Faith, Fiction, and Flannery

A Good Man is Hard to Find, or the Story of My Dad, a Few Days Late.

2011-06-22T22:46:00.002-04:00

"Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged."
--Col. 3:19, 21.

The situation of my birth was anything but simple. Thoughts of being a young and out of work widower with four children must have flown through my fathers mind, scaring the wits out of him.

From all accounts my delivery went well, except for the fact that my mother lost so much blood this time. There had been a miscarriage between the birth of my older brother and me, and the pregnancy with my younger brother was difficult. Up until delivery, her pregnancy with me was normal. Giving life to me nearly killed her.

But this story isn't about my mother. This one is about my father. He had been laid off from his job at a local military defense plant a few months before I was born and there were 3 other children to feed. My mother worked as a psychiatric nurse in the detox unit of a psychiatric hospital, but paid maternity leave was non-existent. So, in that cold February of 1965, there was no money coming into the house and a fourth child was added to the family. Times were tough, and bill collectors were even tougher.

Eventually my mother would go back to work, but my father didn't find a job until September of that year. He would stay there until his retirement 25 years later.

***

Young and carefree

He often blamed himself for starting her on the road to alcoholism. "Sheila, if you can't sleep at night," my father would say, "have a beer before bed." It was the beginning of their marriage and my mother worked the wards drying out the drunks who had been committed to the state hospital. They did the hard stuff. She couldn't sleep. A beer sounded good. The road to hell starts with a single step, and for the next four decades my father would see his wife go to bed drunk every night.

A million times he could have left. He could have just walked out the door and said good-bye to it all.

But he didn't.

In 1956, he made a vow to love and cherish my mother until death. I imagine that it may have been quite difficult for him to practice that sacramental vow toward a wife who never sobered up. Quite often, he took on the role of both parents because he had to. To the best of my knowledge, he also never cheated on my mother. A lesser person would have cut and run.

Dad at 50, me at 15.

He's a man who keeps his promises, my father. At eighty years old and a widower for ten years, he makes sure that everyone in his family gets mailed a birthday card on the appointed day, no matter where they live. Every winter he goes to Florida. Each spring, when he finally makes it back from the land of the snowbirds, he sits in his chair and watches every Yankee game until the final out of the season. Every fall Sunday from that same chair, he watches the fate of his beloved New York Football Giants.

My father Pete taught his daughters what it means to be a husband and a father. I often see traits of him these days in Micki's husband, Eddie, as he tends to her breast cancer recovery. I see my father in the way Eddie makes sure someone is with her at all times; in the way he props her up to ease the pain. The sandwich he makes the night before and leaves on the night table.

At forty-six, I've never been blessed with the opportunity to live the sacrament of marriage, but because of my father, I know that love is not an emotion, but is the action of giving yourself completely over to another. My father then has made real for me the meaning of Christ's words, "As I have loved you, so you also should love one another." (John 13:34)

The Struggles of the Catholic Writer

2011-06-13T22:19:00.092-04:00

"What Mr. Philip Wylie contends is the that the Catholic writer...cannot...see straight; and this contention, in effect, is not very different from that made by Catholics who declare that whatever the Catholic writer can see, there are certain things he should not see, straight or otherwise."

Flannery O'Connor, The Church and the Fiction Writer.

"Test everything; hold fast what is good." St. Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 5:21)

Recently, a writers association invited me to become a member. One of the benefits they promise is that they would display my books (I have none) at their booth, but they retain the right to "approve them for Catholicity."

The only thing I want my work to be approved for is publishing. So, this caveat raised quite a few red flags for me. Besides, I don't even know what "Catholicity" even means.

But this does raise the question of what it means to be a writer who not only espouses the Christian faith, but is a Catholic.

Some time ago, I wrote a story about a pedophile and her young prey. After a few weeks of working on the piece with a group of writer-friends, one of them asked this bold question: "How could you be so daring in your writing and still be a faithful Catholic?"

How could I not?

Being Catholic doesn't mean that I shut my eyes to the world or that I censor my craft to fit doctrine. To do so reduces faith to an ideology and makes my work nothing more than a whorish endeavor in service of it.

For this writer, being Catholic means that I am able to examine everything without fear. It is imperative that I be "as wise as a serpent and as innocent as a dove" (Matt. 10:16). I cannot accomplish that task if I refuse to explore certain areas because such a search might offend the moralism of someone else.

Writing is a dangerous activity because it opens the mind to wandering. Wandering, or rather imagination, is a God-given gift, that I like to think we should use for such things as oh, say, the arts. Further describing what happens in the mind of a pedophile as she fantasizes about her victim is an even darker, more dangerous wilderness. Add to that a depiction of self-pleasure as a response to this fantasy. Surely some might scream "Pornography!"

I struggled immensely writing that part of the story. Many thoughts passed through my mind: Is this true to the story? Is it sensationalistic? Is it unnecessarily offensive?" The truth is, I still struggle with the answers to those questions; but the struggle isn't because of the teachings of the Church; it has more to do with what Flannery O'Connor called the constraints of the art. It is quite a balancing act between being gratuitous and being afraid to explore this uncharted territory.

I have two choices then: I can explore the mind of the pedophile with my readers or I can shut my eyes and decide not to write about her at all. If I choose the latter, I can't help but suspect that I will miss an opportunity to see and reflect God's grace on this world. What the Catholic writer can never forget is that God found the world dying for. Even the world of the pedophile is worth the cross. Seen in this light, the horror of the unspeakable illuminates the absolute necessity of Someone greater than us to save us from ourselves.

The Scars That Bind

2011-06-08T21:38:00.001-04:00

We were sitting in her room--she on the bed and me on the chair next to it. The makeup she wore had begun to slide across her face as the oil from the drudgery of the day surfaced on her skin.

"I can show them to you," she said. "But you will have to close my bra."

I'd never seen the scars of a double-mastectomy in person before. Those I had seen in pictures were years healed. Micki's were fresh.

"Okay," I said.

***

Sitting on the floor in front of the television, my nine-year-old self had had enough of these napkins commercials. The women in them smiled and ran carefree on the beach, played tennis or swam.

What the heck are those things, and why would any lady be happy to wear them? The question burned in my gut for some time until finally, I could take it no longer. I would bust if I didn't ask. Just bust!

"Ma, what are sanitary napkins?" At long last, it was out. My mother, working the tab of her third can of beer for the night, sat in her corner chair. Her eyes began to drift into space, as they always did when she was like this. And when she was like this was every night.

"Women use them," she slurred.

Micki, sixteen, said, "I'll show you, Kim."

With a slight sound of relief, my mother said, "Don't show her yours."

Taking me by the hand, my sister led me into the bathroom. She opened the linen closet and pulled a cardboard box from the top shelf.

K-O-T-E-X, it spelled.

Next, she dug an elastic band out of a bag. The band had two strips hanging from it, with metal closures at the end of each.

"You put it around your waist," she said, "but you attach the napkin through it first." Then she put her hand in the cardboard box and pulled out a pad. It was the same as the napkins I saw on television--rectangular, with cotton padding in the center and two strips of material at each end.

Perplexed, I said, "Why do women wear these?"

"Because they bleed every month for a week, dummy."

"Ewww," I said.

***

"Can you?" she asked. Micki laid down slowly as I unzipped the post-operative brassiere. And then I saw them: two sanitary napkins where her breasts used to be. She sat up and moved them. I could hardly speak. Each side consisted of two seams: one horizontal, the other a railroad line plowing up the middle in neat stitches.

"The surgeons did a good job," I muttered.

"Yeah, they did." Taking a moment, she looked at herself in the mirror above the dresser. "Ready?" she asked. She lay back again and I began to fasten the bra.

"Sure," I said. She winced as I missed the first eye-hook.

My fumbling hands betrayed the calm in my voice.

Missed it again. She winced again.

"Sorry."

Why won't this damned thing close?

Saying "Yes" When Everything Screams "No!"

2011-05-30T23:46:00.000-04:00

Moses:   But seriously, God, I'm not up to the task. I sound like a bumbling idiot.
God:      Look, I made you. I know what you sound like. Talk to them anyway.
Moses:   Can't you send someone else?--Exodus 4:10-13, kinda.

Anytime I've ever been asked to write for something specific, my mouth says, Sure, no problem, while my insides scream, Run for the hills! You can't do this! You're a terrible writer! Most of the time, when I'm first asked, the crowd inside my head is a LOT louder than anything that might escape my lips.

You want me to do what?

So, it came as no surprise to me or the committee renting space in my brain when I said yes to Father Roy yesterday. Father Roy is the director of a pretty well-known Marian shrine (at least in these parts, anyway) and he's been wanting me to write a history of the place for quite a while. There was nothing particularly definite in the previous requests, but yesterday was different.

"Can you come tomorrow and start on it?" he said.

"Sure, no problem," I said. What? Are you insane? Tomorrow is Memorial Day, you have plans! You're not good enough to write this. People will actually read it! So went the conversation in my head.

Maybe this is a standard practice of writers or maybe it's just me and the crazies. But there is something to be said about being willing to rise to the challenge when such doubt is all-pervasive.

God: Okay, Fine! Don't you have a brother named Aaron? He's got a smooth tongue. Let him do the talking. Here's how we'll do it: I'll talk to you, you talk to Aaron and Aaron talks to the people. Capisce?--Exodus 4:14-16.

The trouble with my conscience, both as a human being and a writer, is that I have to follow through on what I promise to deliver. What a bother. And the trouble with my humanity is that I don't always deliver. I showed up today at the shrine anyway. It took a while, but I finally understood how it was going to go down: the shrine itself was going to tell me the story, and I, in turn, would relay it to the folks who made it their pilgrimage. Easy peasy.

Yeah, right.

Memorial Day 2011: Working Toward Peace

2011-05-29T23:29:00.001-04:00

"He wrote to us of the clubs in the Russian port, and how the men were treated as men, capable of appreciating lectures, concerts, dances and meetings with student groups. In this country...the seamen were treated as the scum of the earth; port towns and the port districts in these towns were slums and waterfront streets made up of taverns, pawnshops and houses of prostitution...The Russians treated their American comrades as though they were creatures of body and soul...made in the image and likeness of God...and here in our professedly Christian country they were treated like beasts, and often became beasts because of this attitude."
-- Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness

***********************************************************************************

Look familiar? It should. This is the exact same quote I used last year for this day. Has anything changed? Sure, lots. And nothing at all. We're still at war, for instance. The day is still observed in shopping malls across the country.We remember the dead who are long gone with ceremony and solemnity, but have difficulty remembering that war is a failure of peace. Same old same old.

So, what's different? Osama bin Laden is dead. Thousands took to the streets this year and hooted and hollered, forgetting that to cheer at the death of a human being is to diminish our own humanity. The celebration of death was the order of the day.

And then there were those who registered shock that some would show such exuberance at the execution of the enemy. Surprise is a failure of looking at reality. Because the reality is that our culture so often encourages the total annihilation of the enemy, whoever that enemy may be. Nothing is won if all is not destroyed is the thinking.

This Memorial Day, let us remember that the best way to honor the dead is to work toward peace.

This Discomforting Life

2011-05-28T22:11:00.000-04:00

It was Monday. Laptop in hand, I was answering emails when the surgeon arrived in the family waiting-room to talk to my brother-in-law and me.

"One of the lymph nodes is diseased," he said.

Diseased. This meant my sister might have to undergo chemo. It meant the cancer had spread beyond the breast. Crap. Not what we were expecting. We were hoping the double mastectomy would do the trick and get rid of the cancer altogether. Realizing the depth of what he just said, Dr. J assured us that her prognosis was excellent and that the cancer had not spread to the other lymph nodes or any other part of her body.

A sigh of relief--then discomfort. My discomfort. I was in a role I rarely ascended to in my 40+ years of existence. I was at the front lines of the battle when I'm usually pulling rear guard. In a family of five children (three girls and two boys) I am the youngest daughter. I know rear guard. I like it. In a family crisis, the two older sisters are the "go-to" team. Not this time. My second eldest sister was in surgery and the eldest could not be there. My sister needed her sisters (or at least one of us), and so up to Connecticut I went. It was my duty to be there with my brother-in-law on his journey for that day. To ask questions ("Excuse me, Dr. J, can you clarify this for me......?"). It was my role to inform the family of any news. I didn't like it.

And yet, I did. Somehow, this event fit perfectly into my life at this juncture. In fact, it was okay. It was really, really okay. And uncomfortable as hell.

Two days later, this article from Christine Valters Paintner of Abbey of the Arts, popped into my mailbox. Immediately, I was recalled to the fact of who I am--someone who does not like to put a positive spin on things, just for the sake of being positive. I like the real, raw picture of life. I like it so much, it became too painful to bear and I squashed that pain in a decades-long haze of compulsive eating. Now, with no buffer between me and reality, I have to make some sense out of this discomforting life.

Compassion. It is the very heart of Christian existence. It's also the reason why wakes are very popular. Our understanding of God has Him suffer as we suffer. Our hurt is His hurt. Jesus didn't cure everyone's ills--instead He held their hands; He comforted them. He suffered with them. As the old hymn tells us, we'll never walk alone.

"Dear God: Thank you for this abundance. May it be enough for me today."

Every night for the past half year, I have gone to bed hungry. Not starving, just hungry. This is unthinkable for a food addict. It is insufferable. It's also a matter of justice. For years, I had taken more than my just portion. Now, even one grain of rice extra is more than my share.

The discomfort I go through every night doesn't cure cancer; nor does it take away anybody's pain. But it does make present the fact that cancer does exist and people do go through pain. And more importantly, it reminds me that I am so utterly helpless when faced with these things, that the only thing I can do is but a fraction of what Jesus did as I stumble in the attempt at holding somebody's hand in their time of need. Maybe, just maybe I will actually grab it.

The Stone and the Cross; A new life story.

2011-04-24T23:53:00.000-04:00

"It seems as if all my bridges have been burned,
You say that’s exactly how this grace thing works
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive at the restart"
--Mumford & Sons "Roll Away Your Stone"

It's Easter, and the evening is winding to a close. I sit up here in my room listening to the rain pelt against the window. My father watches the late news downstairs. He's eighty now, and while I know it's wrong, my patience with him often wears thin. His patience with others is even thinner. Perhaps it's my way of denying his advancing age and increasing need. My sister Micki once said she believed people got more crotchety as they aged as a way of making their death easier on the surviving family members. That's a pretty good way to look at mercy, I think.

It's Easter, and I sit up here, writing, wondering if I have any readers left. Only God in His mercy would see to it that I do, because I certainly haven't done a thing to retain any. It's been months since my last blog post, and to the two readers I had, if you are still reading, then all I can say is this: I am sorry.

Roll away the stone

You see, I've been getting my life in order. The truth of the matter is that I am an addict in recovery. My "substance of choice" is food, but it really could have been anything: alcohol, coke, sex, crack. The trouble is, I've been too chicken to do most of those things. So, food seemed safe. Harmless, even. But that "harmlessness" set off cravings in me like any alcoholic or drug addict. As a direct result of my addiction, I ballooned to over 240 pounds. I wore my addiction. It was evident to everyone except me. In fact, it was easy to avoid it. If you don't look below your neck in a mirror, you don't see the effects of years of compulsive eating and isolation. Now, I go to 3 or 4 meetings a week. And since I've put down my substance, I've lost a significant amount of weight. Go figure.

I am an addict who has been to hell and back. On July 17, 2010, I got my sobriety back when I put down the food. On August 26th, 2010, I got my serenity back when I walked into a church basement for the first time in over ten years and uttered the words, "My name is Kim and I am a compulsive overeater."

Photo credit:The jof

I still have to eat to live, but I no longer eat compulsively. I have a food plan and every morning at 7:30 I tell another woman what I am eating for that day. It's terribly humbling to start the day admitting my brokenness to another human being. Humility and I aren't natural friends, which is why this daily phone call is so important. But even before I make my phone call, I have two women who call me to make their own humbling admissions. The first call comes in at 6:30 AM.

My addiction doesn't define me in my totality, this I have come to realize. It doesn't define me, but it sure as heck wanted to reduce my existence to little more than a slave to it. And I was a willing participant in my own demise.

Addiction is the work of a force that offers me no hope. I need hope. I'm a goner without it. I want more than whatever it is I thought food could offer. Food became the stumbling block, the stone, between me and the only Person who could offer me such beauty; who could roll away the stone of my addiction. That Person, that "Higher Power" for me is Christ.

Christ is risen! He is truly risen! For the next fifty days, Christians around the world will proclaim this in the liturgy. But in order for us to know the Resurrection, we must also bear our cross. For me, and millions like me, addiction is our cross, bearable only because of the presence of Another. We start life again--refreshed and renewed.

Happy Easter.

Show Support for Iraqi Christians: Remember Who You Have Met

2010-11-13T17:02:00.001-05:00

Why I Am Catholic: To Send Letters to the Christians of Baghdad

It is not too late to show your support for the Iraqi Christians. Click the link above for directions on how to send an email to the Papal Nuncio to the UN. That email will be printed out and sent directly to the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholics in Iraq.

Dorothy (mon)Day QOTW: Saints Alive!

2010-11-01T12:07:00.001-04:00

“And all those other quiet men who drop by "off the road" who help in so many little ways. If I’m not careful I’ll sound like the Irish who see sanctity everywhere. What a variety of people "called to be saints," crotchety, giddy, cranky ones, bibulous ones. It is no mean ambition--to aspire to holiness--to wholeness.”

It is because Christ and His promise of life eternal that I can bear the death of my friend, Kathryn, who passed away yesterday.

Today is a joyous day for the church. We celebrate that cloud of witnesses who have gone on before us. They have born witness to the truth of Christ through their own experience and the experiences of others. They were not perfect in this life, but now they live in perfect communion with Christ. They are, in other words, made whole.

To celebrate the day, enjoy this video from Louis Armstrong. Think of my friend Kathryn as you watch.

The Story of a Soul (and it ain’t Chicken Soup): Therese of Lisieux

2010-10-01T18:03:00.001-04:00

Admittedly, I’ve always had some misgivings about this popular saint. Or, rather, not misgivings about her, but about what I perceived to be the person she is. Her autobiography, “The Story of a Soul,” sits between a book by Cardinal Ratzinger and another book about kids not wanting to go to Mass. These are among a bunch of books that line the edge of my desk. In truth, they aren’t a line (that would be far too neat), but rather a MESS of books on my desk, piled haphazardly under a poster of Bob Dylan working at his piano circa 1965. In front of those books is a vase filled with peacock feathers. The poster of Bob serves to remind me that genius only comes through work; the feathers serve as a reminder of not only Her Flannery-ness (she raised peafowl), but more importantly, of the Resurrection; of new life. Indeed, the peacock is an ancient symbol of the paschal mystery.

It’s been a few years since I’ve read “The Story of a Soul,” and I don’t remember much about it. Unlike so many, I have not been moved by Therese’ story. She seems too sweet and pious for me. I can’t identify. But Mary, Christ’s mother? Now her, I can identify with. Who knows why; maybe it’s because she goes through so much suffering but seems to have a clarity about her that so few can attain.

Yet I am haunted by Therese. Above my bead is a crucifix with palms hanging from it. On Jesus right is His Mother. To His left is Therese. Little flowers flow from her hands like prayers from a tongue. A crucifix is nestled at her bosom, close to her heart.

She haunts me again.

The plan for today was to just blog the Flannery quote of the week and be done with it. But as I did morning prayer from Magnificat magazine, this judgment struck me:

“In a society that idolizes the surface of youth while forcing its children into an artificial adulthood, Saint Therese might seem foolishly childish, but in fact she teaches the real wisdom of the child: trustful willingness to be led, taught, and raised to true maturity according to God’s plan rather than her own.” (Magnificat, October 2010)

If words can indict, then consider me convicted. In my own foolishness, I had judged Therese childish and found myself guilty of the same childishness.

And if this wasn’t enough, Richard Rohr clarifies for me the true nature of Therese:

Saint Therese of Lisieux, toward the end of her life, had a beautiful image of salvation. It’s not in her autobiography, so many have not heard of it. She describes salvation in this way: All of her life she is a little girl. She is proud and happy to be a little girl. Her heavenly Father is standing at the top of a great staircase, always beckoning her, “Come, Therese! Come! I ask more of you!” She lifts her little foot again and again by all the actions of her Catholic faith and religious life, trying to please God. She is trying to climb up to God.
God watches Therese and sees her desire to come. Then in one moment that we call grace, God rushes down the staircase, picks her up and takes her. She knows afterward by hindsight that God has done it, from beginning to end. But it was important for her to keep lifting up her little foot. Our struggle, our desire, our “yes” is significant and necessary. But in the end it is always grace that carries us up the staircase. From Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p.324, Day 336

GOD IS NOT PRINCE CHARMING. He doesn’t come in and sweep me off my feet. He does something greater: He gives me freedom. He wants me in freedom. There is nothing romantic about God. He cannot be reduced to some feel good “chicken soup for the soul” emotion. Even as much as He wants me, as much as He wants Therese of Lisieux, still she and I must at least lift our foot to Him. We must give some sort of sign that we want Him back.

My foot remains under my chair, ever so slightly raised.

Flannery Fridays QOTW

2010-10-01T11:24:00.001-04:00

“Nobody with a good car needs to be justified”-- Flannery O’Connor

It’s been a long while since I’ve done a Flannery quote. Too long, in fact. This is bad especially because I have the name “Flannery” in the title of the blog. Ostensibly, O’Connor is supposed to be a big part of the blog’s theme. My mission, in part, is to alert the world of the Fineries of Flannery; the Oeuvre of O’Connor. Any pause in that is grave matter, indeed.

Mea Culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Three Hail Mary’s for my penance.

I’ve discovered FLYLady.

The FLYLady (a.k.a. Marla Cilley) is like your favorite aunt from the South who just loves you into getting your life organized. Everyday she bakes a peach cobbler of encouragement, advice, and lovin’.

What is it with me and strong, Southern women?

Nevertheless, there is something to be said for creating new habits and new routines in conjunction with being open to any curveballs life might throw at me. My dear friend, Heather is probably clapping as she reads it because I’ve had to cancel lunch with her three times due to my lack of organization. This organizational thing will take a while, but I’m hoping these cancelled and re-arranged appointments will become less frequent, as blog entries become more frequent.

All of this is really just baby steps for me, and as part of this new way of thinking has resulted in taking care of my car. In one day, I took it to the car wash (it had been MONTHS), got two new back tires, and had it inspected. It felt great to get all of that done. I even bought a duster I keep in the car to wipe off the dash once a week.

I got a good car now.

Seeing God in the Everyday: Why God Matters

2010-09-24T00:15:00.000-04:00

Can a book commit a sin? If so, then the slim volume, “Why God Matters: How to Recognize Him in Daily Life” is guilty of deception. Small in size, it is huge in wisdom.

Karina Fabian and her father, Steve Lumbert,a deacon in the Catholic Church, answered the call for this auspicious undertaking almost on a lark. "When Tribute Books put out the call for a small book on Catholic living to fill a last-minute opening in their product line," Fabian and Lumbert write, "it seemed like the perfect way for us to share our faith journeys, not just with others, but with each other."

Indeed it is. In a time when generations within a family often have divergent religious views, this father/daughter work presents us with a thread of continuity not often seen in the culture at large.

Lest we think that theirs was a traditional Catholic home, Deacon Lumbert assures us it was not. "When my future wife invited me to join her for Mass," Lumbert writes in the first chapter, "I warned her I wasn't Catholic. In fact, I wasn't much of anything." Despite the fact that religion meant little to him, he did agree to raise their children, two daughters, in the Catholic faith. It was this promise that began the journey which would wend it’s way toward Catholicism. In 1988 Lumbert would be received into the Church, and a few years later, he was ordained a deacon.

For Fabian, on the other hand, faith was found in the remnants of family life: rosaries, crucifixes, and bible verses. It wasn’t until she entered the Air Force that she was confirmed in the faith. She was in love with the Mystery of Christ.

This scant book, topping out at just over 110 pages, is not simply for those already rooted in faith. It is also a fantastic read for people who are just starting out on their quest for God, or have been looking for years. If you want for pious platitudes, look elsewhere. This book is filled with personal stories and very simple, yet enriching life lessons.

For this Catholic, the work of Fabian and Lumbert verify that we love because God loved us first; we are changed because of an encounter with Someone we have met. And it is in the everyday that we meet this Someone. It is because of our everyday travails and our everyday joys that God matters.

ALL THINGS FABIAN AND LUMBERT

Now, that I’ve whetted your appetite for this petite opus here are some links I think you’ll find worth checking out:

Book Trailer Video:

Buy the book on Amazon:

Why God Matters

Follow Karina Fabian:

On Facebook

On Twitter

On her blog, Fabianspace

Dorothy (mon)Day QOTW: Work, Justice, JPII and Bob Dylan

2010-09-06T12:37:00.002-04:00

Happy Labor Day, ya’ll. I know, I’m from Long Island and we don’t say “ya’ll,” but it just seems to fit.
My two closest friends recently reminded me that work has value in itself, whether we have a job considered grand and noble by society or we are working behind a deli counter. My friends reminded me that work is a part of who we are and who we are meant to be. For the Christian, then, to work is to participate in God’s creation. This is a wonderful reminder because it can be disheartening to search for a job and still come up with nothing.
To understand the meaning of work is to walk in freedom. Adam and Eve toiled in the Garden not because of sin, but because they were the stewards of the earth; their labor was a participation in the act of Creation. And so it is with us today. Dorothy Day understood this when she wrote of Remhert Sorg's, O.S.B. pamphlet "Towards a Benediction Theology of Manual Labor."

He goes in also for a deeper theology of manual labor In dealing with man as co-creator with God: taking the raw materials that God has provided, making things of use and of beauty and thus bringing about in his life that synthesis of cult, culture and cultivation that Peter Maurin used to talk so much about.

This is also the reason why it is such a scandal when work is scarce. When work is difficult to find, humanity is denied one of it’s basic needs. Yes, work is as necessary as food and shelter.

When work is so low-paying that we cannot provide adequate means to obtain food and shelter, this is also a scandal because it affects our ability to have our needs met. Work, then, is a social justice issue. For clarification, justice needs to serve not only the group/individuals directly involved, but also to the community at large. If the needs of one these is met to the exclusion of the other, justice is not served. In other words while we cannot have jobs that do not afford the worker a wage where he can meet his other basic needs, we also cannot have wages which are so high that it becomes burdensome on the larger community. For example, a grocery store should not pay it’s workers such a high wage or salary to the point that they also must increase prices and the community can no longer afford to shop there. Justice is served when both the needs of the workers (livable wages) and the community (affordable prices) are met.

John Paul II expanded on the need for man to work in his encyclical, Larborem Exercens, or On Human Work:

Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God Himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. … Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature.

Yes, we are created to work. Work is necessary to our very being. It is with that understanding that I joyfully continue my job search, understanding that my desire to serve will be satisfied in many areas of labor, because ultimately, it is in co-creation that happiness is found, not in particular jobs.

Happy Labor Day.

It is with this in mind that I also leave you with Bob Dylan performing his Workingman's Blues #2 (lyrics below):

Workingman's Blues #2

There's an evenin' haze settlin' over the town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buyin' power of the proletariat's gone down
Money's gettin' shallow and weak
The place I love best is a sweet memory
It's a new path that we trod
They say low wages are a reality
If we want to compete abroad

My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf
Come sit down on my knee
You are dearer to me than myself
As you yourself can see
I'm listenin' to the steel rails hum
Got both eyes tight shut
Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from
Creeping it's way into my gut

Meet me at the bottom, don't lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the front line
Sing a little bit of these workingman's blues

Now, I'm sailin' on back, ready for the long haul
Tossed by the winds and the seas
I'll drag ‘em all down to hell and I'll stand ‘em at the wall
I'll sell ‘em to their enemies
I'm tryin' to feed my soul with thought
Gonna sleep off the rest of the day
Sometimes no one wants what we got
Sometimes you can't give it away

Now the place is ringed with countless foes
Some of them may be deaf and dumb
No man, no woman knows
The hour that sorrow will come
In the dark I hear the night birds call
I can hear a lover's breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death

Meet me at the bottom, don't lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the front line
Sing a little bit of these workingman's blues

Well, they burned my barn, they stole my horse
I can't save a dime
I got to be careful, I don't want to be forced
Into a life of continual crime
I can see for myself that the sun is sinking
How I wish you were here to see
Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking
That you have forgotten me?

Now they worry and they hurry and they fuss and they fret
They waste your nights and days
Them I will forget
But you I'll remember always
Old memories of you to me have clung
You've wounded me with words
Gonna have to straighten out your tongue
It's all true, everything you have heard

Meet me at the bottom, don't lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the front line
Sing a little bit of these workingman's blues

In you, my friend, I find no blame
Wanna look in my eyes, please do
No one can ever claim
That I took up arms against you
All across the peaceful sacred fields
They will lay you low
They'll break your horns and slash you with steel
I say it so it must be so

Now I'm down on my luck and I'm black and blue
Gonna give you another chance
I'm all alone and I'm expecting you
To lead me off in a cheerful dance
Got a brand new suit and a brand new wife
I can live on rice and beans
Some people never worked a day in their life
Don't know what work even means

Meet me at the bottom, don't lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the front line
Sing a little bit of these workingman's blues

Copyright © 2006 Special Rider Music

Tracce - I FATTI - DIALOGHI «C'è qualcosa nell'arte che ci dà il permesso di aprirci all'eterno»

2010-08-30T21:19:00.000-04:00

My interview with Makoto Fujimura and Etsuro Sotoo translated into Italian for Tracce.

Tracce - I FATTI - DIALOGHI «C'è qualcosa nell'arte che ci dà il permesso di aprirci all'eterno»

Dorothy (mon)Day QOTW

2010-08-30T15:02:00.002-04:00

"Don't worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth."
— Dorothy Day

I’m a food whore. There, I said it.

My whole life I’ve struggled with food and weight. No, wait, that’s not really true. Occasionally I would get into a tussle with them, but most times, I gave in and let them have their way with me.

It was 1995 and I was done fighting (I thought) and I was done giving in (again, I thought). There was a “twelve step meeting” in town for people who wanted help with addiction to food. I went.

I’m also an adult child of an alcoholic who is now deceased. I started going to twelve step meetings for that back in ‘92. In fact, it was by going to these meetings that I also came back to the Catholic Church, but that is a story for another time (when I can actually remember it). So, by the time I was ready to deal with my own addiction, I already knew much of what was ahead of me. I knew I had a lot of work to do.

And indeed, I did some of that work. I did a lot of it. I remained in the program and abstinent for a solid four years. As long as I kept going to meetings, I had a healthy relationship to food. You see, because unlike the alcoholic who must give up the alcohol, people with food addictions NEED to face their addiction in a unique way, several times a day. This was no problem for me for a long time. Heck, I lost 75 pounds.

Then I left. It was 1999 and I just stopped going to meetings. I was healthy and abstinent and those people at those meetings were sick [insert laugh track]. I was also pretty clever; I could justify why I didn’t need meetings—I travelled too much for work, I was in therapy, I don’t have the same relationship to food that I had when I “walked into the rooms.” All of that was true, and I continued to gain weight.

Eleven years, a few weeks into a new food plan, and a nearly 100 pound weight-gain later, I stepped back into the rooms. This past Thursday, I admitted to myself, to God and to a room with a whole bunch of strangers that I was powerless over food. On Saturday, I got a sponsor. She’s a woman who first stepped into these meetings around the same time I did back in ‘95. The fact that she was still there, no matter what, provoked me to ask her to help me with this addiction.

I am now 44 days sober from the food.

Dorothy (mon)Day QOTW

2010-08-23T20:17:00.003-04:00

"It is people who are important, not the masses."
— Dorothy Day (The Long Loneliness)

photo: jon|k

My good friend, Antonia, always reminds me to look at the “totality of the reality” of an individual. She also says that we should judge people not on how they treat us, but on how they treat others. In other words, our encounter with them may not reflect their entirety of their situation; the entirety of who they are.

To look at a person’s total reality is to see them as an individual with certain desires, needs, wants and attributes. We can often be colored by our own dealings with them, and so it is important to see how they treat others. This gives us a clearer picture of who they are. It is also often a very difficult thing to do; particularly when we have been hurt by the person in front of us, or its complete opposite: when we have been treated well by that person and yet they sometimes treat others as something less than human. To look at the “totality of the reality” of an individual is charity. It is compassion.

Recently, I was bypassed for an interview for a job. This was particularly painful for several reasons: I have been unemployed since May 2009 and this job would have been at my parish. As qualified as I know I am for the position, I was never called for an interview. When I matter-of-factly expressed my disappointment to the new pastor (a skill I picked up from Antonia), he gave a pretty bad excuse for not considering me. In fact, the real tragedy is that he interviewed no one for the position, but brought in someone he already knew. The fact that she may be wonderful for the position does not mitigate the injustice done to those who applied and were not interviewed and to the community at large.

My long-term unemployment coupled with the knowledge that Father X did not consider anyone other than who he already had in mind, has made it hard for me to see the totality of who he is. It has been a challenge to see that he is a broken human being with the same desires and needs that I have. But I’m finding that as hard as it is for me to do, it can be done. It is only because of Who I have met that I can look at Father X with a gaze of love. It is only because of Who I’ve met that I can see the totality of Father X’s reality. I have encountered Christ and I have encountered Him in Father X.

It is because of the gaze of Another that I also understand that I must be the one to offer Father X the opportunity for grace to enter into the situation; to give him the opportunity to be redeemed. What the world might see as “you owe me this” really isn’t what Father X owes me, but what I owe him.

Flannery Fridays QOTW

2010-08-20T00:01:00.000-04:00

"The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience."
— Flannery O'Connor

Experience begins with a question. Always with a question. What that question is, depends on the thing being asked. It depends on the depth of experience we are willing to have. A trip to the movies can be a metaphor for judging the experiences of our lives.

Sally: Did you like the movie?

Mathilda: Yes, I liked it very much.

Sally: What did you like about it?

Mathilda: It was funny in parts and sad in others. I thought the acting was moving, superb.

Most conversations end there, unless you are a film buff. Oh sure, they might be expounded upon just by talking about favorite scenes, but that’s usually as far as it goes. And, as a result, the experience of the movie is transient at best.

But what if the talk went deeper? What if Sally encourages Mathilda to explore a little?

Sally: What did you find moving about the acting?

Before answering, Mathilda has to think, and recall how she responded to certain scenes. She has to re-place herself in a significant moment in the movie. In other words, she has to remember and then make a judgment. Her experience is prompted by a question such as “What was it about that scene that moved me to respond?”

It’s only when Mathilda (US, really) can ask herself that question (or something like it) that any real experience of the film can happen. The answer may never surface. The important thing, however, is to ask the question. Because if we don’t ask the question, then we forget. And when we forget, we lose hope.

In 1995, I took a trip with some family members down to Onancock, Virginia to participate in their annual paper boat race. We built the greatest boat ever to cross the Chesapeake. It was made of nothing more than cardboard, milk cartons and duct tape. Lots and lots of duct tape. It was a boat built for 6 adults. We managed to not sink as we crossed the river. That’s me facing the camera.The one with the American flag sticking out of her head.

We had such a great time. Fifteen years ago, with very little inclination to make a judgment of the experience, I would have told you that I liked it because we had a lot of fun. We told jokes. People laughed with us as we churned our way across the inlet. Today, I can tell you why I had a good time: I was with my family; I was connecting with them. I was a few months into my thirties, which would prove to be a decade of growth and maturity.

The memories are now bittersweet.

My uncle, whose back you see on the left side of the picture, now no longer talks to anyone in the family, in large part because of a necessary action I had to take. The two women behind me are no longer a couple. While I have grown closer to my cousin, her ex-partner is sorely missed by many in my family. But these new developments do not dampen the experience I had that day with any of them. To allow that to happen is to not see reality in it’s totality. To look at this picture and say, “Well, this uncle and that woman are no longer in my life, so I can’t look on this picture with anything but sadness” wouldn’t be true to the joy of spending time with them. It would reduce the experience to whatever I am feeling at the given moment. That’s depressing. That’s hopeless. Experience, then, is about so much more than feeling. It’s about recollection.

“Do this in remembrance of me,” Christ said at the Last Supper. He wasn’t joking. He wasn’t just asking us to think of Him, either. He wants us to make Him present, again. He wants us to re-member Him. To re-collect. To encounter Him in the Eucharist (is it any wonder that Eucharist means thanksgiving?). To not forget who He is. And in order for us to encounter Him, we must also recognize Him. Because let’s face it, we are moved to act when recognize someone. We have an encounter with that person, and we are changed. We’ve had an experience. If Jesus walks by us in the street, and we do not respond in some way, there is no encounter. He’s just a passerby. We don’t experience Him. But if we know who He is, we will recognize Him as surely as we recognize our family members. And we will be moved to respond.

I have the hope that one day I will meet my uncle and that I can embrace him. This begs the question, Can I embrace this man who has done so many terrible things to my family? I want to remember him in his totality—good and bad. Because if I don’t do that—if I only remember him in the bad—then my experience of him his hopeless. And my memories of that paper boat race in 1995 would be compromised.

Dorothy (mon)Day QOTW

2010-08-16T18:19:00.002-04:00

“We and the Communists have a common idea that something else is necessary, some other vision of society must be held up to be worked for.”

What strikes me most about this particular quote isn’t that Dorothy Day calls for an alternate vision of society; it’s that she recognizes the desire her (former) fellow American Communists had to alleviate the problems facing the poor. Rather than demonizing the Communists for not recognizing the freedom found in Christ, she sees in them the very thing she herself wants. She sees in them the desire to live out the Gospel, even if they do not call it such.
Pictured is a memorial to Communism in Prague, and while I don’t know much about it, here is my impression. Starting from the bottom, man starts out whole, and with each oppressive action, is cut and de-humanized to the point of being nothing more than the shell of a person. This is what Communism did. This is what man’s inhumanity to man does.
All is not lost, though. Because if we look at the sculpture as it descends the stairs, we can see man being made whole again. He is renewed, and he is renewed by Freedom.
For the Christian, Freedom is Christ. Dorothy Day knew this, of course, and she also knew that each person, no matter what his belief system, is a sign of Christ. For her, as for us, compassion for the poor is not just a moralistic endeavor for Christians, but is instead a universal desire for all of humanity that can only be squashed, but never extinguished.

Flannery Fridays QOTW

2010-08-13T16:30:00.001-04:00

"Conviction without experience makes for harshness. "
— Flannery O'Connor (The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor)

Better late than never is what I always say. If you missed this weeks Dorothy (mon)Day quote of the week, you had a good reason: it wasn’t there. I had every intention of doing a Day QOTW, but things just got waylaid. I wanted to begin adding my own commentary/analysis of the quotes of the week on Monday, but other things got in the way. So, I’m starting with this Flannery Friday QOTW (which is late in coming, I know).

Like I said, better late than never.

While conviction without experience makes for harshness, it also makes a person an ideologue. It reduces whatever the conviction, whether political or religious, to nothing more than an idea that must be upheld even in the face of a reality that says something different.

When a person loses their home due to either a lack of employment or an unforeseen illness, it is merciless to say that it is right that they lose their home because of an inability to pay the mortgage. It is merciless to not help them.

Subsidiarity, which posits that the smallest entity that can take care of a problem SHOULD take care of the problem (at least this is my understanding) is both a blessing and a curse. Subsidiarity demands that we become our brothers keeper; but it also demands that if no group smaller than the government (“state”) can take care of an issue, then the state must step in to help. And so, subsidiarity not only calls for individuals and small groups (family, community, church) to give of themselves more, but it also calls the state to a more compassionate role—not one of dictator and Big Brother, but one of a compassionate last resort.

Likewise, if we have a situation that needs to be immediately rectified, such as a 9.5% unemployment rate, or a significant number of people who have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment (“99ers”), then the only entity small enough to handle this problem would be the state, at least for the interim. In other words, the only agency with the capability of alleviating the immediate problem of feeding the family and some housing expenses for millions is the government. Once these numbers are reduced to a normal unemployment rate, then the state must scale back.

To remain steadfast in the idea that the state should not help during this time of widespread and immediate crises is to deny the reality, the experience, that exists in front of our faces.

And that is harsh.

Flannery Fridays QOTW

2010-08-06T00:23:00.000-04:00

I was soooooo remiss this week in not marking the anniversary of Flannery O’Connor’s death with a blog post. The sad thing about it, is that I had something all ready to go and never got around to posting it! Oh well, that gives me more time to write something even better. For now, though, I’ll just stick with a quote from Her Flannery-ness:

"At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily."

Devotiopalooza

2010-08-05T12:29:00.001-04:00

My smart-alecky brother from another mother, Deacon Scott Dodge has tagged me to reveal my favorite devotions. The truth is, I say so few of them. I am sorely lacking in the devotional department. But here are the ones I’ve been saying of late:

The Rosary

Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe

An Hour with Dorothy Day (Liguori Press)

The Angelus

Veni Sancte Spiritus! Veni per Mariam!

I tag these people to hand over their goods and tell us their favorite devotions:

A Seat at the Table, There Will Be Bread, and The Magdalene Sisters

Dorothy (mon)Day QOTW

2010-08-02T00:01:00.001-04:00

“…they, together with the blacks, feel and have stated this, that birth control and abortion are genocide. I agree with them and say--make room for children, don't do away with them.” from An Open Letter to Father Daniel Berrigan

Flannery Fridays QOTW

2010-07-30T00:10:00.000-04:00

This quote is particularly pertinent to me today as I complete a piece I’m doing on Bob Dylan and the religious sense.

"I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial."
— Flannery O'Connor

In the meantime, enjoy this starkly beautiful and lonely rendition of one my favorite Dylan songs, “Visions of Johanna.” I am wounded by the beauty of the opening lyrics.

Visions of Johanna from ramonramon on Vimeo.

Dorothy (mon)Day QOTW

2010-07-26T08:13:00.001-04:00

“When we have spiritual reading at meals, when we have the rosary at night, when we have study groups, forums, when we go out to distribute literature at meetings, or sell it on the street corners, Christ is there with us.”

Flannery Fridays QOTW

2010-07-23T08:03:00.001-04:00

Here’s a well-needed re-hash:

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
— Flannery O'Connor

Even a detestable character like Col. Jessup understands the truth is difficult: