The Work Begins
For 49 years, our voice on the fundamental issue for society was silenced. A contrived legal theory, enshrined in precedent, permitted a mother, with few limits, to take the life of her child for any reason. Just not a theory, but a position that argued that it was as the framers of the Constitution intended. We marched, we prayed, we did the work, and had our rights finally restored.
Like the return of Aslan to Narnia, the cold, brutal grip of the White Witch is broken, but her power is not destroyed. The question of the morality and legality of abortion is again up for debate, and now we must begin the hard work of winning hearts and minds.
We live in a society where people violently question the legitimacy of our legal system because things didn’t go their way. They lost, and now they want to change the rules. Deeper than that is the rage at the notion that mothers shouldn’t be permitted the right to kill their child; that a child has fundamental worth that ought to be protected.
The landscape has changed, and the people in every state must now determine how they wish to live. It’s true that with Roe overturned, many states will enact statutes that allow unlimited abortion, on demand, until the moment of life. In others, abortion will be completely outlawed. Many states will land in between.
Polls tell us that abortion is broadly accepted, and the overwhelming majority of Americans think that contraceptives, abortifacient by design, are morally acceptable. Yet, these same people seem baffled at why racism, sexism, and violence abounds in our communities. You cannot chip away at the integrity of the human person, with carveouts and exceptions, and not expect contagion to follow.
Our message, from the very beginning, is so simple that we teach it to kindergartners. Every person has value and is worth protecting. Now if only we can get our society to internalize it.
Fathers for Good
God’s plan of salvation for the World contains essential truths and profound beauty. He chose man to be held in esteem above all other beings in the created world, including His angels. He desires an intimate relationship with each one of us, and freely chooses to share His power with us.
God decided to share creative powers with man. He created Adam and Eve, but every human since came into the world only through the consent of humanity. Even when it was time to bring Jesus into the world, it required Mary’s fiat to bring salvation history to completion.
Throughout the Old Testament, God worked through families. Through the family of Abraham, God reveled Himself to the world, and opened the door to reconciliation from the Fall. Through the family of David, His installed Jesus on the throne of the universe, reconciling the world to Himself. Through the family of the Church is the treasury of graces, opening the gates of Heaven to all mankind.
God not only shares His creative powers with man, but also His title. God the Father is the first person of the Holy Trinity, and He shares that title with those men whom He has entrusted with the care of souls.
Fatherhood is not an easy path, especially with the traits that men share. We are not as nurturing or innately understanding of the workings of a child, but our presence is irreplaceable. The love of a father propels a child into the world with self-confidence and courage.
In one or two generations, our names and stories will be forgotten. We will become the subject of the family’s genealogist, mapping out a family history, a name on a paper with a few dates. A father’s contribution is not for honor or praise, but of humble service to his family. He quietly toils, with mistakes made daily, working towards the harvest of a well-rounded human. Though we forget his name, the transformational gift of love, passed from generation to generation, is his legacy.
God has shared with us His power and His title, may we strive to be worthy of the gift.
Universal Church
To prepare Benedict for receiving his First Communion and Confirmation, Alison and I thought he should go to Reconciliation the week before. It’s not a hard sell for Benedict. He’s seen me go regularly for years, and every time I invited him to come, he always accepts.
Our pastor was away on vacation, leaving only the Associate whose primary responsibilities are care for the Hispanic community in our parish. In fact, he speaks very little English at all.
I knew this ahead of time, and tried my best to prepare Benedict. This was only going to be his third or fourth confession, and I wanted to make sure that he knew to go through the sequence as normal. Even though he may not understand the priest’s words, it was still a valid sacrament.
Benedict has prayed at bilingual Masses, so he understands that there are equivalent prayers in other languages, but this was his first real experience of the universal Church. In a confessional at the back of his parish, he received the loving mercy of Christ, and didn’t understand a word that the priest said. That is a really cool thing.
Friday Night Adoration
This week, Benedict will complete his initiation into the Catholic faith when he receives the Sacrament of Confirmation. With just a few days to go, I took him to Adoration on Friday night.
Our parish has Mass, Holy Hour, and Confession every Friday night. It’s an opportunity that I wish I would take greater advantage of. Being in the presence of Peace itself is so relaxing, especially as the capstone of my week.
Benedict is still a little boy, flexing his autonomy, but not yet at that period of growth when he will seek more distance from his parents. He was excited to spend Daddy and Me time, without the presence of any girls, on a Friday night.
We went to Confession together, and sat closely next to one another in our pew in adoration. We even prayed the prayers at the Benediction together.
It was a treasured moment, and one that I hope that he’ll carry with him, even when he wants to spend less time with me.
Sacred Treasure
Benedict is about to receive his First Communion, and he’s very excited about it. We’ve prepared for nearly a year, and the time is almost here.
Belief in the True Presence is a concept that most adults struggle with. To a child, it’s simple. Jesus said it is so, my parents say it is so, and so it is.
The Sacraments are our fuel to get us through the journey of life. I hope that Benedict carries this treasure with him, wherever he goes.
A Time for Play
Work expands to the time that you give it. Work is a good thing, giving structure and purpose to our days. It allows us to share our skills with others, and to provide economically for our family.
After many years out of the workforce, I’ve suddenly found myself back in it. Eight years away, and I’m surprised at how little has changed. Many times throughout the week, I experience something and remember just what it feels like to work.
I have a weekly hours cap, and I work right up to it. My original plan was to spread those hours out of over the course of six days, but in practice, I’ve noticed the benefit of finishing for the week on Friday night. There’s a sense of completion as I log off for the weekend, and see my schedule opening up.
With my work done, I’m free to say yes all weekend long. Play, reading, and rest all come easily, without the tension of needing to work. I can spend time with my family without having to think about my to-do list, it’ll keep until Monday morning.
We need a time for play in our schedule, and it needs to be more than just on the weekends. When our children come and ask for our time, we should give it to them, even in small doses. But working to finish by Friday and have an open weekend is a worthy goal, too.
Parental Love
Our long holiday from democratic debate over one of the most contentious issues of our time appears to be ending. In the theme of this year, a return to reality is upon us. What’s so devastating is that we have to have this debate in the first place.
Society has become desensitized to the violence of abortion and anesthetized to reality. The process of performing an abortion, whether by depriving the child of a healthy environment or through the physical act of ending their life, is inherently violent and always wrong. Juries punish harshly those who perpetrate similar acts against children in their care, so why the rage over applying the same standard to children at the earliest stages of development?
Selfishness is a central element of the argument, along with a distortion of love. Like so many cornerstone components of the human experience, love is anything and nothing at all. Love is not a feeling. Love is not love. Love is complete surrender, total sacrifice for the other.
Accepting the gift and responsibility for the care of a child is the highest calling of humanity. That acceptance requires the fullest measure of devotion from the parents, and a life-long commitment to the child. To observe the beauty of that relationship unfold is one of the most beautiful things in the universe. The child enters into existence wholly dependent on their parents. Then, as they reach the mid-point in their lives, the dependence begins to reverse. Decades of parental self-sacrifice are repaid through decades of child self-sacrifice through elder care.
Parenthood is a journey of weighty responsibility. But it’s a journey that is necessarily rooted in the total gift of self, a complete surrender of the parent’s priorities for the child. That is true love.
Turn on Your Brain
The culture of rage is here, a general acceptance of rule breaking in the furtherance of political ends. Rage is primal, reaching into the area of your brain that runs your internal “fight or flight” response. It shuts down logic and instead pursues action, no matter how unhinged.
A sad consequence of this indulgence of rage is that it rewards the party that can convince the highest number of people to turn off their brains. Alexander de Tocqueville marveled at the educated electorate that he met in America, and how everyone engaged in the democratic process. He’d be shocked to see that it only took 200 years to convert that America into a mob.
Humans are naturally trusting, and so it can be easy to accept reasonable sounding arguments, even if they’re fallacious. Many will ask you to excuse the intentionally killing of a child, but only in “rare” cases of rape, incest, or the health of the mother. A critical review of this request presents some questions.
Why is the only response to the violence of rape, the violence of killing a child? In what medical circumstance is it medically necessary to kill the child, rather than end the pregnancy early by delivering the child and admitting them to the neonatal intensive care unit?
Under the weight of logic, the argument collapses. We know inherently that killing is always wrong, with the sole exception of in self-defense.
Rage, and the beneficiaries of rage, benefit when you turn your brain off. Keep yours on.
A Fresh Look
For over a year now, we’ve lived in our new house. I think that it takes time to get used to your new environment before you deeply understand what changes would improve your lifestyle. We’re at that point.
My father-in-law was here last week for a visit. An extra pair of hands, along with the natural feeling of renewal that springtime brings, inspired us to move on to the next phase of home improvement.
When we moved in, our house had an intercom system. We removed four of the five speakers shortly after moving in, with the last one in the master bedroom. Over the weekend, we pulled it down, patched the wall, and painted. I have a great feeling of completion.
Along with the system were two intercom boxes on the porches. Five minutes of screwdriver work, and their yellowed squares were down and in the trash. We pulled down a fake fence in the side yard and trimmed dead branches that were overhanging the deck.
These were small projects, many taking less than an hour to complete, but the overall impression is a gigantic change. A cleaned up yard, a completed bedroom, and little annoyances resolved.
It’s easy to feel trapped in the same sinful inclinations, day in and day out. Our character flaws pigeon-hole us into the same types of sin. But while we may feel trapped, Easter invites us to take a fresh look. A bit of TLC, a little time changing our environment or refreshing our perspective reveals two truths. God defeated sin, and so we can conquer it. Our God is a God of mercy who gives us all the resources we need to embrace and live His Law. All we have to do is put in the work to make the change.
The Paradox of Time
There’s a quirk in human psychology when it comes to time. We have lists of things that we’d like to do, but never enough time to do them. Yet, when our schedules open up, we’re more likely to drift to watching TV or wasting time, rather than investing it in quality activities from our list.
The path of least resistance is too easy to take. I enjoy a lazy river as much as the next guy. The mistake is believing that important things like work and chores get in the way of recreation.
A healthy amount of work is part of a well-balanced life. Work gives us productive activity and dignity. We use our skills to improve the lives of others, and generate compensation that supports our family. Engaging in quality work allows us to mirror the lives of Jesus and his father Joseph, who we know based on historical records, worked very, very hard.
At the end of the day, I’m often tired. It’s hard to summon the energy to clean the kitchen or take care of the little tasks around the house that need to be done. Some days, I whiff and check out for the evening. But on the nights that I take 15 minutes to get the kitchen clean, or the 10 minutes to pick up the books and toys around the house, the following day always goes better.
I’ve always planned to have a date night with Alison once a week. An evening where there’s nothing on the schedule except spending time with her. When I was solely an at-home dad, it rarely happened. We’d spend small chunks of time several times a week in the same room, and that was it. Now that my availability is cut down, Sunday night is a much bigger priority for a date night for me. Coincidently, we’re having date night much more regularly.
There’s a balance to managing the many responsibilities that we have in life. In the face of them, we can’t surrender to idleness or overwork. Like our spiritual life, making this balance requires daily effort and some amount of failure. Try harder next week.