So you took a selfie with a red X, are you really #inittoendit ?

It’s February 28^th, are you still in it to end it?

Disclaimer: I’m not proclaiming to know anyone’s purpose, inspiration, drive for taking part in the End It movement. I’m just expressing some concerns.

Fad movements really irk me. I have no qualms with the people who see a problem and want to make a difference. What bothers me is when these movements get going, become popular, people start jumping on the bandwagon (not necessarily a bad thing), and then it’s over. People took part, posted their selfies, wore the shirt, wore a bracelet, and then that’s it.

I know the main purpose for these is to bring awareness to the masses. And that’s the easiest part no doubt, and a necessity. But my question is what then? What more are you going to do? Now that the concert/rally is over, now that you have felt like you are a part of something and shown you are a part of something, where do you go from here? Talk is cheap. Pictures, I think, are cheaper (which actually in this case is good…cheap advertising). What about your time? What about your talent? What about your treasure?

Is this important enough to you to sacrifice time with friends and family and life style? Do you do something very well to where you can offer that talent to further the movement’s cause? Do you believe in this enough to sacrifice your hard earned money? Can you sacrifice that movie, concert, eating out, gifts to give, material wants, to further the cause?

Now, I will state my ignorance. Other than the website http://enditmovement.com/ I don’t know how money is donated. I did raise my eyebrow at the $116, 735.50 raised. With all the celebrities pictured with red X’s and the X’s plastered all over social media, I would expect more money. But again, this is outside looking in.

Now please don’t get me wrong. I am not attacking the End It Movement. Slavery is not new, slavery has never stopped; so this is necessary. I commend those who started this and are lending a helping hand to the charities that are on the front lines by helping them get new donors and putting their names out there. This is a challenge to those taking the selfies, wearing the shirts and bracelets, wearing X’s for a day and washing them off later.

I want to end with a couple challenges. 1. If you wore an X, donate just one dollar. If everyone donated a dollar, just imagine. 2. One of the largest groups of slaves are sex slaves. Do you watch porn? Do you purchase/own porn whether videos or print? Do you go to strip clubs? Do you solicit prostitutes? If so, YOU are contributing to slavery. You don’t even have to make a purchase. If you just go to a website, free or not, you are giving them traffic and communicating to the industry that there is interest. Those women/men you may be looking at/paying may not be enslaved themselves, but those that are enslaved are there because someone started “small” with porn and then escalated and moved on to the next big thing to the point they wanted an actual warm body instead of a screen or page. Stop it! YOU are part of the problem. I don’t care if you need to toss hundreds/thousands of dollars worth of whatever product you purchased, go see a therapist, pastor, spiritual director, hit confession to get rid of this habit. Just do it. Your life and the lives of those around you will be better, and this will further the movement to stop slavery. If there is no demand there is no need for a supply.

End It movement:

http://enditmovement.com/

Fight the New Drug: Pornography

http://www.fightthenewdrug.org/

Chastity Project:

http://chastityproject.com/

Integrity Restored: Helping men break free from pornography addiction

http://www.integrityrestored.com/HowPornHurtsMen

Think a little porn is harmless?

http://www.faithit.com/the-way-this-video-connects-porn-and-global-injustice-will-make-you-see-the-world-in-a-very-different-way-warning-you-cant-unwatch-this/

Porn LITERALLY changes the way your bring functions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU

Vertical Wildness, Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, and Christopher West

I thought I’d use this 7 posts in 7 days challenge to explain the picture I have as my background and why I chose it.

This picture depicts Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati mountain climbing. And now, a little about Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati thanks to www.catholic.org:

 He was born in Turin into a wealthy family, who owned a newspaper called La Stampa. Though an average student, Frassati was known among his peers for his devotion and piety.

He was dedicated to works of social action, charity, prayer and community. He was involved with Catholic youth and student groups, the Apostleship of Prayer, Catholic Action, and was a third order Dominican. He would often say, "Charity is not enough; we need social reform." He helped establish a newspaper entitled Momento, whose principles were based on Pope Leo XIII's encyclical: Rerum Novarum.

Despite his family's enormous wealth and power, Frassati's father was austere and never gave his children too much spending money. Frassati, however, donated most or all of his money to people he saw as more "needy" than him, and as a result he became accustomed to giving his train-fare to the poor and running back home or riding in third class.

Despite the many organizations to which Frassati belonged, he was not a passive "joiner"; records show that he was active and involved in each, fulfilling all the duties of membership. He was strongly anti-fascist and did nothing to hide his political views.

Participating in a Church-organized demonstration in Rome, he withstood police violence and rallied the other young people by grabbing the banner which the police had knocked out of someone else's hands. He held it even higher while using the pole to ward off their blows. When the demonstrators were arrested by the police, he refused special treatment that he might have received because of his father's political position, preferring to stay with his friends. One night a group of fascists broke into his family's home to attack him and his father, but Frassati beat them off single-handedly chasing them down the street.

Frassati died in 1925 of poliomyelitis. His family expected Turin's elite and political figures to come to offer their condolences and attend the funeral; they naturally expected to find many of his friends there as well. They were surprised, however, to find the streets of the city lined with thousands of mourners as the cortege passed by. Poor people from the city petitioned the Archbishop of Turin to begin the cause for canonization. The process was opened in 1932 and he was beatified on 20 May 1990. Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati's feast day is 4 July.

Frassati was called Man of Eight Beatitudes by Pope John Paul II, who beatified him. (Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati)

I explained my purpose in choosing my title in my first post. Living out vertical wildness is all about taking what we’re given in this life, creation, man’s creation and taking full advantage of it and living a full life, but without losing sight of our destination, heaven, eternity, union with God. Christopher West continues on in “Fill These Hearts”: 

“Recall the distinction we made previously between horizontal and vertical wildness. As “wild” as the horizontal variety might get, it is of its very nature limited. It loses all order in its hopeless and frantic search for infinite bliss in the realm of finite pleasures. Vertical Wildness, on the other hand, without losing order, loses measure because it launches us into infinity. Vertical wildness is a rock that-through much struggle, discipline, and a radical openness to divine grace-has found its true target, adjusted its trajectory, and thus it can launch with all its firepower without fear of missing the mark.” 

We should take initiative to live our earthly lives aimed heavenward. We should live the cross (horizontal and vertical). When someone lives wildly in the horizontal/earthly aspect of life they are overindulging in earthly pleasures and making them their means and ends (1 Cor 6:9-10 "Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were." See also: Gal 5:19-21, Ephesians 5:3-6, Revelation 22:12-16, Matthew 25:41-46) To live vertically means to have God as our end, our destination, growing holier and holier everyday with the hope of one day being in heaven with him for eternity.

From what we know of Bl. Frassati’s life, he lived a vertically wild life, a cruciform life. He was involved with the pleasures and activities of this life being and outdoorsman skiing and mountain climbing, but he was also involved in youth organizations and in politics. He wasn’t even afraid of defending himself with his strength. And at the same time he was an extremely devout Catholic man. Even though his parents weren’t devout he somehow found a love for God seeking out Eucharistic adoration as a very young man. He was even known to attend mass before or after his expeditions in the mountains. Many people feel that they have to separate their faith life and their social life. With the right destination in mind they can and should be integrated with the vertical affecting how the horizontal is spent. Bl. Frassati is a great example of this.

The quote on the picture says “Verso l’alto” which he wrote himself. It is usually translated “to the heights”. Bl. Frassati lived a life aimed towards the heights. Bl. Frassati ended up dying a month after this picture was taken and the climb ended up being his last.

“Our life, in order to be Christian, has to be a continual renunciation, a continual sacrifice. But this is not difficult, if one thinks what these few years passed in suffering are, compared with eternal happiness where joy will have no measure or end, and where we shall have unimaginable peace.” – Blessed Giorgio Frassati

The Wisdom of Breasts

Ok, now that I’ve gotten that shameless shock tactic of a somewhat provocative title to draw attention to this blog post…I wonder where this will show up on search engines. If you couldn’t tell, I’d like to talk about breasts.

Just about any guy who has grown up in the past 30 or so years has heard the phrases “I’m a boob guy” or “I’m a butt guy”, relegating women to two categories based on their preference of physical feature. We’re not worried about hair, eyes, lips, facial structure, hands, feet, smell, no that’s all thrown out the window. A guy is said to be attracted to a woman based on her top shelf or bottom shelf. Very chivalric, I know.

But, if we step back and take a breath (do it, breathe) it is pretty interesting that these two body parts are on the broad scale of movies, tv, advertising, music, the focus of attractiveness. When we just break them down to biology, these are very useful body parts. The breasts’ sole purpose is to feed offspring. In fact, many physicians believe that breasts are not fully developed until a woman has given birth and produced milk. They are a cafeteria in waiting, only going into full milk production after a woman is not pregnant any more. I state it that way because it is possible for women who have had abortions or miscarriages to begin to lactate. Another amazing feature I learned during our breast feeding class for my first daughter is that the areolas will darken due to hormones which make for easy location for the baby. The butt, well that’s simple. It’s your own personal seat cushion and waste disposal system. No glamor and glitz here people.

Now, in God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence he didn’t just create our bodies to be functional. They exude beauty and strength, they communicate, male and female fit together. At a very primal approach, yeah God knew what he was doing, for the most part members of the opposite sex are first attracted by looks, the body. We only have to look as far as the nearest art museum to see that the classical view of the masculine body and the feminine body is pretty universal. Men’s bodies are muscular and powerful while women’s are soft, curvaceous, and beautiful. These days the human body has been commandeered to invoke lust to the point where though our society is rampant with pornographic images it is at times very prudish to the point where people are offended when a woman feeds her baby, gives nourishment, KEEPS HER BABY ALIVE by breastfeeding in public. How dare she?

But the Church, abhorrent to prudishness, has used the female body, even bare breasts, to communicate and point to spiritual realities. Like I mentioned before, just plainly a naked female body communicates femininity and beauty. When it comes to breasts a whole trove of topless maidens and even topless Virgin Mary’s can be found. But these aren’t used to prompt lust but to point to higher spiritual realities. A cursory study of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body will show that our bodies are meant for the other, to be given for the good of the other. I learned this very candidly when our first and now our second daughter was born. We breast feed on demand and it is a grueling ordeal for my wife to offer herself physically to our daughter. This in turn definitely affects her emotionally and spiritually. But, in the end, the benefits of breastfeeding far outweigh any fortified man made formula. This idea, the self-donative aspect of the body and its ability to communicate continues into Christian art.

The Virgin Mary has been depicted as Our Lady of the Milk. She is pictured topless or with one bare breast offering it to the baby Jesus. Just think of it, Mary fed, nourished, kept Jesus alive with her own body! He wasn’t just brought into this world through her body but he also depended on her self-donative love, her giving herself fully physically to keep him alive. Some people may be scandalized, “How dare they show Mary’s breast,” but among all her titles the one that stands out and was very important to Jesus was “Mother”. The Word became flesh, human, so had to be sustained in human ways. There is no scandalous invocation of lust here.

Jesus is not the only one that Mary has been depicted in nourishing with her breasts in art. I recently came upon a picture on Taylor Marshall's blog of a statue of Mary squirting milk from her breast into the mouth of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. There is a legend that while in prayer before a statue of Mary St. Bernard said to Mary, “Show yourself a mother” and the statue came to life and squirted milk into his mouth. Yeah, that one’s a little weird, but none the less a depiction of Mary as mother and nourishing with her breasts.

In the painting “Liberty Leading the People” (yes I know this is not a Catholic piece of art but you’ll see it serves my purpose) Lady Liberty (Marianne) leads the battle topless. Delacroix’s Lady Liberty is depicted as a goddess on a pedestal of corpses symbolizing new life (breasts), power (topless, not worried). Marianne, Lady Liberty and an emblem of France, is an allegorical goddess depicting liberty and reason.

Even some of the women depicting virtues on the arches of the nave in St. Peter’s Basilica have their breasts exposed. Saint Peter's Basilica

So in the end, women’s breasts have been used to go beyond nutrition to communicate power, beauty, femininity, and life. And in reality, biologically they possess these attributes. This realization and appreciation going past just the sheer beauty of the feminine body has come to full fruition for me in marriage and fatherhood. If only society could follow suite. When we’re able to do so we can fully appreciate the depth of verses like Isaiah 66:11-12 “So that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; That you may drink with delight at her abundant breasts! For thus says the Lord: I will spread prosperity over her like a river, like an overflowing torrent, the wealth of nations. You shall nurse, carried in her arms, cradled upon her knees”. And let’s not forget Song of Songs. Here’s a foretaste: “Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle feeding among the lilies” (Song of Songs 4:5

Check this site out for Maria Lactans, pictures of Mary as Mother: Maria Lactans

Awe of God's Wine

I’ve flown more often than I ever have in the past year and a half than ever before. Most of the time Erika and Elanor would fly out a few days early so that they could spend more time at home. This left me to take many trips out to TX alone. I remember one flight from Denver to Houston very specifically. I was sitting by the window and I was staring out at the view. I was in a state of wonder and awe at my bird’s eye view. I remember thinking to myself, “I don’t want to lose this.”

When I fly I always try to get a window seat if I can. I’m like a little kid every time I fly. Once I get my seat I’m ready and waiting for the plane to take off. Taxiing to the point where we would take off is just a tease. The take-off is a rush all the way to when we reach our coasting speed. And, this whole time I’m looking out the window. The accomplishment of human flight is amazing! To quote Louis C.K., “You’re sitting in a chair in the sky!” But, it’s the window that always draws me. I can never get enough of the amazing views that are achieved by making a 438 ton machine take off into the air. The views of the land whether plain or mountain, over water, or above the clouds always take my breath away. Whether it’s these views or any other achievement or part of creation, I don’t want to lose that feeling.

I think to lose that experience of wonder and awe is in a way to lose what Jesus spoke about when he said, “Amen I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it”, (Mark 10:15). Jesus is talking about total obedience and total dependence. I think if we really are obedient and dependent on God then we are also receptive to the wonders of his creation. The saints knew that when God shows up he shows off and that everything he created he created for us to be drawn to him and that we should be able to take it all in while at the same time knowing he is the destination. Creation is just a small part of God’s wooing us. St. Teresa of Avila puts our response this way, 

“The King seems to refuse nothing to the Bride! Well, then, let her drink as much as she desires and get drunk on all these wines in the cellar of God! Let her enjoy these joys, wonder at these great things, and not fear to loser her life through drinking much more than her weak nature enables her to do. Let her die at last in this paradise of delights; blessed death that makes one live in such a way.”

I do think there is a danger in needing our stomach to be pumped due to the wine Teresa is talking about. Everything in creation is pointing us to God. But there are many who don’t see the forest for the trees. They fall in love with the invitation and not the sender. They fall in love with the wine and not the wine maker. I have an acquaintance who enjoys the mountains and skiing in them. He will post his pictures from his vacation and talk about how much he enjoys nature. At the same time, he’s an atheist. When I meet people like that who are just so enthralled with what God has done to draw us to him I can’t help but think, “You’re so close!”

I don’t want to be the type of person that boasts, “I’ve seen that before” or “what’s so special about that”. I want to always be taken aback by magnificent waterfalls, beaches, powerful thunderstorms, clear blue skies. I want to gasp at views from the edge of a cliff or looking up from the foot of a mountain. I want to be mesmerized by the tiniest creatures and powerful behemoths. And I always want to feel blessed when in the presence of what a woman’s body can do in nine months.

There are some things that sometimes don’t seem like they belong on this earth. See for yourself: 

 Snail Lovin

And check out this video to see the wonder of size in the universe and just how tiny we are: 

Earth...Not so big