John Janaro's Blog, page 290

"Combox Rage": Where Does It Come From?

Comments on social media. Comments on so many circumstances in the news. Often, people don't seem to read carefully, or pay attention to what has happened or how it has been reported. They just sound off. Some switch has been flipped inside them, and they spew stuff out: insults, rash judgments, panic, anger, ranting and rambling.
Reading comboxes can make you pretty depressed about the lack of common sense, charity, or even fairness in people's hearts today. It can make you want to do a facepalm over what appears to be an impenetrable cultural illiteracy in people. All this information accessible through the media is not helping people to learn; rather it seems to be stressing them out, oppressing them, provoking them to lash out.
I don't tend to rant in comboxes, but I have my ways of lashing out, in daily life. Why do I do that? Why do I use words to hurt others? I think its because there are certain circumstances that poke the tender spots; that dig into my fears, my gigantic emotional immaturity, all the wounds and anguish from five decades of life, and all the residue of sins, the crushed expectations, the frustrated hopes, the depths of soul still starving for love, the isolation and loneliness that comes from just being a fragmented and fragile human being.
Some mundane circumstance can stir up in me the deep places of fear and pain. Irrational forces rise up, the issue at hand becomes blurry as I wrestle with the feeling that I need to defend myself.
This contentiousness does not come from peace of heart. It comes from the "old self" that can't be defended, that needs to be surrendered and to die with Jesus and be healed.  
We all have this broken life, full of fear and pain. We must pray for God's mercy and healing, for ourselves, for our loved ones and friends, for all those who have been entrusted to us, for the whole world. We can't "defend" the places inside ourselves that are broken. Instead we must go out, away from these places, to seek out others who are wounded within themselves -- wounded in ways that we cannot comprehend.
Its not hard to find "the poor" in this sense. We are all poor. Our neighbors are poor, and if we are honest with ourselves we know that we have no grounds for treating them with disdain. Of course we try to help them recognize and overcome problems, and we do this with the same compassion that we hope to receive from them. We are Christians because, even with all of our mess, we have been changed by the compassion of Christ. We have come to know His mercy.
Lets never allow ourselves to forget this. And lets share it whatever way we can; lets draw on the patience and magnanimity of God that we have experienced in faith, and accompany the people who are in our lives, who have been given to us by Christ. Lets accompany them with love, even if we don't see any way to "make them better," even if we don't know what to give them. We don't know how to bridge the distance between our unfathomable pain and theirs. Lets remain with them in patience (patience with them and with ourselves). Lets love them and trust in God, because the face of Jesus looks upon us through their suffering.

The only thing that can heal people (that can heal us) is the love and mercy of Jesus.

We can all help one another to give everything -- more and more, deeper and deeper -- to Jesus. We have to give Him especially the stuff that is broken in our lives. Because we can't fix it. Only He can fix it.
Whatever weighs upon us, lets give it to Him and ask Him to have mercy on us. 

Feast of St. Francis: Letting Jesus Look at Us

"Where did Francis’s journey to Christ begin? It began with the gaze of the crucified Jesus.With letting Jesus look at usat the very moment that he gives his life for usand draws us to himself.Francis experienced this in a special wayin the Church of San Damiano,as he prayed before the cross....On that cross,Jesus is depicted not as dead, but alive!Blood is flowingfrom his wounded hands, feet and side,but that blood speaks of life.Jesus’s eyes are not closed but open, wide open:he looks at us in a way that touches our hearts.The cross does not speak to usabout defeat and failure;paradoxically, it speaks to usabout a death which is life,a death which gives life,for it speaks to us of love,the love of God incarnate,a love which does not die,but triumphs over evil and death.When we let the crucified Jesus gaze upon us,we are re-created,we become a new creation."
Pope Francis (Assisi, feast of St. Francis)

Nothingness into Fire

"Yes, in order that Love be fully satisfied, it is necessary that it lower itself, and that it lower itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire!"
(St. Therese of Lisieux, Man. B, 3v)

And... Finally, Finally, Finally!

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Boys and Girls,
Fans of all ages...


We are proud to announce that,at the age of six years, eleven months,and three days...


A TOOTH
has finally fallen from the mouthof Josefina Janaro!
Congratulations Josefina!
Special thanks to Crispy Wheat Crackers, Inc. for its material assistancein the fulfillment of this delicate project.

Note to all tooth fairies: As the designated agents of Miss Janaro, her parents will be happy to receive all nocturnal rewards on her behalf and insure that they are delivered safely and secretly beneath her pillow. We accept cash, check, or direct deposit. Please include all applicable taxes, delivery fees, customs, duties, and a ten percent gratuity for Miss Janaro's agents. Thank you.

John Paul Learning New Skills

Ever since he was a little kid, John Paul has always been very competent and responsible at carrying out tasks that require care, attention to detail, and a sense of responsibility. We've never been afraid to put tools in his hands.
John Paul, age 5, using a screwdriver
More recently, we've decided that it is time for him to learn how to operate some more complex mechanical equipment.
John Paul, age 16, with newly acquired learner's permit, driving (don't worry, its the
parking lot of the public library on a Sunday. So far we're just doing parking lots).Yes, its really true. He is driving the car. Eileen and I have both taken him out onto the asphalt (though not yet into traffic). He is learning quickly, and in no time at all I am sure he will be a better driver than I am. We just went out to practice behind the K-Mart and Martins. These long back lots simulate a stretch of road. We drove around for quite a while, and then we parked and went into the K-Mart and bought a new basketball.
Soon he'll be ready to take on the dog-eat-dog world of Front Royal traffic.
He'll handle it just fine.

New Series: "What I Wore On Monday"

Weird weather as the year grows oldWriting has become even more laborious and exhausting than ever. Its more than just the formatting of pictures and the business of putting together a "catchy" blog entry. Its the writing itself. I'm having trouble getting the words out. Its not just plain "writer's block" because I usually succeed in saying what I want to say. The problem is that it takes so long and leaves me so drained.

I know that this is the time of "weather change" -- sunlight decreases and shifts position in the sky, temperatures become cooler, humidity and barometric pressure go up and down, its cloudy, its damp, the mornings are suddenly dark, the baseball season comes to an end....

I need some BRAIN-O to unclog these neuropathways.

Maybe I should have "theme days." It works for the "Mommy-bloggers." How about What I Wore on Monday, haha. Lets see, I wore a purple tee shirt with one of those little pockets on the chest. (Why the pocket? You can't put anything into it, and besides, the reason why you wear a tee shirt is because you don't need pockets. You're not going to a board meeting! You're bumming around the house.)

Anyway, a purple tee shirt; really its kind of "hippie purple"... actually it may have originally been blue but experienced a color alteration when I threw it in with the hot-water-and-bleach white laundry by mistake. (Never let me near the laundry, ever, ever! Ehh, I guess there's some purple underwear around here somewhere....)

I set off my hippie-purple tee with some navy blue workout pants made of cotton fabric. These cozy, loose fitting pants are great for working out or going for a nice, brisk five mile run. They're even better for flopping around the living room and doing the absolute minimum amount of physical exercise required by a sentient human being.

Don't you just love the purple and blue ensemble? (That should be pronounced onnn-SOMMM-bluuh with appropriate lip contortions.) I wanted that random, "I-don't-care-I'll-wear-whatever-is-on-the-top-of-the-pile" guy look... you could call it "bachelor nostalgia." Bottom it off with a fresh new pair (no holes!) of white, cotton athletic socks. (Yes, I just bought some. They were on sale!)

This outfit gives off a light and casual resonance: it says, "really, all I did was hang around in my pajamas all day!"

Its a very comfy outfit for Mondays, which are often at-home days spent reading, answering correspondence, and engaging in creative procrastination while a six year old climbs on my back or tries to rearrange parts of my face.

Go work on your math, or whatever...!

"...Don't Worry!" Why is That So Hard?

Okay, lets say it one more time:

"Pray, hope, and don't worry!"

Everybody remembers this. We love the "don't worry" part, and yet most of us are worried to death all day long, every day.

Consider the opposite of these words:

"Forget God or ignore Him, run after the things you think you want, and....?"

Fill in the blank. Can you stuff "don't worry" in there? Honestly? How would you fill in the blank?

Being Looked Upon By Jesus

Today is St. Matthew's feast day. I was struck by the remarks of Pope Francis, about how he would often visit the church of San Luigi dei Francesi when he would come to Rome, and meditate on the stupendous painting by Caravaggio of "The Call of St. Matthew" (presumably someone was feeding 200 lire coins into that old box that turned the lights on the painting, because without those lights you can't see a thing in that old side chapel).
Its not surprising that the Pope has a special love for this painting, since it illustrates the event that underlies his episcopal motto Miserando Atque Eligendo: "looking upon him with mercy, He called him." This is how Francisco Jorge Bergoglio sees his own life and vocation. When asked how he would describe himself, he said simply -- without any affectation of self-conscious humility -- "I am a sinner." But the mercy of Jesus has looked upon him; the gaze of Jesus has penetrated his life, called him, changed him, and stirred within him the great desire to witness to the merciful love of Jesus that looks upon each and every person.
This morning, he preached about this gaze of Jesus and its meaning for St. Matthew, for sinners, for each one of us.

Jesus’ gaze always lifts us up.
It is a look that always lifts us up,
and never leaves us in our place,
never lets us down, never humiliates.
it invites you to get up;
[It is] a look that brings you to grow,
to move forward,
that encourages you, because it loves you.
The gaze makes you feel that He loves you.

And sinners, tax collectors and sinners,
they felt that Jesus had looked on them,
and that gaze of Jesus upon them (I believe)
was like a breath on embers,
and they felt that there was fire in the belly, again,
and that Jesus made ​​lifted them up,
gave them back their dignity.

The gaze of Jesus always makes us worthy,
gives us dignity.
It is a generous look.

"But behold, what a teacher: dining with the dregs of the city!"
But beneath that dirt
there were the embers of desire for God,
the embers of God's image that wanted someone
who could help them be kindled anew.
This is what the gaze of Jesus does.

All of us find ourselves before that gaze,
that marvelous gaze,
and we go forward in life,
in the certainty that He looks upon us.
He too, however, awaits us,
in order to look on us definitively,
and that final gaze of Jesus upon our lives
will be forever, it will be eternal.
I ask all the saints upon whom Jesus has looked,
to prepare us to let ourselves be looked upon in life,
and that they prepare us also
for that final – and first! – gaze of Jesus!

--Pope Francis

Ancient Blog, Young Writer: A Postscript on Hope

Young John Janaro (aka "JJ") in the mountains, around 1990
There has been some further consideration of the recently rediscovered ancient blog of Young John Janaro (dated from the beginning of September 1990).
After 23 years, the author finds himself looking at the issues of his 1990 Statement of Purpose within a larger and deeper context. It is not the result of any pretense to greater wisdom, but rather the fruit of his own experience -- over this time -- of his sins and his repeated failures, and of the transforming mercy of Jesus that continues to shape his life with patience and persistence.
Young JJ spoke strongly (and rightly) about the collapse of the culture of autonomous "man," even with man's immense technological power and its possibilities.
He said that 
Still, this desperate judgment was not a cause of despair for Young JJ. He knew that the hope for humanity was secure because God had intervened in history, and given Himself in love through the death and resurrection of Jesus:

As stated in the previous post, The Current JJ (in 2013) concurs with the thoughts expressed by Young JJ, but there is something that has changed.

JJ has grown in hope.

He has a more profound confidence today in that "presence" he wrote about in the second excerpt above: the presence of Christ. He has a deeper attachment to Him; or at least he is more concretely aware of his complete dependence on Christ's presence in every moment.

His confidence has grown in the ineffable power of God's love, in the presence of Christ as inexhaustible mercy, and in the often hidden but always patient and persistent ways that His mercy works in the world.

This means that JJ today -- while still fully acknowledging the divisions and the death that he wrote about in the first paragraph -- is less afraid of them. He sees more clearly (in spite of many hesitations) that death is not the final word, that evil -- in spite of its show of power -- has been defeated and uprooted forever, that however things may seem, the truth of reality is that everything is grace.

JJ is more convinced that the heart of Jesus is at work even in the darkest of places; that the suffering love of Jesus pierces the hearts of the many human beings of our time who have sought to make themselves autonomous and secure in their material power, but have succeeded only in making themselves lonely. Beneath the perversion and the violence of this culture of death is the human person's desperate loneliness and the terrible longing to be loved in a way that is real and permanent.
Mug shot of JJ today: Really he is
 much happier than he looks here.
The Crucified Jesus has carried the depths of all the pain that people inflict upon one another and themselves. He accompanies them in their loneliness and need for love, and with all of their deep personal wounds. He remains, He offers His love and mercy and healing, He waits upon even the most distant freedom and mysteriously engages it from within....

There is a great mystery at the heart of the world, at the heart of every moment. JJ doesn't grasp it, and usually forgets it. JJ doesn't know anything about the depths of this truth that the world has been redeemed. But he lives in hope. He prays for the grace to share in the love and compassion of Jesus, and to bear witness to it.

FOUND: Ancient Pre-Digital "Blog"... From 1990!

Ancient media artifact discovered from "the nineties"The recent Janaro Archeological Expedition (also known as "Get Ready For the Big Yard Sale") has recovered a remarkable document deep in the family storage bins. It clearly dates from the second millennium, and it appears to be a kind of primitive blog-like collection of ruminations by a twenty-something graduate student in theology. Young John Janaro began the work in September of 1990 and continued to post in it until May of 1992.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, before there was an internet... in the days when lots of people didn't even own a personal computer, human beings used to "write" with their actual, physical hand. They used a device that was the ancestor of the stylus that people use today on their iPads: it was called a "pen." In their own unique fonts (i.e. "handwriting"), people would write on pieces of compressed wood pulp called paper.

Writing on paper was considered a technologically advanced activity (hahahahaha). It beat the heck out of chiseling hieroglyphics on stone tablets, after all. Indeed, it had developed to the point where people could communicate with each other all over the world... within a couple of weeks!

Those nice folks with blue uniforms who come to your house every day and stuff your mailbox with coupons, bills, and political advertisements? Once upon a time they were the conveyors of interactive media. The sight of the mailman approaching the house filled people with excitement, anticipation, and hope that perhaps a "letter" might come. Lovers would stare out the window waiting for the mailman to bring a written communication from their beloved, and their hearts would leap at the sight of the mailman's approach. The mailman was a kind of daily Santa Claus, bearing who-knows-what in the way of gifts.

Today, when we see the mail carrier, the most we hope for is a two-for-one pizza coupon, or else that package from Amazon that we already know is coming today because we've tracked it on the internet. Sigh.

An even more peculiar phenomenon of pre-third millennium human behavior was the unusual precursor to today's blogging. Many people would fill books of blank paper with reflections about themselves, their families, and the world in general. A book like this was called a diary or a journal.

The strange thing about these hand-written blogs is that they had no readers. In fact, they were often deliberately hidden... from everybody! They were only read by the person who wrote them.

Cultural anthropologists today disagree about what might have motivated such strange behavior. Indeed, the whole idea is remote to our 21st century minds. We all assume that expressing our thoughts in text is synonymous with publishing them. We write blogs to circulate our personal views; we promote our blogs, give them their own Facebook pages, tweet links to them over and over, and are thrilled if someone retweets them to an even wider circle of strangers. We solicit email subscribers, and we even encourage people to comment on stuff we think about.

Imagine that your blog had no readers and no comments, ever. No "thumbs up" likes. No Twitter gold stars. Not even a "+1" from the Google Plus crowd. There is no crowd, man. You are writing to yourself.

On the other hand, it is possible that the artifact we have discovered is one of those very particular things known as a writer's journal. Writers have always been a different kind of animal in the human race. Ever since chisel was first taken to stone in ancient Sumeria, some people have dreamed that if they recorded their thoughts, someone, someday would read them.

It is difficult for us to imagine a world in which people didn't presume that every thought that came into their heads could be almost instantly published. In past ages, however, the vast majority of the human race never published anything; indeed, most of them couldn't even write. But there were always the scribes, and some of them dreamed and scribbled words and hoped that they might have value, at least in the future. Then came the printing press, and suddenly writers were intoxicated with the possibility that their stuff might circulate all over the place, even while they were still alive.

Still, "publishing" was a relatively rare achievement. For many writers it was only a dream, but it was a dream they kept alive, especially in their youth. And with this dream came the aspiration to fame and a Place in History. This was the secret of the "writer's journal." Along with dreams of future fame, the writer cherished the notion that someday people would want to know what their Great Mind thought about their early years of obscurity, and the events of their time. The writer's journal was really a blog for posterity, a record of allegedly "private" thoughts that secretly aspired to be a literary legacy, a chronicle for generations to come.

Today, it is not surprising that scribes have taken to bloggery, and the whole package of verbal New Media, in an almost natural way, and with gusto. Since the days of the Epic of Gilgamesh we have been motivated by the desire or the hope or even the delusion that other people would read our stuff.

Vanity, of course.

For the Christian, vanity plus hypocrisy.... But also, faith. Certainly the 27 year old graduate student who wrote the words below as part of the "Statement of Purpose" at the beginning of his volume was puffed up with his own rhetoric. But he also really believed what he was saying. And he really did want to say it well. Young Janaro did say some interesting things, in fact. (I may present them here and there during the course of the year, now that the journal has been rediscovered.) But in September of 1990 Janaro was preoccupied with declaring his purpose. Perhaps his vanity can be forgiven because it was so guileless.

Indeed, what is striking here is that these words sound a lot like my writing today. I could enter this text digitally and post it as today's blog, with no further explanation, and the difference would hardly be noticed. Perhaps some will remark that Janaro used to be a better writer before his brains got scrambled. One thing is for sure: the meticulous print reproduced below was a first draft, straight from the pen, without revisions. I don't think I can do that any more.

Oddly, I was more serious a quarter of a century ago. While texts like this often appear in my present writings, there is nothing comparable in the journal of 1990 to the sloppy, rambling blog entries that I often post here (such as the one I'm writing now). Yet I still write this way, not only because my thoughts haven't changed but also because what I wrote in September of 1990 is still true in September of 2013.

Fundamental truths, and the basic needs of this emerging new epoch, haven't changed. And, although the author of these words has changed a great deal, he is still the same person. He still has the same voice.

From John Janaro's Journal, "Statement of Purpose," September 5, 1990