Becoming

The human struggle with identity. There was both an individual struggle and a communal struggle with this identity. Now more than ever.

I am nothing except what I have absorbed from my father. I knew what he liked, how he thought. He had passed on to me what was important in life. I share within me a part of his identity. All that was important. And a lot of what he liked and how he thought.

I spend a lot of time at ballparks, like my dad. With a certain edge. Last night I was asked a question about baseball. I was asked a question about the umpires by someone my own age. The questioner did not know the answer, but attempted to offer an answer. That answer was not close to the truth. I too bluntly asked what good it was to give an answer when you really had no idea.

I did not like the local broadcasters who purported to know everything. It made me think how poor the current generation of broadcasters were, as they tried to project a certain image. There was never a discussion on air about issues like this one, developing umpires. Are crews kept together season to season? The crew chief’s job was to work to make the rookie umpire better. The crew chief’s job was to make this an efficient 4-man crew. What I did not know was, since the day that the commissioner’s office had allowed National League umpires to integrate with American League umpires, whether these were one year gigs? Or whether the crews were dispersed each year with all new crews? If they ever get to keep working for a while with those partners who became a friend? A young umpire was nothing except what he had absorbed from his crew. And then what he did with it.

The new archbishop in New York City was quoted in February 2009 in the New York Times that a bishop’s success as a Catholic leader was to be judged in the numbers who elect to marry in the church, who attend Sunday Mass, or who join the priest or sisterhood. There were not many successful popes or archbishops anywhere, in an American perspective, based on this measuring stick, over the last 20 to 30 years.
Statistics show that 25% of all Catholics have left the Church of Rome for another church. Surely those 25% were not attending Mass. And the rate of Catholics becoming priests or nuns had fallen off dramatically over the past 40 years.

One day the crew chief would die and in baseball, he had to be replaced.

All of this was a part of the human struggle with identity. That “becoming.” There was an excitement in all of this “becoming.” In the formation. Of this communal and individual “becoming.”

Once a year I went away to this spot of Lake DeMontreville to look at what I had “become.” In that life journey, to actually stop to hear the “How’s it going?” question. To read those Genesis stories, where God asked, “Where are you Adam?” After he just ate the apple.

The journey. With its starts and stops. This year there was a retreat “master.” The crew chief, as it were, amidst the human struggle with identity. That retreat master’s opening remarks were “Pilgrim, there is no way. The way is made by going.”

My struggle. The pope’s struggle. In the journey. With an edge. In the simpleness of the morning, I had started once again on this “becoming” process, to grasp the reality of the earth. And to figure out how I fit into this story.

The human struggle, an individual struggle and a communal struggle, with identity. “Pilgrim, there is no way. The way is made by going.

In the Beginning

Americans owed the celebration of the 4th of July to a printer. That was how important newspapers and the printed word were to this country. The PRINTED word. The Declaration of Independence kept in the National Archives in Washington. The one with the 57 signatures. Composed on July 2nd, with a decision to make the declaration known to the public. After the delegates gave the agreed on statement to a printer, those lamentations to King George, the force of publication of this declaration had carried the July 4th date.

Americans owed the celebration of the 4th of July to a printer. To believe that a nation came into being on a particular day in 1776 is to ignore all that had gone in the past. The past wrongdoing. Conveying a belief of a need to amend wrongdoing, there was this Declaration of Independence signed, sealed but not really delivered. To King George.

Wrongdoing. Conveying a belief. In order to form a more perfect uinon, people came together because of wrongdoing. The United States was all about fairness. “Unalienable” rights. Once upon a time there was such a strong belief in the need to safeguard a unity, about what I called inalienable rights. Just printed.

Peter de Bolla writes today in the L.A. Times about an architecture of belief which had the power to change the world. May it also be remembered that the act of declaration in 1776 that created, founded, and continues to create a nation was based more on the action behind the words. Nowadays the world does not need more words. Rather it needs the resolve that went behind the words of the Declaration of Independence.

“Self-evident” truth. As to those signatures of people who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, there were added later signatures of men who had not even been in the room on July 2nd. Maybe truth that had not been so apparent to be self-evident that day. New congressional delegates whose signatures were added later, once there was a Congress.

Ah, politicians and the bandwagon affect! Independence Day had never been a declared federal holiday by Congress until 1941.

Peter de Bolla wrote, as the Colonies were at war in 1777, a small and very low-key celebration was mounted, the members of the Continental Congress did decide to note July 4 by not meeting, and everyone went to church.

A toast! To the newscopy just printed. To a free press. By those who searched for the truth. Heroic as any soldier. A toast to those conveying a belief in the ideals of government. The ones which shall not perish from the earth. Facts now presented to be read as “self-evident” truth. And actually purchased by some “of the people,” for fifty cents. A toast! To the ideals of the people, by the people, for the people. A toast to those who pledged their careers, lives, fortunes and sacred honor, with high resolve that the ideals of the nation which have always been here – and that the people under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that the ideals of government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

It has never been more difficult on these shores to be a worker in the news business than in 2009. Americans owed this celebration of the 4th of July to a printer, who posted a date of the printing. This holiday was all about what had gone on in one moment in time, two days before.

This Land Was Made for You and Me

This land was your land. This land was my land. From California. To the New York island. From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters. This land was made for you and me.

Belief. That this land was your land. This land was my land. From California. To the New York island.

California was now essentially bankrupt. However it had happened. INCOMPLETE

The Storm Predictor Center

Change. The theme was always about change. Most of us fought change. Yet we were called to be changed.

Storm Predictor Center. Storms changed lives.

Unease about the economic outlook? There was a lot of restlessness out there. Beyond the stories coming out of Iran.

Tribes. Settlers. Nationalized settlers. Whether Israel or Ireland or anywhere, people everywhere show inner beliefs are strong, based not on materialism, not on nationalism. But there was the new found clash of secularism with religion and the inner beliefs which will never change. All they will do is become civilized. People marry, settle, look for jobs. The clash of the developed world with the tribes of the 3rd world.

Tribes clashing with the settlers. Unrest. And more unrest.

That 3rd world that had become radicalized. By occupying foreign armies. By death and destruction. And the anger never subsides. The Turks and the Armenians. The Bosnians, the Serbs, and the Croats. Not in one hundred or 500 years.

Diaspora. Tornadoes and June. The hurricane season started again on June 1st. The unrest between water temperature and air temperature. Hurricanes seemed to be related to the unrest between water temperature and air temperature. And the flooding that resulted. Unrest. And more unrest.

Diaspora and Pakistan. It is said that there were 3.5 million people displaced by the pursuit of 5,000 Taliban. The tribes of the Taliban. While as fate would have it, people now in the throes of the worst post-World War II recession everywhere. I think we all saw the unrest in Pakistan as the threat. Where the currency exchange was 50 rupees per dollar in 1999, and now was 81 rupees per dollar. Unrest in the market. When political parties based on the Taliban, the old tribes, hope to secure power from the settlers there. A power that would include nuclear weapons. In a world that witnessed the hostility of the disenfranchised against the developed world that never listened. To those without cars. Without educations. With only the bond of kinsmen. Pakistan was in trouble.

Money and the times always provided the ambiance to the story. The story of life. Or the lack of any money also did. Coming to grips with it all. Diaspora, but with people stuck in homes they could not afford. One story of change, amongst the settlers.

The story of change and eventual death. The stories of destruction. Belief or disbelief. About what had happened. The social texture which grows out of its religious ground. Out of tribes and settlers. About whether death could be changed into life. Coming to grips with fear and change. Coming to grips with it all.

Changing fear into something else. Unease about the political outlook? There was a lot of restlessness out there in coming to grips with it all. The theme was always about change. When most of us fought change.

That Storm Predictor Center. And diaspora. Those storms changed lives.

Fathers and Horsehide

Father’s Day.

In the house I grew up in there was a spot in the basement where my father kept at least a dozen Reach baseballs.

Generations.

For my family, Father’s Day and baseball were and still are synonymous. Father’s Day and the U. S. Open are now synonymous, at least with fathers who grew up with television as a foster relative. In the age of television.

What is inside the ball? From one generation to the next, kids have always wondered what’s inside the ball. That Holy of Holies homily. What was the attraction?

Reach was the manufacturer of these baseballs kept in our basement. With Joe Cronin’s signature on them. Made in Haiti. In the late 19th century, Spalding acquired Reach and operated the company as a subsidiary, leaving the Reach name on these balls used in the American League ball. Our supply was always replenished.

Father’s Day. TO BE COMPLETED… That Holy of Holies homily.

That childhood sense of wonder of what was inside the ball. It was the first of the various real life mysteries in our lives.

The mystery and reality of life. The humanness of a Father. The institutional voice of a parent who was always there from the beginning. The seat of authority. Until one day any child had to answer the question: What do you want to be when you grow up?

There were always the questions. About baseball. About life. The bad hops. The game of inches. The indicator before the steal sign. When the outward signs, believed by the Irish Catholics anyway, instituted by Christ, over time produce INWARD signs. Those sacraments that produced Grace. On the playing field. In the churches. Giving Grace. From one generation to the next.

The subtleness of the mystery. God in His incredible subtleness, day in and day out. Until you eventually figured some things out. With the help of a father.

Generations were more adept at using the new technology. My brother subscribed to the “bigger, stronger, faster” philosophy in sports that you heard promoted on television. The new technology. In car commercials and sports. Wherever that had taken us. With Chrysler and General Motors.

In the age of steroids, from about 1996 through 2003, I used to wonder what was now inside the ball. Now I wonder what is inside the athlete. Baseball. As one of the mysterious celebrations. That started in the basement. At my house. Baseball was one of the outward signs, believed by me anyway, over time that produced INWARD signs. One of the sacraments that produced Grace.

Fireflies

In those days of youth, I traveled to Duluth in June with my grandparents and was photographed with a sister and brother looking at a train, a post card still sold in their tourist attractions. In those days of youth there were fireflies in the summer. I recall the jars uses as cages, punctured with airholes. The fireflies have since departed Minnesota for the most part where I live.

Time. And the waters. The waters for the most part keep on flowing by in the Land of 10,000 lakes. The waters used by all living thing. The only way to journey in this world is to give yourself over to it. To the journey, that is.

I grew up in an age when immersion described the Catholic way of life. Mark Massa is a Jesuit who wrote a piece in Company, discussing passing on the faith. In his piece, he quoted Alex de Tocqueville’s famous observation of religion here in his journey in the 19th Century, with the United States the most religious nation of the industrialized world. What he observed here and not in Europe was that religions were in competition, surviving as a voluntary activity, where the economic survival was from the religious group and not the government. Tocqueville wrote about the two different kinds of religious groups here. The culture model offered either a religious identity of total immersion or the evangelical outreach variety.

Total immersion defines my upbringing. I lived on a Catholic street, if the religion of the neighbors defined the neighborhood. I went to parochial school where, as I vividly recall, tuition was $35 to $60 a year over 8 years. The generation after me never has had this total immersion into a culture that I experienced. Not across the Catholic board.

My identity came from the immersion into a culture in what Mark Massa, S.J., described through a unique language and music that defined us. This Catholic culture met individual needs for social location, family values, and group interaction. This was the world of the 1950s and 1960s for Catholics and Jews. For the most part, Protestants were without a total immersion, or the ones on my block any how, when we moved to the Scandanavian enclave one mile away.

Last year I wrote down a quote on retreat from a priest about how few Filipinos know how to float. Father Foley had observed the fear of immersing the head, and a resistance to immersion. I had the same fear, about swimming. He said that once you learn how to float, you never forget to relax in the presence of water.

The fireflies have since departed Minnesota for the most part. Yet I see them once a year, in a weekend that I spend on retreat. In Lake Elmo, on Lake DeMontreville, mostly the retreat master watches in awe as God enters into their lives in very specific and individual ways. As one priest said, it was as though God had been waiting for so long to have this time with us. The retreatants. I don’t do much talking there, when individually most meet with the priest to discuss their relationships with God. The priest was there to help mediate.

This was a place of welcome and rest. Over time you become aware of perspective. DeMontreville was a space cared for by 3 Jesuits, where the Trappists farmed next door. Over time, you discover that you were absent a view, a perspective, and a focal point within, something much bigger than yourself. For me the spiritual excitement began after Benediction and the first night conference.

There was meaning in certain physical things I witnessed each of the June nights I have been there. There was a mystery. It was everywhere. It was in the fireflies on Thursday nights, at dusk. And it was with the stillness of the lake on a Sunday morning, with a glass effect to the lake, before morning prayer. And believe it or not, I witnessed these things each of the last 10 years. I felt a spiritual presence in this ritual of nature, before the fishermen and the water skiers came out of the near-by homes, before and after the first and last prayers of the day.

Oh the past six months! In these times, the whole concept of a path is a bit ridiculous. To wander for the year, without much of any income, to go forward with no clear destination in mind, is a dangerously foolish plan. Considering how inhospitable the financial world can be, the rising taxes, the rising health insurance premiums. But being here one begins to see the sense of the journey.

Pain and suffering taught something mysterious. Or on all matters of health: the physical, mental, fiscal, spiritual. There was a mystery in the caring. And the degree of this caring about someone was the mystery.

There was a different degree of the caring in each human. And suffering played a role in teaching that mysterious something. What did people say about God’s work of creation? In the study of God, Judaism can teach a lot about this world. Where Midrash was the commentary on the Torah. The degree of caring about the stories. In a sense, the mystery of life was the commentary here about creation. Where you and I were the Midrash. About the caring.

The importance for me in going on retreat was to hear the commentary of a Jesuit on his own life. And to see it in my own. Considering how inhospitable this financial environment can be, that commentary on creation with my life made the chapters worth writing. The degree of caring about the world all around me.

The Mystery. How does one not know, not feel God? How does one feel not close to God? Not everyone does. I had learned to wait for those fireflies of my youth. I had learned to wait for God, who, like those fireflies, had a way of appearing when I took the time to look at this particular place.

The Mystery. Wanting more. “I suspect in wanting more, in fact, we always feel distant,” wrote Larry Gillick this week. Wondering of the meaning of people who say they would like to grow closer to God, “how would one feel if they were 50 or 70 Godmeters closer?”

The Mystery. Soon it will be time to pick up and pack my belonging and go about again. With the home field advantage in this land, I had found support and God’s grace in the company of friends and family. I sense that it soon would be a time to let it happen. That journey again, only with a sense of mastery. Of divine power. Wanting more. The Jesuits used the word “Magis.”

I saw that divine power once a year on display in those fireflies. Up close. The Magis. On the shores of this lakeside retreat. And the fireflies refreshed the degree of caring I had, while immersed, about this creation.

Visitation III

Over the past few weeks I have had an inflamed eye. Ironically, this occurred about the time a piece was written here entitled Noli Me Tangere. The eyelid plays a major role in maintaining the integrity of the eye. Or I learned, excessive tearing would continue.

Immune-mediated diseases. Autoimmunity is the failure of an organism to recognize its own constituent parts as self, which allows an immune response against its own cells and tissues. Immunological tolerance occurs in three forms: central tolerance, peripheral tolerance and acquired tolerance. Genetic defects in these processes leads to autoimmunity. A low level of autoimmunity is thought to actually be beneficial. In the 20th Century in medicine it has become accepted that autoimmune responses are an integral part of vertebrate immune systems, normally prevented from causing disease by the phenomenon of immunological tolerance (the process by which the immune system does not attack an antigen).

This inflamed eye and the need to treat it. Or I would lose my vision. I had a twin sister with Rosacea. She tells me that half of all Rosacea suffer from blepharitis. The other half have twin brothers with blepharitis? I don’t know as I really do not talk to her about her Rosacea.

Autoimmunity. In systemic lupus there are autoantibodies to DNA. Nearly 75% of the more than 23.5 million Americans who suffer from autoimmune disease are women. Rheumatoid arthritis and thyrotoxicosis are associated with of loss of immunological tolerance, which is the ability of an individual to ignore ’self’, while reacting to ‘non-self’. This breakage leads to the immune system’s mounting an effective and specific immune response against self determinants. The exact genesis of immunological tolerance is still elusive, but a person’s sex seems to have some role in the development of autoimmunity.
The reasons for the sex role in autoimmunity are unclear. It has been suggested that the slight exchange of cells between mothers and their children during pregnancy may induce autoimmunity. Apart from inherent genetic susceptibility, several animal models suggest a role for sex steroids.

The tensions within the church have only grown greater since the days of The Symbionese Liberation Army, since the day in October 1979 when Sister Theresa Kane offered a greeting to John Paul II upon his first papal visit to the United States. According to the S.L.A. manifesto, the name ‘Symbionese’ was taken from the word ’symbiosis’ and defined as “a body of dissimilar bodies and organisms living in deep and loving harmony and partnership in the best interest of all within the body.” Seven principles of the SLA were Unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. The Symbionese Liberation Army, seeking to increase its membership, found no would-be revolutionaries (or anyone else) in the Bay Area who wanted to have anything to do with them and moved, kidnapping Patty Hearst along the way.

That greeting offered to John Paul II:

“In the name of the women religious gathered in this Shrine dedicated to Mary, I greet you, Your Holiness Pope John Paul II. It is an honor, a privilege and an awesome responsibility to express in a few moments the sentiments of women present at this shrine dedicated to Mary the Patroness of the United States and the Mother of all humankind. It is appropriate that a woman’s voice be heard in this shrine and I call upon Mary to direct what is in my heart and on my lips during these moments of greeting.

“I welcome you sincerely; I extend greetings of profound respect, esteem and affection from women religious throughout this country. With the sentiments experienced by Elizabeth when visited by Mary, our hearts too leap with joy as we welcome you — you who have been called the,- Pope of the people. As I welcome you today, I am mindful of the countless number of women religious who have dedicated their lives to the church in this country in the past. The lives of many valiant women who were the catalysts of growth for the United States Church continue to serve as heroines of inspiration to us as we too struggle to be women of courage and hope during these times.

“Women religious in the United States entered into the renewal efforts in an obedient response to the call of Vatican II. We have experienced both joy and suffering in our efforts. As a result of such renewal women religious approach the next decade with a renewed identity and a deep sense of our responsibilities to, with and in the church.

“Your Holiness, the women of this country have been inspired by your spirit of courage. We thank you for exemplifying such courage in speaking to us so directly about our responsibilities to the poor and oppressed throughout the world. We who live in the United States, one of the wealthiest nations of the earth, need to become ever more conscious of the suffering that is present among so many of our brothers and sisters, recognizing that systemic injustices are serious moral and social issues that need to be confronted courageously. We pledge ourselves in solidarity with you in your efforts to respond to the cry of the poor.

“As I share this privileged moment with you, Your Holiness, I urge you to be mindful of the intense suffering and pain which is part of the life of many women in these United States. I call upon you to listen with compassion and to hear the call of women who comprise half of humankind. As women we have heard the powerful messages of our Church addressing the dignity and reverence for all persons. As women we have pondered upon these words. Our contemplation leads us to state that the Church in its struggle to be faithful to its call for reverence and dignity for all persons must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries of our Church. I urge you, Your Holiness, to be open to and respond to the voices coming from the women of this country who are desirous of serving in and through the Church as fully participating members.

“Finally, I assure you, Pope John Paul, of the prayers, support and fidelity of the women religious in this country as you continue to challenge us to be women of holiness for the sake of the Kingdom. With these few words from the joyous, hope-filled prayer, the Magnificat, we call upon Mary to be your continued , source of inspiration, courage and hope: ‘May your whole being proclaim and magnify the Lord; may your spirit always rejoice in God your Savior; the Lord who is mighty has done great things for you; Holy is God’s Name.’”

In 1991, author Donna Steichen published her own first-hand experiences with groups of “progressive” Catholic sisters in the United States, including Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR ), in the exposé study of US women’s religious orders titled “Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism.” The book is said to document the movement that began in women’s religious orders in the 1960s which focused on their systemic revolt against the authority of the Church, a Symbionese Liberation Army as it were of the Roman Catholic Church. Donna Steichen became active in a more conservative alternative to the leadership conference.

In February 2009 William Cardinal Levada sent a letter to the officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and the officers of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM), and a meeting held with him in Rome to address issues of theological orthodoxy, in the search for the pathogenesis of this autoimmune disease. This was after the LCWR had been asked to promote “Ordinatio sacerdotalis,” a 1994 Apostolic Letter which represented Church teaching on the sacramental priesthood; to promote Homosexualitatis Problema, the Catholic position written by then-Cardinal Ratzinger in 1986 on homosexuality; and to promote “Dominus Jesus,” the 2000 document which holds the Catholic Church as the chief path to salvation. “Ordinatio sacerdotalis,” included the church’s current position that ordination of women is impossible.

A keynote speech in 2007 delivered to the LCWR by Laurie Brink, O.P., contained the quote, “Jesus is not the only son of God. …Salvation is not limited to Christians,” which calls the question of why she was still working in the Roman Catholic Church and why she was allowed to deliver the keynote address to the LCWR. Thus the involvement of William Cardinal Levada to address issues of theological orthodoxy.

That keynote speech in 2007 delivered to the LCWR by Sister Laurie Brink, a Sinsinawa Dominican, entitled “A Marginal Life: Pursuing Holiness in the 21st Century,” had commented on the possible future of women religious as well as the decline of many religious orders, addressing the four directions religious were being pushed. Her theme was that lay ecclesial ministers were and are feeling disenfranchised, Catholic theologians were being denied academic freedom, and religious and lay women felt scrutinized simply because of their biology. Her speech was a call of liberation.

“What is at stake is the very heart of the Church itself. But the cardinals and bishops may be so busy putting out brush fires that they fail to see the coming conflageration, at least as concerns the American church.” Her entire speech can be read @

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:g_0BNRhmQ20J:www.lcwr.org/lcwrannualassembly/2007assembly/Keynote.pdf+Laurie+Brink%E2%80%99s+2007+speech+given+at+an+LCWR+assembly+in+Kansas+City.&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

A bishop’s responsibility is to safeguard the unity of the Catholic Church, besides protecting the souls of the faithful.

This political issue of the woman’s role in the church, which most legislative politics seemed to have forgotten, was about listening. All politics, including church politics, was all about recognition and attention. A group disenfranchised from leadership on basis of gender wanted a greater voice. In this political discussion, there was a call of liberation from the old world. So far, in the comprehensive study into the quality of institutes of women religious in the United States by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, God was not a participant.

American Catholics: Who we are. Where we were going. Among the protestants within, there was the “No one knows we are out here working” feeling. Amidst the dysfunction. The part of the old boys’ network that just had never listened. To the women. There was a lot of antagonism toward the home office in regions around the world, in all organizations. From the powerless. From the women who had once educated the greater populace of Catholics. That was the dysfunction. Yet these women still were working, within a new reformation movement. Hoping to be heard. Praying for reconciliation.

Past medical history was important to make a diagnosis. A good doctor listened for a good medical history of a problem. Change. Always having to deal with change. I could not ignore the blepharitis problem without repercussions. The reconciliation with age of the body. Blepharitis tends to recur and stubbornly resist treatment. It is inconvenient and unattractive but usually does not damage the cornea or result in loss of vision.

Autoimmune. Treatments for autoimmune disease have traditionally been immunosuppressive, anti-inflammatories, or palliative treatment, reducing the severity of the disease. Steroidal or NSAID treatment limits inflammatory symptoms of many diseases. Non-immunological therapies include hormone replacement.

Sister Sandra Schneiders, a member of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary who teaches at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, stated most women’s religious orders have found an entirely new way of living their vocations since Vatican II. Sister Schneiders writes: “So, let’s be what we are. Religious who are not cloistered and ministers who are not ordained.”

There has been a lot of dysfunction in this church since October 1979. Sister Laurie’s theme that lay ecclesial ministers were and are feeling disenfranchised did not apply just to women religious. It applied to all women. There was threat of schism with 50% of the church. This was the biggest challenge facing the Church of Rome. The ones who lived amongst us.

Dealing with women. Men dealing with women in the 21st Century. The ones with voting rights. It was hard. Look at the statistics on divorce. It was not with just the diminishing number of nuns. It involved the women living with a little more control over their cycles. Yeah, those sinners. Our moms. Our wives with modern conveniences. The ones who used birth control. And these autoimmune sisters. Educated woman. As likely better educated than the men.

Since October 1979, mostly it was about the failure by the doctors of the church to listen. There was a certain irony watching all these people with professed belief in prayer who seemed to have forgotten the words of Psalm 46. The words of Psalm 46 seemed to be instruction of the other half of prayer. To just shut up and listen. On the second retreat I ever made, in a 3 day struggle, I learned the importance of, the second half of, what prayer really was. No one really had told me. About the importance of just listening. At some point God did answer.

It seemed a time for the sisters to remind the powers of the mission statement, what it was that this American Catholic identity had always been about. It seemed a good time for a reminder what you learned in literary criticism class in college. The adage was, if any of this stuff means anything, then of course you should offer criticism. Even in theology. Even where most doctors of the church were often at an age when they experienced the physical affects of hearing loss.

In the vertebrate immune systems, there were those 3 forms of immunological tolerance: central tolerance, peripheral tolerance, and acquired tolerance. In the 20th Century in medicine it has become accepted that a low level of autoimmunity is actually beneficial, and autoimmune responses are an integral part of vertebrate immune systems. Defects in these processes leads to autoimmunity. Autoimmunity is the failure of an organism to recognize its own constituent parts as self.

In other news, the beatification of Pope John Paul II may be delayed as the Vatican seeks more documentation regarding his almost 27 years as pope, Italian newspapers reported in late May. With encouragement of John Paul II, who died in 2005, to his countrymen, the peaceful challenge to the communist regime, from a protestant in Rome, is credited by many with hastening the Soviet demise.

Those 3rd Generations

Why were you here? What exactly was it that drew you here? To this place. Of all the places in the world to live. To your lover? Of all the places in the world to live. Of all the people in the world to love.

Why were you here? Did you even know? Something drew you. To Omaha. To an employer. To Fargo. To Sioux Falls. To St. Paul. To this town. To that cemetery. Something drew you. In Lourdes, Iowa. In 1992.

Why were you here? It was the type of question that you heard on retreat. Something had to have drawn you here.

It was June and I would soon be back on retreat. Something drew you back on retreat. Was it last year’s priest? A maternal grandmother? A great grandfather? A namesake?

Why were you here? The discussion always led back to the sense of wonder. A curiosity. Mine.

The 3rd Generation. At the start of the 20th Century lived a man with my name. He was my great grandfather. He died within a couple months of my birth. Matt was a stock broker. By the time the Great Depression came along, his eldest son was 34-years old. Matt was said to own properties around town. When it came to time to collect rent, he let a lot of things go during the Great Depression. He was alleged to be quite a kind man. I was driving on a business call in Cresco, Iowa. In 1992. I stopped on the way back at that cemetery in Lourdes, Iowa. His first wife, my grandfather’s mother, was buried there. She died during childbirth.

Across the country my maternal grandmother was 30 years old when the Great Depression came along. Her name was Theresa. She was in the midst of her short married life that saw her with 12 kids by the start of World War II. Okay, long enough to have 11 pregnancies. By the end of the war her eldest son was in the seminary and her youngest was 3-years old. That was the point when her husband took ill. He was dead within a year. A woman with 12 kids did not have time to work. Somehow during the next few years, anonymous checks came in the mail. That was what sustained the family. That was life in the Irish American neighborhood at the end of the 1940s.

Looking for significance even in what seemed insignificant on the surface. People with a common past to begin with. What exactly was it that drew you here? To any friend.

How old were you when you had the chance to search for significance? Some people only began in their retirement. Others never really thought about it. In the post war world. In 2009. Looking for a point to view. There were a ton of questions all along. Subtle ones. People with a common past to begin with. In family. It all made saying Grace much more heart felt.

Throughout her life, Theresa was known for her pies. Of her descendants, one woman made pies like Theresa did. I did not know if this pie-making would be passed along to a 3rd generation. My generation. Of her 43 grandchildren.

Descendants from those “givers of life.” The 3rd generation.

Slicing the pie. In Minnesota, the Cowles family had owned the Minneapolis Star and the Minneapolis Tribune in the 1950s. Other branches of the family owned the Des Moines Register and The Ladies’ Home Journal. As one generation passed to another, the children all seemed to want the same size slice of pie. There was a desire for more, even when there were more family members trying to survive with the same pie. In the world of journalism, often the solution was to go public. To get a bigger slice of the action. The descendants, the inheritors wanted more money, not recognizing the still one pie to split. This was one factor in the crisis facing survival in the newspaper business.

One solution was to become leveraged. Becoming a stock company let the shareholders look for higher profits. There could be more greed with shareholders. Market forces at work.

Something drew you here. What was it? The Cowles had a mansion on Park Avenue in Minneapolis. The neighborhood became run down over the years. The world kept evolving.

No one was buying the paper. The hard copy. The Cowles had sold out at the right time. For something like $1.2 billion. There had been descendants to please. The McCloskeys took over. And they sold out after a brief run. For $500 million. They stayed in the business, acquiring the Knight Ridder chain. Those descendants wanted their pie, if not the same size slices. In another very short time, Avista Capital Management’s investment had shrunk to a worth of $100 million. Newspaper reporters were given pink slips.

Some good writers became part time. Actually the best sportswriter in these parts. Pat Reusse. He went to radio full time. It was an interesting reaction. If people would not pay for the paper, why keep writing for them? Why give away your product? When unions could no longer protect the worker’ seniority, when the product was given away, this was one answer to affect change. When shareholders no longer could answer the question as to what exactly it was that drew you here? To this investment. To this city.

Quit writing for a while. In the world of supply and demand, why not see how much the reader appreciated you?

Market forces. Sharing power. In alliances and coalitions. In those third generations. Getting a market share. Changing the way the pie was sliced. With a fear of market forces. Badly sharing power.

With fear, it was important to stay focused. So said a guest on Reusse’s radio show who had written a book. Norman Ollestad. He had survived a plane crash that took his father’s life, killing everyone onboard, except Norman. I lost the other specific details as I climbed out of bed, with his voice. In knowledge of how to respond appropriately, he stated fear was only one of the options. He had survived because fear, he had learned from his father, was not a choice in times of panic.

Getting a market share. Getting out of bed, I heard of the importance of getting a market share. In the newspaper business. Editor & Publisher editor-at-large Mark Fitzgerald was yesterday’s guest, talking about what had happened in the newspaper business. He had just delivered a speech to the Inter American Press Association in Asuncion, Paraguay, on the state of the U.S. newspaper industry. Changing the way the pie was sliced. With stock companies replacing newspaper families. With new fears of market forces. When profits were diminished, and no one recognized the windswept change coming from Craigslist.

The mission was still about finding the truth. With each generation. And finding the truth was not so easy even when it all seemed to be spelled out. The mission for the third generations was still about finding something to say and then how to say it, Most of the excitement in the romance was found in the early chapters. As arousal gave way to fear,
there was a lot more suspense along the way. Fears about endings. When love, not yet vanished, was still the theme. Amidst the market forces.

My namesake’s only grandchild and his great grandchildren had all studied either journalism or English, to address exactly what it was that still drew the 3rd generation here to his place.

Amidst all the fear, looking to find something to say. And then how to say it. About current events and the news. It was a good definition of prayer. Amidst the market forces.

TOMORROW: There was a divine need for authority. Amidst the human race. Politics was about splitting the pie. With each generation. Those third generations were what the Torah meant in new perspectives. About the God of Abraham. The God of Isaac. The God of Jacob. The “Giver of life.”

Chilled & Stilled

Listen to the words of intimacy.

I am sorry. I am heartly sorry. For having offended you. I detest everything I did. Most of all, for having offended you. You who are all good. You who are deserving of all my love. With the help of your grace and presence. I firmly resolve. To change. To share myself better. To communicate. To amend my life. To be more intimate. To merge my identity into yours. To do good. To offend you no more. And to seek to avoid the nearer occasion of things that made me selfish in the first place. I am sorry. I am heartly sorry.

Empty Nest Syndrome

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It could be a dangerous process, this thing called life.

Needed. That lost feeling of being needed. That was the real empty nest syndrome. It was the theme around here for the last 18 months. Maybe it always happened as a man or woman entered their fifties.

If you ever lost the feeling of being needed, there was an affect on how you lived. If you lost the feeling of being needed, there was an affect on your faith in God.

If you lost the sense of being needed, it affected your response to evil. That lost sense of being needed had moved into the neighborhood. I saw it in drug use. In gangs. Or with my perception of modern urban life, as 4 pseudo thugs walked by last night under the cover of darkness. By simply their sounds.

Crime was coming in. Actually 24 hours later 4 squad cars were around for an hour looking into something that had happened.

Crime. The world-wide web. Internet gambling. Chatting. The Russian Mafyia was here in the porn. And had been for the last decade. Deliver us. From evil. Kids. Adults. There was no escape. You could not walk deliver your kid to the internet bus stop. One day the bus no longer would stop. Deliver us. From evil. If not you, your kids, your spouse.

That lost sense of being needed. I think God felt it. How could He not with the current age. In the secular world.

The lesson of need was learned not just upon the loss of a loved one. It came with unemployment. Or with a divorce. With the empty nest syndrome, in the age of the internet.

God certainly felt the loss of romanticism in the age of the internet. With more unbelievable ignorance of men about their lovers. The needs and wants were still present. Amidst all of this. Love. Love and needs and faith. The need to keep trying. When the magic seemed to be gone.

In this secular age, there was a lost feeling of being needed. It was palpable with the empty nest syndrome. There was trouble getting attention with a loss of life’s ritual. There was a need for a closeness that rituals provided or the feeling of need lost would exacerbate. That magic revealing yourself to someone else was lost when one by one people quit communicating. To God. To a spouse. At the point when the revelation of my own imperfections had been so slowly revealed. At the time of the empty nest syndrome. No wonder so many people in their fifties filed for divorce.

Divorce and the lost feeling of being needed. The loss of opening to someone in conversation to get close. When a partner did not seem to care to talk about the imperfections. Ah, those slowly revealed imperfections.

When you had failed at the most important thing in your life. Your marriage.

If I had a list, there would be 8 guys counted as best friends. Maybe a couple more. Two who used to be married to each other. Half of the most important males in my life were divorced. This would include my brother. I was not. Yet.

How did it happen? I had a discussion when one of my best friends about what he had described as the most important thing in his life when he categorized what had happened. He explained in intimate painful detail the pathology of what had happened. And then he could never tell the kids who were now over 21. Res ipsa locquiter. That failure did the talking.

How it had happened. Did you ever tell your kids the reasons why? And at what age?

There were a lot of people out there in search of the feeling of being needed again. In need of that magic which came revealing yourself to someone else. To God. To a spouse.

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer had a point when he said that the first half of life “gives us text and what follows supplies the commentary on it.”

How did it happen? When you have failed? When you have failed at the most important thing in your life. That lesson learned was not just upon the loss of a loved one. It came with unemployment. With divorce. With the companionship part of your life. There was an element of belonging in all of this. There was an unrecognized joining with others to explain who you were all along. In employment. In marriage. There was this need for community.

And it was the same companionship part that moved me beyond myself to others, to complete the grieving process. When a chapter of life was over. How did it happen? I was looking to connect, to explain the painful detail of the pathology.

I never had comprehended the method of how, the reason to grieve correctly. I never had comprehended the need for others to reach an understanding about a change in a relationship. To get an understanding of the growing tension between elements of past and current identity, of what is going on. To get an understanding of the need to connect again.

Opening up to someone to replace the people that suddenly were not there, the intimacy lost. Support groups for grieving were not just for women. There was an instruction to join with the others in grieving. The instruction was to join the community to draw closer to this God. In the search for the feeling of being needed again.

It could be a dangerous process, this thing called life.