Digital Contraception

I wonder if I should just stop there, with that phrase - "digital contraception" - attached to this image, and allow us time to ponder this picture?

In this crowd of "popearazzi", (if I might coin a phrase,) an older woman, face radiant like Moses on the mountain, gazes without obstruction on Pope Francis, who appears to be looking at her. She's not touching him but is clearly touched. The younger woman, hand actually grasping the Shepherd's hand, holds in her other hand a smartphone, through whose 3 x 5 screen she stares at a pixelated image of the actual man five feet away from her. Granted, she too is touched. Both are joyful and smiling, but there is something sociologically intriguing about this image. Which of these two is having an actual, personal encounter? A 'communion of persons' for only a fleeting moment?

I think we all know where this is going. And you may have strong feelings about it.

Some history. Facebook launched 11 years ago this year. YouTube is just 10, and Twitter is 9 years old. The first iPhone debuted only 8 years ago. What a decade it's been. The digital revolution is in full swing. A tsunami of smartphones brimming with social-sharing apps has washed over nearly every continent and seems to be omnipresent, popping up even in the most remote of Third World villages. It's important we talk about its effect on us as persons, called to interpersonal relationships. I hope to do this in a circumscribed manner. So let's shift gears for a few paragraphs and then we'll return to this pregnant phrase, pardon the pun, of "digital contraception."

Decades before the digital revolution, in fact, shortly after the sexual revolution of the late 60's, the Theology of the Body debuted. It's a biblical and philosophical reflection on the human person by St. John Paul II; a glorious life-giving vision of the potential of human love. It speaks of how our sexual complementarity as created by God is meant to be a fruitful sign, imaging the gratuitous gift-giving nature of God Himself, Who lavished on creation from the very beginning a design of communion and complementarity that, when embraced, is creative and efficacious on many levels. It's an extensive catechesis on the human person as imago dei, a being fully realized in relationship, in family, for God in His deepest essence, as St. John Paul II wrote, "is not a solitude. God is a family."

Those who have reflected upon this beautiful teaching of the Holy Father, who have opened their hearts, minds, and bodies to its life-giving truth, can certainly attest to this fruitfulness in their own lives. When one receives the teaching, which in essence is Christianity itself, the gospel "reloaded", then the walls come tumbling down. Illusions are blown away. Misconceptions about who God is and who we are get a proverbial facelift and our faith is lifted! One finally sees within one's masculinity or femininity, not a confused and solitary shuffling around for meaning and purpose that we must construe by ourselves, but a divine dance. A holy communion. A divine romance.

Circling back... Today, the life-giving joy that flows from living the theology of the body shines all the more brighter as we live and move and breathe in this increasingly suffocating, contraceptive culture. When I speak of contraception and of a contraceptive mentality in the present culture, it isn't merely the biological block. It isn't merely latex or a pill that is the issue. That exterior contraception is really the manifestation of a deeper interior contraception. An emotional contraception. A kind of spiritual contraception that holds back the heart and soul of one person from another. We see it everywhere. We struggle with it at multiple levels. In our frenetic activism we've failed as receivers. We've neglected to become that naked heart to the real and raw encounters of everyday life.

In his beautiful reflections on our common home, Laudato Si, Pope Francis wrote "We were not meant to be inundated by cement, asphalt, glass and metal, and deprived of physical contact with nature." (Laudato Si, 44) Can we add our little gadgets to this list?

Pope Francis advised us that "the accumulation of constant novelties exalts a superficiality which pulls us in one direction. It becomes difficult to pause and recover depth in life... a constant flood of new products coexists with a tedious monotony. Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything." (Laudato Si, 113)

These naked hearts, open to encounters with the real world of persons and signs and wonders often feel as though they are the person who escaped from Plato's dark cave of self-inverted shadows and they've seen the light. They return to the cave changed. They try to express what they've seen and heard and touched with their hands but everyone in the cave is touching screens. 

The walls of smartphones that we've seen in the photos and videos of the recent visit of Pope Francis are certainly not intrinsically evil, or even sinful, but they sure seem strange. In a certain sense, these phone walls can be just as much a block to the life-giving call of humanity to love as other forms of contraception. I think you all know what I'm talking about. You all have experienced it in your own lives, in restaurants, movie theaters, workplaces, sidewalks and even busy streets.

Dozens of times per day, people hold up a very thin wall in front of faces. A 3 x 5 screen that aids us remarkably in communicating with others, yet too often hinders the communion with the real flesh and blood right in front of us.

Again, Pope Francis' insights here are spot on. In the Joy of the Gospel, he wrote that some people "want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems which can be turned on and off on command. Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness." (Evangelii Guadium, 88)

During the recent visit of Pope Francis to the United States, watching video and looking at photographs from the various places he went, I was struck again by this reality of "digital contraception". I fall into the same struggle, I wrestle as much I'm sure as anyone with the wonder of these little gadgets but it leaves me wondering. Many of us touch these screens so many more times a day then we touch other people's hands and little heads of children, and blades of grass and the bark of trees. Our touchscreens have left us out of touch with the very real world we've been placed in by God. I think we need once again to possess our possessions rather than have our possessions possess us. Let's all make a promise to be more present, to be more of that naked heart who can really receive the other person in front of us. For as C.S. Lewis once wrote,

"Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses." 

____________________________

Originally posted here for the TOB Institute

Stumbling on the Way of Beauty

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
- Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring

It was a signature grace for me to teach for the first time this summer a new elective course for the Institute; Theology of the Body and Art: The Way of Beauty. This was a five day head and heart immersion into the great transcendental that's synonymous for the God Who is Beauty. He, in His Trinitarian Splendor, first captivated me as a young man and drew me into this Way, through the sounds and scents of the pine woods and streams I'd walked in my youth, through the lives of the saints, the varied writings of authors like Thoreau, Plato, Chekov, Sheen, Lewis and Tolkien. He was singing to me in the music of Van Morrison, John Williams, Palestrina and Purcell. But above all He was drawing me in through the sacramental encounters with Christ in those sweet clouds of incense surrounding His Mystery in adoration.

I'd been longing to intentionally walk this Way of Beauty with others for decades, to shed light on its path and to reveal Beauty not as a decorative diversion but an essential need. Now, with the release of the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, I'd been given papal orders to do so.

Pope Francis wrote in Joy of the Gospel that "Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the 'way of beauty'... Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus..." (Evangelii Gaudium, 167). This way has been acknowledged and alluded to by every modern pope back to Blessed Paul VI, who said to artists at the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, “This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart... unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands... Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world."

In teaching this course, however, in opening up this “school” of the contemplative gaze, of wonder and awe, of the listening heart before creation, I didn't quite realize that I’d be the one schooled the most. As it turns out, from the first pages of our meditations, pondering our own posture before Christ as either Martha or Mary, the overactive doer or the contemplative receiver, I discovered I was more the former. The whirlwind of work, the rollercoaster ride of family life, the splintered directions that social media (even when intentionally used) can take you on, all of these were taking a toll on my heart. Those first few days, those initial steps on the Way of Beauty course turned out to be a kind of detox.

So much more than gazing at beautiful paintings or sculpture, pondering poetry or story, this Way took us into the deep of our relationship with Beauty Himself. It asked the question "Is it enough for me to simply sit at His feet, or do I feel that incessant urge to be busy and anxious about 'many things'?" We moderns too often are distracted by the glitz and glam of gossip or the latest gadgetry, as our fingers nimbly flip through our newsfeeds on our smartphones like hands in a bowl of popcorn. Is there ever enough? With all that is happening in our present culture in the realm of faith and marriage and family life, there is so much work to be done! And yet, our good shepherd, St. John Paul II, was advising us (me) to stop.

“Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of ‘doing for the sake of doing’. We must resist this temptation by trying ‘to be’ before trying ‘to do’. In this regard we should recall how Jesus reproved Martha: ‘You are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful.’” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 15).

Beauty, we learned, is arresting. It holds you still, draws you in, heart first, through the senses, and then Beauty wants to teach you something invaluable. Something essential, which is at the same time deeply disquieting; you are not necessary. You, and I, and this entire world in all of its varied intoxicating glory, is an extravagance, a superfluity. We don’t have to exist. We are gift.

The pure gratuitousness of the world can be a stumbling block for our pride. As we pondered in the course, it can even lead some (perhaps too full of a misdirected sense of their own importance) to despair. Sartre said in one of his works "If man is terrified at the bosom of Nature, it is because he feels trapped in a huge amorphous and gratuitous existence which penetrates him completely with its gratuitousness: he has no place anywhere, he is just put on earth, aimless, without any reason to be there, like a briarbush or a clump of grass." (Sartre, Jean-Paul, Baudelaire, Gallimard, Paris, 1947)

In our utilitarian age, where things only have worth if they have a use, beauty can not stand. The German philosopher Josef Pieper wrote “Man seems to mistrust everything that is effortless; he can only enjoy... what he has acquired with toil and trouble; he refuses to have anything as a gift.” (Leisure, The Basis of Culture). But when one discovers that at the heart of the universe, of God's plan for creation is this paradigm of pure gift, then this truth is a liberation. The conclusion is, I don’t have to own, grasp, take, clutch at life, at goods, at others as if they are essentials who define me. I also don’t have to save the world, fix everything, establish my worth or my existence through something I have done or accomplished! There is only one thing necessary, one thing essential; our openness to Him. And He is Gift. And He has made me to be gift, and to see all as gift.

Since teaching (and taking) this course, I have stepped back into the Way of the Busy, the maelstrom of modern life. But honestly, something has changed. I’ve caught the fragrance of the Beautiful; I’ve literally stopped to smell the roses, and discovered that this seemingly wasteful act is in fact the entire point. The tyranny of the immediate has loosened its grip. The tentacles of technology have receded into the shadows, as I begin to take a bit more ownerhip of my time and leisure. 

I still stumble, but I am learning to keep my head up and heart open. One of the lessons learned is that this Way of Beauty is above all an invitation. If one accepts, they are taken by the hand into a quiet place. It's a place where one sits still, allowing the senses to slowly engage the reality that surrounds the heart. If one refuses, they quickly fill their senses with the busyness of the day, or with experiences that might please the senses, though only at the level of the senses. The quiet place is the better part. The place where rich veins of inspiration are tapped, revealed, and pour into us with the water of His rejuvenating grace.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner once wrote, “Entrances to holiness are everywhere. The possibility of ascent is all the time. Even at unlikely times and through unlikely places.” (Mishkan T’filah, prayer book).

If we've stumbled on our way, allowed our gaze to fall into a nest of distractions, come, let us rise up. The Way is always present, this door is always open.

____________________________________

This reflection first appeared at TOBinstitute.org 

 BILL DONAGHY has been hounded by beauty since he first heard John Williams’ score for Star Wars in 1977. He works as an international speaker & curriculum specialist for the Theology of the Body Institute, where he has been hard at work developing the Institute's new elective course on Theology of the Body & Art: The Way of Beauty, beginning June 21, 2015.  A husband, father, sinner & lover of bacon; Bill cannot pass by the glimmering glance of beauty without a gaze in wonder and awe. Consequently he is late for work. A lot.

Into the Wild

So it begins, the summer. I've a number of talks lined up and projects to continue but what I'm looking forward to most of all is getting The Boy outside. He is ready. 

The plan: pull into the nature preserve, and release him. Let him be drawn to anything and everything that he desires (except poison ivy), to see, feel, romp and roll through. Throwing rocks, splashing in streams, chasing geese. "We need the tonic of wildness" said Thoreau, and I heartily agree!

The Boy Wonder

With our little boy, our infectiously happy little boy, everything is amazing. We call him the Boy Wonder, for this is who he is! The Boy Wonder is our incarnate reminder of the call to LOOK, SEE, WONDER, and WATCH.

This, I'm learning again, should be the attitude of all those made in the image of the King of Heaven. We should open up and say awe every morning to the Divine Splendors that envelop us like swaddling clothes. Everything is made by Him, and is therefore amazing! Have we forgotten?

Everything gets a WOW from our little guy - trees, grass, cows, cups, sausage, ceiling fans, and the singing of birds. "It's amazing!" he cries in that inarticulate speech of the toddler (the angels are the only ones who can translate that stuff). It's amazing and is therefore simultaneously to be seen as silly and serious. Let me explain...

Silly, because it doesn't need to exist. It is utterly superfluous. So he laughs at it. Why is the grass green, the sky blue, the water wet, the moon blue? Who cares?! It just IS... it's magic. And I think he is right, it is. And this is very silly, and should make us smile.... a lot.

Serious, because it does exist. It comes to me, impresses itself upon me like a great weight of glory, like a sacrament, like red and like gold, and like light. It flashes and breaks over me like a wave and bids me receive it like a gift.... this Everything. So I open up and take it in, and this is very serious. The picture above is Adam in the Garden of our Backyard; lost in the sea of green, captivated by it all, he feels at the same time the task of Adam to care for it, and to cultivate it. And this brings joy, which, as C.S. Lewis once said, "is the serious business of Heaven."

I find myself itching to get him out into the wild. To show him more of the Everything; leaves and bugs and wind moving trees, birds and squirrels and everything that lives and that breathes and that has its being. I find myself looking forward to walks with him through light-speckled woods and up rocky paths. I can't wait to toss him into a massive pile of leaves, throw some froggie boots on and get muddy. Breathe the air, walk the earth, run, rummage, romp through this world that is our playground, classroom, Holy Temple, and our home. Funny how daddies look to the future (8 years old with an itch for exploration) and mommies look to the past (8 months old cradled in the arms). But every age is the perfect age.

And I pray this wonder is also the perpetual present.

Crude Greed

It Ain't Easy Being Green... Or Is It?

Kermit the Frog used to sing, "It ain't easy being green" but today, in our eco-conscious climate, it seems being "green" has never been easier. It's a regular agenda, and not just from the crunchy cons, or the liberal left. Enter Pope Benedict:

Contemplating the beauty of creation inspires us to recognize the love of the Creator, that Love which “moves the sun and the other stars”.... It is imperative that mankind renew and strengthen “that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying. - Pope Benedict XVI

A Covenant with Creation? For Catholics, this whole Green Movement isn't just a passing fad. It was part of our marching orders way back in Eden; "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over all living things." For most of our subsequent story, sadly, that call to stewardship, harmony, fecundity, and dominion, has decayed into a twisted domination. The word subdue meant to remember our headship as human persons and not fall into the trap of idolatry (the earth becoming an idol). But we went too far and laid waste to the land, like little Saurons creating our own little Mordors over and over again. In the Holy Father's Message for the Celebration of the World Day for Peace, given just a few weeks ago as we entered into the year of Our Lord 2010, he called attention to the pure gift of the environment we so often take for granted, saying:

"Many people experience peace and tranquillity, renewal and reinvigoration, when they come into close contact with the beauty and harmony of nature. There exists a certain reciprocity: as we care for creation, we realize that God, through creation, cares for us."

That's a uniquely Catholic vision... a sacramental vision. God, through creation, cares for us. The stuff of the earth, the swirl of molecules, the dance of matter, the splendid mosaic of earth and sky and water; all of this grand display is a storybook for us. God speaks through it all! What a wonderful thing. Everything is full of His wonders. A line from a Peter Mayer song comes to mind; "This morning outside I stood, saw a little red-winged bird, shining like a burning bush, singing like a Scripture verse. Made me want to bow my head... everything is holy now." I think a good dose of the natural world does wonders for the soul, especially in these days when it seems only the latest gadget is capable of instilling wonder and "magic." Granted, we have some amazing works to ponder, but none are so magical as those that flow right from the Mind of God. Who can fashion a single seed, pregnant with the uniqueness of a rose, a giant Redwood, a human life? Only God. What a wonderful world! Great and wonderful are Your works O Lord! Let's give them a second look, a long and penetrating gaze, and drink in the gratuitous beauty that God filled them with. For this cup overflows just for us!

Take a Breath, Take a Break

I'm so busy.

I wish I had more time.

I'm stressed out.

It never ends.

There's always something.

I need a break.

Then take one.

September is a crazy month, I know. It ushers in the busy season for many of us. School's back in, buses are clogging up the morning streets again. Sports, lessons, homework, teaching, grading, running to those meetings that the summer kept at bay, holiday preparations, transitioning the house for the new season, for the coming cold.

But something else in September is present to counteract this hectic pace. Cold crisp air, burning blue skies, leaves afire, the mournful song of geese overhead, the scent of leaves, of wood-fires, sunsets that throb with color, and starry nights. These are invitations to stillness and to watching. And it only takes a moment to breathe them in, to slow down, to drink freely. Each of these encounters has power in them, because they are natural. And Nature is seldom in a hurry.

I was walking to the parking lot after a long and busy day, with the prospects of a long night of grading and planning ahead of me, when I saw this single leaf in a tree on a patch of grass at the corner of the road. I looked at it. I took a deep breath. And behold, it was good.

Let nothing trouble you, let nothing make you afraid. All things pass away. God never changes. Patience obtains everything. God alone is enough.

- Saint Teresa of Avila

September Speaks

If conscience is the voice of God in the soul, then Creation is Him singing.

Watch, wait, look long and look deep. Creation is dying again. Listen to Her wisdom.

Watch, wait, look long and look deep. See this mournful train.

September sets the first steps of Her Via Dolorosa.... Creation's road to Calvary.

Watch, wait, look long and look deep. September speaks a dying wish. To Her children in their maddening rush, in their race over roads of stone and in their cages of glass and steel... Listen. Watch. Be still.

For what happens to me, She whispers, must happen to you.

September speaks in muted tones, in dew-wet droplets on fragile webs, shining like jewels. In the burnt edges of leaves in their final hours, in the cold breath over corn past their ripening. Listen, September speaks.

All things pass, all things change, all things die. And those that give their life away to the summons of September, will be born again.

Fertile Ground

We spent the weekend up at the Lakehouse again, and the time spent there never fails to amaze me. Always something knew to see, always a different variation on a theme - be it sunlight or mist or rain - and we never grow tired of that music. Standing on the dock and just looking is a contemplative gaze, and has the power to pull the child out of every heart.

The webs were incredible this time, like I've never seen them; dripping with jewels from the all day mist that never seemed to lift on Saturday. I spied an otter for the first time, sifting her way along the coast searching for those funny freshwater mussels. A great blue heron landed by the water's edge and got us all up early to see it. Steve and Ray set sail in the boat at a scandalously early hour and were rewarded with a fly by Bald Eagle, 20 feet over their heads!

Wolf spiders that had everybody staring. The two snakes that were too shy to show themselves on the rocks. Goldfinches undulating overhead, more often heard than seen. And finally, that soft and silent water that laps up on the shore, perpetually inspiring, reflecting and causing reflections sometimes "too deep for words."

A good way to start off another school year.... on this fertile ground, with this reminder that everything speaks to us if we can be still and listen, and look.

This Week's Mission Moment

The simple sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial definitions, is the basis of spirituality. - G.K. Chesterton

Peace Out

"Maintain a spirit of peace and you will save a thousand souls." - St. Seraphim

We just finished a week's vacation in Maine with the family "from the north" - my dad, brother, wife, and two little ones. My brother Sean manages a summer camp "up they'ah" and he took us all on a little pleasure cruise last night. We slipped over the glassy surface of Washington Pond, just as the sun was tipping his hat to the day on the western rim of the world, in a pontoon boat. It was recently "kitted out" with new carpet and new cooshy seats, each equipped with a snazzy drink holder. In essence, it's like taking your living room out for a drive (or float I should say).

Our little guy is just 11 months old now (we can't believe it), and Sean and Amy's little ones are each under 5. Needless to say, the down time for us adults is few and far between. It comes in dribs and drabs, like scattered coins that we're quick to pick up. Last night's cruise, brief as it was, came like a shower of gold.

The kids were strapped, secured, and seated, and under the watchful eyes of five adults. So for a few moments, slipping out across the cool water, we each in our turns could let the mind wander.... Water lapping up on the hull. Wind over the face. Dark pines on the edge of the water. Sunshine peeking through the trees. Sunshine pouring honey on the lake's skyward gaze. A loon in the distance.

The face of my father looking out and up as he held the throttle that muttered bubbly commands to the engine below. And on the deck, quiet submission. For just seconds at a time, a quiet surrender to the peace of the moment.

Then words. Then a laugh or a thought. Then stillness again, and a loving glance at Reality. I heard Rebecca say to our little niece, "Nature is God's book for us to read."

The dance of light on the surface. The cool evening breeze. The clear sky turning deep blue and orange at its edges.

Isn't this what all our work is for? Aren't these quiet movements of the body and soul through the world the moments we treasure? This stillness. This pause. This breathing pace. Not long. Not belabored. They come fast through the dark fields of our space like the Perseids and then they are gone. But the memory stays. The flash, the awe, the wonder of the thing leaves its indelible mark on the soul. And if we're still, open, listening, these fleeting seconds, I believe, can change us. Strengthen us. In the flurry of our work in the "real world" these moments of peace can keep us afloat.

Beauty as Teacher

I've had this article in my treasury of killer quotes from Pope John Paul II for a couple of years now. It shares his thoughts on Beauty and its connection to Truth. In the words of the Lucky Charms mascot, they are magically delicious! Magic in that they break the spell of modern reductionism with the counter-spell of wonder and awe, and the sacramental vision that sees not just dead matter, but the Divine Heart that shapes and holds it in existence.

Chew slowly, and take these gems with you on your vacation! These thoughts came from a letter of the Pope's delivered by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state at the time, to the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples. The event was organized by the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation. The original article can be found here. The weeklong event is attracting hundreds of thousands of people to 131 meetings and conferences, 23 performances and 16 artistic exhibitions on the theme "The Feeling of Things: Contemplating the Beauty."

"The brilliance of contemplated beauty opens the spirit to the mystery of God."

"Beauty has its own pedagogical force to introduce knowledge of the truth effectively. In fact, it leads to Christ, who is the Truth." "Indeed, when love and the search for beauty spring from a dimension of faith, one can penetrate the depth of things and come into contact with the One who is the source of everything that is beautiful." "It is evident that nature, things, people, are able to cause astonishment because of their beauty. How is it possible not to see, for example, in a sunset in the mountains, in the immensity of the sea, in the features of a face something that is attractive and, at the same time, compels one to know more profoundly the reality that surrounds us?" "Truth is perceived in the beautiful, which attracts to itself through the unmistakable fascination that springs from great values. Thus feeling and reason find themselves radically united in an appeal addressed to the whole person. Reality, with its beauty, makes one feel the beginning of the fulfillment and seems to whisper to us: 'You will not be unhappy; the desire of your heart will be fulfilled, what is more, it is already being fulfilled.'" The message points to the Book of Wisdom in the Bible, which reminds us that "from the greatness and beauty of created things their original author, by analogy, is seen" (Wisdom 13:5).

Rain Rain Rain

Just close your eyes and listen to the first minute or so of this video and you'll swear you're in a summer thunderstorm. I love it.

Small Wonders

I love taking pictures. I'm crazy about taking pictures. So I finally decided to get meself a Flickr account and share my little vantage point of this splendid reality with the world at large (you can check it out here). I've named the account "Small Wonders" because I think that pretty much sums up the little gems that surround us every day.

We must open our eyes to admire God, who hides and at the same time reveals himself in things, and introduces us into places of mystery... In reality, for those who know how to read in depth, each thing, each event brings a message that, in the final analysis, leads to God.

- Pope John Paul II

With the wonder of technology and the camera feature on so many of our cell phones today, we can all have the chance to capture the small wonders around us... even this close up of my neighbor's cucumber plant! So keep your eyes peeled and your heart ready for a game of Divine "Hide and Seek" with the Lord. He loves it when we take time to read His Love Letters, big and small.

Sea and Believe

I love the ocean. It helps me believe in things much larger than me. Transcendent things, eternal things; Beauty, Peace, The Oneness. Ultimately... God. Standing before the sea this morning, here in cloudy/sunny Sea Isle City, I had a physical encounter with a spiritual truth. The sea became a channel of grace. And that's the definition of a sacrament, in a very broad sense. I wasn't alone either. Other daily communicants were gathering for this celebration of the sun, rising in benediction over the new day. Does this sound scandalous? Let's recall that the world was God's first church, or Temple, as the Hebrews saw it. In the beginning, we were all priestly in our vocation of praise and worship to the One Who fashioned it all from nothing. We've spent two nights here and are leaving soon. So I had my farewell coffee sitting in the sand, while Rebecca and the wee lad slept. I snapped this picture with the phone, then just stared and listened for a while as the slow, rhythmic beat of the heart of the sea came into me. Ponderings... Who was the first ancient soul to build a craft and seek to cross this watery road to the world's edge? That took some guts. What is it about the lapping up of water on sand, endlessly, that stirs me, invites me, into endless peace? I truly believe we're drawn to the sea because God is still speaking through it; His first sacramental encounter with us. He sings through it's salty symphony, He shines in the sun!

Beauty as Teacher

This is a word from the late, great Pope John Paul II. I was scrolling through some old drafts for the blog and found it. As the summer begins to dawn upon us, and we plan our getaways, let's give this one some fertile ground in the heart, and keep our eyes open to such graced moments!

"It is evident that nature, things, people, are able to cause astonishment because of their beauty. How is it possible not to see, for example, in a sunset in the mountains, in the immensity of the sea, in the features of a face something that is attractive and, at the same time, compels one to know more profoundly the reality that surrounds us?.... Truth is perceived in the beautiful, which attracts to itself through the unmistakable fascination that springs from great values. Thus feeling and reason find themselves radically united in an appeal addressed to the whole person. Reality, with its beauty, makes one feel the beginning of the fulfillment and seems to whisper to us: 'You will not be unhappy; the desire of your heart will be fulfilled, what is more, it is already being fulfilled."

A Year in 40 Seconds

One year in 40 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.

Time flies, when you piece 12 months together into a 40 second clip. Very nice transition with the sounds of nature and all. So long 2008! Hope 2009 slows down a bit!

Mist and Sun and the Meaning of Life

I love back roads. Swervy, windy, half in shadow, half in sun ribbons of asphalt. They're like "mobile prayer" for Rebecca and I. Add a little Lord of the Rings or Dances with Wolves soundtrack music into a Sunday drive and you are GONE... floating away to Happy Land, the Land of Contemplation! And all's right with the world! Well, mostly. My drive into school each morning is a gift; back roads abound! There are a number of paths to take and I generally mix it up from day to day. Case in point: just last week, after passing it for three years in moderate "haste," I decided to take "Grubb's Mill Road" for a spin. Now don't judge a road by its name. As I made my way over hill and dale (what is a dale anyway?) I was literally captured by the sunlight streaming through morning mist over wet grass. I flipped on the hazards and with the handy iPhone (I know I know, Geek Boy Returns) I snapped a few pics. One is handsomely portrayed in this post above for your observation. Click on it and it should fill the screen.... go ahead, try it! Now curiously, I was able to use this image as a teaching moment in class that very day. I start off my freshmen theology course light on the homework, heavy on the heartwork. I invite them into a fresh way of looking at the world.... into a "sacramental" vision. Afterall, this is how a Catholic sees the universe..... as a mosaic full of meaning, an icon, a Mystery wrapped in ribbons of protons, neutrons, and electrons. This is pretty dang exciting. Here's that quote I love to quote... again: To materialists this world is opaque like a curtain; nothing can be seen through it. A mountain is just a mountain, a sunset just a sunset; but to poets, artists, and saints, the world is transparent like a window pane - it tells of something beyond....a mountain tells of the Power of God, the sunset of His Beauty, and the snowflake of His Purity. - Bishop Fulton Sheen Back to the back roads.... This image (above) was breathtaking. And I guess what intrigues me about an encounter like this is how the physical channels the spiritual, the visible can communicate the invisible. How does it happen that we alone in the universe can "see" this? Apprehend this? Comprehend this and be captivated by this? Objectively, the scene I saw was made of water vapor, chlorophyll, and a swirl of elements bending and twisting in the rising heat of a large ball of gas 93,000,000 miles away. But it was beauty that caught me. The squirrels didn't stop and stare. Mr. Bluebird didn't land on my shoulder and strike up a conversation on the matter, cool as that would have been. For some reason, I saw in these elements a wonder, a story, a window that opened into my own experience. In this sacrament of the present moment, as the mist swirled before the sun, I thought of our sorrow thick and dank, sapping us of hope. The trees reached in and broke its cloudy mask, like the hands of friends praying for us, reaching into our lives and rooting us in hope. And then the Sun, beyond hope, pierced that mist of melancholy like a dozen swords of holy light that shone and fell upon the earth. And behold, there was light and heat and a new kind of "illumination." I think it was Dostoyevsky who once wrote that, in the end, "Beauty will save the world." Well, Beauty has arrived, and often lies waiting for us on the back roads, in places least expected, in sudden and sharp turns from shadow into light. Perhaps all we're asked to do is stop and look with love and gratitude.

Hugging the Universe

I was reading the latest edition of Islands Magazine the other day (which we get for FREE for some strange reason which I don't object to at all because of the beautiful pics), and I came across a curious story. It was about a young woman who resides on one of the "10 Best Islands to Live On."  

Meet Kate: She grew up in Georgia, graduated from college in 1991, and then spent four years traveling the globe, working in hospitality and tourism in the USA, Europe and Australia. "I have never really had any 'plans,' so life just seems to happen around me," says the 38-year-old. "I just grab ahold occasionally."  

The article continues: But it seems Kangaroo Island grabbed ahold of Kate during her first visit in 1994. "I could have just kept moving, but I heard what my mind and body were telling me, and it was, 'Stay!' " says Kate. The following year, she moved to the island full time.... Overall, Kate's philosophy is to go with the flow. "Life takes us on strange and wonderful pathways to get where we are going," she says. "I think you have to be open to what the universe gives you. Listen to your heart." Now at first glance, Kate's philosophy seems rather inviting; it's about being open, receptive, adapting to the vicissitudes of every day living, the ups and downs, with a certain grace. And listening to your heart, well, isn't that what Disney has been telling us to do since we were seven years old? (Although, Jiminy Cricket actually defaulted to the conscience, which was nice).  

A QUICK DIGRESSION... Did you know that Disney gave this appellation to that little grasshopper? "Lord High Keeper of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong, Counselor in Moments of Temptation, and Guide along the Straight and Narrow Path." Wow! I wish Jiminy C. would pop in on some of Disney's latest works.

BACK TO KATE... "Life takes us on strange and wonderful pathways to get where we are going," she says. "I think you have to be open to what the universe gives you. Listen to your heart." Now... I am not begrudging Kate her island dream, nor am I trying to toss a soggy blanket on this whole "follow your heart" philosophy.... in fact, I'm all about it. It's just that my spidey senses are tingling at that line: "I think you have to be open to what the universe gives you." The universe? How can I be open to a cluster of stars or swamps of microbacteria? What if I'm on top of an erupting volcano and lava comes spewing towards me. Is this a gift from Mr. Universe? I may have my Cranky Pants on tonight, but I think sometimes we forget who we are, and Whose we are. We love the earth too much, and we forget Who it's pointing to. Remember Wisdom 13? "For all men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan... For from the greatness and the beauty of created things their original Author, by analogy, is seen."

Let's give credit where credit is due. There is a Face shining behind this thin veil of a universe! I get enraptured by the beauty of the world every day, but I know He is peeking through the curtain. So, unlike the Wizard of Oz, let's pay attention to that Man behind the curtain! The wonders of this earth quite literally take my breathe away sometimes. But when the THANK YOU wells up in my heart, its trajectory arcs beyond the simple heavens towards the Presence in Heaven. Or it bends low, onto this very earth, towards the tabernacle, or to the core of my own feeble and trembling body, where He said He would abide if I opened the door of my heart to Him. My thanks doesn't spin out into the Milky Way. I'd get no signal of a response. I can't hug the universe to express my gratitude, but I can get a hug and a kiss from Abba Father and Jesus the Savior in every encounter with the Eucharist. So one of the best islands to live on for me is my local Catholic church; it's a little slice of heaven floating in this sea of time! Of course, if there was a chapel with the Blessed Sacrament on Kangaroo Island, I mean, that would be pretty awesome... 

Bill and Sean's Excellent Adventure!

What's This All About?

This weekend (and all of next week), as a gift for his recent Confirmation into the fullness of the Catholic Faith, I'm taking my nephew on a journey of biblical proportions. He doesn't know where we're going, but he knows it's a leap of faith and a walk closer to the Lord (sometimes a hike;)

In order for family and friends to keep abreast of our journeys, I've created a blog, aptly named "Bill and Sean's Excellent Adventure!" This will allow us to post messages and pictures and for everyone else to read about and envy in the good sense of the word some of the deep (and not so deep) thoughts and conversations we'll be having as we travel into the wild! All are welcome to pop in for a virtual visit! The blog will be the canvas on which we paint our travels!

HERE IT IS AGAIN IN ALL IT'S GLORY: http://billandseansexcellentadventure.blogspot.com/

Please say a prayer for our safe travels and good weather!