A Moment Of Carelessness

It doesn't happen often but sometimes a priest will give a sermon that's so memorable, it stays with you despite the passage of time. My last entry on this blog had me thinking about one in particular.

Every now and then, a visiting priest would say Mass at St. Mary Star of the Sea in Beverly.  This unfamiliar face might simply be helping our pastor out or he could be pitching a cause that the parishioners will be asked to support during the second collection. I can't remember why this particular priest was in our church nor do I remember much about him other than the fact he was old. While at the lectern, he talked about how we should always give our best effort in life no matter how small or insignificant the task at hand appeared to be. We were all connected to each other and our actions had the power to touch people's lives in ways that were not readily apparent. Whenever we were careless or lazy, it could have serious unforeseen consequences.

Then he told us the story of a teen-aged boy during the 1950s who was swimming with his friends at a local pond. Like many young people do, they decided to climb high rocks and dive into the water. When it was this boy's turn to jump, he disappeared beneath the water and never resurfaced. His worried friends contacted the authorities and they dredged the pond only to find his lifeless body. An autopsy revealed the boy had been impaled by a bayonet from the 1800s that was sticking straight up from the bottom of the pond. At one time, there had been a railroad bridge over this body of water and it was speculated that the bayonet may have come from a long-forgotten troop train. Did a careless soldier accidentally drop his bayonet into the pond or did he throw it away on purpose? The visiting priest then explained that we should always strive to do our best even in the smallest of tasks because it could affect someone's life in a very profound way.

Sometimes priests like to embellish the facts during their sermons and I haven't been able to determine if the story about this ill-fated boy is actually true or not. Over the years, I've heard least two different priests give the same inaccurate sermon on the construction of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. They said that after a few workers fell to their deaths, a large net was set up underneath the bridge to prevent any more fatalities. The priests went on to liken the net to our sense of faith which can “catch us” in our time of need. Well, the history lesson they gave isn't quite right. From the very beginning of the Golden Gate Bridge's construction, planners had set up nets to catch workers. While it saved many lives, it did not prevent the deaths of 10 men when the heavy platform they were on fell and broke through the net.

Even if our visiting priest's sermon wasn't completely accurate, it certainly did make an impression and I usually think of it when moments of carelessness pop up. A few years ago in Boston, a trolley operator thought nothing of texting someone on his phone until he crashed into another train and caused life-long injuries for some of his passengers. In Taiwan, a multistory building collapsed during an earthquake and it was later revealed the developer cut corners by placing empty paint cans into the concrete foundation which weakened the structure. Over 100 innocent people died for someone else's financial gain.

                                                                               Photo: BBC

Not every moment of carelessness will have such devastating consequences but that doesn't mean we are off the hook when it comes to doing the right thing. A joyful smile and a concerned ear to the random stranger (who might be having a bad day) could make a big difference in their lives. What impression would a scowl and a cold shoulder have instead? Throwing a small piece of trash on the ground might seem harmless enough but how many of us have lost precious time scraping gum from our shoes? Not doing a thorough job of cleaning our furnace certainly caused a fair share of headaches for my mother and me.

We are all God's creations and one thing I love about Christianity is that it reinforces the notion that our actions no matter how big or small touch other people's lives. What kind of impact do we want to make?

God's Perfect Timing

One autumn “tradition” in New England is having your house's furnace serviced before frigid temperatures set in.  My family has been using the same fuel oil company for about four generations now and our most recent appointment to have the furnace cleaned and inspected seemed as routine as all the others.  Unfortunately, it was anything but.  Two weeks after we turned the heat on, the furnace suddenly died around 8 o'clock at night.  The circuit breaker wasn't tripped so we placed a desperate call into our oil company.  They told us an emergency visit would be much more expensive than a service call during regular business hours so we opted to wait until the next day to have someone look at the furnace.  It was cold out but thankfully, it wasn't freezing.

When the repairman arrived, he took all of five minutes to find the cause of the problem.  The nozzle that sprays a fine mist of fuel oil to be ignited was clogged by sludge.  In our over 40 years in the house, we never encountered this problem before.  He also said the nozzle was bent so my mother and I wondered if the problem was somehow connected to the cleaning job that was done two weeks ago.

As we made plans to host my brother and his family for Thanksgiving dinner, the furnace was not too far from the back of my mind.  Then just two hours before company showed up, the heater died again.  This time, it was much colder outside so putting off a repair was out of the question.  The already expensive emergency service call would be even more so since it was a major holiday.  I was a little mad at God for His “perfect” timing.  When my brother and his family arrived, the house was cold and his children had to keep their jackets on.

The subcontracted repairman was busy with so many service calls, it took him quite a long time to get to us.  When he checked the furnace, the filters were clogged with sludge.  He also noticed the electrodes which sparked a fire had been worn down so I had them replaced too.  Heat was eventually restored and we could finally enjoy Thanksgiving dinner in a warm house.

My mother and I were not happy with our fuel oil provider so a few days later, we demanded the owner drop by the house to give us some answers if he wanted to keep us as customers.  When my mother questioned the owner about the quality of his company's cleaning job, he rolled his eyes.  I then asked why the burned out electrodes on the furnace were missed.  He apologized and offered to reimburse us.  There was never a good explanation why so much sludge had clogged our furnace's filters and when we wondered why the nozzle had been bent, the guy placed blame on his fellow employees saying how difficult it was to find good help these days.  We watched him test the fuel oil and there were no sediments this time around.  The owner was cocky and dressed like a slob.  It was a far cry from how things used to be.

For such a long time, this oil company was extremely professional.  It's employees were all part of the same family and everyone wore spiffy uniforms.  They worked hard to earn the trust and (dare I say) friendship of their customers by blending competence with friendliness.  Their invoices featured the logo of a girl peacefully sleeping in her bed with the slogan: Safe, Dependable Oil Heat.  When the previous owner's son took over, some of those little things that made this company a pleasure to deal with started to fall by the wayside.  Maybe the company's new logo should be a picture of my niece shivering with her winter jacket on.

Often when life throws us a curve ball, our knee-jerk reaction is to blame God.  I was guilty of that when our furnace stopped working on Thanksgiving.  What we should do is look to see if our difficulties were caused by someone failing to give it their all.  Cutting corners may bring a person an immediate short-term gain but it usually comes at the expense of someone else's long-term peace of mind.

The Lonely Game of Bowling

The shuttered Bowl-O-Mat in Beverly, MA

A special-needs teenage boy that I mentor recently took a liking to the sport of bowling after playing a few strings with his grandmother.  When he found out I was once a pretty good bowler, he invited me to tag along.

When people in New England mention bowling, there's a good chance they're talking about candlepin bowling.  This regional favorite features small balls and tall, thin pins which makes getting a strike far more challenging than ten pin bowling.  In fact, there has never been a perfect game in candlepin bowling.

In my teens, I was part of a bowling club and thanks to some lessons from my dad, had a fairly high average.  After a while, I stopped bowling on a regular basis because no one else wanted to go with me and the leagues in my town were made up of mostly old people.  Every once in a great while, I returned to the local bowling alley when a friend visiting from out of state was feeling nostalgic but the lanes were usually empty.  It was quite a departure from how popular the sport used to be at one time.

Candlepin bowling tournaments were a big deal here back in the day and some Boston television stations even had their own weekend bowling shows.  The current champion laments this loss of interest in the sport and says tournaments aren't even worth the effort now since the prize money is so low.  In the few bowling alleys that exist today, you can usually find yellowed newspaper clippings of bowling's heyday hanging on the walls.  The owners of these establishments have tried whatever they can to bring the crowds back like cosmic bowling, pool tables, arcades and kid's birthday parties but the results have been mixed.  During the spring of this year, the only bowling alley in my hometown closed its doors for good.

In many ways, the current state of candlepin bowling reminds me of the Catholic faith.  We fondly recall those glory days when parishes were packed on Sundays but over the years, the number of worshipers have significantly declined because religion no longer plays a central role in many people's lives.  Occasionally, gimmicks are trotted out to bring lapsed Catholics back to Mass but these efforts often fall short.  As churches and bowling alleys continue to close, some hope against hope that the pendulum will swing the other way while sharing their theories as to why such downturns happened in the first place.

After a couple of games with his grandmother, the teen I mentor wanted more practice to improve his score so he called me up to go bowling.  In the back of my mind, I wondered if there would be any eligible women there for me to strike up a conversation with.  The alley was surprisingly busy and I did catch a glimpse of some cute females in a few of the lanes.  Unfortunately, the owner assigned us to a lane located in the smaller private room that was mostly used for birthday parties.  To the left of us was a group of elderly men and to the right of us were a few mentally retarded people with their caregivers.  Just like that, my chance to meet a woman was cut short even before we started bowling.  Every now and then, I'd see a cute girl at the soda machine but then she'd quickly disappear behind the wall that separated the private lanes from the rest of the alley.  It was yet another reminder of the bad luck I've had over the years just meeting women.

Our next few visits to the alley were like my experiences at Mass: many old people and families with a sprinkling of young couples but no single women around my age to speak of.  Often times the only females in the alley were there just because their boyfriends wanted to go.  With the leagues on hiatus for the summer, it was not uncommon for us to be the only customers in the place.  The eerie silence intensified the noise coming from the automatic pin setters.  When the owner of the bowling alley closed the place early just as we entered the parking lot, we decided to try another alley in the next town over.  Their prices were much more reasonable so we decided to make it our new home for candlepin bowling.  While the crowds there were somewhat larger, my earlier observations about the type of people who go bowling still held true.  In the autumn, the leagues returned and we were struck by how many grossly overweight “red neck” types filled their ranks.  Of course, this is a sport where you can sit down to enjoy fried food, pizza and beer during game play.

Lately, the teen that I mentor has been busy on the weekends so sometimes I go bowling alone and one of two things happen.  Either a loud and obnoxious group of people will be assigned to the lanes next to me or no one will.  There never seems to be a happy medium and candlepin bowling continues to be one more enjoyable thing in life that also brings with it a certain amount of isolation.

But Who Will Save Us?

A very thought-provoking blog called A Shepherd's Post is written by one of my former pastors at St. Mary Star of the Sea in Beverly, Fr. David Barnes.  In a recent entry entitled Marriage Will Save the World, he notes how vicious and divisive people's words are in online articles especially when fellow Catholics comment on the current state of the Church.

Then he goes on to discuss the beauty found in the sacrament of marriage, first from the perspective of a young couple's recent wedding.  The vows they spoke were simple but pure and noble words.  Next, he mentions offering Mass for a couple's 25th anniversary.  The beauty of the readings was reflected in the life this husband and wife had built for each other over the years.  “The world needs to see families like that; men and women who give over their whole life to the raising of their children.  More than ever, the world needs to see what true communion looks like,” he declares.

Fr. Barnes then laments society's deformed view of marriage and how it has become more about “self-fulfillment” rather than laying down one's life for each other and for the children of that union.  He observes how many couples nowadays delay marriage or don't ever get married because of this.  My former pastor concludes his blog entry by writing, “Today in the midst of so much division, I think that marriage is the key to healing a world broken and devastated by division.  Communion is attractive and pure.  We need witnesses of communion.  We need men and woman to live marriage.”

As a single who has been called to marriage for a long time now, I see within Fr. Barnes' blog entry a certain disconnect that plagues our Church.  If holy matrimony is held up as such a beautiful union, then why isn't more being done to assist the men and women who desire it?

If we could only figure out Phase 2.

This disconnect reminds me of an episode of South Park where gnomes sneak into people's bedrooms at night to steal underpants right out of dresser drawers.  The main characters decide to follow these gnomes back to their lair and confront them.  As it turns out, the gnomes are stealing underpants because it's part of a grand plan to make money.  While pointing to a chart, one of the gnomes explains, “Phase one: collect underpants.  Phase two: ?  Phase three: profit.”

It's an absurd way of showing how a hoped for result isn't actually achieved when you do very little to get there.  We see this same logic play out in Fr. Barnes' blog entry.  Phase one: Marriage is a great thing.  Phase two: ?  Phase three: The world is saved through marriage.

During his tenure as pastor of St. Mary's, I can't recall Fr. Barnes doing anything to encourage singles to fulfill their calling to the sacrament of holy matrimony.  In fact, the parish felt like a very discouraging place.  Couples who were lucky enough to find each other were celebrated while lonely singles like me tended to be ignored probably because our narratives weren't so edifying.

Despite the sharp decreases in marriage over the last few decades, there are men and women who still desire the bonds of holy matrimony.  We want to remain true to our spouses for the rest of our lives.  We want to have children and make sure they are raised within the Catholic faith.  Yet our Church is doing very little to help struggling singles get there.  Marriage will save the world but who will save us?

Why I Don't Go Out

An acquaintance heard me complain about the lack of eligible women so he suggested we go to out to a local restaurant that also had a bar and stage for live music.  He thought there would be plenty of singles to meet at this place but when I contacted him a few days later, he was too tired to go out.  (Now how was I supposed to get a social life when things like that happened?)  A couple of weeks passed and there was still no word from my acquaintance so I decided to send him a message via Facebook.  As it turned out, he was free that Friday night and suggested I pick him up at his apartment around 8 PM.  From there, the restaurant was just a few minutes away and after paying the cover charge, we found two empty seats at the bar.

A bartender swooped in right away to take our order and while my friend had a beer, I decided not to get anything.  I used the excuse of being the designated driver but in reality, alcohol just wasn't that appealing to me.  Over to my left was a young couple who looked like they were fans of the show Jersey Shore.  To the right of my acquaintance were two college co-eds eating large portions of Italian food.  For a Friday, there wasn't much of a crowd and most of the patrons looked like they were over the age of 60.  My acquaintance said, “The type of crowd depends on who's playing.”  The night's entertainment was a young country music singer named Annie Brobst.  He said if it had been a rock band, the crowd would probably be larger and younger.  Just my luck!

A female bar tender checked in on us and then asked if we were looking forward to having a good time.  My acquaintance remarked, “Sure.  What time do you get off work?”  She paused for a moment and then shrugged off the comment.  As she walked away, I said to him, “I think that's the first time she has ever heard that.”  She turned around and said, “Yes, that's the first time, alright.”  I was surprised the bartender heard me given all the noise in the room but she seemed appreciative.  When he stepped outside to have a cigarette, she said to me, “Can I get you a soda?  My treat.”  I replied, “You know what I would love but am too embarrassed to order?  A Shirley Temple.”  The drink had sentimental value because when I was a kid, my uncle used to throw Labor Day pool parties and it was the only mixed beverage I was allowed to have.  The bartender said she would put it in a normal glass so no one would know.  As soon as I finished it, she immediately brought over another one.

When my acquaintance returned from his smoke break, the bouncer didn't remember his face and thought he was trying to sneak in.  We pointed out his beer and he was let back into the establishment.  The country music was nice although I wondered how a singer who was born in Ohio and lived in New England developed a southern accent.  A couple of overweight redneck women got up to dance and my acquaintance said, “There you go.  Why don't you dance with them.”  To further get my goat, he snapped a picture of me and then posted it to social media with the caption, “He's drunk!”

The couple sitting next to me eventually left but the college girls to the right of us continued to drink and flirt with the male bartender.  I looked around the room again and said, “You know where the people our age are?  At home with their wives and kids.”  Despite feeling a bit isolated, I did enjoy the change of pace from my usual Friday night routine of staying home.  The female bartender handed me a third Shirley Temple so I made sure to drink it slowly this time.  A nice tip was in her future and I hoped that might spark some more conversation with her.  

Suddenly, I felt someone's hand grab the back of my chair.  It was an older woman trying to get her balance as she plunked herself down in the empty seat next to me.  I tried to ignore her but she insisted on chatting with us.  She seemed drunk and asked me if my acquaintance was my dad.  He felt insulted since only a few years separated us so he said to the woman, “You look good for 60.”  She made a sour face and told him to fuck off.  Now how did I get myself into this mess?

The woman continued to chat with me even though I showed disinterest.  She said I was cute and tapped my leg a couple of times.  I told her not to get so grabby.  After a few more minutes of this, my acquaintance and I decided to make a hasty retreat.  He paid his tab and quickly finished what remained of his last beer.  The female bartender was off to the side mixing a drink for a customer so I walked over to her and got her attention.  After leaving money on the bar and thanking her for the drinks, I headed outside before that drunk woman tried pawing me again.

My acquaintance attempted to start a conversation with a girl who was taking a smoke break.  He said, “Loud in there tonight, isn't it?”  She coldly responded, “Not really.”  It was clear we weren't going to meet anyone here and during the ride back to his apartment, we analyzed our night out.  In the back of my mind, I had suspected some weirdo or loudmouth would gravitate toward me but I didn't want to say anything for fear of sounding pessimistic.  Once again my suspicions were confirmed.  When I told my mother about the experience, she said older men used to hit on her all the time at bars adding, “But your cousin did find her future husband at a bar so it's hit or miss.”  She suggested we give going out another try.  With experiences like that, it would be a long while before we returned.

Singles, Free Will and 9-11

I discussed being single with an unmarried Catholic woman in her late 40s recently and was struck by how different her outlook on life was.  Despite a few failed relationships and the fact that her mother might never see any grandchildren, she preferred not to dwell on the past or place blame on anyone.  I then shared my feelings about the Church.  For a long time, the clergy have ignored singles who are called to be married when there was so much they could've done to help us.  While she agreed with some of what I said, she preferred to better her own life by looking forward.  At one point in the discussion she even mentioned God's will.  She did feel the call to be married and have kids but accepted the fact that the Almighty did not send a potential husband into her life yet.  I asked if she was alone today because others who had the option of helping her, chose to do nothing.

When the Church was experiencing a shortage of priests, what happened?  Steps were taken to actively promote priestly vocations: from sermons about why the priesthood was awesome to discernment retreats to special prayers for vocations.  Some parishes even passed around vocational crosses to different households so families could pray for seminarians.  One of my pastors credited these actions with helping to increase vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

The key word is ACTION.  When something was wrong within the Church, we just didn't pray for things to improve.  Deliberate measures were put into place to make positive changes happen.  Far too often, Catholics use “God's will” to justify the loneliness singles experience.  When someone like me complains about not being able to find a spouse, we are told to have patience because God works in His own time.  Blame is even placed on us for daring to question His wisdom.

I wondered if everything that happened to us singles was God's will and not free will?  Then using the example of 9-11, I said to the woman, “You have a person who is born into the world as a unique refection of God's love.  They are fed, educated, grow up, and make their way in the world to fall in love and do something wonderful with their God given talents.  One day while simply going to work, they die horribly as a plane piloted by terrorists crashes into the World Trade Center.  Was it God's will for this person's life to be cut short or was it free will that caused so much death and destruction?”

I added that while the terrorists were the ones who chose to do evil, if we went back in time far enough, the actions of the United States in the Middle East helped put into motion a long series of events that led up to the terrorist attack.  From giving military aid to the mujahideen in Afghanistan, to the overthrow of the democratically elected prime minister of Iran in 1953, our country has not always grasped the law of unintended consequences.

The woman said there has always been suffering in the world and while we may never understand why, we should do our best to live a holy life.  I told her it was “God's will” that she should have a family but the inaction of our Church needed to be corrected.  There was nothing wrong with pointing out past failures because that's how we learned to prevent such failures from happening again.

Some people feel the loneliness singles endure is like a set of emotional training wheels that prepares us for marriage.  This view usually creates a climate of apathy instead of assistance, however.  When the Church faced a priest shortage the hierarchy did something about it.  Was this seen as having a lack of faith in God's plan?  No way.  Why then are singles with a calling to Holy matrimony told to simply accept the situation they find themselves in?

The Anxiety Of Daily Prayer

Over the years, many of my priests have stressed the importance of daily prayer.  As a kid, my parents did a great job making sure I said my bedtime prayers which were very simple and innocent.  As I got older, prayers consisted of an Our Father and maybe a Hail Mary.  I later purchased a pocket prayer book that had a nice prayer at bedtime that read:

O my God, I adore you, and love you with all my heart.

I thank you for having created me, having saved me by your grace

and for having preserved me during this day.

I pray that you will take for yourself whatever good
I might have done this day,

and that you will forgive me whatever evil I might have done.

Protect me this night, and may your grace be with me always
and with those I love.

In my teens, daily prayers tended to include more specific requests that reflected some of the hopes and struggles in my life.  I found nothing wrong with this since we had been encouraged to have a personal relationship with God.  After a while, I stopped praying on a daily basis due to all the distractions and conflicts in my life.  Then in 1986, my family planned a vacation to Disney World and I was incredibly nervous about flying.  I promised God to pray every day if our plane didn't crash.  For many years after that, I embraced daily prayer once again.

During one sermon, Fr. Richard Johnson, the pastor at St. Mary Star of the Sea in Beverly had a nice outlook on daily prayer.  He said there might be times when we were so tired, we couldn't muster enough strength to finish praying before falling asleep.  He said God would appreciate the effort because we were still thinking of Him.  Fr. James Foley, who also served in the parish said we should say a little prayer every time we got into a car, went for a walk, or did any number of mundane things because he felt God should be a constant presence in our lives.

It's been said that daily prayer brings us closer to God but over the years, distance and anxiety has crept in.  I'll start my prayers off by asking for forgiveness for all my sins.  Then I pray for all my friends and family.  From there, I think about loved-ones who are no longer on this earth.  The list is long and continues to grow.  I lost my dad to cancer a few years ago and pray that he is in heaven but so far, I have never felt his presence or had any sign that a part of him is still with me.  Cancer has taken so many relatives and acquaintances and praying for a miracle cure never seems to work.

There have been people in my life that I knew or knew of who committed suicide and I pray that they can be forgiven.  Sometimes people desperately need help but it never arrives.  Would a loving God not take this into account and condemn them to hell?

I pray for the victims of terrorist attacks and think about all the people who were trapped in the burning World Trade Center.  My thoughts turn to the senseless brutality of war...from the Holocaust, to the rape of Nanking, to the collateral damage my country caused in Iraq and Afghanistan.  So many people never had the chance to live a full life.  It makes me wonder why God allows such violence to happen in the first place.

Then there are the personal requests.  I pray that God will help me find the woman of my dreams but wind up dwelling on all those lost years spent without a significant other.  I pray for warm friendships but wonder why there have been so many toxic relationships in my life.  (I recently learned an annoying acquaintance was arrested for sexual assault last month!)  I pray for a career path that channels my creativity instead of unemployment and dead end jobs.  There have been times during my nightly prayers where all I can say to God is, “Help me.  Please help me.”

Some of my priests have said God is not a genie who magically grants our wishes.  They add what God wants might not be what you want.  If that's the case, why bother praying at all?  If there are things in this world that are “meant to be” then how can praying change anything?  Does God follow a prime directive where He doesn't interfere in people's lives but occasionally grants favors every now and then?

I have tried to set aside some time at the end of every day to talk to God but this year is different.  The anxiety from all those thoughts, questions and repeated requests have become too overwhelming and my nightly routine has started to wane.  If daily prayer brings peace and closeness to God, I must be doing it wrong.