Struggles of a pre-blog writer

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An unusual thing happened in the friary in which I live. There was a waiting line at the coffee machine and as we are wont to do when together, our house naturally moves into storytelling. One of the brothers is working on his doctorate and is in the midst of writing the chapters of his dissertation. So there is often inquiry of him on how the process is going. Not surprisingly, as we waited for the coffee machine to finish its start-up, there began storytelling about writing. Others in the house have doctorates and have taught at the university and graduate school level and so have lots of stories about preparing their own dissertations as well as serving as a reader on other’s submissions. Now if you are having a hard time imagining how such a narrative could be engaging, funny and a cliff-hanger… well, it depends on who is telling the story… or, you had to be there. I will leave them to start their own blog. But here is a tale of when and where my writing career started and almost ended. Continue reading →

Comes the Spirit

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Today’s first reading is from one of my favorite books: The Book of Jonah. The book is only four chapters long and we are in Chapter 3. The whole Jonah and the “whale” has already happened, Jonah has traveled to Nineveh as a very reluctant prophet. Frankly Jonah hopes that God calls down a rain of fire, death, doom and destruction upon the king, the people, and all the animals. His entire call to conversion is five words in Hebrew. We get a few  more in English, but not many: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” Jonah does not say who will destroy them or why or in any way amplify the bottom line.

“When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.” (Jonah 3:10) Great! The Ninevites repented, God relented, and Jonah’s prophetic mission is complete. But poor Jonah, it’s not the result he wanted. Chapter 4 is a long description of Jonah pouting about this turn of events.

But such are the turn of events when the Holy Spirit comes in ways you’d never expect.

It happens all the time to every homilist if we are honest. Sometimes I sit and wonder from whence came the idea for a particular homily. But mostly I am surprised after the homily.

A person comes up to say, “Thank you, Father, your homily really touched me. It was just what I needed to hear.”  Often I will ask them what moved their hearts. The reply is often not the point of the homily, but there was one word, one phrase upon which the Holy Spirit descended and turned into a seed which will bear great fruit in the life of the listener.

But such are the turn of events when the Holy Spirit comes in ways you’d never expect.

Enthusiastic or reluctant, gifted or timid, … whatever… speak into the waiting world. The Spirit can take over from that point.

Do you know your monsters?

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To be clear, I am not a fan of horror movies. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, then why let the monsters in…. right? My limit is somewhere around the GEICO commercial-spoof of horror movies. But as a public service, seeing that Halloween approaches and various networks will show horror movies non-stop, I thought it would be good to offer you the 15 strangest, most elusive beasts in the dictionary. Enjoy. In the meantime, I will pray none of us encounter a chupacabra or wyvern.

The Way and the Promise

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This coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time in Cycle B of the Lectionary. It is a familiar story: “As [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17).

The beginning of the Gospel according to Mark begins with John the Baptist citing Isaiah speaking of the messenger: “he will prepare your way…Prepare the way of the Lord.” (Mark 1:2-3) In both verses the underlying word for “way” is hodos. There are other places in Mark when hodos is used and is translated as ‘way” – e.g., “the way of God in accordance with the truth,” and describing Jesus and the apostles “on the way” in 8:27 and 10:32. So it is odd that in 10:17, the same word hodos is translated as journey in the New American Bible (NAB). Continue reading →

Mission and Belonging

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“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

It is a great passage, a great image, but… I suspect when we hear that word “yoked” a particular image comes to mind. We imagine two or more beasts of burden, a huge twin harness joining them, while they pull the heavily weighted wagon, till the fields, and perform all manner of really hard work. Yet there is some comfort in the idea that the work is shared, the harness adjusted to fit, and together with a kind of family – all geared towards a common mission and purpose. Continue reading →

The Kingdom’s cost

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ChineseJesus-rich-manThis coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time in Cycle B of the Lectionary. It is a familiar story: “As [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17). Matthew refers to him as “a rich young man.”

In this part of Mark’s account, Jesus has been consistently teaching his disciples the meaning of the Kingdom in his examples and explanations: greatness means to serve the least among the people (9:36-37).  He has already told them that the path of discipleship will consist, not just of demonstrations of power (healing and casting out demons), but also one in which one “must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (8:34) At times these lessons have come at the end of a dispute with the Pharisees or scribes as we saw in the previous Sunday gospel. There Jesus tells the disciples about the creative intent of God in the formation of marriage and family (10:2-16) as a means of describing the Kingdom echoed in human experience. Continue reading →

Are we ready?

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One of the late summer, early autumn rituals in Florida is hurricane preparedness. You might be thinking, “ah….isn’t that the middle of the peak of hurricane season?” Yes, it is. And to be clear there also has to be a projection of a hurricane possibly heading to your home area for any meaningful preparedness activities to be undertaken in earnest.. And then, even at that, the level of preparedness is related to the projected storm strength. “Only Cat 1? No problem, we’re good.” The fact that, especially in Gulf of Mexico waters, storms can rapidly increase to Cat 3 and 4 is acknowledged, “but that stuff hits Texas or Louisiana – maybe the Florida Panhandle, but that’s almost Alabama anyway.” Every year in late May the newspapers print a special insert on preparing for hurricane season; not sure how well it is read.  I am not sure we Floridians are the most prepared for hurricane season and we know it’s coming. We’ll chat about it, we’ll tell stories about particular hurricanes, “that was a big one; blew roofs clean off homes. The whole neighborhood had the blue tarp covers on roofs for months. Yup, that was a big one.” But as the seasons change, Floridian’s conversations shift from hurricanes to the changing colors of … auto license plates during the annual snowbird invasion, congesting roads but filling state tax coffers with the tourist tax. We’re prepared for that. Continue reading →

From the backseat

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I remember family road trips when I was a child.  All my cousins on my father’s side lived in Atlanta. My dad was the only one of the 7 siblings that did not live in Atlanta. Each year – sometimes over Thanksgiving, sometimes over Christmas – we would load up the car with kids, bags, and whatnot and off we went. There were games, snacks, and drinks for us all. There was a suitcase with my clothes. The car was serviced, the oil checked, and the gas tank filled. This was before the days of the interstate highways and so there was route planning that needed to be done. I contributed to none of that. My only job was to be on time having recently gone to the bathroom and subsequently thoroughly washed my hands. I wasn’t in charge or responsible for any task or duties. I was 8 years old. Continue reading →

Francis and the Leper: Growing Pains

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…and we continue with some historical context and background for our consideration of the accounts of St. Francis and the Leper.

By the spring of 1213, four years after the founding of the “order,” Francis’ reputation had risen to the attention of the Italian aristocracy – not just in Assisi but throughout central Italy.  The order was beginning to attract men from the higher social classes. Sons of merchants like Francis, sons of the landed wealthy, sons of ruling households, men with established careers in law, music and the arts, and also ordained priests. They joined the already formed group of men from middle and lower backgrounds and joined in on the muddling through what it meant to follow Christ in the manner of Francis. G.K. Chesterton’s later definition of the Catholic Church – “here comes everybody.” Broadly speaking, apart from their spiritual gifts, these were “company men.” How many friars joined the fraternity in those years?  It is impossible to say, but we do know this: in 1217 the annual meeting (called a “chapter”) made the decision to send out missions across the Alps into northern Europe, the Baltic states, and to the Crusader States in the eastern Mediterranean. Within Italy, six provinces were established; outside of Italy, five provinces were established: Spain, northern and southern France, Germany, and Syria. Some scholars have written that the number of brothers exceeded 700 men. Continue reading →

50 years ago; for 50 years

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Lots of social media posts, tweets, emails, and the like, today, are announcing the Walt Disney World outside of Orlando – today turns 50 years old. I grew up in Orlando and was in my second year of college when the doors opened to “where dreams come true” and of course Christmas vacation included a trip to the theme park. It was amazing, sparkly new, and a lot of fun. As you might imagine the Central Florida papers prepared articles for a walk down memory lane – some are engaging, some just rehashing old news, some written in a way that make me feel old… of course, I was in college 50 years ago…. so they aren’t wrong!

But there was an article in the Tampa Bay Times that I thought we really interesting. There are three employees who were there for opening day and these 50 years later still work at Walt Disney World:

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Walt Disney World employees from left, Chuck Milam, Earliene Anderson and Forrest Bahruth gather at the Magic Kingdom in August to celebrate their 50 years working at the park. [ JOHN RAOUX | AP ]

You can read the article here.  Congrats to them all!

Feature image: WDW News Today, October 1