Bonafide

If you're into food at all, there's a couple buzzwords used when it comes to labeling you may have heard used.

The first is "All Natural." Now, all natural is, as you may (or may not) know, a bullshit term. It means nothing--or more accurately it can mean whatever you want it to mean--but it sounds good. Marketers love it for this reason, and they usually combine it with pictures of a barn and silo, and cow grazing in a field, and bank on people not really knowing the difference or caring.

There is another term you might have seen--"USDA Organic." Now, this is another crunchy term, but unlike 'all natural,' for something to be certified organic, it needs to meet a stringent set of objective criteria to meet standards. Slapping a USDA Organic label on something that hasn't been certified is like pirating music and carries similar legal ramifications. This is part of the reason why organic food is seemingly so expensive. But it's also necessary to prevent counterfit organics capitalizing on the label and higher profit margin.

I also see these food label parallels when it comes to the spiritual life. The Church has always maintained a pragmatic and certifiable approach to canonization. The investigative process is extensive, and two verifiable miracles--which themselves must meet certain criteria--due to the intercession of the holy person being considered are necessary. It is not a willy-nilly process, but lengthy, thorough, and conservative.

Why is such a scripted and seemingly legalistic approach to declaring someone a saint necessary? I suppose for the same reason why 'USDA ORGANIC' certification is necessary--to protect people from 'all natural' counterfit. When I ask St. Jude the Apostle to intercede on my behalf, I can be assured he is in Heaven close to the Father and trust that he is able to work miracles through the power of God. He is Certified Holy, as are hundreds of thousands of others named by the Church.

Can we pray to those who we trust are in heaven though not yet canonized? Of course. If you want to make the parallel, it can be likened to eating organic food from the local farm whose organic practices you know are legit, but who haven't gone through the formal USDA certification process. This is the communion of saints after all--the Church Penitent (those being purified in purgatory on their way to Heaven), the Church Militant (those working out their salvation on earth), and the Church Triumphant (those in Heaven). Prayers for intercession to those holy people who have died are, after all, what often lead to miracles and eventual canonization or beatification.

As we grow more and more accustomed to terms that sounds legit but in reality mean very little and have little basis in objective reality, I appreciate a little certifiable objectivity to reign things in an overwhelming subjective culture, as well as to those who speak to certain objective realities. As G.K. Chesterton famously noted in Orthodoxy:

"Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.

Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. "

"I Liked You The Way You Were Before"

One afternoon a few months ago my wife and I came downstairs and the boy who lives across the street was standing in our living room, petting our dog. "She's a nice dog," he said.

Yes, nice dog, thanks. Now, um, can we...help you with something? Where is your dad?

I do know that he has Asperger's, so was not totally alarmed, but still, it threw me a little that he would just walk in a stranger's house without knocking or anything. Most people would take that as a given that that's not something you do. It's funny the things we take for granted.

I recently read a NYT article about a man with autism who underwent experimental treatment so that he would experience emotions. ("An Experimental Autism Treatment Cost Me My Marriage"). He went from being "autistically even keeled" emotionally (which his wife, as a chronically depressed person, appreciated) to someone "joyfully shedding the cloak of disability" and being in tune with not only his own emotions and social cues, but others as well--something foreign to him as an autistic man.

The NYT article made me think about the question the author poses as it relates to marriage: "Normally, people change in a marriage over time. What happens when one person changes overnight?"

There has to be something deeper than what we see when we marry someone. Something at the core. I don't know because we haven't hit that, but I have to trust that it's there. If you've ever been to a wedding where people have written their own vows, sometimes you might hear things like "I love it when you laugh at my jokes; I love spending Saturday mornings with you sipping coffee and listening to the birds chipping outside out window. I will always be your partner in crime." Great stuff, no doubt.  But not core material.

We took the standard vows at our wedding--you know, the "for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health..." I wanted to share the same vows that hundreds of thousands of couples before us shared with one another. I don't know why--maybe it made me feel in corporal solidarity or something with those who have gone before us down this path. But regardless, vows are vows. They are your life raft in the choppy ocean that you cling to sometimes when there is nothing else to hold on to; the mast you tie yourself to, like Odysseus, when the siren songs of temptation threaten to crash your ship into the rocks.

If I did write my own vows, though, I would hope it would be something like: I will love you when I am changing your adult diaper. I will love you after the lobotomy when you are a shell of your former self. I will be there when you are no longer the person that I married. 

It's scary to think that you might wake up one day next to a stranger--same body, different mind. Same mind, different emotions. Same emotions, different spirit--when your partner in crime says to you, "I liked you better the way you were before." You see this situation (sans the preference qualifier) sometimes with those sweet old couples where one has Dementia / Alzheimers. It's a testament to the vow--the external, objective, the anchor in a choppy sea of feelings, expectations, and change--and to a love that runs deep, that drills down to the core of a person when they are in fact a shell of their former self.

We are coming up on our 6th wedding anniversary this summer, and also have a few weddings coming up we are attending this busy summer. We're babies in the game, and have a lifetime of change ahead of us. It's made me reflect on the core of my wife, what exists ephemerally beneath the beautiful skin and bones, the glowing spirit, but also to the dreadful uncertainty of a future that isn't here yet and doesn't metaphysically yet exist.

Dig your nails into those vows. Clutch them close to your breast, stake them down hard. Believe them when you don't believe anything else and everything in you is screaming to leave. Drop anchor in the storm. If you're in good times now, enjoy it, don't take it for granted, and drink it in. If you're not, if life is not happy and is in fact a living hell, for God's sake...just hold on. And don't forget your promises.

Those Who Know Mercy Speak To Mercy

I read the full gamit of Catholic blogs and commentaries online. I read conservative blogs and I also read less-than-conservative blogs. I read comments. One thing I've noticed is that whenever Pope Francis drops words like 'mercy' and 'love', traditionalists get defensive and are quick to qualify. "Yes, we need mercy, but we also need THE LAW and CLEAR MORAL TEACHING!" "Sure, the woman caught in adultery in the bible was forgiven, but JESUS SAID TO HER 'SIN MORE MORE' YOU CAN'T FORGET ABOUT THAT PART!"

Terminology like mercy and love seem to have twitchy PTSD type effects for those who have grown up grudgingly through the Vatical II era and associate such words with the "feel-good, wishy-washy, social-justicey type of cafeteria catholicism that got us all into this mess in the first place." Vatican II was a response to the (in my opinion) comfortable and insular enclave of traditionalism and clericalism that saw the modern world passing by through the stained glass windows and shrugged its shoulders.

Likewise, radical traditionalism is a counter response to the Vatical II response of how to be the 'Church in the modern world.' Radical Traditionalism does not 'open the windows to the modern world,' but shuts them tight lest the noxious gases waft into the sanctuary and spoil the wine and hosts. It seeks to circle the wagons and preserve the remnant of what is left of the 'true church' in a kind of Donatist-like vetting system for who is a true Catholic and who is not.

Now, I don't fall into either of these two camps very squarely, though I appreciate what each is trying to accomplish. Which is maybe why I appreciated Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis' recent apostolic exhortation on marriage, family, and the 'Joy of Love.' Because I think it tends to speak to the middle--that is, upholding and reiterating the Church's traditional teaching on the ideals of marriage and family while also speaking pastorally in recognizing and acknowledging that members of our human family--real live people--do not always live up to this ideal, and what should the response to those 'irregular' situations be.

When I read flabbergasted and sometimes angry responses from traditionalists in the combox of blogs criticizing Pope Francis and his 'confusing, unclear message that opens things up to misinterpretation' when he references squishy things like love and mercy, it comes across like this: Mercy should be prudently dispensed in a restrained manner to qualified recipients and only then, with restrictions, after a inquisition like period of judiciary discernment by a tribunal determining whether or not said person qualifies for mercy.

If you've ever known mercy, been shown mercy, experienced mercy...you know this is not how mercy operates.

The examples in scripture are not lacking. The parable of the unforgiving servant, the parable of the prodigal son, the story of the woman caught in adultery. These stories paint a picture of mercy, what it looks like, using the canvas of real life. It illuminates us to the character of a God who is both just AND merciful.

You see, to those who have not experienced it, mercy is an abstract concept talked about in abstract terms, a catch phrase that is easy to criticize and dismiss as peripheral. They don't really need it, it is kind of nice but optional.

But those who know sin, know mercy.

I am currently at a professional conference for work. Nice hotel, catered meals, vendors with flashy displays, boring seminars, rehearsed and polished presentations...what you would expect for a conference.

But something interesting happened at lunch today. There were about 600 or so attendees seated at round tables in the ballroom, sitting down to their meals being brought out by servers, just kind of chitchatting, when a woman is introduced on the big screen and invited to say a few words. She is wearing a tee-shirt that says "Love Heals". She looks out into the sea of people and begins to speak. "I was addicted to drugs and working the streets. I've been arrested 87 times. I lost my kids. I had no hope." Not polished, not rehearsed. We didn't even know who she was or we she was being so uncomfortably honest in addressing a large room full of higher ed professionals. She stops for a few minutes and her eyes get wet.

"But God...God is so good."

This is a woman who has known what life is like on the other side, on the streets, where sin and darkness are the norm, not the exception, and certainly not simply concepts. But she was given a chance at a new life through the co-operative she was representing. They had a table in the lobby selling candles and beauty products made by women who were rebuilding their lives in a supportive, loving, and safe environment and seeking through entreupenerial means to provide for themselves and their families. Love and mercy were not abstract concepts to be debated in a combox--they were the embodiment of what had rescued and ransomed her from not only a metaphysical death, but a physical one as well.


God is both just and merciful, and these qualities are not at odds. He does not mete out mercy. He POURS it to excess, lavishly and unreasonably, til it is spilling over the sides and overflowing and you are drowning in it so that there is no doubt in one's mind that they have indeed been forgiven and that sin has been washed so far away that you couldn't scrounge around for it in the gutter drain if you tried...it was already out to sea.

Pharisees want a prescription, a formula that if followed correctly will lead to righteousness in a very clear A+B=C kind of way. Unfortunately real life does not always fall so neatly into line. You don't just hand someone a bible or catechism and tell them to start reading with no context, no foundation, and no instruction. Sometimes showing love and mercy is not even about teaching or instruction, but sitting on the sidewalk with someone and being late to a meeting as a result, or listening, really listening, when someone is telling you their story, or even making yourself vulnerable to caring about someone's life and being hurt as a result. Being in relationship, whether with a spouse or parents or each other or with God Himself, is dynamic and calls us to step away from the screen and get dirt under our nails. It's messy, it can sometimes be 'irregular,' it's full of ups and downs--and there is simply no substitute for it.

My Son and His Broken Heart

I want to tell you a little story. It's the story of a little boy and his broken heart.

I met Deb and the kids at the park after work. We both had had long exhausting days, I had driven up from DC that morning, and by the time we got back to the house it was late. Everyone, including me, was tired, hungry, and a little cranky. We ate some pizza and tried to get in bed a little early, but the kids were being defiant and Deb sent David to time-out.

"I don't want to go in there," he said.

"Don't be such a scaredy-cat, David," Deb told him, exacerbated.

Now, this was an innocent enough reply, and she obviously didn't mean it to make him feel bad. But feel bad he did, and he began to act out. He ripped up a picture of me he had just drawn and stomped around. Bedtime was difficult, and we couldn't figure out what was going on. Eventually things that had been bottling up for the last hour spilled over into a cacophony of unprocessed feelings. I tried to hug him but he pushed me away and told me he hated me and to leave him alone. Crying inconsolably. I had been away for work and the night before he was crying on Facetime because he said he missed me so much. Now he wanted nothing to do with me. It was emotionally exhausting, the push-and-pull.

Eventually it started to come out in little phrases between his cries and gasps for breaths. "Nobody loves me. I'm bad. I'm a scaredy-cat. I don't love anyone. I made daddy sad. This is the baddest day. My heart is broken."

As I began to see what was going on, what was at the root of it, I started to get really upset. Before Deb and I got married and started a family, I confided in her my fears of bringing life into the world burdened with the cross of mental illness, which has a strong genetic predisposition. If you knew what it was like to suffer from it, you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy.

Now, I know what you might be thinking--that this was just a toddler having a tantrum, and isn't it a little premature to be diagnosing him like that? We've had plenty of those instances. But something about tonight was different. As my son cried and wrestled with his feelings, I could literally feel his toddler pain in the way only a father can. He is so sensitive, such a little boy with such big feelings, almost too big for him. He swings from extremes. And I knew exactly what he was feeling, because I was feeling it with him, because he is my own flesh and blood...just as my my father felt the pain I went through in my darkest hours when he could do nothing to help me but be there with me in it. When you hate yourself, when you feel that all you do is cause people you love pain, when you push people away when you really want them close, when you really do feel like you are no good. It came back tonight in a flood, feelings that I hadn't felt in a long time. And the weirdest thing was it wasn't me going through it, but my son. But the feelings were the same, as if there was  an invisible bridge connecting our hearts.

I continued to struggle with him, holding him in a bear hug but it was all I could do to keep his thrashing body from wrenching free. Exhausted after several minutes of it, I let him go, and he threw himself on the ground. "I need to be alone," he said. And so we all left the room.

I sat by the stairs outside his room with my head in my hands. And I began to hear him praying and crying. "Oh God, please. This is the worst day ever. I made daddy feel bad and ripped up his picture. And I love you God. And I don't want to be bad or scaredycat. My heart is broken, God. And I know you love me. And the Spirit, and Suzy and and God you love me. And your Son. Please God please." It was a junior psalmist's prayer--a heart rendering, offered up, honest and raw prayer of a little boy with big feelings and big hurt.

When he was finished he came out of his room and was sitting on the floor in the hallway. I came in with tears and sat down next to him. He fought it back for a little while, lips quivering, but then something broke free and he just sobbed in my arms. "David, I love you and forgive you and need you to forgive me and mommy too. Sometimes we hurt each other but there's nothing you can do to make me stop loving you. Just like God loves us, and will never stop loving us. And I know how you feel because when I was a little boy I had big feelings too that I didn't know what to do with. And it does hurt because sometimes your heart isn't big enough to hold it all. But everything you're feeling now I've felt, and granddad has felt too. But you know what? Everything we feel, God felt too, because his son felt it, because he was human like us. So it's good you talk to God like that, and that he talks to you, because that's what prayer is and only God can heal a broken heart." We talked for a bit after that. The storm had passed and left us drenched and sitting.

Like many people who struggle with mental illness, I thought early on maybe it would be better, more responsible and better, not to marry and bring life into the world and risk the chance of passing my genes and everything in them through another generation. But if I did listen to that fear and did not let love overshadow me, the world would not have David. There would be one less soul praying tonight in his room sharing his suffering with the Father who suffered as his Son suffered, who listens to little boys sharing their pain as if it were His own.

No Good

Dark nights never seem to have an end when you are going through them. One night from my past I remember vividly was in January, 2005. I was on the floor of my apartment, balled up in a fetal position, enduring a kind of acute psychic pain only someone who has gone through the most major of depressions can know. The best way I can describe it is that your mind is on the rack being stretched to its breaking point, and your body has shut down in response unable to deal with the trauma.

There is an eerie calm that descends when the possibility of taking your own life enters into the picture at these moments. It's like a salesman has mysteriously appeared at your door of suffering before dawn, offering something you so desperately want and need--peace, rest, and an end. The price is high, but you're not really thinking about that. It's a pivotal moment in the cosmos, when you'll use your free-will to make a choice, for the last time on earth.

If we are following in the footsteps of Jesus, Gethsemane is an unavoidable stop on the journey to Calvary. Our friends are asleep, and we are alone with our destiny in the garden and the cup presented before us, that we beg to be taken away. We know what lies before us, but we see no way out aside from what the Devil salesman puts before us. Hence the urging of Jesus, "Pray that you may not undergo the test!" Not our will, but his be done.


Good Friday is only 'good' in retrospect, after the Easter story has been told. Hanging on a pre-Easter cross, the only thing to be seen is failure: failed Kingdoms-to-come, failed revolutions, failed man, failed life.

Today, we know the story doesn't end at the cross in death. But put yourself for a moment there at that first Friday, when resurrection history hasn't yet unfolded in time. Hold on. Pray and hold fast to a kernel of hope that this is not the end. Fight and sweat. Have your crew tie you to the mast. Wonder in awe that what was to befall you is held on the shoulders of another son of man who has taken the sins of the world onto himself. Resist and hold the tension in the eerie calm of night when Death offers its inviting promises of rest and peace when all you want is rest and peace. Don't give up, and don't give in.

Life is just around the bend.

"See, my servant shall prosper, he shall be raised high and greatly exhalted. Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, and who would have thought any more of his destiny?" (Is 52:13; 53:8)

May The Sun Not Go Down: A Reflection on Anger

Anger is one of those sins we tend to turn a blind eye to when we are the ones harboring it. It's easy to justify, but hard to see in ourselves, and we really have to look closely the way a scientist might like for a virus under a microscope.

In times of stress, I think men tend to struggle more with anger, and I am no exception. Unfortunately, those in our household become the targets of directed anger--our wives and children and sometimes our parents. St. Thomas Aquinas says that we are typically angry in the face of some injustice done to us, and that what especially provokes anger is the element of contempt or scorn in the one who does us some wrong. That was the case in our house tonight. Anger and resentment against my wife was smoldering all day for various slights, and I had been yelling at my kids all day (and even our dogs, much to the chagrin of St. Francis I'm sure), and as time for seven o'clock Mass came around, I fought the temptation to bag it and crawl into bed and took my son to church with me instead. I didn't even get the chance to reconcile (even with Daylight Savings Time), as it is written: "In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold." (Eph 4:26)

St. John Bosco wrote to his priests who held responsibility for the orphan street boys in their care: "They are our sons, and so in correcting their mistakes we must lay aside all anger and restrain it so firmly that it is extinguished entirely. There must be no hostility in our minds, no contempt in our eyes, no insult on our lips. We must use mercy for the present and have hope for the future, as is fitting for true fathers who are eager for real correction and improvement."

It was Palm Sunday, the last Sunday during Lent leading up to Holy Week. I was drained as David and I sat in the pew, him clutching the palms that signified the entrance of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey. I felt like it wasn't even right for me to be there, since "anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires (James 1:20). Paul admonishes the Ephesians who were fathers "not to exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."  It felt more like going to a hospital to be healed of a sickness then going to a temple to glorify God.

When I would attend Mass before I was a member of the Church, it would be so hard to sit in the pews as everyone would go up for Communion. But tonight I knew it would be wrong for me to approach the Lord in the Eucharist with this anger. We let everyone pass by us, since I was convicted by the words of Jesus "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the alter and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift." (Mt 5:23-24)

As we approach Holy Week, I really do believe that they Devil intensifies his attack on us. Anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language (Col 3:8)...I'm guilty of it all. Sometimes it's like a whack-a-mole at Dave and Busters--you knock one sin back in its hole, and others pop up ten fold. That's why the Christian life is not one of simply self-improvement, but a humble submission to the one who forgives ALL our sins through grace and confession of sins, both those conscious and unconscious, who "remembers them no more." (Is 43:25)

Holy Week is a time of intense self-examination to root out and ask the Lord to bring to light all that which rots our spirit and weakens it the way termites weaken the frame and foundation of a house. The more we ignore it, the more we think "I'm basically okay" sitting in the family room, they are at work below the surface, slowly and steadily chewing away at that which holds up our house. We can ignore it for a time, but we will pay the price for it.

 

Majoring in Dharma Bummage

"We pushed the bike down past the various college hangouts and cafeterias and looked into Robbie's to see if we knew anybody. Alvah was in there, working his part-time job as busboy. Japhy and I were kind of outlandish-looking on the campus in our old clothes in fact Japhy was considered an eccentric around the campus, which is the usual thing for campuses and college people to think whenever a real man appears on the scene -- college being nothing but grooming schools for the middle-class non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each living room with everybody looking at the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness to hear the voice crying in the dark mysterious secret of the origin of faceless wonderless crapulous civilization. 'All these people,' said Japhy, 'they all got white-tiled toilets and take big dirty craps like bears in the mountains, but it's all washed away to convenient supervised sewers and nobody thinks of crap any more or realizes their origin is shit and civet and scum of the sea. They spend all day washing their hands with creamy soaps they secretly wanta eat in the bathroom."  

--Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums



There has been a trend since the financial crisis of 2008, and possibly before, that speculates about what the purpose of higher education is and/or should be. Is it a definitive shift that flummoxes and frustrates many faculty, especially those in the liberal arts, positing that to stay competitive in a global marketplace universities should be moving away from such 'useless' majors like Philosophy, History, and English to focus on more 'practical' STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) that lead to well-paying and market-driven jobs. It is a pedagogical shift that targets the very idea of the purpose higher education itself--what is its purpose, what are the desired outcomes of a college graduate, and how can they best contribute to society? In other words, "just what are you learning anyway, son, and what are you going to 'do' with it when you graduate?"

Now a critique of the state of higher ed in this country and an analysis of this pedagogical divide is beyond the scope of this post. But I wonder about these questions--as a college graduate that did in fact forgo a STEM field in favor of a quote-unquote 'useless' course of study; as someone who works in higher education presently; and as a parent looking years down the road and deciding how to guide our children into both a God-given vocation and the opportunity for meaningful work suited to their abilities.

Some of our friends have chosen the Montessori route for their young children. I honestly don't know much about it, but from what I understand it is more exploratory, creative, less strict boundaries and more freedom to naturally gravitate to what they enjoy. We have chosen to send our kids to public school, aware of the temptation for educators in some federally-funded settings to 'teach to the test' since they are under pressure to score high. I do hope they develop both a critical thinking faculty, a love of learning, and the necessary analytical and writing skills to become well rounded students. We plan to be involved in their education.

I will admit as the kids get older I have a latent temptation to play it safe and hope, like many parents, that they gravitate to something that will lead to a good, meaningful, and decent-paying career. If David said, "Dad, I want to major in engineering," I would probably breathe a sigh of relief. If Monica said, "Dad, I think I want to be a writer," I would have to take a deep breath and be mindful of my response so as to not betray what was going through my mind (like, "HOW WILL YOU LIVE??") Its a bit of risky business in the mind of parents, because higher education is a big investment, and while you want your children to be happy, you also don't want to see them struggling to put food on the table, or delay having a family themselves for lack of gainful employment.

But the question remains, from grade-school to college: what is the purpose of education? Is it to instill a love of learning, a critical-thinking faculty, the ability to write well, reason, debate, read, deduce, formulate ideas? Or is it to train workers to slot them into needed positions, the way we regulate immigration to fill quotas for say, how many workers are needed to work in x,y,z field this season? I think it's appropriate for medical, law, and engineering programs to have a different teaching philosophy and objective than, say, a counseling or philosophy program. The problem I see, is when there is pressure--whether it's from well-meaning parents, governments, or self-appointed social pundits, to reduce universities to a job-training program.

My brothers and I all went to a large state research university. While they were majoring in STEM fields and securing internships and interviewing for their pick of jobs senior year, I was reading Hesse and traveling, writing and philosophizing, volunteering, and trying to find my way. I vowed that if were to ever go to grad school, it would be for something I was passionate about (which I did). They have good paying jobs and are skilled and suited for what they do. I also now have a job I enjoy that seems to square with my more generalized talents and strengths, but my compensation commensurates with my lack of specific, in-demand skills. I write this not to compare myself to their situation or be critical, but I wonder if I had the opportunity to go back in time and do it again, would I do anything differently. We tend to want for our children what we didn't have as adults looking back. It took me a long time to come to terms that I was ok, and that I wasn't a complete screw-up as a result of my choices--or lack of them.

I will say, I remember when I was on a training ride with the Central Bucks Bike Club when I was 17 or so. I was chatting with a doctor who said she went straight from high school to college to med school to residency to work. I was lamenting about how I had no direction, had so many interests and didn't know what I wanted to do besides riding boxcars and biking. "You know, there is a part of me that regrets not taking more time to live more, I was on the fast track to becoming a doctor and now that I'm in it I can't really go back. I wish I would have taken more time to do what I really wanted." So I guess regret can go both ways.  

I loved grad school. I was working full-time in the city at a social service/public health agency and went to school at night. It was my intellectual outlet where I got to read, write, and collaboratively discuss theological concepts with my peers and professors. It made me think critically about social, bioethical, and moral issues in an interdisciplinary way, get acquainted with metaphysics, delve into history, consider different points of view and traditions. I don't regret it, though whether it was 'worth it' from an economic standpoint I can't say.

I think the gist of what I'm getting at, for my own sake as well as the sake of my kids, is that we are called to what we are called to--some people are analytical in mind, some people are theoretical. Some are big picture, some love detail. Some are people-people, some want to be in a room with data all day. Hopefully, we fall into what we are most naturally suited for, good at, and maybe even love. I'd hate to live in a world of nothing but engineers obsessed with maximal optimization of time and resources but who never concern themselves with the simple question 'what is truth?' as much as I would hate to live in a world of nothing but life-coach yoga instructor health gurus. Thanks be to God, we are a human body made up of many parts with many talents, suited for different and essential purposes. If they are committed to true education universities can be a place where one both starts to explore what their natural aptitudes are and how it can translate into a career, as well as develop simply a love of learning--that is, learning for its own sake.

Red Pill Blue Pill

My wife is fond of reading celebrity news. I think because she uses her brain so much throughout the day that she needs something mindless to indulge in at the end of the day. Some celebrity drivel made her remark the other day, "these celebrities live in another universe. It's like they are out of touch with reality."

I know what she meant. But when I thought about it, so are we. We are them. When I think about Christians being slaughtered, tortured, beheaded, and terrorized for their faith in the Middle East; of immigrants risking everything on harrowing journeys to distant lands in search of a better life; of poverty-level families right here in America trying to make ends meet--it makes our lives seem like a celebrity gossip column that other people read and think, "are they so out of touch with what is going on outside the world they've built for themselves?"

How do you care about something when it's not your reality? As a relatively self-centered person, it's hard for me to step out of what doesn't pertain to me or affect my consciousness. I'm caught up in my own world. Every now and then, though, God takes a few bricks out the walls you've built up around your life to let you know there is something there on the outside, makes a hole to peek out of.

During my drive home I was having a real one-way shouting match with God for taking too many bricks out of my wall in a certain comfortable area of my life, for making things shaky when they had until today been pretty solid. The prayer was raw and slightly schizophrenic: Take it, Lord, whatever you want. No no don't. I trust you...help my lack of trust. What do you want?? I don't have it in me! Etc. 

Back home and wrapped up in the horrors of our abominable bedtime routine, my wife and I were going through the usual routine of wrestling, cajoling, scolding, and pleading for the kids to go to bed. When they finally relented a little, and we put on the quiet lullaby music, things got still in the nightlight-lit room.  My wife was in Monica's bed with her, and I was laying with David as he read himself a story. He eventually got tired and I held him in my arms. I softly sung him a lullaby I made up that is his favorite. "I love my David, my little David. He makes me happy, when skies are blue. You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my David away."

I had had a hard day coming to terms with some things, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, really ran the gamut. I sang the made-up lullaby over and over and then I teared up a little at first, the words, that someone might take my David away. And I began to cry in the dark room, and cried and cried, for a long time. After twenty minutes or so, a kind of peace settled in.

My son does not belong to me. My life does not belong to me. Even more, and even more painful, my IDEA of how my life should look, the celebrity structure of my day to day, is an idol when we don't hand it over to God to do with it whatever pleases Him. It is SUCH a painful and mortifying lesson and such a privilege to be taught it, to see the things we hold tight to that God is slowly, gently, asking us to loosen our grip, to take his hand and trust him when we don't know where he is leading us. Our realities become different realities. If only we would trust Him, who know what awaits us!

Letter To A 13 Year Old Boy On His Birthday

Dear D,

My name is Rob, I know your father. He is a good man and though I don't know you I know he loves you and is a strong man of God. You should be proud to have him as a dad.

I am writing you on your birthday to let you know that this is an important time in your life as a boy who is becoming a man. There are many boys your age who, for one reason or another, do not have a father in their life. You may even know some. It is hard not having a father. It leaves a hole, whether a young boy realizes it or not.

My dad was an important part of my life growing up. He helped me get my first job delivering newspapers when I was 13. He taught me about how to be wise with my money that I was earning, how to save, and how to invest. He taught me how to tie a tie, ride a bike, and set up a tent. He was always there for me when I needed him. He showed me the closest thing to how God loves us by loving me unconditionally, even when I made mistakes.

There are a few things I'd like to say and a few pieces of advice I'd like to share that I hope you will remember:

Firstly, take care of your body, and treat it with respect, since it is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Being active is good--things like hiking, running, playing sports. It is good training for learning how to endure discomfort, which you will need, along with God's grace, to resist sinful temptations. A man does not grow strong physically unless his pushes and works his body, and a man does not grow spiritually unless he prays and reads his bible daily.

Secondly, always remember that Jesus walks with you. Tell him what you are going through--when things are good and when they are not so good. Cast your cares on Him, for he cares for you.

Thirdly, choose your friends wisely, and don't follow the crowd. If you know something is not right, being a man means standing up and not going along with it. You know what is right, because your dad has taught you. Many people know what is right but don't do it. A man knows what is right and also does what is right in God's eyes, even when it costs him.

Finally, you will make mistakes in life; it is part of learning. A man learns from his mistakes and does his best not to repeat them. He listens to advice and takes guidance, especially from his dad, because your dad probably went through a lot of the same things you are going through.


I hope you have a great birthday, and know that I will be praying for you. You will be a great man of God!


Rob

The Manger Is Full, and Manure Is Everywhere!

When I was in college, I remember taking a walk with one of my Geography professors one afternoon off campus.

Maybe it was because I had always struggled with the rollercoaster of living with a mood disorder, or that I was still holding on to a misguided Buddhist ideal of non-attachment post-conversion to Christianity, but in any case I made mention, of my frustration with the highs and lows of life.

"I wish they would just cancel each other out," I said in sophomoric fashion, "so everything could be kind of net-zero. Like taking the tops off a mountain to fill in the valley." No love, but no loss. No pleasure, but no pain. A life of dispassion seemed like a noble, responsible pursuit.

"Hm," he said wryly. "Doesn't sound like much of a life to me."

I've thought back to that conversation from time to time now that life is in full-force. My kids drive me to both the deepest wells of anger with their antics and a primal urge to protect and nurture them. My wife forces me to dig deep to forgive and trust in our future, while recognizing she could be taken from me at any time. My walk with God has taken me through deserts and dark nights as well as mountaintop witness to transfiguration and glory.

We risk a lot when we love, when we bring life into the world, and when we put our trust in Someone. But I can say without hesitation that the joys pay for the pain, that the frustration and burdens are outnumbered by the growth, and the eternal mess is a small price to pay for a house full of life. For faith is a pearl of great price (Mt 13:46), a good wife more precious than jewels (Prov 31:10), and children a blessing from the Lord (Ps 127:3).

(Post-script: I'm writing this as my wife is given me searing looks for abdicating my parenting responsibility to write, the kids are melting down because they can't watch Doc McStuffins, and I just slammed my Bible shut on the table out of sheer frustration at being unable to concentrate. Oh the irony is thick tonight!) 

"Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest." (Proverbs 14:4)