A Comment on Comments (with comments)

I commented on a blog! On an NPR radio show blog!
I haven't commented on a blog in years, and outside of some blogs I don't usually even bother reading the comments. I think the blog commenting process is similar to that of getting into a car and feeling safe enough to have road rage. Suddenly you're in a large cage that will give you the courage to flip off people who, outside the car, could kick your ass. When commenting on a blog, you sit in your jammies and use a false name and flip off the whole world. Whenever I've felt like commenting, I've been angry, and that is no mood in which to take to the internet.
Sometimes I read them out of curiosity and/or for humor's sake. Just last night, I read comments over at the Groupon.com blog about their Super Bowl ads. I was able to discern that most people were angry about the Tibet one, and I enjoyed one comment that said something like "shame on you, Groupon. Again. SHAME ON YOU." Heh, that still makes me laugh.
Anyway, today I was listening to The Takeaway, and they featured someone from Beliefnet talking about the new Confession App that everyone is sending me notes about these days. They said why has religion (who is this "religion" they're asking about?) been so resistant to technology and social media? They said the Pope hasn't exactly approved the app, but hasn't not approved it, either... and they wondered if the new model of church will be the online forum.
So many responses leap to mind.
1) can you imagine a church that's like an online forum? See above. I'll take a buncha people praying quietly together in one room any old day over that.
2) I don't know about "religion" but all we hear about these days from the RCC is about using technology and social media for evangelization, etc. There doesn't seem to be much resistance there, except here in Boston where everyone is assumed to be a child molester.
(oh, that's harsh. I should delete that.)
3) and here's what I said to the Takeaway people. This app is basically a back-lit version of the paper handouts at the door (or that should be at the door) of every Catholic Church that say "How to go to Confession." No big whoop. Sure it's got some bells and whistles but whatever. It's not a local, high-tech confessional. If what I hear is true, there's nothing there for the pope to be against. It's SUCH a non-story.
The bigger story, I'd say, is how popular it seems to be. It's 1.99 to download, which to me is a major commitment, app-wise. I'll spend .99 out of curiosity, but I would only spend two bucks on an app that I intended to use, and use... religiously. Ha! Sorry.
Anyway, maybe it's just me but that's the significant takeaway here. The app is listed at #22 top grossing and #23 top paid apps on the list. That's huge, no?
Last year our parish had surprisingly bigger crowds at Lenten Masses than we could remember, and when we offered Confession on Wednesday nights in Lent, people LINED UP to receive the sacrament. Why this renaissance? There's yer story.

joy in the front rows

I was listening to NPR on my way to work, as usual, and heard a story about last year's Super Bowl- the author of a new book was saying that football tells an epic story of a leader (quarterback) leading his troops (team) to victory by conquering the field. The author mentioned Eli Manning, last year's victorious quarterback, as such a victorious leader and great character of the story.
I wondered about Mr. Manning- I wondered if he wakes up every day since last January saying "I am the victor!! My story is amazing! We won the freaking SUPERBOWL!!!" My guess is that the joy that struck him on that day has faded, and while he's still fond of the memory, he's probably moved on to other things, like working toward this year's victories.
It occurred to me that we live longer in our losses than in our wins. Losing someone we love seems to settle on us and stay- and it is much much longer before we can move on, start to focus on new things. Victories peak and then fade, while losses of love cling to us and color every day.
I don't have a remedy for this, it just occurs to me that it's true, and it makes me wonder why.
Whenever I get to the 4:00 Saturday Mass at my parish, I go early and visit with the Front Rowers. These are the people, older people, who sit in the first three pews every week. When these people aren't at Mass, you wonder if they're visiting family or if they are sick. I spoke with one of the women about how unbelievably fast Advent has come upon us, and she told me she had had a wonderful, blessed year. I said I hope that next year will be as good as this, and she said, without a pause, "oh it couldn't be! Every day I get out of bed amazed at my blessings, and thanking Jesus for my life."
I think what she's talking about is the difference between joy and happiness. Joy stays with us long-term, and if we allow it to, it will cling to us just as fast and sure as sadness does. Just like sadness and grief can withstand moments of happiness and return just like the tide when the moment has passed, joy can do that too. Joy can withstand heartache and sad times and loss, and come back, unbidden, if our joy is grounded.
It's for this reason that I am a Christian, for this reason that I am Catholic- because joy is here in my Church, even despite horrible heartache and loss. I am grounded here, kept ever connected to my source of joy. No matter how hard it gets (and it has gotten hard!) the joy- it just creeps back in and takes over. I hope someday I'll be a Front Rower, telling some young person about my joy.

I could beweeeeve I could fwyyyyy...

Today I was listening to the Bryant Park Project, one of my favorite daily NPR shows. It's two hours long but it usually takes me an entire work day to listen to the whole thing, between games of tetris. Just kidding. It does take me all day though- between phone calls and chats with co-workers and hard, hard work.
Anyway. Today on the BPP, they featured a story of a tantric practitioner who was on a live tv show in India, and claimed that he could use his powers to kill another person on the show. (Apparently tantric has more to it than the whole sex thing.) Anyway, the host of the show (or maybe another guest, I had a bit of a hard time following who was who) said "okay, if that's true, kill me now."
It's kind of a long story- the tantric guy agrees to kill him and says it'll take 3 minutes. The time passes and the host is not dead. He asks for 15 more minutes. Still alive. The Indian tv station runs the show, live, into the next half hour with the words "BREAKING NEWS" across the bottom of the screen. Finally they agree to do a big deal gathering where he'll perform the Gigantic Spell of Super Destruction, or something like that. The host says "Sure". This, alas, is not effective either and the host lives on happy and smiling, and the tantric guy's rep. is seriously damaged.
I laughed, marvelling, through this whole story and the accompanying youtube videos, and then thought, "there but for the grace of God go I."
Well, not really- I wouldn't threaten to kill anyone with my religion or philosophy, and don't belong to one that claims I could anyway. In fact, my faith isn't one that would easily be used to do physical harm in the way the tantric guy said he could. Emotional and spiritual damage, yes- but not killing anyone with my chant.
But, I wondered what the tantric guy is thinking now- he put all his faith in his chant and ritual to do this big feat, and in front of the entire country, he fails. Where does he go now?
When I was little, I remember sitting one day at St. John's- I don't remember why I was there, because our parish was St. Charles, but whatever- and looking up at the beautiful church architecture. It's a beautiful church with paintings on the ceiling and high peaks and marble and whatnot. The space above the pews seemed massive to me then. I remember thinking to myself, "I could fly right now."
I really believed that if I put my faith in God, and stood up on the back of the pew in front of me, and pushed off, I could fly around that empty space above everyone. I BELIEVED it! But, I didn't try. Because... what if I couldn't? I'd be completely embarrassed, standing up on that pew back and tumbling into the laps of the people in front of us.
I was extremely disappointed in my own lack of faith in God. I could see how weak my faith really was. I still kind of wish I'd given it a shot- but now I guess I'll never know if God and I could have made miracles way back then.
How many of us are so faithful that we're willing to put our own faith to the test? Where would we be if we failed that test? Is it better not to look that closely at the possibilities?

It's just that...

The other day I heard a great quote on NPR that I can't get out of my head;
"If God had wanted us to fly he wouldn't have given us the railroad."
It begs the question; how involved are we in making our own way? How much can we attribute to God's will? It's something we've discussed at the Church often- how people blame God for their sadness/hurt/disappointment. I have firsthand experience of people who glibly chirped "it must have been God's will!!!" when they heard of our miscarriages.
I am realizing what an easy trap it is to fall into- the blaming of God- especially since there's nowhere to look to find the answer to why-bad-things-happen-to-good-people. (except, I guess, the famous book... maybe I should read that?)
So what control does God have of our daily lives? I read a quote once that described God as a loving shepherd with a hole in his fence but who refused to patch it. That just sounds like a dumb shepherd to me. Is free will really that important? Wouldn't a flock of happy, safe sheep be worth patching the stupid fence?
I've heard a lot of great analogies for how it all works- my friend Paula describes God like a GPS unit that gives us directions (and it's our decision to follow them or not) and I like to imagine it's like one of those choose-your-own-adventure books. We choose what page to flip to, but ultimately, God wrote the whole book.
But hey, I don't know. Do we try to swim, or pick up our feet and float wherever God's current moves us?

Fresh Err

Tonight on my way home from work I listened to Fresh Air on the radio. Tonight's guests were a father and son who both have recently written books. The son's book is called Tweak- Growing Up on Methamphetamines and the father's is called Beautiful Boy. It was a pretty interesting conversation, but the part of the interview that was the most intriguing to me was when they were asked about the role of "God talk" in treatment programs. The son was talking about how hard it is to be an atheist in programs where, for instance, one of the fundamental ideas is "let g0-let God."
The father, also an atheist, said that early on at an Al-Anon meeting, someone told him that by the end of the process (does he mean the al-anon process, or his son's addiction?) he would believe in God.
Terry Gross asked him if that was true, and he said no. He never did come to believe in God.
But, he said, he did begin to believe in prayer.
Terry said something like "what's the point in praying when you don't believe you're praying TO someone?" This made him think- he said he wasn't really sure, but maybe he was chanting to himself "heal my son. Help my son" to keep his sanity. Maybe he was praying just in case there was someone out there listening.
I wonder if there's something deep within all of us that just has no choice but to acknowledge God's existence when we are at our most helpless points. Somehow, in spite of our logic and need for proof of things, at our core maybe there's something that reminds us to whom we belong.
Someone asked me recently what my "core belief" about God is. If I had to name it, I guess it's that I believe God is bigger than we are- bigger than we can even fathom. More forgiving, more powerful, more loving, more... big. When we come to the limit of what we believe possible, God can do more. I think we tend to put limits on God because we can't imagine that he's too loving to be fair, too forgiving to be punishing. And when we believe God is absent, He is still there present, if not in our hearts and minds, definitely in our souls. Maybe that's what drives the unbeliever to pray to someone whom they "know" does not exist.

the storm before the storm

I heard big snow was coming, so I thought I'd better go shopping this morning. W!O!W! I have never seen anything like the scene at Market Basket today!!! My first clue should have been the fact that there were no carts. NO carts!! I waited by the door until a guy came in with a handful of carts, and he didn't even get to park them- a bunch of us took them right from him at the door.
I wore my ipod and I think this is what miraculously saved my mood. I was listening to NPR's Pop Culture podcast, but I could still hear the Christmas music over the loudspeakers. I could also hear the pleas for patience by the store staff, and observe three different sub-classes of shoppers. Here's what I saw:
OLD WOMEN are seemingly oblivious to their surroundings. They stop and stand in the middle of the aisle and stare at the shelves, trying to locate their items or compare prices, I don't know... At one point, I pulled over to review my list, and I was sideswiped (my cart, really- I escaped unharmed) by a woman. She swiped the length of my cart and then kept on going.
OLD MEN are the worst!!! They are frustrated and grumpy, and try to speed through any empty space they find themselves in. Even if, say, that empty space is only about the length of a shopping cart. At one point I attempted to enter the baking aisle, but couldn't. It was full, so I settled in to wait for my chance. A man came to the end of the aisle, which abutted the space where people were in line for the registers. No one could move. He said out loud, to no one in particular, "why isn't anyone MOVING?" I said to him "there's just nowhere to go". He leaned forward, way over his cart to see around the end of the aisle, and yelled "GET MOVING!! NOBODY CAN MOVE OVER HERE!!!" No one even bothered to look back at him.
EVERYONE ELSE can be divided still into three sub-sub-groups: the angry, the bewildered, and the patient. I was, by the luck of the ipod, one of the patient ones today. And now that we're home, snuggled up with a chicken baking in the oven, we can watch the news storm reports and know our chores are done, everyone's safe, and our cupboards are full.

TDBI

I was listening to NPR today and they featured a story by Robert Krulwich- he's fast becoming my favorite guy on NPR, and is part of the team that does Radio Lab, the podcast which I've glowed about here before. Today he was talking with a scientist about a new study on fetal cells (wow stuff- you can listen to the story at the Bryant Park Project page- just click on Listen Now)
and mentioned that scientists have this term: the Too Dangerously Beautiful Idea. The gist of it is, if it's too good, incredibly good news, reflects the beauty we all wish to believe exists in the world, you'd better take a closer look at it. Scientists don't want humanity's need for beauty to exist, to cloud their judgment.
As much as Catholic theology confounds me (it's okay to admit that, right?) I am glad that being part of a faith tradition means that I don't have to dis-believe something because it's too good to be true.