The Polar Bear Plunge of 2007

LIVE FROM SEA ISLE CITY, NJ:

It's 2:23pm and the insanity is already over. We just witnessed hundreds of people of all ages and in various costumes (like Scottish Braveheart look-a-likes, clowns, M&Ms, astronauts, a Chinese Dragon, etc) run willingly into the freezing waters of the Atlantic ocean.

That was crazy fun! Maybe next year we'll get enough courage to come down here again and... watch people jump in... again.

Safety First? Nah… How About Jesus?

I was in a unique meeting last week with a handful of faith-filled souls; we were discerning what to do with an issue that's weighed down with debt, filled with a foggy future, and stymied by staffing problems. There was lots of concerned talk, lots of questions, and then... there was prayer.

We had reached a point where our words ran dry, when suddenly God opened up the floodgates of grace. We said, "Come, Lord Jesus!" And He came. It was like the dam bursting and the clear water of the Entwash flowing in over the failed machinery of Isengard. The last ten minutes of that meeting was something so invigorating, so refreshing, that it made me deeply sad to think of the times I've failed to let Him in, how many times we as a Church have kept Him out.

It's ironic, I know, to keep from a meeting the very One Whose Name you are working in. But in our blindness we can block the influx of grace, the flow of the Spirit, the fire of the New that can rekindle our Old. Why do we do this? Why block out Life? I think it's because we want to be in control. We want everything to be "safe." We confidently assert that "we are Church," and we've got an image to protect, forgetting that our Leader was almost reckless in His trust of the Father, and Jesus couldn't have cared less about His image. It became in fact a blood-stained, thorn-crowned, ridiculed Face. But who wants that image in today's world!

I've been in meetings before that played it safe; meetings that began with "prayer" but only as a formality; a dry, sterile blurb before we started our business. Some of those meetings never seemed open to the possibility of Life; they were "protected" gatherings whose minutes revealed that people did in fact come together, but never seemed to yield any fruit.

Last week's meeting was a reckless embrace of the Spirit. We all felt the rush of the Divine, a great rumbling that filled the place where we were gathered. It seemed to give a new direction to our thoughts, opening up new doors in the mind and heart. This seems to me to be the posture that Pope John Paul II was trying to lead us into in the last few years of his beautiful life. It's the posture of receptivity; the radical dependence of the Bride Church waiting to receive the gift of the Bridegroom. And when He comes, to let Him in, let Him lead us in the great dance that is "new in ardour, methods and expressions" - this is the New Evangelization.

Pope Benedict is moving to this rhythm as well; he has been for years. Let's hearken to the voice of this shepherd and follow his lead:

"The more administrative machinery we construct, be it the most modern, the less place there is for the Spirit, the less place there is for the Lord, and the less freedom there is. It is my opinion that we ought to begin an unsparing examination of conscience on this point at all levels in the Church."
- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, from his book Called to Communion

May the Bride Church be filled with this spirit of Fearless Love and Radical Trust at all levels and in every gathering of Her children! Come, Lord Jesus!

The Best Worst Coffee in Avalon

Providence and the wonderful generosity of a friend have conspired! Rebecca and I find ourselves in a wonderful shorehouse in Avalon, NJ for a nice long weekend.

So what if it's 19 degrees and a ghost town down here. It's kinda neat to see the seagulls sitting on the ice of the bay saying "What the?"

Rebecca says they could make a movie about the Rapture down here. It would be just us, cruising down Dune Drive past the salt water taffy shops and Irish flags hanging stiffly from vacant porches. The world around us sucked up into eternity! Abandoned beach balls roll down the boardwalk, brushing past our frigid feet. Us and Mr. Brady, that is.

Yes, he was the only other human I encountered this morning in my desperate search for coffee (except for the roofers working on these Avalonian mansions, but they're more like SUPERhumans - who else could smack nails into shingles in wind chills like this?)

Mr. Brady has a little shop on Dune Drive. His was the only one open this morning. "Brady's: Home of the Humongous Hoagie" - the sign caught my eye. I walked in and there he was, back to the door, fiddling with some plastic bags. "Coffee?" I mumbled prayerfully. "Not yet... Only takes two minutes."

So that was nice of him. I waited for about 10 minutes, and it was nasty coffee. But who cares. I met another PERSON, who makes humongous hoagies, and likes jazz, even though the CD kept skipping in the store. It was the best worst coffee I've ever had.

Well, after that encounter we discovered other humanoid creatures. After an expensive breakfast\lunch at Uncle Bill's Pancake House, we headed to town. To our great joy we learned from somebody at the deli that tomorrow, Saturday, Feb. 17, at 12pm in Sea Isle City, the most AMAZINGLY RIDICULOUS event is going to occur....

Hundreds of people are going to jump into the freezing waters of the Atlantic ocean, on purpose!

Stay tuned!

Don't Look Back.....

I first caught this on television about 16 years ago. There was a special on Van Morrison and he was singing with some of the all time musical greats. This scene always moved me. (Thanks YouTube! With all of the garbage, there comes an occasional treasure like this!). Listen to the tapping of Van's foot on the wide wooden boards of a dock on a lake somewhere in Louisiana. This is pure music; unplugged and slow-cooked, and NOT in a hurry. It reaches a crescendo when Van belts out his verses. Watch his intensity and reverent admiration for the Man of the Blues, John Lee Hooker. It's starts off low, and raises the volume. Enjoy the super close ups of these traditionally self-conscious and shy performers. Priceless!

Do You Love Me?

Ah, Valentine's Day! The Feast of Love! (Actually, the official Feast of Love is April 5th this year)

I love Love. It's an amazing thing. Think about it. In the midst of our massive cacophony of greed and exploitation, through the flying pieces of broken hearts rent by violence and hatred exploding off of nearly every page of the news today, still there comes, like a soft whispered wind through the leaves, Love. Even when our heads are buried deep in material pleasures and we're wrestling like Laocoön with the serpents of lust, Love knocks softly at the door of our hearts. And we know Who it is.

For me, Love and a day like today that celebrates Love is a proof for the existence of God. After all, isn't it always something above us, something we yearn for, look for, pray for, and thirst after? Love is something we believe will complete us, fill and fulfill us.

Even in our music, Love is "up where we belong, where eagles fly on a mountain high." It comes from the heavens, and falls down from the stars. What is this crazy little thing called "Love?" It's immaterial, unpredictable, you can't touch it, taste it, smell it, weigh it out or calculate its impact on your heart (or head). It simply is.... it moves in and through us, draws us up and out of ourselves. It shakes and breaks and remakes our hearts. Over and over again...

Real Love is not of this world. It takes us out of this world, even if just for a few rapturous moments, and we taste eternity. And then Life, in all its muddy messiness, suddenly makes sense.

"Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.”
- Pope John Paul II


Yes, Love is a pretty fantastic gift, except when it's not opened. Then Love stinks. It withers. It doesn't work its magic. Or rather, we who refused to let it in wither, spoil and fade. We become like the flower that refused water or the lungs that refused to breathe. Now why would we do such a foolish thing as to reject Love? Well, we believe we have a better deal. Real Love costs us. It means admitting we need it, it asks for vulnerability and nakedness and trust. And those are precious pearls to ask of a human heart that's always seeking security. We'll settle for less. We'll take the rose minus the thorns.

Valentine's Day is sweet, glittery, and wrapped in bright paper.
God's Love can be raw, barren as a desert, and is always wrapped in suffering.

The shadow of the Cross falls across the path of our pleasures. And it's almost as if we become Peter then - moving with Our Lord through miracles and multitudes, wonders and words of peace for a time, until suffering rears it's mysterious thorn-crowned head. When we hear the truth about Love spoken by the mystics, that whatever happened to Jesus must also happen to us, we recoil in horror. "God forbid that anything should happen to you, Master!" said Simon Peter, not knowing that our sins have a price tag. Only Crucified Love can close that deal.

"The Son of Man must be handed over to those who will crucify him..."

When Simon Peter rejected Jesus, I think it was utterly a rejection of the Cross. We don't like pain, pain hurts. Can't Love win in some other way? Just forgive us, shed a single tear and the world will be redeemed! Why this Heart wreathed in flames and thorns, pierced and open and bleeding for all to see? When we see this Sacred Heart, we are tempted to back away, claiming not to know the Man. Then we try to warm ourselves by the dying embers of our man-made fires. Welcome to our world, huddled together in the frosty courtyard of our selfishness while Christ is led into His prison of Love.

But this Love is always looking back for us, turning around, peering through the lattices that we've put up. Peter found this Love again, or it found him, sitting by the coals of another fire, on the shores of the sea after the Resurrection. And the Voice of tender love whispered "Do you love me?" We are Peter too and we can hear these words if we listen. And through hot tears and a lump in our throats we can say with him "You know all things. Lord. You know that I love you."

Then we get up and try to love again...

SNOW DAY!! LET'S GO COMPLETELY INSANE!

Well, we've let our students go at noon today due to the SNOW... or should I say, they let US go at noon today. We all know it's the teachers who are more excited about these frosted flakes of freedom. Come on! We're the ones up late checking the Doppler 7500's and prowling around the Weather websites, ravenously seeking those satellite images of whiteness hovering happily over our little piece of academia.

But I made it look good in the classroom this morning. I contained my inner joy at leaving early. I held fast during my last period. My infamous Yellow Group tried so hard to give up ("Mr. Donaghy, we're leaving early... we should just play a game." "Yeah, we should watch a movie." "Mr. Donaghy, I have to call my mom." "Mr. Donaghy, this is ridiculous...") but we pressed on, and in my heart, I knew it was ridiculous. Hah! But I laughed in the face of ridiculousness! I hushed and mushed this team of adolescent sled dogs (it's an analogy, they're really great kids!) through the snow, through the book of Joshua, through the period of the Judges, Samson and Delilah, and a couple of other notes which I know they will always remember and treasure close to their hearts. I think it's up to two or three inches out there. Sweet! Hey, it's over! I don't even remember what I was saying! Let's go home!

Oooh, maybe I'll build a biblically inspired Snowman? Jobab son of Cush, or maybe Nebuchadnezzar.... Og the King of Bashan? So many possibilities! Woohoo!

Theology of the Body in 60 Seconds or Less

I'm preparing for a talk in Kalida, Ohio set for tomorrow on the Theology of the Body. So tonight I'll be sitting on the plane for a few hours, yippee!

Who knows, maybe some fellow traveler will look over at me reading a large book with Michelangelo's Creation of Adam on its cover, as they pass the thimble full of ginger ale and the nano-sized bag of pretzels (are pretzels still legal on planes?). Maybe they'll ask "Tall man, what are you reading?" And I could say something like "It's Pope John Paul II's theological reflection on embodiment, conjugal love and the escatological realization of humanity."

But I won't say that. I'll say "It's called the Theology of the Body... it's about God, sex, and the meaning of life."

"God, sex, and the meaning of life?" Now the strangers' brow may wrinkle, the eyebrows lift, but I got 'em. I just dropped the 3 biggies that every human heart has an abiding interest in. The curious traveler might step further into this mystery... "What's that about?" And for a brief window of time, a window in their mind will be open and ready. I will be challenged to slip in the truth of this incredible teaching of Pope John Paul II's before it's too late and they turn back to their Diet Pepsi.

So here's my soundbyte on the TOB, sandwiched into 60 seconds or less:

"Well basically it's a reflection on what it means to be human, male and female. Where did we come from and where are we going? It looks at the two greatest questions we can ask; "Who am I? And Who is God?" The starting point for getting to the answers is us. It looks at the human body not just as a biological organism, but as a theological reality. What is it about us that makes us so restless in this world, different from the animals, always hungry, always searching for More? And then it looks at love as a lead into the answer. It says that in our call to communion with each other as man and woman, in human love, there is something of the Divine, something touching on the Infinite. All human love is a sign, an icon, a pointer to Something Beyond ourselves.... and that's pretty exciting."

If the person keeps looking at me like a little kid watching the stars (the way I did when I first heard this teaching) I'll continue with "God has stamped right in our bodies a mystery that reveals Who He is! You see, a man is called to be a gift, in his very body, for the woman. And the woman is called to receive this gift right in her very body as woman. And this beautiful coming together of husband and wife creates new life! And the union, as beautiful, powerful, and wonderful as it can be, is really just the first sparks of the Love that we are made for beyond this world. The Church says that in the joys of their love, God gives spouses a foretaste of the joys of Heaven. Did you ever hear that one in Sunday School?"

And we'll see where it goes from there...