Lin Wilder's Blog, page 26

Are You the Only One Who Does Not Know?

an abstract illustration of a person immersed in dark thoughts, depression, despair or a difficult life situation from which he does not know how to get out. Negative emotions.Are you the only one who does not know?

Dear Brothers and Sisters, in our time…The concealment of God is part of contemporary man’s spirituality, in an existential almost subconscious manner, like a void in the heart that has continued to grow larger and larger.

Pope Benedict

Just so, the road to Emmaus, the Gospel reading for Wednesday, April 7th, in the Christian liturgy serves as metaphor for humanity. Whether believers or not; consciously or unconsciously, all seven billion of us walk beside the God-man and ask Him, “Are you the only one who does not know about what they did to our hope?“

The direct Gospel reading from Luke reads:

He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

 “What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.  The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him;  but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”  And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Location of road to Emmaus unknown

It seems fitting that no one knows precisely where the road to Emmaus lies. St. Lukes writes that it is seven miles outside Jerusalem therefore, finding the road should be simple. Archeologists agree that the road cannot be determined with certainty.

Ponder that for a moment or ten.

Emmaus is….anywhere….everywhere.

Why would these men who followed Jesus for three years be unable to recognize Him as He walked beside them?Can we guess why Jesus pretends not to know what they are talking about and makes them speak outloud the horror of what they had witnessed?And from our 2100-year-later perspective, can we understand why he answered, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!”Or can we see the void in our hearts and world growing larger and larger?Blue voids hole illustration background .defocused perspective , fit for your background project.Can that void actually be potential power?

“Why does God allow evil?”

“If God exists, how can he allow incest, murder…?”

On a walk a few days ago, the dogs and I walked by a woman. She had two masks on her face and yet jumped off the sidewalk and into the street to get thirty feet away from us. A chilly ocean breeze was blowing salubrious, ion-filled air all around and yet this person is so filled with fear that she wears two masks.

Outside.

Denying herself the beautfully oxygen-rich air all around her.

Afrraid to breathe it in.

And perhaps repeating to herself the inane adage of these days, “Be safe.”

Is that all we can do? Be safe?

Is that all we strive for? Safety, the most basic goal of all creatures? Wholly oblivious of the fact that we are created in HIS IMAGE?

Or can we open our eyes to discern?

Evil is not an entity. Rather it is an absence of goodness, a lack of Goodness, of God.

We naturally tend to picture evil as a thing, a black cloud, or a dangerous storm, or a grimacing face, or dirt.  But these pictures mislead us.  If God is the Creator of all things and evil is a thing, then God is the Creator of evil, and he is to blame for its existence.  No, evil is not a thing but a wrong choice, or the damage done by a wrong choice.  Evil is no more a positive thing than blindness is.  But it is just as real.  It is not a thing, but it is not an illusion..

Second, the origin of evil is not the Creator but the creature’s freely choosing sin and selfishness.  Take away all sin and selfishness and you would have heaven on earth.

The Problem of Evil

If there is another word for love, it is mercy

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, established by then Pope John Paul ll in 2002 and based upon the private relelations of Polish Sister, now saint, Faustina Kowalska. Simply and purely written, her diary details His message of mercy. She candidly relates her sufferings from other relgious superiors and colleagues; their cruelty and mockery for the visions and locutions she receives from Christ. Reminding us that the religious are not immune to jealousy and ignorance, just like you and me.

We Believe in You, We Trust in You!

“All grace flows from mercy, and the last hour abounds with mercy for us.  Let no one doubt concerning the goodness of God; even if a person’s sins were as dark as night, God’s mercy is stronger than our misery.  One thing alone is necessary; that the sinner set ajar the door of his heart, be it ever so little, to let in a ray of God’s merciful grace, and then God will do the rest.” (No. 1507)

Divine Mercy in My Soul St Faustina

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The Irresistible Essence of Divinity

Sky with beautiful cloud and sunshine. Peaceful cloudy sky natural background. Sunny day. Divine shining heaven, light. Religion concept heavenly backgroundThe irresistible essence of divinity

We all feel it: The magnetic, magnificence of Beauty. Whether in sunsets, ocean surfs, newborn infants or soaring orchestral chorus, our hearts soar, are lifted up in what feels like an echo of something so yearned for that we cannot express it.

During the many years I considered myself an atheist, agnostic or another label that felt fitting, a sunrise or operatic aria could drop me to my knees figuatively or literally. I feel confident that even those most immersed in our woke culture are goaded by the irresistible essence of divinity.

Now that we have moved from our former place of refuge to the Central California coast, the dogs and I walk the beach frequently.

I had told my friend Elizabeth that I wasn’t at all sure how well Shadow would do, as the last couple of days had been tough for him. But after more than ninety minutes of walking along this stunning ocean beach we all headed back. Shadow was not only unphased by all that walking, but energized.

When Shadow stopped in front of the person sitting cross-legged on a blanket to look at him with that unique wisdom of the world expression of his, the fellow smiled wistfully. Sadness radiating about him.

Elizabeth and I started to go on past, but Shadow “planted” and returned to the lost-looking young man. I saw the tears in his eyes when he stopped hugging Shadow to look up at us, and then at the two women busily snapping pictures of him and Shadow.

Was that divinity-The irresistible essence of divinity?

Indeed it was! For His Goodness still reigns in His creatures, all of them. Those He made to till His Garden, Humanity, are more resistant. We have His blessing and burden of free will.

During these holiest of days approaching Resurrection Day,

I ponder those last days in Jerusalem. The people who recognized who He was. So many people witnessed the miracles, saw Lazarus dead and then alive. Last Sunday, when we celebrated His Passion, we joined them. The jublilance, Hosannahs and the joy; we could not resist what was so palpable, could not deny the reality of the Presence.

And I think about Pontius Pilate. Again.

The book, I Claudia was the first of this new genre of historical fiction. And, like most of my books, was not my idea. But I understand why I was to write it.

It’s because the man Pontius Pilate has always drawn me. Ever since I learned to pray the Rosary, listen to the Gospel passages of these holiest of days in the Christian liturgy, Pilate was someone I recognized. A man I was familiar with, lived with, much more than the name in the creed.

Romano Guardini’s book, Lord

stayed with me long after I read it. In his brilliant meditation of Jesus, he writes about what it had to have been like on that day. Lyrically, powerfully, his words grabbing and clutching our hearts.

In an article I wrote on the book several years ago, I said this:

And once we consider that shift from thinking there was not just one fall of man, but two, Palm Sunday becomes far more than palms and donkeys. Guardini writes of the very air as being saturated with divinity. The phrase explains Christ’s reply to the Pharisees attempting to quiet the jubilant throng of inspired people. “I tell you,” He answered, “if they remain silent, the very stones will cry out.”

The Lord by Romano Guardini

Pilate, I knew had to be affected by Him. It was impossible that he was impervious. Each time, I heard or read that Pilate’s rhetorical comment, “What is truth?” was sophistry, my inner reply was “No, it wasn’t.”

And so, during the writing of Claudia, near the end for Pilate and for Our Lord,

I wrote Pilate out among the throngs because, of course, he had to have been.

As I watched, the crowd threw palm fronds and poplar branches onto the street in front of them, as if to form a carpet. As Longinus and I walked cautiously into the throng, no one even noticed us—we were invisible. Everyone’s attention was on a figure approaching on a horse. No, not a horse—something smaller.

As the figure and beast grew closer, I could see that this was Jesus, the man about whom Caiaphas and Annas had been increasingly frantic. Before I could get a clear view of him, he turned his mount left toward the temple. Without thinking, I started to follow, until Longinus put his hand on my arm. He and I locked eyes for a moment as I marveled at the energy in the air; it fairly crackled as the throng breathed out audibly, as one. Their awe and joy were tangible as if they were connected in some mysterious way to the man who I now saw was riding a donkey colt!

Amidst the cacophony of languages, I could hear alleluias and the hosannas, as if this man was a god. Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, The King of Israel! They were calling him King, Lord…but what kind of god chooses a young donkey upon which to make his triumphal entry? It was all so strange…and yet, I could not deny the yearning I felt, deep within. There was no other word for the feeling but yearning. It was a hunger for something I hadn’t known I lacked.

I Claudia

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Praying The Old Testament: Mirror For You and Me

Close up of a jewish papyrus in a museumPraying The Old Testament: Mirror for you and me.

“Catholics pray the Old Testament?

Really?”

The speaker was a Jewish friend. Agrressively atheist, yet intrigued by my love for her people. Judith was just the first of many Jews and Christian friends who have asked me that question with incredulity.

“I have always been attracted to the Jewish people…the Jewish religion.”

Elizabeth, another Jewish atheist we met on a cruise, was surprised- even uncomfortable, at my words. Even more so when I added, “You are God’s chosen people.”

Why do I feel this way?

There are many reasons.

Growing up, the Jewish high holidays resulted in half empty classrooms in elementary and high school. As I progressed in my career in academic medicine, many of my best friends were Jewish (atheistic) doctors. I have spent the last few years studying ancient Israel and the Tanakh while writing I, Claudia , and now, The Reluctant Queen.However, the primary reason however is what I said to Elizabeth on that cruise: Her people are His Chosen ones.

The Old Testament reads like a love story. A love story between God and this nation He chose to bring the rest of us to faith. When we discount praying the Old Testament we deny ourselves nuggets of wisdom.Sometimes boulders of it.

Remember Susanna, desired by the two Elders?

To read the entire passage in the Book of Daniel, click here. The story is as old as time: an innocent woman accused of adultery. Her accusers?

“…the two elders, who used to watch her every day as she came in to take her walk, gradually began to desire her…

‘Look,’ they said, ‘the garden door is shut, no one can see us. We want to have you, so give in and let us!

Refuse, and we shall both give evidence that a young man was with you and that this was why you sent your maids away.’

 Susanna sighed. ‘I am trapped,’ she said, ‘whatever I do. If I agree, it means death for me; if I resist, I cannot get away from you.

But I prefer to fall innocent into your power than to sin in the eyes of the Lord.”

Book of Daniel

Susanna’s secret weapon: Faith.

The rest of the crowd along with her parents, husband and children began to grieve Since they [accusers] were elders of the people and judges, the assembly accepted their word: Susanna was condemned to death.

Susanna appeals to the only Judge she had recourse to.

And He saved her. Why? Susanna made herself an ark.

The elders missed a critical component of Susanna’s character: “She was God-fearing because her parents had raised her in Law of Moses.”

Therefore, when she prayed, she was heard!

Whom does the Spirit stir up? Young Daniel who baldly states the facts framed in this rhetorical, Paul-like question:

Are you so stupid, children of Israel, as to condemn a daughter of Israel unheard, and without troubling to find out the truth?

The Book of Daniel

“The Old Testament is a mirror, Lin.”

Fr. Chris Kanowitz, my then Spiritual Director, replied to my sadness that much of the Old Testament was dismissed as allegory, and even fantasy by devout Catholics and Priests.

In hearing the reading for Monday, March 22nd, I thought of Fr. Chris’ comment. And of the first time I heard the Old Testament descibed as a love story between God and us.

Throughout Genesis, we read the repeating themes of the mysterious, merciful love of the Lord for His people. And of their blindness, rebellion and ignorance. With the exception of a few: Abraham, Jacob and Israel. Moses, Joshua and David and Daniel. Sarah, Susanna, Ruth and Rachel.

And Esther.

Each of these men and women made heroic through faith. Each facing potentially catastrophic threats to body and soul.

“But I prefer to fall innocent into your power than to sin in the eyes of the Lord.”

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Have We Got it Wrong: Heaven on Earth?

abstract space 3D illustration, planet Earth in space in the bright shining of stars, backgroundHave we got it wrong: Heaven on Earth?

Is heaven a place far away?

Only habitable by the dead?

Or could it be attainable here?

On earth…in this life?

Many, perhaps a majority, of us look at our life on earth as something to be endured. Perhaps a cosmic test of some kind. Increasing numbers of us accept reincarnation and its karmic payback.

We Christians may not all that different in our thinking. Many of us act as if suffering is what life is…what life should be. We seem determined to wrest misery out of the jaws of joy.

Overstatement?

Take a look around at your neighbors, other people in the grocery stores. Do they look as if they live in the midst of abundance?

How about those at church? Do they look and act like people who have been saved? (Paraphrasing Nietzche)

During a eulogy for a priest friend, the homilist spoke of Surprised By Hope

A book which posits that praying the words, thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven are the most powerful and revolutionary words we can ever say.

Think about that for a moment or five.

Of course I bought and read the book, but this last week, I have been prompted to read it again. And I conclude that I/we have got it wrong: heaven on earth.

Anglican Pauline scholar and priest NT Writght hammers at the Gnosticism and dualism that has infected Christianity since the Enlightenment. ‘The world is bad and getting worse’, ‘our job is to suffer the evil and aim to get to heaven.’ ‘All matter is corrupt, we will be happy only when we discard these bodies and become pure spirit.’ Lies which distort and deprive us of the Truth.

The book is packed with startling statements like these:

The early Christians did not believe in progress. They did not think
the world was getting better and better under its own steam—or
even under the steady influence of God. They knew God had to do
something fresh to put it to rights.
But neither did they believe that the world was getting worse
and worse and that their task was to escape it altogether. They were
not dualists.

Since most people who think about these things today tend toward one or other of those two points of view, it comes as something of a surprise to discover that the early Christians held a quite different view. They believed that God was going to do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter. This is such a surprising belief, and so little reflected on even in Christian circles, still less outside the church, that we must set it out step by step and show how the different early writers developed different images that together add up to a stunning picture of a future for which, so they insisted, the whole world was waiting on tiptoe.

Surprised By Hope

Most of Wright’s main points eluded me in my first read

I rarely read and then write about a book I have read twice. But with both Friedman’s Failure of Nerve and Wright’s Surprised by Joy, I learned that my first reads of the books overlooked many of the authors’ primary points. Or perhaps this new awareness of mine derives from the chaos of these days we live in.

Author Wright has challenged me in more than a few ways. Here are just two examples. Until I reread Wright’s book, pantheism and gnosticism were “isms” from another era. On this latest read, I see that some of my own thinking is dualistic and even pantheistic.

Quite clearly I scanned-or ignored- his critiques of Teilhard de Chardin’s cosmic Christ. On my first read, I discarded Wright’s criticism of the Jesuit. Now, despite being a lifelong admirer of de Chardin, I see that Wright’s categorizing the Jesuit philosopher as a pantheist is well founded.

This reread recalls my initial reaction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians when reading it as a brand new convert:

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

I share NT Wright’s love for the Apostle of the Apostles.The book of Ephesians like so many of St Paul’s letters seem to emanate from infused wisdom. In my latest novel on the life of Saul, I wrote this:

The knowledge, understanding, and wisdom I have shared in my writing over these past thirty years were infused within me there, in the fourth level of the heavens. Carried there on the wings of a cloud, I witnessed splendors and glory, which cannot be described with any accuracy or precision, for much of what I experienced in that place cannot fit into any language, at least none that I know. My attempts to do so sound fanciful, even to my own ears. But I will briefly tell you about the light, the place, and the Being who led me to the Lord. We know and understand light as a thing that surrounds us and which we perceive in contrast with darkness and shadow. But in this place, the light was not external; it suffused everything there. The brightness of the light was so intense and pervasive, it should have burned my eyes and scorched my skin. Instead, it seemed to merge with the air.

Should you decide to read Wright’s book, here is a free PDF download of Surprised By Hope.

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Fasting: Why Do It?

Word fast written in ash, dust or sand and christian cross or crucifix symbol as lent fasting and abstinence conceptFasting: Why do it?

We are body, spirit, and soul, we humans. For many of us, however, any concept of our spirit or soul is either whimsy or irrelevant. In this postchristian culture, we have confidence only in our bodies. Spirit and soul have been eclipsed by the pure physicality of our material forms. To some of the most physical of us, the athletes, fasting became a way of life in the late nineties and spread. Over time, it has caught on.

The health benefits of fasting from all food for eight, sixteen hours, or two to three days comprise a long list. Lengthening as researchers study the effects of caloric restriction on the body. The gains range from weight loss, mitigation of Diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and cancer to enhanced athletic perfomance.

There are a variety of ways to fast. Increasingly popular is limiting meals to specific times. In intermittent fasting, eating is restricted to eight of six hour periods out of each twenty-four. Or, in alternate day fasting on one day, total calorie consumption is limited to 500 to 600 followed by normal eating routine on the next day. The terminology can be confusing but the underlying principle is simple.

Stop mindlessly eating. Experience the feeling of hunger as something which passes. Because it does.

If we stop and think about it, these ideas make good sense.

Many of us have learned from sad experience that having cookies, or chips, ice cream or cake around can function as magnets. Exciting the appetite to the point that the entire bag or carton is consumed, despite the fact that we were not hungry but bored, or tired or frustrated or… And then had to deal with the yucky aftermaths of our gluttony.

Sorry, but that’s what it is, right?

Thousands of dieters have experienced tremendous weight loss only to regain not just the lost weight but with added pounds leading to convictions that most diets fail. Despite TV ads to the contrary, it’s just not smart to be constantly eating. Unless you are a teenaged male, that is. Periods of resting our oft maligned and underappreciated gastrointestinal system-or GI immune system– is a no brainer.

The more we abstain from food, we find some super interesting results:

We can learn to experience hunger.And distinguish it from appetite.Master it and along the way, ourselves.Enjoy the sense of emptiness and clarity of thinking that hunger can evoke.What about the spiritual effects?

The major religious traditions prescribe fasting as one of the primary paths to closer union with God. We Christians are now in the season the Byzantines call The Great Fast–40 days of Lent leading to Resurrection Day. And next month Muslims will begin their annual thirty day Ramadan. Also, practicing Jews fast on Yom Kippur, during periods of mourning and for minor religious feasts where self-denial is recommended, while Buddhists fast routinely.

Given the wide variation of beliefs among Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and Christians, isn’t it suprising to see universal agreement on the need to fast?

I think not, for a number of reasons. First and primarily, those effects of fasting noted above: clarity of thinking, mastery of hunger and appetite are critical to finding the narrow path to God.

Secondly, we’re drawn to a specific relgious discipline because we seek something or Someone.

And when searching, we need to be empty…

Brother Elijah, a Franciscan monk, does a powerful meditation on fasting. He explains that our first commandment while still in the Garden of Eden was a fast. “You may eat of everything but this one tree.” And we broke that fast, by grasping that which was forbidden.

There is so much more that can be said but for me, the

Persian poet Rumi’s words explain everything.

There’s a hidden sweetness
in the stomach’s emptiness.

We are lutes, no more, no less.
If the sound box is stuffed
full of anything, no music.

If the brain and the belly
are burning clean with fasting,
every moment a new song
comes out of the fire.

The fog clears, and a new
energy makes you run up the
steps in front of you.

Be emptier and cry like
reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with
the reed pen.

When you’re full of food and drink,
Satan sits where your
spirit should, an ugly metal
statue in place of the Kaaba.

When you fast, good habits gather
like friends who want to help.

Fasting is Solomon’s ring.
Don’t give it to some illusion
and lose your power.

But even if you’ve lost all
will and control, they come
back when you fast,
like soldiers appearing out
of the ground, pennants
flying above them.

A table descends to your
tent, Jesus’s table.
Expect to see it, when you
fast, this table spread with
other food better than the
broth of cabbages.

Rumi

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The Institutionalization of Denial: Legacy of the Social Sciences

How did it happen?The institutionalization of Denial: Legacy of the Social Sciences

You know them when you meet them. Or read them. Or have the privilege to study under them. Those rare people gifted with the courage to perceive their limitations; even trumpet their errors. Edwin H Freidman was such a man.

Although you may be tempted to read politics into this piece, do not do so. For there is wisdom contained here, if it is reduced to politics, it disappears.

Edwin Friedman was an ordained Rabbi, psychoanalyst and family therapist, and a leadership consultant in Washington, DC. He founded the Bethesda Jewish Congregation. The author explains that forty years of experience as a family therapist, consultant with the Lyndon Johnson White House, and pulpit rabbi have taught him that the antidote to our worsening family and institiutional problems lie not in continuing to work harder for solutions. But rather it is defintional: For decades, American society has been imprisoned in what Friedman calls “social systems theory” : reason, talk, masking and anesthetizing normal life events with euphemisms, diagnoses, and medication.

More than fifteen years ago, my Texas sister Lee’s then priest,

Fr. Rob Price, wrote an online article about the book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Era of the Quick Fix. Lee forwarded his article. Almostly instantly I read and devoured it, even buying and sending copies to seven friends.

Finishing the book, I wrote : “I wish dearly that this book would be mandatory reading for anyone in a leadership position, for all parents, for all leaders of churches and all parishioners; in short, for all of us whether teacher or student.”

This past week, I found and reread it.

The colossal misunderstanding of our time is that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. If you want your child, spouse, client, or boss to shape up, stay connected while changing yourself rather than trying to fix them.

A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Era of the Quick Fix

The wisdom of Edwin Friedman is a partial answer to a question I and many others ask. How did we get here?

To the insanity boiling all around us, in our schools, churches and governments?

On this second read, it was impossible to get past the introduction without stopping to wonder at Friedman’s piercing, forthright prose.

It was in fact my consistent inablity to predict the future course of relationships on families and institutions over the course of several decades that first led me to question the adequacy of the social science construction of reality and eventually led me to wonder if an intended source of enlightenment had, in fact, become a force for denial…

In this book on leadership, I will describe a similar failure of nerve (to the Socratic Greeks) affecting American civilization today. But I will add, when anxiety reaches certain thresholds, reasonableness and honesty no longer defend against illusion, and then even the most learned ideas can begin to function as superstitions.

Failure of Nerve

Pow.

Friedman’s theory of leadership, begins with a person, one with integrity-integrity in the sense of willing to stand apart, take command. A leader with nerve because he-or she- has a “differentiated self”. Someone with the “presence” to take a stand, apart from the consensus, relying not on data or consultants but on her abillity to act. Make a decision while accepting that there will be hundreds or thousands who may hate him or her. Accepting that there will be sabatoge, an inevitable result of leadership. There will be resistance.

Here are just a few of his major points (I confess that some of the wording is my own)Social theorists’ insistence on highlighting the culture of individual persons, families and insitutions is called cultural camouflage . Friedman terms it camouflage because the real problems are hidden. Denying the overriding emotional similarities of human persons regardless of gender, ethnicity and/or original culture mask the real problems. Immaturity, refusal to take responsibility are not identified. And become intergenerational. A steadfast refusal to acknowledge the overlay of emotion in relationships, both in families and institutions. Decades of “therapy” among Americans have done little but amplify an endless list of complaints. Complaints which are bolstered by the medical profession with “diagnoses.” When families fix on the symptoms: alcololism, abuse…rather than the emotional problems that keep them chronic instead of the emotional problems that keep them chronic, they will perpetually recycle the problems.The same is true of society. Of us.

...The reactivity that is characteristic of morally regressed America can induce a more discouraging failure of nerve among society’s most individualistic leaders than did the Communist hysteria forty years ago that involved issues far more critcal to the survival of the Republic.

Are Friedman’s theories close to my heart? Oh, yes, indeed,, they are. Meet Kate Townsend, investigative reporter from my first novel.

“The rise of reason did not take power into account.”
Starting with his first sentence, Nobel Prize-winning author
Paul Starr debunks the attributes given to medical professionals
by the sociologists of the mid-twentieth century and instead
characterized physicians as mere mortals subject to the same
flaws and foibles of all of us.

Starr then describes the complex factors which coalesced in the last century to create this illusion of a category of persons thought to fly higher than most of
us. The Social Transformation of American Medicine portrays
the culture of the early twentieth-century American as one
who was fiercely independent of the influence of any authority
over his health and that of his family. Americans were born at
home, had their babies at home, and died at home.

The Fragrance Shed By A Violet: Murder in the Medical Center

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Shadow on age, patience, and death.

Shadow patiently waiting for us to lift him from car to beach-photo Elizabeth BurkheadShadow on age, patience and death.

“The old boy’s not what he used to be.”

Looking at the tall, thin, older, stranger watching our sidewalk trio: Seymour in front, pulling as hard as possible, me, and Shadow plodding at the end of his leash, I replied, “Neither am I.”

Each day, the three of us walk through our closely packed community, and down to the sidewalk along route 1 in our still new residence of Oceano, California. At least twice each week, someone comments about Shadow’s age. Like the neighbor who has finally stopped asking, “How old is that dog again?” when I replied, “You have asked me that I’ll bet twenty times-no exaggeration.”

It’s a “senior park” so we’re all in that demographic. For many folks, I think that watching a very old dog like Shadow functions as a mirror. We see ourselves in his white face, his sometimes lurching movements and stiff-legged walk. We would prefer to see something else. Maybe we are even somewhat repulsed. Like my neighbor who watched Shadow’s lengthy, awkward, and painful attempts to persuade his tightened tendons and arthritic joints to let him comfortably lie down. An expression of distaste on her face, she said, “You are going to have to do something fairly soon, aren’t you?”

I understand her feelings.

She never knew our amazing dog, Shadow. And hospice care for dogs is sometimes supremely difficult and frustrating, it’s not for the faint of heart. But I have learned so many lessons from my dog Shadow on age, patience, and death. Our Nevada vet said of Shadow, “When I look into his eyes, it feels as if he sees straight through to my soul.”

Shadow doesn’t know that he is “too old.” If he mourns the loss of the years of leaping higher than the jack rabbits he chased and frequently caught, I see no evidence of it. He remains the impossibly patient being he has always been. The transformation from the half-wild, fiercely independent dog who first adopted us to this radically dependent canine is sad, yet instructive. Despite his increasing limitations, he silently lets me know what he needs with patience, grace and dignity.

Writing this piece evokes wonderfully vivid memories of my Dad who, like Shadow knew the wisdom of keeping his age to himself. And a dreaded conversation about his death:

Honey, I know how you want me to die….on the tennis court, playing the game I love.

And he did just that- at the age of eighty- four.

Is there a culture more phobic about age and death than ours?

We don’t know how old Shadow is. But estimate him to be somewhere between eighteen and twenty years old. Soon after we moved to northern Nevada, he adopted us. We learned, after he moved in, that many of our neighbors had been feeding him and trying to get him to come close enough so that they could bring him in their house. But he refused until the day he decided we were his pack. Maybe it was our Dobie Ally one who snagged his heart, but Shadow taught us quickly that his skinny frame, mellow, amiable personality cloaked a being with a heart bigger than Texas. And courage to match.

Several years ago, I wrote this :

Just before midnight, I went to bed, certain I would never see either dog again. One or both had been attacked or injured or…

About a half-hour later, John called out, “Come see who’s standing on the porch.”

Shadow and Ally. I knew what had happened. Ally got lost. Instead of sticking with Shadow, he went off on his own up there following something irresistible- Dobies are sight hounds- and could not find his way home.

But Shadow? He stayed up there in those mountains all that night, among the mountain lions, bears and coyotes, until he found that silly puppy. And he led him home.

More Lessons from Shadow

About three months ago, I thought he was telling me

it was time. Shadow wasn’t eating, spit out the pain pills over and over. And seemed to be asking me to help him. I told John that I thought I needed to take him to the new vet who had just seen him the month before. “You mean, kill him?” John asked incredulously.

“Yes,” I said. “He is miserable and won’t le me help him. He is starving, look at him.” I was whining, knew it, and didn’t care.

But the next day was a little different. And the next more so.

Therefore, when my friend Elizabeth suggested we bring Shadow along on our beach walks with Seymour, “Yes!”

Weekly, the four of us walk on the beautiful Oceano beach for a couple of hours. Shadow is eating. He has a “spring” to his step. Thanks, Elizabeth!

Here’s a fifteen-year-old picture of Shadow from a 2006 hike in the northern Nevada mountains behind the house we used to live in. One of my favorites.

Minolta DSCHow long does he have?

One would reasonably think that a dog with all the obstacles that Shadow faced during his first year of life would have a far shorter life span than dogs who were never in the wild. And yet Shadow watched both of our red male Dobermans drop dead. Each of them at less than half the age he is now.

Of course I know that there will come a time…that I will need to do something. Unless Shadow does it for me. Meanwhile, he smiles at all the people who comment on his age. And continues to teach me.

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Cain and Abel: It’s All About Mediocrity

May, 29, 2016, Petersburg, KY, The Creation Museum, Cain killing Abel figures display, Cain and AbelCain and Abel: It’s all about mediocrity

Monday’s reading for the Christian liturgy is a Genesis passage most Jews and Christians recall with ease. Abel’s dead, the Lord comes looking for him and asks Cain where Abel is. Cain’s reply?

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Remember the song, he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother? Even back in the days when I thought the Bible and religion pure fallacy, I loved that song. And sang it at the top of my lungs. A vivid demonstration, I think, of the law written in each of our hearts. Even-perhaps especially-when we deny its presence.

Like you, I’ve heard this Genesis passage countless times and sure never correlated it with mediocrity or excellence, certainly never to my life. To my habits or as a prescription for closing the distance between God and me.

Until I listened to Fr. John Farao’s homily this past Monday.

First, a review of the passage is warranted:

Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.” Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.  Abel for his part, brought one of the best firstlings of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.”  While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” But the Lord said to him, “Not so  ; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,  east of Eden.

Genesis

How does murdering a brother correlate with mediocrity?

Indeed.

A very careful read of the words explains. They are simple statements: Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. Abel for his part, brought one of the best firstlings of his flock.

Jesus The Good Shepherd, Jesus and lambs.

Until I listened to Fr. John, I had never heard this message. For sure, the reading never applied to me, to my habits of mediocrity. The star of this story is Cain and his inability to acknowledge the excellence of his brother’s offering when compared to the lackluster-mediocrity-of his own. I seriously doubt that Cain got up that day intending to murder his brother. No, he got up “and brought some of the fruits of the soil…”

Cain did precisely what I all too frequently do.

Grabbed a handful of whatever was closest and easiest to gather. Because so often, I am not paying attention. Or I am trying to fit too many tasks into too little time. Hurrying…get this thing done in order to move on to the next thing. Perhaps that’s what Cain was doing too.

But Able selected one of the best of his flock. To do this, Abel must have taken extensive time…searching through what was likely his large flock to compare and contrast the animals. His intention clear, focused and patiently looking for excellence. Cain and Abel: It’s all about excellence. versus mediocrity And when confronted with the truth, Cain sulked, got angry because he felt shame. So much shame that he was incapable of hearing the warning of his Best Friend.

“Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Shame: sound familiar? After eating of the tree, they realized they were naked-read they were ashamed. And doesn’t the evil one and his minions always feast on our shame? They know how precisely to use it. How quickly our shame turns to anger because we forget to turn to Christ. We forget to say, “I am sorry Lord.”

Instead we blame someone. Anyone, everyone for what we detest in ourselves. And the distance between us and Him widens. Over time, becomes a chasm.

I realized, while listening to this reading in a way I never had before, why my friend St. Teresa of Avila spoke of washing the dishes as prayer. And Brother Lawrence, in his classic Practicing the Presence of God found washing the floors and the most mundane tasks to be holy. Because their intentions were toward His Glory. Accepting each task as an opportunity for perfection. And during those many times when I’ll return to my habits of mediocrity?

Stomp on shame.

Accept that I lapsed.

Forgive myself.

And ask for Grace.

After forty days of practice, look forward to a new discipline over my actions. But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

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Football as metaphor for life, faith, and happiness

Tom Brady throwing the ball at training camp in Foxborough MA.Football as metaphor for life, faith and happiness

Back in another career, my fourth, I ‘met’ Brady.

Everything was brand new: The marriage, the career, the faith and football.

It was January, 2002. My still new husband insisted I watch the Playoffs between his beloved team, the New England Patriots and Oakland. We were living in Connecticut, cold, snowy Connecticut. I’d decided to leave my career in academic medicine where I’d built a national reputation and join my husband in an online business about which I knew nothing. About sales. Or marketing. Or excel spreadsheets.

John knew I didn’t like football and seemed to have no problem with it. Until the night of that game. When he insisted I stop working and come upstairs to watch Tom Brady’s first Playoff game. Now known as the ‘Tuck Rule’ game, the Patriots had no chance against Oakland. They were outmatched and had no chance of winning, a Patriots Super Bowl win was a pipe dream.

As I reluctantly climbed the stairs, watching the television as I did so, the camera happened to capture an expression on the twenty-three-year-old quarterback’s face. Mesmerized, I stopped and stared. Football as metaphor for life, faith, and happiness.

Determination. Intensity. Grit. Calculation. Will.

These are just a few of the things I saw reflected in that young man’s eyes. And I was hooked. Understanding less than nothing about the game, I sat down, mesmerized. Because I realized that what I had just seen had nothing to do with football…and everything to do about life: yours and mine. About risk and choices, challenges and failures. About tenacity and resolve, passion and focus.

As I look back on that evening, I realize that I recognized Brady’s expression… what I saw had everything to do with the decisions I had made. The very real challenges caused by the choices or more accurately, the risks, that had gotten me to where I was. The determination and grit to make this new life work: leaving Texas for a brand new life and now a new marriage, new faith, new career.

Getting by just isn’t enough, I have seen enough to know that ‘getting by’ doesn’t get us to happiness, does it? Not even close.

I think, and therefore, write about happiness, a lot. Because unfortunately, I know far more unhappy people than happy. And that has been the case since I was a kid in a family of mostly unhappy women. My mother and sisters were getting by…none of the three of them had the desire for excellence…a passion, I have come to believe, that is critical for living a happy life.

In Pursuit of Excellence Essential for happiness?

Come again? How does a guy, an aging athlete, who makes a gazillion dollars a year, married to a woman worth even more relate to my life? Or to yours? Of course he’d be happy…all that money and fame! But we know the lie of that statement, don’t we? Think for a few nanoseconds about people with everything but are miserable.

Brady’s success at forty- three has shattered the assumptions about age ceilings…about the prognostications of the medical experts who told Brady back in 2007 that he would never again play football., of so many of the illusions and lies that press in on all sides of those of us who choose to empower the ‘expert’. Whether it be our doctor, the news media or a family member, there is a long line of people eager to tell us how to live. To augment that inner voice that shouts “You Can’t!”

Because it’s never about just one thing. Happiness is never achieved through an award or a raise or a title or even about making a gazillion dollars a year. It is about acquiring the discipline of happiness unique to each one of us. Whether forty-three or eighty-one, whether an aging athlete like Brady or an aged writer like Wilder, it is a discipline, a decision to stop “resisting happiness.”

Resisting Happiness?

How on earth do we resist happiness?

By listening to the voices: “I can’t do this,” “This is impossible,” “I’m too old,” “It’s too hard,” “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Allowing the predictions of the authorities make us cower in our homes, afraid of our own shadows, steal our joy.

Why am I writing? For whom? – Writer or author questions on a napkin with a cup of coffee

When I began writing fiction, I had to squelch those voices. Sometimes on a daily basis, especially in the beginning. And bounce back after a terrible review and accepting the fact that I ‘ll never be a “NY Times best selling author.”

But here is the really funny thing. I love to write-it is by writing that I know what I think, believe and understand, therefore have written and published my entire life. Back then, though, I had to cram it in on weekends and vacations. Now I get to do it fulltime. How very cool is that?

And these ancient world novels which require a day-or a week- of research to write a single paragraph only to rewrite the following day? Yes, it is hard work, sometimes exhausting. But struggling to convey King Xerxes (The Reluctant Queen, writing now) as someone you can see, or a Pontius Pilate- (I, Claudia) who is no longer a name our of a routinized prayer, but real, breathing, person sitting right next to you? What a high that is!

Yes, it’s the audacity of writing that I love.

How is football metaphor for life, faith and happiness?

Brady speaks easily about his lack of natural ability, explaining simply that he has to work harder than the Lebrons or the Jordons but that, “I love football.” In college, he sat on the bench and then in the pros, no one wanted him. He was number 199 in the 2000 NFL draft.

The rest is history. And then there was the devastating injury, the fiasco of Deflategate, and deciding to leave the Patriots to go with one of the “worst teams” in the NFL. And of course, Covid 19. But suddenly, there he is again in his tenth Super Bowl, facing someone twenty years younger. It would be a rout-Kansas City would win by a landslide.

Now you see why I write that it’s are metaphor? These are just a few of the takeaways:

Life isn’t fair – sometimes people like Roger Goodell walk into your life. And never leave. Do we empower injustice through embracing it…letting it define us? Or do we perceive it as just another obstacle waiting to be overcome? Discipline is essential, in the way we eat, exercise, think, and in the way we pray.We live in a soup of pundits who pitch fear. How many times does He tell us not to fear? Negativity is poison. Stay away from it, way away. If we are not the arbiter of your well-being then no one else will be.The pursuit of excellence is uniquely personal: becoming the best we can be, the person He created us to be. Aware that our only competition is ourselves.

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Make Yourself an Ark: Listen to the Higher Voice

Noah’s Ark riding on a swell after the Great FloodListen to the higher voice: make yourself an Ark

The Bishop’s encapsulated advice to the Cadets at the US Naval Academy in his address Called Into The Depths?

Listen to the higher voice.Build an ark.Accept your mission.Find the place where Jesus sleeps.

Bishop Robert Barron’s brilliant address to the Navy Cadets serves both as metaphor and method for the upcoming forty days known as the Great Fast by our Byzantine Catholic friends.

In case you are not familiar with the auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, here are a few facts about this unusually gifted man. Fluent in four other languages than English, German, French, Spanish and Latin, Fr. Robert Barron wrote his master’s thesis on the political philosophy of Karl Marx.

His is the mind of a scholar: unafraid of delving deep into the mind of opposing doctrine. Rare at any time but especially our own. A mind which equips this adroit man to venture into unusual- maybe even enemy-territory. Like the Amazon headquarters on Arguing Religion. And then there was Religion and Opening the Mind, a talk given at Google.

He is, of course, a Roman Catholic Bishop. But the ease with which he dives into controversial, and polemical subjects makes him something more. Much more.

The sea as tohovaboho.

Fittingly, the context of this address to the US Naval Academy is the sea, Called Into the Depths. Barron organizes his address around two famous old testament sailors, Noah and Jonah, and the Master of the seas and all of creation: Jesus.

He begins by explaining what the sea represented to the ancient people: Tohuvavohu or the Hebrew term for confusion, emptiness, and/or chaos:

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Genesis1:2

It’s a splendid word for the awfulness of desperate illness, loss, betrayal, unexpected death and all the horrors implicit in each of our lives, isn’t it? Tohuvavohu.

Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God…I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them…So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out…

Is this story just allegory? Bishop Barron rhetorically asks his listeners:

NO, he almost shouts and proceeds to discourse on the urgency with which me must listen to the Higher Voice. Of the reality of its existence.

Each of us knows what he means with the statement, “Listen to the Higher Voice.” It’s the whisper we hear about doing what we know is right. Like leaving our contact info on the car we mistakenly backed into, or telling our boyfriend that going for an abortion is wrong…that we cannot do it, or dating the really good-looking married guy who has been coming on to us at work.

By listening to the lower voices like,

” they can never figure out who backed into them, or “I cannot have a baby right now” or “his wife will never find out,” we lower not just ourselves, but all of humanity. Barron points out what making an ark means: pitch on inside and pitch on outside. If not made correctly we sink down into the depths…Tohuvavohu. The analogy to our souls is made crystal clear.

But are there consequences to making yourself an ark? You betcha!

We can readily imagine how weird Noah looked while building his ark in the middle of the desert. How people laughed, probably attacked him. As some do us when we pray in front of Planned Parenthood.

Peering at his audience of twenty-something-year-olds, Barron issues an evangelical challenge because, he declares soberly, 40% of those under 40 claim no affiliation with religion.

The reluctant prophet Jonah is metaphor for “sent on mission”..

Never are we called only for ourselves. We know Jonah’s tale well. To some it is the stuff of kids summer Bible camp. Surely not relevant to 2021 or to our individual selves. But to the founder of Word on Fire Ministries, the story of Jonah is your story, his story and mine. On-going and personal.

Jonah was sent alone into the capital city of Assyria: Ninevah. To the Jew, Assyria was enemy territory

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

The reluctant prophet lives out- in the delicious prose of Bishop Barron, our egodrama or theodrama.

Will we follow our will or the will of God?

Ego, bearded man with silver mask Venetian style. Mystery and renaissance

Will we dare become the person we were created to be?

Or will we live someone else’s life, safe in the basement of a three story house?

One of my favorite Gospel passages is the third and last used in this talk:

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Gospel of Mark

These men were fishermen. To fear drowning had to mean that the waves were humungous. And yet, Jesus slept…on a cushion.

Is there a better list of remedies for coping with the Tohu wa-bohu of 2021?Listen to the Higher VoiceMake yourself an arkAccept your missionFind the place where Jesus sleeps.

Or better yet, listen yourself to this splendid address.

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