The Rose Window - a guide to real living

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The Rose Window - a guide to real living

Fifteen years ago, when my family and I visited Rome, the one thing that struck me was the incredible attention to creative beauty that was almost everywhere - the fountains, statues, and architecture, and especially the beauty of the churches built to honor and worship our creator.  You could find in most countries, and even small towns, a desire to build a space of awe and beauty where people could come together and to let their souls soar for a few moments, no matter what their struggles in life.  In Northern France, there are incredible churches, such as Notre Dame and Chartres, where the gothic style masterpieces of architecture can take your breath away as you try to take in all the magnificence and the attention to detail.  That detail, and those symbols, often teach us about our faith and guides us to what is important in life.  One of the best examples this is the incredibly intricate and profoundly beautiful rose window, with its circular and colorful design, all revolving around the center.

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Two lives - one choice

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Two lives - one choice

In many ways, we have become a society of many symptoms, and short-term remedies for those symptoms.  More and more individuals seem to have lost their sense of meaning and purpose, gravitating more toward relative truth based on personal feelings and desires.  We treat the increasing anxiety, depression, and unhappiness with the many forms of medication and diversions available to avoid dealing with the actual cause driving the issue.  We try to solve social and economic issues with large centralized programs that often create unintended consequences and dependencies for generations to come vs. understanding issues at the human level of both enablement and responsibility.  We often ignore any facts that could undermine the things we want to believe or make us feel personally uncomfortable about what we want to do.  As a humane society, we aspire to act as such, protecting the rights of the often innocent and voiceless.

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Christmas - what's it all about?

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Christmas - what's it all about?

My wife and I bought our starter house, a small Cape, when we got married.  We are still in our “starter” house because it became home as we fixed it up, started our journey of life as a couple, raised our daughters, and now sit here in the sun room we added years ago, watching the snow blanket the neighborhood just one week before Christmas.  Our family has grown up celebrating and enjoying each of the holidays the calendar brings, but I think it would be a unanimous vote that the Christmas season is the favorite.  We were reminiscing about an overnight trip we took with the girls to Portsmouth, New Hampshire during a snow storm to visit the living history village of Strawberry Banke during the Christmas season.  As our small car slipped and slid its way up Route 95, we were all questioning our sanity, but once we finally reached our destination and watched the saucer-like snowflakes (we have only seen in Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and the movie Elf) gently fall outside the restaurant we were now cozied up in, it was more than worth the journey.  It felt like Christmas and we were together to enjoy it.

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Has the weight of the world been on woman's shoulders alone?

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Has the weight of the world been on woman's shoulders alone?

I was talking with one of my daughters about the last blog I wrote on Masculinity and intentionally raising our boys to become good men.  She thought it was an important topic, but asked, “So, are you going to write a blog on how to raise girls to be women?”  I hesitated, thinking that I would not have the same insights and experience to write about this in the same way, but I will give it a shot.

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Masculinity - a thing of the past?

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Masculinity - a thing of the past?

When you hear the term “masculinity,” what thoughts come to mind for you?  Are we still raising our boys to become men and what does that mean?  There has seemed to be a negative connotation being masculine, possible when it is defined by dominance, oppression, superiority or even aggressiveness.  In recent decades, the media and other groups have worked to make men almost irrelevant in society.  Television portrays male characters as either buffoons or playboys, and less so as characters to take seriously

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The protective armor that keeps us from living

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The protective armor that keeps us from living

How many people do you know that are really comfortable in their own skin?  Can you risk the vulnerability of letting the world, or even yourself, really see you and not just the protected public self we allow to be seen?  What do we fear most – rejection by others or even self-rejection?  We spend quite a bit of our time creating that acceptable outer self to avoid what we fear most - that we may not be worthy of being loved and accepted for who we are at our authentic core.  So why is that the case for so many of us?

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Thanksgiving - "giving thanks to whom and for what?"

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Thanksgiving - "giving thanks to whom and for what?"

If you are lucky, you have family and close friends to share a Thanksgiving meal with this week.  For many, it is an abundance of food, football and catching up with family we do not see enough.  For others it could be an emotional day of old wounds, heated disagreements or just plain loneliness.  Wherever you are on Thursday, I pray it is a day of “giving thanks” for you.  Thanksgiving became an official American holiday in 1864 during the Civil War, per proclamation of the President, “Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe.”  Lincoln’s intent was to bring us together and to remember that we share the same creator that provides everything we have.

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Subsidiarity (Do John Halpin and John Podesta even know what it means?)

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Subsidiarity (Do John Halpin and John Podesta even know what it means?)

You can learn some interesting things about how people really think when Wikileaks dumps their emails on the public.  I am not a proponent of this type of invasion of personal privacy, but since the media has abdicated its critical journalistic responsibilities to keep the public informed and protected, I can make an exception here when the individuals are actively working to undermine religious beliefs.  If you have not had a chance to read the emails, they were centered around mocking the “severely backward,” “ignorant,” and “medieval” thinking of conservative Catholics by the president of the Center for American Progress.  One note John Halpin wrote to Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, “They can throw around ‘Thomistic’ thought and ‘subsidiarity’ and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they're talking about.”  My question is if they even understand what the term means?  Since they brought it up, it is an important concept in Catholic social teaching that is worth thinking about. 

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Spiritual but not Religious

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Spiritual but not Religious

USA Today (Religion may be a miracle drug byTyler J. VanderWeele and John Siniff ,October 28, 2016) highlighted an extensive Harvard University study on the connection between health and religion.  There have been other studies as well that have shown a positive and significant correlation between physical and psychological health and attending religious services on a weekly basis.  This particular article asks what would happen if a single elixir were developed that would reduce mortality rates by 20-30%, improve optimism and reduce rates of loneliness, depression and suicide, improve marriage and relationships, improve self-control, and boost overall mental health?  Would we clamor for that elixir? The answer the studies have found is that elixir is regular attendance at religious services.  Few people may go for health reasons, but the solid results may tell us something about where our time and focus in life may be well spent and for a good reason – as faith provides each of us with a sense of meaning and purpose to life.

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The Humble Servant

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The Humble Servant

One of our biggest challenges in life is knowing who we are and who are not.  Without that hold on reality, we will constantly lead ourselves astray and remain unsatisfied at our core.  Pride is probably our biggest hurdle to knowing who we are and living that truth out in our lives.  Pride is something that leads to distorted will and self-trust, and a sense that we don’t need anyone else (including God) to show us the way and determine what is true.   With pride, we can become consumed with feeding our ego, believe we have nothing new to learn, and actually put ourselves in the place of God.  Pride is the sin that caused Lucifer to fall from heaven, and we can see why it is called the foundation of all the other deadly sins since it leads to so many of our sins that separate us from God.

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Fun and laughter for your relationships

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Fun and laughter for your relationships

Even science tells us that laughter and playfulness creates social bonds, increases well-being, reduces pain and anxiety, and can be a positive to those around us.  Laughter can make people feel safer, more relaxed and more connected to those we interact with. Laughter and humor increases our capacity to learn, to be creative, to cope and deal with the difficulties of life and to create stronger social bonds. There are research studies that show that when children laugh, it enhances their attention, perception, motivation, memory,  and learning.   A sense of humor, laugher and play can help to also reduce depression and stress and increase our actual pain tolerance by as much as 50%. Taking time to play and laugh is a way of expressing inner joy. 

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All the days of my life

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All the days of my life

Is there anything better than the excitement of the early dating period with someone that makes you feel like you are walking on air?  I loved dating my wife and then the adventure of those first years of marriage, but, as I glance up from writing this blog at Joanne after over thirty years together, I know that right now is something profoundly better that I am lucky enough to experiencing.  I love and appreciate my wife so much more now because I have begun to understand what both marriage and true love really are.  Okay, so I may be a slow learner but I can tell you that it is a great feeling to be excited about the next thirty years of sharing this journey with the woman I love, my best friend and my partner for life.

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Does God exist?

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Does God exist?

How would you answer the most important question in life? Do I believe that God exists?

  1. I believe in a personal God  
  2. I believe in a God but not a personal God
  3. I don’t know if God exists or not
  4. I don’t care if God exists or not
  5. I don’t believe in God

How would the answer to that question impact your life, what you think is important, and how you see yourself and others?  It may be more profound than you think and worth spending serious time on, no matter which answer fits you today. 

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Joy and Happiness

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Joy and Happiness

Growing up, my family never went on a vacation. My father kept my brothers and I busy during the summers building walls or patios, painting houses and doing landscaping, butI can still remember loving the rhythm of the summer, the longer days, warm evenings and being outside.  When I got married, I was introduced to going somewhere (Maine) for a summer vacation.  My wife and my daughters loved spending two weeks in the small, unassuming fishing village of Stonington with and incredible beauty of the rugged coastline.  I still can remember our two girls racing down the pier at the harbor and the word that comes to mind is joy.  Joy for them seemed natural.  Being in the moment, in a beautiful place, with the people I loved most, and taking the time to appreciate all the blessings I had gave me a deep sense of peace and of joy as well.

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Can't Buy Me Love

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Can't Buy Me Love

When I was a young kid growing up in Lynn, Massachusetts, I probably didn't realize it but it was one of the poorer cities in the state.  I was eight years old and I can remember walking over to the record store on Market Street to buy my first record, Can't Buy Me Love.  As much of a Beatles fan as I was, who would have thought that they would have gotten me thinking about my priorities in life?  (Of course, my older brother gave me a hard time a few years later for getting Johnny Cash’s A Boy Names Sue over the Rolling Stone’s Honky Tonk Woman – so I can’t say I my musical taste was overly discerning. )  I probably bought Can’t Buy Me Love because I thought the song was fun but there was something about the lyrics of the song that did hit home though, even in those early years.

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An Offer You Can Refuse

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An Offer You Can Refuse

The Godfather could be my favorite movie of all time.  Everyone is probably familiar with the famous line from Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) when explains to his Godson, Johnny Fontaine, how he is going to get a powerful studio head, Woltz, to give Johnny the part in a movie that he does not want to give him.  “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”   Corleone made the choice for Woltz an unpleasant one but an easy one - “do what I say or you die.”  With God, we also get an offer, but the difference is that it is an offer we can refuse because he loves us enough to give us the gift and responsibility of “free will.”

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September 13, 1986

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September 13, 1986

I met a beautiful, fun, intelligent and friendly girl named Joanne in the fall of 1985.  On our first evening date, we enjoyed a fun dinner and a movie.  It was such a nice evening when I brought her home that we went for stroll and ended up on a small bride over the Charles River and watched the stars overhead.  Back in front of her apartment we had our first kiss and I will never forget that look in Joanne’s eyes.  It was a look that has stayed with me and made me smile until this very day. 

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The Mouth of Truth

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The Mouth of Truth

If you have never seen the movie, Roman Holiday, with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, it is worth checking out.  Gregory Peck plays a paparazzi type American reporter in Rome who happens upon a young princess, Audrey Hepburn, who wants to be free from her real identify to experience a day in Rome.  One of my favorite scenes takes place at the Boca Della Veritae (Mouth of Truth), an ancient stone near the entrance of an old church.  Peck explains the legend to Hepburn, telling her that if a liar puts his hand inside the mouth, it would be bitten off while a truthful person would have nothing to fear.  Who wouldn’t be tentative to put their own hand in that mouth?

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