“There Ain’t No Big Bang”



Desert Cross by Rob Marczynski

This postcard may be a little long and preachy, but after 12 years working at a parish what can you expect, and after all, Lent starts this week. 

My son Charlie thinks it is funny that you can tell Lent is coming because McDonalds starts to feature their fish fillet sandwiches.  Lent is one of those "special" seasons when we become resolved to shake up our ordinary lives.  We eat fish sandwiches, we sacrifice, we pray, we give to the poor, we go to church; but I wonder if by doing all this extra stuff (albeit good stuff which we should probably be doing all the time) we are missing something - "We fail to see the tree in our own backyard because we're too busy looking for the forest."  Maybe Lent should be more about making the ordinary, extraordinary.

I love to go to baseball games.  That first glimpse of the brilliant green grass contrasted against the dark brown and red of the infield punctuated by the white bases literally takes my breath away. I stop in the tunnel for a moment just to take it in. Throw in an ice-cold beer and a hot dog and life doesn’t get much better. It is a moment when all is right with the world and God is in His heaven.  For me, moments like that are the times “God pulls back the curtain,” like in the Wizard of Oz, and finally everything becomes clear. In My Monastery Is A Minivan, Denise Roy describes these moments as:

[Times] when life shines a spotlight down upon you, illuminating that moment as a holy moment. . . .  A moment when you live half in and half out of time, when you know utterly and completely that this is a wonderful moment.  A moment when the music is so magnificent that you heart fills to the point of breaking open, when a note hangs in the air and all eternity is, just for that moment, made manifest . . . A moment that is so achingly beautiful your heart pleads for a time-out so that you can hold on to this moment and place and sense absolute wholeness.

We crave these moments to lift us up out of the ordinary and the mundane.  Remember Peter in the Gospels; he goes up the mountain where he sees Jesus gloriously transfigured chatting with Elijah and Moses.  A priest one time referred to this as Peter’s mountain top experience, and like any of us, didn’t want that moment to end.  In fact, he wants to set up tents and settle in.  He gets to see behind the curtain.  Yet, at the very instant Peter tries to capture this Kodak moment (remember Kodak moments?) he finds himself back in the “real” world at the bottom of the hill.  Another moment like this is the story of Martha and Mary. In Having A Mary Heart In A Martha World, Joanna Weaver points out that having Jesus in her home is something so out of the ordinary, Mary forgets all about helping out Martha.  She shuts out everything else, and for that rare moment Jesus is transfigured for her. 

Weaver, also share the story of Brother Lawrence, a member of a 17^th century French Carmelite community.  He spent his days cooking and cleaning in the monastery kitchen and in his book of reflections he writes that his kitchen work was a time of prayer, no different than the time he spent in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  “What a goal,” concludes Weaver, “To be so in tune with the presence of God that washing dishes becomes an act of worship.  That the moments of our lives, no matter how mundane, become aflame with the divine.” (Weaver, p.86) She goes so far to suggest that if we do not experience God in these ordinary times of our lives or if we use these times as excuses for not having time for God, we are guilty of sin because we allow ourselves to be separated from God, “the very definition of sin. . . .(Weaver, p. 105)   

A friend from college would often remind me, “It’s not who you are present with, but who you are present to.”  Her reminder mirrors the words of Father Ronald Rohlheiser in his book of Lenten reflections entitled DayBreaks – Daily Reflections for Lent and Easter Week.  Father Rohlheiser writes, “We don’t pray to make God present to us.  God is always present everywhere.  We pray to make ourselves present to God.” (Rohlheiser, p. 29)  So, if God is everywhere, we don’t really need to go very far or do very much to find Him.  Kathy Cofey, in her book entitled Experiencing God With Your Children, writes:

             “In the routine we take for granted simmers a holiness that knocks our

              socks off. . . . .  We who are busily craning our necks into tabernacles

              and tomes may well miss the dazzling brilliance of the ordinary.  If we

              aren’t alert to the fact that God visits us at home, then we are likely to

              be unwelcoming hosts and hostesses, gawking elsewhere.”  

As my mom would say, when we couldn’t find something, “It’s right in front of you.  If it were a snake it would bite you.”

Like Peter and Mary, we all want and look for, or wait for, the “big bang” - that miraculous, transforming, extraordinary moment when God fully reveals himself to us. However, as a friend once said, when it comes experiencing God in our lives, “there ain’t no big bang!” We realize that even if we have one of these “take your breath away moments,” we ultimately have to return to our ordinary lives - Peter’s got fish to catch and Mary has to help with dinner. My glimmering baseball field becomes scarred and the game will end with the last out in the bottom of the 9^th. Even that quintessential moment of our salvation, the crucifixion and death of Jesus, which we cling to each Lenten season, has to end with His body being lowered from the cross and placed in an ordinary tomb before there can be any resurrection.

So, maybe this Lent  I’ll  try to make it a little more ordinary. I’ll spend more time looking at that tree in our backyard, marveling that the crocuses have come up even though its only 28 degrees, acknowledging that leftovers are pretty good compared to not having any food, being thankful that Beth brings me coffee and irons my shirt in the morning, relishing the accomplishments of my three great kids, and simply enjoying McDonald's fish fillet sandwiches, which somehow taste better during Lent.

Gotta go, I got a fish fillet with my name on it.

Ola Mae . . .

Stormy Sunset by Charlie Marczynslo

In the mid 80’s BB (Before Beth) I had a girlfriend who had an aunt and uncle living someplace along the coast of Florida.  I don’t really remember the uncle’s name, so we’ll just call him Jasper; but the aunt was Ola Mae, who could forget a name like that?  The story goes that a hurricane was on the way, so Ola Mae and Jasper boarded up the house and did everything one does when a hurricane is coming and then they went to bed.  Jasper fell asleep almost immediately (typical man), but Ola Mae tossed and turned and paced the floor.  Finally an exasperated Jasper asked, “What in the world is wrong with you?”  She answered, “Well, the storm is comin’.  Can’t you here the wind and the rain?  What are we gonna do?”  Jasper sighed, rolled over and very calmly replied, “There’s not a damn thing we can do about it now Ola Mae!”

Sometimes along our pilgrimages, unpleasant things happen.  Uncle Jasper’s, “Not a damn thing we can do about now Ola Mae,” sounds like pretty good advice.  It has become the mantra at our house.  Check bounces – “not a damn thing you can do about it now Ola Mae.”  Kids wreck the car - “not a damn thing you can do about it now Ola Mae.”  Flat tire - “not a damn thing you can do about it now Ola Mae.”  You get the picture. 

Along my own pilgrimage this past week, I experienced the unexpected death of a close friend of over 30 years.  Every now and then it hits me that I will never see Eddie again and that, as strange as it seems, he is no longer on this earth.  I know such things are bound to happen and are completely out of my control. Yet, despite boarding up the windows, battening down the hatches and deciding to ride out the storm, and knowing there’s nothing more I can do, I still feel totally unprepared, like Ola Mae.  I toss and turn, pace the floor and get all worked up.  It angers me (to put it nicely) that he is gone, and I hear Uncle Jasper cajoling and nagging me, “there is not a damn thing you can do about it.” 

The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament reminds us and complains that despite everything that happens to us, tomorrow will still come, “The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.” (Ecclesiastes 1:5) I have heard one preacher opine, that while life does indeed go on in spite of, and completely oblivious to our travails, we should take comfort in knowing that we can indeed count on the sun rising again.  Life goes on, we pick up the pieces and continue on our journey.  The faith that the sun will rise and set may not help with the cleanup, but it will get us through the storm.

Gotta go, I think I hear another storm blowin’ in.

In the Beginning . . .



Desert  Labyrinth at a Franciscan Retreat Center Outside of Phoenix

In this digital age of email, Facebook and Instagram, people do not send them as much as they used to, but I remember what a thrill it was as a kid to get a postcard.  Even if you did not know who it was from, or even care what it said, it was nice to look at the picture.  The messages were usually dribble, “The weather is beautiful, wish you were here” – as if they really did - or they offered some explanation of the picture on the front as if whoever sent it actually took the picture themselves.  Sometimes they would tell you all of the wonderful things they were doing and the places they had seen, while you sat at home bored out of your mind.

Yet somehow, the senders felt it was necessary for them to chronicle their vacation pilgrimages in words and pictures.

A few years ago, I served on a national board that provided grants to low income community organizing and economic development projects.  Sponsored by the US Catholic Conference of Bishops, the board was made up of Catholics from all over the country, all walks of life and all political and social positions.  There was even a Catholic Indian!  Imagine that.  Part of the meetings were dedicated to a spiritual activity.  During one of these activities, the Native American member performed a Lakota “smoking ritual” (a kind of incensing to cleanse away one’s sins and evil natures) and explained how he integrated his Native American and Catholic spirituality.  The one thing I remember was his description of the Indian’s concept of starting out as a heavenly beings on an earthly pilgrimage in contrast to the perception of the “white man’s” vision of starting out as an earthly beings on a heavenly pilgrimage.  Even though the ultimate destination is the same; what you pack and carry (and throw away), what is important to you and what you notice along your pilgrimage, is totally dependent upon where you see yourself starting from.  That vision of being a heavenly being on an earthly pilgrimage has stayed with me.  Not that I have managed to

So, after completing over half of my pilgrimage, I decided to chronicle some of the points along the way – send out a few postcards, if you will.  Thus the title of my blog, “Postcards from the Pilgrimage.”  And just like those postcards you use to receive, the message may be dribble, but you can hopefully enjoy the pictures, most of which were taken by my family and me.  Feel free to add your own comments to this digital postcard.   You won’t get them on any regular basis, so they will be a surprise, just like those postcards you got in the mail.

So in the words of Jimmy Buffet, “The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful!” 

 

Gotta go, I got places to see!