Posted on

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

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Born Blind

In Sunday’s Gospel, we hear the story of the man born blind. He finds Jesus and is healed.

It would be easy to think of this man in light of all those we know who are also blind: those who only see color when they look at others, those who only see religious practices that differ from their own, those who fail to see others in need, in pain, in darkness.

But for whatever reason, the Gospel made me think of all the things I still do not see. Though these things are ever present, I am blind. Though there are those around me who are light, I still somehow remain in darkness.

This week, I will wash my eyes and pray for sight.

To see the child whose needs are greater than my own.

To see and hear the coworker who just wants to talk.

To see the friend who has advice to share.

To see the spouse who is tired.

To see the person in need at the corner.

To see the reflection of Christ in the mirror.

To see the leader who knows more than I do.

To see the opportunities for new life around me.

Master, I want to see.

O God of Light, wash away the darkness.

Posted on

The Hat

There is a couple that sits in front of us at Mass on Sundays. She always wears the nicest hats. They are the quintessential older couple: smartly dressed, clearly still in love, and about the same age as our children’s grandparents. I would like to say that we would know them anyway were it not for the hats, but you never know.

A few Sundays after the family moved up here last summer, the oldest child wore a hat to Mass. It provided the perfect opening for Mrs. C to say something to our eldest about how good it is to see someone else who appreciates a good hat.

Since then the friendship has blossomed. Mrs. C has presented hats to the girls and going to Mass has become something I know they will enjoy because Mr. and Mrs. C will be there.

We have been to their home. They have baked us a cake. We pray for their daughter, who’s fighting an illness, every night. Mrs. C is one of our first-born’s “five” – that small group of people she knows she can count on, go to, trust, admire, and emulate. It’s more than just a hat now; they are part of our extended family.

As we sat behind them at Mass this morning, Mrs. C in her purple hat and Mr. C in his matching scarf, I thought about how, in a few short months, they had become a part of the village helping to raise our children. It made me think of the life of our parish community – filled with many such stories. A parish ought to be a family. Faith ought to be transformational. We discover that God loves us and values us only when we are loved and valued by others.

No matter where you sit on Sundays, relationships matter. Stories matter. Stories disarm us; shared responsibility disarms us. Faith is at the center of the table but we all share in the responsibility to make sure faith doesn’t just stay there. Our understanding of God grows only as we learn that God is beyond our understanding.

Sharing the Good News requires legs and arms and voices.

And, yes, on occasion, the right hat.

Posted on

The “A” Word Disappears

Lent begins on Wednesday. In the Donovan household (and at liturgical celebrations everywhere), it has always meant the absence of the “A” word. When the children were younger, it seemed like a big deal. You could not sing “Alleluia” around the house – and when one child did, another would correct them (sometimes harshly). Yes, it seemed that “dummy” and “idiot” remained in the common vocabulary, but heaven forbid that anyone sing praise during Lent.

The children are getting older and I doubt there will be much discussion of the “A” word this year. I don’t know whether they have aged out of the novelty of it or if their focus is pulled in so many directions, they have just forgotten the big deal it used to be. This year, we need to make Lent a big deal again. We need to try harder to “live Lent” intentionally. Perhaps this will mean giving up ice cream or candy or making a concerted effort to read more, watch less, or spend more time outside. Perhaps the iPad or Wii will go unplugged and we will dust off the family Bible.

Family time has always been a sacred tradition in our home. Friday night movie nights are a long-standing commitment we enjoy. Sunday Mass is sacrosanct. But last year Lent was consumed with packing and moving and emptying a house we occupied for 11 years. Lent rushed by and we fell into Easter without realizing we had failed to live Lent well.

This year, we will slow down. We will pause. We will pray. We will sacrifice. We will make some new traditions in our new home and we will spend the next forty-plus days understanding why the Church asks us to live in the dessert for a bit.

Then, when Easter comes, we will sing that “A” word loud and long. We will rise up and celebrate the reality that death falls over into life. We will celebrate being Easter people.

But to make Easter a more powerful experience, we must first live Lent well.

Are you ready?

Posted on

Family Dynamics

The first readings the liturgical calendar offers us this week have some serious family dynamics going on. Perhaps dysfunction is a better word. Cain kills Abel. Noah sails off with his family in a giant boat filled with animals. The families of Shinar, all speaking the same languages, build a city with a giant tower that concerns God so much he changes the one language to many, scattering the people to the corners of the earth.

And we thought our families had issues.

Families are a funny thing. You grow up with brothers and sisters who know everything about you: what makes you happy, what buttons to push to get a rise out of you, how to make you smile, or angry or sad or whatever. Families know how to avoid conflict or pit one sibling against another. They not only know your story, they had a hand in writing it. Families have our past and serve as a compass for our future. No matter how far we wander, families point us home.

I don’t connect with my original family nearly enough these days. There are some siblings I email or text or write to often and others I haven’t spoken to in months. The excuse I use is that my present family – the one I live with – are now my focus. But the fact is I could do more. I just don’t.

This week we will celebrate Valentine’s Day. The children will give cards to their classmates and the stores will discount the candy for those who forgot to plan ahead. It’s meant to be a day you show your loved ones that they are, in fact, loved. It seems odd to have a day set aside for that. Shouldn’t we be telling people we love them everyday?

Still, it’s a special day. So, Mom, Terri, Cathy, Tim, John, Cindy, Kris, Kevin, Meghan, and Timmy – consider this your Valentine. Tell your spouses and children too. They are loved; you are loved, and I am grateful we are a family. Dysfunctional though we may be (and we are), we belong to one another.

We are, as they say, our stories. And you will always be part of mine.

Posted on

God Saw How Good It Was

It is a dad-only week as mom travels to Pittsburg for her organization’s annual meeting. I have caught up on laundry, mostly because Maureen did nearly all of it before she left. I have tried a new recipe for slow-cooker oatmeal, which the children voted “not as good” as the last recipe. And I let them have garbage for dinner one night while we watched the documentary, Planet Earth (and no, the irony of mankind’s treatment of the earth and the effect of dinner on their bodies wasn’t lost on the eldest).

It is only day three.

But there was moment in Mass yesterday when I was listening to Father John read about salt and light, that I began to think about how my children are lights in the world. The oldest is fascinated with the possibility of alternate universes and wants to study quantum physics. I’m not sure I could spell the word “quantum” at eleven.

Child number two wants to be a teacher. I have never met a child who could turn anything into “playing school.” If she helps her sister study, there is an imaginary classroom involved. If they are playing with Legos, she’s building a school. I’m not sure if she wants to impart wisdom or just likes being bossy.

Child number three will illustrate the next great graphic novel. He has taken a cue from his eldest sister and fills sketchbook after sketchbook with illustrations. When he isn’t drawing, he is casting spells from Harry Potter on all of us. I think he wishes the school would add Parseltongue to their foreign language choices.

Then there is the youngest. We are hoping the upcoming celebration of Reconciliation curbs her ability to lie to your face (“You were gone for thirty seconds and I’m not deaf, so there is no way in the world you brushed your teeth!”). Still, her gymnastic abilities are amazing. Her confidence is overwhelming. The lying will pass, I am sure, but I pray the playfulness never leaves here.

I look at these four amazing children and pray their father doesn’t screw things up. I pray that they will grow to cherish their relationships with each other. I pray that they will change the world in powerful, pervasive ways. I look from my chair to the four of them sitting on the couch, eating Chex mix and popcorn (we were out of ice cream) and I realize they are the light of the world. They are the light of my world.

And it is very good indeed.

Posted on

Movie Night

The launch of the Institute was a great success. This week I hope to get the video of Chris Padgett’s reflection online. It was raw, honest, and one of the best presentations I have heard on the many ways we encounter Christ in our family, our work, and our world. The evening was a wonderful celebration of a new adventure in the life of the Diocese of Bridgeport.

This weekend, a long weekend for parents and children, gave us a chance to put Christmas decorations away and unpack the few remaining boxes that have been shoved aside as our busy lives left little time for such things. It was like a second Christmas; opening a box and finding toys we haven’t missed and decorations we forgot we had. I finally found the other glove I have been missing – and with a Saturday’s snow of an inch of so – and more on the way, matching gloves were a welcome sight.

As many of your know, movie night is a staple here at the Donovan home. Someday I will finish my next book, “Movies I Want My Kids To See” (or at least that is what I call it in my head) and finally write down the movies we have watched together and those I recommend for a family movie night with children of varying ages. This past Friday found us watching Disney’s newest remake, this time retelling the story of Pete and his dragon, Elliott. We had watched the original Pete’s Dragon from 1977, which starred Helen Reddy, Mickey Rooney, and Jim Dale some time ago, and I was afraid of what the remake might do to the original story. I remember going to see the original at West Town Theater when I was seven and I have always loved that story.

The new movie was great and I wish we had bought it instead of rented it. The music had the children dancing to the credits and I was pleased to see even the oldest child, who stopped dancing somewhere along the way, join in the fun. In fact, I am not sure when the dancing after movies stopped in the last year, but it did. I was so happy to see it return.

School begins again tomorrow and the next break comes Presidents Day Weekend. Maureen flies out in the morning to Spokane and there are projects waiting at work. But if you get a chance, try the new Pete’s Dragon for movie night and listen carefully for the words of the song in the final credits.

If you’re lost out where the lights are blinding
Caught in all, the stars are hiding
That’s when something wild calls you home, home
If you face the fear that keeps you frozen
Chase the sky into the ocean
That’s when something wild calls you home, home

May your week be filled with dancing.

 

 

Posted on

Death And Life Are In The Power Of The Tongue

I’m sorry…I didn’t mean it

I take it back

Strike it from the record

What is as irreversible as murder, violates its victims more than theft, is as deadly as an epidemic? And is a lot closer to you than you want to think?

Gossip, slander, and thoughtless speech. Gossip is a million-dollar industry in our country today. We tend to think of it as a sport, harmless and fun. After all, it’s only words.

As Christians, we are called to see it differently. Which is worse, we must ask, to steal from someone or to speak ill of someone? To defraud a person or to humiliate him? Answer: Property can be restored, but the damage done to another can never be undone. In fact, our Jewish ancestors compared slander and humiliation with murder: the destruction is irreparable and enduring.

You can’t take it back. What we say about each other is terribly powerful: words have a long, long half-life, and they can destroy in unseen, unhealable ways.

Our words are a footprint we leave for the world. What will they reveal about the way we treat our children, our parents, our friends, students, co-workers, employees? How we treat ourselves?

It’s a new year. Perhaps none of us will find a cure for cancer, or feed the world’s hungry, or bring about world peace. But nearly every day we find ourselves with someone’s reputation or sense of worth in our hands.

We can improve our world in a powerful, pervasive way; we can act as though our words had the power of life and death.

They do.

About this reflection

When I was a child, there was an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal with the headline and text above, though I have edited some text. The ad was in celebration of the Jewish New Year, I believe. My mother, wise as she was, cut it out and posted it on the refrigerator. If you said or did something that warranted further reflection, you got to stand in front of the full page of newsprint. In time, I had it memorized. When her children moved out of the house, my mother made sure we each got a copy. Mine hangs on the refrigerator and I can still say it by heart. We learn slowly as children…and sometimes more slowly as adults. Happy New Year Mom. Happy New Year One and All.

 

 

Posted on

Five to One

Those of us in ministry have gotten used to ratios. We know how many adults need to chaperone a field trip. We know how many young people we can invite to something before we start recruiting more cleared adults. As parents, we know what to ask when our children are invited to parties about the number of adults who might be present.

Chap Clark, author of great books like Sticky Faith turned the ratios around about 15 years ago when he first suggested that every child needs five adults investing in their lives. In a 2004 article in Decision Magazine, he wrote, “Here’s the bottom line: every kid needs five adult fans. Any young person who shows any interest in Christ needs a minimum of five people of various ages who will say, ‘I’m going to love that kid until they are fully walking as an adult member of this congregation.’”

Substitute “congregation” for “parish,” “faith community,” or even “family” and you start to see what could happen if each of our children are guided by responsible adults until they themselves can guide others. Pope Francis calls it “accompaniment.” The latest research shows that young people who have five such adults are three times more likely to live happy, healthier, more Spirit-filled, God-centered lives.

Kara Powell, who gave a great presentation at the National Conference on Catholic Youth Ministry, which Maureen helped coordinate and from which I just returned, mentioned this ratio in her talk. It got Maureen and I thinking: “Who are the five adults, outside mom and dad and grandparents, who will accompany our children?” Some of the answers came quickly. There’s Mary and Madeline. Vanessa and Fr. Joe. Charlotte. Mrs. Brady from school. Patrick from work. Mr. Mark who makes great pancakes. Aunt Cathy on dad’s side. Kathleen in England.

There are others too. But those are our answers. That’s our list.

This Advent we will sit down and make lists with the children. Who are the adults in their lives they want on their list? Who do they want to walk beside? Who do they admire in faithfulness? Who will accompany them on their journey to and with Christ? My guess is that the lists will have overlapping names and that they will name people mom and dad haven’t even thought about.

I think we all need a list. I think we all need guides – at any age. So this week, make your own list. Write it down. Then tell those people you are counting on them to lead you to Christ. But be forewarned. You might be on someone’s list too.

Let us pray together that we share in the responsibility to carry one another to the manger, to the Temple, to the garden, to the cross, and to the empty tomb.

May your week be blessed.