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Maintaining Perspective

On Saturday I had to drive child number three to an audition. The micromanagers in charge said he could not drive because he might be nervous. The trip there took more than an hour.

“Are you nervous?”

“Of course not.”

Ugh.

Since he had been concussed, he had missed the deadline to register and now had to fit in whenever they could take him. While sitting in the parking lot, some kid gets out of the Porsche parked next to me and whacks my car.

Really, kid?

After I scolded that kid, I dropped my own kid off and went to the grocery store to get food for the upcoming football game, which is always great family time.

The phone rings as I am getting out of the car. It’s the child I just dropped off.

“I forgot the money.”

“Can I bring it when I come back?”

“Do you have a checkbook? They need a check.”

“Fine.”

I go into the Acme – the kind of store where they take 12,000 square feet of merchandise and shove it into a 7,000 square foot store. It is crowded, cramped, and I have chosen the time of day when they are restocking the shelves, so carts are everywhere. So are people.

Ugh.

At checkout, the phone rings again.

“They cannot take me until two.”

“It’s not even one!”

“Sorry….”

Ugh.

When I return to the site of the audition, I write the check out. Then I texted the kid and confirm how much, which somehow went up in the time I’d been gone, and write another check.

I take it inside and ask who gets it.

“Oh, you have to give that to the school.”

Ugh.

“By the way, who is the micromanager that set the rule that my kids cannot drive himself?”

“That’s our rule. It’s for insurance.”

“That makes no sense. My insurance covers my kid from home to here. Your insurance covers him here. You cannot mandate how my kid gets here and now I am stuck here all afternoon.”

“That’s our rule.”

Ugh.

While I am sitting in the car, eating some of the groceries to ease my hangriness, I look up this dumb rule. While I am looking it up, I count five – FIVE – kids get in their own cars and drive away. One almost hits my car. He must have been nervous. One drives over the curb. One speeds out of the lot.

Now I am really irritated. Not only do these turkeys have a dumb rule, they are not enforcing it. They have no way to, which, frankly, makes them negligent. It’s not a policy if you have no way of enforcing said policy.

Ugh.

Child number three gets in the car, complaining about how long it took and wondering why there are crumbs all over his seat. That’s when I remind him that this is all his fault. If he had paid attention, he could have gotten all the paperwork in on time. If he had done that, the fee would be half as much as it is today. If only he had his crap together, his grades would be higher. If he put his phone down at night he would sleep better. If he paid more attention…

Somewhere in the silence of the rest of the drive home, I realized what an ass I had been.

Instead of cherishing the time alone with my son, I saw it as a chore.

Instead of enjoying time I got to spend alone, I was irked at the messy, crowded store.

Instead of thanking the volunteers at the audition, I challenged a rule they made out of concern for young people and not in an attempt to irritate parents.

Instead of praying for the safety of the kids in the parking lot, I judged their driving and secretly hoped they got caught.

Sitting in the silence, I thought to myself, “Let’s call this day, ‘Great Weather. Missed Opportunities.'”

The good news is kids are forgiving. My kids know that I yell because I care. I fuss at them to challenge them. I love them even when I want to throttle them (metaphorically speaking).

Still, everything that irked me was more about me than anything else.

We got home safely and in time for the game. As I got ready for a friend to come over to watch, I ducked into the bathroom off the kitchen.

That’s when I realized my zipper had been down most of the day.

Really, kid?

Ugh.

Our Lady of Humility, pray for us.

 

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Telling Stories

The early Church has no books – at least not initially. What they had was an experience. An encounter with the risen Christ. Peter told Andrew. Andrew told James. James told Stephen. The women told their children.

You get the picture.

The early Church spread quickly in those early days because people had an encounter that moved them, inspired them, changed them. Then they told the Jesus-story to others. They couldn’t help themselves. What are the encounters that move us? What inspires us? What stories do we tell?

My wife was at a restaurant with friends years ago and someone at the table asked who would lead the grace before the meal.

Crickets.

Someone jumped up from a nearby table, grabbed the hands of those near, and said with great enthusiasm, “I am never afraid to praise our Lord.”

Now that is a witness. That’s an encounter. Twenty-five years later, we are still telling the story.

What story will you tell this week? How will your life inspire others?

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Rolling In The Deep

I usually only find myself on YouTube for recipes (or “the YouTube as I refer to it just to irritate the kids). Even then, I don’t often follow the recipe. But a few months ago, someone shared the video of Adele singing, “Rolling in the Deep” and I simply cannot stop watching – mostly because Emma Thompson, another favorite, is so memorable in her excitement.

A few years ago, Adele hosted an ITV special in England and invited all the important people and, I assume, the general public. We were just coming out of Covid and, if memory serves, Adele felt it was important to gather and celebrate life. There are many memorable. moments, including Emma Thompson re-introducing the singer to a teacher who meant so much to Adele in her youth.

Then comes the song. Here is what struck me about the song – I like the lyrics, I like the tune, but watch the audience. Keep an eye out for Emma Thompson telling everyone to “get up and dance.” Watch the likes of Boy George, Emma Watson, Samuel L. Jackson, and others dancing with pure abandon. There are no cell phones (which were presumably prohibited). There is no one taking video, except the guy creating the video. There is only joy in the moment. Everyone is present. Dancing. Singing. Unadulterated happiness.

We need more of that.

Watch the video and enjoy your week. If you really want to have fun, learn the words and sing the song in front of your kids and their friends.

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I Blame The Phone

Kids are simultaneously really smart and really dumb. I blame technology and the constant need to have the phone in the hand.

Case in point: my oldest is a freshman in college. By all accounts, she is a smart kid, gets good grades, and is doing well socially and emotionally.

Last week, I dropped her off at the train station to head down the tracks a few towns to school. Since I had a meeting, I dropped her off early with the plans to get to school early and hang out on campus.

Instead, she got on the wrong train and ended up in Harlem.

The conductor took pity on her, gave her a new ticket, and sent her north towards school.

She got on another wrong train and ended up at Fordham. Good school, but not the right school.

Finally, she made it to class – on time as luck would have it – and settled in for the day.

On the one hand, I was incredible proud of her for keeping it together, managing one train after another, and getting to school. A lesser child would have given up, called for a ride, and skipped the class.

Technology puts the world in our hands. It also distracts us from the world around us. Headphones shut out the noise, but also the voice of mom or dad or really anyone else who is trying to get your attention. We rely on technology to tell us where to go, but surrender our own sense of direction in the process. I can see where I am going, but I still defer to the voice in the computer that tells me to turn left. I know it’s wrong. I see it’s wrong. I do it anyway.

I suppose I am a little dumb too.

This week, I will invite my children to put the phone down, listen to one another, and enjoy the world around. I guess I will have to take my own advice as well.

Hmmmm… Let’s think about this.

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How Do You Not Understand?

We celebrate a few great feasts this week. Today is the day for prayer for the legal protection of the unborn. Wednesday is the feast of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. Thursday is the Conversion of St. Paul and Friday is the Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, who were bishops in the early Church. Lots of great teachable moments.

Plus, we have some great readings this week. I especially love when Jesus takes the time to explain the parables he’s just taught the crowds. Like any good teacher, he wants to make sure the lesson does not fall on deaf ears and, like anyone who has ever stood in front a classroom, my hunch is he began to see people’s eyes glazing over, people looking off in the distance, and a general disconnect starting to form.

So he paused, rearranged the narrative, and made sure everyone understood.

If you have teenagers, you have lots of practice with this. You ask your teen to do something, retrieve something, go somewhere and complete a task – and you are confident you are speaking in a language he or she understands. But as soon as the instructions are delivered, your teen looks at you and says, with a completely straight face: “What?”

They heard it all but they comprehended nothing.

So you repeat it. You tell them to put the phone away and really listen this time.

“Okay,” says the teen.

Then they walk away and do absolutely nothing.

The more I reflect on Mark 4 from Wednesday’s Gospel, the more I am thinking this was Jesus’ turn with the teens in Jerusalem.

“What?” they said after he taught them.

Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of the parables?”

Great question.

It turns out in two thousand years, the content hasn’t changed, only the context.

This week, I will practice the patience of Jesus and avoid gritting my teeth as I explain to my four teenagers the same thing over and over and over.

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Psalm 34

This is a big week in our household. Mom is away so it’s dinner out every night and a suspension of all the rules.

I am kidding, of course. Really, it’s four against one. Child number three turns 16 this week and Thursday is the anniversary of my brother’s death. Child number two goes to NCYC on Thursday and another one has a concert this weekend, an event that comes with last minute shopping for a black tie and dress rehearsals at dinner time. The dogs and I will spend quality time together and I assume they will engage in a cage match only while I am on Zoom.

I drove nearly 500 miles over the weekend and never left Fairfield County. Between practices, rehearsals, college tours, and a trip to JFK, I spent quality time behind the wheel. It gave me a chance to catch up with individual children and Maureen and I braved the traffic last night so she could arrive in Indianapolis long before the conference participants.

As I do most Sundays, I got the chance to go through the next week’s readings. I like looking ahead. I hate surprises. Tomorrow, the psalm is a favorite – number 34. Do you know it without looking it up?

I will bless the Lord at all times. 

At. All. Times.

In traffic. In crowds. When the idiot in front of me turns left as soon as the light turns green. In the supermarket when the people in front of me clearly had no training on self checkout. When the child waits until the last minute to announce a need for some obscure item that Amazon will not deliver on time. When another child announces they’ve been waiting for you to get home to decide what to eat for dinner. When no one has fed the dogs or emptied the dishwasher or taken out the trash.

At. All. Times.

It’s a Psalm worth remembering, even if you have to mutter it to yourselves as you fly down I-95.

Have a good week.

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Do Over

When they hand you the baby in the hospital, take off the little LoJack, and tell you to go home, they forget to tell you a bunch of stuff.

Sure, they give you a ton of those blue and white blankets, mostly so the kid fits in the car seat and her little head doesn’t bop from side to side as you do thirty miles an hour down the interstate, confident you will break the child if you go too fast.

But I digress.

They do not tell you what to do next. They do not tell you what to do when the kid is a teenager and is caught in a web of bad decisions. They don’t tell you siblings will keep secrets from you. They don’t tell you that the worrying only gets worse.

Most of all, they do not tell you that the world in which you grew up doesn’t exist any more and that it’s no use trying to do what your parents did because those days are gone and you have to figure it all out by yourself.

If I had to do it over again, I would have chosen a different school when we moved here. I would have delayed technology, maybe forever. I would have protected them from television and movies and other people. I would have interviewed their friends first and asked their parents a hundred questions. I would have, if I could, protected them more from themselves.

The reality is that infants turn into toddlers and toddlers turn into children and children turn into teenagers and it just gets harder with each phase. The world seems to get scarier and less Christian at the same time; the culture is shifting away from the holy and that just makes things harder. The kids have access to excess in their pockets and everything is overly sexualized.

In short, the world is a mess. It’s no wonder that kids suffer from more anxiety and depression and loneliness than any generation in history. How do we keep our children from being dumb when the stare our mothers gave us apparently skipped a generation or at least somehow, this generation seems immune to it.  You remember it, don’t you. Your mother could look at you and you could feel the stare go through you like a lightsaber. Either I don’t have the look, or my children just don’t care.

People keep telling us that it will get better, kids will outgrow this, and all will be well because our kids are good kids and every kid goes through this phase.

They better be right. I have all my eggs in this novena-shaped basket and my hopes are high that prayer and positive thinking (with a measured dose of discipline and counseling) will get us through these teenage years so my children become well-informed, well-adjusted, smarter-than-the-average-bear adults.

Because, right now, the internal button marked, “dumb,” seems to be stuck in the on position.

St. Jude, pray for us.

 

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Amazing Song. Amazing Grace.

The song, Amazing Grace, turned 250 on New Year’s Day.

I know that because I saw it on the news, read it in the paper, and heard it on the radio – all sources of information that, growing up, we took as gospel. Today, many of us listen and watch with suspicious eyes and ears, confident that the announcer has an agenda, a sponsor, and puppet strings he or she cannot even see.

I miss a world without the constant barrage of news. But that is another story.

When I was a child, my mother would have CBS Sunday Morning on in the kitchen. From the time I was nine years old, Charles Kuralt told stories, interviewed guests, and took us places we would never go on our own. After spending nearly a quarter century on the road, Kuralt joined Sunday Morning and had a way to tell a story that drew the viewer into learning something new  – something they never would have bothered with – were it not for his southern gentility and distinct, deep voice. He was convinced that people were generally good, that our country was an idea worthy of the messiness, and that everyone had a story to tell.

On a particular Sunday morning decades ago, I was in the kitchen with my mom and Kuralt was telling the story of Amazing Grace. Not its history, but how it had inspired people through the years. I don’t remember much of it, except that the singing was mesmerizing. We stood transfixed, my mother and I, staring at this tiny television we occasionally had to smack to get to work, listening to the words, the music, the lyrics. I wish I could remember who was singing. It was towards the end of the show and when the music faded, Kuralt came on with his signature, “I’ll see you again…next Sunday morning,”

Today, I enjoy CBS Sunday Morning via YouTube. Jane Pauley replaced Charles Osgood, who replaced Kuralt back in 1994. Mom is gone, so is Charles Kuralt. We do not have a television in the kitchen and we no longer are tied to cable or a schedule. Progress, I suppose.

So a few weeks ago, I saw the YouTube entry about Amazing Grace and quickly clicked it. Jane Pauley introduced a story about Amazing Grace and its big birthday. As reporter Ramy Inocencio told it:

Sung an estimated 10 million times each year, “Amazing Grace” marks its 250th anniversary this New Year’s Day. It was born not of American Black spirituals as some believe, but across the Atlantic, in the tiny English market town of Olney, some 60 miles north of London, with lyrics older than the Declaration of Independence.  

I suppose the song has always held a special place in my heart because of that Sunday morning so long ago. But its simple lyrics are ones that everyone can understand and appreciate. I was lost and now am found, blind and now I see. We can all relate. It can give us all hope.

Just after Charles Kuralt left Sunday Morning back in 1994, country singer Kenny Chesney sang the song at the funeral of my big brother, Jim. Years later, I got to hear the Irish Tenors sing it live. The same with Mary Chapin Carpenter and Josh Groban. Every time I hear it, it takes me back to that Sunday morning in the kitchen, fills my eyes with tears, and warms the depths of my heart, filling an emptiness I forget is there.

Yes, it has been recorded hundreds of times by hundreds of people. But for my money, no recording tops Judy Collins.

This week, find a quiet spot. Click the link below and close your eyes. Let the words written by a slave-trader turned abolitionist and the music added decades later by a Baptist minister, fill the room and warm your heart and soul.

Though many dangers, toils and snares... let the echos of the grace that is all around you each day, carry you away.

Let that grace fill you with hope and lead you home.

Ready?

Let us pray.

Click here.

 

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On Your Side

One of our priests gave a presentation the other day at an all-employee meeting. I didn’t pay attention to most of it, to be honest. My mind was on the list of things I had to do and the many things I had failed to do. But at some point, I must have paid attention, because I heard him say that, as a priest, he spends a great deal of time telling couples that he is on their side.

“As a shepherd, a guide, a companion… I am on your side. That is why I became a priest.” It struck me that there are some priests and deacons who have forgotten that, some faith formation leaders who have forgotten that, and many, many others who may never have thought of it.

As a parent, it shook me. I wanted to leave that place and run home to my children to let them know that I was on their side. Always.

When I fuss at you for leaving an assignment to to the last minutes.

When I yell because you have a pile of dishes in your room and we are out of forks in the kitchen.

When I tell you to turn off the lights and go to bed.

When I wake you up to go to Church, even though I know you babysat until after midnight.

When I tell you, “no.”

When I ask for your help and it is a rhetorical question.

I am on your side.

When I question whether something you think is the end of the world is actually that big of a deal.

When I look at your social media posts on your phone and ask you to edit or delete them.

When I challenge you, encourage you, comfort you, and conspire with you,

When I ask about grades or missing assignments, or how your day was,

I am on your side.

Being a teenager is hard enough. Being a teenager in this culture, with your access to excess in the palm of your hand, can be overwhelming. Life is hard. Love is messy. And telling you that it will all be okay sounds like a myth when you feel the world closing in around you.

But through it all – in the darkness and the light – I am on your side.

That’s my job. That’s my blessing. That’s my reality. It happened the moment we discovered you were on the way and the center of my life suddenly existed outside myself. It’s a basic change in position, St. Paul would say. A shift in focus. From inside to outside to your side.

Always.

 

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The End Of An Era

I actually yelled out loud when I got a text the other day. The receptionist at the cemetery where my parents are buried called to tell me the marker was in for my mom, who died in December, (which isn’t what made me yell). As I was looking at the picture of my mom’s new marker, I received a text from my little brother announcing the news that Angela Lansbury had joined mom and dad. I called out, “No!!” And eventually started laughing as my coworkers came running, thinking something terrible had happened. 

It had, but not in the way they expected.

Let me explain.

I grew up in a family that loved movies. My parents were the first to get a Betamax and, though it was the size of a small car, the quality of the video tapes was great and we enjoyed watching movies together every Friday night and Sunday afternoon. When the local theater hosted Sunday showings of all of Alfred Hitchcock‘s movies for a semester, we were there. One of my mothers favorite movie stars was Angela Lansbury. She loved the music from Mame and would start playing – and singing, “We Need A Little Christmas” long before Thanksgiving. She could watch, The Shell Seekers again and again. 

I was 26 years old when I moved out of my parents’ house. I stayed an extra year or two because I could not rationalize paying rent for an apartment and I wanted to buy a house. Plus, my parents had requested that I stay while my brother was sick. I think we all knew how that story might end and it I do not think my mother was ready for any more upheaval. So, a year and a half after my brother died, I bought a house and went out on my own. I made a deal with my parents that I would come back every Sunday night to watch Murder, She Wrote. It was a habit that had started several years earlier and, as busy as I was with work and ministry and graduate school, it was a promise I kept until the series ran its course.

My father would have to watch Murder, She Wrote in the other room. I think it’s actually how his den became his den. He would appear in the doorway within the first ten minutes of the show with a grin on his face like he had just eaten the last piece of pie. He had already solved the murder and wanted to announce the results of his brief investigation. My mother would, sometimes playfully sometimes forcefully, yell at him to get out and go back to his cave. He would chuckle to himself as he walked away, sometimes muttering, “I know who did it.“ He was almost always right.

If I could not make it home for a particular episode, mom would tape the show so we could watch it another time. Invariably, she would miss the ending or tape over something someone else wanted to see. In those days, if you missed a show, you missed a show. To this day, I do not know who killed one of the ladies at Loretta’s beauty parlor.

When my wife and I started dating, Maureen invited me to go to a special event at the Kennedy center. The city of Atlanta was hosting a night with Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, as a means of enticing meeting planners to choose Atlanta for an event. Maureen was invited and it seemed like a great opportunity for a free date and time to spend together, so I drove from Delaware to Washington for the evening. (The thought of doing that now makes me want to take a nap.) It turned out the evening with Sarah Ferguson included a special guest. The special guest was Angela Lansbury.

The two formidable women sat on stage and talked about family and the struggle of living in the limelight, something about which both knew well. Angela Lansbury‘s husband, Peter Shaw, had recently died so that was a topic of discussion, moving the audience to tears. The great star of stage and screen told stories of finding work in Hollywood, being a woman in a man’s world, the stars with whom she had shared the stage, the influence of her own mother, and the decision to move her family to Ireland so that her two oldest children could get clean from their use of drugs. They moved to the town in Ireland that my great grandfather had left nearly a century before. Another connection.

At the end of the evening, we were invited to a VIP reception. Maureen and I walked in and sat down at a table for three in the corner, leaving one empty chair. We were not quite sure what to expect and the food had not yet been delivered to the reception, an ironic scene considering the attendees were all meeting planners. Shortly after we sat down, Angela Lansbury walked through the door. She was much taller than I thought she’d be. She was unaccompanied and, spotting us in the corner, and for reasons I will never understand, walked directly to the table and sat down with Maureen and me. 

At first, there was silence. I remember Maureen and I looking at each other, wondering what to do. Then I decided to jump in. I took the chance to tell her what she meant to my mother and my family and me. We talked about my father having to watch Murder, She Wrote in the other room, to which she playfully replied, “Well, dear, we tried not to make it too difficult.”

We joked about why anyone would ever hang out with Jessica Fletcher because, as my dad always pointed out, “Everywhere she went, someone died” and she laughed when I questioned why the townsfolk never made her the sheriff. 

We talked about my coming home after leaving to go out on my own. We talked about family. We talked about parents and I got to thank her for creating a connection between a mother and her son. It wasn’t a long conversation and just before one of the hosts came to whisk her away to sign autographs, she took my hand and thanked me for sharing the stories. She signed my program and off she went. It was not as much of a brush with fame as it was an encounter with an old friend. Though we had never met before that moment, she had been a part of my life for years.

Murder, She Wrote, that cute little television show is now available to stream and it seems so quaint given everything else that’s available online. Still, it will always remind me of a simpler time, the love of parents, the meaning of home, and a brief encounter with a great lady. 

Rest in peace Mrs. Fletcher. Give my love to mom and dad.