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1. This weekend, I attended a baptism for a family member. It was an afternoon ceremony in the parish church, so it was a smaller crowd of just friends and family. The parish deacon presided and celebrated the Sacrament for us. Before he began, he offered us a special explanation as to why he was holding an iPad and not a prayer book. He explained that he has some vision problems, so many years ago, he downloaded an app with the rites and prayers he'd need for his deacon duties. Rather than squinting at a static book with its small print, scrolling along with the backlit screen and easily enlargeable print allowed him to preside more smoothly and intentionally.I was delighted. I think we are quite accustomed to seeing clerical folks with red prayer books, often with ribbons dangling everywhere and cracking bindings teetering ominously in tiny altar servers' hands. The visual difference is a small detail but certainly a detail to which one has to adjust. But major props to this man who made a small practical change in order to improve his presence and focus as a minister, especially a minister of the (some) Sacraments. Whether it bothered certain people or not, I was impressed by the simple, forward manner in which he explained himself. Such an approach is almost always the best and most effective way to defuse tensions. Rather than leave people to wonder about the iPad in his hands, people could instead acknowledge his decision and accommodation and better direct their attention to the babies being welcome into our Church. This deacon was to me a fine testament of the importance of a simply pastoral approach.
2. Being with my wife's side of our family, specifically her dad's side, always highlights the unique character of an extended family all assembled together. The greatness of this family is their connectedness, not just to each other (they keep impeccable tabs on one another), but to acquaintances, old friends, and even strangers and workers. They are immensely gifted at socializing, making small-talk, and finding connections. It's pretty awe-inspiring, especially to an extroverted introvert such as myself. On the flipside, they are not great at the details and processes. They struggle to pass along details of plans to each other, often serendipitously luck into things just working out, and take forever to leave somewhere, since everyone's FOMO prevents them from leaving first.
The funny subtext to all of this is the in-laws. We live in the midst of these simultaneously endearing and impressive yet agonizing and head-scratching traits. And time and time again, we realize that, while our better halves bring the social skills, we are the facilitators, the ones who build the schedules and make the trains run on time. While most of us greatly need the soft skills of our spouses and their ability to connect so well with others, they also need our itinerancy in marking out the logistics of life, and generally reminding them to eat meals and sleep a few hours.
I say all of this not because I think we've rescued our spouses or vice-versa. Rather, it's something my wife and I have always known about our own relationship, and something we can see manifesting in similar yet different flavors among her cousins and family members. While a marriage is built on the healthy mix and complementarity of two people who combine their selves and lives together, a strong family, especially such a larger, extended family, is firmed up and strengthened by the subsumption of good husbands and wives into the fold. It's neat to see how, in different ways, my wife and her family members, in their many similarities and bits of individual uniqueness, too, found in-laws that similarly have some fundamentals in common but bring complementary traits as well. A healthy, vital family is a beautiful thing to behold -- something I definitely believe in and freshly witnessed, albeit couched in consistent observational humor toward everyone.
3. I have never been a great pray-er of the rosary. I learned it in school growing up, but I never had a great personal piety toward it. Living in Ireland for a year, that temporarily changed. Each morning we would get to work for the parish daily Mass and join our community in its prayer. We would try to arrive in time for the rosary before Mass, but we wouldn't always make it. After a month or two, I decided that I wanted to always make it, so we agreed that we didn't have to all leave together if someone was running late. And thus it became that I prayed the rosary almost every day, under the careful guidance of our faithful older parishioners. Since leaving Ireland, I have had periods of time where I picked the habit back up, but it has never stuck with me quite so firmly as it did then.
This month of July has brought with it some extra cabin fever. Being completely off of work has its perks, but this stay-at-home dad has realized that those two days of work each week provided a great deal of sanity and balance to my life. Being home with Lucy almost every day necessitates some creativity and imagination to make sure we don't end up sitting around the house all day, every day. One of the simple joys of such free time is to just go for a walk. Even just unfolding the stroller and buckling Lucy into it brings her great excitement, let alone actually heading outside and walking our quiet neighborhood streets.
I used to put on a podcast or just walk with nothing in my ears, but recently, I rediscovered an app I had buried on my phone: The Holy Rosary. I had originally downloaded it for my solo work trip to Arizona when I scouted things for my students' immersion week. Now it has reemerged as a welcome companion for my occasional afternoon walk with Lucy. For someone who enjoys prayer but doesn't always remember all the words to the creeds or the keep the sets of Mysteries and their days of the week straight, the app is a welcome, gentle way to guide my pray in a positive direction. I don't think anyone has ever truly regretted praying the rosary.4. Back when my daughter, Lucy, was a newborn, I reflected on the blessings of being a stay-at-home dad. I was enjoying my three months paternity leave with an eye toward part-time work to continue being home with her. In the quieter moments of an overnight feed or an early morning encounter when I was alone with her and my wife slept, I couldn't help but feel a monastic calmness toward it all. Even though I was not alone, the peace of a helpless human resting on me, unable to go anywhere else or do anything instead, brought the serenity of a cloister even without the walls.
Now, Lucy is 16 months old, stands (and walks) at 2'7", and weighs in (my frail arms can attest) at almost 25 pounds. She traipses around like she owns the place, whether that's our rented apartment, our parish church, or a restaurant where we're trying to eat out. She is an explorer who wants to climb, run, and touch whatever enters her field of vision. So when she sleeps into the early morning or stays down solidly for one of her two naps (gosh, I'll miss that second nap when it disappears soon), I sometimes find that monastic calm returning. This morning, with my wife off work and sleeping in and Lucy going down late after a long, full family day yesterday, I was able to get out for a run under the partly clouded sun, through the burning-off fog of a cool, rainy weekend. Now back at home, I can cool down with a cold Gatorade, an open laptop to journal, and the silence -- the unbroken calm with the TV off, the baby monitor quiet, and nothing but the background noise of an early Monday morning on our village streets and the gentle whirr of our ceiling fan.I think back fairly often to the routinized peace of monastic life, as my choir friends and I experienced at the Abbey of Gethsemani while on retreat in college. The constancy and sparseness of their prayer hit me just right, and I always hope that the routines I build and embrace in daily life can more closely resemble monastic dedication rather than the modern obsessions with efficiency and productivity. As the weather has warmed and my legs have gotten running again, these mornings have felt that way. The early alarm, the bowl of cereal, the bit of brief morning reading, and the stretch and run terminate in a moment of calm -- my tired body catches its breath on the couch as the quiet restores and renews me to start the rest of a day.
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