JAPE, DUSTY AND BIG D

For whatever reason, last week I was reflecting back on my days in seminary: twelve long years that actually passed quickly, as have these past 53 years as a priest. I thought about all those men, and they were all men back then, who passed through my life as I did with theirs. So many of them have passed on, of course, time waiting for no one and nothing, some in the prime of life, others after having lived a good, longer life.

There was Chuck who died of cancer at 54. He and I had entered seminary as high school freshmen in September of 1957. Chuck was usually "Charlie" to all of us. We all had nicknames (mine was "Willy"). There was E.J. (Skip, to others), Frenchy (who has a French name), Herc (for Harlan), Ishtvan (Hungarian for Steve), Eli (whose last name is Whitney), Tiny (who was anything but). But you get the point.

We even had nicknames for our professors/teachers: Monsignor Gerald Durst, whom we all called "Dusty" -- not to his face, of course! There was also "Jape" (for Joseph P. Marzen, our Dean of Men who was called "The Disciplinarian" back then, and rightly so); and "Big D" (our English teacher who stood 6"4").  These also are resting in peace with no more students to torment or to torment them.

Sometimes it takes a reminder to remind one of one's past and the people and places who were part of that past and who helped make us what we are today. When we reflect back on that past, what we discover, or at least what I have discovered, is that it was neither as bad as I had imagined it to be going through it, nor as good as I would like to have remembered it to be.

And even though that past has had an effect on our present lives, the effect is not as profound as we often attribute it to be. For depending on the present situation, it is easy either to romanticize the past beyond recognition or to indict it for all present failures and shortcomings. The past is never that good, that bad, or that powerful. And if it is, then we are still living in the past.

And neither are the people who have passed through our lives, no matter how long they were in our lives, no matter how strong of a hold they had over us at that time. They, too, were never that good, that bad or that powerful. For, I hope, we have moved on and so have they.

Jape, Dusty and Big D were truly powerful forces in our lives as young seminarians, mostly, upon reflection, for good, and sometimes, to be honest, for not so good. But so am I in my relationship with others. So are all of us, I suspect.

We are what we are partly because of our past. But who we will be depends more now on the present than on the past. That is true for us as individuals, as a church, as a diocese, as a community. We may well sing the praises of the saints of the past, and justly so. But we must always be in tune to the present if, in the future, we want this present to be remembered well.

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, PETER, PAUL, AND MARY?

I'm a romantic. I think part of the good, old days were a lot better than today. Then, too, maybe I want to idealize that part of my history that shaped and molded me. Either way, I'll stand by my beliefs.

Part of those beliefs are the fact that much of the idealism my generation believed in, peacefully fought for and expounded centered around helping the helpless. That idealism was put into song and called us to our task. The Pete Seegers and Peter, Paul and Marys of my college days reminded us that putting another down in order to lift ourselves up was not only wrong but it was wrong-headed. It would come back to haunt us in the end. We were advocates of the Social Gospel.

Seminaries were full and they were full of idealists right out of college. The average age of those in seminary was 24-25. Today it is 45-46. The bottom dropped out of seminary enrollment about the time that the so-called Me Generation kicked in. Instead of others coming first, this new generation put them a distant second, expect where the other could be of use in making them even more comfortable and secure. Peter, Paul and Mary lost out to Looking Out for Number One.

The times? They aren't a changing very much. What is changing (and here I have no sociological proof expect my own assumptions, and you know what they say about assumptions) is that those who sold out to self found, twenty years later, that it was not all that rewarding or fulfilling. A few even went to seminary in order to serve those whom they may have once used.

The church, sadly and tragically for all involved including those who dropped out of being part of a church, did not recognize the loss of several generations until it was too late. Because of that we are older and grayer and want to know how we can capture young people again. We won't do it by catering to what the Me Generation desired: their needs. My opinion of the rapidly growing non-denominational churches is that they are Me-Generation Churches in disguise.

I say that not out of jealousy. Honest. I say it out of the conviction that our first call as Christians is a call to serve others, to serve, in the words of my favorite theologian, Robert Capon, the last, the least, the lost, the lonely, and the dead of this world. They are to come first, their needs. In Jesus’ own words: “I am among you as one who serves.” He did not need to add: “Go, and do likewise.”

If we are to capture the hearts and minds of our younger generation, we must do it by challenging them to think of others first, as Peter, Paul and Mary challenged my generation. What we discovered, if I may generalize, is that we have been rewarded one hundred-fold, although in ways we never imagined but better than we could have ever hoped for. There is more joy in serving others than in being served. We need to teach that, maybe re-learn that. And when we do, when my generation's grandchildren learn that, we'll need to build more churches. Guaranteed.  

LIFE IN THE MIDDLE

If one believes that the Bible is a commentary on life, and in many ways I truly think it is, then one can discern a short synopsis of life: life begins as good and life ends as good, but it is in the middle that we have our problems. Genesis begins by reminding us that all of creation, including and especially life itself, is good. It can be nothing else but good because God is good and God creates nothing that is not good in and of itself, including and especially we human beings.

The last book of the Bible, Revelation, ends with the reminder that the ending of life will also be good. There will be new heavens and a new earth when all will be well. No matter what has happened to us in this life, no matter how painful or tragic, in the end all will be well because we will be celebrating and living an eternal life with God, who, because God is who God is, will make all things well.

In the meantime, between birth and death, life is not always so good. In fact, as Genesis records in its parabolic manner, things went from bad to worse very quickly, from a simple sinful act of disobedience to brother killing brother in a fit of jealous rage to the whole of creation being damned because of humanity’s sinfulness. Yet starting all over after the Flood unfortunately did not correct the mess.

Life is, well, messy. It’s not a disastrous mess at it may sometimes seem to be but it’s certainly not pretty and certainly not something to brag about where one given the opportunity to sing life’s and humanity’s praises. In fact, we would be hesitant to do such because we all know that we are the makers of this mess and the reason why, in spite of our best efforts, little if any progress seems to be made – can be made.

We live in a confusing and unsteady world, a world made so not because God has abandoned us but because God gives us the free will to make foolish and selfish choices. But we go on. We have no choice. Well, we do, but let’s not go there. We go on because we want to go on because, in spite of the messiness of life, in spite of our sinfulness, in spite of the bad that sometimes clouds the good, there is much good about our own personal lives and life itself, more good than bad. And even when that which is not so good seems to have the upper hand in our lives, we know we are not fighting the battle alone. We have one another.

In many ways that is why we gather each week as a parish family. We come here to St. Brendan’s to support one another in our individual and corporate faith journeys. We prop each other up, hold one another accountable and know that God will give us both the will and the means to help clean up the messes we have made and become less messy in the future.

We live life in the middle, between birth and death, between those good times and, at the same time, experiencing the good of life itself that comes between the bad times. We are never discouraged and we never give up because we are fed by the Eucharist and by the love of one for another.