My Worst NYE Ever

New Year's Eve is my least favorite holiday. Everything about it feels forced, like going to Disney World and feeling compelled to have a good time because you've spent so much money to get there and everyone tells you you have to. I don't go out anymore at my age, but when I did in my twenties and thirties I always found myself feeling out of place, drunk, and alone. 

By far, the worst (but most memorable) New Year's Eve was spent in New Zealand. The year before while going to school abroad at VUW for a semester, I had fallen in love with a Samoan nurse who also happened to be an alcoholic. We began a relationship, and I had vowed to return after I graduated college--which I did, booking a flight a few months before graduation and planning to stay with her for a month. The only problem was I had, er, "fallen" (in a Romans 7:15 kind of way) with someone else while back at school stateside after booking my trip. I should have known better than to go, but I had no plan and no other accommodations other than her flat. She assured me we could remain "friends" and I should still come; but she was getting me back in the meantime by taking up with other guys before I arrived. So I was stuck between a rock and a hard place...I stayed for a day or two, but eventually it was too much and I spent the rest of that month (it was summer there) hitchhiking around the country until my flight home. Reminds me of that Noah Kahan/Post Malone song, here. 

The following journal entry was my second night in the country on that tumultuous return to New Zealand to see a girl I was no longer "together" with, and trying to salvage a New Years Eve abroad. I was 21, no longer a virgin, and essentially a vagrant 9,000 miles from home. Sin makes you stupid, but we all know that...now. But God is patient, and is waiting there for us to come home.

Anyway, enjoy. And here's to better things in 2024.

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New Years Eve, 2001

Wellington, New Zealand

Walking up the hill after going into town for cigarettes with F., I see a girl about my age with jet black hair and beautiful dark eyes swinging on a tree swing by herself. I'm struck for a minute it is so storybook-sad and touching that the whole scene seems to have a glow about it. Walking by with F., I feel like I'm wearing a cashmere coat arm in arm with a wife, walking by a homeless person...subtly ashamed. But I wave to her once, twice...wanting her to know that I've been there before and I'm here now swinging by myself TOO and that she's beautiful, but she doesn't see me. We round the bend and it's over. It was the most private special thing I've seen all day.

F. and I clear the air in the afternoon, if you can call it that. It felt like it went nowhere. she asked me to read the letters I wrote her and if I would help her burn them. "What the %#@*!? Who are you?" 

"No, it's not spiteful or anything, it's just moving on." 

Yeah. Look, I tell her, if you want to burn those letters that's something for you to do personally that I don't want any part of. Man, this is weird. She's been drinking for a couple hours now. It's four o'clock.

 

Michelle's friend Dwayne is over. 

"Whatcha drinkin mate?" he asks as I'm eating dinner on the back stoop. 

"Aw, just some milk bro," I say. 

"Yeha, good one," he laughs. 

"Nah mate, for real, it's right here. See?" 

Dwayne: "what the?..."

More people start rolling in at nine o'clock. As if i'm not having enough trouble trying to belong as it is, I've gotten it in my head that I'm not going to drink tonight. On new years eve. In a country where babies nurse on beer instead of milk. I haven't been looking forward to this party and have decided to go to midnight mass at St. Mary's.  "That's a good one mate," Dwayne says, and I smile. 

"You're serious? Come on then, have a drink." 

Nah, i'm good thanks. "Got my milk," I laugh.

 

"Yea, I'd be in church too, but the way I figure, God wants me to be having a good time. So if I'm happy, that's just like going to church, doing what God wants me to do."  I nod, trying to reason out his logic on this particular self-made form of religion. I am really looking forward to Mass--I'm getting real tired of all this.

  

I'm sitting out front talking with some of F.'s friends Ace, Benna, and Charlotte. I'm more comfortable in the company of islanders and Maori than Pakeha (Euro NZ'ers). F. is with us and she's pretty drunk. The (white) guys next door are having a party as well, I don't think she gets on with them too well. We're laughing and having a good time when we hear someone there say "damn, that girl is BLACK!" All conversation among us stops while it continues up there. I wonder if I hear right. I immediately shoot a glance to F. This has happened before and I know how she is when she's drunk. One time a guy unknowingly said something about how she looked and I had to pin her arms together and take her around back; she was going to break his nose. Now, she's out of her chair and storming upstairs. Ace and Benna laugh about it but I hear her giving her neighbors hell and I'm worried. 

When she comes down all the joy has gone out of her and she looks stepped-on and shook up. She doesn't want to let on to anyone, so I take her inside. She is cursing and crying and FUMING, like a searing wound had been opened up, and it has. I am seeing before my eyes the devastating effect one thoughtless racist remark can have on someone. She is so upset it scares me, and I'm powerless to do anything for her. It hurts to watch. I don't even have any words, I'm just...there. She's shaking with rage and hatred, and while i will never experience that kind of pain because of racism, I can see how painful it is. That hatred is so ugly I almost can't look at her it scares me too much. She knows I was planning to go to mass and looks at me with contempt. 

"Go to church," she spits. 

"No, I'm going to stay with you." 

"No, you do what you want; if you want to go, then go." I don't know what to say.

"Tell me," she asks with that fire in her eyes, "How can you go to church when the world is so %&^*?"

I pause for a minute and then look up at her. 

"I think it's BECAUSE the world is so %&^*ed that I go to church."

"Just go then..."  

I feel like a pious a-hole but know there is nothing I can do for her. God, all I want is to be with Jesus--I don't even care about the hymns or the service. It's 11:30 and the city is absolutely mad. I feel like I've been thrown in the lion's den; this is what the cities that the Desert Fathers fled from must have been like. Couple after couple weaves by arm in arm. A bottle breaks against a wall. People are yelling conversations on their cell phones in the midst of this cacophony. A girl is passed out on the sidewalk as her two friends just stand there. People dancing in the streets. A fight breaks out. I feel like I'm on a moving walkway and people are just moving on by. I'm totally sober. 

I finally get to Mass and am so tired from the walk and everything going on that I fall asleep during the Gregorian chant and when I wake up I don't know if Mass has ended or if it's just starting. People are leaving. But it ends up being the start and the service is, of course, awful and uninspiring, but I wait for Communion feeling like I've gone through so much to be here, it's all I want. 

After Communion I feel nothing, but as usual, am content knowing that I don't have to feel anything. After the service I am the only one left in the church--it is the most depressing lonely scene. I want to cry but feel no sadness to justify it. It is 1am.

New Year's has come and gone, literally. Like sex. A year's worth of anticipation and then 5-4-3-2-1...a ball-dropping 12 o'clock climax and its over. The whole world has felt the satisfaction and sadness of an arm-in-arm drunk-prom-night New Year's orgasm. Kneeling on a wooden pew, I realize I faked it.

I make my way back home down Courtney Pl. stepping over broken bottles and puddles of vomit. I wish a homeless guy on the corner a Happy New Years and he nods a bushy smile. Oriental Pd. is dark and the benches empty. I sit on the beach as the waves lap the gray sand to watch a couple make love under the full creme moon. I have never had so much reason to feel alone, and yet there is comfort in being here now. A deep heavy contentment drowns any emotional response I might have to the situation. The night has become a real-life Gospel story. A chance to see how serious I am about living my faith and simply living. I can see why some Protestants refer to themselves as 'Jesus Freaks' (though I don't like that term). God, trying to live out the Gospel DOES make you a freak--but only when compared to everything around you.

I think about my friend Z. and a conversation we had about missing out on things because of trying to live our faith to its fullest. You do. But you gain so much more. I think about Z. and life.

I sit on some steps before climbing the hill to write some. Then I hear this, "Rob!" and it's F. and Mitch running down the stairs. She's fully drunk now and wants to go dancing, though she can't even stand up straight. She wants to have a good time, all the time, and doesn't let anything stand in her way. She asks if I want to take a walk and all I want to do is go to bed, but I say yeah. We talk the long way back and I have to steady her the whole time. Then she wants to pass out on a bench in the middle of the woods. I hate her when she's like this--probably why I didn't drink tonight. I think about all those wives with alcoholic husbands and the things they go through.

We get home and she wants to lay in the backyard, so I decide she's fine and say a quick hello to everyone still going strong, and retire to the refuge of my room. It's 4am. What a freaking night. I rang in the New Year sober, alone, and in church--It is the most blessed one I can remember.

St. Mary of the Angels, Wellington, New Zealand

Between Here And There

 

A few years ago I wrote a piece for One Peter Five titled, "Halfway Through The Tunnel: Catholic Manhood In Middle Age" when I was struggling in that tough "middle-spot" approaching my mid-forties: short on time, heavy on responsibilities, and feeling like an island among men. While the piece was focused more on the worldly particulars of this state in life as married men and fathers, it left out some of the spiritual elements and struggles men my age may experience as they try to grow in virtue and live authentic Catholic lives, which is what I'd like to touch on in this post.

My wife and I were talking on the couch late last night after I had arrived home from attending a lecture on the philosophy of end-of-life at a local institute of Catholic culture. As I mentioned in a previous post, my wife is my best friend, and I feel blessed to have a loving family replete with kids and a supportive spouse to raise them with. My faith in the Lord is also steady, and He is always there for me. My work is going fine, and I have been with my employer a decade now. All the boxes are checked, and this should be all I need in my life to be fulfilled.

But my wife knows me and my particulars, and she knows I struggle with little pockets of void in which there feels like there is something missing. We started talking about the plight of men, how many like myself feel they don't have that deep abiding friendship with another man--we are like islands, our orbits revolving around "things" and activities in which we interact but in which there is a reticence to be vulnerable and reach out when they are struggling. 

As I relayed in a response to Dr. Peter Kwasniewski during one of our correspondences, the program-based men's groups and conferences have a place in the Church, but do not address this issue of this kind of elusive deep friendship and accountability I seek in another man akin to Augustine having his friend Alypius sitting with him in the garden on the precipice of his conversion during his hour of need. Or the way Christ sought his friends Peter, James and John to "stay awake with him" in the garden of his passion. These conferences are wide and shallow, as opposed to narrow and deep.  

When my wife and I were talking, though, it occurred to me that this goes beyond friendship, but to the heart of the stage I find myself in in my spiritual life. For I have tasted the sweetness of the Lord (Ps 33:9), and so the things of the world--career, notoriety, money, activities--hold no lasting appeal for me. In spiritual ignorance, men in the world can delight in and aspire to these things, even though they bring no lasting peace or joy. Because they know no alternative. The poem "Virtue" by George Herbert encapsulates this for me,

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky;

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie;

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

The sweetness of virtue comes by way of acquired taste; the more virtuous we become, the more we love virtue for God's sake. The problem is, though I have acquired some virtue and some crumbs of wisdom, my lower faculties and appetites are mingled like gall with them. Augustine describes this torturous middle so accurately in Book VIII of Confessions,

"For the Church I saw to be full, and one went this way, and another that. But it was displeasing to me that I led a secular life; yea, now that my passions had ceased to excite me as of old with hopes of honour and wealth, a very grievous burden it was to undergo so great a servitude. For, compared with Your sweetness, and the beauty of Your house, which I loved, those things delighted me no longer. But still very tenaciously was I held by the love of women; nor did the apostle forbid me to marry, although he exhorted me to something better, especially wishing that all men were as he himself was. 1 Corinthians 7:7 But I, being weak, made choice of the more agreeable place, and because of this alone was tossed up and down in all beside, faint and languishing with withering cares, because in other matters I was compelled, though unwilling, to agree to a married life, to which I was given up and enthralled. I had heard from the mouth of truth that there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake; but, says He, he that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Matthew 19:12 Vain, assuredly, are all men in whom the knowledge of God is not, and who could not, out of the good things which are seen, find out Him who is good. Wisdom 13:1 But I was no longer in that vanity; I had surmounted it, and by the united testimony of Your whole creation had found You, our Creator, and Your Word, God with You, and together with You and the Holy Ghost one God, by whom You created all things. There is yet another kind of impious men, who when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful. Romans 1:21 Into this also had I fallen; but Your right hand held me up, and bore me away, and You placed me where I might recover. For You have said to man, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; Job 28:28 and desire not to seem wise, Proverbs 3:7 because, Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Romans 1:22 But I had now found the goodly pearl, which, selling all that I had, Matthew 13:46 I ought to have bought; and I hesitated."

In the talk I attended last night, the lecturer mentioned that God created us to need one another; He could have made us self-sufficient, or only dependent on Him, but the Body of Christ--the Church and our fellow man--factors in somehow in a mysterious way, the way St. Paul writes, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Col 1:24). At no point is that yearning, that need so acute as at the hour of death; for it is there that there is no time for platitudes or shallow salutations. It is a sacred space, but also an uncomfortable one. Because the reality of death strips away the husk and chaff of superficiality, and much like at the foot of the Cross, there are few standing there in one's hour of need. If you are standing there, remember that it is a great privilege.

Maybe this is why I think about my death a lot in the spirit of memento mori--it's the ultimate unavoidable reality, the ultimate truth, the ultimate proving ground for what matters, what endures. We can long for death because of what lies on the other side, and when we are in this proverbial "limbo" between two worlds, it can be excruciating.

What I landed on was something I wrote in "If You Want To Get, You Have To Give." When God affords us wealth, time, talent or virtue, it languishes and rots when we seek to keep it to ourselves much like the manna in the wilderness. And so I have a little virtue, a little wisdom, some time and talent and I'm finding that I'm in a place where I have more to give rather than just an insatiable appetite to receive. I've been trying to seek out and pour into guys younger than myself, guys in their mid-twenties. I'm speaking at a retreat next week for young college-aged men, and have been spending time with more guys younger than myself; part of it is motivated by that void I find in my own life, "who fills my cup?" because rather than sit and lament it, I can work with what I have to give back what little I have to guys who may be just as hungry and in need as I was twenty years ago. 

And there is joy and satisfaction in that giving, because as scripture says it is better to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). It tempers the loneliness not as a panacea or the way two aspirin would mask a headache, but makes use of that loneliness and dull ache of a missing element in a constructive way and exacts the change you wish to see. That's why the best remedy by clinicians for depression is to get out of yourself and do something, anything: force yourself to take a shower, go for a run, call a friend. It's akin to jump starting a dead battery in a car; you don't throw away the battery, but ask someone to give you a jump.

As I heard in a homily once, "no one is a saint in this life," for even the would-be saints struggle through this chasm of tension between living in the world and longing for eternity. The fruit of sanctity is charity, and a mark of a true man of virtue is that he pours himself out for others even sometimes at his own expense. That is why prayer is indispensable to become a saint, because it is in prayer that our cups are filled. Prayer is a mini-death: it erodes our ego, exposes the vanity of created things that rust and moth-eaten; places us at the foot of the cross and in the garden with few companions so we are alone with Christ. It makes us realize our neediness and weakness, and strips us of the superfluous. It makes us grow to know and embrace the dark, and seek out the flicker of the candlelight of hope.

And so, I think the loneliness I feel and struggle with is not a problem to be solved, but a state to sit in. We lose the grace when we seek to resolve the tension we feel in our souls as if it were an engineering defect, and our virtue rots on the vine when we try to horde it as a pet-project of mortification. God has made us for Himself, and as Augustine famously wrote, "our hearts are restless until they rest in Him."   

Penance Should Come From Love Of God, Not Hatred Of Self

There is a story in the Buddhist world that a Westerner once asked the Dalai Lama "What do you think about self-hatred?" The Dalai Lama was startled by the question, and kept asking his translator what the person meant. Eventually, after a long while of trying to get to the heart of the question, he admitted, “I thought I had a very good acquaintance with the mind, but now I feel quite ignorant. I find this very, very strange.”

As the calendar rolled over to the new year, I was surprised to find myself not only making various resolutions--both corporal and spiritual--but carrying them out. I began taking ice cold showers, exercising in the morning, fasting more often, cutting out caffeine,  and even carrying through on an internal resolution to be more intentional about speaking. I've been to Mass and adoration almost every day this past week. These practices themselves are all fine and good, potentially beneficial, and biblically traditional.

None of that really matters, though, because my motivation in undertaking them is out of alignment with the Divine will. To put this in context, I recounted the words of St. John Cassian in a previous post,

"Self -reform and peace are not achieved through the patience which others show us, but through our own long- suffering towards our neighbor. When we try to escape the struggle for long-suffering by retreating into solitude, those unhealed passions we take there with us are merely hidden, not erased: for unless our passions are first purged, solitude and withdrawal from the world not only foster them but also keep them concealed, no longer allowing us to perceive what passion it is that enslaves us. On the contrary, they impose on us an illusion of virtue and persuade us to believe that we have achieved long-suffering and humility, because there is no one present to provoke and test us. But as soon as something happens which does arouse and challenge us, our hidden and previously unnoticed passions immediately break out like uncontrolled horses that have long been kept unexercised and idle, dragging their driver all the more violently and wildly to destruction. Our passions grow fiercer when left idle through lack of contact with other people. Even that shadow of patience and long-suffering which we thought we possessed while we mixed with our brethren is lost in our isolation through not being exercised.

If then we wish to receive the Lord's blessing we should restrain not only the outward expression of anger, but also angry thoughts. More beneficial than controlling our tongue in a moment of anger and refraining from angry words is purifying our heart from rancor and not harboring malicious thoughts against our brethren. The Gospel teaches us to cut off the roots of our sins and not merely their fruits. When we have dug the root of anger out of our heart, we will no longer act with hatred or envy. 'Whoever hates his brother is a murderer' ( I John 3:15), for he kills him with the hatred in his mind." (pp 85-86)

It is clear that this window dressing of piety (while objectively good) is, in fact, motivated by not only a hatred of self, but of my neighbor.  

Something Thomas a Kempis wrote stayed with me, 

"A fervent religious accepts all the things that are commanded him and does them well, but a negligent and lukewarm religious has trial upon trial, and suffers anguish from every side because he has no consolation within and is forbidden to seek it from without."

This "suffering anguish from every side because he has no consolation within and is forbidden to seek it from without" I have often thought about when I catch myself envying the dead, when each day feels like a punishment to endure rather than a gift to give thanks for. I can't kill myself. And yet I have to go on living. I have no consolation within (peace of spirit, charity) and yet I can't end this suffering prematurely as I would often wish."Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." (Ps 42:11). 

And so, my initial motivation to undertake these various penances is to not only mortify the flesh, but to punish it. Punish my very self for having to exist...for having to keep on living, for not having the grace of being hit by a bus or something. When I do fail to punish my flesh--that is, when I end up eating (ending a three day fast a day early out of weakness), or skip a day of exercise, the cycle of self-hatred perpetuates. The way one talks about a "successful" suicide being one that is carried out--and when one lives, that it is a "failed attempt."

Needless to say, I would better off abandoning it all in favor of charity of neighbor, so that I may love my brother as my self.

 St. Moses the Black had some good insight on the futility of going toe-to-toe with the flesh in this way: "You fast, but Satan does not eat. You labor fervently, but Satan never sleeps. The only dimension with which you can outperform Satan is by acquiring humility, for Satan has no humility.”

Humility, and charity, are severely lacking in my life right now. If these mortifications were motivated by and combined with charity and humility, they would be a powerful force. But as they stand currently, they are nothing but an uncomfortable and resounding gong.

I will continue to exercise and cause discomfort to my body, take the cold showers, fast regularly, hold my tongue...because it is good for my body and my mind. But there is no spiritual merit there at present, and I will not fool myself otherwise. My heart is cold, the well of charity dry. God help me, I long for the respite of death, and death doesn't come. I feel spurned by others, and spurn them myself. I sit in the back pew at church, trying to disappear. I don't know how to love, and I don't know who will teach me. "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out" (Rom 7:18). 

Charity is the scale of judgment. It is the only thing we exist for as Christians, and the only thing we will be remembered by. Penance is a way to serve charity, not the other way around. 

Online Communities Are Not Real Communities

 Recently I joined an online community as a way to connect with other Catholics, hopefully deepen my prayer life, and have some support in my spiritual journey. After twelve years on Facebook, I deleted my account two years ago after experiencing a growing dis-ease with both the platform and online interaction as a whole. And so there was some vacancy for me, both in terms of mental space and new-found time, that I found I had after giving up social media. Maybe it was time to revisit the online space and get engaged again?

I went through a kind of module orientation (virtual, of course) for this particular apostolate, watched the videos, learned the rules and etiquette of this particular community as well as its charism, and was a approved as a new member. The website was very well-done, professional and interactive; I made a profile, and within a few days my inbox was starting to be populated with "New Activity" or "New Discussion" notifications--people posting asking questions about prayer, or sharing something they had read, or bringing up topics for conversation. I joined in on a few discussions, even, and attended a Zoom meeting with hundreds of people involved in the apostolate to discuss a spiritual book.

After a few months, though, I started to feel the lack of real-world connection. My inbox filling up each day with people posting this or that, lots of topical 'activity' but no real meaningful connection with individuals, and just feeling like it had the potential to be a repeat of my years on Facebook--posting, checking, dinging, engaging, scrolling, and feeling ultimately unsatisfied and sometimes even agitated at the end of the day. I tried to remember the original reasons I got off in the first place, and saw that this was just a differently packaged experience from the same type of factory. 

Before I got off Facebook, the people I did stay in touch with I connected with and got their phone numbers before jumping ship. Some of these people became real-life friends, who I have met in person and/or talk or text with regularly. There are a few, though, that I find it strange I have no idea what they even look like in person, having never met them and the fact that they never had an online photo of themselves. I go back to this question of "what makes someone a true friend?" and, by extension, "what makes a bonafide community?"

I know for some people who are isolated, introverted, or geographically remote, online-internet-virtual communities may be a lifeline to assuage loneliness and feel connected with others of like-mind, even if it's through a strand of ethernet cable. They look forward to waking up and logging on to their computer and getting down to the business of posting, discussing, and engaging. 

I've thought about this a lot, and I keep coming back to this Matrix-like situation in which a collective of individuals online (on social media, in chat rooms, in online-only apostolates, etc) feel like it's so real, so true, and yet--it's still a mirage of reality. Pardon the crassness, but sex with a condom comes to mind. So close to what's real and true, and yet still a counterfeit separated from reality and fruitfulness by a fraction of a millimeter of rubber.

For someone like myself who is searching for deep, meaningful friendships that are of course Catholic, but even go beyond the topical to a kind of 'communing of souls' that St. Augustine writes so elegantly about, it's a constant source of frustration and disappointment. It reminds me of that film Her with Joaquin Phoenix in which he falls in love with an Operating System (OS), A.I. that seems to know him more intimately than anyone else. And yet, it's still the latex hangover of waking up and realizing that those feelings of intimacy are "always real, but never true."

I think Tommy Killackey in "Talking At Each Other" (Fraternus/Sword & Spade) nails it here:

"Friendships of virtue, by contrast, require a much deeper commitment and investment than those of utility of pleasure. The facade of the screen might not just limit things like physical encounter, but it also helps us avoid the vulnerability required of true friendship. [Roger] Scruton [in Confessions of a Heretic] again helps us here:

"By placing a screen between yourself and the friend, while retaining ultimate control over what appears on that screen, you also hide from the real encounter--forbidding to the other the power and freedom to challenge you in your deeper nature and to call on you here and now to take responsibility for yourself and for him" (Scruton, 96).

Put simply, intimacy and control cannot coexist. Social media always renders us in complete control, and whether we choose to click, scroll, watch, reply, like, or close our tab, we individually always have the power within our fingertips. Scruton goes on to say, 

"Risk avoidance in human relations means the avoidance of accountability, the refusal to stand judged in another's eyes, to come face to face with another person, to live yourself in whatever measure to him or her, and so to run the risk of rejection" (Ibid, 108). 

We might call this Scruton's warning against the risk of avoiding risk. The "risky" friendships that "call us out of ourselves [to] take up our crosses" were not built online, nor could they exist there exclusively. We may still interact online, but the soul of virtuous friendship where we risk encountering another can only occur offline. 

Friendships of utility may exist on LinkedIn, friendships of pleasure may exist in double-tapping our friend's latest post on Instagram, but as long as we maintain perfect control over the encounter, we cannot truly share life, encounter, risk, accompany, and be with anyone behind a screen, full stop." 

The maintaining of control, the lack of vulnerability, the inability to read body language, the unwillingness to engage outside the platform, absence of accountability--these are all things that I think lend credence to the position that online communities are not real communities. Or rather, maybe better stated, online communities are real but not true communities.

When I was quitting smoking I attended a Nicotine Anonymous meeting. I tried to find one in my area in person, but the lady who ran them formerly said there just wasn't enough interest in it in person. I went to a Zoom NA meeting instead. I can't describe it, but it left a lot to be desired, and I quit on my own without going to another one. Post-Covid, I have come to loathe Zoom for anything but the most utilitarian of work meetings.

Have you ever asked yourself why people are more lonely, more socially stunted (especially Millennials), more disconnected, more despairing today? You don't think maybe, just maybe, this type of contracepted "social" internet space contributes to that? Like, that your body could really use a hearty loaf of good bread to satisfy your hunger but instead you are sitting down with a bowl of Fruit Loops instead because that's what's in the pantry? We need to admit this "era of social media" was the Vatican II of social engineering, an novel experiment that was bad for society, failing to delivery on its promises and better suited for the scrap pile of history.

I feel like I have enough years--decades almost--of skin in this game and experience in the online world to be able to reflect on it with some street cred. I've played the game and been around the block, and I have nothing much to show for it, kind of like past one-night stands and and hookups where I was looking for connection, love, and yes, gratification and afterwards left emptyhanded. Always real, and never true. 

I don't know where this leaves me currently, only that my time in prayer and time with my family has become deeper, more heavy and yes, lonely at times, but in a good way--not empty, but real and painful because we are not meant solely for life here on earth but Eternity. I'm less willing to settle for counterfeits and Pavlov-like distractions now that I know what they promise and fail to deliver on, and I'm less inclined to try to fill up that loneliness with discussion/engagement/zoom/distraction for the sake of feeling connected to a ethereal community. 

On The Eight Vices: A Prelude

 I've heard it said that when we get one sin under control, it's like a game of whack-a-mole--another steps in to take it's place. This is the situation I find myself in currently. It feels that as my prayer life has increased and I've been more intentional about it, the Devil seems to be flanking me on my exposed side to try to get an inroad wherever he can. Currently, this is through the sin of anger, which is not a sin I normally deal with. 

It feels like the Devil is planting these accusatory thoughts like bait--temptations towards anger and resentment towards my brother(s) (not my kin, but my neighbor). Some of this is due to disappointments and letdowns, but also misplaced expectations on my part. I know it is not necessarily the fault of my brothers and others in faith, as they haven't consciously sinned against me, but the opposite: I harbor anger/hatred (it seems like a strong word, but it's accurate, since the Lord says that anyone who hates his brother is a murderer), and it just seems to fester because there's no conscious "act" or visible action to confess and seek forgiveness from them for, as it says in scripture "if you are offering your gift at the altar and become conscious your brother has something against you, leave the gift there before the altar and go, be reconciled to your brother, and then come offer your gift"(Mt 5:21-24). I have taken this to confession but feel like I need to make concrete, embarrassing amends for the evil in my heart, by bringing it before my brothers and seeking forgiveness and reconciliation with them. Like steps 8 and 9 in AA (making a list of those you have wronged; making amends with those people). I don't know how else to purge these thoughts, but to bring them to light.

Here's the thing--I am preparing to spend three days alone upstate next month in retreat; it will be my second time at this hermitage. Because I have been so seemingly hurt, turned off, and disgusted with these failings and shortcomings as they relate to my brothers, I felt as if the solitude would be good respite and needed prayer time to get away from others. 

But in re-visiting the work of St. John Cassian this afternoon, I realize I need to do something about this concealment of this sin of anger against my brothers before that time of retreat. From his treatise "On The Eight Vices" in the Philokalia:

"Self -reform and peace are not achieved through the patience which others show us, but through our own long- suffering towards our neighbor. When we try to escape the struggle for long-suffering by retreating into solitude, those unhealed passions we take there with us are merely hidden, not erased: for unless our passions are first purged, solitude and withdrawal from the world not only foster them but also keep them concealed, no longer allowing us to perceive what passion it is that enslaves us. On the contrary, they impose on us an illusion of virtue and persuade us to believe that we have achieved long-suffering and humility, because there is no one present to provoke and test us. But as soon as something happens which does arouse and challenge us, our hidden and previously unnoticed passions immediately break out like uncontrolled horses that have long been kept unexercised and idle, dragging their driver all the more violently and wildly to destruction. Our passions grow fiercer when left idle through lack of contact with other people. Even that shadow of patience and long-suffering which we thought we possessed while we mixed with our brethren is lost in our isolation through not being exercised.

If then we wish to receive the Lord's blessing we should restrain not only the outward expression of anger, but also angry thoughts. More beneficial than controlling our tongue in a moment of anger and refraining from angry words is purifying our heart from rancor and not harboring mahcious thoughts against our brethren. The Gospel teaches us to cut off the roots of our sins and not merely their fruits. When we have dug the root of anger out of our heart, we will no longer act with hatred or envy. 'Whoever hates his brother is a murderer' ( I John 3:15), for he kills him with the hatred in his mind." (pp 85-86)

It should be a warning to us all as well, especially those who are more solitary and struggle with people (I don't consider this a struggle of mine in particular, but for some it may be), that we not conceal or pave over these hidden sins with solitude as a recusement, even more so purporting it as virtue. It is easy to love from a distance, but very hard to do it up close.

The Art of Being Alone

I'm not alone very often these days. But since Wednesday, I have been, as my wife and kids drove to the beach to spend time with my parents. 

I declined the invitation to go down with them. I needed go through detox from nictotine (yet again), and needed to be alone to do it in order to keep damages to a minimum. Since I had been in the house all day for the past two days trying to work while drying out, I decided to go have a drink (alone), then dinner (alone), and then spent the rest of my Friday night praying (alone), and later perusing Target and Dollar Tree (alone) looking for a certain kind of dish basin. 

You see, our dishwasher wasn't working correctly, and I was tired of trying to diagnose it. So I asked my wife if she'd be ok just not using it, as I'm growing weary of repairing and replacing appliances, and she obliged. "It will be just like on vacation," I said. There is a part of me that wants to be more intentional about these things, though--slow down my life so I can make time to do dishes by hand as an activity, not a nusiance or inconvenience, but work it in as a natural part of our family routine. Seemed like serendipitious timing. We'll see how it works out. 

I literally had nothing to do this evening. A friend tried to get together but it didn't work out and I was unwilling to make the drive. And so my time was suddenly my own, and I didn't do much with it-didn't waste it, but didnt optimize it--I was just existing, on a Friday night, in a Target, shopping for a certain kind of dish basin.

This used to be my life, before marriage. I would go to the weekend movies at the Ritz at the Bourse alone. I would take the bus from my apartment and drink whiskey on the ride down Ridge Avenue to Center City to be alone in company at parties. Sometimes I would throw my bike on the rack, and later bobbing and weaving after midnight, make my way back by moonlight up Kelly Drive along the Schuykill. When I got back, I would put on some music and make some tea, and sit on the couch, or smoke on the porch.

You think of things to do with your time. There were times when the loneliness was acute, but most of the time it was just life--existing, functioning, trying to make do with our individual burdens that are unique to our state in life. I was generally okay being alone most of the time, but sometimes it was too hard, too heavy, not having anyone to keep me in check. I longed for a partner, that when my motorcycle broke down I had someone to call, that I had someone to share my fears with, wrap my arms around, and vice versa. 

My family will be back tomorrow. I spent the evening after getting home arranging our new dishwashing-by-hand-system: a basin with clean water and hydogiene peroxide for rinse, another in the sink for soaking, a nice drying rack arrangement. I sewed some linen hand towels, drank some iced tea, listened to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. 

I'm afraid to sit on the patio out back--I'm not in the clear yet, need at least 24 more hours til all the drug is out of my system and then maybe I will be nice, will be affable and join good-natured company again. Until then, I'm sequestering for the good of everyone. I punched the gas by the minimart on my way home and let out a searing Ffffffffff-!!!------ but I didn't stop. I kept driving and made the best of my patheticly nice, indifferent Friday evening.

Lust Is The Fire, Loneliness Is The Gasoline

 A number of years ago I was chatting with a friend in his townhouse in Arlington. We were getting ready to go for a hike, and I was asking him about life, relationships, etc. He mentioned that he wasn't with his semi-long term boyfriend anymore. In the interim, he mentioned--confessed, almost, with hesitancy--that he was making use of the gay hookup app Grindr. The way he described it, you would have thought one was ordering a pizza via Doordash: post a few pics, swipe a few swipes, and all of a sudden, a guy is ringing his doorbell at one in the morning. They do their thing, that is that, and the stranger leaves just as soon as he came in. 

The only thing new in this context is the technology, (albeit with a gay twist in this context, which I'm not going to write about). People have been having meetings of indiscretion for ages, though in the modern age the "hookup culture" is more ubiquitous than aberration. But beyond the normal (sexual) appetite--which traditionally was confined in the bonds of marriage--what fuels it?

Timothy Keller in his talk The Struggle For Love makes reference to Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist and secular atheist, and his Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial Of Death (which was actually written 50 years ago). With regards to secular modern man:

"We still need to feel that our life matters in the grand scheme of things...but if we no longer have God, how are we to do this? And one of the first ways that occurred to the modern person was the "romantic solution." The self-glorification that we need in our innermost being we now look for in the love partner. What is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to this position? We want to be rid of our faults, our feelings of nothingness. We want to be justified. We want to know our existence hasn't been in vain We want redemption. Nothing less."

The sexual appetite is the constant, n. What has changed in the formula is the isolation we have to deal with, the vacuum we have created by removing God from our lives. The inner emptiness seeks to be filled, since nature abhors a vacuum. 

Keller speaks of this emptiness in the story of Jacob in Genesis 29, who seeks the love he didn't receive from his father, Isaac. In a twist of irony, Laban "switches out" Jacob's love (the object of his romantic affection) Rachel with Leah, just as Jacob sought his father's affirmation in stealing the birthright of his brother Esau. The Hebrew term for "deceit" is the same in both contexts. Jacob is wounded, and after seven years of serving Laban is not preoccupied with being wed to Rachel, but (crassly) to "lie with her." Rachel will complete him, seal his emotional wounds. Of course, Rachel remains barren for fourteen years before giving birth to Joseph, and the "unloved" Leah eventually gives birth to Judah, the line of which the Messiah will come. 

We are all looking for love, for meaning, for connection. And we settle for hookups. Why? Because we are horny, looking to scratch and itch? Maybe on the surface. But if you've lived through hook-up culture like I have, that's only half the story. The other, more telling half is that loneliness is the gasoline we throw on the coals to keep the fire going. It flares up for a moment, but there's no solid mass to keep it going. If we're not careful, too, we end up getting some of the gasoline on our clothing or body and burn ourselves. 

Modern man is incredibly, incredibly lonely. And loneliness is so powerful, so difficult to endure, that we will use people in the most intimate way, robbing by deceit, just to gain a few moments respite from it. Even in a marriage, people can feel this way, but these coals can be stoked, whereas the single person must grapple with an empty fire ring that must be built from scratch. 

Why is modern man so lonely? Because he has made no room for God, the eternal ember of Love that is never extinguished. In reducing his personhood to appetites and urges to be satisfied, an existential loneliness that must be assuaged at all costs, man has nothing to keep him going except with a constant leap-frog of largely meaningless encounters. This is not how we were meant to flourish. 

Marriage is more than a repository to curb concupiscence. And it must be more than simply a romantic preoccupation with covering over our wounds. Hookup culture is the Splenda that leaves a bitter aftertaste. What God reserves for those who love Him is honey, "Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste." (Prov 24:13)  In its fullness, a healthy marriage is the cure for loneliness, the proper ends of our sexual appetite, and in its fruitful expression, the generation of children. It's what most people, in their heart of hearts, are really searching for. Whether they know it or not.

I'm Sorry, But No One Has Your Back

Our vacation last week was a nice reset--we swam at the local pond, cooked, lay in the hammock, read, and spent time together. Some friends and family came to visit a couple of the days, but largely we were removed from our normal work and social routine. It was overdue. And one of the surprising side-effects I found was that I didn't want to see, text, or talk to anyone even after we got home.

Please forgive my slightly cynical mood at the moment. I have been pouring myself out at work, with little regard or recognition. In the works of charity, this is the desired approach to build humility and merit; but at work, I get chaffy and resentful. I've felt similarly in other areas of my life, and other circles--I shouldn't be surprised at this point how quickly people can turn their backs on you, social relations can sour, and how our expectations of reciprocity are often frustrated. I'm  human, and am tired of pouring into things when I often feel empty myself. 

In Genesis 18, Abraham negotiates with Yahweh, who is looking for 50 righteous men to stem his wrath against Sodom and Gommorah. Abraham talks him down to 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, and they finally settle upon 10. He only needs to find ten righteous men to spare the city. In the end it doesn't matter, for by the time the perverts hit Lot's door and want debauchery, not hospitality and charity, Yahweh has prepared His arm to destroy it all. You can only take so much.

Ten men...not even ten righteous men in the city. I often think about the bishops, the men of God: "Give me ten righteous bishops," the Lord asks, and you realize you have trouble numbering them all on one hand. Sure, you might get a "bold" tweet or some kind of stand that should have been made fifty years ago; the bar is so low we are impressed by even a modicum of so-called bravery. And I guarantee that any of the faithful to put their neck out to pay the price on any issue would not get backed up by one of the bishops with anything other than a standard dicoesan statement on the matter. As has been proven time and time again, they'll often be the first to throw you under the bus.

Words are cheap. We see it in scripture as well: on Palm Sunday, when the crowds chanted Hosana to the King of Kings only to quickly change their tune before Pilate. We see Peter offering to die for Christ, and then disowning him. The disciples couldn't even stay awake for one hour in Jesus' greatest time of need, his most desolate hour. We see it at the Cross, when only his mother and a handful of others stay at his feet.

Christ's abandonment can be spoken of in two ways: his complete abandonment to the Father's will, and his being almost completely abandoned by men in his hour of need. He is stripped and scorned, with no human solace. His cry from the cross is a worthy meditation: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? ("My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"). For the pain of abandonment had gone so deep as to echo David's cry that his own Father had left him. The cavalry isn't coming, because the Father willed that Christ go through, not around, the suffering and abandonment. Which, of course, is straight to the Cross, the loneliest of lonely sufferings and humiliations.

We don't often do the same. We seek human comfort and understanding, a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen to your lament. But the longer you are in the grind, the more you realize the establishment (from the Holy Father on down) is a in-name-only set of reinforcements. Maybe it's unrealistic to expect otherwise. The Church has been made weak and a laughingstock not to be taken seriously. Because the saints and those willing to pay the price of discipleship among them do not number in the 50, or 45, 40, 30, 20, or even 10. As the sheep are led to slaughter, those willing to lay their lives down for them can be counted on one hand; the rest are simply weak men and pious administrators. 

 You will have a few friends (hopefully) in your lifetime who will sit with you in the Garden when you are sweating blood, come to your Cross, and not leave when it's dinnertime. I haven't found those friends yet, and I haven't been one either, so I don't even blame them. One can't expect too much. 

Even family, as thick as it can be, is not absolute. Otherwise Christ would not have subjected the Fourth Commandment to the call to hate father, mother, wife, children, and breathren for the Gospel (Lk 14:26). Children turn on their parents, parents disown their children. Many converts know this pain, and it cuts absolutely deep. 

There is one who does have your back, though, and that is Christ, our God, our deliverer in whom we have our hope. Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me! And yet,

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me" (Is 49:15-16).  

I think entering into this sadness, this desolation, can be a fertile burial plot for our spirit. No one would choose it, but when we find ourselves feeling alone and abandoned, sucked dry and empty with nothing left, the love of the Lord has room to fill us, bathe us, and comfort us. Our spirits are often crowded with the coming and going of men, of engagements, of sweet encouragement and contingent affection. 

But at the end of the day, everyone goes home to their own house promising to come back in the morning, and the sweaty dark of night seeps into your cell from beneath the door jamb. We can meet Christ now, because he has now found room at the inn. When no one else has your back, when the reinforcements aren't coming, when you are hung out to dry and have no consolation and your tears become your bread...I think then you will taste a little bit of the loneliness of Christ, who had nowhere to lay his head in this world.