing yourself for the good of the other, dying to self, communicating and serving one another's needs, sex tends to be 'good' in that it reflects this healthiness. It is mutually satisfying in that each partner does not feel used or exploited for secondary purposes.

Physical, non-verbal communication in the sexual act is deeper than any purely mechanical act could ever approach, and when you've lived with and known someone long enough that you can intuit their moods and anticipate their feelings, that gets communicated sexually in the bedroom via deference and fulfilling the other's needs. When selfishness enters in and is manifested sexually, the other person can usually tell. All without a word spoken.

The Church's wisdom in laying guidelines for sexual conduct, both outside of and within marriage, is only for our good. Monogamous, 'vanilla' sex gets scoffed at in the secular world, but the fact is sex is so much better, more fulfilling, without guilt or remorse, when it is operates chastely within marriage, as it is meant to be protected. Openness to life--removing the tightrope, so to speak in not using artificial contraception--lends itself to plenty of excitement and mystery. Chastity--keeping one's thoughts pure, and concentrating the sexual drive only on one's spouse--is a solid mortar for one's sex life, building a house with brick, not sand. It honors the Creator, and it honors the other. Precluding unnatural sex acts that are so often seen in pornography and mimicked by those that view it keeps things in Right Order--that is, in accordance with Natural Law. And the house is cemented together with love, a love that dies to self for the other, does not use or manipulate, a love that is modeled on Christ's relationship to his bride, the Church.

Adultery, fornication, masturbation,"hooking-up," sexual favors--no one ever leaves these encounters feeling deeply satisfied and fulfilled. They are an empty currency, devalued to the point of buying nothing but addictive self-satisfaction that always comes up short. It doesn't hold it's value, because it was never meant to...because God designed sex to be within marriage.

I'm not sure what any of this has to do with hotel rooms like the one I am currently typing in, but there is a reason we like to sleep in our own beds. It roots us to a place--a home--that we find safety and true rest in. It is reserved for intimacy, the kind of intimacy that cannot be bought or traded with sexual favors with strangers.When the marriage bed remains undefiled, love flourishes, and ages gracefully.

Letter To A Housewife

I have a friend who I have been corresponding with for a year or so who is curious and exploring the Faith. She, like me, was not raised in a religious household, and I have been so edified in her openness to Christianity, coming from a secular Jewish background. She has been reading a Bible I sent her, and we talk from time to time about the things of faith. I am so encouraged by her, and pray for her regularly.

We all are looking for meaning in our existence here on earth. Before I came to faith in Christ, the emptiness and futility of life here on earth was palpable, and I was often filled with despair. Followers of Christ are often chided to having a 'crutch' in belief, but I have found in my own life that without faith, without the transforming power of Christ, it is true: nothing really matters, and nothing makes sense.

But the fact is, through the eyes of faith, you begin to see that EVERYTHING MATTERS. From the smallest detail to the largest life decision--when we are living for the Lord, our lives matter. They matter to Him, and they matter to the world. The smallest act of faith is larger than the greatest secular accomplishment, and nothing escapes His view. The "reason for our hope" can sometimes be hard for Christians to articulate if they do not have a real, meaningful relationship with the risen Lord but instead sit back in the comfortable hollow veneer of cultural Christianity or religion devoid of belief. But once you have encountered the living God, you cannot remain unchanged.

The following is from a conversation with my friend, in which I offer some meager advice on how to see the ordinary things of life, our every day duties and responsibilities, as a way of serving God and finding joy:

"That’s the beauty of Catholic Christianity. Jesus was both 100% human and 100% God. No other religion can claim this. Our humanness and everything that comes with it, including chores, work, the everyday drudgery of life can be transformed and sanctified when given over to His purposes... In the Eucharist, ordinary bread and wine become the actually body and blood of Christ... In the sacrament of matrimony we are given the supernatural grace to live our vows... 

Remember: Mary lived a very ordinary and unassuming life of everyday things: nursing, changing diapers, making a home. And she was the Mother of God!... These were not the things that ‘got in the way’ of the life of faith...they were sanctified through faith. Everything she—and you and I do—matters. St Joseph too worked as a humble carpenter to provide for his family... 

St Benedict has a saying about prayer and work (I will link good article). They go together... Living by faith is not a futile or meaningless exercise. When we suffer, we suffer for the Lord... When we have joy, we give thanks and praise, and eat the fruit of gratefulness, which transforms our attitude and dispositions. But it’s all only POSSIBLE by faith... I would encourage you to set aside a few minutes of quiet time each day to thank God for where He is leading you, and ask very specifically for what you want Him to give you, and He will do it, as long as it is in accordance with His will and good for you spiritually speaking... The next time you have an opportunity to love and serve your husband, remember St Joseph and the Blessed Virgin, the Holy Family. Ask for their intercession in your marriage... The next time you are feeding your boys or doing laundry, offer it as a sacrifice to God who notices all things done in love... 

When you are feeling downcast and lonely, remember our Lord in the garden before his crucifixion. He is RIGHT THERE with you. This is not make believe, this is real life, not counterfeit... I promise you it will transform how you approach even the smallest detail of your life as a housewife. Pray from the heart, be honest, but make everything known to the One who knows you so intimately that He knows every hair on your head... Confess your sins and failings, and trust that you are forgiven before the words leave your lips... 

There is a reason Christianity is a religion of JOY. We have been saved from death and meaninglessness by Christ’s death and resurrection. Hallelujah! 

God bless you"

The New Abnormal

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Have you ever heard the expression a "Leave It To Beaver family?" I have, but it's always been in a disparaging way. The idea of a nuclear family (father, mother, children) sitting down to have dinner every night or having an otherwise conventional dynamic will often be regarded as an anomaly or alien to how things are today.

Case in point: I didn't have to search far for this little ditty from the bastion of liberal social commentary, Slate ("Non-Traditional Families Are The New Tradition"):

"Christmas is a time of nostalgia for Victorian imagery, ‘40s-style crooner songs, and the idealized 1950s family image of two parents, two kids, and a dog. But if watching the inexplicably famous Holderness family celebrating the corny joys of the nuclear family Christmas is the sort of thing that makes you want to pour a little more bourbon in your eggnog, take comfort in the fact that history is on your side. A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that the majority of American kids under 18 are not being raised in a “traditional” family, defined as two parents in their first marriage. Only 46 percent of kids have the Leave It To Beaver lifestyle; the rest are being raised by single parents, cohabitating parents, stepparents, or even grandparents. That's down from 73 percent in 1960." 

The thing is, there is something attractive about a non-dysfunctional, healthy, joyful, and traditional family. True, I think millennial kids do seem to regard it as a kind of artifact or alien to what they know family to be. Many of their friend's parents are divorced, or divorced and remarried. Some have same-sex parents. Others are being raised by single moms or single dads, or moms with boyfriends or dads with girlfriends.

But I maintain while it might be a "corny joy," there really is something attractive about an in-tact family. And by attractive, I mean it really does tend to attract people. One of Debbie and my favorite things to do still is just spend time at the house of our friends Dan and Missy, who are friends in Christ who homeschool their four kids and are very easy to be around. Some time it is to join them for dinner, sometime it is just to lounge around and be around their company. It's edifying for us and our kids because in our circle, this is 'normal,' though we realize our families are in the minority. It's where we recharge and drink from the well.

That's an example of us as a family spending time with a healthy, joyful Christian family for our own sake. But I think even more importantly is making our own family a place of invitation for that same kind of refreshment for people (especially young people and children) on the outside who may not experience it as commonplace.

Large, vibrant families are a true witness in today's society. Just a few weeks ago we spent an afternoon with such a family of 10(ish) on an invitation just talking and having tea as the kids came and went throughout the house--playing with our kids in the backyard, shooting hoops in the driveway, reading, snuggling up to their mom. In the same way as with our friends Dan and Missy, it was edifying for us to see what a large and faith-filled family looked like up close and personal. Being an example of such a family--what people see--can be a powerful way of ministering just by presence alone, and can open the door to conversations about life, joy, and sacrifice that may not have otherwise been asked.

For Deb and I, marriage is a vocation, our vocation, and family is the expression of how we live that vocation out. Thankfully we have had good models in our own families of parents who have stayed true to their vows and sacrificed for the good of their children, while recognizing that generational sin is a real thing. (If you haven't listened to Fr. Ripperger's conference on Generational Spirits, I would recommend it, very eye opening.) We have a more-or-less "traditional" setup in our home and respect and honor the authority and proper roles of God, husband, and wife, and it seems to work. There is a reason for it.

Marriage builds a family, and family builds a society. Healthy families = healthy society. If you come from a broken home, abuse, dysfunction, etc, it can be hard to know what is 'normal.' But spending time with people of faith, with healthy families who invite you in to their hearth and home, can help heal that. We should not accept that abuse, dysfunction, divorce, adultery, same-sex partnerships, should be the litmus of the "new normal." In a wounded society, we will need the witness of healthy families, families of faith, joy, hope, and love, to stand out and help provide a marker in the fog for those wandering through the battlefield of family carnage. So, whether you've come from a broken home and are now raising your own family in the unconscious wake of that brokenness, or have been blessed with a lineage of strong and faith-filled generations, we all have an important role to play: modeling our families on the Holy Family, the model for love, obedience, right order, fruitfulness, and devotion.

The Evidence of Grace

I have often wondered from time to time why this faith experiment of mine has not run it's course. Every since I was a kid, I have had a DaVinci-esqe interest in diverse multitudes. I was never one to follow fads or trends, but I have picked up, put on and changed hobbies, identities, friends, and devotions that numbered in the hundreds until they run their course and are traded in for something else.

Part of me always had a fear, when I became a Catholic at the age of 18, that this was "just another thing," something people would say at 28, "Oh, remember when you were Catholic? How long did that last?" I knew my conversion ran deep, I knew Truth was unchanging, and I approached my Confirmation day with the sincere conviction and recognition that I was being wed to the Church for life. Still, my track record would lend itself to speculation--was it just a matter of time before I would experience doubt, tire of the outfit of faith, and resume the eternal quest of seeking that which remains eternally elusive? Was this really the final destination, or a rest stop on the way? After all, what does anyone know at eighteen anyway?

Twenty years later, though, my faith has not gone anywhere. In fact, my belief in the lordship of Christ and the truth of Catholicism has only firmed and hardened in the mold. I've done my best to conform my life to the Christ's teaching and submit to the authority of the Magisterium, though admittedly with starts and staggers. But even that fact in and of itself contributes to what I would consider the evidence of grace.

The writer Hilaire Belloc famously noted, "As a Catholic, my faith tells me that the Church has a divine origin, but my own experience tells me that it must be divine because no human institution run with an equal mixture of ineptitude and wickedness would have lasted a fortnight."

In applying this sentiment to my own personal life of faith, I have no doubt that the evidence of grace, the working of the Holy Spirit, is apparent in the very fact that I remain Catholic, and happily so. By extension, remaining married in this day and age seems to be no small feat either, and that too, for the Catholic Christian, is facilitated only by supernatural grace--the sacramental oil that keeps the engine from overheating and throwing a piston under stress when we co operate with and dispose ourselves to it. Grace is what sustains our faith under duress, grace is what helps us to bear suffering, grace is indispensable in maintaining fortitude when ever natural tendency in our being is to turn and run from the hard work, whether that be in marriage or in religious devotion.

James Faulkner has a great line in Paul Apostle of Christ: "Men do not die for things they doubt." We're often told that it is normal and natural to doubt from time to time, and while I can appreciate the sentiment, the Christian life cannot operate in the field of the natural alone. We think of the miraculous in terms of supernatural occurrences--a tumor disappearing, a dead man rising. But the transformation of the ordinary, the mundane, the natural, and the base--is this not miraculous in its own right? Is it not a miraculous occurrence to believe--die even--when doubt is an ever-constant temptation of the Evil One sitting on the horizon?

To stay married in the face of duress, the remain true to vows when temptations abound, to sanctify ordinary work and make it holy, to face one's death without fear--this is the sacramentalization and elevation of the everyday. Earthy bread and wine become divine flesh and blood for our consumption and redemption; ordinary water becomes holy, infused with the ability to wash away sins; Oil seals and binds the Spirit in the lives of the faithful anointed. Men and women--ordinary men and women--become holy. And people like me, sinners with lousy track records and a history of fickleness, are able to remain Catholic. I can't quantify it, can't subject it to the scientific method. But it is for me, beyond refute, the evidence of grace...active, alive, and substantiated.

Begin Anew: A Midnight Meditation on the Teaching of St. Francis de Sales

Patience is an elusive virtue for me, and my impatience knows no bounds. Because of this deficiency, I think, I am attracted to people who are patient and kind. My mother has the patience of a saint and is one of the kindest people I know, and both patience and kindness are also two of my wife's crowning virtues. Paul mentions the two virtues in his letter to the Ephesians, "...with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love" (Eph 4:2).

It is maybe that same attraction that lead me to St. Francis de Sales, bishop and Doctor of the Church, who was known for these virtues, among others. It was said that Francis' unusual patience kept him working. When he set off to bring 60,000 Calvinists back to the Church during the time of the Reformation, no one would listen to him, no one would even open their door. So, Francis found a way to get under the door. He wrote out little pamphlets to explain true Catholic doctrine and slipped them under the doors. The parents wouldn't come to him, so Francis went to the children. When the parents saw how kind he was as he played with the children, they began to talk to him. By the time Francis returned home, it is believed he brought 40,000 people to the Catholic Church.

Truth be told I had never read anything by him until a friend tonight sent me some of his writings. It was enough for me to get out of bed in the middle of the night the spend some time with the words of this doctor of the soul, because his words were like a salve for mine at a time in my life where I desperately needed to hear them. It was also neat to learn that it wasn't until became friends with a widow named Jane de Chantal that they mutually edified each other on their respective paths to sainthood--a kind of catalyst if you will.

From St. Francis' Introduction to the Devout Life (in italics; my commentary beneath):

"One important direction in which to exercise gentleness, is with respect to ourselves, never growing irritated with one's self or one's imperfections; for although it is but reasonable that we should be displeased and grieved at our own faults, yet ought we to guard against a bitter, angry, or peevish feeling about them. Many people fall into the error of being angry because they have been angry, vexed because they have given way to vexation, thus keeping up a chronic state of irritation, which adds to the evil of what is past, and prepares the way for a fresh fall on the first occasion. Moreover, all this anger and irritation against one's self fosters pride, and springs entirely from self-love, which is disturbed and fretted by its own imperfection."

We can be our own harshest critic. "Giving way to vexation" would be a good summary of the past few weeks for me. I simply could not figure out my troubled spirit. My zeal had drained from my spirit as soon as Lent ended the way blood drains from someone's face, creating an ashen and pale disposition. How could this happen, I would think, I don't understand it. Me! But like a mirror, the inverse of any such perceived virtues I may have possessed became strikingly apparent--pride, vanity, self-love "disturbed and fretted by its own imperfection."

"What we want is a quiet, steady, firm displeasure at our own faults. A judge gives sentence more effectually speaking deliberately and calmly than if he be impetuous and passionate (for in the latter case he punishes not so much the actual faults before him, but what they appear to him to be); and so we can chasten ourselves far better by a quiet stedfast repentance, than by eager hasty ways of penitence, which, in fact, are proportioned not by the weight of our faults, but according to our feelings and inclinations."

We don't usually think of judges in terms of comfort, but I was comforted by St. Francis' imagery here: a judge who distributes justice "deliberately and calmly," like a father with a steady hand, who can be trusted to have our best interests at heart. Again, I find that I admire this disposition because it is one I do not possess: I am impassioned and impetuous, ruled by my feelings and inclinations. With the measure I live I tend to judge by, and it doesn't bear well especially when holding myself on trial in my own court of law. I often pray, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me" (Ps 51:10) asking God for this steadfastness rather than hastiness. I am a lousy judge, of others and myself, but long for a "deliberate and calm" distributor of justice to counterbalance my taciturn and hasty self-condemnations.

"Thus one man who specially aims at purity will be intensely vexed with himself at some very trifling fault against it, while he looks upon some gross slander of which he has been guilty as a mere laughing matter.
On the other hand, another will torment himself painfully over some slight exaggeration, while he altogether overlooks some serious offence against purity; and so on with other things. All this arises solely because men do not judge themselves by the light of reason, but under the influence of passion.Believe me, my daughter, as a parent's tender affectionate remonstrance has far more weight with his child than anger and sternness, so, when we judge our own heart guilty, if we treat it gently, rather in a spirit of pity than anger, encouraging it to amendment, its repentance will be much deeper and more lasting than if stirred up in vehemence and wrath."

Exaggeration is a great tactic of the enemy. It also applies to cognitive distortions to which I am prone. We ignore blessings and goodness, and magnify faults and make gross exaggerated claims. Someone forgets to call and we think "this ALWAYS happens to me," or "so-and-so NEVER does such-and-such." When we fall, the enemy will use this line of reasoning to keep us down and self-condemned. "You always fail. You will never get to Heaven." Etc. Repentance born out of wrath, as St. Francis notes, is not nearly as deep or lasting as one that is gentle with faults and pities because of weakness rather than getting angry.

"For instance:--Let me suppose that I am specially seeking to conquer vanity, and yet that I have fallen conspicuously into that sin;--instead of taking myself to task as abominable and wretched, for breaking so many resolutions, calling myself unfit to lift up my eyes to Heaven, as disloyal, faithless, and the like, I would deal pitifully and quietly with myself. "Poor heart! so soon fallen again into the snare! Well now, rise up again bravely and fall no more. Seek God's Mercy, hope in Him, ask Him to keep you from falling again, and begin to tread the pathway of humility afresh. We must be more on our guard henceforth." Such a course will be the surest way to making a stedfast substantial resolution against the special fault, to which should be added any external means suitable, and the advice of one's director. 

If any one does not find this gentle dealing sufficient, let him use sterner self-rebuke and admonition, provided only, that whatever indignation he may rouse against himself, he finally works it all up to a tender loving trust in God, treading in the footsteps of that great penitent who cried out to his troubled soul: "Why art thou so vexed, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted within me? O put thy trust in God, for I will yet thank Him, Which is the help of my countenance, and my God."

So then, when you have fallen, lift up your heart in quietness, humbling yourself deeply before God by reason of your frailty, without marvelling that you fell;--there is no cause to marvel because weakness is weak, or infirmity infirm. Heartily lament that you should have offended God, and begin anew to cultivate the lacking grace, with a very deep trust in His Mercy, and with a bold, brave heart."

I tend to make a Big Deal out of things. Everything is a big deal. Of course sin is serious, but how rarely do I lift up my heart in quietness, without marveling? "There is no cause to marvel because weakness is weak, infirmity infirm." Are we surprised we fall? Are we surprised at our weakness? Do we forget that we are sinners? Thank God He strikes us down on our horse before we smack ourselves unconscious on the low-hanging branch just up ahead. "Heartily lament...and begin anew."


Remember the Lord's admonition to witholding mercy to others: "In the same way you judge others, you will be judged." (Mt 7:2) Others yes, but ourselves as well! It can be hard to be gentle with oneself, hard to trust in God's mercy, hold ourselves to a different standard and get impatient and disgusted with ourselves. But it is not complicated either. Let us calmly ignore the Enemy's lies, his condemnations, the voices that say we will never amount to anything and we will always fall. Let's steadfastly put our trust in God and His divine mercy, and cultivate gentleness and patience with ourselves.

Playing For Keeps

My son and I were shooting hoops in the driveway this afternoon. I found the full-sized net on Craigslist and picked it up one night, sweating and bleeding getting it disassembled and in my car to earn my dad-of-the-year award for 2017, because I knew he wanted one. It's been a fun thing to have. I never played basketball growing up besides a pickup game here and there, and know nothing about form, so the two of us are about on the same skill level.

One thing I noticed, though: every time I kept focused on the square above the rim when I shot, it went in. I remembered that much coaching from little league: "Keep your eye on the ball." In contrast, every time I put up a free throw kind of just hoping it would land through the net, sometimes it did and most times it didn't.

St. Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians:

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified." (1 Cor 9:24-27)

And in Proverbs, it is written:

"Let your eyes look directly ahead And let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established." (Prov 4:25-26)

The fact is, we do lose our focus on Christ from time to time. I have, and it can disorienting. It starts slowly...you eye catches something in the periphery, or flits to a distraction here or a thought there. This is how the devil leads us away from our Lord...a little bit at a time, the way frogs are boiled alive before the know the water has gone from warm to scalding. It is how the stage gets set in marriages for infidelity, drifting away a little bit each day, forgetting to connect a little bit at a time, until we wake up one day in separate beds. The important thing is to regain our vantage point--the cross--and bring it back into view. Focus on the cross, focus on the cross with tunnel vision.

We don't always remember the stakes of the game in our day-to-day. Fr. Lazarus El-Anthony, a modern day anchorite in the Egyptian desert does not have that luxury. As he notes in this rare interview:

"In one sense I am utterly alone (in the desert). If I want to talk to somebody, to whom can I talk? There is no one who understands my language. There is no one here who has my past, no one here who knows my thoughts. If I lose my contact with Christ for one minute, there is no one to come to help me. So this struggle I must fight every day to keep myself...balanced on Christ, balanced on the Lord."

All this is a round about way of saying: If you want to score with consistency in basketball, keep your eye on the square, and practice constantly. If you want to win the eternal prize in the only game that really matters, keep your eye on the cross, and pray without ceasing.

Lost And Found

There are certain movies I revisit from time to time because of what they remind me of. Silver Linings Playbook was a favorite of mine, because Bradley Cooper played such a convincing bi-polar man and Jennifer Lawrence such a convincing bi-polar woman. There's one part where he is totally manic, reading Hemmingway at four o'clock in the morning in his bedroom at his parent's house and in an agitated fit throws it out the closed window, shattering the glass, and storms into his parent's bedroom to vent about the ending. It hilarious and painful at the same time...at least if you are bi-polar it is. The relationship between Cooper and Lawrence is a mad dance, but touching also--two mentally fragile and damaged people finding solace in each other when the world thinks they are nothing but a couple of loons. Because you've been there before. You get it. It could have been me. 

There was Into The Wild, another favorite, where an idealistic and headstrong Chris McCandless makes his way to Alaska on the coattails of free-spirited adventure to live off the land. He ultimately dies in a schoolbus, poisoned from eating some deadly berries during a foraging excursion and from starvation. "Happiness is only real when shared," he pens in his final hour, remembering the parents he left as he drifts out of consciousness. It could have been me.

There are others. Crazy Heart. The Wrestler. All excellent and human films, all moved me to tears. 

And then there is Half Nelson, another one of my favorite movies, which I watched this evening. Ryan Gosling plays a history teacher at an inner-city middle school. He wants to make a difference. He coaches basketball. He cares about the kids, especially Drey (Shareeka Epps) one of his favorite students. He also has a drug problem and while he keeps it together most days, he life trends towards self-destruction and desperation. The acting is excellent. I don't know what it is, but the whole film basically reminds me of my twenties. Aside from the crack smoking. But it could have been me.

I moved to Philadelphia in August of 2003. Having met a woman on a cross-country bike tour that summer, and not having done any internships in college and having no real career prospects, it was as good a place as any to relocate to since we were in the beginning stages of a relationship. I got a job as a bike messenger and stayed at her place in South Philly for a couple weeks while I looked for my own apartment.

We were a somewhat unlikely pair. A former exotic dancer, she trained as an amateur boxer at the 12th Street gym, was covered head to toe in tattoos, and was a talented photographer working on her BFA at Drexel. Her big break came when her work was picked up by the New York Times magazine--a portrait series of regular clientele that frequented McGlinchey's, the iconic dive bar at 15th and Locust where she worked as a bartender on the weekends. After a few months together, we got engaged and planned to be married the following Fall. It was a tumultuous relationship from the start, but I kept assuring myself that "relationships are supposed to be hard." Her best friend across the river in New Jersey was dying of cancer as I was experiencing my first acute bout of mania chased by a depression so dark that I didn't know if I would ever come out of it. I entered an in-patient facility, and she went home with someone from the bar one night and contracted an STD. The relationship fell apart as fast as it had started. 

The spring after everything fell apart I started teaching at a Catholic primary school, St. Martin of Tours on Oxford Circle in Northeast Philadelphia as a long-term sub. I would catch the 1 bus from my apartment in Roxborough across the Boulevard early in the morning to the school. I made $16,000 a year and taught 7th grade English, Science, and Religion. 

I got on well with the kids and took some creative license with my lesson plans. I would do free-thinking writing exercises where they had to write in 10 minutes bouts without stopping. The object was to open the censor gates between their minds and their hands. If their pencils stopped moving during that ten minutes I would slam on the desk with my hands and yell "GO MAN GO!" If they got stuck, I would encourage them, "If you have to write the word 'butt' fifty thousand times, write it fifty thousand times. But DON'T STOP WRITING." They loved it. No one had ever given them license to create like that before. The nuns would occasionally walk by the classroom and peer in the window to see what all the commotion was about. 

I never did hard drugs, but really only because I knew that if I did I would never come back from it if I did. I would pass out under tables at bars and my friends would take me home. I smoked constantly. I drove my motorcycle over 150mph on one occasion on Rt. 29 in New Jersey. I never got in fights but I would engage in a lot of risky behavior and would spiral out of control like a top being unwound, ricocheting off everything it touches and busting up the plaster.

And so watching Half Nelson tonight, it just all came back--the memory of my twenties, the teaching, the spectre of addiction, the precipice of keeping things together when your mind is flying off in a thousand directions. When you know low, you know there's sometimes no where to go. The most memorable scene (without the prodigal return) in the movie was when "Teach" has just gone completely in to the dark, smoking crack with prostitutes. His promising student Drey, who had looked up to him all the while, had fallen into running drugs for a family friend, and delivers the drugs to the hotel room not knowing Teach was who she was delivering it to. He is completely lost, steps out of the bathroom and kneels down to her eye level as if to say, 'Here it is. You're seeing it. This is me.' She's dealing the drugs. He's addicted to the drugs. He's a twenty-something white history teacher. She's a black seventh grader from the inner-city. For a moment that seems to stand still, they are just two sinners on the same level. 

I have no desire to go back to my twenties. It was a time of pain and loneliness slathered in the salves of the world we all use in our ways, whether its drugs or sex or shopping sprees or eating or affection or achievement. I'm in a much better place, despite occasional bouts of darkness, but at least it is not compounded by the kind of sin and excess that accompanied that time of my life that just makes everything all the more complicated and destructive. 

I heard an incredible story once of a father who had gone in search of his son, who had gone to Thailand and fell in to a drug den and a life of addiction. He father flew to Bangkok and just started going to every drug house he could find, until he eventually found his son and took him home.

Occasionally I like to remember, when watching these kinds of films, not because of any kind of glamorization of it, but to be reminded what I am capable of, what hides around the corner, in the dark alleys of my heart. I think we have a tendency to whitewash our sins from time to time when we gain a modicum of Christian respectability in our own eyes. But when Christ enters in--when we are on the floor of the motel bathroom with the crack vile in our hands, at our lowest points, the light pierces the darkness, and he looks on us with compassion in our brokenness, carrying us out on his back. And we remember, in the end, that we are not lost after all. Broken, but not lost. Broken...and found.

The Prayers To Pray When You'd Rather Die Than Live

"I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore." 

(Ps 121:1-8)

What began as melancholy over Easter has grown to a full blown depression complete with the usual suspects: apathy coupled with anxiety; loss of pleasure; extreme fatigue; the ever-unattractive envy and pessimism; anger co-mingled with defeat. Freud described pleasure as the release of tension, and in this context I can somewhat understand the 'cutting' of young people, though I have never engaged in it. In the context of their restricted lives, it is a psychic bleed valve at times you literally do not know what to do with the pain and mental anguish since there is no where to put it. "Depression is ridiculous", as Andrew Solomon described it, "I felt as though I had a physical need, of impossible urgency and discomfort, from which there was no release — as though I were constantly vomiting but had no mouth."

I can tell when the devil is working on me. Reading the scripture this morning of the lost sheep, he seemed to whisper in my ear, "You are not worth it to Him. You are not worth going after." Even when you recognize the lie for what it is, it's like a lead blanket that is draped over your shoulders, hard to get out from under.

Job opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born, longing for death. "There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together; they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slaves are free from their masters." He goes on:

‘Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul,  who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;  who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave? Why is light given to one who cannot see the way,    whom God has fenced in? For my sighing comes like* my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes.’ (Job 3:20-26)

How do we deal with the pain of living? I suppose the cliche of writing is a more sanitary and cleaner knife that turns outward rather than on oneself, scraping away and excising dead skin rather than separating with a razor thin line healthy flesh. It is also why, I suppose, it is predictably cathartic to so many who are depressed, as if a writer struggling with depression were some novelty to the world only in their own minds. Writing, cutting, exercising, drinking...they are all columns of therapeutic options to choose from, some healthier and more socially acceptable and beneficial than others.

I'm always suspicious of a purely psychological or a purely spiritual explanation of this kind of siege. As Augustine lamented, "I have become an enigma to myself, and herein lies my sickness." Confessions (10.33.50). No one understands, and you struggle to understand yourself this illegitimate disease and you can talk to no one and you have to just get up and go through life and work as a man and no man wants to listen to you anyway and besides what would you say? I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. (Rom 7:15-20)

Or maybe you do know, or at least have a suspicion. Sure, everything is meaningless, everything is vanity, that much is clear. But it seems new tenants, new neighbors have moved in that may shed some light into the instances of disturbance:

"When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he roams through waterless places in search of rest; and finding none, he says, “I will return to my house which I left.” And when he has come to it, he finds the place swept and clean. Then he goes and takes seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse that the first" (Lk 11:24-25)

I told myself I had a few days to fix the fence and change the locks, but they are quick on their feet. The old tenant brought his friends and extended family. They've set out all the drugs neatly on the table and gone to the store and settled in on the couch and no, we're not leaving they say with a smile but you can do a line with us if you want.  "If you want..." Its a dreadful feeling to see them again after the eviction. They know you. They know all about you.

I step out to catch my breath and think for a minute. What happened? You stopped praying, took off your breastplate and set it at the foot of your bed, thats what. "Yeah, for like two days!" It was enough time, all it took for my mind to go dark, my body to break down along with my defenses. Is it all that surprising?

"Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did.  Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to dance.”  We must not indulge in immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.  We must not put the Lord to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents;  nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.  Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." (1 Cor 10:6-14)

I don't understand what I do. I do that which I do not want to do. In this case, all I want to do is lay down and sleep, but instead I take a book of Deliverance Prayers from my shelf and break the binding. A friend suggested it earlier, the prayers of the Auxilium Christianorum. I consider it a kind of eviction notice to the demons that have taken residence, but accompanied by a baseball bat to leave them with some bruises on their way out, dish out some punishment:

"For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete." (2 Cor 10:3-6)

I kneel, make the sign of the cross, and place a few granulars of blessed and exorcised salt on my lips. Then I open with a few body blows: Binding Prayer to Blind the Demons, Adjuration, and then a prayer to Sever Ties, Bonds, and Attachments. Then a one-two: Prayers Against Temptation, and Prayer to Be Freed from Evil Habits, followed by a swift Prayer to Overcome Evil Passions and to Become a Saint. I take out the bat (Punishing Prayer) and start to pummel, chased by a Prayer for Protection and Against Retaliation and Against Oppression. Finally, sealing the door by praying Breaking the Spirit of Death, which haunts and taunts but is no longer welcome here. I end with the prayers of the Auxilium Christianorum.

This is not a fight to the death, but a fight for life when your mind is the breeding ground for spiritual bacteria and suffers infection. Because of our attachment to sin, rather than being averse to it and recoiling in horror at its presentation, we kind of ache for it, don't we? If we clean the house and put it in order, but forget to keep it occupied with guards and regular vigil prayer, the demonic tenants WILL return, and return with a vengeance. As inviting as death appears to be in a depressed flash of light, promising rest and and end to temptation and pain, it is a siren song, and needs to be fought against using the weapons we have been given by our Lord. It is so, so tiring, but the Lord strengthens us in prayer. Still, I read the words of Job and nod:

“I hate my life, so I will complain without holding back; I will speak because I am so unhappy. If I hold up my head, you hunt me like a lion and again show your terrible power against me.  You bring new witnesses against me and increase your anger against me. Your armies come against me.  “So why did you allow me to be born? I wish I had died before anyone saw me.  I wish I had never lived, but had been carried straight from birth to the grave.  The few days of my life are almost over. Leave me alone so I can have a moment of joy.  Soon I will leave; I will not return from the land of darkness and gloom,  the land of darkest night, from the land of gloom and confusion, where even the light is darkness.” (Jb 10:1; 16-22)

The irony is it is so hard to pray when you'd rather die than live, crushed under the weight of the specter of depression; literally every bone in my body turns against it, which is all the more crucial reason to pray. There is no help in men, in women...what can they say? If you've never fought for your life with no sign of physical sickness that might threaten it, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. But if you've ever been forced to stave off the Noonday Demon whose taken up residence, arm yourself with the Prayers of Deliverance and your guardian angels to dish out some punishment and send them back to Hell with some bruises to remember you by.

We Are An Easter People

One of the unfortunate things about melancholia is it's opportunistic nature. Unlike grief, it's legitimate cousin, it has no hesitation in showing up at the most inopportune and inappropriate moments for those who have made its acquaintance in the past. It is normal to feel loss at a funeral. It is quite another thing to feel the tacit weight of melancholia in the midst of a crowd of friends at your birthday party, or when you've just received a job promotion, your child is on the honor roll, and your wife loves you beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is truly a queer type of visitor.

My wife reminded me today of a time early on in our relationship when we had joined some friends in Rittenhouse Park on a bright and sunny spring day for a picnic. People were lounging, talking, and throwing balls and frisbees and enjoying the nice weather. But I was broody and existential. "What is all this?" I said to her, "all this distraction and leisure?" My wife is one of the most pleasant and good-natured people you will ever meet. She was puzzled by the comment, though my friends knew my struggles with depression a bit more and took it in stride as "Rob being Rob."

When I was in college I lamented to one of my Geography professors I was friends with that I was averse to the ups and downs in life, that Buddhism was such an attraction to me because it sought to 'level out' the highs and lows, the joys and sorrows, in a kind of detached and steady indifference. I was willing to trade the peaks if it meant staying out of the valleys, perhaps because my descents into painful darkness always seemed to out-number those fleeting times of peace, love, and joy. He was of a Emersonian-transcendentalist bent and not a believer, but he had lived thrice as long as I had and knew a thing or two about sorrow and joy. We paused in our walk when he turned and said to me gently, "that's no way to live."

As Christian believers, our theological worldview makes room for sorrow and suffering. We, in some ways, intentionally enter into that liturgically as the ecclesia during the 40 day period of mortification and preparation known as Lent.  Days of fasting and penance are prescribed and assigned corporally by the Church for us men and women of age. The spirit of the season is not morose, but somber. It is a kind of template to help us replicate and follow in the footsteps of Christ on his way to Calvary.

Christ embraced suffering not because he was a masochist, but because he saw clearly that it had it's place--not as part of the Father's original plan, but as part of the new economy of the fallen world he had entered into. He prayed for the cup to be taken from him, while simultaneously accepting it as part and parcel of his divine mission of redemption. The community of believers were of 'one mind' and united in heart and way of life.

I have always struggled to feel truly a part of that bloc of corporal faith and instead (for most of my twenties at least) lived my life of faith as an outlier on the fringes of community, belonging but stepping outside in order to look in. For most of my life my moods have been the bridles of eels, dictating the trajectory of my day. It made it difficult to plan anything, because each morning I did not know on what emotional shore I would wake up on. Truthfully, most days I was mentally at odds with the task at hand--a night of celebration was entered into sullenly with an invisible weight on my shoulders; at a day of mourning I would be inappropriately elated if that was the emotional script that was prescribed in my psyche that day. Living with a taciturn mood disorder bleeds out into all aspects of one's life, and the life of faith is not immune from such peculiar volatility.

But I recognized at least that the nature of the Christian religion demanded assent and submission to be authentic. The Church was not to march to my orders, but the other way around. Jesus came for, died for, and loved the masses that I seemed to so easily despise and spurn association with. I was not, could not be, a lone wolf, nor could I be, though maybe that would explain the draw of the eremitic life. I needed to find a way as a freshman believer to fit myself into the suit, or else risk being a perpetual gyrovague, making up my own Rule to please my purposes--a class of believer even I had little respect for--always on the outside looking in.

This particular Lent was fruitful for me. I entered into the penitential season with focus, falling along the way from time to time, but overall feeling a sense of purpose and commitment that I hadn't experienced before. I prayed for people every day, fasted, entered into what I knew. It was not a point of pride, but simply an experience of grace. I knew darkness. I knew my sin. It was a natural fit.

And then it was over.

I don't know what I was expecting. I emerged on Easter morning excitedly to drink my beloved coffee that I hadn't had in a month and a half. It was great, sure. And then, just like that, it became ordinary, sometime moving forward I would have every morning. Of course this was just a symbolic sacrifice. Christ paid the ultimate price for my redemption and his glorious resurrection on the third day was the reason for my hope and belief. It wasn't ultimately about coffee or chocolate or fasting or my own little sacrifices. He paid the price. All I had to do was thank him for it, thank him dearly, and bask in the light that pierce the opening of the tomb.

And now we have entered into a glorious new season of hope and triumph as a Church. And, almost despite myself, I felt once again like an outside looking in, struggling to adjust to a new routine, a new mood, a new prescription for expressing the gratitude that Christ died for me. Everybody had made their way to the mountaintop together--the daily mass goers arm in arm with the Easter-and-Christmas Christians--and I was still rolling up my hair shirt and bread crusts in the valley wondering what to do with them. It wasn't that I wanted Lent to keep going; I was ready for the end. But once that end came, it was as if I hadn't prepared for it. I was all mixed up.

After morning Mass with my family and Easter dinner at my parents house, we drove home. I changed out of my nice clothes, gathered the eggs from the chickens, and sat on the couch with my son. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree with him. He is full of volatile emotions, loves deeply, is thrown off by the unexpected, and prays sincerely. His emotional landscape is like mine--full of peaks and valleys that can be difficult to navigate from time to time. But we find our way, eventually.

We do not fast when the bridegroom is with us, but dance. We have been saved in an instant, and yet spend our lives "working out our salvation" in fear and trembling. It says in the book of Isaiah that "every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill leveled off." But the meaning is deeper, I think, than my sophomoric desire to minimize suffering by trading in the heights of joy in a kind of bland neutralization that guards against hurt and disappointment. To be truly human is to enter in fully to the fray of human existence as Christ did, an existence that is more than emotions, more than plans, more than prescriptions, but the very stuff of life itself. I am learning how to live joy, and each year it becomes more and more natural, lubricated by the oil of gratefulness, though sometimes I falter and stall and get off course. But Christ did not ascend to Heaven right away. He stayed with us for forty days, eating fish with us, walking with us, and getting us acclimated to our new reality. As an Easter people.