“I Can Smell It!”

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Image

the underrated sense

It’s the sense that’s secondary to what we think are the dominant senses of seeing and hearing but its prevalence is outstanding.  We easily say to each other, “I hear what you’re saying,” or “I see the picture of your new grandchild,” but when would we ever have reason to say, “I can smell that on you.”

High school retreats inevitably ask the question, “What sense would you keep if you had to lose some.”

I can still smell my father’s cheap cigar, both in memory or when I pass someone smoking one.  It’s a rich remembrance of our family fireplace and his steady place to enjoy one after supper or after returning home from work.  Place your head on a pillow case that’s been dried by the sun and you’ll know what I mean.  A friend of mine owned the complete Aramis cologne line.  He dutifully applied it each day not knowing that its remnants remained on his clothes and that a daily application was no longer necessary.  I knew that he’d arrived before he opened the door.

We like to boast to ourselves that we’re pretty intelligent and critically thinking people.  “I see through you,” we may think to ourselves about a suspiciously made comment.  “I’ve been hearing some bad things about you,” says a parent who talked to the wrong parent about you.  The obvious senses kick in each day.  The smelling sense is the one that makes sense (no pun intended) to me because it’s deeper.  It invites us to explore not just life’s first layer but its second and third as well.  Movies, of course, rely on the obvious senses of sight and sound but when I saw “An American Quilt” I was blown away when Ann Bancroft slowly walks around her seated husband and smells adultery.  Can you smell adultery?  Perfume is a cheap way out but to rely on this unsung sense is to get to the bottom of a problem. “Something rotten in Denmark” ring a bell?

Tell me that smelling bacon in a restaurant doesn’t make you want to buy the place or the brewing coffee that you can already taste but are still waiting for or the smell we feel in the air the first days of fall.

Wisconsin’s weather has a unique scent to each season.  The fall air has this melancholy, fresh scent that tells me that one thing is ending and the other dreadful thing is about to begin, yet again.  Summer’s scent simply has smells that are warmingly relaxing.  I can smell the Florida ocean the minute I get off the plane.  Florida has a full, rich scent that envelops you.

You can live your whole faith in sights and sounds.  It can uplift you, change you and comfort you through all times of life.  I loved the church’s sights and sounds since I was young.  As I get older I’m started to smell around this faith stuff.   With all my questioning and unraveling and gathering I still grab hold of this sacred church.

I’ve been a smoker most of my life so you would think that my sense of smell is pretty well shot.  Well, you’re wrong.  I’m surprised at how much I’m able to smell, ponder and reflect upon.  At my age, I’ve pretty well got the church’s sights and sounds down pat.  It’s now the smells that I want to explore, enjoy and find even more enriching.

Oh, I almost forgot, don’t forget the smell of a new car. There’s nothing like it.

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

My Guardian Angel

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Image

“Ever this day be at my side to love and guard me…”

You’re on my shoulder, my mother told me but I never believed her.  How could you rest on my shoulder, you might fall!

I never thought of you being anywhere except everywhere.  Why else would angels have wings if not to carry them where ever the need calls.

A hurried winged job to the soul because things don’t seem right between yesterday and today.  “Solve it, dear angel,” we softly think without using the words.

No, no, it’s not the soul today it’s the mind that has filled itself with repetitive thoughts.  Thoughts that go no where but continue to invade my mind, “help me, dear angel, to bring perspective to my thoughts and mind.”

Oh wait!  It’s now in my conversation, I’m on the verge of saying something that I know that I’ll regret later but I can’t seem to stop myself…”stop me, dear angel, before I embarrass myself and the one whom I wanted to embarrass.

Wow.  Are they floating now as I speak?  Are they in the chapel proper or just within our minds?  Do they hover, float or land where they are needed?

We probably hadn’t thought of the angels details but they must be considered.  Are they always without and within or only when we need them?  Did God created them or are they of our needed creation?  And, do we really need them?

Oh wait!  I feel one landing on my shoulder as I speak but I don’t really need a guardian angel right now or do I?  Ah, yes,  my guardian angel just told me that it is time for me to stop talking and begin Mass.

books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS, available in paperback or Kindle at Amazon:
“Soulful Musings”
“Living Life’s Mysteries”
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings”
Posted in Angels, Spirituality | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

John 3:16

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

ImageYou once encountered them at airports but I think they gave up on us weary travelers.  They are no longer strangers but can be your neighbor or even a member of your family.  I’d call them the “John 3:16” crowd.  Perhaps “3:16” is tight enough for our culture’s shortening of names. 

One translation reads, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  

There you have it.  All the books in the bible reduced to one simple sentence (and the Catholic bible has even more books than the protestants).  “Do this and this will happen,” is what they are effectively saying.  They should do an advertisement for a cleaning product and enjoy the same success, “it’s clean, easy and there’s no mess.”

 But what happens when you mention the most dreadful word to these absolutists and fundamentalists neighbors and friends of yours?  The word is “sometimes.”  Their already glossed over eyes become even creamier and you may even see smoke emit from their ears upon hearing the most ghastly and scary word that they’ve ever heard; sometimes.

Where is “sometimes” mentioned in the bible?  Where is “sometimes” felt in my life?  Well, sometimes it may be this way and other times it may be that way.  That makes the word “sometimes” synonymous with compassion and love.  Love and compassion are never absolutes, they are fluid and some days and sometimes it is freely given and others times it takes a lot of effort to extend them.

That’s what makes Jesus so paradoxical.  In one biblical passage he makes excellent wine for his mom and then in other says that his mom is everybody except who’s not in this room.  He talks of a kingdom of God being here and then later discourses about bringing havoc to our little homes and apartments.

The Catholic Church provides a questionnaire to those wishing to be married and one question is “if your future spouse is unfaithful to you, it would end the marriage.”  All the future couples say, “yes” as though that’s the correct response.  The Church says, “no, wrong answer and no parting gifts.”

We make easy what is not easy but fluid.  We can make simple what can take years and experience to achieve.  We can reduce when the reduction simply misses the mark.  “Sometimes” is sometimes and other times is, well, other times.  You can introduce sin here as a reason but I prefer the unpredictably yet predictable human life.     

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Character We Play

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

ImageThe overpaid actor waits outside the studio lot for next week’s TV script.  The successful show has earned him a modem of success and the next script could lead him to even bigger projects.  “I wonder what my character will do this week?” the actor thinks to himself as he awaits a 12 hour day of rehearsals and taping.  He thinks that his character should do this or that, it’s only natural considering the past episodes yet he’s not the writer, others are given that job.  “My character said that he loved her so why not pop out the ring?” he thinks to himself.  “God,” he quickly thinks to himself, “what if this week the writers decide to kill me off and replace me with a cheaper actor.”  (“Do union dues cover this?” he mumbles to himself.)

If we say that God is in charge then that let’s us off of life’s hook.  If we say we’re a humanist than we’re pretty much damned to repeat today what happened yesterday.

“Script.”  I love that word.  Someone else has written words that we need to speak, and we need to mean it.  Are the words the rote that we’ve rehearsed and performed for decades or are they new insights that we’ve garnered that we’re able to incorporate into our character; that person who performs each day in front of others.

Acting is a learned skill.  Living life is a blessed, learned skill.  Invented and reinvented, everyday.

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged | Leave a comment

“Forever and Ever”

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

ImageNo matter your age, those words speak volumes.  They speak of a tomorrow that is promised to each age.  Give an Alzheimer’s test to a 12 year old and she’d be committed for sure.  She has no idea about time because for her it is timeless.  The hopes and dreams that lull her to sleep each night are full of “forevers and evers.”

Turn the numbers around and he finds himself close to college graduation and the unknown tomorrows scare yet lure him toward them.  The commencement address only adds to the excitement of the “oyster” or the “budding flower” or the “anticipation” theme of the speaker.

Add twenty more to the graduate’s age and “forever” redefines itself but never loses its punch.  Now it’s the growing bigger home and fancier car that establishes his today is here because there’s a tomorrow.  (“Larger mortgages, car payments, it’s all okay.”)
Add another twenty and she may be in her second marriage but “forever” still lives in the wings.  “This is man I love,” she thinks to herself while fondly remembering the “forever” statement to the first one.  Retirement plans are now in the works with “forever” written all over them.  “61?  That’s nothing.”

Let’s add twenty more and see where he is now.  Who would have thought?  He’s still in “forever” mode.  His wife’s passing along with many friends he now clings to, you guessed it, “forever.”  There’s a place for him that’s been prepared (some religions you need to plan for, others it’s just one of the perks) just for him since the beginning of his life.  How long does “forever” stuff last?  I think you already know the answer.

He smiles to himself and she smiles to herself.  The adage is “to live for the day” but we all know we live for”evers and evers.”     

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged | Leave a comment

“Pie In The Sky” or Isaiah 11: 1-11

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Image

Advent scripture reading

One that day
(in my lifetime or the next century?)
a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. 

Not by appearance shall he judge
(black, hispanic asian or any flavor that is not the same as my color)
nor by hearsay shall he decide
(MSNBC and FoxNews will merge and then implode together on live television),
but he shall judge the poor with justice
(no more, “it’s their own doing, lazy, selfish”),
and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. 
(“Who are the society’s real poor?  Cyber Monday?  Black Friday, Southridge Mall was open for 26 straight hours!”) 

He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth. 
(Rush Limbaugh told his 15 million listeners that the pope is a socialist.  The Catholic Church is socialist.  He was trying to insult us.  Tell us something we don’t know!)

and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. 
(After someone makes a stupid statement, you just look at the person…I love that one)

Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips. 
(You are now armed with compassion, mercy, forgiveness, hopefulness and promises beyond our imaginations.)

Then the wolf (Blitzer) shall be a guest at the Boehner’s household for supper; and those making a living salary will lie down with all the WalMart employees;

browsing together with teenagers who think they know all the answers along with older adults who really do know all the answers… all with a little child to guide and be influence by both of them.

The cow and the bear shall be neighbors
(“You clean up your own dung and I’ll take care of attacking the campers at night. Fair enough?!”)
 
Together their young shall rest
(Is it possible for two semi-conflicting views to merge into one?  We always pray and say, yes.) 

The lion shall eat hay like the ox. 
(A friend just told me that the way politics was done years ago was that U.S. Senators got together at night, had a cigar together and a few brandies, then fell on the floor and found a solution.)

The baby shall play by the cobra’s den. 
(It gets a little tricky here.  “Does my talking to you mean that I’m indeed talking to you or does it mean that I agree with you when I can’t agree because of all the stuff that keeps me talking to you.  This applies not only to statesmen but to all families at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.)

and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. 
(probably the most significant of everything in this Isaiah reading.  Who takes the first step?  Who?  (Another friend of mine uses the image of dance to describe conflicting views.  “Can we dance together?” he asks.  “Who’s gonna to lead and who’s going to follow?”  And is dancing like that really about winning and losing or enjoying the music and uncovering a compromise.)

There shall be no harm or ruin on all my hold mountain. 
(How can either of those things exist when people are willing to talk together, work together, to be seen in the same room together.)

For his dwelling will be glorious.

“Sorry Isaiah.” “Yeah, right.”  “Baa-Umbug.”

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Where Is Eucharist Celebrated?

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Image

St. Martins in the Field

My priest friend and I were finishing a hiking tour in Austria and spent our last days in London.  We saw a Broadway show on Saturday night and then Sunday morning arrived.

We walked to St. Martin in the Fields square complete with pigeons, a coffee shop and an old Episcopal Church.  We enjoy our morning coffee and he tells me that he looked online for Catholic Churches in the area and found one nearby whose Mass would begin in thirty minutes.  I look at him as if to say, “And your point is?”  He said that I was welcome to join him but that he was going.  I said, “Just look where you are and you want to go to church?”  Well, he left for his church and I was alone; or was I?

10:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, St. Martins in the Field (where Neville Marriner has recorded more classical music than Andrew Greely characters), the pigeons fly and flop around the fountain as more people gather, I’m holding the London Times and a cup of coffee along with a nearby ashtray.  It slowly begins a misty rain (the Irish call it a “soft rain”) and I wonder if I should go inside.  I think to myself, “I’m from Milwaukee, Wisconsin; I’m not going anywhere!”

The rain moistens my newly unread newspaper but soon leaves as softly as it arrived.  The people continue to gather, the pigeons do what pigeons do and I’m on the steps of an ancient Episcopal Church with my coffee and a cigarette pondering the meaning of life that I’ve pondered for decades now with little comforting results.

The pondering stops and I think to myself, “Wow.”  Just that.  It reads the same backwards as forward.  I just think, “Wow.”

My priest friend returns after fulfilling his Catholic obligation and told me that the sermon was long and boring.

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Life’s Legacy

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

ImageWe see the fresh snow falling after supper and immediately bundle up and head outdoors.  (Boy, have I changed!)  We purposelessly run around and achieve no achievement except the sheer fun of being a part of this upcoming storm.  It doesn’t matter how much, it only mattered that it was drifting down and we were a part of it.

It isn’t long before we throw ourselves into the white stuff and stretch out our arms and legs.  We made angels.  We opened our mouths to capture a few of the flakes while our creation continued to be created.  The difficult part came in the exodus.  We didn’t plan that far ahead but if our creation is to be then we must someone release ourselves from this newly created imprint.  Slowly we rise to what would be the angel’s stomach and in one quick jump we’ve succeeded in leaving our angel in tacked.  We stare at our new creation for ten seconds until the next attraction attracts us.  It’s still snowing and there’s more time remaining before the adult curfew.

Years pass by and “legacy” becomes our new adult word for that snowed angel.  What imprint will remain when we’re gone?  Will new snow just cover the angel that we’ve painstakingly spent years creating?  Will that new young guy they just hired shovel over our joyful angel?  Or better yet, will he even see the angel that we created?

Was all our stretching for nothing?  The previous generation gave us a hard time for new ideas and the next generation now smiles at us without even knowing our name.

I stretched out many angels in my life and the beauty of any angel is that it is never recognized or acknowledged to me.  The angel is discovered and lived in the least place and person I know.  Someone comes up to me and says, “What you said in a sermon ten years ago has stayed with me since then.”  I have no idea what I said or who she is but I know that my stretching helped to stretch her.  Happy angel making.

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

Jesus says, “Mean Yes When You Say Yes.”

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Image

It’s a simple question. What is your answer?

I hate when someone comes up to me and asks, ‘What are you doing today?”  I have to answer, “Nothing.”
“Oh good,” she says.  “Would you clean the toilets?”

“Damn, I think to myself.  Tricked again.”  If only she asked me the second question first, “Would you clean the toilets today?”  Then my answer can quickly become, “Oh, that’s too bad, I’m completely busy today.  Sorry.”

What Jesus ask?.  He asks the first question and none other.  No details or duties.  Jesus says to each of us, “What are you doing today?”

Details and duties, Jesus doesn’t seem concerned about them.  As if he’d say, “They’ll work themselves out.”

Who would say, “Yes” if the questions were life’s second ones?

“Hey how would you like to be a widow and raise your three children alone?”  “Wow, Jesus, really!  I’d love to do that.”  Hardly.

“Hey…
— how would you like to be cancer free for one year only to have it return?
— how would you like to know that your mind is fading away with each passing week and there is nothing anyone can do about it?
— how about having an inoperable tumor and the doctor says, “Let’s just wait and see?”
—how about a stupid car accident leaves your son a paraplegic?

Or simpler but just as complex ones…
“Hey…
— how about carrying a big chip on your shoulder that weighs you down daily?
— how being stuck in a job that you hate but having children to feed and clothe?
— how about finding something wrong with everything because you’re right about everything?
— how about being bored at 80 years old as much as a 12 year old is on a rainy Saturday afternoon?

If Jesus asked us the second question first, how many of us would say, “Hey, great, bring it on!”  Instead Jesus only asks us the first question first, “What are you doing today?”

You know, this “yes” and “no” stuff of Jesus doesn’t make any sense.  It doesn’t matter in life whether we say “yes” or “no” to Jesus because stuff will happen to us either way.  You’ll still have that cancer or you’ll still have that shoulder’s chip.

But saying “yes” to Jesus begins a partnership.  A true value, as the Alexian Brothers tell us, partnership is a mutual and beneficial exchange and experience between two people.  

We tend to think of God as the “Big Guy Up There” and we’re His tiny puppets puppetting through life.  Yet as God’s creation, as God’s creatures we are hardly puppets attached to a heavenly string.  St. Paul calls us “ambassadors” for surely we are that in making God known and present in our world.  That’s our part of the partnership.

God fulfills His part of the partnership by providing us with every possible gift (religious word) or tool (earthly word) that we need to make it through this life:
mercy…kindness…forgiveness…patience…an extra cheek when the first one was smacked… left eye because we  plucked the right one…
and most importantly the grace (religious word) for the strength and stamina (earthly words) to answer Jesus’ first and only question to us, “What are you doing today?”

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged | Leave a comment

A String’s Strength

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Image

“I’ve got the world on a string, sitting on a rainbow…”

“I’ve Got the World On A String” was a popular song declaring satisfaction, ease and comfort during a time of its opposites.  The reeling depression years prompts Harold Arlen’s 1932 song of supposed victory and newly found strength.  He cleverly uses as an image not a rock or mountain or religion’s certitude but what, a string.

The flimsiest of substances, a string can be broken by a single lit match, a quick tear or a tangling that causes many of the string parts to become enmeshed.  Confidence based on a string.  “Wow, is that future secure or what?” we say to ourselves.  As the song goes, the string is even “around my finger.”  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?  The string holding your security is tied around your finger?” we say to ourselves once again.  I guess leaving the Depression Years meant everyone is alone making due on his/her own.

Due.  What a great word.  What is “due” me?  We use the word “entitlement” these days to describe everyone receiving something that we’re not while we’re receiving all sorts of our own societal entitlements.  There is always the “dew” that falls from heaven and then there is the “due” that is horizontally shifted to us.  What is “due” us?  Our Christian faith says rightly absolutely nothing.  Arlen was correct by using a string as an imaginary personal strength.

Employees these days feel as secure as a piece of string.  Older adults live on a string, everyday.  If you’re in you’re 90’s, you may even feel that string getting caught up sometimes in itself but you continue to move the world, or least your world, with the your string.

“What a world,” continues the lyrics, “what a life, I’m in love.”  A string separates us from one element to another; be it our due or our death.  A string.  The weakest of images but its best to keep us stringing along in this world that we feel owes us its due; or better yet its dew.

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , , | Leave a comment