No One Is Putting Money On Me

It's been a couple months since my first book was published. My publisher and I did as much promotion as we could, running the circuit online and getting the word out and reviews procured. Here's a sampling of reviews and mentions: 

Stumbling in the Footsteps of Christ: Rob Marco's Wisdom and Folly (Kevin Wells, National Catholic Register)

What Is A Man? What Is A Good Man? What Is A Hero? (Patti Armstrong, National Catholic Register)

Wisdom and Folly: An Interview with Author Rob Marco (Susan Skinner, Veil of Veronica)

A Radical Third Way of Discipleship (Guest: Rob Marco) (Eric Sammons, CrisisPoint podcast)

Wisdom and Folly: Everyday Thoughts of an Ordinary Catholic (Roxane Salonen, CatholicMom.com)

Wisdom and Folly by Rob Marco (Phillip Campbell, Unam Sanctam Catholicam)

The last I checked with my publisher, the book has sold about a hundred copies. Not a hundred thousand. 100. And that is mostly friends and family, I imagine. No body has even bothered to write a review yet, though at almost 400 pages some people may still be trying to finish the book, haha. How anyone ekes out a living writing is beyond me. I know of nothing that demands so much of a person and compensates so little in return. 

I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly was a reality check to know that despite writing a quality book that speaks to people's hearts, is relatable and honest, appeals to both men and women, and seemed timely and pertinent, it was truly a failure to launch. I'm ok with that, since I think in my heart of hearts I have never wanted to be "big" in anyway. I prefer a close circle and degrees of anonymity and freedom over prestige and compensation. So, I pretty much got what I have always wanted. 

Still, it's a little embarrassing to pour so much of yourself into your kind of opus, have it be well written and relevant, do some national marketing and exposure, and STILL not get any traction in a wider audience. 

I heard Louis CK, in reflecting on his comedy career, tell Theo Von recently: 

"A lot of it is just...you caught a wave it was good timing. There's some people who are incredible but they weren't *that* at the right time. that's one of the biggest challenges in comedy is just staying good when nobody is paying attention and continuing to progress, because it's like this search light that maybe finds you sometime, and if every time it finds you you're getting better and better, then somebody in the world will go, 'this guy's a good bet.' They'll start putting money on you."

I think that's just the reality. I never caught that lucky wave, and it's quite apparent that no one is putting money on me and saying "this guy's a good bet." Or maybe it's just the nature of the democratization of voices that the internet has produced--so many hundreds of thousands of good writers that there are no real long-lasting standouts. 

Again, I'm ok with this. I am a rich man already in friends, family, faith, and purpose in my life, in want of nothing. But I just think it's kind of a fools errand to think it's ALL just hard work and talent and dedication and grinding to "make it" big (whatever that means). If you never hit that wave, you're just another drop in the ocean that gets drowned out in the noise. Sheer luck and timing plays a part, whether we want to admit it or not. 

Again, all okay. Writing is my little hobby, nothing more, and if I set myself up to believe otherwise, the disappointment would be more acute I think. The book was mostly a legacy endeavor for my wife and children anyway. I'm sure a lot of "famous" people would envy the anonymity and freedom to go where and do what I want I have as an essential nobody in the media world. I'll thank God for that, then!

An Exciting Announcement

I've been writing since I was fourteen years old--thirty years now. I started publishing my writing for public consumption on the now-defunct MySpace in the early 2000s, and this blog (Pater Familias) exists now as the third edition iteration of two previous blogs: Rob's Fobs (May 2006-June 2011), and Wisdom and Folly (Dec 2015-). In totality, I've written and published over 1,400 digital essays on faith, life, and everything in between in the past eighteen years. It's been for me as much as it has been for you, my readers.

As St. John says in scripture, "this world is passing away...but the one who does the will of God lives forever" (1 Jn 2:17). I think the same can be said about our enamored relationship with the digital landscape. The medium is accessible, cheap, easy, convenient, and far reaching with a low bar of entry. It allows one to shovel the coal furnace with the fodder of content en perpetua, in a kind of Sisyphean fashion with no beginning and no real end. But it has reached the point where--at the decades long (loving) nagging of my wife--the need to ensconce that pile of digital literary coal in the tangible amber of a fossil has arisen. The TLDR version of all this, in the words of my wife: "I want a book....and you're going to write it."

A testament can be defined as a tangible proof or tribute, an expression of conviction, or an act by which a person determines the disposition of his or her property after death. And so after many years, and eight months of compiling and editing, I'm happy to announce that this testament has fossilized in the publication of Wisdom and Folly: Essays on Faith, Life, and Everything in Between (Cruachan Hill Press). For anyone who is interested, you can order from Amazon here.

The 389 page volume is a compilation of eighty-six of my very best essays written over the last eight years, divided into nine topical sections: On Friendship, On Discipleship, On Marriage, On Family, On Manhood, On Faith, On Prayer, On the Church, and On Writing. Each essay is easily digestible and able to be read independently of one another, with plenty of "meat on the bone" for meditation sans fluff and filler. You'll definitely get your money's worth.

A little teaser from the Foreword, written by my friend Kevin Wells:

"For those unfamiliar with Marco and the countless hundreds of articles and blogs he’s written, you’re in safe hands. Why? Each of these essays stems from where the Holy Spirit led him in prayer. Marco is intensely devoted to meditative prayer, scripture, spiritual reading, and ordered living. He is the least arrogant man you will ever meet, the kind of neighbor who seems to sit in wait for you to ask for a cup of sugar or a stick of butter. Those who know him say he is a happy old soul with an unbudging devotion to Christ and His Church.

This book will lift you into the richness of storytelling and into the soul of a man with a zeal for God. His unique perspectives on modern Catholic life and the jarring manner of his candor will stick to the ribs of your memory and conscience. My advice, as one who has read Marco for years now, take in an essay or two with your morning or evening prayer, close your eyes, and meditate on where the Lord “took you” through Marco’s words. In time, you might see where a particular essay/s in Wisdom and Folly has become a personal invitation from your Heavenly Father to see a blind spot, convert, and to come to know Him in a more intimate way."

You may be a faithful reader of Pater Familias for years now, or you may just be discovering this blog. Either way, for those of you who pine for something tangible, something meaty, something beyond the digital content of the age which is here today and forgotten tomorrow, I'd encourage you to consider ordering a copy and sharing either this blog post, or the order link, with others.

More importantly, if you do so and enjoy the book, I would be grateful if you would be willing to write and submit a 5-star review on Amazon, as reviews carry a lot of weight (especially for those unfamiliar with the work). My hope is that this compilation will fortify Catholics in their faith, lead unbelievers to question their trajectory, and in all things glorify God for His goodness and the gift of faith He extends to all who seek it with earnest and humble hearts. My hope is simply that God will use this work of heart for His purposes. 

I'd also like to thank those who have faithfully read this blog over the years. I will continue to write here weekly, as I always have. I have never monetized it, nor sought anything except to glorify God and do the work of a disciple of Jesus Christ investing the meager talent he has afforded me rather than burying it in the field (which, admittedly, I have been tempted to do from time to time). I desire to stay true to that purpose, and appreciate your prayers for purity of heart and intention. I hope this book will be a testament to that work for years to come. 

Christmas in America (1988)--Day 7 of the Octave of Christmas

 "This is supposed to be Paradise," Curtis Battle thinks to himself as he stares out the windshield of his car. Palm trees sway next to luxury high rises just a hundred yards from where he has parked his car here in Venice Beach. Clothes and various non-descript wrappers and other things you would usually put out to trash are piled high behind the driver's seat, confining the passengers to the front seats; they are not presents or wrapping paper, for there were no presents this year. He has been out of work for four months and nothing on the horizon seems promising. Next to him, dressed in a matching grey-and-maroon flannel shirt, is Cynthia holding one-year old Brandon, her son. Like the edges of Curtis's fingernails, Brandon's split-pea green onesie is soiled and pilled. His mother balances a styrofoam plate of fried chicken on her knee--Christmas dinner--as some small candy canes dangle from the rear view mirror. The inside of the car, like their skin, is dark while the California sun shines outside as it does every day here in L.A. He's doing his best to keep this family together but he isn't sure where the next meal will come from, though he's grateful for the one they received at the Mission downtown today--a temporary respite from uncertainty. "Battle," he thinks to himself about his namesake, "Every day is a battle." Maybe he'll find work next week after the holidays, maybe an apartment. Maybe next year, the New Year, things will be different.

       

Christmas in America (1988)--Day 5 of the Octave of Christmas

 Karen Horger had never been to the Holy Land. But while sitting on a rock at 5,000 feet above sea level resting her feet on a carpet of scrag and wispy amber tufts of grass, she imagined Christ's ascent up Mount Sinai or perched overlooking Jerusalem. The five mile pilgrimage to the top of Tortuga Mountain to pay homage to Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast day was not met at the end with a festival or a church tour for her and the other 1,500 pilgrims, but simply the chance to be a few miles closer to Heaven, wrapped in silence. The quiotes fashioned from yucca stalks that she holds now always reminded her of something John the Baptist would be found with--an archetype of the simplicity and barrenness of the desert. Her head is wrapped loosely with a bed scarf, partly as a pious act and more practically to offer some warmth from the December wind. The snaking Rio Grande and the small town of Las Cruces are far below her like a distant memory; but soon the pilgrims will descend to return to the world. Just as Moses built memorial altar of memorial on his ascent up Mount Sinai and Joshua on Mount Ebal, the pilgrims descend before sunset but not before lighting up the mountain with bonfires on the way down. For those who have been in darkness have seen a great light. 

 

Christmas In America (1988)--Day 4 of the Octave of Christmas

 Snow laps up against the white clapboard side of St. Rose's church like a wave, it's powdery crest settling waist-high like a foothill. The Gothic arch of the twelve foot window safely above betrays itself simplicity--the glass is clear and frosted, but not stained, a limp strand of tinsel and ornaments floating from the top; the flaking weathered paint matches the snow beneath it. Here on the plain nature is adorned, not the churches. But the light comes from within, as they say, and as the harsh winter sun sets in Soldier Creek over the South Dakota horizon the pale golden light of the sanctuary is all that illumines the face of Myrtis Walking Eagle. He is seated by the window, his elbow resting on the sill, listening to the sermon but with the familiar air of teenage detachment. His parents cannot be seen--he could just as well be a runaway alone on Christmas Eve as he could be a sibling of seven. Or perhaps he is glad to be here as a one hour respite from his home on the reservation. His face is polite but stoic, his gaze far away. His ancestors were here before the Christians ever came to this land. He thinks about them, how they would receive this message of God made man in a child from foreign missionaries, this foreign religion which is all he has ever known.

Christmas In America (1988)

Every year at Christmas from the time I was eight years old, my parents would pull out a book of photography titled Christmas in America and place it on the living room coffee table. I remember laying on the floral print love seat and leafing through the large 10"x20" book (which was about 200 pages) which was a snapshot of our country from Thanksgiving to Epiphany by one hundred of the nation's foremost photojournalists. I grew to love photojournalism, even though I had no knack for photography. Year after year, I would look through one page at a time, and those photographs of places I had never been to and cultures and religions I had never experienced began to develop in the darkroom of my mind.  

Since my wife was working overnights Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we visited my parents this evening and we were all lamenting about how our digital iPhone photos just kind of live on our phone or on the Cloud and we never really look at them the way we used to look at photo albums. There's something about a book or a physical photograph that seems like something from a bygone era, but is nonetheless real, tangible, physical. Not only that, but the currency of photographs has been devalued in the digital era, because there's just so many of them.

After dinner, I wandered into the family room and I noticed the Christmas in America book on their coffee table, and like a kid in the 1980's again, I dangled my legs over the love seat (now leather) and flipped through page by page. Before we left for the evening I asked my mom if I could take the book home with me.

I had wanted to do a "Year in Pictures" post on this blog as I had done last year; my intention was to share the intimate photographs from Christmas in America, but as an artist myself who has become increasingly sensitive to attribution and copyrights, I couldn't bring myself to do so as much as I was tempted to. 

Instead, I thought I would use it as a writing exercise, to describe the various scenes from my childhood memories in words of a day in the life of Americans on Christmas Day--one per day for the eight days of the Octave. Since I am taking a graduate non-fiction seminar course this Spring at the university where I work (I've never taken an English course besides COM101 and a Creative Writing course as an undergrad), I figured it would be a good warm up for the semester. And we used to do these kinds of exercises at The Writer's Room where I used to frequent in my hometown, painting a picture with words: "Here's an orange on a table. Now write!"

So without further adieu, here's to Christmas in America in the late 1980's.

* * *

(1)

The rectory at St. Vladimir's is still, a harbor and outpost from the frantic outside world. A wooden icon of Christ Pantocrator perches upon a corner shelf above the head of Father Boris Kizenko who is silently reading the holy scriptures before him at a simple table covered with a blue and white checked tablecloth. His long, smooth gray hair is tucked neatly behind his large earlobes; his beard, meanwhile, is a thousand frazzled strands bound into a gray tuft blanket that covers his chin and obscures the large gold chain around his neck. His thick hands--which would be just as suited to swinging a sledgehammer or operating a forklift on the docks--rest holding the large book before him. One might think he was asleep, but he is not; he has entered into the Mystery, immersed in the Psalms and the work of prayer while those in the town of Cassville, New Jersey outside the rectory door are running and grasping and swiping and panting. The pages of his Bible are large, thick, aged with a yellow hue, the immortal words of the Patriarch jet black like Father Boris' cassock.The corner of the book is worn and exposed like a flesh burn, for this is no decorative book for display. Year after year, on Christmas Day, January 6th, he sits down to recall the story of salvation that has sprung from the root of Jesse. 

How We Use Pejoratives Says A Lot...About Us

 

A pejorative is a word expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something; it expresses criticism, hostility, or disregard. We've all probably used them at one point or another, either intentionally or inadvertently. This post is not to cast judgement, since we're all guilty, but simply to point out some things I've noticed with the use of this grammatical form. 

A few notes to begin with. The literary process of "semantic drift" known as pejoration occurs when a historically inoffensive or benign word becomes a pejorative. Think "gay" in the early twentieth century (happy, care-free) to how it may have been used in the late twentieth century ("That's so gay"). 

On the flip-side, when a term begins as pejorative and eventually is adopted in a non-pejorative sense, this is called melioration or amelioration. I suppose "queer" may be an example of both pejoration and a kind of reclamation. "Blue-collar" may be another example, perhaps.

Some terms seem to hop the fence between the two. In a socio-political context, a conservative might use the term "liberal" as a pejorative in the vacuum left by classical liberalism being overshadowed and largely superseded by the term "Leftist." Whereas classical liberalism (left leaning political persuasions, but open to and respectful of other viewpoints) may have been a categorical term (rather than a pejorative) at one point but has now been replaced by "Leftism" which is not so much used as pejorative but as an attempt to categorize left-learning individuals militantly intolerant of other viewpoints. When conservatives call someone a leftist, it's usually for purposes of political classification; if a conservative refers to someone as a "liberal," it's typically pejorative (wishy-washy, soft, etc), since they do not mean it in the classical sense.

The entomology of the word pejorative is interesting. It is derived from a Late Latin past participle stem of peiorare, meaning "to make worse", (from peior "worse").

I read a lot in the on-line Catholic publishing and media world, and I notice it more often than not. How often have you come across these terms, for instance, or maybe used them yourself?:

"Woke"

"Jabbed"

"Normie"

"Rad-Trad"

"Prude"

"Nazi"

"Karen"

"Globalist"

"White Nationalist"

"Terrorist"

"Papist"

I'm not innocent here either. And they can be used on both sides of the political or ideological divide. Granted, some of these terms can be used categorically, but more often then not they are intentionally chosen in language to convey a point. 

What is that point? (and, you may be asking, what is your point in writing about all this?)

Well, for one, pejoratives are an attempt at control--you are intentionally trying to "make worse" (to draw from the past participle) those to whom the term is directed. If an environmentalist calls a woman with nine children a "breeder," the intention is to "make (the woman feel) worse" about the outcome of perceived "over-population." It's raising oneself up by way of putting someone else down. 

Or, to borrow the words of Saul Alinksy, the godfather of leftist social mobilizing, in his manifesto Rules for Radicals (1971), "He who controls the language, controls the masses." 

Leftists control the media, the universities, the corporations, the arts. With a few exceptions, there seem to be very few funny conservative comedians. Perhaps there is a second point here, which is that our use of pejoratives stem from a deeper insecurity. We are not on the "wrong side of history" but we feel like we are losing the war. 

You can see this, on one hand, when rational debates on issues like abortion often degenerate into ad hominem attacks (from the pro-abortion side) when conservative figures clearly have the upper hand with science, reason, and theology and those on the other side of the debate have...their emotions.

But in other spheres, we've felt compelled to adopt the tactics of the left (they are winning, after all), and that includes weaponizing language for our own purposes. But beneath that is, I think, the insecurity of knowing that they can't be beat at their own game. And yet we fail to rise above the confines of the rulebook they have written for everyone. 

So, those who use pejorative language may be grasping for an elusive control, and have an innate insecurity about their ability to exercise that control to exact outcomes. This leads to the third point, which is a breeding ground for tribalism. Even though pejoratives in discourse "make worse" situations as a, collective, they often make one feel better because this use of language instills a sense of belonging. If he's a Chad, I'm in contrast a sensitive, enlightened cosmopolitan. If she's "woke," I'm a red-pilled, God-fearing Patriot. It's human nature to find refuge among "our people," but as the on-line world has taken up more and more of our mental and physical space, we delineate and retreat  into categories that make us feel secure, insulated, and sure about. 

On the one hand this is something that has always taken place throughout history. But it also puts us in a situation in which we become like Jews amidst Samaritans--something our Lord tried to rectify by his example in passing straight through the territory of "the other" (Jn 4:4). He does this because he was always in complete control (jn 19:11), was absolutely secure in who he was and where he came from (Jn 14:4), and had no place to lay his head on this earth (Mt 8:20). And this is the Lord we seek to imitate, who told us not to be conformed to this world (Rom 12:2). 

This is where I think it's good to read the writings of the saints, because you rarely hear the saints using pejoratives to denigrate their "enemies." This is because they 

a) have supreme confidence in God, and that the war is already won; 

b) are acutely aware of their own low standing; 

c) are secure in their sense of self and their eternal standing; and 

d) have committed to put charity above all things. 

They always took the 'lower place' of contempt, not in cheap wins of debate, but in having the last word which speaks through charity. "But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, `Friend, move up to a better place. ' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk 14:10).

The saints found a "third way" of spiritual discourse--from Augustine to Aquinas to Mother Teresa, their use of language was for the purpose of conveying eternal Truth to a world blind to it, of "raising up" humanity beyond race and creed, of not losing sight that the war is not between each other but against powers and principalities. They took seriously the words of our Lord in scripture: "Anyone who says to a brother or sister, 'Raca,' is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell" (Mt 5:22).

The next time you (or I) catch yourself tempted to use pejorative terms as a weapon against our perceived enemies, ask yourself if your Raca will escape the judgement, and if those you wish to denigrate with your choice of words are indeed your brother, or not. 

There is a way to use language to win a debate or make a point without using pejoratives, but it entails a deep sense of security, of being able to stand outside the circle, and in many ways giving up some control. That's not always easy, so it's no wonder why we often resort to cheaper, second-rate goods. 

Lamentations of Jeremiah: A Letter From An Artist

 Dear Mrs. Nicolosi,

I recently watched your 19 April, 2012 address to the students of Franciscan University of Steubenville ("Beyond Just Beautiful Movies: Keynotes of Authentic Catholic Storytelling") on YouTube. I found myself saying, "Yes, YES" and "finally, someone is saying it!" throughout the talk. I was familiar with your writing and film reviews, and have quoted some of your insightful commentary on Catholic art and film making here, here, here, and here. I excitedly sent your talk to multiple friends too, sure they would appreciate it as much as I did. I was met with...crickets. 

I guess I came across your talk seeking some balm and respite after Nefarious came out. I saw it when it opened, and wrote my review (critique) here, which seemed to precede much of the "critical acclaim" in my Catholic circle. Though I'm not on social media anymore, a friend passed me your own critique of the film (which I think you posted on Facebook), and again, I took some solace that I wasn't as alone as I felt, that someone else gets it.

But this letter isn't about that particular film, or even film in general, but more a lament seeking encouragement from one right-brained Catholic artist to another. I've been a writer, poet, painter, etc (not professionally) as long as I can remember. In lieu of financial recompense, or maybe because I've never taken it to the next level, I try to instead give back to God and His people the creative talent I've been bequeathed as a drummer-boy offering. I've been published here, here, here, here, etc., but most mainstream Catholic sites won't publish me because what I write doesn't fit pre-set Catholic molds very well (As a friend and fellow writer recently said (someone pejoratively) to me, "you're too trad for the normies and too normie for the trads.")

I don't mean to "curse the day I was born" (Jer 20:14; Job 3:3), but being an artist and writer is as much cross as blessing. I think you may have written and/or spoken about the prophetic witness of the Catholic artists, but prophets were lonely, alienated people who "got it" surrounded by people who didn't. In some cases, they listen (Jonah 3:6); in most cases they don't. 

I'm forty three years old. In my twenties, as a new Catholic trying to put the "old man" to death,  I felt that the world was open before me: I chased the Holy Spirit wherever He led me without question; I fed the hungry and housed the homeless because Jesus told us to. I wept over my sins, and burned with zeal. In my thirties, now married with a family, I still wanted to serve the Lord and went where I felt He was calling me--from the Lion's Den of San Francisco Pride to witness to the gay community, to doing my best to spiritually monkey-wrench a Black Mass in Philadelphia, and hit the streets to evangelize publicly. I was more involved on social-media than I am now, and made some friends there who I stayed in touch with, thought most were just phantom-friends. I also wanted to make a name for myself.

Now, in my forties, I find myself slowing down, stabilizing and trying to plumb the depths of my own interior life with the Lord, and pulling back. I serve my community in more conventional ways, continue to write with the hopes it will lead others from darkness to light, and try to love well with all I've been given. But I've grown weary of the tribalism and group-think I see in online (and even real-life) Catholics--purity signaling over vax-status, liturgical wars, outrage-porn pedaling...majoring in the minors. I've grown weary with how Catholics stay ensconced in their like-minded safe spaces and camp out there. Heck, I've grown weary in everything from finding it harder to exercise to finding the motivation to write anymore. 

I've never really journaled--I've always written for an audience. It's a blessing and a curse, a cross...you try not to have what you write tainted or influenced by what you think people want to read...but that's probably why I don't make money from writing, either. You also try not to mind what people think, or get down when no one comments or seems to care...but you do mind, which shows that I haven't purged out those last vestiges of pride and vanity in my spiritual life yet.

In The Special Cross of The Artist, your interview with Angelus News, you note,

Dante puts the artist in purgatory, not hell, which is encouraging. I think he’s saying that artists are innately close to God because they’re going to suffer. They’re also going to have an innate humility, what John Paul II calls the “suffering of insufficiency.” Artists are given a divine vision that they can never quite reach. That suffering is sanctifying.

I found that accurate but not comforting. I feel like I've been a "suffering artist" (maybe that's a redundancy in terms) all my life, and it's like the conundrum Thomas a Kempis describes in Imitation of Christ,

"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. The religious who does not live up to his rule exposes himself to dreadful ruin, and he who wishes to be more free and untrammeled will always be in trouble, for something or other will always displease him." (Chap 25)

This is what I feel like when I try to stop writing, to bury my talent once and for all, so I don't have to suffer anymore--instead, I suffer more! It becomes a "fire in my bones" (Jer 20:9) when I try to keep it in. I'm trapped...curses of curses! I suffer when I write, and I suffer when I try to stifle it. I go to Confession sometimes to confess that I hate who I am, how God made me, cursing the blessings He has entrusted me with. I hate my fellow man, because I seek in them what I should be seeking in Him--affirmation, encouragement, the ability to be myself and trust without fear of abandonment. I feel like no one understands me, and like Job and Jeremiah, curse the day I was born. The loneliness is palpable. 

I used to see beauty all around me when I was young, to the point where I felt my heart would burst. Now, the world we live in is a lonely place indeed--people on their phones all the time instead of talking, mindlessly and ravenously consuming content, reducing beauty and wonder to pragmatism and marketing and being content with it. A friend is offering to publish some of my essays in a book--but why publish when no one has an attention span or even reads anymore! It's all so disheartening.

I'm trying to carve out beauty when I see it, and pull people onto the baroque as they are drowning, serve the needy and speak truth to those hungry to it. But I'm human, too. I feel discouraged, disenchanted, unappreciated, tired. The Christian life is WORK. And we have to keep laboring for the Kingdom.

But as you said in your talk, when you were speaking about Act One and the 'critical mass' needed to reshape the culture--"where are the troops?" Why do I feel like an island? Do people even know beauty when they see it today--and have I become so jaded that I can't even see it myself? I mean, I do--I see it in the conversion of others to the to the Truth of the Gospel, in the snapshots of grace, in radical authenticity that doesn't pander to low-brow Catholic appetites for outrage and complaining and their like-minded bubbles of insularity. There's a lot of work to do, and the work is out there...where are the workers?  

Gosh, I realize this is quite a self-pitying rant disguised as a righteous lament. I just struggle to know what to do--keep writing and continue to suffer? Stop creating and suffer more? Try to contort my voice into the pre-packaged Catholic boxes for publication to a wider audience? Keep pouring myself out via my blog, despite how pointless it feels? Keep my expectations low? I know I can't be the only one out there feeling like this--but it sure feels like it!

I know you probably have a lot of scripts and things on your desk to read, but I just wanted to thank you for the things you write and say, and solicit any words of advice you may have for me. I don't want to harden my heart or take things offline, bury the talent, so to speak. But what a thankless industry the creative arts is. I guess all we can do in the end is shoulder our cross, do the work entrusted to us, and offer up the suffering for the good of souls who need a light in their darkness.

Letter To Boniface

Boniface,

I hope it's ok I write to you--not related to writing or Catholicism directly, but just as one early-forties Catholic guy to another. I don't know why I thought you might be able to relate or understand, but taking a chance you might.

By the way, I read the Matt Foley piece you had on USC, and it almost moved me to tears as well. I grew up in the nineties on SNL in it's heyday and loved Chris Farley and had a soft-spot for him, but mostly it touched me because of the gritty struggle; addiction is such a tenacious mf; having a 25 year nicotine addiction myself, which I just recently stopped cold turkey a month ago (not the first time, but hopefully the last), I know that feeling of shame, dejection, and feeling like maybe you're never really in the clear. I have always recognized how dependent I am on grace, and take to heart the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians, "take heed, lest you fall." I come from a sinful past, not the grittiest but not the prettiest either; in any case, it doesn't matter much how it compares to others. We are all slaves bought with blood, ransomed when we had no power to lift ourselves from the miry well we had fallen in.

One thing I have been struggling with is a bubbling over, frothing disgust almost which lately the devil seems to be capitalizing on. Beneath the surface, I think, is disappointment--feeling like no matter what I do in the faith, my kids will cede to the culture and apostatize. That no matter how lonely I am in my faith walk, no amount of friendships will plug that hole (which is reserved for God alone). And even just the disappointment with my men's group, and how my expectations for things that last are maybe the cause, when in most cases they just can't sustain themselves over the years and fade away. I have a very Augustinian heart, and find that even as my faith and prayer life is deepening, that my disgust with the world and the things in it has been increasing. I find myself wearied by life, and praying for a swift and early death.

But, I cannot hate my brother(s) and still love God, as scripture says; for I would be a liar. I feel in my bones this tension of needing community, social things, being able to lean on people, and being disgusted with this need, seeing it as a kind of weakness. And yet, solitude which may be deepening for my prayer life and faith, is hard to bear for long periods of time. In this limbo, there's tension rather than peace, like I'm on a kind of rack where my limbs get stretched til they pop their sockets. 

Part of that disgust bleeds over into my own trad circle--a kind of self-righteousness and insularity that doesn't go outside itself. I find I have this calling, it seems, to do the corporal as well as the spiritual works of mercy, as it is what we will be judged on (our charity): feeding the poor, clothing the naked, visiting the sick. I used to do all these things as a "normie" Catholic (I have been trying to get back to the prison where I ministered to inmates, but the prison used COVID as an excuse to continue to close things down to visitors), and yet I see none of this intentionally spoken about or prioritized by the traditionalists in my circle. Maybe they do, and I just don't see it. But I'm afraid of how I will be sentenced at the judgment for my resting on the "well, trads don't do that stuff, that's for SJW normie Catholics, we pray our rosary and attend the TLM which is more efficacious" mentality. 

When I think of my judgment, in fact, I shudder, and I'm not even being dramatic. I'm doing all the "right things"--daily rosary, half hour mental prayer a day, First Friday/First Saturday, Mass, adoration, spiritual reading, etc. And yet I know that kind of perfection of the saints is a long way off due to my selfish nature, unwillingness to suffer, lack of charity to my neighbor, self-love, sins of the tongue, etc. I have no hope but by grace, and I'm not even joking. 

I am so incredibly lonely, despite the fact that I have lots of friends and a great wife and family. I realize, too, I don't really have the grounds to complain about being lonely either given all that. But there's just something gnawing at me, a kind of sadness at this constant liminality of the relationships I do have. I have been hoping this longing would lead me into a greater depth of prayer, but again, it foments into disgust with the world, and yet lacking the sweet consolation of the spiritual. I just have this tension, and sense of loss, and disgust with myself and the fact that what I want from others I can't even actualize in myself for their sake--that is, selflessness, and being there for others when they most need it.

I realize my disposition is more of a female nature--again, it goes back to this disgust at this seeming need to have connection with other people, to share deeply, to love and be loved fraternally...and yet for most of the guys I interact with, this just isn't a thing or a need for them. Most are content to just work and be with their families, and I should be too as a man. But I'm not, for whatever reason. Maybe that longing for the things that will never be in this world is what keeps pushing us closer to God, who can and does satisfy these unfillable longings, and THAT is their purpose. I can't connect with women (because it's not appropriate to my state in life) and I can't connect with men (because of this deficiency in need) and so I try to connect with God in this deep, strange sadness and it's just...silence. The dark silent host that doesn't speak, doesn't affirm, but just IS.

I've gone on long enough. Apologies in advance for laying this on you. I just thought maybe you might understand some of this "wrestling with the angel" and having your hip popped out of socket. 

God bless you, and take care.

R

Why Do I Write?

There was a song in Good Will Hunting by Luscious Jackson titled "Why Do I Lie?" It's catchy, I like it, and I liked the movie when I saw it twenty years ago. It also reminds me of one of my favorite and meaty passages of scripture, Romans 7, where Paul asks "Why Do I Do That Which I Hate?" So apropros. 

It's good to take stock of why we do the things we do from time to time. A smoker might ask themselves "why do I smoke?" Or an over-eater why they overeat. Because I'm anti-social? Because I lack confidence? Because I need a bit of pleasure here and there through vice? Because I'm anxious? It helps us get to the root of our motivations, why we do the things we do. Most people go through life with little self-reflection, and so find themselves trapped in cycles of self-perpetuating habits.

Writing is no different. I was thinking about it this morning and came up with a few reasons as I reflected on them.

Charity

I try to write as an act of charity, first and foremost. My hope has always been to do the work of an an evangelist, but my writing has shifted over the years to also trying to fortify the people of God in their own walks. Not by prescribing anything, but as an act of solidarity from one sinner to another. To give witness to the love of God, and grace. As St. Paul says, "in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it" (1 Cor 9:18). This is because I have been forgiven a debt, and the debt I must work to repay.

Penance

Writing is less a penance than something I just do--neither pleasurable nor painful. But as above, God has entrusted some kind of talent in me, that I'm apt to bury, but just can't. So, the goal is to multiply it for His glory. That means if any of it is about me, it is only as a subject, not a focus. Defer, deflect--all glory to God and the Gospel. I could think of worse penances. 

Compulsion

There could also be worse activities of compulsion: gambling, drug use, etc. Compulsion is a strong force; even when we want to stop, we can't sometimes except by a monumental act of the will. As Jeremiah lamented, "I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones" (Jer 20:9). This is what writing is for me. A shame and a glory. A fire and a scarring. A hot potato that needs to be passed to someone else, lest it burn your hands.  Paul said he was "compelled" to preach the Gospel (1 Cor 9:16). He fears if he does not. Maybe that is what I mean by compulsion.

Encouragement

I am not a good friend. But Sometimes I can be a cheerleader for the faithful of Jesus Christ, even though I get burdened myself. That's when it gets tough, and doubt creeps in. "What you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach oth­ers as well” (2 Tim 2:2). I don't sleep a whole lot, and think, chew cud, process, discern, and spit out. What's there is, I figure, maybe of use to others who may not have the time to digest the weighter matters of faith. 

Vanity

This is becoming less of an issue the older I get, but I did want my name out there for a while. This has faded, as Ecclesiastes notes, "all is vanity." So much vanity out there, a vice we're not often aware of. It goes back to that self-reflection: why do we do the things we do? Jesus says to not let our left hand know what our right is doing. This is good, because as I've said on more than one occasion: you're not that important. People can live without your insights. It keeps me in my place. Deo Gratias. But affirmation is my love language, so it's an ongoing struggle. 

Connection and Community

I also like to connect people together by way of degree. Maybe my writing can serve that purpose, string disparagent people in different isolated circles together. Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon and all that. Again, all for the sake of the Gospel. There is solace in knowing you are not alone--especially if you've felt the acute pain of loneliness, as I have, even in the midst of others. Feel free to use the blog as a well of sorts to meet and discuss. Comments are always open.

Education

I'm not an especially educated person, but I used to read (a lot!) and think about things, and there is so much to learn in the Church you will never plumb the depths. That is a great gift to have such a bottomless well of grace and tradition and history. I'm just scratching the surface and offering the flakes for others.

 Legacy and Remembering

I write to remember. For better or worse. I want to leave a legacy for my children. My wife has aleady threatened to print and compile all 600 of my blog posts from the past few years for them. I do it for me. For the Lord. But also for them. Lord, just let it be after I pass, though. It's too embarrassing otherwise. Let it be a kind of knit-blanket from their father they can keep to remember me.

Working Out My Demons

I write to process. I talk things out with my wife and friends, too, but writing is where I do it alone. It goes back to that question of "why do I do that which I do?" I have time to think and digest, and throw it up on a page for later. To go back to, maybe, to learn and more forward. Breadcrumbs for my family, and my own consciousness. I struggle sometimes, a lot. It's for me, not anyone else. But I'd rather it be used than sit rotting in a diary somewhere. I've benefitted greatly from the honest humanity of others. Maybe I can pay it back someday in the same way.

Glory to God

All glory belongs to God. I didn't ask for this. I don't know why I do it. But He does and he knows what He is about. Just use me Lord, as embarrassing as it is. Just don't let it be about me. Take it all and make it new.

Letter To An Aspiring Writer

 

Someone reached out to me today via LinkedIn seeking advice and constructive feedback on getting started as a writer, specifically as a Catholic writer. I imagine they came across one of my published articles on-line and were wondering where to get published, where to connect with other writers, and how to obtain feedback on their own work. This is not the first time someone has reached out in this way. 

I haven't responded, though I thought it would be a good opportunity to kill a few birds with one stone with a blog post on the topic in the form of a letter to said inquirer.

Dear _______,

Thank you for reaching out. No need for academic salutations; I am not a Professor, and am not an instructor. To be honest, I don't even consider myself a proper writer. I've never learned the discipline in a formal sense, aside from high school English and a couple of Creative Writing classes in college. As I find myself saying often, I'm just a guy who writes some things every now and then. 

I may or may not be of any help to you when it comes to your inquiry. Though I have a few published articles, essays, and poetry floating out there on-line, it is for the most part incidental that they exist. I have been writing for as long as I can remember, try as I might to hang it up for good. Every attempt to do so invokes the deep, resigned sighs of Jeremiah the Prophet, "But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot" (Jer 20:9)

For novice writers (as you describe yourself), having your work published (whether in periodicals, books, or other mediums) seems at first to be the pen-ultimate validation. No one says, "I want to wander in the desert for forty years." They say, "I want to reach the Promised Land."

But wandering in the desert in search of something for years, decades on end, even, is more in line with the vocation of a writer. There is no Promised Land, no resting ground where one can say "I've made it." There is only the mirage of oasis after pit-stop oasis.

The Israelites would frequently erect altars of remembrance  to remember what Yahweh had done for them as a people (see Genesis 28, 33, 35; Exodus 17, 24; Joshua 4). Writing is not unlike this. Because my short and long-term memory is so poor, writing is a way for me (and anyone really) to remember. It is also a way to find out who we were, who we are, and who we are to become. People often journal for this reason.

But journaling is not what you are seeking advice on, if I can speculate. A person who journals writes for themselves and themselves alone; a writer is, alas, burdened with the compulsive need to have his words read by someone other than himself. Whereas a journaler would be aghast were someone sneak into their room and read their diary, a writer would not put it past himself to leave such written accounts out in the plain sight of day in the hopes that someone, somewhere, will discover it.

It's curious, isn't it. Is this vain-glory, exhibitionism? I have wrestled with this over the years, the need to be acknowledged. I have even prayed novenas to Our Lady petitioning for the grace to be untethered from "the praise and adulation of men." My blog is a diary of sorts, but if I were the only one able to view it, I would have shut it down years ago. It's an outlet of sorts, yes. But the burning need for it to be given over to someone (anyone) somewhere (anywhere!) accompanies it. 

I gave up coffee for Lent. In a sense, being published is like that first sip of coffee after a month and a half of tea. You'd been anticipating the day when you can have it. And then you do. And then it's done. You are still yourself; it's now just a little harder to hide.

I joke with my wife (half joking, quarter joking, not really joking) that our kids can be whatever they want when they grow up. They just can't be writers. In thirty years of writing, I could probably pay for a month's worth of groceries from Aldi with what I've been paid for my "labor." And that's ok; I'm not a writer anyway. But if I were, as I say to my wife, "it's a cruel fate indeed." 

I like to garden; but I wouldn't want to be a landscaper. I like to monkey on bikes in my garage, but I would never want to be a professional mechanic. I love my Catholic faith, but the day I pay my mortgage with YouTube apologetic videos or podcast musings would be the death knell of zeal. 

Writing is like this. My father, pragmatic as he was and is, was right: hobbies are good, and writing for me really is a hobby, and maybe a little more. It's a way to live--to make sense of life--but it's no way to make a living. I'm not sure if that is/was your intention in reaching out (I'm speculating), to see about how to make a living or side-income from writing and/or publishing. Forgive me for assumptions. But I can think of no other endeavor that bleeds so much out of you for so little given in restitution. 

Which brings me to my next point. In meditating on Christ writhing in agony on the Cross, it can sometimes cross one's mind to ask, "Why would anyone endure such a thing?" Why would anyone literally bleed out, crushed by the weight of unrequited love, poured out as an unbibed drink offering, abandoned and alone in his final hour with the echoes of "Hosanna!" ringing in his ear? Only a fool would give himself over to such a fate. Only a fool would die for love. 

And yet we are fools following Christ, the God of redeemed folly. "God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe" (1 Cor 1:21)."

Think of publishing as your Palm Sunday, while remitting your true opus as a writer to the cross. Because if you want to be a Catholic writer with anything to offer the world, this is where you nail up your work. Naked and uncovered, on full frontal display, with only your mother and a close friend as your final faithful audience. Those palm-laying masses? They are retiring in their home. Your disciples and friends? Denying they even knew you. You're not even sure your own Father is there to acknowledge your offering.

But here's the difference: when you give freely of what you've been given, the gift multiplies. When charity has been perfected, it is no longer self-seeking (1 Cor 13:5). It gives, and it gives. If I can say anything truthfully, this is what I have always tried to do as a "writer." Sure it starts out like a freshman nursing student who enters into the profession because she wants to "help people." Over time, that naivite becomes calloused over with the scars of rejection after rejection, the seeming pointlessness of tapping away on a keyboard at 3am ("for what?"), the slight-of-hand critical remarks on your syntax that you take to heart and die over. But it becomes a burning ember, not a flickering flame. If you can retain the heat of pure intention--to write in order that you might give--you can continue in your vocation. 

Speaking of vocation, I have tried not to curse what God has given me, though not always successfully. "Do not call unclean what God has called clean" (Acts 11:9). It's not easy. Writers are minor prophets--warning, admonishing, lamenting, praising. To be good you have to know your place and your calling, where it is you fill in the cracks with the mortar of your spilled ink. 

Do you want to write for yourself? Buy a diary. Do you want to be recognized? Start a TikTok channel. Do you want to coax depressives off a ledge, inspire the young, give fortitude to the weak, console the heartbroken, speak the Truth, fill the hopeless with hope, the faithless with faith? Then do that, with the tools God has entrusted you with--the pen (or keyboard, as it were). You may never get paid for it and may never be recognized on the street.  But consider those the upsides rather than drawbacks. If God has given you a gift, He expects it to be used, not buried (Mt 25:14-30). The safest place for your talents is with the banker, not in the ground.      

Do I have any closing advice for you with regards to writing? I'll give you the advice that was given to me: just write. And I'll add my own: make yourself and your words a gift to the world, given freely and without charge. If you do that, I suspect you'll never be disappointed. Because in the end, you may die a fool...but you'll die hanging on a tree with the best of them.

Nobody Cares About Your Book

 

For years people have been telling me "you have to write a book." I have wanted to believe them. Though I may not have the aptitude, I do have the time. I've got some ideas. But something in me (Laziness? Lack of motivation? Knowing too much?) just doesn't feel called to invest it that way. 

I like to write. I love my faith. But I thank my sweet Jesus every day neither are associated with me earning my daily bread. I don't know of any other industry (publishing) in which one invests so much in order to gain so little. Maybe that's why I still write every few days and still have faith.

I know many people who churn out books because their families or career depend on it. They may have the discipline or aptitude for it. Maybe it is easier once you have a few titles under your belt to gain notoriety and increase sales. I don't know. I think the average advance for the average author is something like $5k...and that's an advance, not net. The average U.S. nonfiction book is now selling less than 250 copies per year and less than 3,000 copies over it's lifetime. 

So why should you write a book? I don't know, really. Do people even buy and read books anymore? I'm sure some do, maybe the same percentage of the general population numbers-wise who pay for a New York Times subscription. "If one writes a book in the forest and there's no one to read it, does it really exist?" Any joe can write a book today and send it out via self-publishing to the universe. With this comes distillation and saturation. 

Much like the 401k has replaced the traditional pension and shifted the risk from employer to employee, publishers have shifted much of the promotion responsibilities to the authors. So not only do you get the privilege of writing a book for what averages out to be $12/hr, you get to promote it to all the people you know (friends and family?) in MLM-type fashion.  

But what if the world "really needs your message?" Can't I do that on a blog? A website? A Substack newsletter? An email listserv?  Isn't that what I do here (and what I subsequently look forward to doing, offering free of charge, because I have no ulterior motive for doing so?)

But being a published author is "so cool." Really? Most of those I know who have published and built it up as a supreme moment of validation from the outside world secretly know the post-publication letdown and depression is real. You spent months and possibly years formulating, editing, honing...time away from your family, all the joy being sucked dry from the project to be met with the polar opposite of critical acclaim or affirmation: indifference. 

Artists already know this: people don't want to pay for the the cow when they can get the milk for free. Prostitutes know this too, which is why they charge for pleasure and don't just give it away! We live in a world of unbridled content consumption. We are consumers in the appetite sense, not just the market sense. We gorge on podcasts and online articles, social media feeds, and videos. The result? There are no masterpieces anymore. No symphonies. No life-changing novels. We merely consume to distract, gleaning and extracting maybe 5% on average of useful content from any one medium, rinse and repeat. 

I don't even mind pumping out blog posts once a week to feed those who consume content, because I do the same dang thing! No judgment, and happy to be of service. I just don't take myself or my blog too seriously is all. I'm truthful and sincere, but my investment in the work is admittedly small. 

But a book is kind of serious, a commitment. The ISBN is a kind of literary tattoo attached to your name for life. Once you sell your song, your art, your writing in exchange for the feeling that you've 'made it' as somehow legit, you don't own it anymore. It's not yours to do what you want with anymore. There's a price attached to that, whether you admit it or not. Some people may relish in that. 

For me, I don't know where the hesitancy comes from. I'm secure enough that I don't seek or need validation. Nothing I have to say is focused, coherent, or important enough to warrant the investment a book requires. I have no illusions about any glamour attached to being an author; it's akin to "being your own boss" and anyone who is their own boss knows there are some upsides...and a legion of liabilities. 

 Mostly, though, I think times have changed. The industry (publishing) is hanging on life support. Razor thin margins. Oversaturation. Lots of risk with minimal returns. People's attention spans have dropped off; the thought of reading War and Peace today is almost unthinkable, though twenty years ago I would have looked forward to it. 

If you've written a book, good on you. This isn't a judgement post, and we all have different reasons and motivations for the endeavors we invest in. I don't think I have it in me, for the reasons outlined above, though I'm happy to keep blogging and being a largely unknown JV observer and recorder of life as I see it.  

"These Things I Remembered"

 I'll never forget the day my wife called me when she was going into labor for the first time. I was at a recruiting event in Annapolis when she called my cell and asked if I could come home. I packed up my table and told the people next to me, "Gotta go...we're having a baby."

She wasn't going into labor right away, so I wasn't rushing and still had a good four hour drive. It was late October, and there was a fog over the cornfields of southern Delaware as I made my way over the expansive Chesapeake Bay bridge and up route 13 through the Eastern Shore. I turned on the radio and Adele's "Someone Like You" was playing; to this day I can't hear it without thinking of that drive home before our lives became something else entirely, and only for the better, an audible mile marker in my memory.

I still have to ask my wife (as I did tonight as were lying in bed) what time our kids were born. The fact of the matter is, I'm not good with details; I remember the forests, the macro snapshots--like my drive home over the Chesapeake--not the trees. One of my favorite bands in high school was Hüsker Dü, which means "do you remember" in Danish. Maybe it is the years of being on psychotropic medication, but I can be like Guy Pierce in Memento at times--not quite short term memory loss or early onset dementia in any way, but a somewhat concerning inability to remember things. 

So, it's important for me to remember. I have to write things down. If I was ever deposed, it would be a nightmare, because I can't even remember what I did the day before sometimes, and would be an unreliable witness unable to remember dates and times. I rely on my wife for those things.

As we were talking this evening about our (well, my) recent plans to delete my one and only social media account--Facebook--in the next month, I went back and forth as to whether to download my ten years worth of posts, pictures, and conversations from the site to a hard drive, or whether to just take the nuclear option and leave like a ghost without a trace.

The fact of the matter is, I write to remember. I've spent half my life doing just that--in notebooks, letters, word docs, and, yes, blogs. My wife asked if I would print out my former blog to preserve it for our family as a kind of legacy, for our kids as well as her. It is, after all, an important part of what brought us together, when she read it before we met for the first time and felt like she was doing something she shouldn't. When I exported it to pdf, it was 900 pages long. For her, the physical copies are important. In a digital age, she likes leather photo albums. She saves Christmas and birthday cards. And so she wants the paper version of something she may never read again, but at least she has in physical form. 

When it comes to Facebook, though, I'm not sure a decades worth of posts and interactions is worth preserving--at least not in the same way that the memories and mementos I truly do cherish should be preserved. Social media by its very nature is fleeting--read one moment, perhaps generating a flurry of likes or explosion of comments, but quickly forgotten in the ether a week later. Many of the interactions are with perfect strangers. And underlying it is the unnerving nature of social media in general at fomenting division and tribalism, not to mention our own personal form of cancel culture. 

For a good while now, I have wanted to leave, and never had a good enough reason. With the alarming rise of digital censorship, the foreign influence of the CCP, and the fact that maybe, just maybe, this 'social experiment' is not in fact a good thing for us as a society--well, it took a while, but I think I have given what I asked for in prayer: an out. I've made some great connections (many of which I've developed in real life as well as a result of the site) and there will be a big part of me that misses it, but not enough to outweigh the robbery of my time and energy and the feeling of being, well, used by forces I would rather have nothing to do with. And so, I think I will be taking the ghost option of letting it lie as a chapter from the past, not one to be preserved, but like a house fire you were 5 minutes too late too.

I am beginning to read the Lamentations of Jeremiah. It is both a funeral dirge to the dead and a poetic lament to the destruction of Jerusalem and the desertion of God from the city on account of their national sins. Apt, wouldn't you say? So much of the Jewish experience lies in remembering--the Passover, the Exodus, the time before the Exile. You don't remember what you had until you lose it. 

We may find ourselves in the days to come echoing the Psalmist: "These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me : for I shall go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God : With the voice of joy and praise; the noise of one feasting." (Ps 42:4). Will we look back and say, "Remember when we could go to Mass? Receive the Eucharist? See our brothers and sisters in the Lord--in the flesh?"? Will these be our Lamentations--that when the Lord was known, at our fingertips, we did not remember Him until it was too late? "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found" (Is 55:6). 

It occurred to me that though this has been a queer year to say the least, there have been some upsides--working from home has allowed me more time with my kids; my wife and I still managed to have some memorable date nights; we've all gone on hikes and played in the snow. And I've caught myself thinking at times that these will become the memories in the possibly very dark days ahead that I will want to preserve, that I shouldn't take for granted, because faith and family are the only things that really matter in the end. We will look back and say, "remember when we used to laugh in the kitchen? Remember when we would lie on the couch together and read? Remember when we would eat dinner together?" And it will seem like an age ago, like a mirage in a desert given what we are up against as Christian believers. 

We simply don't know what's in store for the future--but we can know our past, and preserve those memorial mental snapshots of life for the times when we need to remember. And to do that, we need to be attentive to the present, which is where there gestation of memory takes place, not distracting ourselves with fear of the future or gorging on news feeds or constant posting about this or that aspect of the political realm. We need to make space in our minds to preserve what is important, and not be afraid to do a data dump of the non-essential, as the apostles were told by our Lord, "Take nothing for your journey; neither staff, nor scrip, nor bread, nor money; neither have two coats." (Lk 9:3). 

There is a great (unscripted) part in the movie Good Will Hunting when Robin Williams is talking with the young Matt Damon about his late wife who died of cancer:

"My wife used to fart when she was nervous. She had all sorts of wonderful little idiosyncrasies. She used to fart in her sleep. One night it was so loud it woke the dog up. She woke up and went, “ah was that you?” And I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

But Will, she's been dead for 2 years, and that’s the stuff I remember: wonderful stuff you know? Little things like that. Those are the things I miss the most. The little idiosyncrasies that only I know about: that’s what made her my wife. Oh she had the goods on me too, she knew all my little peccadilloes. People call these things imperfections, but they're not. Ah, that’s the good stuff."

He's right. That is the good stuff; the stuff otherwise that goes unnoticed. But it' also the most worthy of memory, because it's 'offline' so to speak. The moments that take place in the intimacy of a bedroom, or a car ride, or an impromptu dance party with your kids in the kitchen. We don't set out to make moments like that--like life, the best parts just happen. Just be sure to pay enough attention when they do. So you can remember.

Famous Last Words

Blogging today, when you are a nobody like me, is a little like small-scale organic farming. You show up at the inefficient but quaint farmer's market each week, dutifully. People love your fresh brown eggs and parsnips. You might even have a unique treat you're known for, like home-grown morrells or apple-cider donuts, that draw a faithful dozen to your stand week after week. It's a nice group of people who meander through. The county newspaper did an article on your enterprise that highlighted the role of the local farmer. You know your efforts are not really 'worth it' the way big ag would calculate it, and you have to take a second job off the farm, but you are 'adding value' through community building, sustainable development, and micro-harvesting, and giving people a connection to their food with the hands who produced it. There is value there, an idealism being kept alive because of the people who support it.

I've been writing on Blogger since 2007, when blogging was in its prime. I had an eclectic blog titled Rob's Fobs that I retired after eight years. It consisted of poetry, short stories, plays, inventions, musings, and struggles with mental health. In 2015 I wanted to have a blog focused more narrowly on my life of faith, how I lived as a Catholic man, a husband, father, and disciple of Jesus Christ. Anything not having to do with faith, family, marriage, chastity, or discipleship I consciously omitted or (saved for Facebook). This was Wisdom and Folly. Prior to 2007, I blogged on (wait for it)...MySpace. I have always written, whether it was on scraps of lined notebook paper folded in the back pocket of my Gap corduroys in high school, or on a small NEC laptop in a rented room in Mexico, or pumping quarters into a desktop computer at an internet cafe in Bangkok...I've always written.

Blogging has always been a nice outlet for me. I've never tried to monetize my blog, and I'm proud of that for whatever reason. As the pastor Francis Chan said, "money makes people do weird things." I don't fault anyone for trying to make some bucks from their writing; I just felt I'd rather pick up trash from the curb and resell it on Craigslist as a way to bring in some extra cash rather than taint something I treat as a kind of sacred recreation. Writing, especially when it comes to matters of faith, isn't really valued among the general populace. Why should it be? Christ the Lord offers the Gospel as a means of salvation for all who would accept it free of charge, though it is worth more than the finest gold. And what percentage of the population joyfully hear it, take it to heart, and keep it close to their breast?

I like to offer what I write as a gift to whomever it may bless. I'm a 'take what's useful and leave the rest' kind of guy, and I imagine some of my readers are as well. I'm not big on exploiting controversy or capitalizing on the latest Church scandal or leveraging liberal nonsense as part of a conservative mouthpiece. I just write about what I feel prompted to write about as it comes, and if it pertains to faith, I entrust that intuition to the Holy Spirit to bless my efforts and keep me from error. Sometimes I'll jot down a few keywords on a bar napkin, or make a mental note during a homily at Mass, or get up in the middle of the night to pen something and stake it to a page before it expires. Writing is a compulsion and a curse. Always has been for me. A blessing and a curse.

I have always felt close to the words of the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote,

"But if I say, "I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." (Jer 20:9)

Writers, even secular ones, know this to be painfully true, this spiritual constipation. Writers write. That's why blogging today feels like a lonely enterprise...because it's really not about the writing anymore. It's about SEO, monetizing, building your network, ad revenue, pay per click, etc. Though I love to write, I'm wondering if blogging has been co-opted enough that it's lost it's plausability as a legitimate hosting platform. That's a hard pill to swallow when you've invested, oh, the past 15 years or so building and feeding your blog with content. I did a XML export of all my blog content (367 posts over the past three years at Wisdom and Folly) for PDF/docx conversion, and it's a LOT. I want to keep it. I know my wife wants to keep it. It's the public part I'm struggling with.

I am not a journaler. What I write, I write to share. If no one is going to read it, I usually don't write it. This is a double-edged sword. Writing for an audience hones and focuses your content and helps you develop your voice and style, but it's hard to detach from the need for validation, to know what you're writing is being read, to track stats and analytics. So much ego in writing, and so wily. There is also the privacy aspect, and for my family's sake, the desire to keep a lower profile, and not to exploit those tender private moments I have with my children, as I am wont to do, for the world to see.

Some people have encouraged me to consider writing a book. At this point I have no plans to, but with the blog off the table, maybe it will move me closer to consideration. I will continue to write for Catholic Stand and maybe work on branching out to other Catholic publications as well. To all thoughts contrary, I'm not drying up in the material department. I could keep writing and churning out posts and content. In fact, I feel as fresh as ever. Which is even more reason why I feel God may be calling me to put this on the altar right now while things are in their prime.

I've never really 'fit' anywhere, another struggle for me and a reason I've enjoyed maintaining a kind of independence here on Blogger. I'm not a hardcore conservative and I'm not a hardcore liberal and I'm not a liturgist and I'm not a theologian, I'm not a stay at home mom, I'm not a Thomist, I'm not a social media guru, I'm not a super Catholic, I'm just some 38 year old guy trying to get to Heaven and bring his family with him and leaving a trail of words in his wake.

I will be embarking on a 90 day prayer discipline with a few other Catholic men starting on January 21st, which will require a good bit of focus, time in prayer and scripture, and asceticism. I've decided to keep the blog public until that day, at which point it will come down and be archived. If you want to reach out via the contact form, I may be able to send you a copy via email of every post ever written in PDF 'book' form, but only if you promise to keep it to yourself! I hope to have that done sometime this week. Please stay in touch by way of email, should we happen to connect in this way.

This is not an easy decision, and I don't even grasp fully why it needs to be this way. But I am trusting the conviction, that in hoping to honor God in all things and above all things, that I would tie my words to the altar and draw the knife if it's what He wants. He has His reasons; He knows what He is about. He is leading me somewhere deeper and I don't know where, and taking my prize possessions as collateral. Who knows, maybe He will give them back some day, maybe even a hundred fold? I honestly don't know what is ahead, or what kind of outlet I will have in place of this blog. I'm trusting Him. Though he slay me, I will trust him still. (Job 13:15)

Comments are open to the public, and are enabled. I am so grateful for your support, those who promoted Wisdom and Folly and those who simply took pleasure or solace in reading.

Please pray for me, and I for you.

In Christ,

Rob
12 January 2019

The Witching Hour

I don't write about writing much, probably because I don't think of myself as a real writer. I try to keep this blog focused on issues of faith and Christian living. But that always intersects with the ramparts that hold up the theme, and that is the act of writing itself. So it may deserve a little in memoriam post of its own.

Despite the fact that I have been writing without pause for over twenty years, I will usually refer to myself as 'a guy who writes,' and not a writer. Anyone who wants to be a writer sees it as a blessing endowed which holds the key to unlocking their dreams. Anyone who knows what it means to be a writer (ie, one who writes) knows that is is really a curse which has you under compulsion, a compulsion you often beg in earnest to be taken from you. If you find yourself in bed at 3am, consider yourself blessed.

I don't know any other way to be, any other way to live, but I will tell you this: writing is a shameful exercise. We rightfully recoil and seek to cover up someone who disrobes in the public square. And yet those who write, who are urged forward by silent muses, do it all the time, for the public and in the public square, for all to see. It's almost like a koan: if a writer writes his words, and there is no one to read it, does it make a sound? I'm not a journaler. I have no use in writing secret words for my eyes only. I write to be read. The depths of my pride and exhibitionism know no bounds.

Every writer knows they are at heart a kind of fraud, or at least that is the fear. Aren't we all, in some way or another? Don't we all curse the day we were born, at some point? But here's the rub, and the honest truth: I don't like who I am. It took a searing private message from a virtual stranger taking me to task to remind me of this. It was something I was grateful to receive, but man did it sting, and in the best most humiliating way possible. Social media is both a blessing and a curse. I want to do the work God has set before me and honor Him in that, but that public exhibitionism so inherent in writing--about everything--often bleeds into this work, and it shows up there. It's not enough to do something for the greater glory of God in obscurity--I need to make it known to the world. Because everything in life you see as a story, because you see opportunities to write and exhibit and make sense of your life as narrative in everything you do, when you end up doing the work God calls you to, you write about it shamelessly. You hope it is for the benefit of others, you want your light to shine before others, but pride is pernicious, and the capacity for self-deception runs deep. When you are filled with doubt in the dead of night, there's no one to turn to. The people you love most are asleep upstairs, the friends you rely on for building up and support have retired to their respective beds, and the God you serve is silent in the vigil hours. My wife has heard me lament ad nauseum: why can't I be normal? What is wrong with me, and how can you stand to be married to me?

In reading the words of the prophet Jeremiah tonight, I found some solace--not because of anything prophetic on my part, but because his lament is one I have uttered myself.

O Lord, You have deceived me and I was deceived;
You have overcome me and prevailed. 
I have become a laughingstock all day long; 
Everyone mocks me. For each time I speak, I cry aloud; 
I proclaim violence and destruction, 
Because for me the word of the Lord has resulted
In reproach and derision all day long. 
But if I say, “I will not remember Him Or speak anymore in His name,”
Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire 
Shut up in my bones; 
And I am weary of holding it in, 
And I cannot endure it.
For I have heard the whispering of many,
“Terror on every side!Denounce him; yes, let us denounce him!”
All my trusted friends,
Watching for my fall, say:
“Perhaps he will be deceived, so that we may prevail against him
And take our revenge on him.”

But the Lord is with me like a dread champion;
Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
They will be utterly ashamed, because they have failed,
With an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.
Yet, O Lord of hosts, You who test the righteous,
Who see the mind and the heart;
Let me see Your vengeance on them;
For to You I have set forth my cause.
Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord!
For He has delivered the soul of the needy oneFrom the hand of evildoers. 
 Cursed be the day when I was born;
Let the day not be blessed when my mother bore me! 
Cursed be the man who brought the news
To my father, saying,“A baby boy has been born to you!”
And made him very happy.
But let that man be like the cities
Which the Lord overthrew without relenting,
And let him hear an outcry in the morning
And a shout of alarm at noon;
Because he did not kill me before birth,
So that my mother would have been my grave,
And her womb ever pregnant.
Why did I ever come forth from the womb
To look on trouble and sorrow,
So that my days have been spent in shame?"
(Jer 20:1-18)

As Monsignor Pope said of Jeremiah, the best kind of prophets are the reluctant ones.  Nobody should want to be a spiritual director, or a prophet, or a writer, or a guider of souls, or a person of influence. As Msgr Pope writes,

"Prophets suffer because they love and care for the ultimate well-being of God’s people, not merely their present comfort. They suffer because they do not fit into tidy political or tribal categories. They speak for God, who transcends such groups. Yes, although the prophet is totaliter aliter (totally other), the human cost is high, and he comes to resemble Christ on the cross. The prophet’s own notions of grandeur must be crucified. The idea that most people will ultimately accept the truth must be crucified."

This is not my issue, because I am not a prophet or called to that task. But my struggle to simply avoid sin, as well as self-recognition and affirmation, is burdensome. It's the 3am dawns, when you've been up most of the night wrestling and then the embarrassing compulsion of being driven to write about it, as you do with everything, drives home an even deeper truth of how tied you are to the world, how amateur in the spiritual realm, how sensitive to criticism, how unable to sit with tension, how unsure, how weak, how prideful, how effeminate in the need to express and how far from the strong and silent type you are, how unwilling to do what is arduous and uncomfortable, how quick to complain and seek out consolation.

And yet...

And yet despite all that, I do not doubt God's love for me at 3am, steeped in sin and pride and worldliness. As much as I lament with Jeremiah the day of my birth, I also read the words of David and share the quiet acknowledgement of His wonderful deeds, His intricate creations.

O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.

O that You would slay the wicked, O God; Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. For they speak against You wickedly, And Your enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way. (Ps 139)

He knows my anxious thoughts. He searches me and knows my heart, even when I don't know it, or am caught off guard by it. He knows everything about me, and has a plan for me--yes, that grand narrative lens I see the world through as a writer, as a Christian, as a sojourner. When I try to keep it in, keep the screen clean, the page blank, my bones groan. Please leave the thorns in my ribs, if they be for Your purposes, since your grace is sufficient (2 Cor 12:9). See in me, Lord, if there be any hurtful way in me. And don't leave my side, even in the dead of night. My sin is ever before me. When I am awake, let me still be with You.

Please pray for me.