Some Random Thoughts

 As I write this, it is a rainy April day (I guess Al Jolson was right about "April Showers," yes?).  It is also a Saturday, which means no work and I am at home.  My usual Saturday routine is laundry and catching up on things I need to catch up on that I get to busy to do during the week, but I felt the need to just write down some thoughts.  My mind is a crazy maze of thoughts right now that needed to get out, so this is one way to show them an exit ramp.  Let's dive in and see where this goes.

For dinner today, I decided upon a sort of stew beef and gravy dish that I made up with Barbara's help on the spot.  I used a slow cooker, and after cooking the beef in a stock with onions that I later thickened after cooking it 4 hours into a gravy,  I spooned some on rice and it turned out to be a filling meal.  Eating it reminded me of Southern cuisine, something we don't see as much of here in Baltimore anymore.  Sure, there are these "soul food shacks" all over the city that are the trademark of the large Black population here, but it is not the same as the home cooking I recall from places like Fred's in Florida - I did a restaurant review on Fred's Southern Kitchen back in 2013, and just to give a little recap on it, the restaurant was started in the 1940s I believe in Plant City by the Johnson family, and it actually sprouted two franchises.  The larger one, Buddy Freddy's, was also a decent buffet but is now defunct.  The founder of that, Buddy Johnson, also created a good cookbook of the place I would love to get my hands on but it is no longer that easy to find.  The second and more local restaurant, Fred's Southern Kitchen, was founded by another Johnson brother, Fred.  That one ended up with eventually a dozen locations across central Florida, although at this juncture I think there are four of them left.  The food at Fred's was comforting, and perhaps some of the most authentic Southern cuisine I had ever eaten - they were noted for their delicious fried chicken, as well as the best fried green tomatoes, but they also had another dish I was crazy about - the smoked sirloin.  The cooking method for that was in a large smokehouse, where a whole sirloin of beef was slow-roasted and then sliced thin in an au jus type stock, and it was delicious, especially over white rice.  The beef dish today made me think of that for some reason, which is why I felt like talking about it.  It is that type of "stick to your ribs" food that satisfies and just gives a good feeling to eat, especially on a rainy day like it is today outside here.  I miss that sometimes, as I used to cook a lot more than I do now - the place I currently live in is very temporary and I don't feel as at ease in the kitchen as I did our old place years ago.  I need to get back to cooking again, especially the creation of good recipes that I come up with from the top of my head - I am planning soon to publish those in a book once everything really settles, and I now just want to talk about that good kitchen feeling.

Back years ago, my dream kitchen was one where I lived in a house with a wraparound porch, and in that kitchen which I imagined painted in lemon-yellow inside I imagined also good food - fried chicken, yellow cake with chocolate icing, and just a place that smelled so good that it was inviting.  I imagined a radio playing my favorite music in that kitchen, and cooking with my wife some sumptuous meals in it.  That was the dream, and it was based on a number of cobbled memories I had - my granny's house when I was a kid, movies like Fried Green Tomatoes, and the Florida Cracker culture I was so interested in at the time. I guess to some degree at heart I have a Southern soul, but just don't admit it - I am, after all, half-Southern as that was my dad's roots, and I guess that sort of carried with me even today.  However, the Appalachian culture I grew up around was similar in many respects as well, and I wanted to talk about that now.

A few years back, I came across a young man in Virginia named Caleb Campbell.  Caleb was a remarkable and very intelligent kid, and when he was in his early teens he decided to build his own little church in the woods in behind his parents' house near Rose Hill, VA.  Now a young man in his early 20s, Caleb has become quite the genealogist, and has even published two of his own books - that is pretty impressive for his age in all honesty, and I gotta admit that I am both proud and envious of him at the same time.  Recently, he also has a YouTube channel, and he is doing some very interesting videos about his family's ancestral home, which I believe he is starting to restore - it is actually quite fascinating to watch, and to see how lovingly and thoroughly he details his own roots is perhaps one of the most inspirational things I have seen in a long time.  Caleb is also going to college now if I remember right, and he is a very intelligent young man with a stellar work ethic and he will go far I believe.  I look at Caleb, with whom I have also had the privilege to talk to on occasion, and he is the son I wish I would have had myself - his parents though are good, godly people too, and they raised him well, and I have gotten to know them a little too.  People like the Campbells are the backbone of a region, and the world needs more like them too. Caleb's video work is one of the reasons why I am writing today, because he sort of touched something inside me I haven't felt in a while, and that I really missed.  When I look at him, I see the kid I was when I was 22 years old, just prior to being married, and I perhaps have more in common with him than probably both of us realize.  And, that leads me to a couple of other observations.

The high school I work at is part of a network of schools that focus on inner-city minority youth who are also lower-income.  While that is good, there are some things I think about with this which draw upon my own experience from when I was a lower-income son of a single mother.  Many of these networks tend to focus on inner-city youth - nothing wrong with that - but they often just forget that there are also poor underprivileged rural kids who would probably appreciate certain opportunities like a work-study program even more.  It seems like today while everyone likes crying "racism" over things that may not actually be racist, the only acceptable group it seems to get racial slurs and stereotypes are poor mountain Whites.  The small towns of the Appalachians and Ozarks are perhaps some of the most underserved communities in the country, and when there is some outreach effort, it is often conducted by individuals who want to belittle and shame the local people as being somehow "stupid" or "slow" for preserving their own folkways.  The late Appalachian scholar Dr. Loyal Jones, a man I consider to be a great influence on me, called such "crusaders" by another name - "agents of uplift."  Though it sounds like a noble label, it is not meant to be - the term is roughly equivalent to the "carpetbagger" of the post-Civil War South in that they are not there to improve lives, but rather to replace culture. The very bad liberties some of these same activists allow for Blacks and others (for instance, they say that Blacks calling each other the n-word is a "cultural thing," although I don't know of any positive cultural trait that encourages a person to be a jackass) are not even considered for the Appalachian communities - indeed, it is a form of leftist colonialism disguised as "humanitarian," and the inconsistency of the attitudes of such people is not lost on many Appalachian people themselves - they can see right through it.  Imagine if these same activists tried to impose "civilized culture" on the Black communities in Baltimore - it would cause a civil war!  Yet, it seems OK to denigrate and belittle rural people for some reason, especially in the Appalachian region.  I am reminded of a line in the movie called Sweet Home Alabama, in which Josh Lucas's character Jake tells his citified estranged wife the following line - "Just because we talk slow down here don't mean we're stupid."  Indeed, a little "country" drawl is not an intellectual handicap - I admittedly talk with one myself, and it has been noted here too in the city.  Some of the best and brightest people in recent history were people who talked with that "country accent," one of note being the esteemed Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana.  Senator Kennedy is someone I both enjoy listening to but at the same time I highly respect.  His folksy approach is like a camouflaged rattlesnake - it looks cute and harmless, but it has a bite!  If you ever watch his Senate hearings, often when he questions someone he can be utterly disarming - he often opens an inquiry with a line like you'd hear in a casual conversation in a general store - "How ya doin' today sir?  The weather been good in your neck of the woods?"  After he disarms the person he is questioning, then he lines up the kill shot with amazing accuracy, and the unsuspecting person to whom the question is directed doesn't know what hit them!  You have to appreciate and love that, because it is brilliant and masterful strategy.  Again, the lesson here is don't mistake a slow country drawl for idiocy - you may regret that later.  I also think of "redneck comedy" like Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engvall (and of course legends like Jeff Foxworthy and Lewis Grizzard). The Bill Engvall "Here's Your Sign" shtick is perhaps one of the most clever comedic routines out there, because it highlights the fact that often if you try to "act sophisticated" you end up looking like a fool (the "sign" referred to in Engvall's monologues is a "Stupid" sign).  It's some pretty simple stuff too, and its wit will make you actually think "ohh yeah!! I get it now!"  The lesson here?  Never underestimate those of us who come from the "hills and hollers" of Appalachia or elsewhere - we're not as dumb as you think!  

As we end the school year and I see the inner-city kids who are about to graduate at the school where I teach, I know many of them because they were my students last year when they were juniors.  Being I know them, I can say this - there are some bright stars among them, but there are also a lot of kids that probably should not be graduating either.  Many of them, as seniors in high school, don't have the grade-level written and oratory skills they should have, and it is the way they are taught unfortunately.  Many of them are passed just because they are disruptive and the teachers don't want the headaches anymore of dealing with them - that is a horrible situation to be in for a teacher too.   Then, I think back to what I was learning in high school when I was a senior almost 40 years ago now in a small West Virginia town - my senior year coursework included 3rd-year German, 1st-year Latin, college-prep English, algebra, and half a semester each of Humanities and Driver's Ed.  I did very well in my final semester in all honesty, and I still use that knowledge today.  The seniors today at the school where I teach are not so fortunate - many of the AP classes are even dumbed-down to the point where you would almost have to be completely lazy not to pass, yet many still fail.  This is hard to compute for me in all honesty, and I also see that in the public schools in Baltimore as well - this is not good.  We are raising a generation of self-absorbed, functionally illiterate inner-city kids, and many of them will get acceptance letters to colleges, but few of them will successfully complete a higher degree.  It is tragic, and it also contributes to another type of urban blight - that of shiftless young people getting ensnared by drugs, and many young Black men ending up with a host of "baby mamas" who have offspring they don't take responsibility for.  If they kept certain things in their pants and used their brains more, it would be of great benefit to the cities in this country.  I see this, and then have to chuckle at the fact that many of the "experts" in education think that Appalachian small-town kids are dumb, but then they ignore this.  I have some more to say on that I will tackle later, as I have a future article I am gearing up for, but we'll do that at another time.

I think that gets some of the mental clutter organized in my mind for today, so thanks for enduring the ramblings of an aging Gen-Xer who also happens to be a proud Appalachian-American with a Ph.D. title after my name.  See you next time. 

From April Showers to May Flowers

 This past week has been a crazy one workwise - it is one of the last normal weeks before we begin the descent to summer break next month, and therefore there is much to ponder and think about. Given I have gotten a notice of non-renewal of contract at my current school where I work, I have to begin formulating some plans and am in talks with several schools now about possible opportunities.  After talking with Barbara as well, God spoke to her and recommended I do a fast to discern his will, so tomorrow will be a total fast of all food but I need to remind myself lest I forget.  However, I also see this as a good thing, because in all honesty the school I work at has a lot of serious problems, compounded by certain in the administration who don't seem to care, with the possible exception of our principal, who I believe tried his best but there is only so much he can do too.  In all, about half of our faculty is in the same situation I am in, and many of us are actually relieved while also being a bit apprehensive about the future too.  God has his plan for all things though, and this is no exception - where a door closes, a window opens, although you can't always see it yet.  So, this is where we are. 

I have been going over a lot of things in my mind the past couple of weeks, and it also has allowed me to be more outspoken about a few things.  Three people at my current school in particular - a clueless and micromanaging guidance counselor who likes sticking her nose in places it doesn't belong, a campus "minister" who is essentially a Marxist who politicizes everything yet does little actual ministry, and a vice principal who does boneheaded things and cannot be consistent if his life depended on it - are the focus of a dawning of honesty.  I was able to tell two of them off, and the third (the vice principal) has already faced the wrath of some of the other faculty so he has retreated to his office and hasn't been seen much the past week.  While I am not a person for confrontation, and honestly I hate it when it comes to that, I just come to a point where I have to say "enough is enough!" and make a stand just to get it out, and it honestly felt cleansing to do so.  Thankfully, our principal is a man of principle (pardon the pun!) and I believe with him I have come to a place of mutual respect - he has challenges of his own, and I have honestly started to pray for him.  He is not one to say a lot - and I perfectly understand that in his position he has to be nuanced - but what he doesn't say does speak volumes, and it has helped me to respect him more.  Being he is new this year, at first he was a bit to get used to, but I think as he began to see things for himself he started to understand, so I am more than happy to give him the benefit of the doubt as well as offering up prayers for him each day.  It can't be easy dealing with the mess our particular school is, and I would not want to be in his position if I were paid a million bucks a year in all honesty.  God bless him for the fortitude he does have though. 

I wanted to open that discussion to talk about some things.  I am one of those people who relates better by writing than talking, and I can be awkward, soft-spoken, and even somewhat easy to misinterpret when I actually talk.  And, if I get very emotional and upset, I tend to get shaky too - my hands shake, my body feels trembly, and it is not a pleasant experience.  I think the reason is that there is a lot to say but it all just comes tumbling out - some of us are like that.  And, I can get to a point where if I get really riled I will hit something - in at least two of the houses we have lived in over the years, there are holes in the walls that witness that fact.  I was always told by my mother that I have a bad temper, but I don't believe I really do - it actually takes a lot to cause me to react that way, and it happens a lot more rarely than my mother or anyone else used to think.  I do tend to holler a little and will often just get a bit demonstrative, but that is just me - that usually doesn't mean I am really angry, but rather just a little annoyed and am letting off steam.  That probably has to do with the Mediterranean portion of my DNA, as I also talk with my hands too, and I get warm easily - it can be 40 degrees in the house and I can be really hot and clammy.   Also, too, I don't think that God will condemn us either if we blow a fuse on occasion - as a matter of fact, sometimes we need that release or it will cause worse problems.  Many of my more emotional fuse-blowing moments are usually over within a few minutes anyway, and I am fine after I get it off my chest.   I even do that when I am watching stuff on TV or reading something too, as I have probably given more tongue-lashings to the TV than to anything.  In Italian it is called miccia corta, or irascibile, which simply means "short-fused" or "quick-tempered."  The context of that though is that it is more of a quick April downpour than it is a category-five cyclone, and once people understand you they tend to roll with it.  Filipinas have a similar state called tampo in which they just get irritable for no reason too - in both the cases of miccia corta and tampo, it is best to just give the person a wide berth and then resume conversation later.  The "short fuse" is more like a firecracker than a nuclear bomb, in other words. 

Some people at my work have given me bad cases of miccia corta in the past week, which is what I call my "April Showers" this year.  Al Jolson sang a song about "April Showers" way back in 1932 I believe, on a famous recording where he was accompanied by Guy Lombardo's orchestra.  Here are those lyrics:

Though April showers may come your way

They bring the flowers that bloom in May

So if it's raining, have no regrets

Because it isn't raining rain you know, it's raining violets

And where you see clouds upon the hills

You soon will see crowds of daffodils

So keep on looking for a bluebird, and recognize its song

Whenever April showers come along

There is a vague lesson in that old song, which was penned by Louis Silvers and Buddy DeSilva in the 1920s, and anyone who has faced a storm in life and survived it knows just what I am talking about.  The rain is wet, it is unpleasant, and we may even be morbidly terrified of the thunder and lightning, but the storm passes and we see what grows in its wake.  Same with a temper cloudburst - it may appear frightening, but when it's over the air is clearer and smells better.  Just keep that in mind when you feel like you are about to blow a gasket when a pain-in-the-butt guidance counselor starts whining about the "layers" a disobedient student has and that you were "too aggressive" in doing your job you are hired to do, or that liberal campus "minister" who is so unkempt that his pants always ride below the equator worse than a country plumber and he has been known to "moon" anyone behind him.  These people are the impetus for the storm clouds, and they can cause a weather flare-up just by being in their presence.  When I see the lyrics to that old Al Jolson song though, I recall that sometimes like the rose garden fertilized with manure, those factors are being used to help someone grow, and to grow one needs water, right?  So, a small torrential downpour is not only inevitable even for the most longsuffering of people, but it may actually be healthy.  

Being the computer died due to a faulty charger, I am picking up on this the next day from when I started so my train of thought may have had a slight detour.  The third "stooge" of the favorite trio, the vice principal, is now double-booking coverages today for the ring ceremony they have every year for the 11th graders - I tend to keep telling myself "only six more weeks" but I also feel an "April shower" brewing at this point.  Time to take a deep breath and prioritize I suppose, but my goodness - being diagnosed 16 years ago with high blood pressure, this type of nonsense is not exactly something that is healthy for me so I have to manage it constructively.  I will write more about that experience in retrospect, as again I have six weeks left here before I am finished and I want to at least finish here on some high note.  But, it is challenging - Lord, give me strength.

That sort of concludes today's thoughts, but I will revisit soon.  Thank you for joining me today. 

The Culture - Good and Bad

 As I sit here monitoring a group of students taking what is called MAP testing for two hours, I am reading a book entitled A Practical Guide to Culture, authored by John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle.  These authors are Evangelical Protestants, but much of what they say does dovetail traditional Catholic values regarding culture and how we relate to it.  I will get into more of that momentarily as there is still a lot to digest from it. 

This morning, speaking of culture, you will recall I live in a huge city called Baltimore.  Baltimore is big, although it has been bleeding population for many years now.  It is also considered to be one of the most hazardous cities in the nation due to a high homicide rate, as well as decades of corrupt leadership in its city government which haven't done the people that live here any favors.  It is also, with possibly Detroit and Atlanta, one of the few cities in the US that has a majority Black population.  Even at the school where I teach, a good 52% or more of students are Black, and the remainder are Hispanics and other ethnicities.  What I am about to say about this is no reflection on every member of a certain ethnic group as well, given there are good apples and bad apples in every proverbial barrel.  However, the demographic does reveal something about why a city like Baltimore is like it is, and facts don't lie when you look at evidence.  Let's get into that.

If you drive in certain neighborhoods of Baltimore, some things really stand out.  For one, many of the iconic rowhouses are now largely abandoned, and they are decaying by the second.   Another thing worth noticing is how garbage is just randomly and carelessly laying around on almost every  street, and the level of filth is alarming.  Added to that is the prominence of ugly, glaring, and bold graffiti - no blank surface is untouched by that for long.  Much of the graffiti looks like a foreign language too - it is largely gang-related code, which makes it even more concerning as that means there are criminal gangs operating in the city.  There is additionally an epidemic of porch piracy - our housemate noted that many things that get stolen off porches and sold at a pawn shop a block or two away from our house, and it is usually to score a few bucks to feed some destructive habit - crack and fentanyl are both epidemic in this city.  The "hood culture" of this city is frankly something ugly, foreign, and even hazardous, and to be honest, I don't feel entirely comfortable living here.  While a large percentage of the activities described could be attributed to Blacks in the city, it is not all Black crime - there are plenty of White culprits as well.  However, the White population enables this bad behavior because of one important factor - many Whites in the city are upper middle-class, and are politically left-leaning, and they think this type of adverse behavior is "cultural expression" and seem to enjoy deterioration of society because they are actually insulated from the worst aspects of it.  However, the local Black and Hispanic populations - I am talking about the "silent majority" who just work, support their families, and try to live productive lives - know the issues and they are not happy about this either.  They understand that there are some elements among their population that project negative stereotypes of them on others, and I have talked with them personally.   These are not bad people by any means - they want to just live life in peace like any decent person does.  However, the urban blight in their communities is being enabled by Leftist politicians and their rich White liberal allies while good people suffer as a result - in order for the city to change, that attitude must change.  This now leads to a discussion (or rather a tongue lashing) I had with the campus minister at this school just yesterday.

Our campus minister is an obese man who does not take pride in his personal appearance - his pants are always sagging below the equator, and he looks like that creepy dude you associate with some old lady's basement.  He tells his story of being a volunteer with a Catholic lay apostolate called Maryknoll, but also acknowledges that much of his worldview was shaped by Jesuit thinking.  He additionally possesses some degree in "liberation theology," and spent a considerable amount of time in El Salvador and other Central American regions before coming here.  The problem is his narrative however - he loves throwing the word "justice" around like a mantra, but the concept for him is extremely subjective and not consistent.  For instance, he often spouts a bunch of anti-ICE rhetoric regarding undocumented immigrants, but I was quick to notice that he was largely silent about real atrocities going on in the world, such as the mass slaughter of Christians in Nigeria, and the fact that Iranians are being slaughtered by their regime on the streets for simply existing.   He also does not acknowledge things such as the March for Life, and it goes completely ignored when the topic comes up.  Further, when he talks about El Salvador in any capacity, he has sympathy for Marxist guerillas there and says that atrocities were supposedly committed by the Salvadoran government with supposed US backing (this guy, who is an American, hates his country with a passion, in other words).  However, what this guy did not count on is that I know many Central American expats myself, and they tell a different story - according to them, guerillas (largely funded with Cuban cash) would kill military personnel, steal the uniforms, and then dress up in them to make it look like the government was destroying churches and such - it was the same ploy Hitler used to invade Poland in September 1939 and it makes sense that leftist totalitarians would use tactics of other totalitarians to gain support.  The result was that the guerillas then would garner support and sympathy for their cause, and the Salvadoran government was made out to look like the villains.  For a supposedly educated Catholic missionary to not only fall for this drech but also disseminate it is beyond comprehension for me, as it just makes no sense whatsoever.  But, a narrative that stokes an emotional response is the ultimate weapon of psychological warfare, and there are allies these people have in the highest positions of power too which ultimately are funding them - I guarantee the campus minister has a very comfortable salary, and although he tries to look like a bum (a case of humble pride) he has quite a racket going.  His "justice mantra" is just that - an emotional ploy to manipulate others to follow his inconsistent garbage, and for a school filled with urban minority students, he has a fertile field to spread that false gospel.  The problem with this is that he is giving a wrong perception of "justice," as his version of that concept is essentially the same as every tyrant who has ever seized the leadership of a nation - tyrants such as Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Kim Il-Sung, Castro, Hugo Chavez, and others have used the term "justice" to create their corrupt systems.  It is a justice that has its basis in mindless rhetoric and not true faith or conviction, and as a result it is a flawed version of the real thing.  So, let's revisit this a minute:

Faith without justice - legalism

Justice without faith - tyranny

Again too, the key to true justice is the conversion of the individual soul, and if you can save a soul, you can transform the world.  This is why evangelization is restorative - it not only brings salvation to a single person, but it can also impact a society for the better too.  The campus minister here grossly misses this, because he doesn't give a damn about souls or spiritual things - he is driven by a selfish political agenda devoid of true faith, and although he cloaks it in "religious" language, in reality it is a tinkling chorus of cymbals just making a lot of discordant noise.  Unless individuals start to really come to Christ and allow his spirit to transform him, working through supernatural grace, society will not improve.  And, our enemies know this - they know that if they can figuratively castrate Christian faith, they can then gain the upper hand.  People like this campus minister are playing into that masterfully, and the politicized, weak, and ineffectual "faith" he claims to espouse is in reality nothing - it is devoid of truth, true conviction, and it will ultimately reveal itself as the fraudulent imitation it is.  I am convinced that the campus minister is also a functional atheist, or at least he has more in common with them because the true God is not what he worships - the man worships his ideology like an idol.  This is why those who call themselves "Catholic educators" need to experience a true conversion of heart, and if that happens so too will many Catholic schools be transformed.  That is the answer. Stonestreet and Kunkle summarize this well on page 58 of their book when they say this - reconciled ones are to be the reconcilers.  So true, and the profundity of that simple statement speaks volumes.  

On the topic of racism, the authors of the book are very balanced and nuanced, and I intend to agree with them.  They essentially say that racism is not something that has disappeared, but it isn't the problem it is often made out to be.  The real way to combat racism is to accept what God's word says about creation - it says we all come from the same two parents (Adam and Eve), and even with our differences we are all essentially still "millionth first cousins."  It is also worth noting too that what is called "race" is not really race at all - it is ethnicity.  A Black person and a White person may have a difference in shades of melanin, but at the fundamental level both are still essentially human beings.  This is why interracial dating and marriage is not only possible, but it is normal - if a Black woman and a White man (or vise versa) fall in love and eventually marry, it's OK - it is just normal relationship dynamics between two human beings of different ethnicities.  For even some Fundamentalists that have preached against this in the past, they got their views not from Scripture or the historical understanding of the issue, but rather from Herbert Spencer's social Darwinian garbage as well as from bohemian weirdos like Margaret Sanger and Alfred Kinsey, who used evolutionary biology to promote their own agendas.  Many Blacks in the US do not understand that the abortion industry had its roots in an abhorrent ideology called eugenics, and at its core there was a racist and even genocidal motivation.  Often, that means that the ones who like hollering "racism" about everything may themselves be the most racist of all.  It is time the facts were not hidden and brought to light about this type of thing.

The same is true of vices such as transgenderism and homosexuality - these are not the preferences of oppressed minorities, but are the casual choices and unfettered moral ambiguity of sinners who want to turn their bad behavior into a civil right.  The Bible is very clear on this from the beginning to the end - God's design for marriage was one man and one woman only, and any other arrangement (homosexual unions, bisexuality, multiple partners, polygamy, etc.) was viewed as unnatural and essentially against what God's natural law established.  Even those who believe in Darwinian evolution would have to concede that the idea of natural selection is based on procreation, and two dudes or two women cannot fulfill that.  However, the Darwinians have tried to work around that contradiction in their logic by embracing such nonsense as Magnus Hirschfeld's "Third Sex Theory," which states that homosexuals are biologically programmed the way they are to evolve into a "third sex," which also makes no earthly sense whatsoever because it fails to note that procreation guarantees the survival of a species, and unless homosexuals become hermaphrodites or something, that ain't gonna happen!  And the likelihood of hermaphrodism is so rare, and no one "transforms" into it, that this theory too will be discredited.  Ah, but don't underestimate the ideologues - we can accelerate the process with transgenderism!  Sure, let's see how that works too because once someone's inner plumbing is removed, they cannot reproduce.  And, true science cannot accommodate such a thing because again, true science is a result of natural law, which itself has a supernatural origin (God).  What that means is that scientism, which is an ideology and not true science, will always fail despite its intentions - as a matter of fact, not only will it fail, but it will inevitably make a situation worse.  The bottom line is that natural law, divine revelation, and good old fashioned common sense easily dispel all this ideological nonsense, and we need to pay more attention to facts and less to our subjective feelings and opinions. 

I have rambled enough today, but to summarize, to transform culture, the inner conversion of individuals is necessary and integral.  Unless we do that, no transformation is possible.  Until Christ returns, we will never have a perfect culture, but we can do our best to have a better culture.  Thanks for allowing me to share today, and will see you next time. 

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.