Catholic Raconteur

I have begun to take this blog in a new direction. Mostly because it didn't have much direction. My vision for this blog is for it to be a place for me to post my thoughts and musings on life, the world, culture, and whatever else inspires me and I desire to share.

I chose the pseudonym, "Catholic Raconteur" because when I stop to think about it that is, as many people would describe, what I am, and simultaneously, who I strive to be.

A lot of things in the world inspire, entertain, and otherwise fascinate me. I am a passionate person and a pretty excitable little guy. In all innocence when these things happen, I get really excited and cannot wait to share this with other people. I have such a strong desire to share my joys and excitements with others so that they may too share in that experience to some degree. I am what you might call and extreme extrovert. I process my thoughts and feelings with other people and love having conversations. This leads to what I can't seem to stop doing, and that is telling stories. So this blog really is an outlet for that.

I believe that there is great power in stories. I believe that everyone has a story that they want to tell, and sharing stories is quite probably my favorite thing to do. Stories are ultimately what drive much of our culture. Artists for centuries have used music, movies, poetry, art, to express not only emotions, but to tell stories. This brings me to the prime example: Christ himself taught in parables, which are stories. We are able to communicate lessons and ideas in profound ways through stories and the beautiful thing, in my experience, is that each time a story is told, each different hearer takes away something unique to them.

So often, when trying to get to know someone we ask, 'What is your story?' All of life so many times is viewed as a story; we study history as a story. God is the author of the story and we all have our own role to play in the story. Until we see the whole story unfold at the end of days, we all journey through life trying to live our own stories, seeing where they overlap or join with others, and trying to figure out how it all fits together.

So in this chapter of my own life, I am hoping to share a bit of my story, and other stories that inspire, excite, or otherwise bring me joy so that they might inform and influence your own story for the better.

Awake, my soul!

"Awake O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light." Ephesians 5:14

We as a society are sleeping. I have realized this more and more as of late. We have used things like science, reason, technology, and all sorts of distractions to put our souls to sleep. We are constantly distracting ourselves from life. We are always connected to something. We are constantly distracting ourselves with our computers, ipods, kindles, etc. We are missing out on so much of what life has to offer. We are missing out on what it means to be human. Just the other day I saw some dad at the park with his little boy. The boy was playing and being funny and cute, but the dad was only paying attention to phone while texting. It was sad to see him missing out on his son.

I was recently at a talk and I got to listen to one of the Vatican’s astrologers, Br. Guy Consolmagno S.J. speak. He is a brilliant man with several degrees from MIT. He spoke a lot about religion and science, and how we cannot have science without religion. He spoke against materialism that we find today in Physicists who try to explain how the universe works in order to explain away God. Br. Guy commented that is the material universe is all that there is, it is meaningless. And if it is meaningless, than what is the point to studying it with science? This is a great point, however it caused me to think about the human experience, and how asleep we are that we don’t even notice the bigger reality.

We, as human beings, are the only creatures that have science. We are the only beings who have philosophy or art. Have you ever seen an animal stop and appreciate a sunset? Or have you known a tree to ask “who am I and how do I fit in to the bigger picture?” How about any other creature that explores? The reason that humans are the only creatures to look out and the universe and ask what is the meaning of everything? Is because that is the very thing that makes us human!

And so, the irony of it all is that scientists will try and use reason to explain how the entire universe works and come up with an answer disproving God, but the fact that he even asks the question PROVES that there is a God. Human beings, all of us, seek something more. We aren’t content with what is around us. We wonder why we are here, and what it means. Every human being gets hungry. When that happens we know that we need food. The fact that we are born with the desire for food and nourishment means that food and nourishment must exist. Otherwise why would we all be created with this desire? Likewise every human at some point or another has a desire for something bigger than themselves, something bigger than this world. The fact that we are all made with this desire for God proves that He exists; otherwise why would we be made with a desire for Him?

The irony to me behind all of this is that we negate the human experience with all of these distractions. We have scientists so focused on proving that God doesn’t exist and all the while they are driven by this question deep down inside that points to His existence. Chris Stefanick spoke at a conference to some teens recently and said, “People are always looking at the mountains and the stars and then asking ‘God, why don’t you revel yourself to me?’” Chris then wagered that God would answer, “Do you miss…everything?” Science can explain where mountains and stars come from, but that can’t explain that feeling you get in your soul when you notice how beautiful they are. Science can’t explain why it is only humans that appreciate and seek beauty. Science can’t explain why it is only humans who do science, and why doing science in the first place is what makes us human. We all just need to wake up to those experiences all around us and we will see more perfectly what God has for each and every one of us. We will wake up to what it truly means to be human.

“Awake, my soul! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!” Psalm 57:8

The plain, the ordinary, and the EPIC

So this morning I arrived in my office to find a link that my brother posted on my facebook wall. It was a link to the Theme from Mighty Ducks D3. He wrote, “Two things. 1) This brings back some of the happiest memories of my life. 2) I still have no idea why I'm not doing musical composition with my life. Think of Bombay walking down the hall at the end of D3 and tell me your day wasn't just made.” I love my brother so much. I know that he put that on my wall because he was listening to the song and it evoked in him deep and epic emotions about music, life, passion, and purpose and he wanted to share that with me because he knew that I would understand exactly what he meant. And I did. Completely. I wasn’t quite expecting my morning to start this way. Here I was at 8am going through my morning routine, and I stopped for a few minutes to listen to this music and reminisce about the many memories and feelings it brings up and I found myself tearing up in my office. Good thing I was alone! 

A few minutes later, I was walking across the parish campus to go to 8:30 Mass just like everyday. I paused a moment to see the morning sun light up the Rocky Mountains and then continued on into Church. As I sat in the Church reflecting on the readings, trying to prepare my heart, and waiting quietly for the Mass to begin, I had the song from Mighty Ducks still stuck in my head. I kept thinking about all the raw emotion and inspiration I had just felt while sitting in my office only minutes before! 

There is something to be said about passion, about the deep desires of our hearts. In the Gospel of John, Christ tells us that He came that we would have life abundantly- meaning full to the point of overflowing. (cf. John 10:10). There is something about good music that moves me and makes me come alive. Music, to me, can express and evoke feelings that no picture, painting, sculpture, landscape, or words ever could. And lately in my own personal life and prayer life I have been chasing after these things that make me come alive. One of my favorite quotes from is from St. Irenaeus who said, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” All over scripture we read that God made us for His glory. He made us to live life to the full; to come alive. To fully live out the abundant life that God wants for us, to bring Him glory, we need to understand these desires of our hearts; we need to figure out what it means to be FULLY ALIVE. In the spirit of that, I plan on going sky diving this month. It is something that I have always wanted to do and it makes me come alive, so I am going to go for it! 

Back to this morning pre-Mass: so there I was and I was getting ready for the Mass, and I thought about all the epic things in life from good music, to snowboarding the Rockies, to jumping out of a plane, and how they make me come alive and give me that rush. Then I thought what is more epic that the Mass? This is where we come into real contact with the God of the universe. This is where we experience our very purpose for living! Why then, I thought, is it so hard to enter into Mass sometimes? Why can’t Mass be played up like skydiving or extreme sports? We should have epic music and a gong at every Mass so that we can enter in to the sheer epic-ness! “Why don’t we do that?” I thought. But as I sat in the silence and reflected on Mass, it all hit me. It is the simplicity and the sometimes silence of Mass that makes it epic. It is the sacramental aspect of all of life that is epic.

The fundamental truth upon which all of Scripture opens is that God created and it is good. All of creation then, including us is created as good. Our desires, our humanity is good. This probably the biggest difference between Catholic theology and all other Christian theology: we celebrate creation. It is the sacraments, and the Eucharist in particular, that point us to this truth. We use oil, water, salt, bread and wine; all created things in the sacraments. These simple created things point us to the Divine, and remind us that all of creation is good. And it is through these simple pieces of creation that God chooses to meet us. He encounters us in the simple. That is what is so truly radical! God elevates the natural to the supernatural. That is what makes the Incarnation so profound! God himself took on flesh. He became a human and as a result elevated all humanity to sheer epic-ness itself. He teaches us what It means to be alive; what it means to be human. And in the Eucharist, in humility, God comes down quietly, without an epic soundtrack, and meets us in the most intimate way under the signs of simple bread and wine. That is why the Mass is structured the way it is. We pray out loud, we sing, we stand, sit, kneel, we look at statues and stained glass, we smell the incense, we hear the Scriptures proclaimed. We worship with all of our senses, because we are both body and soul. 

This is what epic is. God shows us how to live life abundantly. He shows us what it means to be fully alive and it isn’t some big ordeal or showy event. It is in the simple things every single day. So often we feel like we can’t see God or we can’t hear Him when we pray. We spend all of our time looking for some Divine bill-board to make it obvious to us, and we expect some epic encounter. However, God chooses to come to us in a simple way. We learn that living life to the full, in an epic way, isn’t about traveling the world to ridiculous spots and then doing something dangerous for an adrenaline rush. Living life to the full is living life in relationship with God. The Catechism states it beautifully, “man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with God,” (CCC 44). Life then, is not a series of grand moments, but a daily adventure. On the surface it can seem boring, quiet, and routine; but if we understand redemption, we understand that God chooses to meet us there in plain, ordinary things every day. And then those plain, ordinary things come alive and point us to the supernatural. Suddenly, plain and ordinary become epic.

I see hope in the sunshine.

So I was so excited for tropical storm Bonnie. Everyone down here told me about hurricane parties and had me looking forward to just holding up in a house with some people and waiting out this intense storm with movies and good times. As of this afternoon Bonnie has me disappointed and for several reasons. First, thanks to her we had to cancel our weekend plans which were to go tubing and water skiing on a lake in Mississippi. Secondly, Bonnie got herself downgraded to a tropical depression, whatever that is, and I have yet to see any rain. So not only did my exciting plans get canceled, now it seems like I won't even get to experience a hurricane party, which I have come equate as being similar to a southerner experiencing their first snow day.

So all this being said you can imagine how upset I was when I headed to the church for confession this evening and it was not only hot, but there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. It was a bright sunshine-y day. And then I stared at the sun angry that all of my plans kept being taken from me and here this celestial being was a reminder of that. Then I began to contemplate the sun and what it does and how it behaves. It gives of light and heat. It brings life to the earth and all living things by its light. As it moves and rises and sets it reminds us of change and new beginnings. Every time we see it rise we experience a new day and when we see it set we are reminded that there is always more to come. As the sun sits high in the heavens and gazes down on the earth it reminds of light and life. And it reminds us of Christ who is indeed the light of life. When I see the sun and contemplate what it does it reminds me of Christ's plan for me and saving action; how He is constantly drawing me to himself and is seeking to enact His will in my life.

So though my day and plans were taken by feaux weather, my bitterness was broken by this joyful reflection granted to me by the Lord through our brother sun. I found hope in the sunny day. And its not over yet so let's see what Bonnie may yet have in store.

Can you live with yourself?

"There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him." Mark 7:15. I often tell people that I want to be Captain Jack Sparrow. Seriously. I am a big Johnny Depp fan and I just love that character; he fascinates me. I have probably watched all three of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies more than any other film that I know of. I love to see the story progress, though at times it is a bit unusual and can feel a little too involved. Most of all I love the adventure that it just takes you on. My favorite of the films is the third one-"At World's End". I don't think it had necessarily the best plot, and the ending is almost too 'trippy'. However, the little saying and one liners, and motifs we find in this movie I think are great lessons we can take and apply to our everyday Christian life. Now I must put in this DISCLAIMER. As a Catholic striving to live an promote the teachings of the Church, I must address the paradox of the entire idea of the "Pirates" movies. The protagonists and heroes we love and celebrate are thieves and murderers and the lifestyle that they lead and is in a way promoted by the films is NOT in line with the teachings of the Church and I do not condone of support it. Don't become pirates kids. Stealing and murdering and pillaging is sinful and wrong. So, I still contest that there is good in the movie that is presented even in the characters who are not living the most righteous lifestyle. Which goes to show that God can work in any heart. I could go on and on for hours about the different themes and typology that I see in the films, but I will focus in on the theme of redemption that I see in Captain Jack Sparrow. I want to look at just one line from the third film in the short exchange between him and his father played by Keith Richards. Jack Sparrow says to his dad "What? You've seen it all, done it all. Survived. That's the trick isn't it? To survive?" To which his elder and mysterious pirate father replies, " It's not just about living forever, Jackie. The trick is still living with yourself forever."

I was watching the film this summer and that line just jumped out at me! And it's within the next few scenes that play out where we see this theme of redemption come through in the character of Jack Sparrow. He has this crazy plan in the film to just live forever, to do what it takes to escape death, however if you go so far as to say, the short exchange with his dad is a sort of foreshadowing and we see in the end a change in Captain Jack. In the second film as he trades a close friend for a few extra days of freedom, Davy Jones asks him, "Can you live with yourself letting a be condemned to a life of servitude while you go free?" At the time Jack is fine with that. Yet in the third film he forfeits his own desires and in fact trades the opportunity for immortality and his own personal gain for those he cares about. This act of selflessness shows that change and begins in my mind to unpack the truth from the line by Keith Richards about living with yourself forever. What Jack Sparrow comes to realize that there is more to life than what we can get for ourselves, and it is what we do that makes us good or bad, more so, one could go so far as to say that our interactions and relationships with other people are what matter most in this life.

As Christians this applies to us particularly. Our goal is to live forever; to have eternal life. But at what cost? How does one inherit eternal life? Through our understanding of Scriptures and the Church it is by baptism and a relationship with Jesus Christ. But more than that, it is the living out of that relationship with Christ that bring us to heaven. So often as Christians we try to measure our own holiness. This is an absolutely ridiculous idea, but we do it anyway. Too many times we try to measure our own holiness against others specifically in how much one prays or how many works of mercy, or just good things one does. However, holiness is not measure in absence of sin, but rather presence of God. Holiness is a journey, not a destination. Holiness is a relationship with a living being. How well we do in that relationship and how much we let it impact the way we ourselves live is what determines how holy we are. To lose sight of that can be both dangerous an discouraging.

In the vain of pirates, we see even the most vain and self interested character in Jack Sparrow and in the end when faced with the idea of eternity and life and death he chooses the path that he can best live with. We are indeed led to believe that he had every intention of doing what he had to for himself but chose the path that kept his conscience clean. Ultimately, as his father said, the trick is living with yourself forever. As we walk through life it isn't how well we pray or how little we sin, how perfect we make ourselves feel that determine our holiness. So when we look at our lives and our relationship with Christ in the scope of eternity, are our consciences clean? Do we really have that presence of God? Is the way we are living now a way that we can look back on at the end of our lives and still feel good about? Can we truly live with ourselves rather than knowing we did just what it took to get ahead for ourselves. Because it isn't how perfect we seem, for "There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him." Mark 7:15. And the good news is that we don't have to do it alone. "Strive even unto death for the truth and the Lord will fight for you." Sirach 4:28

Everybody is good at something. I am tremendously blessed to be at more than one thing. I happen to be good at doing Mickey Mouse impersonations, something that I plan to perfect hope will pay off in the long run. Still, with all of my talents I will admit that I have missed the boat. I have taken many for them for granted and not used them or live up to my fullest potential. I have looked at my talents and used them to seek admiration, affirmation and ultimately validation from others. I have used my talents to show off, feed my ego, and impress those who I looked up to or wanted to like me. The real danger here is first I find my self seeking validation where it cannot come from, but also I begin to almost derive my own identity from these talents.

I played hockey growing up and I loved it. It was the one thing that I stuck with the longest and out of everything I have done it brought me the most joy. I played so much that it became my life. From season to season there was always another team to make and game to play. However, when it all ended I had nothing but my memories to show for it. Honestly, I felt lost. I felt that my identity was gone and I was useless. Hockey was what I was good at, and now I am not good at anything anymore. More importantly I had no way to prove myself to others. No way to seek that affirmation or validation.

Maybe you can relate, or have had similar experiences. What I had to learn the hard way is that my identity and my validation do not come from what I am good at; they do not even come from what I do. Knowing that I am talented should cultivate gratitude within me. I am only talented because the Lord has given me those talents. If it weren't for Him, I would not have those talents. Also the validation I seek to gain so desperately with those talents also must come from Him. If I have no talents apart from God, I can't have any validation from God.

What I have learned is this. My identity comes from God my maker. From Him derives my talents and my purpose. What I do or don't, or what I am good at or am not good at does not make up who I am. Who I am to God is who my identity is. Therefore I receive my validation by realizing that identity and taking all that I am and all that I am blessed with, and I give them back to Him, the source of my identity. So by living out my talents and ultimately my identity for Him from which they come, then I receive my validation.

By taking what He has given me and using it to the full, then giving it back to Him; by glorifying Him in everything I do-that's where my validation comes from.

+AMDG+

To hope in destiny.

There exists a movie entitled "Serendipity". It is one of my favorites, starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale and has Jeremy Piven in an amazing supporting role. It is a romantic comedy about destiny guiding love and the romantic life. Kind of along the lines of the true love will never die and always works out in the end type of stories. Now I am not going to go into what true love is or how the movie doesn't quite portray it correctly, that isn't what this particular thought is about. The name of the movie serendipity says it all. Merriam-Webster defines serendipity as the faculty of phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for. Or, as the movie puts it, a fortunate accident. What we see in the film that has inspired this specific brain wave is the idea of destiny. How there is some force beyond our control that is behind everything that happens to us and drives the course of our life. So is destiny real? Do we have any control over our lives and the course they take? In the film, Jeremy Piven's character writes an obituary for his friend Jonathon as the best man speech for his wedding and it reads as follows below:

Jonathan Trager, prominent television producer for ESPN, died last night from complications of losing his soul mate and his fiancee. He was 35 years old. Soft-spoken and obsessive, Trager never looked the part of a hopeless romantic. But, in the final days of his life, he revealed an unknown side of his psyche. This hidden quasi-Jungian persona surfaced during the Agatha Christie-like pursuit of his long reputed soul mate, a woman whom he only spent a few precious hours with. Sadly, the protracted search ended late Saturday night in complete and utter failure. Yet even in certain defeat, the courageous Trager secretly clung to the belief that life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences. Uh-uh. But rather, its a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite, sublime plan. Asked about the loss of his dear friend, Dean Kansky, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and executive editor of the New York Times, described Jonathan as a changed man in the last days of his life. "Things were clearer for him," Kansky noted. Ultimately Jonathan concluded that if we are to live life in harmony with the universe, we must all possess a powerful faith in what the ancients used to call "fatum", what we currently refer to as destiny.
Now there is a lot of good within what was written in this obituary. I particularly like the analogy of life as an intricate tapestry of events all culminating in a sublime plan. In a sense that is true, but the idea of destiny; how does that play in? As Christians we believe that God has a plan for the entirety of creation and an intimate plan for all of our lives. However, we do not, as Catholics believe in predestination in terms of each little event in our lives is planned for us until the time of our death including whether or not we reach salvation. We believe in free will and whether we see heaven or hell is ultimately up to us because our God loves us so much he gives us the ability and freedom to choose. Yet He still has a plan that is more times than not a mystery to us, and it is our job to seek that plan in prayer and do our best to live our lives in accordance to it. Still, if there is a plan from the get go, how much influence do we have? If God knows what we are going to choose before we do, are we really in control? By believing in God's plan for us, which we see laid out in the scriptures, "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 What then is our role in all of this? As children of God we have plans set out for us, so in a sense we have to believe in fate. The idea that plans exist for us that gives reason and purpose to the events of our lives from the little things we disregard as meaningless to the major life-shaking events that make us into the people that we are.

Believing then in this idea of fate, we accept the idea that there is another governing force guiding our lives. The first question this begs, is what about free will? If God will not interfere with free will but has this intricate plan for me how does all of that work? To a certain degree this can generate frustrations within our minds and hearts, very much along the lines of rugged individualism that we as a modern society can have. We like to be in control and don't always like the idea of being told what to do. However, on the contrary I believe that in this paradoxical idea we find a bit of comfort. The idea of being left to my own devices to find happiness makes me anxious. I know that in our society and within the world today we all seem to have a common understanding of what happiness is and how to go about obtaining it. Still we all seem to buy into the idea of belonging and purpose; and these of course are truth. We all want to belong and want a purpose. We want a role to play in the grand scheme of life. We all want to leave our mark. So if indeed we have that role to play, how do we go about finding it? Is it possible that we have more than one role and the one we wind up with is the one we choose? Or are we made for it, are we born with all of our skills and talents and idiosyncrasies intended for and tailor-made to fit a role also designed for us? As Christians, and as humans we all seem to believe in this idea of destiny in this basic sense. That is where I find comfort in this idea. Without some guiding force to help shape my life I have no chance of finding this role, this destiny and ultimately no real chance at finding fulfillment. In the same vein, this idea of destiny brings purpose to the happenings of our life. There are so many things that happen to us and events that shape our lives and if there is a destiny behind it all if brings purpose and meaning to everything that we go through in order to shape us for this role.

So what does it all mean? What we should take away from all of this is the way in which we need to go about finding this purpose for our lives. That begins with our desires. God created everything our of love. The mere fact that you exists proves that you are loved. It also proves that you are good. We who are made in the image and likeness of God are inherently good. By extension then our desires are good. Now when I say desires I don't mean passions, impulses, or instincts. We are fallen beings and we have concupiscence and not every urge we have is good. But the desires of our heart are indeed good. When coming to understand God's will in our lives we need to remember that it is not something that is imposed on us from the outside, but rather motivated from within. The Lord works through the desires of our hearts. What we find as passions or loves in our life are most likely from God. He has given us free will and has a plan for us in accordance to His will, and we will find that often times they aren't in juxtaposition to one another. It would make sense that our loving God would want us to be happy and His will for us is usually what is in line with the desires of our hearts because He put them there. THEREFORE we are called to pursue those desires and go deep. We should run after our desires with passion. Keeping in mind that Christ is the heart of our desires and our deepest desire, we realize that we are really seeking Him. We also seek Christ that we would purify our desires and align them with Himself. And as we go deeper with Christ through pursuing these desires, these passions, we become more and more who we truly are and who are meant to be. By finding Christ and going deeper with Him we find ourselves. He calls us to fulfill our potential. Just like the parable of the talents, we are not called to bury our talents but to use them to give more back to Christ.

As we saw before with the verse from John, Christ promises us an abundant life. We find this life in Him. That may well be our own greatest fear. By echoing the Gospel in which Christ calls us to deny ourselves, pick up our crosses and follow him, we fear losing ourselves to Him. We fear going deep. So many times in my walk with Christ I find that I have this model or idea of who I see myself becoming, of who I think I truly could be if I lived as I feel Christ is calling me to. I see this man who has pursued this desires with passion and gone deep and has all this potential, but I fear going there myself out of what it might cost. It becomes a goal that is never reached, always pushed back until tomorrow. I will begin going there; going deeper tomorrow. However by giving all of this to Christ, our passions and desires and allowing Him to bring us deeper, here lies our hope. We truly discover who we are and who we are called to be. By trusting in the Lord's will for us, and going deep with Him and pursuing those desires of our hearts to the full, we find that happiness we are looking for. And by doing all of this and waiting upon the Lord we truly find our destiny.