Beauty that Burns: A Filmable! I was recently watching one of my favorite films, Hero. It's a patchwork quilt of stories, all woven around the same characters. Each story is from a different perspective, and in each retelling the figures are robed in a different color. Jet Li, the renowned martial artist (and he is an artist) is a central figure. In the style of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this film is visually stunning. It is a feast for the eyes. It's a heart-breaking story of sacrifice, honor, love for country and letting go. I think the Truth gets muddied along the way, and the conclusion seems to affirm a Communist China. But glimmers of the Good are seen along the way. In one poignant episode, a calligraphy school becomes a place of martyrdom when an army comes to shut down this oasis of Chinese culture. The white-bearded headmaster stands his ground and calls to his pupils to return to their places just as a swarm of black arrows descends upon them like locusts. Jet Li, who is called Nameless, and the mystical character Flying Snow, step out of the humble school and into the barrage of deadly darts. With what can only be described as a poetic dance, they deflect the arrows and save many lives, sheltered within the school, safe again to practice their art. And their art is the art of making words, of tracing letters, of passing on the knowledge of these characters etched in sand. I wonder if with the countless amount of words we spray onto screens these days, how many will stick? How many will stay the test of time? Just a question to ponder. Do our words improve upon the silence, or do they not? Do they build up or are they like arrows that pierce and tear down?

Snowflakes A very short but sweet article on Catholic Exchange today, clarifying for us yet again on the embryonic stem cell debate. "It is that simple. Stem cell research is a good and it is moral according to Catholic social teachings. Many cures have been discovered through research on stem cells taken from umbilical cords or from fully developed persons. What makes stem cell research immoral is when it requires killing a living human being..." Read the article in full here.

Extreme Toothbrushes! I don't know if you've noticed, and here I speak to the older crowd.... but toothbrushes are out of control these days. I guess it was just the other day when I realized you should update your brush every ten years or so. To my surprise, there's a veritable army of brushes out there now.... fully loaded! They've got sparkles, gel grips, sportgrips, SpongeBobs, ScoobyDoos, racing stripes, ground effects... I think mine has voicemail, I just have to get around to activating it. Sportgrips? Come on! As if it could get away! How fast do YOU brush? Anyhoo, I was just noticing. I'm not going to make any profound connections to our fast-paced culture or anything (I guess I just did). I really want everyone reading this (all three of you) to wake up to the fact that our toothbrushes are intense! Just be careful out there everybody.

Holy Now There's a tune I first heard Dave Wilcox sing a few years back. It was a song called Holy Now by Peter Mayer. It struck me that night at an open air autumn concert as pure beauty. Sitting with the lyrics some more, I see some of the theology could get a little murky. It's not the truest sacramental vision that the Church holds as a treasure for us to open, but I feel the vision is still inspired. Here's my favorite verse: "This morning, outside I stood and saw a little red-winged bird, Shining like a burning bush, singing like a scripture verse. It made me want to bow my head, I remember when church let out, How things have changed since then… everything is holy now. It used to be a world half there, Heaven’s second rate hand-me-down, But I walk it with a reverent air ‘cause everything is holy now." Happy Sunday!

Circle Up It's early November. Crisp and cool the days are, and the leaves are letting go. The sun tips and pours his light into the nooks and crannies of trees, stone walls and ledges. The stars are fiery gems wrapped in the cloak of the night. Who can peer into the dark, cool waters of these days and not see reflected in their deep currents our own mortality? 'Tis the season to ruminate, contemplate, and conversate. I think we should have a bonfire. All of us. We could gather 'round, wrapped in sweaters, our breath coming out in puffs in the frigid night air. We could tell stories, all of us. Ponder the deepest of questions deep into the night. Watch the flames flash and glow, the waves of heat roll through the embers, shimmering liquid fire, and then the sparks pop and spin up into the "mystical moist night air." And we would soon be warm again. Warm with words and human company. We could watch and listen, as the great heart of humanity rose and fell, keeping time with the spinning stars above us. Who's up for it? What thoughts will come, I wonder? What sacramental stories can be told, of heat and cold, light and shadow? What fuel will we cast into the fire as we talk and sing and gaze far into the night? Words and poems, songs and stories... softly mouthing our "hymns to the Silence." I think we need to do this, and to do this soon. We are divided and the chasm between us deepens daily. Do we know each other anymore? When is the last time we had a heart to heart conversation, or are we still just monologuing in pairs? We feel like two, but we long to be One. We want to be warm in this fire of Love. We hope that in the waxing of our years, a melting and merging will happen in us that will unite us to the Meaning behind it All. To the Love that burns so warmly. We were made to be in this circle, and yet we persist as parallel lines. I think the best place to start is around the tabernacle. There the Fire never sleeps, and the red glow of the sanctuary lamp beckons us. Let's circle up around that Throne of Grace. It's as close as the nearest Church.

A Dream for All Souls Day

In November of 1993, my grandfather died. Over the short time he spent in the hospital, the family was given the grace to come and see him. It was a chance to speak our goodbyes, but Grandpa was speechless. He could see us, his eyes could pierce our own with a sorrow and pleading that I never saw in him before that day, but he could not speak. The stroke had robbed him of words. So we gathered, and prayed. We told him we loved him, and he was given the Anointing of the Sick. In that month of the Holy Souls, my family hoped that he would make his peace with God, that he would be able to trust, to rest. A scapular was placed on the bed post. My father saw Grandpa try to make the Sign of the Cross once or twice, but those frail arms would not obey. Frustrated, locked in silence, this man of the Old Sod who fought in World War II, worked as a welder for over 30 years, raised ten children, and loved his John Wayne movies, gave up his last breath on a Saturday, Our Lady's Day, wearing the scapular. His spirit moved free and strong again over those patchwork fields of Donegal, out into the West, through the thin veil of cloud that divides time and eternity. At the funeral, in a military chapel on a misty morning, a lone piper played Amazing Grace and we wept in our soft, subdued Irish way. We had grown silent too. But it was not uncommon for my grandfather to be silent. Frank was never much of a talker. He was a quiet man of action, total and uninterrupted, as he kept the family going and growing all those years. There are so many stories, and in all of them it seemed Grandpa's silence was the thing that spoke the loudest, in the lessons he taught his children. The year moved on, and many rosaries and masses were offered up in his name, as we prayed he would be in the Father's House. Then, over a year after his death, and the night before Ash Wednesday, Grandpa gave us a word. My Aunt Margaret, the eldest daughter, had a dream... She was in a white kitchen, an empty kitchen it seemed, all bathed in a white light; she couldn't make out any details. There were no appliances, just a sink and a window, and a lone figure stooped over the sink, stirring a cup of coffee. It was Grandpa. When he turned around, Margaret saw his face, young and strong, smiling. He was wearing his Irish sweater. "Daddy, what are you doing here? You look so good." Margaret said in the dream, perplexed, knowing he was dead. "Margaret, I'm all right." And he hugged her close. A few nights later, my aunt was on the phone with Grandma Donaghy. "Ma," she said, "I had a dream the other night. I saw daddy in a kitchen..." "Was he wearing that Irish sweater?" my Grandmother whispered. "Yeah, he was holding..." "A mug of coffee.... stirring it." Margaret's face paled as her mother relayed the very dream she had on the very same night. "Frank," my grandmother said in her dream, "what are you doing here? You look so good." "Nellie, I'm all right." He put his arms around her and the dream ended. There are coincidences, and their are God-incidences. How can two people have the same dream, with the same setting and the same dialogue, miles apart on the same night? This seems to me to be the work of angels, a pulling back of the veil, a gift and a glimmer of that silken web that binds us all and forms the web of being that is suspended above and around us all. For the Mystery of Providence, thank you God! For Your tender care of each of us, thank you Father! I believe Grandpa is home. For those who doubt, no explanation would suffice. For those who believe, no explanation is necessary.

It's the Feast of All Saints! Woohoo!

This is yet another day, and there are many of them in the Church's calendar, when the "universal call to holiness" beeps in and says "Hello, are you there? Answer me." Holiness, sheesh... I'll just let that one go to voicemail. Heard it all before anyway. Being holy means I lose my individuality and get subsumed into a big mass of people who are all good with nice haircuts and see the bright side of things all the time, like Ned Flanders. Well, that ain't me. Some things just get me angry, or frustrated. Sometimes I doubt. Sometimes I'm afraid I could never reach such high standards. Sometimes I just want to be silly, goof off. Sometimes I just want to be me. I mean, I'm only human.

Well, to be human should mean to be holy.

"The glory of God," St. Irenaeus says, "is man fully alive." Do we know what this even looks like? We've been duped and the devil has distorted what it means to be holy.

The odor of sanctity has the tang of the sea in it, and beneath it's billowing surface are a thousand varied visages, of beings bright and beautiful, deep and mysterious, as lucid and light as polished glass.

The ones who let holiness wash over and into them find not an anesthetic that numbs all feeling but an invigorating draught that awakens the mind to Truth! It's completeness, fulfillment, fullness! It's the way I ought to be, it's the posture of standing up, when all around me souls are bent. It's hearing my own true name, after decades of muffled whispers. A few thoughts from Father Cantalamessa on Holiness, spoken in Rome just yesterday:

"Holiness does not reside in the hands, but in the heart; it is not decided outside but within man, and it is summarized in charity.

The mediators of God's holiness are no longer places (the Temple of Jerusalem or the Mountain of the Beatitudes), rites, objects or laws, but a person, Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ is the very holiness of God that comes to us in person.... Mother Teresa was right when a journalist asked her point-blank how she felt being acclaimed as being holy around the world, and she answered: "Holiness is not a luxury; it is a necessity."

Holiness is what we were made for, anything less is, in a certain sense, sub-human. For we were made for the Seventh Day, created to walk into the Sabbath with our Father. To stay behind is to be numbered with the beasts. When Christ called his followers to this Oneness with him in the Eucharist, many turned aside and no longer walked with him. That gospel verse? John 6:66.

Lord, help us answer the call! Make us holy! Make us saints!