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The Rest of the Story

Originally posted four years ago, but I really like this morning’s reading, so I decided to rerun it, albeit edited to reflect my new reality.

The great radio commentator Paul Harvey has been dead since 2009 and if I had not grown up with the parents I had or with the older siblings I had (and still have) and if one of those siblings had not been in radio himself, I might not have known who Paul Harvey was. But I did and if you did too, then the title of this entry already makes sense.

I thought about those old “The Rest of the Story” radio segments and their little known or forgotten facts as I read this morning’s first reading from Numbers 11.

It is one of my favorite passages of the Old Testament and is one I invoke often. Look it up. Read it. And smile along with me.

There are times, in ministry and in life, when we are, quite frankly, overwhelmed by the ignorance around us. On the road (who taught Connecticut drivers to make a left turn in front of others when the light turns green?), in the supermarket (how hard is it to put the cart back?), perhaps even in the office (though not much anymore), we are surrounded by foolishness, incompetence, and just plain…well…you know what I mean. Like Moses in this morning’s reading, we hear the cries of those we are called to serve and, though we know the tasks we have been given, we are at our wits end, ready to surrender. Every time I read Numbers 11, I laugh because I recognize the Moses in me. “Please, Lord, if this is how you are to treat your servant, just do me the favor of killing me now.”

I don’t really mean it. I am sure Moses, a family man himself, didn’t really want to die either.

But there does come a time in our lives when we look around and wonder if we are the only ones who can accomplish a particular task, or if we are the only one with a sense of what’s possible. It’s not arrogance. Really, it isn’t. It is just frustration that those around us simply don’t move as quickly or in the same direction as we think they ought.

So, like Moses, we take it to prayer and we ask to be let off the hook.

But you have to read the rest of the story.

Since it’s not in this morning’s first reading, let me summarize. Moses says, “Kill me now, God, so I do not have to bear the burden of these people.”

And God says, “I have a better idea.”

“Go find people smarter than you and bring them with you to the meeting tent (ahh, the first parish committee). Then I will take some of my Spirit that is within you, Moses, and I will place it on them, so you do not have to do my work all by yourself.”

So, in other words: “Quit your whining and surround yourself with smart people, if you can admit they exist, which is another issue entirely. Find those who share your passion and vision and remember: the work you do is God’s, not yours.”

It isn’t your ministry. It’s God’s.

They aren’t your young people. They are God’s.

It isn’t about you. It’s about you making God present to others.

And just because an idea wasn’t yours, doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Just because you didn’t think of it, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t support it, comments don’t always equal criticism…but I digress.

God could have let Moses off the hook. He could have struck him dead.

But disciples hardly ever get off that easily.

Look around this week. Who are the smart people you should gather together so that God can share God’s Spirit with God’s people so that, together, you can do God’s work?

I love Numbers 11. But you have to read the rest of the story.

I think Paul Harvey would be pleased.

~pjd

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This Week

Do you remember when you were little and you had absolutely nothing to do?

When evening arrived after a day of doing nothing with people you loved and as day turned into night, nothing mattered, nothing was important, and nothing worried you? You would stay up late because there was no bedtime and the stars were out and there were fireflies to chase and put in jars? There was no to-do list. No email. No one waiting for you to text back.

You could eat ice cream and not be intolerant and you could drink a coke and still fall asleep. If you were like me, you would mix up your ice cream until you made soup out it and still think it was delicious. In fact, you could eat pretty much anything because no one cared how you looked or what you wore or whether your pants were too tight?

Your parents said things like, “Be careful,” when you left the house and, “Be home before dark” as you rode down the street on your bicycle, without a helmet but with all the intentions of staying out until it was exactly dark and not a minute before.

Do you remember? Can you remember?

Me neither.

But as we worked in the attic this weekend, I found myself humming a song I thought I had forgotten. The song is “Eulogy” by The Hereafter and, though I have no idea of its origin, I love these lyrics:

Let’s pretend that we can still pretend/Let’s pretend that we are young again/I am only looking for a friend/Let’s pretend that we are young again.

It reminds me of those days so long ago and I’ve decided that this week I will worry less, have more fun, eat more ice cream, connect with a friend or two, and maybe, just maybe, go outside and ride my bike.

Close the computer. Put away the phone. Worry less. Pretend with me.

~pjd

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Strange Dreams

The last week has been filled with incredible dreams. I have dreamt about the lottery (I won), America’s Got Talent (I lost), and inventing something that lets children fly, but not adults, which seemed cool until the parenting side of the brain kicked in and realized how irresponsible it was.

I dreamt about visiting Rwanda and about dining with celebrities in New York. I dreamt about taking the children to Ireland but being disappointed when Ancestry DNA told us we are not Irish at all. At one point, at around three am, I was wondering around the house when Maureen found me and asked how I was. I mumbled something about being in the show Quantum Leap and West Side Story at the same time and then went back to bed.

Yes, it’s been an interesting week. What the doctors swore would be a routine surgery with a superficial extraction of a benign tumor in my neck turned into a four hour surgical event where they essentially cut my ear off, lifted one side of my face up, dug around for a while and then stretched everything back together. In what I can only imagine was something akin to getting a Tupperware lid that doesn’t quite fit to stay into place while not spilling the spaghetti sauce all over the counter, this mess has kicked me around a bit. The tumor, while still benign, was entangled in the optic nerve, the facial nerve, and had grown into the muscle of the jaw.

In the age of digital everything, the doctor had pictures. I think, in part, because he was so proud that he was able to do his job without too much permanent damage. Time will tell if the feeling comes back into my ear and the paralysis leaves my face, but the stitches come out tomorrow and for now, I feel comfortable walking around the house instead of staying in bed.

I have come to understand more about offering it up this week and have freed the pagan babies from Limbo. Our Lady and I have been in constant connection – sometimes just to pray and sometimes to beg her to make my face fall off.

Maureen is a saint. Kids like to look and say, “ewwww.” and none of the neighbors minded when I puked all over the driveway after returning from the doctor’s office.

Next week will be better. I am working on getting out to get a lottery ticket and trying to figure out what the judges didn’t like about my performance on America’s Got Talent.

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Distracted

Last week was spent in Orlando at the Convocation of Catholic Leaders, but more on that another time. Needless to say, sometimes when I travel and get stuck in a hotel for days on end, I lose track of days and this trip was no different. I spent the first few days at the annual meeting of the Leadership Roundtable and the following four or five days with other delegates from the Diocese of Bridgeport at the Convocation. It was Tuesday before I realized Five Minutes on Monday never went out.

This week would have been another forgotten week, were it not for the handy reminder I put in my phone last Tuesday.

Yesterday, I drove from our home in Connecticut to La Salle University in Philadelphia. The trip is supposed to take about three hours, but was extended when some clown didn’t realize the signs along the Merritt Parkway indicating the low clearance were supposed to be taken seriously and sheered off the top of his box truck, sending someone’s belongings all along the highway. What a mess. The distraction of the traffic gave me more time to sit in silence in the car. More time to pray. More time to think. More time to sing along or listen to podcasts.

For the next few days I will continue my doctoral studies at La Salle. Four friends will wrap up their coursework and take their oral comprehensives this week. We started together and, all things being equal, I would be taking my comps too. But life gets in the way and, like with many things in my life, I am behind. Maybe next year.

As I caught up with friends last night, we chatted about the many distractions that keep our lives and our studies from staying on track. Many of us are delayed in the program because of births and deaths or new jobs and family crisis. One has cancer. Another lost a job. One classmate is a Protestant Minister and just began new ministry with a new congregation. Distractions abound.

I am reminded from this morning’s Gospel reading that sometimes there is great beauty in the distractions. Were it not for the distraction of the woman touching the hem of Jesus’ cloak, she would not have been healed and Jesus would have arrived at the house of the official before the professional mourners. The distractions are the ministry.

My goal this week is to write a 25-page paper on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and its implications for faith formation in the United States. Between 21 hours of classroom instruction and conversation back in June and a dozen or so articles and books, my biggest hope is to write the paper in such a way that it’s not just a collection of quotes. If I work quickly, I will submit my paper Wednesday morning, go see family in Philadelphia, and head home.

Unless, of course, I get distracted.

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The In Between

I find myself once again in that in between stage. Not in the metaphysical sense as in between birth and death. Not in the seasonal sense as in between the end of school and a new beginning.

No, I’m talking about pants.

I find myself too big for one size and too small for the next size up. One pair is too tight and hurts. The other pair falls off when I walk. I’m in between.

The way I see it, I could eat well and exercise, take the stairs instead of the elevator, take a walk around the block, ride the stationary bike, and risk shedding a few pounds so the pants that are tight fitting more comfortably.

Or I could eat more.

People say nothing tastes as good as being thin feels but I don’t think those people have ever tasted Breyers ice cream. Or peanut butter. Or the chocolate chip cookies I make with the kids.

I talked it over with the children and they voted for the stationary bike. I think they like to see me sweat – or maybe they are tired of my telling them, “I don’t bend,” when things are on the floor.

So that’s the goal: five pounds. I’ll start there.

It’s time to charge the Fitbit, that annoying piece of technology that screams, “Hey Lazy,” at the end of each day. It’s time to take a walk, ride a bike, take the stairs, and put the chips away. Starting today, I will use a smaller bowl for ice cream (let’s be honest here…)

About the same time I noticed the in between situation with the pants, I noticed it had crept into the rest of my life too. I am in between classes in my doctoral studies. I am in between four different projects at work. I am in between two books I started around Christmas. I am in between series on Netflix. I am in between the prayer I started last night when I fell asleep and the prayer I started this morning.

Living in the in between is frustrating. In this morning’s readings, we find Abram living between his old life and the new one to which he has been called. In the Gospel, we find Jesus chastising the disciples to stop being hypocrites: remove the beam from our own eyes before reacting to the splinter in our neighbor’s eye. We live in between being accepting and judgmental, kind and vicious, helpful and lazy, brave and cowardly, saintly and sinful.

Maybe this week we can choose a side that is healthy, holy, righteous, and peaceful. Tell the devil named Breyers to get behind us and choose the side that leads to better choices.

It might also lead to smaller pants.

 

Comments have been turned off because computers are getting smarter and keep trying to posts garbage disguised as comments. If you want to reach me, you know how.

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FXM

When I was little and the older siblings were playing basketball at Knoxville Catholic, the principal was a priest named Fr. Mankel. He would let us go into the office and make copies of our hands.

He was a big man with an enormous presence. When he spoke, rooms went silent. When he sang, walls shook. And when he corrected you, you just wanted to crawl away. But this big man became a mentor, a colleague, and eventually, a good friend. He was the first priest to hire me into ministry, promising that if I ever wanted to leave to “try out” the seminary, he would keep my position vacant in case I wanted to return home.

I heard this weekend that he is in 24-hour hospice care. He is in his eighties now and, though we have stayed in touch, he went downhill faster than anyone thought he would. He always joked that if he fell, the rising tide would sink many boats and, ironically, it was a fall at the barbershop that began his descent.

It was Fr. Mankel – now Msgr. Mankel – who invited my father to take stats at all the high school basketball games. For my father, it was a job he enjoyed from the early 1980s until shortly before he died. For Fr. Mankel, it was a way to separate my dad from Dr. Davidson since the two of them were, shall we say, pretty tough on the officials. That was FXM, always looking to match the right person with the right post.

His homilies were terrible, but his capacity to create a beautiful liturgical experience (homily notwithstanding) was incomparable. I served Mass with him every Triduum up until he transferred from our parish when I was 27. He was a gifted educator, a consummate politician, and a walking encyclopedia when it came to the people of Knoxville. He could look at a picture and tell you about the nurse who delivered the mother or the father of whomever was in the photograph. His mind was a wasteland of facts and figures most of us would never bother to remember, but for him, it was a way of connecting to the larger community and making sure those who heard him tell stories knew that, in the end, we are all connected.

This week, I will pray for my friend and teacher. I will tell my children the story of someone who once drove – or tried to drive – through the blizzard of 1993 just to get some personal items for the young people stuck at the church, snowed in during a retreat. I will tell them about how he once caught me imitating him and how he shook his head in disappointment, not because it was rude, but because my impression was so bad.

When you think about the teacher or mentor or friend that contributed to who you are today, whom do you think about? Got it? Can you see him or her? Good. Now tell that story to someone.

Be a witness to the lives of others and the gift they gave so freely.

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The Circle of Life and First Communion

What a weekend. One great blessing after another.

Ace Number One – Molly – performed in The Lion King Saturday night in what I have to say was one of the best middle school shows I have ever seen. The Lion King is a powerful story in itself and I have fond memories of seeing it in the theater the summer before big brother Jim died. I remember thinking then how poignant the story was for what Jim was about to endure and I remember the lump in my throat when I looked down the aisle to see Jim cuddling his three-year-old daughter.

Molly’s role wasn’t huge. She was part of the Dashiki Dancers and part of the ensemble that sang back up for the principle actors, but you could hear her voice above the others as she told the story in song. More than 100 young people from the school participated and the costumes, straight out of a Broadway design shop, were amazing. On Sunday, Molly mentioned she wasn’t sure what to do with all her free time (she’s been rehearsing since January). I suggested that her Math grade could use some work, but judging from the look on her face, I am not sure that is what she had in mind.

On Sunday morning, Katie received her First Communion – the last of her generation to do so. All along, Katie had wanted to receive the Blessed Sacrament from Fr. John, our pastor and the last few weeks have been rough for her as she waited patiently for the right time. Her classmates received their First Communion while we were in Syracuse celebrating the same event with one of Katie’s cousins. With the play already on the schedule and with family already traveling so much to be with and then celebrate Maureen’s father, we decided to combine the events so the family could celebrate with us. All of Maureen’s siblings and most of the nieces and nephews came to town, as did the ever-faithful Aunt Maggie, a Daughter of Charity who is preparing for a move out west.

Katie has been ready theologically for some time. She is a funny child who cannot clear her place or shut her dresser drawers but can articulate that she becomes what she receives and that this has implications for how she treats her brother and her sisters and the world around her. I don’t know whether Jesus ever cleared his place, so I pick my battles.

I know I am nowhere near the first person to point out the spiritual significance of The Lion King, but there is a line in one of the songs that has been running through my head all weekend. When it was sung Saturday night, the tissues went up and down the aisle as Maureen and her siblings remembered Pop Pop, who certainly would have been present were he still living. On Sunday morning, I found myself humming the song as I prepared to walk with Katie and Maureen the short distance to Father John. Katie, you see, had brought a picture of Pop Pop with her. She wanted him to attend so badly and thought if she brought a picture, that might help.

He lives in you
He lives in me
He watches over
Everything we see
Into the water
Into the truth
In your reflection
He lives in you

Indeed, it’s true for Pop Pop. But when she heard me humming, Katie also commented that the song makes sense at Church too, because that’s what Communion is all about.

The Circle of Life continues.

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On The Road Again

I have been thinking about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. So much has been written about the two men and how “he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

I imagine Jesus having a great time knowing he wasn’t recognized. He converses with them, chides them, even plays the fool so their doubts are made clear, paving the way for the teacher to invite the students into a greater understanding of the Truth.

But one thing always bothered me about that story. As a young man, I was always a bit dumbfounded that Jesus didn’t introduce himself.

As a parent, I realize that He seldom does.

Instead, we find God in the laughter of the children who are young enough to still experience joy while the adults around them settle for happiness.

We find God in the man on the corner asking for money – but only if we are aware enough that the children are watching and switching lanes carries as powerful a message as rolling the window down and offering what we can.

We find God in the springtime when we are surrounded by new life, but only if we pause from medicating ourselves against the pollen.

We find Him in holding hands, a good night kiss, a blessing on the forehead, and a hug instead of a shout.

We find Him in the messiness of house and home.

We find Him in the busyness of work.

And we find Him in the people we love – and those we struggle to love – if only our eyes are open.

Open my eyes, Lord. Help me to see your face.

 

 

 

Artwork by He Qi

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My Lord and My God

I get Thomas. I get why he needed to see the wounds. Like you, I struggle. I doubt. I wonder. I’ve put all my eggs in this basket, after all, and there are moments I look up and think, “This better be true.”

I think we all do. All honest people anyway.

We pray for the sick and they die anyway.

We pray for patience and the virtue still eludes us.

We pray for strength and courage and wisdom and still find ourselves weak and scared and dumb.

We pray for clarity of thought and still get lost in the minutia.

I get Thomas. And I take comfort in the fact that our church canonized the doubter and let the guy who denied be its first leader. Talk about human frailty.

But one of the things that has always fascinated me is that Thomas, for all his whining that he wouldn’t believe, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side…’ the Gospel writer never actually says Thomas touches Jesus.

It is the mere presence of the Risen Lord in front of Thomas that makes this honest disciple cry out.

And so it is with us. We don’t have to touch. We just have to be in the presence of Jesus.

And so, because of faith, we look at the sick and the lonely and the dying and we see the resurrection and good health that awaits us all.

Because of faith, we recognize the opportunities to be patient that are put before us by a Savior who invites us to be better than we are.

Because of faith, we find our strength and courage and wisdom in those sent to carry us, support us, and teach us (and maybe even challenge us).

Because of faith, we see the big picture. We know the end of the story. We cry on Friday and rejoice on Sunday and know that the winners write the history books.

Because of faith, we know that “the relationship is changed, not ended” and that those we love and lose remain with us and in us and all around us.

I get Thomas. And with him, I cry out: longingly, adamantly, fervently.

“My Lord and My God.”

And He cries right back, “Here I am.”

Thank God for Easter. Alleluia. Alleluia.

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Pop Pop

On Wednesday, we will bury Maureen’s father.

Ed. Dad. Pop Pop.

As we celebrate resurrection and sing our Alleluias, we will pause to remember the life of a man who meant so much to so many. He raised six amazing children and often said he lived a life more blessed than he ever imagined. We will take comfort in knowing that his suffering was minimal and give thanks that the stroke that took him in the end was, in many ways, a blessing.

Most of all, we will remember that the relationship is changed, not ended.

Still, saying goodbye to a parent is devastating. A child losing a grandparent is heartbreaking. In time, we will remember him with smiles and laughter. This week, we will take our turns crying – not for him, but for ourselves.

And so we pray:

Take my heart, O Lord, take my hopes and dreams.
Take my mind with all its plans and schemes.
Give me nothing more than your love and grace.
These alone, O God, are enough for me.

Take my thoughts, O Lord, and my memory.
Take my tears, my joys, my liberty.
Give me nothing more than your love and grace.
These alone, O God, are enough for me.

I surrender Lord, all I have and hold.
I return to you your gifts untold.
Give me nothing more than your love and grace.
These alone, O God, are enough for me.

When the darkness falls on my final days,
Take the very breath that sang your praise.
Give me nothing more than your love and grace.
These alone, O God, are enough for me.

Saints of God, come to his aid! Hasten to meet him angels of the Lord! Receive his soul and present him to God the Most High.

We will miss you, Pop Pop.

 

Prayer from These Alone Are Enough © 2004, Daniel L. Schutte.