Special - Picking a New Pope

 I am writing again this week as much has happened.  Yesterday, after the Papal conclave, it was announced that we have a new Pope, Leo XIV.  He is significant in that he is also the first American Pope (he was born and raised in Chicago) and at the relatively young age (for a Pope anyway) of 69, he is guaranteed to have a long tenure.  He is the former Cardinal Robert Prevost, and he served as an Augustinian missionary in Peru.  So, who is this guy?  There is a lot to discover about him yet, and I wanted to give a couple of preliminary observations.  

On the outset, it looks like Pope Leo XIV by all indications is a lot more centrist than his predecessor, so that is a positive.  He has made some good statements condemning radical gender ideologies, and he also is uncompromisingly pro-life and pro-traditional marriage.  Additionally, the fact that he made his first appearance after being named Pope in more traditional papal vestments also speaks well for him.  He also took the name Leo, and the last pope that had that name (Pope St. Leo XIII) was one of the best Popes the Church has had.  These are positives.  However, like anyone who is high-profile and also being a human being, he has a few imperfections too that are somewhat concerning, so I will address those next.

It seems that the new pontiff was somewhat lax on the sex abuse scandals that rocked the Church some years back, and although he has perhaps remedied that it will no doubt still haunt him throughout his papacy.  Also, despite the fact he is thankfully more nuanced than Francis was, he does have a few controversial takes on immigration, and he has been critical of El Salvador and Trump's stance on that despite the fact that both Trump and the President of El Salvador are combatting very real threats to society (notably dangerous MS-13 criminals) that leftist politicians seem to be fighting them on - I am totally appalled at how the political Left is so supportive of dangerous criminals when they totally ignore people who have been victims of those scumbags.  This may create a few issues later as well.  No Pope in the past several decades has been perfect on everything - even John Paul II had some faults, and in all honesty I loved his papacy - so I can perhaps deal with a few things like this.  And, now that I have analyzed Leo XIV's initial impressions, let me give a couple of conclusions.

I am cautiously optimistic about Pope Leo XIV - he seems to be a Pope who wants to heal fissures in the Church, and I am completely supportive of that.  However, I am hoping he does not turn into the radical that Francis was, because in all honesty I am ready to jump a sinking ship if the Catholic Church continues down that trajectory Francis pushed it on.  For me, the Polish National Catholic Church is not out of the question, and I would even go as far as to even return to the Continuing Anglicans if necessary.  I am uncompromisingly Catholic, so Evangelicalism is not even an option.  However, if I need a new church home, I am keeping channels open.  This Pope was just elected, so it's going to take a little time to see how his pontificate shapes up.  And, that will determine my course in the long run as well. 

Thank you for allowing me to share in an uncharacteristic second reflection this week, and I will see you next time. 

Getting Settled and Important Decisions

 As I write down thoughts for this week, I am at what seems like a major milestone since our involuntary displacement back in October, when losing our home in Hagerstown led me to eventually come here to Baltimore after receiving a job offer.  A lot of our things are still in storage over in Martinsburg, but this week I was able to get a significant portion of items - my record collection - and bring it back with me.  My record collection is greatly reduced now - about 1/3 the size it was - and thankfully I was able to get my large collections (the two Franklin Mints, the Singers collection, and several rare Reader's Digest boxed sets), and those were what were integral to starting anew.  Although the place I am in now constrains settling in too much, I was able to get those records and house them on a new special shelf I got a few weeks back, and they look great there now.  There are other aspects of settling in that are still being sorted out, but for the most part I am on track to starting to rebuild a life, and thankfully I have kept a core aspect of my life to give it a good start. 

As I am at school today, it is the work-study day for my students that they have once a week.  The school year is starting to wind down some, and I am mainly focused on getting the students prepped for their upcoming finals in a couple of weeks.  With the school year quickly wrapping up, it is only natural that some issues flare, and I had one of those yesterday.  A young man in my final class of the day decided to act like a jackass, and somehow he managed to procure some cheese and he was being messy and destructive with it, even trying to damage computer equipment of his classmates.  When confronted, he was also very disrespectful and rude and I had to throw him out of class.  I have a phone conversation with his mother later, and hopefully when he returns tomorrow he will have a better attitude.  At the risk of sounding controversial again, I am noticing this behavior primarily in the Black students - I don't know if it is their environment they live in, or what it is, but they tend to be some of my most difficult challenges.  Then, when I see how some adults in this city act, it is understood that they are modeling their own behaviors after bad behavior of the adults.  When I addressed this with a couple of other students the other day who were profusely using profanity in class, one tried to say it was "Black culture," at which point I countered that no culture encourages acting like a jackass, and I told the student flatly that his excuse was BS.  In talking with another teacher, I found out what I had suspected as well - the onerous COVID measures enacted a few years back also played a part in the bad behavior as well, given that many of the students I now teach were middle schoolers then and therefore they lost a lot of valuable learning time.  I am hoping that next year will be better, and I am also planning on being more prepared for the group I will be getting next year as well.

Dealing with some difficult students, in particular minority kids who are from low-income areas of town, can be a challenge.  You always wonder how much they actually respect and appreciate what you do, especially if you are a different ethnicity from them.  On many levels, I know these kids - having grown up poor and with a single parent myself, I can relate to them.  But, it has been over 40 years since I was their age, and they have some different mindsets than I did when I was their age too.  That perhaps is the greatest challenge of all.  One thing I feel should be mentioned though is that there are many similarities between the rural Appalachian roots I have and the backgrounds of many of these inner-city Black kids.  There are things I observe in their culture that I readily identify with, such as large mouthy women for one thing.  I have seen many large Black women who almost automatically make me think of my own late grandmother, as they have a similar attitude to hers.  This is another reason why racism is so wrong - at the end of the day, people of diverse cultures find out they share more in common than they have differences, and that is a good reflection point.  The problem with the rich White liberal yuppies a lot of the time is that they fail to understand either the Black culture of the city or the White rural culture of the Appalachians, and over the years those individuals have often displayed either patronizing behavior at best or outright contempt and mockery of us at worse.  That unfortunately exacerbates things such as racism, and it even makes cleaning up certain communities look like an exercise in discrimination.  Let's talk about that for a moment.

There is a word thrown around in recent years that has been a hot-button topic, and that word is gentrification.  What is it exactly?  The classic definition of it is when a blighted area of a city is targeted for renovation, and the downside of this is often it causes the cost of living to rise in said areas.  Its opposite is urban blight.  Many people who are on the DEI bandwagon view the concept of gentrification like the F bomb, and in doing so they actually cause more harm than good.  The harm they cause is specifically in how they define the terms - to some, any cleanup or restoration project in a given neighborhood gets the label "gentrification" when it may not be the case that it is.  Cleaning up urban blight is not "gentrification" - rather, it is trying to improve the standard of living for the people who live there.  There is no evil in tearing down dilapidated buildings which have the potential of becoming crack houses, and there is also no harm in picking up the trash and cleaning up the neighborhood a little bit - that is simply taking pride in one's community, not "gentrification."  Now, in order to diffuse the controversy, these efforts should be grassroots initiatives in which the residents make the call to clean up and improve their own communities, and that way no accusations of racism or anything else will hold water because efforts are on the part of the people that live there and not outsiders.  I have seen some positives to this end in some Baltimore neighborhoods - there are now many beautiful painted murals on some blocks, and I have also seen more community gardens and box libraries around, but there is still a lot of work to be done.  The city government has a lot to do with that too - for many years, the Baltimore government has been a source of corruption (after all, Nancy Pelosi's father was a corrupt mayor here back in the 1950s), and I am thinking more public revenue is going into the deep pockets of bureaucrats rather than being invested in improving the city.  Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a change in that on the horizon, and as a result, in recent years the population of Baltimore has begun to decline.  It remains to be seen where this goes, but hopefully and prayerfully a change in direction will come soon. 

Onto other matters, as I settle into my new place, I am slowly returning to a routine I have had interrupted over the past several months.  Being able to establish a new home takes time, but thankfully I have the salary and other means at this point to make that happen.  I have invested in new clothes for instance - the first time I have done that in several years - and I am also beginning to watch my health more.  That latter issue is becoming more evident, as lately my body has been feeling its age - I have a continual pain in my lower back, and there are days I am really stiff and it is hard to walk.  And, this despite the climbing and other things I need to do - I think I have climbed more steps in the past six months than I had the whole majority of my life previous.  Also, there are other parts of my life that have changed, some for the better and others not so much, but change is an inevitable fact of life because life marches on.  Change should never come at the expense of compromising principles though, and hopefully anyone reading this understands that too. 

The other big news of today is the Papal Conclave, in which the Cardinals of the Church will be gathering to deliberate on who will succeed Francis to the Barque of St. Peter.  I am hoping that orthodoxy and grounding will prevail, and that we don't end up with a worse disaster than Francis, but I am thinking I need a strategy just in case.  Near the campus here is Holy Cross Parish, a congregation of the Polish National Catholic Church that is around 112 years old.  The PNCC in recent years has adopted a more conservative approach to its doctrine and practice, and it is also still fully Catholic - they are actually currently in dialogue with the Anglican Catholic Church, my former communion.  If we end up with a controversial Pope, I am seriously thinking about changing my allegiance from Rome to a more orthodox form of Catholicism that is more compatible with Magisterial tradition, and the PNCC checks all the boxes for that.  At this point, I am maintaining a "wait and see" approach to see what happens, as thankfully the Church in the Third World is much more orthodox, and if a Pope were to come from those regions, it would be an answer to prayers.  I will continue to chronicle this until we see what happens, and then I will act accordingly.

Thanks again for allowing me to share this week, and will see you next time. 

Spring Challenges

 The first full week back to work after Spring Break has been a busy one, and I am feeling it.  Due to Barbara's car having to have brakes done today, I had to go back to my 5:30AM regimen for a couple of days - that was rough!  As the school year winds down here, I am feeling the fatigue - even a week of Spring Break didn't totally resolve that.  The week's reflections have to do with some situations I have faced and I wanted to dive into that now.

For anyone who has ever taught school, it is not surprising that the group of 80 students I teach over 5 class periods is a pretty diverse lot.  Some students are really good, and a few are so exceptional I wish I had about 20 more of them in each class.  Then there are the others - the pains in the tuchus that often cause the biggest issues in classes.  I want to talk about one of those in particular now.

At the Jesuit high school I teach at, the class periods are called "Codes" and throughout the day there are seven of them plus an Advisory (read "home room" for that).  I generally teach five classes in a day - Code 1, then a break, then Codes 3 and 4a, then lunch, and finally Codes 5 and 6.  The overall majority of the students in these classes are not an issue - they are not perfect, and on occasion they require a little extra supervision when they get distracted, but for the most part it is not anything I can't handle.  However, since starting here back in November I have a group in my Code 1 class that honestly give me headaches every day.  Some of them are just pains - they are likeable pains as individuals, but still pains - and the rest are generally typical high school juniors.  However, I have one student that has been giving me particular challenges since I began teaching here, and I am at my wits' end as to what to do with this person.  She is a female, and for her protection I will just call her Jenn here instead of her real name.  I want to talk about this individual in-depth now as I feel that sharing it will help me deal with the stress this person causes me at times. 

Jenn is about 17 years old, Black, and she generally does have a sharp mind.  Her problem though is an attitude - she is what, to use the immortal words of Whoopie Goldberg's nun character in the movie Sister Act 2, a "Rita Diva with a 'tude."  Since starting, she has displayed nothing but disrespect for me when I teach class, and she spends a large part of the class laughing and talking loudly with her three friends.  And, my goodness, she has a mouth too - that girl hurls "f bombs" like a porcupine shoots its quills, and she doesn't respect being told to stop.  This situation came to a head yesterday when I had to get the Dean of Students involved, and he summarily had a conversation with her about her attitude.  This, of course, made her very upset and she more or less declared war on me.  Other teachers have had similar issues with her, noting that she talks loudly, abuses hall pass privileges, and she was described by another teacher as "moody."  Trying to be fair about the situation, I am rationalizing that maybe she has issues at home, maybe issues with "female trouble" at certain times of the month, or maybe something else is bugging her.  Or, she could even have some psychological/emotional issues as well that maybe have not been diagnosed.  Whatever the case, she is problematic, and students like her make teachers second-guess their career choices.  All I can do is pray for her, as she already has said she isn't going to talk and is outright refusing to exercise reason.  However, Jenn represents a bigger problem I have seen in the Black community in Baltimore, and I wanted to delve into that a bit now.

Since moving here just over 6 months ago, adjusting to Baltimore has been a bit of culture shock.  The demographic is radically different even from the city I knew here as a kid 50 years ago - it is perhaps, along with Atlanta, one of the few cities in the country where Blacks make up the bulk of the population.  That in itself is not really a problem, because Blacks are human beings, and no two of them are exactly alike because they are all individuals too.  However, a mindset (and I would venture to even suggest a spiritual bondage) has captured this community as a whole, and it is often seen in attitudes that some of them display.  There are individuals who have been very sloppy with their work, others who have had volatile tempers (besides Jenn in class, this has happened with at least 3 other students, as well as with a delivery person and with a neighbor) and explode at the slightest hint of difference with them - and then the "f bomb."  I don't know what it is with a lot of Blacks here, but that word is almost like a culturally-defined part of their language, and that is disturbing.   Not only that, but they call each other the "n" word as well - a White person using that word would be rightly and quickly labeled racist, yet I hear these Blacks calling each other that all the time.  This is something I want to address now, as it is a serious matter.

The "n" word originated from a slang word for "Negro," which in Spanish means "Black" as it describes skin color.  In the late 19th and early 20th centuries though, the term was adopted by racists such as the KKK as a derogatory name for a person of color, and since then it has been considered an ethnic slur, and rightfully so.  It is a word I try to steer clear of using, as the consequences for even accidentally saying it would be dire - this, despite the fact that late Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor titled a short story using the term which actually taught a good lesson.  Yet, despite the taboo associated with this word, I hear Blacks calling each other that all the time, and they fail to realize that when the do that they are actually enabling real racists to justify using that word.  I try to convey to my students that they should not call each other that, as it does justify others using it as an insult against them.  Also, using language like that is a blatant form of disrespect too - no one should be even calling their close friends offensive terms like that.  Lest I get accused of being an "uppity White guy" for pointing this out, let me clarify a couple of things.  First, I have some Black ancestors in my family tree as well, which means I too am a descendant of slaves.  Secondly, I find equally offensive terms such as "hick" or "redneck" when used to label small-town blue-collar Whites, as well as the use of the terms "honkey" or "Cracker" to call White people.  In all honesty, those perjorative words directed against Whites should be treated the same way as the "n" word, as they are used in the same context.  NO ethnic slur should be acceptable in our society, regardless of whom it refers to.  Ethnic slurs diminish a person, reducing them to a skin color or ethnolinguistic identity which robs them of their individuality.  While I don't necessarily think that "hate crimes" laws should be enacted for using such terminology, at the same time I think it should be socially discouraged.  Even if people are using those terms as part of the same ethnic group, it needs to stop - if an outsider hears that, it could enable them to be more bigoted too.  Any rate, just wanted to address that issue.

The Jenns among us are an inevitable reality - we will inevitably cross paths with individuals like her, and it can be unsettling being exposed to such a person.  However, it challenges us to learn, to face the negative parts of human nature and come up with a constructive response to them.  If that is the end game of the experience, then it will be valuable to us.  Adversity and negativity in our daily interactions with others is a fact of fallen nature - it comes knocking whether invited or not.  The fact that it is there is not the real issue - it is how we address and overcome it that builds character and provides a way forward.  While I am hoping this Jenn issue in my teaching vocation has an immediate end soon, I perhaps will look back on it in the future and realize that I am a different person now because of it.  However, the outcome rests on the reaction to the circumstance - act properly, and it's a good life lesson.  Act wrongly, and it could be catastrophic both to oneself as well as the person who is the source of that discomfort.  I have been through other situations with disagreeable people, and surprisingly a few turned out better and I actually have dear friends now who once were mortal enemies to me.  Situations like this also call for a lot of committed prayers too - when we cannot rely on our own strength, we seek out God and his aid, which he will freely give us if we ask in the right state of mind and heart.   The only bad part of that is at times it comes late - we could have issues for years and then only at the midnight hour do we find the answer.  That is a big life lesson to take to heart.

Thank you for allowing me to share this week, and will see you again soon. 

Reflections on the Death of a Pope and Personal Prayer Practices

 I finally got a week off from work as our school where I teach had its Easter break (Spring break to other schools).  While it was far too short and another week would not have hurt, it was a nice time for relaxation and catching up on some things too, which I did.  A few things happened during that week though which are worth mentioning.

On Monday the 21st, Pope Francis passed away.  As a Catholic myself, this is a very significant thing as it means that soon a new Pontiff will be sitting on the Chair of St. Peter in Rome.  I have managed to live through about 5 Popes so far (Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and now Francis).  The bulk of my life - beginning in my childhood and going into my mid-30s - was the Pontificate of Saint John Paul II.  JPII was a good Pope overall - not perfect, but he had many great qualities.  Benedict was also a good Pope, as he championed orthodoxy and a return to our roots as a Church.  Francis though was a whole different breed altogether.  He was both the first Jesuit Pope as well as the first from the New World (an Italo-Argentinian by birth).  But, he was also a Pope who had a reign that tended to be extremely controversial.  On one hand, he was sort of a strong advocate for the marginalized, which I suppose was a good virtue.  On the other, he also had some issues - he was not exactly theologically orthodox, and at times his ill-tempered way of handling people coupled with his somewhat arbitrary dismissal of certain aspects of Church Tradition were concerning.  The introduction of the disastrous document Traditionale Custodis is a case in point.  Francis hated conservatives and traditionalists, and found ways to be punitive against those who disagreed with him in what appeared to be retaliatory.  What he did in particular to Cardinal Burke, Bishop Strickland, and Fr. Frank Pavone, among others, was shocking, while at the same time he touted individuals such as the "Rainbow Jesuit" James Martin.  Add to that the Pachamama mess and this whole "Synodality" thing, and it caused much friction in the Church.  So, how does a more faithful Catholic who values Tradition view Francis?  Let me give a brief proposal of my own.

In the long run, Francis was a validly-elected Pope, so to that end he was to be respected in his official capacity.  And, on occasion he did some good stuff, such as upholding the sanctity of life and traditional marriage.  However, on the other hand, Francis was radical, by theological standards he was a liberal, and his personality was not always the most genial either (he was called in some ecclesiastical circles in Argentina "Old Vinegar Face").  That being said, it is possible to do two things at once.  First, we pray that he had a conversion of heart before his repose, and we also remember his soul as we do all departed. Second, we can also still in good conscience take issue with some of Francis's more radical ideas, and we can pray that his successor will be someone much more nuanced and conciliatory to the conservatives like myself he tried (whether intentionally or not) to alienate and oppose.  The possibility of a more orthodox Pope, even moderately so like Benedict XVI was, is good - some of the candidates for consideration include Cardinal Zen of China and Cardinal Sarah of Africa, both of whom are very orthodox.  As we start looking toward who the successor to Francis will be, I just pray our leaders understand the needs of the Church and don't push political nonsense.  

It is also worth mentioning that there have been much worse Popes than Francis - by the standards of some in history, Francis was mild actually.  The Bride of Christ is still present on this earth, so its leadership is human and prone to imperfection.  Therefore, bad and corrupt clergy are a given.  What we cannot do is let the bad eggs and rotten fruit taint the entire Church, and therefore we use discretion when trying to separate the actions and legacies of fallible leadership from the eternal vocation of the Bride of Christ herself.  This is why I will refrain personally from attacking Francis directly, although I do have many fundamental disagreements with his tenure as Pope.  Even the best and holiest of Popes have moments of displaying their own concupiscent nature - the Pope, after all, is not God and thus is subject to many of the same temptations, limitations, and other challenges we all deal with as human beings.  It is a Pope's attitude and ultimately the reality inside his heart that makes the difference, and only God can truly know the heart.  So, in summary, we can pray for the soul of Francis while still disagreeing with many of the things he has done, and there is no conflict with our faith in doing so.  

Aside from the passing of Pope Francis, we experienced Easter 2025 this past Sunday.  Another year surviving the fasts and abstinences of Lent, and now it is an adjustment getting back into a more festal mindset - no more seafood or cheese pizzas on Fridays, the return of the "Gloria" at Mass, and other things including the shift in the daily decade of the Rosary I pray from the Sorrowful Mysteries to the Glorious Mysteries.  And, that leads me to a brief discussion of my own devotional practice.

I have neither the time nor the focus to pray a complete Rosary every day, so for the past few years I have structured my devotions this way.  To begin, I say a decade of the Rosary, followed by doing the daily Mass reading, and then more personal prayers.  By saying a decade of the Rosary, that requires an explanation.  Each set of Mysteries of the Rosary consist of five decades - each focusing on one Mystery within the five.  The Mysteries are divided thus - The Joyful, the Luminous (introduced 20 years ago by Pope St. John Paul II), the Sorrowful, and the Glorious.  Traditionally, certain days of the week were set aside to pray a specific set of Mysteries, and many people who practice praying the Rosary still do this.  However, I do it differently.  For me, I focus on a set of Mysteries for a week (one each day) and then I organize them according to the Church year.  So, this is my pattern to go by:

1. Advent, Christmas to Epiphany - the Joyful Mysteries

2. Epiphany to Quinquegessima Sunday - the Luminous Mystery

3. The seasons of Lent and Holy Week - the Sorrowful Mysteries

4.  From Easter through Trinity Sunday - the Glorious Mysteries

5. Ordinary time between Trinity and the First Sunday of Advent - one set of Mysteries each week.

Doing it this way for me is like more or less living the life that Christ lived as the Mysteries are then coordinated to the chronological order of Christ's life.  I would even consider it a way of "walking in the footsteps of Jesus" because it then takes on a greater significance.  The Rosary is not a mandated devotion, and therefore it can be adjusted and practiced in a way that reflects the devotee's convictions without compromising Magisterial truth. It is a different type of devotion, and as far as I know, I may be the only person who does it like this.   However, the spiritual benefits of doing it for me are fruitful, and thus I feel right doing it my way in this case. 

The problem with the Rosary - even an adjusted one like the one I pray - is that it can try patience.  You have to keep track of the number of "Ave Marias" said and then make sure you are on the right Mystery.  And, when you are pressed for time in the morning in particular, it can be a hurried exercise.  Some of the prayers, in all honesty, get a bit tedious - the "Glory Be" comes to mind here.  But, they are there for a reason so we overcome our own limitations by being faithful in our devotion.  I no doubt will have some staunch person who will gasp in horror that I said that and say in Greta Thunberg fashion "How dare you!!"  But, let's be honest - a consistent prayer life is not always comfortable or convenient, and even the most tedious of prayers hold spiritual benefit for us.  So, despite hurrying through those tedious acts sometimes, God sees thankfully our hearts, and he sees our faithfulness.  And for those who would take issue, please be honest with yourselves too - are you always ecstatic to say prayers??  I would wager a month's salary to say negative on that, because to say otherwise means you are lying.  We don't have to feign religious zeal to be faithful, and thank God we have a merciful God who understands that.  Even Jesus Himself grew weary at times of praying in all honesty, so we are in good company.  

This was a slightly different approach from my usual observations today, but I nonetheless hope they will give the reader some edification.   Thanks for allowing me to share, and will see you next time!

Dealing With A Spectrum of Things

 As I reflect this week, there is something I wanted to just share.  This past Monday, Barbara had to go to the MVA office over on Reisterstown Pike here in Baltimore to renew her driver's license.  While that process ended up being smoother than expected, there was another problem.  Let me first give some background for context.

I know Baltimore well - I have connections to this city going back to my kindergarten days.  One thing I know is that there are some people here - more so in recent years - that can be very rude.  At the risk of starting a particular controversy, I need to also note the demographic.  Baltimore is by and large a significantly Black city - with the exception of possibly a city like Atlanta, the Black population in Baltimore is a very noticeable one.  While most Blacks in the city are generally easy to get along with and cause no issues, there is a notable exception to that rule.  Some Blacks here tend to get confrontational, nasty, and also are adept at throwing around the "f-bomb" like it is blowing their nose or something.  I have seen delivery drivers and others get very hostile for no reason and when they get like that, I don't engage them - they get a door closed in their face quickly.  I also have a few students I teach like this too - you can't tell them anything without a nasty resistance on their part, and in all reality, there is no call for that.  Barbara had her own experience this past Monday at the MVA, and I want to recount that now.

Driver's license offices tend to have long lines and are a bureaucratic mess in many cases, and the one in Baltimore is no exception.  As we were waiting in line for Barbara to renew her license on Monday, directly in front of us was a short Black woman with long hair and those eyes - you know the look; they are itching for a fight.  In all honesty, the woman reminded me of an ill-tempered, yappy dachshund.  She kept eyeing us in the line, and at one point she started yelling about "her space being encroached upon" by us (in reality, Barbara and I were standing where we were supposed to be).  Barbara had been recovering from a short illness and was in no mood, and surprisingly Barbara was the one who got assertive when she was attacked by this yappy, nasty little woman.  I took on the role of a more nuanced peacekeeper, letting the woman know life was too short and then telling her to have a nice day, which set the little Black wench off more.  And, to complicate things, she had an ally standing behind us who all of a sudden decided to get his two-cents-worth in - this guy had goofy bleach-blonde spikey hair and wore a pair of pink shoes, so it was evident which side he buttered his proverbial bread on.  So, Yappy and her flamboyant friend were ganging up on us for nothing.  I was very happy to get out of that place as was Barbara.  While the rest of the day was generally OK - we ate afterwards at Hip Hop Chicken, a very good local fried chicken chain in the area - the aftershock of that experience was felt for some time.  

The way Baltimore people act as contrasted with the way I grew up is like night and day.  Generally, even if you are in a bad mood, you maintain a certain degree of decorum in a public place.  If perhaps you feel inconvenienced by close quarters, you just politely ask the person for space and generally you get an apology, and they oblige.  However, it seems as if Baltimore has a deficiency of decent manners nowadays, as I see that almost on a daily basis.  Even at school, there is a rude 10th-grade Theology teacher whose classroom is across the hall, and his bearing screams arrogance and a big ego.  An incident with him happened the other day as well.  One very good rule that this school has is that students cannot be unsupervised in any classroom, and if the teacher leaves the door gets locked.  The dean of the school sent this out in an email, but the particular teacher in question tended to ignore it and act like he knew nothing about it.   So, one afternoon when I was either taking a restroom break between classes or going across the street to the Royal Farms to get a Starbucks Frappuccino (I really love those!) and a pastry for breakfast, I had locked my door as prescribed by school policy and stepped out.  When I returned, there was a student leaving my classroom!  When I asked her what she was doing there, she said that Mr. ______, the teacher in question, had let her in to take a test.  That didn't sit well with me as I know how this guy is, and later today he stopped and asked if a student could take a test today.  I told him as long as a teacher was in here, it was no problem, but they cannot be unsupervised in a classroom like that.  The student he was going to send here for a test never showed up, although I told him I was here, and it was OK as long as I was in the class.  Hopefully though, the pompous teacher got the hint though and will be more respectful of his colleagues and school policy next time. 

The other issue I have with so many of these local Blacks in particular is their language - it is volatile!  They call each other the "n" word all the time, and they drop the "f bomb" like it is a bodily function.  I teach in a school that at this point is about 52% Black and 48% Hispanic, and the differences between the two groups is astounding.  The Hispanic students (with a few exceptions) tend to be quieter and more respectful, while the Blacks are loud, disruptive, and generally not participating in the class discussions or anything else.  While this is not true of all of them, a significant number of the write-ups and disciplinary issues I address in a given week are largely the Black students - I do have a number of good Black students too, and greatly appreciate them, but the proportion of trouble that comes up usually has a Black student involved in it.  Our society is afraid to address this problem because one runs the risk of being accused of "racism" if the issue is raised, but the facts do speak for themselves.  And I want to tackle the proverbial elephant in the room now.

Racism by any group against others is always wrong, regardless.  And no doubt true racism is out there.  However, what often happens is that Blacks and some others use the "race card" to validate bad behavior, and this is a problem.  Also, the way they denigrate each other by calling each other the "n" word is concerning.  When they do that, they fail to understand that they are diminishing themselves and therefore justifying actual racists to use that term too.  And that "f bomb" issue - what is with many of our local Blacks using that so often and freely??  I understand an occasional slip happening if one is exasperated or something, but seriously - when you hear these Black kids in school in particular talk, they are peppering "f bombs" liberally in their conversations.  And on the city bus too - many use that word just to hear themselves say it I think.  It really does not paint a good picture of Black culture in America, as many other groups see this behavior as being nasty and uncouth.  As I said, not all Blacks do this thankfully, and there are many decent Blacks who are just as shocked by this language as I am.  However, when most of this stuff is being done by a particular demographic, it creates several problems.  Let me go into at least two of them.

To begin, it is not helping them move ahead in their lives.  Black culture has many good things to preserve and a person who is Black should be proud of those things.  However, being rude, confrontational, and foul-mouthed is not flattering, and many Blacks need to understand how other people see them when they act like complete jackasses.  Secondly, instead of eradicating racism, it perpetuates it in two forms.  First, it makes Blacks more racist against others.  Secondly, when other groups see this behavior, it alters their perception of Blacks and negative experiences with rude Black individuals can be a toxic seed of racism against all Blacks.  If the Black community in America wants to show progress, there are several things they can do to nurture it.  Let's talk about a few of them.

For one, Blacks need to learn basic manners and stop using cusswords as a form of casual conversation.  A Black person who is articulate and doesn't resort to "ghetto-style" lingo and attitude will garner instant respect.  Secondly, let's address this "urban blight" issue that Baltimore and other cities have.  Urban blight describes what you see on many streets - trash all over, abandoned and dilapidated houses and other buildings, and copious amounts of ugly graffiti everywhere.  In recent years, when these issues were addressed by reform-minded people who wanted to clean up neighborhoods, the people who had the ideas were often condemned by activists as promoting "gentrification" and thus cleanup efforts in many cities screeched to an abrupt halt.  I find it interesting that the political Left hollers about the fiction of "climate change" and yet you never see them picking up the abundant trash or trying to improve the lot of many Blacks in those communities by upgrading their homes and encouraging local business.  Instead, those individuals (usually rich White liberals - go figure!) decry any effort to clean up as being racist and promoting gentrification.  If cities are to improve their qualities of life, that attitude needs to change.  If you don't want White investors revitalizing neighborhoods, then encourage the Blacks who live there to do so.  While there are small and bright exceptions now in many neighborhoods, by and large they miss it by infinity.  That too needs to change. 

You have heard my convictions on this today, and hopefully I won't be misrepresented as being "racist" because I am challenging Blacks to adjust their behavior a little and take some pride in their own communities and stop calling each other "n" words and other such garbage.  Until the overall Black population of this city in particular understands that progress will be delayed if not eliminated.  Thank you for allowing me to share. 

Catching Up

 It has been a couple of weeks since last writing, and I need to do some catching up on myself as it is warranted.  Luckily today is a slow day at school, as my students are in what is called MAP testing for the majority of the day.  Therefore, there are a few things I wanted to catch up and reflect upon since opportunity allows.

To begin, the final part of my doctoral journey arrived Monday - I have a complete set of doctoral regalia now.  It feels good to have that, and now I feel like a Ph.D.   With the diploma, dissertation, and regalia, and almost a year to get it all, I feel complete.  I also was able to get my article submitted to the academic journal and it should be up for publication soon.  Having three published articles and a conference presentation will go far in my pursuits of opportunities.

The second thing to talk about is my music collection.  I have decided to include all the music I want to preserve on a very large flash drive - it has 124 gigs storage - and so far I have a MASSIVE collection that I have both gleaned from other drives as well as downloading from Internet Archive - there are several large collections of original recordings of many obscure dance orchestras on there, and I downloaded a significant number of them.  It doesn't totally replace my entire CD collection I lost, but it is a good start.  My plan with my music collection now is to just get CD reissues of some of my favorite original LPs that are not available as downloads, and this third incarnation of my music collection will be a lot smaller but still substantial.  I won't go through the extensive cataloging system I had before either, because frankly I don't need to now. I have literally shelves of original recordings now within a device that comfortably fits in the palm of my hand.  Technology advances, and I guess I need to keep up.

I also want to talk about dreams again.  I have done extensive discussions over the years about dream interpretation, as I believe that dreams are significant.  Unfortunately a huge number of resources on the market on this topic are often done by occult/New Age writers who get a lot wrong, and what I aim to do is develop a Christian understanding of dreams as they are also a prominent thing in Scripture as well.  Understanding and writing down dreams is something I feel is integral to one's emotional and spiritual health, as God uses dreams to talk to us sometimes.  That being said, I wanted to share a recent dream I had which really has stuck with me.

In the dream, I was in what looked like a facility with my house nearby, and a little girl of about 7 or 8 was up for adoption.  She was of Mongolian heritage in the dream, and she was such a tiny, dainty little thing and so beautiful.  I was ready to adopt her, and was in the process of doing so.  As I recall, in the story the little one was more or less abandoned by her parents, and she was somehow believing they were coming back for her.  However, in the dream I was talking to the office clerk who informed me her parents returning was something that wasn't going to happen, and she encouraged me to adopt the little one. The girl at first was hesitant, as she was still thinking her parents would miraculously show up, but in time my heart was warmed when she called me "Daddy."  I really felt connected to that little girl, and I felt a deep love for her as if she were my own.  There most certainly is something to a vivid dream like that, and upon researching it, I learned the following things:

1. New beginnings and change

2. A desire to nurture and care

3. Embracing the unknown

4. A strong desire for family or love

5. Expression of desires or needs I may not be consciously aware of

6. Assuming new responsibilities

In many of these instances, all of this has happened in the past 6 months or so as I have been forced for one thing to embrace the unknown and assume new responsibilities.  I also do want family, and I would love to have something to nurture as my own.  There are also things I know I am not aware of but my dreams bring that to the surface of my subconscious. And, the whole idea of new beginnings and change is something I have been forced to embrace over the past 5 years, as I have been in a constant state of flux.  There are some of these areas I am aware of but cannot discuss them as the time is not right for them here, but my goal is to reflect upon that when it comes to pass later and then share it.  However, these dreams are not an accident nor are they simply a reaction to the pizza I had for dinner yesterday. On the contrary, they both reflect real feelings but also may contain a message.  It is up to me to determine what that is now. 

This week's reflection is somewhat eclectic and brief, but it summarizes what has been going on.  I should be back again next week with further insights on things, so thanks for stopping by and will see you soon. 

Making Some Reflections

 I am writing twice this week as it is a slower week.  Today at school we are just having parent/teacher conferences virtually and we have a slow timeslot now.  But, that gave me some impetus for refleciton today so allow me to ramble as I share.  

From this fourth-floor vantage where my classroom window is, I have a panoramic view of everything.  If I look west, there is the skyline of downtown Baltimore.  If I look east, the glittering golden domes of St. Michael Church, a Byzantine Ukrainian Catholic parish, catch the rays of sunlight which intensify the golden splendor of the beautiful onion-shaped domes of the church.  Looking south, there is a nice view of the Inner Harbor, which if you go straight down Chester Street here will take you there.  A variety of boats of different sizes are hitched to docks down on the harbor, and in the distance the huge smokestacks of a factory can be seen.  While the weather is hazy this morning, it is the first day of Spring and thankfully the chilliness of the winter is a distant memory (at least for now - March can still have the potential of a big snow if one should come into the area).  Although I am battling a cold right now - my throat thankfully is not as scratchy but the stuffiness of my nose is still a thing and the unmistakeable histamine smell is lingering in my nostrils - I am able to function OK and the fact we have a relatively light day here helps a lot.  Let me now just vent a bit.

Teaching high schoolers is not for the faint of heart - while many of them are decent kids, there are disruptive troublemakers who can be a major headache for all of us as teachers. Having a break from some of them is a huge help for us, and it helps the teachers to refocus too.  While it is short-lived (Monday class is back in session) the breaks are refreshing and welcomed.  Many students get a skewered idea of what a teacher thinks - they seem to think we are just chomping at the bit to flunk them or write them up for bad conduct.  In reality, that is not the case.  We want all of our students we are challenged with educating to succeed, but when some slack off in their studies or act up like petulent children in class, they make things harder for themselves.  As I am on the verge of surviving my first year as a full-time educator, it has been a bit of hit-and-miss for me.  I know I am not perfect, and on occasion I may lose composure with students that push my buttons.  Also, given I was thrown into this in the middle of a quarter, I have had to wing the lesson plans somewhat and that has taken some adjustment as well.  However, it also is giving me some lessons to learn for next year too, and as I get ready to navigate the 79 high school juniors I teach in five classes to the finish line over the next couple of months, I am making mental notes of what I could do better, what I have done that is effective, and also I always keep an eye open for new ideas.  The classes I have next year will be different students, with completely different personalities, and it will take understanding them to deal with them as well.  But, at least this year I have managed to gain some insights and I can apply those to my next group in the coming academic year. 

Sitting in faculty meetings tends to be enlightening as well.   One very good idea this school has is that our grade-level and departmental faculty groups meet together fairly regularly, and they are often very productive meetings.  However, you notice things too from your fellow teachers.  Some teachers, for instance, are complaining about problem students in one class who in my classes are generally not an issue.  Likewise, I have problem students who do well conduct-wise with other teachers.  One unfortunate trap we as educators fall into though is not being able to recognize things such as learning disorders or other issues the students may face.  I know of at least one student I have who is autistic, and another one I am thinking struggles with dyslexia.  Both are Black kids, and I note similar issues with them that other teachers have too.  However, knowing the complexities of things like autism and dyslexia makes a teacher more effective at reaching those students, and while it is easy to dismiss these kids as lazy, apathetic, or something else, patterns should be noted and investigated, as there may be an underlying cause.  If a teacher can successfully identify that root issue, a plan can be formulated which will capitalize more on the student's strengths and less on their perceived complications.  A good guidance counselor at a school can be an asset in this area as well.  We as teachers don't have the capacity to diagnose learning disabilities, but we can raise awareness of the potential and work with school authorities and the parents to find ways to sort through the issue.  Therefore, if a student displays certain patterns, it should be documented and then recommended for further inquiry with the proper sources.  

As can be seen, we are in the process of developing a pedagogy or an educational philosophy.  An approach based on empathy balanced with discipline will definitely go a long way.  If the student don't appreciate the teacher at the time, they may later.  The biggest and most pleasant surprise is in the future when a former student approaches you and tells you what an impact you had on them, especially when you did not feel at the time you accomplished anything.  Thank you for allowing me to share.