Boyhood and Youth - Some Reflections

 I am currently reading through Anthony Esolen's book Defending Boyhood (Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2019).  The whole idea of Esolen's work is to talk about facets of boyhood which have been lost regarding the proper development of manhood, although I initially thought it would be a sort of prompt for reflection regarding boyhood and masculinity.  In a way however, I guess it is, but it also establishes some principles.   I wanted to dissect some of this initially and then add my own reflections to the observations I make.  

I note first on page 14 of Esolen's book, where he talks about how a boy looks toward a certain type of man to grant liberty of intellectual and spiritual "combat," (I am not quite sure why the author uses this word, but we'll go with it) and about discourse regarding higher things.  There is a rubric, Esolen notes, as well as the wonder of the search into mysteries.  Looking on page 15, I understand what he is saying about "combat" now - it has to do with questioning and dissection of rules about things, or in another way of putting it, refining the rubric.  This "combat" though is not an end unto itself, as that would actually be the truth, a truth free of subjective feelings, social comfort, and convenience for convenience's sake.  Those factors often lead to an acceptance of a half-truth, and two half-truths, as Esolen notes, can produce a whole lie.  It therefore means as we see on page 16 that combatting the rule is the way of seeking the truth that inspired the rule.  It does not mean the rule is thrown out, but rather clarification happens.  Seeing it that way, there are many things to unpack here.

Truth is unchanging, objective, and is ultimately rooted in divine law - that is factual whether dealing with a Church teaching or just basic safety (not touching a hot stove, for instance).  Questioning or challenging a rule in the right spirit is not denying the truth behind the rule, but rather seeking where the motivation for it comes from.  In watching several of these "HOA Karen" videos on YouTube in recent weeks, we see how a supposedly good concept - a community organization which is supposed to promote safety and order in a community - can be twisted and corrupted into a system where the lives of rightful homeowners are micromanaged and manipulated to control rather than preserved, and an astute homeowner will see the absurdity in this and challenge it.  The idea of "combat" that Esolen notes in regard to rules has to do with two important components.  First is actually knowing the rule.  As Sun Tzu's book on warfare notes, you have to get inside an opponent's head in order to understand how to prevail against them.  One aspect of this intellectual "combat" is knowing a rule first before you decide to mount an offensive against it.  Second, strategy is key.  Once you know the rule, then you have to strategize how to combat the rule without compromising its original spirit.  In other words, if we mount a half-cocked offense against something, it will not go well for us.  And, this is where another concept comes into play.

The term "malicious compliance" is often employed with HOA disputes, and it is a way for a homeowner to show how absurd an interpretation of a certain rule is.  It's actually a good tactic, in that one is using the very weapon directed against them as an offensive advantage.  When it comes to boyhood and masculine mentorship, this can be a key bit of wisdom we can use.  Jesus Himself employed it in the parables in a way that is a radical reinterpretation of what the parable is often interpreted as saying.  When Jesus says "love your enemies" for instance, he is not meaning that you go up and give the person who just wronged you a humongous bear hug and tell them you love them - that will get you smacked down pretty fast in all honesty.  What it means is a little tough love in some cases, meaning that you set boundaries, and you communicate to your enemy in a way that respects their personhood that they crossed a line.  You are not tolerating the wrong they committed, but rather handling it strategically.  And, it is done in the proper spirit and not as a vindictive action.  Looking at it from that perspective, it makes more sense than the false altruism that many well-meaning but misguided Christians tend to impose upon themselves when dealing with an adversarial situation.  Boys need to be taught that at a young age, and of course they will make mistakes and fall short - we are fallen humanity after all, and screwups are a part of the learning and growth process.  The idea of "combat" then means fighting smarter, not harder.  

So, how did that impact me as a boy growing up?  I was one of those kids that defied a lot of things and I had my own set of quirks.  While I was considered to be a good student in school and overall I never was much of a disciplinary challenge to my single mother, I was a kid who marched to his own drummer in a proverbial sense.  And, it created a little friction with my dad too.  This is where the "combat" of rules that Dr. Esolen talks about comes into play.  Boys should be mentored by their fathers in all honesty, but not every father is up to the challenge.  Part of mentoring a son is encouraging them to refine the person they already are, and not forcing them into some preconceived mold the father has.  My dad unfortunately failed miserably at that, and he and I never had the best relationship because what so many others saw as strengths, my dad acted like he was ashamed of them.  Also, not having him in my life as much as I should have didn't help either, as it created further dissonance between us.  I believe my dad loved me though, and I did love him, but our personalities clashed and we couldn't stand a lot about each other either.  However, "being about your father's business" does not necessarily apply to biological parents - we can have other mentors who are father figures to us, and thankfully I had a few of those.  It doesn't mean that when we butt heads with our biological fathers that we ignore everything, as they too can have valuable insight for us, and I actually learned much from my own father too.  For instance, I hated eating cooked vegetables when I was growing up, as often the texture of them was weird.  The problem wasn't the veggies themselves, but the way many people cooked them - they literally boiled the hell out of them until they became a yellow/green mush, and they were just nasty to eat. My dad showed me something though that revolutionized that - he knew how to steam things like broccoli and cauliflower properly so that they were actually appetizing to eat, and I owe him a lot of thanks for that.  My dad also taught me about fishing, and I learned some good life skills from him such as how to wash my own laundry, and that made me more self-sufficient.  I also found out that I inadvertently picked up a few traits from my dad that have served me well over the years - for instance, having multiple copies of certain documents, etc.  When I began sorting through a lot of my dad's stuff after he passed, I saw patterns I myself have in what he kept, and I realized I carried more of my father's attributes than I thought.  It was an epiphany to me, and it made me appreciate my own father more.  He and I disagreed on a lot, but in the end, he also made his own valuable contributions to my development from boyhood to manhood. 

I am also looking later into this same chapter, and came across page 29.  This talks about how boys form relationships as they develop into men, and there are two things Esolen notes that are of interest.

One, what a boy seeks from other boys and men is generally public in nature.  This entails things that either directly resonate with their masculinity, or in a more professional and fraternal sense.  That is why we as Catholic men seek out organizations like the Knights of Columbus (of which I am a 4th-degree Knight myself) and also we tend to be more into organizing politically and socially.  This happens in boyhood as well, as I recall my own boyhood adventures - as the intellectual among a group of other boys in my neighborhood for example, I was the one always trying to create my own re-creations of the explorers I read about in my history books, and I would elaborately construct forts and other structures as part of my "domain."  One of those I recall when I was about 10 years old was actually creating an island in the middle of Grassy Lick Run in the town of Kirby where I lived, and it was an interesting experiment now that I look back on that.  If you saw Grassy Lick Run then, it wasn't much - at its deepest it was maybe 3 1/2 feet, and that was underneath the bridge that crossed it going up Rock Oak Road.  So, in about 8 inches of water that I waded out into just beside the bridge, I hauled large river rocks, piled them, and then scooped dirt from the bank to pile on top of them - I ironically go this idea from reading about the Aztec chimanpas, and I wanted to build my own.  After scooping all that dirt onto the rocks, I then "forested" my island with some weeds that had some nice flowers on them, and that little makeshift island (it was about 5 feet in circumference at most) was a kingdom for me, or rather a "colony" of the little kingdom of forts and other things I had all around the community.  I recruited some local kids as allies to help me do all this, and looking back on it the experiment was pretty good.  Also, at a year or two older, I actually had a whole political movement planned out as well that I wanted to start, and I remember writing out a whole manifesto about it - I kind of wished I had kept that, because it would have been interesting to look back on now.  I saw myself then as a visionary, a "leader of men," and I would recruit younger boys to my cause and make them my minions, or in some cases a de facto junta over my various forts and the island I constructed in the middle of Grassy Lick Creek.  That activity for me fulfilled a social function that was crucial to my development as a young boy.  And, of course, I needed other boys to make it happen, so I recruited and was often successful.  

Secondly, what a man seeks from the opposite sex is often private and not public, as Esolen points out.  The affinity of a boy for a girl is a lot more specified, and even from an early age when no sexual desire is evident a boy wants to impress the girl he has an interest in.  I recall a very quirky way I did that back when I was 11.  I had always wanted a chemistry set, and that Christmas Mom got me one.  At around the same time, I began to develop an interest in the landlady's granddaughter, a beautiful young lady named Jennifer who was about a year or two younger than me.  She came from a rich family though, and she had no interest in any of us local boys, and she was often kind of dismissive of us in all honesty.  I remember trying to impress Jennifer by utilizing my chemistry set to make her perfumes and soaps - a lot of this involved using a bunch of Mom's perfumes she never wore anyway, and the remains of bars of soap in our bathroom.  I would use some things in my chemistry set to synthesize a variety of potions into an aromatic concoction, and then I would gift-wrap them and give them to Jennifer whenever she was down to visit her grandmother's store.  She was perhaps my most serious early crush, and I had it bad for her.  She, of course, didn't reciprocate my feelings, and I have the distinct feeling that many of my well-intentioned gifts I bestowed upon her ended up discreetly discarded in a garbage can somewhere (and in retrospect, who could blame her?  While noble in attempt, the poor girl may have broken out in hives or something with the ambiguous concoctions and soaps I created!).  The point is, when a guy seeks the attention of a lady, he often reveals things about himself to her that no one else would either understand or appreciate.  That is something we even carry into adulthood, as with the right woman a man can feel more like himself and by sharing those more intimate parts of himself, he is committing himself to that woman - that is also the basis of marriage too, and why "the two become one flesh."  These two aspects of a young man in particular - the public part of himself he shares with his buddies, and the more intimate private part of himself he shares with his girl - are not contradictory:  he is the same person, and both parts of that person are what make him who he is.  It is like the fictional jazz musician Moses Godfrey noted in Nat Hentoff's book Jazz Country - you cannot ask a person to "be themselves" because they are a different self to a different set of circumstances.  One can be a son to one's mother, but cannot be that same son to one's wife - he is a husband.  He can be an employee in the workplace, but also be a student at his school - they are not one and the same as each requires a different set of personal rubrics.  This is true as well when a guy is socializing with his buddies - he is not going to be tell them the sweet romantic stuff he shares with his girl, although they may see how he looks at her, and many of them will have their girls they like too so it will be an unspoken understanding among them with that.  Because guys tend to be more vulnerable with girls they have an interest in, they may actually do things that may seem silly if they did the same things in other circles of relationships they have.  Oddly, this still holds true as adults as much as it does as boys, although by that point men are more mature and they can talk about some different issues and even share some ideas based on the solidarity of being husbands to their respective wives.  Even so, even in adulthood when men have wives like that, the circle is smaller at that point.  Let me give an example of a couple of individuals.

There is a guy who has a Filipina fiancee, and he has a friend who has been married to a Filipina for several years, so naturally that creates a point of mutual recognition between the two friends.  The conversations they have will go something like this:  "You know, the other day my fiancee was so sweet because she is always making sure I eat my breakfast, etc.  Is this what a typical Filipina wife will do?"  The friend in this case responds that his wife - he may have been married to her over 18 years at this point - does the same thing, and he also thinks it is a sweet gesture.  Unless one has a friend who has a similar experience though, this is not something that one can talk about with just anyone.  It is based on a shared experience, and the point of true friendship in that case is being able to bounce insights off each other and perhaps even gain new insights from each other too.  That is a good thing, and it is 100% true masculinity for two guys to have a conversation like that.  This starts even in boyhood as well, where perhaps two friends from similar backgrounds can relate regarding a certain circumstance both face.  This was true for me as a kid growing up in a low-income single-parent household in a small town in West Virginia - many of us neighborhood kids did face similar challenges, and often we could talk about that because we knew where we came from too.  Shared experience is what creates the communicable traits of community, something we talked about before, and now let's put that together.

All of us have "stories," and we also are members of one or more types of groups, either by choice or circumstance.  The collective "story" of that group is one in which all the members of it share, but there are also things called individuality and distinctiveness, and those dictate how the individual shapes their part of the "story."  What is unique to that individual, in Personalist terms, is called incommunicable traits. What they share with others in the same group is called communicable traits, or universals.  At the core of that is what makes up the story - this is a series of central narrative convictions that evolve around the response to four fundamental questions:  who am I? where am I? what's wrong? and what's the remedy?  Yes, for those who have read my stuff for the past 10 years now, you know where I am going with this - this again is the CNC model that Pentecostal theologian Kenneth Archer proposes, coupled with the thesis that Catholic philosophy professor John Crosby gives, both in their respective books.  This kind of fits into Esolen's thoughts too, as he talks about the male proclivity to rank things, and me even proposing this model is my attempt to do just that.  Like Esolen notes on page 33 of his book, I as a man do not see these two concepts (Crosby's and Archer's) as the same, but rather they can be viewed in one of two ways.  They can be contrasted against each other (the philosophical vs. the theological in this case) or they can be compared and as I have done synchronized into something more complementary.  I have always had a knack for doing that, and thankfully according to Esolen, it means I am a normal male of the human species.  Esolen argues - more or less - that instead of suppressing this proclivity in boys, we should be nurturing it and encouraging it to grow, and teaching things such as critical thinking, problem solving, and fundamental skills that will aid in evolving both of those in the mind of an impressionable boy.  It teaches boys to think on their feet then, and instead of worrying about the problem, it sets the boy's mind into a sort of "survival mode" to where he comes up with his own solutions.  Let me tell you how that relates to me. 

Like many people, I have faced my fair share of adversity and challenges.  You have read about some of them over the past year.  If a boy in particular is taught at an early age to anticipate variables, and then challenged with a way to address them, it will be an asset to them later.  This starts in the way they are educated.  Part of my teaching style I communicate with my high school juniors entails making them think.  I challenge them, girls and boys alike.  For instance, if I am asking them about something, I want to make them think, to get into problem-solving mode.  One thing, for instance, I do with my students when they ask what the letter of something starts with, I will say "the fifteenth letter of the alphabet" (which is P), and then I watch them when faced with a challenge trying to figure that out - it is a little bit amusing to watch them recite the alphabet while counting on their fingers, but eventually they get it.  Another thing I do as well is utilize word association - for instance, if I am teaching the components of the liturgy to my students, I will ask them about the General Confession as part of the Liturgy of the Word, and if they have trouble I will ask them "What is the highest rank an Army officer can have?" and then say, "OK, you got that, so combine that with what the one sacrament is where we tell our sins to a priest."  Once they make the association, they are like "Oh yeah, I know this!" and they end up actually doing good on a quiz if this comes up.   While girls in my classes tend to grasp this quicker, the boys love the challenge and will jump on it, and often they still recall it weeks later even if otherwise they are loud and distracted in class.  This is a master stroke at learning to solve a problem presented to you, and once the students understand what you are doing, they are able to think on their feet more.  These are ways I learned too in many cases, and it does work wonders with intellectual development.  The down side to it though is that I actually have to do with 11th graders what I learned in 6th grade.  Such is the culture we live in though.  Problem-solving is a skill that any person of either gender can benefit from, but teaching boys from an early age to assess a situation quickly and think on their feet is a valuable skill that could save their lives.  And, it is something lacking in much of today's youth, especially boys, because often boys have a lot stacked against them that they shouldn't have to struggle with, mostly because of the leftist domination of education and other societal factors that could be taken into consideration as well.  

I will probably visit this more later, as I also have a second book of Esolen's on the way I want to reflect on as well, but thank you for allowing me to share here today.  And, hope you will join me again next visit. 

Longing For Home

 If you have followed me over the past year, you understand that my life has been a bit upended.  We had to make a sudden move from the more comfortable atmosphere of Hagerstown to the chaos of Baltimore, and it has honestly been an adjustment to get used to.  I have lived in cities before, and generally felt the same way - I felt like this when we lived in St. Petersburg, FL, years ago too.  Baltimore is a MUCH bigger city than St. Pete was though, and although some demographics are similar, it is also been like living in a foreign country for me too.   When I feel like this, it also leads to some burnout at work, and I get to the point that certain things about my daily routine are dreadful to me.   Do you remember the cult classic movie Office Space that came out about 27 years ago?  The protagonist in that movie, a mid-career young Gen-X professional named Peter Gibbons, felt a similar way.  Whether it was the congested traffic he faced on the way to work, or hearing the condescending tone of his micromanaging boss, Lumbergh, say "Hey Peter, whaattss happening?" before being assaulted with a barrage of corporate head games, Peter felt a little discontented.  I think we all feel like that at some point, but living in a city intensifies it drastically.  It is not as if city living is completely bad - I mean, after all, I actually was able to experience my first Georgian restaurant in Baltimore.  But, you deal with a lot of things that get on your last nerve - congested city streets, porch pirates stealing your deliveries, the occasional crackhead who has no business operating a vehicle driving one into the foundation of your house, etc.  Then, when teaching at a high school - even though it is a Catholic high school - where the overwhelming majority of the student body are from low-income minority families and there are special sets of circumstances dealing with kids like that, it can drain one both physically and mentally.  As of late, I have actually been missing small-town life, and to be honest, despite some struggles I loved living in Hagerstown.  I felt comfortable there, and to be honest had things worked out differently I would have stayed there in all honesty. But, it is what it is, and as Barbara has pointed out to me, God put me here for a reason - there is a reason why I get paid a decent salary and have a stable teaching contract, and also why nothing else has come across my path yet.  But, I also know this is only for a season, as in time I will be released to move on.  I am currently looking into teaching jobs overseas - in the Philippines in particular for a deeply personal reason - and if the right door opens up I am gone. But, until that door opens, I have to make the best of things, and pray God shows me how to do so.  I have been through worse, in all honesty, but it does cause me some discomfort.  Tonight was a good example of that I want to talk about now. 

About an hour ago, two Black ladies who live close by were ringing our doorbell off the hook, and then they proceeded to complain about a gas leak.  Fortunately, I know what to look for with that, and I did the check around the house.  If you have a gas leak threat, there are three things that will indicate it:

1.  A disgusting skunk smell due to a chemical agent called mercaptan they put in the gas lines - smelling that noxious odor is indicative of a leak. 

2. A hissing or other noise from the gas meter and connected lines.  If that happens, that is a serious sign of a leak.

3. Having a CO1 alarm in the house will detect gas fumes, and our landlord was prudent enough to install one just outside the upstairs bathroom here. 

I did the check around all those things, and no indicators were found that we had a leak.  And, for good measure, I also emailed the landlord like a responsible tenant to let him know someone had said something about it just to give him a heads-up.  In all likelihood, there is probably nothing to worry about, and if necessary I will call the gas company myself to confirm it if it should come to that. 

This type of drama is another reason city living is not that appealing to me.  I can handle suburbs, and in all honesty I am at a place to where I can possibly get a mortgage in the next year.  If I can do that, I am out of here in all honesty.   I will talk more about a potential move later, but for now you get the idea. 

Aside from the main discussion, I wanted to also give a small memorial to a dear friend of mine who passed away last week.  Father Charles (Qasha) Klutz (1934-2025) is someone I have known about 37 years now.  Fr. Klutz gave me my introduction to the Assyrian people, as he was an ordained priest in the Assyrian Church although not Assyrian himself.  A well-read and very articulate man, we forged a friendship that has lasted for many, many years.  Up until his retirement in 2008, when he moved back to his native Washington, Fr. Klutz served in parish ministry as well as also being a Chancellor to the Bishop of his Church's Eastern Diocese.  While we had some interesting debates at times, they were always in good spirits and we learned much from each other.  

Rev. Fr. Charles (Qasha) Klutz (1934-2025)

I never had the privilege of meeting Fr. Klutz in person, but when I first reached out to him in mid-1987 to learn more about the Assyrian Church and its people, he was a wealth of information.  We had many phone conversations and we wrote many letters back and forth for several years.  Although we sort of lost touch as I got married, came of age, and life began to assert its demands, I have always considered Fr. Klutz a friend, and I am saddened by his loss on a personal level but also know he did the Lord's work with dedication, so I will one day meet him again in the hereafter.  Rest Eternal, dear Father, and may Light Perpetual shine upon you, amen. 

Fr. Klutz's passing is yet another reminder of how many people I used to know that I have lost, and it also fits into the theme of my reflections today - longing for home.  Fr. Klutz reminds me of an earlier passion and strong calling I believed I had then, to the Assyrians as a people.  Seeking to be a "missionary" to them, they eventually converted me instead, and it was because of knowing them that I ended up eventually becoming Catholic myself.  And, it is one reason why for several years as a Catholic I chose to attend an Aramaic-speaking Maronite parish in Florida over a Roman-rite church.  A lot of that influence is still evident in my own personal spirituality, as I still read St. Isaac of Nineveh and other Assyrian Church Fathers.  A part of me misses that passion I had for the Assyrian people, and I want that back - it is a little more challenging in some aspects now as I lost a substantial library of books on Assyrians and their culture that I once had, and I could kick my own rear for that happening.  The positive though is that there is a treasure trove of Assyrian information online, as this is the 21st century, and many of those books I had before can now actually be downloaded as digital copies.  Once the dust settles on the opening salvo of this new chapter my life is in now, I may begin pursuing some of that again, as it is an important part of my own story now too.  I am actually even thinking of writing more about the Assyrians later, especially my own experiences, and perhaps that can be an inspiration for the future maybe.  We will see. 

It looks like 2025 will be one of my most prolific writing years, as I have a lot of content this year.  However, that is OK, because writing at times is what keeps me focused and sane.  As it seems that my old work of journaling is starting to fade out after almost 30 years, my blogs present a way to channel my own penchant for writing into a more focused lens and I can actually share this with others.  I still journal of course, as journaling is part of who I am and there are some things I would rather keep personal for myself.  But, blogging has also had its rewards too. 

I am expecting Anthony Esolen's book on boyhood in the next day or so, and I will be doing some reflections based on my reading of that.  So, for tonight, I will bid my adieus and will be back again soon.  Thanks for joining me here on the virtual "front porch," and look forward to visiting with you again soon.  

Further Thoughts on Nostalgia

 I really didn't feel like I captured the essence of what I wanted to say yesterday, and this will be challenging with the lack of my reference books (notably Anthony Esolen's work) here at the school I am teaching at today.  However, I will give a more cited addendum to this later, as it is integral to the discussion. 

The one thing I wanted to talk about is the intersection of nostalgia and dreams.  Both our nostalgic sentiments and the dreams we have are tied into our memories, and often our dream world constructs a composite of bits and pieces of memories that play upon that nostalgic feeling.  Some of our most vivid dreams are often experienced in particular during times of intense stress and fatigue in our lives, as if our minds are gifting us a coping mechanism to ease the burdens a bit.  I have noticed that in my own life as well, when some of my most intense and vivid dream sequences have happened when I was facing some major life challenges and transitions.  This is why I am not that easy to dismiss dreams, because our ability to dream is a gift of God he has given us, and we have that for a reason.  Dreams can also serve as a sort of heavenly email server where God can send us messages too, and in the Bible are numerous accounts of people being visited in dreams by either the Lord himself or one of his angels.  Likewise, Satan and his minions can manipulate our dreams too though, and this is why we need to be careful too.   Not every nightmare is an attack of Satan, please understand that.  Many nightmares can also be due to eating something that doesn't agree with us, and they are also a manifestation of some of our worst fears too.  Nonetheless, our dreams are a dimension where supernatural activity can happen, both good and bad, and that merits a whole other discussion in itself.  The focus of dreams for the purposes of this discussion are as that psychological coping mechanism God gives us to deal with personal stress, and an area our dreams pick up on is the realm of nostalgia. 

Speaking of a personal situation like this, I recall when I was 16 years old I had an interesting dream that fell into this definition.  At the time, my mom and I had just went through a chaotic year where, after living 6 years in the town of Kirby, WV, we found ourselves on the move, and it was a bit of an adjustment.  That same year, the catastrophic 1985 Flood happened in the area of West Virginia where we lived, and Mom and I had moved with my grandparents to the town of Rowlesburg, WV.  For those who remember that flood, Rowlesburg was hit particularly hard by the overflowing Cheat River, and the town then looked like a war zone.  Our moving there in the middle of that was exacerbated by the fact that Mom and I had been moved around a lot over the course of a few months, and when finally Mom was able to get a job taking care of an elderly lady in her 90s a few miles away on Salt Lick Road, just south of the town of Terra Alta, I honestly felt stressed then.  There were two things I fell back on that I believed saved me - one was my conversion to Christ that January at a little Baptist church in Rowlesburg, and the other was my vintage big band collection.  Both of these would play significant roles in how I coped with my new chapter of life then, and the second in particular had an impact on my dreams then.  Let me go into detail here.

Besides actually collecting records then, I also had a late-night radio program I listened to called "Henry Boggen's Sunday Night Show" on WBT-AM out of Charlotte, NC.  I had been listening to that religiously for over 4 years at this point, and it was a regular Sunday night tradition.  Being I often had to get up for school the next day then, I would lay in bed and listen to it with my headphones so as not to disturb anyone, and I dozed off frequently as this show was broadcast from 10PM to 1AM.  Falling to sleep with that music in my ears led me to have dreams too, including a very interesting one I will get into now as I vividly recall it. 

In this dream, I was in a desert traveling somewhere, and as I was doing so I came across what looked like a diner in the middle of a small scrub-laden oasis.  In that diner there was music playing - my music, vintage big bands - and I remember sitting down and being served by a beautiful dark-haired counter girl who also ended up becoming my girlfriend in the dream.  She served me fried chicken (one of my favorite foods) and a delicious cherry pie for dessert.  The dream was pleasant, a little romantic, and it was as if I could hear that music (I had probably fallen asleep listening to my program I figured).  Remember, this was at a very stressful and transitional time in my life, and I was very uncertain about a lot, but I was also trying to hang onto my sanity then too.  To this day I recall that dream, and it still makes me feel something nice inside when I think of it. 

Another dream I had was more recent, and it entailed a college campus.  The campus itself looked a lot like Southeastern University with a little bit of Graceville thrown in, and in this particular dream I lived in a nice dormitory-like apartment in campus.  I was actually in the dream though headed to the library, and one thing I noticed when I was inside was this HUGE sign that advertised the most complete collection of vintage jazz/big band recordings ever to exist, and I wanted it. Somehow, I did actually manage to get it too - the collection had over 2000 CD recordings in it of practically every record I ever looked for, and it was magnificent.  Many of the other details of this dream escape me, but I do remember it too was at a time of uncertainty - this was only a few years ago, when Barbara and I had first separated and there was a lot of uncertainty which was haunting my mind then. Again, I don't know if any of these dreams are significant as far as a message is concerned, but they are fascinating in their details. 

A third dream I had dealt with something other than music, and there was a religious undertone to this one.  I was living in a suburban house that looked like here in Baltimore somewhere, and it was a beautiful 3-story place in which several other guys lived as well.  However, in the dream there was this disturbing feeling that one of these guys was doomed to hell for some reason, and it was up to me to tell him.  So, as we were talking in an informal circle in the driveway of the house, the guy who was supposed to receive this fate essentially just keeled over dead - he was a very young guy in his 20s too.  What was jarring about that later was that the Physics teacher we had last year, a young guy named Louis, looked unnervingly like that guy in the dream.  Was there a message there?  Who's to say?  However, there was also a nostalgic dimension to that dream too, as it embodied some fond memories of my own living here when I was younger.  The Baltimore of today - especially this inner-city part where I live and work - looks nothing like the place in that dream, but it is nonetheless a sort of confirmation that maybe I am supposed to be in this area for some odd reason.  

Nostalgia often does not only take in actual memories, but it can also take in idealized versions of experiences too.  Our dreams give us a glimpse into what that looks like, and it is actually very fascinating stuff.  Again, our nostalgia actually shapes our legacy we pass to others, and understanding why we dream what we do, why certain smells and sensory perceptions often evoke certain memories, and even why that song we have no idea of the title of somehow evokes that feeling, all of this has a nostalgic dimension.  Not only does nostalgia shape our legacy, but it also helps define our identity as well.  This is why it cannot be underestimated and when these moments come up we need to take them more seriously than we do sometime.

I am going to have more to say on this later for sure once I am able to access the reading material I need to have, and when I do, I will be revisiting this topic later.   I also want to later talk about the role of deja vu moments and other things as well.  Thank you, and look forward to visiting with you again soon. 

Nostalgia and Legacy

 This morning, I am doing proctoring for a standardized test for my Juniors in another classroom at the high school where I teach in Baltimore.  The classroom is not one of my regular class locations, but rather is the class for the new Spanish teacher, Mr. Verges.  Verges started as Spanish teacher this year, and he is actually a fascinating guy - he is into music, and the decor of his room consists of a number of musical instruments, including a Selmer clarinet, a Les Paul guitar, a Hohner chromatic harmonica, and a Buscher alto saxophone.  I had the privilege of talking to him one day during a break in classes, and come to find out he is quite the music aficionado.  We talked briefly about music, and turns out some of his tastes are similar to mine, while others are divergent - he is an eclectic musical conisseur.  It is very interesting and stimulating to get to know many of our new teachers here, as many of them are very gifted and they are also unique in experience and personalities, which again affirms that each of us are created in God's image with an individuality he instilled in each of us.  Looking around at Mr. Verges' comfortably cluttered classroom, I was struck with a bit of an epiphany regarding a book I had that is authored by Anthony Esolen concerning the restoration of boyhood.  Some of Verges' assorted bric-a-brac inspired me to think a little about my past and how nostalgia is a key to legacy.  So, I wanted to reflect on that a bit as I am sitting here monitoring my students as they test. 

Many of our likes, dislikes, and other individual attributes we each have are rooted in our childhood experiences, and we all have those days when something just strikes us that makes us fondly recall those things and the experiences that shaped them.  A few days ago I was also having an interesting conversation with the maintenance guy here at the school, and he was telling me that there is a song he cannot remember and doesn't know the title of, but whenever he hears it, the song evokes a response.  His experience mirrors many of us because we have all had those moments.  A certain song may not even evoke a specific chronological memory even, but just a feeling - for me, the sound of the Four Freshmen, the color teal, and a rainy day evoke a good, cozy feeling for me too.  It is not a feeling I can explain, and it isn't even about an event I have actually lived, but you feel it and understand what is going on.  That is a part of you that is called the "unspoken perimeter" (a term of my own invention) of your personality.  It is part of the real you that is often obscured by the routine of life, and often you cannot share it because not everyone will appreciate or understand it.  You can find ways to creatively express that though, and it can be in things such as a color of a shirt you purchase, or the rug or curtains you furnish your room or house with.  These little unspoken expressions of that "unspoken perimeter" make an invisible part of yourself visible.  So, how does that relate to nostalgia and legacy?

There are many memories and past experiences that shape our tastes in things, and nostalgia plays a big role in shaping us into the person we as an individual becomes.  That is why our memories have such a powerful impact on us.  And, our nostalgia will ultimately become our legacy to others, and our legacy today may be the nostalgia that shapes someone else we influence tomorrow, and that is where nostalgia and legacy meet.  The nostalgia that inspires us is also the legacy of someone who lived before us too in many cases - it could be our parents, grandparents, or some other influential person who impacted our lives. The connection between nostalgia and legacy therefore is integral, as it forms us in ways that we may not fully realize until later.

Being I had to replace Dr. Esolen's book, I want to begin reflecting on his material in the near future as well.  Dr. Esolen has written several books about how these very things create an integral part of our faith as well, and this is definitely worth exploring in more detail.  This is an area which is oft-neglected, mainly because it is sort of hard to pinpoint and articulate.  And, it relates to many other things as well, such as our dreams, our hobbies, our personal likes and dislikes, etc.  However, I think it does a disservice when we ignore often what we cannot explain, because I feel that we miss some important treasures we could discover in our own lives too.  One of the reasons I write so much - it started with journaling, then evolved to blogs like this - is that it is a way to grab that flicker of inspiration before it passes, and then articulate it in such a way that it helps bring clarity to my own mind as well as inspiring others.  Today, for instance, it was my colleague Mr. Verges and his delightfully cluttered classroom that was the flicker of inspiration, but on other days it could be something else.  Mr. Verges reminded me of my own cluttered home office I once had a year ago, and although I have recovered that to a degree, it evoked some nostalgia of my own of recent events.  I often do miss having that massive CD collection, my books, and my own assorted bric-a-brac surrounding me, and when I had a separate home office like that it was a bit of a sanctuary for me too. I will get that again soon enough - after all, it was only stuff and can be easily replaced (in the case of the CD collection, I was able to recover most of it as digital downloads, which means what once took up half a room can now fit into the palm of my hand). And, for the time being I at least have a good comfortable makeshift living space/office as well.  In time, there will probably be some nostalgic feelings about that as well. 

I am sure that this will be a topic we revisit again in the future, as I don't believe I adequately addressed it completely here.  My reflections on Esolen's work later will shed some light on things I am sure, and it will remain to be seen how much further this area can be explored.  Thanks again for allowing me to share, and will see you next time. 

How to Make a Stand

 The Charlie Kirk assassination has caused a positive cultural shift in the past week, and to be honest,  it is both melancholy but also hopeful.  It is melancholy in that an innocent life - Charlie Kirk's - was lost while still in his prime.  It is also hopeful as the tragedy has mobilized people to say "enough is enough" to the demonic scourge of political leftism which has dominated our society for way too long.  Charlie may have accomplished more in his death than he even did in his life in that regard, because he was a warrior for common sense and truth and people (even his enemies) understood that.  The moral outrage surrounding his assassination is something of interest, because even people who fundamentally disagreed with him ideologically are condemning the murder as an evil act, which it is.  But, there are still those who think they accomplished something big by seeing a man struck down in cold blood in the prime of his life, and those people are a special type of stupid, not to mention evil.  It is curious how often evil and stupidity go hand-in-hand with each other, and the political Left personifies it.  Fortunately, many of these radical Leftists are facing serious consequences for what they are doing, as they are starting to lose their jobs over violent speech and celebrating death.  This is a good thing, but ironic also and here is why.

Only a few months ago, many of these same Leftists who are losing their jobs for celebrating murder and violence were the very same people who tried to get people fired over stupid pronouns.  These lunatics treated addressing a man as a "he" as if it were a capital crime, and they called for blood.  Oddly, now that the tables have turned on them, they are the ones whining about not having "freedom of speech," when they were also the very ones who tried to steal that from the rest of us.  The irony is not lost, and it shows that our society is starting to get some common sense back.  Using the wrong stupid made-up pronoun (no, "xe/xim" is not a thing, sorry!) is NOT morally equivalent to celebrating violence and murder, and yesterday when I was watching Michael Knowles talk about this on his show, a couple of very important things stood out, and I want to briefly touch on those now.

Knowles correctly noted that it should be a consequence of losing one's job if you work in certain industries and you are promoting violence.  For instance, if you are a service worker in a restaurant, I don't think customers are going to be too confident to eat anything you serve them if you are celebrating murdering those who disagree with you.  A person who has that warped mentality could easily poison or spit in someone's meal, and that is a dangerous risk.  So, in that case, firing such a person is probably a wise thing to do.  Also, in the medical profession - if a doctor or nurse is celebrating the violence against or murder of someone they disagree with, do you really want to entrust your medical care to that person, seriously??  A doctor with an attitude problem like that will inevitably kill someone, and again, that is a risk that is not worth taking.  Then, there is education - if teachers, professors, or school administrators are touting violence, and are doing so with impressionable young minds, then they deserve to lose their jobs because they have the potential of inciting a mob mentality among young people.  These three key professional spheres - hospitality, medical care, and education - are areas you do NOT want radicalization to be propagated, as it could cause some huge problems.  There are other professions likewise - police, military, fire rescue, etc. - where such behavior should be discouraged and there should be zero tolerance for violent rhetoric.  In all of those professional spheres, one serves the greater public, and targeting or discrimination based on ideological viewpoints is not only unprofessional, but can be downright dangerous.   While key sectors such as those are integral, in all honesty bad rhetoric should be discouraged and penalized in any type of occupation, and thankfully employers are starting to understand this.  Let me further elaborate.

At the Catholic high school where I teach, thankfully the subject of Charlie Kirk's assassination has not been a topic of discussion, and what I have heard comes from teachers who were actually not supportive of the assassination - both teachers stated that despite how we may disagree with someone, it is not worth killing them over.  And, both teachers are correct (although one also went off on a rant against guns, saying they all need to be thrown into the sea - I definitely understand where that teacher is coming from, but the error is that the gun itself was not the problem, but rather the fact the gun was in the wrong hands).  In my case, I agreed almost 100% with Charlie, and for me his death took away a great voice of reason from the public forum of civil discourse.   However, I understand that there are others who don't agree with him, but what I respect is that these people also understand how tragic and wrong it was for his life to be taken.  That is a sign of maturity on the part of these people, in particular my two teacher colleagues at the school where I teach.  No one deserves to die for political beliefs or religious convictions, even if we think those beliefs are wrong - people have the right to think for themselves and have opinions about things, and no one deserves to die for that.  However, if such rhetoric from others incites violence and celebrates it, other consequences are in order for those individuals because it then becomes serious.  Again though, we don't want them eliminated, but perhaps they should not be in jobs where they impact and influence others, as their views can get in the way of the professional attitude of their duties.  Freedom of speech, like any right, also comes with a responsibility - the First Amendment in no way covers incendiary speech that promotes violence and encourages murdering of others, and if someone engages in it, there are consequences for those actions. This works with the other amendments in the Bill of Rights too - the 2nd Amendment, for example, allows for the right to bear arms (meaning fundamentally to own a firearm), but responsible use of that firearm is also implied by the exercise of that right.  No liberty is complete liberty - there are boundaries and responsibilities to be respected too.  

Even as I personally grieve the loss of Charlie Kirk's life, at the same time I see some good fruit - the sheer coldness of the murder has shaken people up, and human decency is starting to take control over politically-correct BS again.  Our society has been at this point treated to years of some of the weirdest and most radical garbage that humanity is capable of coming up with, and while it was allowed to fester for some time, it also started to show the decay and failure it produces, and people have finally decided that it was enough.  I see this as a positive in our society, as it means we are starting to truly wake up to this garbage called "wokeness" and perhaps it means there is hope for our civilization.  Granted, there is still a lot of damage to repair, but it seems as if there has been a positive re-direct for now and I can accept that.  It remains to be seen what the total impact will be on our nation, and on Western Civilization as a whole, but I am becoming more optimistic.  It also means that Charlie Kirk did not die in vain - the overwhelming shock and empathy that a large number of people have for this tragedy means that some seed has been sown, and perhaps what Charlie was robbed of doing in life will be compensated by the greater impact his legacy will have.  May God continue to help us with all this, and we need now more than ever to trust in God's guidance to help really heal our land. 

There is so much more that could be said about this, but I think the gist of the sentiment - which I share with millions of  people right now - is that we lost an amazing young man who impacted our nation for a greater good, and now we are seeing the abundant fruit of his legacy as we are seeing people across the ideological spectrum begin to question the current direction of things.  May the tide have a positive turn, both for our nation as well as the potential of thousands of Charlie Kirks to pick up his banner and wave it high.   Thanks for letting me share again, and will see you next time. 

Charlie Kirk - A Martyr for Truth

 A couple of days ago, on September 10, America faced a serious tragedy.  A young conservative political figure, Charlie Kirk, was gunned down in cold blood at one of his speaking events.  At only 31 years of age, Charlie's death was a true tragedy.  Charlie was young, and he had a lot of great years ahead of him - now, that has been stolen by a psychopath with a gun.  While I am familiar with Charlie's work, and I have watched some of his debates on social media, he was not someone I followed regularly although I respected his work and agreed with a huge majority of his positions.  Yet, I understood how integral he was for winning back the younger generation to common sense, and I believe he sowed some very powerful seeds to do just that.  Let me now just give a few reflections on what I understood about him. 

Charlie founded a grassroots campus organization called Turning Point USA, and he did so at the age of 18.  TPUSA has over the years grown astronomically, and in many cases, it is the reason why we are seeing a positive cultural shift away from the insanity of "wokeness" and back to something more reasonable. Charlie did the conservative movement in the US a huge service by not only tackling the issues head-on with everyday people, but he did so in a way that sought to listen to the other side rather than demonizing them (which is what they love to do to us) and he always approached it respectfully and recognized the human worth of even the most vile of individuals (and in watching his videos, there were some toxic, vile people who showed up at his events).  Being a devout Christian as well, he never attempted to shy away from his faith, and he integrated it into his discourse in such a way that it made his convictions very applicable and practical.  Of course, there are always the haters - the usual suspects accused him of being "racist," or "misogynist," and in reality often it seemed that when they pointed accusatory fingers at him, their own shortcomings were reflected back in their faces.  One in particular I watched was a 70-year-old man in Montana or somewhere who didn't want to talk to Charlie - he was trying to challenge him to a fight.  Charlie rightly pointed out that the Left's issue was that they resorted to violence against anything that disagreed with their delusions, and eventually the crazy old man (who ironically claimed "the Holy Spirit" told him to do this - yeah, sure!) was booed away in embarrassment.  Another really bizarre example of an unhinged leftist who came to one of Charlie's events was an avowed satanist, who came clad in a red robe and a goats-head mask, and when he started to talk in Crowleyite backwards-speak to supposedly pronounce a curse on Charlie, Charlie didn't miss a beat - he rebuked the evil spirit in the guy in the name of Jesus Christ, and the guy walked away.  Charlie had a remarkable self-confidence, knowing who he was and also being able to communicate his positions well.  The fact that the radical Leftist does not want to talk but instead wants to eliminate anyone who disagrees with them stood in sharp contrast to Charlie, and that fact is not lost on the millions of people who recognized his gift.  However, as is the case, the Leftist will not stop at threats, and with the powerful backing of benefactors who are wannabe Antichrists like George Soros, they often resort to evil, and in the case of Charlie Kirk's assassination, this was blatant.  The sad fact is that a life was lost because the Left is essentially barbaric - they are not interested in co-existing with those they disagree with, but rather want to reshape the world in their own warped image.  However, in doing so, the Left has shot itself in its own foot this time, because people are now really waking up to how insane this garbage is.  So, who was this assassin?  Let's talk about him a moment.

Tyler Robinson is a college dropout who, even by confirmation of liberal media outlets, hated Trump and conservatism with a passion.  He was raised in a conservative family, and by all accounts was a bit of a loner who openly rebelled against his own family.  He then decided to enter into an unnatural romantic relationship with a dude who thinks he's a woman, and his general life story is essentially a huge mess of his own making.  The reports I read in the various news clips I looked at regarding this even said Robinson engraved some odd political statements on the very bullets he fired, including pro-transgenderism and Antifa slogans, and that speaks volumes about his mental state.  Fortunately, he was caught, and his own family turned him into the authorities, and even his transgender boyfriend decided to cooperate with the FBI investigation.  This kid - Robinson - has just ruined his own life by taking the life of another, and that leads to a couple of other observations. 

First, there has been an uptick in leftist violence in the past few years, going back to the George Floyd riots in 2020.  The various school shootings and other acts of domestic terrorism have a common thread running through them.  These are not Islamic militants, nor are they on the "right-wing" political spectrum.  No, every one of them identified as a transgender, or had some involvement with transgenderism, and also many of them were involved in the occult, or they were politically aligned with groups like Antifa.  Although the left-leaning media tried to paint these people as "right-wing extremists," in reality the truth always comes out, and the truth is very explicit as to who these violent criminals are.  And, even if they were considered traditionally "right-wing" in the mold of a Timothy McVeigh, in all honesty Timothy McVeigh was more like them than he was Alex Jones.  Much of the racism and segregation in this country can be traced back to the Democratic Party, and this includes groups such as the KKK, as well as leading eugenicists who promoted the same racial ideology that Adolf Hitler embraced (Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a frequent guest at KKK rallies back in the day, and those radical racists ate up her eugenics rhetoric like Skittles because it aligned with their own biases).  This in no way excuses some attitudes and occasional rhetoric that is heard at the fringes of what is considered conservatism, but the ones making that rhetoric are often anything but Christian or true conservatives as they share more in common with the political Left.  For instance, when you hear hyper-fundamentalist Protestants condemn interracial marriage, they are in reality giving sanction to a Darwinian polygenist origin of humanity that presupposes different races are in effect different species - this is an idea you see in early volkisch occultic writings like those of Lanz von Liebenfels in early 20th-century Germany and Austria, and there is nothing Biblical or Christian about it.  Some writers I have noted - in particular Jeri Massi, who makes that connection in detail in many of her books - note how oftentimes what is promoted as "fundamental faith" is actually far from Biblical faith, and again as Mark Lowry notes, the average fundamentalist preacher has the mentality "I may not always be right, but I am never in doubt!"  In other words, their own "traditions of men" have turned them into functional heretics.  True conservatism, as well as Biblical Christianity, always affirms that every human being on earth is one race, and as I tell my 11th graders I teach, it means that essentially we are all one millionth first cousins.  God created two individuals - Adam and Eve - and from them every human being on the earth has roots.  Also, the further back in our own genealogies we go, the closer we may find out we are interconnected.  This is why any form of racism - whether the KKK or modern Antifa espouse it - is evil and wrong.  It is a lie from hell, and thus demonic, because it seeks to strip human dignity away from some people to entitle others, and there is nothing Biblical, Christian, or politically conservative about that at all.  Therefore, we are one race made up of a diversity of ethnicities (and yes, Black people are an ethnicity and not a separate race, because they are still fully human).  So, the truth is we are one race, there are only two genders, and God allows a diversity of ethnicities which contribute to the rich tapestry of humanity in their own specific ways.  THAT is true conservatism, and it is also a bedrock principle of Biblical Christianity called dignity of personhood. 

Getting back to Charlie Kirk, I can attest from watching many of the events on social media he had been featured at that he embodied true Christian charity - he was always respectful of his opponents, and even though he fundamentally disagreed (and rightly so) with many of his detractors, he at least attempted to give them a place to articulate their convictions.  The failure of many of them, however, is that they were not interested in conversation - all they wanted was for everyone to be forced to believe like them, and they even had rhetoric I have heard personally that suggested that what they called "hate speech" (which means in many instances just a view they disagreed with) should be eliminated.  This is why so many of them have resorted to violence  - they burned down cities, assassinated people, and engaged in nasty physical assault against people they personally despised.  And, Charlie became the latest casualty of this insanity.  

I have a cousin I love dearly but who does have some liberal views suggest that it is Trump and his supporters who are trying to start a civil war.  I didn't engage that particular comment of hers, but I would challenge her and others to look at the overwhelming evidence of who it is who is committing violence and chaos - Trump's supporters, nor any other conservatives, are not the ones shooting up schools and assassinating people.  Trump's supporters are not the ones burning down cities and engaging in large-scale rioting.  Trump's supporters are not the ones desecrating churches and timeless works of art in museums.  However, watch the videos of these incidents for yourself and listen to the rhetoric being spouted - it is potentially dangerous.  If anyone is trying to cause a civil war, it is the political Left, and the evidence overwhelmingly confirms that.  So, to my well-meaning but misinformed cousin, I would suggest looking at the evidence for yourself. 

Thank you for allowing me to share this, and we truly pray for Charlie Kirk's widow and children as they mourn his loss.  Any taking of life of a fellow human being is tragic, but this strikes at the core of our own society.  May Charlie's death not be in vain, but may it spark conversation and a move toward sanity in our deeply fragmented and balkanized society. 

Miniatures and Me

 Everyone has a hobby, and some hobbies are more eccentric than others.  Some of us even have more than one hobby - I have at least three.  I have talked about my music collection extensively, as well as my interest in my genealogy, but the third hobby is a bit more nuanced as it is unique in many respects.  Essentially, I love miniature things, and I have an extensive collection of them.  I haven't spent a lot of energy talking about them until now, but figured it would be something to share at this point.  First, what is the purpose of a hobby though?  Let's talk about that a bit.

Hobbies are things people do based on two things.  One, it is personal interest.  There are things that captivate all of us, and we can develop an enthusiastic interest in those things due to the fact we want to explore every facet of them.  So, that develops into a hobby.  Secondly, a hobby is just a good diversion from the regular grind of life.  It helps us to relax, refocus, and in time it can even be inspirational to us. These two facts are what motivate taking up a hobby.  Hobbies do not have to necessarily be about collecting things - hobbies can involve sports, playing an instrument of some sort, cooking, and other activities as well.  But, collections have an appeal in that you find things that fascinate you that you can touch and examine tangibly.  In my case, collecting miniatures has done just that. 

When it comes to collecting miniatures, for me it is just fascinating to see a scaled-down detailed version of a regular object, and if by some chance it can function, that makes it even better.  It is as if one can construct a mini universe that can fit at most on a kitchen table surface.  Then there is the detail and other attributes of a particular miniature item that add to its appeal as well - a tiny harmonica that you can play for instance is a true find, as is working miniature electronic items.  There is a distinction to be made though between a collection of miniatures and something like dollhouses, because these are two separate items.  Let's get into that for a bit. 

Dollhouse furniture and accessories are by definition not miniatures - they don't meet the criteria, in all honesty.  A piece of dollhouse furniture is not functional, but miniature furniture is.  A dollhouse kitchen, for instance, often does not have working appliances and you cannot use them like their life-sized counterparts.  On the other hand, there are miniature stoves, refrigerators, and even plumbing fixtures that work perfectly, and you can even cook food on the stoves - there are a ton of YouTube videos of people who have complete miniature kitchen setups and they cook edible tiny foods on them.  You cannot do that in a dollhouse.   Bottom line, dollhouses are a hobby too, and a good one, but enthusiasm of dollhouses is not the same as collecting functional miniatures.  

So, how did my own collection start?  Back when I was a kid, I loved collecting all sorts of stuff.  From the time I was 8, I began to collect things out of those little prize machines where, for a dime or a quarter, you could get a small plastic egg with some sort of bauble, toy, or other item.   Some of these were collectible later, as they were fully functional miniature items.  You used to be able to get tiny working lighters, tiny whistles, and even cameras that could take actual pictures in those machines.  Adults as well as kids loved those.  Seeing stuff like that is probably what originally made me like miniature items, as it was frankly kind of cool to have a small camera that actually took pictures then. And, that is not even taking into account the tiny whistles, lighters, cap pistols, and other things those machines spit out, including tiny working slot machines.  When I was in elementary school for instance, many of us would get stuff like that out of those machines to trade, and a working, functional miniature item was like gold to us.  A lot of things we got out of those machines - weird plastic rings and small toys of various shapes and sizes - were not that spectacular though, but occasionally someone would want them.  Today, when I cruise Ebay, I see auction lots of these machine toys that people ask hundreds of dollars for now, including the worthless little plastic rings and things that didn't hold a high value for us as kids.  However, Ebay has also been the source for a ton of other neat miniature items, and I have gotten several from there over the past several years. 

Some other items that were not necessarily functional but were perfect scale models of things included tiny soda can and whiskey bottle keychains, pencil sharpeners shaped like Civil War cannons, and other such things.   Those are good and collectible as well, and I have literally a bin of that stuff in storage that would fill up a couple of shelves.  Many of them though are so small that I have a series of decorative clear plastic drawer boxes for them, and it works nicely.  The items have gotten somewhat eclectic over the years though, as in addition to miniatures I have a lot of mementos too, such a pins and badges, as well as small gifts I have gotten and religious items.  It is a collection that is uniquely me, and I wouldn't change it for anything.  Any rate, that is a brief introduction to that particular hobby I have. 

I conclude today's discussion by saying that if you have a hobby, enjoy it.  Don't make an idol out of it or spend money you don't have on it, but enjoy it within reason as it can be a rewarding experience for someone.  Hobbies help build legacy too, and people can learn a lot about you from your hobbies.  Thanks again for allowing me to share, and will see you next time. 

Is Hate a Contradiction?

 The reason I write this is that our parish priest in his homily yesterday addressed something of interest.  The Scripture passage - the daily Mass reading from the Gospels, in this case Luke 14:26 - is a verse that talks about if you love Christ, you must "hate" your mother, father, children, spouse, self, etc.  Now, oddly, when you read the rest of Scripture (which Fr. JoseMaria, our priest, astutely pointed out) you are told to honor your mother and father, hate no one, etc.  Is this a contradiction?  That became the focus of Fr. JoseMaria's homily, and to be honest while I was listening to that a light clicked on in the deep recesses of my mind as if to scream "This makes sense!"  Now that those preliminary comments are the introduction, let's dive in. 

The word "hate" is often associated with things we morbidly hate, and in the case of people, it is tantamount to a death wish on our enemies when we say we hate them.   This is not the hate our Lord is talking about in this verse, and as our parish priest pointed out, this type of hatred has nothing to do with malicious or murderous intent, as you are not hating the person.  Rather, it means that the focus of our ultimate love and devotion must be to something greater, and if anything stands in the way of that, then it deserves to be abhorred, which is not the same as hatred.  You can love someone but also abhor what they do or stand for, in other words.  Therefore, you are not hating them as human beings, but rather you seek to distance yourself from a potential hindrance they may be causing you if it interferes with your faith.  When it is explained that way, it makes more sense, although the wording of Scripture here may be a bit confusing unless you understand the context of the passage within the whole.  Now, I will elaborate further.

Loving someone does not mean you have to like them, as some people are just downright disagreeable.  And, that can include some of our own family.  For instance, you have heard me talk about the attitudes of some of my family - to me, they are abhorrent, especially the tendencies of some late relatives to gossip and tear down others just because they get a sick pleasure from it.  I don't hate them in the sense of how hatred is understood, but I hate what they did, and due to some very wise counsel it was best I limit my contacts with those particular relatives.  I still have some cousins with attitudes like this, especially on my mother's branch of the family tree - they also treated her like this too, and she didn't have much to do with them either.  They are not people I would choose to be close with in other words, because their own attitude toward me would be toxic.  So, I stay away from them, simple as that.  And, this is kind of what Jesus was talking about in the Gospels when he said we should abhor those who seek to bring us down if they hinder our spiritual life and the flow of grace to us.  It is for our own good.  But, as I have also said before, forgiveness is still a factor too, and if some of them were to have a change of heart and mind and would seek to be better, then we extend that grace to them and give them forgiveness we seek.  Forgiveness, as I have said before, is like a gift - it is of no benefit unless the recipient accepts it.  However, like any gift, keep the offer open until they are ready to receive it, and that is called having an attitude of forgiveness. It is the same way with what Jesus is talking about in this context regarding "hating" - it does not mean that we hate their guts, but rather that we abstain from being around them if they present something toxic.  Let me give some other examples.

Let's say a boy comes of age, and he has a passion for a career.  However, his father is giving him opposition and is trying to hinder the boy from doing what makes him happy.  There is nothing wrong or immoral about what the boy wants to do, and he has a passion for it.  But the father is trying to micromanage him.  Finally, the boy has enough, and after a heated exchange with his father he decides he is going to do what he wants anyway.  Is the boy wrong?  Is he disrespecting his father?  The answer to both is no - the boy still loves his father, and just has a different outlook without totally rejecting his father but rather just his father's attitude about his own goals.  The boy in a sense is "abhorring" his father, but not coldly hating his guts, you see.  There comes those times when we have to establish boundaries with even those we love - we tell them we love them, we appreciate their input, but we also are capable of our own decisions too.  When it comes to matters of faith, it is even more intense.  Let's say a child who is raised in a Fundamentalist Baptist house - his dad may even be a pastor of a church - decides to begin to investigate the Catholic Church just out of curiosity.  In time, the kid likes what he sees, and after a long talk with a local priest, he decides it is time to "come home" to the Church.  Then, his father finds out - oh my goodness!  Keep in mind, if this kid's father is a fundamentalist Baptist pastor, a key "tradition of men" that this pastor is going to cling to is anti-Catholicism.  His dad may have preached sermons that the Pope is the antichrist, and a secret coalition of Jesuits, Freemasons, and other nefarious groups is plotting to take over the world and exterminate every fundamentalist on the earth.  To that father, it is as if his son just openly took the "mark of the Beast" and thus is eternally lost now.  The son, however, feels differently - perhaps for years he questioned his father's teachings, being as Mark Lowry so humourously said it, the typical Independent Baptist attitude is "I'm not always right, but I'm never in doubt!"  The son legitimately understands that he was probably getting only one side of the story from his preacher dad, and given God has gifted all of us with working brains, he began to start examining things for himself.  However, the preacher father invests more authority in himself than any historic Pope ever did, and for his son to "apostatize" like that is a betrayal.  Because the dad has such an unbending bias against anything even sounding "Catholic," the wiser course for the son to take is to say "You know what Dad, I love you, and I appreciate your convictions, but you are wrong, and if you cannot support my decision then I need to distance myself from you."  This is again what Jesus is saying - anything (or anyone) that hinders one's personal spiritual growth needs to be avoided.  The father would deny this with his son, although in practice he will be doing the same thing if he disowns his son (that has happened more often than not in strict fundamentalist Protestant households).  The son risks never seeing his dad again, and it is a big sacrifice to make to grow in his faith.  But, in the end he will see he made the wise choice, and these stories can also have more pleasant endings - the father may one day wise up and realize that maybe those "heathen Catholics" are not so bad after all, and perhaps just maybe they are actually fellow Christians too!  That being said, not every fundamental Baptist hates Catholics either - both Jerry Falwell and Jack van Impe were independent fundamental Baptists who had wonderful relationships with Catholics (Dr. van Impe was even a huge fan of the late Pope St. John Paul II).  And, even the controversial fundamentalist Baptist pioneer J. Frank Norris ended up forming a sort of alliance against Communism with Pope St. Pius X (I need to double-check if that is the right Pope too).  So, even fundamentalists are capable of reasonable thought too, provided their egos and their own biases don't cloud it.  So, change is possible, which now leads to the missing piece of the puzzle. 

When Jesus commanded us to "hate" some relatives, he did not say to do so in a literal, exterminating way.  Rather, he said that if they were a hindrance, we need to turn away from them - we still love them, and we pray for them, and if one day they come around we freely offer forgiveness and reconciliation with them.  This was really what the crux of Fr. JoseMaria's message was in yesterday's homily, and again, Scripture has given its eternal yet fresh wisdom on a topic that can easily appear confusing and contradictory on the surface.  So, rather than despising someone like that to the point you wish their death, you abhor their attitudes and distance yourself from them for your own mental and spiritual well-being.  I am even thinking of presenting this in some way to my 11th graders at some point during the year, as that is an important lesson for them too.  It means that although elders are to be respected, they are not perfect either and it is OK to differ with them where they are wrong.

I was not planning on writing again this soon, but I was sort of inspired by this and wanted to share it.  Thanks for allowing me to do so, and will see you next time. 

Feeling Old

 Does it ever seem like your mind doesn't want to catch up to your body?  At 55, I have been feeling it recently.  Just a couple of nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night with a pain in my leg that was just uncomfortable.  My first fear-addled thought was "Oh Lord, I have a blockage!"  A day later it wasn't quite as noticeable because it went as quickly as it came.  However, waking up out of a sound sleep with a charley horse in your calf is not the most pleasant experience.  There are facts we have to face, and I am realizing that more every day. 

A nice little proverb circulates out there now that tells us a fact of life - one in one dies.  Unless the Second Coming happens, dying is an inevitability we all will face.  At times though, we labor under the delusion of our own immortality, not realizing that our mind and body are having a difference of opinion with each other.  That whole 12-inch pizza you could polish off when you were 25?  Now, you are ready to explode after two slices because you get so full.  Also, that long walk that encompasses 12 blocks you could do without breaking a sweat at 22?  Now, climbing three stairs to your front door is a challenge.  I recall an episode of The Golden Girls several years back where Dorothy was regaling Rose with her day at the teacher's lounge where she was a substitute teacher.  She said that she was having a good time talking to a group of much younger teachers - she noted they were young and pretty, and then said "at that age you don't have to be pretty and you're pretty."  However, as Dorothy was driving home, she looked in her car mirror and said she saw this old woman staring back at her, and the comic effect was that Rose, ever the functional moron, said "who was it?"  It of course was Dorothy's reflection, and it was as if reality came rushing back at her like a 200-mile-an-hour freight train.  As most of us get older, we have those days like Dorothy did - we are feeling so good and then we catch a reflection in the mirror - oops!  A realization like that can do one of two things.  First, it can make you depressed for three weeks.  Second, it could force you to accept reality and maybe think about what you can do with your life at this point, as you still have life and don't want to waste it.  If any realization were to hit me, I would much rather it be the second.  And, that puts me in mind of what I was teaching my 11th graders this week.

The course I teach at the Jesuit high school in Baltimore I work at is called Sacraments and Morality, and a part of the Sacraments aspect of the class is understanding what the sacraments do for us.  For one, they dispense grace.  Secondly, they challenge us to live out our faith more fully, both to serve others as well as to fulfill what God instilled in us.  That is the whole point of passages in Scripture like Romans 12:4-5, as well as the whole chapter in Ephesians that deals with the spiritual gifts.  Whether we know it or not, we all have a purpose on this earth.  We may not live up to doing it, nor may we even feel like we have any value, but God creates us as individuals for a reason.  So, what does age have to do with this?  Let's talk about that a bit, shall we?

People think that when they reach a certain age, that is it - life is over, dreams die, and all we do now is just sit down and accept it.  However, is that the right approach?  Another stronger reality exists too, one I learned from reading Lawrence Welk's own story years ago in his book You're Never Too Young.  Welk, a devout Catholic who had accomplished a lot in his 90+ years on this earth, lived by a motto - work is integral to fulfillment, so do what you have passion about.  He wrote this in his late 70s, and it does speak to something.  No one is too old to fulfill their dreams, to find true love, and to have a fulfilling life.  On the contrary, it is important to keep oneself active, in mind and in body, because it improves quality of life.  And, sometimes, the opportunities to do certain things when we were younger were not there, and now that we have the time and resources, those same opportunities are now gift-wrapped at our feet - all we need to do is accept them and pursue them.  So, if a widower has another chance at love and happiness, let him do it (and widows too).  If a 60-year-old wants to earn a Ph.D. or even a Bachelor's degree, go for it.  As has been said many times, the most formidable obstacle in life is ourselves. If we can break the barrier we set up, then what lies ahead of us is one thing - possibility.  Again, one of my favorite phrases I heard from a preacher years ago is this - "your present position does not dictate your future potential." And, that includes age. That leads to another interesting thought.

I have heard folks say they cannot wait to retire, as all they were going to do was sleep until noon, and then sit in a chair vegetating all day.  It is easy to feel like that when you have a hectic schedule - I myself just wrapped up a very busy second week of the school year, and all I wanted to do was think about sleep when I got home.  Yet, it is almost 10 PM, and I am doing something I love to do - I am writing thoughts.  For most people, retirement is viewed one way until someone actually does retire, and then they almost go crazy with boredom so they have to do something.  Keeping the mind active in particular is a key factor, because an active mind will continue to stretch and challenge us.  So, keep in mind that before you start dreaming of a retirement where you lay like a drunk manatee on a beach in Florida somewhere, wait until that day actually comes.  After you spend what is probably going to be your last day at an office where you have worked for years, and you get emotional goodbyes from wonderful co-workers who also have become dear friends, you open the presents, eat the cake, and are in a pretty festive mood, then the next morning comes.  You may not feel it right away, but give it about a month and you will - you start feeling bored and restless.  You need to do something, but you are now retired - so what do you do?  This is where the value of hobbies, passions, and working to benefit others in a volunteer capacity come into the picture.  Those things give a new focus to life, and they may even open a new chapter.  So, don't let your brain hibernate when your pension starts - do something that you find fulfilling and stay active.  

This was a short reflection this week, but it was one that I am feeling immensely myself right now.  When you start reading obituaries and see a lot of people you have known over the years in them, it's time to think about your life and what it means to you.  As you do, hopefully you will find new purpose and make a difference.  Thanks again for allowing me to share. 

Summer Ends

 "The summer wind, comes blowing in, from across the sea..."  This old Frank Sinatra classic song from the mid-1960s is one of my favorites.  It is smooth, accented with organ legatos, and of course Sinatra's classic vocal.  While one usually thinks of this as a song at the beginning of summer, it seems as if the "summer wind" is blowing back out to the south from whence it came.  Today is September 1, and also Labor Day.  Although solstice summer ends in about 19 days, the summer season ends this weekend.  The timeframe between Memorial Day and Labor Day constitutes the classic summer season, as it is the peak time for schools being out, and family vacations.  Usually also, it is the day before the school year starts in many school districts, although in reality our school year where I teach started last week.  It begins a busy four-month countdown to the final days of the current year, and it means a very busy few months are ahead as summer slowly says its goodbye and we begin the slow trek to what will be in a short time the cold months of winter.  In between are holidays - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and a few other days of significance (including my own celebration of my birth, which will happen in November).  The last third of the year is generally perhaps the busiest, although each part of the year has its own significance too.  This is where we are.

I think back to when I was in school as a kid myself.  The approach of a new school year brought with it a cadre of mixed feelings.  I recall being excited with going back to school, with my 4th-grade year particularly coming to mind.  I recall that well.  It was the summer of 1979, and I had just finished up a chaotic third grade year at my dad's in Georgia and we had recently moved back in with my grandmother and step-grandfather in Augusta, WV.  Back then, they lived in an ancient farmhouse that had no indoor plumbing save a cold-water sink in the kitchen, and if you had to go to the bathroom, it was in the custom-built two-seater outhouse my step-grandfather had built just beyond the front door of the house, complete with carpet and a window to look out at the nearby slope of Short Mountain. My grandparents were the picture of Appalachian poor, and their house was an exemplification of that.  However, I did not let that deter me from the excitement of starting 4th grade that year.  I was back at Augusta Elementary School then, and had a couple of old friends I knew from a couple of years previous when we were in 2nd grade.  So, I had the big plan laid out - I spent a lot of the summer collecting an absurd arsenal of every school supply imaginable, and I would spend hours trying to organize it, including washing down my brand-new Trapper Keeper three-ring book with warm soap and water.  By the time the new school year rolled around, on my first day I looked like I was attending a nuclear summit as I even had a briefcase to carry everything in.  Of course, when the rigors of the school year would set in, a lot of that initial enthusiasm would fizzle out and the usual "Oh geez, school AGAIN??" attitude would manifest itself every morning, especially further along when winter really set in and I had to walk over a quarter of a mile to get to my bus stop. I would later find out that teachers had similar feelings, especially once I became a teacher myself. 

The idea of a school year has a pattern to it.  In the beginning is apprehension and excitement, which lasts until right after Christmas break when you start to feel burnout and apathy.  Then, around mid-April, when the traditional Spring Break happened, you are seeing the end in sight, and there are activities, testing, and other things to break up the usual routine.  Then comes the last day of school - you are both excited but also worn-out, and all you are thinking of is sleeping in until 10 AM the first day of summer break.  Summer then has its own course - you want to rest, then you get bored, but then you both dread and anticipate going back.  As mentioned, this pattern is true of both students and teachers - so if you are in school, let me assure you that the teachers in a lot of cases may share your feelings on a different level.  So, let's talk about summers a bit, shall we?

I went through 12 years of formative schooling (unless kindergarten is factored in, and then it is 13).  That means I had about 13 summers I experienced, each as different as the next, and there are many things I experienced in those summer months over the years.  During my high school years, my summers were generally good - I spent time at home creating new recipes for my burgeoning cooking interests, wildcrafting in the woods above our house then, and listening to a lot of good music.  And, church and the fact I was in the high school band then gave me a bit of a social life.  However, there were two summers I would rather forget, and let me tell you a bit about them.  The first was the summer of 1979.  I had spent the Spring in Georgia with Dad then, and when I came back I got my first taste of what bone-crushing poverty felt like.  At the time, Mom and I stayed at my grandfather's rowhouse on Schwartz Street in Martinsburg, WV, and Mom had no income, no hope for anything, and there were nights when the only entertainment we had was the PTL Network on TV and all I had to eat were fried corn cakes and my late step-grandmother's canned applesauce in the basement.  My grandfather at the time was spending a lot of his time up in Parsons, our hometown that was two hours away, courting the lady who would become my new step-grandmother, and she and Mom were not the best of friends.  So, we stayed there by ourselves, and things got very desperate after a while.  Eventually, Mom decided we had enough of living like that, so she made a call to my grandmother in Augusta, and a few hours later they came in my uncle Junior's souped-up car and loaded up what we could, and we went back with them.  But, that started what was probably the most intense 8 years of my life, as I would taste poverty for many of those years until Mom finally landed some good work as a live-in caretaker for a couple of elderly folks and our lives stabilized.  Before that happened, 1979's summer was bookended by 1985, six years later, when we were in similar dire straights and our survival was based at that point on biscuits made from scratch and vegetables jacked out of the neighbors' gardens.  That six-year period - roughly from July 1979 to August 1985 - was a time of having to grow up fast for me, and in time my school actually became less of a burden and more of a diversion from the rather bleak life I had at home.  Again though, I survived all that, and in doing so I also would later rise past it as my life became more stable as a young adult. 

I share that little snippet of my personal history to say that summers can be good or bad, depending on perspective.  Likewise, a new school year can be good or bad depending on the same factors.  I have had the good and bad of both, and the good thing is that they are just seasons of life - they come, they go, and then new challenges arise later.  Without sounding like a lame line from The Lion King, it is a sort of circle of life that revolves around the yearly changes in seasons and what those entail, and we grow from the experience.  God sometimes allows some negative for our own growth, and I have learned that much like I learned everything else in retrospection.  But we do learn, we grow, and we move on, and that is just living life as God gifts us with it. 

For those of my readers who are students or teachers, may we all have a great school year ahead, and let's try to keep the bigger picture in focus, especially on those days when apathy and dread of the daily grind get to us.  Thanks again, and look forward to next time.