Put it Down and Look Around

In the past few days, the links that appear in my feeds and inboxes all lead me to commentary on the saturation of technology and internet in daily life.

The Samsung Galaxy has been carpet-bombing us with propaganda to get us off our propaganda-driven Apple loyalties.

Rachel Held Evans tries to explain how we are in danger of becoming little more than the sum of our social media posts.

Then, my brother turns me on to an America article that argues pretty well that Apple is dangerously similar to religion, and even more damning than that, a dead-on commentary about the crooked angle Apple's newest commercials have taken.

That last article suggests that we're gonna look back on these Apple ads in particular as an example of how distracted we've gotten from what's important: "Apple’s consecrating the behavior [of staring on a screen], and even going on to say that their products, not the lives they serve, are 'what matters.'"

Let me back up a step or two. I am an Apple user, since buying my MacBook and iPod before starting college. And when my phone came up for upgrade earlier this year, dissatisfied with the messaging phone options from AT&T, I took the iPhone plunge, too, selling my iTouch so as not to limits the device depths into which I would wade.

The key to smart phones and mobile devices is moderation. Just like with sexual urges, drugs and alcohol, eating, and so many other things, the object, the action, at stake isn't bad, but our excessive (or sometimes overly minimal) use of it can lead us down a bad road.

Maps apps help us navigate and learn our way. Uber gets us a cab on the double. Yelp helps us find a good bite to eat. Laudate even gives Catholics all the goods on readings, prayers, and much more. The instant gratification is seriously dangerous, but moderate use gives us accessibility and the chance to do things we couldn't do before, or at least with greater ease and frequency.

The point of that last article I linked is that our usage of these devices - for example in these Apple commercials, for listening to music or taking photos and videos - can distract us from the presence of the moment. The mobile devices put great power into our hands, and it's not wrong for us to want to use it. It is troubling when our desire becomes fixation or addiction or compulsion. We're not so much choosing to do things on the device as we are simply just doing it.

The new Windows Phone commercials advertise its "reinvented zoom", a great new feature for those of us who have increasingly left our digital cameras in the drawer and opted to use our smart phone cameras more. But again, the challenge is to pick the times and places to bust it out rather than going on autopilot.

Anyone who's been to a concert or sporting event can attest to the proliferation of phones. I feel like people weren't this compulsory about photos and video before smart phones. We see spectacular photos and videos in the news, online, or in magazines, and we think there's no reason we can't join in. Even if we aren't as accomplished or artistically refined, we can become photographers and cameramen, but to what end?

Sometimes, we have a compulsion to take a photo or shoot a video, or sometimes we feel that we need a photo or video. Rather than experience that quintessential song live and absorb every ounce of the one-time moment, we watch through a screen of inches, trying to steady our hands and focus on our framing. Sure, we have a copy of the real deal to keep forever, but how does this impact the quality and longevity of that memory?

I worry about compulsion more than anything. At Mumford & Sons in the summer, I limited myself to two 30-second videos. On my email-linked apps, I turned off the little red numbers so that my compulsive phone-checking couldn't be entrenched by the satisfaction of having new e-mail. In notification center, I turned off alerts for everything except calls, texts, and calendar. I'm still wrestling with the phone-checking habit, a habit that's been around way before smart-phones, and even unlimited texts.

My hope is that my smart-phone habits can gravitate toward necessity and leisure and away from compulsion. I hope I just pull out my phone to check my maps app when I want to compare travel times and see when the next brown line train rolls in. I hope I check my email when I'm awaiting a particular reply from someone. I hope I check for calls and texts when I'm expecting a call or hoping to hear from someone.

The power we hold in our hands gives us great responsibility. It's up to us what to do with it. St. Paul says when he became a man he gave up childish things. We don't need to lose our childlike awe and wonder - take a picture of a pretty sky or sunset, shoot a fun selfie or two on location - but we do need to discover some degree of maturity in not only owning our freedom but choosing good, choosing presence to what's going on around us as the default rather than falling into tunnel-visioned stupor.

Use your connectivity to bolster relationships, organize yourself, maximize your time, and communicate better. Utilize the technology to make the good stuff happen then let's put our phones down and be with the world and be with others.

I Shall Oblige

What is a holy day of obligation? USCCB can give you an answer, and let me pitch in, too.

Holy days of obligations are special feasts that do not fall on Sundays that we are called to celebrate together. Sometimes it can be frustrating to have to get back to Mass a second time during the week, especially when it can be hard to get there on Sundays in the first place. Some of these special feasts have been translated to Sundays - Ascension and Epiphany sometimes - but this is less than ideal.

We go to these "extra" Masses to celebrate and reflect upon mysteries of our faith directly. Holy days of obligation allow the cycle of Sunday readings to continue uninterrupted and let us make a steady journey through the Scripture laid out for us by the carefully planned lectionary. It also gives specific space to these mysteries - All Saints, Immaculate Conception, etc. - to be considered and prayed over on their own.

Some of these causes for celebration do not come specifically from particular Scriptural narratives but from the understanding of faith that our Tradition affords us, so due reflection on them calls for a greater space than simply readings. Priests' homilies, the prayers of the Mass, and the petitions and personal prayers that follow help us focus on these great mysteries and reflect on the way they can especially illuminate our faith.

Another neat layer here is that the dating of many feasts in the Church come from Tradition that is based on careful considerations and deliberations, and, frankly, fascinating. The dating of Christmas and Easter in the early Church was a long, winding road (forgive the Wikipedia link); the 40 days of Easter before Ascension and 50 days before Pentecost draw milestones from Resurrection narratives, though Pentecost is also based in part on a pre-existing Jewish tradition; the dating of John the Baptist's and Jesus' feasts derive in part from reckoning the perfection of Jesus' life as a "perfect" 9-month pregnancy and John's gestation as one day askew - his birth is celebrated as being June 24, not June 25, though his mother is described as being in her sixth month when Mary visits with Jesus in her womb (one author's more thorough history here).

All are called to celebrate the Eucharist each Sunday, to do this in memory of Christ, as he asked - "this" meaning not just to receive Eucharist, but come together as a community, to be taken, blessed, broken, and shared, to become what we receive, to be sent forth to glorify God by our lives. However, not everyone is called to do this on a daily basis, to be a daily-Mass-goer.

The way to pray and worship for most rests, as usual, in the middle ground. You don't need to go every day, but you can't just go when you feel like it. Sundays are our memorialization of Christ's resurrection, in which we as baptized Christians celebrate the life, death, and rising of Jesus, in whose life, death, and rising we share. So we should all be doing that together and reveling communally in the awesomeness of all that.

While Sunday Eucharist fuels the heartbeat of our sacramental lives of faith, holy days add special depth. Sundays are like visits to your general physician who will give you the comprehensive check-up and can capably tend to any of your maladies; holy days are like specialists who can tend to specific ailings and parts of you.

Holy days call us to reflection upon more specific people and events - Mary, Mother of God, the Ascension of Christ, the communion of saints, the Immaculate Conception... Holy days give us the occasion, and with the help of the Mass, its prayers and readings, its priest and homily, and the community we share, the means by which we can reflect on the mysteries of faith.

Hold the Relish

In periodic news perusings, I found the headline on CNN's website - which is increasingly appearing in giant-fonted all caps - "VICTIM TO CASTRO: 'YOUR HELL IS JUST BEGINNING'".

I'm not even going to begin to imagine the "hell" that this man put these captive women through. He was ruled guilty of seriously heinous crimes (and immoral activities) and sentenced to a whopping term in jail. And rightfully so.

But our attitude toward these people is seriously skewed. These women have every right to vent their anger, frustration, and serious emotional damage in the wake of being liberated. But then what? What happens after our righteous indignation fizzles? These women must live their lives, and this dude will rot in prison.

All of them continue being people. All of them continue to be worthy of being dignified as humans and children of God through mercy and compassion, whether as free women attempting to recover as much as possible or as an indefinitely incarcerated criminal. What attitude do we have toward criminals, especially after our initial outrage fades?

It brings me back to 2011 when news broke that the US had gotten Osama bin Laden. President Obama strode out to a podium to proudly proclaim to the world that the infamous terrorist had been captured and killed, marking a serious milestone in America's war against terror.

How did so many people react? By swarming to huge crowds and cheering the death of another person. It's too nuanced to expect from a mob scene, but I would hope we could celebrate the righteous actions of America (though the morality is arguable) and the advance of freedom at the expense of terrorism. The Church rightfully came out to proclaim that Christians do not rejoice at the death of another - well said by our bishops.

It's an interesting double standard in our increasingly relativist world. People don't want to be held to an absolute, universal moral standard, or to hold others to it, yet there are certain things they can and will get riled up about to the point of mobbing and rioting to proclaim it.

We shouldn't delight in the harm done to another person. We might find peace in justice being done, but we have to withhold our desires to enjoy the trials of others too much. Schadenfreude is a dangerous thing. It is highly tempting to delight in the problems of others. I know I love to see USC and Michigan football struggle, to see players I don't like miss shots or strike out, but I have to try to fence off my delight so it supports the triumph of my team and doesn't relish the fall of others.

I'll always root by butt off for the Cubs, Bears, Bulls, Hawks, and Irish, but I'll be darned if I'll root actively against the White Sox and Cardinals, Packers and Vikings, Pacers and Heat, Red Wings and Blues, or USC and Michigan. It's not worth my energy to begin with. But additionally, true fandom (and love for that matter!) is cheering for your side and not against the other. Victory comes in the success of one side moreso than the failure of another (most of the time).

Such a distinction may be nitpicky; it may even be practically impossible. However, we follow the model of the one dude who did achieve perfection. And in Christ, we have the example of perfect freedom, perfect love, and perfect justice. Perfection may be beyond our grasp, but let's keep seeking it. And let's not delight in the shortcomings of others along the way!

Catholic Absolutism as the Middle Ground

I love to identify extremes and discover morally, virtuously rich middle grounds. This can be a hard exercise today when so many voices, personalities, bloggers, and op-ed'ers are yelling so loud that you start to block it out or else mistake moderation for extremism because of the exhaustion.

In attempting to teach ethics and morality to teenagers, and in conversing regularly with friends and family in the same realm, I find the trends of relativism that Benedict XVI sought so fiercely to articulate and discredit are strong and real.

Here's an attempt to describe the apparent extremes I've seen, even if they're not the technical, philosophical endpoints. On the one hand, there are rigid absolutists, seeking to describe universal moral principles and militaristically hold all people to certain behavioral expectations. Conversely, there are relativists who believe that every one can make their own morality to govern behavior, which ought to be subject to little or no accountability from any one or any thing.

What's the middle ground? I would posit that true Catholic morality - absolutism coupled with Christian compassion - sets the standard.

Using a bit of extremism myself, I walked students through the example of honor killings in SE Asia. If a woman commits adultery with a man and thus brings dishonor to her family and the only way the family believes honor can be restored is by killing her, shouldn't they be allowed to do it? Obviously not. The students rightly identified that regardless of their culture, they can't murder someone, except maybe for a capital crime. They can have some unique cultural practices, but they can't murder.

I tried to show them that relativism doesn't hold because even relativists usually admit some basic universal moral standards; in this case, murder is always wrong. I think they tend to want moral requirements to be minimal and for us to be patient, slow to act upon holding others to the standard, or even stand aside altogether. They also don't want to be judged when in reality, the best teachers, parents, and even friends are the ones who hold you, me, and them accountable.

Ultimately, they know deep within that there are behavioral rules that everyone should follow; that certain things are just plain wrong; for example, most people would acknowledge the truth of the 10 Commandments.

Where's the disconnect then? They don't like how expansive the rules apparently are, and they don't like the idea of having to tell someone they're wrong or to be told by another that they themselves are wrong. Amid ESPN's coverage of Ryan Braun, Rick Sutcliffe said Braun lied to his face in an interview, adding, "If he was guilty, he could just say so, and I'd look the other way."

As our yearlong course unfolded, I aimed to show them that, yes, the Church can and often will respond to just about any ethical, moral, social issue, but that the Church doesn't necessarily have explicit, flowerly-languaged teachings printed on gilded parchment for each of the issues. We are simply responding to the example of Christ as we understand it through our Scripture and Tradition. Our faith provides us a thorough, consistent, and coherent message that can and does respond readily to our moral dilemmas.

And most importantly, the example of Christ - loaded as it is with serious moral demands and a strong call to choose good - is one of compassion. The best morality is one that is both absolute and compassionate. We must follow Augustine's call to love the sinner and hate their sin. This requires us to identify selfish, hurtful, loveless actions when others do them, yet to do so in a way that is caring and oriented toward love, toward, Heaven, toward the Kingdom.

The temptation many of us face in an attempt to be loving is to let sin and evil occur unchecked. That is easier but wrong. We have to engage a person for their goodness and dignity as a created child of God and call out how they've ignored or damaged this quality about them. At the same time, we must scrutinize ourselves in the same way, including allowing others to point us toward God and good.

The way forward may be to acknowledge the pairing of right and righter within our behavior, to recognize the vestiges of goodness within our intentions and actions that is coopted by evil and darkness.

Maybe my temptations toward pornography vaguely represent my recognition of the beauty of people and my sexual desire to marry and procreate, but it is being perverted by self-serving tendencies and my propensity to objectify people.

Maybe our temptations toward heavy drinking and drugs indicate our desire to enjoy our lives and world and creation and build community with others, but those pursuits are clouded and diluted by self-mutilation and failure to treat our bodies as the temples-of-the-spirit that they are.

Maybe our temptations toward lying express our desire to reach our full potential and be the best versions of ourselves but get wrongly detoured into deception, fueled by hidden insecurities, or encouraged by laziness.

The best morality corrects relativism's contradictions with recognition of universal morality and tempers the rigidity of absolutism with loving compassion. We cannot lapse into an anarchic live-and-let-live attitude or become robotically itinerant and detach from humanity by obsessing over a certain code.

We must enflesh the call to goodness and God by holding ourselves and one another to a standard of choosing right through the love modeled by Christ.

Summer Buffet (Love, SBNR, DOMA, and the Kingdom)

Chalk it up to summer vacation, but I have plenty of time to write and not enough to write about. Or maybe I have plenty to write about and too little focus to synthesize it. Let me try to offer a few nuggets from the summer sandbox of life...
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As indicated in my last post, I love to see authentic examples of people helping each other, giving love in seemingly ordinary ways and affirming the full dignity of people. Though I don't go for the cheesy background music and corny staging, I think Liberty Mutual got it right - these little actions give us small reminders that people are good at heart, that we do have generosity and good will within us. And seeing it in action can reenergize us to choose good and God over evil.

As my flight from Ontario, CA, began its descent into Seattle, WA, it was confirmed that our delayed takeoff had made our arrival late as well. This posed a problem for people on connecting flights, as we were to land around 8:30pm and they were connecting to the last flights for the day. Our flight attendants announced the connecting flights' info, told us the flight to Portland would be held for those 13 passengers, and that a bus would be waiting to zip them over to their gate.

She asked those passengers to hit their call buttons so we could see where they were sitting and boldly asked that we all allow these folks to disembark first. Whoa, I thought. Yeah, right. Maybe she's new. Maybe she hasn't seen people getting off a plane before - everyone for themselves, all-out rush to the plane door. But she made the request and hoped people would acquiesce.

Sure enough, as the "fasten seat belts" light was turned off, most everyone remained seated, and a dozen or so hastily began to move out. I was in delighted disbelief as some anxious Portland-bound travelers hustled out, around rows of still-seated passengers. It was awesome to see the apparent foolhardiness of our flight attendant get redeemed by a crowd of understanding (even if reluctantly) travelers.

Go humanity.
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This Sunday at Mass in Seattle, the priest included in his homily that around half of Washington residents claimed no religion in their census reporting. I reflected on this phenomenon - "the rise of the nones" and the proliferation of being "spiritual but not religious" - at the beginning of my first year in campus ministry in a brief apologetic for religion and Catholicism and what might be missed by those who avoid it.

And now as I correspond with the chaplain who will be my partner in crime as I begin year two at a new school, I wonder how this new spiritual terrain in America can be an advantage for us as we attempt to create a school environment that is fertile for Christian-Catholic faith.

My gut reaction is to view it as a negative, evidence of an entrenching secularism, of people practicing religion poorly and alienating others by their ways. Surely, there are downfalls to the growth of these trends. However, I imagine there must be a way to engage this growing social norm in a way that is compassionate, constructive, and responsive to the Gospel and the Church.

How can the individualism, curiosity, and seeking of SBNR's lead them back to faith? What about organized religion and the Catholic Church can be emphasized to appeal to nones? What experience of faith and spirituality will speak most effectively to SBNR's and nones?

As my brain recombobulates, I hope I can put some of the pieces of that puzzle together.
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The hysteria over the DOMA ruling was quite the firestorm. I almost couldn't go on Facebook for the day in the midst of all the extremism flying both ways, the loudness of voices and capitalization of letters overshadowing the tempered middle.

I find myself in the middle. I believe marriage is the sacrament that unites a man and woman for the procreation and union of a family. I also believe that two homosexuals can have romantic love for each other and can and should commit to one another for the whole of their lives, but I don't think that is a marriage.

I am all for same-sex unions getting legal recognition by governing bodies, access to joint tax filings, reformed inheritance/estate laws, revised hospital visitation rules, and other practical things that allow their union to achieve legal/social equality. However, their commitment, while just as potentially strong as heterosexual marriage (which I think is a redundant phrase), is not a marriage - it cannot procreate or produce intimate union the way that marriage does.

My greatest concern as religion comes under greater and greater siege - abortion laws proliferating or holding steady, new anti-abortion laws coming under fanatical attack in Texas, the ACA and HHS mandating birth-control access for free and Obama's breaking his promise to Notre Dame from commencement - is that the approval of same-sex unions will require churches to host these ceremonies. I don't think this trend is far from insisting that churches allow gay couples to use churches as the venue for their ceremony.

I think there may be a way for my Church to outline the liturgical blessing of a covenant, something more akin to a Holy Orders-esque commitment to a person/partner, but not before we spend serious thought and attention discerning how something like that can be explained and understood. And that needs to be preceded by a serious recommitment to practicing what we preach - compassionate embrace of our homosexual brothers and sisters and a call for chastity from all unmarried people. For now, the state of things scares me because the discourse and discussion is being overcome by a borderline-bandwagon stream of populism that wants change quick and dirty.
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2+ years removed from writing my senior theology thesis, heading into the "junior year of life", I continue to feel grateful for the time I was able to spend researching and synthesizing understandings of the Kingdom of God.

I continue to be most grateful that my primary goal - articulating a practical, spiritually useful, relevant-to-daily-life explanation of the Kingdom - was realized, largely through the wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI. Quick recap:

The Kingdom of God is best understood through some balance of a trinity of senses, which Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, describes well. First, the Kingdom has a “Christological” dimension. Reaching back to Origen, Ratzinger explains that Jesus is the “autobasileia, that is, the Kingdom is person.” This dimension makes the Kingdom into a kind of Christology itself. Next, the Kingdom has an “idealistic or mystical” dimension, which sees “man’s interiority as the essential location of the Kingdom of God.” Finally, the “ecclesiastical” dimension shows the Kingdom of God and the Church as related in some ways and brings them into “more or less close proximity.” -Based on (with quotes from) Jesus of Nazareth (Part I), p. 49-50

The idea is that we should understand the Kingdom as being within us, within our Church, and within Christ.

We can experience the Kingdom when we do the will of God, follow the Gospel call from Christ; as in the Lord's Prayer's sentiment "thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven", we experience Heaven when our will aligns with God's will.

We can experience the Kingdom when we celebrate in prayer and worship with our Christian community, which memorializes what Christ has done for us, thanks Him for what He does, and looks forward to what He will do. When our communal work (liturgy!) happens this way, we glimpse the Kingdom.

We can experience the Kingdom through the person of Christ. Our experiences of Him in our giving and receiving love, in the Word, and in the Sacrament manifest the Kingdom.

All of these moments of clarity are both previews or foreshadows as well as brief temporal experiences of the Kingdom of Heaven. This guiding hand of Benedict toward a real understanding of where the Kingdom is seen and felt led me to a deeper understanding of what Jesus talked so much about.

Keep seeking the Kingdom in yourself, in service with the Church, and in Christ!

Fantasmic Illuminations ;)

I had the heavenly pleasure of gallivanting about the magical environs of Disney World and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter with my dear girlfriend, Katherine, serving as the executor of many wonderful donations from family and friends to celebrate her graduation with a fun trip.

Disney immerses you in a world of beloved characters, fantasy-turned-real-life settings, and nostalgic narratives brought to life. All of this brings you so easily to a place of wist, wonder, and can't-wipe-the-smile-off-your-face happiness.

Here and there we would run into annoyance and discontent.

I have an incredibly short fuse for people who walk at a snail's pace, or, even worse, stop in the middle of a pathway. I don't mind the slowness or gawking or stopping; just do it off to the side please! It makes me long for a cattle prod that I could use to cast aside the people standing in the way of us movers.

Sometimes in lines, people will become oblivious of the gradual progress their compatriots are making toward the ride and fail to move forward, leaving a tantalizing empty space between you and the ride. It's just helpful to the longing I feel in the queue if I know I'm making progress, you know?

The wonderful Disney employees had their moments of obnoxiousness, too. Some of them are really good at standing and talking to two or three of their fellow cast members rather than helping you. This came to a head when a hungry and tired Dan and Katherine were hopelessly searching for a unique meal after four straight days of amusement park food. We strolled up to a sit-down place where three hosts/hostesses aloofly blabbed away while we futily waited to be offered a menu.

And some struggle to organically grasp the elation of the world, trying to buy it with private character meet-and-greets, expensive visits to gift shops, or superfluous luxuries tacked on to the already high price of admission.

The important thing, though, is that these recognitions are fleeting, and obscured by the constant giddiness of being immersed in such a beautiful world. Even though I don't know the words to every song, I will always have a soft spot for pretty much all things Disney. Just wanted to identify some frustrations so as not to give the impression that I'm brainwashed or something!

The Tiki Room reminds me of childhood family vacations. Star Tours brings to mind the time when Chewbacca scared the crap out of my mom by sneaking up from behind. Tomorrowland Transit Authority was the site of much tomfoolery in my high school days. And now the Laugh Floor will remind me of the new generation of fun and frivolity at Disney. Everywhere there are memories of past visits, of beloved movies and characters, and new memories waiting to be made now and in the future.

I think my favorite memories this time around came from the people we saw. I loved the preponderance of help and love I could see at every turn.

For instance, the park is peppered with strollers and wheelchairs.

At various points, "stroller parking" areas harbor dozens and dozens of these little chariots. These are the means by which parents bravely undertake day-long adventures with inexhaustible little dreamers, often impervious to fatigue. Not only do they try to figure out which ride or character these volatile little humans want to check out; they even allow the kiddos time off their feet, without getting much of a break themselves. These moms and dads get quite the workout walking the environs of these mega-parks while pushing 50 lbs. of precious cargo ahead of them. God bless parents.

Then there's the handicapped. Sure, some of the groups heading backwards into rides via the exit ramps don't look real injured. But for the most part, I saw determined people pushing their own wheels, seeking the same Disney experience as those on two legs. And I saw others who couldn't propel themselves graciously receiving the help of family and friends.

I personally find that seeing and being around handicapped people lays me bare in a great way - I find a purity about their countenances and smiles that is really beautiful. I think God uses the apparent evil of handicap, defect, or disorders to give us constant opportunity to love, for us to show that the love of Christ overpowers any evil. We ought to oppose the root causes of suffering, but we should encounter the suffering in our world with compassion in action.

I saw little kids pushing the wheelchairs of their family and friends. On the shuttle bus to the park, I saw a blind man being led by a woman (sister? cousin? girlfriend?) to his seat on the bus and on to a day at the parks. And I even saw a little boy who could barely walk become a powerful prince.

In the new and improved Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom, they have an attraction called Enchanted Tales with Belle. From Disney's website:

Be magically transported from Maurice’s cottage to the Beast’s library for a delightful storytelling experience. You’ll meet and spend time with Belle, and you may even be invited to play a part in the story. Will you be an enchanted object, or perhaps fill the role of the Beast with a heart of gold?

Katherine and I stayed out of the way as a Disney cast member casted the children in our group of a few dozen people to play their parts in Belle's story. These children, holding little costume props, would be the "actors" in the live retelling of a tale by Lumiere, standing to narrate on the mantle, while Belle, who surprised us later on, would play the part of herself.

At one point, everyone was asked to give their best roar. The kids playfully let out a little scream, leaving the cast member with a tough decision. Near the middle of the room was a mom and dad with a rather bulky stroller and a son who, at first glance, looked a bit too big and old for a stroller. His parents had to hold his arms as he stood, despite the fact that he looked plenty old enough to walk. Next to the carriage was a tiny walker, with sturdy handles and little wheels. And the boy who stood next to it, who had let out a solid roar, didn't have strong enough legs to walk on his own.

Our Disney cast member walked straight over to this little guy and asked him to play The Beast. As he smiled, she tied a majestic red cape around his neck, and he took proudly to his walker with the help of his mom. His beaming smile and delight couldn't be interrupted as the rest of the parts were cast. At the end, everyone needed to practice their parts once more before showtime. When it came time to give one more practice roar, our little hero was more than up to the challenge.

As we were led into the library for the show, the little actors took their places up front, and Belle appeared to lead the show. Every little toot needed the Disney cast members to set them up for their moment in the sun - the best one was the kid playing the horse who rather dutifully and without inflection answered Belle's question with, "I. DON'T. KNOW. NEIGH. NEIGH. NEIGH."

I was welling up as I watched the little man in his cape swivel around on his walker to see all the parts of the show. Then came his big moment with Belle, and God bless the actress, she got down on her knees in her ballgown to talk with him. And when it came time for their big dance, she continued to kneel beside him and move in little steps to match his.

I choked back my tears as the show's hero kissed her on the cheek. I was so ecstatic that this Disney cast member who probably casts dozens of these shows every day saw fit to put a cape on this differently abled little man. She could have easily picked another kid or tried to flirt with a dad or young man instead, but she chose to give this lil guy the moment he deserved. There was no hesitation for his physical shape or ability; she just heard his roar and gave him the cape he was born to wear.

In the midst of so much money changing hands - of pricey tickets, expensive knick-knacks and souvenirs, meals whose cost don't reflect their quality, people trying to use money to create happiness - the greatest love was found in simply leveling the playing field, through treating people with full dignity. The magic of Disney is so potent in its themed lands, amazing rides and attractions, and the settings one can wander through. But it takes on its most human, its most loving form, in the way people were treating each other.

Moms pushing strollers. Dads taking off backpacks to reveal giant sweat stains, shaped like the backpack they'd just removed. Siblings pushing wheelchairs. Parents holding the hands of their little ones, waiting dutifully to meet a character or ride the dream ride. People telling other people that they are worth just as much, carry just as much value, regardless of their age, physical ability, or anything else, but not in often-empty words - in simple yet profound actions.

In this case, the simple donning of a cape to a crippled young man took us past his physical disability and on to his humanity. His life is just as dignified and valuable as everyone else's. His roar was just as good as everyone else's.

When Words Fail, and Love Keeps Overwhelming Us

One of my favorite songs by my favorite artist, Josh Ritter, is Another New World. It's a long, folktastic story song about the allure and downside of exploration and the fortunes, or lack thereof, of one particular explorer. As the man and his expedition set sale for the North Pole, with the thought that they can discover this new world beyond the ice, Josh sings, "But I never had family, just the Annabel Lee, so I never had cause to look back."

I have had this problem ever since I started my driving lessons. When you're ready to make a left turn, you look left, right, and left again, and when it's clear, you go for it. I would always go for it but then look again over my shoulder to make sure I was clear. My driving instructor tried to brake this habit in me. However, I still do it to this day.

My tendency to look back is warranted here, as behind me are tons of amazing students and incredible teachers whom I will no longer see and work with every day.

The magnitude of this parting - leaving this amazing high school and its students and community after one year - continues within me, as now I move from being in the midst of the partings to the epilogue, my six weeks between walking away from my wonderful "job" one last time and packing the car to move back to the Midwest. As I walked toward my car from graduation, a few students stopped me to say a last goodbye, and I joked, "There's a horse waiting for me in parking lot, already saddled up, to ride off into the sunset."

But it's not that easy. And I don't want it to be that easy. Experience only takes root through reflective processing. So here we are again.

I thanked God today because the peace He has sown within me isn't a peace that numbs me to the nature of the present moment or one that removes sensitivity to emotions. Rather, my God-given peace leads me to reflect on it all, the emotions serving as the fuel for my mind to pore over the reality.

It feels so strongly like I'm leaving a retreat... still. Retreats lead you to come off an emotionally intense, spiritually enriching, holistically renewing experience, that is built on the vulnerability and sharing of others and the community you all cultivate together. Leaving a high school after a year of working intensely in theology teaching, campus ministering, and relationship building magnifies these feelings to immense proportions.

In my recollection, I find myself trying to move back to the partings that resemble this one in magnitude and reclaim the lessons they offered:

Sitting at one of my student's (my adopted little sister's) grad parties Saturday with a few other teachers, I thought - did I invite teachers to my party? As far as I could remember, it was just a few: my campus ministers, Fons and Bro. John. And I'm proud that, to this day, John and I are still friends. That a punky 18-year-old kid recognized the value of a relationship enough to keep up his end of the bargain to sustain it enough. I saw him just a few weeks ago, and will see him much more when I return to Chicago. I feel good that a few of my students will help carry the torch of relationship into the future.

I think of parting with the Notre Dame Folk Choir and the air of senior week at Notre Dame. And I remember reminding my friends all year long that we don't need to dramatize the "lasts" because we had cherished and lived fully the 1st, the 27th, and the 74th of everything the right way. The lasts are noteworthy for being part of the end, but we need not overemphasize them or change how we roll on account of the end. And sure enough, our last concert on tour in San Diego was quite the dud for reasons beyond our control. And I was able to laugh it off, knowing that it was the dozens of concerts before that one that defined my memories and legacy.

I remember being a Mentor-in-Faith with Notre Dame Vision, and the intensity of the fraction rite of the 2011 community. The nature of working and living with the same people in a spiritually rich environment brings out incredible depth of relationship because a summer is long enough to get to know someone and grow close to them but just short enough where you don't really grow tired of each other! Amazing relationships were formed, and some of the most important relationships in my life were strengthened to new levels as well. The final Mass we celebrated - impromptu, clearing the chairs out of a small chapel to pack 70 people in, a priest in plain clothes and gym shoes under his vestments, a sign of peace that was thorough in length yet deeply genuine - was perfect. As our chaplain broke the bread, my friend recalled seeing the reflection of everyone in the metal of the patin, while at the same time I was thinking that each of those pieces of the Eucharist were every one of us. We were the most powerful manifestation of a Eucharistic people I had ever experienced, and in the Mass we became what we received: Christ - taken, blessed, broken, and shared for all.

I think also to those kids who were in my small groups. I kept up with some by email or Facebook messages. Gradually, the response rates dwindled, and the few times they'd reached out to me fell away. Now and then, I'll drop a line to one or two of them, but the sustained relationships never materialized. However, God provides - in one Triduum alone, I saw two kiddos who are now undergraduate seminarians, another who studies at Holy Cross, and a fourth who I invited to sit next to me rather than let her sit alone. Each encounter was beautifully affirming. My former "kids" remembered me exactly and were truly happy to see me, and they engaged me as individuals, as adults with their own worlds and stories that they continued to be willing to share rather than reverting to earlier years and clinging to past memories.

Our relationships were easily and comfortably picked up again in these new encounters. The right groundwork had been laid in the way we interacted at Vision because we were seeking relationship in the right ways - giving and receiving love, seeking humor but not at the expense of seriousness, finding Christ in our community. The best relationships are the ones that, even without maintenance when life gets too much in the way, can be picked up again because of the strength of the bond.

And such relationship can happen, in part, because of my attitude, because of what I am seeking and how I go about finding it. The way I engage and interact honestly, friendly, personably, with these students is my contribution to what God will work in and through us. So by building upon my positive experiences with these students, I can and have and will continue to find such live-giving spiritual friendships, relationships in which I can be a positive influence on the person's faith, bring them closer to God, and give and receive love as I learn to be a better builder of the Kingdom.

The Gospel on Sunday morning crystallized this whole thing for me. As the disciples worry about how to feed the multitudes who have come to hear Christ, Jesus calms them down and asks for what food they have gathered. With a glance toward God and the invocation of a blessing, these bits of food feed the thousands with lots leftover. God fills the hungry with good things, even when it looks like there may not be food there for us to munch on. God uses me in his terms of love rather than human terms of limitation and frailty. God takes the few loaves and fishes that I see myself as and shows me that love is not a finite sum to be measured out and allocated.

I don't have to worry about where I'll find my "next meal." I must simply remain close to God, as I have so far on this path, and He will continue to match me up with people and communities that need what I can offer and will feed me in turn. I will miss the little brothers and sisters that I have to leave behind, and we will hold a piece of each other's hearts dearly. However, as I keep in touch with some while others fade into memory, there are some waiting who can use my help and form me as well.

I take delight in the universality of our Church, in the presence of goodness and grace and faith in so many disparate locales of our world - how the love of Christ manifests itself in beautiful and different ways in His family all over. And within this global glory are places where I can teach and learn, where I can lead and serve, where I can give love and receive it.

I once described faith in the mystery of God as a bridge that leads out into a fog. You can't see clearly across the bridge to what lies beyond, but you know that bridges are solid connectors of one area to another. So you walk out onto the bridge, into the uncertainty of the fog, knowing - without seeing for certain - that there is something on the other side. Our faith tells us that Heaven, that the eternal love of God, waits there, the destination towards which we constantly move.

The emotions of these next steps surely merit this reflection, but they should not and do not arouse paralysis or hesitancy. They fuel me to try, as Teresa of Avila says, to continue to be the hands and feet of Christ for others.