I'm Still a Teacher, Even Though I Can't "Do the Job"

Over the past four years, this blog has been one way in which my work as a teacher has continued even "after" everything came crashing down in 2008. My task has been reborn and even expanded in ways I never would have imagined before chronic health problems brought about my (very) early retirement from the standard classroom and the dynamic life of a college institution.

I've done an awful lot of "blogging" -- enough to have realized that a blog is its own kind of place for communication.

I was going to commemorate with Internet bells and whistles my one thousandth blog post, but apparently I passed the thousand mark without even noticing. (This is post number 1005.) Although I have been posting more pictures and experimenting with multimedia formats, writing is still the main feature of the Never Give Up blog. I try to use my understanding to see the purpose of things and to express myself with words.

I also have a lot of problems. Nevertheless, even when I feel overwhelmed, I try to articulate what I think is the meaning that I'm seeking, or rather begging to see in all of it.

Sometimes I articulate it pretty well, and it "sounds like" I have acquired a vital understanding of deep things.

But please do not mistake this for any kind of wisdom. I am not a wise man. I am a desperate man who speaks and writes because for me the search for understanding has an urgent intensity. For me the need to think (at least while I'm awake) is like the need to breathe. I'm just trying to stay alive here. But I also know that in the end all my words must surrender....

Nevertheless, right now, I still have these words. And I have this desire to share my words with others. Indeed, I am charged with task of sharing these words with the persons who are entrusted to me. I am called to share the search for beauty and truth and goodness that propels my own life, to walk with others on this journey and to help them with whatever understanding I find.

There is a "light" that nearly always "stays on" somewhere in my soul, not to dispel my own darkness so much as to enable me express my experience in words -- my experience of weakness in faith and the obtuseness of bodily and mental affliction, as well as the strange and mysterious presence of Another and the hope He generates and sustains within me, a hope that refuses to go away.

A charism is at work here, rooted in the enduring vocation of teaching. I may not have a "teaching job" anymore, but I am still a teacher. I couldn't stop being a teacher even if I tried. When I perceive something -- even if it has only gained a tenuous and embattled foothold on the shores of my heart -- I am moved to communicate it.

I try to cooperate with this grace. It is an impetus that sometimes "overrides" my illness and my physical and mental exhaustion, giving me the energy and capacity to speak and write. (Unfortunately, "overrides" does not mean "takes away" -- rather it stirs around the whole mess and sometimes makes it worse. It helps too, however, in ways I don't understand. But that's another topic.)

This charism also works within a whole complex set of motives, wrestling with pride, self-love, enormous vanity, the desire for appreciation, and all the distortions, hesitations, and fear that come from my damaged mind and stunted emotions.

No doubt there are many wasted words.

Nevertheless, people find something in all my words that helps them. Not many people, perhaps, but a few. The charism shines through, because this grace has been given first of all for you who read or listen to me and are drawn by the Lord to see the mystery and the pain of life in a different way.

A charism is given to build up God's people. In that sense, the fact that I'm a bumbling, incompetent Christian and a hypocrite looking for applause doesn't matter. If you find anything helpful in what I say it's because He loves you and wants to encourage you, strengthen you, and draw you to Himself.

He also wants to shape my life, and I really want to live the truth of this charism!

Well... sometimes I really want to. Often I forget all about it, or I say something like, "Jesus make me holy... but not yet!"

Most of the time, I'm just afraid. I'm afraid of the depths. I'm afraid of suffering.

But something is different. There is this hope. I know He is here, He is with me. I have hope because He has touched my life and awakened hope within me. Hope is the living memory of that encounter and the fruit of His embrace that continues even when I can't "feel it."

It is this hope that fills me with an urgency to express encouragement: "He loves us. He is here with us. He will not abandon us!"

I feel like I'm nearly drowning in the flood of life, but something moves me to tread water and swim as best as I can. I sink under the water a lot, but in my struggle and thrashing I've also seen the land. It's not far away. And here we are -- all of us awful swimmers in these deep and strange waters -- and I can't help crying out, "Look, look, this way. There is the land. We are going to make it! We are going to be okay."

Why So Many Words?

I'm rarely at a loss for words.

I have a talent for generating words, and using them to express things in vivid and coherent ways. These words, however, emerge from a heart that is drawn up or pulled down by conflicting motivations.

I have asked myself, "How often, when I speak or write, am I truly seeking to edify reality, to affirm what is good? How often, rather, are my words angry, distracting, or selfish?"

So many wasted words! And yet I have a desire to speak the truth. I have the desire and the prayer that my words might be works of mercy and instruments of peace. Still, I am always running into obstacles, encountering the grasping and vanity and folly within myself.

I think perhaps we speak foolishly because we are insecure. We seek attention with our words, even at the expense of others. Why? Because we are afraid that we are not loved. Or, rather, we have forgotten that we are loved. We are not nourished by a vital connection with the One who loves us.

We need prayer. And not just more words of prayer. We need silence.

We need to let Him love us.

A Force of Nature

What I sound like to my kids.

In the past four years I have written and written, here on this blog and on other media platforms. And though I'm not teaching in the classroom, I am always ready to talk about things that interest me and others, i.e. to have a conversation. I'm a pretty good listener (over the years I've become much better at really listening). But words always seem to be at hand, and if others are interested and listening I will talk. I will talk and talk and talk long beyond exhaustion.

I have an implacable desire to express myself, and to communicate the things that I experience and learn. The energy to shape words (whether writing or speaking) is like a force of nature in me.

And like everything in my nature, it is ambivalent.

It is the energy of seeking the truth, and of the desire to encourage others in the search for truth.

But it is also the energy of a show-off who wants to be admired, a clown who craves laughter, an acrobat who hungers for applause; it comes, in part, from the vacuum inside me that is desperately insecure, that wants approval again and again, that wants to take the feeling of being appreciated, consume it, and demand more.

It is human to want to be appreciated. But for me this desire is swollen and throbbing and itching in a way that can never be scratched.

I have so much to offer. I am intelligent, learned, experienced in life, and generous toward others. I have a pretty good sense of humor. I am ardent, earnest, devoted, intense, and sincere. But I am also vain, proud, and overly dramatic. And I am insecure, emotionally fragile, anxious, stressed out, overwhelmed. I overdo everything (just look at this list!).

Why am I this way?

The consequences of original sin, of course, are a fundamental factor in the division, distortion, and conflict that everyone faces in life. For me this is augmented by genetic predispositions, physical and mental illness, and the inherent psychological strengths and imbalance of an intelligent and creative personality.

Then I have 52 years of my own concrete human experience -- my (authentic though inadequate) love for God and others, my few accomplishments, my many sins, and all my struggling, failing, suffering, being hurt, and seeking God but too often failing to trust in Him.

There is this world of mistrust inside me, fortified with many weapons and many defenses, stubbornly persisting for no real reason.

I need to be changed, profoundly, in ways I don't even know; to be stripped down, remolded, and forged anew. Sometimes it feels like this is the deep and mysterious truth of what has been happening to me in recent years, in all of these amplified sufferings and confusion and deeper joys too.

A force of nature being forged into something new: this is a process that takes a long time.

It is the work that Jesus is accomplishing in me through the Holy Spirit. I try to work "with Him," but above all I have to surrender my self to His work.

He knows what needs to be accomplished.

The Eloquence of Weakness

No doubt you heard and/or read today's gospel and thought, "I wonder if anyone has some good reflections on this. What does Zechariah's predicament have to do with ordinary human experience?"

Good questions. Your Magnificat Advent Companion 2014 addresses those very questions! (Subscribe to Magnificat. Help feed the Janaro family. Click HERE!) Below we present the Great Thoughts of one "Professor Janaro" ("Emeritus" -- which used to sound cool and important until Benedict made it a household word).

Actually, Janaro writes simply here, for he too has been slow to believe the promise. Will the angel of the Lord one day restore the energy and vigor of his voice? Whatever may be, he struggles now to be open to the eloquence of weakness.

Blogging: A Small Gift of Love I Offer to You

The Internet "thingy" that connects us.

What am I trying to do when I blog? I am trying to give of myself, because as a human being I am impelled by the urgent desire to offer what I am and have--as a human being I want to love. I am also trying to open myself up and show myself and ask to be loved, because I am a human being and I need to be loved. I want to love and to be loved.

So I write because I want to love, to affirm and to give goodness. And I don't want it to be fake. This means I want truth. And I don't want it to be boring. This means I want beauty.

This is what I want to do in my writing. I want it to be a gift of love.

I say this not as a theory, but as a judgment. I know that this is true. I know that the motor of my life is love. It is a judgment drawn from experience. My humanity is alive inside me because I have been loved. The experience of being loved awakens the human heart. The difference between living a human life and living a life of desperation is the awareness of being loved. And this awareness is grounded on, and continually nourished by, the experience of being loved.

It began in childhood. I have had problems, and sicknesses, and mental distress since childhood. But these are the consequence of illness. Beneath them all was the radical security that came from being loved by my parents. As I came to maturity, I met people who loved me--sometimes in very simple ways--and I grew. I finally met a woman who loved me with a love that embraced me in a way I didn't deserve, to which I wasn't entitled, and which I could not earn. It was a gift. Beyond attraction and common interest and sympathy of personality there was that radically undeserved love, a love that could not be grasped, but only received according to the form of a gift, within the space created by a gift in return. And so we were married.

It was the great sign that radical, undeserved, gratuitous love was the foundation and sustenance of my life. And it remains a sign that grows. It is a gratuitous love that overflows and is fruitful.

I need this sign to continually manifest itself, if I am to remain convinced in the reality of my heart that I have been created to love and to be loved. Every day I need to place myself in the position of receptivity to the love of my wife, and my children. I must acknowledge my need, my poverty, and that my capacity to give is founded on the fact that I am a gift. I am loveable. I see it in the simplest things in the day, such as when I am hungry and my wife makes pasta, because she loves me. The kids want me to read them a story, or help them with their work, or have a conversation with me not just because of their own needs because they want me. They love me. Why am I wanted? Why are there these people in my life who say to me, "it is good that you are you, that you exist"?

They are witnesses that I am created by love, that I am given to myself in love, that I am worthy. And this engenders in me the desire to give myself, because goodness wants to be shared, to be given away. It is not afraid of being lost. And so I am writing, in the confidence that these words are a gift, even if only a fragile one. I want to tell you that it is good that you exist. I know that. And I want you to experience it, and be sustained by it.

Let us love one another....

Is There Such a Thing As "Attention Excess"?

When I read, I read. What fire?

I have a pathological attention span. When I read, I read. Food? Meh. Sleep? When my head hits the book, maybe. House on fire? Hmm, I thought it was getting warm in here. Coffee? Okay, I'll get some coffee. Bathroom? KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK! "Daddy, hurry up!" Daddy's reading in there again. That's basically the routine.

Of course, the same thing can happen when I start writing (which is kinda cool in a way, except that it exhausts me, because writing is exhausting even when -- especially when -- I'm on a roll).

The Internet is different. It's an adventure in exploration in which I may find myself in a mental place that I had no intention of visiting. One time John Paul forgot to put a block of cheddar cheese back in the refrigerator. He and his mother proceeded to have an "animated discussion" about whether or not it was spoiled. I decided to settle the whole thing by googling it.

Over the next hour and a half I learned some fascinating things about cheeses (soft cheese spoils faster), how refrigeration works, different kinds of bacteria, the digestive system, yogurt, fruit, molds, diverse climates, and the Arabian desert.

Was the cheddar cheese spoiled? I don't remember.

Welcome To My Workshop

Who knows what this thing is?

I have done a lot of writing in the past three years, and quite a bit of it has been here on this blog. Here I find the impetus to keep up with posts, to write something, even if it is just a few brief words.

Rarely is much of what comes out in these posts "polished," nor does it pretend to be. Rather, this is a place that stimulates my thinking. It is a place where I can hammer out ideas into words -- in fact, as I've said often, I tend to think things through by writing them out.

Blogging is an experimental literary form. If writing were painting, a blog would be a kind of sketchbook full of things ranging from scribblings to quick but colorful drawings. But it's different too, because everything is set forth for people to see (or read, in this case) if they wish. For your sake, I try to put a little paint and varnish on what is presented here. The result is something that, no matter how primitive it may be overall, is always in some respects a finished utterance.

I like to think that I'm welcoming people into my "writing workshop," where I can be a craftsman of words and offer something beneficial to others by bringing them into the work even while it is in progress.

And there has been lots of progress in these years, considering that without this place I would have done little writing beyond my direct publishing assignments. It has required energy, but has also generated it.

Thanks to the blog, I now have a "workshop" full of roughly drafted texts (close to 600 by jiminy -- and that's after subtracting posts that are just pope quotations or cute Josefina pictures). A lot of written material here focuses around a group of related themes. There is the genesis and the initial development of more than one future book in here, if I can find the further energy (and--let's face it--the courage) to organize and develop, to cut and clarify, to revise and synthesize.

Adventures in New Media

My spot in the Twitterverse. Brave new worlds.

Well, we have celebrated the fact that the blog is now three years old.

This is also (more or less) the third anniversary of my overall big splash into the world of New Media.

Actually, "tiny ripple" is more like it. But it was big for me. I had spent my whole life in teaching and print media. I did a lot of hard work that people don't have to do anymore (that whole subject deserves a post of its own).

Media have changed very much in my time.

I learned how to sign my name at the age of four (that would be 1967, uh huh). Sometime over the course of the past few years, I have forgotten how to sign my name. Now that everything is digital, it seems like the only time I have to sign my name is on a birthday card (and, depending on who it's for, sometimes I have to remind myself that my first name isn't "Daddy").

My editing career started with working on the high school newspaper. By the way, dear millennial friends, have you ever wondered why "cut" and "paste" are called cut and paste? Scissors and glue, man. I've cut. I've pasted. And I'm proud of it. I've seen a "Press" actually press ink onto paper. It was beautiful. I'm not saying I want to go back to doing it that way. But considering how rinky-dink it all was, we did amazing things.

Anyway, we thought that "word processing" was the revolution. And it did bring fundamental changes to writing and publishing. But interactive media have really changed the scene. As it has turned out, I've been following the changes more attentively than might have been the case under other circumstances.

Getting sick changed my way of working. Was it the Lyme disease that triggered another long ride on the neurobiological roller coaster inside my brain? I don't know, but it was some ride.

Through all the ups and downs I read history voraciously (and a good amount of literature too) . I pretty much took a break from the theology/philosophy routine, but otherwise I read and read and read. And I managed to write a (non-academic) book of my own and get it published. I also piddled around on the Internet, but not much.

Three years ago, I had just begun to emerge from another bad episode of my "rheumatism"* thanks in part to some new medications.

[*Footnote: Lately I've taken to using the old fashioned term rheumatism to just cover the whole wammy of my illness and all its various symptoms (including "the brain fever," i.e. all the various kinds of "mental rheumatism" that flare up). "Rheumatism" is a (deliberately) vague term that sometimes (but not always) indicates "inflammation." Certainly, my chronic condition involves things that are literally or at least metaphorically inflammatory (even the mental symptoms "flare up," or maybe I should say "flare down" but in any case they get swollen and they hurt). More importantly, however, rheumatism signifies an overall physically-based affliction that goes up and down, that comes and goes, more or less. But you never get rid of it entirely. Still, you do what you have to do to control it, and if every so often you have to disappear for a bit, people understand: "it's his rheumatism." I'm just trying to simplify discourse. I'm not hiding anything: the more technical clinical and diagnostic presentation of my medical conditions and their shorthand initials are in my book and often enough on this blog. But trying to identify what exactly is going on in every flare-up is like trying to nail jello to a wall. My doctors know enough to help me for now, and there is some serious business, but we're managing it. Meanwhile, I'll make my references general and folksy. People don't want to hear about it all the time, and I don't want to write about it all the time. Is that okay?]

It was a very hard period of my life. At times it was awful, really. God was working deeply during those years, but I don't yet understand much of what he was doing (probably I don't even need to know... not now, anyway).

Early 2011: the days of the wild
hermit and his crazy long beard!

But in 2011, I started to feel better with some consistency. Meanwhile, people had been reading my book and it was really helping them. Not only friends and acquaintances but also people I had never met were contacting me to express their gratitude.

I began to get the sense that God was calling me to do something to promote the book more. My vanity was not the defining motivation for this (which is not to say that I don't have plenty of vanity, haha... but there was something else that was more important). I felt that this light belonged on a lamp stand, and that I had to take some responsibility for that.

But how? I was feeling better, but I was hardly in any shape for a book tour. So I looked at the Internet, at blogging and "social media," in the hope that I might find some ways of networking and promoting the book. And it certainly has proven useful in that regard.

But I also discovered something that, after many years of publishing and writing, was a completely new experience: a way of interacting with my readers and getting to know them, and a medium that brings together writing and conversation in a way that is filled with new possibilities, even if it is also filled with danger.

In fact, I had found the possibility to interact with all sorts of people, all over the world, using the written word and other forms of creative expression. I found also the possibility to continue, or resume, conversations already begun.

Thus began my Adventures in New Media, which have taken me in directions I never could have imagined. I've made mistakes and I've wasted time, but I'm learning and I'm praying that God's grace will sustain me and lead me in his ways.

Three Years of Blogging: I Am Grateful For The Journey

Happy Birthday to the Never-Give-Up-Blog,
Happy Birthday to the Never-Give-Up-Blog,
Happy Biiiiiiirthday to the Never-Give-Up-Blooooooooooog,
Happy Birth... well, you get the idea.

This blog is three years old today.

That's right, three years of writing fairly regularly and sometimes thoughtfully. For someone with my constraints, it means a lot to my own sense of... I dunno... "self-worth?"... (or delusions of grandeur or whatever) that I've kept this little enterprise going consistently for three years.

It began as a whim, an idea that I tossed out to my then small group of Facebook "friends" (which pretty much consisted of people I had known a long time, and also my former students):

So I got five "likes" and sixteen "comments" which was quite a response for me in those days. Many of the responses were simply "Yes!" (often with exclamation point). That meant something, because these were people I trusted. Still, I wanted to know whether they were actually saying something more than just, "Sure. Go for it, man!" So I asked more precisely:

A small chorus of "Yes, we want to read YOUR blog" was raised in the combox. These were people I knew, people who were dear to me in various ways, people who were able to perceive that I might be able to do something well. Notice how I have discreetly concealed their identities. Many of them know who they are, even if they rarely actually read the blog, hahaha (but don't worry about that... although, you could always start up now).

You gave me encouragement, dear good friends, and one of the things I want to do on this anniversary is say, "Thank you." (Of course the problem is that you're not reading this now, haha! If I get the chance I'll PM you the link to this post and thank you personally.)

Anyway, you convinced me, and on January 29, 2011 the first of more than 600 posts was proclaimed to the Facebook world:

It has been worth the effort, and remains so. I have discovered that the blog is a kind of literary genre in its own right. I have some frequent readers, more than enough to encourage me to keep writing. (Of course, as an incurable teacher, I only need a handful of people to give me the sense that I have "a classroom," even though sometimes the material here is unusual for a classroom, being so introspective, and sometimes painful.)

There is something about the charism of teaching that can't help being stirred up. It's an impetus that always wants to foster opportunities and places for learning and growing. It's so strong and so implacable that even when I'm suffering, even when I'm losing my mind, I want somehow to turn it into an opportunity for people to learn something. So I try to present my experience. I wrote a book about being sick. I wrote, and I continue to write about mental illness.

I try not to be didactic. Rather I try to walk on this journey together with everyone and observe the slopes and bends and surprising things on the path. I am the person who notices things and wonders at their beauty, their strangeness and even their scariness. Still I look and I try to see the significance of what I find along the way, and I can't help wanting to draw others over to look for themselves. "Come and look at this!" I want to say.

Even (indeed especially) if I find it inside myself.

For I am more convinced than ever that even down to the deepest depths we are all traveling together and we are all going to the same place. We must, therefore, help one another.

Dear Young Adult Singles: Some Words About Marriage (link)

Yesterday, I posted about marriage as a guest blogger on the excellent blog of Arleen Spenceley. You can read the post by clicking HERE.

As a college professor, I feel in my element getting to know young people and encouraging them as I see their talents and creativity unfold. Blogging and social media have opened up new possibilities for collaborating with the next generation and learning from them too. I have made the acquaintance of some terrific people who are doing a great deal of good both on the "digital continent" and beyond it. It is a privilege to contribute to this good work and to support it.

Arleen Spenceley is a remarkable young lady who has education and experience in the mental health field, and who is a journalist with the Tampa Bay Times. She blogs on human sexuality, relationships, and the true meaning of love, and she's bringing the wisdom of Blessed John Paul II out there, into the dialogue with evangelical Christians and also the secular media. Presently she's writing a book that will be coming out next year.

I was glad to do a guest post from the perspective of some older folks (but not that much older) who can relate to the experience of many of her readers, but who have also gone somewhat further down the road.

My wife Eileen and I both know what it's like to be young twenty-something singles in graduate school and working, and also what it's like to be married for a decent stretch and to struggle with difficult circumstances that have taught us much. One thing we've learned is just how real the marriage vows become in life, and how great is the strength of the sacrament.

But there is no need to rewrite the whole thing now; if you haven't already done so above, go ahead and read the piece (and check out Arleen Spenceley's blog) by clicking HERE

The Chain Saw in My Brain

Jesus said to his disciples,
“Things that cause sin will inevitably occur;
but woe to the one through whom they occur.
It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck
and he be thrown into the sea
than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin" (Luke 17:1-2).


Oh no. Jesus said, "Woe!" That gets my attention.

<And the mental gears start to turn and turn and turn and SPIN, brroom, brrooooooom!>

"Oh woe, woe... woe to ME. I'm a crummy father, that's what I am, and my little ones are going to sin because I'm not doing enough to teach them, protect them, stop them, help them, love them, give them a good example, work them harder, appreciate them, teach them, show them, help them, I'm not doing enough, I give a bad example, I'm not doing enough, I'm not doing enough...."

<"John, TURN OFF THE CHAIN SAW!"> Says the voice of an old priest friend of mine. Its a voice in my memory, reminding me that my mind is a chain saw that cuts through obstacles and barriers to see the truth of things, but sometimes it gets turned around and then it starts cutting my brain into pieces. Turn off the chain saw! But its spinning around and I've lost control and I don't know how to shut it off!
. . . .

It can be a simple thing, like hearing the reading from this morning's Gospel. Suddenly, I am tempted to feel like Jesus is condemning me personally. I feel like I'm the person who should be thrown into the sea with the millstone around my neck; I'm the goat to whom He says, "Depart from me;" I'm the guy not properly dressed at the wedding feast; I'm the Pharisee, the hypocrite, the one who Jesus looks at and just wants to thrash.

I'm not sure whether other people are troubled in quite this way. But it troubles me. Sometimes Jesus in the gospels feels like He's hard to get close to. I feel like He's saying, "I'm not going to love you and be your friend until you straighten out your life. Go away and fix yourself and come back when you are worthy."

But I know that He isn't saying that to me.

The devil would like for me to believe these thoughts. The devil wants me to be afraid of Jesus, or to get discouraged and just give up. He meddles in all of this. But he is not running the chain saw. Nor is it (simply) a spiritual bad attitude or a lack of self-esteem or a failure by me to do this or that. Certainly my failures are abundant. But that is not where the root of this problem lies.

My brain is "tilted" -- the images and the words get associated with the wrong memories, and certain problems (that may have some basis in reality) are filtered through a hormonal/neurochemical matrix that distorts them or exaggerates their intensity. And thus the images pour through my brain and the ideas and judgments arise in my mind. Intelligence and freedom are on the scene here, but they are limping badly. This delicately constructed body-soul human person has a sickness.

We experience illness in ourselves by self-reflection. If I cut my arm, I feel the pain and I see the blood and I say, "I cut myself." That's simple enough. If I start to lose my hearing suddenly, I might be more confused. I might think, "Why is everything so quiet?" I might tell people to speak louder. I might not realize that I myself have the affliction. When the affliction involves the complexities of the brain, the nervous system, and all the factors that shape perception, it can be very difficult for me to recognize it in myself, to see that there is an illness that is hindering me in the activity of understanding and judging reality and myself.

But even with the reflective effort to understand a "mental" illness, backed by mountains of clinical and scientific study, I still lack the full emotional strength of conviction. Even as I write this, my mind says, "are you sure this isn't all baloney? Are you sure you're not the Pharisee or the hypocrite...?" The illness is so close to my sense of self, much closer than if I just had a broken leg. In the latter case, I wouldn't have these thoughts. I'd just look at my leg. (So would other people, and that would be a lot easier for them too.)

And we have also a real intersection with the self, the conscience, and freedom here. Maybe I am a bit of a Pharisee. But we must lay that to one side for the moment, and face the fact that we are dealing with a sickness. This is not a freely chosen position in front of reality. This is an affliction that distorts reality, like clouds cover the sun.

I don't know how much of a hypocrite I really am. I'm a sinner. I know that. But my mind, with all its rich intensity thwarted by distortion, can take that "negative" factor and blow it way out of proportion and focus.

What can I do, here and now? Before I take Jesus's rebukes and use them to condemn myself, can my reason enter into the matter and at least do some mental pain management?

Yes. If intelligence can still limp, it should at least limp. By limping we can move in the right direction. So in this case, I have to remember that Jesus is speaking to the whole human race, and that there are some very, very, very BAD people out there. Its not judgmental or self-righteous to acknowledge the fact that some people are knowingly and deliberately malicious; there are people who like being bad, people who decide to be bad, which is to say, to oppose what they understand to be "the Good," and not out of weakness but out of strength. Some people are like this... maybe many people are like this.

Jesus warns and threatens in graphic ways because He loves these people too. He's trying to wake them up, not just from sleep, but from a self-induced coma.

This is a reasonable supposition for me to make, but it does not follow that I can sit down and decide who those really, really bad people are. Another person's freedom does not manifest itself so plainly to us. It plays itself out within all the complexity of a particular human person of body and soul and so many hindrances including those I've described above, We know what's good and what's evil, but since we can't read hearts, we can't really judge to what extent someone is willfully bad and to what extent they are afflicted and distorted because they are sick, or wounded by life, or carrying terrible hidden sufferings. Only Jesus can know that. He knows what each person needs to hear.

Jesus is Compassionate Truth: He is
the Truth who comes to dwell with us.
He is Mercy who has come to save us.

I'm a sinner. I want to follow Jesus, but I'm weak. Yes, I sin. Sometimes stubbornly. But Compassionate Truth comes to get me. Truth is hard, but its also my companion that helps me up each step and sometimes even carries me. It deeply understands my weakness and how to work it into strength, with patience. The voice of Jesus to me is always the voice of "Compassionate Truth." I'm a sinner. Jesus loves sinners. He came to save sinners.

If I read the Gospel and feel condemned by it and rejected as an evil person, that is not Jesus talking. Its not my conscience talking. Its depression that's talking; its obsessive compulsive disorder that's talking; its this complex affliction that's talking, blowing my faults completely out of proportion. I'm sensitive, perceptive, and I think deeply, but my neurological / psychological / emotional condition sends all of that down the sink toward the negative: All I can hear is "Maybe I'm the bad one. Why is He so mad at me? I feel terrible about myself!" If I find vanity, self-centeredness, or mixed motives in myself (as I inevitably will), the chain saw starts cutting and digging in to get the badness, to get every bit of it, but it never finds it all, it never gets it out. So it keeps cutting....

And if I happen to be feeling okay with Jesus, I can easily find something else to obsess about and get down on myself: I worry about the next doctor's appointment, the next writing deadline, trying to sleep or accomplish other basic life tasks that should be easy, or getting sick or dying, whatever. The chain saw looks for things to cut. Sometimes I get a handle on it, and I see that it can be used to build, to open up places, and to bring order and clarity to the world outside of myself. But its hard to keep it turned in the direction of reality and the task at hand.

I've had forty years of this kind of stuff (not all the time, but on and off, dormant then triggered... more recently, much better but far from cured). I've learned to deal with the medical and emotional aspects, and do that as much as is necessary. "Success" here is not "being medication and therapy free" -- success is having things more or less in perspective (if meds and therapy are necessary for that, for however long, its no big deal... I thank God for the help).

And I also have to tell my mind: "Listen to the voice of Compassionate Truth, of mercy. Tell the condemnations to SHUT UP!"

Its not easy, but its possible. It can be done. I have learned over the years, however, that it cannot be done alone.

The Internet: Are We Addicted, or Do We Just Use It Too Much?

You're online a lot. Probably much more that you would like to admit on any survey. Lets face it: you worry sometimes that you might be "addicted" to the Internet.

(Of course I'm just using the editorial "you" in this post. I'm not implying that you, personally, dear reader, have any kind of problem like this.)



Okay, first of all, I certainly recognize that this can be a real problem. The Internet is powerful, stimulating, and easily accessible. I expect that it can trigger or exacerbate various mental disorders, chemical imbalances, or other neurodysfunctions.

It can also shorten people's attention spans, make them more gullible, more argumentative, and more scattered and distracted in their hearts. The Internet is an almost inexhaustible resource for people to get themselves into all sorts of trouble and preoccupations about things that they can't change and therefore shouldn't worry about because, really, this stuff is none of their business.

The medium lends itself to being misused in these ways. There is also easy access to information and images that can positively fracture the human personality. That's another topic. I have nothing to do with that (nor, as far as I know, do any of the other five people who actually read this blog). But I know all about how the Internet can be distracting.

Of course, I use the Internet for good reasons! I use it for "research," and writing, and to encourage people, and to communicate edifying things, and to learn about important events, and to be a presence on this "digital continent" (as Benedict XVI called it). I want to be in the vanguard of the NEW EVANGELIZATION!

Clearly I have a well-ordered, balanced, virtuous, unselfish approach to using the Internet. Right?

HA! Not even close. I'm hooked just like everybody else.

I am trying to use it well. Some days I do better than others. I'm convinced that its good to be online, and so -- inspired by that great battle cry of G. K. Chesterton, "If a thing is worth doing, its worth doing badly!" -- I march forward on the digital continent. I must learn and grow, here... just like everywhere else. Meanwhile, I pray that the Lord will "write straight" with my rather crooked lines.

All of this is fine, as far as it goes. I know that I'm not a person who is called to give up all electronic devices and go live on an Amish farm. Even there, I think I would probably develop an "inordinate," self-centered attachment to my plow, or my patch of ground, or even my sense of having kept myself pure from the lures of the modern world. I don't need the Internet to be distracted. I can distract myself very well just with my own mind.

Truly, I mean no disparagement here to Amish farmers, nor to agrarians in general. I love agrarians. I have many agrarian friends. I love to read agrarian blogs (heh!) -- We are all given different gifts by the Lord. We can all help and learn from one another.

And I appreciate their gifts... especially when they are gifts of FOOD. Milk from grazing cows. Eggs from ... chickens! I mean straight from the chicken -- eggs that have not been subjected to the approval of 15 different bureaucratic agencies after traveling two thousand miles in a refrigerated truck. Squash, cucumbers, spinach in all of their glorious genetic originality, in all their various shapes and sizes and even with marks where real bugs (!) chewed on them. Bring on the food!

Its great. But I'm not a farmer. I'm a nerd.

Okay, some folks would say I'm an "intellectual" (frankly, I think I prefer the term "nerd"). I'm a thinker, and (I hope) a knower. I want to learn about reality and help others to learn, to see how fascinating everything is, and how many facets of reality there are to consider.

I'm a teacher.

I'm a nerdy teacher. My wife can come to the office at the John XXIII Center and ask me to give a "short introduction" to "the Middle Ages" for 9-12 year old kids. When? In a few minutes.

I told her I would need a large map of Europe and the Mediterranean. And then I went out and started talking to the kids. No notes. No prep. And it was interesting.

I can do the same thing in writing, though not as quickly as when I was younger. And its not easy, although it appears easy (to others and, unfortunately, often to me also... until its too late). It takes a ton of energy, and yet I love it in a way that verges on compulsive. Nevertheless, in the present circumstances of life all of this means that I have the capacity to do some good on the Internet. I think....

But there's more to it. There are more fundamental reasons why I feel called to write and to teach and to just be a human being using the New Media, even with their dangers and distractions. Its about the fact that, in all our efforts to communicate through whatever medium and in whatever context, we are persons living in relationship with other persons. Communication is always personal. If it is not a gift of self, it becomes sterile.

The Internet can easily distract us from the fact that we are persons who are called to be gifts to one another, called to give and receive love. Here, just like everywhere else, the person is on the line.

And I see that this is true. I see the possibility of giving myself and appreciating others in this land of symbols and images and words, this "digital continent" that is so revealing and obscuring, so full of lights and sounds and colors and pathways and signs that play upon (or strengthen and deepen) our longing to see in full the face that looks upon us with love.

FOUND: Ancient Pre-Digital "Blog"... From 1990!

Ancient media artifact discovered from "the nineties"

The recent Janaro Archeological Expedition (also known as "Get Ready For the Big Yard Sale") has recovered a remarkable document deep in the family storage bins. It clearly dates from the second millennium, and it appears to be a kind of primitive blog-like collection of ruminations by a twenty-something graduate student in theology. Young John Janaro began the work in September of 1990 and continued to post in it until May of 1992.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, before there was an internet... in the days when lots of people didn't even own a personal computer, human beings used to "write" with their actual, physical hand. They used a device that was the ancestor of the stylus that people use today on their iPads: it was called a "pen." In their own unique fonts (i.e. "handwriting"), people would write on pieces of compressed wood pulp called paper.

Writing on paper was considered a technologically advanced activity (hahahahaha). It beat the heck out of chiseling hieroglyphics on stone tablets, after all. Indeed, it had developed to the point where people could communicate with each other all over the world... within a couple of weeks!

Those nice folks with blue uniforms who come to your house every day and stuff your mailbox with coupons, bills, and political advertisements? Once upon a time they were the conveyors of interactive media. The sight of the mailman approaching the house filled people with excitement, anticipation, and hope that perhaps a "letter" might come. Lovers would stare out the window waiting for the mailman to bring a written communication from their beloved, and their hearts would leap at the sight of the mailman's approach. The mailman was a kind of daily Santa Claus, bearing who-knows-what in the way of gifts.

Today, when we see the mail carrier, the most we hope for is a two-for-one pizza coupon, or else that package from Amazon that we already know is coming today because we've tracked it on the internet. Sigh.

An even more peculiar phenomenon of pre-third millennium human behavior was the unusual precursor to today's blogging. Many people would fill books of blank paper with reflections about themselves, their families, and the world in general. A book like this was called a diary or a journal.

The strange thing about these hand-written blogs is that they had no readers. In fact, they were often deliberately hidden... from everybody! They were only read by the person who wrote them.

Cultural anthropologists today disagree about what might have motivated such strange behavior. Indeed, the whole idea is remote to our 21st century minds. We all assume that expressing our thoughts in text is synonymous with publishing them. We write blogs to circulate our personal views; we promote our blogs, give them their own Facebook pages, tweet links to them over and over, and are thrilled if someone retweets them to an even wider circle of strangers. We solicit email subscribers, and we even encourage people to comment on stuff we think about.

Imagine that your blog had no readers and no comments, ever. No "thumbs up" likes. No Twitter gold stars. Not even a "+1" from the Google Plus crowd. There is no crowd, man. You are writing to yourself.

On the other hand, it is possible that the artifact we have discovered is one of those very particular things known as a writer's journal. Writers have always been a different kind of animal in the human race. Ever since chisel was first taken to stone in ancient Sumeria, some people have dreamed that if they recorded their thoughts, someone, someday would read them.

It is difficult for us to imagine a world in which people didn't presume that every thought that came into their heads could be almost instantly published. In past ages, however, the vast majority of the human race never published anything; indeed, most of them couldn't even write. But there were always the scribes, and some of them dreamed and scribbled words and hoped that they might have value, at least in the future. Then came the printing press, and suddenly writers were intoxicated with the possibility that their stuff might circulate all over the place, even while they were still alive.

Still, "publishing" was a relatively rare achievement. For many writers it was only a dream, but it was a dream they kept alive, especially in their youth. And with this dream came the aspiration to fame and a Place in History. This was the secret of the "writer's journal." Along with dreams of future fame, the writer cherished the notion that someday people would want to know what their Great Mind thought about their early years of obscurity, and the events of their time. The writer's journal was really a blog for posterity, a record of allegedly "private" thoughts that secretly aspired to be a literary legacy, a chronicle for generations to come.

Today, it is not surprising that scribes have taken to bloggery, and the whole package of verbal New Media, in an almost natural way, and with gusto. Since the days of the Epic of Gilgamesh we have been motivated by the desire or the hope or even the delusion that other people would read our stuff.

Vanity, of course.

For the Christian, vanity plus hypocrisy.... But also, faith. Certainly the 27 year old graduate student who wrote the words below as part of the "Statement of Purpose" at the beginning of his volume was puffed up with his own rhetoric. But he also really believed what he was saying. And he really did want to say it well. Young Janaro did say some interesting things, in fact. (I may present them here and there during the course of the year, now that the journal has been rediscovered.) But in September of 1990 Janaro was preoccupied with declaring his purpose. Perhaps his vanity can be forgiven because it was so guileless.

Indeed, what is striking here is that these words sound a lot like my writing today. I could enter this text digitally and post it as today's blog, with no further explanation, and the difference would hardly be noticed. Perhaps some will remark that Janaro used to be a better writer before his brains got scrambled. One thing is for sure: the meticulous print reproduced below was a first draft, straight from the pen, without revisions. I don't think I can do that any more.

Oddly, I was more serious a quarter of a century ago. While texts like this often appear in my present writings, there is nothing comparable in the journal of 1990 to the sloppy, rambling blog entries that I often post here (such as the one I'm writing now). Yet I still write this way, not only because my thoughts haven't changed but also because what I wrote in September of 1990 is still true in September of 2013.

Fundamental truths, and the basic needs of this emerging new epoch, haven't changed. And, although the author of these words has changed a great deal, he is still the same person. He still has the same voice.

From John Janaro's Journal, "Statement of Purpose," September 5, 1990

"Rules for Interacting on Social Media"... by St. Ignatius!

St. Ignatius working on his blog. 

I've been doing some research on St. Ignatius of Loyola for an article I'm writing (part of a series I'm working on for a popular magazine that will appear next year).

The man blows. me. away. Of course, as is so often the case with the teaching of the saints, I feel overwhelmed. When it comes to holiness, I am just NOT THERE.

May God have mercy on me for presuming to say anything about Him.

Lets listen to Ignatius. He's the real deal. The early Jesuits compiled several collections of "sayings" from his letters. As I was going through these, several of them struck me as relevant to the interaction so common among us, particularly in what I like to call the "Catholosphere" (haha).

Of course these apply to any kind of human discourse, but they have particular importance for those of us who think we have something to say that will "help" our brothers and sisters. And they are excellent points to remember when we are engaged in the awkward, disembodied conflicts that often arise on the Social Media.

And so, without further comment, here are some Rules For Communication on Social Media (and everywhere else)... by St. Ignatius:

"[A] good Christian has to be more ready to justify than to condemn a neighbor’s statement. If no justification can be found, one should ask the neighbor in what sense it is to be taken, and if that sense is wrong he or she should be corrected lovingly. Should this not be sufficient, one should seek all suitable means to justify it by understanding it in a good sense" (from the Spiritual Exercises).

"We should be slow to speak and patient in listening to all men.... Our ears should be wide open to our neighbor until he seems to have said all that is in his mind."

"[In seeking to help our neighbor] we should not move straight to what is highest and most perfect, but proceed slowly and gently, from lower things to higher."

"We must adapt ourselves to people's capacities. Try to pour too much at once into a narrow-necked bottle, and you will just spill it and fail to get it inside."

"When, as is but human, errors are committed by others, you should see in them, as in a mirror, some deformity that needs removing in yourself."

"Beware of condemning any man’s action. Consider your neighbor’s intention, which is often honest and innocent, even though his act seems bad in outward appearance."

"If your neighbor’s sin is so manifest that you cannot in honesty excuse it, blame not the sinner but the violence of his temptation, remembering that you yourself might have fallen as badly or even worse."

"Love even the most abandoned: love whatever faith in Christ remains in them: if they have lost this, love their virtues; if these have gone, love the holy likeness they bear, love the blood of Christ through which you trust they are redeemed."

It is Always Person to Person

Morning sun lights up the back of our estate. Its a morning full of blessings

The house is quiet, early in the morning. Its the only time of day that the house is deeply quiet. Everyone is sleeping except me. I've prayed my morning prayer, and now I'm sitting in my "home office" (my corner in the living room, with my "Daddy's chair" and my desk piled with papers and books and containers of my precious raw almonds, and gadgets -- and it must be said that in spite of everything, books still far outnumber the gadgets).

I sit here with my first cup of coffee, listening to the silence. I can hear the soothing sound of artificial ticking. It is our faux "antique" mantle clock, a true masterpiece of Chinese workmanship and design. The plastic body passes for genuine wood. The plastic face with its pretentious Roman numerals looks like gilded metal. A small battery keeps everything moving, and gives it a ticking sound that has nothing to do with the mechanism of the clock.

But as I survey the room and its spontaneous clutter (which is another way of saying "mess"), it is clear that this is a very real home. This is a house that is gloriously, raucously lived in.

Everything is given. It all seems still and silent in this moment, but it is a silence that breathes, from the presence of sleepers in their bedrooms to the tick of the quartz clock; from the errant sneakers that ought to be on the shoe shelf to the shafts of sunlight gleaming through the window. It is more dynamic that a roaring fountain. It is all, right now, coming forth from an inexhaustibly generous hand.

I've been writing less, and spending more time reading during work time these days. I am slow at everything, and I grow tired very easily, but I know that my days are about more than just trying to survive. I am being educated toward the most important work of my life. Indeed, it is a work that has already begun.

I write to communicate. My energy is drawn from my awareness of the persons who read these words, from the realities that I perceive, and from the connections that I see everywhere, and that I desire to share with my readers. Whether those readers are many or few is not so important. I craft various kinds of writing on different interactive media platforms, but I can keep my focus insofar as I remember that what is taking place is person to person communication. Even here, I am not writing to an "audience" -- I am giving something, sharing something that I see with each person who reads these words.

I do not know what people take away from these words, and they are often clumsy compared with what I wish I could say. But all I can do is summon my energies and give what I have been given.

I want to give what I have been given, but what happens to these gifts -- how they are received and what kind of fruits they bear -- is in the hands of God. Indeed, I myself am in His hand. Every person is a gift for others, and therefore every person has gifts to share. Every person matters. Every person has beauty.

The summer sun is brightening up the whole room.

All things are gifts from God to us, and we are gifts from God to one another.

Have a beautiful day.

Using Our Talents For Love

God gives each of us talents, which He wants us to "invest" in life. Our talents are concrete capacities to love, and He gives them to us so that we might each grow in His image and likeness, so that we might fill the universe with the love He has bestowed on us, the love that creates and sustains each on of us in this very moment, the love of He who is Love. He makes us capable of recognizing Him with gratitude and wonder, and reflecting His Love in every circumstance. Our talents help shape our personal, particular ways of loving God and loving our brothers and sisters.

Loving means loving. It means giving what I have received. It means giving myself, in this moment, to the person or persons who have been entrusted to me, as a husband and father first, and then also in the use of my particular talents to serve others and build up the good. So, if I'm "busy" with things -- if I am speaking or writing or communicating on the internet or on my blog, or sitting in a library surrounded by old fashioned books and paper, or presenting a lecture in a hall or a classroom -- I must ask myself, "Why am I here? Am I here to give myself, or to build up and enrich my capacity to give? Am I here for love? Or am I just here to show off? To exercise my ego? To dissipate myself in an exchange of information that is really just sophisticated gossip?"

At this moment, I'm trying to write. But my writing is worthless unless it is an act of giving myself to those I hope will read it. Is this a gift of myself? I want it to be; I pray that it might be thus, even though I find myself so easily sidetracked, derailed, or just mixed up in this work and in everything else I do.

Many of us are like this. We offer ourselves in love and witness, but we find ourselves afflicted with so many obstacles: we have our own daily struggles, we are sick, we are tired, we are stressed out.

We must bring all of it to the One who holds us in His love.

Perhaps we feel that our love is only a poor imitation of the love we have received, that our love is all mixed up with self-promotion and vanity. And indeed it is. Let's love anyway. Let's do what we can, and also nourish ourselves continually at the places where we find Him who has loved us.

Indeed, we must let Him love us, through the Church, through the sacraments, through prayer, through our brothers and sisters, through the very truth and goodness of the joys and the sufferings of life. It all belongs to Him, and it is all the work of His great and mysterious love for us and our destiny. In His love we will find the strength to give ourselves, and to give Him to others.

Right Now, Right Where You Are....

Think, think, think, write, write, write, read, read, read, think, think, think, doubt, doubt, fear, fear, think, think, read, read, read, think, read, write, doubt, FEAR....

Really, its as simple as Teresa popping into the office and asking for an apple slice.

He is here.

I can't hold myself together with a comprehensive understanding of myself, or with stuff, or with anything that I try to capture with my conniving and my worrying.

Instead something happens. Someone comes. Someone Else is here.

This is what Christmas teaches me. Of all the billions of people born in human history, there is one who -- right now -- says to me, "I am the meaning of your life."

"I am what you are searching for, what you keep trying to make for yourself, in an effort that leads to desperation again and again, because you know that what you're looking for is beyond all your thinking and understanding and expression; you know its out of reach...."

"Don't be anxious. I have come to dwell with you. I am here, right now, right where you are. And I love you."

Whatever darkness you suffer, remember that He is here.

Whatever sorrow, confusion, guilt: He is here.

He wants to bring you through. He loves you.

"I have come into the world to be its light" (John 12:46).

Rejoice! Its the Christmas season. Happy Christmas Season!