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Presidents Day

Officially, today is Washington’s Birthday. Contrary to popular belief, there actually is no Federal holiday called “Presidents Day.” Don’t tell that to the marketing department at any number of the big box retailers, mattress companies, or car dealerships.

Still, it is a good reminder that we live in a country that celebrates its leaders, remembers its past, and looks forward to a future built on a dream where all are welcome, all are equal, and all can share in the promises new beginnings bring. As a nation of immigrants, we remember that most come from somewhere else. Many of us were one-time strangers in this new land, and whether we had a choice in our being brought to America or not, we have an obligation to remember our common struggles, our history, and what we owe to each other.

You can like the people in government or not. You can agree with policies or not. You can protest and write articles in favor of the government or against it. But what we must never do is fear the government. Local officials can seldom fix the problems that are broken in our communities. The people who fix the power lines do not regulate what runs through it. When disaster hits, it takes the government – usually on a big scale – to find the solution, fund it, and fix whatever is broken.

The government is not supposed to make money – it’s supposed to make life better for its citizens – protect them, solve issues that cannot be solved on a small scale, and educate its people as they work for a life better than the one they inherited.  We all pay for it. It works for all of us.

Or it should.

When it’s broken, we fix it. Like any competent surgeon, we use a scalpel, not an axe. We don’t arbitrarily cut off limbs; we tweak what needs tweaking and prune carefully so those who serve are served, not dismissed and destroyed.

Perhaps it would help if we paused this day and prayed. Not just for ourselves and our leaders – but for the storytellers who came before us, contributed to the government in many ways, and gave their lives in faithful service to their fellow citizens.

God our Father,
You guide everything in wisdom and love.
Accept the prayers we offer for our nation.
In your goodness,
watch over those in authority
so that people everywhere
may enjoy freedom, security and peace.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

—Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers, 371

May we all work together to build a more perfect union.

-pjd

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Beyond the Election

If you are like me, you are looking forward to November. Thanksgiving? Sure. The seasons of Advent and Christmas? Maybe.

What I am really looking forward to, however, is the end of election season.

I do not know how the campaigns get my email or phone numbers, but as I reply STOP to all the requests for money – locally and nationally – or the emails slamming one side or the other, as we are barraged by the endless news stories about who wants microphones on or off during a debate, and as the constant publishing of polls fails to share any news that is actual news, I find myself longing for the first Wednesday in November.

Of course, my hunch is that nobody will be happy. Unless it is a victory with a margin so vast that no one can dispute it, one side will be elated and the other will quickly move to file motions in court.

I cannot remember when the election season got to be years instead of months, nor do I recall when the money became so great that our poorest neighborhoods could be lifted out of so many issues with one weekend’s haul of donations.

Yet this is country we love, this is the freedom that we share and for which so many have given their lives. This is the reality we have created – a reality as frustrating as it is free.

I just can’t help thinking of all that gets lost in the noise. Distracted by politics, we spend more time talking about the failures of others and not enough time solving problems. Congress seems more interested in investigating their so-called enemies than actually solving any of society’s issues.

Listening to sophomores in college the other day in class, many of them just want the government officials to govern, to stop yelling at and about each other and do their jobs. They want politicians who have ideas, not politicians whose default position is name calling, demeaning, and threatening their opponent. They want people who understand that life issues include abortion, yes, but also a clear understanding that racism, the unhoused, immigration, poverty, healthcare, affordable insurance, and child care are all life issues too. They want a government that cares what happens after the child is born.

These are the youngest voters and I am careful not to stray too much into the weeds. I cannot ask for whom they intend to vote and it would be inappropriate to try to convince them of anything other than following their own conscious. It is clear, however, that they see the failure to speak kindly or to tell the truth as a negative, not an advantage. This is an age that can spot inauthenticity a mile away. They can tell when you are faking it, when you haven’t a clue, or when you care more about me than we.

But, like all adults, they are tired of the noise. They want a government that makes them feel safe, at school and on the road. They want officials who care about public service more than self. They want to be able to find a job, afford a house, and raise their families. And they are tired of the bluster, the corruption, the distractions, and the nonsense. They long to trust their elected officials and keep wondering aloud if this is the best we can do.

Like many of us, these young people, many of whom will vote for the first time, just keep wondering if anyone is listening.

I hope so.

 

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It Was Always Going To End Like This

Someone sent me a meme last week shortly after the horrific events at the capitol. I received it later in the week too, but it was that first person’s reaction to the meme (and the meme itself), that really irked me.

It was essentially a conversation where one side yells, “The Republicans are to blame.”

Then the other side yells, “The Democrats are to blame.”

Then a third side yells, “No, we are all to blame because we let you fight each other instead of fighting for us” – or something to that effect.

I remember it made me mad. My first thought, to be honest, was to be irritated because only hours after an attempted coup in our country, social media had done what it does best – turned it into a game.

Then I showed it to my oldest and she said, without hesitation, “Dad, that’s what guilty people say when they want to share the blame.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

I have voted for people from both parties and I have never considered myself very political, apart from stealing yards signs when I collected them and could actually run without getting winded. But all this week I have been thinking about the events of that day. Maureen and I sat down with the children to talk about it. We watched coverage on television. We prayed together for our country. We avoided talk of who is to blame and we talked about ways we could be people of peace.

But I kept being bothered by that silly Internet post and Ace Number One’s reaction to it. Then I figured out why.

It was always going to end like this. It is hard to say that and not sound arrogant or haughty, or better than those who backed the man. But that is the reaction of so many young people with whom I’ve talked about it. So let’s think about this for a minute.

When you begin your campaign by insulting people from other countries and spewing racist nonsense, you attract people who buy into that.

When you yourself have a history of corruption and surround yourself with people who are corrupt, when you begin your term in office by substituting the truth with alternative facts, when you promise to care for the most vulnerable at the expense of the living, and when you reinstitute a policy that actively seek the death of other people, you can hardly be surprised when followers begin to copy you.

When you tell violent people to stand back and stand by, when you simply refuse to accept that which is fact, and when you were default reaction is to condemn other people by making fun of them, ridiculing their families, insulting them on social media, and bullying other people to acquiesce to your demands, how can anyone be surprised that we are here?

When you ignore science, when you downplay the greatest threat to humanity in decades, when you not only hide the truth from people but knowingly and willingly lie about what you know, you are not called a leader. You are called a despot.

When I was a child, my father told me a story about a small boy who went up a mountain and, even though the child was wrapped in a coat and a hat, the air around him was frigid and the boy was cold. A snake approached the boy and begged to be picked up and kept warm. The child refused, “If I picked you up, you will bite me.”

The snake begged again and again saying that he would not bite the boy if the boy would only pick him up and keep him warm and take him down the mountain with him.

Finally, the boy gave in. My father never told me whether the boy gave in because there was no other option or because the boy didn’t like the other options that he saw or if the boy was simply overcome by the sales pitch the snake put forth. But one thing was clear, the boy believed the lies.

When they got to the bottom of the mountain, the boy took the snake out of his coat and placed him on the ground. The snake recoiled and bit the boy. The boy was stunned.

“You promised. You promised. You said if I helped you, you would not bite me.”

The snake, slithering away into the darkness, finally told the truth.

“You knew what I was when you picked me up.”

The snake bites.

And we knew it all along.

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The Long Journey

Can you imagine life becoming so unbearable on the East Coast, so dangerous, so poverty-ridden, and so unsafe for you and your children, that you pack what little you can carry, take your children by the hand, and start walking?

Now imagine that this trek takes you from the East Coast to the West Coast – some three thousand miles. Even if you walked 15-20 miles a day, it would take you 280 days to make the journey. Too far? Just walk to Denver. From my house, that’s still 1,812 miles. Could you do that with your kids in hand, your belongings strapped to your back, depending on the kindness of strangers for food and shelter?

I couldn’t.

And yet, history is filled with journeys.

We read about the Jews taking flight through the desert of all places, through the sea, up the mountains, and taking so long to make the passage that an entirely new generation arrives at the destination. We call it an Exodus and we celebrate their patience and the laws they received on their way.

We read about Mary and Joseph taking a trek on the back of a donkey and we pause to remember the sacrifice.

We remember the journeys of St. Paul and read nearly every Sunday about the communities of Corinth, Ephesus, Caesarea, and Thessalonica to whom he wrote and gave instructions we still ask our children to follow.

We read about two men, on their way to Emmaus, joined by the Risen Lord and reminded that, in the breaking of the bread, salvation is found.

And yet today, we read about thousands of people who are marching to a better life and we argue about how fast we can close the border.

These people are hungry and yet manipulated by immigration groups and the media. They are scared and yet willing to take on hard jobs most of us don’t want to do. They are worried about their safety but are willingly walking in the open air because they dream of a better tomorrow.

They are you and they are me. With skin of a different color and language we may not understand, they are us. They are our ancestors who journeyed on boats from foreign lands like Ireland and Italy and Hungary and Spain. Boats, I might add, onto which you and I would never step foot.

They are human and worthy of the same dignity we demand our children show one another.

To say otherwise flies in the face of all the other journeys we celebrate and remember.

This week, let us put down the newspaper, turn off the wifi, close the browser, and pick up a Bible.

The answers are there, I promise.

-pjd

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Seventeen Years

This week we commemorate the 17thanniversary of that Tuesday morning when church doors were opened, and people wept openly in the streets. Loved ones were lost and true heroism became the top story on the evening news. Initials like “FDNY” took on new meaning and, for a moment, the world stood still and mourned.

No one who is in grade school or high school can tell you about their experiences of that day. In fact, some of the people teaching those very students were likely in grade school and high school themselves that fateful day. Those old enough to remember can tell you the stories of where they were, what they were doing, and how their lives were interrupted for a few days. They can tell you how quiet the skies were and how filled the churches became. They can tell you about the return of major league sports, prime-time television, and how a president inspired a nation with a bullhorn as he stood atop the rubble.

But as a country, we have forgotten the lessons of that day. We have forgotten how important it is to talk to each other and hold hands once in a while. Patriotism has been replaced by partisanism and no one really has a conversation anymore. Instead, we define people by right or left and we stand on the side we think defines us and we yell at each other. People who dare to cross the proverbial aisle to work with another person are condemned as traitors and are called names by colleagues and friends. Ideologies define us and all that we are sure of is that the other side is wrong.

We are an impatient people, made more impatient but the glut of news and the lack of filters. Where you get your news creates a line of demarcation about where you sit and who you believe and how great you think our country is – or could be.

Seventeen years ago, we stopped fighting for a little while. Politicians stood on the steps of the Capitol and sang, “God Bless America.” Color and race and creed and orientation did not matter – especially if you needed saving or rescuing or defending. We recognized how fragile life had always been when we saw photos of strangers hanging on a fence and commuter lots filled with cars whose owners were not coming back.

This week, maybe we could pause to remember those who died needlessly that day, stolen from their families by a madman. Perhaps we could remember those who ran into the buildings. They ran into the buildings. Perhaps we can remember the thousands who have died since then – and are still dying – combatting the power of evil in the world.

Most of all, we should remember the civility, the calm, and the longing for peace that was so palpable in the days and weeks that followed that awful day. These are the lessons we must teach today’s young people. They did not experience any of those things and if we are not very careful, they never will.

Let there be peace on earth, in our homes, in our classrooms, in our families, in our workplaces, in our country, in our hearts.

And let it begin with me.

~pjd

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Who We Obey Makes A Difference

From the archives (circa 2012)

On Sunday we heard, if we were really listening, great advice from the Acts of Apostles.

“We must obey God rather than man.”

Man tells us it’s okay to be mean if people deserve it or if it gets us ahead. God says, “ Love your neighbor.”

Man tells us it’s okay to execute in the name of government. God says, “Do not kill.”

Man tells us life begins whenever we say it begins and until then we can pretty much do what we want with that blob of cells. God says, “Before you were born, I called you by name.”

Man tells us that might makes right, power is everything, and the poor can take of themselves. God says, “The first shall be last,” and “As I have done, so you must do.”

Man tells us it’s okay to lie if it means we win the day, that the truth is flexible and its definition can change. God says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Man hates. God loves.

Man is intolerant. God welcomes everyone.

Man breaks down others. God builds us up.

Man gets lost. God gives Light.

Man despairs. God sends Hope.

Man crucifies. God resurrects.

Who we obey is a very big deal.

~pjd

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God’s First

This Friday, 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 to lose his head for following his conscience and says, (at least this is how it is 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 simply made himself the head of the church, granted himself the divorce, and thus was free to marry the woman who would become one of many in a succession of wives. It was a declaration that he wrote with his advisors that made him able to do these things and it turns out it was a declaration that went against his own coronation oath.

When the leader of this country takes the oath of office he or she promises to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” But now, we are faced with a situation at our southern border that is an adaptation of a law that violates the very constitution the president swore to protect.

The Supreme Court held in 2000’s Zadvydas v. Davis that due process rights apply to undocumented immigrants. The government may not separate asylum-seekers from their children indefinitely and without cause. Still, to date, more than 2,000 parents and children have been separated, often with no follow-up, no way of tracking kids or parents, and no path to reunification. It’s a policy rooted in fear and guided (or misguided) by those who believe that might makes right and people who are in danger of starving to death or getting shot on their neighborhood streets will somehow stop coming if the gate is locked.

Our current policy defies logic and basic human decency. In some cases, the parents are arrested at the border, not once they have crossed it. Whether the parents are fleeing persecution at home, violence in their streets, or are simply hoping to gain entry to a better life does not seem to matter. No amount of Bible quotes will get the president and his advisors out of this one.

We need an immigration policy in this country that both keeps us safe and treats others fairly. We need people who are willing to stand firm in the face of tyranny and demand change – even at the risk of losing their proverbial heads.

In short, we need people who are willing to be “God’s first” – not Republicans first, not Democrats first, not liberals or conservatives, or ultra-anything (except, perhaps, Christian), not watchers of news from one side or the other, but true, honest to goodness Americans who are willing to stand up and say, “Enough.”

Simple steps, like writing your representatives, is a beginning. I was challenged to do that last week by a late-night talk show host of all people. His argument was compelling, and I wrote my letters immediately. Signing petitions is another step. Posting on social media is another. Talking to your friends. Reading the paper. Inform yourself.

Because if we are judged on how we treat the most vulnerable, I cannot imagine the one will judge us all is happy about any of this.

This week, how will you be “God’s first”?

~pjd

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Lessons

I remember the day that a little girl fell down a well and the world watched while she was rescued.

And the well got covered and the little girl grew up.

I remember when the Space Shuttle fell from the sky shortly after takeoff killing all the astronauts on board, including a school teacher who won a contest.

And the fleet was grounded for years while protocols were amended.

I remember when a group of miners was trapped underground and people all over the world held their collective breath until the very last one came to the surface.

And mining regulations changed.

I remember when evil hijacked the planes and the towers fell.

And we changed the way we check in and get screened at the airport, we went to war, and we hunted down the guilty party and made movies about the whole experience.

I remember when oil gushed beneath the Gulf of Mexico and people dove into the sea to escape the flames.

And the number of inspectors tripled, and audits of offshore oil rigs became more complicated.

I remember being in a classroom with junior high students watching on television as children in Littleton, CO ran from the building.

I remember Paducah, Tacoma, Knoxville, and the Amish children in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.

I remember the night and weeks following Newtown and how we held each other and our children so much closer.

I remember people arguing about politics and guns and parenting and I remember politicians crying and celebrities offering thoughts and prayers.

But nothing changed.

So, now, seventeen more children and adults are dead, and the arguing has started all over again.

And parents everywhere wonder…

Will things be different this time?

~pjd

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Loving Others

Throughout the Bible, we are told the God loves everyone. I could quote you chapter and verse, but I know you believe me.

So if God loves everyone, then everyone is lovable. Right?

Think about that for a bit. Everyone?

Everyone.

The racist, the bigot, the idiot, the moron, the Democrat, the Republican, the guy on Fox and the guy on CNN, the criminal, the person who cuts you off in traffic, the guy – or girl – who dented your car and did not leave a note, the mean lady at the grocery store, and the person down the hall at work that everyone struggles to like.

Everyone is lovable.

God will sort out the forgiveness and God will judge the remorse.

It is our job to love others. Period.

That includes everyone.

This week, maybe I will just pick one or two from my list and start there.

~pjd

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Except Through Me

When we think of Charlottesville or Orlando or Charleston, may we pay attention to the command to love one another.

When we think of Syria or the Gaza Strip or South Sudan, may we gain some perspective and complain less.

When we hear of immigrants dying in tractor trailers or deportations that defy understanding, may we welcome the strangers in our midst.

When we think of Sandy Hook or Columbine or Paducah or any number of the places where people with guns shoot children, may we hold our little ones close and remind them that we are called to be people of peace.

And when we gather this week for Mass on the Feast of the Assumption, may we be reminded of the words of the late Ruth Mary Fox and the great challenge her words offer to each of us.

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.

As we watch the news and see the violence, bigotry, and unbridled enthusiasm for ignorance and hatred, we are challenged to ask ourselves this important question:

“How will I carry Christ this week?”

~pjd