Posted on

A Christmas Wish

I don’t know if you believe in Christmas
Or if you have presents underneath the Christmas tree
But if you believe in love, that will be more than enough
For you to come and celebrate with me
For I have held the precious gift that love brings
Even though I never saw a Christmas star
I know there is a light, I have felt it burn inside
And I have seen it shining from afar
Christmas is the time to come together
a time to put all differences aside
And I reach out my hand to the family of man
To share the joy I feel at Christmas time
For the truth that binds us all together
I would like to say a simple prayer
That at this special time
you will have true peace of mind
And love to last throughout the coming year
And if you believe in love, that will be more than enough
For peace to last throughout the coming year
And peace on earth will last throughout the year

I first heard these words, written by Danny Akken Wheetman and sung by Kermit the Frog, when Kermit and the Muppets joined John Denver on television for a Christmas special. It is a nice reminder that Christmas is bigger than any of us, than any single loss, or any collective issues we might share. For one day, at least, we can put peace first, let joy reign in our hearts, and pray that hope will spring anew. 

May the wonder and joy of that first Christmas be yours today and always.
-pjd
Posted on

Ave Maria

There is a day off coming in the middle of this week. The offices will close as we pause during Advent to celebrate Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

I cannot help but think of my own mother whenever there is a Marian feast. She was not immaculately conceived and the older I get, the more realized how complicated she really was. As dementia takes over and her body fails, I will travel 700 miles or so this week to say goodbye. It will be good to be alone in the car. It will be good to see my sisters. It will be good to hold her hand and thank her for doing the best she could.

Mary taught Jesus how to pray. My mother taught us that God was often subtle. Her daily ritual of “Good night. God bless” was as much of an overt prayer as she offered. Her “be careful,” every time you left the house was as much an admonition as a prayerful plea. She once told me she feared something would happen if she didn’t utter those words before we left the house – especially when we started driving.

Mary taught others to do whatever Jesus told them. My mother had a bit of a different take on that. She ruled by fear and you did whatever she told you or you incurred her wrath. I grew up in a physical household and it’s likely one of the reasons I hardly ever touched my children when disciplining them as toddlers.

Still, my mother was generous to a fault. She spent money she didn’t have on things we wanted but didn’t need. Year after year, she allowed her children to invite youth groups, sororities, fraternities, friends, and families to our house and our giant pool and enormous backyard.

You think more about your own parents when you are a parent and I imagine I will soften my own opinions when the phone call comes and mom is gone. The time since dad died has not been easy and is colored by the dynamics of a family that struggles to love each other and a little sister that makes everything messy.

Today, however, I am torn between the memories of the mother I had and the idealized version of the mother I wanted.

Life is complicated. Love is messy.

Posted on

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s back to school time!!

After a non-summer summer, with no vacation and days that slipped by too quickly, the bus pulls out this morning at 7:20 am.

And moms and dads everywhere rejoice. It’s not that we do not love our children, but it will be nice for them to be away, for the house to be quiet, and for them to get back to some semblance of normal (whatever that is).

And so we pray….

Master and Teacher,

Bless our bus drivers and crossing guards. .

Bless our Google classrooms and those who still must be on Zoom.

Bless those who are vaccinated and those who struggle to decide. (Give those undecided folks a push, O Lord, and wings to get to the doctor.)

Bless those children who struggle to keep the mask on, trying so hard to stay even three feet apart from friends they have missed so much.

Bless our teachers who have worked so hard for so long, those who yearn to embrace their students and those who will face the challenge of keeping their charges safe and healthy.

Bless our school nurses, who guide those who are not well away from others, trying to discern the difference between a common cold and a deadly virus.

Bless our little ones entering school for the first time in this reality that changes every day. Give them the wisdom to comprehend the need to stay angel wings apart from their friends.

Bless those who are new in our schools – students and teachers alike – trying to find the right classroom, the right locker, the right books, and the right attitude.

Bless those extroverts among us who long to sing and talk and have for so long been stuck indoors.

And bless those introverts who wish they were still inside.

Bless us all with compassion, that we may root for the underdog, celebrate those who accomplish much, and pray fervently for each other.

Bless us with an environment free from bullying, needless competition, and petty jealousy.

Help us, Lord, to fall in love with learning, be it online, in person, or a little bit of both.

And we beg you, Lord, to bring these children and teachers safely home at the end of the day, the week, or the semester. Keep them free from violence and viruses – at home and at school – on the bus and on the streets – and guide them home to the waiting arms of those who loved them first.

Finally, Lord, we beg for an end to the pandemic that has cost so many so much.

We make this prayer through Christ our Lord: teacher, servant, and source of all hope.

Amen.

Posted on

The Seventy-Two

The reading from Sunday has been on my brain today. I know we read the story  of Jesus sending the 72 from a few different Gospels, but the story itself has been on my mind and since I have not been faithful in my weekly posts, I thought I would share.

There are a few elements to consider. The instruction is to pray first. Pray for each other. Pray for the mission. Pray for the people. For Jesus, prayer precedes the mission because we soon find that prayer pervades the mission too. So whatever it is you are about today, begin with prayer. 

Go in pairs. Another common theme. We need each other. I suppose Mother  Theresa may have been correct when she diagnosed the worlds problems this way: “We have forgotten that we belong to each other.” There is a lot of noise out there. Blue. Red, Right. Left. Trad, Rad Trad, and Neo Trad. Too much noise.

Jesus was clear: we need each other. Not because it’s helpful to have company (one prays while one heals), it’s because we are built for community, for relationship.

Urgency. Jesus tells the disciples to go on your way. Go now. No dilly-dallying. The harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. There is no time to waste. And take nothing – because no thing is more important than the mission and so there is no time to waste getting ready.

Peace. The greeting of peace is a Jewish greeting and a farewell. We must be people of peace, but peace requires a relationship. It requires harmony. Remember how I said we need each other – well, there you go. And if you don’t find harmony – if you are not invited into relationship – and there are many places this won’t happen – leave. Shake the dust. Go on your way. The mission is too important to waste with people who are not interested.

That is a striking instruction and counter intuitive to our ears. It’s also a story for another time.

Finally, proclaim the kingdom. Notice that this comes after the greeting of peace and care of the needy. It is essential to the mission but needs context. The context is living love. Do that first. Build relationships first. Because if you don’t, no one will listen. 

Just a few thoughts. May your week be filled with prayer, people whom you love and are in harmony with, peace, and most importantly, a sense of the mission that drives you always forward.

Posted on

Lessons From Saints

This week, we celebrate two great saints: St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More.

John Fisher was a bishop who refused to recognize the king of England, Henry VIII, as the supreme head of the church in England. He was executed on orders of the king, who could not stand being embarrassed by those whose reputations as a theologian and scholar were greater than his own reputation as ruler.

We celebrate Bishop Fisher that same day we celebrate my favorite saint, Thomas More. Also executed for his refusal to recognize the king over the pope as head of the church, More was the Lord Chancellor of England, whose final days are recounted in Robert Bolt’s play, A Man For All Seasons. I read that play every summer and taught it when I was a junior high teacher and, again, more recently, in a class I taught at a local university. At the end of the play, More stands on the dais, about the lose his head for following his conscience and says, (at least in the play), “I have been commanded by the king to be brief, so brief I will be. I die here the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”

More and Fisher served the king well. When the king didn’t get what he wanted, he changes the rules. People still do that, don’t they?

The world doesn’t have enough people willing to be “God’s first” – not Republicans first, not Democrats first, not liberals or conservatives, or ultra-anything, not watchers of news from one side or the other, but true, honest to goodness folks, willing to stand up and be “God’s first.”

Because if we are judged on how we treat the one another, some of us might be in real trouble. Yes, me included.

This week, let us work hard to be “God’s first.”

Posted on

Rest

In Wayne Muller’s book Sabbath, the author reminds us that rest is not optional; it is a command. In the Ten Commandments, we are commanded to keep holy the Sabbath, and for a faithful Jew, that meant resting from work. The busyness of our lives can become like a violence in our midst, forcing us to work day and night, respond to emails at all hours, and work tirelessly to “get the job done.”

When we live without listening to the timing of things, when we live and work in twenty-four-hour shifts without rest – we are on war time, mobilized for battle. Yes, we are strong and capable people, we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives like this. There are greater rhythms, seasons and hormonal cycles and sunsets and moonrises and great movements of seas and stars. We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms.

This week, let us make a conscious effort to rest. It’s been a crazy year and a half and our bodies and minds will function much more effectively if we take time this summer to unplug, recharge, step back, and rest.

Now if only I could follow that advice…

Posted on

The Visitation

My wife is amazing. Anyone who knows her knows this. I married up in every sense of the word (except height). When she was pregnant with each of our children, I saw her do things that would have us mere men falter: manage the safe release of more than twenty thousand high school students from an arena, facilitate meetings with adults who behave like children, work full time, cook, clean, and wrangle our own children all by herself while I am an ocean away.

Yes, she is amazing. Pregnant or not. Women are amazing. We men should know that, respect that, honor that, and always remember that.

Even with all of this amazing-ness, all of it pales in comparison to what we read about in today’s Gospel. In Luke, chapter one, Mary sets out in haste. Having just learned she will be the mother of her Lord, an unwed mother at that, she thinks not of herself, but of her cousin whom she has learned is now with child. She must go help. There is no choice. She must head out in haste.

Having been to the Holy Land and having made the journey Mary made (in an afternoon, in a van), I am drawn into that story. We celebrate the Annunciation in March, the Visitation in May, and the birth of Christ at Christmas. It fits nicely with our modern-day calendar, but let’s imagine for a moment that it actually lines up with history. Mary receives a visit from the angel, to which she gives hers fiat, her “yes” to God. Then, hearing that Elizabeth, a cousin presumably, is with child, she forgets her own needs and heads out – in haste! For the next sixty or so days, she hikes her way up and down hills, through the valley of villages, across very dry land, traversing rocks, heat, and discomfort as she goes – all so she can be of service to someone else. The short van ride we made in air conditioning took her two months – though my hunch is that she probably would have stopped to help anyone else she saw in need. Still, I haven’t done anything “in haste” in some time and that line reminds us of Mary’s single-mindedness. Elizabeth is first. May is second. It’s clear she was teaching Jesus from the get-go.

Once again, we turn to Ruth Mary Fox and her wonderful poem about this event. Let each of us commit to going “in haste” to someone in need this week. Let us bring Christ to others so they, too, may leap for joy.

Into the hillside country Mary went
Carrying Christ.
And all along the road the Christ she carried
Generously bestowed his grace on those she met.
But she had not meant to tell she carried Christ
She was content to hide his love for her.
But about her glowed such joy that into stony hearts
Love flowed
And even to the unborn John, Christ’s love was sent.

Christ, in the sacrament of love each day, dwells in my soul
A little space.
And then as I walk life’s crowded highways
Jostling men who seldom think of God
To these, I pray, that I may carry Christ
For it may be
Some may not know of him
Except through me.

Have a wonderful week.

Posted on

Thinking of Brian

Every once in a while, I scan the obituaries in the Knoxville paper. I lived there from the time I was three or four until I was nearly thirty, so the people listed in those pages are often teachers, family friends, and neighbors. Every so often, I am stopped in my tracks at one of the names I read, recalling with great fondness the memories of spending time with that person, living nearby that person, or worshiping alongside that person.

Sadly, once in a while I stumble across the name of a young person who sat before me in a classroom or took part in the ministry I led. That’s exactly what happened last week.

When I saw Brian’s name and picture, I just sat there. Stunned. Was he sick? Was there an accident? How did I not know this?

To be fair, I hadn’t seen Brian in years. I hadn’t talked to his mom in nearly a decade, despite her constant support and her family’s generosity. It’s been a few years since I was back in Knoxville, pandemic notwithstanding, and every time I visit the numbers of those I see gets smaller. There are plenty of excuses, but our lives change as we grow up and start having children of our own.

But his photo brought back a rush of memories to part of my life long before Maureen and the kids.

In my thirty years of teaching and ministry, I have probably encountered hundreds, maybe thousands of young people. Most of them, to be honest, fade from my mind. Unless they say or do something that I remember – for good or for ill – most are nondescript mental notations tucked away in the far recesses of my mind.

Then there are kids like Brian.

Even in junior high, he was wise beyond his years – and not just because he had this infectious laugh and this great smile that lit up when he got a joke I told that no one else had understood. He had a great sense of humor and I could tell that he was thinking about things that were funny or witty or sarcastic or maybe even a little mean. His whole face would light up and he would just sit there and smile.

He was a great student, did all his work, and got frustrated when others didn’t pull their own weight. As I read the notice in the paper, I remembered how he would challenge those who would not or could not behave, prodding them to be better, encouraging them to buckle down and get to work. Ironic, I thought, that some of them would be carrying him at his funeral. He made them better just by being himself.

At recess, Brian would play with the new kid, making sure everyone was welcomed. He adored his little brother, and I can still remember the look on Corey’s face when he would have to stay in the car while Brian was off on another adventure with the older kids.

After I left Knoxville, Brian and his mom were among the very first I welcomed into my new home six hundred miles away. While the kids swam in the pool out back, his mom and I sat in the kitchen and talked about old times. The picture of Brian and I in front of my office still hangs on the wall. When I asked my own children to pray for his family, one of them immediately remarked that they knew him – or at least his name. It turns out Brian’s name is on several of our Christmas ornaments – gifts he gave his teacher long, long ago.

He was one of those kids that could have done anything he wanted. Like most kids in his mid-thirties, he struggled with anxiety and joblessness and an overwhelming desire to change the world. Brian always looked at the way things could be, the way people ought to be, and the way he wanted to be. Though his death was an accident, I am saddened that he died alone after meaning so much to so many.

As a parent, I can only imagine the grief enveloping the family. They are, of course, devastated. His little brother is lost and his friends in shock.

I pray that they find hope in those words of the preface to the Eucharist Prayer that will be prayed at Brian’s funeral this week: Life is changed, not ended. 

This week, check in on one another, pray for those who have made our lives better, and, if you would, pray for Brian’s family. For a mother and father who loved and supported him no matter what, and for a little brother who struggles with the loss of his best friend.

Pray, too, for my friend Brian. May the angels come to greet him. May they speed him to paradise. May their arms enfold him. And may he find eternal life.

For me, you will always be that smiling kid in religion class, longing for the chance to put the Gospel into practice, asking the tough questions, and working hard to understand what God has planned for those who love Him.

Posted on

Easter Readings

The Scripture readings around the Easter season are filled with great challenges. Yes, Scripture is always filled with challenges, but I really like the ones we find in the readings around Easter.

We have the women running to the tomb. We have Peter reconciling with Jesus. We have the apostles walking to nowhere and meeting Jesus on the way. We have Thomas the doubter – who we must remember is recognized as a saint (that always give me hope).

Eventually, we have the apostles looking at the sky, waiting for what’s next.

But the people who have been on my mind of late are the disciples in the upper room. We hear that they were in the upper room and the doors were locked. Jesus arrives. Thomas isn’t there. You remember the story.

Then, a week later, Jesus arrives again and shows Thomas his hands and feet.

The doors were still locked.

Think about that for a minute. We focus on Thomas because he doubts and his name means twin and we, doubters and sinners, are his twin. We think about Thomas because we get Thomas. We struggle and wonder and question and doubt.

But don’t let the other ten off the hook. They experienced the Risen Christ. They welcomed him. They interacted with him. This guy with whom they had interacted and lived and shared their lives with had been brutally put to death. They buried him. Now, he had been raised and was standing, breathing and talking in their midst.

But after he left, they locked the door.

I am not sure what the lesson is for you, but for me it raises the question about my own openness to the resurrection experience. When I experience Christ in the flesh all around me do I welcome it and share it or does the fear overwhelm me?

Do I lock the doors to feel safe or to avoid responsibility?

Maybe that’s why we celebrate Easter for so long. The dead are raised. What has happened for one is suddenly possible for all. After a lifetime of saying, “yes” to God – even unto death – God validates his life choices and says, “yes” right back to Jesus.

God resurrects that which we crucify. Isn’t that nice?

Why then, if we believe, are so many doors still locked?

Posted on

Voices

On Thursday this week, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, when Mary received the invitation to be the Mother of God in the flesh.

It makes me think about all the times I have said, “Yes,” to an invitation by God. More importantly, it reminds me of all those times I have ignored the voice in my head.

The voice that says, “be nice.”

The voice that says, “be quiet.”

The voice that says, “tell him he did a good job.”

The voice that says, “tell her how pretty she is.”

The voice that says, “forgive willingly.”

The voice that says, “let me help you.”

The voice that says, “let me lead the way.”

The voice that says, “spend time with me.”

This week, I will pay more attention to the voice of God, the invitations He sends, and the opportunities to serve.