The world is but a stage

Have you ever wondered what part you are ideally suited to play?  I mean you are watching a TV show or movie and you ask yourself, if I were in this episode which role would I be capable of playing. 

Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I’m strange, it wouldn’t be the first time.  But I think about it.  It’s not like I have every liked the theater or acting or even people getting all dramatical.  So for me I aspire to playing a very minor part but playing it in the very best possible way.  I guess the real question I confront is, since I can’t act, what character behaves in ways I see myself acting.

One of my girls wasn’t feeling well the other day and so was on the couch watching non-stop reruns of, “American Gladiators.” I think I could do better than Hulk Hogan, who is a co-host to the show,  but it’s largely because he relies entirely on clichés (as do the people interviews).  Anyway, I thought the best role for me in this show was the referee (back in my day I would have been a contestant – let me tell you).  All he says before every segment of the competition is, “Is the contest ready? Is the gladiator ready?” and then blows his whistle.

The reality is though I feel I would be best suited for a person in the crowd.  Maybe a notable person in the crowd that gets one line or yells.  I could also be either a soldier or cowboy that gets shot.  I wonder if all those soldiers or cowboys tell their grandkids about how the got blown up on the beach scene in, “Saving Private Ryan.” 

I question whether I could pull off the role of a henchman.  Not the big bad guy but one of his cronies.  Maybe like the guys Batman and Robin continually beat the crap out of.  I could do that but if I was asked to shoot someone because I was mad would the audience buy a guy looking like me behaving so evilly?

I am not totally sure what the point in all this is but I think there is probably some real life evaluation of character and role that would be far more useful.  What is the ideal role God has created for me?  Am I living it now or is there something better suited for my gifts?  How do you know?  I could be playing the role of McCloud when I really should be playing Jim Rockford or who knows maybe Fred Sanford.  Am I called to be a lead or a spear-chucker?  What role do you see yourself playing?

 

 

Bad News

I went to the doctor today.  It’s been a while. I don’t like doctors or dentists or barbers or mechanics either.  To get right to the cold, hard truth of the matter, I am writing with some very bad news.  I am dying.

The blood tests haven’t come back yet, but I guess I knew.  I knew it when I looked into my doctors eyes.  In fact, while not exactly a hypochondriac, I guess I knew it all along.

The prognosis was a little fuzzy.  It might be today, it might be awhile from now.  He was certain.

I am struck now with what to do.  Do I quit my job and live large for my remaining days?  Do I spend my time in the chapel hoping to improve my odds?  Maybe it’s time to make amends with all those I’ve harmed. 

I will probably plod along as I have for my first forty-three years.  I suppose I’ll take time to smell the roses, enjoy the sunsets, hug my loved ones.  I guess I don’t expect a dramatic change in lifestyle.

I’m told I am improve my condition by eating better, sleeping more, not letting the small things bother me.  I guess that would have been the same advice if I wasn’t dying but now that I know, I guess I’ll re-examine my lifestyle and potentially prolong the quantity and quality of life.

Don’t get all upset.  I am just one person.  People die every day.  Life will go own well with or without me.  I’ll keep my head up and try to appreciate the days I have available and I would implore you to do the same even though I’ve burdened you with my awful situation.

What would you do if you where given a lethal diagnosis?  What would you do if you were at the doctor this morning and he told you that you would probably die in around 35 or so years from now? 

 

Fishing for answers

The past weekend I was one of the desperate fisher people who elected to sacrifice comfort for the opportunity to trick a fish into biting something that looked edible but wasn’t.

It started out raining and cool and got significantly worse by the end of the day.  At times I thought I was snowmobiling as we moved from place to place across the lake.  Is it really worth it, I kept asking myself.  Surely, there would be better days to fish especially considering that many thought the water would not be warm enough to have fish biting in the first place.

I did learn few things during the day.  My rain jacket is far from water proof.  It slowed down the rain but I was soaked through four layers of clothing on three different fishing shifts.  I learned that fish don’t really bit if the temperature of the water is in the high forties – at least not on Lake Ida.  I learned, once again,  that to catch fish, you must think like a fish. 

In the end I caught eight fish.  My two fishing companions caught one collectively.  Of course the debate for the day and the night was whether fishing is based on luck or skill.  My mates naturally were attributing my relative success to circumstantial factors and luck.  I basically said countered with saying something like a four to two score could be explaining by random factors, buy me catching fish at the rate of 16 to 1, indicates skill was very clearly the factor at play.

Per usual, I wondered if there were parallels in other arenas of life.  One thing that has been on my mind lately is attending church services.  From my perspective, it might be akin to reading about fishing and conscientiously fishing versus throwing a line in the water and hoping fortune favors us.  Is the person who makes the decision to attend church regularly better equipped to make decisions that will benefit society in the long run (i.e. morally sound decisions) then someone who doesn’t?

Attendance at services is down and the surveys done indicate that it is getting worse.  So how do you convince someone to attend more often?  They must obviously not place a value on attending and so the question is what value does attending have and how would you communicate this to others?  Further, you would probably have to make the case in mostly non-religious terms in that if the non-attenders had a strong faith relationship, they would likely already be attending.

From a resource allocation point of view, I wonder about the non-attendance issue relative to the amount of our resources we invest.  The parish invests a large amount in the school and we do so, in theory, to best equip our youth to practice and carry on our faith.  At the spring concert last week, I looked at the faces and started wondering who some of these people are and why don’t I ever see them at weekend masses.  The parish is investing heavily into the faith development of their children but if the parents don’t value practicing the faith, are we wasting the investment? The school is important in faith development but I would say the parents are going to have greater impact then the school will likely have. So are we wasting our investment if a good percentage of the families are closer to seeing our school as a cheap private school rather than an additional way to have their children grow up morally equipped because they practice their faith?

I don’t want to pick on school parents because non-attendance is prevalent among other parish groups as well.  Children and adults participate in various activities but do not attend and many neither participate in activities or attend mass.

I don’t want to come across at being judgmental of people who don’t attend mass, but we as a church must come to terms with either expressing the value and importance of attending mass, or we need to be prepared for an increasingly casual attitude by our members with respect to adhering to the faith. 

Do you attend mass regularly why?  If you don’t why don’t you go more often?  What is the value of attending mass in your life?  Does it prepare you to deal with decision-making in your life?  Do you think the people that attend mass are better for having done so?  In what ways?  Do you think our parish would be better if more people attended regularly?  What would you do or say to get more to come?

Are there parallels between an increasingly casual attitude toward practicing one’s faith and a decision-making by individuals and society that emphasizes the immediate and personal well-being over the long-term good for the greatest number? 

 

Time…

How would your describe time and your relationship with it?  Think about it, what is time and maybe the more important question for all of us is what should our understanding of time be?

I woke up at roughly 3:45 this morning and was in some sort of recurring half asleep/half awake cycle with the same thought/dream blending together.  I don’t remember all the particulars but when I was more awake then asleep, the cliché, ‘time doesn’t not stand still,’ was the thought I had. 

I started thinking about references to time as in, time goes by, time races by, time stands still, time is on your side.  From there I wondered into thinking about how we track time with respect to clocks and calendars and birthdays and stages of life.  This lead to thinking about trying to comprehend eternity relative to a day or hour.  At this point, I fell back to sleep for a couple of hours.

When I woke up I was thinking about time in relationship to economics and salvation.  How does our treatment of our available time reflect our values?  Does our treatment of time reflect an appropriate perspective?  You can’t really treat every day as if it’s your last day on earth but you can’t go through life thinking you will live forever.

From a professional point of view, I think some of the art of the ministry of administration is being able to balance the spectrum of time perception.  On the one hand, you need to keep the lights on and the doors open at the parish but on the other hand, you have to comprehend that decisions can have eternal consequences.  You want to provide opportunities for people to improve their lives and assure the eternal wellbeing of their soul but you also must spend time thinking about some short-term, less meaningful aspects of parish business like getting rid of dandelions.

On a personal level, I like to use Bill Murray’s character in, “Ground Hog Day,” as a model for a healthy perspective on time.  The movie is about a guy that gets stuck living the same day over and over.  He evolves in his understanding of time and life as he continues to live the same day over and over.  Eventually he comes to understand that each day is an opportunity to grow and to build and create relationships and to love.  His metamorphosis to this understanding highlights some unhealthy perceptions of our time.

I am not sure exactly what the point in all this is but I guess I would recommend that we all think about the eternal in the context of a day or a week and reconcile our behavior in light of these two perspectives.  Does our lifestyle today reflect an understanding of the eternal life of our soul?  Do we really believe in eternity our is that too abstract to impact our lifestyle?  Even if you have trouble with eternity, is does your lifestyle reflect an understanding of an improved self/world in five, 10, or 15 years?  What do you/we need to change in our behavior to reflect a longer-term approach?