Conversations With The Bartender

Mom’s live-in caregiver was to leave town on Sunday, to visit her mother and sister in Indiana, but as is her way, she suddenly changed her mind.  “I’ll leave tomorrow,” she said.  This caused no major disruptions to my plans to stay at mom’s house for the week, except one:  I could go home to my own bed on Sunday night; one less night on mom’s couch.

Blessings often come in small ways, but they are still blessings.

As her normal bedtime approached Sunday night, mom was in a contrary mood: “I don’t want to go to bed yet!”  And so, as I sat there next to her, I began to say my nightly rosary.  By the time the last Hail Mary’s were being said mom’s eyes had closed, and she softly snored.  “It’s time,” I said, putting my hands to the side of my head to indicate sleeping a sleeping position.  She looked up at me and nodded.

Heading toward my usual stop at the chapel on my way home, I said the last of the rosary prayers and saw the Box Bar in downtown Plymouth.  And I decided to stop.

All but one barstool was taken when I walked in.  “Good enough,” I thought as I sat down, ordered a glass of wine, and began to watch the Seattle football team humiliating the San Francisco team.  And then before that first glass of wine was emptied, I looked up and noticed:  so were all the other stools at the small bar.  “Another?” asked the young bartender, pointing at my glass.  “Sure,” I said.  No need to hurry home; nothing on my mind; all was at peace this December 23^rd night.

After a bit the bartender returned to me, his only customer.  “Food tonight?” he asked.  “Hmmm, maybe some fries, if you’ll share some with me,” and he went off to place my order with the kitchen.  Returning, we chatted about the non-game on the big-screen television, and then turned to thoughts of Christmas.  “I don’t get to church much anymore,” he suddenly volunteered.  And he quickly switched to talking about some of the disappointing things in his life --- not connecting the two topics.  He mentioned in passing that he once had attended Catholic elementary schools. 

“You know, at one point I was away from church for seven years,” I said.  “I know what it’s like to be a good person, but not really value going to church.  But that changed for me one night, …”

And so I began to tell him of my call by God, back to church --- my conversion story.

When I told him how, in the far-away country, I had watched nuns climbing a steep rocky path on their knees, he stopped leaning on the bar, stood up straight and stepped back away: “You’re kidding me.”  I told him how God had shocked me at that moment too, and suddenly I knew, I KNEW, everything I had been taught and forgotten about God was true.  He did exist; He was in the Eucharist on the altar; He did love me.  “And I cried,” I said.

He stood there silently, looking at me.

A conversation in a bar about faith and miracles:  How did that happen?

We chatted a while longer when I noticed that time had slipped away, and my glass was empty for a third time.  “Well, that’s enough,” I said.  “I think it’s time for me to go home,” as I dropped my credit card on the bar.  I expected the tab to be about $20, and I planned to add $20 as a tip.  The “Merry Christmas” I planned to say to him was on my mind, as he pushed the credit card back to me.

“This one’s on me,” he said, “Merry Christmas.” 

“But how can I give you a Christmas gift, then,” I asked him.

“You have, my friend,” he replied. 

“You have.”

“Thank you,” I said in return, getting up to leave, “And Merry Christmas to you.”  And then I paused.  “I’ll be going to midnight mass on Christmas Eve at Our Lady of Good Counsel tomorrow night.  Maybe I’ll see you there.”

He smiled.

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As I sat reading my morning prayers today, I thought on all the people who might be going to midnight mass tonight.  For how many would this be their only mass of the year?  For how many would this be their first mass IN years?  Would they feel ashamed at being gone for so long? 

And then I read my morning prayers:

There is no time with God; a thousand years, a single day, it is all one.  (2 Peter 3:8)

Make us know the shortness of our life
That we may gain wisdom of heart.  (Psalm 90)

He has won you for Himself … and you must proclaim what He has done for you; He has called you out of darkness into His own wonderful light.  (1 Peter 2:9) 

Can You Give Too Much?

Charity is always patient and kind.

My neighbor seems to be a man who never stops asking.  Out of work, struggling to find odd jobs, accepting some demeaning labor, yet still he needs.  At first he worked for money from me, but I have no more work to give him (and lately he seemed not too diligent in doing the work I did find).  He’s downsizing, at my recommendation I think, and moving to a smaller house, and will have money to pay his debts --- soon.  But with each time he calls, I find myself asking the man in the mirror:  Am I helping him with this continuous lending?  Will he ever pay you back?  Your friends counsel you that you are a fool.  Are you?  (And perhaps I shouldn’t be looking in the mirror, but at the cross on the wall?)

Happy be the man who considers the poor and the weak. The Lord will save him.  Ps 41

It feels like the Advent readings in the Liturgy of the Hours pound at me every day:  Have faith!  Trust in the Lord!  Do good, and He will repay you many-fold.  And then I go home and the phone rings again:  “I hate to ask you but …”  And even if my answers are kind, where is my heart?  How much to I really trust?  How patient and kind am I?

Everyone should see how unselfish you are.  Phil 4

I have saved for my retirement, likely more than I will ever need (?), but then I think of dad’s retirement pension --- initially more than he was making when he worked!  Yet, with inflation the value diminished; and now, 30 years later, the $1500/ month mom receives does not seem such a large amount.  And what will mine be worth in the future?  I think on these things, my potential needs.  How do I stack those things against the real, immediate needs of others?  And what if the others asking help are ones who, it seems, will not help themselves?

If you trust in the Lord and do good, then you will live in the land and be secure. Ps 37

I thought on the Parable of the Talents:  to whom more is given, more is expected.  Based on this the Lord concludes “how hard it is for a rich man to get into heaven,” because much is expected of him.  And to another rich man Jesus said: “Give all away and follow me,” but the rich man couldn’t bring himself to do that, echoing the message of Parable of the Talents.  It’s hard for a rich man to let go of his riches.

But in Talents the rich man didn’t have to give away his riches.  In Talents, Jesus valued the one who had been given five talents and returned ten --- he invested it wisely.  What would Jesus say, I wonder, if the one who had been given five came back and said:  “You gave me five talents, but I took four and gave them away to someone who had fewer.  Here is one back.”  Would that be an acceptable answer to Jesus?  Or would He say: “But it was to you I gave five and expected more back; to that other I gave less --- and that was my choice, not yours.  He was to work with what I gave him and give me return on that, not with what you gave him.  (I don’t give talents in begging, but in working?)”     

If we give in charity with nothing expected in return, and with no end to the giving, then who will be left to give?  If EVERYTHING is given by the rich to the poor, there will be no more rich, and then the poor will be no better off.  And where does the parable of the women who brought lamps to greet the bridegroom fit in?  In that parable some ran short of oil and the well-off ones wouldn’t give them any; the ones who had planned and saved were looked at favorably, not the ones who could have prepared but didn’t. 

So how do we judge which situation we are in?

The wicked man borrows without paying, but the just man is generous and gives.  Ps 37

And I just keep reading each day about how much I should give ….

Pride would not trouble me if I did the best I could with the talents I was blessed with and the results didn’t turn out to be much; I would willingly stand in a soup line.  But should I give to the one who wouldn’t?  If I gave away resources to the first person who asks, am I using these talents wisely, unlike the women with the lamps?  Should we seek to find the poor man and give to him, or give to any who says he is poor?  In the nearby college town, serious battles often occur over who will hold up the “Homeless” sign at certain intersections; many thousands of dollars a year are collected there.  Begging is a business.  In some foreign countries, I’ve read, children are blinded and lamed so their begging can yield better results.  How do you decide who is needy in the eyes of God, and how are you to use wisely the talents you are given?   

But let us not grow weary in doing good, for we shall reap our reward in due season.

Mary was asked to trust also, by an angel no less, and look at what she gave.  And then look at what she got in return.  (But I suspect my neighbor, grubby and dirty most times, is not any angel.)  How do you decide when it is right to give freely that which has been given to you, entrusted to you?  Can you give too much, wasting your gifts? 

I think and pray on these things, this Advent.

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The radio show host asked listeners to call in and tell about the best Christmas gift they ever received, or the best they ever gave --- and the thought immediately came to me.  A couple of years back I hired a man who had lost his job.  Working three part-time jobs to support his family and keep his home, he was grateful when I offered to pay him to do odd jobs around my house, as he had time.  He would work for me, but he would not accept charity. He often found time on weekends, when I wasn’t home, so I gave him a key to my house, leaving a “to-do” list on the table and an estimate of the money he would be paid at our agreed hourly rate.  And he did the jobs I listed, noting the hours and left change as appropriate, or noted what I still owed him.  Our arrangement went on for nearly two years.

On the second Christmas I had no work I could think of for him to do; he had painted and repaired and replaced virtually everything on my house.  So I wrote him a generous check and a note:  “This is not charity, but I am hiring you (at our agreed hourly rate) to pray for me.  Go to church or to your room, but spend time with God, and at least part of the time think of me.  I won’t be able to verify you’ve done the work, but I trust in you.”  I also wrote a note to my personal friends, telling them that that year I would give out no Christmas presents, trusting they would understand that there were others more in need.

I didn’t hear from “my employee” for a few months, and then I got a letter.  He thanked me for the check and assured me he “worked” the hours.  And it was one of the best “jobs” he ever had.  More recently he’d been offered a full time job at a rate comparable to the job he lost a few years ago, and so he wouldn’t be working for me anymore.  But he still would be going to church, and praying for me --- “no charge.”  He said my Christmas gift was the best he ever received, and I had a friend for life. 

He told me he had lost his home, despite finding a well-paying job.  He had gotten too far behind, and the bank wouldn’t allow him time to catch up on the payments.  But then, even before he had to move out, he found an even nicer home, a foreclosed home by a bank, that he could get into for lower payments than on the home he was losing.  He was losing, yet winning.  God was good to him. 

And He was good to me.

I never did get through to that radio talk show to tell this story of the best gift I ever gave, but the guys in the coffee shop yesterday were talking on such things, and when I repeated it to them they suggested writing it again here.  So here it is.

I gave a lot that year, to one jobless man.  He worked hard besides working for me, and God blessed him.  Perhaps I was in some way His instrument.  I’ve given a lot this year to a different man, my (soon-to-be former) neighbor who, in my perception isn’t working so hard to improve his lot.

Or perhaps, he just wasn’t given so many talents. 

It’s hard to decide how much to give. 

“Do you love me?  Tend my sheep.”  Surely this means: “If you love me, your thought must focus on taking care of my sheep, not taking care of yourself.”   -- Augustine

A Wrong Way to Heaven

This Advent I’ve been reading many great meditations about Jesus’ birth, and along the way I was led to consider again what is “good”, and how both a good means AND a good end purpose are required for a “good” thing. 

I wrote a series of posts a while back about the road to heaven and in them I considered that there are good, better, and best ways to get to heaven.  The best ways involved using Jesus, His teaching and His Church as our personal guide.  One of the poorer ways was going forward strictly by a “gut feel” of how to get there.  Now I’m sure there are many people who do get to heaven that way, but looking at our culture today I suspect there are many more who get lost choosing that route.  But back to the original question:  Is there a WRONG way to heaven?

I’m summarizing here again something I previously delved into:  everything created has a nature and an associated purpose.  To violate the nature of something is to use it contrary to its purpose, for example, to use a table as a car jack would be contrary to its purpose, so much so that it would destroy the table.  Things used contrary to their purpose are used in the wrong way.

We would be trying to get to heaven in the wrong way if we violated the nature of our body and soul by trying to get to heaven on our own.  Man is a social animal; it is in his nature.  For man to function as he was created, as is in his nature, he needs to associate with others, the Church family (a tool designed for getting man to heaven), and God.  We will be all together in heaven at the end, and so we need to work on being together now, in order to achieve that end unity.  This is in man’s nature to do.  I’ve said often in the past (and demonstrated from various ways) that no man is an island.  This also holds true on the supreme purpose of our life:  getting to heaven.

My “business card” for this blog reads:  “Let me tell you what great things He has done for me.”  I read that quote again in the Office this morning.  I think it was a reminder to me that He is helping me to get to heaven --- including through you and others who influence my life; you and God and others help me to get to heaven.  My little business card is a public proclamation that I know I cannot get there alone.

I fear there are many who don’t understand that.  They are trying to get to heaven in the wrong way, on their own.  And our culture seems to applaud them.

Even members of the little Protestant Bible Study Group I sit with in the coffee shop each week acknowledge that “Sola Scriptura” has a degree of consensus involved.  That’s why they meet as a group to discuss the Bible.  But there are many, even Catholics, who act as sole definers of “their” meaning of Scripture and of Church teachings.  They act with confidence that they are doing what is right and will merit heaven (or at least not go to hell) by their actions, for which only they hold themselves accountable.  But in acting this way they are working toward a good end, heaven, and using their bodies in ways contrary to their nature --- not a good means.  A good end but a bad means to achieve it equates to a wrong way.

By his nature, man is not a solitary being, existing without social or familial ties, or since Jesus came, without His Church.  Also in the Office this morning I read some words by St. Augustine:  “True shepherds take care of their sheep, not themselves.”  Based on Scripture, Augustine was calling himself and other Church leaders to task:  they must lead.  But by his words WE are also called to task:  we must follow and join with others.  In fact, the one sheep who wandered off on his own who was described in Scripture as being “astray,” and NOT as one “finding his own way home.”

I believe there is a wrong way to get to heaven, which has us relying on our own judgments alone (and not our shepherds), and trusting in God’s mercy alone because: “we’re trying to get to heaven.”

Even Jesus Christ Himself said that there will be some who think they are doing the right things to get to heaven, but when they get to the gates He will say: “I do not know you.”  And they will ask: “Lord, when did we … not minister to you.”  Then He will answer them: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.”  Jesus was pointing out that we need to work with others to get to heaven.

One cannot build or deepen one’s personal faith, of which Baptism is the source, only through private dialogue with Jesus, because faith has the dimension of communion with others.  And in this dimension, faith is also to be born and developed. … The same Holy Spirit acts in everyone.  His graces are received not only for oneself, but also for others.    The Gift of Faith, by Tadeusz Dajczer, pp 173-4

Jesus doe not condemn anyone for helping the poor or hungry, those are good ends, but He condemns them for thinking they know how to do it, alone, without His Church, without Him.  They sought heaven in the wrong way.  Like the rich man’s donations versus the widow’s mite, what we do does not merit heaven, it’s where our heart is!  As Dajczer notes, faith has a community dimension; it requires that we trust in something outside of ourself.

Yet how much we value “our right to choose.” 

I read much; I write much; I try to help others much; and I try to listen to others and God.  In my solitary life, I try to live with and in others.  Even the wisest Man who ever lived did not know everything:  “Only the Father knows the hour …” 

So why do so many of us think we know the truth of everything?  And if we believe in heaven, think we can get there alone?

Am I Evil?

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (Gn 1:31) 

No, I am not evil, nor is any man.  God made each of us, our bodies, as he planned for since the beginning of time:  Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.  Before you were born, I set you apart for my holy purpose. (Jer 1:5)  But God also made the spiritual side of us.  He came into our hearts, and our wills became as one.  And He created us to be this way forever.

But we discovered that wasn’t what we wanted.

Very early on, when man became aware of himself, he became enamored of himself.  While made in God’s image only, he was not a clone of God any more than a child is a clone of his parents.  Any child can choose to be and do differently than he was taught.  Raised by the most kind, loving parents who desire only happiness for him, still, he can choose to do not as they wish (the good things they wish), but he can choose to do evil.

That’s what Adam did in the Garden of Eden.  He knew most intimately God’s will for him and God’s love for him, still he chose to do his own will.  Putting God’s will aside, Adam acted as if he loved himself, desired good for himself, more than God did.  In his heart he said: “I know what is good for me, as no one else can.  I know the truth of my being and of ways to make myself happy.  And I want to do those things.”  And so he chose evil, putting his will over God’s will, his self-love over God’s perfect love.

In many ways history is repeating itself today.  Living in a land of so many blessings (even as Adam was in the Garden), we are saying: “But I want more for myself.”  And while God rejected Adam’s self-love and took the good of the Garden of Eden away from him, today we celebrate our self-love.  “There is no truth; the truth is as every man sees it, and who are you to deny him what he wants?”  “Everyone is different and wants different things --- celebrate our diversity!”  “Every man has the right to pursue HIS happiness; who are you to tell him he is wrong?”  “Who is the Church to tell a man that he has sinned?  If he follows his heart, it is no sin.”

Donne once said “No man is an island,” but our culture says “every man is a king,” and should expect to be treated like one.  We all think we are so important and, in error, we extend that to thinking what we want is important.  And we want EVERYTHING.  Adam wasn’t satisfied with “only” the Garden of Eden.  He wanted heaven --- now.  So do we.

And look where, as a nation, celebrating each man’s diversity has gotten us.  One man can say: “I was driving across the desert and saw a cross on public land that I didn’t like.  So it must come down.”  And many judges agreed his “right” was violated because of something he chose not to like --- heaven would give him anything he wants, and so must we.  Another man wants to help the poor by taking from the rich, and he doesn’t understand how others could be so hateful as to not allow him to do what he wants.  “Commandments about not stealing?--those are God’s commandments, not mine.  For me, mine are more important --- and who are you to dare to say I am wrong in my thinking?”

It’s Adam’s choice being repeated over and over again.  “I know what’s best for me, more than God does.”

This morning at mass the genealogy of Jesus was read from the Gospel of Matthew.  From Abraham on down, father begat son, over and over, until Jesus came.  But the Gospel only told what people could see, for the actual father of Jesus was God himself.  God begat Jesus, and Jesus, unlike other men wasn’t just born in the image of God; He was God.  This I firmly believe.  And he came to earth to re-start mankind.

Unlike the first Adam, He didn’t seek to do His own will, but rather the will of His heavenly Father.  He came to give man a lesson on how to live, how to be who he was created to be.  No man is created evil; every man is created good.  But like a child borne of his father, every child can choose to be not like his father.  Not looking physically like their father, many children think they can (and even should) be different spiritually than their father.  They think they can choose their happiness, unaware that they were made for happiness --- and all they can really choose is to not accept it, in their hearts.

Jesus showed man how to live in true freedom, choosing to be who he was made to be, choosing the ultimate happiness (heaven) he was made for.  Jesus showed us that all we must do is as he did, and say to our heavenly Father: “Not my will but Thy will be done.”

Many people today are choosing to do their own will and finding their own happiness.  One thinks he will be happier if he takes down a cross in the desert, --- and another if he kills a room full of children.  “Who are you to tell him he is wrong?”  The young shooter is no different than the man who wants the cross down, or the rapist, or any other sinner.  They just choose to do evil --- and, thankfully, in some cases we still have enough of God’s grace in us to recognize that is what it is. 

Pope Benedict XVI recently spoke on our freedom, God’s will, and ours:

 Only in relation to God does man come to understand also the meaning of human freedom. It is the task of education to form people in authentic freedom. This is not the absence of constraint or the supremacy of free will, it is not the absolutism of the self. When man believes himself to be absolute, to depend on nothing and no one, to be able to do anything he wants, he ends up contradicting the truth of his own being and forfeiting his freedom. On the contrary, man is a relational being, who lives in relationship with others and especially with God. Authentic freedom can never be attained independently of God.

Freedom is a precious value, but a fragile one; it can be misunderstood and misused. “Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of educating is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own self. With such a relativistic horizon, therefore, real education is not possible without the light of the truth; sooner or later, every person is in fact condemned to doubting the goodness of his or her own life and the relationships of which it consists, the validity of his or her commitment to build with others something in common”(4).

In order to exercise his freedom, then, man must move beyond the relativistic horizon and come to know the truth about himself and the truth about good and evil. Deep within his conscience, man discovers a law that he did not lay upon himself, but which he must obey. Its voice calls him to love and to do what is good, to avoid evil and to take responsibility for the good he does and the evil he commits(5).  (Benedict XXI’s World Day of Peace Message:  http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20111208_xlv-world-day-peace_en.html

Even our President Obama had some profound words to say on the school shooting:  “These tragedies must end.  And for them to end we must change.”  For once, I totally agree with his words, but probably not his intent.  Pursuing his intent, I expect him to enact rules and regulations to enforce how HE chooses to view what is right --- perhaps gun control laws, or maybe a soldier in each school room.  He’ll choose to make happen HIS will, because he can. 

But that’s what the shooter did.

Yes, for tragedies to end we must change.  But that’s what Jesus said 2000 years ago, and He showed us how.  Unfortunately many of us never got past the thinking of Adam and “I want it, and I want it now.” 

We are not evil, but we need to change from our evil choices.  For a start, we can ask God: “What is Your will for me?”  And we can read and try to understand the example of Jesus.  His example was one of love, which started with God and neighbor, not Himself.
Thinking and seeing all these reactions to the shootings of the children, I was led to recall another shooting of children which took place a few years ago, in a little Amish town, in Pennsylvania I believe.  There, innocent children were also killed in a school, and their parents and loved ones then gathered together to grieve and pray.  There were no loud shouts then about “someone needs to stop this evil.”  Rather there, in the small church, their first prayers were for the shooter.  I think those people understood in their hearts Jesus’ example about loving neighbor first, and of accepting God’s will --- even if they could not understand it.  And they knew that if that example of Jesus were followed, there would be no more shootings.  They knew what was needed was change of heart, not of laws. 

And they prayed.