Soulful Muse

Having the luxury of a Catholic education – complete with nuns in complete habits and the privilege of cleaning the blackboard at the end of the day, it strikes me now how liberal the Catholic Church’s teaching is on many social issues.  (It’s the personal stuff that skews conservative.)

First and foremost is care of the poor in all ways and means and in all shapes and forms.  Nothing is more important than a constant awareness of those who have less than ourselves and our duty in not only providing assistance but helping to solve how life’s ladder for them stopped at that particular rung.  Buying African “pagan babies,” for .25 each, as a young person, led to a grateful consciousness for Catholic Social Services and the St. Vincent de Paul Society as an adult.

The dignity of work is second only to the sanctity of life is in every Catholic social teaching.  Its definition hasn’t changed over the centuries:  a fair wage, a competitive opportunity for everyone and a balanced balance between employer and employee.  The creation of unions ensured a dignified opportunity for every employee and its Catholic grounding is as equal as ham is to cheese.

The family as that beginning stone which becomes the rock of your life is indisputable.  Ensuring its stability strengthens both the family as a child and society as an adult.

The value of education would make any Catholic’s top ten list.  Its concentration on discipline, routine and memorization may be mocked today but its seeds have taken root in this person’s small mind.  Although begun as a protection of its beliefs as a minority religion, Catholic education is still the “foot to the pedal” for future success and satisfaction.

The Church’s welcoming stance toward all people of all countries still stands tall with its “Sanctuary” protection practice that is still upheld in courts.

Peace must always be sought, even at the cost of impulsive anger or trigger-happy retaliation.  I smiled to myself when I read that every “war” since World War II has been a “president’s war.”  We may wish that life was like our quickening technology but the solidly peaceful road is always methodical and slow in coming.

At the top of each homework assignment three letters needed to be assigned.  “JMJ.”  The nun would not accept the work unless those letters were clearly printed.  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”  These three people were to influence our lives, direct our deliberations and be our guide like their exodus to Egypt.  Although it’s fanciful whether they ever made that journey or not, the idea remained in young, formative minds and told us that important stuff lies before us even before we graduated from eighth grade.

Liberal?  By today’s standards perhaps but always the SOP of the Catholic Church.

Jesus tells us that he is the vine and we are the branches.  Our unity is only found in him.  It it a unity and oneness that can never be rescinded or destroyed.

I gotta stop here.  I can’t go on.

Do you really believe this stuff?  All this vine and unity stuff that we’re supposed to believe?

We may feel it while sitting inside church’s safe walls and enjoying the music and Mass but just wait until the proverbial parking lot scenario and somebody cuts you off.  Then we’ll see who prunes whom!

My simple 20 minute drive to work on a Milwaukee city street has three  –  count them  –  three near misses both coming from and going home.  People will risk their lives for an additional car length in front of me.  I have vowed to myself that I will not die on that stupid city street.  (“Fr. Joe died today when I driver cut him off to gain a car length at 50 miles an hour in a 35 mile an hour zone.  Details and film at 10.”)

We just can’t seem to get along.  We can’t seem to find one path to walk together.  Tragedy is probably the best time when I’ve witnessed people dropping whatever stands in our paths to find one way.  But, sadly, it does not endure.  September 11 was a few months of harmony until our divisions were once again lifted high and have remained there.

I was trying to think of one image that we could hook into to illustrate a unity of some kind.  I’ve mentioned “path” but that’s kind of vague.  Jesus uses “vine and branches” but I couldn’t tell a vine from a bush so don’t trust me with that image.

The image that we all have in common is this one, the family kitchen table.  It is the one place in the house where people comfortably gather because we are both hungry and it is the one gathering place in the house.  Here you could argue with each other while you’re still passing the gravy.  Here you could see each other face to face and attempt to be civil, cordial, cooperative.  (Three “C’s” we’re in need of these days.)

I can still picture our Manitowoc, Wisconsin family kitchen table vividly.  It was folded back against the wall when not in use.  It usually collected five people for a typical meal but could be easily be extended to 12.  Parents often served as referees, as best they could.  We each had opportunities to posture ourselves or sit and eat quietly.

What happens in family conversations is a slow “pruning” as Jesus would call it.  The hurts of a child could be softened, the bad grade could be redeemed the next time around and a sibling’s upcoming event could be anticipated together.  Our family was reminded through the exchange of food what unity and oneness could look like.  Just like our present society, it did not always work but the image of what it could be was staring at us each time we entered the kitchen.  That family kitchen table.

If kitchen table doesn’t work for you then find your own image, a visible image that clings to your heart, respects your beliefs but also the beliefs of those who disagree with you.

If the communion host that we receive means anything, the “body of Christ,” then it means for us to have a constant and vigilant awareness of what can bring us together whether in religion or politics.

What we need to cherish our beliefs and also what needs to be pruned in order to be a community of people or even a community of faith.

“Stop it,” I keep saying to myself as the years pile on and retirement slowly becomes a real word for me.

“I want to be 18 again with all the silly questions and worries that preoccupied me then.  All my hesitations and doubts at that age as best I can recall now instead of the confidence and assurance that experience has taught me, sometimes in spite of myself and other times through thoroughly practice.”

“Stop it.”  Another aging spot appeared today when yesterday my skin was smooth and taut.  My 20’s was a time wondering how I would succeed and the tests in school, endless tests that tested only what I remembered the teacher said in class instead of the comfort age has given me of knowing what happened years ago and not repeating the same mistake.

“Stop it.”  I think I need a larger belt but I refuse to buy one.  In my case it was being endlessly asked “When will you get your own parish” as though I’m wasting my time in this parish doing all I need to do as an associate pastor.  For you it may have been the failed marriage because you thought you knew it all and discovered, sadly, the opposite.  For me, there was often in my head that Saturday night confusion about tomorrow’s sermon, “You don’t want to say that,” “This is weak stuff,” instead of the assurance I know enjoy that I have something to say and Saturday night has returned to being a fun night.

“Stop it.”  Alas, my thighs seem to be disproportional to the rest of my body.  My 30’s brought out childhood questions like “Will they like me?” “Will they accept me?” (I think of “A Knights Tale” movie where it’s said, “You’ve been weighted, measured and found unworthy”) instead of the hard earned peace that surprises me often now when I experience it.

“Stop it.” “What’s with this grey stuff that sticks over my natural head of hair?”  Do I really miss my early humor that was often at the expense of someone else instead of the self-effacing humor that I easily throw out today?

Was all that turmoil and young confusion that attractive to me that I now yearn for a repeat performance?  I smile to myself when thinking about it because I then say, “You’ve got to be kidding.”  (pun intended.)

I think they’re looking out the window and admiring creation –  squirrels and birds this quiet morning when they’re actually planning an escape.  I provide their food each morning before going to work but they expect it whether I remembered to do it or not.  They jump up on my lap to show me their thanksgiving for my kindness, toys, vaccinations, and two tumor removals when they just want some attention from time to time.  (And, always on their time, by the way.)  I open the door after work and they are right there to greet and welcome me back home while they believe I was just standing outside the door for eight hours to taunt and tease them.

Pets.  You love ’em and wouldn’t go without them but you wonder what they’re thinking in their small, limited heads  –  far below my superior and informed head.

You think to yourself, “you know, if only I could become one of them then I could show and tell them what it’s like to be me and how much I love them.  Then those lovable, adorable creatures would know how I’m feeling and what I believe about them.”

It worked with humanity, so why can’t it work with my cats?  Didn’t it?

These two guys had eight, handy tools surrounding them for easy access.  I know because I’m watching them and count the tools they need wrapped around their waist as though preparing for a gun fight with the town’s villain.  Sometimes this tool is used but now this smaller tool is needed for that sharp corner.  In tandem, one outside and the other inside they perform their task and warn the other if that smudge is his or his partner’s.

I watch them while waiting for an appointment (never read magazines in a doctor’s office; who touches them except sick people!) as they diligently complete one before moving to the second.  Their faces are task orientated and focused, this completed job only leads to the next set down a ways.

I walk into a hospital room knowing only an unknown name and possibly a diagnosis that I may know or not.  Another enters a prison cell wondering how he/she will be received.  Another stops the woman on the street who appears lost.    I open the door to an anonymous appointment and she walks into my office.  I’m stopped after Mass and a stranger says, “May I have a word with you right now?”

I don’t even have John the Baptist’s leather belt or the eight tools that my window washer friends so easily used.  I only have that “Hi” followed by anything and everything that follows; rarely with a solution especially for that tough corner no one’s been able to reach.  I’m searching for tools in my head in milliseconds only to find that my eyes are listening and my ears are seeing the conflict or turmoil or pain.  I can only hope that her/his window to the soul may be ready to be seen through and somehow realize that all will be okay.

“There is a time for everything under the sun,” says Ecclesiastes.  John Houseman made famous the phrase, “We will serve no wine before its time.”

There are specific tasks for every stage of life, according to psychologists.  To miss one stage is to delay the next; to skip one is dangerous not only to the individual but to all those around him/her.

Like a Monopoly game, you simply cannot pass “Go” until you go around the board.  Along the way, you pay a little tax, perhaps St. James Place, New York Avenue, or one of the railroads; and God-forbid Boardwalk or Park Place.  (Big rent areas!)  There are no short cuts to playing Monopoly, only strategy.  We in the U.S. love short cuts.  If there’s an easier way to do something, we will not only find and use it but we will brag about it for weeks to come.

“I bought this suit for only $75.00, it’s regularly $350.00!  Isn’t this a deal?”  We all marvel at the suit wearer’s good fortune.  “Boy, if that could only happen to me,” we think to ourselves.  “Why does he get all the deals.”

“Short cuts and something for nothing” could be an American theme.  You’ve successfully bypassed what the rest of us schmucks needed to endure.

Faith needs to be transposed into our daily lives.  After all, we only have our daily lives to organize and work with.  So, faith can easily become a commodity.  “I can’t come to Mass today but can I still get a host?”  I think only an American would even think of asking that question.  “I’m in a hurry Father, can’t I just make a general confession?” asks the businessmen during his lunch hour.

There is a wedding feast.  It is prepared for each of us.  Doesn’t the image of a wedding surpass all other events in our daily lives?  It is so special, everyone is dressed up, everyone is filled with hope and happy.  We want to make the potential of this newly wed couple our own.

How “prepared” we are for this special wedding feast depends on each of us.

•    You cannot be a mature adult and still harbor petty, childish thoughts.  There was a time for that and it has passed.
•    You cannot be a mature adult and think that the world bows at your feet.  There was a time for that and it has passed.
•    You can’t be a mature adult and believe that everything works out for the good with a flick of a magic wan or a secret potion.  There was a time for that and it has passed.
•    You can’t be a mature adult and feel that your needs are above the needs and concerns of others.  There was a time for that and it has since passed.
•    You can’t be a mature adult and feel that God is waiting for you to slip up so that He can punish you.  There was a time for that and it has, indeed, passed.
•    You can’t be a mature adult and feel that God looks at all the stuff that you’ve accumulated and calls it “good.”  There was a time for that and it has, happily, passed.

Yours and my list can contain a long list of things which we hold on to and just can’t let go of for dear life.

God’s wedding feast is ready and prepared, just for you.  Are you ready?  Have you passed “Go?”

If only I could do it again, it’d be much different from the first time.  The first time I was drowsy from the early morning hour until recess when I perked up and then drowsy throughout the afternoon from lunch, and then I went home.  This went on for eight years.

Grade school.  Those formative years that somehow formed me in spite of myself.  I could say the same for high school and college but for different reasons.

If I returned now?  Now, I’d awake sharpened with my No. 2 pencil and iPad in tow, only without the backpack.  (I refuse to carry a backpack, too heavy at my age.)  I’d have my homework completed and double spaced.  I’d wear a nice suit and tie.  I’d have a healthy lunch prepared.  I’d sit in front.  I would not gossip about the class “geek” or the hero-quarterback.  I’d be silent waiting to absorb what the teacher carefully prepared for me that day. I wouldn’t mind sitting in a small, cramp desk with no ink well but I’ll be able to fit underneath it in case of a nuclear attack. (How was a desk supposed to be protect me from a nuclear attack?!)

Would this all be an act to impress her?  No, that was the first time around, this time I’m serious about this education stuff.  My grade school nuns had me pegged as an “empty vessel” waiting to be filled even though my spout was not very open. (see “drowsy” above.)  This second time my vessel is already filled, sometimes overflowing, and I want to make sense of it all.

Is education wasted on the youth?  I guess it is, in spite of what might sift through to get them going in life but my second time around would be challenging, cleansing and assimilating to my 62 years.

Now, when I raise my hand it is no longer to go to the bathroom to kill time but to ask a haunting question looking for life clues.  I no longer need to impress the teacher, I need her to impress upon me how education integrates facts and knowledge into a synthesis that can refill and refine this aging vessel.

Yes, I would bring an apple to school only to nourish and not make her think better of me than the rest.  I want her to survive another day to smooth out my rough edges of how history can be distorted and misused, how the U.S. empire is different from Rome’s (perhaps a leap for grade school education, but it’s worth a try!), what is important in life and what needs to be labeled relative.

After school, I’d dutifully go home (my own house since my parents are heavenly) and lay out the day’s assignments that need my attention.  I would delight in this second time challenge and I would luxuriate in the task before me that calls for critical thinking and discernment.

The following day (different suit, of course) I’d proudly present my carefully prepared analysis to my grade school teacher who would softly but firmly tear it apart piece by piece.  The first time around I would have walked home wounded scared to show my parents.  This second time around I would return home and eagerly start it all over again.