Though I haven’t committed to routine self-improvement in the past two years, there was a recent time in my life where it was always top of mind. The last big undertaking was in 2022 when I completed Ascension Press’ Bible in a Year podcast. That was the first time in my life that I read the Bible and truly studied it as a comprehensive work, and the payoff has been huge.

Although the Bible was authored thousands of years ago and 5,000 miles away, it applies to my life today as it did to the authors then. It’s a book of human stories and experiences, that repeat throughout our lives. No matter the situation that I find myself in, I can almost always find a direct relationship to a story or character in the Bible. In those times, it feels as if it was all written only for me.

Filled with dark imagery, unimaginable suffering, and challenges that I hope to never confront, the thread of hope weaves throughout the chapters and verses. At the end of the story, no matter how dark things get, Light returns to assert dominion, the greatest triumph of all.

Tags: Spirituality

I have written many posts over the years marking Veterans Day. This is a day for us to pause to not only thank those who gave us everything, but the many, many more who gave part of their lives to protect and defend us and our way of life. This self-sacrifice is among the highest of human ideals and for that, all I have to say today is, thank you.

Tags: Gratitude

On Saturday, I made a scheduled site visit for work. It’s a bit of a hike to the office, just over 2.5 hours, but the drive is mostly on big open roads. It was a normal Saturday, almost boring.

I wrapped up my work and swung into a local gas station to fuel up and grab a snack. After getting my gas, I went inside and quickly picked up my food. Checking out, though, was weird. I tried to use the self-checkout, but it was painfully slow between my four items. The fourth one just would not scan. The manager insisted that the system was fine, but I hopped over to a cashier anyway. I had similar trouble with my debit card.

I got into the car and, as I pulled away, I prayed the Traveller’s Prayer. I usually pray it when leaving the house on this trip, and can’t recall a time I prayed on the return trip; I always just figure once per trip is fine.

The drive was busier than usual, cars moving slowly and keeping me from an easy cruise-control drive. Things were really slowing me down. The path is on a wide four-lane divided highway, with long stretches of open road between tiny towns.

There is one town, in particular, where the speed limit drops precipitously as the divided highway gives way to a 5th paved center lane. It’s known for speed traps, so regular drivers know to take it slow. As we neared the end of the city limits, I was eager to accelerate, but cars in the left and right lane were blocking my way.

As I moved into the right lane to pass the driver cruising in the left, my eyes were drawn to a gold Toyota Camry crossing the center lane, entering the left lane, and coming right at me.

When I was in high school, I participated in a teen defensive driving program called Driver’s Edge. Sponsored by insurance companies and professional driving tracks, the one-day course creates a safe and controlled environment where teens can push cars to the limits in extreme driving scenarios, and understand how to react. The instructors are nearly all professional drivers.

In that moment, when I perceived the car coming at me like a YouTube dash cam crash video, I reflexively reacted. I jammed the accelerator and made an evasive swerve away from the oncoming car. The car passed by close enough that I could see the driver’s face, and slammed head-on into the car behind me. Had I reacted one second later, or braked instead of accelerated, it would’ve been me.

I remember three still frames from that moment; when I first noticed the car, the blank look on the driver’s face as he passed by, and the moment of impact behind me as seen through my rearview mirror.

I stopped, along with many other drivers. We did what we could, but the situation was dire for the wrong-way driver. From the entire time I saw his car in motion, there was no reaction. Combined with the blank look on his face, it appeared that he was unaware of what was going on. He wasn’t much better when we reached his car, he was seriously injured, in pain, and fading. He lost consciousness as the paramedics arrived, less than 10 minutes after the collision, and did not recover.

It was comforting, in the days before the contentious election, to see who we really are as a country. All of us who stopped had somewhere to be, and no idea who these people were. But we saw that they were in trouble, and we helped.

Speed wasn’t a factor in this accident, merely the violence of two cars traveling at speed in opposite direction violently colliding. One second and a few feet is what made the difference for me on Saturday afternoon. I’m confident that I would’ve been okay, but it was still terribly sad for the driver to experience a medical episode, lose control of his vehicle, and die with such numerous and traumatic injuries. I was one of the last people he spoke to in those 10 minutes as he faded away, and pray that whomever he was, he went from speaking to me to standing in the presence of God Himself.

Tags: Reflections

A good way to think about our lives, especially our spiritual lives, is as a cup. We can choose what we fill it up with. Things of beauty, prayer, the Sacraments, and acts of virtue fill up our cup to the point where it overflows.

When our cup is overflowing, it’s extraordinarily difficult for sin to enter into our lives. We are fulfilled, living life by God’s design, and there is simply no room for temptation to gain a foothold.

In the same way with time and our day, when we fill up our day with the things we must do, there is neither time nor opportunity for anything else. By filling up our spiritual life with these good things and heavenly delights, we can accomplish the same thing.

We carry the same habitual sins into the Confessional month after month, year after year. It can be easy to make small pivots and adjustments to increase our chances of overcoming this sin, but why not just completely snuff it out? Give it no quarter, no room, no attention. Even a giant log is no match for a river with a strong current.

Tags: Virtue

To understand life is to understand impermanence. As we grow, experience, and learn new information, we are changed as people. We become ourselves as the sum total of the people we meet, the things we do, and the books we read.

I started this project, Catholic Husband in March of 2013 with the idea of working as a writer. I did become a writer, but by practicing this craft for more than a decade, I actually set myself up perfectly for my current job.

This is my 1,000th blog post. Taken together, this body of work reflects my thoughts and experiences as a husband and a father. As I flip through my old posts, I can recall the emotions and events that inspired the post, like mile markers along this journey.

It was not always easy to stay committed to this project, and there were some breaks here and there. But now, standing here at this milestone, I find myself receiving a gift from my former self. By taking the time to express my thoughts in the medium that I prefer, writing, I can see clearly the experience that is my life, laid out all together.

Catholic Husband is not meant to be a historical record, but rather a living handbook. These thoughts and ideas are the ideal that I aspire to; these are the ways to think and act for those of us who wish to live as the Holy Family lived. I, like Catholic Husband, am a work in progress. But if I persist, if I run the race, I will end much closer to my goal than if I never tried.

Few blogs make it this far, but I’ve only just begun.

Tags: Reflections