Do Not Cling To Me

 I have always struggled with the idea of impermanence. Why do people we love die? Why do friends come into our lives and then just ghost us for no good reason, or leave? Why are cities bombed and monuments destroyed? Why do things fall apart?

I think it's why I was drawn to Buddhism initially as a teenager before becoming a Christian. Impermanence--or if you like in western metaphysics, the law of entropy--is not the exception, but the rule. Tibetan Buddhists manifest this law tangibly in their creations of intricate sand mandalas that take months to create, working eight hours a day for weeks on end. Then in one final ceremony, they brush every last grain of colored sand away.

I was thinking about this this afternoon because I had been struck yet another blow at work with someone on our team leaving for greener pastures--my sixth director in five years. I felt foolish, thinking it would be different this time with this man, whom I had grown close with professionally. In a small way, I got a taste of what foster children must feel like.

When I lived and worked in the inner-city serving Christ's poor, the man who had founded the House of Hospitality told me as we were smoking cigarettes on the dilapidated back porch, "Rob, this work is hard. I pray a lot that my heart not close off and get hardened." He, too, would leave a few months later...in the dead of night, and without a word, leaving the rest of our community to figure things out on our own. 

When I meditate on the Mystery of the Ascension, I often pray, "Lord, I know you will not leave us orphans." And yet I experienced this feeling very acutely and unexpectedly when we were told the news at work. Instantly, my heart scabbed over and developed a shell. I was hurt and angry, even though I knew I shouldn't be. I didn't congratulate him on his new position; in fact, I went off camera, shell-shocked. I shouldn't have been. His position seems cursed almost, too much for one person to manage. I don't even blame him. But once again, I find myself professionally orphaned and starting once again from square one with a soon to be new direct report. This is normal in my industry; why I should think otherwise points more to my foolishness, not any fault of those who leave or get better opportunities elsewhere. 

Even though this is a professional scenario, I've been thinking too that it applies to our life as Catholics remaining in the Church. We don't have a loving shepherd for a spiritual father in the universal Church, but one that seems cold and vindictive, elevating apostates and giving audiences to heretics while he throws those prelates who are faithful to the wolves. I wrote in To Have Become Like Orphans in a text to a priest-friend, 

"All I feel is peace, because the fissures are so clearly drawn, and we have no excuse not for girding our loins for what's coming. Just because your father is passed out at the wheel doesn't mean there's not work that needs to be done and siblings who need to be fed and cared for."

Who are we to rely on? Who can we trust? The bad bishops stay in power, while the faithful ones stepping "out of line" get called into the Vatican's principal's office. Good priests get canceled, while the lukewarm and those riding out their status quo terms stick remain insulated because they don't rock the boat. We are essentially neutered as Catholics by the episcopacy. And yet the harvest which is great still needs to be gathered in, the vineyard still needs pruning. It gets tiring, because there are so few doing the work.

This idea of impermanence, however, I don't think is resigned to the East. It takes a different guise in our own tradition, but it is a universal law. 

Our Lord reassures the disciples that there is a purpose in his going back to the Father after his forty days on earth: "But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you" (Jn 16:7). 

And to Mary Magdalene after he was raised, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended. to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (Jn 20:17). 

On Mount Tabor, Peter wanted to preserve the moment of transfiguration in time, proposing to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah" (Mt 17:4). But Moses and Elijah vanish, and God the Father makes His terrible voice heard, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" (Mt 17:5). 

Peter, who loved the Lord Christ so much, with a obstinate zeal, refused to accept his Master's death initially. "Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”" (Mt 16:22). 

The fact that people leave, loved ones die, bosses transfer, priests get reassigned, and bishops don't have the back of the faithful should not scandalize us or lead to hurt or dejection. We should expect it. And yet, we are still human, and so it does hurt, because we attach ourselves to that which we don't want to die, leave, or end. Our suffering is proportional to our attachment, and so few of us (myself included) are perfectly detached. 

We can sometimes compensate by scabbing over our hearts to keep this hurt at bay, saying things like "I don't care," "Whatever," or "Screw them anyway." But this isn't what we are called to. It is a carnal, worldly response; and as Christians, we are not called to conform ourselves to the world. The supernatural rises above the natural. Job is a good example here of the detachment (which does not mean dispassion) that is righteous: "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I return there" (Job 1:21) Job cursed the day he was born, but he did not curse his Creator. 

Christian life is not a life of dispassion. You cannot love without freedom, and love involves loss as well. We don't shield or wall ourselves off from potential hurt or betrayal, because we imitate Christ who left the comforts of Heaven to debase himself in the Incarnation; was betrayed by one of his closest friends; had no where to lay his head. Our sojourn on earth is limited to a hundred years at most--a drop in the bucket compared to eternity. 

In many ways, though, it will remain a mystery to me why good things don't last, why we suffer loss after loss, and why people will leave us orphans. I've struggled with it for years, and today was a reminder that these instances touch a wound deep in my soul that I didn't even realize was there. But there is still work that needs to be done. And so our only choice is to take time to mourn it, then get back to work.

Some Thoughts On The Trades

I have worked in the field of higher education for the past twelve years. Like most people in the admissions and enrollment management field, I fell into it, transitioning out of social services and starting part time as a transcript processor and transfer credit evaluator at a community college, moving onto being a road warrior for undergraduate admissions, and for the past eight years have worked at the graduate level at a public institution. When I give admissions presentations, I talk about the "graduate wage premium"--that is, the ROI on investment when aggregated over the course of one's career earning potential. The institution where I work is reputable and competitive in terms of tuition rates. I don't feel like a used car salesman because the "product" I "sell" has value, which is nice. 

That being said, I fully believe not everyone should go to college. And that's perfectly okay. The skilled trades are a field I don't have much experience with personally, though my trajectory was set when I was 17 and I lost the battle with my father (I wanted to become a carpenter, he said I was going to the local state university). My parents are both college educated.

My neighbor across the street is a union carpenter in his mid-fifties. He hasn't been working much lately because of injuries, though he has been doing some side gigs after multiple surgeries and physical therapy. I also have a buddy who is a (non-union) electrician, who I was chatting with tonight. When I asked him, "what would you tell a kid who asked whether he should go to college or learn a trade?"

He said they should get some college, but that you can also make a good living in the trades. "It will be just that, though...a living." Meaning, you're going to work. "There's also a salary cap, unless you work for yourself." His father was a union electrician his whole life. "The pay is better, better wages, better retirement and benefits, but...you don't always work. A lot of times it's six (months) on, six off. You may be making much better wages, but there's always that possibility you're only working half the year. I do better than most electricians." But he's also had his shares of injury and joint replacements. He's 41, with 22 years in the field. "It takes its toll"

My kids can go to university for free if they choose to, so we have to take that into account when it comes to what they want to do and where their aptitudes lie. Community college in our area (if we didn't have that benefit) is also very affordable. It is an investment, of time and money. I've always told friends and people who ask that if you can, do the two years at cc and get your core and electives done, transfer to a four year and max out at 18 credits (you pay the same at the undergraduate level whether you are taking 12 or 18 credits). I graduated in three and a half years, taking a few summer classes at cc (my mom taught at a community college, so I could take them for free), and also maxing out my load during the academic year. The "college experience" today is overrated. If you can, commute and live at home. You have to be careful about student loans, but even if you do have to take them out, work your ass off to pay them off quickly. 

The joke of majoring in "Underwater Basket Weaving" or "Gender Studies" is a predictable joke, and not without merit. There are a lot of majors which are more indoctrination than education. But fields like accounting, engineering, statistics, computer science--these ain't that. But majors like English and Philosophy are not "useless." If you can learn to write, to reason, to think critically....these are transferrable skills. But again, this isn't everyone's cup of tea. If it is, and you can afford it or make it work, higher education may likely pay off for you in the long run.

Anyway, I digress. I found some interesting comments from various reddit threads that I thought were worth sharing. I don't share them to dissuade anyone from going into the trades. God knows we need them. But there are things you need to consider as well, that don't always get talked about: when your body gives out in your mid-forties, what are you going to do until you reach retirement age? Can you have a back up plan? What if you get injured, which is always a possibility?  What is the whole-picture of your total compensation? What if your industry gets outsourced? Can you retrain easily? Among other things. 

Here are the comments I found interesting, often coming from those in the trades themselves. I have nothing but respect for those in the skilled trades, but it's worth getting the whole picture. I share them without judgement, for consideration:

"Trades are notably evangelized by online "experts" who notably went to college and would never go into the trades themselves. The high wages promised are only obtained by the small subset who are able to start or acquire highly successful businesses (as opposed to the majority, who are employees or journeymen), continued employability is constantly threatened by minor changes in prevalent materials or equipment making skills obsolete, and retirement has to come early due to the strain trade work puts on one's body.

In short, people decide against going into the trades for the same reason they don't go into sports or entertainment, a knowledge that not everyone gets to be Clayton Kershaw or Beyonce and that even those two are on borrowed time.

————-

Maybe this is a good idea, but as someone who's dad was a plumber (who probably gave himself heart failure from having to work so damn hard to keep our house from being foreclosed on)* and who has himself worked with his hands until they bled, the blue collar LARPing so many Catholic intellectuals engage in really irritates me. They have no idea how privileged they are to be able to engage in manual labor (and pontificate about it) as a sort of hobby and they give no indication that they have any idea how hard life as a tradesman can be.**

*I think the best example of this was when he had a pacemaker put in on a Thursday and then was crawling around under people's houses on Monday, even though the doctors had told him he couldn't lift his arms above his chest because he might pull the leads out of his dying heart. He had to though, otherwise we wouldn't have eaten.

**Yes, I know being a tradesman is an important vocation and that college isn't for everyone. My complaint is only about the way certain Catholic intellectuals talk about manual labor.

—————

It's because reddit skews young.

It's very, very common for people between the age of 20 and 30 to question their career choices, to ask whether adulthood is what they expected (it usually isn't) and then whether adulthood could be different somehow. They're used to coming off of their adolescent and teen years where everything changed every few years, on a track, and when they first go into the open world without a track they question whether the track was the right on in the first place. It's a common quarter life crisis, and everyone deals with it in their own way.

Trades work allows for people to make money earlier with less up front commitment. Comparing a 25 year old with 5 years of work experience and no debt, versus a 25 year old with 2 years of work experience and six figures of debt, it's very easy to say "man college made that guy worse off."

But if you look at a longer time frame, people with college degrees tend to do better over time, because the income trajectory of college educated workers plateaus later and higher. Their credentials are also generally more marketable for switching industries mid-career, which gives them resilience against recessions and localized crashes, and allows them to jump onto the hot new industry. So somewhere around 30, most white-collar college degree holders pass up their blue-collar trades counterparts.

And then when health issues start kicking in, not necessarily from the job, but just growing old, blue collar workers find that they're not able to do the job as well. A car accident, a sports injury, or an ordinary slip and fall can take a blue collar worker out of work and put on disability coverage for a few weeks or months, whereas a white collar worker might just need an accommodation in the office. Throw in actual on-the-job injuries, or repetitive stress injuries, and you'll see that a lot of the older workers have to leave long before retirement age. And most of the time, disability insurance for blue collar workers comes through union CBAs, so non-union blue collar jobs actually bear a lot more risk of interrupted income. Through in the fact that a lot of the industries served by the trades are cyclical, and you might see that the typical tradesman spends more time unemployed between the ages of 20 and 40 than the typical office worker.

And so you might have former tradesmen who are making less at the age of 50 than they did at 30. That's less common among college educated office workers. And for those who line up cushy jobs and choose not to retire at 65, but instead keep extending it to 70 or 75 or even 80, those are usually very high paying jobs that can still be done by 60-somethings. The trades don't produce those types of jobs.

Blue collar work is great. There are actually a ton of blue collar jobs that require college degrees (stuff out in the field), and combine the idea of working with your hands with working with your brain. And union representation can get strong contractual protections and income and retirement for workers. But the actual trades versus college debate is a little bit different from that, and asking a 25-year-old which is better will often get a very different answer from a 35-year-old, a 45-year-old, or a 55-year-old."

 What do you think? Feel free to comment. This is a "safe space" lol.

The Most Ordinary Things

There was this thing floating around social media a while back, this little inspirational insight geared towards women and their spirituality. It went something like this:

GOD COMES TO THE WOMEN

Have you ever noticed how in the scriptures men are always going up into the mountains to commune with the Lord?

Yet in the scriptures we hardly ever

hear of women going to the mountains,

and we know why — right?

Because the women were too busy

keeping life going;

they couldn’t abandon babies,

meals,

homes,

fires,

gardens,

and a thousand responsibilities to make the climb into the mountains!

I was talking to a friend the other day,

saying that as modern woman

I feel like I’m never “free” enough

from my responsibilities,

never in a quiet enough,

or holy enough spot

to have the type of communion

I want with God.

Her response floored me,

“That is why God comes to women.

Men have to climb the mountain to meet God, but God comes to women where ever they are.”

I have been pondering on her words for weeks and have searched my scriptures

to see that what she said is true.

God does in deed come to women

where they are,

when they are doing their ordinary,

everyday work.

He meets them at the wells

where they draw water for their families,

in their homes,

in their kitchens,

in their gardens.

He comes to them

as they sit beside sickbeds,

as they give birth,

care for the elderly,

and perform necessary mourning and burial rites.

Even at the empty tomb,

Mary was the first to witness Christ’s resurrection,

She was there because she was doing the womanly chore of properly preparing Christ’s body for burial.

In these seemingly mundane

and ordinary tasks,

these women of the scriptures found themselves face to face with divinity.

So if — like me — you ever start to bemoan the fact that you don’t have as much time to spend in the mountains with God as you would like. Remember, God comes to women. He knows where we are and the burdens we carry. He sees us, and if we open our eyes and our hearts we will see Him, even in the most ordinary places and in the most ordinary things.

It irked me then, and it irks me now. And I've been trying to figure out why. 

I mean, I get the point. It speaks to the busy Marthas who "find God in the dishes & diapers." Most moms can't go to the bathroom for thirty seconds in peace without a toddler jiggling the lock on the door, let alone find time to themselves the way men do. It's sometimes thrown in our faces as a kind of "double standard" (usually when our wives are tired and frustrated and running on empty).  

Our Lord makes this clear in the ordering of the Commandments--Love God (first), then you will be able to love neighbor as yourself. He makes it clear that Mary has "chosen the better part" in her otherwise useless adoring at Jesus' feet while her sister runs herself ragged with the deets. 

When I was in discernment with the Benedictines, ora et labora was everything. This included an attentiveness to the work at hand so that it was not done slovenly or carelessly. And yet, it was clear that the actual, primary work (in the monastery) was prayer (ie, "the work of God"). 

Cue the eye rolling. "Well, this is a home, not a monastery. And you are not a monk. And while you are at it, do some dishes!"

All true. But back to the mom-post at hand.

What exactly is being conveyed here? I think what it comes down to is that I am not a woman. I think what irks me about it is this subtle inversion that the domestic work is, in fact, the "real work," and that men "going up the mountain to commune with God" is somehow the secondary. It lists out and numerates all the domestic duties--babies, meals, homes, fires. SAHM: 16. Husband: 1. Not to mention the messaging obviously meant to convey a sense of solidarity: Women stay put; men run off. Men have to climb the mountain to meet God, but God comes to women where ever they are.” 

On one level, I can't relate to their domestic work anymore than I expect my wife to be out mowing the lawn and sweating in ninety degree heat every ten days, or taking the car in for inspection and oil changes, or taking out the trash. This is stuff I do, and I'm fine with it. But it's not my primary preoccupation. It doesn't define my identity or where I find my "tribe," and it's in addition to putting 40+ hours in outside the home. It's just stuff that has to get done.

My primary vocation, however, is to head my family--spiritually, financially, and corporally. And yes, that sometimes does necessitate "going up the mountain to commune with God." This isn't something to be scoffed at or dismissed as pie-in-the-sky spiritual idealism, pitting women's work against men's work. If I'm not doing that (and believe me, it's not as often as I would like), I'm not following the Lord's model as a man, Jesus "who often withdrew to lonely places and prayed" (Lk 5:16); who was tested (Mk 1:12); who "very early in the morning, while it was still dark, left the house and went to a solitary place where he prayed" (Mk 1:35).

I have no issues with women finding solidarity with one another in their domesticity, which often can be their own kind of "lonely place" where they feel isolated and disconnected. There can be a tendency to enshrine the home as their kind of domestic palace where they rule as Queen. And God bless them for it. Let's face it--most men don't know how to do this stuff with the same touch that women do. A monastery, maybe. But without our wives, we'd have a house, but not a home. We benefit from it, and we shouldn't forget it.

But women, for their part, shouldn't forget that it's that very "communing with God" which is what spiritually fortifies the home and makes it a sanctuary from the outside world. If we traded those early morning hours, or those times away "up the mountain," we trade away our spiritual fortitude and protection which comes from hearing the word of God in prayer and carrying it out in our vocation as husbands and fathers. Otherwise we don't grow, but stagnate in the here and now.  

My wife has plenty of opportunities to get up early and pray the Psalms, or meditate on the scriptures, or drive to the Adoration chapel. So do I, for that matter. We just trade these golden opportunities for inferior things--scrolling on our phones, lounging around, shuttling from here to there. We both de-prioritize what should be our top priority--God--we just do it in different ways. 

I think where the difference lies is that men need to carve out this time intentionally and seperated from others, whereas women, in my experience, enter into those culiminated little moments of divine encounter throughout their day, organically, and often in communion with other women. It is natural for me to get up early and "go to a lonely place" to pray with a degree of asceticism, whereas for my wife this may not be necessary. For my part, if all I did was wash dishes and change diapers and make lunches or whatever all day, and didn't work (see Fred The Fireman and the SAHD Dillema), I think I would want to kill myself. For my wife, she jokes that as hard as it is some days on the SAHM front, she's "living the dream." And she means it.

Men's spirituality and women's spirituality doesn't have to be pitted or scored against one another. We are different for a reason--"male and female He created them"--and find and serve God in different ways. Though I have many women saints I admire, my calling is to be a man, and be the best man God has made me to be. That means prayer and work--ora et labora--appropriate to my state in life. Not "my work is my prayer." Prayer AND work. And if I have to go up a mountain for a few days to live that out, then so be it.

We find God when we embrace what He has called us each to live out and who he has made us to be, as men and as women respectively. Mountain or no mountain. 

Work, Family, and the New Techno-Agrarianism

Like many people I know, my work has shifted, post-COVID, to a hybrid-remote setting. In a tight labor market, my largely brick-and-mortar employer realized that we were losing too much talent to corporate remote options that paid better. Last year, in an attempt to stem the tide, we were offered the option for a 3 days in the office / 2 days remote. Some of our team was offered a fully remote option, (which all but one who were offered it took). For summer, this increased to 1 day in, 4 days remote. It was considered a perk, offered conditionally provided we could continue to offer the same service and do our work just as effectively as when we are in the office.

It has been working well, it seems. For a largely traditional institution, we pivoted pretty quickly in March 2020 when we were all fully remote (due to COVID) by necessity. Our phone system shifted to our laptops, VPNs were added, and Zoom meetings became a regular thing. Though I missed seeing my co-workers from time to time, and occasionally felt isolated and disconnected, I found I was just as productive at home as I was in the office. The hybrid option seemed like the best of both worlds--it got me out of the house occasionally, while reducing my commute and allowing me to do things around the house on my lunch break.

It is not lost on me that this is a privilege of my particular strata in the workforce. Were I a bricklayer, or a cashier, or a daycare worker, such options would not be available to me and others who now find ourselves working primarily from the comfort of our home. But since it is my situation, and since workforce culture and employer understanding seems to be shifting, it has allowed me to observe the effect of this shift on family life.

I have a friend who thinks and writes about the family-unit prior to the Industrial Revolution. Not being a historical affodicio, I can only write in general terms. But it seems that prior to the late 18th century, society was largely agrarian, and populations localized in small towns. When Industrialization came about, men would leave their families and villages to seek employment in factories in largely urban areas. 

My friend noted that families prior to this era were together more by nature of the work they did. This seemed to be the case, and sometime I noticed, when viewing the film A Hidden Life (set in rural Austria) with my wife a few years back. There was a rhythm and cohesion to life, more localized economies, more sense of community. When the automobile became more commonplace, my friend lamented, this sense of place was further fractured as people were able to travel farther distances for both work and leisure. 

This is my first time working remotely in a job. But it's interesting, isn't it, that whereas low-wage agrarians two hundred-some years ago had the benefit of family cohesion and togetherness (but minimal opportunity), now it is tech-workers with higher commanding salaries that find themselves, well...at home. 

Because we also homeschool, we are together in proximity as a family much more than just a few years ago, when I would leave the house at 7 and get home around dinner time five days a week. Even when I am working upstairs, or on slower days with no meetings, in the kitchen, the kids are at the dining room table with my wife doing math and language arts. On my lunch break, we can eat together, or we can go to the adoration chapel together, or I can work in the garden. Because I don't have to leave or get up as early as in previous years, my wife and I begin our day with prayer and reading scripture at the kitchen table over coffee. When I log off at the end of the day, I'm already home. We could probably even give up one of our cars if we had to, since I tend to bike commute whenever I am able 

The days I am in the office and it is slower, I am literally staring at the wall in my office. I don't mind, but it just seems so--antiquated. The Corner Office used to be a sign of status and prestige, especially in law-firms and places like that. Now it just seems like an expensive waste of space and not something you would brag about the way a yuppie might in the nineteen-eighties.  I literally don't need anything to do my work--and more effectively and productively, mind you--than a flat space to put my laptop on.

Has technology improved our lives? There's something to be said about washing dishes by hand for nostalgia's sake, but I don't think any housewife is going to be giving up their dishwasher anytime soon. Same for the automobile, or air conditioning, or WiFi. We enjoy doing things old-school--baking bread, tilling a garden, writing a letter with a pen and paper--because we are recipients of the privilege of not having to do so. If we were forced to thresh wheat by hand for 16 hours a day, or canning all our produce to get through the winter, it might be a different story. We're kind of--"playing", if you will. It's quaint and pleasant. 

But agrarian life was not always quaint and pleasant. It was work, always work, and were one to mimic the sluggard in Proverbs, they would, well, die. But there was a hard simplicity to life, and I think that was in fact a good that is often neglected. Hard work is good for us, and we were not made for unbridled comfort, leisure, and security.

So it's an interesting swing of the pendulum--those at the higher socio-economic rungs are enjoying more efficiency, more time, better compensation, and yes, more leisure in this new post-industrialized tech-ocracy. For many, the laptop is the new scythe. 

For those working at lower-wage jobs that require in-person presence, it's quite the opposite. They are taken away from their families, often scrambling for child-care, while just trying to make ends meet and pay their bills. For many of these jobs, it's necessary. You can't "virtually" build a skyscraper or empty waste cans remotely. 

It is for this reason that I often reflect that despite my median-income, I am the rich man in the bible, afforded a position not of want or need, but of surplus. The bonus, however, which I am increasingly grateful for, is that I seem to have more time with my family (whom I actually like being around), even when I am working in the next room. 

It would be one thing if I wasn't able to work as well from home as in the office. But this new model has afforded us a curious new paradigm of family life in the midst of a sometimes godless technocratic world order, to make of it what we choose--for good or for evil. There is fruit there, and I don't want to squander it or take it for granted. This is not to condemn or succumb to privilege-guilt, but simply to cultivate gratitude as a matter of perspective (hot water! flush toilets!) and accept a responsibility of multiplying talents for the kingdom and the least of these with what we've been afforded. For those who are given much, much is expected.

Grateful People Are Happy People. But Are Happy People Successful People?

 In his article "Why Gratitude Is Good," Dr. Robert Emmons, the world's leading scientific expert on gratitude, noted "You can't be envious and grateful at the same time. They're incompatible feelings, because if you're grateful, you can't resent someone for owning things you don't." People with high levels of gratitude have low levels of resentment and envy.

Gratitude is a little like love--when it matures and goes beyond being a passive feeling or emotion, it becomes an active exercise: an act of the will. People who have regular gratitude practices are not only healthier, happier, and have better relationships, but can aid individuals and teams in persevering through challenging tasks.

According to Dr. Martin Seligman, credited as the "father" of Positive Psychology, there are five building blocks that enable human flourishing – Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. In his typology of the three kinds of happy lives (the pleasurable life; the good life; and the meaningful life), the good life and the meaningful life were related to life satisfaction. Astonishingly, however, the amount of pleasure in life did not add to life satisfaction.

But you don't necessarily have to be a leading PhD and spend decades studying what many of us know by natural observation: grateful people are happy people, because they recognize everything that they have is more or less a gift. This is why the Apostle Paul said that he had "learned to be content whatever the circumstance."

For many people, "being content" is an elusive dream that seems to be always just beyond our grasp. It does not come naturally in our culture, because we are worked on constantly by advertisers ("buy this"), media ("watch this"), pharmaceutical companies ("take this"), to drive home the fact that we are incomplete without x, y, and z. A consumer society flourishes and is fueled by want. Want is fueled by envy. And envy is the antithesis of contentment.

It's funny--when googling "happiness and gratitude," there was no shortage of supporting articles and documents; the two go together like peanut butter and jelly. But when it came to searching "happiness and success," it was an inverse return-- many "success does not equal happiness" articles and studies, but not as much on whether or not happiness leads to success.

Perhaps this is because "success" is largely an objective canon, or standard of measure, in work culture. It can be quantifiably measured in outcomes, sales, subscribers, likes, returns, promotions, wins, ROI, net worth, etc. Whereas gratitude may be the key that unlocks the door to happiness in a person, "success" as we have traditionally understood it is not always so easily (and subjectively) defined apart from that which exists outside the self.

Grateful people are largely happy people. But the same cannot necessarily be said for successful people. In fact, sometimes the inverse is true: the chasing after metrics can often compensate for an inner-deficiency that says one "isn't good enough" as-is. That's not to say it's not effective as a motivator. People with something to prove--either to themselves, or to, for instance, a parent who never told them they were good enough--are often the hardest working and most driven individuals who rise to the top of organizations. It's a laudable, achievement-focused mindset fueled by competition that certainly brings with it certain rewards and accolades. And yet the one thing that most everyone wants but no one knows how to achieve--namely, lasting happiness--remains elusive.

It makes me think of a parable I once heard that went something like this:

"One day a fisherman was lying on a beautiful beach, with his fishing pole propped up in the sand and his solitary line cast out into the sparkling blue surf. He was enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun and the prospect of catching a fish.

About that time, a businessman came walking down the beach, trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. He noticed the fisherman sitting on the beach and decided to find out why this fisherman was fishing instead of working harder to make a living for himself and his family. “You aren’t going to catch many fish that way,” said the businessman to the fisherman.

“You should be working rather than lying on the beach!”

The fisherman looked up at the businessman, smiled and replied, “And what will my reward be?”

“Well, you can get bigger nets and catch more fish!” was the businessman’s answer. “And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman, still smiling. The businessman replied, “You will make money and you’ll be able to buy a boat, which will then result in larger catches of fish!”

“And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman again.

The businessman was beginning to get a little irritated with the fisherman’s questions. “You can buy a bigger boat, and hire some people to work for you!” he said.

“And then what will my reward be?” repeated the fisherman.

The businessman was getting angry. “Don’t you understand? You can build up a fleet of fishing boats, sail all over the world, and let all your employees catch fish for you!”

Once again the fisherman asked, “And then what will my reward be?”

The businessman was red with rage and shouted at the fisherman, “Don’t you understand that you can become so rich that you will never have to work for your living again! You can spend all the rest of your days sitting on this beach, looking at the sunset. You won’t have a care in the world!”

The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, “And what do you think I’m doing right now?”

Depending on your vantage point and value system, you might see different morals in the tale. Is the fisherman lazy? Unmotivated? Content with mediocrity? Or has he found a secret that somehow eludes others?

What about the businessman--is he a capitalist fat-cat caught in a hamster wheel of materialism? Or is he smart, focused, enterprising, and--dare we say--successful? That is, the kind of person a company would be clamoring to hire.

Grateful people may be happy people, but that happiness is of primary value to the individual who possesses it, and those in his or her immediate sphere. It may or may not be of value to one's employer, industry, or the corporate world at large, and only then to the degree in which it translates into greater productivity, less burn-out, higher yields, more creativity, etc.

Successful people may be happy people to the degree that they flourish in that which they are successful in; that is they gain positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment from their work. But then we might ask, "what happens when one is no longer working for Company X?" What happens in a recession when they are laid off, or they have so lost their identity in their work or corporate culture that they no longer know who they are without their accomplishments and objective "success?" It's a precarious and tenuous place to find oneself in when the rug is suddenly pulled out from under you.

Finally, to come full circle, happy people may be successful to the extent that they can own and define what success actually means, even when it might not square with external, traditional standards. The high school janitor, the supermarket cashier, the insurance salesman, who volunteers in their community, mentors younger people, lives in an ethical manner, raises a family, leaves a legacy for their grandchildren--is this what we would call success?

A person who has learned to be "content in all circumstances" is, in many ways, a free person. Because he trains himself to see all things--even hardship and adversity--as an unmerited gift, gratitude (and by extension, happiness) becomes the byproduct. He has become rich in spirit, the currency of immateriality. He has found the key that the vast majority of people spend their whole lives searching for. He has learned the secret to success, though maybe not as the world might define it. Because he has the freedom to define it for himself.

The Blessing And Curse of Work

We all tend to complain about work, until we don't have it. As the infertile who painfully long for a child know when they hear people complaining about their misbehaving kids, the unemployed would gladly put up with many of the seemingly trivial things we complain about in our work lives. 

Like pain in childbirth, our sentence to toil is a result of the Fall. But God in His infinite goodness provides us with goodness even in His punishments. 

As I wrote in "We're Not Adapted For Security and Utopia," 

I thought I was crazy for being bored in paradise, but it makes sense if we were made to strive. Faith is a walk; it is not an escalator or wheelchair ride. It demands assent and action; it is not passive, and it is not handed down generation to generation by passive means either. It must be exercised. 

One thing I have mulled over for a while is the issue of lay 'professional Catholics,' I.e., those whose 'job' is to promote the Faith, or work in full-time ministry, or write about it. For me personally, I'm grateful I was spared from this situation (not for lack of trying). In the way a playboy or a prostitute might equate sex with "work," or a professional athlete not wanting to throw a baseball or football around because they do not equate it with leisure, I think those engaged in full-time ministry enjoy 'checking out' from churchy things because of the association with work. 

Now, mind you, we are called to WORK out our salvation in fear and trembling. As part of our calling as Christians, we are called to do the work God calls us to--not as professionals or contractors, but as willing servants. This takes on a different ethos, because we are not working for food or money, but for the Lord. 

People deserve to be compensated for their work, even when they work in matters of faith of for the Church, and some of it is necessary. But it takes some intentionality to not see our faith as drudgery or a 9-5 that we check out from, but as a love affair. Personally, I'd rather dig ditches or pump septic tanks and retain my faith as a common laborer than divorce myself from it by getting too close to the institutional fire. We don't need more parish administrators or Catholics (TM)...we need saints.

Don't Quit Your Day Job

The dawn of the internet has given rise to a host of unique opportunities to change the face of work. We're seeing this in the midst of a global quarantine with many both out of work, and many minimally disrupted and able to leverage technology to continue their jobs from home.

The internet has also opened the door to a kind of monetization that wouldn't have been possible a couple decades ago. When my kids were younger we surfed YouTube a bit, since we didn't have cable or TV, and my wife and I noticed these channels that consisted of a kid literally just opening up toys getting millions of views. Somebody (somebody's parents, that is) must have seen a golden opportunity and cashed in on it.

You see this phenomenon in the Catholic media world as well of people carving out a kind of entrepreneurial niche and gradually building up a sizable following. As popularity gains momentum and the time constraints of working a 9-5 while moonlighting as a Catholic-whatever gets to be too much, they take a leap of faith and step out into what might regarded as a true passion (or calling). Their bread and butter, for better or for worse, is now largely dependent on an audience to receive the message.

There seem to be a few dangers (ie, traps) here that become apparent as time goes on.

One is that you have to contend with the alarmingly short half-life of the American content-consuming attention span. The baby needs to be fed, like a panda in a zoo needs his supply of bamboo. Since you're not actually charging for a service that people can get more or less for free, web-traffic more or less dictates your salary.

How do you balance providing what you see as an essential and needed message and service while resisting the need to prostitute it? It's a kind of content-porn--you have to creatively keep people tuning in, entertained, fed, while maintaining novelty in perpetuum. The more you push the envelope to generate the clicks/shares/likes, the harder it is to take down from wherever you peg that notch. Or in the dealer's lexicon, once you do crack, it's hard to go back.

When my dad was a waiter in Atlantic City in his twenties, he had a distinct memory of the maitre d saying, "push the drinks...it's where we make our money." This would ensure that growing up, my brothers and I were never allowed to order sodas or milk with our meals, frugal as he was.

Same thing with content. "Controversy sells." You see it in journalism, you see it in headlines, you see it with clickbait, and celebrity Catholics of course are not immune. It is a great temptation that's hard to resist when you know it's what stands between you and your family's monthly grocery bill.

There is also an illusion of brand loyalty. Nobody pays for anything when you can get it for free, unless you have a good deal of value-oriented buy-in. For better of worse, the delivered message does not exist in a vacuum, and is tied to the mouth that speaketh it forth. As anyone who has fallen from grace in the blogosphere knows, one misplaced heterodox statement or an inadvertent step from the party platform can result in a banishment outside the doors of the feudal kingdom, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. It's a precarious position to be in when you're livelihood more or less depends on your status and good name.

There's nothing wrong with looking to make a living or being creative, and there are definitely messages that need to get out there. As a provider, however, I personally would be reticent about putting all my eggs in one basket with something as precarious as a faith-based monetizer.

What's the answer to the problem, then, of men who assume these roles and find themselves trapped? And if they don't do it, how will The Message get out? Well, it may be a little late at that point to suggest the old adage, "don't quit your day job," but if anyone asked I would suggest just that.

Maybe it's just me, and not that I have the opportunity to do so, but I would be reticent to conflate my faith and work. I find myself having the luxury and desire to write about faith, etc, mostly because it is not my work, but a respite from it. Sure, I don't have a big audience, but I have found some people have benefitted from the little tidbits here and there I'm able to launch into internet-space for public consumption. I appreciate my work even more because it stands on its own and provides a myriad of benefits and intangibles that gives me the mental bandwith to leave it on the table at quitting time. I like having a garden, but I like it because it's not my job to grow food. I find I have a freedom to write about what I want to write about as it relates to faith because there's no hand that feeds me to accidentally bite. I'm grateful for my day job.

I'm sure there's a place for the Catholic celebrity, but personally I wouldn't want to be one. It must be so hard--I mean, not ditch digging or pipe laying hard, which gives a degree of satisfaction because it is so strictly work, necessary work, tiring work, and provides one's daily bread. I mean hard in the sense of the anxiety of always having to up the game, or the slog of providing content for the long haul, or simply the volatility of the public tastes and issues du jour and being constantly on guard against the cult of personality and thinking you are more important than you really are. Regardless, there is dignity in work, it is a gift from God and one not to be taken for granted in these times of pandemic. Do what God calls you to in your state of life and you will have peace even when you suffer, as long as you are doing it for the right reasons.

We've Taken "White Space" For Granted

I start work in twenty minutes, so this is going to be a short post.

There is a kind of secular parable I have thought about from time to time, as it has stayed with me:

"An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “only a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.” The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?” To which the American replied, “15 – 20 years.” “But what then?” Asked the Mexican. The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!” “Millions – then what?” The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”"

I read a lot of personal finance blogs, most of the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) authors came of age during the Great Recession and so are all about monetizing every last moment for financial gain. We know many families (or at least used to) who have their schedules at 98% capacity with sports, activities, work, and other things. If time is currency, they are living lean. Not faulting, just mentioning.

And our jobs, for most Americans, are structured to have no fat, maximum efficiency. I suppose this is part of Capitalism and the Protestant work ethic. Not faulting, just mentioning.

I have also read studies that most Americans do not have $1,000 cash on hand to cover an emergency should emerge. Many are one job loss from missing a mortgage payment. Many are simply living to paycheck to paycheck. Not faulting, just mentioning.

The reality of this Coronavirus pandemic is starting to set in. Everything is shut down. We are moving into recession territory. And we realize just how little margin we have given ourselves in the quest for maximum efficiency.

I am a big proponent of the idea of 'white space' that is often seen as "useless." God gave us the Sabbath to rest, because He rested on the 7th day of creation. He was strict about it--Sabbath is for rest and worship. What many families are realizing--on both a positive and negative note--is being quarantined is forcing us into that "useless" space of time. Time is a commodity many people don't have because leisure is oftentimes equated with laziness in a hyper-efficient culture that doesn't naturally build such buffers in. I'm a proponent of hard work, the value of work, Capitalism as an economic system, and making good use of time for what is important. As devastating as the fallout from this illness is going to be on all fronts, if anything maybe we can be grateful for the gift of time--for family, for self-reflection, for spiritual renewal--and not take it for granted for those of us in quarantine. Make good use of it, and always try to look at the good in even the worst situations.

The Hard Work Of Mercy

Let's face it: for the Christian disciple, the Works of Mercy--those Spiritual and Corporal--can be just that: work. For those who have devoted their lives to it--religious, missionaries, apologists, and those who work and advocate on behalf of the poor and marginalized, it is their daily way of getting their hands dirty, both literally and figuratively speaking. We are called to do the work, as Jesus' hands and feet. Disciples are called to the harvest field to work.

The Corporal Works of Mercy (Feed the hungry; Give drink to the thirsty; Clothe the naked; Shelter the homeless; Visit the sick; Visit the imprisoned; Bury the dead) are a direct imperative of Jesus. It is pretty straight forward in scripture how it impacts our salvation:

“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.  

34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ 

41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not [a]take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Mt 25:31-46)

Less obvious, and sometimes more neglected, are the Spiritual Works of Mercy (Admonish the sinner; Instruct the ignorant; Counsel the doubtful; Comfort the sorrowful; Bear wrongs patiently; Forgive all injuries; Pray for the living and the dead). They can be uncomfortable to exercise. Especially the first two, since no body likes to be regarded as a 'sinner' to be admonished, or 'ignorant' and in need of instruction.

But these two are especially needed today. Evangelization in the proper sense of the word is bringing the Good News to those who have not heard it. The 'New Evangelization' is really a re-catechization of those baptized who have not had the seed of faith brought to fruition in their lives.

Progressives adopt this work of 'instructing the ignorant' with vigor. They lobby and march, infiltrate and indoctrinate to get their messages to the unenlightened, and work to punish those who do not comply with their ideology. Those who are poorly catechized and who have given themselves over to the world find themselves to be easy targets for such secular 'instruction.' But who will do the work of the Church, that of instructing those ignorant in the faith, and bearing the brunt of pushback when doing the tough love work of admonishing the sinner? Many times, the need for instruction and admonition far outweighs the capacity of those going out into the mission field. Yet, we are still called, and shouldering the weight of that call of Christ may very well be our cross to bear. A joy and a privilege, yes. But demanding work as well.

When reading accounts of exorcists who do the Church's work of casting out demons in the name of Jesus, what strikes me is just how tiring it can be. The time and energy, the physical demands, and the overwhelming numbers of afflicted in relation to those able to help them--it's real work, and demanding work as well. But for those who are on the receiving end of such deliverance, the minister who has undertaken this work has literally saved their life, ransomed them from death, by the power of Christ.

If we don't speak the truth to those who need to hear it, who will? If we don't instruct those who know only the basics of faith and about the gift of salvation, who will? If we don't take the beating and the pushback from those whom we love when we call them out because of our love for them, who will?

I recently was in the position of feeling the need to instruct my father in the Faith concerning the nature of sin and the Church's teaching on Confession because of some erroneous beliefs. It's one thing when you are instructing strangers, but sometimes with our own family it can be very awkward. It was very uncomfortable for me, and I was very reluctant to do so. I literally had to pray hard about it and force myself to obey the urging of my conscience and write him. Because my house was generally in order, I was able to come at it from a place of love and concern, and not judgement or condemnation. But it still took an investment of time and effort and an uncertainty in how he would respond. Thankfully, he was open and grateful for the long email, and it was the kick he needed to get his own spiritual house in order that might not have happened otherwise.

You are the hands and feet of Christ, and hands and feet are made to work and march. Performing the Works of Mercy is our duty as Christians, even when it's a grind and we'd rather not by staying silent or by staying home. We work by grace, propelled by the Holy Spirit, and sustained by prayer. But it's called 'work' for a reason--it takes effort and sacrifice, and opens us up to pushback and disappointment as well. But like Paul, we should consider it a woe to us if we do not preach the gospel, since we are compelled by God to do it (1 Cor 9:16). We need to love our brothers and sisters, our families, and even those we have never met, enough to put ourselves out there an do the work Christ calls us to--the works of mercy.