John Janaro's Blog, page 246

October's Early Evenings

Josefina has her own story, linked together with all of us.The memories of days and weeks in October and early November pour over me. They are memories of life and death and a promise of resurrection. There is a taste of redemption in sorrow, but I don't know how to speak of it.

So I go for a walk. And Eileen says she'll come with me. I bring my camera to catch something of the early evening that is still light in October. The girls are studying.

Well, not all of them.

"Can I come too, can I come too??!!" It's the piccolo voice that, like everything about her, is small but full of volume and energy. She is very much a part of the story of October, and in a few days we will all remember her.

"Of course you can come!"

So Josefina comes with us. We walk toward the old manor and the horse fields near Happy Creek. I may not have words, but I do have pictures of the evening, and I will share them here.

Waxing Harvest Moon
Janaro House: green leaves will change quickly and then disappear in a few weeks. Still feels like summer, but it's only 6:30.
Mommy let me take her picture with her "preemie baby" of almost nine years ago.
Fields and manor and the sunlight beyond. Still thick green trees except for one going bald. It has been a warm season.
It will be like fire when it finally comes.
The sun disappears behind the hills by 7:00 PM. The sky certainly has some color.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn....

This blog would not exist if I did not believe in the power of words. I have used many words to express what I have learned and what the Christian tradition has communicated about the meaning of life and death and hope.

I know and I believe that all these words come down to one word, a name, the name of a Person. Jesus. The name that is more than sound or signs. The name that expresses His Person. I believe in Him.

I know He brings healing and peace, that He has conquered death, and that He draws especially close to us through our own pain.

Ten years ago, on October 17, 2005, my friend died. No, he was more like a brother than a friend. He died. He had been so terribly sick that I don't believe he was able to understand or judge what he was doing. And I can entrust him with firm hope to the unfathomable and inexhaustible mercy of God.

So why won't I stop grieving?

Why can't I stop grieving? Why is there still so much dark pain, so many lacerations in the heart after so long? They're covered over and bandaged and dulled. But why do they still bleed?

I have no words to answer these questions. I have no words. Not now.

Jesus promises that we shall be consoled, but a large part of that may have to wait until we are all together, finally, with Him.

Until then, we won't stop bleeding. And we won't stop fighting this monster that they call "Depression." We won't stop speaking out, opening up about our own sufferings, and putting ourselves on the line for other people's lives.

We Hope in His Immeasurable Goodness

The collects (i.e. "opening prayer") for the past two weeks (from 10/4 and 10/11) have been powerful and hopeful expressions of confidence in the all-encompassing and limitless power of God's mercy and grace. His mercy is poured out in a generosity beyond our asking, and His grace goes before us and follows after us, giving us the freedom to do good.
In these days I want especially to remember that God is good beyond all our imaginings.

Almighty ever-living God,who in the abundance of your kindnesssurpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you,pour out your mercy upon us
to pardon what conscience dreadsand to give what prayer does not dare to ask.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,one God, for ever and ever.
May your grace, O Lord, we pray,
at all times go before us and follow after
and make us always determined
to carry out good works.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Stay in Front of Jesus

Last Sunday we read the Gospel of Mark 10:17-27, the encounter between Jesus and the "rich young man." Mark's account is the only one of the three Synoptics that includes the detail that Jesus, "looking on him, loved him" (10:21). There is some speculation (fueled by other New Testament references which I won't go into here) that the "rich young man" was in fact Mark himself, the future evangelist.

Saint Mark, as we know, later became one of the first Christians and the companion of Saint Peter. Many of the details of his Gospel originate with Peter's testimony, but here he may have supplied one from his own experience.

I have been rereading an interesting BOOK (and I finally got the KINDLE EDITION downloaded on my own gadgets) that has some other things to say about this Gospel story. Here it is:


~from  Never Give Up: My Life and God's Mercy by John Janaro (also available in Kindle)

Finally, the Colors Begin to Come Out

Up in Shenandoah National Park we have finally started to see evidence of the Fall season. The leaves are changing in the recent sunny and more seasonable weather.

Living With Depression

I'm trying my best to be "cheerful." And, though it takes some energy, I have been succeeding. Sort of....

This is the thing: I am doing "fine" on a certain level. It has been a busy and fun weekend. It's good to be involved with different activities and see people. Really, I enjoy it. I don't need to put on some great act of deception.

Still, this is coping. This is "getting along." Sometimes we do this to hide from ourselves the fact that we need help. That's not good. Often, however, we find ways to "get along" because this is the best we can do in a situation.

This is coping. It does not mean that Depression has gone away. It means we are living with it. 
How strange it is to be a human being. We can stay on the surface of our own awareness. We can even choose to do this, and sometimes we have to in order to survive... in order to live.
Living with Depression.

When you see us, we may be "fine," but we are "walking on the surface" and the surface is an eggshell already full of cracks and always in danger of breaking under our feet. We have developed our survival skills, however, so that we have our eyes on the nearest secure spots and we have learned how to jump to them before the next crack sucks us down.
You don't see any of this.
Often we're not conscious of it ourselves, especially if we've gotten good at it from years of practice. We notice it only in the "in-between times" when the fatigue comes and we try to rest (or sleep) but we feel like ghosts in a world of ghosts. Everything we've been doing with so much exhausting effort shrinks and dissolves. All the words are just noise that fades.

We look at the present moment and our loved ones and the tasks of the day, and everything is evanescent, beyond our reach, lacking solidity. Or perhaps we are the ones who are fading? In my book I described it as "like watching a video of the place where I used to be alive."

Standing sharp, cutting us, however, are all the memories of the things we've screwed up. We fear that this is what defines us. But this is not the same thing as a temptation in the moral sphere. It is more like the overwhelming nature of physical pain. It doesn't present itself as an option of free choice, but as a suffering to be endured.

It is possible, in Depression, to know--objectively--that the distortion of perception and emotion do not represent reality. They are a suffering caused by a complex disease, exacerbated by factors that are beyond our control. It is a great benefit to know this. But it doesn't make Depression go away.

Depression is not a sin. It is not our fault. Let us be clear: Depression, in itself, does not belong to the category of ethics; or perhaps I should say it is essentially no more of an ethical problem than heart disease or kidney disease or Parkinson's.

It is a problem of suffering.

Suffering, of course, presents moral challenges. It is inevitably accompanied by various temptations to discouragement, self-pity, resentment, denial, envy, and despair.

Depression appears to provide a conducive environment to moral temptations to choose discouragement, to choose to give up. The tempter, as we know, takes advantage of available opportunities, as do the inclinations of our broken humanity. Our freedom, however diminished our responsibility may be, does not always do well in the midst of these storms. But freedom, especially through the mysterious working of grace, can choose well, or rise up through sorrow and try again.

We cannot cure Depression or make it go away through an act of free choice. Let me repeat that: We cannot cure Depression or make it go away through an act of free choice.

It is not a freely chosen condition, nor is it the consequence of evil choices. It is an affliction. It is an impairment that we have not chosen. That means that we can choose well, even in the darkness, even seemingly against the pain.

It is possible to endure this affliction of darkness and remember that we have value, that we matter. It is possible to grow with understanding and solidarity, to cope through medication and therapy, and even to find healing (or some measure of healing) and to thrive through a mysterious patience and an enlarged compassion.

There is hope. Never give up.

Beyond All Reckoning

If we could count all the worlds
of faces veiled
in once-soft, long since stretched,
withered sun-worn skins,
strained by the pain
of flesh from flesh torn away
and taken,
vanishing distant, down,
underground,

We would find beyond all reckoning
the rounded drops that weep
from eyes open watching wounds,
watching wanting all,
drops of flood falling
and rising into vapor
out of hollowed hard earth's cracked thirst.

Make Me a Channel of Your Peace... And Give Me Stuff Too?

Let me love. Even though I ask to be loved.
Let me understand. Even though I ask to be understood.
Let me console. Even though I ask to be consoled.
Something inside me prays, "Let me give myself away." But then I don't want to let go.

I ask to be a channel of His Peace.
I ask to be an instrument of His Mercy.

But all I find inside of myself is poverty.
And I don't mean the Holy Poverty of St. Francis.

It is the emptiness of someone who loves his own life too much. Who loves himself too much. Who loves his own satisfaction too much. Who loves his own comfort too much. Who loves his own reputation too much. Who loves his own illusions too much. Who loves his own laziness too much. Who loves his own opinion too much. Who loves his own will too much.

I love my own will too much.
I would rather do things my own way.
I would rather rationalize.
I want God's will and my will.
I want to serve two Masters and love them both.

I am a divided man.
I am not St. Francis.

So what is it within me that prays, nonetheless, to be His instrument, His love, His mercy in the lives of others, and especially in the lives of those who have been entrusted to me? In spite of all my foolishness, I call myself a teacher and a mentor and a father, and yet I do not think that I am a complete hypocrite. Why is this? Is it all, then, a delusion?

No! I know something that I must share.

I have been loved, and understood, and consoled.

And the beauty of this fact has wounded my heart. So I throw myself into a confused and troubled and complicated effort to communicate this fact, that I have been loved, that we all have been loved. And somewhere I am convinced that this Love is worthy of all my trust even as I struggle in so many ways to offer myself.

So here it is, Lord, the whole mess that is me.
It is far from a perfect offering.
But You can do the impossible, so make of me what You will.
Give me the will to change.
Change what needs changing in me.
Make me a channel of Your Peace.

Let others hear these words,
these words that express my struggle with You and Your changing of me,
Let them hear these words and see my wounded soul
and wonder at Your Mercy.

The Nationals Go Home

When I saw this cover in March on Sports Illustrated's baseball season preview issue, I knew we were doomed.

I'm not superstitious. There are no "baseball gods." But if there were baseball gods, this would have been a sure sign that the Washington Nationals were going to lose their favor.

Ironically, Max Scherzer and Bryce Harper (the guys in the picture) both had spectacular seasons. Unfortunately, nobody else did.

I haven't said much about the Nationals this year. It was an eventful summer for the Janaros. We didn't even get to go to an actual game, though we tuned in to all or part of most of them on television during the season.

I also haven't said much because I've decided that if I can't say anything nice about my team, then I won't say anything at all.

<crickets>

Haha, but really, the baseball season is a strange thing. In April you think that this a great team "on paper." But things don't play out as expected on the field. You start out slow. There are some injuries. You hang around first place, then lose some key games in August, another team gets hot while you stay lukewarm and then... it's the end of September.

I don't want to get down on anybody. These guys are under a lot of pressure for six months -- much more pressure than I could handle. I'm not going to rip on anybody.

The Mets deserve credit along with several other surprise winners heading to the playoffs.

For us it has been a long, melancholy season.

But it won't stop us from coming back fresh and full of dreams next Spring.

God's Helpers: Thanks!

I want to give a  shout out  to my own Superhero, my celestial homeboy, my Guardian Angel and his frequently employed Backup Crew. 
Thank you for accepting the difficult assignment of trying to keep me out of trouble. Thanks for lifting me up so often, for inspiring me, for prompting me to remember love, and for pointing again and again to the Face of Love.
Thank you!
Detail of Ethiopian icon of the Risen Jesus with angels.