The “Awesome” English Language

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

AwesomeIf I hear that something or someone is “awesome,” it’ll be time to turn my hearing aids off.  “Awesome” is if the moon would fall to the earth, anything less is “okay” or “good.”

“Pretty nice” doesn’t say much and the adjective describes appearance and not the experience as does “awfully nice.”  If your “thank you card” contains those words I’d question the writer’s sincerity.

“To be honest with you” as the beginning of a sentence tends to question all your conversations with that speaker.  “Finally, the truth?”  This leads to someone declaring the “absolute truth” about this or that.  “Truth,” I believe stands on its own without any modifiers.  As a priest I often think it’s overkill to say, “Almighty God” as though we don’t know who God is.

My hallway response to, “How are you today?” is the same, “Great.”  It keeps our walking  passed each other in sync.  It I was truly great than I’d be more productive in my job or have a better job.  “Truly,” as I just abused it, is another example.  Can great be made greater by adding “truly?”

One online site stated that a two-year old knows 300 words compared to the twelve-year old who knows the same 3,000 words he/she will use for a lifetime.  Whatever happened to learn a new word each day and use it in a conversation that same day and it’ll be yours for life?

The “if” word, small as it is, protects both its speaker and cleverly calms its listener.  “‘If'” I offended you is never an apology.  “No admittance but I appreciate the effort,” is its result.  How about Nixon’s team and their use of “at this point in time” instead of saying, “now” or “then.”

In the above paragraph I used “never” as though it’s the end of all endings.  A young person told me that he “never…” and I said back to him, “just wait.”  Young people should be forbidden to use the word “never” in their short, un-lived lives.

These days we seem to want to be emphatic in whatever topic we throw out for conversation.  “Awesome” and “unreal” makes my mind wander away from their comments.  If the vacation you completed was “unreal” then we’re all in trouble.

My favorite disarming comment is, “You look great today, for a woman your age.”  Tht’s when I walk a little faster down the hallway.

 

 

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Spouse’s Death

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

aid1420561-728px-Prepare-for-Death-of-Spouse-Step-6Bullet2“How do you do this death thing?  It’s been two weeks since his funeral and his suits still hanging in the closet.  I look at them and remember when each was worn; there’s the funeral suit, the anytime suit and the suit I told him to save when he wanted to give it to the Salvation Army.

How do you do it?  His war recognitions I’ll keep, that’s for sure and his two sets of cuff links.  Pictures of us I’ll store, just for me now.  There’s that stupid picture on the wall that he loved but I never liked, but now that he’s gone I like.  Keep it or dump it?  Salvation Army or Goodwill?

Decisions.  It’s the decisions that bog you down in your head when it’s the love that keeps him alive. “It’s the smell,” I think to myself.  I’ll keep the cheap cologne he loved.  I don’t know why but those tiny sniffs bring him into the bathroom with me.  Oh, and all of those newspapers that he saved because he loved one article.  Toss them all?  Didn’t he think of using a scissors and just save the one article?  He wasn’t like that.  He loved to save and now I have his savings surrounding me.  It’s only been two weeks.

Shouldn’t I wait a year?  Wow, that’s a long time from my time to walk past “that” or run into “this” or be reminded of that/this when I remember.  Remembering.  What a wonderful gift for our wonderful times but what a haunting memory.  I can’t remember simple things when I want to but things about him are crystal clear in my mind and heart.

How do you do it?  The beauty salon magazines offers me a list of ten things (always ten!) and I laugh at each one reading them as though the writer thought I’d be a whole person again after completing the ten bullet points.

Whole.  I now continue my life with a life I’ve only know with him.  Continue.  Continue what?  It’s the simple pieces that remain but never the whole which is  now gone.  It’s those remaining fragments surrounding me while forgetting his pain toward the end that is now over.  “Think ahead,” says good meaning friends and I smile until I get home and pass the suits and the whiff of his now-gone scent.

Salvation Army or Goodwill?  Don’t I some dice in the house?  Does it really matter if it’s meant to rid me of him and dress another?  The tenth point of all the beauty salon magazines ends with me feeling better about myself.  Was the point of my marriage and now his death to feel good about myself?  I disagree.  If I felt good with him in life then I can feel good again with him in his death.  And I mean “with him.”

“Feeling good.”  I don’t want to feel good.  I want to feel loved and needed and believe it or not, I still do.  “Feeling good.”  I feel good in my unpredictable tears and wandering thoughts over forty years.  He’s gone but not forgotten.  I don’t want to forget and I don’t care about “feeling good.”

I’ll keep the suit I like and the cologne but I still can’t decide between Salvation Army or Goodwill.  That decision will eventually come but the memories of him and his smilingly love for me lasts a lifetime.”

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. on Amazon include:
“Soulful Musings,”
“Living Faith’s Mysteries”
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings”

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Holy Thursday: “Hands”

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

indexThe hands of time has handed us this time, right now.  I hope it’s handy for you because your hands may be full of other concerns.  But hands down, this begins the great three-some of the Christian religion.

All hands on deck for these next three days.  You may be an old hand at this and had this handed down to you by your parents but we don’t wish to bite the hand that feeds us because as we well know – “a bird in the hand is worth two…”

I have to hand it to you for showing up today.  There’s no obligation, no sin if you miss today so you must have a warm heart to match your “cold hands.”  It is good to be here for our Lord’s Supper because a helping hand defeats the devil’s idle hands.

By a show of hands can we give a hand for the man who gave us a helping hand toward salvation?

Hands.  We take these two extensions for granted until one fails us and we need to rely completely on the other, hoping the other will not fail us.  I’ve only heard this second hand but some of us are dealt a bad hand.

We’ll be hearing about hands over the next few days.  Not necessarily the physical but the emotional and spiritual hands.  Like the hands of Jesus which frees and cleanses, like the hands of Pilate that are bound by tradition and regulations, like the handcuffed hands of Barabbas which are falsely freed, or the hands that holds her dead son, or Joseph of Arimathea and his caring hands but too late to lend one of them.  How about that guy’s forced hands to help Our Lord’s cross, or the hands that wiped the sweat and blood off our Lord’s face?  What about the solider’s nailing hands?  Did they have an upper hand or so they thought?

What about our hands?  A helping hand to someone walking slower than last year.  A ready hand to swipe the cheek of a child who yelled at you.  A shoulder’s touch by your hand.  Extending your hand to receive the Body of Christ this holy day.  The handshake of welcome before a meeting or a good meal.  The hand that holds a door for another when you’re in a hurry, the wave of a hand that offers her your chair.

Extend your hand to receive the Body of Christ this holy day.   The hand that waves goodbye to a good friend and the same hand that touches the gravestone whose goodbye is hard to handle.  Extend your hand to receive the Body of Christ this holy day.   The hand that picks up someone’s lost keys and then the same hand that unlocks your empty home where your husband, son or daughter once lived. Extend your hand to receive the Body of Christ this holy day.   The hand that twitches during a boring meetings but holds the baby’s head just right.  The same hand that lifts a drink in toast for a grand occasion and the same hand that ties your shoes in the morning.  Extend your hand to receive the Body of Christ this holy day.

Tonight we put our hands together and applaud the man we think will save us.  We hope will save us.  We pray will save us.  Tomorrow.  Ahhh, tomorrow deals us a different hand as we hand him over to Pilate’s washing hands and the nailing hands of soldiers.  But hands down, today is a wonderful meal.

“Many hands make for light work” as long as other folks do the work.  I don’t lift a finger because life is in my hands.  That’s our temptation in playing against God’s hand when He already has His hands full…and ours are conveniently but sadly empty.

Ahhhh, you gotta hand it to us God, we’ve gotten things out of hand by keeping our hands clean.  We’re simply too scared to be putty in God’s hands so tomorrow we may just choose Pilate’s washing hands and rub our satisfied hands together.  We’re willing to clap for you this holy day but it’s all hands on deck tomorrow.  We’re just not sure.  Are you the one or should we hand ourselves over to the hands of someone else.

You gotta hand it to us Lord, we are a handful.

But still.  Can you hand us that bread.  It’s free, isn’t it?

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Good Friday: “Hands Down”

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Hands-Thumb-Down-iconWe handed you over to die, Lord.  (Yes, I’m back to the hands thing.)  It was the handy thing for us to do, considering who you thought you were and who we were positive you were not.

We’re not sure if it was our left or right hand but one of our hands opened your palms making sure the nails fit tightly.  Less hands for Jesus to hand us another one of his wildly weird stories and self-proclaimed claims.  We truly handed you over.  Handy of us because it was purely for and about ourselves.  “Handle with care” was your underlying message to us about others but you just handed us a bunch of you know what, those two letters which don’t mean Boy Scouts.

You’ve got to hand it to us though.  We handed you over to Pilate’s hands and his hands were washed clean of any guilt.  What guilt do we handily wash clean of because we’re either not responsible or because it doesn’t involve us?  We’re in safe hands with that thinking as long as we stay within our comfortable and closed selves.

“He was a hand me down guy,” we say about you, Jesus, as we said before of all the prophets.  You were handy to us for awhile until you called us to something more than ourselves and we weren’t able to …well, handle you any longer.  So we crucified you.  Clean hands, have we.  Dirty hands, have we. If I asked for a show of hands this Good Friday, all of our second hands would go up but it’s too late…now.

Where were we when it was hands down to Pilate’s cleansing?  Where were we when the “hands
have it” as we passively joined a majority of losing opinions?  You were bound hand and foot and we were all close at hand as the hands of time stopped between 12 and 3 as we easily handed over our salvation just to keep our hands clean.  We clapped our hands welcoming you on Palm Sunday and then clapped our hands once more on this day, your death day.

After all, it’s Good Friday.  This is the day when our hands are tied.  Don’t blame us for your nailed hands.  This is the day when our hands are folded in deep prayer to save only ourselves.  Handy, memorized prayers directed to something or someone, we’re not sure to whom.  This is the day when our hands are hidden behind our backs so no one can see our actions.  Because you see the left doesn’t know what the right is doing this sad day.  This is the day when our hands block our eyes to keep them safely from handing us a problem to handle – from a new perspective or from a second thought.  How wickedly convenient Good Friday is for us.  How wonderful and ugly is this day we handed you Lord.  We’re the three monkeys on this glorious but sad day.  Good Friday hands us a greater handful of ourselves.  Good Friday hands us the glory of our own, selfish lives.  Hearing, seeing and speaking are all conveniently covered by, you guessed it, our hands.

We’re Pilates’ clean hands.  We have more time on our hands without doing anything for anyone else.  Hell, we can now say to anyone who approaches us looking for a simple smile or to share a story, “Hands off.”  Good Friday says that we have our hands full …hands full of ourselves.

You’ve got to hand it to us, we’ve had our hand in this since the beginning.  We handed over the the-would-be-Christ to Pilate.  Pretty handy of us, don’t you think?  The blood of Jesus is on our hands.  We could have told Pilate, “hands off” to our Savior but we chose instead to leave it in the hands of others – it was not our concern, our hope, our salvation.  Let someone else handle it.

We’ve got to hand it to ourselves.  None of us lifted a hand.  We washed both of them carefully with Pilate’s water.  It’s gotten out of hand and now He’s died.

Although even though it’s second hand, some say that the hand dealt Jesus is not yet played.  There’s a couple more cards handed to him.  But what’s the deal?  We know the cards handed to Jesus.  That’s the deal handed to Jesus.  What’s our deal?

How about on this Good Friday we take a hands off approach and just see what happens.  We may be handily surprised.

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Find A Less Fortunate and You’ll Feel Good

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

thHOC40AVCThis may surprise you but I’ve never met a selfish person.  Each of us believes in the “common good” for all and each of us believes how wonderful and benevolent each of us is.  Ahhhh.

The season of Lent can be practiced as our U.S. culture can be practiced – being selfish, thinking only of ourselves.  We examine our own little, personal lives during Lent in preparation for Easter’s redemption.  “Look inside your life” is Lent’s yearly command.  In our culture we can be self-centered in attitudes contrary to our basic beliefs about the care and concern of that “common good.”  “The ‘common good’ is good as long as it doesn’t affect me” is our internal feeling and thought.  “Get the government out of my life but don’t touch my Medicare payments,” is such a contradiction that it’s laughably sad.

“Not mine but ours” – ought to be our mantra in both church and society.
“Just think of the poor children in Biafra,” mom told us in the 1950’s and you’ll feel better about yourself and eat the crazy vegetable left on our plates.  The five of us had no idea where Biafra was and we couldn’t recall meeting any of them in our small Manitowoc town.  How our mom even knew about that African country baffles us to this day.  “Did I miss meeting one of the Biafrian kids on my way to school?” we thought to ourselves.
We use others to lessen our problems and the worst part of all is that we get away with it.  It happens often.   And it happened to me recently when walking through the hospital’s ICU to visit someone; I thought to myself how petty was my crying and lose of two cats of eleven years and putting them to sleep because of their age and organ failures.  “Who was I to lament?” I thought when I saw someone wired with numerous cords surrounded by hissing, digital machines.  The salve of that hospital comparison worked on me until driving back to work and realizing that I found a more unfortunate person to soften my misfortune.

Fortunately, I found someone with greater misfortune to allow me to feel fortunate again.  (Let’s hear that once more, please.)

Our five Manitowoc kids knew no one in Biafra nor could we locate their country on a map but we trusted our mother’s balm comparing people living in utter poverty with our failed grades or lost friends or no TV for one night.”  Fair comparison?

Comments like that make our lesses less and keeps their lesses less.  We need “them” to bolster ourselves.  If there was no one lesser then ourselves then how would we ever release ourselves from grief or sorrow?  My pain was softened by the greater pain of someone else.  How great of me to feel this way.  What a great country to condone those lessers to enjoy our more.

Jesus didn’t bring Lazarus back to life because they were best friends and Lazarus missed a planned lunch.  Jesus brought Lazarus back to life because he wanted to show us that “new life” happens in all shapes and forms.  It is because of Jesus, the cross.  Lent may begin with the “selfish me” but it has to end with a collective “us,” the Body of Christ or else this whole thing we call “church” is meaningless.  The “common good” that is good and obviously common among us all begins with us, individually and then expands to our nation.  Comparisons rarely work and many comparisons can be downright hurtful.

So, today, in front of all of you, I’d like to publicly thank all the Biafra, Africa folks for their poverty, their injustices and all the wrongdoings done to them.

Have we lost the meaning of the “common good” or a sense of perspective or did we ever have it in the first place in our Lenten lives?

Mother was right.  Biafra has truly comforted and soothed me through all my First World troubles and struggles – like missing a meeting, like being late for work, like wearing the wrong tie or like losing my two cats the same day.

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Jesus & “Fig Tree” Or Not

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

jesusandfigtreeThere will be various clues throughout this little charade.  It’s your job to guess who I am.

First clue: I’m rented, usually just for a weekend to make you look good for all the guests and all your friends who will never recognize you because of my coverings.  I guess some of you already know who I am but you still need to sit here and listen.

My shoes are shiny as a brand new car and there’s one darker stripe on each side of my leg balanced against my dark trousers.  I would provide you with a top hat if you saw someone else wear one first but your not going to be the first to wear a top hat in front of a hundred people.  Just wait until a Black singer wears one and then you’ve got your signal or permission telling you that now it’s “cool.”

(A side note:  It would have taken Whites a hundred years to turn a baseball cap around.  We never would have thought of that on our own.  Now I see 40 year old White guys with the turn-around cap and I smile to myself.)

Okay.  Back to the guessing, in case you haven’t figured it out already.

You will never see me at a Brewer game or a farmer’s market.  I only make you look good when you want to look good, like a wedding.  At some weddings I’m seen in a pukey blue with a ruffled shirt when my only truly color and my only true shine is in black.  Even Milwaukee guys look good wearing me even if they still can’t see their belts.  My black is distinguished, classy and dignified over my crisp, white shirt and black bowtie.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that my bowtie isn’t real.  Michael pulls it off but it is very difficult to create and pull off.  I can tell a fake bowtie as soon as you enter the room/  Those shiny shoes don’t distract me from that fake bowtie.

People used to wear me every night just for a normal evening meal.  Check out PBS to see how often I’m shown off at dinner and then cigars and a short liqueur with only the boys afterwards.

I am faith.  You think that I’m rented because it’s cheaper for you.  How could you ever afford something so great and enduring to wear daily as me?  How often in our lives am I returned on Monday morning after your wonderful weekend and then you return to your backward-turned baseball cap and dirty jeans.

In colors, black is the absence of color which makes all things possible on a theater’s stage and even on our stages of life.  Black can be filled-in with colors of all kinds that make for a magical celebration of life.

You feel special when you wear me for your short weekend.  You straighten me when necessary, flick away that annoying white string and you are totally aware that you are wearing me, if only for a weekend.  As you finish dressing and look at yourself in the mirror you undoubtedly wonder why you can’t look this way every day.  “Wow,” you say to yourself, hoping no one’s heard you.  But alas, you remember that I am only rented.  I am not yours to keep.  I am not yours to rely upon in troubling or doubtful times, I can’t share those joyful, glorious moments of your life – I am not yours for a whole lifetime of mixed experiences.

Faith is a “wow” experience.  Faith is the black we wear each day when every possible situation is presented or confronted to us.

The non-color black takes on as many colors as possible when needed.  The color red only knows jealousy and the color green only holds envy.  The color orange has us struggling who the Republican candidate for president will be and the color beige is the one who just follows the crowd.  “They must be right,” the color beige says to him/herself.

Faith grows within you because you grow and mature.  Life teaches you the tried and true lessons and principles that were owned and lived centuries ago by others and you are invited to rediscover, wear and live those lessons and principles today, in this season of Lent.

Faith is a tuxedo that wears well on all of us and fits us well – adapted, of course, for women.  Faith is the non-color black that empties us only to be filled again with something more of our lives that we’ve been missing.  Lent invites us to sincerely feel our empty moments and then fill those moments with stuff that’s colorful, that makes us open, and wanting, and needing, and healing, and meaningful; that we are significant.

Lent is a season of recommitment to that glorious gift of faith that is very much like a tuxedo.  And believe me when I say there is no total commitment to faith.  It’s not easy.  I don’t know how many saint stories you’ve read – most of them are made up and the saint stories that are true had a difficult and struggling life, folks like you and me who continued to prompt themselves through God’s grace to live their faith journey; regardless of anything.  That’s the total blackness of a tuxedo.  Don’t just show off my beautiful tux on a weekend but wear it proudly every day.  After all, black becomes you.

What about that fake bowtie?  Wear your tux for life’s beauties and challenges but keep the fake bowtie for your hounding doubts, periodic mistrusts, sometimes sleepless nights, suspicious but weary friends. That fake bowtie may even open you to an opening of a new door that you didn’t think was possible.  A faith based only in total blackness and certitude has no “open doors.”  Cue that fake bowtie.  Faith is not an end.  Faith is the blessed means and tools we use to live our lives as best we can.  If you say that you have “faith” then you’ve begun to clothe yourself in my beautiful tuxedo.

God’s given us a black ensemble to fully live and completely in God. The season of Lent reminds us of that.  Oh, and by the way, I forgot to tell you that God’s tux is “rent free!”  Jesus won that for us.  It’s not a fig tree, it’s a black tuxedo.  No returns necessary.  It’s yours for a lifetime of values and many purposes.

What the hell, go ahead an wear a “top hat” to top off your Lenten season – who knows…another White guy may copy you.  Start a trend.

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Sam & Sylvia

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

IMG_0086Their health diminished quickly and I always told myself that I would never keep cats alive for my sake.  All kinds of organs were affected in both of them and as they lived so closely together, I wouldn’t have thought their closeness would end this morning but it did.

Sylvia was first as the assistant held out her back leg and it’s slightly shaved by the veterinarian.  He applies a liquid and then slowly the syringe is inserted and in a second’s blink her eyes stay open.  Sam is next but his dehydration is so low that his second back leg is chosen.  He meows a bit and I bent down to face his eyes as they looked at mine and then his quietly remained open.  It was painless for both and all done by 9:30 a.m. and I’m at work by 10:00 a.m. wondering if anyone will notice my eyes.

I thanked them both the night before as they laid on my bed.  A simple “thank you” that we so often dismiss between humans.  “Thank you,” I said to them for eleven years that I hope will never be forgotten.  To ensure remembering, here’s a short list of “thank yous” for two small creatures that inhabited my home and my soul.

Sam, Thank you

  • for interrupting important telephone calls because hearing my voice caused you to jump on me wanting immediate attention
  •  for making TV more fun with you near me and releasing a sleepy sigh that caused me to wonder if you died as you did the night before with the same sigh
  • for grabbing my place when I only needed a little more ice
  • for making morning coffee meaningful with you at my side
  • for trimming my plants and then throwing up…always a joy cleaning up after you
  • snuggling under the covers and kneading me with your paws causes my sleep
  • for envying you while your slept…nothing in the world beats a cat’s blissful sleep
  • for each time smelling and finally opening the cat friendly hatch to the front porch as though it was your the first time
  • for your eyes – always wide eyed and attentive to everything I ever did around you

Sylvia, Thank You

  • for being my alarm clock for years – give or take ten minutes
  • for making me stretch down to pat you because of your female aloofness
  • for waiting to be announced before you approached me, as only a queen would do
  • for the being the very first, every time to greet me home after work
  • for joining me more often as you knew you were not well
  • for letting Sam get the upper hand (or paw) every single day..a classy dame
  • for your secret, hiding places that you thought I didn’t know about but I knew every one
  • for being the compliant one before vet’s visit; I needed to get you first into the box and then Sam
  • for your watchful gaze before sleeping that watched my every move

It’s not a complete list but you get a hint of how eleven years together with how a supposedly intelligent person lives and breathes with these two totally instinctual but loving creatures called cats.  I know I will live without them but living with them brought a depth, perspective, an unconditional love and clarity to a single guy.

Even in death this first night without them, I know where each one would be right now waiting to be a cat once again to me and for me to be a loving person to them and to others.  Thank you Sam and Sylvia.  They will never know…

book_cover

A Great Gift Idea

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

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The “Humps” of Time

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

hump_day_camel_funny_wednesday_poster_sign-rc73c310557a7412e9228e99470fa1250_i2mow_8byvr_512Time.  What a wonderfully, awkward word.  Time measures the finite.  What begins in one second ends in the next one.

Wednesday is “hump” day because it’s wedged in the middle of our make-believe work week.  (Sundays are busy days for me.)  You ask your boss if she’s free and she tells you she has two minutes before her next meeting so your ten minute-prepared-brainstorming-idea needs to be brutally altered.  She looks at her watch after 35 seconds and you receive your clue.  (A potential great idea missed?)  You finish a great movie with tears in your eyes and wonder when a sequel is planned.  (“When,” again with the time.)  Farmers told time by light.  It was easy to follow and probably healthier then our 24/7 mentality.

We all cherish our yearly day that marks another accumulation of days (birthdays) and when the second digit becomes a zero we eagerly await the surprise party that only finds you alone with your Blue Nun.  (That’s a great image.)  We all hope our last second occurs during blissful sleep.  Many have achieved it.  However the one who finds you is the one who reads books about coping and a bit of therapy thrown in twice a week; but, hell, you got your wish.

Some of us caffeinate ourselves to get through the morning hours while others are out jogging or watering their dogs.  People, like me love the transition from day to night because the sun beautifully marks an ending and a beginning which time demands.  (Try any Gulf of Mexico vacation and you’ll know what I mean.)

Retirement hits and suddenly the humps have vanished.  “Yesterday is today and tomorrow looks an awful lot like yesterday,” says the newly retiree.  Hugh Grant was in a movie where he doesn’t need to work and says that he breaks up each day into “increments.”  Fifteen minutes for this followed by fifteen for that, separated by eating and then the day is complete.  A boy breaks up his “increments” to show him that life is more than measuring time or numbers passing by.

Is time calculated by what you’re doing right now, what lies ahead or what time has passed?  Enjoy a good book or movie and time truly stops.

When you’re second digit zero is preceded by a six then it’s all three combined or should I say all mixed up together.  The meshing can make for a mess but it’s the best that you’ve got.

The dictionary’s definition of hump is “prominence, lump, bump, knob, protrusion, projection, bulge, swelling, hunch; growth, outgrowth.”  All of humps synonyms deal with growth, movement and transformation.  Where does time land you this day and where can it take you tomorrow?

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Jesus Did His Homework

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

car-sleep-drive_1758350cSleep.  That glorious, peaceful prelude to what is next.  Sleep.  Eight hours or less of nothing less than the bliss that escaped you during your waking hours.  Sleep.  It’s the Godly designated time when the unconscious gets to have its way with you whether you like it or not.

“This day has ended,” you say to yourself after working harder than normal or your cockily, loving daughter finally began what you wish to begin or that important business meeting tomorrow preoccupies you with your PowerPoint presentation that you’ve rehearsed countless times (who uses PowerPoint anymore?) or you’ve just finished a movie and it’s time for bed – to sleep.

Lent – and are we all “asleep at the wheel?”  It’s a scary image for a driver who has  thoughts on everything except driving.

Lent has the devil tempting Jesus with his famous three questions – only to be quenched with each of Jesus’ answers.  It’s because Jesus was not “asleep at the wheel.”  He knew the answers before they were asked by the devil.  He knew the answers because he had already asked the questions of himself.  He tempted himself.  Can we tempt ourselves?  You bet we can.  He thought to himself with his star rising, “What if…” this or that happens?  “How would I react or respond if that or this were offered to me?”  In the Catholic Church it’s called “catechism” but in life it’s called doing your homework.  It’s the homework” of life to not “be asleep at the wheel.”

It may sound trite but temptation is only tempting when it temps you.  Jesus already knew his answers to an unknown quiz.  It’s not as though he prepared himself word for word but his life’s culmination led to his crisp and clear responses.

You lie once and think that’s is over and harmless.  You twist a truth but it was only for that moment.  You cheat a little here and convince yourself of its one time event.  It’s easy because it was only the “once” even though it’s grown into multiples.  Those small, one-time infractions are then justified by placing them on others’ shoulders – known or unknown – that undeserving friend or that un-trusting government.  The “multiples” then become easier because it is no longer about your one-time lapse but it’s someone’s or something’s problem.

Sleep doesn’t always occur during the night in bed.  “Asleep at the wheel” is the small temptations within us that slowly become real and large.  “Asleep at the wheel” is the small mustard seed that Jesus did not preach about; the smallest of seeds that grows to be a very large tree.  You wake up one morning from your sleep and discover the wealth of your “smallness”.

Jesus didn’t read the Catholic catechism but He did his homework.  He knew the answers because he asked the questions of himself.  Lent.  Any Lent is about asking the questions of ourselves that we may one day, indeed, be asked.  Will we know our answers when tempted or quizzed or will we try just a small foible that gets us to sleep that night?

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Patience & Death

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Rich_Man_Poor_Man_Book_II_cast_1977Our 12 second attention span has been reduced to the smaller number of 8 says news account.  A 90 year old friend tells me that he has a year to live but wishes it would be sooner.

Ahhh, patience: gift or grief?  We can blame technology for its quickness at every step.  TV ads have been eliminated thanks to the “fast forward” button.  I believe our impatience began when we destroyed darkness and kept our caffeinated minds awake far too long.  If you think that “Yahoo” is a sound a cowboy makes after lassoing a calf or “Google” is a sound a happy baby makes – you may be better off than the rest of us.

I remember the “mini series” “Rich Man, Poor Man,” with evolving characters for seven weeks, that’s right; seven weeks.  It was a risk for ABC but they pulled it off.  I also remember driving home fast before the next episode aired (no VCR’s, DVD’s or reruns then).  It launched Nick Nolte into fame and the same patience was needed for ABC’s “Roots” even if I already knew that ending.  (We loved advertisements during those years.  It gave us time for those bathroom visits, “Hurry up, the show’s coming back on!”)

Your doctor tells you “one year” or their usual timetable of six months, a safe bet.  If the person gets a full year then the doctor looks good; almost.

Patience is a developed and blessed gift that transcends technology.  How many authors have predicted advances that we witness today but that does not mean we ever stop being us.  I could recommend to my friend a “happy book” talking about the “joys of heaven” but my own nausea couldn’t stand it.  Death is not a happy place but it is a time we will all face.

I would hope that my doctor would say if I had a terminal condition that “everything seems okay with you today” and I could take that home with me smiling because he used the words “seems” and “today” in one sentence.  Driving home I can put the two words together and come up with “one year” or “six months.”  While in the hospital you’ve even been named after a virtue!  You’ll never hear a nurse say, “You’re a patient, so please me patient.”

Patience is not derived from the outcome (death, hence impatience) but in the time frame of right now.  Your friendly, recorded credit card company announces “shortly” someone will care about you or (my favorite word) “in a moment” while weird music repeats itself.  (I think they want to forget why you called.)

Patience doesn’t begin with the end leaving you to live whatever present you have.  Patience is living within the present with all the gusto that the old Schlitz Beer ads promised.  “Gusto” doesn’t mean bungee jumping, it means honoring your spirituality, cherishing your family and friends and finishing as much of your personal homework, as your mother would say, “before bedtime.”

I deliberately look for informative material when waiting to see a doctor.  I read most of a “Time” magazine during one wait.  “Patience” is not what’s about to happen but what you do with these “shortly’s” and these “moments.”

My dad and his secretary were the only employees of a small credit union.  While at lunch his sign on the door read, “Back in a moment.”  If you read it at noontime it conveyed the same message read by someone else at 12:20 p.m.  My dad had wonderful, relaxing lunches.

My friend wants to “fast forward” through his one year to what can only happen in real time.  He needs to wait and be patient for the next exciting episode of “Rich Man, Poor Man.”  Why?  Because he wants to see how it ends.

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