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The soul is a terrible thing to waste

Sunday, 19 May 2013 08:43

I remember once nearly breaking my hand reacting to a young boy’s change of attitude. To me, there’s nothing more frustrating than watching a person, with so much to offer and so much to live for, become embedded in self-pity and reactive hatred.

There’s no doubt the teenager had a right to feel bad. He had lost his mother, a sole parent, to cancer, and then learned his closest living relative, his only sister, possibly had the same disease.

Shy and withdrawn, he knew nothing of the cathartic effects of sharing his pain with someone, even a friend. His way of coping was to lash out at society. The change was obvious to anyone who taught him. A nice person was becoming a selfish troublemaker.

One of my faults is a bad temper. I try to control it, but on occasion I’m not always successful. Then, too, sometimes it’s a help. On one such day my own reaction was the needed remedy to shake some sense into the boy’s head.

Angered at a disciplinary infraction, I corralled the boy into my office. “I’m tired of being nice to the world, Father. How’s the world been nice to me? It’s time I lived!”

It was then that I practically demolished a book shelf in the room. I had remembered the school law prohibiting corporal punishment. Actually, I had no intention of using my anger against the boy. I only wanted to produce an effect and the action was enough to get us communicating.

Stunned by my reaction, the boy listened. “So, you want to live?” I said rhetorically. “Are you any happier today by doing your own thing? Has your behavior change made you any more satisfied about what has happened to you? Do you like yourself better now? By becoming a person who could care less, will that bring your mother back or change your sister’s situation?”

Ouch, I thought, and wished I had not said the last sentence. But his eyes were wide and listening now. “I know some people who are so intent on living life to the hilt that they’re self-destructing in the process.”

I thought of how those who are bursting with life are often merely plunging into death with an enormous splash. A soul is a terrible thing to waste.

As my anger subsided, he opened up. His pain had been almost unbearable. It wasn’t fair what was happening to him. I agreed. I tried to explain how life always seems to include a share of unfair hurt for all of us.

But life is still so much more than the breath in our nostrils, the blood coursing through our veins, or the response to physical stimulation. Life, in the purely biological sense, is merely the absence of death. Such people do not live, they vegetate.

“Learn to develop your thinking,” I told him. I knew he had a good mind. ”Get in touch with the Power within.” I also knew the life of the Spirit opened up real possibilities of living.

“It’s a funny thing,” I said, “but the mark of true life is not explosiveness or passion. Rather, it’s control and proper discipline. Anybody can let loose. But progress and growth are always so much more.”

I thought back to those times when I had reached out to someone in need. The electricity I felt through such experiences was an unknown quantity to those who think only of themselves. I knew the meaning I found through such action far surpassed any fleeting pleasure.

“Be real,” I advised. “Take the risk of discovering more to life than the meaninglessness you’re now feeling.”

At a recent class reunion, I saw the boy — er, man. “Hey, Father, do you remember that time you almost put your hand through a wall?”

“It wasn’t a wall,” I replied, “but it still hurts when it rains.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Father, but it sure was a help to me.”

Suddenly, it doesn’t matter that a bone or two ache with the weather

Some people simply expect too little from life

Columns

Sunday, 19 May 2013 08:43

Every classroom, they say, is a microcosm. Within its walls exist the good and the naughty, the rich and the poor, the motivated and the lazy. Within that limited, confined space, some will exceed and some will subsist. Some will reach out and others will simply vegetate. As a bit of verse states:

I bargained with life for a penny,

only to learn dismayed

That whatever I had asked of life,

life would have gladly paid.

Some, of course, will have more with which to deal. Most of us have average intelligence and comparable abilities. The exceptional person is the Einstein. Some things in life are simply beyond pure choice.

But every teacher can verify that more often than not two students plod similar paths to graduation. One does the bare minimum to pass; the other works hard and gets a good education. One bargained for a penny; the other asked for more.

There is a scene in John’s Gospel which shows the difference in human expectations. Jesus was passing through Samaria when he asked a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. There was racial hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans and the simple request shocked the woman who was more content to live within accepted standards. Socially, you just didn’t do such things.

Today, she would say, “Hey, what is this? Don’t you know what you’re doing? This is the way things have been and always will be. Don’t buck the system. Get in step with the flow.”

She had bargained with life for a penny. Jesus was asking for more.

And what was that? Jesus saw that essentially all human beings are alike. They have the same basic physical and spiritual needs; they are all children of the universe, images of God, and deserve the same respect.

The woman at the well simply expected too little — of herself and of life in general.

Doesn’t that happen to us at times? It’s as if we get stuck in ruts. Marriages fail, children rebel, and our jobs become a bore. It’s easy to conclude, “So what?” Life becomes limited to the act of survival, rather than seeing it for the challenge that it is. As the expression says, the tail ends up wagging the dog.

It’s true that “self-preservation is the first law of nature.” But Jesus knew it was too limited a goal for which to exist. He could turn to the woman and ask for water. But his dialogue thereafter would speak about living water. Just as water satisfied the thirst of the body, so God satisfies the thirst of the soul. What does the psalmist sing? “As the heart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God” (Psalm 42:1).

The point is, if our horizons remain limited and fixated, what we reap will bear the same limitations. Pursuing a goal, studying hard, sacrificing for a dream, praying exert a cost. But what a sad thing it would be to go through life and be satisfied with the purely physical demands of life or the structures of what ought to be as determined by someone else’s definition. Jesus dared to challenge the Samaritan woman. What is, need not be. A penny isn’t worth too much. “If only you recognized God’s gift and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him instead, and he would have given you living water.”

Don’t settle for less.

Christmas is basically the feast of children

Columns

Sunday, 19 May 2013 08:43

In the old days, the Latin chant used to be intoned: “Puer natus est pro nobis....” The meaning of those words hasn’t varied that much, even if they are in English now.

Each Mass on Christmas Day opens with the announcement that “a child is born for us; a son is given to us.” It is a reminder that Christmas is basically the feast of children.

But children we’re not. And with most adults there is a tinge of regret in that realization.

As people grow older, they inevitably lose that wondrous rapture of opening up gifts on Christmas morn at some ungodly hour. The twinkle in a person’s eye is just not the same for someone whose closets are jammed with clothes or for whom buying a present is such a chore. Yes, children we are not.

But didn’t this Child we call Jesus tell us to retain something of the former glory? Didn’t he tell us to never let go of our childhood?

He didn’t recommend that we remain childish, but he did emphasize the beauty of what it meant to be childlike. Even after we have lost the innocence of an earlier time, he told us not to give up.

And to the degree that we can reach back and recover some basic childlike attitudes, Christmas becomes our feast too.

For from children and from our own younger years, we learn something of that Christmas quality of trusting. With what appears to be wrinkle-free looks, a child trusts Mom and Dad—totally. For him or her, these are the names of God. Mother is love; father is power.

Mothers heal all hurts, and even take away the terrors of the night. Fathers have the strength of 10 men and can lift a young lad high on a shoulder to see a ballgame. Mothers and fathers can do no wrong—at least so thinks a young boy or girl. They are all wise, all loving. Home is a castle. Life is secure.

Of course, growing older introduces us to a lesser reality. The giants of our younger years can stumble and fall. But is that beautiful quality of trust misplaced? Or is it possible that such a confidence springs up in our hearts and is to be nurtured until old age for the One who is not imperfect?

“God my mother and father, thou,” prayed the mystic and saint. There is only One who can take away all the injuries and terrors of the night; there is only One who can lift us up beyond the good and evil of human existence to the ecstasy of a life fulfilled.

The love and trust we feel in early years is not misplaced; it is a sharing and a taste of the life to come and whose presence powerfully affirms the glory of the present. A child trusts his father and mother. And faith gives us the courage to trust the God who loves us beyond all human measure even in our imperfection.

Unless we trust as little children, we shall not learn the peace of Christmas.

And have you ever noticed how forgiving a younger person can be?

Parents have all sorts of strategies: no sooner has a child been corrected, with tears streaming down his face, then he can be distracted into giving Mom a kiss. The tears are still shining in his eyes, but the memory of harsh words and blows are left behind—permanently.

A child doesn’t know what it means to get even; he doesn’t store up hurts. A child doesn’t become fragile and brittle over words; life has too many possibilities to become bogged down over some bitter feelings.

But the pragmatists among us will point out that the older we grow the harder it is to forgive and switch back to good humor. That’s true: with age, memories increase, inhibitions grow and unfairness becomes a stark reality.

It is possible to go through life hoarding the hurts of decades past. It’s possible to grow decrepitly bitter over something that really won’t matter a generation down the road. And it’s possible to evolve into something that is shallow and deathlike long before one’s time.

Or, like the child, a person can forgive and get on with the real agenda of living which is loving. For with forgiveness comes the ability to discover the novelties of life, the beauties of nature and what makes the world go ‘round.

A child again shows us how: whiskers or a bald head become something to explore. He doesn’t bring gifts—that’s the language of love that older people use. Often he just brings himself.

Then, on the other hand, he may bring you a dandelion, which has suddenly become an orchid or an object of the purest gold. Or he may bring you his pet spider or his favorite rock. He comes running, with arms outstretched. Your coming home is the biggest event in his whole life.

We are too hateful or sometimes just too bashful to be this expressive. But it’s nice to know that this is a sign of how God loves us. For this Christ-child who is born for us would one day tell us a story of a Father who came running with outstretched arms—into the arms of a son who was to be forever known thereafter as the Prodigal.

Unless we forgive as little children, we shall never know the love which is the heart of Christmas.

Yes, Christmas is the feast of children. And if we are not too mechanical, perhaps we can discover the wonder and imagination of being childlike again. It would mean a new way of seeing, perhaps for the first time.

It is the power to see in food an act of providence, to see in flowers the beauty of eternity, and in music the harmony of the universe. It is the power to see in every child, especially the newest born, love’s power to begin again, a power which shall not forsake us in the work we call dying.

Why did Jesus really come to Bethlehem? “If we become as little children, we shall enter the Kingdom of God.”

The ‘false light’ and its tempting promises

Columns

Sunday, 19 May 2013 08:43

I need a time like Advent. So often the concerns of ministry can lead to so much busy work. Suddenly it’s so easy to repress or impatiently look to the sidelines of the narrow path.

And then, every year, Thanksgiving signals the coming of the Christmas season and the opportunity to reflect on where personal growth is leading me. Without this introspection, I sometimes wonder where I would be heading or how much Christ and his becoming a man would mean to me.

Advent makes me appreciate the vessel of clay that I am. Like other people, the tinsel attractions of this time of the year and the frenzied excitement of last-minute shopping can be too time-consuming.

Only one thing is important. Admittedly, the human journey becomes confused. Advent preparation should gently prod us toward our real goals.

Priesthood must embrace the reality of a Savior who unceremoniously came as a babe in a stable and who loved us enough in our sinfulness to leave disgracefully as a failure on a cross.

Dr. Thomas Tyrrell writes in the preface of his book “Urgent Longings” an interesting tale about an actual desert phenomenon which resembles our anxious wanderings.

According to nomadic tribes and pilgrims, from as far back as the days of the Roman Empire, desert travelers were warned of the very tempting “ignis fatuus.” The “ignis fatuus,” loosely translated from the Latin as “false light,” was the alluring and beckoning campfire which could often be seen off in the distance from one’s true course.

Desert travelers, even today, still plot their way from oasis to oasis using their knowledge of the heavens. The fierce bone-chilling desert winds and the absence of reasonably fixed landmarks make desert travel a painful affair. Danger, the inhospitable terrain, the ever-changing landscape, and the cold night air increase the longing for companionship and warmth.

Yet, in the days before the compass, the “ignis factuus,” with all its tempting promises could be fatal. The flickering light was such a strong inducement to depart from the chosen route that even seasoned travelers would have to discipline themselves.

Oh, the campfire would be genuine, but its actual location might be miles from where it made its appearance. Impulsive travelers easily found themselves lost.

In this story lie the essential psychological and spiritual significance of temptation, infatuation, and the instant solutions of today’s world.

The experience of an “ignis fatuus” urges us with a real light. We wouldn’t be tempted unless there wasn’t something genuinely alluring there in the first place.

Yet wisdom teaches us that this momentary light cannot offer us the fulfillment and warmth of the Light who has come and is now part of our hearts.

When we make gods of our false lights, we make them into demons. Or, if they lead us away from the God of our lives, no matter how bright, they have led us into darkness.

There is a valuable lesson for young people in this story of the “ignis fatuus.” In it, there is the difference between pleasure and joy.

Pleasure pleads impulsively and is quickly spent. Joy lasts and stays in our souls.

In this story are all the differences between what is real and what is like fake gold. Think of drugs. Or the misuse of sex. Think of the hatreds between people. Our false lights flicker and urge, but sputter and are lost in the tides of time.

Like the desert travelers, we have to discipline ourselves to journey in the direction of the One who will come again.

Yes, that’s why I personally need a time like Advent. As an adult, I realize that my journey is still in progress and, despite some wisdom gained through experience, I face the same instant solutions as the young.

As a priest, I might even consider myself the seasoned traveler. But dare I deny the discipline that is still needed?

Christmas is a time when only one thing is important.

I needed to experience the Lord’s quiet time

Columns

Sunday, 19 May 2013 08:43

The answer was so simple. The yearning, the anxiety, the restlessness needed to be addressed.

Suddenly the conclusion came thundering down on me like a bolt from the blue. The insight was hardly new. I had heard it from my earliest days. I needed to draw apart more and experience the Lord’s quiet time. Advent would be the perfect occasion.

It was so obvious. In this haste-make-waste world the very need for solitude gets lost in all the turmoil. Pre-consciously, we know the dangers of an all-consuming whirlwind existence, yet it barely registers.

And the Christmas present buying season is an ideal illustration of a preoccupation which obscures the meaning of the feast we eventually celebrate.

Consequently the best of us flounder in the depths of our involvements. It’s then that we look for the rough edges to be ironed out. Life has lost its zest and we turn to make-believe solutions and quick pickups. These might be the nearsighted answers of instant physicalism. Or the compulsion of viewer and buyer addiction. Or they might be the pill and tonic obsessions most of us have tried as we stumble looking for Mr. Goodbar.

But amid aching, cluttered heads and loves that involve little giving, we discover something is missing. And the more we turn to blind pursuits, the more we fear the quiet time which will expose our real selves.

Yet the risk of such exposure eventually becomes our very salvation. To stand naked before the Lord, whether in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament or in the privacy of our rooms, demands the courage of acknowledging who we are and what we have become.

It means seeing our sinfulness. But, once grasped and owned, we can then get on with the business of liking who we are and opening up avenues of growth.

Solitude is not necessarily prayer. But it can be a catalyst to prayer and the bridge by which the struggle of such self-revelation materializes into other possibilities.

The quiet time of which I speak needs to be set aside. Only then will opportunities to experience the warmth of the Father’s constant care for us emerge. Only then can we reciprocate in kind or sense the magic in the moments as we move out, with weak legs perhaps, into beautiful new areas of faith.

Gradually we learn a healthy dependency on the Lord. We begin to see that personal triumphs and victories with self-discipline are but a part of the picture.

Solitude is the time needed to affirm ourselves and choose the good. Feeling the Lord’s gentle nudge, it’s a glorious opportunity to experience our inner spaces and gain a new perspective on life. As Henri Nouwen expresses it, it’s the place of the great encounter and a time of conversion of heart.

Suddenly what was once important no longer is. The fears, the competitions, the vanities of false goals melt as a different horizon evolves. Pettinesses dissolve and life becomes a time of love again.

The feeling of preoccupation is ever natural. We’re too busy to schedule a time to be alone. But the naturalness of this feeling can leave us with a narrowness of vision. We can indulge ourselves in such a way that, without quiet time, we lack a feel for what really is real in the end.