Soulful Muse

“I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and king,” sang the guy who knew what each word meant in his own life.

If you think about your life as a musical composition you might appreciate what Sinatra was singing about.  A symphony is comprised of movements that savors where you presently are or moves you on to life’s next movement.

We can luxuriate being “king” but that title definitely has a “shelve life.” As of this writing, Queen Elizabeth II is the longest reigning leader in the world (with little power or authority but still lots of pomp) right behind Fidel Castro who recently passed away. (Both of them governed islands. Coincidence?!)

The magic of life in all its musical notes teaches and reinforces; teaches again and then reinforces once more – complete with sharp and flat notes that either others intone upon us or they’re the notes loudly playing in our own heads.  (“Growing Pains,” anyone?)

Don’t worry about me taking each of those nouns apart and boring you with a list. But how about those times (As in, all the time?) when all those “Sinatra Nouns” play in our head.

“Puppet, Pauper, Pirate, Poet, Pawn, King.” (Should have chosen “Prince” for the last noun – symmetry, oh well.)

You’re at work and I’m at the altar at Mass and we enact a daily symphony of six movements in one resounding, unrepeatable performance.

Puppet, for the corporation we represent; Pauper for the payment we never think is enough; Pirate for retelling stories others told us and making them our own; Poet, we do have moments when the words spoken are truly ours; Pawn, who else can do our job either better or more cheaply and King, we’re the one doing it right now, this very moment and we love it.

All of this is accomplished in one or two sentences and said to a fellow employee on a typical morning and you walk away singing Frank’s next verse…

“I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself layin’ flat on my face
I just pick myself up and get back in the race..

Interesting rendition of an old Frank song

Around 5:00 p.m. the soft, fluffy white stuff slowly begins falling and a ballet can be heard in the background as the whiteness waves and winds itself to the earth joining other like-minded whitenesses – all done against an early evening’s dark gray.

She told the doctor that she found a small lump and he told the doctor that he feels great but his tests show otherwise. Both admit that something can happen with this fragile life – at any age.

He calls his wife to the window and says, “Honey, isn’t this beautiful?  What a great way to begin the Christmas season.” She smiles back and says, “Yes, it’s that special time of the year.” (Ballet music continues in the background.)

“We can run tests to see what’s going on,” the doctor says to her while the doctor in the next room tells him that “This is common for men your age, you feel fine but it’s more enlarged than I’d like it to be.” (The doctor has an opinion about the inside of his butt!)

Around 10:00 p.m. he calls his wife to the window again and this time he uses the Son of God’s full name although we don’t know what the “H” stands for. “This is just getting crazy,” he says as the imaginary ballet music suddenly becomes Pink Floyd.  She returns to watch the TV weather to find out the predicted accumulation of these “whitenesses.”

With Pink Floyd still being heard, he hears the doctor tell him about “options,” each with risks along with a percentage as though he’s in Las Vegas with chips in hand pondering his wager. The doctor tells her that, “It’s not as bad as we thought but it is serious.” (Read that sentence again and then tell me what that means!)

At 6:00 a.m., he’s outside shoveling and wearing all the clothes he could rustle on himself but now he doesn’t call on the Son of God but instead goes to the top guy demanding a curse upon the once beautiful 5:00 p.m. version.  His wife is safely inside still watching TV and waiting for the heap’s final number. (As though a final number means anything, except proudly announced at her next cocktail party.)

The music of Pink Floyd drifts away and Metallica takes over at full volume as he shovels for over an hour and even begins to sweat with sub-zero temperatures. The third person of the Christian Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is never summoned during this experience. Some would say the Holy Spirit is that whiteness.

She decides on chemotherapy and he decides on radiation with both musical sounds playing: lots of ballet (“Hope”) with an undercurrent of Metallica (“Oh, well”).

The sun comes out the next day and the whiteness becomes whiter although “slush” will be its name in a few days.

He brags about his early morning shoveling at work and she gets the final snow total that no one will remember.

The doctor told her that, “You’re lucky, we caught it in time and you’re fine.”  The doctor in the next room told him that, “We got this under control but we found some other issues.”

The ballet music is lowered and Metallica takes over at full volume along with the “H” added to the Son of God’s name.

books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS, available in paperback or Kindle at Amazon:
“Soulful Musings”
“Living Faith’s Mysteries”
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings”

The hygienist does her magic as she does three times a year for the 32 friends I need to enjoy a New York Strip.

My dentist enters to examine both her work and my teeth while leaning over me. The teeth part works to my continuing advantage but he launches into a story he wants to tell me. (Leaning over someone is not the best angle for a meaningful conversation between two people – along with a beaming light, like the one the police use.)

He tells me that at a fancy club he attends, a bartender shares that he found his way back to the Catholic Church because of some guy named “Fr. Joe.” My dentist says that he told him, “I know a ‘Fr. Joe’ but how many are there and I was wondering if it was you?” I reply without all that stuff in my mouth, “How would I know?” My dentist continues with accolades that I hope are mine but have no idea who he’s talking about. (I now have clean teeth and I want to go home.)

Couple of years pass and the parish where I sometimes helps calls asking if I’d visit a man with a name unknown to me in the hospital. “It’s serious,” the secretary says. I go to the hospital and have a wonderful visit with a bartender who loves music as much as I do. We share concert stories and I anoint him with the Sacrament of the Sick.

I return to work and the Church’s fulfillment is fulfilled. Weeks later the bartender passes away at a younger age than mine and the same secretary calls me asking if I’d have the bartender’s funeral. I agree. (“Seemed like a nice guy,” I say to myself, hanging up the phone.)

After the funeral mass today, my dentist comes up to me and introduces himself as my dentist. (I’ve only seen his forehead for years.) He proceeds to tell me that the “a” bartender is the guy he told me about. He says, “You probably don’t remember the bartender I told you about,” which I didn’t forget because compliments are not always forthcoming. “Tom was the bartender!” my dentist tells me.

Driving home I’m thinking about the cycle of life without the Disney frills and Elton John singing. In reality, the “this” leads to a “that” which often encounters another “that” leading to a new “this” which now  becomes a “then” which was neither expected nor planned.

My dentist and I both smiled at this circular rotation of both the earth and our lives.

I smiled at this coincidence while hoping for free dental care for the rest of my life. I suspect, however, I’ll still only see his forehead at my next visit but my dentist and I now have more in common than just my aging teeth. We have a beloved bartender.

(The church was packed, by the way.)

books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS, available in paperback or Kindle at Amazon:
“Soulful Musings”
“Living Life’s Mysteries”
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings”

A Great Gift Idea

A new book by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Available at Amazon.com
Paperback or Kindle is $14.95.  Enjoyable reading.

After an angry parishioner stopped me after Mass at a Catholic parish were I have help twice a month, it finally hit me – a revelation that I’d missed all these years later.

The Tridentine Latin Mass was changed to the local’s vernacular in the late ’60’s after the Second Vatican Council.  It was a shock to many people who grew up with its formal, mystic-like rigidity and to many others it was a relief to hear what the words meant and become more involved in the Mass.

The Latin Mass demanded gestures, motions and movements by the priest to be performed exactly the same way each time the Mass was offered.  Any deviation from the established form could dismiss the efficacious graces that the Mass provides.  (Remember, that these actions are all done by the priest.  What the pew-people did or didn’t do didn’t matter.)

The priest’s back was presented to the congregation each time.  Even though unseen; those gestures, motions and movements by the priest affected the success of the Mass.  Gestures: I’m talking about exact height and width of extended arms, talking directly to the bread and wine and combined thumbs and index fingers after touching the bread and wine for a long time.  (And these are the things I can only remember but I’m sure there were more.)  My revelation is that the priest was visibly invisible to ensure that he was the “Alter Christus,” the person of Christ while presiding.  (No congregation needed.)

The presiding priest during this Latin Mass was not a person or an individual.  With his back toward the congregation he was not “representing” but was the “person of Christ.”

Well, that was the late ’60’s; fast forward to my recent experience.  After Mass last Sunday, a man suddenly stops me, red-faced and carotid arteries bulging and says, “It’s my own opinion but your jokes at Mass are wrong and you consistently do it every time.  I’m going to write the pastor,” as he walks away without waiting for a response from me.

A jokester since grade school with always a hint of sarcasm, I’m a priest who allows my personality to connect and relate to the congregation with this new Mass in humorous and serious ways (which is not that “new” anymore).  I suspect he wanted the kind of Mass and priest that ended when I was a high school sophomore when performing the correct ritual was more important than celebrating community and relating to the people I can now face.

We are both right, but I felt sorry that we didn’t have a chance to talk about it.  (I wonder if he’ll really call the pastor?  Detention, stay after school?  There’s that darn sarcasm again.)

A Great Gift Idea

A new book by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Available at Amazon.com
Paperback or Kindle is $14.95.  Enjoyable reading.

Augustus, Sofia and Callie (ASC) were baptized by me. Actually, I mean these three were baptized by the gathered Catholic community at an early 8:00 a.m. Mass at St. Sebastian Church in Milwaukee.

Young with attentive eyes staring up at me while I pour water on their growing hairs, three times; one for each person of the Trinity. Parents and Godparents beam with joy as I place the oil on the crown of their heads proclaiming them to be “priests, prophets and kings.” Their beautiful white garments are then acknowledged with the word, “dignity” brought at a far off date unstained into the eternal Kingdom.

We all offer a welcoming clap and then we are re-sprinkled to remind ourselves of what we may have forgotten after thirty, forty or eighty years.

Baptized. These three are now free from that leafy-clothed couple that haunts and under-scores our whole religious lives.  (I thought an “apple a day keeps the doctor away!”) Baptized now and soon to be living in a world that few of us will witness.

President Trump (first time I put those two words together) will become a historical footnote, a fluke, unless he messes up which I will be around to witness. Will ASC ever hear a revolving record skip or having to switch car gears from one to two and then three and then to four for a smoother ride? Will they even have self-driven cars when they reach twenty years old?

ASC will never wait for a neighbor to finish a telephone call before making their own. They perhaps will only touch their chests to activate the implant to receive an incoming telephone call (and see the person their talking to in their glasses.) ASC will probably never wait for a bus, replaced with some super-studded transport system. ASC will not need to take their shoes off at the airport because newer disasters will lead to newer measures.

The “first Black president and “first woman president” will be incidentals to them because so many have come and gone since our time. How many churches will remain for them to choose from is a question that only time will solve but I suspect that the Roman one will remain in some shape or form.

ASC will need to care for their parents as their parents cared for them. Nursing homes during their time will look much more like a golf resort. Or worse still, collective housing in a far off corner of your hometown or worse still medical methods will be common place to ease suffering and of course rid ourselves of those aged appendages.

Will there still be “Third World” countries, named by us who live in the First? Will “food for the world” finally become a reality for them since we don’t do it now when we can? Will “I Love Lucy” still be playing every minute of every day somewhere in the world?

ASC will not remember this day at all, only what their parents will tell them at this anniversary. “You were so cute and you didn’t cry,” will be repeated until ASC thinks they actually remember it. But baptism did happen for three unsuspecting children on a sunny but cool November day in a Milwaukee Catholic Church. The baptism was performed by a priest whose name will escape the parents which I don’t mind. “Who was that masked man?” has always been my priestly mantra.

Mothers bore them and the Church blesses them as only both of the “she’s” can. The mothers will nourish and the Church will teach or is that the Church will nourish and the moms will teach or is it a bit of both, combined?

In 1930, 40 or 50 how many of us were commissioned to be a “priest, prophet, king,” each in our own way, for the way of our times. Priest: honoring the “now” of any time as sacred; Prophet: an open eye and ear to what the future may be because of what happens in this “now;” King: to serve the least among us and be conscious always about the common good of all.

Tall orders for three infants wondering why there’s water sprinkled on their heads in the early morning and a tall order for us tall people who felt the same sprinkling and assumed the same responsibilities.

(Being good Catholics when time is more important than prayer, three baptisms, great sermon and the 8:00 a.m. Mass ended at 9:02.)

books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS, available in paperback or Kindle at Amazon:
“Soulful Musings”
“Living Life’s Mysteries”
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings”

A Great Gift Idea

A new book by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Available at Amazon.com
Paperback or Kindle is $14.95.  Enjoyable reading.