The “Carry On” God

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

baggage-suitcase_244x242It’s the smaller bag that you saves you from $15. to 20.00 dollars when you carry it with you on the plane.  It’s the smaller bag that contains only a part of your stuff.  The rest of your stuff is stuffed somewhere else; you’re not sure where but trust that it’s somewhere close by.

How much of our small lives is God a “carry on,” a sizable bite of the bigger elusive apple. I guess when a deity is so large that naturally we small people would make God the same size.  It’s convenient but not very religious.  Our “Carry On God” (COG) seems to be at our beckon call even when this deity doesn’t respond with  our”yes.”  We have the same dimensions of this COG, it seems to vary from airline to airline but generally it’s in the vicinity of 21 by 14.  It’s amazing to watch folks board and how they stretch that mandatory size to include things that they hold in the other hand like smaller bags, flowers or boxes.  (You wonder what’s left in their homes when they board airplanes!)  If we could stretch our deity beyond ourselves the price definitely is no longer around $17.00.  The price grows higher because the size increases.

In our place of prayer, wherever that may be, can the COG enlarge beyond a limiting size?  There are petitions and there are prayers.  Petitions deal with family members’ needs, that the neighbor moves out and that the promised raise becomes true.  Beyond the COG are petitions for peace, harmony, end of violence and a growing litany that breaks the COG boundary.  Prayers center around this great gift of life while knowing something bigger in size awaits us.  Prayers are the gratitudes, thankfulnesses, or simply being in quiet with this bigger than COG we’ve carried on the plane.

“Made in the image and likeness of God,” is how scripture describes ourselves.  Two important words that point to the fact that we are not God.  Both words come close but not quite.  Infinite doesn’t describe our limited home whatever its size so we’ve naturally reduced God to a size we can handle.  There’s the old joke where God wants to “call home” a man who happens to be on an airplane along with 278 other people.  Does God do what God wanted at the time or wait for the “between flights” time in the men’s room?  Bad joke but message sent.

If you’ve followed my little COG story you would notice that the center of attention has been us.  Petition and prayer reverses itself with God as now the center (God’s got the bigger bag) and us as responders and listeners.  The beauty of any religion or belief is the making bigger of someone or something else and then placing ourselves in perspective.

We’ve tucked away our carry on bag above us while all the time there’s our bigger bag full of stuff that is stuffed somewhere else; we’re not sure where but trust that it’s somewhere close by.

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“Just”

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

indexWords have multiple meanings but how about one that just means time, lowliness, righteousness and precision.

“Just Married” noisily trails the overpriced limo that takes you to a garden for pictures where your wedding never took place.  “I’m just a housewife,” says the mom we all miss these days of daycare centers.  “It is right and just” that we should do the right thing but often find ourselves choosing the opposite.  “I just called to say ‘I love you'” sings Stevie Wonder, just in the nick of time of time which is just what he needed to say to his love.

It’s not that I have a lot to say it’s just that I think it is just of you to just stick in there and just be yourself in spite of the just person you think yourself to be when you are only just you.

Just in case I forget, I just wanted to share my one word with you and hope you just take it for what it’s worth and let me just end in a just manner.

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What is Sin These Days?

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

sin-clipart-A_Black_and_White_Cartoon_Man_Shunning_Sin_Royalty_Free_Clipart_Picture_100704-231354-508053“Don’t judge,” I’m sternly told about someone having three kids with no husband or no wife.  “You just don’t understand” is the statement given to level off off all kinds of behavior.  “You’re just wrong” is my dismissal when a conversation gets sensitive  or personal.

Judging, understand and being wrong dismisses centuries long definitions of sin.  You simply (and happily) cannot commit a sin any longer.  It’s wonderful how this sin-thing was resolved.  We did it all by ourselves in our own little worlds influenced by others and questioned by none.  I think the only sin remaining is murder and that can be justified in more ways than the direction of the bullet or the knife.

I’m not one to impose sin upon another or condemn behavior, as much as priests may like to do, but it still intrigues me these days in our country how sin has been reduced to something that someone else has done but never nailed to me.

Jesus died for a reason and the reason is idolatry which is defined not always as another god but more powerfully making ourselves a gods of sorts.

Growing up sin abounded in our lives.  Missing your “morning prayer” was a sin, whatever that morning prayer was supposed to be.  A burp in church caused you to mention it in your next confession.  Too strict and rigid?  Too outdated?  Yet a slander or speculation about someone on Facebook or in conversation is considered information and therefore not sinful, if indeed inaccurate or wrong.  The broke mother who shoplifts for her children is sinless unless she does it for herself.  The drunk driver who kills another person is sinless because his wife just died.

What’s a sin these days?  Corporations who do their own thing but never held accountable?  Those are the easiest to call sinful because no single person (or persons) are ever accountable.

It’s a comfortable time for us.  We’ve conveniently eradicated the cancer of our faith.  There is no more personal sin from our habits, behaviors or lives.  It’s the other person who seems to fail, it’s that person who I don’t like who has a problem.

When you are god you can do and think all kinds of things.

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Jesus: “I Am the Bread of Life”

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

indexThere’s an episode of M.A.S.H. where Hawkeye is under house arrest, in his tent.  Frank Burns mockingly stands at the entrance and hops in and out saying, “I can go in and I can go out.”  He does this enough to really frustrate Hawkeye.

That’s our society and that is our Church.  It has never been “either/or” but it is only “both/and.”  Our world is not “either or” society or Church.  The U.S. should never be a Christian nation tolerating Jews, Muslims, Mormons or any other religious flavor.  If you’d like a religious nation, move to Iran.

Our society only works with “both and” because we need and support each other.  The Church is never always right and our society is never always right.  We can all think of numerous examples to illustrate each.

What does our society yearn for each day?  Unity, harmony, equality as best as we can acquire.  The Church prays for these everyday.

The Catholic Church in all its wonder, mystery and powers uses what to illustrate its great salvation history?  Simple stuff.  Stuff we take for granted everyday.  Stuff of the earth.  We then take that stuff and make it greater, meaningful and “full of grace.”  How more basic can you get then water?  In the Church, water baptizes and propels you into this world with all the blessings God can garner.  Water welcomes you and alerts you that you are about to enter a holy place.  Water is the humanity that is mixed with the wine’s divinity.  It’s a quick priestly gesture but without it the Church would be left without purpose.  Jesus tells us today that it’s in the bread.  It’s in the bread.  It is not in some magical formula that the Church invented to illustrate Christ in our world.  It is not a mysterious potion that we would have concocted to show the universal love of God.  We would have gotten it wrong.  It is in the bread.  That silly afterthought wheat that sandwiches our ham, turkey, cheese, peanut butter and anything else we can think of to place between that silly afterthought wheat.  Bread.

The Church can say the same about oil, incense, a candle, words, musical notes, cloth, imperfect priests (well, most of them) and you because there is no Church without you.

The current crop of U.S. Bishops keep lamenting our “secular” society as though it should be a “religious” society.  How wrong they are.  We need a “secular” society to house all the wonderfully diverse and too frequent sad mishaps that occur on a daily basis.  Without a secular society you wouldn’t need a morning paper with all its gossip and current events.  Without a Church there would be no vehicle or container to inform and influence society with something always greater and more rewarding than itself.  A society looks only after itself and a good Church always looks outside itself to the most neediest, those most hurting, all those left behind, that child in the womb, that immigrant who needs a place to stay, that unemployed worker who wants to work and that teenager who wants to know a little more about Jesus.

We don’t hop in and out of society or the Church.  We live within each – affecting and responding to each other.

Bread, water, oil, candles and imperfect folks.  We take them from a “secular” society and make them sacred through the Church.  We then, and here’s the important part, send them out to do something good and beneficial in society for the good of both society and the Church.  Because you see if you stay in the Church you become isolated like a monk.  If that’s your life, go for it.  But if you live in society and ground yourself in the Church then you are a disciple, a breadwinner because you’ve eaten the simple bread of society and have recognized it as Jesus, the Christ.

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The Meaning and Purpose of “Church”

Posted on July 11, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

imagesI don’t know about other denominations but the Catholic Church made the Mass life’s centerpiece, it is its center as though it’s an oasis or isolated island carefully tucked away from the life of the world.

Having fun with pronouns, let’s try this out.  There would be no “this” (the Church) without “there” (beyond Church walls) and without “this” (the Church) “that” (the altar) would be rendered meaningless.

Growing up we’d goof around for an hour, grab a church bulletin and go home.  “Did you go to Mass?” mother would ask as we showed off the bulletin.  Never asked was “Did you pray, worship your Creator, thank God for the past week or pray for a successful new week?”  Nope.  Never asked in all my years with all ages.  The question is always, “Did you go,” followed by the bland response, “Yeah, I went to Mass.  Go and went are the Catholic verbs giving thanks and praise to God.  Catholics have made the Mass the end instead of the means which it was created to be.

Priests having a Mass alone, I hope are over but very popular in its day.  What a contradiction between the word “mass” or assembly and doing it privately.  “The Lord be with me,” “And also with my spirit” just sounds weird to me much less the sign of peace and two of the same hands from one person trying to shake as well as the awkwardness of the final blessing with the hand turned inward.  Whewww.  Who needs exercise after those contortions.

We have the this because of the there which gives meaning to the that.  (I hope no one read this paragraph first.)  A favorite story is vacationing in London with a priest friend and his urgent need to find a Church on Sunday.  I still smile at the episode.  A man comes to confession and tells me that his last confession was a month ago and that he’s missed Mass four times.  I think to myself, “I think that’s a perfect record for missing the this.  I wonder what’s going on out there that this and that isn’t important to him yet it is for his confession?”  (Yes, I do have thoughts like that in the confessional.)

When the means becomes the end then there is really no where to go except keep coming to the end hoping that your end ends up in eternal happiness.  Like any organization, the Church has a product, the Mass.  Making missing just one of them a “mortal” sin, right along side murder then the organization misses what Jesus was trying to tell us when he said that his “kingdom was not of this world” and how many other passages trying to link there with this and that.

I love that we have this and that to ground and renew us each week or each day but I hope we never miss the linking of the purpose and meaning of this and that was to transform and renew there.

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“When I’m 64”

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

indexIf I don’t pass away tonight in the next 52 minutes my obituary will say, “He quietly (or violently) passed away at the age of 63.”  62 sounds as bland as 63 when the Beatles made “64” a milestone when only half of them made it… John was 40 while walking home and George was 58 while at home and how often do Ringo and Paul meet except for an occasion that celebrates how close they are (not).

If you’re waiting for an article theme there is none.  There are no ten wishes that I wish on anyone.  There is no ultimate secret to loving and living life that I would share except to tonight’s receipt.  (Remember, if you share a secret then it’s no longer a secret.)

My pending birthday only occurred to me  a couple of times today and now, as the clock ticks away, I’m left with 42 remaining minutes before my number changes.  Many kind people reminded me about tomorrow but I don’t seem to return its gesture to them.

I thought I’d have a “James Dean” kind of ending but it did not happen since I’m still here and he was gone at 24 (but what faces he could create from that young face?)  I recall the U.S. death age for men is around 78 so I could always move.  If Japans’ is higher than I may gain a few years but lose them quickly in trying to adapt.

We don’t talk about death or our own personal demise because it appears to wreck the cocktails before dinner.  If it’s a shared joke or two then it’s fun as long as no name is mentioned.

Growing up my friends thought my parents where my grandparents because they married late so the end time has been a common thought for me.  I didn’t mind because, after all, I was James Dean!

Well, I beat James Dean and two Beatles and it’s now 32 minutes until a new digit is added to be pending obituary.  I mention obituary because my old Dad and I wrote his before he died.  He made several corrections about dates but otherwise thought it was good.

His didn’t mind viewing his entire life in a few paragraphs of coming from these folks, marrying her, doing this and that as a doctor would read a patient’s chart.  He looked up at me and he smiled.   He was satisfied with its brevity.  All of his stories, episodes and nuances would be left out because it was no one’s business but his.

I smile at the long newspaper obituaries that attempt to prove someone after that someone has been proven.  I smile tonight at my Dad’s simple details, accurate dates and nothing else.  I’m sure he supposed it was enough for him to be remembered.  I expect nothing less from my remaining 26 minutes.

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Now, Then, Forever

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

outsourced-order-fulfillmentYou could call them the “ion’s” of life.  They are gratification, satisfaction and fulfillment.  Oh, sorry.  The last doesn’t seem to fit my cute threesome of “ion’s.”  Although it is a part of the list it has a kind of cement-ending to it as though there’s a completion.

That’s the problem here.  All three words do fit together but the first two can’t achieve the cement of word three.

Gratification is instant and satisfaction is fleeting.  Fulfillment has a sturdy sound that fulfills what it means.  Christians would reward fulfillment to the visitation service our family will hold for us while we’re horizontal (with candles on each side of us) while they are all vertical and chatty.  That makes it too easy to dismiss fulfilling fulfillment from our lives and postpones its happy rewards in this life.

Fulfillment is now.  More than a fleeting feeling or an instant taste, fulfillment slowly becomes an attitude until it then becomes a value until it then becomes cemented throughout our lives.

We treat ourselves to ice cream on a hot summer night, gratified until the next hot night appears.  We receive a compliment for a job well done on a project and we feel satisfied until we make the next mistake.  Fulfillment’s cement is what carries us through all the parts of our lives – relationships, work and personal stuff.  In our occupations it does not matter (actually it does matter) what it is but what we bring to it each day – our gifts, passion along my two favorites words, meaning and purpose.  Each task completed with a known purpose and meaning dismisses the two “ion’s” and embraces the cement that captures, captivates and causes creativity.  (Five “c’s” in one sentence!  I’m getting the hang of this writing stuff.)

My job gratifies and satisfies me as far as it can, usually a two hour lifespan.  The fulfillment of my work – in meaning and purpose – carries me through a lifetime.  It also makes getting up in the morning a little easier.

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Buttons and Bows

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

13759399They are the connections that bring the two parts of your shirt together or the decoration on your blouse.  They are the four things on a sport coat that serve no purpose but to play with during a boring meeting.  A red-haired comedian had the name and Brad Pratt played one backwards which always brings tears to my eyes.  They are most importantly the buttons gained after many years with someone you care love.

Family or friendship, we can silently list the buttons at our ready to pull off at any given moment.   The  longer the relationship the more buttons from which to choose.  A heated argument can trigger a button to be tossed but then wisely refrained.  A friend throws you a button and you toss two buttons to him.  With another drink between the them, they peacefully hug and tug those buttons away for another occasion.

We desperately need gun control and we also need button control.  You’ve garnered buttons private stories shared twenty or more years ago and you haven’t forgotten them.  A shared episode between two friends becomes a button ( or is it a bullet?).  When a button is retrieved and thrown while in frustration or revenge it pierces greater than a bullet because there is no ER doctor to help.  Its powers sears through you and makes you numb.  You consider slinging a button of your own but pause or forget the pause and pitch one button back at him.

Twenty years of marriage creates lots of buttons that are safely tucked away from children’s use until a divorce arrives and all the buttons are tossed and turned and strewn all around a lawyer’s desk, as though he cares.

I don’t recall ever throwing a button with long time acquaintances but only they can tell if I’m wrong.  I’ve had buttons thrown back at me but usually in a heated moment when my forgiving and healing is easy.

We know the bonds that bind us while we always have our two shooter buttons strapped to our hip.  The trick in friendship or marriage is to know that the buttons work and the power that they have but to work more earnestly on creating bows that outnumbered them.  The buttons we hear or tell hurt greatly and the bows we see are beautiful.

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The “Shadow” Knows”

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

shadow_generatedIt’s behind me all day no matter what direction I walk.  Sometimes it’s lean, unlike my growing girth and other times it’s wide as ever finally showing my present colors.  Van Morrison sang about a “Moon Shadow,” a wonderful song but somehow still difficult to see.  Ted Lewis combined my shadow with me as his big band theme song.  Maybe he saw his more than I see mine.  It even spawned an old time radio show whose title suggests more than the creators thought.

In psychology it is the unknown, neither good nor bad just a lot of stuff that is unknown to you but the more willing you are (or unwilling) it will stop shadowing you and become a part of you because it already is an active and living part of you.  The Catholic Church would call it your guardian angel without all the complete stuff that makes up a shadow.  Guardian angel only knows good and reminding you that that chocolate only enlarges that shadow behind you.  The angel’s touch was good in grade school but the shadow becomes more apparent and meaningful as age creeps its way forward.

The shadow can be that unknown task that you said you would tend to shortly but it’s been twenty years.  That shadow can be that spark that you’ve been extinguishing for years because of its unknown and sticking with the comfortable present even if uncomfortable.  It’s not a technical word but I like the word “stuff” because it is things that are unnamed, un-judged or categorized.  We cannot give meaning to any of it because we do not know what any of it is until it reveals itself in any number of ways.

A back ache can revisit a personal relationship ache, a sleepless night can trigger some alone time for personal growth, a sluggish year at work says just what I just said.  Shadows live because we live.  Shadows reflect what only is given to them in and through time: ourselves.

Try following or catching your shadow as a young person.  It doesn’t work.  The shadow can only follow you and follow you in influences, dreams, regrets and undone work that your guardian angel would envy.

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Carrying Another’s “Stuff”

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Jesus-sleeping-during-the-storm-610x351“A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling.  Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.  [The Apostles] woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Don’t you hate it when someone doesn’t feel the same way you do?  You’re experiencing havoc and your friend is calmly having a cup of coffee and you simply can’t understand why this person isn’t feeling the same havoc that has you havoced.  (Not a word but you get the feeling.)

What’s with this?  Your time of panic does not coincide with someone’s beautiful day.  Your friend’s helplessness about her daughter does not fit the joyful feeling you’ve just received from your daughter.  The syncing is missing.

The apostles are going nuts and Jesus is doing his nails.  Jesus is throwing stuff out of the temple and his apostles are waiting for the Bingo numbers to be announced.  There’s that syncing problem again.

We’re supposed to be united and one in faith but the separations can be severe.  Obama wins his first term, I come to work beaming only to see numerous gloomy faces.  I kept my mouth shut..but only for a while.  I couldn’t resist exhibiting my joy in the midst of their forlorn faces.

So how do we do it?  How do we validate the experience of someone that may be unlike our own?  Arm wrestle?  Too barbaric.  Argue about whose experience is more important?  Too television these days.  Ignore the person?  Too much like being in high school when you’re in your 80’s.

So how do we do it?  We fake it.  I can act forlorn while being happy.  I can pretend to be abiding while keeping to myself.  I know you all can as well.  I like to call it being buoyant.  A buoy is grounded securely in the water while being able to move from side to side, sometimes even with a bell.  We are all grounded in Christ and the mission and purpose he fulfilled for our salvation.  The “Christ” part is all below the water, the grounded part.  The part of the buoy that is seen is the bobbing that we do everyday.  One encounter meets an upset person and your next is a smiling person dying to tell someone the news she’s just heard.

You respond as best you can to both.  Whether calling it “faking it” or being a “buoy” doesn’t matter because of the grounded Christ, the unifying Christ, the Christ who suffers with others, the Christ who models the best for us.

Jesus doing his nails while the apostles are ballistic is his excuse.  He was a teacher, trying to teach a lesson.  Our task is to be “buoy people” to each other – not to teach, change or rearrange anyone but to buoy as best we can for each other.

The “bell?”  I’m not sure how to apply the bell but let’s just say that it’s the bell that triggers our un-felt empathy toward someone’s true feelings.

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