The Fifth Year of My Twenties: Sr. Janna

    This is a hard year for me to recount. I spent years praying to know what I was meant to learn from it, then more years praying for grace to trust I didn't need to know. But there was one part of this season that was always bright, clear, and warm, and she was Sr. Janna. 

   We entered the convent as aspirants in the same year. The sisters called us "companions" and each maintained special relationships with their own companions from when they entered. Janna and I were thrown together even more completely because it happened that we were the only two aspirants in our province that year. Everything was done together. That was enough reason to form a strong bond, but when the thing you are doing together is "tryna be a nun" (as my non-Catholic cousin explained), the experiences are so unique that the bond is even tighter. 

   For example, we were each given a hand-me-down long blue jumper to use as our daily work clothing. Only Sr. Janna can personally understand the hilarity of the sisters' elderly Egyptian seamstress dressing me in a giant jumper and giving the firm assurance that I will "grow up." We received stares as we walked to the local park in our matching jumpers to cheer loudly for the Catholic high school soccer players we'd only just met last month. Janna saw me painfully parallel park in overcrowded Paterson, NJ to visit an immigrant family's apartment on a ministry call (then lock the keys in the car). And there was never anything in the world like the weekly 3-hour Zoom class with Sr. Judith's well-lit forehead that left us feeling like we were in a coma. 

   In these and many other funny situations, Sr. Janna always responded with her wide smile and head-throw laugh. Her laugh came easily, and progressed through stages starting with "ha ha ha ha ha," then five huhs, and finally five hees. She would give a look as if she thought you were the cleverest dog in New Jersey, and the encouragement was irresistible. I felt like a master impersonator when I did my bit as Sr. Teresita scolding us about the laundry. 

   One of our duties at the all-girl Catholic high school where we were assigned was to greet the students as they came in for the day. Sr. Janna's face lit up with genuine joy whenever she saw any of these beautiful daughters of God, and that is certainly how she saw them, because not everyone in the world would be delighted to see some of the groggy, messy-side-pony, attitude-dripping, sweatpants-hiked-under-plaid-skirt young ladies who walked in that door. But Sr. Janna knew the love of God, and so she held that love for others. We spent so many afternoons racking our brains for new ideas on how to greet those girls the next day with new creativity at our "free" table (free hand hugs, confidence boosters, bad puns, origami doves, cute puppy puzzles, and even free personalized haikus). 

   Among the sisters in the convent, Sr. Janna was also loving and beautifully humble. One time, she created a slideshow for some special occasion and wanted to have background music for it. When that turned out to be a tricky digital problem, she simply decided to do a live accompaniment on the piano. It was gorgeous. When complimented later, Sr. Janna acted delightedly surprised, as if the beauty that had come out of her fingertips had just spilled out accidentally. She was just happy they had loved it! 

   Despite the many wonderful times we had, that year was one of head-splitting cognitive dissonance for me. I needed Sr. Janna's encouragement in a desperate way. Almost daily, she listened to my frustrations and questions with complete attention and sympathy. Before I was about to depart on a flight home, she handed me an envelope filled with fifty personal affirmations, each written on little strips of classroom colored construction paper. I don't know where they are anymore, but I don't need to. It's enough of an affirmation to remember that she saw me in my lowest moments and found me worthy of the time spent on such a gift. 

   I may not know why God had me in New Jersey that year, but I do know that He ministered His miraculous love to me through Sr. Janna, and I am forever grateful for the mercies they showed me together. 

For Her Own Sake

Part of how I knew my parents’ love for me was by their love for my siblings. They welcomed 8 more children into our family after me. I remember the elation we all had at each announcement of a new baby on the way. The first time I encountered an outside negative reaction was with baby #6. Yes, it did take that long for me to realize there was something different about our family size! Big families were common in our Baptist community. But when I went to Sunday evening service with the happy news, my friend scrunched up her face and asked why my parents were having another baby. This question truly puzzled me. I didn’t see babies as a decision. Babies were simply what happened in families - they were occasions for celebration - unquestioned blessings.

I came to understand what my friend meant as time went on and I heard couples say things like “our family is complete,” “we’re done trying for a boy,” or “we have our three.” I realized that many people chose how many children they wanted ahead of time, or stopped having children once they achieved a boy/girl set. In my own imaginative world, I planned my future family too. I picked names for my sons and daughters to be and even made them little chore charts and school schedules. But I ended up having a list of names so long that I had to found an orphanage too! There was no limit to the new lives I imagined. In my world, children were not pieces to complete a family collection. They were individual people with their own names, stories, duties, and personalities, and they were each celebrated just for the sake of existing as themselves.

My parents’ openness to life soaked into my own understanding of who I was and why my siblings and I were alive. Very simply, we existed because it was good to be alive. I remember a stranger freely commenting to my mother, “You must be crazy!” as she was walking around with the crowd of us at our county fair. She smiled and responded that we were all gifts from God. I knew I had been received as a precious treasure just like each of my little brothers and sisters. We weren’t the derailed result of an attempted plan, we weren’t “oopsies,” and we weren’t the successful outcome of any personal project either. We were just there, and we were loved for it. 

In every stage of life, this outlook has grounded me. In the years when I wished for a family, but didn’t have a partner to share it with, I remembered that a husband and a baby weren’t a given. They WERE given! I could hope for them as for a bonus and not mourn the loss of something that hadn’t ever been guaranteed. And I could look at all the people around me, already bonuses in my life, and be grateful. After marriage, months went by without a pregnancy. I admitted that, as much as I would like to control the process, if I were in control, a child would no longer be a gift. Now that we are expecting our daughter, we delight in the gift and remember that we’re still not the ones in control of her little life. We receive her as a blessing, and love her for her own sake.

The Fourth Year of My Twenties: Dr. Barber & Dr. Bergsma

    My third year of teaching, I was finally out of survival mode and in the groove enough to have a life outside of school. A masters degree had been a long-time bucket list item. I had always said my undergraduate degree was for the job, but my future graduate degree would be for the education. Now with some money in the bank account, I could pursue an online M.A. in Biblical Theology from a Catholic University. Two standout teachers made this an incredibly enriching year of study and growth for me - Dr. Michael Barber and Dr. John Bergsma. 

    Dr. Barber, a founding university faculty member, taught THEO502: Foundations of Biblical Theology. One of my first impressions of him came from opening the reading lists for the class. The required readings were extensive and challenging, and the recommended readings were so far overshot that I didn't have a chance of getting through a quarter of that material. He immediately earned my respect simply for having a book list that long. It gave me to know two things right away: Dr. Barber was at least 700% better read than I was, and the bar was high. 

    Dr. Barber's classes were fast-paced, but followable. He provided a detailed outline of the content of each lecture. I had never seen notes with their own footnotes before, but I realized quickly that Dr. Barber was extremely detail-oriented, and he expected the same of us. He spoke in a combination of being both quick and succinct, which allowed him to cover a lot of content over a relatively short period of time. His planning and organization kept the classes purposeful and productive. As a teacher, this was a lesson inside a lesson. Not only was I learning the basics of theology - how and why to study it - I was seeing how extensive work outside the classroom brought about the learning inside it. We respected our professor for the rigor he imposed on himself, and it motivated us to aim higher. 

    The content he covered gave a much wider context for the theological books I had read in the past. It gave me a sense of where we had landed in the whole history of the discipline. I remember slogging through Ratzinger's The Nature and Mission of Theology, enough of it now unlocked that the margins were popping up with exited notes and connections. This foundations course was not only providing the necessities for the degree; it was also providing motivation and inspiration to do the work that would be required. 

    If Dr. Barber was the setter, Dr. Bergsma was his outside hitter. In BIBL511: Pentateuch, he applied practically what Dr. Barber had laid out theoretically. A visiting professor, his class was uniquely timed to overlap with my short enrollment. From the very beginning, I knew I was very lucky to take his course. One of the main texts for the class was the draft of an Old Testament commentary that Dr. Bergsma was co-authoring. My two favorite undergraduate courses had been ones where the professors authored their own textbooks. These teachers can present a depth of content that only comes from years of their own labored study. Just like Dr. Barber, Dr. Bergsma was meticulously prepared, and we students reaped the benefits. 

    The fact that Dr. Bergsma was advanced in his field did not mean his presentations went over our heads. He had a knack for simplification of complex ideas, and his dry oversimplification of humorous ideas kept us all laughing. He was known for his stick-figure illustrations and goofy impersonations of biblical patriarchs. Again, lessons in pedagogy underlaid the lessons in theology. Complex ideas can be distilled into accessible language, and the entertainment value of a class should never be underrated. 

    Dr. Bergsma illumined parts of the Bible that had been nonsensical to me. Leviticus is usually the book that bogs down well-intentioned readers attempting the Bible from beginning to end. Only 3 books in, they get dietary laws, washing rituals, and even guidelines on baldness. I had usually heard of these as reasons to discount the Scriptures; if such were God's laws in the Old Testament, certainly current laws of the Church were just as ridiculous. But Dr. Bergsma put these codes, so seemingly out-of-touch, into a historical and whole biblical context. I saw how fitting they were for the purpose at hand, and Leviticus unexpectedly became one of my favorite Scriptures. 

    This "hermeneutic of unity," this way of approaching the Bible as a tightly interwoven story, was absolutely thrilling. Of course, the Bible is mysterious, containing many seeming contradictions. But digging deeper and looking for ways to reconcile the surface-level questions was more satisfying than any deconstructive tack. Dr. Barber and Dr. Bergsma exemplified this approach in their scholarship and, in their own individual styles, modeled the highest quality teaching. 

The Third Year of My Twenties: Cyndi

    A few weeks ago I opened a new document and titled it Pacing Guide 2023-2024. From now until August, I will piece together the skeleton plan for my tenth school year as a teacher. This approaching milestone has me reflecting on my first co-teacher, and one of the most influential women of my twenties. 

    Cyndi was a special education teacher at my first school. I was hot off the press from college, and my first impression of Cyndi was her command. While I was struggling to cajole rowdy 10-year-olds with sweetness and convincing appeals, she walked into a room and told them what to do. They always did it. She carried herself with authority and walked with confidence. Not only confidence, but speed. She was always on the move, going at a pace about 2.5 times faster than everyone else around her, but never frantically. It was a purposeful urgency, and it caught on with her students. They worked with her when they wouldn't work with anyone else, and this was an invaluable to the whole staff. 

    I understood right away why she was respected. I came to understand later why she was so loved. The students formed strong attachments to her, and at first, I wondered how such a strict and often harsh-sounding teacher could create such bonds. But it became clear that Cyndi combined a firm consistency with what I can only describe as excessive care for her students. She went far above and beyond the given duties of a teacher, and made absolutely sure that they got to have experiences they never would have gotten otherwise. 

    Cyndi took charge of a big range of fun projects throughout the year, but the absolute best and most important in my eyes was going to camp. She planned and worked for months to make sure that all the 5th graders had the chance to play in the creek, look for fossils, catch crawdads, climb rock walls and ropes courses, ride on a zip line, play field games, hike through the woods, and have the time of their lives with an outdoor education. She traveled and stayed overnight to make it happen, almost staying overnight at school beforehand when an issue with school IDs meant we were printing our own last minute at 8 pm. 

    My second year of teaching, Cyndi and I were co-teachers on a new team. In this model, struggling students remained in the classroom with both of us rather than getting pulled back and forth from the regular classroom to intervention. With our rotating small group system, we were able to give those kids the attention and help they needed, and we had a great time doing it. If our principal ever questioned our teamwork, he was assured we enjoyed working together when he passed the door of our classroom and saw us both laughing as Cyndi was putting a cupcake into my open mouth. I don't remember why she was feeding me at that moment, but I remember our boss saying he was glad the new arrangements seemed to be working out well for everyone. 

    Cyndi invested in our relationship outside of the professional sphere. She took an interest in my plans to become a religious sister, and invited me over to her home for dinner before I took off for the convent. She and her husband told me all about their story which included their first meeting (it was at a fist fight) and his first impression of Cyndi (he was impressed that she won), and they asked about my motives and feelings as I embarked on my next step. 

    Cyndi not only took an interest in my life, but gifted me by letting me into hers. I was privileged to mourn her father's death with her, and watch as she cared for her feisty Italian mother in her final years. I was familiar with a daughter's love, but had never thought it out to its completion. What did it look like at the end? This was my first glimpse into the sacrificial love and life-shattering loss of an adult child now orphaned. Cyndi shared many of her mother's religious items with me - crucifixes, rosaries, and a tarnished old scene of Mary's appearance to St. Bernadette. I treasured these and prayed for the souls of the family from which they came. 

    Years have gone by, and the rosary bracelet Cyndi gave me is lost. The winter headband she crocheted specifically for my then high bun hairstyle is obsolete. But every once in awhile, I still reach into an old jacket pocket and feel one of the small crucifixes Cyndi passed to me. I thank God for my friend from those years, and I pray that she is blessed.  

The Second Year of My Twenties: Fr. Mike

    When I was 21, I got my first teaching job and moved out on my own for the first time. There was only one small Catholic Church in my new, very rural, town, and it wasn't long before Fr. Mike came up to ask about me and how I came there. He introduced me to all the people standing nearby who had stayed to chat with each other after Mass. I will always be thankful for that warm welcome. In the 3 years I spent there, I saw that warmth bring others back into the sacraments, or into them for the first time.

    Fr. Mike had no sense of embarrassment, which was part of what made him put others so at ease. If you were socially nervous about making a fool of yourself, he would quickly make a fool of himself first and dissipate your worries. He was the loudest one in the room, told the worst jokes, and laughed the most about them. He would ramble on about his cats and forget what he was going to say or where he was going next. I don't know that he was ever on time for anything. Daily Masses were especially bad. The 9:00 Massgoers would often see him at 9:15, shuffling through the attached rectory door in his socks, peeking around the Church and happily greeting everyone by name. Then he would head back into the sacristy announcing, "Well, since you're all here, let's go to Church." One time I remember that he came in proudly showing off his latest thrift store find: a post-it-note yellow pullover with a cat playing bingo - the letters "BINGO!" printed loudly underneath. 

    Fr. Mike had been a priest for a long time, but St. Mary's was his first assignment as pastor of a parish. Before that, he'd spent 30 years as a chaplain for the children's hospital. I always wondered if his goofy persona came from years of cheering up sick children, or if he received that placement because he was so much like a child himself. It was probably a mixture of both. My dad worked in the same hospital, and was familiar with him, describing Fr. Mike as "a big clown." At the time, "big" was as apt a descriptor as "clown," but by the time I met him, he had gone on an intense, triple-digit weight-loss journey. As jolly as he was, and as much as he loved food, he swore off all pasta, bread, and candy permanently (among other things), with no exceptions or cheat days. His motivation? He wanted to be healthy to serve the Church as long as possible. His intention was never to retire, to "die with his boots on." He knew the need for priestly ministry and he took on the weight loss battle as a spiritual battle for his flock. 

    While I loved Fr. Mike's friendliness and all-out commitment to the people he served, when silliness, informality, and disorganization interrupted the Sacred Liturgy, it was a difficult experience for me. I didn't feel that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was rightly reverenced. Serving on the worship commission added a whole new layer of discomfort. Now I was called upon by my conscience to speak up about these and more issues while still trying to respect my pastor and show him deference. This was an important growing experience, but just as important (if not more) was a single, short moment when the Spirit broke through my heart during one of Fr. Mike's homilies. 

    The homily was about the Israelites and their demeanor toward God's presence in the Ark of the Covenant. Fr. Mike showed how they came to see the Ark as a kind of magical, good luck charm that would protect them from defeat no matter what. He warned us of the danger of seeing the Eucharist this way. It was a simple message, but exactly what I needed to hear at that point in my life, and I realized what I had already known but not acted out in reality: that I need to listen and learn from those with whom I disagree. He may not have done things in the way I believed they should be done, but that didn't justify dismissiveness. No matter my qualms, I needed the good guidance he offered so sacrificially. 

    At the end of my time at St. Mary's, Fr. Mike was very supportive in writing a reference letter for the convent. When the letter was lost and I needed another, he rewrote it graciously. When I came back from the convent in confusion and near despair, he agreed to counsel me. Upon arrival for our meeting, he wasn't there. I assumed he was coming late, so I waited until I was sure he'd simply forgotten. He was the same scatterbrained priest, but the priest whose weekly ministry of Penance and the Eucharist had been a waterfall of grace more meaningful than I could begin to understand in this life. And I am so very grateful that, through the weaknesses he offered to Jesus, Fr. Mike powerfully encouraged, challenged, taught, and guided that 21-year-old he welcomed to St. Mary's Church. 

The First Year of My Twenties: Debbie & Leslie

This will be the year I turn 30. Before the new decade begins, I want to reflect on each year of my 20s and the people who impacted me. December is already the time of thinking of far-away loved ones, writing cards, and praying blessings on all the friends collected in different stages of life. Two mentors in particular are on my mind tonight.

The summer I turned 20 I was working in College Hall. One work study job had led to another work study job which then opened up a summer nine-to-five. Really I should say that one great boss recommended me to someone who became another great boss who then created an entirely new job description so that I could work there full time after the end of the school year. These two women took me in and looked after me as if I was a family member. In a way, the whole school community was like a family. Debbie and Leslie were two of the reasons why it felt that way. 

I met Debbie on my first college visit. She was the administrative assistant for the education department. I was trying to decide between two schools and this one was in 2nd place. After a few minutes in that office, it moved into 1st. I was hesitant about how it could work, but the department head Michele and her secretary Debbie immediately put their heads together to puzzle a way for me to graduate in 3 years. From the beginning I knew both practically and personally that I would be taken care of there. Debbie cared for me so well that she became the only person other than my own mother for whom I have ever written a “Happy Mother’s Day” card.

Debbie took me on as her student worker my freshman year. My first day on the job, she gave me an envelope and an address to print on it. She left for a meeting and let me figure it out on my own. Sure enough, it took me the length of the meeting to wrangle the software and printer to produce the single envelope. She always gave the help I needed while expecting just the right amount of independence. She expected my mistakes and encouraged my ideas. Even though she wasn’t technically a professor in the education department, I learned just as much about teaching from her as any member of the faculty. 

Debbie was a true friend and Friend. Her Quaker faith permeated every calm word she spoke in that office where so many things tested her patience day in and day out. It stood the test. She discussed the deepest of theological differences with absolute peace and openness. We worshipped in silence at the Wednesday Quaker meeting. I loved God more because of her love and dutifulness toward Him.

When Debbie heard that the president’s office was looking to hire their first student worker, she connected me with Leslie. Leslie was at the center of all the madness in this college, and yet her office was the place everyone felt most relaxed. She was so congenial that people would flock to her desk just to talk with her. The constant distractions made it hard to get anything done, but she couldn’t help that people wanted to be around her. Leslie made you feel like a fellow conspirator in a secret mission to have fun in every task. She was so popular that in order to get any work done, I would have to take her place in grand central station while she hid away in my closet of an office. 

Leslie laughed easily and kept everyone else laughing too. She had a funny way of saying absolutely normal things as if she were confiding something embarrassing to you. She made tedious tasks bearable. She always misheard things incorrectly in a harmlessly ridiculous way. And most of all she took a genuine interest in each person who walked into her office. We all felt that genuine concern through the way she asked questions about our lives and the chocolate she offered from the candy bowl as consolation for our worries. We had so many encouraging, deep, spiritual, and personal discussions that were just what I needed at that point in my life. 

I learned from Debbie and Leslie that professionalism didn’t mean knowing what to do in every circumstance. They had to figure things out as they went. They built the confidence in me to make decisions and take responsibility for whatever came my way. They showed me how to gracefully handle the stressors of day to day life, Debbie with a calm persistence and Leslie with a sense of humor. I saw them go out of their way every single day to be kind to the people around them, and I still feel blessed that I got to be around them during that exciting crossroads of the first year of my 20s. 

Countably Infinite

I've attended enough school plays, middle school sporting events, and children's holiday concerts to know that I need to mentally prepare for them. They particularly amplify my feeling of singleness and childlessness. You would think that bridal showers, weddings, baby showers and meal train visits to families with new little ones would be the more likely events to do this, but oddly they don't. It's sitting in an audience, watching from a distance, clapping and cheering and watching the parents and grandparents around me take pictures. For some reason, that's what wakes up the feeling in me most. I wonder what it would be like to watch my child grow, and what it would be like to look over at the seat next to me and see my child's father watch him or her grow too.

I know ahead of time that these events require a balance beam act inside my heart and mind. I have to allow the longing for something beautiful without tipping over to the natural feeling of bitterness. To prepare my heart, I pray. To prepare my mind, I consider countably infinite sets. 

Some types of infinity are larger than others. The countably infinite sets (integers, natural numbers, rational numbers) go on without an end. So do the uncountably infinite sets (real numbers, irrational numbers), but these contain more numbers than the countably infinite sets. What does all this have to do with hoping for a family? Understanding that there are different types of infinity justifies my aching and condemns my bitterness all at once.  

In this metaphor, family life is an uncountably infinite set. It's the vastest and highest thing I can imagine on this earth. I watch in awe as my friends marry and become parents. They are swept up in something far beyond them, creating with God and caring for eternal souls of priceless worth. The layers aren't countable - they have depth within depth and color within color. Being a mother is the most real and most irrational thing a woman can do. Of course I am enthralled by its enormity. I wouldn't want to give up the awe for the sake of coping. I believe some women have traded their awe for motherhood for cynicism in order to protect themselves. Many could not get it back even when their children were born, and their families suffer deeply. 

I want to hold on to this regard toward family life, even when it's painful. A future husband and children would be more than worthy of all this longing. Even if I never receive the gift, the world needs men and women who regard the family as it should be regarded - an infinite gift. Fewer careless vows would be taken, fewer children born unwelcomed, fewer people abandoned and alone. 

The uncountably infinite is worth the awe. But the countably infinite keeps me from heartbreak at the infinite loss of not being a wife and mother. What is the countably infinite? This smaller set of numbers still goes on forever. Is it more graspable because it is smaller? No, it is still far beyond anything I can fathom. And this is a metaphor for the gifts I receive every day in my current state of life. The treasures of these eternal souls are no less priceless to me because instead of "mother" they call me "teacher." The role I have in the lives of many dear children is a high calling far above what I could reach in a lifetime. A parent's role is higher, and I acknowledge and honor this, but try not to waste time comparing infinities. My countably infinite world holds enough awe to last forever. So when I see the light in the eyes of the children who call me neighbor, cousin, teacher, sister, or godmother, I soak it in, and my heart overflows. 

Interjection

What is really going to change at Christmas? 

I wondered this as I struggled through a very turbulent Advent. The season was burdened beyond my strength to carry and strung with regular breakdowns. People kept trying to encourage me by saying Christmas break was coming, but I only felt dread at the huge workload built up to fill any amount of "time off." Ground down to a state of rawness, old feelings were exposed and burned redder. Old hopes were still deferred, swollen by time. Inadequacies were confirmed by repeated failures, and disappointments seemed perfectly timed for Advent verses including such phrases as "the night is advanced" (Romans 13), "on that very day his plans perish" (Psalm 146), and "take as an example of hardship and patience" (James 5). I felt like "the desert and the parched land" in Isaiah 35, but I knew that would not go away just because the calendar advanced from December 24 to 25. It's unpleasant to admit, but my thoughts were stuck on the fact that Jesus was already born and he wasn't going to be born in some new way at Christmas. He came a long time ago and it didn't change the reality that I was miserable. 

I did know, at least, that there was a point to the misery. Every wave of unfulfilled longing could push me further out from the illusion that earthly things fulfill. Part of the purpose of liturgical seasons like Lent and Advent is to isolate the ache for God. I was definitely aching, and doing my best to orient that in the direction of Heaven. But Heaven was still just as far away as before I pointed my pain toward it, and it (probably) still would be when Advent ended in bells and feasting. How could I set aside the pain for joy at Christmas? 

The Church is wise to recognize the holy place of suffering in God's redemptive plan for us. Friday penances, Lenten fasts and Advent practices all draw our attention to this. For those who are already suffering, liturgy comes alongside and lift up what is already there (as it did for me this December). But of course the patterns of our lives don't follow systematic calendars, and sometimes liturgy interjects suffering into an otherwise happy season as a difficult reminder or discipline. That is how I have usually experienced penitential seasons, but this year Christmas became the difficult interjection - the reminder of the holy place of joy in God's plan. 

The same thoughts and feelings still weigh on me even now that the priest wears white instead of purple. But the practice and discipline of joy means that I choose to spend time in thoughts of Christ's victory. He will surely come again! The surety comes from the knowledge that he already came and put into motion the victory that cannot be reversed. Right now it's easy to focus on the ways I am apart from Him and suffering for it. But it's my duty to remember that He will raise me to Himself. From here, the road ahead looks long and painful, but from Heaven it will appear beautiful because it will have led me home to my God. It is an exercise of hope and trust to place my mind in that state of future joy, and in that perspective to celebrate the season. The thoughts on which I choose to focus are what change at Christmas: "the day is at hand," "let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord," "indeed we call blessed those who have persevered," "the desert and the parched land will exult," "a savior has been born to you."

Songs from 2018, Part 3: Movement

          We're ready to go,
          say goodbye to our homes,
          and now our bed is where we make it
          out on the road.
          "Go" by Vocal Few

This year I actually became more "settled," beginning year 2 of living in the same house and working at the same job. Maybe this is part of why the idea of movement struck me so strongly in these songs. Not because I was feeling restless to travel, but because I became more aware of the dangers of passivity. Floating along a "status quo river" has few rewards.

          And the path we take is older still
          All our ancestors traversed it,
          trading comfort for wilderness.

Exploration and risk are elements that should be part of every life, even settled ones. There are always ways to stretch, initiate, raise your aims.

"1000 Feet" by Scott Mulvahill (and Move and Shake) also really speak to me about intentional change. Probably my favorite lyric of the year comes from this song:

          There's a mountain in my way. 
          Oh, there's a mountain in my way.
          Who's gonna be the one to move?

Listening to that line for the first time, I felt like I'd been caught. There are plenty of obstacles in my life that are easy to complain about or even ignore, hoping they'll just go away on their own. This song points out how ridiculous it is to live like that, and shows that movement doesn't have to happen all at once, but one foot at a time.

I see two different types of movement in Madison Cunningham's "To Another Land." One is negative:

          Oh, I wish that I could escape myself,
          but they say trains don't go out that far.

Exploration and newness are wonderful - for the right reasons. This is why movement has to come after surety. There needs to be a foundation from which to go. Madison shows how movement for the sake of disconnection can't bring satisfaction. (Interestingly, she also sings about the wrong and right way to stay in Window). Going outside of yourself to genuinely connect with others is the risk - and reward - in movement correctly oriented.

          Pick up that left hand groove man,
          beat on the side of your money can,
          play your song to another land,
          take me with you as far as you can.

In 2019, my biggest goal is to go outside myself. I want to encounter God in epiphany, know him in surety and meet others in movement. And after reflecting more deeply on each of these favorite songs from 2018, I hope as I keep them in my musical rotation, they can keep inspiring me to do it!

Songs from 2018, Part 2: Surety

Part 1.

Epiphany is the sudden realization of truth, but surety is a full trust in truth's unmoving security. However, I've learned that trust isn't always a feeling. Sometimes trust is nose-to-the-grindstone work. It takes effort to return again and again to the rock after being blown by winds of difficulty, even if you always know the rock will be there. There's an element of clinging to surety. The truth doesn't move, but you do - falling from weakness over and over again. I recognize this in the lyrics of "A Better Word" by Bethany Barnard.

          I hear the blood of Abel speak
          in accusation over me.
          I'm guilty and I am in need
          of mercy. 

But every time this happens, no matter how many times it happens, we can to return to the prayer-refrain:

          You have broken 
          the power of my sin.
          The curse I lived in
          has been reversed.

          The blood of Jesus
          is my provision.
          You have spoken
          a better Word.

As Hebrews says, "we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus." This is eternal, never-changing, constant and sure!

"Gallows" by Jess Ray on Spotify

This song is a reminder that no matter how much it seems like the devil has the upper hand, as Christians we already know the ending, and we're on the winning side. 

          the harder the wind will blow,

          the deeper our roots will go

Darkness might feel powerfully suffocating, but light obliterates it so immediately. We simply have to open the shades.

          It will flood a blinding light
          it will chase away the night.
          Even if you shield your eyes,
          let it pour in, let it pour in! 

With "Dawn," Jake Scott is yet another artist I've followed through the lyrical changes of falling in love and getting married (including Jess and Beth). But beyond the basic storyline of building a family, I enjoy this song for the way he expresses his place in the world very simply.

          I'm in love

One might wonder how I get a theme of surety from this song when it talks about being displaced, broken and changed. But the sheer number of times he says...

          I'm in love

...shows an absolute surety about who he is and what everything means (or doesn't mean) to him. It's the home where he exists, and it reminds me that love has to be the foundation from which you reach out to the world...to be continued in Songs of 2018, Part 3: Movement. 

Songs from 2018, Part 1: Epiphany

I love songs the way I love books. Stories, themes and symbolism can all be as powerfully communicated through 3 minutes of music as they can in a full-length novel. Lyrics do the telling, which is why the words are just as important to me as the sound of a song. While re-listening to some of my favorites from this year, I tried encapsulating what each one was about in a single word, and found that 3 ideas kept appearing. The first: epiphany. 

Epiphany is a sudden widening of your world. "Ghost of a King" by The Gray Havens widens into a new world altogether. It's a meeting that whirls into a supernatural journey and ends in a healing shock of water. The man in the song knows he's broken, but learns that the broken part of him belongs to the supernatural world he never knew existed. He discovers in immediate succession the impossible hopelessness of his state...

          you are a lonely soul 
          with a heart of stone that rakes against your thirsty bones

...and the impossible hope of newness.

          Where no chariot can take you,
          where the river meets the sand,
          there is water there that can quench your thirsty bones
          and make you well.

I recognize all the moments I've felt most alive in Beta Radio's "All at Once I Saw It All." It begins with homesickness for the unknown - a grasping at infinity. You reach and reach until the moment you glance back at time-bound reality. Then in the light of forever, life strikes you in an epiphany. 

          How rare and beautiful
          that we were ever even born.

It's as if the whole of life can briefly be seen "to scale," but of course that also includes a fearful awareness of its end. 

          The ghost parade a shroud,
          my body rearranged.

And you're left reaching for eternity only fiercer than before. 

I think Taylor Leonhardt expresses the bewilderment and joy of epiphany in her song "Everything" (and "Surprising Me" from the same album). I love the discovery of something so significant that it touches every part of living. You get to run from one thing to the next, watching it change in front of you, soaking in the novelty of re-orientation. 

          You flipped the whole thing around

          dropped the sky to the ground

          you are here with us now.

The end of this song brings me to the second overarching idea in my favorite songs this year: surety. To be continued in Part 2...

Not a "Not" Person

If my 5th-grade self could have peeked into a crystal ball, she would probably have viewed my math education career as unforgivably traitorous. The battle lines between Sylvia (age 10) and Dad (her math teacher) were firmly established. War was declared, battles fiercely fought, and the eventual peace treaties which were necessary for us to put in writing still exist in a storage box. I was firmly convinced I was "not a math person." Dad's natural abilities in math, plus the fact that he was my parent AND math teacher, put us at what seemed like hopeless enmity. I was outraged that he wouldn't just "tell me how to do it," but that he rather attempted to explain abstract mathematical concepts (which involved "extra" thinking and work) before slowly circling around the shortcut or algorithm (which was all I cared about). I resisted learning the concepts because they were difficult, resulting in misuse of the easy algorithms because I didn't understand what they meant or how to apply them sensibly. 

On the other hand, I knew I was good at reading. It came so much more easily and was actually enjoyable. Entire chapter book series were eaten up in a week or two, and I remember the day the children's librarian couldn't find a single book on World War II from the juvenile section that I hadn't read. My piano teacher was indignant when this 10-year-old brought Jane Eyre to read while sitting on the couch through my sister's lesson. She refused to believe I was actually comprehending it, and she was partly right. I read books that were too difficult for me, picking out chunks of understanding, but knowing a lot was going over my head. Those books went in the library bag anyway because I had the confidence that if I kept reading them, I would eventually get it. 

It took until junior year of high school for the realization to break that practicing math eventually led to mastery too!

In college, I concentrated in language arts and math education with a mission to prove that "not a math person" and "not a reading person" are myths. Just like piano skills are first learned by practice and then enjoyed, so math and reading skills are practiced, mastered and then enjoyed. Sometimes natural skills enable enjoyment in the beginning, and that often motivates further practice. But so many people operate under the groundless assumption that just because they don't naturally enjoy something, that means they never can. 

That might sound painfully obvious, but it goes against a deeply established narrative in our culture. I encounter it constantly in my line of work and sometimes with my students. That's right, the kids I teach on a day-to-day basis are not the ones primarily posing this. Their parents, in email correspondence, conferences, phone calls and even friendly chatter, echo each other with remarkably similar comments: "I can't help them with their math homework," "I was never good at math," "I have to send them to ______ for those questions," "I'm not a math person." 

Faculty lounge lunches carry similar refrains, ranging from "I could never teach math" to "I can't cook" or "I'm not an exercise person." My co-workers were amazed when I told them the story of my dad's long mission to overcome his distaste for tomatoes - now one of his favorite foods. We all know people are born with likes and abilities, but it was absolutely foreign to them that someone could choose additional ones. I remember feeling the same way in college when a professor shared the story of his mom's transformation from a stiff, awkward person to a "great hugger" simply because she decided to practice physical warmth with others. At that point, I had learned my lesson about math, but never transferred the lesson to other parts of my seemingly static personality. 

Over time, I've slowly tried to adjust the wording around my deficits. Instead of "I don't have an artistic bone in my body," it's "I've never spent much time drawing or sketching." Rather than "I kill every plant I've ever owned," it's "I want to learn how to grow things." I was delighted to visit my friend recently and hear the story of her "plant hospital." Even though she never had what she considered a green thumb, she decided to pay closer attention to her succulents each day to find out what made them thrive. After moving the pots around and trying different amounts of watering, the greenery on her windowsill looked lovely and healthy, and she had the wonderful feeling of having learned something new. 

Now I have some projects of improvement in my life. Of course the goal is not to become a master in all the areas of deficit. For some things, changing my attitude and language is enough. I realized for the first time this year that hating winter and complaining about being cold has been a hugely unnecessary energy drain my whole life. Why not train my brain and body to withstand the cold? Why not intentionally look for and appreciate the strikingly beautiful elements of winter? For some deficits, I'm simply working to become more proficient. And a few areas - those that I believe will enrich my life and those around me most - will be long-term efforts to master. But even if I never reach those goals, I know life will be enriched by reaching for them, knowing that they're not "not" possible. 

Skills to improve: 

gardening

shopping 

cooking

decorating

hosting guests

listening

physical affection

rising early

hair care

art

crafting

event planning

house maintenance 

giving gifts

correspondence

musical accompaniment 

The Extent of Mercy

There has been a steady stream of sexual molestation accounts in the news reports for as long as I can remember. Commentary of coworkers and acquaintances follows each one - the main theme being "these monsters aren't fit to live." They use language to position the offenders as far away from the human race as possible, often calling for capital punishment. And this is all just.

But for some reason, over the past year the news reports and subsequent responses haven't just passed through my mind as ever-present tragedies. They've stuck and started to aggregate so that each new repercussion strikes a gong with all the horrors of the previous ones echoing together. In January, I watched Rachael Denhollander's victim impact statement which had a lot of circulation on social media. It was her contrasting note of justice joined with mercy that made me realize the weight of horrors is not just made up of the abuses, but of our culture's response. It is a justice completely stripped of mercy.

When I see an abuser, I do see someone who should receive, in Rachael Denhollander's words, "the greatest measure of justice available," but I also see a suffering human being. Only the most crushing emptiness drives a person to seek such violent stimulation. In no way does this excuse his sins or unpayable debts, but it's a reality the culture omits.

Visualize the whole life of the abuser. No one develops the capacity for such evil acts in a sudden moment. It's a process that begins with sins not so far removed from ours. He seeks compulsively to fill his emptiness with entertainment, pornography, masturbation. These gradually sink the poisoned teeth of addiction deeper and deeper. Older forms of escape no longer give satisfaction. New forms are needed to arouse and the addiction is a sickness that demands to be fed. Level by level, he descends by increments of violence too small to deter him. He is disgusted by himself, but addiction desensitizes the disgust enough to keep being fed.

In his descent, I see the pattern of my own sins. He's not some monster of a different class of creature. I was born with the same emptiness, the same compulsion to mask it with anything in my reach. I've fallen level by level into disgusting sins, and am only removed from the abuser by degrees. As Pope Francis says in The Name of God is Mercy, "Their fall could have been mine."

I know my weakness is such that I could become an abuser. Only because people around me have allowed the grace of God to work through them have I been protected and restrained. My emptiness was softened by the love I received, not by me. My conscience was well-formed, not by me. My circumstances were wisely hedged, not by me. Even with all these gifts and more, I fall repeatedly. It does no good to stand on this higher ground and claim superiority. The ground of grace is what holds me higher, not myself.

So with Rachael Denhollander, I look on these miserable, utterly evil child molesters with pity, not as "other," but as I might be. And I'm not afraid to proclaim that God's mercy reaches even so low.

Spiritual Counterattack

A year ago, I thought 2017 would see additions to the "Lessons from the Convent" blog posts. Now I come to the end of December with difficulty grasping any clear lessons at all. I have glimmers and hints of possible ones, but certainly not enough to write a well-formed post about them. Six months ago, it was all I could do to say the prayer, "I believe you have a lesson for me in this." I suppose a new series of posts called "Vague Hints at Lessons from My Roommate's Couch" would be the best I could muster.

Yes, the devil took some swings at me this year. But this is the counterattack:

Thank you, God, for the time I spent in the convent. Thank you for the superior you allowed to be over me. Thank you for the treasured soul of each teacher I didn't understand. Thank you for the work are doing in me that I can't see. Thank you for the work you have given me to do in the moment. Thank you for my boss and colleagues. Thank you for the awesome design with which you created each student and their parents. Thank you for the singleness wherein I can glorify you. Thank you for the body you gave me to experience the beauty of your natural creation. Thank you that every temporal thing I truly need is provided in my scattered possessions. Thank you for the work you are preparing for me.

Thank you for redeeming every sin and sorrow, no matter how deep. 

O come, let us sing to the Lord;
    let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
    let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God,
    and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
    the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
    and the dry land, which his hands have formed.

O come, let us worship and bow down,
    let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God,
    and we are the people of his pasture,
    and the sheep of his hand.

 

Lessons on Laity from the Convent

"If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." - John 15:19

   As a new Salesian aspirant, I'm experiencing the "not of the world" which consecrated religious express overtly. With vows of poverty, chastity & obedience, distinctive clothing, daily work & life in community - "set-apartness" is externally very visible. The reason I'm drawn to wear a religious habit is to make Christ's love plain. However, although this is one practically with a habit, it's one in practice by every Christian who lives differently.

   The poverty and detachment of consecrated religious may seem like pious add-ons to Chritianity, but in reality they manifest clearly what all Christians are called to live daily. Colossians 3:2 says, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." Religious brothers and sisters, by legally owning nothing of their own, are expressing the Christian attitude toward all temporal wealth. Even Christians who are wealthy by the world's standards shouldn't consider money as their own treasure or security. Detachment should be practiced even with the items in one's own possession. Vowed religious and laity both have open palms, not clenching to anything worldly. But by the open, empty palms of the religious we see more clearly the shape of the open palms of Christians holding their possessions loosely.

   The vow of chastity is lived out by a few in celibacy, but the practice of the virtue of chastity is the vocation of every Christian. The Catechism defines it as "the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being" (#2337). How can celibates have integrated sexuality? There are some thoughts on this already in Lesson on Marriage from the Convent, but in sum, the purpose of our sexuality is to physically symbolize the mutual self-giving love of the Trinity. We have Trinitarian love stamped on our bodies to foreshadow the perfect union of Heaven. Celibates witness that the shadow doesn't fulfill, but that only the real, original divine love fulfills. This reminds us that a Christian husband and wife don't ultimately seek fulfillment in each other. Just like the celibate, they depend completely on God's love together. By the dependence on God by the unmarried chaste, we see more clearly the dependence on God by the married chaste.

   What does the vow of obedience have to show us about Christian laity? In the Salesian order, obedience is lived out by going to serve in whatever ministry position is assigned by the superior. This is radically putting aside personal ambition and having enough trust in God to be content in every circumstance. But again, radical trust isn't only practiced by a few people in some kind of higher echelon of Christianity. Due to the stripped-away nature of religious life, it's more recognizable, but St. Paul is clear that every follower of Christ is called to this. "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:17). Not that I complain of want, for I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things in him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:11-13).

   If I profess the three vows as a consecrated religious someday, I hope my life can remind the baptized that worldly things are temporal and unfulfilling in themselves, calling them back to Christ as everything. To the unbaptized, I hope I can be a bright sign pointing to the radical life of the born-again - these people surrounded by worldly things, but moving among them as free people, not grasping or choked.

"I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away." - 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

At home in the Eucharist

There are often moments I feel I've just stepped out of a time machine and can't believe I've arrived here - as if my 12-year-old self is looking at a strange future self. With two weeks before I enter the convent, there have been several of these "how did I get here?" moments. This is my attempt to answer that question for the sake of that 12-year-old and perhaps any friends who are wondering the same thing.

I saw religious sisters for the first time at a youth retreat and remember thinking what a great service they gave with their lives. I had a gravitational attraction to them along with a sinking feeling of inevitability. The thought was pushed out of my mind or at least relegated to a far corner until junior year of high school when I started commuting to classes at the community college. The church was on the way, the side door was always open, and I made a habit of stopping in to visit the Real Presence. Here is where my desire for God grew, imperceptibly, in quiet stillness before the Eucharist. The universe was posed like a mad, giant, swirling question, but that little tabernacle held the answer.

How can I describe time spent with God? Sometimes I'd just float in my amazement, too big to fit in my head, of his plan for creating and saving humanity out of love - marvel at how all the pieces fit together so unexpectedly yet so naturally. Sometimes I'd read the Scripture and laugh at an inside joke between us or realize clearly something I always vaguely knew. I'd bring the smallest irritations to have them blown open as grand opportunities to further the kingdom. And there's nothing like the realizations of deeply rooted personal sinfulness followed by immediate outpourings of mercy. Sometimes I'd sit in boredom, head bowed from fatigue more than reverence. But that time spent with God fixed me on him, placed the primacy of his kingdom on my heart, and made me fall in love with him.

Someone in love doesn't care where they go or what they do so long as their lover is there. They have a boldness to go on adventures they might never attempt otherwise. Those instances where God's love gave me courage to say something controversial, do something difficult or uncomfortable, step out on a limb for his and others' sake have been the most joyful, exhilarating moments of my life. A religious sister finds strength in the chapel every morning to go out on the limb of the mission field, only to return to the sturdy trunk of the Real Presence in the evening. The Eucharist is truly my home and that's why I have such peace going to the convent.

He's Here

I've never had my own baby, but I've had 8 little siblings. Over time, those experiences have interwoven themselves into Christmas meditations. The birth of a new baby is a completely unique occurrence. Everything changes when you see that tiny person. You get the feeling that, even though you've spent months waiting for this baby, in all that time you had no idea what a life-changing event would actually happen. There's an exhilarating sense that a person is now here in the world who wasn't here just a few moments ago.

But the weirdest part is that you know he was here a few moments ago. That small, red, squishy human was present in the room just before birth. He was present all those times we were going about life as usual. And even though we technically knew about his existence, that baby's presence was hidden.

Do you know the feeling when you discover something that makes you rethink everything that happened before? That moment when you realize the mouse had really been Pettigrew the whole time, or that Jared had been living in a colorless world, or that Darth Vader was really Luke's father? That's the feeling I get when a new baby is born. I suddenly see the past 9 months in a different light, because all that time I didn't really know who was with us. And when I think about the next 9 months, I know that the rest of my life will never be anywhere close to the same.

When Christ comes again, I imagine that we'll get that feeling multiplied by ten thousand. Now we know and feel Christ's hidden presence on earth, but what a revelation it will be when we see him face to face! Maybe we'll look back at our earthly lives and wonder how all that time we lived in the presence of such immense love and power and still went on with "life as usual." We'll be overwhelmed by the knowledge that our lives are so changed - that they were changed before, but we never understood how much. 

I respectfully dissent.

Today, people are celebrating breaking free of repression and finally enjoying the liberty denied because of unfair prejudice against a specific group of people. Some of my friends are trying to wrap their heads around the fact that 'm not celebrating this. The fact is, if unjust prejudice on the part of the government were ending, I'd be thrilled. If civil liberties were being restored to a heretofore repressed population, I'd be overjoyed. But despite the fact that folks are proclaiming a great victory for equal rights, this SCOTUS case (Obergefell vs. Hodges) is about something very different.

In the Opinion of the Court, Justice Kennedy cites several cases as precedent. The most well-known, of course, is Loving vs. Virginia which struck down bans on interracial marriage. In Loving, a marriage license was refused because of the unjust idea that blacks are intrinsically inferior. In Zablocki vs. Redhail, the court stated that denying marriage to fathers behind on child support was "deliberate discrimination against the poor." Turner vs. Safley ruled that prisoners could not be denied marriage simply because of their status as prisoners. In each of these cases, the issue at stake was equality and civil rights. These people had marriage licenses unjustly withheld because of the fact that they were black, poor, or incarcerated.

the message of the Court's opinion is that Wisconsin may not use its control over marriage to achieve the objectives of the state statute - See more at: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/434/374.html#sthash.NsmaWhc9.dpuf

the message of the Court's opinion is that Wisconsin may not use its control over marriage to achieve the objectives of the state statute - See more at: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/434/374.html#sthash.NsmaWhc9.dpuf

However, in Obergefell vs. Hodges the plaintiffs had been denied because they weren't even applying for something considered "marriage." They were NOT denied licenses because of the unjust belief that their sexual orientation makes them lesser humans, or undeserving of marriage at all. 

"Respondent declined to issue the license on the sole ground that the petitioners were of the same sex, it being undisputed that there were otherwise no statutory impediments to heterosexual marriage by either petitioner." - Baker vs. Nelson

This is what makes this case different than any of the cases cited as precedent. The plaintiffs had the same liberty to marry as any other person. No screening of their sexual tastes preceded their application, no box checked "gay" disqualified them from receiving a marriage license. They were petitioning the state for something not in legal existence. The question of whether or not homosexual marriage should be in legal existence is another matter (and whether it should be defined and implemented by the judiciary is another). My point is that this case is about a legal redefinition of marriage, not about civil rights or equality of persons.

The instances where wedding services were refused gay couples are also not about equality. The business owners who refused to bake a cake or rent out a venue did so because they disagreed with the definition of marriage, not because they considered gay people to have less dignity. Many have publicly said that they would gladly bake a birthday cake for a lesbian woman, or rent out a venue for the family reunion of a gay man. Indeed, if they refused those services because they somehow thought that homosexuals were inferior, I would protest against them too.

Discrimination of ideas, not of people, is the heart of this case, and we would be better served if SCOTUS could discriminate between the two.

Drawing to Cana

As to Cana you draw nigh,

two souls joined till one shall die,

may you gracious vessels be,

poor in all but He gives thee.

All thy lacking may He fill,

as at that first miracle--

water meager turned to wine,

human frailty to divine.

When the store of patience fails

and from a grievance each one ails,

let His virtue manifest

and every grievance lay to rest.

When you feel that naught remains

and love is changed to dying flames,

see Him work a marvel rare

and quicken fire from empty air.

 At every moment of thy need,

a mother's intercession plead.

May each of those needs be among

the prayers she takes before her Son.

Days when weariness and care

upon thy mind and body wear,

I pray a faithful servant stands

to hear and follow Christ's commands.

Through that attentive, willing soul,

the power of God I pray to flow,

and with His strength thy life revive--

the choicest drink to last imbibe.

Future Societies and Servitude

There's always something chilling about a futuristic novel, even when its motif is heat and fire. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 takes readers to a progressed society where houses are fireproof, and firemen protect the city by burning the threats to its happiness and security. What are those threats? Ideas. Books. Each one has something in it that offends someone else - makes them unhappy. The authors disagree amongst themselves and therefore hazard peace.

Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these.

The people live leisurely with giant TV walls and constant surround sound. Worries hardly exist. Each house is well-stocked with sleeping pills. If children are born, they're placed in school as infants. No one argues about politics because running the country is someone else's job to worry about. No one has to undergo the unpleasant act of thinking.

We must all be alike...Every man the image of every other. Then, all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So, a book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man. Me? I won’t stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely all over the world…there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is an even eerier utopia. The government has no need to burn books; it conditions the citizen's subconscious to hate them. A human reproduction factory spits out clone groups, and with scientifically precise methods, designs their bodies and brains to do certain tasks. And not just to do those tasks, but activate the most possible pleasure sensors by doing it. So no military force is required to keep vast populations in slavery; they willingly submit. As Huxley wrote:

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”

These clones also have every sensual pleasure available to them. The "Feelies" are movie theaters that bring all 5 senses into an alternate reality. "Soma" is their perfect drug, whisking them into a chemical alternate reality rather than a technological one. And with all these diversions, the citizens are "happy."

In both of these novels, freedom is exchanged for comfort. Individual thought for security. Life for "happiness." In the first part of the 20th century, both Bradbury and Huxley saw these exchanges begin to occur. In 2015, they are frighteningly evident in the new moral code of society where what "feels good" is considered morally good. In fact, I know several friends who would probably not find these futuristic societies offensive at all, but see them as hopeful ideals where people can finally do what they please without experiencing pain.

Then why were they intended as horror stories? I think it's because we understand that pleasure is not an end in itself, but a means to a greater end. That a life of merely endless entertainment, sex and drugs is somehow beneath us. At the end of Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag is aptly dubbed "The Book of Ecclesiastes," which opens with the refrain "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!" John Savage, at the end of Brave New World, tries to convince the crowd of the vapidness of their indulgence. But then what is the end of pleasure if not to fulfill us?

For the Christian, pleasure is a glimpse of Heaven, something to remind us of the coming joy that truly will fulfill. A Christian enjoys pleasure more than anyone else, knowing its meaning, and he can go without it with more joy, knowing that it's not a necessity or end. Lent is a great example of this. From the outside, fasting seems like bondage, but in reality the fasting keeps us free of the bondage Bradbury and Huxley describe. We don't need the constant outside stimulation because we have a more lasting food. So how will our society avoid Bradbury and Huxley's dire forecast?

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst."