Lord, Save Me From Chaos

In my last week here in Camden, NJ, I have been given an opportunity to offer a reflection on the readings at two of the masses this weekend. My hope is that you will read this for what it is, a short reflection on our readings, and not what it could be, a comprehensive theology of theodicy (For that, please see my posts from two years ago, Why Do We Suffer Pts 1, 2, and 3). There are things that I omit and things that I gloss over because, well, it’s a ten minute reflection. Enjoy!

jesus-pulls-peter-from-water11

A couple weeks ago, I helped the Student Leaders here at St. Anthony’s plan a trip to Washington, D.C. The plan was for the students to go to the Capitol building for a tour, go next door to meet their Senator, spend a few hours site-seeing, and then head up to one of the friars’ parishes in Maryland for a presentation. A fool-proof plan with every detail accounted for! What could go wrong? Well, let me tell you: we couldn’t find parking so the students were almost late, one of the volunteers lost the keys to the van on the grass of the Capitol, we got caught in some rain walking down the mall, and then on our way to the parish, we got lost, stuck in traffic because of the power lines down everywhere, and one of our drivers was pulled over by the cops. We eventually showed up to the parish so late that the students had no time to practice before their presentation. So much for our fool-proof plan!

The fact of the matter is that our world is chaotic. No matter how hard we try, there will always be things around us that we cannot control. This is certainly the case in our readings today. For an ancient person, there was nothing more chaotic than nature: crushing winds, fire, earthquakes, and the roaring sea. Not having the scientific knowledge that we have, no smartphone to tell them the weather or where to go, the natural forces of the world were unpredictable, uncontrollable, and completely chaotic. While our chaos may be a little more domestic, it is overwhelming just the same. There are bills to pay, kids to take care of, shopping, cooking and cleaning, things to fix, people to deal with, microphones that don’t work, and emergencies to take care of. And if your life is anything like mine, every single one of these things will happen on the same day. Our lives are chaotic. How could we ever find time for ourselves, let alone prayer?

Our natural tendency is to run away from chaos: we deny anything that we can’t control and try to escape the world of disruption and unpredictability. Do you ever say to yourself, “If only I had more time…if things weren’t so crazy… I’d be able to pray better, I could take care of myself more. There’s just too much in the way right now.” This is how I felt my first year with the friars. Living in Wilmington, DE, I was in a house a block away from the noise of I-95, in a neighborhood that is known for violence, at a church that routinely had quinceañeras that would go until one in the morning. Let’s just say that it was a chaotic experience. You can imagine my excitement, then, when I found out that we would be going on an 8-day silent retreat in the middle of nowhere New York. Silence. Serenity. No chaos at all. I was amazed when I got there that I could hear the wind gently blowing in the trees. How peaceful. Finally, I could pray like I wanted to.

Do you know what I found out almost immediately? There was still chaos around me. I was sitting in the chapel trying to pray one day, and one of the monks upstairs kept slamming the door. BANG! BANG! Another kept walking in and out of the chapel looking for something *STOMP* *STOMP* STOMP*. And one of the lights flickered on and off, on and off, on and off, every few minutes. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I couldn’t believe it. In a place as quiet and peaceful as you can imagine, there were still things out of my control distracting me from God.

I realized in that moment that you can never escape chaos. No matter where you go or how in control you think that you are, there will always be things you cannot change. While at first this depressed me, I realized something quite spectacular: God was there with me experiencing everything I was. I thought to myself, “I bet God is annoyed by that slamming door, the annoying monk, and the flickering light too.” I realized that God was not some manipulative judge causing these distractions to test me or some passive observer watching his creation from a distance, God was right there with me sharing in my chaos.

This is an important distinction we must always remember: While God is always present, God is not the chaos nor does he cause the chaos. When we look at our first reading, we hear Elijah speak of a terrifying situation: wind, fire, earthquake. The passage says, “But the Lord was not in the wind…but the Lord was not in the fire… but the Lord was not in the earthquake.” These things were all happening around Elijah, thing beyond his control, and God was not the one causing them, but God was there. God was in the whisper, the comforting voice. The same is true for the disciples. Out in the middle of the sea during a storm, in the darkness of night, they were absolutely doomed. Was God the storm that was about to crush them or the darkness that gave them fear? No, of course not. But God was still there. Jesus came, not running, not shouting, not calling great attention to himself, but walking calmly on the water to meet his followers. God was their comfort, their calm within the storm.

When we look at our lives and at our world today, it is so easy to only see the storm. With tragedy around every corner we find ourselves asking, “Where is God?” Where is God when violence in our city robs us of our sons and daughters? Where is God when all we hear from Gaza, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan is terrible news: houses being demolished, children fleeing from their homes, and Christians being killed? Where is God when our whole world is crashing down around us? In the chaos of our lives, it can be difficult to see him, but he is there.

God is not in the violence, but he is there suffering with us.

God is not in the destruction but he is there fleeing with us.

God is not in the tragedies all around us that make life seem impossible sometimes but he is the one walking with us, comforting us with his love.

For some, this may be difficult to accept. “If God really loved us, why wouldn’t he put a stop to evil in our world. If he were really in control, why wouldn’t he do something.” Many times, we want a powerful God that crushes the bad guys and prevents bad things from happening. But that’s not how our God works. He loves us so much that he gave us free will, he made us co-creators in this world, and is unwilling to take that away from us just to make things perfect. Because of that, Jesus came to earth not as a king or wealthy business person to rule over the world, but as a simple carpenter to be ruled by it. He wanted to experience the pain of sin and invite us to create a better world, one with justice and love. His message was not of a perfect earthly world, and so we should not expect him to makes us rich and powerful or to take away our earthly pain; his message is of the heavenly kingdom, the reign of God through justice and mercy. Jesus was like us in everything but sin, and loved us so much that he endured torture and death to share in in our humanity; He gave up his body and blood so that we could share in his divinity. That, the sharing of this communion meal, is our eternal calm within every storm.

And so, we’re given a choice: we can try to run from the chaos, never venturing out of our comfort zones for fear that something might surprise us or go wrong, or we can embrace the chaos all around us, giving up our fear and our need to be in control, to be where our God is. There’s a chance we might get hurt by the crushing winds; there’s a chance that we might sink in the roaring sea. But if we stay hiding in the safety of the cave or are afraid to have faith to walk out onto the water, how will God ever be given the opportunity to save us from the chaos?

 4 Comments

 Posted on August 9, 2014 by

 Ministry, Prayer, Scripture

God’s Will Be Done

God continues to work through these amazing students

God continues to work through these amazing students

Have you ever heard someone say, “Either get involved with what God’s doing or get out of his way”? After our trip with the Student Leaders to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, I learned that this is sound advice. After weeks of preparation, hoping for the best but planning for the worst, praying that all of the factors outside of our control would go well, the adults of the group messed up almost every aspect of the trip that was within our control. The result? God was not going to let us get in the way of the work he was doing in these students. Everything worked out flawlessly, despite our greatest efforts to seemingly sabotage the trip.

Sabotage is a strong word, you say? I’m being too hard on myself and the other leaders, a bit of hyperbole? You be the judge:

The Student Leaders were going to Washington, D.C. to give a power point presentation at a local church. I forgot the laptop in the house.

Running a little late because some of the adults, not the students, were late to arrive in the morning, we had to rush to get to the Capitol building for our tour. In our haste, the person carrying the keys dropped them on the lawn of the Capitol building, only to find this out hours later when we needed to get in the van.

Now off schedule and without a van, we decide to take a walk, not a ride, down the National Mall. We soon realize that there is a thunderstorm brewing and heading our way.

On our way to dinner and the presentation, yours truly has trouble reading the GPS and D.C. traffic patterns (for which one needs a Ph.D. in stupidity to understand) and gets us lost. Lost and confused, I decide to go straight in a left-turn-only lane and get the other van pulled over.

Lastly, though completely out of our control, the storm hits the area really hard knocking down trees and power lines and forcing miles of traffic to detour through the neighborhood of the church where we are presenting. 

Those of us who knew what was going on throughout the day were frazzled to say the least. Everything within our control seemed to be going wrong. Everything was going to fail. We had let the students down on their big trip. With each thing that went wrong, I prayed to God, “Please, Lord, do not let us get in the way of what you’re doing through these students. You wouldn’t miss this incredible opportunity in their lives and in the lives of those in attendance, would you?”

He would not.

When we arrived at the church, they had an extra computer that worked flawlessly with the projector. The keys were miraculously found thirty minutes later in the grass. After a beautiful walk, the vans picked us up on the Mall literally three seconds before it started to completely downpour and lighting began to strike (and yes, I know what literally means and I’m using it correctly.) The officer, being a nice gentleman, not only let the driver off without a ticket, gave her directions directly to the house and around the traffic. And despite the storm, traffic, and power outages, more than fifty people showed up to the presentation from as far as an hour away.

God’s will be done whether we get in the way or not.

Amazed by the miracles that God had performed all day, the many ways that he had cleared the paths we had blocked, all we could do was hope that the students would take advantage of this incredible opportunity. After all that, would they forget what they came to say?

Don’t bet on it.

These students rocked the place. After they almost flawlessly went through their rehearsed power point presentation, they fielded questions for a half an hour and completely blew people away with their confidence, their poise, and their determination to change their world.

With one of the questions, the smallest of the students assertively grabbed the microphone out of my hand, stood up to the podium and responded off the cuff: “I need to get this off my chest. There’s been something I’ve wanted to say for a long time. Camden gets a bad reputation and I don’t like it. This is my home, and if people would just dig a little deeper they would see a place with great people and a lot of great things happening.” Wow. How many twelve year olds do you know that would be able to say this at all, let alone with such authority and confidence to a room full of strangers?

One person asked for advice for other students looking to do the same thing. Without hesitation, one of the 8th graders spoke up, “You can’t be afraid to talk to people who are older than you. Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you don’t have a voice or something important to say. You have a voice and you need to make them listen.” This is an eighth grader with more confidence in front of a crowd and more conviction to speak truth to power than most adults I know.

I could go on and on for another three pages with comments like these. At almost no point was there a pause between questions or answer that didn’t immediately inspire the whole room. And from who? Middle schoolers. That’s right, children as young as twelve years old taking an active role in their neighborhood and unafraid to tell others about it; children that were able to captivate adults and youth alike, able to inspire even the many in the audience that head up their own local advocacy and community organizing groups. It was truly remarkable.

What was so humbling about the whole day was that God chose to speak through a bunch of children, not me; that I had such little power in the matter, that, despite my own efforts to (unintentionally) sabotage the whole day, God was still able to speak through the least likely of prophets. My own shortcomings and their incredible successes reminded me that it is God’s will, not my own, that will be done. It is a call for humility and faith, to be able to give up control in my own life and to remember that I was never the one in control in the first place.

As the Gospel Matthews says,

And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. (Mt 3:9)

Let us not be fools to think that our education, social status, age, skill, or wealth mean anything in the long run. God could, and continually does, lift up the lowly to shame to proud. On Tuesday, in more than one way, God reminded me of this fact and that fact that God’s will will be done whether I’m on his side or in the way.

 

 4 Comments

 Posted on July 17, 2014 by

 Ministry

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A Lot to Celebrate in Camden

Camden gets a bad rep. Well, to be fair, much of it is well-deserved: Camden is in fact a high-crime area with drug issues and overwhelming poverty. Regardless, it still gets a bad rep. If you talk to some people you’d be led to believe that it’s some godforsaken, dour land, the likes of which are found in Batman’s “Gotham City” or an American portrayal of the former Soviet Union. To some, Camden is simply a place of fear and sadness, as if crossing the Delaware River was akin to being touched by a  Dementor.

In the last few days, I have experienced nothing but the contrary. Camden is a place of hope and rejoicing. It is a place where people take pride in their city and its future. It’s a place where people recognize the difficulties around them but take joy in the wonders as well.

Clearly the highlight of the parishioners' day was throwing softballs at Fr. Hugh.

Clearly the highlight of the parishioners’ day was throwing softballs at Fr. Hugh, who, deserved everything he got as he playfully taunted everyone who approached.

Last Saturday, St. Anthony’s had its annual Festival in honor of the feast of St. Anthony of Padua. Trust me when I say that there were no sad faces in sight. Beginning with a procession of a statue of St. Anthony around the block and into the church, an almost full church gathered to celebrate their community with the breaking and sharing of bread. Nourished and refreshed, the celebration was just beginning. Awaiting them in the parking lot after mass was a DJ, water slide, bouncy castle, dunk tank, a host of kids games, and authentic food from five different countries. Throughout the day, a day that went until dark I might add, presentations were made thanking a retiring teacher and leaving pastor, dance performances were given by children and adults alike, and police officers and city leaders showed up, not for enforcement or protection, but simply to join the party. (One police officer was convinced to play basketball with the kids, and, wearing his full jacket and belt, made their day by successfully dunking on the 8 foot high basket.) It was a fun-filled day with hundreds of people in attendance dancing, eating, laughing, and playing games.

But wait, there’s more!

After a few days to recover, the party started again yesterday with a two-part celebration. The first was in honor of the 18th anniversary of Francis House, a recreation and prayer center on our campus for those with HIV/AIDS. For 18 years now, those with HIV/AIDS have found a welcoming home to receive a warm meal, judgement-free fellowship, and the support of a close-knit family. People from all over came to the church for a prayer service in the morning where those who had died from HIV/AIDS were remembered and those who had made Francis House possible were thanked. It was a mix of great joy and sorrowful remembrance, a time to mourn the loss of those gone before us but to celebrate the ways in which their lives had been given meaning by others. After a few prayers and songs, our time ended the way any good Franciscan events ends: food! Filling up every square foot of the house, the friars, guests, and volunteers piled into the house to eat and laugh with one another, sharing stories and a great time.

Enough celebration for one day? I think not!

A whole team of police officers took on the kids for almost an hour.

A whole team of police officers took on the kids for almost an hour.

After two years of petitions, meetings, phone calls, and angering defeats, the city of Camden finally installed lights in the park near the church and school. Once called “the most depressing park in the country”, Von Nieda Park has been completely transformed in recent years, due almost entirely to the Student Leaders of Saint Anthony School. In the last three years, they have successfully petitioned the city for nets on the basketball rims, trash cans and recycling bins throughout the park, fences to keep out dangerous four-wheelers, and regular cleanups, not to mention their own efforts to paint the benches and a mural. Last night, the whole neighborhood came out to inaugurate their latest victory. Joined by the mayor, city councilmen, the Camden County Parks leaders, police officers, fire fighters, and a representative from every news outlet in the area, including Telemundo and Univision, the whole neighborhood had a party. Food was given for free, basketball games were played on all four courts (some of which included police officers and friars), music was blasted, and speeches were given. As the sun set, the lights were dramatically flipped on, and light kept the night alive. If you’d like to read more, there are articles here, here, and here.

Camden may be an unsafe place with a lot of poverty. Many would see it as a hopeless city. Don’t tell that to the children that were instrumental in fixing up this park. No, to them, Camden is a place of hope and a place of change. As one student said last night to everyone gathered, “We’re a faith-based community, and we must always hope for a brighter future for Camden. But that doesn’t tell the whole story because Camden has brightened so much in the last few years, we’ve accomplished so much. Our present is bright.” Well said. There’s still a lot of work yet to be done, but Camden is a place worth celebrating. St. Anthony’s certainly is.

 1 Comment

 Posted on June 18, 2014 by

 Ministry

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Message From the Minister General

Michael Perry, OFM, is the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor.

Michael Perry, OFM, is the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor.

In an unprecedented fashion, Minister General Michael Perry, OFM, attended the first day of our provincial chapter and addressed Holy Name Province friars about the state of the Order and its future.

He told us the latest numbers appeared bleak to some, but that they were misleading. As of December 2012, the order was “down” to 14,077 friars worldwide with 1,400 men like myself in initial formation (with my province accounting for 17 of those men, the most of any of the United States provinces. In fact, the 2000s produced more vocations than the 1990s, showing a small, but important upswing in vocations!) We have friars in 113 countries and have 125 semi-autonomous entities of leadership, i.e. provinces.

For those who know the order, these numbers are drastically lower than they were fifty years ago, and for some, this is reason to panic. Quite the contrary. In some places like Mexico and Vietnam there are two or three young friars (under 40) for every old friar (over 65). This is tremendous news, and great perspective: we are a part of a larger Church than the experience of this country, and although it may look bleak in the Northeast United States, there’s a whole wide world of faithful people out there building up the church (and sometimes even in this country… Southeast United States anyone?)

In this way, our Minister General’s message was not of death but of new life. How, as friars minor or the Church in the United States, are we to live in order to promote the growth of Gospel living and Christian fellowship in our world? The five points he gave are tremendous reminders to us as friars but are also values that would no doubt help any part of the Church grow.

Clarity of Intention 

Who are we, and where do we want to go. Any good business requires a mission statement. Why not the Church? Sometimes with a two-thousand year history, 1500 page sacred text, and countless popes, bishops, and priests each giving helpful guidance, it can be difficult to clearly state who we are and what we are about. As Christians and friars, we need to make it clear what we believe, why we believe it, and how we are going to live that message. Even for those who have been Christian all their lives, it is helpful to remind ourselves of what called us to this life in the first place: the eternal and all loving God, wanting to be one with all that God created, became human, experienced all that we experience, died and rose again forgiving all of our sins. It is a message of love, forgiveness, peace, mercy, and justice; it is one of eternity.

Authenticity of Life

I can only assume that Michael Perry, ofm, is an avid reader of my blog because the next two points are exactly what I wrote in The Medium is the Message (clearly, he could not have gotten the idea anywhere else…) He spoke to us of the power of symbol, that the message of how we live, how we treat others, and how we stick to our own ideals, speaks much louder than the words we actually say. It is a call to authenticity and integrity, like our chapter theme, to be who we say we are. It is quite easy to criticize the world we see around us, but are we living up to the same standards we place on the rest of the world? I am not saying, and I do not believe he was, that we may only speak truth to power if we ourselves are perfect; this can never be the case. What I believe he was saying, though, is that our words and actions must be one if we are to ever be heard.

Simplicity of Life

More specifically, this means a simplicity of life, materially and spiritually. How easy it can be to become cluttered and distracted, focused on the things that do not matter. When we possess something tightly without our hands they cannot be open to receive the graces that are always being given us. As friars, we are called to be itinerants and poor men; as Christians, we are called to remove everything that impedes are relationship with God. With Jesus, our Pope, our patron Saint Francis, and many others in the Church, Michael called us to simplify our lives of the clutter, whatever that may be.

Commitment to movement, risk-taking

“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.” Because the “unknown” poses such a risk to our comfort, change can be traumatic to some. More times than not, we seek to maintain the status quo, even when it’s clear that it is not fulfilling. The easiest path is the one of least resistance, but it is not the one of movement. We are called, especially in this time, to be risk-takers. We are called to step out of our comfort zone, to allow ourselves to be moved, and to move the world. Do we want to sit idling by as the world continues to change all around us, tightly holding to what once was rather than accepting what is now, or do we want to step out there and be the change we wish to see in the world? The Church needs creative thinkers that are willing to risk everything for the life of the Gospel message.

Become and remain brothers (and sisters) on the road of the Gospel

Lastly, this is a journey that we must do together. Like it or not, we are all brothers and sisters on the same road, and we need to find a way to not only “get along,” but to grow in love and respect for each other. Having now lived with more than fifty different men in the past three years, I understand completely that it is impossible to like everyone. I simply cannot like everyone. But that doesn’t mean that they are unlikeable, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve my love and respect. Michael pointed out that dialog, transparency (of self and finances), communication, prayer, and fraternal love are all essential to walking this road together. We must always remember that Jesus is the center of our lives. If we do this, Christian hope will always be alive, and we will be able to live with hospitality, nonviolence, liberty of spirit, boldness, tolerance, and care for the poor and marginalized within our homes.

Peace and good be with each of you. I hope that this paraphrase and interpretation of our Minister General’s message finds you well and that you may join us friars in trying to live it out.

 Posted on June 10, 2014 by

 Fraternity, Ministry

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My First 24 Hours

One of the bright spots of Camden.

One of the bright spots of Camden: statue of the first man to the reach the North Pole.

Vacation is over and it’s on to the next thing: summer assignment in Camden, NJ. If the first 24 hours here are any indication of how the summer is going to go, it’s going to be a full summer.

I hit the ground running the moment I got here last night: after evening prayer, the four resident friars and I went out to dinner and an italian ice where, despite being in the next town over, we ran into two of the Franciscan Volunteer Ministers living near the church as well as a handful of parishioners. I spent the rest of the night unpacking my things and rearranging my room, and it was on to the next day.

Morning prayer started our day at 8:10 (a welcome change from 6:50 during the school year) followed by a scheduling meeting with Fr. Jud Weiksnar and a walk around the neighborhood. Besides coordinating a community garden across the street, St. Anthony’s is highly involved in the development and safety of the adjacent park. With the student leaders, the community has orchestrated the cleanup of the park, the painting of the benches and trashcans, and most recently, the addition of lights and the removal of a rundown tennis court for more green space, a process that we were thrilled to find had started today.

From there, it was off to Francis House, a ministry on campus for HIV-positive men and women in the area looking for a good meal and, more importantly, love and respect. People come to listen to music, play games, do puzzles, and to just talk many days of the week. Today, Fr. Jud and I went for a quick prayer and lunch, but I imagine that I will be spending a lot of time there this summer.

At that point, the day was just heating up (literally… hot day in the habit and no air-conditioning). Camden may not be the ideal destination for many people, nor is it the most beautiful city to look at, but trust me when I say that it is an interesting city with a lot of history. With Fr. Jud as my guide, we explored East, North, and South Camden, highlighting the good, the bad, and the ugly (and there was a lot of that). Camden is a highly depressed city with as much abandoned property as it has drugs and violence, and yet, amidst all of the stereotypical things one would expect to see in such a place, there are more than 100 community gardens, historic sites, and areas of recent revitalization, not to mention two universities and a growing hospital. One park in North Camden recently received a multi-million dollar grant to put up new fences, basketball courts, bathrooms, and great sitting areas, and honestly looks wonderful.

My fourth "sacred space" as a friar.

My fourth “sacred space” as a friar.

With so much to see, we had to cut the tour short to rush back to the church for a weekly Student Leaders planning meeting. Joining the FVMs, the friars and a few adults hold weekly meetings with 8th grade students to empower them in government and community planning. Today, the focus was on the July trip to D.C. to meet their representatives in Congress.

A little break in the day allowed Br. Juan and I to run out to Good Will for a quick shopping spree (4 t-shirts for less than $5!) and it was back to the friary for prayer and dinner with the FVMs. While friars are all very busy people, I respect these friars for putting a high priority on community prayer, praying six days a week at 8:10 and 5:15 without exception. Inviting the FVMs weekly is a great way to welcome lay volunteers into our lives and to evangelize in a comfortable setting: prayer and food.

But wait! There’s more! After dinner and clean up, Fr. Jud, Br. Juan, one of the FVMs and I went to a parishioner’s house for a bilingual rosary and fellowship. For me, even as someone without as great of a devotion to Mary and the rosary as other friars, it was a great experience: unlike most things at church, this gives us friars an opportunity to be invited into our parishioners lives and to served by them, a reversal of roles and a step out of our comfort zone into theirs.

All in all, I did very little but had a full day of exploring and experiencing. I’m sure tomorrow will be much of the same, and it will probably be a few weeks before I work myself into a comfortable routine. Until then, I’m remaining open to new experiences and new people, enjoying my time here in Camden.

 4 Comments

 Posted on May 27, 2014 by

 Ministry

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Breaking In The Habit

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