Here Comes Another ZERO!

I know, its coming up. The "milestone" day.

January 2, 2013.

Of course I've been thinking about it. Its an odd situation for me. I'm still very much a kid at heart. Indeed, I am "like a child" but not so much in the way Jesus had in mind. There is Christian joy and hope in me. I can't deny that; its a gift from Him. But there is also a lot of emotional immaturity. A lot of plain foolishness. Yes, its a mixed bag, again.

"Master, you gave me ten talents. I was so afraid that I buried five of them right away. But then I saw the other guys going to invest in the bank, and I followed them. I invested three. Then I took the other two and went shopping...." (see the parable in Matthew 25:14-30).

Age is also a funny thing for a college professor who has spent his life among young students, younger teachers getting started, experienced colleagues who are his own age, and the older generation of still very active teachers and scholars. The learning experience builds bonds of friendship between generations. In the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty, we are all children. The "fountain of youth" is wonder.

Then, for me, "middle age" has been twisted all around by the fluctuations of my health. I feel much, much better right now than I have in the past. I have been down to the dark places of the earth, and have been brought back up. My aspirations have been simplified. I am grateful for the amazing gift of being alive.

I am alive, outwardly and inwardly. Thank God!

I must accept that I have constraints and limits, but this is helping me to focus on engaging what is in front of me right now, risking the capacities and the talents that I do have to respond to the real vocation of life in the present moment.

I also know that there is weakness. There is failure. I must not let it discourage me. I must trust in the mercy of God, and receive His forgiveness. Then I must begin again when necessary, repair what has been broken, and always keep struggling to do the good and to build up what is good.

And we are all in this present moment together. It challenges us to help one another, to understand one another, to forgive one another, and to give ourselves. Give. Dear Jesus, please heal me and free me, please enable me to love!

I know its just stumbling, in the end. My life expresses itself in the gestures of a hungry man begging for food; and even more than food, begging for truth and meaning, begging for goodness and beauty, begging for love.

And I shall keep stumbling and begging, because I can see the merciful Father running toward me with His arms held open.

To Share His Glory

Jesus asks us to follow Him.

Its a little scary sometimes, being a Christian. Because we are in situations where we want to say, "How, Lord! How do I follow You!?"

I think we start by saying just that. "How do I follow you?" If we say that with faith, with trust that He is God and He will lead us, then we are praying.

Perhaps we are afraid that we lack that trust. We do believe in Jesus but He seems fuzzy in terms of how He relates to our lives. But wherever we are, however we feel, and whatever might be going on, God loves us. God loves us first. So we can turn to Him and begin, because He is already drawing us with His love.

If you have only a drop of trust, you start there. "Jesus, I am afraid to trust in You. Enable me to trust in You." And God answers this prayer, and we grow in trust.

There are Christians who we admire greatly, who we consider "heroic," whose daily "posture" of prayer before God basically amounts to that. There is that famous, ancient prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." This prayer has brought many people close to God through history.

There is the simple prayer, "Jesus, I trust in You." I include in that trust even the places where I am afraid, where I am weak: "Jesus I trust in You to enable me to trust in You more...." But I have begun to realize that the rest of that need not be said (although it's fine if I want to say it). "Jesus I trust in You" is enough, because my "trust" includes my reliance on what He is doing in my life to change me according to His wisdom and by His grace.

The God who creates us from nothing brings our lives to fulfillment by His grace. His grace shapes and focuses and draws and empowers our freedom, so that we can and we will do--freely and lovingly, by the power of His grace--what He wills us to do, what is truly good and beautiful and just, what corresponds to our destiny which is to live with Him in His likeness, to share in His glory.

Time Flying? Not So Much.

Most of the trees are bare now,
but the weather has been brisk!

Its November 18 already. The month is flying by. Some people say the year has flown by, but it doesn't seem that way to me. So much has happened this year! I read back over the old blogs and I think to myself, "that was a long time ago."

We've got our top two growing teenagers, and the middle girls changing too, and even Josefina has gained like three pounds since January! (Haha...although that may be about right. She is still so hilariously little, but they've done tests and nothing is wrong with her. She certainly has plenty of brains and energy.)

Teresa's mind is growing in new ways. She has discovered that Daddy actually has some interesting things to say. She has started to shoot questions at me, with the full awareness that she's going to get long answers.

Meanwhile, as we go along with our busy days, the world makes its orbit, and the Church lives another liturgical year. We've had trips, and hurricanes, and the Washington Nationals (who saw that coming?), and Agnese joining John Paul at Chelsea Academy, and Eileen's work at the Montessori school (and me being well enough to be with her each day and make a contribution). We've had celebrations, and new friends, and discussions about so many things, and politics and an election, and hand wringing about the future, and lots of prayers, and the Year of Faith, and the synod on the "New Evangelization," and our bishops taking an inspiring and courageous stand--together.

On this last point, people shouldn't think that "the Church lost." Something grew this year, something small perhaps, but important nonetheless. It is a deepening of awareness of what it means to live our faith as citizens of this country. Catholics and other Christians too are starting to be pushed closer together in a way that forces us to talk to each other and, even, to disagree (although some disagreements are more constructive than others).

As this push continues and we find ourselves stuck with one another, we may discover that we are brothers and sisters, and that we have something unique to give to the world.

Well, this post is "stream of consciousness." Its early in the morning, and we're going to Mass now.

Sunday is always a beautiful day. Have a blessed Sunday!

The Gift of God is Here and Now

The gift of God is present in every moment.

When we live our often tedious and seemingly uneventful days, we are called to do so not with a merely stoic resignation, but with abandonment to His loving presence.  We endure in the conviction that God offers us His love—the only fulfillment of the human heart—here and now, in the midst of our sufferings and the plodding of our daily lives.

We are called to put our hearts on the line, to allow ourselves to be wounded by the hope that even in this darkness it is possible to love and to be loved, because He is with us and He loves us now.  And we know that His love, ultimately, is always worth the risk.

Putting Up With Another "Dull Day"?

Have you ever tried to "offer up" a dull day?

Sometimes the challenge is just the fact that today is pretty much the same as yesterday...and that nothing happened yesterday! Should you just be resigned to put up with it?

"Dear Lord, I offer you my stiff upper lip...."

Hmmm. I think that we are invited to go further than that in making an "offering" of this day. God is here. Of course, we're not going to feel amazed about Him all the time. Especially since He so often conceals Himself in the ordinary, the small, the humble things, the stuff that happens over and over again.

Let's "offer" this day, and so open ourselves up to the slow and gentle work that He is doing with time, and things, and even our sense of frustration. He wants to give us true and lasting joy.

If we loosen the lips, they may find their way to a smile.

The Encounter Between Man and God

Today many have a limited understanding

of the Christian faith,

because they identify it

with a mere system of beliefs and values ​

and not so much with the truth of God

revealed in history,

eager to communicate with man

face to face,

in a relationship of love with Him.

In fact,

the foundation of every doctrine or value

is the event of the encounter

between man and God in Christ Jesus.

Christianity, before being a moral or ethical value,

is the experience of love,

of welcoming the person of Jesus.

Benedict XVI, November 14, 2012

Conversation: He Talks, But Does He Listen?

Everyday conversation. What do I have to say for myself? Well, for starters, I don't really know how to listen to a person.

I'm not saying that I'm a boor, or that I never let others talk. I do plenty of listening in a conversation. I listen to people's words and give a lot of attention to what they are thinking.

But I don't listen to people.

Sometimes, when people speak to me, my mind works hard to organize their expressions into the form of some coherent problem, and then respond in a way that helps them to resolve their problem. I assume that this is "communication," and I am sincere, because I really do want to help people--which, of course, means finding the right ideas to advance their ways of thinking.

This is not so bad, of course. It can be useful if the person is asking a question, or seeking information.

But often, when people speak, that's not what they want.

Of course, I know that, and I'm very flexible. I don't just belabor people with advice. In fact, I can be useful in variety of different conversations.

Sometimes people just want to banter. Well, I'm good at bantering. Jokes? Even better. Or talk about the weather, or whatever else. I try my best to be agreeable in conversation. After all, I like people. I come from an Italian heritage--of course I like people! I like people and food even better.

And of course, I want people to like me. So what's wrong with that?

Nothing, I suppose. There's nothing wrong with it...well, a bit of vanity here and there....

But am I paying attention to this human person who is speaking to me?

If the person is really giving something of himself or herself to me in a conversation, am I listening? As long as its articulate, informative, or entertaining, or I can be helpful, or I can get the person to like me more? Sure, I'm listening.

But what about those insoluble, inexplicable things, the cries of the heart, those words that are not asking for a solution but are trying to share a suffering? What if the person wants nothing from me? He or she just wants me to listen, to be receptive.

I will try, but my mind starts to wander pretty quickly. My effort is rather weak.

Too often, my desire in human interactions is for me to experience affirmation. I want to come out of a conversation with the sense that my value has been recognized and appreciated. This desire can even be a motivation for "helping" people. It feels great when I receive the recognition and gratitude of people who have been helped by me.

Of course, I'll say, "Oh really, nothing, nothing at all" and "its God's work" (funny how I'm willing to toss a few crumbs to God) and "I'm just a poor man who knows nothing," etc., etc. but don't be fooled by that! A vain person always has a "humility routine" to conceal his vanity from others and especially from himself.

I know that there is something psychologically complex at work here. I really want to recognize and love the other person. I want to see and to rejoice in the gift of God that is the mystery of this other person. I want to receive what he or she has to give. I want to do "what's right." After all, I'm a "good Catholic"! I won't violate God's commandments to satisfy my vanity.

Uhhh...well...not consciously, anyway. Ah...heh...okay, okay, in little ways, yeah...I'll fib sometimes, or I'll diss somebody (just a bit), or I'll play to other people's cynical tendencies because that's always good for a laugh! And I'll buff and wax everything you see and hear (and read) so that you will admire me (hypocrisy? Oh yeah!).

But its not just that. Really, my motivations are usually a complex mixture of self-seeking and other aspirations. There is the desire and the will to seek something more, to find the "you" at the other side of the conversation, to discover communication and community. And then I've glimpsed many times the Beauty that is so much greater than my grasping ego, and that Beauty is always drawing me.

Yes, I'm a mixed bag. A real muddle.

There are so many problems in the world. And I don't have to go anywhere to find "the world." The world beats beneath my ribs.

A real muddle. And also this Beauty, that draws mysteriously, works miracles, changes things. There is the muddle...and then Something Different.

Something has happened in me, in the world. Its changing everything....

People notice it even when I try to hide it. And, really, I don't want to hide it.

From Philosophy to Stickers!

I'm listening to the water running in the kitchen.

The pounding feet of these two young people making their lunch.

For a long time, I had an image of the tiny footprint of baby John Paul hanging on the wall in my office. Just a few inches of little foot.

Who is this man living in my house? Where did he come from?

Pound, pound, pound, pound. Going about his business. He wears my shoes all the time. On his large, grubby human feet.

And there is the determined stride of a young lady. That's my "little bundle of sweetness," Agnese Janaro. If I say she's pretty, she'll kill me. She clomps through the house too, like her father.

I shouldn't be writing any of this, of course. I'm embarrassing them.

Meanwhile, Lucia sits quietly, reading a book. Teresa and Josefina are somewhere else. We do still have some "kids" around here.

The other day, John Paul and I were at the dining room table discussing something like...gosh, what was it...human nature and the role of sensation in epistemology (this kid is smart, but we've always known that). Josefina comes pitter-pattering up (with her little feet) and starts shouting, "Look Daddy, look Daddy, look Daddy!"

"What's that?"

"Stickers!"

Haha, the spectrum in this house runs from philosophy to...stickers. What an interesting place to grow up in. Its a crazy place! I think its also a happy place.

I hope...I pray that its a happy place.

The first time we drove with John Paul was when we brought him home from the hospital two days after he was born. I wanted to go five miles an hour: "Sheesh, we have a b-b-b-baby in the car!" Fatherhood seemed utterly overwhelming.

Nearly 16 years later I'm still overwhelmed. I'm more overwhelmed than ever. In less than a month, that "baby" will be driving the car.

Meanwhile, we still have one set of little feet in the house. Thank you God for these children!

We Begin When We Say "Yes"

So often we are frantic and busy. We are distracted and, eventually, discouraged. We seem to want anything other than the actual life we have, with its often obscure challenges and demands.

The fact is that we are called to real self-giving love, here and now, in the circumstances of our daily life. Why do we always look for ways to escape?

Lets face it. When we hear about "real loving," we say "yes, of course, that's wonderful," and yet we still try to run away, or else we chafe under the weight of what seems like an imposed task. Why are we burdened? What are we afraid of?

Perhaps we are afraid to love because we think we have to make it happen by ourselves. We find no power within ourselves to love. We want to, but we can't. Everything in us feels bent, distorted, tainted by the monster of our ego. And we think that all we have is our own brokenness.

But this is not true. We are not alone. First and fundamentally, before and within everything else, we are loved. We begin to give ourselves in love when we say "yes" to the love that is being given to us.

There is a Someone, right now, who says to each and every one of us, "I love you. You are precious to me. You are beautiful." We cannot begin to imagine how much we are loved and cherished in this very moment. 

Our hearts are not lying to us. The Other we are seeking is already with us, and begs us to open our hearts.

"You are beautiful."

"But I don't deserve to be loved," you say. "I am full of my own guilt."

But you are loved by Someone who forgives everything. Everything.

Open your heart. Let yourself be loved.

You Don't Have to be a Freak About Anything

I have so many thoughts running around my head. I can't focus on a topic to write about. Themes and ideas pass through my mind; images and impressions, memories and hopes and fears.

Stop!

Go out and play ball.

That is pathetic. That's not a batting stance. That's a slouch! Where are your feet supposed to be? And what are you wearing???

That's not a slouch. That's just curvature of the spine.

Oh don't start whining. Move that creaky body and pay no attention to its complaints. Well...don't overdo it. But do it!

Human beings need a variety of activities: we need to read and study and think. We need to talk and to listen. We also need to eat, play, dance, make music, breathe deeply, walk, run, plant things in the ground, explore, and laugh. We need to look at beautiful things. And, of course, we need to sleep.

We need to lift up our minds and hearts and bodies to the One who gives us life, the One who loves us and draws us to Himself. We need to pray. We need to love, and to let ourselves be loved.

We move our bodies and we also move our minds. A healthy human life encompasses this variety in an organic way. You don't have to be a freak about anything. You simply have to live.

Children have a natural sense of how to live. Its one of the many reasons why its good to have them around.

Sadly, in our culture, we don't "live" well. We vacillate between distraction and obsession. This is what's killing us. We think we're all alone with this crazy life and we don't know what to do with it!

But we are not alone. We are never alone.

So give yourself a break.

Election Night: Presidents and Memories

Election night in America.

I don't know what it will mean for the future. But today, for some reason, I was remembering the past.

The first American President I can remember was Lyndon Johnson. It echoes somewhere in my memory, the words "President Johnson." I was younger than Josefina in 1968. But I was very aware that an election was taking place.

"What does the president do?" I asked my mother.

She told me something to the effect that the president is responsible for the whole country, and that he "watches over" the whole country.

My five year old imagination generated a vivid image: an enormous window where President Johnson sat, "watching" the whole country. The view from the window stretched in all directions.

"He works all the time," my mother said. "He doesn't even have time to sleep at night. [I don't know if she actually said this, but this is what I remember.] The only sleep he gets is cat naps."

She might have been thinking of Kennedy, who was known for his "cat naps."

He never gets to sleep? Wow! My eyes grew wide. I assumed that he must sit in front of that huge window, all day and all night, watching the country. It sounded like a very difficult thing.

Then there was an election. And President Johnson had decided not to run. Somehow, my mother conveyed this to me.

"Gosh," I thought, "He probably wants to get some sleep!"

I was awake on election night in November 1968. I remember seeing the new president on television, with both arms stretched out, giving his signature "victory" sign with two fingers of each hand.

Richard Nixon.

There was also this word that I remember hearing in those days, on the television news, every night, over and over: "Saigon...Saigon...Saigon...."

Saigon, explosions, and gunfire.

I assumed that the new president would take his place at the big window, and begin watching.

Suffering With Us

"Bernard of Clairvaux coined the marvelous expression: Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis—God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with. Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way—in flesh and blood—as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus's Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love" (Benedict XVI, encyclical Spe Salvi, 39).

Learning New Things, and Finding New Places

Another October is passing by. It brought the bursting color to our leaves and now is taking them away. The mornings are dark, and the days are shorter.

College students are back from their Fall break, and it is time to begin to get serious about thinking about those term papers that are due at the end of next month. Of course, you'll wait till the very last possible moment to write them, and they'll arrive in your professors' boxes at 11:59.9 PM on the due date.

Then the next day in class, we shall have the sleepy, and the scruffy, and those who are begging for extensions and trying to lose as few of those precious *POINTS* as possible.

Please, write a good paper.

Seek the truth. Try to understand something. Yes, I know, the professor is obtuse and you don't know what the class is supposed to be about...but just look at what's there and find something real and grab hold of it.

Its your education. Stop blaming circumstances and other people. Roll up your mental sleeves and work with what you have. You will learn many things, and also you will begin to learn how to live. Wherever you are in life, reality is your teacher, and circumstances are the resources that are given to you so that you may grow as a person.

Circumstances can be strange and painful, but there they are, every day. So we engage them. We often do badly, but we learn from our mistakes too.

Right now, this "retired" professor spends his days in the office at the John XXIII Montessori Children's Center, where his wife directs the elementary program. One might say he's a sort of "writer in residence," although he does his own research and writing at his laptop (and he is working on developing some "new media" platforms for the Center...eventually).

He is also a kind of "resource person," who gives small lessons on religion or history, helps students with research, works with maps (he's always loved maps), reads stories to the primary level kids, answers the phone, fills in wherever an adult is needed, etc.

The most important thing he does is just be there, frequently going out of the office and into the "classroom" (oops, wrong word; the word is environment--and that's exactly what it is). He sits in a chair, reads a book, and lets the children "bother" him. They find ways to learn all sorts of things from him.

These are not the circumstances he expected for himself at this period of his life. But they are good.

The professor is learning about what it means to learn...and to teach.  He sees his own children, and others, in a learning environment, where they look at what's around them, find real things, grab hold of them, and discover paths of understanding--ways of seeking the truth.

If they want to learn about plants, they can read about them. But they can also plant something, tend it, and watch it grow. Math is involved with tangible things. Numbers are strings of beads that they can see and touch and combine. Shapes are...actual shapes! And there are spheres, and cubes, and cones of various sizes.

There are rocks, and there are jars with minerals and all kinds of things to compare and contrast tangibly, visually, engaging the senses. They learn how something smells by actually smelling it! Maps are of every sort: maps that show terrain, maps in puzzle form with pieces corresponding to country borders, and many globes that model various facets of topographic or political geography.

One thing cannot be found here. There are no grades. There are no *points* to be accumulated as external rewards. Progress is monitored according to the interests and capacities of each child. Learning is not about discovering and mastering the tricks necessary to win a prize. Learning is about reality; its about experiencing and understanding reality.

The children grapple with real projects, using their hands and their minds. They make mistakes and learn from them. All of this happens in an exquisitely organized environment in which everything has its proper place. The directress guides individuals and groups of children in the various works, gives lessons, and "keeps order"--not with a stick, but by helping the children to learn what is required of them if they are to work together.

And they also do plenty of reading and writing. They even learn handwriting, with pens and pencils, on real paper.

The Montessori environment is a rich and beautiful place, where children are guided in a learning experience that engages the senses, imagination, mind and heart. The environment is realistic for the child. This method actually works! Discipline is built into the order and the ethos of the place, and that includes a healthy awareness of fallen human nature, but not a morbid preoccupation with it.

It is a beautiful place, and there's room in it for anything interesting...

...even an old, rheumatic, "retired" professor. :)

Blessed Chiara (1971-1990): A "Light" For Us All

Today is the feast day of Blessed Chiara "Luce" Badano, an Italian girl of our own time who died of bone cancer in 1990, a few weeks short of her 19th birthday.

A devoted member of Focolare, Chiara Luce is the first person to be beatified from the "new ecclesial movements" that flourish today with so much vitality in the Church. Thus, she is a particular witness to the depth of Christian life that the following of a charism can generate.

There are many charisms in the Church, through which Christ seeks to enter the concrete circumstances of people today, especially young people. They are as various as the vast freedom of the Holy Spirit, and some are still in the process of development. What they share in common are their extraordinary fruits, and their profound obedience and love for the Church.

Chiara Luce Badano amazes me. I find myself dizzy and powerless, gasping for air in the atmosphere she inhabits. But I am also drawn in my heart, fascinated and filled with longing even in front of the things that seem frightening and incomprehensible.

I do indeed have a glimpse of my destiny in the love and sacrifice of Chiara, though I have been entrusted to a different charism, another path that leads to the same place.

I acknowledge that I am far from God, broken, and above all proud. Only the humility that trusts in the transforming presence of Christ in my life can change me. I don't know how to "imitate" a saint like this. I can only beg for the grace of Christ to awaken and deepen in me the awareness that the circumstances of my own life are His gift through which He draws me to Himself. Blessed Chiara, pray for me. Pray for us.

I offer my nothingness

so that the Holy Spirit can bestow his gifts

of love, light and peace
upon the youth;

so that everybody can understand

what a free and immense gift life is,

and how important it is to live every instant

in the fullness of God.

I feel so little and the road ahead is so arduous

that I often feel overwhelmed with pain!

But that’s the Spouse coming to meet me.

Yes, I repeat it: “If you want it Jesus, so do I”.

--Blessed Chiara Badano (1990)

Josefina Turns Six! Happy Birthday!

Once a child is born, it is difficult to imagine how the universe could have existed without them. A person, who once was not, appears in all of his or her radiant uniqueness. We have before us something ineradicable.

There is something about the human person that proclaims, loudly: FOREVER!

Josefina is six years old today. Each of our children has changed our lives simply by being themselves. What words can I use to describe it?

Gratitude. Amazement. Craziness!

They are the daily reminder in our lives that God exists, and that we have been invested with an awesome responsibility. We are called to love each of these persons in a way that somehow helps them to discover and experience the particular love that God has for them.

We a preparing our children to discover and respond to their vocations--to the plan that God has for each of them--and then to continue to support them with an abiding love.

I hope and pray that I will live long enough to be everything God wants me to be for these kids.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOJO! We love you!!!

My Life is not Solitude

God never leaves me "alone." My very existence in this moment is brought about by His creative and sustaining love.

This goes to the core of my identity; this is what I am: "relationship-to-Him"! There is no autonomous "me" that can somehow stand "outside" of this relationship. Sin adds nothing to me, because sin is radically "no-thing." It is a lack of existing. It can only diminish me.

God gives me to myself, right in this moment. And He calls me to Himself.

My joys and sufferings are His infinitely wise, uniquely crafted, and tender love through which He shapes my life and leads me to my destiny.  How little I really understand about my “destiny.”  How little I understand about the “eternal life” which means belonging to Him forever.

We must remember every day that God is with us and that He draws us toward our true identity, which is to reflect His eternal glory in that unique way that corresponds to each of us as a person created in His image and likeness—a reflection that we do not yet understand but that He sees and knows.

No matter the storms and the fury; the depths of our lives are not solitude.  At the heart of life, of every moment of life, there is companionship with the Merciful God.

Why Are We Always So Frustrated?

Everything is grace,

Everything is the direct effect of our Father's love. 

Everything is grace, because everything is God's gift....

--St. Therese of Lisieux

Everything? Really??

Okay, I can do the theology here, but when it comes to actual stuff that happens ... its very hard to see everything as a gift. Sometimes "everything" is a train wreck. Where is the "gift"?

At such times, it seems easier to understand that proverb of contemporary worldly wisdom, which might be paraphrased as: "Life stinks and then you die!"

But no. Those are always words of profound dissatisfaction. The human person knows they are wrong. If there is any "resignation" in them, its only in the attempt to make a cynical peace with the idea that the universe is one big scam.

But I can't say "I've been cheated by life" except from the expectation that life is supposed to give me something, that at the heart of life there is a promise.

Thus, people go on hoping for something, and if they say things like this its because they are trying to cope with a sense of frustration that seems to renew itself over and over again.

I usually don't go so far as to say that "life stinks..." (well, not lately anyway). But I do feel that "life is often frustrating."

How can my frustration be a gift? Why do I have to live with frustration, day after day; dull, throbbing frustration aching through the day; frustration like a prison that seems to build walls in every direction? What's the "gift" in that?

Well, frustration provokes me; it challenges my freedom, and my sense of who I am.

In the face of frustration, I can choose to give up. I can say "life stinks" and wallow in pity for my isolated self.

Or I can remember that my very self is a gift, and that this moment of frustration (with all of its bitterness, pain, and incomprehensibility) is a gift because it deepens my awareness of who I really am. It reminds me in a concrete way that I am made for something greater, something beyond my control, something I don't make or measure or manage, something that I can't find anywhere in this world.

Nevertheless, this "something" is real. It is at the root of me, it sustains me, and it carves itself into my heart in the form of a promise.

What does my five year old daughter do when she's frustrated by something?

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Help! Please help!" She asks for help. She asks Daddy to come.

What do I do if I see Josefina crying, helpless, frustrated by something because she's just too small to understand it?

I go to her and pick her up and hold her. She still cries. Sometimes she cries even more. It seems like she doesn't even notice I'm there.

But I am there, and I keep holding on to her.

Blessed John Paul II

How grateful I am for this feast day, which is now officially added to the Roman Rite calendars in the United States. The bishops requested it because of the tremendous impact that Blessed John Paul has had on the Church in America. He taught more than a generation of Catholics (and others) in this country that Jesus is really alive, and that He understands the human person. John Paul's teaching and his own personal witness enabled us to discover not only that it was possible to be a Christian at the turn of the millennium, but also that Christ's way of valuing the human person was so much greater than anything we had ever heard or seen in our lives. Christ sees what is in the human being, and what He sees is beautiful, astonishing, breathtaking.

For people like me, October 22, 1978 was the beginning of a new world (although it would take a few years before I discovered that world). How many of our generation would even be in the Church today if it hadn't been for this man?

He was "the Pope." And he was so many other things too. His was a unique mission, a special charism. He was an evangelist, a catechist, a spiritual father who taught us how to listen to the Church and be shaped inwardly by her. He brought us a wisdom that put things into perspective. He brought healing, deep inner healing that reached so many of our unseen wounds. He gave us courage.

Blessed John Paul II convinced me that Jesus Christ is real, that He lives, and that He is the answer to my life.

The unforgettable words of October 22, 1978 spoke to my soul anew today, in the Office of Readings:

The absolute, and yet sweet and gentle, power of the Lord responds to the whole depths of the human person, to his loftiest aspirations of intellect, will and heart. It does not speak the language of force, but expresses itself in charity and truth....

Do not be afraid. Open, I say open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of states, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid. Christ knows “that which is in man”. He alone knows it.

So often today, man does not know that which is in him, in the depths of his mind and heart. So often he is uncertain about the meaning of his life on this earth. He is assailed by doubt, a doubt which turns into despair. We ask you, therefore, we beg you with humility and with trust, let Christ speak to man. He alone has words of life, yes, of life eternal.

In Memory of a Friend

"He didn't seem like he was depressed and was always smiling. This is shocking" (Anon).

A bright autumn day

colors

crisp

sunlight flashing on the windows.

A clear day, blue with painted hues of leaf.

I stood strong and tall

in the breezy wind

and felt life once again

like great power

from my head flowing down through me.

With large strides

I passed over the fields

drinking fountains of expansive air.

And with the red sun playing on my head,

I burst through the door

but her face was bloodless white.

I stopped, and suddenly

the October air froze on my skin.

She searched my face

with a gaze of shiny wet cheeks

and spoke your name,

and this single word

had a weight

that said everything.

Fire arose in my bones

and spread all over me

until it found my eyes.

And the sun flickered in the shadows.

              --in memoriam, jp, +october 17, 2005

Surviving a "Nationals" Disaster

Saturday morning was gloomy outside, but especially gloomy inside the Janaro home.

John Paul finally broke the silence: "So, do you think that was the worst sports disaster that I have ever seen in my life?"

John Paul likes to rank things and various aspects of his life, not only according to "best" and "worst" but also in an orderly sequence of preferences. For example, he has a ranking for all 30 baseball teams, from favorite to least favorite.

The St. Louis Cardinals used to be his third favorite. Not any more.

"Well," I began to say, "that was just baseball. Things like that happen in baseball."

Of course they do. I am almost fifty baseball seasons old. I've seen every kind of crazy thing. I know well the truth of those famous words of Yogi Berra: "It ain't over...till its over."

"We were one strike away," John Paul groaned.

"I know," I said miserably. "And he threw strike three and the umpire didn't call it!" Certainly not. No smart umpire is going to decide the outcome of a playoff series on a called third strike at the knees.

It was painful to watch the end. It was terrible! Even Eileen suffered (she's now thoroughly hooked on baseball). We felt that awful pain that the old sports show famously described as "the agony of defeat."

Baseball is a kind of drama: a living stage on which intelligence, human effort, and even a kind of heroism combine with the uncontrollable forces of material contingency. Sometimes the difference in a baseball game is a breeze that blows at a certain moment, or (literally) "the way the ball bounces."

Of course, 24 hour sports talk analyzes every single detail, on and on and on. Fans get angry at players and call them all sorts of names that they don't really mean: "He struck out! What a moron!"

Uh...no. Actually, he's a trained professional athlete with outstanding capabilities who was trying to do something very difficult. He was trying to hit a baseball at 90 miles an hour and he missed three times. There is nothing "moronic" about this at all.

But our emotions are invested in the game, and the players take on roles in a drama of winning and losing, triumph and tragedy. We experience a kind of catharsis. We also affirm civic or regional loyalties, and sometimes even the bond between generations.

We also go way overboard. Sports--like almost everything else in our culture--are bloated beyond proportion. They have become part of the all-absorbing distraction that we call "entertainment." They are a monstrous parody of their natures, and people drug themselves or otherwise do disproportionate damage to their bodies in their efforts to achieve success.

It is difficult for any of us to find our balance in the whirlwind that is everywhere blowing our culture beyond all boundaries. But that does not excuse us from the effort to live the game according to its real nature.

We must learn to play, even in the whirlwind. This requires special personal skill, which the ancients called virtue. Not many people in the world care about virtue, and those who do generally find that its hard to get very far in acquiring the skill to live well. We must try to help one another. We need to learn how to play the game hard, and then let it go.

That's never been easy for me.

When I was a kid, I used to throw the radio across the room (thank goodness it was just a radio back then) when my team blew a lead in the ninth inning.

But I'm much more "mature" now (haha). On Friday night, when the Cardinals rallied with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning to defeat our beloved Washington Nationals and bring their splendid and surprising season to an end, I didn't smash the television.

I felt like smashing the television.

Nevertheless--although I have hardly developed anything in the way of virtue--I have acquired a veneer of civilization over the years. So I swallowed my frustration at the always-unpredictable tricks of the little white ball. I simply rose from my chair, went to my bedroom, and--putting on Vivaldi's Four Seasons--laid down and closed my eyes, The first of the seasons, of course, is Spring.

Spring. It will be here before we know it. "We'll get 'em next year!"