Thursday, August 31, 2017

Come and See

by Dan Masterton

Per the usual shuffling of personnel at a Catholic school, I moved offices this year. It's always a mixed blessing -- a mild pain to pack up and transport everything as well as a welcome invitation to declutter, get rid of extraneous things, and get stuff in order. I enjoy that latter part, and it gave me a chance to be intentional about my workspace and all the stuff that occupies it. Come take a look.

Pull Up a Chair

I came to enjoy my non-traditional digs at my first two postings -- at my first job, I had no classroom or desk, a true nomad wandering the school visibly with my bright orange backpack always in tote; at my second job, I turned an empty classroom into a ministry gathering space, cobbling together spare furniture into a couches corner, three small-group work areas, and a table and drawers that served the purpose of a desk. I liked the openness and the way students didn't have to engage me like I was a teacher or part of another class or classroom.

When I started at my current job, my Director of Youth Ministry and I fit two desks, a few shelves, two couches, and stackable chairs into a cozy but air-conditioned office that did the trick for us pretty well. Now, we are into an area with a bigger open space and a small shoebox of an office that I took. My first move? Getting the giant desk that was almost as wide as the office out of there and keeping only the small round table with a few chairs for visitors. Knights in armor are most welcome. Some have implied to me that it's small, dinky, and sad; I think it's just right. It's a modest place to work where I can also receive visitors and talk shop in an unimposing way.

We are knights of the round table; we dance whene'er able...

The size of the table has relocated office supplies to the radiator top --
not over the vents of course, as I don't need melted rubberbands.

 If These Walls Could Talk

When I was in high school, I became a self-described retreat junkie. I went on all of the retreats. I led all of the retreats. I loved the retreats. As I finished up high school, I compiled all of the pictures, name tags, and door signs into a frame (and hid my affirmation cards on the back of it). I appreciated my frame so much that I repeated this practice with my summers as a mentor-in-faith at Notre Dame Vision. As my wife and I moved, the stuff from my old personal bedroom and bachelor pad apartment didn't all have a place in a new family home, so these things have found a new and proper place in my office. It's a way to delightfully celebrate those formative times that made me who I am and put me in this very office while also showing my students the fun that awaits them -- and jogging my memory on fun stories to boot.

Left to right: my high school retreats, Vision 2010, Vision 2011.

I like to fill the walls a bit more than your average Joe, and frankly I wish it were fuller in here. Nonetheless, I tried to put up some representative items of what I wear on my sleeve when not ginghams and striped-shirts. So here lies the famous Cubs sign from the stairwells to the concourse at Wrigley, rally towels from Bears and Blackhawks playoffs games, a Notre Dame pennant, and some St. Ben's swag -- some varsity letters and the navy bandana of my Scholastica House.

To the side, I posted some keepsakes from the amazing travels I have been blessed to do. My wise older brother advised me before I went abroad that pilgrimage trumps tourism -- a tourist demands; a pilgrim receives. It's been amazing to experience the world's culture and people, and the wealth of the worldwide Church, by receiving their gifts, so I have my wood-carving of Africa from a market in Uganda, a Camino sign from my hikes through Spain, and a Celtic cross to celebrate my time living in Ireland.

Between those two sets, I decided to hang my diplomas. I never want to be one of those people who prominently displays imposingly framed diplomas just over my shoulder to underscore my importance and gravitas to the peon sitting across the desk from me. However, I am proud of these schools and the work I did there. So after five years of not displaying my diplomas anywhere at work, I decided to honor that work and the support of family, friends, and formators by hanging these two frames on the side wall.

University of Notre Dame, BA, Honors Theology cum laude, '11
Catholic Theological Union, MA, Theology-Biblical Ministry, '16
Those students also were the ones
on the 1st Kairos I attended as an adult
and the 1st Kairos that I directed.
While some bookshelves house books, I used a small one here to celebrate the bits and pieces that invoke my faith and family, right in my sightline from desk to door. Beside my Notre Dame Vision candles of my models of faith, Blessed Oscar Romero and Cardinal Newman, I have my favorite and only award I've received as a professional. At the Jesuit high school where I first worked, our students are recognized for excelling in the "Jesuit grad at grad" pillars, so the seniors likewise recognize faculty, too; they chose me for religious, and I still smile when I think back to that honor.

Next to that, I keep our school's Kairos crosses, the signature sacramental of the retreat that is so integral to Catholic high school campus ministry. I lost my first Kairos cross from high school before I graduated. I got a new one before I left, and then I lost that one at college, too. After later losing my third cross, I decided that maybe it was time to simply live a life that reflected Kairos and worry less about the necklace. Nonetheless, these are the crosses we give to our students when they go on Kairos. Those crosses sit beside a few signature items of St. Benedict, a few of which were hand-crafted my our students in the Hearts and Hands Club last year. Standing over all of that is an 8-ball Jesus figurine that a fellow Kairos leader gave me for my 18th birthday and a small stand-up cross that my godmother gave me after my mom passed away.

Below all that and above my one shelf of books are some of my favorite pictures: my wife, Katherine, our families, and me from our wedding; our baby daughter, Lucy, at four months, with the biggest smile she can muster; my groomsmen and I in a classic jumping picture; my immediate family on one of our last family vacations all together; and Katherine and I during our first dance on our wedding day. I could, can, do stare at that shelf a lot.


I've Become a Shell(f) of Myself

No office of mine -- or any pastoral minister? -- is complete without a cornucopia of miscellanea. This is the job of the beat up, tall bookshelf and the floor in the back corner of the room. Here lies an amazing array, even after getting pared down, of retreat and liturgy goods, best enumerated in bullets:
You should see it around Kairos time.
  • Empty binders
  • Empty folders
  • Dry erase tablets with eraser wipes
  • Bags of pens and pencils
  • Prayer rocks
  • Craft sticks
  • Glue sticks
  • Painter's tape
  • Gem stones
  • Catch Phrase with batteries
  • A championship belt
  • A bag of discarded participation medals
  • Disposable plates, cups, and spoons
  • Water bottles
  • Taper candles
  • Candles
  • Lighters
  • Spare journals
  • Envelopes
  • Manilla envelopes
  • Brown paper lunch bags
  • A three-hole puncher
  • A table cloth
  • Tissue boxes
  • Cleaning spray
  • Paper towels
  • A large storage bin
  • Milk crates
  • An empty box
  • Giant notepad
  • Clipboard
  • Burning pot
  • Decorative bowl
  • Glass bowl
  • Jar of markers
That's all I can see, but I could probably dig around and find more.

Just above all that, a few of the shelves house book-like things. Here lies my collection of theoloministerial materials. This is a resource library of my own stuff, including my high school theology binders from when I was a student, my teaching binders, the manuals from retreats I've led and/or directed, and the affirmations from past students and peers. Outside of my laptop hard drive and Google Drive troves, this is the primary resting place of my externalized ministry brain. Great wisdom, creativity, and anality can be found here in plenty.


Ministry Couched in Couches

Brown Couch c. 2009 (Tim Masterton collection)
Plaid Couch c. 1998 (Masterton family collection)
The first thing Katherine and I treated ourselves to in our first home was a new couch. Eschewing the hand-me-down couches from family members, we went and got a good couch that we could use for a long while. What became of those two old, beloved piece of furniture it replaced? They were adopted by Campus Ministry.

I feel strongly that the ministry space needs to feel different than classrooms, and even from other administrative offices. I think the presence of religious items is important, but ideally, those are all around the school. I want to be distinguished by a level of comfort and homely hospitality that classrooms and formal offices cannot provide because they serve a slightly different purpose.

To that end, comfortable furniture that isn't ideal for studying or doing homework helps set ministry apart. Here, you don't cram vocabulary or master scientific concepts; you converse with peers and mentors to formulate small groups, to review a retreat schedule collaboratively, to pray together, or just catch up as friends do.

And in keeping with the theme of wall decor that means something, I've always been a believer in pictures on the wall. Taking after my own campus ministers who led me through high school, I commemorate every retreat and its leadership team with a framed picture on the wall. More often than not, especially for students who are not leaders themselves, it's the pictures that draw passers-by into the room and trigger memories and smiles in a unique way. That wall becomes my favorite, because it's the living photo album that reflects the family found in a Catholic school -- the built community, formed leaders, and presence of Christ that animates this ministry.

Below each picture, I note the retreat, venue, date, class,
and name each student leader and their adult partner.
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Monday, August 28, 2017

What Do You Say?

by Rob Goodale

Have you ever watched all the ways a person answers a difficult question before he ever opens his mouth? The shifting of weight from one foot to the other; a pensive stare toward whatever happens to be six to eight inches to the left of the inquisitor; a clearing of the throat; a sudden sharp inhale or, contrariwise, a slow exhale.

I wonder what answers Simon gave before he opened his mouth to offer those now-famous words: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” If I were him, I probably would have stammered a bit and kicked some rocks and darted around the room with my eyes, all of which would obviously have been to say:
Everyone is looking at me and I know I could say something lame and easy and obvious like ‘Rabbi, you are quite good at telling a joke and also my first pick every time we play dodgeball,’ but I think I know who you actually are and so I’m about to stomp out onto a particularly flimsy limb okay here goes...
And I hope -- against all evidence of my own feebleness and fickleness -- that I would say what Simon said, in total disregard of how utterly batty a suggestion it is that a man who walks with feet like mine and speaks with a mouth like mine might be, to steal a line from Saint Paul, the one from whom and through whom and for whom all things exist (see Romans 11:36). That would be a cool thing to say out loud.

But part of me wonders why we are asked to say anything at all. What if I got the answer wrong? It seems like we could avoid a lot of confusion, Lord, if you just lectured and I took really good notes. This socratic method of teaching leaves a lot of room for error.

Without the room for error, though, I suppose there would be no value in getting anything right. That’s the crux (pun very much intended) of the whole free-will thing, isn’t it? One has the freedom to choose how one wants to answer that question, which is the question, when one gets right down to it. The answer one chooses to give to this question decides pretty much everything else, after all: what gets you out of bed in the morning, how you spend your nights and weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Where we’ve all collectively gone wrong is, we think true freedom, freedom to choose, gives us the power to decide what’s good. The conventional wisdom says a thing is good because I choose it: a flavor of salad dressing, a course of study, a style of craft beer, a sexual partner or lack thereof. What matters to most of us is not actually what we choose, but that we get to make a choice.

The problem is, having more options doesn’t help us much when there is a correct answer. It’s really freaking hard to figure out when there is one -- of course asiago caesar and a quality breakfast stout are clear, objective goods, but there are other questions where the right choice is a little murkier.

This seems to be one of those questions, at first glance. There are lots of things I could say that wouldn’t exactly be wrong, anyway. Teacher. Friend. Leader. Storyteller. Companion. These are all good answers. But they aren’t the right answer. Without something like Saint Peter’s answer, or Saint Paul’s answer, or Saint John’s answer -- “him through whom all things came to be, and without whom nothing came to be” (John 1:3) -- or Saint Luke’s answer -- “him in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) -- none of the rest of it holds any water.

There’s a fair bit of tension in this, as there is in all things that matter. My freedom does matter, and my answer probably ought to be different from my neighbor’s -- that’s where the diversity comes from, and that’s what makes the church so strong and beautiful -- but there are certain non-negotiables. Adding more choices when there’s a right one strikes me as the sort of thing Screwtape would recommend to muddy the waters and increase the likelihood of choosing wrong in the end.

My answer doesn’t have to be new, it just has to be both mine and correct. And so I stand with Simon, and Saul, and John, and Luke -- not bad company, I might point out, even if they did all end up getting killed or exiled or both -- in saying that you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:16), my reason for getting out of bed in the morning, and the one who shows me what it actually means to be a human.
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Thursday, August 24, 2017

Totall(it)y Awesome


by Dan Masterton

Did you guys hear there was an eclipse this week!?

I say that in jest, but in all seriousness, I love astronomy. The skies have long intrigued me, and as a college freshman, I quite excitedly chose astronomy and cosmology1 to satisfy my college requirement of two science courses.2 I was pumped for the eclipse, even if I felt sort of hipster-y, since I and my fellow nerds were into this scene way before it was cool.

I decided to go the viewing party at the park in town, where I figured there’d be a little crowd of gawkers, as the library was offering crafts, DIY stations to create safe viewing techniques, and even live music by a local group. When I got there around 11am, my stroller-wheeling self was overwhelmed by activity.

There was a huge crowd3 -- people of all ages, tons of kids, families, young adults, and elderly residents alike. People were quite confidently wearing their goofy eclipse-viewing glasses, as if they’d just walked out of an early 90s 3-D movie; people were wielding quite the array of outlandish apparatuses, including one dad who had a cardboard tube suitable for rolling a carpet connected to some sort of tripod and box; and when I figured it’d be more low-key to make a pinhole projector than to fashion a box to wear on my head, people were wearing boxes on their heads. That whole scene added to the frustration of the persistent cloud cover that brought out my snarky side.
Back to my hipster-y feel from before, rolling onto this scene felt like I was walking past one of those on-trend bars or restaurants. You know the ones... It looks cool. There’s an attractive, intangible vibe coming off it. It’s crowded and only getting more crowded-er. People are talking about it and making plans to come. But few people, if anyone, can clearly articulate what exactly is cool about it.

The eclipse just had that X-factor that can’t be easily pinned down. The way this non-technological, non-media event rallied people shows that we need to more openly embrace natural opportunities to be laid bare, to have something of magnitude leave us raw and vulnerable, to make space to simply appreciate existence, because these things compel us as humans. (see below) GHW Bush; WGN/Skilling; that guy) Like I’ve mentioned in the past, we just aren’t willing to let go of our personal autonomy over what we’re willing to pay attention to, and we sustain an unreasonably high bar, or at least a stubbornly subjective and individualized bar, for when we’ll allow ourselves to care about something.

Ultimately, it’s wildly frustrating to figure out what will motivate, captivate, and allure people. In other words, what will go viral and won’t and why?! Humans and our attention spans are so fickle, especially as our proliferating connectivity gives us so many options that are always accessible without interruption.4 Yet, here on August 21, 2017, something about a solar eclipse captured the imagination of a huge amount of people.

On the surface, it caters comfortably to our social media obsession. It’s easily photographable. We shoot our amateur videos to post and send; we can take pictures of the places we view it from; we can take selfies in our goofy glasses or with our rickety viewing kits. And that’s actually cool on some level because it hypes something natural and scientific and organic.

But that was all fairly predictable. Zooming out further, a solar eclipse is simply something huge, something big, something grand. It’s the deep-view perspective from our huge planet looking toward our massive home star as our giant rocky moon comes between us for a good show. A solar eclipse is visual and palpable. We can see the shadow, we can fall into shade and unusual midday darkness and feel the short-lived cool of the temperature drop.

Most of all, a solar eclipse is rare. It gives us that scarce and uncommon thing we crave; we gain the ability to own or experience something in a moment that not everyone gets to have, and we delight in that privileged moment.

The oomph of the eclipse comes in appreciating that rare moment not so much as something collected and possessed but as something to behold and marinade in. To me, science is the language of Creation, the way we discern God’s elegant hand animating our world. We can see it in the complexity and efficiency of the body, in the breathtaking landscapes of the earth, and across the universe -- from the destruction in supernovae and black holes, the enigmatic origins in the big bang and inflation, the discovery of exoplanets and solar systems, and our quest to discover the “Goldilocks planet” that is just right for human-like life.

In learning the ins and outs of astronomy, my jaw metaphorically hit the floor in learning about eclipses. The moon orbits the earth. The earth orbits the sun. Orbits are elliptical, so they’re not precise circles. The planets have perihelions and aphelions, the moon has a perigee and apogee. Basically, there’s a lot of complicated movement, shape, and size as everything hurtles yet somehow retains surprising elegance and order.

Lunar eclipses are definitely neat, but the earth is way bigger than the sun and easily blocks the sun’s light as it eclipses the moon periodically. On the other hand, solar eclipses are wild. The moon is tiny, astronomically speaking. The sun is MUCH larger. Yet, as these orbits spin on, moments of total eclipse happen because of an amazing ratio: the ratio of the size of the sun to its distance to the earth is almost exactly equal to the ratio of the size of the moon to its distance to the earth. And because of this, we can experience “totality,” a short window for certain locations on earth where the moon covers the sun almost exactly. Not because it’s larger than the sun and not in a partial way because it’s smaller than the sun, but because it’s an almost perfect, exact match.

SO COOL
I’m not one to argue proofs of God, though there’s great merit in such lines of thinking, especially for those who think well in that way. Instead, I draw a powerful correlation between such elegant beauty and the benevolent, loving Creation of our Creator God. It’s especially beautiful because eclipses are not part of our sustenance. The sun’s size and distance is just right for our earthly existence, but a solar eclipse doesn’t hugely affect us. It’s not so long that it adversely affects our life here; it’s not so short that it can’t be experienced and enjoyed for its beauty. It’s just right to be savored without fear.

And it’s in this gentle and moderate, yet immense and cosmically grand, beauty that I see God, and hope you can, too. Beyond the wild spectacle of huge crowds with funny glasses and boxes on their heads, this cosmic moment reflects the suffusive love of our Creator God, the love that made us in His image and became Incarnate for our liberation, of our Creator. And that’s the larger miracle.


1 Note: astronomy not astrology, the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies interpreted as having an influence on human affairs and the natural world; cosmology, not cosmetology, the professional skill or practice of beautifying the face, hair, and skin.↩


2 Big tip of the cap to Prof. Peter Garnavich, who was way overqualified to be teaching a 100-level class to a bunch of Arts & Letters and Business bimbos. My four friends and I greatly appreciated it and sustain a clandestine cult-like following of him to this day.↩


3 Estimates had it at around 4,000 people. This after, a few weeks ago, the three of us watched Field of Dreams for summer movie nights in the same park with about 75 other people.↩


4 When was the last time you went a day without using anything connected to the internet? For me, I think it was my last trip in Europe in Spring 2014. Yikes. ↩

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Monday, August 21, 2017

The Slow, Painful Death of Martyrs

by Jenny Klejeski


Without sacrifice there is no love.   –St. Maximilian Kolbe

I think anyone who was raised in a Christian tradition must have, at some point or another, day dreamed about being martyred. Perhaps this was my own macabre pastime, but I’m guessing others shared in this activity. How could we not? We’re told these stories of heroic virtue: the early Christians fed to the lions, Joan of Arc burnt at the stake, Isaac Jogues hacked to death by a tomahawk, and maybe when we were older, Agatha whose breasts were cut off. They’re hero stories–they’re meant to inspire courage. It’s not for nothing that we keep telling these stories over and over again (even ones with dubious historical credibility). And just as we do when we hear any hero story (Christian or secular), we ask ourselves the question, “what would I have done in that situation?”

This is not a bad question to ask per se, but doesn’t it miss the point of these stories?

The feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe (which we celebrated a week ago), always reminds me of a homily I heard several years ago on his feast day. The gist of the homily was this: Maximilian Kolbe would not have been able to sacrifice his life for the other man in Auschwitz had he not been practicing it his whole life. In other words, we tend to think of the heroic sacrifice of Maximilian Kolbe (and other martyrs) as grand, isolated events, when in reality, they are simply the logical culmination of a life of sacrifice.

This, I believe, is much more convicting than the idea that martyrs simply made one major decision for Christ at the very end of their lives. It shifts the question from the entertaining, day-dream hypothetical “if I were faced with death by [lethal injection/firing squad/burning at the stake/beheading/gladiatorial games/etc.] for the sake of Christ, would I accept it?” about which we probably concoct a heart-wrenching scene, and to which we will probably answer ‘yes,’ depending on how pious we’re feeling on a given day. Perhaps we share the sentiment of Flannery O’Connor’s unnamed girl in “A Temple of the Holy Ghost:” “She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”

Instead, the real, much more mundane (and yet somehow more gut-wrenching) question that the actual lives of the martyrs should prompt us to think on is “what am I doing right now to die for Christ?” If a martyr is a witness for Christ, how am I dying so as to witness to Christ? This is where real martyrdom lies. It is a movement away from an individualized spirituality and pride-masked-as-sacrifice. It is continual death to self. Slowly and painfully chipping away my wants and whims so as to be filled with self-effacing, self-emptying love. And as we practice self-denial in the small, everyday matters, we find ourselves more ready and able to say an obedient ‘yes’ when the stakes are higher.

Christopher Nolan’s latest movie Dunkirk explores this very idea. The film recounts the events that took place in the French village of Dunkirk during the Second World War when the British army, surrounded by the Germans, attempted to evacuate their troops. Nolan’s take on this event is fascinating because he chooses not simply to give an historical tribute to the affair, but rather to create a character-focused masterpiece.

The story takes place through three different perspectives: the battle in the sky, in the sea, and on the beach. Nolan creates a sense of suspenseful waiting and eerie monotony by having scarce dialogue as troops on the beach helplessly await rescue. These long stretches of monotony are harshly interrupted by violent outbursts of bombs, torpedoes, and machine gun fire.

Nolan’s portrayal of the event is much less about an historical event and much more about the choices that lie within every human heart. Yes, there are certainly great acts of heroic self-sacrifice (martyrdoms of a sort), but the majority of the characters are incapable of actually doing anything. They’re trapped in Dunkirk, waiting—hoping—to be rescued by some external force. And other characters, who are in the midst of making heroic choices, are given every reason and every opportunity to turn back. There is a great drama to even the most mundane moments of the film as you see the characters make choices out of great selfishness or out of great love, and these choices impact their capacity for heroism.

In some ways, this is what we all face. We’re all in need of an external, transcendent salvation and we all have choices to make in the interim. We can choose what is self-serving or what is self-emptying. And while we may crave to perform a grand, heroic act, it’s probably not what we’re called to at this moment. I’m willing to be burned at the stake, yes, but somehow emptying the dishwasher without recognition seems impossible. Probably because the latter is real. In For the Life of the World, Alexander Schmemann warns against the temptation to oversimplify the drama of our redemption to one moment:
“The fight of the new Adam against the old Adam is a long and painful one, and what a naive oversimplification it is to think, as some do, that the ‘salvation’ they experience in revivals and ‘decisions for Christ,’ and which result in moral righteousness, soberness and warm philanthropy, is the whole of salvation, is what God meant when He gave His Son for the life of the world. The one true sadness is ‘that of not being a saint,’ and how often the ‘moral’ Christians are precisely those who never feel, never experience this sadness, because of their own ‘experience of salvation,’ the feeling of ‘being saved’ fills them with self-satisfaction; and whoever has been ‘satisfied’ has already received his reward and cannot thirst and hunger for that total transformation and transfiguration of life which alone makes ‘saints’” (79, emphasis mine).
If we desire the crown of sainthood, we can’t wait to be thrown to the lions or asked at gunpoint if we believe in Christ. It begins today. Wherever we are, whomever we’re with, however silently and unseen. Mary’s glorious Assumption required her quiet fiat. Let us ask her intercession to spare us from the ‘one true sadness:’ that of not being a saint.

A version of this post first appeared under the same title on I Smile, Of Course in 2016.
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Thursday, August 17, 2017

Pay Attention

by Dan Masterton

We don’t value the opportunities we have to communicate with other people.

This is true of many everyday interactions, and it becomes increasingly clear when someone steps up in front of a large group. Frequently, a person goes up with no outline, no notes, no hard plan for what they’ll say and how. Instead, they riff and improvise, feeling it out as they go.

I imagine this was less prevalent when people relied on phone calls, written letters, and face-to-face meetings. In today’s world, the centrality of social media and the ease of texting have made our communication almost entirely informal, colloquial, and sporadic. The discipline that it takes to carefully craft a message, to put in work with planning steps, drafts, and multiple iterations, seems to be fading, and with it, eloquence and creativity fade, too.

When delivering a message -- or, really, when communicating in any way -- technology should not become a crutch, but rather an aid; technology should not be a shortcut, but rather a supplement. I don’t want you to read me slides or to project an obligatory, visually uninteresting powerpoint. I don’t want you to send me an email that doesn’t have a salutation and signature, that is lacking punctuation, that has spelling and syntax errors. I don’t want you to deliver a first draft when it’s time for your final copy.

Take the time to use technology to aid and strengthen your message. Slides should have bullets that capture the main points of your talk and selected quotes that need to be read and reread to underscore their importance. The slides’ format, style, and appearance should utilize font, layout, graphics, images, and video clips to strengthen the delivery of your message. And their content should be clean and carefully arranged.

And perhaps most importantly: most of us shouldn’t be giving speeches off the top of our heads. While there’s something relatable and natural about a speaker who doesn’t use a script, the amount of people who can effectively speak in that fashion is small. Referring to notes or an outline intermittently, or even confidently reading prepared remarks, isn’t a sign of weakness but a sign of your preparation.

Then, when you’ve delivered your message, take it easy with the “let me know” statements. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. Let me know if you have any questions. Let me know if you need anything. With so many ways to contact each other -- face-to-face, phone calls, texts, emails, social media -- we should stop relying so much on passivity and use our communication networks to be proactive. I’ll never forget a young woman sharing her depression and feelings of disconnection to fellow Kairos retreat alums; knowing the onslaught of passive offers that would follow, our chaplain challenged students to explicitly reach out to her in the days following the meeting, and many did. Follow-up with people personally rather than waiting for follow-up to come to you.


I think this whole ball of wax comes down how we don’t really value others’ time and attention. We detest when others waste our time, but then we perpetuate lazy norms in ourselves that wastes theirs. For whatever reason, as listeners and consumers, we’ve become terrible audiences. The benefit of the doubt that used to be all-but-guaranteed to someone who is talking to us, let alone who is also an authority figure, seems to have evaporated. Instead, we assume that we need not give our undivided attention, often feeling it instead has to be earned. We check out easily and not-so-covertly dick around on our phones or “work” on our laptops.

A simple challenge is the Golden Rule turn-around -- is the indifference or inattentiveness you pay to the speaker what you’d want from them if you were the one speaking? It’s frustrating to be the one to break the norm of distracting oneself in boredom; it takes one person going against the grain to start turning the tide back to dignified attention.

But our technology, social media, and connectivity make it more complicated than this. I think we’re getting dangerously high thresholds for what we consider engaging or interesting.

When I scroll Twitter, I might spend ten minutes and scroll through or past hundreds of tweets while only stopping to look at a few closely, to blow up an image or click through to an article that I may or may not fully read. When I watch TV, I can choose from dozens of channels, a huge array of Netflix offerings, or the bajillion things in the OnDemand menu. When I listen to music, I have my iTunes stash, Spotify streams and playlists, or any song I can ever imagine via Google and YouTube. We can endlessly curate anything and everything that we could want to consume. We are virtually unlimited in our control.

As a result, I think we struggle when put in a position where we’re “made” to pay attention to someone or something -- a presentation at a work conference, a demonstration on a plane by flight attendants, or even the Word and Sacrament of our Mass. We have become so used to complete curation of our consumption that we feel imposed upon if we’re not in a position of control. Even if we choose to go to Mass, a droll lector or a droning preacher or a traditional choir hymn that don’t fit our personal taste likely will not grab us.

I am not here to eviscerate social media and technology, which I love and use and struggle doggedly to moderate. I have long felt that my call in ministry is to call attention to the tensions and invite those with whom I work to confront that friction. So here we have it: amazing and virtually endless accessibility to communication and information and the need to value one’s own as well as others’ time and attention.

Utilize technology as an aid and complement. Value your interactions with others. Pay attention generously.
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Monday, August 14, 2017

Exceedingly Uncomfy

by Rob Goodale

Fascinating, isn’t it, the way God dwells where I am least comfortable? This is the thought that slithers into my temporal lobe as we shuffle into the chapel, if you can call this space a chapel. I’m grumpy for no reason. Prior to genuflecting, I scan the barn-esque hall in search of a tabernacle and come up empty. At least now I have a reason, condescending and petty though it may be. At least there is an altar. I bow and sit down.

I have spent all day in a foreign place with foreign people, sometimes making disjointed attempts at small talk but mostly just thinking about how much I prefer the places and people I already know. I have been polite, but in the sort of way that a waiter politely asks if there is anything else they can do for you after you’ve already signed the check and there is a crowd by the front door that is circling above your table and quickly descending into madness.

I do not feel like I have enough to do. I am then asked to do something, which just makes me crosser, obviously. I discover that I seem determined to have a miserable time, and this discovery just makes me miserable-er.

The most idiotic thing of it is, I’m fully aware that in just a blink of an eye, these will be my people and this will be my place and everything will be just fine. I know this. Of course I know this; I’ve done this before -- I seem to have done it a lot over the past few years. Perhaps this is part of the problem: seeing as how there is no exit date, there’s an air of uncomfortable authenticity in finally settling into a place for real.

The faces of strangers will become the faces of loved ones; they always do. But getting there is exceedingly uncomfy. It requires jagged and unpolished things like stifled laughter at dirty jokes and interminable shared silences and contagious pits of despair brought on by unspeakable sorrow and exasperated rants about kids long on potential but short on anything of actual value -- these most human of interactions are what get you from strangers to loved ones.

I know this, but for the moment it’s tucked away in the third-to-last file cabinet of my cerebral archives. I’m busy being annoyed by the lack of pews in this church. The priest walks in carrying his companion, tucks Him into the monstrance, and kneels. I kneel, too -- tabernacle or not, I’m not grumpy enough to ignore the Holy One.


The chairs do have kneelers, at least. The rows are too close together for me to fold myself into a prayerful position with anything resembling elegance. I try to scootch my knees forward enough to sit on my feet, which is my favorite prayer posture, in imitation of the wise teenage elder, Bernadette Soubirous. (I do not know if the real-life Bernadette ever once knelt this way, but her statue at the Grotto does, which is good enough for me.) This is not good either, and suddenly my feet are asleep. I stare at the Tiny Circle of Unexpected Grace, fuming about how stupid it is that a parish would build a new church and apparently forget to leave space in the budget for pews or a tabernacle, and certain that he would agree with me.

And then he speaks to me, piercing the haze of grumpiness and discomfort: This is where I am. I make no conditions or demands about which direction the sanctuary faces or what kind of flooring is underfoot. I do not complain about how the stained glass windows look like pages torn from a coloring book for ages three through five. I simply stay here with you, waiting for you in the tabernacle in the hallway, in the midst of your precious and delicate uncomfyness. I am in the faces of strangers who determined to welcome you into their world without ever having met you. I am in the conversations and in the silence. I am here with the hardwood floors and the Hobby Lobby cross on the wall. I am in you, you insufferable grump.

I dwell in those places you won’t go on your own, because you’re too scared or proud or distracted. I take you by the hand and bring you there, so that you can be more like the man We designed you to be. I chip away at your armor and your ego and clear a path for other people to see you and love you, and for you to see and love them. Because that’s what it’s all about, of course. You know this, too. All that will be left is my love.

I sit back and smile, because it’s good sometimes to let Him have the last word.
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Thursday, August 10, 2017

My Take on Takes

by Dan Masterton

Growing up, I played just about every sport I could get my hands on. I loved and love sports for what they taught me as well as what they continue to teach me. In addition to the physical, athletic challenge and growth I experience, sports also taught me and teach me work ethic, teamwork, strategy, healthy competition, balancing preparation and instinct, and, as a huge fan off the field, to stay informed.

As a kid, I learned how to read tables from the sports section’s team schedules and standings. I learned how to follow news by reading articles by team reporters and league insiders. I learned some daily math by calculating statistics, figuring out games back, and parsing free agent contracts. Sports taught me how to consume news.1

Typically, I’d turn to team beat writers, the guys who interviewed players in the clubhouse, watched games from the press box, and had an intimate feel for the team. Next to their reports on the nitty-gritty of the team’s day-to-day were thoughts from columnists -- older writers who probably had experience as reporters and now zoomed out to give voice to broader analysis of the scene. Finally, elsewhere, I could find letters to the editors and op-ed pieces by everyday people reacting to it all. This layered landscape compartmentalized the coverage effectively and helped me separate information from analysis from commentary.

Today, that has all but evaporated. Whether in sports or politics or general news, the lines between reporting, analysis, and commentary are blurred, if not totally gone. Reporters, in writing and in broadcast media alike, once obsessively committed to balance in reporting, now openly opine on the matters they cover, and many consumers only egg this on by their voracious consumption of these “takes.” Anchors of news programs, once mostly confined to reading copy, now give their input on the stories they read. Rather than a news climate focused on gathering facts, providing context, and informing news-consumers of what’s unfolding, many reports are hybridized with internal commentary that obscures what’s fact from what’s opinion.

Look no further than the mothership of sports coverage, ESPN, which just massively downsized its stable of excellent writers, with traditional reporter-journalists chief among the casualties.2 Meanwhile, the flagship news show, SportsCenter, is being rebranded to include its hosts’ names, who are narrating fewer and fewer highlights and facilitating more and more takes.3 The core of their talent is now “personalities,” 4 people whose credentials and skill matter less than their ability to infuse volume, extreme opinion, and cheap shots into off-the-cuff riffs on myriad topics. This is what’s become known as a “take.”5

I am not afraid of takes, as I do love a good “barroom argument” or “would you rather” dilemma, but I want it grounded in facts and figures, in empirical evidence, in feet-on-the-ground analysis. I do not want coverage and discussions obsessed with personal criticisms, with unclever word plays, or with getting louder and angrier than ever before. I want the classic friendly banter of Pardon the Interruption and never the flimsy, childish, nonsense of First Take.

Meanwhile, it has been heartening to see the free market offer its corrective, as multiple chapters of The Athletic have sprung up nationwide. As writers are laid off by national companies and shrinking newspapers, this new site is scooping them up, giving them latitude to produce self-started, excellent content, and relying on faithful, grateful readers to commit their support with a modest subscription price. Eschewing takes in favor of statistical analysis, collaborative writing, and God-bless-it, good-old-fashioned beat reporting, this new venture is kicking butt. I did a trial subscription, and I will likely take the plunge as a subscriber soon.

Meanwhile, across the broader news landscape, the New York Times and Washington Post have seen a surge in subscriptions as President Trump has blasted them, and NPR endures as a bastion of journalistic excellence, with local listener-members sustaining its work.

My hope is that we as people of faith can commit similarly to those outlets that help us stay informed in matters of faith and our Church. Across the news landscape, there are many great sources that help us stay informed in matters of our faith. And if we commit to supporting them, we can help prevent the take-ification of religion news (and, God forbid, of religion) in this climate.

One of my goals for limiting and purifying my social media intake is to include these sources in my feeds. They help me not get bogged down in takes, in silly time-wasters (which are good but must be limited), and in content that comes from extremes. I never want my faith to be compartmentalized, because Catholicism’s greatness is its ability to be relevant to anything and everything all the time. These sources help suffuse thoughtfulness and spirituality into the time I spend on social media and keep me grounded in faith while sauntering in these media realms.

A few of my favorites:

+ America Magazine. This Jesuit publication definitely has some opinion pieces in addition to its news, but pieces are specifically headlined and categorized so that you know into what area the article fits. Among their excellent content, Mike O’Loughlin writes, hands-down, the best US Catholicism beat articles out there. He is a must-follow on Twitter, and the magazine keeps a good feed going, too.

+ Crux. Initially an enterprise of The Boston Globe, it was acquired by Knights of Columbus and continues to provide thorough coverage of Catholic news worldwide, including a reporter from Rome. They’re on Twitter, too. I don’t read every article (it’s not all gold), but my favorite there is Charlie Camosy, who is especially insightful on life ethics and political implications.

+ Millennial Journal. This is a blog founded by millennials that produces original content from writers in their 20s and 30s as well as curates a good mix of religious, social, and political content from around the web. Its editor Robert Christian is a good Twitter follow, as well as their main feed.

+ Religion beat writers. Many of the major publications have people dedicated to the religion beat who produce quality content themselves and do a nice job curating the best work of their peers. A few good ones:

+ Catholic Relief Services. They have an amazing website, lots of subcategories, and tons of social media accounts that you can parse to choose your content. They are especially excellent at connecting you to political advocacy as justice issues arise for which you may want to speak up.

+ Local coverage. Keep tabs on your diocese and parish with the best of their news. In Chicago, we have a publication called Chicago Catholic that has a nice website and an email newsletter with a nice survey of local stories.

+ A small dose of thoughtful individuals,6 who may offer mild, limited, measured takes:
  • Tim O’Malley: Tim’s a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame and specializes in liturgical theology. Also he’s witty and has a beautiful family.
  • Rachel Held Evans: She’s a Christian author and speaker who reflects carefully on social trends, politics, and matters of church -- and she’s a new mom!
  • Kathryn Jean Lopez: She’s a Catholic author and speaker who shares nice, short reflections and quotes from her reading and travels and writes periodically for a few outlets, too.
  • Fr. James Martin, SJ: Jim is thorough, always posting and writing everywhere. He’s great for the Church with his visibility and accessibility, but he takes a bit of getting used to, as good as he is.
+ Honorable mention, too:


1 I also loved the weather map, with its color-coded temperatures, key of symbols for pressure fronts and storm belts, and lists of numbers and places.↩


2 I loved reading a lot of those great writers, but seeing the great Jayson Stark get laid off especially killed a piece of my childhood.↩


3 The late night SportsCenter with Van Pelt became more like Fallon and Colbert (in format and tone, though SVP is smarter than Fallon) than anything, and SC6 with Michael and Jemele basically just extends the afternoon block of shouting shows beyond Le Batard, Around the Horn, and PTI to another level with those two. ↩


4 Dubiously trail-blazed by the ever-louder Stephen A. Smith, these “personalities” don’t necessarily have any credentials or tact. They are just somehow deemed talented at opining in a sensational way about the goings-on.↩


5 One could consider this the LaVar Ball-ification of sports news. Coverage is increasingly focused on things other than the actual games themselves.↩


6 Rob adds: “A few more that I find to be good follows: Katie Prejean McGrady (@katieprejean), Emily Zanotti (@emzanotti), C.C. Pecknold (@ccpecknold), Audrey Assad (@audreyassad).”↩

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