Christ Figure

Following yesterday's blog, while Isabella is crying at the podium, her mother, Joan Munson, comes up to the podium and puts her arm around Isabella.  Mon does not tell her daughter to toughen up, stiff upper lip, stop crying, or any other silly stuff like that.  Joan simply stands there and supports her daughter in Isabella's suffering.  Joan suffers with Isabella. Joan does not try and remove suffering, grief, loss or deny it.  She is a Christ presence.  This is what we believers are supposed to do, be Christ for others.  Jesus did not come ot remove everyone's pain, but to suffer for and with us.  This is why God became human.  When we suffer, God suffers with us.  This is what Jesus tries to show us.  Peter calls Jesus the "Christ" and tells Jesus not to do any of that "suffering" talk. So many want God to fix things, make things nice.  Joan did not make everything nice for Isabella.  But she was next to Isabella, as Isabella suffered her own cross of losing grandfather.  Be next to someone when they suffer their cross.  Be with them.  It is a great comfort.  I have found it so.  Did I just canonize Joan Munson? Oh well.  The Pope is coming and maybe we can include her with Junipero Serra and get a twofer.  You think?

Isabelle

In the Bob Munson funeral that I referred to a couple of blogs ago, the petition prayers were to be said by the granddaughter, Isabelle, an eighth grader at our school.  She was going to contribute to the funeral mass in this way.  It was an important moment and I suspect she was wanting to do it.  She got to the pulpit, and "lost" it, as some would say. She just could not stop crying.  It was hard to understand anything she was saying amidst her sobs.  I wonder if she thought she was a failure?  I for one, think it was a great prayer, one of the best I have heard in some time.  Why?  Isabelle prayed from her heart, with all her honest emotion.  She loves her grandfather and prayed with love, which at that moment was filled with grief, sorrow and loss.  Do you think God cares how the words come out of our mouth?  No.  God cares about our honesty, loving with our whole heart and all that is in it.  Isabelle did just that and I for one am quite proud of her.  Jesus says that we have to lose our life to find it.  Isabelle lost composure but found a way to express her true life of love and pain all in her prayers at funeral.

Insulted

I was just insulted.  I was dressed in my black priest clerical suit and black shoes.  Someone came up to me in the parking lot and asked, "Father may I take your picture?" My ego leaped for joy.  A fan of mine, right!  No.  She continued, "I have never seen you dressed as a priest in a black suit."  Ego crushed by reality.  I tried to smile as she took the picture.  I hope she sends it to some bishops.  It has been hot lately and so I have been forgiving sins and helping people while I was in shorts and tee shirt.  I have other excuses, but I must confess, I am not a poster boy for priesthood clerics.  I think I do good work, but not in corporate garb.  I suggest that in the morning, pray that you will do good for others and in your work, family and errands.  If you think only of what you might wear or how you will look, and nothing else, you might have good outsides, but the insides will suffer, and I suspect so will those around you.  In the recent recession, some of those Wall Street and Banker fellows dressed quite nicely.  They were not so good on the inside.  Not all crooks wear masks.

Bob Munson

I went to the funeral today of a man named Bob Munson.  I had read the obit.  His family recently provided me with fresh corn that they grow on their nearby farm.  It is to die for.  As I was listening to the homily I realized that Bob did seemingly too very separate things, but they are connected.  He was an inventor and a farmer.  He invented something that helps people to communicate, that is connect with one another when they are not physically present to each other.  Think of it as an antenna.  Then he grows food that feeds people.  Food brings people together.  So both as an inventor and farmer Bob was a Christ figure or a God figure.  God is always One-ing, bringing people to the realization that we are all connected.  If you believe that Jesus is God, he came into the world for ALL.  Bob shared his farm grown food with the poor, the homeless and the well to do.  His inventions were for the benefit of all people.  Bob was one-ing people from a sense of separation to a sense of oneness.  If we do what gives us life, what you might have a passion for, it will always bring more life to the world around you.  I tend to go to funerals of people who feed me.  What can I say.  I am still working on perfection.  The church was full to overflowing.  I wonder if they were all thinking of Bob and his corn?

Teen Age Girls

In hindsight I should have been nicer to teenage Catholic girls when I did parish ministry.  Say what? Well, I would have been invited to a lot of nice places or back to places where I once worked, and would visit with a lot of old friends.  You see, girls do care about who the priest is at their wedding.  Boys are hopeless.  If a teenage girl makes friends with a particular priest and he says he will come back and do her wedding some day, there is a good chance she will remember.  And she is more likely to get married in a Catholic church which will make parents and especially grandparents happy.  I was just back in Knoxville where I had been pastor and realized I blew it.  All the girls grew up and got married.  The priest who followed me as pastor gets all their weddings.  And he gets to Dollywood as a side trip.  Wisdom is coming to me way late.

Church Museums

The Pope says that churches that don't open their doors are museums.  Oh?  Well, my church in San Francisco decided to close even an hour earlier than before.  Why?  Are we against people coming for quiet and prayer?  No, but we suffer from the consequences of San Francisco being a big outdoor asylum for the mentally troubled.  We have to pay someone to sit in the church every hour that it is open to prevent people from coming in to steal, and use the floors for toilets.  There is more but you get the idea.  We are a poor parish.  Even I don't get paid there.  I try to make money to support our meagre budget and considerable expenses in maintaining the old place.  The few hours that we are open allow us to do something rather than just close up and leave.  Leave San Francisco!  I will work harder.  I will even become more pious and orthodox.  Well...maybe some things are not possible.

Immigrants

I looked at the list of countries in Europe who were taking immigrants from the Middle East.  More than one of these countries that are opening their doors to immigrants are doing so in part because such countries are losing population.  Germans are not having sufficient German children to replace the dying Germans.  This vast migration of people is bringing children and young people, parents, to places that are lacking them.  Many of these immigrants are actually Arab Christians.  Hungary did not want to take any immigrants because one Hungarian official said that Hungary wanted to hold onto its Christian roots.  These European countries that take in immigrants will become exposed to the Islamic and Arab Christian world.  For so long there has been a geographic ethnic and religious separation of peoples.  We don't get to know and experience one another.  What would it be like for an Islamic family to be exposed to Dollywood in East Tennessee?  As a New Yorker, and an East Tennessee outsider, that is, Yankee, I thought Dollywood would be kind of silly and boring.  Was I wrong!  Dollywood is wonderful. The food, the rides, the shows, are all so much East Tennessee.  When we hide out in our little worlds all we preserve is narrow-mindedness.  Now if someone from East Tennessee were to visit the Bronx or Radio City Music Hall and the Rockettes...well, that might be too much.  I will have to ask my friend Moira, an East Tennessee girl.