Sympathy's Weak Foundation

A while ago, I attended the town hall meeting of a local politician.  The event was held in the auditorium of a far away community's high school auditorium and in one of the hallways was a sign that read: “See someone alone...reach out and help...start with hello.”  I wondered if this slogan was part of those feel-good anti-bullying campaigns meant to appeal to kids growing up in the digital age.  Having been bullied myself, I was somewhat skeptical of how effective the sign's message was.  Right then and there a wave of memories came flooding back.

While attending Bishop Fenwick High School, I hoped to find many like-minded Catholics but found myself becoming more and more of an outcast.  My freshman year was marked by shy awkwardness.  During my sophomore year, I tried to assert myself but was ridiculed for it.  When my junior year began, I sensed time was running out to find a place to fit in.

My social life left something to be desired and while many of my friends went to parties and did other fun things outside of school, I seemed to be left out of the loop.  A well-respected and somewhat popular student who professed to be a good Catholic took pity on me and pledged he would help me get more of a social life.  I welcomed this kind of assistance but at the same time, I had my doubts he would be there for me.  Since so much time had been lost during my previous two years of high school, I had to see it to believe it.  As the weeks and then months passed, not much of anything happened to help improve my situation.  I continued to spend night after night alone in my room pining for friends to hang out with and a girlfriend.

Then one day I learned the student who pledged to help improve my social life completely forgot about me.  He and one of my friends had been hanging out and decided to go bowling.  Then they thought it would be a lot more fun to invite a bunch of people.  Soon friends were calling friends and an impromptu “tournament” was being formed.  So many students agreed to stop by the bowling alley, several lanes had to be reserved.  Everyone was having a great time when more than halfway through this tournament one of my friends realized they forgot to invite me.  When I found out about this, I was deeply hurt.  It could have been an honest mistake but being left out had me wondering if I was that invisible to people...even the ones who said they would go out of their way to help.  Had I been really popular, I don't think I would have been so far away from everyone's minds.

This incident highlighted the trouble with friendships that are based on sympathy rather than mutual respect.  Right off the bat, these relationships begin with unequal footing.  While reaching out to that sad, lonely kid can be helpful, it shouldn't be done if you aren't going to make their needs and concerns a priority.  From then on, I never took anything this fellow student said seriously.

When we help those who are less fortunate than us, do we see them as fellow human beings who might have been given a bad break or do we see them as something less than ourselves?  Doing the latter robs people of their dignity and could cause more harm than good.  When politicians court "the poor" to get votes, we hear all the speeches about fairness but notice how they never seem to get down and dirty with them to truly understand their plight.  Instead many of our elected officials talk down to the poor from their mansions and fancy dinner parties.  Every year, we see them clamor for photo opportunities at the local food pantry during Thanksgiving but if they really cared as much as they said they did, why wouldn't they invite a few of those homeless people to live with them?  Talk is cheap.

One day during school, our class was let out early so we could attend an event in the auditorium.  We were allowed to wait outside since it was such a warm and sunny day.  As my fellow students spontaneously gathered into their usual cliques, I stood by myself and leaned up against a wooden post.  An overly religious female classmate saw this and asked me, “Do you want to join us?”  I looked at her and just shook my head no.  I had enough sympathy for one day.  If I couldn't be desired for who I was, I'd rather be alone.

How Inviting Is Your Confessional?

The dreaded screen.

Around this time of year, older Catholics like my mother talk about fulfilling their Easter Duty.  By that they mean going to confession at least once a year (although just about every priest I've ever met would say we need to partake in the sacrament of reconciliation much more often).

The thought of going to confession for the first time created a lot of anxiety in me despite the fact that our CCD teachers and priests did a great job explaining how important the sacrament of reconciliation was.  Instead of using the church's confessional, Fr. Kiley had chosen a quiet room that was normally used as a staging area before Mass.  As my fellow CCD classmates went in one by one, I grew more nervous even though we were told our priests would not judge or keep score.  When I entered the room, Fr. Kiley was sitting with his back turned to me which I found odd because he had encouraged us to confess our sins face to face if we wanted to.  At such a young age, my transgressions must have seemed very benign to him.  When I left the confessional, my soul felt much lighter, but the experience was too nerve-wracking to make it a regular habit.

When my mother wanted us to fulfill our Easter Duty, we usually visited the Carmelite Chapel at the Northshore Shopping Center since it was open during the week.  The place had several traditional confessionals which consisted of two booths for parishioners with the priest in a middle booth.  He would slide back a screen on either side to talk to us.  A little red cross above the confessional door lit up whenever someone inside used the kneeler.  The thought of going brought a sense of dread and once inside the confessional, my anxiety only increased.  I could hear the muffled conversation of the priest and the parishioner on the other side as I waited for that dreaded screen to slide open.

My priests always made a great case for confession.  One pastor liked to say, “If you think you don't need to go to confession, you really need to go to confession.”  By that he meant sometimes we can become spiritually lazy without even knowing it.  Another priest compared sin to garbage that weighs us down and the confessional was the surest way to make our souls feel 100 pounds lighter.  We were told not to be embarrassed when we confessed our sins because priests have heard it all and they only cared that you were participating in the sacrament of reconciliation.  Despite all this, I've rarely gone to confession as an adult because I'm just too shy.  In fact, it's one of the only things about the Church that this normally devout Catholic has a problem with.  While it's no excuse for not going, I do ask God for forgiveness during my nightly prayers and sometimes during the day when I've really screwed up.  However, there have been occasions when I couldn't avoid the confessional.

A couple of times, my mother and I have completely forgotten a Holy Day of Obligation.  One time our pastor was really cool and heard my confession right on the spot just before Mass, although when my list of sins seemed too short for him, he asked, “Is that it?”  The remark was really off-putting and had me wondering if I needed a little more excitement in my life.

The other occasion actually marked my very first time attending regular confession hours at St. Mary Star of the Sea in Beverly after having been a parishioner there for over a decade.  This house of worship lacked confessionals so you had to go downstairs to the lower church and then enter the sacristy to meet with the priest.  The place was packed and when it was my turn, I tried to make a good confession.  I mentioned swearing and telling the occasional white lie, but I also included lust, anger, spiritual laziness and my lack of faith.  I was really trying to be sincere but when it came time for my pastor to absolve me of my sins, he said I had “lucked out”.  Since the crowd was so big, he needed to keep things moving along and would only give me a few prayers to say for penance.  I was very disappointed by his response because I was not looking for a short cut.  In fact, I wanted to discuss my sins in greater detail since they were manifestations of the conflicts in my life that I just didn't know how to resolve on my own.   The whole incident left me feeling cold and I've never been back to confession ever since.

This April, my mother wanted to fulfill her Easter Duty yet again so it was off to the Carmelite Chapel.  A group of friendly and well-meaning priests from India now run the place but as I sat next to my mother in the pew waiting for her to enter the confessional, I just couldn't muster enough strength to follow her lead.  What would I say that I didn't already talk to God about?  What would change after I confessed my sins?  Why couldn't I meet with a priest face to face in a comforting setting instead of this claustrophobic booth with only a disembodied voice to talk to?

During Lent, the Boston Archdiocese encourages all of us to go to confession and they even advertise extended hours in church bulletins with their The Light Is On For You campaign.  As I sat waiting for my mother to leave the confessional, part of me really wanted to participate so I could fully embrace my Catholic faith.  But the part of me that's too shy, too anxious, too hurt and too broken always keeps me from opening that door.

Dinner and a Show

After Mass, my mother and I usually go out to eat and for a while now, our restaurant of choice has been Friendly's.  While the once ubiquitous eatery has seen its fair share of ups and downs over the years, the location we like to visit has decent food and pretty good service.  The restaurant chain is popular with penny-pinching parents and their sometimes noisy children so it will never be mistaken for The Ritz.

On a recent visit, we were seated by the window and ordered our meals as usual.  Eventually, an overweight woman and a sloppily dressed couple with their toddler walked by and headed toward the front door.  The couple and toddler were seated a few tables down from us but the overweight woman was nowhere to be seen.  The guy plunked himself down in the booth so that he was lying entirely across it.  I got a bad vibe from him and he seemed very weaselly.  Within minutes, the two got into a disagreement so she picked up the toddler and headed for the door.  He yelled, “If you leave now, we're through!”  After stewing in the booth for a moment, he angrily headed outside after her.

From our window seat we could the couple arguing as she walked dangerously close to the edge of a busy highway just to get away from him.  At one point, I thought he was going to push her into traffic.  We altered our waitress and she said the police had already been called.  Within minutes, one cruiser after another arrived on the scene and the couple was escorted back to the restaurant's parking lot to talk it out.  I assumed they would be taken away so we could dine in peace once again.

The overweight woman who had accompanied the couple to Friendly's reappeared and sat at the table right across from us.  The mother entered the restaurant and put her toddler on a chair after the waitress's offer for a child seat was refused.  Within a few seconds, the little girl slid off the chair and landed on her bum.  She cried for a while as the mother tried to comfort her.  The waitress took it upon herself to bring over a child seat and the toddler was finally secured. 

The couple sat down at the table and got a talking to by one of the police officers.  They agreed to behave themselves and decided to stay.  Just our luck.  The disturbance had caused things to slow down in the kitchen and we waited a long time for our food.  Every now and then the couple appeared to quietly exchange insults.  The toddler kept throwing her straw on the floor so the mother would have to get up and retrieve it.  Was she being playful or was this a way for her to cope with the stress of having argumentative parents?

The group eventually got their food and started to eat.  The weaselly guy looked like a drug addict and at one point, he almost nodded off.  When a toddler from another table decided to walk around the restaurant with her dad, the girl in the high chair turned around and softly said, “Hi.”  Such a sweet moment of innocence made me wonder what kind of a life this kid would have growing up.  Would she be able to rise above such lousy circumstances or is she destined to follow in her parents footsteps?  I got angry and felt like telling this guy to man up for the sake of his daughter.  The economy was still booming and there were plenty of jobs out there for this guy to support his family.

As they finished eating, the staff started to pack up their leftovers.  Suddenly, the overweight woman demanded the meal be free since they had been put through such an ordeal with the police.  She also tried blaming the restaurant for the toddler falling on the floor even though she was the one who had refused the high chair in the first place.  The waitress stood her ground and said if they didn't pay what they owed, she would bring the police back.  After a bit of grumbling, they grudgingly paid the bill.  Before these people headed out the door, they accused the waitress and manager of swearing at them.  It never happened.

As the restaurant returned to normal, the whole incident left me feeling cold.  Jesus said to help the poor but it's clear some people don't want help.  Instead of working hard to better themselves, they try to scam the system.  How do we as Christians respond to that?  I certainly don't have the answer.

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?