The Good Samaritan

 Yesterday I was really struggling...complete emptiness and the familiar creep of depression rolling in. Though I've battled it for the past twenty-some years, it still catches me off guard sometimes. Self-accusation, feelings of failure, bitter loneliness (even in the midst of people who love me), lack of energy, and self-isolation. None of my depressions these days are too long-lived (unlike in the past, where they would stretch for weeks or months), but they can be fierce like a tempest.

I went through my mental rolodex of people to call, but was struggling to think of anyone who would understand. Except there was one guy who I thought might, though I hadn't talked to him since I met him at the Courage conference a couple years ago (as an aside, I don't have SSA, but have friends who do, so thought it would be a good chance to understand some of the issues in the Church surrounding SSA and help support those who were trying to live chaste lives by the Church's teachings). 

I have a general policy, that if anyone flashes through my mind at a given point, I either pick up the phone or email/text them, figuring there is a reason why they popped into my consciousness. In this case, I think it really was divine inspiration. This was a man who had lived the gay lifestyle for years until he was converted and came back to the faith, and now lives chastely. An unlikely friendship, honestly. We talked for about two hours, and it was a true balm. I was actually surprised, at the end of the conversation, I was able to get off the couch and do some things--planted some tomato plants after work, cleaned a little around the house. He was kind and encouraging, didn't write me off, and though it wasn't anything in particular he said, it was enough to know that someone believed in you and cared enough to take the time to talk. 

In "Bring Me My Weapon" I wrote:

The thought of killing myself hadn't crossed my mind in a number of years. So I didn't recognize it when it appeared tonight in my bedroom like an unwelcome guest, a Stranger "rapping sharply, four times...on the fatal door of destiny."

I hadn't invited the Thought. It seemed a culmination of events had led to leaving the door slightly ajar, able to be pushed in from the outside. Feelings of betrayal from friends, stress at work and home, and doubt were likely suspects, but not enough to explain the barrage of negative and aggressive thoughts, the usual suspects: "It's useless. You'll never amount to anything. Better off without you. You have no one. You are alone. Just get it over with already and quit wasting our time."   Everything just seemed to be going down. I lay in bed and stared at the wall. Tears had dried up hours ago but I was weary and had trouble moving out of bed.

This seemed like a similar outside attack, but it's hard to distinguish sometimes--brain chemistry, circumstances, moods, and of course the spiritual. All I know is I was feeling brutally low, and I was grateful this ex-gay man picked up the phone when I called. There must have a been a reason he came into my mind. These periods can be frightening, when you are fighting your own mind. Kindness has such a soft connotation, but when it is sincere, it can reach places where other approaches can't. Most of the time, in these periods, I recognize that people have their own stuff they are going through and precious little time, so it makes it harder to reach out. Plus you don't want people to see you when you are your worst. But this man took the time, as much time as I needed, and bandaged my mental wounds just by caring about me in that moment.

So, I'll stick to my policy of reaching out to others, and reaching out myself, when a flash of a person comes through my mind and take it as divine inspiration. I'm sure there was a reason this time.

All I Hear Is Silence

I came to Adoration a little late this evening. Whether it's a beige carpeted Novus Ordo parish or an opulent historical church, my posture is always the same--dropping to both knees, bowing my head to the ground, and coming before the Lord of Lords as a beggar before his King. For I know my transgressions and my sin, as David wrote, is ever before me.

I have had moments in my life where the Holy Spirit has cut through me like an electric knife, and what the Lord was asking me in that moment was clear as the sky. I know better than to hesitate or delay, and grace has always followed those little acts of obedience to make the way possible. 

Other times, and more often now, it is the silence of the Lord that meets me. This is not Endo's Silence--the non-response of the Almighty in the face of seeming futility and the absurdity of faith in suffering that precipitates a crisis of faith and meaning. Nor is it a silent balm that heals wounds when words cannot do pain justice. 

It is not the thundering silence of the saints, who like Elijah hear the Lord in the quiet whisper. It is likewise not the uncomfortable silence of simply an absence of noise, wondering if there is anyone on the other end of the receiver or if one is simply talking to one's self in one-way conversation.

True, communicative silence is a rarity. Think about the places you can go to achieve it. Podcasters retreat to the sealed capsule of their car to escape the chaos of their homes. You can get silence in the middle of the night as you lie in bed staring at the ceiling when everyone is asleep. But other than that, we are followed by noise like a lapdog. 

When we come before the Lord in Adoration, the silence before--and from--the throne is a respite from the savagery of the outside world. Not all of us have inner-silence, which must be cultivated and procured over time, the thing of contemplatives. 

When the beloved disciple reclined and laid his head in the bosom of our Lord, his posture was as intimate as one could get. And this is often the inner-posture I adopt in adoration--not physically, but in my spirit. When I come before Him, my defenses drop, for I know He sees me as I really am. I have nothing to bring, nothing to show for myself, nothing to brag about. All I have is brokenness and failure. This is the intimacy of a King to His servant; we are not slaves or indentured servants, but friends. 

But our words fail. Nor does He waste words on us, lest we die. His silence in the Host, where deep calls to deep, is not maddening, not futile, not absurd except on the surface. His silence is a gift, for nowhere in the savagery of the outside world can we enter into not Emptiness of the Void, but fullness of life. It does not arm us with pep-talks, but disarms us of the illusions we have about ourselves and our abilities. 

It has been a long time since I have 'heard' the Lord speak to my spirit in definitive ways in which I respond, "Yes! This is what I must do, the answer to the unasked question!" Where I have asked, "What should I do, Lord?" and He tells me. 

No. Instead, silence is all I hear. I have no clarity, no monk-like inner-peace, but like standing on the shore before an ocean of such magnitude and mass, all I experience is my own nothingness and smallness. In the crashing of wave after wave, waiting for a response, all I hear is silence. Not enough to question "why am I here? Why do I drop to my knees before this bread?" but in faith I continue to come to Him as if He could answer me and maybe one day, will. 

I continue to come prostrate before the throne, not even sure what to say or ask, but just to offer myself as a sometimes-barely breathing oblation of sacrifice which I have to trust is pleasing to Him. If He wants my heart, I will give it to Him. But not all of it, for I am not perfect, not made in perfection, but piece by piece, trading parts of myself for these portions of silence in return. 

Perhaps I should rage more often. But I have not been subject to real tragedy--not had my children ripped from the land of the living or been subjected to financial or existential ruin or had my back against a wall. Perhaps I should make more demands: "Why won't you speak!?" Perhaps it's a sign of my own luke-warmness and lack of trust, that I do not put Him to the test, as the Lord says, "Test me in this" (Mal 3:10), not having put anything of substance on the line. Perhaps I am too comfortable. The silence feels neutral--not healing, not consoling, not disheartening. Just like--putting the time in, waiting, for when something--anything--will come to pass. 

At ten til midnight as i type, the house is quiet. I am surrounded by my sleeping family. But the silence of the Lord when I am before Him is different. I know He is there, sitting in His monstrance, judging the nations and waiting to take all men to Himself. As St. John Vianney asked an old farmer what he did before the Lord in the tabernacle, maybe all I can say is to echo his words: "Nothing. I look at him, and he looks at me."

 

The Poppy

The Poppy

'To Monica'

Francis Thompson

Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare,

And left the flushed print in a poppy there:

Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,

And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame.

With burnt mouth, red like a lion's, it drank

The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank,

And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine

When the Eastern conduits ran with wine.

Till it grew lethargied with fierce bliss,

And hot as a swinked gipsy is,

And drowsed in sleepy savageries,

With mouth wide a-pout for a sultry kiss.

A child and man paced side by side,

Treading the skirts of eventide;

But between the clasp of his hand and hers

Lay, felt not, twenty withered years.

She turned, with the rout of her dusk South hair,

And saw the sleeping gipsy there:

And snatched and snapped it in swift child's whim,

With— "Keep it, long as you live!" — to him.

And his smile, as nymphs from their laving meres,

Trembled up from a bath of tears;

And joy, like a mew sea-rocked apart,

Tossed on the wave of his troubled heart.

For he saw what she did not see,

That — as kindled by its own fervency —

The verge shrivelled inward smoulderingly:

And suddenly 'twixt his hand and hers

He knew the twenty withered years —

No flower, but twenty shrivelled years.

"Was never such thing until this hour,"

Low to his heart he said; "the flower

Of sleep brings wakening to me,

And of oblivion, memory."

"Was never this thing to me," he said,

"Though with bruisèd poppies my feet are red!"

And again to his own heart very low:

"O child! I love, for I love and know;

"But you, who love nor know at all

The diverse chambers in Love's guest-hall,

Where some rise early, few sit long:

In how differing accents hear the throng

His great Pentecostal tongue;

"Who know not love from amity,

Nor my reported self from me;

A fair fit gift is this, meseems,

You give — this withering flower of dreams.

"O frankly fickle, and fickly true,

Do you know what the days will do to you?

To your love and you what the days will do,

O frankly fickle, and fickly true?

"You have loved me, Fair, three lives — or days:

'Twill pass with the passing of my face.

But where I go, your face goes too,

To watch lest I play false to you.

"I am but, my sweet, your foster-lover,

Knowing well when certain years are over

You vanish from me to another;

Yet I know, and love, like the foster-mother.

"So, frankly fickle, and fickly true!

For my brief life while I take from you

This token, fair and fit, meseems,

For me — this withering flower of dreams."

The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,

Heavy with dreams, as that with bread:

The goodly grain and the sun-flushed sleeper

The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.

I hang 'mid men my needless head,

And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:

The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper

Time shall reap, but after the reaper

The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper.

Love, love! your flower of withered dream

In leavèd rhyme lies safe, I deem,

Sheltered and shut in a nook of rhyme,

From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.

Love! I fall into the claws of Time:

But lasts within a leavèd rhyme

All that the world of me esteems —

My withered dreams, my withered dreams.

"Was never this thing to me," he said,

"Though with bruisèd poppies my feet are red!"

And again to his own heart very low:

"O child! I love, for I love and know;

"But you, who love nor know at all

The diverse chambers in Love's guest-hall,

Where some rise early, few sit long:

In how differing accents hear the throng

His great Pentecostal tongue;

"Who know not love from amity,

Nor my reported self from me;

A fair fit gift is this, meseems,

You give — this withering flower of dreams.

"O frankly fickle, and fickly true,

Do you know what the days will do to you?

To your love and you what the days will do,

O frankly fickle, and fickly true?

"You have loved me, Fair, three lives — or days:

'Twill pass with the passing of my face.

But where I go, your face goes too,

To watch lest I play false to you.

 "I am but, my sweet, your foster-lover,

Knowing well when certain years are over

You vanish from me to another;

Yet I know, and love, like the foster-mother.

"So, frankly fickle, and fickly true!

For my brief life while I take from you

This token, fair and fit, meseems,

For me — this withering flower of dreams."

The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,

Heavy with dreams, as that with bread:

The goodly grain and the sun-flushed sleeper

The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.

I hang 'mid men my needless head,

And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:

The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper

Time shall reap, but after the reaper

The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper.

Love, love! your flower of withered dream

In leavèd rhyme lies safe, I deem,

Sheltered and shut in a nook of rhyme,

From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.

Love! I fall into the claws of Time:

But lasts within a leavèd rhyme

All that the world of me esteems —

My withered dreams, my withered dreams.

Let's Be Honest: You're Just Not That Into Him

Joe Rogan has a great channel on YouTube I'm really enjoying (aside from the cursing)--he interviews interesting semi-famous people and just has conversations with them. I've watched a number of them, one being an interview with a former professional race car driver Danica Patrick titled "What Women Don't Understand About Men." 

It got me thinking about that film/book that was popular a few years ago, He's Just Not That Into You and how these women in the dating world don't understand why a guy isn't calling them back, and it basically boils down to a few uncomplicated points that is for the most part summed up in the title: "he's just not that into you." Because if he was, he would find a way to be with you. 

Though I didn't read the book, I think I saw the movie with my wife at some point, and there were some choice quotes that seemed to hit the nail on the uncomplicated head. 

Here's the thing: This doesn't just apply to men and women and the interactions between the sexes. It pertains to the relationship between man and his God. If you think I'm being too soft, maybe I can temper the wine spritzer with a stiff shot of Chesterton: "Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair."

Love affairs are a kind of dance, a courting, a pursuit, and a haunting. We see it in the erotic Hebrew canticles like Song of Songs, Francis Thompson's The Hound of Heaven, and the poetic pursuit of divine intimacy in saints like John of the Cross. We see how God courts us with sweet consolations early in our walk with Him, blinding us with the intoxication of divine love; once He has us, He withdraws Himself when we have moved from milk to meat so as to strengthen and refine us. Our drink may turn from wine and honey to gall and crosses, but if the love one has for the Lord has matured in "good soil," it does not wither or uproot easily, and one can pass through these desolations eventually into a love for Him where "deep calls unto deep" (Ps 42:7)

So, it's not unreasonable or gay to think of the relationship one has with the Lord in an intimate manner. But such a relationship is only as deep or intimate as one gives; the Lord's depths are infinite, and His longing for us without bounds, so it is only reasonable to conclude that when we don't "know" the Lord more intimately, it is not because of the Lord being aloof, but because, well, "we're just not that into Him."

I pulled a few quotes from Goodreads for the aforementioned book, and though these quotes are in the context of dating in the secular world, use it to reflect on your relationship with the Lord, which is really the extent of your prayer life (knowing and conversing with the Lord in an intimate manner):

“If you can find him, then he can find you. If he wants to find you, he will.”

“If a man is really into you, nothing will stop him from being with you - including a fear of intimacy.”

“Alone also means available for someone outstanding.”

“If he’s not calling you, it’s because you are not on his mind."

"The word "busy" is the relationship Weapon of Mass Destruction. It seems like a good excuse, but in fact in every silo you uncover, all you're going to find is a man who didn't care enough to call. Remember men are never to busy to get what they want.”

That last one kind of hit home: we make time for the things we care about. When we claim to be so busy that we don't have time to pray, or it's an afterthought, what we're really saying is "it's not that important." Prayer is how we get to know the Lord--what His will is for our life, what He wants from us, what He desires and what pleases Him, and how we learn the sound of His voice. It's akin to spending time with your wife as the bare minimum maintenance measure for a marriage. You simply cannot please the Lord without faith (Heb 11:6), and you can't deepen your faith without prayer. 

So, what we are saying when we prioritize twenty minutes in the morning of scrolling around on Youtube or watching the news or checking the stock reports instead of closing our door and praying in silence before the Lord isn't that we don't have time, but that the time we have we don't want to spend with the One we claim to love. And what is the First and Primary Commandment, lest we forget: "You shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind" (Mk 12:30). 

The Lord uses the word know frequently in scripture. "Then I will tell them, 'I never knew you! Depart from me, you lawbreakers! (Mt 7:23) to those He casts out into outer darkness. To 'know' someone in the biblical sense is also a kind of physical consummation, such as in when Joseph "knew Mary not" in Mt 1:25. 

Let's just be honest about it: It's not that we're "too busy"--it's that spending our time in this way doesn't excite us or please our sensory appetites.  We are willfully choosing something else over the something more. In the dating world, this would be called settling. We are settling for less. And as in a marriage that has the potential to grow stale and subject to the test, when we don't spend time with our love, we "know" them less and less--physically and emotionally. When we wake up years later and feel as if "I don't even feel like i know you anymore," we can ask ourselves, "well, why is that?" 

Though it is true that people can drift apart or grow at different speeds that may not always match and align with one another, the thing about prayer and knowing the Lord in an intimate way is the deficiencies always lie with us. God pours out everything He has to those who earnestly seek Him: there is no lack, and no limit or bottom to the depth of His Mind. When we choose this-over-that, we are saying, "I value this thing over that thing." And how often does the One who should be our first love get the short stick, leftovers, and castoffs. 

If there's a simple maxim in the dating world as to why you're not getting callbacks from that guy you're interested in, it may be that "he's just not that into you." If your spiritual life is coming up short, the answer is probably the least complicated: "you're just not into Him." How can you tell? You're not giving your time, or your giving it away to other things. You're not speaking, and you're not listening. Instead of asking, "How can I serve you? How can I please you today? What do you want me to do?" You're going your own way, doing your own thing, and consulting the Lord as an afterthought. And all this is not complicated--it happens in prayer, and if you're not praying or making time for prayer, it shouldn't be a surprise that you know the Lord less than you would otherwise. 

The solution, too, is not complicated: make the time. Trade out the items in your time-budget so that prayer gets first seat and other things fill in around it, rather than the other way around. If all you have is early mornings for uninterrupted time, make the time then. If you're able to spare fifteen or twenty minutes, perhaps your priorities are out of whack, and you admittedly do not feel that prayer is time well spent. I know if I'm honest with myself, this is really what I'm saying when I choose to piddle opportunities away, or give into that inner-resistance (which the devil capitalizes on) that says I'd rather be doing x,y,z--anything really--then pray. And do it in the humility (that foundational virtue) that admits that you have failed to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind--that pre-eminent Commandment with which we cannot know--and thus love--either God or our neighbor or even ourselves. 

So if you're not praying that much, of you've put it on the back burner as I have, maybe it's worth being honest with the self-admonition that "I'm just not that into Him." That's ok, as long as you don't stay there. As anyone who has been married a while knows, you can "fall back in love" through a renewal of that first love time and time again throughout the course of a marriage--but it often takes time, work, and a reorientation of the heart.

Do you really want to be one of those foolish virgins to whom the Lord said He "never knew?"  Start making the time, shifting your priorities to get them back in line; right order has a way of keeping things from getting out of whack so that we keep first things first, and secondary things second. If you find yourself alone and uncomfortable, ask yourself why. Like the author said above, “Alone also means available for someone outstanding.” We know who that "someone outstanding" is--Jesus, our first love, whom we have neglected and shelved so often and on so many occasions when all he really wanted was our time and our heart. But it's never too late to get reacquainted. 

Navigating The Catholic Culture War

 There are two things I appreciate about our informal Catholic men's group we formed a few years ago: it developed organically and is not an Official Parish Program (TM) or tied to a particular parish; we meet In Real Life for prayer, service, and fellowship, and have no real online component except for an email listserv. 

Because the men (ranging in age from early thirties to mid-forties) run the spectrum--from slightly more progressively-minded to more conservative, and from charismatic to traditionalist--we have a healthy mix of perspectives and viewpoints. Some of us attend the Latin Mass, while others do not. Some of the guys are on Facebook, others are not. But the meat and potatoes of our existence is in person. We get together for a weekly early morning Lectio Divina, have lent muscle to the local Little Sisters of the Poor in clearing downed trees, and during this Holy Week, met at a church for midnight prayer on Good Friday.

The more I contrast this with my past experience on social media, the more appreciative I am that we are not tied or bound by such a medium. We are able to exist together, in part, because we don't cancel or attack each other, even if there are things we may not agree on. There's a healthy respect, kind of the way you don't get too deep into anything with your next door neighbor, because if it goes south...well, you still have to live next to them. 

When I contrast this with the tunnel-vision one acquires online, where one can cut ties with little sense of loss, it's that these IRL relationships are more forgiving, with some 'bend' so as not to break; kind of the way an expansion tank on your hot water heater serves to absorb and release some of the pressure so the main tank doesn't blow up. I've found myself interacting and becoming close friends with guys who didn't vote for Trump, who may be more COVID-cautious, who aren't traditionally-minded when it comes to liturgy, and who may be more sympathetic to Pope Francis than I am. And they are all good, solid guys. It feels...I don't know...healthy to have the opportunity to have this kind of cross-section of Catholicism, as long as we can agree on the fundamentals. All of us "belong" in this group in the sense that we are men, and we are Catholic.

Though our family attends the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively, I would not consider myself a traditionalist. Maybe trad-sympathetic is more fitting, if we are doing labels. I will generally avoid going to the Ordinary Form unless I have no other option, but I would not necessarily walk out in protest if it was in fact my only option. I don't think Vatican II led to the kind of renewal it envisioned, but I don't write it off as an invalid council either. I don't really listen to much of what Pope Francis has to say in the news, but I try very hard not to disparage either out of respect for the Chair. Honestly, I don't know what the technical qualifications would be to be considered a traditionalist in the formal sense, and I'm probably not one anyway because I haven't cared enough to find out.

Somewhere along the line, the whole COVID anti-masking thing became conflated with traditionalism, and the social media conjecturing became for some a parrot of leftist virtue signaling (posting photos in masks, photos of one getting the vaccine, etc). Which gets a little confusing I imagine if your in that Venn-intersection of points. Most of the traditionalists I know are also staunchly against masking as a matter of principal. It would be strange, really, at least in my sphere, if someone was adamantly pro-mask and a traditional Catholic, kind of like a non-sequitur. This may tie in with the idea of a globalist New World Order in which mandatory masking is part of the overall global agenda to vaccinate and depopulate, and that to participate in it makes one complicit in ultimately undermining liberty and personal autonomy.

Once again, I find myself just right of center on the issue: I reluctantly mask when I have to (though using it as a chin cup whenever I can) because I think they are disgusting and for the most part ineffective, and never really for extended periods of time thankfully. I hate that I can't see people's smiles or expressions. Am I willing to go to jail over it? Probably not. Call me unprincipled. 

But does it undermine my Catholicism? Not that I was ever in da club the first place, but does traditionalism extend beyond the liturgy into these peripheral spheres, I wonder. Does one gain something from a traditionalist's standpoint for not wearing a mask or choosing not to get vaccinated? Or if something the Pope does is given a sympathetic gesture, does it undermine their street-cred? Is traditionalism about traditional worship and living out the virtues, or the principled peripheral items that determine one's standing? How does one make these determinations for themselves, and what if they come to a conclusion that goes against these cultural norms? 

The people I know in real life, whether traditionalists or otherwise, bless me with a lot of grace and bend. One of the nice things about IRL is that we don't live by caricatures or quick denigration, but through respect, boundaries, and nuance. I can be of a different mind on a host of topics and still be able to have a comfortable drink together, and even some spirited debate when warranted. 

What I do have sympathies for, is new traditionally minded Catholics who may not want to or be prepared to navigate all these peripheral issues of masks and which-bishops-are-the-good-ones and politics. What they may simply want, is Jesus and the One True Faith. As in the Mystery of the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple, all that matters in the moment is WE HAVE TO FIND JESUS. 

I had the privilege of witnessing a 26 year old young man come into the Church by way of the TLM last week. The relief and sense of gratitude for finding that lost coin upon returning to his pew after being confirmed took me back to that Beginner's Heart attitude that can get lost in this kind of stupid Catholic Culture war--who is or isn't trad enough, who is a heretic, who needs to be canceled or put in their place or enlightened with a barrage of articles and websites. One of the nice things now is that we can plug him into some community with our IRL men's group, hopefully, to walk with him in his faith and support him.

My wife and I will be hosting a large gathering at our home for every Catholic family of every stripe that we know next month. We wanted to give the opportunity to have these kind of things--cross-sections of otherwise disconnected local Catholic families across parishes to meet each other and have some good food and company to know they're not alone and completely on their own--whether their pro-mask or anti-mask, traditionalist of Novus Ordo, liberal or conservative. I'd ask for your prayers for good weather, since there will be almost a hundred people with kids and we'll be outside in our backyard. It should be a fun example of Venn Diagram Catholicism at it's finest!

Dirty Hands

 

This evening I was perusing Youtube and came across a video titled "Philadelphia's Most Violent Areas." It was basically just a guy driving around and filming, and I was thinking to myself "I used to ride my bike through this hood" when I worked in social services. Not having a car (and not really needing one), I would visit my clients with a combination of the El, bus, and bike. It's not that I got desensitized to it, but it was kind of like an anti-body of exposure. 

When my wife and I first started dating, she needed to pick up something from the store. "Why don't we just walk to the Save-a-Lot on 4th Street?" She looked at me like I had two heads but was so in love (ha!) that she said ok. This was probably one of the worst parts of Wilmington, though when we first got married it was only a few blocks from where we lived. She always made a point to drive to the suburbs to go to the supermarket. We did make the walk, picked up some instant pudding for a batch of friendship bread, and walked back. She had lived in Wilmington her whole life, and that was a first for her. I guess I didn't really think about it.

After college, I had moved to one of the roughest areas of Harrisburg, Allison Hill, to run a house of hospitality for men in recovery and to serve the poor of the neighborhood. Drug dealing, prostitution, and gun violence was a common occurrence, just part of the fabric of the neighborhood. Of course, I came from a more or less upper-middle-class background, so I innately knew I was a temporary sojourner-outsider, and that was fine. But again, this experience of living among the poor and those in need, and doing our best to live a life of voluntary poverty and simple living in community made it not so...foreign. I ate my meals in the soup kitchen, and if we cooked it was with donated food. Someone gifted me a car--a 1988 Celica stick with 230,000 miles and no A/C which I would use to shuttle guys to AA and NA meetings. Some people cut checks, but since I didn't have checks to write, I served with my time, talent, and treasure. 

I live in the suburbs now, in a more-or-less upper middle class area, just like I was raised in. I'm more or less insulated from the 14th & Derry life now, but it's not completely foreign or uncomfortable. 

A good-hearted friend who was studying for the priesthood asked me a couple years ago if I wanted to visit the tent cities in Center City to hand out bottles of water and pray and talk with the homeless. We parked in the cathedral lot and set out on foot. We would sit on the ground and listen to people's stories, pray with them outside their tents, and offer words of encouragement and stories from the Gospel. 

I think that's one thing that was lacking for me this Lent as I cut checks and upped my poor-box contributions--I wasn't getting my hands dirty. Almsgiving is one of the pillars of Lent, along with prayer and fasting, but it's hard to love the poor from a distance. It's not uncomfortable or foreign, it's just--an afterthought. Probably because we're so insulated from it.

I want to raise my kids in a safe and relatively comfortable environment, but I also want them to not be so sheltered that they become callous to the needs of others, including the destitute. We named our daughter after Mother Teresa (her middle name) because she is a dirty-handed saint close to my heart. Mother deliberately set out to serve the poorest of the poor as her calling and inspired other sisters in the MoC to do the same. 

This isn't my calling, but it serves a need in the world, this service to the poor. For the poor, yes, but mostly for those like myself and my family who live without knowing need and have little exposure to their plight. Christian charity is essential to our religion, a non-negotiable. That doesn't mean you have to be a SJW, and cutting checks is important for capital campaigns and things like that. But we learn in the school of love by doing. And doing, building a kingdom, sometimes necessitates getting your hands dirty. It benefits us, because it acclimates us outside of our sphere. 

Anyone who has been on a "mission trip" knows it's not as much about what you do for the poor, but what they do for you.  St. John Chrysostom knew this intimately: “The rich exist for the sake of the poor. The poor exist for the salvation of the rich.” Symbiotic. 

In all honesty, though, the drugs and violence is not something I want my kids exposed to. And so often, poverty and drugs/violence are intertwined. I may have felt fine biking through Kensington at night during my single twenties, but not in the family minivan today. We need to use prudence. And honestly, if you've ever worked with drug addicts or maybe had them in your family, you know how tiresome the cycle gets, and you don't want to be an enabler. 

But that doesn't mean we should harden our hearts to the poor. This is the constant challenge, because that is the seminal temptation: to become callous. Loving can be dirty at times--whether its washing the bottom of a disabled family member you are caretaking for, or being lied to and betrayed. "After all I've done for you," we may find ourselves saying. And then we remember our Lord, who died for men--you and I--who continue to do just that to him. 

We can only love the destitute because we have known destitution and the poverty and abandonment of being dead in our sin. Someway we must tap into that in order to love the unlovable. Because we ourselves have felt unloveable, trapped in our own cycles of sin, and the Lord never abandoned us. The streets are a school of hard knocks, but the Gospel is a school of hard love, and we have a lot of learning to do still.

As a visual of what this work and school of love looks like, here is one of my all-time favorite trailers from the documentary film about the CFRs (whom I visited at St. Crispan's Friary in the Bronx years ago). A worthwhile meditation on the dirty work of loving in an imperfect world.

https://youtu.be/63ZKn4QtqSU

Retreat Shed is done

I took on a project last year of renovating our shed into a writer's retreat / home chapel / ADU work station. Insulated/paneled the ceiling/walls/floor, laid flooring, installed french doors and solar heaters on south-facing wall, installed a trex porch and shingled porch roof, framed out the back third for storage, rainwater catchment system with DIY Berkey (using 5 gal buckets and Korean .2 micron filters), and finally got the solar panels hooked up with battery, inverter and wifi. Now that the weather is nicer and I'm still remote until Fall I hope to be out here more. 

 

 

O Death, Where Is Your Sting?

 Happy Easter, all. He is Risen! Never forget what you were ransomed from!

Repose

 I typically do not blog much during significant liturgical seasons...not much to say or add that hasn't already been said better by others. Will resume after Easter. Enjoy the repose of the tongue until He is risen. 

A blessed Triduum to all.   

Unless You Become Like Children: A Nine-Year-Old's Primer For Life [Conclusion]

 The following is a chapter from my 9 year old son's book that he is writing titled Meaning Of Life, which I offered to publish here (unedited) in a series, just for fun (and maybe a little perspective). Images are drawings from when he was six or so.

Conclusion

God is good

After all these chapter it all builds up to this final chapter im mushing up all the chapters. God created you to love him and worship him and thats what were suppose to do in this life in heaven we be rewarded but thats why we praize him in thise life.so we can be rewarded in the next. Modern culcture is tearing us down and ruining are relationship with God but thats why we have him to guide us throw these descactions in life. And once we provent those things we will be rewarded and we will be with him once more.