John Janaro's Blog, page 152

Do We Have Tornadoes in Virginia?

We had a little bit of "excitement" ("panic"?

He Consoles and Gladdens Us

Something from the "Digital Scriptorum."

Lyme Disease Awareness Month: We Need "Awareness"

May is a month when people in temperate climates start spending more time outside. It's a flourishing time for all kinds of natural life. Trees, grass, animals, bugs, ticks...

Not surprisingly, "Lyme Disease Awareness Month" is an official designation for May in a number of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic States in the USA (including my own dear Virginia). And it seems to be a common theme in many other places, and of course on the Internet.

I know that we're prompted to be aware of so many important things that it can be hard to keep up. Lyme is something, unfortunately, that I can't help "being aware of" not only in May, but throughout the year.

Frankly, I wish I could forget about it. But it keeps nudging me and poking me and demanding attention of some sort.

Actually, I have grown accustomed to coping with the persistent consequences of a Lyme Disease infection that went untreated for 17 years. We worked hard on fighting my infection in the previous decade (starting in 2004, when it was finally diagnosed) and I think we made some progress. Still, 17 years is a long time.

I have had to adapt, to reorient the pace of my life, to accept certain limits with the determination to be constructive - even to flourish in new ways - within those limits. It's a particular challenge, not so different from many kinds of challenges that many people face every day. All things considered, I'm doing okay. Things could have been a lot worse, and I have heard many stories from people who have endured (and continue to endure) more than I could bear.

But nobody in today's world needs to wait 17 years for a Lyme diagnosis. The awareness of this elusive, disturbing, frustrating, and in some cases catastrophic disease has grown significantly in our society. The population of the ticks that carry and transmit the bacteria that cause Lyme Disease, unfortunately, has also grown significantly.

We don't need to panic. We just need to be aware and take reasonable precautions. There are effective tick repellents now, and it's important to check for ticks after outdoor events, to be aware of early warning signs of Lyme infection, and to get treatment if necessary. The earlier the treatment, the better chance for full recovery.

For more information, check out the resources of the Global Lyme Alliance HERE.

Advances in research are very promising, but - once again - there needs to be more awareness so that this work gets more funding.

And while the "celebrity culture" is so often a source of negativity, it can be quite helpful when well-known persons share stories about their own struggles with illnesses and dedicate themselves to raising awareness as well as financial assistance for others in need. I'm impressed with all the hard work Avril Lavigne continues to do in this regard, even as she paces herself through her own remission while releasing new music.

Many of her fans would rather see her on another world tour, promoting her album, making more videos, or doing outrageous things that rock stars do to get attention and get their face on magazine covers. But fans will have to be patient with the new rhythms of Avril's life. She still has lots of music in her. Meanwhile she continues to show her face for the fight against Lyme Disease, to inform, support, and encourage others.

Click HERE to see video.
This is not easy. It's not easy for her. It's not helping her career. She would rather not talk about this stuff (and I understand why). But Avril, the perennial "rock chick," is turning out to be tough in ways she never expected. And I am grateful for her gritty vulnerability, which is real and not just part of "the show."

A "Digital Putty Knife"

Here are the Blue Ridge Mountains rendered in what I refer to as a kind of "stucco expressionist" style.

I used computer graphics to make what looks like something you could do with stucco or paint and maybe a putty knife, but it would be messier, take a lot longer, and you'd have to be very talented.

May Flowers

Lovely little flowers still blooming in the midst of a green explosion. Here's an up-close look:



Back up the camera for pretty scenery everywhere. #BeautifulMay

John Paul Graduates from College

So this really happened. John Paul Janaro graduated. From COLLEGE*!

(*note to people from outside the U.S.A., "college" in our country refers to "university" level education, as in "high-school-was-four-years-ago." I covered that graduation on this blog in 2015.)

When I began blogging in January 2011, John Paul was 13 years old. I used to write a lot more about the kids in those days, because they were all still kids.

Then they became adolescents (well, Josefina is still not quite there yet) and I have written less about them as they have grown older and developed their own stories.

Most recently, young adulthood is becoming the reality for the three oldest ones. They were all three students at Christendom this past year (John Paul as a Senior, Agnese as a Sophomore, and Lucia as a Freshman). They have jobs. They pay taxes. They drive. They vote. It's crazy!

Christina Grimmie Continues to Inspire Us

Two years and eleven months after her death, these words of Christina Grimmie are more important than ever, and the number of people who are being "given to her" continues to grow.

How Can I Pray When I Don't Know "What to Say"?

In difficult times, it sometimes seems very hard to pray. This may seem ironic, but it can happen, especially during long periods of illness, pain, or grief.

In the beginning, we say things like "Dear God, please change this situation!" Sometimes He does change it, but often enough He simply remains with us within the endurance of things that have to play themselves out in time.

This is when praying "gets awkward." It's especially disturbing for those of us who are trying to live our faith. We know that prayer is (or should be) a regular part of every day. Prayer is “conversation with God.”

But we find ourselves in ongoing situations of exhaustion, irascibility, or just feeling "dislocated" from everything. We may be full of questions we don't even know how to ask, or we even feel like we've forgotten the meaning of our own language.

Prayer is conversation with God. But we don't feel like having a conversation with anybody. Ugh!

One problem is that our prayer tends to be a monologue, in which we praise the Lord, thank Him, tell Him we love Him, and (here is often the "meat" of our one-sided conversation) ask Him to take care of us; we bring Him our "intentions" and the intentions of others. We ask Him to meet what we perceive to be our many needs in life.

"But God, I don't know what I need. I can't think of anything meaningful to say. I can only wail away in the dark and be powerless. Does that even 'count' as prayer?"

The truth is that the "conversation" of prayer is one that God initiates. That does not mean that we are suddenly going to hear Him speaking inside our heads.

Rather, God is always speaking, calling to us, drawing us to prayer. He speaks to our hearts. We begin to hear Him when we become more aware of our need for Him.

This is where the conversation of prayer begins: when our hearts cry out, “God, help!" Our hearts open up. We might not even be very coherent in our heads at the time, but our hearts are saying, "Lord, have mercy on me!”

We always need mercy. But the awareness of that need arises and intensifies in times of difficulties and brokenness and suffering. In these times, we begin to listen to God in the depths of ourselves. We begin to give Him space, and we permit Him to work on places within us that we usually try to hide from Him (and from ourselves).

The “ear of the heart” that hears God has a very simple shape: “Help. Have mercy on me. I need You.” We may not be able to articulate these words, but that inward groaning that seeks Him is the foundational response to the love He is continually offering to us.

That love has a name, the name of "salvation," Jesus - "God saves." He saves us by coming to dwell with us.

Jesus on the cross has entered forever, and understood comprehensively and unforgettably, each and every one of our cries. Jesus wants to stay with us.

We are precious to God in our weakness. He is so close to us when we are suffering. He carries us even closer to Him if we allow Him to enter inside of that need that groans within us.

He shapes us, in His way, and in His time.

And so our prayer is renewed as a more profound "conversation" with the God who creates us and redeems us. He develops with us an inner, mysterious dialogue that then gives intensity and real value to whatever words we manage to say, or even just the wordless endurance of our own wounds encompassed in His.

Thank You, Jean Vanier

Jean Vanier died early this morning, following a recent illness, at the age of 90.

A great soul. A humble human being. I will be forever grateful for his words, his witness, his life. 

God, grant him eternal rest in your peace.

Sorrow May Take "Mature" People By Surprise

Recently I was discussing how sometimes I still feel like a "kid inside," even though I'm 56 years old. I observed that this was a complex phenomenon for people around this age; one that involves many memories, psychological factors including gaps of immaturity in personality development, as well as the continuation within us of that essential human openness to reality. This openness enables us to see every day as new and full of promise.

We can see how "becoming like little children" corresponds to our humanity and to authentic human maturity (even while transforming it into the freedom of the children of God). In our human experience, however, it's not always so easy to distinguish or disentangle the "childlike" from the "childish."

Those of us who are over 55, who are "Young Seniors" (I may have coined a new term there