Parting Shots

For those of you who don't know, i am hopping on a flight to France this afternoon.  I'll be teaching English to French students until May, so i won't be in the states for a bit.  So i'll leave you with some parting shots.

One of my missions in life is to give life meaning to those around me.  And when you invest your heart in other people, it's tough to leave them behind because, as the Bible says, "where your treasure is there also will your heart be" (Mt. 6:21).  That verse is one of those 'perspective checkers' for me.  I like to come back to it every now and again to make sure my heart is chasing the right treasure map.

But, if we're being totally candid, i'd like to let y'all know that the following excerpt is (probably) my favorite (definitely in the top 5):

"If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but [also] everyone for those of others." - Philippians 2:1-4

It is clear and challenging: a plea for unity and a challenge for humility.

And in those words i find my daily challenge.  Sometimes i fail and sometimes i succeed, but i'll be damned if i give up the fight (literally).  

So, America, as i leave for France, let my cross also be yours.  And be encouraged that this is a worthy battle to fight, because in fighting i have found the merit of struggling.  It's not always beautiful or shiny, but it is well worth the work.  In fighting you escape the monotony of superfluousness, you dig in the dirt, you expose your core and you see yourself in the reality of reality.  

P.S.:  I'll be giving a more day-to-day (or week-to-week) account of my dealings over at wordpress. holla back.

Young People

Hi. something i read today:

"a great problem that faces us young people today isn't that we do not search for truth, that we do not seek love, or that we have no yearning of virtue. it's that we've been taught that truth is fluid, that love is self-interested and that virtue is but only for heroes. so when we get old enough to go out and look for ourselves, after so much running around, we get discouraged in what we find and give up. we take what's given to us...and then we make more of it.  So if we're given filth, and that's what we know, we'll make more filth.  It'd be one big filthy party and everybody will love it...at least for a little while, until we realize it for what it is, get bored and go home, except that we don't know where to call home. it's like we don't know what it's like to be clean.  we understand what's in front of us, the immediate, isn't everything. we know there's more, but we don't know how to get it. we can feel that desire, nagging to be satisfied; a fire that needs to be fanned ...it's like we're searching for our hearts and we've been given the wrong treasure map.* our treasure will be buried and lost until we are equipped with the tools to find it." 

*Matthew 6:21 - "where your treasure is, there your heart will also be"

How Strange

One of my favorite songs (or makeup of songs, or mashups or n'importe quel name you give it) is Medley by Third Day. It's from one of their worship albums: Offerings II: All I Have to Give.  The song, as noted, is exactly that; a medley, of different songs all put together into a 7:35 praise song.  Now, i'm normally not huge on Christian music because, let's be honest, it's kinda drab.  But i've always digged this groove...many many years. Why? i'm so glad i asked.

All i want is love, and i confess to this, and i will take it, Lord, all you have to give...(merrhhh, i'll keep that in reserve. it's a whole other subject in it's own right)

here we go:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

gets me every time:

...the things of Earth will grow STRANGELY dim...(in the light of His glory and His grace)

("for where your treasure is, there your heart will also be" - Mt. 6:21)


just a little reflection for you

may your desire to love overtake your desire to be loved.  you are already loved, greater than any amount you could desire.

Encounters of a kind Kind

I have a little story to tell.

I was scheduled to work 3p-11p on Easter Sunday.  Admittedly, i was quite disheartened and a bit embittered when i came to know this unsightly and unfortunate occurrence.  But, hey, that's the risk you run when you work in the hospitality industry.  Those of you who know me, know that i dearly love my family (and those of you who have met my family, you understand why).  They are, in a word, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (in a related note, if anyone can locate a jacket similar to Dick Van Dyke's, i'm a 42s). So any gathering i am unable to go home to see them is troubling to my heart.  I love them. I want to be near to them.

So, on the Saturday before Easter, i got in touch with one of my dear friends, Angelle, and orphaned myself out to be a part of their Bollich Easter lunch celebration (yes, i did invite myself. sorry, mom, but i didn't want to celebrate Easter alone. how sad would that have been?).

Best. Decision. Ever.

Suffice to say Mr. Andrew grills with skillz to pay the billz (see those z's? that means it's serious).  And even the canned beans were pretty good (j/k j/k, Monica...you did a great job! and at least you contributed more than Daniel, meh meh meh).  I had to turn away a third helping for fear of taking a mid-shift nap.

But as delicious as the food was, what was truly beautiful was having the opportunity to sit down and enjoy a meal with people who love each other and know each other so, so well.  To laugh and to joke along with them was both humbling and uplifting in that: 1. i had done nothing to earn a seat at their family table (well, i did bring wine) but 2. that they thought well enough of me to be with them in their most precious moments together.   And in the midst of this encounter, my heart was inspired and reminded of something i read just days after Pope Francis was elected:

"He who encounters Jesus Christ feels the impulse to witness Him or to give witness of what he has encountered, and this is the Christian calling. To go and give witness. You can’t convince anybody. The encounter occurs. You can prove that God exists, but you will never be able, using the force of persuasion, to make anyone encounter God. This is pure grace. Pure grace. In history, from its very beginning until today, grace always primerea, grace always comes first, then comes all the rest." - Cardinal Bergoglio (Pope Francis)

and in some funny way, Easter meant a little more to me. that 'encounter' meant something to me. it was personal. it was real. and it was good.  They could just have easily turned me away, but they didn't.  I asked an invitation and they showed an orphan a home. They brought joy to a bitter man.  They lit a candle for a darkened wanderer.  They brought food (delicious, delicious food) to a proud and starved beggar.  They welcomed me, on Easter Sunday, to encounter the love of God.

so...really, i guess what i'm trying to say are two things:
1.  THANK YOU, Bollich family.  You are a kind people.
and
2.  that you never really know the impact you have on someone you allow into your life. 

so i encourage you all to allow the love of God be the end of your actions, and to allow that love set you as a sky on fire.

"...I have endeavored to act only for Him. Whatever becomes of me, whether I be lost or saved, I will always continue to act purely for the love of God. I shall have this good at least that till death I shall have done all that is in me to love Him." - Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (pdf version, here)

 Happy Easter,
 Daytona

 P. S.: for the record, Daniel did indeed provide beer as well as selfless acts of kindness for his pregnant wife.

Lent, Lent, Lent, Lent

As the weather outside suggests, it feels like a good time for brainstorming.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lent is upon us.  You know Lent, right? that reason we have Mardi Gras (and the reason it is always on a Tuesday), that begins on Ash Wednesday, that ends 40 days after it begins, that is based on and modeled after the biblical story of the temptation of Jesus in the desert, that ushers in the Easter season? that leave-you-guilt-ridden-because-you-forget-to-not-eat-meat-on-Friday liturgical season designed to suck the fun out of life before Easter comes and goes "expecto patronum" on that mug? you know, Lent!

To many people,  Lent means "no chocolate for 5 weeks." "Facebook fast" and "no meat on Friday...but delicious shrimp po-boys, crawfish boils and seafood gumbo are all go." ... I mean, chocolate IS delicious, social networking can be time-wasting and seafood isn't technically considered meat...everybody has their own degree of sacrifice. Anyway...

the other day i came across a pretty neat link on Lifeteen.com on Creative things to do for Lent and was amused, entertained and enlightened.  Check it out. it's worth the time you were going to spend perusing Facebook (or reading my words, for that matter)...


building on that fun little article, i dug up some of my favorite lenten sacrifices. i've done a couple, most are from my friends. and as always, these are actual penances...penanceses...penacanti...penanci...panini?...pensieves?...penances from actual people (names hidden so as to protect confidentiality and to promote the virtue of prudence):

- "I befriended someone i hated."
- "I met a new person every day."
- "did ALL my homework and assignments on my own and did not let my classmates to cheat off of me...it wasn't popular."
- "not skip any classes."
- "ate veggies instead of candy."
- "when i wanted to buy a candy bar, i'd put the money i would have spent on it into a charity box."
- "mine was to be vulnerable and ask out my crush" (<-- are="" cats="" heh.="" married="" now="" out="" these="" turns="">
- "Read Part III of the Catechism: Life in Christ"
- "No A/C or radio in the car...in Louisiana, that got kinda hot."
- "I'm really messy so I kept my room clean. It was harder than it sounds."
- "gave up fast food. so i inadvertently ended up fasting a lot."
- "Read an Encyclical each Sunday"
- "I gave up drinking beer and put the beer money in a jar."
- "i began tithing. i felt like i got punched in the gut at first, but once Lent was over i got used to it."
- "I gave up shaving...it was itchy."
- "One of the toughest things i've done was one year, any time i was itching, i didn't scratch. i just let it itch until it went away. THAT was tough."
- "I always complained about being out of shape, so i ran a mile every day. I didn't run on Sundays. At the beginning my time was just over 10 minutes but by the end i was well under 7 minutes! and i felt better about myself. I even started running 2 miles a day in the last two weeks!"


there are SO MANY things you can do during lent to prepare for Easter. please let me remind you that WHAT we give up (or add on) isn't nearly as important as WHY we give up (or add on). why is WHY more important than WHAT? for the bible tells me so:

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing." - 1 Cor. 13:1-3

i understand that love in this context is a "what"...but it can also be the answer to "why" you do what you do.
so no matter what you choose to do for Lent; do it for love.

In all things, charity.

Peace,
Daytona

Fr. Doyle, in our hearts

I write with a heavy heart.  I just received word that one of my dear priests has passed from this life to the next. Fr. Doyle was assigned to St. Theodore for, gosh, as long as i can remember.  Certainly since my formative years as an adolescent going through the Life Teen program over in good ole Moss Bluff, Louisiana.  He was elderly and had been ill for a little while, so it was no surprise that his time was at hand.  But it still hurts, it's still painful, to say goodbye to someone who means so much to myself and so many others.

He suffered a stroke years before i knew him.  Before he did, I've been told he could recite the order of the mass from memory, that he was incredibly brilliant, that he had rare credentials in studying Canon Law, that he wrestled anacondas and yetis in the amazon with a bowie knife.  I may have made that last one up, but more impressive than the stories of this man's intellect was the love i witnessed from his heart.  That's not to say i think that any time developing the intellect is wasted, by all means, intellect yourself!  I'm saying that the writing and preaching of philosophical and theological ideas pales in comparison to experiencing that which God has entrusted us to be to one another. That's why talking to people face-to-face is better than a phone call, e-mail or text. Speaking of faces, please do yourself a favor and  read Until We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis.  I'm pretty sure you won't regret it.

So yeah, i only knew part of the man part of his life, but i like to think i knew the better part of the man for the better part of his life.  He had a quick, dry wit (drier than Hawkeye liked his martinis), a charitable smile, wile hair and a sort of a John Wayne walk, nearly always with a dog and/or a prayer book.  He loved his animals, gosh did he love them.  And a i can assure you, without a doubt, he loved me.  No question.  I've been blessed to have been given incredible examples of love in my life.  So many people. It's not fair.  And he was definitely one of them.  He made sure and listen to anything i spoke, as difficult as it was for me to articulate my heart to him. He made sure a heart was heard and spoke simply and plainly, accordingly.  I often went to him for confession.  Each time he would stand up, give me a huge bear hug and tell me he loved me.  He never let me forget it.

and as selfish as it may sound, the source of much of this pain comes in knowing that i'll never again (in this life) see someone who loved me.  Because love is unique; each person gives and receives it differently.  Part of it's beauty is in the specifically unique dynamic of the persons involved. But as Ecclesiastes reminds us, there's a time for all things.

In closing, i'll leave y'all with a few of his quirky, dog bone dry Doyle-isms:

"Humility is my proudest possession."
"Love me, love my dogs."
"I'm not afraid of the dark. I'm afraid of what's in it."
"Thanks...be........to..............................God."
"Sometimes i just can't see how a 6 foot man fits into a little piece of bread."

a moment from Coach Rob

In what seems like another life, i played football at McNeese State University (i wasn't exactly an all-american).  I had the wonderful opportunity to play along side a number of truly talented guys while being coached by many good men.  The wide receivers coach, Coach Henry, who kinda looks like a pharaoh/Terrell Owens hybrid, was always good for a few one-liners; most memorably, "Football is easy." Not to say that we were that much better than everyone else, but to say that with everything else in life, football was simple, a game...and playing the game is the easy part.

Who helped remind us that football was easy was our strength and conditioning coach, Coach Rob, a former Marine who walked with a slight limp, was infectiously energetic and possessed an unquenchable passion for human achievement.  Most people, in a word, described him as intense.  He loved sweat.  He loved his players.  He loved America.  His workouts pissed me off, wore me out, left my legs involuntarily shaking and helped make me a better man.  Coach Rob challenged us physically and mentally, and for that i'm incredibly grateful.

What this little story time with uncle Dayton was all about is that every Veteran's Day i think of  one specific, resounding moment during one of our summer workouts with Coach Rob.

Usually workout groups were split into 4 people each.  As per usual throughout the workout, if you weren't lifting you were either spotting or shooting the breeze with anyone who was willing to catch wind of it.  Those were good times. It made workouts bearable. But i digress.

One day, in the midst of some fun political banter, one of my teammates had a slip of the tongue in criticizing the role of our military.  I don't remember exactly what he said but it was something along the lines of our military being useless...and i can still feel the stinging silence between his words and the reply of Coach Rob. Do you remember as a child when you accidentally bumped that first vase/statue/anything-way-too-valuable-to-keep-out-when-kids-are-around off the table?  That feeling right after it crashes on the floor? That it-just-hit-the-fan, this-just-got-real moment?  That moment...

...and we waited for his response, because one doesn't simply upset Coach Rob.

and his response was quite poignant:

"Young man, I sure hope that when you lay your sweet little head on your sweet little pillow in your sweet little bed tonight that you remember why you can do it safely.  And i hope you remember all those who can't do the same because they're out there putting their lives on the line to protect your ass for your freedom. And you to take them for granted.  Because God knows these men and women sure as hell don't do it for themselves. They do it for you.  And I hope you remember that."


i'm not sure if he did, but i certainly remember that.  and it's stayed with me for all these years, reminding me of the gratitude we are to have for those who give themselves in service to you and me, Democrats, Republicans and every person in between in this lovely nation we call the United States of America...even if we're at eachother's throats most of the time.

(side note/thinking point) These servicemen and servicewomen lay their necks on the line for us to live as we do. our path to freedom has been paved in blood, battle and sacrifice. do we truly respect their sacrifice by the way we govern our freedom? 


"Give us a clear vision on where to stand and for what to stand--because unless we stand for something, we shall surely fall for anything." - Peter Marshall