John Janaro's Blog, page 188

Giving Our Weakness to Him

Lately I sound like I have been beating up on myself a bit. Maybe I have. (That's not good.) But by writing, I'm trying to work through it and get to the root of things.

This is a mood going around in me, for diverse reasons including the recent sufferings and health and living-situation needs of my beloved parents, and of course my own physical and mental health, which is always ready to hijack any stressful situation.

I am aware of all of this, and I am coping as best as I can. I am not discouraged.

The bottom line, of course, remains the same: I am a sinner.

I can't deny it. But I also must never be satisfied with it. There is no time for complacency or presumption. God is moving my life and changing me, and He wants me to cooperate with Him.

Easter means that Jesus has come into the midst of all my mess. Jesus is here with me, and I want to follow Him.
I'm on His mysterious journey, and it has plenty of dark valleys and sorrows on many levels. It's about healing me and raising me up to a supernatural life, making me a new creation, an adopted son of the Father.
I feel so small and superfluous, like an aimless floating piece of dust in this vast material universe. Yet at the same time I aspire to a beauty and greatness beyond the whole universe.

And in fact, I am drawn by the Mystery who creates all things, and I am called in all my smallness and empowered to take up this unimaginable journey of transformation so that I might live forever in the glory of the God who has revealed Himself as Love.
The journey, with all its depths, is also about sharing in the mysterious solidarity of the whole human race. We are all called to journey together as brothers and sisters, helping to carry one another's burdens, and allowing ourselves to be plunged into the great love of the heart of Jesus, which is always going out to the margins....
Sentimentalism won't get us very far. This is a difficult journey on a narrow road with gigantic obstacles and constant struggles. Again and again, I discover that I am weak and broken.
But God wants to carry us through all of that. He wants our crying out in pain–spiritual, emotional, or physical–to be a cry that begs for Him.

Where else can we bring these pains?

Jesus has already borne all of it, my weakness, my brokenness, all of it right down to the core of me… He has endured it all and wants me to open up that vulnerability so He can transform me. That doesn’t mean he’ll make me “feel better” (at least, not in the way I think He should), but He will deepen my trust in Him, and it is through trust that I am changed.
It is through trust that I begin to taste joy.
A priest once suggested to me a kind of "spiritual/mental exercise" that makes sense both on the level of faith and on the psychological level.

He told me to imagine I had a basket. I should take the anger, the fear, whatever, and (in my mind) put it in the basket, and then (again in my imagination) put the basket on the altar before the Blessed Sacrament and say “Jesus I give this to you.”

If I find more stuff still there inside me, I put it in the basket again. Bring it to the altar again. Give it to Jesus.

And again.

And again.

And again. Give it to Jesus.

"But I can't do this..." Grab that feeling right there, and put it in the basket. Bring it to the altar. Give it to Jesus.

"I feel so helpless..." Basket.

"My head hurts, I can't think, I'm exhausted..." Basket.

"But I don't want to change. I love myself. I want to keep my life. I don't want to give myself away!..." BASKET!
Okay, that’s a “technique” — it might be helpful, or it might not. If all we can do is groan in pain, let’s groan to the Father and let the Spirit groan in us. I am convinced that He works deeply this way. Just “give” it to Him.

God is not surprised by our pain. He has made it His own.

Somehow, we have to open up to Him and let Him "have it." He takes it to Himself, and transforms it even as He allows us to continue to "share it with Him."

This sounds mysterious because it is mysterious. But it touches faith and flows into hope and love. Whatever we may "feel" in the present moment, there is a deep level of encouragement that sustains us (somehow) and enables us to grow in the Spirit.

Feelings of discouragement? Put them in the basket. Jesus, have mercy on me. I trust in You!
On the other side of it all is an indestructible joy. A spark of this fire has already begun in our hearts, and sometimes others can see it even when we can't.

Knights and Wine

Here's some recent photo-based wine art:

"Speaking" My Mind...Literally

Today's blog post is being written [or at least "drafted"] by the use of a "speech-to-text" app.

Some days I just don't have enough energy to sit at the keyboard and write. So I want to see how well I can compose written text by speaking my mind directly to the little red blinking microphone.

Hmm... I can already see that I'm going to have to make some typographical and punctuation corrections [e.g. "typographical" originally came out as "type of graphical," but these corrections are easy enough to make].

Here's the thing: I am determined to continue to be a writer in whatever way I can by whatever means are available to me.

I wonder how well the speech-to-text function would work for putting down reflections of a more serious nature. Let me test it with some deep thoughts:

What always strikes me as the central focus of attention for all of my considerations--at least in so far as they're on the philosophical, social, and cultural level--is the centrality of the person. 

The practical, living awareness of the intrinsic dignity of each and every human person without exception is a crucial necessity for our time. We must give conscious attention to the human person in every circumstance and every context we consider, in individual and social problems, in relationships, in our philosophy, in our approach to every human problem.

This is the focus that I must continually remember whenever I'm reading, whenever I'm studying, researching, or thinking about any of the vast array of issues in the realm of our society today. 

If we are to move beyond the present crisis of the development of material power on a massive scale and the confusion regarding what it means to use this power in a responsible way--and if we want to find constructive and effective ways to respond to the new forms of violence and trauma that this "New Epoch" of colossal power is generating among individual persons and communities in society--we must discover in a more profound way the reality of the person, of relationships, and of love.

Well that didn't work too badly although it requires a certain amount of cleaning up [and some later editorial adjustment and augmentation to make it somewhat clearer]. I'm not sure this is easier than just writing it down or typing it out. But it does give me an option that frees me from having to fumble with a keyboard.

Maybe I should just make videos or podcasts instead. Maybe I will do more of that sort of thing. Interactive forms of audiovisual media are becoming easier and more accessible for everyone.

But I do think that writing is a mode of communication that has its own inherent value. Even if I'm "speaking the words" (as in this exercize) I'm still in the "writing mode" in my process of pondering my thoughts and expressing them.

Anyway, having said that, I'll sign off for now. Tune in next time for more exciting episodes of The Never Give Up Blog!

The Hope that Holds On and Refuses to Let Go

We are still in the Easter Season.

The light of that Day continues to fill these days and the days to come. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. This is the Day that fills all days, all history, all of creation.

Jesus Christ is Risen today, Alleluia!

Through His death and resurrection, Jesus defines and gives measure to every moment of our lives, directly, personally, by the power of His love for each one of us.

It's hard to "rejoice" in the midst of tribulations and sorrows. I don't want to even pretend that I can "do it," or that I know how it corresponds to my present psychological state. It is something of a miracle to see a person who is filled with palpable joy in the midst of affliction. It is a beautiful witness.

Every step, even the tiniest step, toward Easter joy is a miracle. But it happens. We can take these steps.

The Risen Jesus is Lord of our real life: the aspirations and successes, the compassion and courage and works of love we do, and the disappointment, the suffering, the sins, the failures, the weakness, the most appalling afflictions and all the incomprehensible, banal, repetitive, small, and apparently meaningless moments we endure and live day after day.

Christ is Risen! Rejoice.

And maybe sometimes that "joy" feels like nothing but the bare grip by which we hold on to Him in the dark with wild hope and refuse to let go of Him even when everything seems crazy or lost.

Virginia Tech Remembrance Day 2018

April 16 marks the 11th anniversary of the excruciating ordeal of Virginia Tech, when a mentally ill gunman armed with multiple weapons went on a horrific shooting spree on the campus, killing 32 students and faculty before taking his own life.

Remembering those who died, those who survived, and all their loved ones, and all my Hokie peeps on this day.

What is Certain...

"If anyone should ask: 'What is certain in life and death--so certain that everything else may be anchored in it? The answer is: The love of Christ."

~Romano Guardini

Christina Grimmie's "Simple Words" Can Still Help Us

Here we are at 22 months since Christina Grimmie completed her brief beautiful journey through this present life. It's a wonderful thing that her YouTube channel remains active and all her social media accounts are still accessible.
And 99% of what we can find there are her lovely and unique arrangements of popular songs, or a large variety of fun, endearing, often goofy and always sincere expressions of herself and her amazing capacity to interact with people and draw them into the joyful, hopeful environment she generated.
Along the way, she would just say things to her frands that would "go deeper." Sometimes she was responding to a particular person or issue; other times it was just a kind of organic expression of the whole integrating foundation and form of her life. From time to time, she would just gratuitously articulate something fundamentally important.
And it seemed to come as "naturally" to her as singing or talking about pizza.

It used to strike me as really good how she would witness her faith like this "to kids," and how her words were all the more meaningful because she was just so normal. Expressions that might sound like tired overused phrases from a preacher (or—

The Miracle

"When you feel the temptation to dwell on your own weakness, raise your eyes to Christ crucified and say: 'Lord, I am a poor sinner, but you can work the miracle of making me a little bit better.'"
~Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate 15

Trust

"God is good. All the time."
"All the time. God is good."

Jesus, I trust in you.

I Am a Poor, Weak, Powerless Human Being

I am a poor man. A sinner. Weak. Afraid. Worth nothing.

The smallest things break me. Bigger things shatter me. Truly, I am a poor man and I can't do anything.

I try to hide this.

I hide behind my intellectual and literary skills. I hide behind my illness. I hide behind pious statements. I hide behind humor.

These things are real enough in themselves. My interests and passions and abilities and health limitations are real enough. But I use them to hide the poverty of my inmost self, my emptiness, my desperate neediness and hunger that I don't understand. There is this awful cavernous hole in me and I'm terrified of it.

I'm afraid because I can't satisfy my own hunger.

I know (mostly intellectually) that Jesus can feed me. But I don't know how he does it, and I can't "see" him.

It's Easter week. Jesus, where are you!? ...

My father is 83 years old as of yesterday. He is ill and suffering much as he rapidly loses physical and mental capacities.

I'm his son, and I'm useless in front of him. My brother and my wife have been doing so much to see to his care. Thank God for them.

Given his current condition, the material circumstances surrounding him and the quality of his physicians and caregivers are the best we can hope for. That is a great relief. But he is confused and sad. Everything he has had in life is slipping out of his reach.

I don't know what to do. What can I give to him?

I spend time with him and he can't communicate (though he tries, and I feel the human anguish coming out). I can't give him what he seems to be asking for. I can't "make it get better." I don't "have" what he really wants.

I myself have been gut-punched by this sudden upheaval of life. My own long-afflicted body has very little capacity for handling stress; I survive by pacing things and stretching out small portions of energy. I am grateful for so many others who have helped in the chaos of these days.

But I am exhausted and overwhelmed and cut to the heart, because this is my father.

He suffers. I'm powerless.

Ultimately what can any of us do? What a gap there is between our desire to change things and the actual control we have over the situations of life!

Here we are, surrounded by all the technological power and the material resources and the gadgetry of the 21st century, and at the center of it all we are just poor frail human beings, whose brief lives pass in a blink (or two) of an eye.

Jesus, have mercy on my Dad. Have mercy on our family. Have mercy on me, a weak and sinful man.

Lord, here is the poverty and the pain and the hunger that looks to you and cries out to you.

We need you! I need you!