We put blessings in disguises.

Last Friday, on a train to Edinburgh, my computer crashed. Periods of subdued panic ensued, which bled over into Monday when reality and better judgment forced me to face up and stop acting like the world had just ended.

You’d be surprised how much we miss in life. Grace is a powerful example of how much we are unaware of because of a lack of attention or care. Let me tell you: losing my computer peeled so much crap away from my crusty life-goggles and opened these eyes to so much. Trust is rewarded. Rather than try to construct a narrative, I am going to go with a bullet-point kind of list to just bombard you with the profundity of things that manifested the grace through mercy, compassion, generosity, etc.

-After a semester of travel and living abroad has drained my money big time, I am freaking about being near-broke when I come home. I am trying to squeeze pennies however possible--avoiding using the tube and bus, eating super basic £1.50 or under meals, and trying to think cheap when it comes to stuff that’s not on the bucket list. Well, God saw fit to smack me in the face with more concrete things than usual to remind me that I will be provided for with trust and conscientious thought. I’m not suggesting divine intervention in broken bus-card-readers, but God finds good in or out of EVERYTHING, as I will prove.
1. The Bains gave us £15 out of the blue to cover some Edinburgh fun since we were mindlessly bemoaning our increasing personal poverty in their car. We tried to refused but they super-insisted on it.
2. I was freaking about paying for my computer, appraised as a £130 job by the shop by the flats. Apple classified as it as a factory error or recall or something and replaced it for free.
3. I was worrying about the cost of going to Manor Park for tea and then a dinner because it was probably going to take 4 bus rides round trip (this is already in addition to the fact I was subsidized £60 by the program for an internship that involves like 15-20 £2.40 trips max). On the way out, all the card readers on the bus were broken--boom, free ride. I paid for the bus across town to dinner, which was a freakin’ delight. Four hours after arriving, I suggested at 11:30 I should try to get home to my Skype date, but David and Bonnie insisted I stay longer and that they’d paid for a taxi for me. I went home an hour later in a private cab with a delightful Algerian man. David gave me £40 and told me to keep the change. I gave the dude his £25 plus a £5 tip and somehow went home from being a dinner guest in a wonderful home £10 richer.
4. This all calmed my fears and recentered me. I have tax refunds waiting at home; I have entries in the photo essay contest that could net me £50; I have to sell my books back; I have a pending £40 reimbursement for research travelings. It’s gonna be alright, even if football tickets are a pain in the butt to buy.

-Monday afternoon, I got down to business. Momentum is an important thing. It started with letting go and trusting, which I admit I did too abstractly when I know full well it was only possible through God; it should have been a more positive, definite, active trusting in God. Nonetheless, he came through and gave me the strength. In three-plus days of intermittent working in big chunks, I finished a 15-page paper synthesizing my semester of research, a 10+ page paper for my awesome English class that my professor really liked provisionally, and...

-Once I stopped bemoaning losing one of my research papers and just got to work redoing it, it actually turned out better. I incorporated more secondary sources in a more varied and integrative way, and the result is better than the work I had nearly finished before. Ironically, it was a Catholic Social Teaching paper. I was preaching how family is the rock of society and the Church, and my family had been encouraging my spirits and checking in all week.

-My dad even sent a wonderful email, ironically from an old, janky computer my brother bequeathed to the house; my dad took it to Panera and wrote me a great little note. I learned that easy periods of life are ordained by God as opportunities for people to look outward and be there for others, and my dad’s being unemployed serves as a chance for him to do that for others, in this case me. I was on the up, gaining momentum and confidence, and he solidified my bounce back so well. What a pick me up.

-My friends were wonderful as well. What an avalanche of love. (sorry if I leave anyone out; I’m just trying to cite a few examples and I can’t remember all the great things people did) Galasso emailed me to make sure I had senior week housing. So many people joined my SAVE MY BOOK group to help me recoup the files, highlighted by Chris pledging $20 within minutes of my making the group and unexpecteds like Brad Klein hopping on board (You’re all heroes, but they were just examples). Then, Maria, knowing I could not get on Skype to talk to anyone, gets my London cell number, buys Skype-out, and calls my cell phone; so clutch as I was sitting in the London Centre lab at 9pmish wanting to go home. What a treat that was.

-All of my London circle of friends has had rough times recently: my friend Kaitlin had to go home just ahead of her dad’s passing; Maura’s family had their trip to visit for a week canceled by the volcanic ash; Kelly’s boyfriend wasn’t thinking and temporarily dumped her for no good reason; Megan’s dad went in for heart surgery; Dan was almost homeless for senior year. But somehow, we were able to be there for each other to varying degrees, with smiles, company, gchats and facebook messages, and pub chilling together. Obviously there are varying degrees of magnitude here, but we all held each other up however we could.

-Finally, when I had finished a week of good, hard work, admitting that it stunk to be stranded in London Centre and have to bother people to borrow their computers at the flats (thanks Steven and Dan!), I was realizing how life could still go on just fine. I had let go of worry and was content to let my computer sit at Apple till May 7 or be out of commission till June if that’s what had to happen. Just as I let go of worry and of need, that’s when I got my lappy back. While asleep on the 25 bus to Ilford on Friday afternoon, my phone rang with a random local number. I answered and got word that the lappy was all fixed. I was in disbelief and asked if he was sure; he double checked my name and confirmed it. So not 3-4 weeks later (so actually 3-4 weeks after I picked it up, took it home, and actually got it fixed) but 3-4 days later, it was fixed up. The restoration process in ongoing and I still have no Microsoft Word and some other crucial things like the book. However, I am slightly liberated, and my goggles were removed.

Sometimes we call things blessings in disguises. The problem with that expression is stems from our desire to understand and quantify God. We expect prayers to posed in question format an be responded to in direct answer format. We try to narrowly identify how we will be graced. In reality, we have to be open to God’s gracious blessing to come in any form. It can be abstract or intangible, through a person or action, or it can be something physical, like a hard drive crashing. I will not say that God intervened in the world and caused the computer to crash. I will say that God foreknew that would transpire, and in His omnipotence, He ordained how I could experience His goodness because of the bad or even in spite of it. Look at the list again. Any doubts of the preponderance of grace?

I’m saying every pitfall can produce a laundry list of good like this. And I beseech you to not read that all bad things contain this potential. We must not try to define or quantify how or why God will find good in the rough parts of life. We must just be open to it and realize that shortcomings in finding the good are on our part and not God. It comes down to faith and trust in spite of the bad because the Good and Love that is God is far superior.

Little Salvations? : eloquent-ized sample of my Taizé journal

So on Catholics on Call, I learned the luminous gem of little discernments from my wonderful group mentor, Sr. Lisa. The basic idea is that discernment is not just a grand process but also a moment-to-moment/day-by-day thing-- smaller decisions you make in the short-term or even in the parts of your day play a part in the grander scheme, contributing to and shaping your formation and leading to vocation.

Well, I came to a new version of "little" by reflecting on one of my favorite prayers, the Song of Simeon. I pray the words that the monks of Gethsemani use in their sung version of it for Compline; it's based on the excited reaction of Simeon upon seeing Jesus in the Gospel. I wrote it out, prayed it, and reflected upon it. So here it is followed by my progression of thoughts leading to a new "little"...

Lord, save us! Save us while we are awake;
Protect us while we are awake
That we may keep our watch with Christ,
And when we are asleep,
Rest in His peace.

First off, sleep can be a prayer. There is some middle ground between just doing the sign of the cross then passing out and trying to find such an intense prayer that you'll dream up revelatory inspired visions. I like to find a place of peace and subdued prayer before God that kind of overlaps with sleep. Somehow, I believe there can be a connection between intentional prayer and peaceful rest in sleep.

For a while, I just let Stay With Me, a song from Taizé, run in my head: Stay with me; remain here with me; watch and pray; watch and pray.

Next, I found in the prayer the reflection of the human need and desire to achieve or accomplish things that lives so strongly within me-- often, too strongly. However, here that kind of feeling is manifested is a way that feels rightly directed toward God. It reflects an appropriate and right idea of love motivated by a longing urgency to be with God and know Him and His will better.

The other element that this prayer upholds so well is our prayerful desire to be with God and Him with us in all times of our life. This prayer talks about the two major parts of our lives, asking God for specific help and aid within both sleeping and waking life. We strive to know God and be His instruments while awake, but our lives leave us tired and needing rest, where we also need God to provide us peace and recharge us so we may grow when we awake.

Finally, thinking about the repetition of pleading to God to save us, I wondered what it meant to ask to be saved. Christ has already defeated death, and through Him and the satisfaction He made for sin, we can access salvation and intimacy with God. Ok, so the eternal range of salvation is addressed, but what about the smaller things? the day-to-day? So I bounced some questions and thoughts around that I'll leave floating here:

-Does God save us little by little? Does He save us in small ways daily? I am not suggesting we have like a savings account of salvation increments, but do we have smaller moments of grace that are salvific?
-Can this perhaps be true in narrower terms? Maybe not in terms of smaller moments "on the way" to eternal salvation, but in smaller ways in daily life?
-The way I tried to process it: There are moments of grace or inspiration that direct our spirituality, faith, life, or decisions and guide us closer to God or prevent us from straying from the right path by making bad judgments or exposing ourselves to bad circumstances. <-- If that's true, how does that relate to little discernments?

A Chat with a Monsignor

Today I had the opportunity to meet with Mgr. Andrew Faley, Assistant General Secretary for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales--an intimidating title for a man who is far from intimidating. He wears three hats for his title, and one of them is Ecumenical Officer for the CBCEW. I met with him for my special studies project into Ecumenism into the UK, so we chatted about various things pertaining to Catholic theology on The Church, Anglican-Roman Catholic relations, and Local Ecumenical Partnerships. He was quite candid and well-informed and is a personable man.

The cool part I wanted to share to evoke thought was when I confronted him with a contrast in ecumenism. There is sometimes a tension or disconnect in Christian unity efforts between the things happening on the local level and the talks and conversations happening on the institutional and theological levels. For example, people on local levels see Protestants allowing intercommunion and enjoying the shared services and interaction between denominations within the services. Then they wonder why Catholics can't have it. Well, the Catholic Church teaches that intercommunion/Eucharistic sharing is something to be reserved until full communion is reached among Christians; for now, only those is full communion with the Catholic Church can share communion, and Catholics ought not to receive the Eucharist with those outside of it.

I asked him about the relationship between top-down and bottom-up ecumenism. In the UK, there are many Local Ecumenical Partnerships that combine several Protestant traditions into one parish, and some of those are in covenant with Catholic parishes (like Cornerstone, which I visited-- that is a covenant between Catholics and the four Protestant denominations). He understands well the need for both approaches and talked about ways that these two arenas are in contact, thank God.

1. One of the Catholic-Anglican bodies that meets twice a year spends part of one of those meetings visiting some kind of partnership or coop that exists between their traditions. Mgr. Faley is not a huge supporter of LEPs and such, but he spoke highly of the way that seeing visible unity strikes the members of this joint body. Making time to visit the people there are serving by having these talks seems to have a definite impact on the higher-ups, and he said it helps to ground them in their conversation. It helps to de-abstract the work and remind them of the actual reality within the things they talk about.

2. He explained to me an element of the puzzle that JP2 and BXVI have played up. It referred to as "receptive ecumenism". Catholics are encouraged to ask Christians of other traditions, "What do you see in our Church that resembles unity and communion? What do you think is lacking in our Church that would build greater communion?" It helps to identify the exchange of gifts that should occur between the riches of traditions. [Faley was huge on the lines between denominations not becoming blurred because he finds there to be great riches in each tradition, even if he doesn't agree with every bit of it. He would hate for watered-down Christianity to be how we all unite.] In Durham, they are practicing this in a kind of different way between the institutionals/leaders and the rest of the people. In the kind of dialogue they are fostering, it turns the top-down/bottom-up approaches into a horizontal exchange. It takes the connection and levels it out. The leaders remain leaders but engage the issues and their grassroots people at the level of mutual conversation.

It's hard to try and distill all that I soaked in during those 75 minutes with Faley, but that's an effort at hinting toward the things he described. Once I process it into my research journal, it will make more sense (I hope). And I'm sure his remarks will play a part in my final paper, as he was a wonderful source to interview.

If I were a retreat director...

Let me preface this by a funny and great quote from the retreat this weekend from Sissy:

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plan for life.

Well, I don't think God would laugh at your face if you tell him your plan, but you get the idea--we create great designs for our lives, but it is not our say that is the final one. Well, my plan (here you go, God... you know it already) is to do some combination of post-grad service to the Church and get a Masters in Arts-Theology, Pastoral Studies, or Divinity, then go on to find a job in a Catholic high school that has a dedicated campus ministry department (preferably) and concentrate on retreat ministry and forming Christian leaders from high school youths. Also in there, I want to help out with improv and theatre and baseball coaching.

Well, this weekend affirmed that retreat ministry is one of the elements to the route that fits my charisms and gifts. I am not writing to bash the retreat but to point out where its parts aroused responses in my internal monologue that are the seedlings of the part of me that hopes to direct retreats one day for young people.

We had only short, surface-level small-group time. The short reflections by Fr. John were nice but not especially cohesive or provocative of thought, and his questions did not stir up great introspection or thoughts. The result was timid, brief conversation that did not really do all that much. If I had the opportunity to lead, I would be sure to create a more cohesive theme--not necessarily to box in the direction of things but to guide and aim it to some kind of end. Also, a dynamic of comfort and sharing needs to be established beyond the simple here's my name and fun fact. A degree of that has to continue into the next couple conversations. A good way to encourage sharing and open people up to prayerful participation is to ask for volunteers to lead prayer at the start and end of group time. Familiar prayers led by the group-leader are good prayers, but prayer led by a retreatant, especially spontaneous prayer, is much more pastoral and inclusive and definitely contributes to an atmosphere of faith-sharing.

Our masses were cozy and brief. We were constricted to a small half-room for our chapel with barely enough room to greet each other with the sign of peace. However, we could have done better to be liturgically conscientious and create the best environment for prayerful worship. First, you need to choose lectors beforehand so the readings happen in a timely, decisive fashion that makes them proclamations and not shaky, tentative recitations. Also, we did not have EMs; the small room meant we just passed the Body and Blood around. A nice touch here would have ministering to one another--giving the Body to the person next to you rather than just receiving it yourself and passing on the vessel. Though not everyone is a trained EM, it gives occasion for us to present Christ to one another in the way we should be seeing through our retreat and life. Also, though we had no piano, we had a shelf of hymnals, a few confident singers, and people willing to join along. Given that, I wish we'd have planned out a bit of music to bolster some kind of theme. We could only choose hymns we recognized, so the ones chosen would have been sung by everyone, creating a nice group setting for the mass.

Those are just two aspects of the internal monologue that endured throughout the weekend. The other theme within me was my stubbornness when expectations are not met. Rather than seeking to reconcile reality to my expectations, I cling to a duality to perpetuate some sense of what I wanted and expected alongside a half-assed approach to entering into the actual dynamic. I tried to jot down ideas and write when I wanted to or had something good to scribble down, and at one point Saturday night (when the rest popped in Chocolat for free time), I just left the room and wrote, read, and got to bed a bit early. Meanwhile, I only dwelled peripherally in the laid back, hanging out in Portsmouth vibe that everyone else seemed so content to be in. The result is that I characteristically missed out on the socializing that everyone else so naturally does. I didn't know how to reconcile my personality and desires to be spiritual and introspective with the way everyone else was going with the flow. It was nice to meet some new people and relearn the constant lesson that people are never exactly what you think, but I was disconnected in a way that I didn't really make any friends. But I enjoyed the nice people and the glimpses of their stories that I caught.

Lent 2010

So for Lent the frequent question bandied about is usually, "What are you giving up for Lent?" I think we often treat Lenten sacrifice more like New Year's Resolutions that lack the spiritual aspect of true sacrifice; when we crave or desire that which we give up, it is meant to invoke the sacrifice of Jesus and make it a meaningful part of the day in those places where the things we give up would usually fall. Anyway, as spiritual and introspective sacrifice can be, I choose to add something rather than, or sometimes in addition to, some kind of sacrifice. We sacrifice to recall Christ's self-giving, but we can also add to respond in different ways: to better honor our bodies as temples of the soul; to reflect how we as people are made in God's image; to respond to Jesus' call to self-giving.

This Lent, my added elements will be returning to my recently unearthed charism of trust and humility. I have been seeking a way to re-stabilize my nightly prayer and here I think I have found it. In place of or maybe in addition to the usual thanks and praise, I will process my day in the hermeneutic of trust and humility. I want to gain perspective on the decisions I make and actions I take and discern how they do or don't reflect trust in God and humility in myself.

My hope is that (1) I remember to do it each night and go through is conscientiously rather than begrudgingly and (2) that a diligent discipline in prayerful reflection will bleed over into my day. I hope that reflecting in prayer on these important virtues will make consideration of them more natural and instinctive to my constant decisions and actions.

As with all virtues, these are mostly ideals--things that require perfection, which we cannot really reach. Humans cannot be perfect, but we have the saints as models of the pinnacles of man's capabilities as good Christian children of God. We must work to pursue the Christian ideal--Christ was perfect, and though I cannot be, it is in seeking that perfection of Christ that I grow and develop in faith and love most.

We'll see how this goes...

The Simpsons and Theology (?)

So as my theological mind and spiritual heart and soul grow, already existing in larger quantity and quality within my being is a ridiculously large fortress of knowledge involving the Simpsons, which I have no shame of at all. The fun by-product of these two streams of dominant thought in my brain are the occasional overlaps that delight me. I must admit, this current episode is brought on by my impending acceptance to write a Senior Thesis on the Kingdom of God in Luke-Acts.

This morning, during lunch, I was watching some Simpsons online, as I do just about everyday here (it's the only TV I watch--an episode or two of that a day and that's it). I settled on Missionary: Impossible, from season 11, a part of the Golden Age. Basically, Homer makes a phony pledge to end their pledge-drive that interrupts a show he likes; when he hides from the PBS bounty hunters in Lovejoy's church, the Reverend sends him to the South Pacific to do missionary work with island people. (Go here for more info or here for the episode.)

Among the many delights and laughs in the episode, Homer tells them to stop building a well, chapel, or immunization center and instead go for some "razzle-dazzle". After the casino he starts causes drunkenness, violence, and debauchery, Homer reverts back to the Christian mission his predecessors had started there and starts building the chapel. The conversation goes something like this:

Ach: Why are you... building chapel?
Homer: Cuz you're all terrible sinners.
Ach: Since when?
Homer: Since I got here. Now grab a stone, or go to hell.

Don't worry, I'm not gonna paint Homer as a hell-fire-and-brimstone preacher. But I loved the way Homer's simple, plain way of dealing with problems that are often quite complex or dense clarifies the Christian mission.

Jesus teaches, centrally, in the Gospel, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near [or at hand]." It is our mission and call to build up and make the Kingdom of God more visible and present here on earth in anticipation of the fullness of the Kingdom in salvation.

In Homer's situation, he realizes that extreme attraction to fun things on earth--gambling, drinking, socializing with the opposite sex--can cause dire problems when they get out of control. There is a great contrast in the episode between the half-finished chapel of a few stones and the fancy casino Homer oversees building of with several tables, a bar, and a fancy buffet. The debauchery of what that all represents exists in a well constructed building that is tended to carefully. Meanwhile, the chapel sits in disarray, unfinished.

Homer realizes that he has led them all down a dreary, troublesome path, so he shifts his attention and leadership back to building up the chapel, the powerful symbol of morality and right worship (wholesome, righteous worship of God rather than misdirected pride in worshiping earthly things). Homer quite plainly tells them, "Grab a stone, or go to hell."

It's not quite that black and white on that island or in life. However, here the simplified situation helps elucidate a basic choice in life: dedicate great time and focus on more fleeting enjoyments or work constructively to build God's Kingdom. It's not always an absolute either or choice, but in this case, the natives have strayed too far down the path to one side of the continuum. Some moderation must be found in which we seek happiness and more importantly joy--that which makes us profoundly peaceful and happy, a.k.a. our vocation. There is a balance where we can moderately enjoy the more light-hearted thrills of society and also think, act, work, and live for God's Kingdom.

Thank you, Homer for your many words of wisdom. Now it's up to us: will you grab a stone to build the Kingdom or go to hell?

Scripture Reflection for 2/14/10 (6th Sunday in Ord. Time)

I wrote this for the Catholics on Call website. They suggested some changes, some of which I didn't feel comfortable making. So this is the version with some tweaks based on their suggestions but mostly what I originally wrote...

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Be Exceedingly Glad

“Rejoice! Rejoice! And be exceedingly glad! For great is your reward, in heaven,” Jesus Christ proclaims in Godspell, the musical adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew. In one of my favorite songs in all of musical theatre, Jesus and John the Baptist go back and forth in a wildly entertaining song-setting of the words of Christ in the Gospel. The lyrics describe all the rough things that can happen in life—feeling sad, seeming to have dim prospects for the future, having lots of bills to pay—but the song itself is sung happily in a cheerful, celebratory way because ultimately we will have it all through our salvation in Christ.

The first reading and responsorial psalm echo one another by beseeching us to hope in the Lord, telling us that simply hoping in the Lord makes us blessed. The hopeful believer is like a tree whose roots reach down into the water supply and endure the desolation of droughts. Likewise, when we hope in the Lord, our lives and hearts will never lack nourishment or whither away to nothing—the wicked are like the chaff that the winds turn into nothing.

The foundational virtue underlying hope is trust in God. We must feel within us that leaving our lives to the Lord’s ordination, His plan, will lead us to be filled with good things. God created everything, and He foreknows all that will transpire in the world of freedom He created. He can foresee the bad things people and societies will do, and in His grand wisdom, God knows how good can come of all things, good or bad. For example, God foreknows that an earthquake may strike a part of the world; He foresees the disaster and graces the global community to act in solidarity to aid the affected people and their land. The affected people undergo suffering and hardship that we can’t really explain, but that is when God inspires us to aid our brothers and sisters in need most. We can answer the call to service in our Church both through physical, humanitarian aid and through prayer.

Luckily for us, in our limited and doubting understanding as humans, God sent His Son Jesus Christ to be a tangible sign of His infinite love: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him shall never die but have eternal life” (John 3:16). He made it so that our entire faith wasn’t just hope—He gave us His Son to elicit faith in us that underpins our hope for eternal life with God. By undertaking this grand miracle, God offered us a powerful sign of His love. Through Jesus and His Church, we remain in hope for the coming of the Kingdom, but part of our hope became belief when God came to us in the Word Made Flesh. We continue to hope for the Kingdom of God to come in fullness, but Paul tells us that Christ has already come to fulfill the beginning of our hope. Based on Christ’s coming, dying, and rising, we must now be believers in the saving power of Christ and our Resurrection in Him. “If we have hoped in Christ for this life only, we are the most pitiable people of all.” Paul calls us to live Christian lives while on earth but to be always aware that Christ’s victory points us towards our eternal peace with Him in Heaven.

In the Beatitudes, Christ explains how people are already blessed or full of woe because of their current behaviors. Jesus teaches us how God blesses those who are afflicted—the poor, hungry, saddened, and even those persecuted because of Christ. It is up to us to help make visible and felt the blessings of God to those people that often go overlooked in society. Our Church is a place where we act as Christ’s body to help the struggling poor, feed the hungry, and bring the Light of Christ to the downtrodden. Whether it is through simple food drives or fundraisers or broader campaigns for social justice and political advocacy of marginalized causes, Christians can answer the call to compassion and service in this world, in this day and age.

Jesus’ proclamations in this sermon are profound and important, but between the woes and blessings that get great attention are Luke’s version of Jesus words of hope: “Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.” As they wrap up their song-and-dance in Godspell, Jesus and John remind us, “You must never be distressed… it’s all for the best!"