No column of mine appeared in The Madera Tribune last Friday or Saturday because I was sick with a cold. My apologies. I'm feeling relatively much better this evening.
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By John Rieping | Published 15 Nov. 2013 in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved
If November were a week, I suppose we'd have reached hump day. If it were a year, surely we in North America would be in the season of the Cooldown. However it is dubbed, the middle is upon us. We tend to be selective in how we celebrate the passage of time, and the ways in which we do so reveal much about our thinking. In East Asia, a person would traditionally be reckoned one year old on the day of birth, and would add a year of age every new lunar year, which is shorter than our standard solar year. Those who fear the rising tally of years should be grateful to follow the Western system instead. But, as children and teenagers, who wouldn't like at least an extra nine months of "maturity" -- with the freedoms it sometimes brings? The newest pastor of St. Joachim Catholic Church in Madera, California will cross the symbolic threshold of another year of life Sunday, according to a nosy tattletale known as Facebook. For the curious, Rev. John Warburton shares his birth year with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the National Basketball Association as well as Hollywood stars Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver. Normally I wouldn't announce the existence milestones of those in Madera. Ultimately that would end in pain and bloodshed for me I fear (it would only be a matter of time). But the anniversary of birth seemed a providential coincidence, because my publisher asked me weeks ago to write an article or column on the subject -- of Warburton, not birthdays. A gracious hour-long interview followed, duly recorded by an electronic doohickey (not to be confused with a doodad or thingamabob). All that remained was the digestion of the mind and the use of a writer's craft. After diligent laziness and prompt procrastination, the day has finally arrived to... um... ask for more time. (If leaders of other faiths in Madera would be likewise patient with me, I'd welcome writing of them as well. Visit my website, listed at the tail of every column, to contact me.) Our life is truly outlined and governed by this intangible ghost we call time. In science, realists who follow the thinking of Sir Isaac Newton consider time as a basic invention of the mind to order and compare what happens -- as well as a dimension of reality itself. Some philosophers, in contrast, view time as completely abstract, unreal, and unmeasurable. Yet measure it we do, whether by years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes or seconds. We basically do so through the change it brings, and that is the one constant of time, so fickle in our experience. The late Pope John Paul II pondered the issue of time on June 4, 2000. He remarked: "Time is given to us to use and fill. Well-used time is so valuable because we can give it again as a valuable gift. While the proverb says, 'Time is money,' the Christian answers, 'Time is not paid with money. Time is worth more than gold.'" Referring to a shapely device once commonly used to track time in centuries long past, he suggested: "The sand that runs from the top to the bottom of the hourglass not only indicates that time goes by. The sand is at the same time a messenger of Christian hope. For it doesn't run into nothingness. In the bottom it is caught and gathered. "The frame of the hourglass reminds me of God's hands that hold us. In his hands, we can let ourself fall. They collect our time. Time lies in God's good hands. “Every evening in Night Prayer [as part of the Liturgy of the Hours] we pray, 'Lord, I trust in you, into your hands I place my life.' This petition doesn't apply only to individuals; it is an evening prayer that all people can make their own, if they entrust the success of their daily tasks and work ultimately in God, the Lord of all times." As we enter the often busy weeks ahead of Thanksgiving Day (U.S.) and the Advent, Christmas, football, and other seasons, let us not be haunted by the specter of time or the ghosts of holidays past, present or future. For those who believe in God, time is not a taskmaster or a doombringer. It is a gift we open each day. Let us receive it each morning with joy and make the best of what we have been given. In doing so, we re-gift it to God and others. May we fill it with love. By John Rieping | Published 12 Oct. 2013 in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved As any squirrel would tell you by its actions, winter is coming as the year cycles through its seasons. Though months away according to the calendar, its presence asserts itself early. (Photograph by John Rieping) Though technically months away, my favorite season of the year approaches. In other parts of the United States, it would be called springtime or even summer, but here in Central California we call it winter. Apart from some temporarily barren trees, the natural world thrives and -- in better years -- normally empty riverbeds flow with life-giving water. The seasons of Advent and Christmas heat hearts even as temperatures chill. I love the flexible aesthetics and comfort found in layers of clothing, and the ability to feel the sharp slap of cold air while warm at one's core. It is a time of life and the romance of raindrops on shelter or skin, the art of delicate frozen frosting on grass blades and windows, and the mystery and -- admittedly-- peril of unpredictable mists. Our winter begins with fog, frosts, and rain, yet ends with blooms. By the time North American spring officially arrives, most of the local flowering has finished and the slow dehydration of the landscape has begun. The climax of the dry and golden-hued days of summer reminds us we live in irrigated deserts and drained wetlands. This is not the cycle for many elsewhere in our nation. Locals would be stunned by the Easter snowfalls and seemingly-apocalyptic late spring and summer lightning storms common to parts of the Midwest -- not to mention the sight of sunbathers on a snowbank. Here even an amateur has a good chance at predicting the day's conditions. In Iowa, we college students would joke: if you don't like the weather, wait a few hours. Just as each region of the world has its own natural rhythms and patterns so it is with peoples and persons. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot..." (Koheleth/Ecclesiastes 3:1-2). We all have our favorite seasons of the soul and others we do not favor. Yet I believe all of them can be a gift if we trust in the source of all blessings. As the Oxford academic and cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) once said: God "can bless the most unpromising circumstances; He even can lead us forward by means of our mistakes; He can turn our mistakes into a revelation; He can convert us, if He will, through the very obstinacy, or self-will, or superstition, which mixes itself up with our better feelings, and defiles, yet is sanctified by our sincerity." Newman, a convert, is perhaps best remembered today for his poem, "The Pillar of Cloud." He wrote it while his sailing ship, en route to France, remained windless and motionless for a week in the Straits of Bonifacio. Before this trip, he had become ill in Italy and then was unable to find a ship heading to his home of England for nearly three weeks. He finally found an orange boat bound for Marseilles. Throughout he had struggled with impatience and homesickness. Of this he wrote: "Before starting from my inn (in Italy), I sat down on my bed and began to sob bitterly. My servant, who had acted as my nurse, asked what ailed me. I could only answer, 'I have work to do in England.' I was aching to get home." Yet God breathes over still waters and amidst the imprisoning calm of the sea Newman penned these words: "Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom, / Lead Thou me on! / The night is dark, and I am far from home, / Lead Thou me on! / Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see / The distant scene; one step enough for me. "I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou / Shouldst lead me on; / I loved to choose and see my path; but now / Lead Thou me on! / I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, / Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years! "So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still / Will lead me on. / O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till / The night is gone, / And with the morn those angel faces smile, / Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile! "Meantime, along the narrow rugged path, / Thyself hast trod, / Lead, Saviour, lead me home in childlike faith, / Home to my God. / To rest forever after earthly strife / In the calm light of everlasting life." By John Rieping | Published 5 Oct. 2013 in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved DEAR JOHN: I guess I would most accurately be described as agnostic. I want to believe, though, which makes me skeptical right off the bat, because I have to be even more discriminating… I've had times where I really thought I believed, like powerful epiphanies I just *knew* were the real thing. Now, I don't even know. It's like, when I believe enough to let it influence my actions, I can't get rid of the nagging feeling I'm wrong and giving into something that isn't the truth so that I can stop feeling so lonely. But then, when I decide it's all bull and feel like there's nothing out there, and we just *want* to believe it to assuage our existential angst, I have the nagging feeling I'm risking something really serious (Pascal's wager comes to mind). I wonder if existential angst isn't an inevitable result of our brains having evolved to make us fit for a world that, for humans at least, seems so different from the one we now occupy. Because civilization changed things drastically and rapidly, and survival in the traditional sense is less of a concern, affording us way more time to, well, think. And religion has flourished due to our discomfort at the prospect of being alone in the unknown. Or maybe the idea of a deity/religion really does come close to the truth, and so is the cause of and solution to that angst. -- P.C.H. DEAR P.C.H.: If spirituality depended upon civilization to flourish, I think history would be much different. But beliefs in the supernatural have existed long before humans even had the ability to write of them. They continue today. According to the CIA World Factbook, only about 2.01 percent of the world's population was atheist as of 2010. It seems safe to say that humanity tends to be religious, whether our spiritual beliefs are communal or independent. However you aren't asking about such beliefs in general. You're questioning whether they are true or just embraced for consolation. The latter concern is easily refuted. There have been countless persons of faith who have held fast to spiritual beliefs despite persecution, sacrifices, and their own doubts -- even to the point of dying for them as martyrs. Consider the missionary Catholic nun Mother Teresa (1910-1997), a 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner known for her religious congregation's "wholehearted and free service to the poorest of the poor." For nearly 50 years before her death, she reportedly felt no satisfaction in her beliefs. In 1959-60, she wrote to her spiritual director, "In my soul, I feel just the terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing." Yet, despite persistent feelings of "interior darkness," she continued to believe in God, and died peacefully. Why? Because her convictions weren't based upon her feelings or any relief that came from them. She was convinced they were true despite how she sometimes felt. How do people develop such confidence? Trust. We often trust the testimony of the natural world, persons in it now and in the past, our own experience and more. Though sometimes unreliable, these can also help us glimpse beyond what is material to a deeper meaning and a spiritual dimension. We can realize there is a divine creator. Can we grasp divinity fully? No. But we don't have to have complete understanding to recognize and pursue truth any more than I have to know nuclear physics to believe atomic bombs exist. Rev. Maximilian Kolbe, a martyr in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, once commented, "'A mystery of faith': in some this expression arouses love and gratitude, but it discourages others; and for still others it becomes a stumbling block. These last declare: 'I believe only what my reason is capable of grasping.' To begin with, we might call attention to the obvious absurdity involved in such an affirmation; for if we ourselves experience something, we no longer need to rely on others to believe it. Furthermore, do these gentlemen really hold as true only what they themselves have investigated?" As the U.K. author and journalist G.K. Chesterton noted, "Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all." ("Orthodoxy") So fear not. Healthy religious faith is not a crutch. It is a ladder. God, “you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” (Bishop Augustine of Hippo, Africa) By John Rieping | All rights reserved | Published 14 Sept. 2013 in The Madera Tribune Several months ago, a fellow Maderan asked that I dedicate some of my columns to answering questions posed by readers. I heartily agreed with the suggestion and then, most conscientiously, procrastinated. But that ends… later. Because I can't offer such columns without questions. I have had some in the past, but I doubt anyone wants me to keep re-answering them. So until the end of 2013 here's my offer. If you have a Christianity-related question on theology, philosophy, history, or culture, send it to me via my website (http://wambly.weebly.com) or the office of The Madera Tribune. If your question is published by me and I know your name and mailing address, I will send a gift card for St. Marello Bookstore (www.marellobookstore.org) in Madera. Any answers I give will be based on my own imperfect understanding and knowledge. Fallibility is guaranteed. If I'm totally stumped, I will seek out an expert on the subject and pass on the reply. Imagine that? Actual journalism! Tell your plans On a related note, I would gladly publish information about upcoming local Christian events, whether Protestant or Catholic, in this column. I would prefer the details be sent to me via my website, but if they're given through the Tribune please specify they are for my column. I will also need a contact name and telephone number (or email) that I can share with those who want more information. Men's conference I have been asked to spread the word of a local men's conference organized by Catholic Men of Faith for 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 12 at Holy Spouse's Hall, 310 North I St. Speakers will be Matthew Arnold, Steve Ruda, Rick Sarkisian, and Mike Haddock. Mass will be celebrated by the Rt. Rev. Armando Ochoa, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Fresno. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. For the record, I'm planning on attending myself, and I'll gladly lend you my ear there. Just be sure to return it. I only have one spare. The conference cost is $25 at the door or $20 for those who register by Oct. 6. Those who bring a teenaged son with them only need to pay $10 more for the son's registration. For information, call Hector Uribe at 474-9326, Chris Post at (209) 617-6683, or Bruce Simmons at 706-1160. Ask for prayers The same local association, Catholic Men of Faith, started a prayer network Wednesday. Anyone, regardless of religion, can request prayers from the group's members by visiting www.catholicmen.org/prayer-network/. Does your church or club have a prayer chain? Let me know and I'll share your contact information here as well. The columnist's aunt, Sister Conception Lozano of the Company of Mary, holds her 2-year-old brother Rico. She professed her vows of consecration to God a few couple of weeks before he was born and more than 60 years ago. She died Sept. 5, 2013. Photograph courtesy of the Lozano Family. My Japanese aunt
My earliest memories of my "Tia" (aunt) Connie were of her visits to my grandmother's home in Fresno. She would always have exotic gifts from Japan, where she taught as a missionary Sister of the Company of Mary. I enjoyed the seaweed crackers and the squares of colored origami paper with instructions for folding them into animals and other shapes. It didn't seem strange to have a Mexican aunt who was, in my eyes, Japanese. She was family. Sister Conception loved her decades as a teacher in Japan, and I am sure it was only obedience to her superiors that brought her back to California for retirement. She saw her latest assignment as another opportunity to serve and used her time at the retirement convent to minister to elderly sisters. I last visited her a decade ago at Viña de Lestonnac Convent in Temecula after leaving Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon -- where I had taken temporary three-year vows. She had just begun her time at her new home herself and missed her missionary activities. Yet she encouraged me during my peaceful stay before I completed my journey back to Madera. She died about 5 p.m. Sept. 5. For years, she abandoned to God's mysterious providence the gift of her great mind, which Alzheimer's disease slowly shrouded. Rest at last, tia. "Death be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so, / For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, / Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. "From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, / Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, / And soonest our best men with thee do go, / Rest of their bones, and souls delivery… "One short sleep past, we wake eternally, / And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die." -- John Donne By John Rieping | All rights reserved | Published 30 August 2013 in The Madera Tribune
As one of my part-time jobs, I serve as a security guard. Knocking against my thigh with each step, my heavy-duty flashlight hangs from my utility belt. No batarangs, smoke bombs, or other superhero gadgets dangle beside it, but sometimes it really shines, so-to-speak. More than a week ago I returned home after my shift while a large portion of the west side of Madera, California, had no electricity, doubtlessly due to a late summer thunderstorm. My oversized cylindrical companion suddenly held an indispensable and rare power. Though I saw neighbors relying on cigarettes and cell phones to see by, it appeared no one had a simple flashlight at hand that evening. Yet what a difference it made when trying to unload groceries and navigate inside and out. Disappointment mixed with relief when the alternating current surged anew, a seldom noticed hum met ears, and blocks of the city lit up as usual in a moment. My flashlight, no longer the brightest luminary, seemed to dim and my nascent Internet withdrawal symptoms disappeared. There is much we take for granted in the "civilized" Western world, which so easily pampers and entertains us. We tend to forget our fragility and our dependence on others. My father recently reminded me of what my eldest nephew, Michael, did to amuse himself as a tween about 20 years ago. While staying at my parents' minuscule farm, he took a long tree branch, hay bale twine, and a "single tree" to harness my dad's mule, Jenny, to a red Radio Flyer wagon. With his improvised setup, he then drove his sister Bernadette and cousin Joshua like a charioteer for hours around the property. My father would be surprised to see similar ingenuity from his youngest grandchildren. Whether young or old, we rely more and more on technology even in our play. His laments evoke twinges of guilt personally, because I've always been a more abstract than hands-on creative sort. As a child, I would skin my knee and play in the mud, but I loved books more than any of that. When computers and video game consoles arrived belatedly at our home, I rejoiced and explored their potential for play and creativity as deeply as I could. Geek, nerd, and dork were appropriate labels I embraced long before the first two of the trio ceased to be insulting. I dreamed, among many other things, of being a roboticist or computer programmer. There's nothing wrong with all that, of course. Yet life is more than a binary system. Despite my preferences, I knew manual labor. We children would assist our dad with his landscaping, tree trimming, and janitorial service around Madera and occasionally beyond. I remember waking up a few hours before school to help my dad sweep or mop St. Joachim Church before eating breakfast and attending classes for the day. The human-like statues in shadowy side aisles in the large building spooked me greatly before dawn, and the shiny brass cross on the main aisle doors gouged a few ounces of skin, flesh, and fat from the side of my chin once when I failed to get out of their way fast enough. Summer days could start early and end late as we pushed lawnmowers across the growing green blades that blanketed the yards of customers. But between tending to local fiefdoms, oh, the joy of an after-lunch nap as well as that of an ice cream sandwich or even water from a hose on a sweat-drenching afternoon. I never quite appreciated the physical work then as I would in my year as a novice monk at Mount Angel Abbey in St. Benedict, Oregon, not far from Woodburn, Salem, and Portland. We novices would often work under the late Father Dominic, a former college professor whose life had changed mid-stream when the abbot reassigned him from the ivory tower of academics to the fields and orchards. I felt the satisfaction from spending one's self fully on a tangible task. Though never a vegetable admirer, the tomatoes I helped cultivate and harvest for a season were the best I ever tasted. I also saw the humility and wisdom of the priest who worked along with us, a passionate bespectacled scholar turned leathery farmer with muscles that were legendary. During my years of temporary monastic vows that followed, Fr. Dominic's health faltered. I recall being by his bedside near the end, and at his funeral after. My heart wept. May we never forget the beauty of the simpler powers and gifts of life, and the labor that makes possible so much that many take for granted. Thank you, God, for all of them. By John Rieping | All rights reserved | Published 24 August 2013 in The Madera Tribune
A fictional little boy who was being punished studied his mother with fascination. Finally he asked, "Why are some of your hairs white, mom?" Irked by the day and the reminder that a few strands of her hair were indeed turning gray, she replied, "Well, every time you do something wrong and make me upset or cry, one of my hairs turns white." He pondered this a long time and then said softly, "How come all of grandma's hairs are white?" I suspect many of us can easily forget the words of a Jewish rabbi spoken less than two millennia ago: "as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you." (Matthew 7:2) One needn't wait until Judgment Day before God to discover the truth of this warning. In a different and far lesser sense, it occurs even now. A 2010 psychology study by Dustin Wood, Peter Harms, and Simine Vazire concluded "how we perceive others in our social environments reveals much about our personality." How do our judgments expose us? As an ancient text on Jewish laws and history, the Talmud, said: "We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are." In the study, university students were asked to rate the good and bad traits of acquaintances. Researchers found that those with more positive characteristics themselves, according to a self-rating and the opinions of others, were much more likely to see others positively. Yet the sunnier students didn't simply assume others were similar to themselves. Instead they were able to recognize good in others even if they did not share in it. How positively students saw others also matched their own level of likability and their satisfaction with their own lives. In contrast, those who viewed acquaintances darkly were more likely to have a personality disorder, such as narcissism or depression. The students were not merely tested once for this study. They were tested across a year, and surprisingly the results were stable. The fickleness of momentary moods didn't seem to have an impact. Nonetheless, I trust Jesus had something deeper in mind than psychology when he spoke long ago. Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) of Savannah, Georgia, wrote popular short stories, novels, and more, often in a style known as Southern Gothic. The genre uses macabre twists to highlight the values of the U.S. South. Her tales often featured an ugly and morally flawed character who unpleasantly received God's help to see more clearly. She explained in a letter, "All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful." You never saw her dramas illustrated by the late painter Thomas Kinkade or in television movies sponsored by a greeting card company. She confronted and challenged rather than soothed. But she was unapologetic and even defiant when faced with the critics of her day. "Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter," she said. "Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look." Some, such as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, have said the greatest danger to Christianity is we Christians, who wound self and others as we fall short of its ideals. According to a vision by the apostle John, Jesus lamented those followers who were neither hot nor cold. He preferred either of those to the lukewarm, which he viewed as vomit worthy (Rev. 3:15-16). That points to a deeper truth behind the admonition of Jesus to not be judgmental of others. How many of us are truly and completely on fire for God? We should pray no one gets what he or she deserves from God, but rather that they receive God's mercy -- for that is our own best hope as well. We all sin. As rock band Reliant K sang, "The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair." So how can we be hot and not lukewarm? With God's daily help, love self and others as God loves you, and love God most of all. |
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