My Christmas Muse

In the soft glow of Christmas evening, I collapse into my chair.

It's over.

The gifts are opened, the food is eaten, the songs are sung.

It's late.

I look at the small Christmas tree in front of me. The lights sparkle in my half-open eyes. Vince Guaraldi plays softly in the background. I'm falling asleep.

This is what Dad used to do.

In my right hand is a coffee cup. In front of me is a pair of 2T "footie" pajamas that is way past it's bedtime and way too excited to sleep.

Strewn across the floor everywhere are material reminders of the goodness of God. In the distance, I hear the dishwasher start up. Mom has gone up to bed. This is Christmas 2008.

"Choo-choo!"

I look down from the tree into sharp brown eyes and a big grin. A vision of unabashed joy makes me chuckle.

God is good.

My smile slowly fades.

I begin to remember.

My eyes return to the tree.

This is what I have been waiting for.

Where are you?

I can't always capture you in my memory - your personality somehow runs together with your brothers and sisters. I see things in each of them that I know are somehow similar to you, but the totality of who you uniquely are slips away. I find I need pictures now to call you to mind.

I knew this would happen.

A tear runs down my cheeks.

It would be great to have you back.

"Choo-choo, choo-choo!"

A little hand insists on my presence on the floor. I clear a spot and lie down.

So busy! Yes, put that there, put this here. No dad, not there, over here! Look at this, look at that!

As I put the little wooden train on the track, the action reminds me of a model train set long ago under a different Christmas tree. I can almost hear another voice.

"He likes trains".

Boy, does he ever, Dad.

You know, he reminds me of you somehow.

Remember when you took me to that big train museum in Duluth? I do.

We're gonna take him there in the spring. He'll get a big kick out of it!

You should have seen him when we turned the tree on for the first time this year, he just started clapping his hands and said "Yay!"

He loves Christmas trees and Choo-choos.

The two of you would have been best buddies.

Heck, I'dve had to check, each time you came to visit, that you weren't sneaking him out the door as you left! Ha ha.

I'm sorry this all took so long Dad, for me to finally grow up, for the grandkids and all.

I'm sorry you died first.

"It's alright. I had a good run. Pay it forward".

"Choo-choo, choo-choo!"

Do you know, bubby, do you know who's not here?

A little body flops on top of mine.

You're tired bud. You're rubbing. Let 's go up. I'll put you down. Dad's got you.

As I rise from the floor a little head rests on my shoulder.

I reach my full stature. I am facing the window.

Both feet on the ground, head up, eyes straight ahead. That's how we do it.

"The Lord is great and greatly to be praised in the city of our God."

A reminder of God's material goodness under my bare foot as we start for bed...

Mannequin Devotion

For a time I was in the habit of going down to the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis to pray on weekdays over the noon hour.

Whenever I'm at the Basilica, I'm a little overwhelmed. I feel like I'm in a Catholic "playground" of sorts - there are so many chapels, icons, stained-glass windows and other means of prayer I don't know where to start.

After a somewhat disjointed first few trips down there, I decided to (go figure...) systematically make my way through the different parts of the building on different days in order to break it up into smaller, more digestible pieces. These experiences wound up being a great way to break up my work day. I would slowly walk around inside the building in silence, usually as the only one there, and study all the windows, or the Stations of the Cross, or the high altar, or the ceiling, etc. It was, almost always, somehow a simultaneously a very "grounding" yet uplifting experience.

On one occasion, after having already made several trips, my attention was drawn to the statues. Now, statues are among the most quintessential form of Catholic devotional art. They are ubiquitous and yet simultaneously controversial. I came to realize that for me, personally, the statues were just sort of "there" - they didn't bother me, but besides noticing that these in the Basilica were the fancy marble kind (as opposed to the more common painted-porcelain kind) I really didn't get what they were for. I had heard somewhere that statues were there to help us connect with whoever was being represented. I had also read that in the east the icons had a similar function, but were believed to have an almost sacramental character - that is to say as if the person represented were somehow mystically present thru the icon.

So, with this in mind, one noon hour I plopped down in front of the main altar in the Basilica and decided I was going to pray "with the statues". I noticed right away that around the main altar are statues of the twelve apostles. So, on a whim, I decided to read the gospel of Luke while looking at the statues. It was kind of a neat effect - every time one of the apostles had a line in the gospel, I looked at the corresponding statue. This somehow brought the story to life - in a way sort of like the old "film strips" we watched in grade school - a succession of still images with dialogue behind it. It was kind of cool - I felt like I was starting to "get" the statues.

On another occasion, I sat in front of the "Sacred Heart" statue of Jesus and read the words of Jesus in the gospel of John. Again it was a special experience ~ the statue really did have the effect of making Jesus seem somehow "more" present. It was as if my subconscious was being engaged by the physical image on some level.

Not long after, I had a very odd experience. I was shopping at the Mall of America and all of a sudden I was "weirded out". I had seen something out of the corner of my eye. My head snapped around and I found myself looking at a row of female-shaped mannequins in the window of a sporting goods store. As I continued walking, it dawned on me what had happened - in praying with with statues, my sub-conscious had become acclimated to connecting with physical images. In this case, as I walked by the mannequins and my subconscious tried to connect with them I was repulsed because none of the mannequins in the display had a head - something I would not otherwise have noticed.

Of course, the mannequins were not intended to represent anyone in particular, they were simply something to hang clothes on. But what was also weird was that the shape of the mannequins was somehow realistic enough to get my subconscious to try and engage with them. I don't think that the simpler mannequins from the 1970's would necessarily have done this. In fact, these particular mannequins were physically very realistic. I don't think I would be too far out on a limb to say that there was somehow a certain amount of eroticism intended in these images, in particular with the pose. It looked like they might have been made from a 3D scan of an actual female body builder or dancer - except for the missing head.

I'm not sure exactly what my point here is - it has something to do with the philosophical contrast between connecting with a real person through an obviously artificial image (the statues and icons of Jesus or the apostles probably don't look anything like they really looked) versus using of a accurate reproduction of a real person's body in a way that separates the personhood element out (what does it means for an image of a headless human body to have an erotic element anyway?)

I want to unpack this idea a little more. I think it is also related somehow to the notion that pornography and nudity are two different things. There can be pornography (even hardcore pornography) with no nudity whatsoever and there can be nudity that is not pornography. The issue has to do with personhood. If an image brings to mind the name (and thereby the identity) of a person, that image may not be pornographic, even if it shows the person naked. But even a fully clothed image (or, for that matter by extension, an actual person's fully clothed real physical body), if it succeeds in disconnecting the idea of personhood (as in, I no longer care WHO I am looking at, but rather it is only about WHAT I am looking at) from the image, then that image may still be a candidate for pornography.

In any case, I'm willing to wager that boys and young men these days spend a far greater deal of time looking at sexy headless mannequins in shopping malls than they do at religious statues in churches.

Great.

I'm not making it up...

My third daughter is a child of wonder. She is a fountain of vitality and youthful energy. She is the type of kid for whom it is more appropriate to say, instead of "she runs", rather "she skitters". But the thing I love the most about her is her sense of wonder - everything she hears is fascinating and marvelous. She wears her heart on her sleeve and makes these big facial expressions that make me smile every time I see them.

Case in point: The girls come with me on Saturday mornings when I go to train karate. The karate club is training right now at an inner city start-up church that meets in an old retail storefront on University Avenue in St. Paul. The building is in a state of half-repair and there are hazards galore for little girls to hurt themselves on. The girls always want to come with me and always discover, about five minutes after we get there, that watching dad do karate for 90 minutes is interminably boring. We bring backpacks full of crayons and books and snacks and dolls and you name it, but all of that buys us about a net of five minutes of pre-occupation. Then it is boredom. Unfortunately, the hardest part is that dad seems so busy with what he is doing and he doesn't seem to be paying very much attention to them.

At some point, it was realized that a surefire way to get dad's attention is to announce "potty, potty, potty" which is the emergency signal which means "I have waited too long and now I'm about to have an accident". Generally, we are pretty good about only saying this during real emergencies. But, at karate, and in particular when it is boring, the truth gets bent a little bit. On several occasions, I have jumped out of line in the karate class, swooped up a little girl with crossed legs, and bolted for the toilet at the end of the hall. And, on some of those occasions, stood there, waiting and cooling off and stiffening up, while they take their time on the potty and then tell me they don't have to pee. What's more, the bathroom has two doors, one from the hall, that we use, and one from a classroom on the other side where there is typically a bible study going on at the same time we are there for karate. Based on how clearly I can hear what the teacher in the bible study is saying, I extrapolate that they are probably clearly hearing all of our dialogue about wiping and pooping and peeing.

On one particular morning, I was in the bathroom with daughter #3. She really did have to go and she was particularly chatty. To redirect her attention and try to quiet her down I whispered "Suzie, we have to be quiet". Hearing me change my tone to a whisper, her eyes got big like she expected me to tell her a secret. "Why?" she whispered back, louder than she normally talks. "Because this is the Lord's house" I whispered. Her eyes got big. "This is the Lord's House?" she said, looking around. "Yes". The chatter died down a little bit. We finished up in the bathroom fairly quietly and I went back to training.

About 15 minutes later, I saw her, out of the corner of my eye, bee-lining full speed for the bathroom. Now, because of the hazards all around, this is a "no-no" - we always go to the bathroom with dad so dad knows where we are. I started chasing and calling after her "Suzie, wait up. Suzie, do you have to go potty? Wait for dad." etc. She got to the bathroom door, threw it full open so that the bible class would have clear reception and shouted back to me at the top of her lungs "DAD, I CAN'T WAIT! I HAVE TO TAKE A POOP IN THE LORD'S HOUSE!"

I'm not making it up.

Every Man to His Post!

No, I don't mean everyone should be blogging...

Rather, I am referring to a scene toward the end of the third movie in the Lord of the Rings series ("The Return of the King"), where the enemy is marching en masse (and I do mean "en masse") on the city of Minas Tirith, which in the movie, is a symbol of human civilization. The leader (called the "Steward") of Minas Tirith has become corrupt and has actually (and secretly) come under the control of the "head bad guy", known as Sauron (who is a pretty good approximation of the devil).

The scene I am referring to juxtaposes showing the "mad" Steward carrying out some sort of twisted "suicide of honor" (taking his comatose son Faramir along with him in his despair) while the battle is raging at the main gate of the city. The sense, as you watch, is that the people of the city are looking to their leader to defend them, and he is not there. At one point, the Steward finally looks down from his lofty tower and sees the enemy army and is so struck with fear he panics and shrieks "Run for your lives, run for your lives!!!". As he says this, you see the confused (and confounded) looks on the faces of the soldiers who are trying to keep their nerve in the face of such overwhelming odds. In classic movie style, the scene finishes with the white wizard Gandalf striking the Steward down with his staff and in a strong, authoritarian voice (the voice of a commander), saying "Every man to his post". This command (and tone) brings the soldiers, who a minute ago were standing around not sure what to do, back to clarity - you see them start instictively moving in the way that they have been trained.

I sense that we are in need of a Gandalf right about now. There is a sense that we are in for some serious trouble. The economy is in a shambles, the political divide increases with each election, there's swine flu, there's nuclear Iran, there's environmental disasters, high school shootings, asteroids passing near the earth. The list goes on. It seems like, through it all, the TV blurts out "Run for your lives, run for your lives.". When I meet to talk about things with my peers, there is a lot of hand-ringing. I have to admit there are time it seems like it would feel good to see a newscaster hit over his (talking) head by Gandalf and to hear some words that make sense - "Every man to his post, work your job, save money, love your wives, raise your kids, keep the faith".

Now is not a time for panic, it's a time for falling back on what we know works - on what has worked for at least 2000 years, if not more.

Every man to his post!

"The Darkness Will Soon Become General"

So goes a line from a prophetic document, entitled "Words from Jesus", that a friend of mine recently passed along. The intended meaning of the verse, in context, is that there is a spiritual "darkness" has descended on our world at the present time and that it is spreading everywhere.

I tend to agree.

However, the problem with spiritual darkness is that we can only see it with the eyes of faith. I can find many Christians these days, of various denominations, who would agree with me that we have spiritual darkness - heck, in a certain sense it's the one thing we can all agree on. But I find it curious that beyond agreeing on the existence of the spiritual darkness, there is far less agreement about it's nature or what to do about it. Some pray for revival, some want massive excommunications of Christians who stray from the tenets of the faith, some say it's time to drop out of society altogether, some are waiting for a supernatural prophetic signal that will give them direction in a looming crisis, some are preparing for a rapture. I find elements of truth in all of these.

But even more curious, in the face of such widely differing perspectives on the part of Christians on the nature of this spiritual darkness (awareness of which should ultimately drive how we deal with it...), I also sense a rise in a certain "polemical" tone among Christians in general. Now, polemics is not wrong per se, but it seems that many Christians think that this spiritual darkness is a fairly simple thing - the thinking seems to be "We all know what the answer is".
But do we? Are we really "seeing" with the eyes of faith? Or is it more accurate to say we are sort of "smelling with the nose of faith". It seems to me as if we are smelling something nasty around us and our entire response is based on the same level of knowledge we would have if we were in a dark room relying on our nose to defend us - where does it smell like the enemy is now? Does it smell high or low? Does it smell big or little? I don't know, but it stinks! Attack!

Historically, and contrary to all modern sensibility, tolerance has been the virtue of Christians and their spin-offs. Warren Carroll makes an interesting point that the Catholic Church, in particular, has never exercised greater power than when it exercises it's power to forgive it's persecutors. This power to forgive has been the key to it's historical longevity. Over and against the modern stereotype of popes sitting on golden thrones commanding mindless masses to do their bidding, the first 1000 years of the history of the Church is a story of pope's pursued, captured, threatened, tortured and terrorized. These were the last significant "dark ages" or ages of darkness. And, in each case, just when it appears that the Church is about to be crushed forever, these heroic leaders have time and again uttered the words that send a chill down the devil's spine: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." These are the words that have caused centurions of all ages to pause, to stop short, to say "What?" and, ultimately, to declare "Truly, this was the Son of God". History shows that it has been in the conversion of her bitterest enemies that the Church has received her greatest strength. It is in the act of running the lance into the side of the crucified Church that the water of rebirth is released and washed the darkness out of the eyes of the persecutors.

We Christians need to pray for all the things I listed above, but we must not forget to pray for light that empowers us to be both "right" (as in "conforming to the truth") and beautiful at same time. It is in our seeming destruction that we find the power to destroy spiritual darkness with a light that shines from heaven through us.

God give us the grace.

I did not know that.

As confessed in an earlier post, I am a "closet" fan of the movie trilogy "The Matrix". I have the "box set" which includes the usual "extras" such as making-of documentaries (one of my buddies from college is a stuntman who shows up in a couple of these...) and director's commentaries.

The Matrix box set is a little different because it also has an entire disc on the "philosophy" behind the story concept. It seems the Wachowski brothers, the creators of the concept and directors of the films, are "hard core" science fiction lovers. "Hard core" science fiction attempts to treat real scientific and philosophical questions in an entertaining way (not always easy to do and not easy for the uninitiated to understand). So, in keeping with their interests, they put out these "featurettes" on the philosophy that backs up the films. In sitting through these, I was again reminded that I know very little about philosophy and it stirred in me a desire to know more.

So, I decided to brush up on my philosophy from a Catholic perspective (first) so that I can begin to better understand where I may ultimately differ from the philosophy behind the film. In doing so I have come across a book entitled "An Introduction to Philosophy - the Perennial Principles of the Classical Realist Tradition". I'm only four chapters into the book and enjoying it a lot.

In the fourth chapter I came across a description of the "Golden Age of Greece" which says that the "Hellas" (i.e. Athens and Sparta) was "animated and invigorated" by the wars with Persia that occurred in the 5th century B.C. (This is cool to me because these wars are the theme of the movie "300" which in my opinion, and despite the pornographic sexuality, is also kind of cool. ). The author, Daniel Sullivan, says : "...these little communities were destined to reach a peak of blazing glory for which there is no parallel in history." He then provides a quote from another author, Edith Hamilton, who says: "We think and feel differently because of what a little Greek town [Athens] did during a century or two, twenty-four hundred years ago. What was then produced of art and of thought has never been surpassed and very rarely equalled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western World."

The author then goes on to describe the problems that the Greeks encountered with their philosophy and how they came to realize that they couldn't ultimately get to the truth, to a reconciliation between their differing schools of philosophy (sensist and rationalist) and how this realization led them to skepticism and, finally, to despair and how they wound up falling as fast as they had risen.

I did not know that.

Bless us O Lord, and these thy Gifts

I've said it for years. I try to say it every day. It needs no introduction. Grace before meals is actually a good analogy to explain the meaning of the word "ubiquitous".

It's closest association for me is Thanksgiving.

Preparing a Thanksgiving dinner is a big task. On Thanksgiving day, it seems at times that the kitchen could be better described as "Mission Control". It wouldn't surprise me, in the years to come, as the hyper-techno generation comes of age, to see mothers with wireless headsets in the kitchen with a palm-top PC-type thing on their hip giving them a full readout of the temperature and "taste status" of up to 24 different dishes being prepared simultaneously, perhaps in different rooms of the house, with real-time updates of "estimated time to completion" and audio alarms in event of corn-bake boilover or Turkey meat low moisture levels.

Thanksgiving (or really any meal for that matter) these days is largely a matter of opening packages - cut the turkey out of the bag, open the can of corn, open the can of cranberries, take the potatoes out of the bag, open the cheese package for the potatoes, etc. When we sit down to say grace, the language seems somehow apropos "Bless us O Lord, and these thy gifts". Everything came in package, just like a gift.

But grace before meals predates food packaging, and the modern of conveniences of plastic "safety pop tops" and shelf lives lasting months may have cost us a spiritual lesson. I try to imagine thanksgiving dinner 100 years ago. Dad is out hunting, the whole day, for a turkey (I've never turkey hunted, but I'm told it's challenging, even with modern rifles). It's November, and cold. Maybe he gets a turkey on the first shot, maybe not. If he does, he carries/drags it back to the shed. Then he has to cut the head and feet off, "gut it" and pluck all the feathers (I used to listen to my dad talk about his mom doing this). Meanwhile, mom has got water boiling on the stove (which is fired with wood dad has been chopping all summer long) continuously. She boils the corn and shaves the kernels off the cob by hand before mixing it with flour from the mill and milk which dad has milked himself earlier in the morning in order to make corn bake. She's peeling the potatoes she picked herself out of the garden by hand. She's been soaking cranberries all night long along with beans before sitting down and making side dishes with them by hand. And not to mention the bread and pumpkin pie that she is making from scratch.

And when this is all done, and everything somehow makes it onto the table at the same time, they all plop down and say "Bless us O Lord, and these THY GIFTS which we are about to receive, from thy bounty (means: "riches"), through Christ our Lord."

Wow.

See you on the other side...

...but beyond that we can't go into detail

My personal life in Christ has been an experience of constantly being surprised (or, more appropriately, reminded - maybe "re-surprised"), that the stakes of this life are infinitely higher than can be imagined. So much of my day-to-day life consists of "shades of grey" - sometimes it's darker grey and sometimes lighter grey - but everything is basically grey. But, each day, as I sit down and "plug in" to my life in Christ in prayer, I am brought again into the mystery of the Christian religion, and the grey begins to recede and I begin to perceive an underlying substrate of black and white. This process isn't a retreat into shallowness and an abandonment of appreciation for subtlety. Rather, it's a peering into profundity. This isn't a black and white that means what I think is right and what you think is wrong, it's a discernment of ultimate truth that reveals a promise of fulfillment that exceeds expression (as in "eye has not seen, ear has not heard...") and a potential, indeed a threat, of disappointment that is literally unspeakable (as in "worm dieth not..." etc.). The futility of my intellect to grasp either of these extremes is a burden and it helps to name it such. I cannot understand, but not for lack of trying.

I am sometimes puzzled that we don't hear more about heaven in Church. It seems like it should be on the agenda for each mass. But it isn't. I think that there is a "sense" out there that people already know all about heaven. But do they? Can they articulate the Christian teaching on heaven with the same effectiveness as something related to their job?

One problem I have with heaven is that any time I try to conceive of it, the conception can't hold up under the requirement to satisfy a person to eternity without turning into hell at the limit. For instance, I love coffee, but the thought of spending eternity at a Starbucks starts to turn around and go the other direction and sound something like the Hotel California. I love Christmas, but don't sit me in front of a lighted tree forever.

At some point, I stumbled across a particular book with an ominous-sounding title: "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" by Dr. Ludwig Ott. (If that name and title doesn't bring a certain image to mind, I don't know what does.) But this book has been a fascinating read. In fact, it's a great place to go when I'm looking for a little more "complete" treatment of the faith. I found the following on page 491 regarding the state of the resurrected body in heaven. The "teaching of the Apostles" is that there are four properties of the resurrection body:


"1. Incapability of suffering... that is, inaccessibility to physical evils of all kinds, such as sorrow, sickness, death. ... It may be more closely defined as the impossibility to suffer and to die."


"2. Subtility... that is, a spiritualised nature, which however, is not to be conceived as a transformation of the body into a spiritual essence or as a refinement of the matter into an ethereal body. The archetype of the spiritualised body is the risen body of Christ, which emerged from the sealed tomb and penetrated closed doors. The intrinsic reason of the spiritualisation of the body lies in the complete dominion of the body by the transfigured soul in so far as it is the essential form of the body."


"3. Agility... that is, the capability of the body to obey the soul with the greatest ease and speed of movement. It form a contrast to the heaviness of the earthly body, which is conditioned by the Law of Gravity. This agility was manifested by the risen Body of Christ, which was suddenly present in the midst of His Apostles, and which disappeared just as quickly. The intrinsic reason of agility lies in the perfect dominion over the body of the transfigured soul, to the extent that it moves the body."


"4. Clarity... that is, being free from everything deformed and being filled with beauty and radiance ... The archetype of the transfiguration is the Transfiguration of Jesus on Tabor and after the Resurrection. The intrinsic reason for the transfiguration lies in the overflowing of the beauty of the transfigured soul on to the body. The grade of the transfiguration of the body ... will vary according to the degree of clarity of the soul, which is in proportion to the measure of the merits."

There is nothing here that contradicts anything I've ever heard in Church, I've just never heard it so concisely put. The interplay between the soul and body is particularly interesting to me. In this life, our bodies have the upper hand and our souls are in some sense held hostage. Death, interestingly enough, is defined as "the separation of the soul from the body". After death, when the soul is transported, by the Holy Spirit, through death to eternal life, and rejoined to the "glorified" (technical term) body, the upper hand will lie with the soul and it will be the body that follows.

I actually find this stuff helpful in my struggles to conceive of eternity. Shallow son of a suburbanite that I am, my conceptions of heaven tend to be strongly influenced by Hollywood. I can't seem to help picturing myself in heaven as some sort of Jedi master, or maybe Neo (again) from the Matrix, with my human potential fully developed. But, again, the reality of the promise escapes my attempt to flesh out the details. We won't be warriors in heaven because war will be meaningless (it's hard to sell aspirin to people with "incapability for suffering"). I won't raise my hand and be able to stop bullets in mid air, or "search the force" to see what is happening next. Concepts like travel and knowledge will have different meaning. And, as Louis of Granada describes in "The Sinner's Guide", heaven will be great because God's agenda will be to reveal his greatness to us (which is infinite) forever. Put simply, God will be out to "impress" us in heaven and what He wills he accomplishes.

See you on the other side...

Thanks Dad

There are many nuggets of wisdom that I received from my Father, most of which I probably can't recall explicitly, but are rather part of my subconscious. But there are three "big ones" that I do remember:

The first happened when I was about nine years old. I was riding with my dad in our family pick-up truck, it was just the two of us (I think we were on our way home from the hardware store or some such). At the time, I was being bullied by a number of kids in the neighborhood and I was having some doubts about my "toughness". So I asked him this "leading" question: "Dad, what does it mean to be a man? Do you have to be tough and smoke cigars (not sure why I threw that in there...) and get in fights and stuff?". I fully expected him to answer me "No, no, those aren't what makes a man. What matters is that you try your best every day." Or something like that. But, instead he said "If you want to know what it means to be a man, look at Jesus Christ." This "threw me for a loop". We were church-going folk, and my Dad wasn't going to tolerate any blasphemy around the house, but he didn't tend to bring up religious themes all that often. I remember really thinking about this - sort of getting absorbed in my thoughts (I'm sure my eyebrows were furrowed on my forehead - he must have been struggling not to smile). But that statement had a profound impact on me (I'm blogging about it now, aren't I?).

The second one came many years later on a Saturday afternoon at home. Dad and I were watching the football game on TV. He had just gotten our first TV with a "remote" and was getting a big kick out of being able to mute the sound on the commercials. We were talking about TV a lot, TV this, TV that... Then he was quiet for a little bit like he didn't like that. He shut the TV off and said "That thing is a wasteland" in reference to the TV. We got up and went outside. I remember it.

This third one was on the way to pick up our tuxedos for my wedding. We had rented this white Lincoln Towncar to ride in after the church service and we were taking it out for a test drive. It was just he and I in the car. This time, I was driving. We talked about marriage. He volunteered: "You know, there were times when your mom would drive me just nuts, but I have to say I'm thankful for it now, because it was the things she did that drove me nuts that kept me from making you kids nuts." Sounds funny when I write it like this, but the point was well taken.

Thanks Dad.

Jesus and Neo

I have a confession to make - I am a closet fan of the movie trilogy "The Matrix". I own the box set.

Setting aside the pornographic sex scenes (if such can be set aside), I am curiously attracted to the themes of these films. I'm sure this has much to do with my interest in martial arts, which is presented in the films in a (literally) supernatural, over-the-top style.

But, in watching the movies, I am also given food for thought and the movies somehow shed light on my religious faith, in an indirect sort of the way similar to what I found in studying German in high school. In studying German, I came to a new and deeper understanding of English. For example, in looking at how Germans "do" syntax, I had a new reference point from which to look at how we do syntax in English.

In the Matrix, the central character is "Neo" (means "new") and the main supporting character is Morpheus (means "changed"). The premise of the movie is that the human race has been "hi-jacked", in some sense, by machines who have succeeded in interfacing so effectively to the human mind that they are able to physically isolate and control (and use) the humans bodies all the while the humans are none the wiser. The name for the gigantic computer simulation that keeps everyone deceived is called the Matrix. There is a small set of people who "wake up" to the deception and start to mount a resistance against the machines, who have them vastly outgunned. The resistance functions on two levels - they fight inside the Matrix and out. The kernel of the story of Neo is that he somehow is able to function in a unique manner within the Matrix and can break the "laws of physics" in regards to the computer simulation. There is a strong messianic component to the film. Morpheus is like a prophet announcing Neo's coming. And the movie is full of religious references: the "real" city of the humans, under threat by the "real" machines, is called Zion, Neo's love interest is named "Trinity". There are others.

The most interesting scene in the whole trilogy, for me, is one in which Morpheus, in reaching out to Neo to help him "wake up" to the deception of the Matrix, offers him two pills, one red and one blue, and explains that one pill will make him forget that he has ever met Morpheus and the other pill will help set him "free". The symbolism of this small act of the will and it's consequences is very interesting to me. There is a clear sense that the choosing the red pill for freedom will not be easy, but Neo chooses it because he wants to know the truth.

But the interesting thing, to me, is where the Christian faith differs from the Matrix. I get a better sense of the Christian faith by considering these differences (that German/English thing). And the difference are stark: in the sort of way that authentic human sexuality is starkly different from the sexuality presented in pornography. On the exterior, things may look very similar, the form may be the same, but inside they are radically ("Rad" being the Latin word meaning "root") different. The sacraments of the Church are radically different from the red pill of the Matrix, and the differences are, to me extremely relevant to today. For instance, when you receive the sacrament of baptism, you are supernaturally incorporated into THE BODY of Jesus Christ (a.k.a. God). But your senses are not heightened, you don't suddenly "feel" all the other baptized people (who are also in the body) all around you. Similarly, at the sacrament of confirmation, at the laying on of hands by the Bishop, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, creator the Universe, into your soul (kind of a big deal...). But you don't look up just afterwards and see everyone around you in scintillating waves of green (as Neo does in the Matrix), you don't receive supernatural powers (your martial arts abilities certainly aren't enhanced - I can attest to that!), and you certainly don't have access to the infinite knowledge that the Holy Spirit possesses. In fact, you may not even "feel" anything except for the oil on your forehead. When you receive the sacrament of the Eucharist, the body and blood of Jesus Christ, you don't suddenly see space distorted around you, you don't look up and see angels and demons that had been invisible, but now are made visible, you don't have insight "behind the scenes" into ultimate reality.

In fact, on the surface of it, these sacraments really seem to do nothing. You go to Church, you sing some songs, you get your sacraments and you go back home to the same old boring life.

But the purpose of the sacraments is bring you into a relationship - a uniquely intimate relationship. In marriage, a man and woman come into a relationship of such intimacy that they can be rightly called one "flesh". But they retain their unique bodies. But in baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, the Christian is "incorporated" into the very body of Jesus Christ. We Christians are members of Christ's body, a level of intimacy I don't even have with my wife. And the stark question must (particularly at this time in history) be asked - so what is that worth? In our modern age, this is a difficult question to answer. Ostensibly, incorporation into Christ's body at baptism connects me to a channel of divine power (called Grace) that enables me to "rise above" (albeit with full exertion of my will) my inherent sinful nature. The Eucharist brings me into an ever closer communion with Jesus Christ and assists me in becoming more like Him (I have heard it said that the Eucharist is different from anything else we consume - everything else we consume becomes part of us, but when we receive the Eucharist, we become part of Him). And at confirmation, the gift of the Holy Spirit into my soul provides the power that will drive my life through death to the "other side" (the Holy Spirit, Who doesn't die, carries my soul through death).

The theological arguments are as strong as they ever have been (they don't change), but the popular "savor" of the message seems to somehow now be lacking. There is a popular sense that this Christian "thing" hasn't worked, the world is just the same as it always was. But can any of us really demonstrate that Christianity has failed? That the sacraments don't work? How would you show such a thing?

It seems that all of us, in the present time, struggle under the burden of personal experience with hypocrisy on the part of individual Christians. We all seem to have been adversely affected by "Church people" who somehow went through all the motions and yet were unloving, spiteful, unhappy and, in some cases, mean-spirited and just plain not nice. I hear so many stories about this it's overwhelming. The net effect of all of these negative personal experienes is that they erode the validity of the Christian message. All that business of being incorporated into God's body, having God in our soul and all that just really doesn't seem to be making a difference in anyone's life. How can it be true?

If ever there were a baby that was not to be thrown out with the proverbial bathwater, it would be the Baby that came to this planet one Christmas night 2000 years ago. The question for Christians is not whether we are brave enough to "wake up" and see ultimate reality, no matter how ugly it is, as Neo does in the Matrix. The question is, rather, whether we are brave enough to participate in ultimate reality without even seeing it (or sensing in any way, shape or form for that matter...). "We walk by faith and not by sight". Of all the fantastic possibilities that are engendered by taking the red pill, are we prepared for that most terrifying possibility of all - namely that nothing happens? No change? The same old, same old? Do we have the courage to return to the rigid smallness of our petty lives and search for a Holy Spirit, that we can't feel, inside of ourselves? Do we have the courage to be incorporated into a Messiah who "lost" every fight he ever had ("The God Who Failed" is what Metallica calls Him) and who commands us to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors? Imagine that as a scene in the Matrix, Neo takes the red pill, nothing happens, he goes back home, does his job, and strives to love his kids and wife. I picture scenes of Neo up late a night with a cholicy baby, his scintillating green "Matrix-vision" showing him just where the bubble in the baby's tummy is that won't come out. And when the "agents" (the machine simulation bad guys in the Matrix) come to get him, he offers them no resistance and at the end he dies. Ahh! There would be a riot at the theater.

God, enlighten my blindness and help me to live as I myself have written.

Grace in the Nick of Time...

Church on Sunday is one of the trying times of the week for my wife and I. It's the "perfect storm" of conditions for our family - long periods of silence (with pews that resonate under little shoes like a bass drum and acoustics that encourage a 16-month old to test his voice) interspersed with people who are not particularly fond of children and a poor audio system for the pastor. While my wife and I both know better and can recite all the parental wisdom from "What to Expect - the Toddler years" by heart, we inevitably reach the breaking point. The breaking point means "disciplining in anger", that worst of parental sins that we must never do and which, in truth, I am guilty of on a regular basis. Every time it happens I go through a cycle of anger, defensiveness, regret, contrition and reconciliation. There are Sundays I'm moving through this cycle so often and so fast you could mount me on a pole and I could work like a fan to keep the room cool. I lay in bed at night imagining my kids laying on a pscyhiatrists couch 20 years from now saying "Church, oh, right, Church was the place where dad yelled at us the most..." Wonderful.

Recently, one of the children was feeling particularly "independent" (in manner very similar to the way that the communists felt "independent" from the Czar's government in Russia in 1917). I had reached the breaking point about 15 minutes into the mass and it was going to be a long ride. I was reduced to sitting in that slightly-leaned-over position that you see in parents of small children, with a look on my face like the coach of a football team that has just lost the Superbowl by 100 points. My wife, on the other hand, was running from one end of the crying room to the other like there were spinning plates at both ends and it was her job to keep them going.

When mass was over, we came out and I "informed" the children that we were not going to get the complementary donut that accompanies good behavior at Church. They were dumbstruck and reacted as if I had told them I was going to leave the family for good. We got into the mini-van and the "leader" of our family insurrection began "the scream" - meaning that high pitch that only children can hit that actually, besides hurting your ears, somehow penetrates into your skull and hurts your brain directly. This went on for a few blocks and I lost it. I pulled the van over and my countenance changed from "pleasant" to "frightening". I said a few choice words.

No effect.

In my anger, I got out of the van and was headed around the back of the vehicle to come in the side door on the passenger side and put the fear of God into this child using any and all of the physical tools at my disposal. I flung the door open and entered. I saw the other kids watching me with scared looks on their face. I took my glasses off for fear of breaking them and I locked eyes with my daughter.

And in the locking of our eyes, in less than one second my heart changed from rage to compassion.

The whole machine shut down. 6'-1", 250 lbs, 20 years of karate, sleep deprivation, frustration, stress. All done. All gone.

I gathered myself for a moment and the countenance went back to "pleasant". My daughter cried harder. I brought my (relatively) gigantic-sized head nose-to-nose with hers and I started saying all these father-type things in a soft father-type voice that were exactly "right" for the moment. I don't even remember what I said, but when I finished, she had stopped crying and the day went better.

I got back out of the van, stared at the ground for a few moments, shook my head, put my glasses on and drove the family home.

What's the point? There is no reasonable way to think that the 180-degree shift of my mood originated in me. The sheer speed at which happened flies in the face of biological and any other science for that matter. And where did I come up with all these things to say? There wasn't any rehearsal and I don't even remember exactly what I said, I just remember when I was done I was certain I had said the right things.

The only explanation, in my opinion, that really fits the situation is that the God somehow intervened.

As I drove home, I reflected on how close I had come to doing something I would really have regretted. I had been praying all along at Church not to get so worked up, I knew I wasn't thinking right but my human weakness got the best of me. When I see how close I can come to blowing it, I have this tendency to want to "play it safe". But the story of the talents in the Gospel came to my mind. I'm not called to play it safe, I'm called to take what God has given me and try to make something more out of it. This involves risk (a point that gets lost in the Gospel telling). The apparent risk for me is that some day I won't do the right thing and I'll wind up with regrets.

I'm learning that Grace comes sometimes in the nick of time. But so far, it's come when I've needed it.

My Spiritual Trifecta

In another one of my "Miscellaneous Musings", I want to share a little bit about what I've been reading lately. Looking back over the past few years, my reading "tastes" have settled on three main categories: History, Spirituality and Prophecy. I'll try to give a little discussion on each.

The first "type" of book I've been reading is the historical. I've been particularly drawn to the historical works of Warren Carroll. He is a Catholic author who writes, in his own words, from an "Incarnational Perspective". One of his central points as an author is that history becomes a caricature unless the spiritual underpinnings of the players are considered. His discussion of the of the rise and fall of Israel, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, Islam, Communism and others is, to me, riveting. And his sober historical treatment of the historical timing of the prophets in Scripture is, to me, fascinating and sheds tremendous light onto parts of the bible that are otherwise inaccessible to me. In reading Carroll, I get a better perspective of what it has meant down through the ages to live on this earth. I have come to the realization that not everyone has grown up in this "holiday from history" known as the U.S.A. I am learning that the history of this planet is riddled with evil acts too heinous to be shown in a Hollywood movie (which is saying something). In relating these real world historical tragedies, he does an effective job of creating, through good story-telling, a qualitative sense of the deep-seated, (literally) anguished yearning of the ancient peoples for Truth, for some understanding of why their lives were so hard. And he also relates how, in the midst of wars, persecutions, famines, disease, earthquakes, men and women have risen up, under the inspiration of God, to do incredible things. As I read these stories, I am inspired by the heroism of our ancestors. The truth is, Carroll's books are like candy to me, I can't put them down, but they aren't an end unto themselves and his effective story-telling skill also has a tendency to disconnect me from the reality of my life.

The second type of book I read is the spiritual. These are a little less "sweet" - more like really good organic broccoli - something I do enjoy, I know I should be eating more of, but still have to make a small "act of the will" to choose when I see a "Hershey's bar" (of history for instance...) sitting on the counter. The spiritual titles each come at conformity to Christ from a different angle and I have actually found benefit to "jump around" from title to title. I think the reason for this is that many of these books were written for people living in monasteries as monks and nuns whose life was pretty structured and far more concerned with strong commitment to a particular spiritual path. My life, as a husband and father, on the contrary, is about responding to whatever the commitments of love that I have bring to me on a given day. Thus, I find benefit in drawing from many spiritual perspectives - it's almost like I have to find the one that resonates to whatever situation I have that day. Up at night worried about the kids? Read the Psalms. Feeling like my work is pointless? (I'm not likely to be a key player in any big battle that will change the course of history...)? Read "Abandonment to Divine Providence". A lot of success coming my way with potential for great prosperity? Read "Preparation for Death". And read The Spiritual Combat every single day. (My intent of writing this here is to share some grassroots spiritual knowledge with anyone who is interested).

The third type of book is the one that raises eyebrows: namely, Prophecy. Prophecy is a concept that seems to me to be so foreign I don't even known how to bring it up. I'd rather not write about it here. But, the truth is, fully 1/3rd of my reading time is on prophecy (so my little secret is up...). What do I mean by prophecy? Well, as a Catholic, I mean, in particular, reading messages from Jesus and from the Blessed Virgin Mary given through modern day "seers" from all over the world. Yes, prophetic stuff is going on "all over the place" in our present time. In fact, of the three different types of books I am interested in, I expect that prophecy is the one that I will never exhaust. We live in a time with so much "authentic" (meaning "examined by appropriate authorities and found to be free from error") prophetic literature that it seems to me there is no one on the face of the earth who can keep up with all of it. My own behavior when I read prophetic books is so odd. If I am in public, I behave like someone who is reading a dirty magazine. Do I want to anyone to see that I am reading "Our Lady's Beloved Son's, Messages to the Marian Movement of Priests"? Heavens No! The scandal! The modern prophetic "current" is primarily (but not exclusively...) oriented around Marian apparitions began in the 1800's. There were prophecies of the first and second world wars (Leo XIII), the rise of Communism (Fatima), the papacy of John Paul II (Faustina Kowalska) and numerous other historical events. And they have continued to the present day, in places like Kibeho (check out the correlation to the Rwandan massacre in 1994), Akita (Japan), Medjugorje (who hasn't heard of it?), Betania, even right here in Minnesota! When I juxtapose my interest in history, in particular the historical correlation between the ancient prophets and ancient historical events with this modern onslaught of prophetic literature, the reason for my interest becomes clear. OK, having "teased" with this prophetic dimension, I can't give a full overview of what all the messages are saying, but the key point is that humanity in this present time is suffering in a manner unlike any other time in history. We are confused and disconnected from God. There is a spiritual vacuum and tremendous ignorance. And there is the active power of the devil. In our materialistic ignorance in regards to the spiritual, people are involving themselves in spiritual practices that can have real, devastating consequences. A great modern analogy I have heard is that our spiritual "environment" right now is the equivalent of what our natural environment would be if the Exxon Valdez crashed every single day. God is calling us to pray for everyone, and to make personal sacrifices to help so many people who don't even receive the most basic human element of life - love. We are literally in danger of losing the knowledge of what it means to love. And it also says to be prepared for the consequences of all our man-made problems to take effect "shortly" (unfortunately a thoroughly ambiguous term in regards to the prophetic). When I read this stuff, my personal focus is re-directed from retiring at age 55 and owning a fancy cabin up north somewhere to simplifying my life, disconnecting from the "noise" of our modern culture, learning to rely more on God and storing up treasure for myself in heaven by loving my neighbor. Unorthodox and strange as it may be, the prophetic is an indispensable component of my spiritual life.

As I finish writing this, the thought suddenly comes into my mind that the common element among these three types of books is again the presence of God - His presence in history, his presence in my life today and his presence in regards to the future. May all three lead me to Him.

Modern Kadesh

I really should have titled the previous post "Kadesh" - that's where the story happened. The point was that the Lord was giving a seemingly impossible task to the Israelites and asking that they trust in him to give them the victory.

I see many parallels in modern life. Recently I talked to a guy that had worked in the maximum security prison system as a guard. This guy's job was to be the first guy into the room on the unit whose task it was to take down the "worst of the worst" inmates that weren't obeying the rules. If you've ever seen this sort of thing on TV (on 60 minutes, etc.) it's very sobering. A team of guys who look like defensive lineman, dressed in body armor, come to the door of a maximum security jail cell, the door is opened, they go in and the inmate comes out. There is a lot of violence in between. It's not unheard of for the inmate to strip naked, cover himself in oil (to make himself hard to hold on to), strap sharp objects in both hands and spread his own feces over the floor of the room (sorry - a necessary detail). This is to say nothing of the verbal abuse, threats against your family and being hated by all of the inmates in the prison. It is not a job for the faint of heart.

This particular guy was forced to find other work when his body suffered a lot of damage from a 300-lb inmate who jumped off of the bed and landed on top of him as he went in. This guy wasn't complaining because the inmate who jumped actually stabbed the guy behind him in the neck (where there is a gap in the body armor).

Not surprisingly, the guy said his experience in this job made him a supporter of the death penalty.

The Catechism of the Catholic church #2267 says the following in regards to the death penalty

"...the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor."

but then follows with:

"Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which execution of the of the offender is an absolute necessity are 'very rare if not practically non-existent'."

All of my Catholic peers would assent to the above, as do I. But I struggle with the fact that this assent doesn't cost us anything. My Catholic peers aren't the people who are going to put their bodies on the line "rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm". I wasn't about to argue the point (with the guy who was telling me the story) in any case but I am struck by the parallels to the Kadesh incident about which I have just written previously. An experienced man giving his testimony that keeping these inmates alive is too costly (not just in terms of money - and with personal evidence to back it up) - seems to me like the scouts coming back saying the land can't be taken. And the Church (under the guidance of the Holy Spirit) saying the circumstances for the death penalty are "rare if practically non-existent". Sort of like Moses telling the people it is the will of the LORD.

I'm not giving answers here. But here is the truth - I pray for the grace to stick to the teaching of the Church when the going gets tough, I'm thankful for the people who do those tough jobs and I hope that God gives me the grace I need if it's ever my kid who's job it is to be the first one through that door...

...

Meribah Redux

It seems to me that one problem with humility is that it can get lost in the written word.

Case in point - the Apostles (Peter especially). Peter's portrayal in the gospel is so unpretentious, so "everyday", so genuine, that I have a hard time not taking him for granted. It wasn't until I read other, later writers (names escape me just now - sorry), who were converted by Peter's preaching & example, and who refer to him as "the glorious apostle Peter" that I had a better idea and sense of the man as he stands in relation to me.

Recently, I'm finding a similar deal with the Israelites of the Exodus.

Like the gospels, the books of the Pentateuch are so bluntly honest about their "failures" that it's easy for me to miss what was being asked of them.

This morning I got up early and felt inspired to read a little bit of the Book of Revelation (haven't read it in a while). So, I flip to the back of my bible and wind up in the Book of Jude (lt's the second-to-last book - just before Revelation). Now, I don't read Jude very often (I can't quote it, etc.). For those who don't know, Jude has one chapter and a total of 25 verses. I get three verses into it and I read this:

Jude 1: 3-5 - "Beloved, although I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I now feel a need to write to encourage you to contend for the faith that was once for all handed down to the holy ones. For there have been some intruders, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, godless persons, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. I wish to remind you, although you know all things, that (the) Lord who once saved a people from the land of Egypt later destroyed those who did not believe."

There is a footnote reference to that last, rather ominous, line that took me to the Book of Numbers where, in Chapters 13 & 14 I found the following verses (below). The context is that the people have made it through the desert and arrived at the Promised Land. Scouts are sent to "re-connoiter" the land and come back with a distressing report that the land is inhabited by "giants". Here is the account:

Numbers 13:26-33 - "After reconnoitering the land for forty days they returned, met Moses and Aaron and the whole community of the Israelites in the desert of Paran at Kadesh, made a report to them all, and showed them the fruit of the country. They told Moses: "We went into the land to which you sent us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit. However, the people who are living in the land are fierce, and the towns are fortified and very strong. Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakim there. Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb; Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites dwell in the highlands, and Canaanites along the seacoast and the banks of the Jordan." Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said, "We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so." But the men who had gone up with him said, "We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us." So they spread discouraging reports among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, "The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants. And all the people we saw there are huge men, veritable giants (the Anakim were a race of giants); we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them."

Continuing...

Numbers 14:1-24

"At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries, and even in the night the people wailed. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, the whole community saying to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that here in the desert we were dead! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land only to have us fall by the sword? Our wives and little ones will be taken as booty. Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?" So they said to one another, "Let us appoint a leader and go back to Egypt." But Moses and Aaron fell prostrate before the whole assembled community of the Israelites; while Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, who had been in the party that scouted the land, tore their garments and said to the whole community of the Israelites, "The country which we went through and explored is a fine, rich land. If the LORD is pleased with us, he will bring us in and give us that land, a land flowing with milk and honey. But do not rebel against the LORD! You need not be afraid of the people of that land; they are but food for us! Their defense has left them, but the LORD is with us. Therefore, do not be afraid of them." In answer, the whole community threatened to stone them. But then the glory of the LORD appeared at the meeting tent to all the Israelites. And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people spurn me? How long will they refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs I have performed among them? I will strike them with pestilence and wipe them out. Then I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they." But Moses said to the LORD: "Are the Egyptians to hear of this? For by your power you brought out this people from among them. And are they to tell of it to the inhabitants of this land? It has been heard that you, O LORD, are in the midst of this people; you, LORD, who plainly reveal yourself! Your cloud stands over them, and you go before them by day in a column of cloud and by night in a column of fire. If now you slay this whole people, the nations who have heard such reports of you will say, 'The LORD was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them; that is why he slaughtered them in the desert.' Now then, let the power of my Lord be displayed in its greatness, even as you have said, 'The LORD is slow to anger and rich in kindness, forgiving wickedness and crime; yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but punishing children to the third and fourth generation for their fathers' wickedness.' Pardon, then, the wickedness of this people in keeping with your great kindness, even as you have forgiven them from Egypt until now." The LORD answered: "I pardon them as you have asked. Yet, by my life and the LORD'S glory that fills the whole earth, of all the men who have seen my glory and the signs I worked in Egypt and in the desert, and who nevertheless have put me to the test ten times already and have failed to heed my voice, not one shall see the land which I promised on oath to their fathers. None of these who have spurned me shall see it. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me unreservedly, I will bring him into the land where he has just been, and his descendants shall possess it."

Now, avoiding the anecdotal issue as to whether giants actually existed in the Promised Land, nevertheless, the scouts were convinced that based on a reasonable assessment of the observable factors, the Israelites could not win the Promised Land by battle. These are experienced men giving their opinion. And the reaction of the people really strikes me - repeatedly bringing up a desire to "return to Egypt". It's humbling to admit this, but I recognize in myself the same propensity, a desire to "return to Egypt". The irony, of course, is that the Israelites cried out to God to take them OUT of Egypt. I see parallels in my own life. In the face of the earthly assessment by reasonable men, God gives the command to go forward. What a spiritual message. Sometimes I find the Christian faith to be impossible - I can't imagine finding the strength to endure a martyrdom like those of the Roman persecution, or even those that happen today. At times, I wonder: why did I ever take up this religion that involves so much sacrifice? I was better off the "old way" (a lie of course)! At times I am reduced to saying "Thy will be done".

Authentic faith in God asks Him to enable us to do the seemingly impossible. I can't be reminded of this often enough.

Life does NOT go fast...

...but at the end we all ask "Is that all there was?".

Quite recently, a family friend fell very ill and was literally at death's door. Thanks be God, they have recovered (a seeming miracle), but it was "touch and go" there for a few days. In reflecting on the reality that our earthly relationship with this person might draw suddenly to a close, I was struck with a feeling of "Is that all there was? Is it over?" As my mind wandered to the other deaths I have dealt with recently I found that the same feeling holds. Take my dad for instance, my relationship with him somehow seems incomplete, as though there were chapters that remain still to be written but never will be.

My parents and grandparents used to use the proverbial phrases "Life goes fast" or "Life's too short". I don't think these quite get it right. I don't find life to be fast. Indeed, I find that much of life is very slow. But, I am beginning to recognize that when death arrives, I repeatedly find myself asking "Is that all there was? Is there nothing more?" I guess, in this sense, it can seem, in the face of the "once-ness" of life, that it went "fast". It is a strange sort of ironic blessing that with my daughter Theresa I experienced some of the "slowest" and "longest" days of my life with her early breathing difficulties which now make the short nine months that we had her seem qualitatively like more than they actually were. For my other children, who didn't have any breathing problems (or any problems, really) the first nine months of their lives seem to have passed such that I can't even recall specifics.

Coupled to this "is that all there is?" observation is another one that came to me early this morning. I recognize that there are in some sense two sets or classes of things that I devote my attention to. The first are the "urgent" - things related to work that come up quickly and require all of my attention to get them off of my plate so that I'm ready for the next one. Dealing with these is like handling the proverbial "hot potato". Parallel to, but separate from, the "urgent" are what I will call the "important" - e.g. my wife, my kids, my faith. These I liken to writing in a book, using carefully chosen words, written in flowing script with a quill pen, and oriented toward a long view.

That said, my life at present is something like trying to do both of these things at the exact same time - juggle the hot potato and write the book with the quill pen. As can be imagined, the juggling of the hot potato causes the writing of the book to happen in fits and starts, a stream of consciousness with lots of unfinished sentences.

The spiritual insight that I have been receiving (this time courtesy of Fr. J.P. Cassaude...) recently is that this state of "juggling/writing" IS the life of man as written by God. The book that will ultimately matter in the end is not the frantic disjoint scribbling I manage to get out in-between hot potatoes (sp? - help Dan Quayle...), but rather the book being written by God in my heart as I do my best to cooperate with the power (called "Grace") He gives me to do it. I find a sense of relief and peace in this knowledge.

Otherwise, I would get pretty sick of the hot potatoes...

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I Love the Liturgy of the Hours

This doesn't really fit in with the next series I want to do here, but I just had to blog about it. Since Lent 2006, I have been pretty consistent about doing Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. It has been my experience that on many occasions I have been struck by verses from scripture in the Morning Prayer that speak clearly and directly to real situations I have going on that day. I wish I had time to blog about them all. This morning was a little different, but I felt it was so close to what I want the ultimate theme of this blog to be about - namely the presence of God - that I just had to write.

For those who don't know, Morning Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours begins each day with the Invitatory Psalm in a responsorial form. This is what it was today:

Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.

Come, let us rejoice in the Lord, let us acclaim God our salvation.
Let us come before him proclaiming our thanks, let us acclaim him with songs.

Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.

For the Lord is a great God, a king above all gods.
For he holds the depths of the earth in his hands, and the peaks of the mountains are his.
For the sea is his: he made it; and his hands formed the dry land.

Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.

Come, let us worship and bow down, bend the knee before the Lord who made us;
for he himself is our God and we are his flock, the sheep that follow his hand.

Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.

If only, today, you would listen to his voice: “Do not harden your hearts
as you did at Meribah, on the day of Massah in the desert, when your fathers tested me –
they put me to the test, although they had seen my works”.

Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.

“For forty years they wearied me, that generation.
I said: their hearts are wandering, they do not know my paths.
I swore in my anger: they will never enter my place of rest”

Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.

I had a vague recollection of the story of Meribah, but I decided to go look it up. Here's what I found:

Exodus 17:1-7 -

From the desert of Sin the whole Israelite community journeyed by stages, as the LORD directed, and encamped at Rephidim. Here there was no water for the people to drink. They quarreled, therefore, with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink." Moses replied, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to a test?" Here, then, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?" So Moses cried out to the LORD, "What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!" The LORD answered Moses, "Go over there in front of the people, along with some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the river. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink." This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel. The place was called Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, "Is the LORD in our midst or not?"

There are two things I take away from this - First, having lost a child, I can hear and see myself grumbling against the Lord if I saw my kids thirsting for water. It's one thing for ME to thirst and try not to grumble, it's another to watch THEM thirst. Second - it seems to me that the question for those of the Judeo/Christian faith is ALWAYS - "Is the LORD in our midst or not?" Mind you, this isn't an intellectual question - we don't give our true answer to this question when we are sitting at a computer writing a blog.

God's presence doesn't satisfy our flesh, it stretches our spirit. Isaiah world-changing prophecy for "Emmanuel" - "God with us" - is another "go" at Meribah and Massah. Jesus REAL PRESENCE in the Eucharist leaves us with the same tension.

It seems to me that if someone isn't struggling with this question ("Is the LORD in our midst?") then there must be only two possibilities - they are either already well-conformed to Jesus Christ, or they haven't left Egypt yet.

The morning prayer for today continues with Psalm 80. I found this to be a "barn-burner" too. I quote just the relevant part:

“I freed his back from burdens;
his hands were freed from heavy loads.
In your tribulation you called on me and I freed you,
I heard you from the heart of the storm,
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.

Listen, my people, and I will put my case –
Israel, if you would only hear me!
You shall not have any strange god,
you shall not worship the gods of foreigners.
For I am the Lord, your God,
who led you out of the land of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I shall fill it.

But my people did not hear my voice:
Israel did not turn to me.
So I let them go on in the hardness of their hearts,
and follow their own counsels.

If my people had heard me,
if only they had walked in my ways –
I would swiftly have crushed their enemies,
stretched my hand over those who persecuted them.

The enemies of the Lord would be overcome with weakness,
Israel’s would be the good fortune, for ever:
I would feed them full of richest wheat
and give them honey from the rock,
to their heart’s content.

The highlighted line - "I tested you at the waters of Meribah" is the one that struck me. The problem with Meribah was that they had NO water. It was when the people grumbled against Moses that the LORD said - I WILL BE THERE. The water of Meribah was almost like the proof that HE was there.

God, give me the grace not to grumble when the water runs short.

My Spiritual Autobiography - Part XII

Well, I am going to close my spiritual mini-saga here - in Part XII. It's been an interesting (at least for me...) process of describing where I've been. I hope I've been able to convey it in a manner that puts the emphasis on God and not on me. I'll defer to the judgement of others on whether I have succeeded or not.

As of right now, 'Boo and Suzie were joined, in mid 2007, by a little brother. The "sports car" of my life has sped up again, but this time I'm hanging on. As my kids get older, I am growing in my understanding of what fatherhood is. There are so many times when I hear things come out of my mouth that I am saying to my kids that I could so readily see God saying to me and it is humbling. I am beginning to appreciate the wisdom of God regarding human sexuality. The demands that are placed on me through the mechanism of loving my kids far exceed anything that could be placed on me through any other means. And the rewards that I receive in loving my kids don't even make a "pit stop" at my brain on their way to crashing into my heart. On some level, I must appear at times to people who know me as an emotional wreck now that I am a parent because I am riding more of an emotional rollercoast now than the rest of my life combined. Case in point: just the other day I was moved to tears: (backstory) I consider it a healthy habit to reflect on the day of my death on a regular basis - not to obsess on it morbidly - but to regularly ask myself "If my death was imminent, how would I live today differently?". I then try to look at the reasons I'm not doing what I would do if I knew I was dying. But the other day I came up with a different spin on the whole thing. Normally, as I reflect on my death, I literally picture myself on my deathbed waiting to die. I try to imagine the doubts that might go through my mind, I try to imagine calling out to God in that time and I try to imagine how meaningless the things of the world will seem to me at that moment. I even imagine what my guardian angel will be doing for me at that time. But the other day a different thought came into my mind - rather than having a mental image from the perspective of me laying on my back looking at the ceiling (which I typically picture), I spontaneously had a picture of being outside of myself and seeing that I was surrounded by many people. The thought suddenly came to me that these were my children (grown up) and even grandchildren. I had a strong sense of their loyalty to me and that they were praying for me as I was dying. I had never pictured that before - I always thought of my death as being a solitary experience - just me and God. The feeling of being surrounded by their love moved me to tears. I received it as a foreshadowing of what "eye has not seen, ear has not heard... what God has ready for those who love him". The problem is I was sitting alone in the coffee shop when this happened and I just started crying for seemingly no reason. Ahh, the joys of parenting.

Thank you God for all you have done for me, are doing for me today and will do for me in the future. I love you.

NOC

My Spiritual Autobiography - Part XI

The year 2005 was finished on a high note with the birth of our third child - a girl. She arrived about two weeks before 'Boo turned one year old. We had made a plan to do a "VBAC" (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) Delivery. The labor was fast and intense - we were wise from our past experience and conserved energy. We did everything the way we wanted to and guess what? "Suzie" (her nickname) got stuck in the exact same spot Theresa had and wasn't coming out. So it was another C-section. As we came to this realization with the doctor in the middle of that night, our attitude was one of resolve, not anger or frustration. Our doula said to me "This will be hard for your wife". I said "Yes, but at the end we have a living baby".

When Suzie came home, it was like someone had hit the accelerator on the sports car I was riding in without telling me they were going to do it. I was hanging on for dear life. The transition from one to two children opened yet another phase of my spiritual life. Namely, it opened the eyes to the true nature and extent of human falleness.

A little backstory - Suzie brought us her own share of sleep deprivation. She wasn't officially a "cholicy" baby, but she was about as close to the line as you can get without being official. With mom recovering from a C-section, the first six weeks of me at home juggling a 1-year old who hadn't learned to walk yet and a slightly cholicy newborn was "exciting" in the fullest sense of that term. I remember being vexed at how I was acting in the midst of the chaos that we had going at home. Frankly, I was acting like a monster, snapping at people (including the kids), choking back swear words, fighting back despair and being angry with the children. My mind was confused, particularly since in the days after we had lost Theresa, my wife and I had said so many times how we would "never" complain about sleep deprivation if we were blessed to be parents again. I lay awake many of those nights feeling a deep sense of shame that I would be so frustrated with the kids - me, who had seen his daughter die in front of him. What was wrong?

About that time another friend entered my life - Matt. Matt and I were rather unlikely acquaintances and in retrospect I am convinced it was active providence that we became friends when we did (or even at all). Matt was in a situation similar to mine, a bunch of small kids at home, total chaos. When I called over to his house to express my frustrations, there were times I could barely hear him on the phone because of the kids screaming in the background. He talked me through an experience that otherwise felt very isolating. When I talked to people who weren't doing what I was doing, they would say things like "Take time for yourself" or "Pray for God to give you the grace" or "It'll all be worth it in the end". But when I talked to Matt he would say to me (for instance as I was complaining to him on time about simultaneously having 'Boo teething, me with a back spasm and Suzie being up all night): "Here's what you do, you get a bottle of children's Motrin and a bottle of whiskey. You give the kids the motrin and you drink the whiskey and you'll be just fine". If that's not funny to you, you haven't parented several small kids at the same time.

But, more importantly than being an outlet for me to vent about my frustrations with my kids, Matt had a profound impact on me with his prodigious interest in Christian spirituality, which in hindsight, was likely born of necessity in him before me since his kids are older than mine. Matt handed me literally a half-dozen books that I might not otherwise have come into contact with - all spiritual classics written hundreds of years ago with titles like "Preparation for Death" (Alphosus Liguori), "The Sinner's Guide" (Venerable Louis of Granada), "The Dialogues" (St. Catherine of Siena), "Abandonment to Divine Providence" (J.P. de Cassaude) and our personal favorite, "The Spiritual Combat" (Lorenzo Scupoli). These books are hard to read - the language is blunt and to the point and the point is this - we are all far more fallen than we realize or (especially) like to admit. In the absence of the simple creature comforts we are so unconsciously dependent upon (safety, food, rest, etc.) we are capable of, to put it starkly, monstrous acts. Let me quote The Spiritual Combat: "The presumptuous man is convinced that he has acquired a distrust of himself and confidence in God, but his mistake is never more apparent than when some fault is committed. For, if he yields to anger and despairs of advancing in the way of virtue, it is evident that he placed his confidence in himself and not in God. The greater the anxiety and despondence, the greater is the certainty of his guilt." I'm not sure if I'm getting the vibe across right here, but the point I took when I was struggling with the kids is that I ought not to be surprised at how I was reacting to the circumstances, I had too big an image of myself going in. I needed to beg God to help me do better.

I found in these spiritual classics a polished treatment, written by people who have real life experience, of how to live your life consistent with the reality of your own fallen-ness and the greatness of the redemption that Christ died to bring us. To me it's a fine line, but the formula they convey is the bedrock of an authentic spiritual life - "distrust of self" (resulting from an ever increasing awareness of our fallenness) and "confidence in God" (because of God's great desire to bring us into communion with his divinity). To me, the distrust of self part is the battle to constantly recognize my need for God's help even with the simplest things, like taking care of little kids, and the confidence in God part is to develop in myself the radical assurance that God can bring "little old me" through even the most difficult situations (like taking care of little kids...). I don't know quite what I feel about all this just yet. But I know one thing, I'm never bored.

One question does spring into my mind: As I have read these books, I am constantly wondering why we don't hear this stuff at mass. I don't mean that as a shot against the Church or anybody, I just honestly wonder why not? These books present the Way of Christ in a manner that takes me from a childish self-centered faith to a self-aware adult God-centered faith. And I find that I need to read them again and again (albeit in little doses) every day to have the spiritual "leadership" that I desperately long for. Sometimes I wonder what the world would think if I told them that the best kept "secrets" of Catholic spirituality are in books that are never read at mass? No wonder people can't articulate Christian spirituality. They don't even know there is any!

My Spiritual Autobiography - Part X

The return to active parenting was a sweet one. Yet, it somehow wasn't about getting back to "the way things used to be". That might seem like it goes without saying, but I had gotten it into my mind that's what it would be. I discovered I was wrong. Having another child to parent didn't erase what had happened to Theresa. It didn't take away the loss. But it was a tremendous infusion of hope. During the first few months of our new life with 'Boo we heard through some friends that one of their adult siblings had lost a child very suddenly (as had been the case with Theresa). I went to the wake for this child and when I was introduced to the father he asked me, with tears in his eyes, "Does it get any better?". Recognizing that this wasn't the right question to ask, but sensitive to where he was at, I just said "It's still worth living". And so it is.

It wasn't long after 'Boo came home that we conceived again and had the sense that God had answered our prayer, which had been "for a child either by adoption or pregnancy", instead by granting one of each. The pregnancy was a little scary - my wife began to bleed considerably around week twelve. Another miscarriage seemed imminent. I was reminded of why I married this woman when, on the day the bleeding started, I came home and found her lying on the couch (per the doctors recommendation) listening to praise and worship music and singing the praise of God through the tears of her fear of losing the child. But it wasn't to be a miscarriage this time. The bleeding stopped and the pregnancy continued.

The 20-week ultrasound always seems like a huge milestone for us - it's the point at which I, as the father, have a chance to really "meet" the baby and I always look forward to it. We have been blessed to have "Level II" ultra-sounds, which are in higher resolution (meaning greater detail) and I cannot remain unmoved by the sight of the baby's face - moving in real-time. There are only two things we pray for at the ultra-sound - that the baby is viable and that we don't (accidentally) find out the sex. We don't want to know until birthday.

Our 20-week ultrasound in this case was scheduled for April 28th, 2005 (three-years ago today!) in the afternoon. I had a very peaceful feeling about it. I really felt that God wanted us to parent this child in this life. About 10 A.M., I received a unexpected phone call from my sister. My father had died suddenly that morning. It was another one of those surreal experiences. We went to the ultrasound and I met the baby all the while thinking about my mom, alone in Florida (where they had gone after dad retired) dealing with my dad's death.

A little more backstory - My dad was one of those dads that just wasn't into a lot of intimacy. I knew he loved me and I knew he would always be there for me. But there was a lot about him I didn't understand. One thing that had really blind-sided me was that as I had my conversion and began to embrace my Catholicism more, my dad became stand-offish as though he was threatened by this.

It got a little out of hand. There was a point where we couldn't seem to talk about anything for very long before my dad would be making some remark about the Catholic Church. I remember being non-plussed when, at the end of a fairly long session, my dad nodded his head toward me and said, looking over his glasses like he always did when in tended to make a "father"-type point, "I raised you to be a good person, not a Roman Catholic."

I knew that my dad had had some tough "run-ins" with the church, but he tended to be elusive about the particulars - something a priest allegedly said to him (i.e. "You need to toughen up boy" or something) as his mother was dying of cancer and receiving the last rites in front of him in a rural hospital in Indiana when he was sixteen - another relative who had taken his own life (with an arguable case of mental illness) and was denied burial in the church cemetery causing my dad's mother to remark "He's going in the ground like a dog". These discussions were intense - my wife would sit next to me and have her hand on my leg to keep me calm as my dad would say one provocative thing after another. By the grace of God, we never once shouted at each other.

I remarked to my friend Dan that I felt as though I had been in a process of digging down into a deep grave and was now standing on top of a casket that had been buried long ago and was full of rot and decay. On one side was my dad saying - "Don't open it, I don't want to talk about it" and on the other side was Jesus saying "Open the casket". At the time my dad and I had just had another disagreement and I was confiding to Dan that the state of my relationship with my dad was a problem. We both recognized that we only had a limited amount of time left with our dads and we each made a New Year's resolution that we would try to cultivate those relationships sooner rather than later. I made a list of things I wanted to do with my Dad - stuff he would be interested in. I also wrote a really long card thanking him for all the things I felt he had done for me. The key line from that card was this "I consider it my greatest gift that for so long I was able to be ignorant of the reality of so many failed fatherhoods in our society. In my ignorance, I just thought everybody had a dad as consistent, faithful and loyal as you."

In a twist irony, the words I had written and intended to send to him on Father's Day became the eulogy I delivered at his wake. An interesting "rite of passage" happened for me on the trip to Florida to bury my dad. My father's authority and protection had always been subconsciously symbolized to me in his signature. His signature was definitive for me, it made things happen and I could count on it. While it may not necessarily always have been so, I always pictured my Dad's signature in black ink and mine in blue. In the course of making the funeral preparations for my dad, it was necessary for me to sign many papers and in this I felt his authority as patriarch of the family pass to my shoulders. I signed in black ink.

Two small anecdotes that followed: My mother remarked to me that a few days before his death my Dad had come to my Mom and told her he was going to the sacrament of reconciliation. It wasn't that my dad didn't go to confession, but he normally did this at the usual "special" times of the year - Lent and just before Christmas. For dad to just go "out of the blue", and entirely at his discretion, was pretty unusual - maybe unprecedented. I am so thankful for that grace. While I'm not one to read a lot into dreams, I had a particularly vivid one shortly after his death. In my dream, I was back at the University again walking somewhere when I realized I had dropped my briefcase. I turned around and ran back to find it. I saw it and ran up to it and when I got there, I realized it was sitting at someone's feet. I looked up and saw my dad standing there looking as he did when he was younger. He smiled and picked up the briefcase and handed it to me. I said "You look good Dad, you look strong". He didn't say anything, but instead smiled and shrugged his shoulders. I took the briefcase, turned around and walked away.

My dad had always spoken plainly about his own death "When I'm gone, don't worry about me, just take care of your mother." In one more pesky Roman Catholic act of disobedience I only followed half of his instructions. I'll take care of Mom, Dad, but I'll never stop praying for you.

My Spiritual Autobiography - Part IX

In the time between the miscarriage of John Nicholas and the "rest of the story", Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" was released. I recall being struck most by the scene of Mary Magdalen, as she watches Jesus carrying the cross, reflecting in her mind on the the earlier event in her life of Jesus saving her from those who were about to stone her. The sequence is filmed in slow motion for dramatic effect and I remember really connecting with it in the following way: The movie shows Mary Magdalen face down on the ground reaching for the foot of Jesus, as we see in the distance the men who were about to stone her dropping their stones and walking away. Jesus then turns to her, grasps her by the hand the lifts her up while looking intently into her eyes. This is the experience that I feel I had at the time of my conversion - Christ stared down the "demons" of my vices that were seeking to kill me, turned to me and put me on my feet. For some reason the phrase "Be who I created you to be" came into my head as I watched the movie. At the time, this wasn't any sort of consolation - I was struck by how "far away" my conversion seemed from where I was then. I wrote at the time that in the light of Theresa's death, my conversion seemed to be a worthless sham. I'm not saying it was, but that's how if felt. After we saw the movie we attended a discussion session where there were a lot of people we knew and many we didn't. One young woman came to ask for our prayers for a friend of hers who was contemplating an abortion (I seem to recall she was drawing a thematic connection between us unwillingly losing a child versus this mother contemplating willingly losing a child). I looked at my wife and read her face. I said "Tell the woman we would be willing to adopt her baby".

Adoption had been a touchy issue for us. We were afraid. We had heard stories of children being placed with families and then the placements falling through when birth mothers change their mind. We were leery to risk this - the thought of "losing" another child was a place we weren't ready to go. But in the face of abortion we were willing to go beyond our fears.

Nothing came of that first encounter (I'm happy to report the baby was born), but a door was opened. Later in that year, that door lead to a young woman who really was looking to place a child for adoption and by then, we were ready. The details are private (of course) but there is one that must be shared. My daughter (I'll call her "Boo" - her nickname) was born at United Hospital which is the building next to Children's Hospital where Theresa died. I very much wanted the birth experienc to be about the new baby and to this end, I was careful to steer clear of Children's Hospital - I even went so far as to walk to the far entrance to United when I came in to avoid the association. But, as we left the Hospital, something unexpected happened. The state-mandated protocol, for a domestic adoption, is that when it is time for the baby to leave the hospital, the birth mother is taken to the door in a wheelchair by a nurse (representing the hospital), the baby is on her lap, the licensed social worker representing the adoption agency then receives the baby from the birth mother, turns around and presents her to the adoptive parents. Some papers are signed and everyone leaves the hospital at the same time. It is a poignant moment to say the least. In our case, "Boo's" birthmother, not having the association with Theresa, had parked in the ramp for Children's Hospital since it was closest to the Labor & Maternity door for United. Thus, we followed her out that way. My heart was racing with all that was going on. The common lobby between United and Children's in that location was unusually busy that day and it didn't seem appropriate to have such a solemn event in what was bascially a bustling hallway. So the birth mother suggested that we move to a quieter part of the lobby. There is no way she realized that she had pointed to a spot near the door of the emergency room for Children's Hospital - the exact door we had come through in a panic when Theresa was having her stroke - a place I will never feel "neutral" about. We followed her there in a sort of emotional fog and when the time came, I dropped to one knee and received the baby from the birth mother directly. One word came to my mind powerfully: "BEHOLD!". A statement had been made.

My wife and I recall the remainder of the episode with a chuckle - we smiled and said goodbye, and walked a few steps where we couldn't be seen. I turned to her and said "I'm not going to be able to drive the car for a few minutes" and we both collapsed into tears. The day of prosperity had returned.