I get it

This week I can say I truly understand the Paschal Mystery in a real and serious way. Let me start at the beginning of our trip, on Sunday. We were scheduled to leave Boston at 1:30 or thereabouts, and we boarded on time, but spent the next three hours either at the gate, sitting on the tarmac, or idling somewhere in wait, due to a storm in Chicago, where we were due to meet our connecting flight. So, three hours of sitting before we ever got out of town. When we got into Chicago, finally, we launched out of our plane, ran through the terminal, down the escalator, through the tunnel to the other terminal, up the escalator, and to the end of that terminal. When we got there, we found out that A) our gate had been changed, and B) that the flight had left already anyway. So we went back through the terminal, down the escalator, across the tunnel, up the escalator, and went to find the line for United Airlines customer service. It was, and I kid you not, at least a quarter mile long. Someone told us there were 500 people ahead of us. Walking along that line, looking for the end of it, was one of the soul-crushingest experiences I can remember. Finally, a CS person came along and advised us to check the kiosk rather than waiting to see a real person, and so we found that we'd (fortunately!) already been rebooked by the airline for another flight, due to leave in about 2.5 hours. Guess where the new flight would be leaving from? Yep, that other terminal... in fact the one we'd gone to first.
So back we went, at least knowing we'd have time for dinner while we waited. UNfortunately, the plane at our gate (the one before ours) had a serious hold up (as in, 4 hours of waiting for their flight, and they still hadn't left by the time we did.) Since they weren't leaving, we had to change gates AGAIN, but only to one nearby. Once we got on the plane, we had to wait a while, because since our flight was SO late, one of the crew was now "illegal" and they had to wait for someone to replace her. As in, come to the airport from home.
Now here's where the Paschal Mystery comes in. I had the center seat all this time, and Scott, who I love, had an aisle seat. When we got on in Chicago, about to ride through the night to California, I had the aisle seat, and Scott had the center. He was miserable, but we had had such a rough day, and I was tired of being all cooped up, and I thought to myself "enjoy the aisle seat! He'll survive the middle, after all, I did! Why should I have to sit in the middle? After all, I was assigned this seat!"
But at one point, I heard Scott moan. Just a little mewling kind of sound, and he didn't ask for the aisle seat, but what could I do? When he got up to go to the bathroom, I took his seat.
When Scott came back to sit down, I very un-Jesus-like told him that he was a lucky man, and I was super-nice, and that he should never forget it. Ah, what can I say? I'm only human!

Oh, hey! Are you still here?

Ah, public, sorry about the lack of posts lately! It's nothing personal, I've just been busy writing (and reading) for school. But here I am!!! Thanks for waiting!
School lately has had my head spinning. In a good way! Even in HoFo today I heard myself say something pretty profound. But also, every Tuesday night at the parish, I've been leading a really enjoyable (at least to me!) Lectio Divina group based on the upcoming Sunday Gospel reading. We call it Sunday Lex, which is why people seem confused about when to show up...
Anyway, tonight we looked ahead to this Sunday's Gospel reading from Mark, the story of the scribes' hypocrisy vs. the widow who gave her all (two small coins). We talked about whether or not Jesus' lesson in these stories is about complete surrender. We all confessed to being non all-givers, non complete-surrender-ers. We talked about how we decide how to give money to a cause, for instance (from our surplus, like the scribes? To God, like the widow?).
I told the group about a man who stood up at a parish adult faith formation class and told everyone that he got a letter in the mail from some organization, telling him that giving money to them was like giving money to God- that any money he sends them, God would repay many times. He told us proudly that he did send a lot of money to them, and continues to do so, and it always does come back, somehow.
I remember standing at the front of that room, looking at him, and thinking "oh that poor man is being robbed!" But in a way, I didn't want to challenge him because he was giving out of great faith.
The question I ended up facing then was, Am I smarter than he is, or is his faith stronger than mine?
I think I've written her about when I was a kid and we went to Mass at St. John's, a tall, Gothic-looking church, and thought I might be able to fly. It was probably during the homily... I remember thinking. "God can do anything. He said faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. If I have enough faith right now, and I stand up, right now, in front of all these people in this non-standing moment of the Mass, I bet I could fly."
But, I didn't stand up. I remember feeling ashamed that I didn't have enough faith to try it out. Since then I've wondered, was I really talking about trusting God, or testing Him? Was I logical and smart not to stand up, or was I weak weak weak in faith?
I don't have a good summary statement with which to end this entry. I think I'll be chewing on it all week. Learning to surrender to God is a process that I am constantly, constantly wrestling with. God is teaching me how to do that, and why I should do that, one struggle at a time. But I'm still not giving away all I have, and I'm still not standing up to see if I could fly during Mass... I'm not sure I ever will be able to do that, and I'm not sure if that's what God is asking of me.

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?

MFRS

This morning my brother the pilot, was here, and Scott was asking him some leftover questions from our flights to and from Florida. He had noticed that the dials in the cockpit aren't dials anymore, but displays. One big "glass cockpit" as the flight attendant told him. Scott was concerned that if there was a power failure, all those dials would blink out, and then where would one be?
Bruce's answer was fascinating, not only because of the detail in which he described the various wirings and power sources of the cockpit, but because of the words he used. He said "in order for all the dials to fail, there would have to be "Multiple Failures of Redundant Systems". Isn't that a gorgeous hunk of words?
Yesterday at staff meeting we heard that the Archdiocese of Boston has sent out an email that St. Patrick's day will be recognized on March 14th this year... and that there will be no liturgical recognition of the saint's feast day. That's because the 17th is during Holy Week this year. So, they've moved the feast to the Friday before (which is of course a Lenten Friday and therefore, no corned beef and cabbage for you my friend).
I smell Multiple Failures of Redundant Systems. St. Patrick's is one of the few days that the world relates fairly positively to the Catholic Church in these parts, these days. Now, though, not only does the RCAB create questions and confusion among the once-a-year-Catholics, but they move the local's favorite feast to a Lenten Friday. To top things off (this is where the Multiple comes in), St. Patrick is the patron saint of the RCAB... and this is our Archdiocese's 200th year. Way to piss off your patron!!
Fortunately for me, I don't like corned beef. But I like St. Patrick, and this Archdiocese can use all the help it can get. He's got his work cut out for him!