John Janaro's Blog, page 248

A Look Inside the New John XXIII Montessori Center

Not one for many words these days, but here's a look at some of the interior spaces in the new John XXIII Montessori Children's Center location.

Programs got off to a good start on Tuesday, September 15th.

A wall in the Elementary environment. Still very spacious for children and materials.
Elementary environment work area with sink and floor tiles, for experiments.
Library area
Elementary Atrium
Sunlight streams through the windows into the Primary environment
Office at front entrance
Students came back ready to work!

Mental Illness: The Intimate Reality of Human Affliction

The Almost-Invisible Man?I mentioned "depression" in a recent post. I'm glad that I did, because it's always good to talk about depression... especially when I'm depressed. It's not really so bad right now. I've been much, much worse before.

There may actually be some fairly new readers of this blog who don't know that I'm disabled. I'm not happy about this, and I prefer to say that I'm "retired" (even better, emeritus, as I have been designated though I'm only 52 years old). I try to be as "able" as possible. If anything, I push myself too hard to do certain things (while, of course, rationalizing my laziness about not doing other things -- because disabled people don't stop being human beings and therefore sinners).

But the basic point remains. A long-misdiagnosed and untreated infection is now in remission but has left permanent physical damage (which is there in spite of the fact that I may "look great" when you see me now). I talk about this in a bit more detail in my book, which has been around now for five years (that time went by fast). The book is still selling because the great subjects of struggling with human illness and human suffering never go out of date. (The most noticeable difference is in my personal stories, above all the fact that the kids are older now. If you read this blog, of course, you know that.)

The greatest challenge, however, has been my lifelong struggle with mental illness. It was more difficult to write about this in my book, but in the end I decided that I really had to bring this out in the open. I knew too much about how hard this is to deal with, how much it remains an ongoing battle, and how poorly understood it is.

Depression. What kind of a name is that for a serious disease? Sometimes I wish it had been discovered by two German scientists with unpronounceable names. Then it might have been called something like Kruezenheimer-Schlotmichenmachers Disease. People would say, "Oh wow. That sounds serious." Instead "depression" sounds like you need air in your tires. People say, "Oh, get outside. Cheer up! Smile." Which is fine, but it's not even the beginning of treatment for the very real disease of "depression."

Ok... best gameface today! ? Maybe...In fact, you can be outside climbing mountains, and acting cheerfully, and smiling all the time, and still be suffering from major depression. Yes you can.

I have a saying: Mental illness happens to "normal" people. There are people who look "fine on the outside" who have problems you can't begin to imagine. We try to classify this constellation of afflictions: I have Depression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Because of the episodic and varying nature of symptoms, I'm on what could be called the "bi-polar spectrum."

I know that there is a lot of baloney that passes for psychology and psychiatric medicine. There is also a lot of truth. I have tried in the past (see my book) and I continue to try to articulate and communicate in a comprehensible way something of my own experience of suffering from the real things. But I don't think I can ever really communicate how horrible it is, how relentlessly awful.

I'm very hopeful, however, that the worst of all that horror is behind me. That's why I try to articulate it: I need to speak for the sake of the multitudes of people -- people you know and love -- who are in the middle of it right now. They can't speak, and though I can't really speak for them, I do want to invite others to share in the compassion that I have for them, that I have learned from my own pain.

This is something I am able to do.

Click HERE for my bookIt has been a long ride for me. I have been blessed with good doctors and therapists. I know how difficult it can be to find the right medication (or combination of medications) that help stabilize the most essential features of functional living, without intolerable "side-effects." It's hard, but it's important because we must attend to the distinctively physical, neurobiological aspect of these illnesses.

Different treatments and regimens work for different people. Maximizing brain health is a necessary part of treating mental illness, but it is not sufficient. There is no "magic pill" that takes it all away, although we ought not to underestimate the remarkable improvement that medication can provide for many people, that can aid the coping and healing process.

Really, mental illness is teaching us something about the intimate reality of the affliction of the human person. Because it is "close" to the distinctively personal sphere of human life, mental illness is making us more aware of the need to treat the whole person.

The subject of any kind of sickness, pain, or suffering in human life is always a person. Through my own life I am learning how important it is to remember this, both for myself and for others.

The Glory of the Cross

On this Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, my prayer is that every human person (beginning with my own self, who is always so desperately in need) might be touched, awakened, and changed by the light of the Glory of the Cross -- the revelation and the enduring gift of Divine Mercy that springs from the very mystery of the God who is Love.
Gilded mosaic, Marko Rupnik, Redemptoris Mater chapel (personal chapel of Saint John Paul II)

Blessed Be the Name of Mary....

Holy Mother Mary,
your name is an ocean.
You are windy and cool
and everywhere flowing.
We are moving through your water
in the starless night,
and you surround us and remain with us
in silence,
and we do not know how we are carried.
We are in a darkness deep in you,
sand grains in your great sea,
where your water caresses us,
where
slowly
we find
the lines
of our eyes.

Depression Is Not Always "Sadness"

Anybody who knows me well enough would not be surprised to learn that I'm struggling with a bit of depression in these recent weeks. It's enough to note that September has come again with its daylight and weather changes and its new routines (which are especially challenging this year). Various circumstances are piling up, making me defensive, withdrawn, and a bit more reclusive.

And there's more self-doubt. Always self-doubt, now growing in new directions as I get older and see so much of my life behind me.

What a waste it all seems to have been.
For so many years I prepared and prepared for... what? I don't really know what. I have all this knowledge and professional skill, as well as lots of experience and the capacity to express myself. It just doesn't seem worth all that much. All the time burned away by vanity. I never expected to be overtaken so soon in life by weakness of health and the passage of time.
How did I get broken? I wanted to work with young people, students, to listen to them and mentor them, to be a teacher. Now my son is at the college that I helped to build -- the place I loved so hard that it really almost killed me -- and I feel more disconnected and confused than ever. It's like, "Why am I not there?"
I'm not saying I want to be there now. I don't know (although I have so much to offer, but then again, maybe I'm not able to give in that way any longer).
So where am I? Here mostly at home, with my wife and children, and helping on the edges of my wife's work and some other projects. I am writing often, but even a part time regular commitment to my column in Magnificat stretches me. Everything is intense; everything requires a personal preparation and an entire engagement, followed by exhaustion and a slow recovery.
People my age are doing all sorts of things! I can only do a few things, and I barely have a grip on them. And then I have these "waves" of moderate depression that I have to ride out. Not exactly a confidence booster for when I do take something on.
Depression is not always about "sadness." Sometimes it feels like you're just fading into invisibility, like you're losing your substance, your energies, your spark, your connection. You might be able to drive yourself by willpower, but then you end up frustrated with so many obstacles and you get angry. You lash out at petty things, or you make yourself rigid or stoic or resigned.
So what does one do? One suffers. It helps ward off discouragement to remember that suffering has meaning, and to draw close to the sources that nurture that memory.
Our suffering is, I believe, more important in the shaping of our destiny than any of our accomplishments or any of the success of our plans.
Still, while we live we must work. I don't think I can really push myself anymore, but I do hope to be drawn by Love, and to be patient with its small steps and its silence.

The World of 25 Years Ago, as Seen By a Young Man

JJ, somewhere around 1990ish.I have lots of printed photographs of the "old days" but it's not easy to dig one up from real (i.e. "non-virtual") storage. This fuzzy "picture-of-a-picture" will have to serve for now as a representation of the 27 year old John Janaro.

Young Janaro's journal is now a quarter century old. In September of the year 1990, while still in graduate school, I began what no doubt would have been a blog if such things were possible back then.

In fact, I never dreamed there would be anything like the media access we have today. I never thought I would have the chance to experience the instant gratification of vanity that blogging affords. Still, my journals were similar to my blog in that they were a kind of "workshop" for putting thoughts and words together.

Below is the introductory "Statement" to those pages, written probably on September 5, 1990. I don't know if I had plans to experiment with a genre or whether I was hoping—being a bright young man and all that, who expected to play a big role in the future—that posterity would take interest in my observations.

In retrospect, my life hasn't been nearly as "interesting" as all that (thank God). What strikes me 25 years later about these ruminations is that the basic content—the same overarching themes—remain relevant to the circumstances of the world today.

We humans are more dizzy than ever with the experience and the access to unprecedented power over the material world and even over many facets of our own humanity. We have more power, and are even more confused about how to use it well.

This is a long "statement," so here is Part I.



This would be very distressing if Young Janaro had nothing more to say, but he did. The "statement" is far from over, so look for it to be continued....

Happy Labor Day!

Mother Teresa's Action Plan

Mother Teresa has a plan for dealing with the problems in our world. Maybe we should try it.
"The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family."
"Being with someone, listening without a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving—it is not in the result of loving.... Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done."
"I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness."
"I can do things you cannot; you can do things I cannot. Together we can do great things."

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

"Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depths of our hearts."

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."

The Long Darkness of Sorrow Upon the World

It's hard to say "goodbye" to Summer.

But the days are getting shorter and the calendar says "September."

John Paul's new life in college is rolling along. I miss him.

The older girls are back to Chelsea Academy. Agnese is a junior this year and Lucia a sophomore. The "little kids" still have another week. They are helping Eileen to set things up for the opening of John XXIII's new campus. It's a beautiful place.

Eileen works with such dedication, and I know that what I can do is support her and try to be strong for her even when there seems to be no strength in me for anything.

Am I really powerless, or just lazy. Where is the line? Jesus, I don't know and so I will just leave it with You.

Labor Day weekend is here. By 8PM we are well into the dusk of the evening.




Life is strangely hard.

I have days of inconsolable sadness. I know it's pathological, but that doesn't mean there is no deeper connection. A solidarity with the world's sorrow runs through me.

The great world is in turmoil, and the more immediate world of those entrusted to me also suffers. I have an overly sensitive disposition, physically and mentally. Everything stings me or weighs on me with a strange amplification.

And I seem almost to want this sensitivity. I can't separate it from the peculiar intensity of my own nature. Most of it comes from a penchant for sentimentality and melodrama. But also somewhere there is an impetus of real sorrow for others, sorrow that opens up to the suffering of others near and far, that doesn't want anyone to be alone.

It scares me, this "impetus," and I try as hard as I can to run away from it into distraction, but I can't seem to escape it entirely.

But why so much? Why is this long darkness of sorrow upon the world?

Questions reach the point of exhaustion, and in the silence what remains is endurance and a heart that begs and waits and hopes....

John XXIII Montessori Children's Center at White Oaks Farm

This is a good moment to update with a few pictures the status of the new and permanent location of the John XXIII Montessori Children's Center at White Oaks Farm.

Things were busy during the month of August and work continues and will continue until the Center opens in two weeks. The new property includes two barns and several acres of land. We're looking forward to new activities in practical life skills, gardening, farm work, and other outdoor activities.

Here are a few pictures of how things are shaping up:

View of the front entrance of the main building


From early August: main building from the back (top) and the two barns with fields and woodland area (bottom)
Front corner of main building: lots of space for environments. Below, a view of the front lawn.




The careful work of setting up the environments has gone well and continues. This Montessori child looks happy!


Kids from the new Adolescent Program working on new windows in one of the barns. They'll do lots of good work here.


Under the shade of this pine tree, the shrine for well-weathered Mother Mary takes shape.


And the Good Shepherd watches over us all.