You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Fatherhood’ category.
… it is difficult for churches, government, and leaders to move beyond ego, the desire for control, and public posturing. Everything divides into oppositions … vested interests pulling against one another. Truth is no longer possible at this level of conversation.
… you can lead people only as far as you yourself have gone …
Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now
+ + +
Richard Rohr writes of two monks of the 11th and 12th century – Hugh of St. Victor monastery in Paris, France, and Richard of the same monastery. He tells us that these monks wrote that humans have been given three different ways of seeing. One way arises from the eyes that produce thoughts. The second way of seeing leads to reason, and to reflection and meditation. The third way of seeing leads to true understanding and contemplation.
It is the third way of seeing that is the rarest and most evolved. Whereas the first way of seeing is common, it produces little depth of experience, is more concrete and binds one to the immediate without nuance. The second way of seeing allows one to relish his or her power to conceive of the material disposition of the world. Ah, but the third way of seeing allows one to do more – it allows one to “taste” existence, to be in awe before the underlying mystery, coherence, and spaciousness that connects one with everything!
The third way of seeing is seeing as a mystic sees – seeing as God has designed us to see. This seeing exceeds the senses, does not rest on knowledge and intellect alone – but rather sees in a manner that expands his or her consciousness – and in this is transformed, made whole, lives in and above at the same time, is mortal and immortal, contented, whole and wise in ways that neither the senses nor intellect can offer.
In commenting on this Rohr says “I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the separation and loss of these three necessary eyes is at the basis of much of the short-sight-edness and religious crises in the Western world.” Hence the above quote that leads into today’s blog.
The view that Rohr shares, Dear Friends, highlights how and why “identity politics” is so destructive, so wrong-headed, so primitive, tribal, hostile, aggressive, hateful and unappetizing. Those with greater depth of human experience cannot abide that which pits one against another in a death struggle. We are, after all, not made to be enemies to one another but rather brothers and sisters to one another.
This historic moment requires us to see as the mystic sees.
Shalom.
Life demands for its completion and fulfillment a balance between joy and sorrow. But because suffering is … disagreeable, people naturally prefer not to ponder how much fear and sorrow fall to the lot of man. So they speak … about progress and the greatest possible happiness, forgetting happiness … is poisoned if the measure of suffering has not been fulfilled.
Carl Jung, M.D., in Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life (Collected Works, Vol. 16)
+ + +
Where are the adults and wisdom figures today? Not in politics. Not in higher education. Not in media. Not in journalism. Not in public life. Not in the law. Surely not in the established bureaucracies of the government. And most assuredly not in entertainment. Not among the Leftists and the whining ideologues, nor among the “professional” advocacy class and the liberals on television or the products of “identity politics.”
Nope, we are short of mature, wise adults.
In large measure this is due to having few people with honestly examined lives. Few who are familiar with human psychology, philosophy, the history of Western Civilization or history itself, few familiar with the Classics of literature, and fewer still who are spiritually developed and hence engaged in faith and guided by a religious narrative.
Super-power notwithstanding, a nation does not survive that is not populated with those who are broadly educated and are humbled by a life in which both joy and sorrow have been experienced.
When I look at the assembled collection of Democrat presidential aspirants I think only of this – “what a motley crew!” Not a one to whom I’d feel comfortable giving a sharpened pencil. Likewise, I prefer not to give attention to anyone in journalism – such is the state of that enterprise today.
So where does this leave one? To the task of independent self-education – becoming familiar with a range of disciplines that instruct as to the collected understanding of the human person for good and ill. And from this base – to the individual life lived to experience and know both joy and sorrow … which renders us sober, grateful, insightful, steady, humble, wise, courageous, faithful and joy-filled.
Alas the miss-mash we see in the nonsense of a secular society stripped of wisdom and insight ought to call us back to common sense, more silence than chatter, and quiet application of life dedicated to proper education and conduct now simply honored in their abandonment.
Shalom.
Happy Easter!!!
“… dying he has destroyed our death, and rising her has restored our life.”
+ + +
There is no human life on earth that is not subject to sin and death. Sin fractures relationships with others and indeed fragments our very self. Death is “that ubiquitous reaper.” But Christ changes that default setting that bedevils man and woman, child and adult.
Christ on the Cross redeems each of us from sin and neuters the dread of death, the pain of this mortal exodus. In Christ we are upright in soul and being – sin does not imprison and death does not threaten.
In Christ we have a whole new existence – human wholeness, spiritual expanse, contentment, strength, truth, humility, certainty amid the unknown, community, friendship everlasting. In Christ, all troubles teach and insight and wisdom abounds, patience too.
In Christ, love prevails as love is practiced in all manner of life’s encounters.
Imagine a culture in which consciousness of Christ was for each of us – the substance of each daily transaction, each moment, each idle hour, each day month after month, year after year. Imagine Western Civilization restored to its formative reality – Imagine America and Americans at their historic best – humble, compassionate, brave, sacrificial, honorable, hardworking, strong, independent, dignified, sober, gentle, just, forgiving, confident, grateful for each day and each breath, faithful and kind.
The worm, Friends, is turning. We have gone too long divided, disgruntled, angry, joyless, self-serving and without Christ.
The truth of the matter is quite simple – we need not “fundamentally alter America.” Those who think this are mistaken, ignorant of many things – and in need of faith. For them we might pray.
Shalom.
Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
John 13:21
+ + +
Betrayal. It is hard to imagine anything more disillusioning than violating a relationship.
Think about it, one has a trusted relationship and violates that trust. You can see it in a man who fathers a child but deserts his child and the woman with whom he fathered the child.
Imagine Judas who was mentored by Jesus. Think of what he did. He sat at the table with Jesus and his disciples and took his morsel given at the table and walked away … from Light to Darkness – that is betrayal. Judas choose alienation over sacred loyalty, over friendship, over duty and obligation, over faith, over honesty, over trust, evil over good, his own desires over God.
And then there is Peter. Pledging his loyalty to Jesus, he denied knowing Our Lord three times before the cock would crow. Yes, cowardice got the best of Peter. Yes, for Peter fear dominated faith. Yes, Peter, too, choose alienation. Yes, for Peter trust was abandoned, friendship was dishonored – God denied.
Look about you today. Are we a culture of trust? Or is betrayal more common?
Are we a culture of heroes or betrayers? One in which citizen is alienated from citizen? A culture of unity or division? Is division commonplace? Is it the way of a political party? Do women create division from men? Do father’s desert their children? Men and women divorce one another with ease?
Alienation. Betrayal. Distrust. Hero or coward? Loyal or not? Divisive or unifying? Neighbor or not? Friend or enemy? One alone or many together? God-full or Godless?
Shalom.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
[2:09 a.m., Sunday, March 17, 2019]
Today’s Blog is dedicated to my Irish brothers – Buddy Mahar, Jerry Shannon, John Downey, Mike O’Brien, Marty Donovan, Mike Ryan, Fr. Jim Beattie, John Connelly, Georgie Shannon, John Flynn, Johnny Corbert, Danny Crowley, Fr. Mark Hughes, Br. Tom Shaughnessy, the Roddy Brothers, Tommie Mahoney, John Boyle, Br. Malachy Borderick, Henry Murray, Jackie Alywood …
# # #
It was … reliance on home and family … dependence on faith and friendship, that gave Irish Catholics the unyielding determination to support lost causes and leaders long after all hope had been lost, all efforts failed, and all others had abandoned the struggle.
Thomas H. O’Connor, in The Boston Irish
+ + +
My lineage is from Scotland. I grew up with the Boston Irish – and am as thankful for that good fortune as I am for any number of blessings I have enjoyed amid the tumult along the way.
In approaching my recent birthday in the month of December, I seemed to be involuntarily fixed on a simple thought: Why had I found it so easy to be combative – standing with those who were in difficult straits and not apt to be heard by the powers that be … why did I so easily fight for strangers who needed my support and counsel?
I wondered: was this something God desired or was I out of step with His intentions for me? Had I followed Him or let myself and this combative nature lead me out of some inclination that I might better have left unattended?
As fate of the Divine would have it, I was (by chance) reading Tom O’Connor’s book on the Irish Boston and the author helped me realize that (as he reports) the Boston Irish were among the most steadfast of all the Irish who immigrated around the world. Bingo!
If God had wanted me to be less than combative and independent, a risk-taker in public matters and the law – He would not have placed me among my peers, my beloved, loyal, funny, independent, faith-filled, tough, witty Irish pals nor would He have led me to Irish pals throughout my life. Consequently, I now rest contented … I am, in my advocacy and general nature, who God intended me to be. I am one of them.
As many childhood friends tell be “Bobby, you never changed.” God and my Irish friends anchored me in who I was … such is grace so made present.
… the Irish did not break. Against all odds, in the face of irrefutable logic, contrary to the rules of law and the dictates of society, the Irish would refuse to accept any measure or policy that felt conflicted with their faith, their values, or their ideals. (Emphasis added.)
I gratefully share my life and Catholic faith with these dear brothers and so many who like them manifest the courage and love that the pursuit of good so requires.
God bless the Irish!
Shalom.
Beautiful Sunny Day in the Mountains. All is quiet.
# # #
Father in heaven, creator of all … Teach us the value of human love, show us the value of family life, and help us live in peace with all men that we may share in your life for ever.
A Portion of a Prayer from Morning Prayer for the days following Christmas.
+ + +
Do you wish one easy way to improve on the culture we now have? Think about the above. “Teach us the value of human love.” “Show us the value of family life.” “Living in peace with all men.”
It begins with love, does it not? But what do you know of love? More importantly – what does your culture seem to know about love?
Oh, in this culture we are swamped with sex and sexuality – but that is NOT love.
Think about the advocates focused on sexuality. You find them in multiple voices but all focus on sexuality and sexual pleasure – and frankly focused on their self-centered desires. How else can you define the killing of an unborn child as a “choice?” How else can we waste time talking about “multiple genders” – something of utter nonsense? Or how can same-sex “marriage” be the equal of Holy Matrimony? In all these things we have been reduced to those who live far from love as it is meant to be known among human beings.
What of the “value of family?” How can we have no-fault-divorce? So many adulteries? Mothers walking away from children? Teen mothers? Fatherless families? Men who flee their responsibilities as fathers?
And as to peace with all men – how can we be goaded into divisions based on gender (male and female), based on race, religion, ethnicity? How can we let peace be taken from us by divisions that are exploited for selfish political reasons all of which sow seeds of conflict and say to us: “I divide so I might rule over you?”
God rules, man does not … and those men and women who assert their leadership over us with ideas that shame God and what is good and holy ought to be dismissed promptly for their ignorance.
Amid all this – “A child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests … ” so says the Prophet Isaiah.
Love. Where is it? Where is it in culture? In you? Why do you let others hijack love from you? Be played the fool no longer – for a child is born unto us.
Shalom.
In the Celtic tradition many stories tell of the warrior or hero who goes off to battle but, before leaving, begets a son. The hero dies and so the son is born with no father and this is regarded as a Virgin Birth.
Joseph Campbell, in Thou Art That
+ + +
In the history of human story over the Ages, the idea of a Virgin Birth is rather common and it linkage is with the quest of the child (often a male child) who must seek his identity as a man and find his spiritual father.
James Joyce in Ulysses has Stephen Dedalus in search to find his spiritual father – the one who gives him his character.
Seeking one’s father is so common a literary event, is it not odd that this presents itself almost not at all in a secular culture whereby many children, and many male children, are born without a father in residence, even born to an unknown or absent father?
I, of course, ask this to point out that we are ignorant of a common human motif and the very critical quest that is presented to a boy who does not know his father. Likewise, I add this – we talk of Virgin Birth as largely a scientific non-starter … something that cannot be reasoned … as if reason is the source of all truth and understanding. Odd isn’t it. This the narrow scope of those who received an “education” such as it limits present.
A boy without a father faces a significant hurdle. I was such a boy. My father walked by me when I was a small child and never said “hi.” He played no greater part in my life. From him I learned that those who do not love you, do not love you … and that I was largely on my own, left (as I did) to protect my mother and learn from life and the good men and women around me – what it is to be a man.
In the context of this quest – I acquired considerable understandings – many subtle and nuanced – but all trans-generational and trans-cultural truths … In this context I was all eyes – watching and learning. In this context I learned how to defend myself and others and be aggressive when I needed to be … I saw more clearly the fit between men and women and our indispensable need for one another, and the unique and heroic nature of both men and women. I learned that two are stronger than one … and that we all have a Spiritual Father.
Shame on us for not seeing the common search of one’s father and the cost imposed by a father who flees his responsibilities, and for damage done by women who make “men” the cause of all that they feel has been wrongly done to them. Shame on us for not seeing that the violence of fatherless children has a great deal to do with our ignorance as to one’s desire to know who he is and to have a rite of passage to adulthood and an honorable fatherhood.
Is not Christ’s birth one such as our’s and given to us as a guide, a gift, a necessity?
Shalom.
Would you not yourself really like to be rich and corrupted? To have abundance of pleasure and be a worse man?
Zeno
+ + +
Think about the above. Is it not worth substituting “power” for wealth? I think so. We have so many who seek authority – but not many who are humble and hence ready for the task.
Enough. We need not seek these things but that God leads us to what is for us, what we are made to do and be.
Relax. And let God speak to you. He leads. We follow. It does not work otherwise.
Shalom.
… the Boston Irish are different … (than any other Irish who settled in this country)
(future President and Colonial Boston’s) John Adams, a thirty-year-old lawyer … viewed “popery” as incompatible with liberty and agreed … that Catholicism had no right to recognition or toleration.
Thomas H. O’Connor, in The Boston Irish: A Political History
+ + +
I have always wondered why my friends, family, neighbors were never afraid to speak up, were frankly tough, determined people who seemed to fear nothing – who would, in the face of adversity, double-down and be all that more insistent to overcome any obstacle they faced. The answer to my wonder: Boston – where we lived, where we grew up and built life long bonds with others.
I was raised among the Irish and as a Celt (Scot) with a similar disposition and history vis a vis the British, I took on the character of the remarkable Irish people that were my friends, second family, my brothers, sisters and neighbors.
History Professor Thomas O’Connor lays out the history peculiar to Boston of years upon years of Puritan and Protestant hatred of the Irish. I give you one example: in the 1700’s November 5th was a day of Protestant parades celebrating anti-popery which ended each year with the burning of an effigy of the Pope followed my violent clashes between Puritans and Catholics.
Nothing toughens one as having to defend yourself, your family, your friends and neighbors against bigotry and hatred. Yes, the Boston Irish (of whom I am in union) are a rare breed – an extended family, a clan of courageous, hard-nosed, clever, determined people – more than willing to step up and speak out – those with no fear of authority figures.
Knowing this I wonder where is the toughness of today’s working and middle class who have been dealt a bad hand by the arrogant, self-serving elites – the globalists who export jobs to foreign lands and support or pursue what can generously be described as policies that diminish family and marriage and allow unborn children to be destroyed? Where are faithful people, Believers, particularly Catholics and evangelicals who see these things and others and remain polite when their faith is assaulted?
I can say but one thing – quietude is not the habit of the Boston Irish as to such matters.
You might want to think about that. We are too quiet, too silent, too polite.
Perhaps this is why I gravitate to the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame …
Shalom.
Spirlaw 