Chapters and Verses

 For anyone who has been following me any amount of time, you know that I speak of life events and timeframes as "chapters."  Years ago, an old wino who lived in town used to say often, "same old story, second verse," and he was inadvertently expressing the same idea.  While we often associate verses with poetry or song lyrics, it can apply in a general way to a chapter too - after all, Holy Scripture is prose, and we refer to passages as verses in it too - John 3:16 for instance refers to the third chapter, and the 16th verse, or sentence if you will.   There is no set length to a verse either - it can be as long as several paragraphs, or as short as a sentence fraction, depending on context.  The same rules apply to chapters too - some books have chapters of a couple of pages, while others can have chapters that are over a hundred, but it still qualifies as a chapter.  What applies to basic prose and poetry sort of also applies to life, and that is why I preface this with what looks like a 10th-grade English Literature lecture. 

Chapters in life are also often called seasons, as they start, they have a climax, and then they end.  As one ends, another starts, and this is why sometimes each of our lives grow more complex.  Those seasons/chapters are often varied - some are relatively short, others can last years.  But, they are still a season in life.   Even within the seasons and chapters of life though, there are plot twists, crises, and other things that shape the narrative of the chapter, and they are only properly seen through the person living them.  While eyewitnesses and close friends or family can observe things, they still only get a part of the whole story - it is the same with a book too.  When you read a book, you may not exactly agree with the author, and there are even some cases with certain books where ambiguity exists.  Some authors plan it that way, while with others it just happens.  So it is with our lives too.  The complexities of one's life are unique to that person, and it is largely based on how they respond to such complexities as to how the story will be shaped.  If a negative response happens, then it is reflected in the inner narrative of the person experiencing it.  Same with positives.  This leads to some personal reflections of my own.

One of the most frustrating things for me when I am trying to document my own life experiences is that I never feel like I include adequate details.  The question is though if we can include all details?  The human mind is a remarkable creation in that it sort of acts as a library, but like with many libraries things can be buried and details forgotten - they are still there for the most part, but in order to uncover them there has to be a stimulus of some sort that shakes them loose.  Imagine for example you are visiting a certain place, and you go into a restaurant just because your stomach is making noises and your body tells you that you need nourishment.  You sit down, the waitress brings you a menu, and you order something like, say, fried chicken.  Nothing exceptional about it - you like fried chicken, you are hungry, and it seems like a good idea.  After about 25 minutes or so, your food is prepared and the waitress brings the plate to you - on it are a couple of pieces of really delicious-looking fried chicken, and you get a side like some fried okra or fries with it and a flaky buttermilk biscuit also comes with the meal.  If you are a person of faith like I am, you then say your grace over the food, and then you dig in.  You know the chicken will be good just by looking at it, so you are satisfied.  But then, you take that first bite - the flavor of that chicken evokes a feeling inside you.  You taste something familiar but also something you haven't had in a long time - maybe it reminds you of the Sunday dinners your grandmother cooked after church, and that feeling then becomes a full-fledged memory of something you haven't thought about in years.  The memory was not lost - it was just buried under the circumstances of life and that bite of fried chicken jogged it loose and it surfaced.  When this happens, there are a couple of things you should do, and let me get to that now.

If you keep a journal, it is important to write that memory down and preserve it.  Even if you don't keep a journal though, write it down anyway someplace and keep it.  I encourage you to do the same with your dreams as well when you have them while sleeping, because dreams say something to us as well - it can be a hodgepodge of our memories sort of pieced together, and on some occasions it could even be a message from God (don't interpret every dream as a prophetic message though, as some are just coping mechanisms for stress too - it can be easy to let dream interpretation turn into something it shouldn't, so don't let the "pizza dreams" be taken as divine revelation.  It only means in that case the pepperoni on the pie was too spicy).  It is important to document everything though - those revelatory moments like tasting the fried chicken, that dream you had that sort of sticks with you, etc.  You will never capture every detail, and I will get into why that is shortly, but you capture enough to preserve the memory.  And, that is your objective.  Now, why don't we manage to capture every detail?  Let's sift that out a little.

For some reason, the human brain is not programmed to capture all details of everything - I think that if that were the case, it would short-circuit our nervous system.  Ultimately, only God knows the complete details of our individual lives, and if we retained vividly every detail, I would wager that whole libraries could be built on the lived experience of each individual.  The human brain holds a lot, and oddly, even minute details are there but then we have another issue - the filters we have in place don't allow us to regurgitate an entire set of details, and while the ultimate reason for that is a mystery, it is also a reality we need to accept and live with too.  Also, there are those unpleasant details in life we want to forget, and we can't necessarily do that either - we try mental blocks, moving on busying ourselves with details, but those negative experiences can be triggered too.  It is best to also document those, and facing them will also help give some closure to whatever the negative experience was, and it is even possible to see it with a new perspective.  Writing down as much as we can can be the best therapy we can engage in, and therefore we must address both positive and negative memories.  So, what does all this have to do with writing?  Let's visit that a bit.

Being able to be detailed and honest about your lived experience is the genesis of good writing, and the more you can express yourself in that way, the more confident you will be to develop that skill in a manner that can impact others.  Of course, this also requires some mechanical skills as well.  What I mean by that is one should know the basics of grammar, syntax, logic, rhetoric, and literature so that thoughts can be organized and communicated clearly and in doing so you will garner interest.  This is the reason I have kept a journal for 30 years, and have been writing blogs and other things for about as long.  Writing is a good outlet for tackling issues, getting one's bearings, and creating some structure to several aspects of identity - worldview, etc.  And, it also has the potential to be turned into something lucrative - a number of careers have as an integral element the ability to possess creative self-expression.  Also, I have learned over the years that "good writing" can be subjective - some of the best authors I like are also a train wreck for many English teachers I have had over the years.  Take William Saroyan for example.  I love his work, but he was no grammatical genius in many cases, but in all honesty I don't care.  I don't even follow conventions myself in all honesty because the conventions can also be restrictive.  While in many cases if your initial drafting of your thoughts is so raw it needs refined, you can do that later - just get them out on paper first.  The best writers also start with raw material in many cases - every vase starts with raw clay, and every house starts with a pile of lumber. The craft is to take that raw material and shape it into something that has personality.  Which now leads to the last part of the discussion.

A lot of this was simply dealing with mechanical issues, but let's get back to the idea of chapters and seasons.  In my own life right now, I have talked about how I feel like a looming new frontier stands before me and it evokes many emotions - anticipation, fear, uncertainty, and of course hope.  Writing about it does help sort out some details, and what is even more surprising is how many instances where the solution comes after hashing it out in pages of prose.  It goes to show that often even the solution to a complex problem can be found within when we are looking outside, and that is the value of writing down all our lived experiences.  Some things we won't see until we do so in retrospect, but in other cases, just talking about them will often open an unexpected door.  Therefore, I encourage writing and expression of thought in a tangible manner that can be preserved somehow, and in doing so it may even help someone else generations in the future too. 

Thank you for allowing me to share, and will see you next time. 

Crossing a Threshold

 The other day, I had a discussion about immigration, and it was the symptom of a bigger issue at the high school where I teach - that issue is rampant radical liberalism among the faculty that is also attempting to indoctrinate the students.  The immigration issue is but one facet of this though, as it is almost inciting students to riot.  There have been other issues as well though that I cannot get into now, being it could jeopardize my own standing.  However, it presents an issue about school models that shows that certain things they try to implement in Catholic schools even often don't work.  And, that is why when I heard my contract here was not being renewed I ended up having two of the best night's sleep I have had in months.  The relief is palpable, and it does make an impact on my mental wellbeing too - I feel a bit liberated in all honesty and it also allows me to be even brutally honest with things here.  On that last point, I annihilated the guidance counselor the other day - this woman is a young, somewhat clueless individual who relies on a vocabulary of buzzwords and Pavlovian slogans that attacks teachers for doing their jobs and I essentially gave her notice that enough is enough.  When I was growing up and when I was in school myself, the role of the guidance counselor was essentially that, guidance.  A good guidance counselor knew how to stay in their lane and not interfere with teachers doing what teachers are supposed to do.  However, in this society of touchy-feely BS it seems as if anyone gets offended by accountability, and guidance counselors like the one we have at this school feed that toxic mindset.  All-in-all, it was not the most professional thing to do blasting her, but it sure felt good!  The liberation at getting away from a toxic environment is exhilarating in all honesty.  Any rate, I digress so I will get back on track here shortly. 

While non-renewal of a teaching contract can be a serious thing, in my case it was actually a mutual decision.  The principal here, who actually is a nice guy but he inherited a mess, understood my level of discomfort with this particular school and he in essence did me a merciful favor.  I was also assured by him that I would be able to get a good recommendation from him, so I am not worried.  I am also anticipating some bites soon for other positions, so I am not overall worried.   There are a couple of reasons why.

To begin, this is an inner-city school - it is not my most desirable environment.  Secondly, this is a minority school for the most part - the school is about 50% Black and 46% Hispanic. I recognize that talent comes in all ethnicities, but let me just give a realistic picture of what dealing with certain minority students is like.  The Black students, in particular, tend to be somewhat unstructured and lack a lot of things they should have.  They often are loud, disruptive, and they don't take regard for the concerns of others.  With a few of them, they are even at reading levels far below their grade, and that is concerning because their test scores are often inflated with adjusted data. While this is not true of all Black students - I have had the good experience of teaching a lot of exceptional young Black students who really shine - there is a mentality among a significant percentage of them that even Black teachers who have them cannot seem to understand, especially these recent generations of students.  They are loud, have no respect for any authority, and they also tend to account for about 80% of the discipline and conduct problems in the classes we have here.  This has resulted in a high rate of teacher turnover at this particular school too, as there were days I did not want to even get up to come into work knowing what I have to deal with at times.  While this may be construed by some ideologues as "racist," I would invite such individuals to stand in a classroom like that for a week and see how they would do with them. I note that attitude in particular with the aforementioned guidance counselor - she loves to rant on social media about how every White person is "racist" (she herself is White and Jewish, and also extremely liberal) but when she was asked to cover a class (coverage is a major issue here too) she would quake in fear like you were asking her to wade in a cesspool full of leeches.  People like her love to throw around that word "racist" as a buzzword, but they are not the ones standing in a classroom with about 14 loud and disruptive Black students who have studying as the last thing on their minds.  We do this everyday as teachers, and the rich White liberal idiots who like to use "racism" as a buzzword for anyone who disagrees with them (I notice it is not usually Blacks who are making those accusations either, which also is revealing) don't have the courage to deal with a dozen rowdy kids in a classroom who look different from them.  I am over that too, and in all honesty the term "racism" has lost all meaning.  When something becomes a mere buzzword for armchair activists, the term loses its meaning.  And, it gives license for real racism to lurk underneath the surface.  This is why we need to be more nuanced in how we use certain terminology.

The 46% Hispanic student population is a lot more manageable - they are not perfect, but for the most part they are generally mindful of their attitudes and many of them are my best students.  I think this has merit in the way they are raised, as Hispanic families do tend to be more traditional and somewhat more disciplined in how they raise their kids.  As mentioned, it does not mean the Hispanic kids are perfect - there are occasional issues with them too, but not on the same scale as it is with the Black students.  Also, the major issue with Hispanic students is that many of them are being used as political pawns in the immigration debate - the campus minister at our school here is notorious for that, as he is a proponent of "liberation theology" and has a feelings-based rhetoric that is rooted in his time living in El Salvador.  The problem with the campus minister though is that much of what he talks about has been disproven by others I know - he tends to use bleeding-heart tactics to make him sound like an "expert," but he fails to understand that he is not the only one who knows people from Latin American countries.  I lived in Florida for over 27 years, and in those years I got to know a lot of people from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and a variety of other Central and South American lands.  Many of these people are still close friends, and I talk with them regularly - they have discredited much of the fiery "justice" rhetoric that the campus minister here spouts, and he has no clue that I know he is lying about a lot of what he says.  This political disparity is another reason why my contract has ended. 

To summarize, there are three major reasons why my contract here is thankfully ended - class conduct, political ideology, and the whole issue of this urban environment.  I am ready anytime to move away from Baltimore, provided the right opportunity facilitates it.  I have the feelers out, but am just waiting for a bite.  Please keep that in your prayers, and I will update accordingly. 

Thank you for allowing me to share today, and will see you next time. 

The Consistency of True Justice

 A lot of issues are going on in our nation right now, including debates over the role of ICE.  At the school I work at, this has become a hot topic as about 46% of the student body is Hispanic.  However, a lot of misinformation surrounds the role of ICE, and I wanted to address that here based on something practical I am doing with my students. 

ICE is a law enforcement agency, an agency with a very specific focus but law enforcement nonetheless.  Also, Trump did not start ICE - it was started during the Obama area if memory serves correctly.  That being said, a lot of political mythology has cropped up regarding ICE and its role, and a lot of that attempts to demonize the agency and its employees, which is not fair to them nor is it totally accurate.  Let me tell you a short story about that to illustrate.

When I was doing my undergraduate degree in college, I worked as a security officer for a large Pentecostal megachurch called Carpenter's Home in Lakeland, FL.  A security officer - even if unarmed - has to be state-licensed, and the requirement for state licensure is to take a weeklong course.  In this case, mine was in February 1995 at a local vocational school called Traviss Tech Center.  The course was taught by two local county sheriff's deputies, two very capable officers who actually gave us some important information as in many aspects security work and police work do dovetail.  Part of the instruction included traffic control, as in many venues private security handles things such as parking, etc.  While a security officer does not have the full access to power a police officer has, many of the same procedures apply.  When we were doing the traffic unit in our training, the one deputy instructor gave us a valuable piece of information about traffic patrol that seems common-sense, but often individual paranoia obscurs.   He mentioned that often when a police officer is on a highway at a stoplight behind another vehicle, the mythology is that somehow the cop is running a tag on the car in front of them and it makes the driver of the car paranoid.  The deputy assured us that in many cases the cop is not even paying attention to the license of the car in front of them for several reasons.  First, if you are observing the law, then you have nothing to worry about - the only time you will attract a cop's attention is if you give them a motive to pay attention to you.  Secondly, the cop is also driving, and he has to keep an eye on the road for his own safety driving - if he is running numbers on his system while driving, he will likely run into a tree and crack up the police cruiser or worse, injure or endanger himself.  Third, there are laws in place that keep police authority in its own lane - a cop cannot intentionally harass anyone without cause, and if he does then it can bring some serious consequences.  Keeping this in mind, these standards don't just apply to your local town cops, but to all law enforcement, and that includes ICE.  That being said, I want to give a bit of perspective on these current debates on the role of ICE.

The three reasons I noted above for the traffic cop also applies to ICE agents.   To reiterate in context, first, ICE is not going to randomly detain people and will only exercise that if something attracts their attention.  This problem is exacerbated by the various protests and violent actions of some activists, who fail to understand that they are making the problem worse and are not helping anyone.  Recently, at the school I work with, the campus minister (who is a proponent of Marxist-influenced "liberation theology") was organizing anti-ICE rallies with the students on campus, and in doing so he actually caused some families to be at greater risk.  His drawing attention to them more or less painted a huge bulls-eye on the backs of the very people he wanted to help.  However, that is par for the course for political posturing - often the loudest people in the room accomplish two things - they end up doing the most damage, or they end up being the ones that do nothing because they thrive on the chaos.  No creative solutions, no strategy - just a lot of loud talk and no action.  These people are described in Scripture as "tinkling cymbals."   And, others would be advised to avoid and ignore them because they are attention hogs - this is very true of the campus minister at the school where I teach.  And, that leads to a second point.

ICE cannot randomly round up and deport people because it is not practical.  It would be a waste of resources for one thing, because like every other government agency, ICE has an allocated budget and cannot exceed it.  Also, as a matter of safety and priority, the real targets of ICE are not the hard-working quiet immigrant families, but are active criminals.  ICE is way too busy with that to be concerned with a person who says "Buenos Dias" on a sidewalk instead of "good morning."  Therefore, even if by chance an ICE vehicle is cruising a neighborhood (and honestly, I have yet to see one myself) they probably have a reason to be there.  So, there is no need to panic unless you have reason to, and in that case perhaps you need to rectify the situation. 

The third thing is legal obligations.  Like any other government entity, ICE is regulated by a set of laws that limit what it can and cannot do.  So, ICE cannot randomly raid schools, churches, or even private homes just because they feel like it - anyone who says otherwise is lying and has no concept of what the law actually says.  Also, despite someone being undocumented, ICE has to exercise some basic human decency and cannot target with intent unless there is probable cause to do so.  Again, when these protesters and idiots stir up trouble, they are compounding the issue rather than resolving it because then they put the very people they should protect right in the center of a bulls-eye ICE can focus on.  I hope that clarifies any misunderstandings that the pundits and talking-heads in secular media are cultivating.

Now, let's talk about undocumented immigrants themselves.  I don't think that any decent human being - including the vast majority of hard-working ICE agents - wants to bring harm to these people.  The fact they are undocumented however is an issue, and if they are otherwise good and respectful people, then they can get help they need to make their situation legal.   For a start, let's identify two barriers many of these people have that may be causing the problem.  The first is language - many undocumented immigrants are not fluent in English, and that creates barriers to filling out paperwork.   Second, there is also a financial barrier, as many of these people struggle and are not independently wealthy.  If they can be assisted in these areas, it would go a long way.   However, many "activists" are not interested in solutions, but rather want to create more chaos for these people, and that doesn't do anyone any favors, including undocumented people.  Many of these undocumented people are actually good, decent, and even hard-working people who could be an asset to our nation, so for them there needs to be a mechanism in place to assist them with being legal.  Many Catholic dioceses have refugee and immigrant offices which handle paperwork like that, and often these services are given pro bono to families who are struggling, and Spanish-language (as well as other languages) services are provided to make the process more manageable for these people.  Additionally, in many cases, if a family can get at least a minimum of three character references from friends who are citizens, that goes a long way too.  And, if per chance ICE does encounter them, they will largely be left alone if the ICE agent sees they are being proactive in obtaining legal status.  Perhaps if we started using the brains God gave us to create constructive solutions instead of doing destructive actions, this issue would not be a huge problem.  I have personally volunteered for my Spanish-speaking students to provide a character witness for their families if they need it, and in doing so it is a more proactive approach than the loud, obnoxious protests some do in a false pretense of "justice."  

Bottom line, I don't think any decent American citizen is against immigration, but the system needs reform and the process must be legal, and just as in any other nation on the planet, just showing up here does not guarantee a carte-blanche status.  So, if you are an undocumented immigrant, please pursue legal channels to have documented status, whether that is as a permanent resident or even a citizen.  It's the law, and laws exist for a reason.  And, also, if you are seeing the loudmouths and protesters throwing rocks at ICE agents, don't be part of that - it will harm your chances for legal standing in our nation.  Thank you for allowing me to share today, and will see you next time. 

To Those in the Tombs He Bestoweth Life

 Christ has risen from the dead

By death he trampled death 

and to those in the tombs he bestoweth life

(from the Easter Troparion of the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy)

As I write this, today is Good Friday, the day we as Christians commemorate the ultimate sacrifice God gave us - his own life to save us.  It is an important memorial for us, and as we observe it today it also concludes Holy Week - we fast and abstain today as a sign of mourning but also as a promise of hope, the hope of our salvation.  For every Good Friday an Easter Sunday will follow, and that is the promise ultimately of our eternal salvation, but it also reflects life in general to a degree.

We have all faced those "Good Friday" seasons, and you know what I am talking about.  You feel like you cannot go on much longer because so much is overwhelming you.  But, as often happens, just as it seems like there is no hope left, the "Easter Sunday" comes.  Often that is unannounced, but it is a glorious moment for us.  Before I get into this though, let me clarify some things.

First, I know that a similar message like this is preached by positive-affirmation and New Thought cults out there - it is indeed a popular and attractive message.  In principle, it is not necessarily wrong, but it becomes idolatrous as it takes a sacred event and tries to turn it into a self-help seminar.  The last time I heard something like that was from a popular Unity "minister" in Florida by the name of Leddy Hammack.  This woman is a piece of work for one thing - I recall several years back we attended a wedding of one of Barbara's friends who was part of the "church" she pastored, and oh my goodness, was that an experience.  This Leddy woman, who claims to be a minister, looked like a hippie flower child and had about the same mannerisms of one, and I remember actually sitting in that wedding ceremony biting the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing at this woman.  Out of respect, I refrained from any visible sources of amusement, but my goodness, was it hard!  Later, a "sermon" of hers appeared on YouTube about the Easter season, and it was an exercise in denial and faulty interpretation.  Instead of focusing on what the season really meant, she turned it into some stupid self-help motivational speech about how "we all have personal resurrections" and what not, and totally missed the historic Church understanding of what Easter meant.  However, for a cultist like her, it is to be expected because any talk of sin, judgment, heaven, hell, and any related topic is not part of New Thought vocabulary - their version of the cardinal sin is making a negative affirmation (you see this in some "Christian" televangelists too, such as the late Robert Schuller and Joel Osteen).  I wanted to preface my discussion today in order to totally disavow that approach, as it detracts from the true meaning of what we are commemorating these next few days.  However, I also do want to tie it into personal life somewhat, because it does apply to us as well on a personal level.

Adversity is a part of life, and often the way we grow is by dying to self in many cases - a seed, for instance, has to decompose in order for new growth to sprout from it, and out of the stinky muck of adversity and tragedy can grow something beautiful and better.  Like the story of our salvation, Jesus conquered death by his death, and it bestowed life to those in the tombs, as the Easter Troparion quoted above proclaims.  Likewise, we conquer our adversity at times by letting things that burden us die, and from the death and decay of the old, a stronger new can sprout.  It is, in a real sense, death conquering death to bestow life.  In that regard, it is a personal application and dimension of the Easter message, but with a difference from what the New Thought esoterist teaches - unlike New Thought BS, this view acknowledges adversity exists, and also sees it as an opportunity for growth rather than the result of a "negative confession."  Natural law also affirms this, as due to the fallen state of humanity Genesis 3 documents, sin and death are realities we face, but they can also be used to bear good fruit.  You are probably scratching your head now and saying "what on earth is he talking about? Sin bad, death bad, but life and perfection good," am I right?  Let us dive into that shall we?

Sin is bad, and its consequences are not pretty - we all can attest to that.  However, remember Romans and what it says - all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose."  This means that a bad situation is like fertilizer - it stinks, is rotten, and in its raw state it can kill someone.  However, when a seed is planted in it, this becomes nourishment for growth, and indeed a seasoned horticulturalist will tell you that the more nasty and rotten a fertilizing agent is, the more effective it is to produce abundant growth.  This is why in the past many farmers used the "byproducts" of their livestock as fertilizer on their fields - they understood the value of it.  I recall as a teenager when I was doing some minor gardening at the farm I lived on.  I picked a very sunny spot over a small smokehouse spring on a ledge above the house, and I took my tools and dug up a perfect 9' by 4' plot.  I cleaned out all the rocks, roots, and other stuff that was up there, and then I placed a small bailer-twine fence around it to keep our dog out of it.  The next step in this process was to go over to the barn area in the pasture just outside the house, and with a wheelbarrow and shovel I collected as many cowpies (round deposits of cow manure) as well as a few "meadow muffins" (horse turds), and I brought them back to my small plot I prepped.  I shoveled that crap onto the freshly prepared soil, and then with a hoe I worked it into the dirt with precision until the whole patch of ground was incorporated with the smelly stuff.  Using some industrial gloves, I then planted two rows of tiny onion bulbs and some old wrinkled sprouting potatoes, and then I watered them.  It took about two or three weeks, during which time I was in Georgia visiting my dad for the summer, and when I returned I had a small but nice crop of onions and potatoes.  It was a productive project, and a part of me misses that although recently I did get a bit of memory boost when I had to volunteer at the Little Portion Farm, a vegetable farm operated by the local Franciscans, for a school day of service.  I was digging up a lot of carrots there with two of my fellow teachers, and that too reminded me of a verse in Scripture - that one about 30, 60, and hundred-fold.  Let me explain that.

About 40 years ago on religious television, networks like TBN used to have these quarterly telethons to raise money, and they did so with the old Word of Faith garbage they were noted for.  At the time, one of the most notorious spokesman of that garbage was a con-man in a collar named John Avanzini.  I am not sure if this guy is even still alive or not, but he had all the polish of a used-car salesman but cloaked his spiel in religious jargon.  He devised a scheme called "The Hundred-Fold Prophecy" in which he said that if someone "sowed a seed" of a thousand bucks into whatever religious network he was pitching for, they would miraculously receive $100,000.  Surprisingly, many people fell for that crap and Avanzini ended up being a wealthy man from it although his donors were definitely a lot poorer.  Besides grossly taking this passage of Scripture out of context, it also was a scam perpetuated by a man who was out to enrich himself rather than being a blessing for others.  While I am sure that this scheme did not originate with John Avanzini (some said Oral Roberts may have pioneered it decades earlier), he became a master manipulator using it.  The discussion I am about to have about this Scripture passage has nothing to do with the get-rich-quick scams of televangelists, but is rather a lot more practical.  Let me get into that now.

When Jesus told this parable, he was framing it in an agricultural context of the time in order to convey a spiritual truth - the actual truth he was communicating is that when people receive the Gospel, they grow.  Some grow more than others, but if the nourishment of the seed of evangelization is just right, growth happens.  It has nothing to do with growing wealth (although in all fairness the principle does work if applied correctly and not as a "seed faith" scam), but rather with growing one's soul in supernatural grace.  However, the principle is based on natural law, and that day digging those carrots at the farm illustrated that.

The carrots that day we harvested came in all shapes and sizes - some were tiny, others were massive, but all were a potential nutritious ingredient that would later be processed into a meal for someone that needed it.  The soil did its job, in other words, and the carrots developed - some were very tiny indeed, while others were so large it took two hands to get them out of the soil.  But, all were edible and they all represented successful agricultural practice.  The Church is like that too, and speaking of true believers, they come in all forms.  Some are rough around the edges yet, but they are open to growth - they are like the tiny carrots we found.  Others, though, are very grounded in their faith and have wisdom we can use ourselves - those were the giant two-handed harvests.  All are still true believers, they all received grounded teaching, and all have their own struggles that shaped their faith.  Some are still growing, while others exude a spiritual maturity that makes them an inspiration to us all.  Many of us (myself included) are in the middle - we have come a long way, but our journey is not over yet.  If anything, the middle-ground produce is what would be 60-fold.  Not better than anyone else (a carrot is still a carrot, regardless of size), but at a good place in their own growth process. That is the true message of the parable.  All seed is productive if it is sowed correctly, but its growth rate is individually determined - some will grow more, some take a while, but the growth is still there.  So, what causes the growth?  Something has to nourish these seeds after all, and it's the nourishment that fuels growth.  Therefore, what is the nourishment.

You will remember some time back when I told you the story a "life coach" teacher shared with us some years ago at a corporation I worked at.  He gave the image of a rose garden growing over a sewer.  As I mentioned, this has two lessons in it.  The first - the lesson the life coach was trying to communicate - is that appearances can be deceiving.  What looks good on the surface may stink underneath.  This is true.  But, I got another message that is related but similar - the roses grew beautiful because of the sewer giving rich fertilization to the roots.   Adversity is like that - it stinks, and in its raw state it can be toxic, but in the right conditions it can also nourish growth.  Therefore, in that scenario, the beauty everyone admires comes at the huge price of a lot of adversity which nourished the grow.  And, the two individuals are different in that regard - the one putting on appearances to deceive others is shallow, and at some point that sewer is going to smell through.  However, the one who grew as a result of the sewer will be strong, and will bear amazing fruit that will be nourishing to others.  Hundred-fold growth is often fertilized by personal adversity, but the growth symbolizes an overcoming.  Now, back to the Easter message.

Christ died so that humanity - spiritually dead and decaying in sin - could be given new life.  The old seed-husks of sin and corruption are eaten away, and the fresh sprout then breeches the ground so that it can become a fruitful and beautiful plant.  Jesus too died - from that death he arose, and by conquering his death he also gave us the gift of life.  As the oft-quoted verse of John 3:16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son (in essence, himself, since Jesus IS God) that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life - by his death, he conquered our death, in other words.  That is the core truth of the whole Gospel story - God's love being that he gave himself to save us.  And, it is why we as Christians treat Easter and the days preceding it as the holiest season of the Church year - it is commemorating the reason for our own existence.  That being said, the Easter Troparion is in essence John 3:16.  The only thing we have to do now is accept the gift.  

If you are reading this today, understand something.  As a human being, you have value.  You were created in God's image, and he loves you with a love none of us can reciprocate.  That love ultimately meant he sacrificed himself for us that we can have life with him.  And, that means you - will you accept it today?  If so, reflect on this discussion, and then talk to your pastor or priest about how to experience and know Christ - they will take it from there and will guide you to a new life in Christ.  The choice is yours, and personal choice is the key - God gave us that free will to choose, but also gives us warning that our choices have consequences.  As I have said before and will say here, God doesn't "send" people to hell - we do that ourselves.  But, he can save us from that if we so choose and desire that salvation.  You may think you are the ugliest, most evil human being on the planet, but by crying out to God, the fertilizer of adversity has done its work and your seed is sprouting - let it grow now, and let Christ help you pierce the surface of that soil and grow into the beautiful creation he made you to be.  And, there is no better season to do that than now - resurrection with Christ on Easter Sunday as a new creation.  Thank you for allowing me to share, and will talk next time. 

Spring and Change

 The Spring season is now upon us, and the weather has actually gotten more pleasant outside today.  I am on a week's break from work too, as it is also now Holy Week in the Church, which kicked off yesterday with the observance of Palm Sunday.  We attended Mass at the parish I have been going to here in Baltimore, Saints Philip and James, and it was actually a nice Mass.  In case you are familiar with how the traditional Palm Sunday Mass is celebrated, it is a bit different - the Gospel is read like a drama, with the priest and two others reading parts in the dialogue,  and it is actually a very participatory experience.  The audience also is brought into it as well, as we have parts we say in it too.  It is a powerful - albeit lengthy, as it is the longest Gospel reading of the year - re-enactment of the Passion narrative.  Although it deals with more of what happens in Good Friday, it still is traditionally the Gospel read on Palm Sunday as it marks the beginning of the short season of Holy Week, which will culminate in Easter Sunday and the new season of Pentecost that begins shortly afterward.  That will last roughly until Pentecost Sunday in June, and is then followed by Trinity Sunday the following week and then the Feast of Corpus Cristi a week after that.  Corpus Christi ends the official Church year, and we are then in what is called the Ordinary Season until Advent, which starts at the end of November.  For me personally, this also means a change in my personal devotional life as well, that I will explain briefly.

For about 10 years or so now, I have incorporated a decade of the Rosary into my daily devotions, and although it is more customary to say all five decades of the Rosary in one prayer, I do it this way for two reasons.  For one, it is practical, as the time doesn't allow for me to say an entire Rosary of a day given one decade usually takes about 5 minutes to pray.  Secondly, the Rosary is not a mandated devotional practice, and although it has immense spiritual value, it is not typically required except by some religious orders or apostolates.  That being said, I will give you my way of praying it which is a bit abbreviated and different.

My practice has been to take a set of mysteries each week - which consist of 5 decades - and I focus on one decade a day of each of those mysteries.  A decade of the Rosary for me consists of the following - the Sign of the Cross, the Apostles Creed, the Our Father, three Hail Marys, a Glory Be, then the announcement of the first mystery, then an Our Father, ten Hail Marys, the Glory Be, the Fatima Prayer, and then the closing prayers - the Salve Regina, Final Prayer, the St. Michael Prayer, and the sign of the Cross to close.  On average, I organize the sets of Mysteries - there are four, which include the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious - according to the Church year, and during the Ordinary (Green) season I alternate one set of Mysteries each week.   So, being that I am in Lent and Holy Week now, the Mysteries I pray during that season will be the Sorrowful Mysteries.  Beginning the Monday after Easter, I will switch to the Glorious Mysteries, which I will pray until the Monday after Trinity Sunday. My praying of the Mysteries of the Rosary is a bit different, but I feel they are adequate given my own lifestyle.  And, they constitute the first part of my 3-part morning devotionals, which start with the decade of the Rosary, then the daily Scripture reading (I go by the USCCB Readings schedule for that) and then followed by a more informal prayer I use to focus on my personal petitions.  While my prayers have evolved over the years, I have a pretty consistent prayer regimen and it has served me well all these years too.  I also exclude the weekends, based on some good advice a former professor shared - Saturday I have no personal devotion, and Sunday it is Mass that is the focus.  Although God doesn't technically need it, Saturdays are days I give him a rest from listening to me, at least formally - I always have prayers and petitions on my mind, but I feel God deserves a Sabbath too, so Saturday I do that.  For those that ask about my personal devotional practices, there it is for you. 

My prayer life has been more detailed lately as far as personal petitions due to many changes I am facing now - I will share more on those later.  And it is this which I motivate my own reflections today. 

Although I will elaborate more in a later discussion, I have not been offered a contract for the next school year where I am teaching, and to be honest that is not really a bad thing.  There are situations at my current school I consider uncomfortable, and the principal thankfully knows this and understands. So, I will be finishing up my year here, and then will be moving on.  I am not exactly sure what will happen, but I do have applications out there and I don't think it will be a huge problem getting decent work, preferably outside of Baltimore.  And, in all honesty, I just had what were perhaps the most restful two nights of sleep I have had in months, as this takes from me a tremendous burden.  At some point - probably after I accept another offer and move on - I will tell that whole story, but this is not the time for that.  However, I do covet the prayers of those of you reading this, as it will be a big change.  But, mentally I am ready for that too.  That was primarily the issue I wanted to address today.  

I plan on enjoying this week off, and hope and pray everyone else has a good week ahead as well too, as we approach the Easter Season.  And, as our Greek brethren say, I say to you - Kristos anesti!  

Overwhelmed and Winding Down

 As I am writing this week, there are a few things I wanted to talk about.  However, first, this week is the final week before Spring break, which means next week is Holy Week as well.  This is a good thing, as it shows that the school year is starting to wrap up soon and we are in that season where things are going to accelerate somewhat going forward.  However, I am feeling it too, as the toxic political environment of Baltimore is visibly draining me, and I am not sure what is going to happen as far as new opportunities - hopefully God loves me enough to have some mercy to open other doors soon, because I am at this point where I have to get the hell out of this place.  It sort of came to a head yesterday with my students in one class, who were extremely disruptive - I had to kick one of them out of class, and the rest found themselves on the receiving end of a brutal tongue-lashing about their futures.   Essentially, I told them that if they persisted in that type of conduct, no college would have them, no job will hire them, and they will end up wrapped in a blanket taking shelter under the Gay Street bridge a few blocks north of here.  If you are not familiar with Baltimore, North Gay Street has a weird intersection that looks like a spiderweb, and traversing it is a light rail/train track that creates a bridge over the intersection.  At that intersection, almost every morning, there are heaps of matter laying there which essentially are sleeping homeless people.  Some days there is maybe one out there, but on others I have witnessed as many as 10.  It encapsulates the general condition of this city - it has been governed for generations now by a corrupt mayor and city council - mostly Democrats, go figure! - who seem to have the goal of enriching their bank accounts rather than revitalizing the city.  It is also the reason why you can see so many abandoned and boarded-up rowhouses, garbage strewn all over the place, and there is an epidemic of porch piracy in many neighborhoods.  My goal at this point is to get out of here as soon as possible, and I plan to do so by looking into other opportunities for work.  I have started that process already, and am just waiting for the right opportunity to bite.  Please keep me in your prayers for this.

Now, let's talk about things at work.  I was a bit disturbed yesterday by our campus minister at school here - a frumpy, unkempt, obese man who looks like a stereotypical sex offender (although to his credit that is not one of his vices) and is indoctrinated totally with heretical "liberation theology."  The man has spent some time in El Salvador, where he met his wife supposedly, and he has crafted a narrative which to one who doesn't know better sounds so compelling yet is so full of BS that I can smell it a mile away.  Any rate, yesterday, he sponsored an anti-ICE rally here at the school, and I personally chose not to attend it because I could not do so in good conscience.  To recap this issue from last week, it has two basic flaws.  For one, ICE is not like a predatory hawk ready to swoop down on the first person who says "buenos dias," and by perpetuating that narrative, this campus minister is actually trying to stoke unrest in the student community here.  Secondly, because ICE does not operate like that, this campus minister basically just painted a huge bulls-eye on the backs of many students and their families because he will be drawing attention to them now.  That is dangerous, irresponsible, and also immoral.  As was my premise last week, if this ding-dong who calls himself a campus minister really wanted to help these students and their families, what he would be doing instead is trying to help them get their papers in order so they can be legal.  Also, if he was more consistent - I never heard a peep out of this man about Cuban refugees, or what my Assyrian and Armenian friends experienced at the hands of ISIS - he would also be advocating for homeless citizens (like the aforementioned people who camp out under the Gay Street Bridge every night) who need attention too, and he would be seeking to clean up this city a little. But, he is a leftist, and leftists are noted for one thing - gross inconsistency because they are fundamentally stupid (as moderate Muslim cleric Muhammad Tawhidi points out many times).  Therefore, don't expect people like this to be the saviors of civilization - they would quickly destroy it in the name of the false "justice" they preach.  Anyway, enough about this clown, as I am feeling nauseous just talking about him and I can see his office just outside mine here at the school anyway.  I have a few other things to discuss I wanted to get into.

As rough as this school year is getting for me, I still have a number of students I am genuinely fond of, and they make this job worth it.  One of them, a short Black girl who for her protection we'll call Tammy here, has been fun to have in class.  She is extremely intelligent, and she has a sense of humor that is refreshing some days.  A couple of days ago, she really made me smile and chuckle when in class she brought up this one question - if someone is in hell and they have excessive gas, will they explode if they fart?  After almost losing my composure laughing at the hilarity of that question, my response to her was "well, I don't plan on going there to find out."  This story is now part of my personal legend, and I probably will be recounting it to friends for years to come.  It is moments like that though that remind me that this is not just another job, but is a vocation.  And, while I desperately want to get out of here, I will in all honesty miss many of these kids when I do go, because some of them have been real joys to have in class. 

And, that leads me into the other big piece of news for the week.  I have begun a bucket list project I have been waiting a while to get started, and that is turning my 38-lesson Genesis study into a book.  While it has been over a decade since I last put that together, I feel it is a good resource that many people could benefit from.  However, the challenge is incorporating a lot of new information into it as well as I revise it and get it ready to go to press, and that will take some time.  I am anticipating about two months to make the revisions and do the editing and formatting, and then it can be published.  I then want to put into print two other books I have been compiling, one being of my old sermons and the other my long-awaited cookbook.  Once I get those in print, then my next writing project will be from the other direction - a more eschatological book that deals with my work with Assyrians, Armenians, Maronites, and others over the decades.  I have to acquire a lot of books I lost to make that happen again, and I am starting that process now as well.  This will be a project that will be somewhat different but is essential - it will combine some eschatology with things such as just-war theory, monarchism, the minorities of the Middle East, and also the growing Hebrew Catholic movement as well.  I feel these are all connected, and that is why I want to get a book out there which deals with the topic from a very comprehensive view.  I have friends who have published similar books - notably my good friend Stephen Missick, as well as Ron Susek and some others - but mine will be somewhat unique from those as I am doing this from a Catholic perspective rather than Evangelical Protestant.  It is a way of getting the message across in a way that gets people's attention, and now that my formal schooling is completed and I have the doctorate I waited long to get, I can begin to focus more on writing projects like this.  And, that means a new focus for blogging as well.

Over the years, I have made the point of putting into printed form every blog article I have written, as I want a set of complete volumes available for when I finally decide to close my blogs for good, which I want to do at my 60th year.  I feel my writing is entering a new level at this phase, and it is time to make my various observations and insights into something more focused and organized.  At the present time, counting my dissertation I have 5 books I have authored, and those have not been made mass-marketable yet - some I am frankly afraid to put on the market because the first time I did that I caught flak from people who wanted to tell me how to write my own material - not criticism, but actual threats and even condemnation of my work.  I know criticism comes with the territory when you present your perspective out there, but in all honesty sometimes it is as if the "critic" who is attacking you doesn't just want to offer constructive advice, but they want to muscle you off the face of the earth because they want you to write their perspectives rather than your own.  I have come up with a good way to handle idiots like that - if you don't like what I say, write your own damn book.  I make it a point not to criticize other writers like that - I am mature enough to know I am not going to necessarily agree with every word they write, but at the same time I have the grace to understand that it is their perspective, and their hard work, that went into that endeavor and not mine.  The most I will do in that case is maybe note some grammatical or cosmetic error I see, which in no way affects their content, and often they are grateful for me seeing it because in the course of editing hundreds of pages of script, it is easy to overlook something (I do it all the time in all honesty).  Which is why I want to offer some advice for choosing editors and proofreaders if you are planning on writing a manuscript.

Editing and proofing a manuscript is crucial to writing, especially if publication is a goal.  You want your work to be readable and organized, and therefore you go through it again and again.  Some writers have reached out and gotten outside help for this, such as professional editors and proofreaders, and in doing so there are a few things to keep in mind.  First, make sure you can trust the person who undertakes the task - you don't want someone plagiarizing or stealing your work.  Secondly, choose wisely the person who you want to help edit your work, because you want an editor and not someone who wants to just rewrite everything because they don't like your perspective.  A good editor is not evaluating your opinion or perspective, but rather the way you communicate it - they are there to suggest some improvements to the way it is written maybe, as a sentence may not be clear in what the author wants to communicate and an editor can be valuable to tighten it up a little.  In that case, it makes you sound better, and I think anyone who has written a lot can appreciate that.  Furthermore, grammatical rules change over time, and as an example, I recall that when I was writing papers in high school and even in my undergrad days, it was considered the rule to make two spaces between sentences.  Now, it is one, and that is still a habit I am trying to work on is the spacing after a period. In all honesty, the one space rule does make it look better than the old two-space rule did.  However, editors are not cheap, and if you go with a professional editor for your manuscript, make sure to do your homework, as you will be investing hundreds of dollars into their services if you decide to retain them. And, even after the editing, you still have to check over the published manuscript with alignment, etc.  So, publishing a book is not easy, and it takes a lot of work overall. 

At any rate, the Genesis book is in process now, and hopefully by mid-May I will have it up and going to the publisher.  This discussion today was a bit longer than I anticipated, but overall I think it was also more practical too.  Thanks for joining me, and will see you next time.  

Revisiting Immigration

 Yesterday, at the school I work at, the campus minister announced that he was recruiting students for a protest against ICE, the agency that deals with enforcing immigration law.  ICE has taken a lot of flak for things, and as a result a lot of bad misinformation has been circulated about the agency that is simply ridiculous.  I mentioned the conspiracy theories being promoted even by leadership at certain schools that paint ICE as these predatory thugs who are swarming communities like vultures ready to pick off the first person they note saying "buenos dias" to their friends on the streets.  Thing is, within 5 blocks of where I work, I have yet to even see one ICE vehicle, much less a swarm of them.  This misinformation has created a lot of the violence that law enforcement has faced in many cities over the past year, and there are a few things I wanted to note to dispel a lot of the garbage circulating about who ICE is and what they actually do. 

Let me start with a story.  When I was doing my undergraduate work at Southeastern University in Lakeland, FL, I paid the bills by working for a large Pentecostal megachurch as a security officer.  In order to get a job working security in Florida, you are required to take a 1-week course to earn a license, and often those courses (as mine was) are taught by either police officers or county deputy sheriffs.  So, as a result, you get trained in a lot of police procedures, as essentially security work is a type of law enforcement that is privately contracted.  One part of that training was in traffic direction, and it included practicing directing traffic to park, and how to direct drivers to intersect thoroughfares.  In the classroom though, the deputy sheriff who was teaching the class was telling us how police monitor traffic, and what he told us was actually quite revelatory.  He noted the paranoia that the average driver has when a cop is behind them on a highway, and that often this paranoia is not warranted, and then he explained why.  Most cops, he noted, are just focused on their own safe driving and are not paying attention to normal motorists on the road - the only way you get a cop's attention on a highway is if you do something that actually attracts their attention.  Therefore, he assured us that the random cop who happens to be driving behind you at a stop sign is not randomly running your plates, and they are not even worried about you unless you give them a reason.  What the deputy explained to our security officer training class also applies to other law enforcement agencies as well, and that includes ICE.  Let me explain.

There are many immigrants in America, that is an undisputed fact.  And, many of them are not legally vetted to be here.  However, of those many, the majority just go about their day minding their own business.  So, this mythology of ICE posturing and ready to pounce on such unsuspecting people is just that, mythology.  The only way someone will get ICE's attention is if they are doing something they should not be doing, and then ICE will get them because as law enforcement that is their job.  That is why ICE actually will focus attention on serious criminals such as Islamic terrorists, MS-13 gang members, human traffickers, drug dealers, and other garbage of society who coincidentally may also be illegally in the country too.  If many of the ignorant hotheaded Leftist activists understood that, it would not be a problem.  The problem with the Political Left however is that they love to defend criminals, and they villainize the victims of the crimes, even if the victims are themselves immigrants. That has to stop, but the protests are actually doing other damage as well, which is what I want to discuss now.

The campus minister at the school I work at is a professed Catholic, but in reality he is a Marxist-influenced proponent of what is called "liberation theology," which was condemned by popes over the past two centuries as a heresy.  Because he is involved in this, faith is second-class to "justice" to this guy, and he sounds more like a Marxist in many instances than he does an actual spiritual leader of a school campus.  Just a day or two ago, he announced that he was organizing an anti-ICE protest here in Baltimore, and is trying to recruit both students and faculty to participate in it.  This is NOT a good idea, and I would like now to explain why.

When people start doing these silly protests, it can have dangerous consequences.  As I mentioned above, most immigrants who live here - even if otherwise illegal - are generally peaceful people who want to live their lives and mind their own business.  That being said, they are not doing anything that would warrant surveillance from the designated law enforcement agencies.  And, to be honest, they would probably be happy to obey the process and become legal, but perhaps some financial barriers or something else is preventing them from doing so.  Toward the end of this discussion, I am going to propose a solution, but at this point, these crazy protesters may be doing more harm than good to the people they are supposedly advocating for.  A neighborhood of immigrants, if they are having a spotlight like that shined on them, will automatically garner attention, and that will not be a good situation for them.  People like the very misguide campus minister are painting bulls-eyes on the backs of the people they are supposedly protesting for, and maybe that is their end game - by provoking ICE to react and then making them look like the bad guys, the protesters get the viral footage they crave and they can spend the narrative.  And, that makes our society even more chaotic because the real criminals take advantage of this, and thus they can murder people, traffic drugs, and do all the other junk they do.  And, the American citizen and taxpayer suffers as a result.  There is a better way, and I want to give a proposal for that now.

If people are so interested in advocating for undocumented immigrants, then at least do something constructive.  For instance, instead of protests where hard-working law enforcement officers are assaulted for doing their jobs, why don't some of these "protesters" instead provide ways to help undocumented people actually get documentation?  There are organizations - almost every Catholic diocese in the country has one - that provide aid to undocumented immigrants who really want to secure legal papers, so why isn't that encouraged more?  And, more non-profit organizations could be formed that focus on that aspect too.  Many undocumented immigrants are generally decent people with families who just want to live their lives and mind their own business, and the only thing they are missing is proper documentation.  The process can be expensive, and there are also language barriers, so I don't think it is so much that they don't want to be legal, but many they can't - this is where some outside help would be warranted.  A lot of that category of immigrant consists of people who could be a valuable asset to our society and our specific communities, so I don't think it would be a bad thing to help them make it official.  The problem is that some of the hardest crackdowns on immigration law happened under the Obama administration - I mentioned my friend, Assyrian-American attorney Robert DeKalaita, who was actually indicted by the Obama administration for helping Assyrians who were fleeing ISIS barbarians who were trying to kill them.  Fortunately, Trump pardoned Robert, but if the Left was really all that concerned about immigration, why weren't those people - who wanted to be legal - helped?  Simply, it didn't fit the narrative.  It is the same reason why Clinton was heralded as a hero for attacking Serbia during the Kosovo crisis by the Leftists but now those same Leftists think that the Ayatollah is their hero - what the hell, people??  The Left likes hollering about "justice," but their view of it is very selective - they are not after actual justice, but they are actually constructing a narrative, a very fictional narrative.  It's the same thing with true advocacy for undocumented immigrants - unless there is a ruckus to stir up, they are not interested in constructive solutions because the Left is interested in one thing and one thing only - they want to remake Western civilization in their own warped image.  And, they will do it by any means possible, including violence and showing no care for the people they holler about because that is not even a secondary emphasis for them.  If people had a more common-sense approach like this, it would solve so many problems - but the Left is not interested in solving problems, but rather creating them.  And, that is the fundamental issue.

I am hoping that a more common-sense approach to these issues is necessary, but if certain rabble-rousers have their way, this will be drowned out by emotion-driven activism rather than practical solutions.  Thanks for letting me share, and will see you next time.