A New Heart, a New Spirit

Thus says the Lord:
"I will take you away from among the nations,
gather you from all the foreign lands,
and bring you back to your own land.
I will sprinkle clean water upon you
to cleanse you from all your impurities,
and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
I will give you a new heart
and place a new spirit within you,
taking from your bodies your stony hearts
and giving you natural hearts.
I will put my spirit within you
and make you live by my statutes,
careful to observe my decrees.
You shall live in the land I gave your ancestors;
you shall be my people, and I will be your God."

~Ezekiel 36:24-28

"September" Art and Photography

Here are a few digital art projects and photos from the end of the Summer that have been posted on other media.

This is called "September" (art).

"Virginia country house" (art).

"Blue Ridge Mountain Roads" (art).

A pic of some potted foliage in the front of a building in "the big city."
I thought the color variety was pretty interesting.

Sunset in the neighborhood (around 7 PM these days) featuring
the steeple of the local Baptist church (photo).

Suffering and Christian Life: Sometimes It's Just SO HARD

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

God brings salvation through Jesus Christ, through His suffering and death on the cross. In ways that are mysterious, personal, particular to each one out us, He invites us to share His sufferings so that we might also share in His resurrection.

Jesus unites us to Himself on the cross. Often there is consolation and a sense of strength in knowing this and calling it mind. You look at the cross and it brings peace. Certainly you should do this as much as possible.

But sometimes, in some circumstances, it's just very very hard.

It's so hard, when you can't see Him. He's brought you so close to Him on the cross that you're seeing and feeling the wounds and you can't see His face.

We believe that Christ is risen, and that our real life is in Him. There's a radical joy in the hope of eternal life. Suffering and death are not the final words on our existence.

There's also sorrow and suffering because we're human, because we don't understand, and because faith and hope can be very obscure. But God knows our hearts, better than we know them ourselves.

Salvation is not an escape from being human, from suffering and sorrow. It redeems our humanity and gives meaning to suffering that is otherwise incomprehensible, that even seems cruel.

God not only binds our wounds. He bears them in their open, bleeding, emptying-into-death and transfigures them in His risen body into the signs of the love that lives forever.

That sounds mysterious and profound and good.

But how does such a statement "connect" to the actual experience of the pain and dying of me and you from moment to moment? If we're looking for pablum, for a sentimental solution, or any solution we can measure, then these words will fail us. They will sound like abstract theology.

God didn't give us pablum for our salvation. He didn't give us "solutions" for our salvation. He gave us His Son.

Explanations fail us, people fail us, our own bodies and brains ultimately fail us. Jesus will never fail us.

"Whoever believes..." Hold onto Him, and don't let go. Allow Him to hold you.

Don't go away. Don't run from Him. Stay. Let Him hold you.

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him" (John 3:17)... so that you might be saved through Him.

Don't lose hope. He will hold on to you.

Rose Study, Number 5

The Waking Dreams of My Father

I don't know how to talk about what Dad is going through, or what I'm going through trying to stay precariously balanced in a situation that is always changing.

So I'm just going to "talk" about it, rambling and writing whatever comes out.

This is something I never imagined, ever, in the first 54 years of my life.

When my Dad started to slow down in his late 70s, and after he moved into his 80s and slowed down more, I sometimes thought that when we said goodbye at the end of one of our frequent visits to Arlington, it might be the last time.

I thought, "Maybe this is it. Maybe I'll never see him alive again in this world." I thought about that possibility. I won't say I was prepared for it, but I saw it on the horizon.

When his motor coordination and memory began to decline gradually last year, I figured it was the initiation of a slow decline.

But Dad was dependable. He was always basically the same (at least as I perceived him). He loved with persistence and dedication those who were entrusted to him. He took care of my Mom. He took care of my brother and me, taught us the value of hard work and being professional, but without goading us. Worldly success was not an inflexible imperative; when health problems brought my own career crashing down, he was there to help and to be quietly understanding.

He loved his grandchildren and they loved their "Papa." When the kids were little, they saw my parents a lot. We would spend many weekends (and longer visits during the Summer) at their place, with the kids in sleeping bags on the floor in the living room. The kids have so many happy memories of those days, growing up with their grandparents.

Dad wasn't perfect and he had his share of problems and suffering. Growing old was a particular challenge as he began (slowly, it seemed) to have difficulty doing a lot of things that used to be easy for him. He was, after all, over 80 years old. He was getting forgetful, a little hard of hearing (we thought), slower, more frail.

But he seemed to be the same consistent Dad we had known all our lives.

Then came the year 2018. What is probably an Alzheimer's-related dementia accelerated very rapidly in a few months to the point where he now only occasionally manages to speak a coherent sentence. He has also completely lost the ability to walk.

It's like a bomb fell from the sky and just blew up.

It's been a complete revolution, above all in his life but also for the rest of us. We're still in the process of trying to put things together in a new way. Both Mom and Dad are safe and getting the assistance they need, but a lot of things are still provisional.

In retrospect, we can see that there were signs of his illness in the last couple of years. There may have been more that we didn't see. Our parents loved us, but they didn't want to "burden" us. Indeed, they valued their independence, their privacy, their routines, even their furniture (some of which is older than me and still in great condition).

Dad seems adjusted to his new physical surroundings after 6 months (though he doesn't really know where he is; sometimes he thinks he's still at home, or in a hotel, or at a conference, or we don't know because he says words that don't make sense). He gets frustrated because he can't remember what he wants to say to us, or how to say the words.

My brother and I get to see him a lot, and he still recognizes us. A lot of impressions go through his mind from the past, from things that happened a long time ago, from things that never happened at all. At one point the other day, he grabbed our arms and said, "You're real, right? You're really here."

My father lives in a world of obscurity, of waking dreams. Thank God he is being well cared for, and that we can spend time with him.

It has taken me a long time just to realize how difficult it is for me to accept that my Dad is incapacitated. When he says things that make no sense, it's not my fault that I can't understand him.

It's not my fault. That would seem obvious, but it's different when it's your own father's face in front of you, still with some of the expressions you have seen--and the voice you have heard--ever since you were born. This is the face and the voice that raised you, that always "made sense," that you loved, trust, admired, and respected. Around your own middle age, you finally began to appreciate him deeply--to realize how much sense and how much wisdom and how much love came from that face and that voice.

It's still there. Occasionally something flashes through, suddenly and rapidly. He grabbed my shoulder today and said, "Solid fellow. Solid fellow." He is still the same living breathing human person; he is just handicapped by a terminal illness. He can still give and receive love.

And we have to remember that fact in the time to come, as the illness progresses and he can no longer grab our shoulders or even open his own eyes.

I know there is deep-down mysterious suffering for my Dad. I pray for him all the time, and trust in God who knows him entirely and loves him completely. God knows what my Dad needs in this last season of life, and for eternity.

Well, that's enough rambling from me. I'm battling to keep my own head above water. Even though I often feel more useless than ever, I also see (as much as a human being can see such things) that my task in this life is not yet completed.

Even if it seems like nothing, I'll do what I can for each day and throw myself upon the mercy of God.

What Would I Do Without Music?

I really really don't know what I would do without music. And it's been a good summer of music, with more than the usual amount of live music. I have already written about the concert we saw in July, but I want to at least make reference a couple of other moments.

We had a lovely evening in August when our friend Marie Miller took a break from her headlining summer tour to sing and play music with some friends at the Front Royal Brewery, a new local spot:

Not a good picture, but definitely good music: LtoR, Anna and Rachel McMahon, Marie Miller, Kenny Kohlhaas.

Then, of course, on Labor Day weekend we had the fourth annual Appaloosa Festival, which is always a highlight of the season.

With our hosts, the great Scythian....

...along with numerous other excellent bands on multiple stages. I took some good pictures and posted them on Instagram and other places. Here is a sample to serve as an overview:

After a hot Sunday afternoon, we were all glad to see this beautiful sunset, with plenty of music still ahead:

We had a great time, once again!

I don't know if I'll see more live music this Fall. But if I do have a chance, I wouldn't mind seeing the "Contemporary R&B" Queen who will be touring for her new album Hiding Place, that was just released Friday.

Tori Kelly is a California girl with Anglo, Puerto Rican, and African Jamaican roots. In this new album, she collaborates with Kirk Franklin and some excellent singers and musicians to give a contemporary spin to the old fashioned gospel music genre.

Really good stuff. And from what I have seen on YouTube she sings a spectacular live show.

Stay tuned....

Takashi Nagai's Journey to Christ

I am republishing my blog post from March about Takashi Nagai, and adding to it a photo reproduction of my article about his early life and his encounter with Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church. Some may have seen the article in this month's issue of Magnificat. This post will fill in a few details about the rest of his great life.

Dr. Takashi Nagai (1908-1951) was a Japanese medical doctor, a scientist and pioneering researcher who specialized in radiology, a highly respected professor, a beloved husband and father, and a convert from atheism to Jesus Christ and his Church. My article about his conversion appears in Magnificat's September 2018 issue.

But there is another story, the story of a more profound conversion, a radical change in Dr. Nagai's whole life that set him on the road to a greater faith, but also involved his passing through an almost unimaginable horror that began at 11:02 AM on August 9, 1945.

First, here is a copy of the article about his early life that just appeared in print:

****************************************************************************************************************

I can only say that the story of this great man, his wife, his family, his colleagues, and his community is one of the most intense and heart-wrenching and terrifying and beautiful stories I have ever come across in the twentieth century Church.

It is a story he lived long enough to tell, in a book called The Bells of Nagasaki. 

The Catholics of the Urakami district of Nagasaki, the disciples of Francis Xavier, the survivors of three centuries of persecution, were not specifically the intended target of the second atomic bomb. But because of various circumstances including weather conditions and wind, the very heart of Christianity in Japan--home to some 30,000 Catholics and their cathedral--became, literally, Ground Zero.

Many thousands of people were immediately reduced to ashes, including an estimated 8,000 Christians at the epicenter who were going about their morning routines, living, working, and praying. The cathedral was packed with worshippers praying for peace when the bomb exploded in the air above it. People in the vicinity of Ground Zero died where they were standing, sitting, or kneeling, in a flash.

The Nagai children were outside the city with their grandmother on that day. But their mother Midori Nagai was in the kitchen of their home in Urakami near the cathedral. The old home was built over a cowshed where her ancestors, the secret Christians, had gathered to pray and pass on their faith for seven generations without any priests, with only a basic catechism and the sacrament of baptism.

Days later her husband found remnants of her skeleton in the midst of the ruins, and some melted metal in the remains of the bones of her hand where he could barely make out the outline of a crucifix. Like so many of the Christians at Ground Zero, Takashi Nagai's wife had a deep devotion to Mary. When the awful fire fell, she had been praying the rosary.

Dr. Nagai was working at the Nagasaki University hospital on that morning. He was pinned under the wreckage of his laboratory, seriously injured but alive. Eventually the handful of doctors, nurses, and students who survived were able to reach him, stop the worst of his bleeding, and bring him to his feet. They formed a team that for several days worked heroically to treat whomever could be rescued from the flames and the scorched ground where there had once been a city.

As doctors, they did what they could to help the wounded, without medicines or supplies. As scientists, they discussed among themselves with horror and wonder the phenomenon that had occurred. They didn't know of the attack on Hiroshima, but they were able to see that this was a wholly new kind of bombing. Dr. Nagai and his colleagues were aware of the trajectory of atomic research, and had heard rumors that efforts were being made to use that research to make a horrible weapon, a nuclear bomb.

Their experience convinced them that these efforts had succeeded, and that they were living through a nuclear holocaust. And it wasn't over yet.

In the hours, then days, then weeks that followed, many people who had survived the blast developed strange and often fatal illnesses from radiation poisoning. Still others would succumb to their injuries. After a month of exhausting labor caring for the wounded and struggling to stay on his own feet, Dr. Nagai himself collapsed and was on the verge of death. His colleagues gave up hope of saving him as he moved in and out of a coma.

He recalled that he was prepared to die, but felt the desire and the need to live for the sake of his children (who had already lost their mother). Then he had a very unusual experience, which he reported to be something like a voice prompting him in a very specific way. In order to understand the significance of this prompting, we should note that Saint Maximilian Kolbe had lived in Nagasaki from 1930-1936 and was well known and much loved by the Catholic community. He had even been one of Dr. Nagai's patients. Fr. Kolbe had, of course, returned to Poland where the final act of his own drama awaited, and all news of him was blocked by the war.

But as Dr. Nagai lay dying, a voice seemed to urge him to "pray to Fr. Kolbe" for healing. No one in Japan knew that Fr. Kolbe was even dead, much less that he had died a martyr, but Takashi Nagai prayed for the intercession of the beloved friar. Soon after, he emerged from the coma, and the injury causing immediate danger to his life was inexplicably healed.

His fellow doctors said it was a miracle.

Unfortunately, his overall health was broken by radiation-induced leukemia, which eventually rendered him an invalid. From his bed, he turned to writing. In the light of his deepening faith, he wrote about the events he had experienced and their implications for the future. He wanted to record all he could for the sake of his native Japan and its reconstruction, for future scientific research, and as an advocate for peace in the world. He lived until 1951 and wrote 20 books, including The Bells of Nagasaki.

He is held in great esteem in Japan by Christians and non-Christians, and his story deserves to be more widely known. As I continue my literary (and film/video) "tour" of East Asia, you will hear more about him from me. His story is deeply Catholic, sorrowful, mysterious, and marked by the distinctively Japanese cultural character that we need to understand better.

But you don't have to wait for me. Fr Paul Glynn, an Australian priest who lived many years in Japan, wrote a very accessible biography that was recently reprinted by Ignatius Press, which you can get HERE. It is not an easy story, but it is one that needs to be heard, and that is very important for our troubled world today.

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

The Cranberries' "New New York"

The Irish have a special place in their hearts for New York. The island people and the great American city have been associated by bonds of kinship and admiration for hundreds of years.

It's not surprising that 9/11/2001 and the days that followed were poignant, tragic, and heroic for the Irish imagination (which is steeped in such things).

On May 30, 2002 the late Dolores O'Riordan visited the ruins of the World Trade Centers in Manhattan. Her impressions became the source of the hardest-rocking song released by The Cranberries since their visceral protest statement against the violence in Northern Ireland in 1994, "Zombie."

But there is something different about "New New York." In addition to being simple, abrasive, direct, and mournful, the song looks beyond the endless repetition of war and destruction. "New New York" is an anthem to a city struggling to rebuild itself.

It concludes in a decisively positive fashion: "They won't tear us apart." With the smoke barely cleared from Ground Zero in 2002, this was a significant statement of hope. New Yorkers and their city have done much since then to realize that hope.

The beginning of this year 2018 brought another tragedy that touched the Irish soul: the sudden death of Dolores O'Riordan at age 46 from the unforeseen consequences of an accident in her London hotel room on January 15.

The conclusion of the inquest was finally announced last week, and ruled out death by suicide.

It seems appropriate to remember those who perished on 9/11/2001 with Dolores O'Riordan's tribute song, as we all hope and pray that together we will see a "new day" that never ends.

WARNING: This video contains rock music. This is not "Dreams" or "Linger," people. It's loud. Turn down your volume, adjust ear phones, etc.😉 Lyrics to the song are provided below (and, by the way, it doesn't pretend to be Yeats or anything; it's a rock 'n roll song—genre is the key to appreciating...many things).

New New York

New, New, New, Ah ah ah ah
New, New, New, Ah ah ah ah
New New York skyline
wounds they heal in time
don't crawl and don't despair
it's a new New York today.

I look across these city streets
my heart is numb, it still beats
nothing to say
there's nothing to say.

I look across this empty room
my heart is still in gloom
there's nothing to say
I only can pray.

New, New, New, Ah ah ah ah
New, New, New, Ah ah ah ah
New New York skyline
wounds they heal in time
don't crawl and don't despair
it's a new New York today.

I look across these city streets
my heart is cold, it beats
thirtieth of May
Ground Zero today
New, New, New, Ah ah ah ah
New, New, New, Ah ah ah ah
I get down on my knees and pray
for the heroes of the day
and no comfort I can find
for the loved ones left behind.

They won't tear us apart
they won't tear us apart
they won't tear us apart

they won't tear us apart

No way

New day

New day.

Christina Grimmie and her Mother: Keeping God First

Tina Marie "Mama" Grimmie was laid to rest this past weekend, next to her daughter who died two years and three months ago on June 10, 2016.

May God hold them both together forever in His eternal embrace.💚💚🕀

We Are All Called To Be "Missionaries of Charity"

Seriously?

We are all called to be "Missionaries of Charity"? Hey, wait, whoa...!!

This is the congregation founded by (Saint) Mother Teresa, that vows poverty, chastity, obedience, and wholehearted and free service to the poorest of the poor. The MCs really go to the margins, and beyond the margins. It's an awesome and totally radical life, dedicated in a visible way—a prophetically significant way—to Jesus in the Eucharist and in the most desperately poor, unwanted, forgotten people.

The MCs are utterly unromantic. They don't have illusions about what it takes on the natural human level (in terms of physical, psychological, and emotional strength) to live and endure their form of life. Good foundations for the development of such strength (with the help of grace) are ordinarily necessary, but of course they are not sufficient.

In fact human strength is utterly incapable of laying hold of the divine dimension of this calling. Thus there are also other ways to adhere to Mother Teresa's great "movement" (e.g. as co-workers, volunteers, or through the offering of prayer and suffering). It is still possible to participate profoundly in the grace of this charism if you are specifically drawn to it, even if you have a constitution that prohibits you from developing the ability to live in any kind of place, eat any kind of food, be moved somewhere else in the world at a moment's notice, do whatever difficult physical or mental tasks are required by the harsh environment of a slum, a war zone, etc.

Clearly, not everyone is called to the specific form of consecrated life that is the Missionaries of Charity.

Vocations are tested extensively, and many good-hearted people who try to join the MCs are told (sometimes after a period of trial) that "this is not where God is calling you." And that is not a judgment against their character; it is realism about the nature and grace of the MC vocation.

The women and men who live for God through the vows of the Missionaries of Charity live in the heart of the Church and at the most desperate extremities of the world. They live the mystical reality of charity (caritas, agape), which is the kind of love that is ultimate and decisive for existence.

"Charity" in the proper sense of the term indicates the love given by the Holy Spirit—the love that is from God and for God, the supernatural love that we Christians all receive in baptism, that empowers us to live as children of God in Christ. It is also the mysterious hidden reality offered to every human being, and communicated (somehow—perhaps by an "implicit baptism by desire") to those who seek faithfully to do the will of God, the ultimate Goodness, insofar as they understand it. Through grace and charity the Spirit guides and shapes the life of human beings toward the fullness of the recognition of Jesus Christ.

Every human person has been created to receive and to give this love.

Charity is the love that endures forever. The MC vocation is to live this charity in an intense, visibly dedicated way, to all the ends of the earth, wherever there are human persons in need of love.

It is an intense life.

I have been a volunteer with the MCs at various times in my life, and for a consistent period when I lived in Rome. Just volunteering was overwhelmingly intense for me. But I'm glad for what I learned from the experience.

By the very clarity and radical nature of their dedication, the MCs are witnesses to the love that we are all called to live in our own circumstances with the people who are "near" us (our "neighbor").

"Love your neighbor." Everyone agrees with that, right? Nevertheless, it's the hardest thing in the world to do, concretely, day in and day out. 

We can't love one another consistently and in the fullest sense without the grace of Jesus Christ. Those who love others with charity are moved by His grace even if they don't know His name yet, or have not yet inwardly perceived the significance of Him in a way they can articulate to themselves, due to unavoidable misunderstandings, psychologically entrenched preconceptions, or other factors about the human personality that are beyond our understanding.

We all need to know Him better. For this we need witnesses. The MCs are witnesses to the love of God in Christ for every human being. Their witness inspires us to want to love more, to grow in love.

We are drawn to a deeper conversion, to greater worship of the Lord, with gratitude and humility, with a more vital spirit of prayer. And we ask the Lord to give us more generous hearts, more open hearts so that He can give His love through us.

Then by helping one another, and even by just living ordinary life with that prayer, that desire, we ourselves become witnesses, "missionaries of charity" (small "mc") wherever we are.

Mother Teresa spoke often of the "smile," a simple thing: "Peace begins with a smile." This doesn't mean fake smiling all the time, nor is it merely the naturally spontaneous gesture of a cheerful disposition. It means becoming (patiently, day by day) the kind of person who smiles from the heart.

Something from the depths of us where God dwells can appear on our faces, maybe not all the time but sometimes, and perhaps more and more as we grow and experience healing.

Even clinically depressed people can give and receive this smile, or suffering people, people in "dark nights" like Mother Teresa herself. It is the joy of Christ. It changes the world, one gesture at a time, person to person.

This is the mission of charity that is entrusted to each one of us.

Mother Teresa: "Bring Love Into Your Home"

"It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start."

– Mother Teresa

(We celebrate Saint [Mother] Teresa of Kolkata on September 5.)

Rest in Peace, Mama Grimmie

Rest in Peace, Tina Marie Grimmie (5/25/1959 - 9/2/2018). She passed away yesterday at the end of a very long struggle with cancer.

She was affectionately known as "Mama Grimmie" to millions of 'frands' of her daughter, the late great singer-songwriter Christina Grimmie (whom I have written about many times in these pages).

💚Mama Grimmie, we will miss you!💚

First diagnosed with breast cancer 23 years ago, Mama Grimmie underwent extensive treatment and passed through several relapses and remissions during different periods of Christina's short life.

Christina was greatly shaped while growing up by the experience of her mother's fragile and unpredictable health, but more important for her was to see her mother live these trials with deep faith, courage, a generous spirit, and an enduring zest for life. Mama Grimmie remained a strong support and a great example to Christina to the end, along with her advice to "keep God first" in her career, her life, and her heart.

Mama Grimmie continued to battle cancer for more than two years after her daughter's death, sharing her own powerfully honest grief but also turning outward to console and help others by establishing the Christina Grimmie Foundation along with her husband Bud and son Marcus.

May the Lord gather her now, together with her beloved daughter, into His eternal embrace.

And may He console Bud Grimmie and Marcus Grimmie, who remain behind, carrying an immense sorrow even as they continue a precious legacy.💚💚

Even in the Worst Times, the Lord is Here and He Leads Us

The Collect for this liturgical week in the Roman Missal (the 21st week of Ordinary time) is a very helpful prayer for all Christians facing difficulties, and for discerning the path ahead in these particularly opaque times.

Many of us can't find the way through all the confusion caused by the chaos of these sins and crimes that continue to be revealed, that occurred in the Catholic world over the past three quarters of a century.

We hear again of all the abuses of authority, the peculiarly deep personal destructiveness of a sexuality divorced from God's plan for human life and love and weaponized in the service of pride and lust, and all the failures to stop the offenders or to protect or even attend to the victims of this predatory violence.

It is horrible, and we are horrified. But many of us find that we are just being driven down further into the confusion. Nor do we find clarity from the flare-up on the Internet and other media of indiscriminate accusations and loud arguments from many sides, with all their conflicting interpretations of events and proposals for change.

We want to do God's will. We want to hear the voices and respond with compassion and care for those whose humanity has been so profoundly violated. We want to hold perpetrators accountable as well as those in authority who actually could have stopped these predators but failed to take necessary action. And we want to support real and constructive reforms.

But we can so easily find the constant flow of instant news information and blog and social media polemics overwhelming, perplexing, or even triggering to the pain of our own psychological and emotional wounds. Many of us who hear constantly in these days about the current scandals have our own terrible struggles with mental illness, and don't have the resources to process (psychologically or even physically) the enormous stress and tension that have pervaded the Catholic environment. Many of us also are broken because we too have been abused in some serious way by people in the Church or the wider world, in sexuality or other areas involving a deep personal trust that has been betrayed or manipulated.

So for us this moment in the life of the Church means more suffering, often in ways that render us incapable of putting all the whirlwind of information and opinions and arguments into some kind of healthy perspective.

One thing that must be said, however, is that those who are suffering from the awful effects of clerical sexual abuse must not be forgotten. They have priority. They are—in a very urgent way at this time—Christ suffering in his members. It would be a further abuse to use these people as just a pretext for pushing someone's ecclesiastical political agenda. When ideologies crystallize, real persons are easily forgotten, and even the most zealous advocates for justice end up replacing the old injustices of others with new injustices of their own.

We must remember the people who are suffering.

Each victim of sexual abuse is a unique, individual human person with his or her own story of violation, betrayal, and pain. Their sufferings are cries to God that he hears. He wants his people and his ministers in the Church to remember him by listening with compassion to the stories of these persons. So much suffering afflicts Christians and others because people entrusted with the special vocation to be servants and instruments of God's love in the world have forgotten God.

What can we do? The "field hospital" is filled way beyond its capacity. Can the Divine Physician count on his ministers and co-workers to tend the wounded, and also to build a healthier environment? 

Of course, the Lord will not fail us with his grace. He himself carries all the depths of our suffering. He who mysteriously accompanies from within every human being will also inspire in the hearts of some of the Church's members the compassion for the needs of persons, the insight, and the sense of justice that will lead to reform. He is already working, even through the awkward disagreements of people of good faith. He is working most specially in those who give primary attention to caring for the victims, who listen to their pain and to the Holy Spirit who whispers therein his will for the whole Church.

Christians must help in whatever way they have been empowered by the Spirit of God. But we do not know the depths of God's plan, the mystery of the profound goodness that he wills to bring forth from out of the consequences he permits when he allows creatures to misuse their freedom.

God really is good. All the time. And some of us may be called simply to walk through the dark valley, without the comfort of knowing-what's-going-on or the sense of having accomplished anything. Being overwhelmed and feeling "lost" and powerless are not ultimately indicative of defeat. God is in charge. The heart of the Church is Jesus Christ crucified who conquers death and gives eternal life, whose ultimate "weakness" reveals the final, absolute power of Divine love. (I tell myself this, even when I don't feel it.)

We accomplish God's will, in our work and in our suffering, by following Jesus in faith and love, by trusting (maybe in desperation, but never giving up) the mercy of the Father who has loved us first and who loves us now (however troubled we may be). We will find confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit who renews the Church and continually impels her members, even with their flaws, to go forth and witness to the salvation of the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

There is a battle, indeed, but the battle has already been won. We experience tribulation as we respond to God's call. We try to do his will, we fail, we repent. He allows all of us to suffer in different ways (and we will all be divested of our human powers by death) but this is only so that we might have a share in his suffering and thus share in the fullness of his victory.

We need to remember that we belong to Jesus Christ. He has taken hold of our lives, and he reaches others through us, not only through our constructive activity, but also (and especially) through our suffering.

Let us adhere to God's love, whether we are seeking justice, doing works of mercy, spending our talents and energy in his service, fighting against evil, or suffering and finding that all we can do is hold onto him within our helplessness, that all we can do is die with him.

God has come to stay with us. If we remember him, if we open our hearts and let him love us, he will transform us. He will give meaning to everything in our lives.

The prayer from this week helps us to remember him:

"O God, who cause the minds of the faithful
to unite in a single purpose,
grant your people to love what you command
and to desire what you promise,
that, amid the uncertainties of this world,
our hearts may be fixed on that place
where true gladness is found.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever."

The "Foolishness of God"

Silver rosary from Guadalupe, with papal cross:
.

"We Wish We Had No Noses" (a poetic fragment)

"We Wish We Had No Noses" (a poetic fragment)
by JJ 8/30/2018

Anger, it's true, anger
is there.
And other sensations yet unknown,
beyond the edge,
beneath the crust,
of this foot pounded hard shell of earth.

There is a slow poison
punched deep in the skin,
an anesthetic cancer
weaving through spaces of nerves,
imitating normal life.

Slowly, we get used to it.

But then the way is interrupted
by erupting fire shots from the ground.
Strike shocks ear drums,
strains, spins eyes in circles.
We watch pieces of flesh ripped, burned,
scattered in the field,
stinking in the air. We wish
we had no noses.

Anger is there, and sorrow is rain
falling harder and harder
as evening makes
a world of mud lakes.
Now every step slips
in sewers of soft sludge
or kicks open fissures of lightning
hidden under rocks.

Can these old bones
in this child soul
learn to walk again?

*********************************************************

Note on one thematic aspect expressed in the words above: Sometimes in life, you feel like you're in a place full of hidden landmines that keep exploding (literally or metaphorically). That's one of the images (by no means the only one) that enters into the texture of this "poetic fragment."

The image of landmines works within a complex of other themes and impressions grasped through experience, imaginative empathy, and other perceptions and resources. These inspire and shape the 'creative intuition' that guides the practical work of crafting words into a poem (with varying degrees of success).

My initial title for this work was "Landmine," but I chose instead another title--a more concrete and subjective image with more subtlety, that is also suggestive of other interrelated themes that came together in the writing process.

Poetry is never simply argument or narrative (even when it also carries out and/or contributes to these generally prosaic tasks). It flows from an intuition expressed in language that probes reality and provokes insight, aesthetic connection, and sometimes astonishment.

Cross

Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross. (Image from the Stations of the Cross at our parish church.)

Wine Study, Summer 2018

WELCOME TO THE REVOLUTION?

This is an abstract work that has been developing over the past few months. Now is as good a time as any to be finished with it and to introduce it here. The accompanying title is the question, "WELCOME TO THE REVOLUTION?"

I have no interpretation to offer for this piece.

I have been studying the genesis and development of the brutal revolutions of the twentieth century, including their original grievances (which were often fueled by the great evils of prior regimes), their psychological and sociological dynamics, and their ghastly, horrific consequences.

The context out of which I crafted this artwork includes a conviction that I find verified in history again and again, that revolution is not the answer.

A passionate desire for legitimately needed reform that does not attend to justice, equity, realism, and respect for every human person will inevitably be co-opted by ideological violence and manipulated to the latter's own distorted ends.

Revolution is the spiral of violence further intensified, expanded to even more monstrous proportions, and set ablaze. As Dostoevsky said, it is "Fire in the minds of men."

Before we realize it, we become strangers to one another, tearing one another apart.

"You Are My Refuge..."

"With my voice I cry to the Lord;
with my voice I make supplication to the Lord.
I pour out my complaint before him;
I tell my trouble before him.
                  
"When my spirit is faint,
you know my way.

"I cry to you, O Lord;
I say, ‘You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living.’
Give heed to my cry,
for I am brought very low."

~Psalm 142:1-3, 5-6