This past Saturday we put on a Confirmation retreat for 25 teens at our mission parish. During our final small group I asked what was their favorite part of the day. After all of the great games, music, food, leisure time, unanimously they said small group was their favorite thing. When asked why one young man responded, "Because we get to share and see everyone's different perspectives." The funny thing is that this is very common. Throughout all my years of ministry small groups are always a popular part of retreats or other youth events. When I helped launch a new ministry at a previous church I always ended utilize the time I had with teens in Confirmation to take a pulse on the changes. I'd let them know the Confirmation interview had ended and my next few questions were off the record. I'd ask them what they liked, disliked, what we should do more of, what we should never to again. One common answer was that (as long as they had a good small group leader) they loved small groups and the thing they would change would be MORE time in small group. By the time I left we were up to 30+ minutes in small group. After high school it seems like people's interest in others' perspectives and their want to discuss those different perspectives diminishes. You can see that on full scale on social media. You aren't face to face so you can put your thoughts, opinions, agendas out there and if you so please insult, diminish, or ignore those you are engaging or those who want to comment. These even happens between friends, acquaintances, even in direct messaging. I know a couple people who were having a discussion about Kavanaugh situation. One person wanted to talk about women and their ability/inability to come forward when they have been mistreated. At one instance this same person expressed that she herself had been mistreated. Did the other person express any remorse or sympathy towards the person? No, this person simply went on with their argument. This same person shared with me that she has had an overwhelming amount of discussion with other women sharing that they have been abused and even raped and have never told anyone because they did not think it safe nor that they would be believed/accepted. It seems that arguments, stances, agendas are held higher in value
than the person in front of the us, the person we are interacting with. We are unable to step outside of our own perspectives, or own need to be right and win and argument to see where the other person is coming from. If we can't stop and be human and truly listen, look the other in the eye, and recognize their dignity how else can we escape the polarization of our world.
It is interesting how perspective is such a powerful force in determining what we see and what we miss. - John O'Donohue, "Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong
I just read something that really impacted me and I decided to come write about it right away, so here goes... This year has introduced a new facet of our mission at Shrine of the True Cross. The assistant director of religious ed asked us to open the first half hour of each night. Joyously we obliged and we open up with a game or video of some sort and a brief presentation over the upcoming Sunday Gospel. I usually start prepping for the next week a week in advance. I presented tonight so I'm already delving into the next Sunday's Gospel which is on the wedding at Cana in John John 2:1-11 . I try to do plenty of thinking, praying, reading, and listening over each reading. Tonight I did a Google search for "fathers of the church water to wine". I have not done a lot of reading of the fathers, it has been on my least of things to do. What came up was a reflection from St. Augustine on this Gospel passage. This is only the first paragraph, the only thing I've read so far:
The miracle indeed of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby He
made the water into wine, is not marvelous to those who know that it was God's doing. For He who made wine on that day at the marriage feast, in those sex water-pots, which He commanded to be filled with water, the self-same does this every year in vines. For even as that which the servants put into the water-pots was turned into wine by the doing of the Lord, so in like manner also is what the clouds pour forth changed into wine by the doing of the same Lord. But we do not wonder at the latter, because it happens every year: it has lost its marvelousness by its constant recurrence. And yet it suggests a greater consideration than that which was done in the water-pots. For who is there that considers the words of God, whereby this whole world is governed and regulated, who is not amazed and overwhelmed with miracles? If he considers the vigorous power of a single grain of any seed whatever, it is a mighty thing, it inspires him with awe. But since men, intent on a different matter, have lost the consideration of the works of God, by which they should daily praise Him as the Creator, God has, as it were, reserved to Himself the doing of certain extraordinary actions, that, by striking them with wonder, He might rouse men as from sleep to worship Him. A dead man has risen again; men marvel: so many are born daily, and none marvels. If we reflect more considerately, it is a matter of greater wonder for one to be who was not before, than for one who was to come to life again. Yet the same God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, does by His word all these things; and it is He who created that governs also. The former miracles He did by His Word, God with Himself; the latter miracles He did by the same Word incarnate and for us made man. As we wonder at the things which were done by the man Jesus, so let us wonder at the things which where done by Jesus God. By Jesus God were made heaven, and earth, and the sea, all the garniture of heaven, the abounding riches of the earth, and the fruitfulness of the sea-all these things which lie within the reach of our eyes were made by Jesus God. And we look at these things, and if His own spirit is in us they in such manner please us, that we praise Him that contrived them; not in such manner that turning ourselves to the works we turn away from the Maker, and, in a manner, turning our face to the tings made and our backs to Him that made them.
Yes, Jesus did great miracles. But, it's easy to forget that God sustains, God provides, God is acting in every second of every day holding everything in existence to do what he has created it to do. The seasons, plants, animals, us creating new life, gravity, the tides, starts dying, stars being born, etc. This is why it is so easy to step out into nature and imagine, to wonder, to wander. I think it is why people, even people who don't believe in anything, find it so easy to be enthralled with the beauty of the universe. I think it's why I was able to make this IG and Facebook post about my daughters playing in a drain along a bike path behind our house:
What I love about Tolkien, what I love about Lewis, what I love about Rowling, what I love about Bill Watterson, and what I love about my daughters is that the world IS more than what we can just see. This bike path, once you step off and set your foot into the grass the grass becomes a farm and your parents have passed away and you and your sister were left to carry on. Those trees are a forest and your warrior father has to teach you to fight because there is war brewing across the river (ditch). Trolls and dragons also sometimes lurk in those trees. That drain, it’s a kitchen. Sometimes it also serves as a dungeon when you are captured by a monster. If you pull branches from the plant on the left you now have swords or lightsabers.
“Still round the corner there may wait A new road or a secret gate And though I oft have passed them by A day will come at last when I Shall take the hidden paths that run West of the Moon, East of the sun.” -Tolkien.
“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” - C.S Lewis.
“Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.” -J. K. Rowling
But how easy is it to walk by a rose bush and not stop to smell them. How easy is it to run down the same path day after day and not notice the trees or the birds that live in them. How easy is it to not pay attention and get bother by the children you have created along with the Creator. How easy is it to live in a house and not know the people who surround you? Each blade of grass contains wonder an mystery. Each person has the image and likeness of his or her Creator. Each sunrise and sunset tells us good morning and good night respectively. I would like to regain wonder in every day life.
I've been reading through C.S. Lewis' autobiography, Surprised by Joy. It's not what I expected, and he even says that it probably won't be what people think it will be. But in his fashion there have been some areas where he has taken a deeper look at ordinary life to really challenge a common thought or action and to see it from a different more true to reality angle.
Lewis writes about how when he was young his family would be invited to parties where the locals would gather for dance and mingling. He was not fond of these things at all. Later in life he comments how when his father finally gave him permission to turn down invitations he did so. At these event people would take part in gossip and small talk things he was not interested in. So as to seem interested and to take part in conversations he felt forced into he would feign interest. He mad a firm resolution to not discuss things he was actually interested in due to people thinking his big words and more heady interested were adorable and would egg him on.
Through these experiences and other experiences of being reprimanded as a child he discovered how unjust our lives can be when we are trying to be and live honestly and how we may be rewarded when we do the opposite.
"I am here struck by the curious mixture of justice and injustice in our lives. We are blamed for real faults but usually not on the right occasions. I was, no doubt, and was blamed for being, a conceited boy; but the blame was usually attached to something in which no conceit was present. Adults often accuse a child of vanity without pausing to discover on what points children in general, or that child in particular, are likely to be vain. Thus it was for years a complete mystery to me that my father should stigmatize as "affection" my complaints about the itching and tickling of new underclothes. I see it all now; he had in mind a social legend associating delicacy of skin with refinement and supposed that I was claiming to be unusually refined. In reality I was in simple ignorance of that social legend, and if vanity had come into the matter would have been much prouder of having a king like a sailor. I was being accused of an offense which I lacked resources to commit. I was on another occasion called "affected" for asking what "stirabout" was. It is, in fact, a "low" Irish word for porridge. To certain adults it seems obvious that he who claims not to know the Low must be pretending to be High. Yet the real reason why I asked was that I had never happened to hear the word; had I done so I should have piqued myself on using it."
This got thinking about raising my own kids and seeing other people interact with young people. Children are many times considered and called brats or needy when they cry and seemingly misbehave when they are young. But, in reality, they may have no other way to communicate than to cry such as babies. Or they may not know the words to use to express how they are feeling. So we able them as something they actually aren't living out. We don't get out of our own views of how older children or adults act to investigate what is really going on.
I really started meditating on this during this time of accumulating gifts especially during this time of year. Children are said to be unappreciative if they break a toy or leave toys on the floor or outside after they are finished playing or move on to another form of play. But that is how more mature people show appreciation. We take care of things, keep them clean, put them away. But for young people, they show their appreciation by playing with and using items for the adventures, parties, tea times, battles, orphanages they take part in in their imaginations. That toy has been left where it was because it went through the throughs of imagination. Now, on to appreciating another toy. But we say they are unappreciative because they aren't putting them back where they go when in reality they are appreciating the heck out of it.
Breaking things is even still appreciation. They naturally want to push the envelope and see how they or their item can go. How far can I hit, push, jump, stand on, until I've gone to far. Adeline got a toy violin for Christmas and that item received the most joy out of any other gift. But it wasn't more than a day or two later when she had already broken the bow. How did she do that you ask. Well, she was standing on it. She wanted to see if she could. Could it handle it. In fact, she stands on everything! She wasn't be in unappreciative. She was devastated when it broke. But an older passerby would point out how she, in their mind, is as well as not taking care of her things.
Now in reality, we do need to teach our kids about taking care of their toys so that they can appreciate and use them for longer. But I think what needs to be corrected is our labeling of them in the moment, because the reality is these are actually prized possessions that are being used and played with and adding to imagination. They aren't kept in the box, to gather dust, to then one day be sold because they are still in mint condition.
