The Risen Christ in Our Lives

This week it’s something different. Geoff Wood is someone whose writings are little known to the general population. He writes for his parish in Sonoma, CA, and I’ve spent a wonderful morning speaking with him. He writes a weekly reflection on the Sunday Gospel. This reflection is for the Gospel for this Sunday (John 15: 12-15), when Thomas learns more than his pessimism might allow for. Geoff’s other reflections are online: http://angelacentergeoffwood.blogspot.sg/ I decided to substitute this one for mine this week because 1) I can’t think of anything better to say, 2) his words describe something that echoes my own experience, and 3) it’s good to share interesting reflections by other people. On the weekend when we celebrate Buddha’s birthday, the openness of the human spirit to realities thought to be beyond our reach is a good thing to think about.

“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”

With startling rapidity the faith of our civilization seems to be slipping away.  As recently as my childhood Catholics and Protestants for the most part didn’t question their creed.  They were born into it and, as they grew up, it was reinforced by a prosperous Church, plenty of priests and ministers, family solidarity.  We had no doubts where we came from cosmically.  The catechisms were full of answers that were easily memorized.  The sacraments were accompanied by gestures that had become habitual, collectively uniform.  Now, I am speaking as an old man; I’m not sure someone born even 30 years ago has had the same experience.  But that’s my point!  Times have rapidly changed.  The ethnic, creedal solidarity we once assumed had been around forever has broken up.  People of different cultural and even global background have become our neighbors.  And then, 300 years of secular philosophies, of the “supremacy” of science over religion have reduced Christ, for example, to another Socrates, at best – and all options seem open as far as what truth might be.

                And so I read today on the Internet a blurb by an ex-Catholic who boasts of his newfound freedom – from the whole “myth” he was taught in his youth.  He doesn’t take the Gospels seriously either literally or metaphorically.  He now embraces an existence (for his kids too?) that stops dead at death!  And yet he’s laughing.  Obviously he has not reached 40 let alone 50.  And he is raising his children as dogmatically in his skepticism even as he was raised dogmatically in Catholicism.  Except again – there’s that Berlin Wall called death that he’ll have to deal with some way or other – or steel himself to it with a display of theatrical defiance?  But is it his fault?  One must admit our Christian tradition shares the fault.  The essence of biblical and liturgical theology poorly taught, poorly understood even by teachers can contribute to disenchantment.  Young people in this day and age and under the influence of bright atheists or agnostics are going to be better impressed.

                But is it, after all, a matter of a better Christian education?   Teaching, be it “literally” or “abstractly” done, won’t be enough.  What has to happen is “conversion”.  This being the Pentecost season, we should be aware that conversion happens when one wakes up one morning a different person, suddenly alive, aware of a spark having been struck in one’s mind, one’s imagination, one’s soul.  The mission of teaching is to arrange the dry grass and wood chips, to strike the flint, to create the spark – in other words educate in a way that allows a tongue of fire to enkindle a blaze of genuine, living faith, hope and love within even possibly a 60 year old Catholic who may have recited his creed his whole life long - but never with a “tongue of fire”.

                “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”  Jesus said this at the Last Supper and scholars think he’s foretelling his coming resurrection when he will deepen his disciples’ understanding of what he is all about.  Yet those words are addressed to you too – that if in fact what you have learned about Christ and his mission and origin is still a lot of “information” or piety – then he is telling you there is more to come.  It will not just be a good course in theology.  It will be that waking up one morning aware of a depth and expanse to this universe far beyond the range of any telescope, a sense of a grace permeating creation that becomes a turning point you will never be able to reverse or explain to others.  It means suddenly seeing the risen Christ and dropping to your knees not in a servile way but with astonishment and blurting out: “My Lord and my God.”   - Geoff Wood

Founder's Day 2013

St. John Baptist de La Salle wasn’t always a saint. He was given that title 180 years after he had died. He was made a saint because what he did made such a big difference to so many people, especially people who were involved in teaching and in schools.  And in 1950, on May 15^th, he was also made the Patron Saint of All Teachers. He is the one that teachers can pray to for help when they need some help. That is why May 15^th is celebrated as Founder’s Day in many Lasallian schools.

     The saintly things that John Baptist de La Salle did were not amazing building projects, impressive miracles, or rousing speeches. He wouldn’t have been on the front page of the newspaper, or be mentioned in a blog, or be a singing sensation, or be part of a famous sports star. Those things may have their value, but most of the people who become famous that way usually aren’t saints, and most saints usually aren’t people who become famous that way.

     Instead, John Baptist de La Salle became famous because he did something that each one of us can do. He decided how he wanted to live his life, what kind of person he wanted to be, and then he followed those decisions. Saints make choices that they follow with stubborn consistency.

At some point in life we all figure something like this out. We have to figure out what direction we want to take. It’s a very basic decision because it’s not so much a decision about a career than it is a decision about our basic direction in life. Some people make it and follow it like a laser beam. Others take a longer time and do it gradually. The deliberate kind of decision is like that of a large whale swimming in the ocean, majestic and focused, slow and deliberate, concentrating on one direction and one direction only. The whale decides to go one way and the rest of the body follows. The alternative is more like a large school of smaller fish, where the final direction comes about because of a thousand little decisions, all of whom seem to be independent and without much direction individually. But because they get multiplied and effect all kinds things around them, it's soon apparent to others that a general choice has been made. Therefore, one small but deliberate decision about our life can lead us in a particular direction. But even if we don't make such a choice, all the little decisions that we make every day, in effect, do the same thing.

     For St. John Baptist de La Salle, he made such decision when he was about eleven years old and decided that he wanted to become a priest.  He stuck to that decision and eventually did become a priest, even though it wasn’t easy. But just when he thought that his life was now set, the whole thing changed. The big and deliberate choices were no longer as important as the small, daily ones. (Researchers  say that an average adult makes up to 35,000 decisions every day.) One set of these small decisions led him to do something that he had never even thought about doing, starting schools, training teachers, and beginning the Brothers Order. He said that God “made it happen in a small, hidden way and over a long period of time so that one decision that I made led to another in a way that I did not foresee in the beginning, until I ended up doing something that I really never thought I would do.”

     That’s a great lesson from De La Salle’s life for this year’s Founder’s Day. What we do with the thousands of decisions that we make every day is actually more influential than the one decision we made when we were much younger. They’re both important, but the ultimate effect of those small daily choices is what brings about our real future, shapes our true character, and defines our lived life. Therefore, things like the virtues and character and a compassionate heart end up being the actual guide for all those small choices. Paying attention to the inside parts of who we are will lead us to much more interesting places and people than paying attention to the outside parts of who we are. That was the experience of St. John Baptist de La Salle, and it can be our experience too.

Happy swimming.

Death and Life - Blessing and Curse

“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.

Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.” 

(Deut 30:19)

This quotation came to mind as I was thinking about the issues surrounding a recent video that was posted by one of our students to express his frustration with those who choose to stereotype others and who use anonymous (or not so anonymous) means to be hurtful and mean, especially via current social media. Another word that might be used to describe the gratuitous, intentional act of demeaning another person is the word “evil” and all that it implies.

While this word may bring to mind images of fierce-looking beings from Gustave Dore’s drawings for Dante’s Inferno, in actual fact some of the more evil people in the world are and have been, to all appearances, the most common of men and women (characters from The Hobbit notwithstanding). It’s only in police photos that suddenly those who commit crimes look glum, expressionless, unappealing and ruffled; sort of like we look when we look at ourselves in the mirror each morning, which in itself is a good reminder that there is this same capacity for evil within each of us, and we neglect paying attention to it at our own peril. “Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.” (GK Chesterton)

Traditionally, committing a sin is doing something evil, whether to a smaller degree (venial sin) or to a great degree (mortal sin). The three conditions that are given for deciding whether something is a mortal sin are also good gauges to see whether something is just a really bad thing to do. First, it must be something that is a grave matter, something that has serious consequences and truly breaks relationships with others and with God. Secondly, it must be something that is done with full knowledge, with a clear notion that this is something that will hurt others seriously. Thirdly, it must be something that is done with deliberate consent, with the conscious decision to do something that you know to be bad. The Catholic Catechism gives a straightforward definition: “Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbour caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity.” (CC1849) Bad is bad even for the bad, because it is the good that defines our core.

Hiding behind an anonymous identity makes evil easy and even appealing. If others cannot hold us responsible, and if we don’t have the capacity to hold ourselves responsible, then all those hidden parts of our nature, the dark corners where the bad bits dwell, have an opportunity to come out.

Gollum wasn’t a bad guy when he started his life, but things went from bad to worse when what he thought was precious wasn’t, and what he thought was evil wasn’t. That’s the glamour of evil. When rain-water discovers a hole in the roof, it begin to drip into the house and ends up making things quite messy, uncomfortable and finally unliveable for everyone. But some people just get used to it.

The fact is that we have a choice, that we can make a choice. That is what the quotation on top is all about. The fact of being able to choose makes it possible for us to drift towards the evil side of things or to the good side of things. The habits of choice that we develop, drip by drip, shape the character we become. Things like anonymous identities, letters or postings, spoken words (gossip), and the like don’t have to be used for bad things, but they are unfortunately more likely to be used that way. It’s a problem that is related to what the church calls the “Original Sin” that is part of our nature, whereby we are “subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.” (CC396) The tendency to doing bad things draws us with a thousand shiny baubles, while that of doing good things seems to require more work. The moral life is not reached for free.

We move our souls each day by the choices we make, online or not, and so change our world and the world of others for good or ill and in ways unknown and unimagined. It pays to pay attention.

The Mystery of Understanding

This is a small trek into the jungle of understanding, largely because I am in the process of reading a book called “Discerning the Mystery” by Andrew Louth. The topic is that of theology as an essentially non-rational human encounter with the divine (my words, not his). The subtext seems to be that reason is over-rated, at least when it comes to serious things having to do with God. The trouble started because of the effects of the Enlightenment, which have led to a sort of fatalism, whereby “conscious that other men were men of their time, we are conscious of the way we belong to our time and feel constrained to think in certain ways.” Science determines all.

Into the mix comes Hans-Georg Gadamer – a great name if ever I saw one – who defends “an experience of truth that transcends the sphere of the control of the scientific method.” Science is one way of finding truth, but not the sole way. The author stipulates that “in reality science as a human pursuit of truth is much less privileged than the claims of the Enlightenment might lead us to suppose.” Elements such as tradition and the tacit dimensions of life, the non-propositional personal knowing based on unwritten rules and father-to-son sorts of skills and crafts (Cf.  Michael Polyani), reveal a pattern underlying any of the human apprehensions of truth , a pattern that is curiously similar to  that found in the writings of  the Fathers of the Church (early theologians from the first few centuries after JC). The point seems to be that one must essentially live the mystery of faith in order to gain any real understanding of it. Discerning or learning the truth of faith happens through the thoughtful and reflective living of all that “faith” refers to and is part of. There are no shortcuts. Thinking is not enough.

When Einstein was asked to provide the ultimate explanation of the world, he is reported as having said, “I cannot tell you in words, but I can play it on the violin.” You will perhaps smile at that answer as if it were a fleeting glimpse of an essential truth, but very hard to put into words.

Near the end of his life, St. Thomas Aquinas, probably one of the most prolific and revered theologians in the church, whose writings still form the backbone of much formal theology, had some sort of vision of things which made him exclaim, “I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw.” Whatever it was that he saw, the understanding gained profoundly transformed his knowledge about knowledge, even though it was based on that first knowledge.

A friend of mine, presently a retired U.S. federal attorney, earned his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Chicago in three years (a really smart guy). He told me that the “key” or “solution” in his 27-page dissertation came to him while walking to dinner one day. However, he said, he would never have found that insight or solution without all of the work that he had done prior to it. In other words, one must enter into something wholeheartedly in order to bring oneself to the place where understanding might emerge. To repeat a favorite notion that I have used before, from Herbert McCabe: As we enter into a mystery, we increase our capacity for understanding it.

Another way of making the point is via a poem about poetry by Billy Collins (apologies for not properly laying out the lines):  Introduction to Poetry “I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into the poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.”

What the Dog Knew

Some 30 years ago, when I taught 8^th grade at a Lasallian boarding school in California, the Brother in charge of the school somehow ended up with three German Shepherd puppies. In his eagerness to find someone to take them, he asked me to take care of one. And so it was that a piece of my education began. Over the subsequent months, “Bart” ate and you-know-what with great frequency, tugged at the leash as if it were all part of the game, grew excited at the least provocation, and generally made me more patient and tolerant of faults. Lesson One.

As he became older and better behaved, Bart grew to eagerly watch me during training periods in order to carry out the commands, generally tagged along whenever he could, liked to awaken me at 3 AM by fervently staring at me in the dark, 4 inches away, became part of the 8^th grade classroom routine where he spent most of the day, and generally contributed to the well-settled atmosphere of our learning environment. At the end of the year, the class insisted that he sit for his yearbook photo, which he did and which was included. Late one evening on my rounds, I discovered him in a school hallway, where a 5^th grade student was seated on the floor in a dark alcove, having temporarily escaped from the dormitory, petting him and saying things like, “Nobody understands me. Only you understand me, don’t you?” Bart just looked at him and licked his hand. Lesson Two.

When it was time to play and exercise, Bart knew it through my body language and the thousand little signals known only to those with limited vocal skills. Once out in the field, it was a time of great fun and running around, chasing here and there through the tall mustard grass, until exhausted he lay down content with even being tired, tongue lolling and bright eyes shining, happy to be alive. Lesson Three.

Several years later, when not so patient anymore with kids pulling his tail or sitting on his back, the new Brother in charge suggested that I find another home for him. After some searching around, I stopped by Guide Dogs for Independent Living, walked him into the vet center, and convinced the founder, who happened to be there, to take him as a breeder (great pedigree, well trained, impervious to loud noise, etc.). She sat on the floor, grabbed his nose with her hand, put her nose up to his, and silently stared into Bart’s eyes for a full sixty seconds. Then she said: “Okay.” I took the leash off and he obediently walked to the back, ready for his next adventure. Lesson Four.

A good number of years later still, when curiosity led to wonder led to inquiry, I found out the address of the rural family where he was boarded, now long retired. I drove out there, but the family wasn’t home. From around the side of the house came an old, partially blind German Shepherd who didn’t react much, until he did the smelling thing and heard my quiet voice say his name. Then his old tail began to wag and the head-shoving began. I sat on the ground and spent a good 20 minutes reliving old times, mostly in silence and some mumbling on both our parts. Finally I returned to the car, Bart walking to the familiar rear door as if to come along. One of the toughest things I’ve ever done. Imagine that. The last image is of an old dog in the rear-view mirror, standing in the middle of an empty country road, both of us going back to where life has brought us. Lesson Five.

Do I regret any of it? Not a bit. Would I change any of it? Very little. Are there parallels with the life of a teacher, or any life for that matter, and the nature of learning? You bet. 

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was right: “Knowledge makes a bloody entrance.”

The Gentle Power of Easter

The life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are both an historical reality and a profound mystery. Much about the details of his life are simply lost to history. They were not recorded and not remembered. Specific incidents and statements were recalled by his followers, certainly topped by the mere fact of his resurrection (which they clearly never expected to really occur). But the vast majority of his life experiences are not available to be covered by a biopic on the History Channel, and he is not available for a sit-down interview with the latest TV personality. Try as we might, details are lacking.

Some may wish to know, for example, how he spent his early youth and what he was doing during his twenties. Others might be interested in finding out what it was like to be part of the crowd that listened to him speak, whether in a synagogue, on a noisy hillside covered with people, or next to a lakeshore as he preached from a boat anchored a little way off. Did he shout, sing, laugh, or tease? What was it like to walk with him on the road. (He did a lot of walking.) Was he happy, morose, serious, relaxed, or driven? Could he “connect” to people easily or was he relatively distant, despite his really good stories?

It’s good to acknowledge these sorts of curiosities, because they are the ones that shape our contemporary mode of preferred knowledge about individuals. We would like to know personal details because personal details bring someone closer to us, apparently, than if they were “merely” an historical figure who is vaguely known and vaguely remembered. And this would probably be true almost all historical personalities outside of our immediate experience.

The difference in the case of Jesus, it seems to me, is the impossibly consistent unity of perspective and content regarding who he was and what he did. Except for easily debunked outliers who give a quaint but strange picture of what Jesus “must have been like” or “probably did and said”, the vast bulk of written works about his life (e.g., Scripture scholars), his thought (e.g., theologians of all stripes), and his impact (e.g., all serious Christians) are remarkable consistent and uniquely impressive. Here was someone who in three years, or perhaps longer, was able to launch a movement that changed the world, and it was a movement whose substance centered around himself. For anyone else, such a thing would be ultimately empty, practically unsustainable, and more than a bit suspect. Yet in the case of Jesus, his followers, his message, his remembered and recorded words and actions, his very real and living spirit evident in those who unite their words and actions with him, and his daily transformative effect on real people who look to him for guidance and sustenance; these are all things that remain as miraculous and transformative as the apostles standing on the rooftops at Pentecost proclaiming the Gospel to the multi-lingual multitudes below them. Each Christian’s story is unique. Each Christian’s story is a very real and alive thing. Each Christian’s story is profoundly personal (potentially), for whom a whole new world stands open to be encountered. Each Christian is to be another Christ.

Therefore, during this Holy Week it is good to “see the point” of what we celebrate, recall, and make present. It is good to enter into the depths of what we find ourselves called to do as followers of Jesus Christ. And it is good to make our own the resurrection that gives life itself its transformative potential.

Saint Joseph - Patron of the Institute

The church celebrates the Feast of Saint Joseph on March 19th. Among Lasallians, he is held in special esteem because of his position at Patron and Protector of the Institute. De La Salle writes about him: "The Gospel makes us admire in Saint Joseph the care he had for the holy Child Jesus…You must have a similar great attention and affection for preserving or procuring the innocence of the children entrusted to your guidance…For you have been made responsible for these children just as Saint Joseph was made responsible by God for the Savior of the world." The very first seal of the Institute bore witness to this statement, bearing an image of Saint Joseph holding hands with a young Jesus.

For many Christians, St. Joseph remains a minor character in the lineup of saints, largely because we know so little about him. It’s as if he is a fictional or mythical character, communicating a strong but relatively hazy impression. “Oh yes, Odysseus. Wasn’t he the guy who fought that one-eyed monster?” “Oh yes, St. Joseph. Wasn’t he the father – well, sort of – of Jesus?”

Schools and institutions bear his name, but I doubt that most people ever really think about him and his role in the life of Jesus. Indeed there are precious few references to St. Joseph in the bible. But those that we have are quite impressive.

Here is someone who cares for Mary enough to marry her, despite the fact that she was “with child.” In his place, most of us would have doubted Mary’s story. Yet Joseph knew Mary, respected her, loved her, and trusted that she spoke the truth. That takes real, grounded faith.

Here is someone who pays attention to all of the ways that God communicates to us, including through dreams. Because of his trust in God, he marries Mary and later takes his family into Egypt in order to safeguard the child and mother, eventually returning to Nazareth and carrying on as if nothing special had happened. That takes real, grounded faith, humility and hope.

Here is someone who raises Jesus as any father at that time might, taking him to synagogue, teaching him about life and relationships and carpentry, having both casual and formal conversations on a host of topics, and generally shaping the boy’s personality and moral character. That takes real, grounded faith, humility, hope and the special charity of parents.

We associate Saint Joseph with goodness, watchful care, faithful service to God, a loving presence, and quietly working in the background of the greater drama about to unfold. When I think of him, I think of someone who is significantly older than Mary (not uncommon in those days) and cares for her out of a growing love and respect. For some years, he walked a lot beside a donkey (to Bethlehem and then to Egypt and back to Nazareth) and made all of the practical arrangements of life (places to stay, means of income, etc.). During the formative years of Jesus, he was the model of what “father” came to mean for him. Joseph played a significant role in providing the foundational experiences that developed how Jesus came to understand who God was and how God meant for all of us to know and love him. “Father” became “Abba”.

Many years ago I asked a holy priest how Jesus came to know that he was God’s Son. The priest thought about it for a minute and then said: “I suppose that he came to know that he was God in the same way that you and I come to know that we are a person.” In other words, it is a growing awareness, fed by reflection, experience, and prayer, which brings someone to a deeper understanding of who they are, or who they are meant to be. This was the experience of Mary, of Joseph, of Jesus, and of each one of us.

This deepening process of awareness doesn’t stop but is fed daily by what we do, say, think, and pray; something worth keeping in mind as we enter Holy Week. If this was true of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it can certainly be true of us. (Emphasis on can be.)

The New Pope Francis I

(NOTE: I have not been adding posts here for some time because of a switch in responsibilities. However, those who wish to "catch up" may do so through the reflections that I have been including in my weekly contribution to the SJI International, Singapore, newsletters. They are at the very end of the newsletter, usually. Link is HERE.)

The occasion of the election of a new pope permits a more general reflection about the Church. This is a time when many people around the world, especially Catholics, are polishing their hope and refreshing their faith, all based on the choice of one 76-year-old Argentinian bishop (of Rome). It’s probably true to say that never has so much hope been placed upon so few – namely, one – by so many.

Perhaps it’s the drama of the whole thing. The lofty space of Saint Peter’s Basilica (in Rome, of all places), the music and processions, the Michelangelo frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, the technological scrutiny of preventing electronic eaves-dropping (not a tweet from inside), the one-man-one-vote system in place since the beginning, the quaint practice of burning the ballots and having white or black smoke as an early-warning system, the spectacle of 70,000 faithful gathered in the square to greet, en masse, a small, humble, be-speckled, and rather calm figure in white on a balcony, surrounded by red-draped cardinals happily smiling because they dodged a life-long bullet, and the millions watching on the internet or the television and wondering what this will mean for themselves, if anything.

The pope’s election has become a worldwide theatrical event, perhaps because it marks a rather simple and profound reality; i.e., that a little group of followers from Palestine who came to know God in Jesus have persisted and grown, undiminished and unperturbed – although frequently and justifiably as candidates for immediate dismissal and abandonment – for over 2000 years. Something interesting is going on here. I don’t know of any other group in history that marks such a direct line of succession within a continuous and unbroken organizational framework. The miracle is that it has survived at all.

The fact that this Pope Francis I is a Jesuit is another unexpected aspect of this selection. The Jesuits were founded to do as the pope wished for the good of the church. They eventually became so powerful that the head of the Jesuits was popularly called the “black pope” because of the black cassock that he wore, in contrast to the white cassock that the pope has worn ever since the time that there was a Dominican pope, and for the power that he wielded in all the corners of the earth. Now we have a “black pope” representative who has become the white pope (and notice how simple Pope Francis looked in white, without all the ornate garments available to him). The whole thing will probably bring a boost in Jesuit vocations, and St. Ignatius of Loyola must be thinking in heaven, “Well would you look at that?”

But back on the ground, it may be helpful to share a fine quotation from Ronald Rolheiser about the church that keeps us grounded. He writes in The Holy Longing: “To be connected with the church is to be associated with scoundrels, warmongers, fakes… and hypocrites of every description. It also, at the same time, identifies you with saints and the finest persons of heroic soul within every time, country, race, and gender. To be a member of the church is to carry the mantle of both the worst sin and the finest heroism of soul … because the church always looks exactly as it looked at the original crucifixion, God hung among thieves.” (Pg. 128)

That’s a good thought as we enter into the Easter Season and the start of a new papacy. Despite the difficulties and challenges that surround us, God remains in the middle.

Leaving Your Cell Phone Behind

Today I left my mobile phone in my room at the Brothers’ house. It was only towards the middle of the day that I became aware of the fact, probably because in the midst of an otherwise busy day there seemed to be something noticeable through its absence. It’s as if you walked into your home and vaguely thought that something was out of place or missing, although it was not until you started to look around that you found out just exactly what it was.

There are so many things that we take for granted on a regular basis that it pays to lose something for a while. Sometimes these are tangible things such as phones or vehicles or entertainment systems. These things are on a level of awareness that strikes us immediately and fairly head on. We miss them, but we adapt quickly because we know that they are or could be available again.

There are other things that we only know as having been taken for granted when they are irretrievably lost. These tend to be the more intangible things, many of which involve some sort of relationship. We lose our parents, or siblings, or favorite relatives and friends, or even pets. One phrase has it that when we lose a person, we lose a library. Indeed that is true, and more than a library. Our web of connections is altered and our personal universe has to readjust to rebalance its suns and moons and stars. Our faith may be quite strong and supportive, but the reality of loss remains, carried as part of our stage scenery, usually unnoticed but ever present.

Lastly, there are those things that we don’t know we would miss and therefore take most for granted. These are things that others might think of as silly things to take for granted such as gravity, trust, hope, a sense of humour, the ability to love, daily sun light, and language. These are foundation stones of our lives and our joys, the reasons behind our ability to live. It would be nice to occasionally try to spell them out and hold them up to the light for full appreciation.

It’s in looking back that much of this is often brought to mind. Years ago, I read something by Don Herold (1889-1966) that was originally published in a 1953 Reader’s Digest magazine. Part of it will suffice to provide a sample of the list that each of us might make for ourselves:

“If I had my life to live over, I would try to make more mistakes. I would relax. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I know of very few things that I would take seriously. I would be less hygienic. I would go more places. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less bran. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary troubles. ... I never go anywhere without a thermometer, a gargle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had it to do over, I would travel lighter…. I would seek out more teachers who inspire relaxation and fun. I had a few of them, fortunately, and I figure it was they who kept me from going entirely to the dogs. From them I learned how to gather what few scraggly daisies I have gathered along life's cindery pathway.”

Allow me to add that my personal list would probably include “I would leave my mobile phone behind more often.”

Knowing When and Doing So

When you read this, we will be without a pope. To some this will make little difference. To others it may be disconcerting, but there is the anticipated mystery of a new pope. To everyone, it should be amazing that one man’s decision changes the way we think about the Church. No longer can we assume that popes remain in that position until death, the odd abdication cases in the last couple of millennia non-withstanding. Not only is it possible, it’s happening.

Years ago, the pope was never sick until he was dead. The Vatican simply didn’t let people know if the pope was ill, because of the perceived impact that might have on the faithful. All of that changed with JP II, who was very publicly ill and for a very long time, with several hospital stays that were well covered by the press. The fact of human illness, suffering, and the debilitations of age were there for all to see. Many thought it was a foolish attempt to soldier on. He saw it as part of his role to remain faithful and be a model for all those who suffer similarly. And those close to him insisted that his mind remained very sharp even as his body declined, which I’m sure made the suffering all the more acute. At the end of his papacy, the whole world knew that even popes suffer and decline. We became ready for the notion that perhaps popes need not serve to the very end of their lives.

Then, Pope Benedict’s decision came quietly, almost as a matter of course. We are startled by the decision, but we are not dismayed. The move is very unexpected and rare, but it gradually seems to be a courageous thing to do and it makes sense. Who knows how the precedent will play out in the future (disaffected people marching on St. Peter’s square carrying signs of “Resign Now”?). All we can say is that at this time and in these circumstances, it’s okay. Significantly, he made the announcement at a normal meeting with the cardinals of the Vatican. No PR blitz, no major press conference, no fuss. It’s only the listeners who are blown away. (If you watch the video clip of his announcement, watch the eye movements of the bishop seated on the right side of the frame. It’s clear that he didn’t know a thing about it.) If only the proclamation of the Gospel had that kind of effect on people.

People now worry about having two popes and the protocol mess that could ensue. (Will the cardinal announcing the results of the new election from the balcony have to say “Habemus secundus papa”?) All the speculation is just silly, of course. The opposite to a protocol mess is more likely to be true. It takes one to know one, and BXVI will undoubtedly be as unseen and quiet as possible, supporting with sympathy, encouragement, and prayer the person who next wears the white.  It’s the same as when you see someone (first-time mother, newbie in business, new student in class, etc.) who is suddenly placed in a position that you remember quite well. Intuitively, you know what will help and what will hurt. It’s my guess that a former pope has developed habits of generosity and wisdom that will easily come to the fore. Would that we would all do the same.

So all of this is a good thing, and Benedict XVI will have taught us with his own actions, just as JP II did with his, what it means to have integrity and faith. Saints down the ages show us that holiness manifests itself in absolutely unique ways. No people are fully alike, and the saints are really not alike. That’s holiness, or wholeness, in a well lived life. Integrity and faith may not lead us to a balcony, but they will lead to our real and best selves.