Unglued
I was reading my favorite personal finance blog earlier, when I came across a guest post. To my astonishment, a human being, with a doctoral degree, actually wrote these words:
I’m not suggesting that we shame commenters who had kids or censure them in any way. But I think it needs to be part of the conversation. “You had too many kids,” and, “If you want to make it easier to be financially secure, have fewer kids,” are messages that I really think are lacking on the site. I have several friends who stopped at one child (or didn’t have any) because of finances. One of my good friends said, “We could give two kids an OK life financially, or we could give one kid a great life.”
- Erik Hofmeister, DVM
To this man, a child is no different from a purse. It is simply an accessory. Completely optional. A life is reduced to a number on a spreadsheet to him. He is far from alone.
A human, to this man and those who think like him, is now a commodity, an inconvenience, and completely disposable. What other worldview would argue so vociferously for the fake legal right to kill a child at any point until birth. A nine-month window in which they argue for the legal right to commit a premeditated and calculated killing of an innocent person. What distorted logic endeavors to even justify such an act, let alone codify it in law?
We’ve given up the mystique of the human person, the preciousness of a life, the awe at the circle of life.
If you wonder why society has come unglued, why hated and bigotry are suddenly spotted everywhere, and it’s because of this. When we reject the fundamental sacredness and specialness of life, acting against it becomes easy and unglued.
Juxtaposed to this pitiful and destructive worldview, is the perspective of a new father, a man who welcomed his first child at age 40,
As I surveyed all the petty passions and projects with which I had filled my life over the years, fully accepting that none of it would matter once the baby came, I had to wonder: Is this me? Will I still be me when all this stuff doesn’t matter anymore? Who’s the person that’s going to raise this kid, anyway? I thought I had answered those questions, until the doctor put that squalling little muppet into my arms earlier this month. In that moment, I stood there looking at the child, then at my wife, and then at the child again. As my vision cleared, I realized it wasn’t the baby I was seeing for the first time, it was me. I’d never really known who I was until that moment. Becoming a father didn’t change me; it helped me understand who I’d always been and who I would be from now on.
- Ed Condon
A child is a precious gift. Like a beautiful rosebush, it’s a gift that requires constant attention and nurture. But as we know, the human ideal is not selfish pursuits, but loving and serving others. Children provide us the greatest gift of all: unconditional love and human fulfillment.
Stony Hearts
Certain things stand out to me when I read the news. Lately, it’s been the callous words that journalists use when they write about abortion. It’s not their fault, they’re just putting to words the cultural mood. When I stop to consider the seriousness of the topic, it’s incredible that we’ve allowed our language to become so cold when discussing the dignity of the human person.
It reminds me of the prophet Ezekiel when he asks God to take away his stony heart and to give him one of flesh. This is a common trope in Christianity, a part of the process of lifelong conversion. We recognize that our selfish human desires lead us far from God and His plan. We turn in on ourselves instead of focusing our energies on serving those around us and picking up our crosses.
The hardness of our hearts doesn’t just reflect an indifference towards things that are wrong in the world. It represents a missed opportunity. God has prepared great plans for us. They’re not our plans, and they may not fit our idea of a good life, but they fit within a beautiful vision. When we reject God’s plan for us, we accept a lesser existence, a life with opportunities for joy and fulfillment left unrealized. We seek comfort, God seeks adventure.
The Christian life is one of paradox. The things that we think will make us happy never do. The things that cause us to think of and serve others, that make us uncomfortable, the things that God has laid out for us, leads to joy. Look at the lives of the saints and martyrs who gave up everything for Christ. Their stories are not of morose people, but are stories of joyful people.
We’ve let ourselves become numb to life, and to the little affronts to the dignity of the human person around us. We don’t speak out or take positive action because inertia and comfort are so much more convenient. We settle for stony hearts.
May God prepare my heart for the adventures that He has planned for me.
Perfect Heroes
Hero is a common word these days. Healthcare workers are heroes for putting themselves and their families at risk to provide care for the sick. Grocery workers are heroes for taking similar risks and keeping us fed. The list goes on and on.
It’s hard for me to say it, but like so much of our language today, I think we overdid it. It’s not my intention to downplay those actions. Taking those risks are part of the job. Healthcare workers put themselves at risk of infection, injury, and lawsuit to help their patients on every shift. It’s what they do. The risk of getting sick is lower today, but Walmart team members still go to work and do my shopping for me. I’m grateful for their actions. I think what we saw was not strictly heroism, but altruism. In the face of adversity, the human spirit triumphed.
In the revisionist trope of our times, we set a very high bar for our heroes. We don’t just want them to be heroic, we demand that they be perfect. When we discover that these heroes are human, with their flaws and imperfections, we let our judgmental selves reduce and demean them.
Take today, Columbus Day. Christopher Columbus made an incredible choice. When he set sail, there were probably a good number of people on those docks, never expecting to hear from him again. He sailed anyway. Columbus Day is an opportunity to reflect on the bold spirit of adventure that lives so deep within us.
He was not perfect. In his zeal to explore and spread his faith, he hurt people. He made many mistakes in his life, but his explorations were also pivotal to human progress. He set in motion the process that ultimately yielded the greatest force for good in the history of mankind, the United States of America. Yet, some cannot bring themselves to forgive a man for acting in a way consistent with the larger society 500 years ago. Thus, he must be maligned, defamed, torn down, and erased from history.
The only perfect saint is Mary. Every other saint fought and contended with their imperfections and, in the end, won. St. Peter denied knowing Jesus, St. Paul tried to snuff out the early Church, and St. Augustine was a bit loose. These men are heroes for their contribution to human knowledge, but they were also flawed people. They were just like you and me.
Heroes inspire us to live our lives more fully, but expecting them to be perfect is a fool’s errand. Instead, we should accept them for the good that they have done and forgive them for the mistakes that they have made. We should hope that others treat us with the same kindness.
Month of the Rosary
It’s hard to believe that October is already here. The dog days of summer are over, kids are back in school, and more pleasant weather is in the forecast. October is my favorite month of the year, as the weather cools and I start to feel more relaxed.
The central role of Mary in our faith is confusing to many non-Catholics, but to us, it’s easy to understand. A mother is the anchor of her family, so Mary is the anchor of the Church. There are many feast days and holy days throughout the year to celebrate Mary and the important role that she plays as Jesus’s mother and the mediatrix of grace. October is another one of these opportunities, as we celebrate the Month of the Rosary.
The Rosary is a powerful prayer, but praying it regularly can be a challenge. The Rosary is simple and contemplative. It can be easy to mistake the repetition of the Rosary for boredom, but that’s its hidden gem. Life is busy, and we’re always trying to stuff our priorities into every waking moment. The Rosary is an invitation to set all of that aside, even just for 15 minutes. It’s permission to relax, rest, and experience the joy that is stillness.
Mindfulness and meditation are popular in light of the unsettled past 18 months. These medically validated practices, when done regularly, yield tangible health improvements. While their benefits are clear, developing a regular mindfulness practice takes work. There are many guides and apps to help, but at the end of the day, mindfulness requires that you set aside the busyness of life for 10 minutes of focus. Praying the Rosary takes the physical health benefits of mindfulness and supercharges them by refocusing that time off the movement of your breath onto the greatness of God.
During His public ministry, Jesus was constantly mobbed by people. He was on the move, performing miracles, and in every town was a new group of people eager to meet this mysterious prophet. Many times, we see Him trying to withdraw to a quiet place with the Apostles to pray. The Rosary is that quiet place for us, waiting to give us the rest that is good for our souls.
When we want to take on a new goal, we lay out grand expectations and plans. We plot, strategize, and optimize, trying to find the perfect way to get from where we are to where we want to be. This is the model of the New Year’s Resolution, and it’s a broken model. We build a plan that demands perfection when we know that we are imperfect. When we deviate from our perfect plan, we throw up our hands, give up, and forget about the whole thing.
Praying the Rosary every day doesn’t require any planning, strategizing, or optimization. It only requires 15 minutes and the willingness to accept the grace of stillness. Find those 15 minutes in your schedule, set them aside, and give yourself permission to connect with God through praying the Rosary.
Whether it’s been a few months or a few years since you’ve picked up your Rosary beads, make this October a turning point in your life. Rediscover the beauty of rest and commit yourself to praying the Rosary.
Do Nothing
My day has a way of getting away from me. For the first 90 minutes that I’m up, I’m in complete control. I walk, read the paper, pray, drink coffee. It’s quiet, still, and orderly. As soon as the first pair of small feet come down the stairs, everything goes out the window.
I’m more flexible in our schedule than I used to be. I don’t have rigid timetables, just daily task lists. We finish breakfast around 8:30am and start our schoolwork. Of course, if they’re playing nicely, creatively, and quietly, I let things slide.
One of the more challenging parts of having four children is spending one-on-one time with each of them. The day is mostly playing, work, or activity in groups of two, three, or four. Each of my kids has a distinct personality when they’re in a group setting. It’s when I get them alone that things get interesting. They don’t have to compete for my attention, they have it.
When I take Benedict to our monthly father/son activity, he says the most insightful things in the car ride. It reminds me of just how grown up he really is. Felicity is very bubbly, but she’s especially sweet and cheerful when we’re alone together. Lucy can be crabby, but she loves snuggling close to me. Veronica, of course, is happy all the time. But there’s a particular delight when she has you alone.
The busyness of the waking hours keeps us all moving. While I have a lot to do, maybe I need to add “Do Nothing” to my list. Permission to stop, pull one of my kids aside, and do nothing with them for a few minutes.
I know that these days are racing by, and as my children grow and mature, our relationship won’t always be this easy. The window of opportunity is open, I need to jump through it and do nothing.
Nine
Earlier this month, Alison and I marked our ninth wedding anniversary. In years past, I’d take the opportunity to write a post sharing some new thing that I’d learned. As the date came and went this year, I struggled to write this post.
It’s clear to me that all new marriages endure a very strange first year. Things need to be worked out as the two worlds merge. There’s a bit of new conflict and some general awkwardness. Balancing the personal dynamics and expectations of two different families is a delicate dance that leads to friction.
As the years pass on, routines fall into place and life becomes easier. You move past the early stages in careers, children arrive, and the family puts down roots. Finally, your marriage starts to feel like a real, unique family with its own identity.
It took us nine years, and now I feel that we’ve reached that point. We’re in our home, with all the liberty and responsibility that ownership brings. We have an established brood of four, with our oldest able to accept household responsibilities on his own. Alison finished school, finished training, and is well established in her field.
The plans that we set nearly a decade ago and the hard work that it took to accomplish those plans is starting to show results. In a sense, we’re settling in to the life that we spent nine years building.
When I took control of my physical health two years ago, and finally achieved my goals, there was a transition period afterwards that I fumbled. It’s one thing to orient your life in the pursuit of a goal, and it’s quite another to order your life to maintain it. I knew all about the things that I needed to lose weight, but I knew nothing of how to maintain success once I’d reached it.
The hard work of laying the groundwork is complete. Now we get to enjoy the ride and take on the challenges that come with maintaining a plan.
When A Child Prays
Franciscan University of Steubenville has a great culture of prayer. After each Mass, everyone kneels for a few moments of prayer. The sanctuary is completely silent as congregants exist as living tabernacles. It’s a practice that my family continues to practice.
Last week, when the Mass had ended, we knelt down together. Alison instructed Lucy, our 3-year-old, to pray the St. Michael prayer. Lucy stood right next to me as she said the words. It wasn’t perfect, but she hit the high notes. At that moment, I felt the power of her prayer. Here was a small child, praying one of the most powerful prayers in the Catholic lexicon, sending evil fleeing.
There was more to it than that. As she prayed, the focus of her mind was clear. She stood, hanging on to the pew, methodically pulling the words from her memory.
In His ministry, Jesus again and again highlighted the faith of children. When the adults discount their worth or tried to push them out of the picture, Christ pulled them in close. Why?
When a child prays, they do it simply. They don’t have an agenda, they surrender to the moment and to the weight of the words. They don’t try to come up with a better prayer or a fancier verse, they adhere to the simplicity that is given to them. They approach God openly and innocently, as they are.
Adults would do well to learn to pray as children do. We would experience the richness of faith that comes when we enter prayer with a simple trust.
Incremental Progress
Five months ago, Alison and I woke up on a Saturday morning and headed into our front yard. Over the course of the day, we cut down over two dozen bushes. In the weeks that followed, we dug out stumps, repaired water lines that we damaged, ripped down shutters, repainted our front door, and leveled dirt.
Summer heat set in and our progress slowed. From the street, our home looked quite plain. The dead and overgrown bushes cluttered every garden bed. The rotten shutters fell apart as they hung. Digging out those bushes and pulling down the shutters was an improvement, but just the beginning.
Our work began again this past weekend. We built, painted, and hung new shutters. A tree trimmer has been hired to prune the huge oak tree that anchors our front yard and cut down the dead pecan tree that now stands on the corner of our lot. In the coming weeks, more improvements will be made. Dead, decaying, and broken things will be lovingly replaced with new materials and fresh paint. It will take months, but by this time next year, our home will look entirely different.
We are moving slowly, as life and other priorities require our attention, but each weekend, our home will become more and more beautiful. Almost imperceptible to the passing neighbor, over time, beauty will be revealed. Our house isn’t in terrible shape, it’s just been neglected. A little of love and elbow grease will make it shine as it once did.
My preference would be to knock it out in one fell swoop. If I could, I’d line the contractors up to tackle all of our projects and, combined with our DIY weekend warrior projects, have the whole thing done in a month. But life isn’t Fixer Upper.
Life is incremental progress, the great work of perfecting ourselves in the model of Christ. Conversion happens slowly, incrementally, and imperceptibly. Life, especially the Christian Life, requires patience. In those times when we fail to live as we should, it requires grace. Not just grace from God, but grace with ourselves. My home may look plain and barren today, but in time, its beauty will be revealed as we remove the decay. So it is for the Christian. The decay of poor choices, past and present, is slowly removed by the Divine Carpenter, until all is new, whole, and beautiful.
Building Momentum
Just after my birthday this Spring, I started walking again each morning. My most successful streaks start with little planning and no fanfare. My alarm goes off, and I go walk for an hour. I kept up with that habit, day after day, all the way until our summer vacation in July. I took the week off, and I’ve struggled to get back on track.
Momentum is hugely important because it defeats resistance. Quietly humming in the background, momentum propels us to keep doing something because it’s easier to keep going than it is to stop and start over later. I didn’t have the excuse that I could just skip a day because it wouldn’t matter. I walked yesterday, so why not walk today? There were many mornings that I slept in during that Spring walking streak, but at the end of the day, I’d always lace up and head out. I’d walk in those evenings because walking is just something that I did.
I experience the same resistance when I fall out of a prayer routine. Why start small when I can just start tomorrow? Why take 10 minutes at the end of the day when I can really do a good job tomorrow morning? I need to start now because it’s the best time to start.
I don’t give momentum a lot of credit, but that’s because it’s the silent partner of success. By taking the excuses off the table, it’s easier to just do what I had planned than it is to rationalize why I shouldn’t.
The Monk and the Merchant
The pictures coming out of Afghanistan are heartbreaking. We will forever remember the image of the C-17 taxiing down the runway with dozens of people hanging on, desperate to escape the evil that has descended on their homeland. It hurts not just because it was preventable, but because we feel powerless to help. Our elected leadership has failed on the world stage, and we share in the moral fallout.
Disaster and tragedy are part of the human story. Afghanistan feels personal because, while there is little that we can do about dictatorships in China, North Korea, or Cuba, this one was within our power to stave off. Every day in the World News section of the newspaper are stories of natural and human disasters. This is to say nothing of the quiet crimes against humanity that go unnoticed by the global community.
In times like these, I’m reminded of the book, _The Monk & The Merchant_. It’s a short story, in the vein of those management quick-reads. The story is about a merchant who visits a monastery and wishes he could spend all of his time focused on serving God. The monk whom he meets reminds him that the lifestyle of the monk is possible because of the financial generosity of the merchant. So while the merchant may spend his day tending to his business and growing his profits, his work is holy, too. It’s the work that enables the monastery to function.
Most of us are not called to the missionary field. Most of us are not called to travel to Haiti after an earthquake, or to Kabul to save people from the shadow of a dictatorial theocracy. But we are called to help. We can make a positive difference by giving generously to charities that have the experience, capability, and manpower to make a tangible difference on the ground.
If you’re looking for a reputable group, especially one that helps Christians facing persecution and genocide in the Middle East, take a look at the Knights of Columbus Christian Relief Fund.
We may not be monks, but our work as merchants is holy. Our work makes the life and charitable works of the monk possible.