I am pondering a new blog that writes specifically about a local congregation in a multi-class town that fluctuates between rural, exurban, and resort. THese congregational stories hope to flesh out dreams and visions for a vbrant faith community that lives ordinary lives in ordinary time. During high times, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, the stories depart our local community and celebrate saints, such as Bonhoeffer, Mook, Avila, etc. who have formed and shaped the church to be a community of vocation – loving and serving the world.

Later in Let Your Life Speak, Parker Palmer addresses our own need for limits and the temptation toward burn-out for those who really care about their work.

If you are like me and don’t readily admit your limits, embarrassment may be the only way to get your attention. I go on full alert only when I am blocked or get derailed or flat-out fail. Then, finally, I may be forced to face my nature and find out whether I can make something of both my gifts and my limitations. (p. 42)

Very sorry to read someone writing a particularly unpleasantly toned replacement theology article on JAC site. The Jewish covenant, I’m very happy to say, is alive and well, it is thriving and vibrant with the presence of God living in relationship with the Jewish people, land, Torah and mitzvot right as we speak. God keeps his promises.  Amazing -

Hallelujah!  I’d add there are also some very good articles on the site, but because of the (not the first time) replacement stuff I will leave salvationist visitors to go searching for themselves.

Today brought some beautiful links, an advent song by Amy Grant,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2egKS4d1oI

A memorial to an amazing church planter,

http://davelawton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/11/a-memorial-to-an-amazing-church-planter.html

and conversation which brought into my awareness the sheer scale of the need for life-giving, deep and nourishing reflection on the nature of calling, vocation, covenant, commissioning and ordination.

Wow – some staggering stuff. A site which gives support, encouragement and inspiration to former Salvation Army officers had 2500 hits last week. I will add the link, it’s an awesome blog. Looking around congregations I know I realise it’s not unusual to see more people with frustrated and disrupted vocations than those serving. It doesn’t take a psychology degree or training as a spiritual director to realise the impact this must have on the spiritual health and group health of the congregation and on the church as a whole. There has to be a better way.

Mark 3:3-8   Now I am adding some more.   Bill

Here is a major division

Here are a few words from Parker Palmer on wrong approaches to thinking about our vocation:

Here, I think, is another clue to finding true self and vocation: we must withdraw the negative projections we make on people and situations – projections that serve mainly to mask our fears about ourselves – and acknowledge and embrace our own liabilities and limits. (Let Your Life Speak, p. 29)

I am of one the happiest people I know.  It’s taken me a long time to get to this present state of happification, but I am definitely here now.  And here to stay.

This evening I walked into my studio after what seemed like weeks of being away (it was only 6 days), fell down onto my mat, hugged my knees to my chest and rocked back and forth whispering,

Ahhh…ahhh…ahhh…

Until you know what you are meant to do, what your true work is, until you find what Buddhists call your “dharma,” happiness will always elude you.

But once you figure that out, and then begin to actually do it, happiness is yours.

I love my life.  I love what I do.  What I do is not a ‘job.”  What I do is not “work.”

What I do is joy.  What I do is love.  What I do is a miracle.  What I do is perfectly aligned with all my values, with everything I believe deep, deep down.

It’s taken me a big chunk of my lifespan, lots of tears, and years of frustration to get to this place.  It’s taken more courage than I actually have, and along the way I’ve made some huge honking mistakes.

Of the many “roles” I have played in this life: mother, sister, aunt, spouse, neighbor, friend, student and teacher, to name a few, most of them I have played rather badly (much to my shame and embarrassment.)

Granted, some of these roles I had no say in—they were accidents of birth or were thrust upon me by pure spatial coincidence.

(or were they???)

But these two sticks I am currently rubbing together to create the “spark” that is responsible for my feelings of deep happiness (i.e. the writing and the yoga) don’t feel like “roles” at all.  They feel like “right.”  They feel like clothes that have been custom designed just for me.

For years I walked around in clothes that didn’t fit and shoes that were always one size too small.

Now, no more bunions, no more dragging hems.

Cinderella has found the right slipper at last, and, oddly enough, it’s…bare feet!

Over the next five days, I am simply going to share some words that have impacted me deeply from Parker J. Palmer’s outstanding book, Let Your Life Speak. If you have not read this book yet and have questions about your identity, vocation, and living well, please take the time to read it.

Here are some words from Palmer on vocation:

Vocation at its deepest level is, “This is something I can’t not do, for reasons I’m unable to explain to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling. (p. 25)

St. Andrew

This morning, the Gospel reading contained in the Breviarium Monasticum comes from St. Matthew’s account. He describes how Our Lord was walking near the Sea of Galilee and saw Sts. Peter and Andrew casting their nets in the sea. He told them to follow Him and they did leaving everything behind. The same thing happened with James and John who left their elderly father, Zebedee, in the boat with their nets. Such was the call of the first four Apostles.

St. Andrew, of course, went on to become one of the great missionaries in the Church. He traveled throughout Greece, the perimeter of the Black Sea, and made it to Scythia (modern Ukraine and Russia) before he went back to Greece. At Patras, he suffered martyrdom for the faith on an X-shaped cross on which he hung for two days. During those two days, he was constantly preaching and only then, feeling that his work was completed, did he offer his soul into the hands of Our Lord.

Interestingly enough, one of the regions St. Andrew evangelized was Bulgaria. Granted, Bulgaria as a country did not exist in the early first century. It was known as Thrace and was actually divided by the Romans into two different provinces: Thrace (southern Bulgaria) and Moesia (northern Bulgaria). Therefore, St. Andrew can rightfully be seen as the one who implanted the faith there. It would be eight hundred years, however, before that area was fully evangelized by St. Boris Michael.

All of these facts aside, the important thing about St. Andrew is that he dropped everything to follow Our Lord. He did not ask questions, make excuses, or put the call off. He left everything and followed with an unquestioning faith that what he was doing was right.

If we think about it, all of us have heard Our Lord’s call at some point in our lives. Perhaps, it came to us through the example of a favorite teacher at school. A nun or priest that was so renowned for their sanctity of life that we wanted to imitate him or her. There are countless vocation stories of nuns and priests who heard that call through the example of someone they knew even if it wasn’t one of their favorite teachers.

The call can also come in other ways as well. There are those who hear an interior voice calling them to a life of holiness. Indeed, that voice just keeps calling until they can no longer shut it off. These people acknowledge the call and begin the discernment process. After that, it is only a matter of time before they find out what God wants them to do and where they ought to go.

Yet no matter how the call is heard, it must be answered. Our Lord made it clear in the Parable of the Talents that each of us is responsible for using the gifts that we are given by Him. We have an obligation from Him to multiply those gifts and to use them. How we use them depends on many things, but the most important thing is that state in life because that determines what we do with them.

Speaking only for myself, I know that God has granted me an intellect and vast stores of knowledge, an ardent love, a big heart, and a way with words. All of these are wonderful gifts. I use them all the time. However, I’m still in the process of finding out where I am supposed to go.

I know that God is calling me to a brother, but what Order am I supposed to go to? I love the Benedictines a great deal, but the Dominicans have also been on my mind. Is it possible that God can call a person to two places at the same time? I don’t know, but I’m praying for light and hoping that God will make His will known to me at some point in the future.

Indeed, that is something that all of us need to do. We need to pray for light and guidance of the Holy Ghost so that we know where we are going and what we ought to do with our lives. Sometimes, it takes God years before He gives us a definitive answer.  St. Gregory Palamas, one of the great Orthodox theologians, spent years in a cave praying for God’s guidance before he knew what he was supposed to do. It can be the same way with us.

Yet no matter what the answer ultimately is, we should follow up on it generously. After all, St. Andrew did not hold anything back from Our Lord when he received the call. Everything was left by the seashore. The same thing happened when St. Francis dumped his clothes in front of his father. All of his worldly possessions became as nothing. So it is with us. Whenever God calls, we must leave everything behind and follow Him.

Our Lady of the Angels, pray for us!

St. Andrew, pray for us!

St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us!

Matthew 4:18-22

As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers,
Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew,
casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.
He said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
At once they left their nets and followed him.
He walked along from there and saw two other brothers,
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.
They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets.
He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father
and followed him.

___________________________________________________________

Today, the Church remembers and celebrates the life of St. Andrew, Apostle and brother of St. Peter.  The words that Jesus said to them have re-echoed throughout history, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  Not only did Peter, Andrew, James and John and 8 others drop everything to become fishers of men, but the Lord continues to call people today to drop everything to follow Him.

As a priest and vocation director, it is my role to ask other men to follow Jesus and become fishers of men.  I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.  We are called to lay down our lives in order that others may have life, and have it more abundantly.

As a priest, I realize the beauty of celibacy.  Just as when a man and woman marry, their love often bears fruit in biological children.  The love that flows forth from a priest or religious bears fruit in new spiritual life, in spiritual children.  Thus, priesthood and marriage go hand in hand.  Love that is sacrificial gives new life.  And when there is love, one is willing to sacrifice one’s owns desires for the good of the other.

Andrew laid down his life and livelihood for Jesus.  His sacrificial love was poured out and fostered many spiritual children that has reverberated throughout the ages.  You and I may be Christians because of Andrew’s YES to Jesus over 2000 years ago.  Think about that…

You don’t have to be a priest to do this.  The Lord calls all of us, whether married or single, to lay down our lives for Jesus and for one another.  May we remember St. Andrew today and ask ourselves, “Where do you want to me to go, Lord?  How do you want me to follow you?”  Maybe He is calling you to be a fisher of men. 

Maybe the Lord is asking you to be a better husband or wife, father or mother.  Do you know what the goals of marriage are?  They are to bear fruit in children (if it be God’s will) and to help your spouse to grow in holiness.  If you are married I would ask you when you wake up every day ask this question: “How can I help my spouse to grow in holiness today.”  What a different world it would be.  That should be the same question I ask myself every morning as a priest:  “How can I help my spouse (the Church, you) to grow in holiness today?”

St. Andrew brought his brother Simon Peter to meet Jesus and it changed both of their lives.  May we too bring others to know Christ more intimately.

Have a great day!
Fr. Burke

http://frburke23.wordpress.com

Have you ever thought about WHY you do what you do?

Is it because you couldn’t find anything else to do?
Is it because you let somebody else tell you how you should spend your days?

If you answered YES to either of those questions, then STOP RIGHT NOW.

LEAVE.

GO do something ELSE that ignites the very core of who you are.

If the reason you do what you do is anything less than BECAUSE YOU CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD DO RIGHT NOW, then it’s time for a change!

I call myself the CHIEF BROKER OF OPPORTUNITY.
I help churches fund their budgets.
I help pastors and church leaders do what seminary failed to prepare them to do … manage the pressure of dollars in the plate and people in the pew.

What’s really strange is that I stumbled into this world.

BUT it keeps getting bigger and BIGGER!

I met with a church yesterday that should be thriving, but it’s not. It’s struggling due to some things it can control and – like all of us – things it can’t control. I listened. We discussed. I left the meeting not sure the direction to take BUT I COULDN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT THEM and the challenge before us.

Then it hit me.
An idea came to me that I thought might work.
I made a phone call.
It was well received.
So the work began.

I woke up early this morning … 4 AM … and wrote a proposal for this church to consider.

THEY LOVED IT!

Not because it was all about ME but because it was ALL ABOUT THEM … even better … the end result was FULL of POSSIBILITY!

And they said ….

YES!
LET’S DO IT!
WE’RE IN!

Don’t we all love it when we put ourselves out there and someone else says that’s EXACTLY what I was looking for but couldn’t find. OF COURSE!

I help pastors and church leaders be successful balancing ministry and money. But MONEY is not the end result … it’s the vehicle that God provides to fund the ministry HE has called the CHURCH to accomplish, a unique purpose that only the CHURCH is designed to fulfill.

I do what I do because I believe …

the CHURCH CAN’T FAIL. There is no PLAN B.

The thought of playing a role in the Church realizing its God given potential is what gets me up early and keeps me up late. It’s what causes me to take on the challenge, even when it seems impossible.

I CAN’T HELP MYSELF. So I keep going. Why? BECAUSE I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE I WOULD BE DOING RIGHT NOW if I wasn’t doing what I do!

Why do you do what you do?

This video is a compilation of Geoff Brooke’s and my videos from NCYC 2009. As both John Rockwell and Geoff have mentioned  in previous posts, this was a particularly inspiring event for a seminarian. I hope this video conveys a little bit of how awesome this experience was for us seminarians.

I was pleased to open up my copy of Sojourners this month and see an interview with one of my heroes, Joel Salain, founder of Polyface Farms.  Some sweet excerpts:

Jeannie Choi: What’s the vision behind Polyface farm?

Joel Salatin: Healing—healing in all dimensions. We want to develop emotionally, environmentally, and economically enhancing agricultural prototypes throughout the world. We want to heal the relationships of the people involved with the farm and our business and our family. We want to heal the land, soil, air, water, and, ultimately, the food system.

From what disease is our current food system suffering?

Well, when is the last time a farmer went and asked for money from a banker and the banker said, “Well, that’s all well and good. I’m glad you’re going to be able to grow a corn crop. But what is that going to do to the earthworms? Or to the topsoil? Is that going to go down the Mississippi and add to the Rhode Island-sized dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that’s been created because of erosion and run-off chemicals?”

We don’t measure those kinds of things, and yet each of us intuitively understands that those immeasurable or non-quantifiable parts in a business plan are actually the most precious resources we have.

How can we revolutionize the food industry?

Healing the food system would fundamentally flip-flop the political and economic powers of our culture. Wendell Berry says that what’s wrong with us creates more gross national product than what’s right with us. It’s a fantastic observation. Right now, our culture thrives on things being sick. Dead soil brings more people to chemical companies because they need chemical fertilizers, which makes people sick. When people are sick, obviously the medical establishment thrives. If a neighborhood or community’s food system is sick, then of course you need to import food from a foreign country, which stimulates global trade. So when you start talking about healing the food system, we need a fundamental realignment of all the power and money in our culture, and that’s why there is a tremendous amount of inertia against healing the system.

So what can we do? If you want to dream out of the box for a minute, here’s an idea: If every American for one week refused to eat at a fast-food joint, it would bring concentrated animal feeding operations to their knees. What can one person do? We have a sick, evil system, and a healing system, and the question is, which one are you going to feed? Have you gone down to the farmers market or patronized local livestock farms? Or have you had candy bars and cokes? Whichever one you’ve fed is going to get bigger, and the one you’ve starved is going to get smaller.

How does your faith inform your work?

It makes me want to farm like Jesus would if he were here right now, in charge of this place. God actually loved us and provided a salvation experience for us that shapes the way we should, with the same grace and appreciation and respect, honor the creation that God made. It’s in respecting and honoring the “pig-ness” of the pig that we create our ethical and moral background for respecting and honoring the “Tony-ness” of Tony and the “Mary-ness” of Mary. And so it’s how we respect and honor the “least of these” that creates a theological and philosophical framework for how we respect and honor the creation that God made. It’s in respecting and honoring the “pig-ness” of the pig that we create our ethical and moral background for respecting and honoring the “Tony-ness” of Tony and the “Mary-ness” of Mary. And so it’s how we respect and honor the “least of these” that creates a theological and philosophical framework for how we respect and honor the greatest of these.

Our culture simply views our plants and animals as so many inanimate piles of protoplasmic structure to be manipulated however cleverly hubris can imagine to manipulate it. I would suggest that a culture that views its life in that respect will be a culture that views its citizens and the citizens of other cultures in the same manipulative and arrogant way.

For the entire interview article, go here. And for an expanded audio interview with Salatin, go here.

His books are well worth reading (Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal is illuminating and outraging), as are these other articles about Polyface Farms.

Finally, I leave you with a video of Salatin and Chipotle founder Steve Ells, a food activist superstar in his own right.

Ten years ago today, I was ordained a priest.

Currently there is not much in my day-to-day life that looks especially “priestly”.  I may not have worn my alb and stole at all so far this year.  I don’t think I’ve presided at the Eucharist.  I may have worn a “clerical shirt”/dog collar once or twice.

It isn’t what I would have imagined being a priest would be like.  For the first few years of being a priest I would have worn vestments and presided at the Eucharist most every week.  Even when I began at the university four and a half years ago, I thought that there would be weekly Eucharist and other places where my “priestly ministry” would be expressed more formally.  (And for a time there was).

My bishop probably gives the same talk to all ordinands.  A priest, he tells you, is someone who has “time for you”.  He talks about the importance of having time, of not being busy; of being on the side of the poor and marginalised, the broken-hearted, the widow and orphan (for); and of seeing people in their particularity, of seeing them as beloved of God (you).  At least that’s how I remember the talk.

It’s easy to be sucked into busy-ness.  To feel the need to be productive.  Anyone who’s seen me in the last couple of weeks wouldn’t have got the sense that I was a person with “time for you”.  Nor time for anything but crossing off lists and getting things done.  I’ve all but forgotten my vocation.

For me, being a priest is about resisting the urge to be “useful” and “productive”.  It is attempting to live as if I know that humans are of value by virtue of their being rather than their doing.  And offering that recognition to everyone I come into contact with.  Beloved of God.  Human being.

So, while cleaning the stairs leading up to the St. Joseph statue, I had a wonderful reflection moment.

While looking at the stairs, filled with pine needles, and the immense height, which seemed never ending, I was wondering if I had gotten myself into something bigger than I could take on.  The first 5 or so stairs weren’t so bad, but as I ascended the stairs, they each had more and more pine needles.  The drizzle began to come down a little harder, and the cool wind picked up.  Once I reached about midway, I realized that there was a step that was made of three planks of wood.  I turned back, to look downward and realize the long way that I had come, and the progress I had made in the short time.  It made me remember the past couple of years and all the time that I had spent in ministry with the Hispanic Young adults, and all of the challenges and difficulties, all of joys and wonderful times.  It reminded me of my vocational journey and all of the work God has done in me so far, to clean me, and prepare my own path. 

I turned back to the rest of the stairs, which stilled seemed like such a long way up.  I thought of heaven and my journey, and found a connection between the stairs and myself.

In working my way up the stairs, taking patient care of each step and the way in which I cleaned it, I thought of how God has put in so much care and patience, and love into molding and cleaning and preparing me for this journey.

As I got higher and higher up, the steps were harder and harder to clean.  I figure, God is giving me a heads up on what I can expect in my journey.  But also received great consolation in the fact that, all of the steps, which I cleaned in the beginning strengthened and prepared me to clean the steps on the top.  So, in all of this time, I learned some truly valuable insights into myself. 

There are a few things I must always do:  learn and grow as I go along, taking with me the fond memories of joy and gladness and strenghthening myself by the grace of the Holy Spirit with the moments that challenge me;  look back and always remember the road I have already walked, to give me strength and guidance for the road ahead; NEVER forget to turn around, and not dwell on the past but hope with faith, in the future; and always pray for the grace of perseverence so that while looking ahead I do not become overwhelmed or afraid of what might come, but go forward with the faith and hope that God has prepared me and will continue to prepare me until I reach Heaven. 

We must keep our focus, I must keep mine, and you must keep yours, set our sights on Heaven and learn from every experience we have, that God is ALWAYS preparing and teaching us in ways unexpected.

I would have never guessed that a simple act of cleaning stairs would have turned into a meditation and personal encounter with God.

Joy for the Journey: Staying Cool in the Heat

At the Culinary Institute of America, students move fast and move precisely. Indeed if you don’t, you either miss your deadlines, ruin your cooking, antagonize your customers, or you get your hands chopped like a piece of meat.

These are foodies who love what they do. That’s why they are there. Nonetheless, it’s a pressure cooker in the classroom-kitchen. This is no child play: they cook to please!

Not all the students have had experience in this kind of high-pressure situations. One 25-year old student named Nick was a former Navy SEAL. “One of the requirements to be a SEAL is to swim 50 meters completely underwater. If you think, ‘I can’t breathe!’ then your muscles will tense and will use up more oxygen. The strategy is to relax and you will make it to the other end.”

Staying cool in the heat! How do you do that? I know I often react to the pressures of life with so much anxiety that I have to consciously breathe in and breathe out. Yes, I forget to breathe when my eyes are staring at the elephant size pressures of life.

Yesterday, my friend Helen told me about her twin daughters who have just started college in September. It’s now November – the heat is going up. Homework and mid-term examinations are piling up. More homework and more examinations are coming. Finals are then just around the corner. Her daughters called home and said, “I don’t know if I could do this!”

There is the heat of life when you’re doing what you love, like cooking at the Culinary Institute of America. There is the heat of life when you’re starting college. There is also the heat of life when you’re looking for employment and your savings are dwindling fast. These pressures of life do not come at our request; they come any time and all the time. We cannot change the circumstances of our lives but we can train our mental and emotional muscles so they are strong for the challenge. Toughmindedness, as they call it.

How do you stay cool in the heat? Ironically, I can stay cool only when I begin to acknowledge that I have no control over my life or my specific situation. Then I turn over my anxiety to God and ask him for wisdom for handling the pressure boiler. As I proceed to do what is humanly possible, I continue to remind myself I am not the one in control. Then I give thanks to God for all the blessings he has given me in the past and commit myself to trusting him for provision for me.

The image in this blogpost is attributed to BH Expeditions on www.flickr.com

There is a certain mentality that I suspect might be characteristic of modern culture–or it might be a distinctly American phenomenon.  I will use an example to describe it.

I recently read an article in a publication–it might have been The Atlantic–in which the author advises parents to save money by sending their kids to a local university because it is not clear from empirical studies that private or prestigious out-of-state universities offer a better education.  Specifically, the author cites the lack of evidence that attending a presumably better college results in a higher salary.   The writer’s assumption is essentially that education reduces to vocation.  That what a student makes after graduation might have nothing to do with how he or she did on her history thesis is not even considered.  

The mentality I have in mind is that in which ignorance is presumed to be knowledge, with the underlying assumption that one can’t be wrong about what one asserts.  This mentality shows itself as particularly squalid when it dismisses correction by an expert.  Here is a simple example.  Say I’m talking with a mathematician.  I state that 2+2=5, and I don’t even stop to admit that I could be wrong because I am presuming that I can’t be wrong about it even though I have not studied math.  When my interlocator tells me that he has just graduated with a degree in math and that from what she learned 2+2=4, I reply that that could be true too.  That it might be appropriate for me to be deferential would strike me as offensive or undemocratic and therefore contrary to my values–this illustrates just how bad this mentality actually is. 

Besides the passive aggression in the blatant disrespect for the educated person’s studies, the mentality is one of ignorance that presumes it cannot be wrong.  It evinces a sort of populism or relativism (or even situationalism) that wants to claim that everyone makes knowledge for oneself and it is valid.  Perhaps this mentality illustrates what can happen when democratic theory over-reaches.  In any case, the sense of entitlement–of ignorance being in such a position–is highly presumptuous.  Unfortunately, it protects itself by its negative-feedback loop wherein correction can only come from itself (which flies in the face of the assumption that it can’t be wrong).  

Is the mentality a modern phenomenon?  If so, how is it caused?  Has the expansion of higher education given people the mistaken sense that they are experts in a variety of fields?  Or might it be the experience of having some money and modern toys that gives people the epistemological presumption?  If students are directing their own educations with an eye to what is likely to result in higher salaries when they enter the job-market, the presumption of being educated (when in fact one is not) might produce this kind of mentality that involves presumption.  That is, people may be presuming they have a foundation when in fact they do not.   People around the world might simply say, “Oh, that would be the Americans.”  Are pretension and presumption simply parts of American culture?  In any case, I suspect the mentality is more widespread than one might suppose.

Woo yay! I can officially announce that I am back for regular blogging after an extremely long hiatus, depression is funny that way.

My life has been turned upside down, which is pretty obvious from my last post, but I’m pleased to say that things are looking up for Pepper! I’ve gone from suicical to hopeful in two months, that’s quite impressive. Perhaps one is bipolar?

I’ve been discharged from hospital, I see a psychologist every week, I have a social worker that comes to my house to check that I’m still alive and I’ve dropped out of university! The most impressive of that list being that I’ve finally mustered the balls, after hitting rock bottom, to do something for me with a “fuck what everyone else thinks” attitide, and I think it could be the best decision I’ve ever made.

It was too soon for me to be back at university, I went back a week after I’d been discharged from hospital. It was horrible, as soon as I got back I felt like nothing had changed, I could feel myself slipping. It was horrible, I really didn’t want to go back to hospital. The people in there were disturbed, well, most of them. There were a few nice people. I met a lovely suicidal lesbian that was also a herion addict.

So I decided to take action, for once in my sad little life. I did something for me, to make myself feel better, and I do. I’ll be moving back home with my parents at christmas. I’ll still have to pay rent for my student house although I won’t be living here, the joys of trying to break a tenancy agreement, but that’s only a financial repercussion. What is money at the end of the day? Just bits of paper and metal.

For a while now I’ve known that my calling is to become a funeral director, and I’m going to make it happen. I’ve been looking at universities that offer qualifications in mortuary science and death & society. There are only two institutes in the whole of the United Kingdom that offer such courses. I won’t be going there for a long time though. I’d like to gain some professional qualifications first and to do this I would need to secure a job in a funeral home. I’ve approached a local business and I am awaiting their answer with regard to work experience. I just want to help people at the worst time of their lives. I want to be there for them. I want to be woken up at 4am by a griefstricken person and reassure them. I want to be on call 24 hours a day, every day of the year. I want to support people. That’s all I want.

Joy for the Journey Comes Through Unchained Hope

At the Brandywine Valley Museum we visited over the weekend, I noticed a very large painting done by Andrew Wyeth, an accomplished painter in his own right and also the son of the painter, J.C. Wyeth, who became famous for his illustrations for Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

In this large painting, Andrew Wyeth portrays three dogs inside a stone mason room. All three of the animals were chained. The owner chained these dogs all day long and they were allowed to run free only when they were out hunting for raccoons. One of dogs was sleeping in the background. The second one extended far beyond the left side of the portrait so the chain was taut. The third one was sitting upright quietly but his eyes were very expressive. He looked as though he had a lot going on in his mind.

This very large painting, which measured about seven feet tall, moved me in such powerful ways I felt compelled to write about it.

The three dogs lost their freedom because the owner held them in captivity. They were not able to be the animals God had created them to be because they were chained – unable to run, play, catch mice, or protect small children. They had been so conditioned to being passive that they were quite habituated to “chained” living as their way of life.

This portrait is a portrait of my life and the life of so many. The difference between the dogs and us is this: we have chained ourselves to the posts so we are unable to become the persons we are created to be and to fulfill the purpose we have been given.

Each of the chains represents a long litany and a wide variety of habits, perspectives, and thought patterns that can incapacitate us and miniaturize our vision. Here I am just scratching the surface of this litany:
• Procrastinating because of fear of failure, success or mistakes;
• Journeying through life as if I am an island and I don’t need anyone in the world;
• Believing that if no one else joins me in a new idea, a new vision, or a new project, then I must not involve myself;
• Being arrogant about my own abilities and knowledge so I cannot accept suggestions and advice from my elders;
• Nursing my bitterness and resentment about past hurts so the hurdle becomes higher and higher;
• Giving up at the early encounters of barriers to success;
• Constantly being distracted by the small pleasures of life so I lose sight of the big and the important;
• Seeing obstacles instead of opportunities at every turn;
• Isolating myself from God and from community so I become my ultimate and only authority;
• Coping with life’s hard knocks through self-destructive or unproductive coping methods;
• Being blind to the consequences of my actions and decisions of the moment;
• Running away from a project, a responsibility, or a calling because it is perceived as “hard”;
• Refusing to listen to myself, to ask the hard and penetrating questions of my purpose, my gifts and abilities, my personality, and my resources;
• Being stuck in traditions: this is the way I’ve always been so this is the way I’ll always be;
• Failing to see my important role in and contribution to this world community: I am created for a purpose not just for my actualization, fulfillment and satisfaction but also for the betterment of the world community.

I cannot exhaust the list of chains we subject ourselves to as we journey through life, but I can confidently conclude this: I am the only one who can set me free from being chained. The way to set me free is through unchained hope: the hope that God has promised to continue to work in us and with us, to bring me, a work-in-progress, to perfection.

The image in this blogpost is attributed to DH Bass on www.Flickr.com.

As we are in the Year of the Priest, the USCCB website has some great resources as we spend this year with greater prayer and focus on Priesthood.  This icon is a beautiful symbol for priesthood.  More info on the iconographer and opportunity to buy an 18″ x 24″ poster here.

This icon (egg tempera and gold leaf on wood panel, 28” x 22”) is “based on a fifteenth century Greek prototype; here Christ is shown in Latin Rite vestments with a gold pelican over His heart, the ancient symbol of self-sacrifice. The borders contain a winding grapevine and altar prepared for the celebration of the liturgy of the Mass; in the borders are smaller icons of Melchizedek and St. Jean-Baptiste Vianney.”  Incidentally, it is St. John Vianney whom Pope Benedict XVI, with the announcement of this special year, has declared the Universal Patron of Priests.

As we are in the Year for Priests, the USCCB website posted this You Tube video of the priest ordination of New York.  It’s done really well … by the same people (Grassroots Films) that made the Fishers of Men video.

The USCCB website also has a listing of all the new priests that were ordained this year with pictures, backgrounds and quotes.