Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself

Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself

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1d ago

Hidden Threads of the Good Life

Threads. The many colored elements of life which seem to appear randomly, then reappear curiously, until finally revealing some aspect of a greater tapestry that can only be seen with time, distance, and perhaps the flash of insight. Interestingly, the “thread” element has recurred for me in multiple places this week, prompting some reflection on the nature of these strands that often link the seemingly unrelated signals of our lives. Reading a book in a hotel room a few weeks ago, I found myself struggling to get into it. I was interested in the topic, the table of contents revealed focus and order that appealed to me, and the author’s general worldview seemed to align with my own. I literally put the book down and asked myself, what’s the problem? My conclusion was style. The word choices, the sentence structure, and the flow just weren’t working for me. Talking through it with Sally later, she suggested that perhaps his was more of a speaking style that, when converted to the written word, didn’t resonate as well with me. May we all have such generous voices to sometimes counter-balance our lesser tendencies. I put the book down and moved on. Introducing a speaker at an event last week, I shared some anecdotal observations on my own experience with her as a student in one of her classes. “One of the key things Dr. Ordway taught me was to approach any written work with intellectual humility so that the author’s insights might be understood clearly and received without our own bias.” Intellectual humility. Hmm. That lesson from her class had been filed away, like so many learnings, as one more part of my mental library, appreciated, collected, and put on a shelf. Reflecting on that thread of learning shelved so many months ago, I thought about the book I had put down. Was it quality of writing that barred my way or my own biases? My mind wandered to another classroom in another era. The year was 1985 and I was a new student at the very large John Marshall high school in San Antonio, Texas. I was in an English class full of “honors” students who all seemed to me to be so worldly, knowledgable, and confident. I was in 11th grade and didn’t know what to expect of an honors class but one sense of it was provided by Mrs. Clanton in an early admonition to her students: beware of your own intellectual arrogance. Returning to July 2026, John Adams came to mind. An intellectual and articulate giant of the American Revolution, his great convictions were often burdened with the weight of his own pride and vanity, which frequently needed buffering by his wife, Abigail. A line from Abigail in the HBO series John Adams, sums it up: “John, you must be patient with those you find less intelligent than yourself.” Laura Linney deftly delivers a message that is at once sincere, tongue-in-cheek, and profound. You are smart but it is not about being right and your pride hampers your effectiveness. More threads. Returning to the lessons of Dr. Ordway, I remembered what followed in the “why” behind the need for intellectual humility. We must receive, understand, and see the reality of what is being shared, before we can properly judge it. If we don’t approach with humility, our own preconceived notions, conclusions, and biases may block us from a deeper, unseen truth. It may or may not be there, but we will never know if we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to discover it by suspending judgment until we’ve received its reality. We all have a great need to be right. This fundamental disposition is the most basic element of pride and a great barrier to peace, joy, and enlightenment in our world. C.S. Lewis wrote of the “heart” as the human organ of discernment, the ability to judge rightly. A well-formed chest is able to recognize truth and act virtuously in response to it. Approaching a text, an idea, or an argument, with intellectual humility is pre-empting the prideful comparison of my rightness and your wrongness in order that we might see reality before making judgment. It is an act of virtue and requires great self-discipline. It is also very difficult. Author and academic, Jordan Peterson offers us a guiding principle in Rule 9 of his 12 Rules for Life: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t. Another great thread in the weaving of a Good Life.
Jul 12

Love Foolishly

In 1989, Stephen R. Covey published his classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The book was a staple of management and personal effectiveness thinking for those coming of age in their careers in the 1990s, and has remained an influence for generations of leaders, with Covey’s timelessly catchy metaphors and pithy expressions of key habits like “sharpen the saw,” “begin with the end in mind,” and “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” One key metaphor introduced in Covey’s book was the “emotional bank account.” Covey used this image has a way to frame our thinking around relationships. He posited that the strength of our relationships with others is reflected in balances of emotional connection and trust that increase or decrease based on our everyday interactions with each other. Actions like kindness, active listening, and appreciation, act as deposits, thereby increasing our balance while actions like criticisms, broken promises, and ignoring efforts to connect, act as withdrawals. A healthy positive balance enables us to endure the inevitable slights that occur in any relationship. The emotional bank account metaphor is highly rational and easily understood. It is an effort to quantify and structure something that is wildly variable and resists measurement. A quick search reveals the psychological science behind it with expressions like “keep it in the black” by maintaining “the magic ratio,” which appears to be five positive deposits to every one withdrawal. However, one must be careful as some frameworks suggest as many as 20 positive deposits to every one withdrawal in order to keep that balance high. There are many dangers in trying to quantify goodwill or trust. Positive or negative actions may be valued differently based on the individual and the impacts of withdrawals from our emotional bank accounts often dramatically outweigh deposits – it seems that the weight of hurt and slight is always heavier than the lighter currency of kindness. Trust once lost may sometimes never be recovered, and years of goodwill can be spent quickly in even the smallest acts of selfishness. For a young man, recently graduated from college and newly married, the emotional bank account metaphor offered a graspable vision of rationality to the highly fluid reality of relationship: at home and in the office. Of course, 1992’s Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus helped novices like me realize that human beings must agree on a standard of currency before any assessments of value can be made. Now more than three decades later, I find the emotional bank account metaphor woefully inadequate, if not dangerously deceptive. Simplistically suggesting that you do more kind things than unkind things on a daily basis not only glosses over the immense complexity of the human dynamic, it implies a transactional, utilitarian foundation for the most intimate aspect of our existence, communion with other human beings. I’m not criticizing the desire or effort to more deeply understand human relations, but we attempt to quantify them at our own risk. This brings me to the Catholic Church’s Liturgical calendar and today’s Gospel, the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13. In it, Jesus shares the story of the sower indiscriminately scattering seed on various types of soil: the walking path where it is stolen by birds, among rocks where it withers, among thorny ground where it is choked, and finally upon rich soil where it yields fruits, a hundred, sixty, or thirtyfold. What is the seed that is being sown? It is “the word of the kingdom.” Jesus is referring to himself, the Word, the Divine Logos, offered to all. But what is he really offering and what grows from that? The extravagant casting of seeds upon all types of soil is an invitation to relationship, an invitation into God’s divine life. In Galatians 5, St. Paul describes the fruit born of the seed of the Word through that invitation to relationship: love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Years after 7 Habits and Men Are From Mars, I heard a speaker debunk a common platitude of marital relationships, saying, “People often describe a marriage as a 50/50 partnership. That is a misconception, it needs to be 100/100. Each person must give 100% for it to be all it can be.” Marriage is clearly unique in the world of relationships but there is profound insight in the message: you get what you give. A recent speaker’s challenge to “love foolishly” gets us closer to the Christian ideal and further away from the quantification of relationship deposits and withdrawals. We are made for relationship, for communion with others. Human relationship is not a bank account with balances and transactions. Intimacy and impact are not measured in debits and credits. The Divine Sower gives us an example of what extravagant love looks like and what communion promises. Not all relationships are equal and communion with others doesn’t always mean soul-baring intimacy. However, the fruit born from our own seeds sown will reflect the abundance of our love…not in the balance on an emotional spreadsheet, but in the joy of having loved foolishly.
Jul 5

Time, Flowing Like a River

Time, flowing like a riverTime, beckoning meWho knows whenWe shall meet again, if everBut time keeps flowingLike a river to the sea From Time by Alan parson Jumping into the warm pool yesterday, I felt like I had stepped into a stream which had stopped. This was the grip of a moment…a moment I knew would slip through my fingers as all do, but sat freeze-framed for the split second of the day. Two hundred and fifty years of American history conduced to July 4, 2026, then moved on in time’s rushing waters. It is a rare event to have all of my siblings in one place and rarer still to have their loves and their children there alongside our own children and grandchildren. But time struck like lightning to produce such a confluence on Independence Day 2026 and it felt magical. In a flawless day of warm sunshine, food, and family, we had a chance to revisit history and future simultaneously, embracing new marriage, new engagements, new babies, and old memories. My day was marked by “do it again, Poppy!” and the wrinkled fingers and toes that come with hours of pool time. What is it about throwing small children into the water that is so life-giving? My parents glowed as they hosted all of their children and nearly all of their grandchildren – four generations together in the smallest possible area able to contain so much life. Glancing at our two Godsons, now men, I thought of the time and the moment, wondered briefly about their future, then surrendered it to the invisible flow that would carry it on. Yesterday held itself in its own moment, remaining ambivalent about such musings, and demanding the presence that concentrates all faculties on that which was sitting, or swimming, directly before me. For a moment, we could just be in the moment. Looking at the picture above, already an instant family classic, the moment looms large above that river of time. The horizon stops at pool’s edge and anything beyond is left to itself, unencumbered by uncertainty or wonder. The collective vision seems to say, “Tomorrow will be what it will be. For the moment, we’ll be here, fully now.” And now, the demands of the day return. The clock has started ticking again and on we must go. Always on. And that’s ok. The moment is made precious in its passing. It cannot be stored, saved, reloaded, or relived. Only our memory holds it now, forever accruing the benefit of its existence as a warm place in our soul. What a gift.
Jul 4

America at 250. Still Something Worth Dying For?

Earlier this week, market strategist and geo-political commentator, John Singer, released an essay entitled Losing the Plot. He opens the piece with a story about a young woman posing in sultry fashion for a photo while sitting on the train tracks that run directly into Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where over a million people were murdered during World War II. “The woman is lying on the throat that fed the largest grave on earth, and she is catching some sun,” he writes. Singer’s essay goes on to share anecdotes about General Pershing reminding Americans what they were fighting for in WWI and one about Singer’s own father, who survived Auschwitz and went on to serve in the American army that liberated him. The essay is a sobering journey through a society that has lost a sense of reverence for the great sacrifices of the past and seems to have little awareness of the dangers before it as its very fabric shifts rapidly. In 2000’s The Patriot, director Roland Emmerich takes us through the American Revolution through the lens of one man and his family in 1776 South Carolina. The fictionalized account begins on the eve of the Declaration of Independence, giving us a glimpse of the complexities of fervor for freedom from British rule and some of the practical human realities of family, community, and fear surrounding the epic decision to fight for it. The protagonist, widower Benjamin Martin (played by Mel Gibson) is a reluctant revolutionist, having a sense for the horrible realities of war and fearing for his numerous children. The movie opens with a town hall meeting to vote on joining the northern colonies in their revolt. Martin, a respected war hero and local leader, listens to the various arguments for going to war with Britain before standing up and saying, “Why should I trade one tyrant 3000 miles away, for 3000 tyrants one mile away?” The pithy line evokes a sense of just how uncertain were the prospects of an independent America past the passionate rhetoric surrounding the notion of freedom. He follows it up with the following flourish: “But mark my words. This war will not be fought on the frontier or some distant battlefield, but amongst us — among our homes. Our children will learn of it with their own eyes. And the innocent will die with the rest of us.” Of course, the war does happen, death appears on the doorstep of their homes, and Martin is drawn into the conflict, becoming a lightning rod for the revolution in South Carolina and the hero of this story. Great loss is visited upon him and his family, but it is the heroic fervor of his oldest son, including his willingness to die for the cause of freedom uniting these thirteen colonies, that eventually moves Martin beyond father and farmer to true patriot. He eventually comes to see himself as part of something greater than self and the fears and desires motivating him. A few lines from a letter written by his son, Gabriel Martin, sums it up: “Despite all this, I feel fortunate to serve the cause of liberty, and I would gladly give my life for it if necessary. Pray for me, Thomas. But more importantly, pray for our cause.” Cause. Liberty. Pray. This is a very interesting combination of words. What is the cause? Thomas Jefferson gave us the words and they were memorialized in The Declaration of Independence. This snippet sums it up: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” A cause simple enough to be captured in a few words which unified about 2 million people spread across a landmass about 8 times the size of England. Our country has been debating the notions of equality and rights, not to mention the place of the Creator in our country, ever since. Who are all men and what is equality? What are those unalienable rights? What is life and when does it begin? What is liberty and where does your freedom end and mine begin? What is happiness and what does it mean to pursue it? The broad eloquence of Jefferson’s words masked the brutal journey ahead for a nation that would bleed profusely in its struggle to define them. Much has been written and spoken on those words. We’ve debated them on Civil War battlefields, Presidential and Congressional elections, in our courts, in protests and marches, in newspapers and social media, not to mention within our own families, churches, and communities. Part of the Singer essay’s lament is the sense that we’ve forgotten many of the debates and the cost of our efforts to define and refine the meanings of these words. For most of us, the battles occur on distant frontiers, are fought by others, and are bereft of the costly context of tyranny and repression expressed in the forms of physical threat. In many ways, a sense of our collective history has been lost. One might argue that 250 years of immigration has produced a 340+ million person melting pot of identity attached to myriad histories. Singer contends that politics in America’s big cities are shifting as the Democratic party looks more and more socialist. Perhaps he’s right. But American politics feeds on trends and movements, power follows money and we’ve created a vote-buying system built on great collective wealth and the sometimes less-than-subtle redistribution of it in the name of the common good. But there is an elegant and practical beauty to our system of checks and balances, a process which has imperfectly held our nation together from the beginning. In 1987, Pope John Paul II addressed President Ronald Reagan and the United States in a speech honoring the Bicentennial of the Constitution. The Pope celebrated all that the United States had done for the world in the first two centuries of its existence : “I thank America and all Americans – those of past generations and those of the present – for their generosity to millions of their fellow human beings in need throughout the world.” He also called on America to remember its founding principles and see them in light of a responsibility to the world. “To celebrate the origin of the United States is to stress those moral and spiritual principles, those ethical concerns that influenced your Founding Fathers and have been incorporated into the experience of America.” “From the beginning of America, freedom was directed to forming a well-ordered society and to promoting its peaceful life. Freedom was channelled to the fullness of human life, to the preservation of human dignity and to the safeguarding of all human rights. An experience in ordered freedom is truly a cherished part of the history of this land.” Then, the Pope described America’s mission as he saw it, and offered his own definition of freedom: “This is the freedom that America is called to live and guard and to transmit. She is called to exercise it in such a way that it will also benefit the cause of freedom in other nations and among other peoples. The only true freedom, the only freedom that can truly satisfy, is the freedom to do what we ought as human beings created by God according to his plan.” St. Thomas Aquinas described free-will as a gift from God, born of reason, and ordered to choosing good. We’re given freedom to do what we ought. How do we know what we ought? Aristotle would answer that doing what we ought isn’t about rigid rules but about cultivating virtuous character though repeated action. These thinkers argued that we were given freedom so that we might live virtuously, and in so doing, be happy. The ultimate point of Singer’s essay is that we have lost our center, our sense of mission or place in the world. The great melting pot of America has become a diffusion of myriad selves vying for their own interests with no common, unifying ground or vision. Of course, the reality is that even revolution is born of self-motivated interests. The mission that unified our Founding Fathers and the colonies gave way to a thousand individual missions of varying degrees of self-interest. Facing the Civil War, self-interest unified on two fronts and the great experiment begun nearly 100 years earlier was put to its greatest test. The unified visions that came to be in WWI and WWII were also hard-fought as American self-interest aligned to a purpose greater than itself. Survival is a great necessity and there is nothing like war and the threat of destruction to unify those threatened. One of the great challenges of success, at any level, is the tendency toward comfort and complacency. We naturally wish to avoid conflict and gravitate to an equilibrium that pulls us from tension. Our history has been marked by the ebb and flow of tension and equilibrium – power and politics have followed this pattern. In the absence of the obvious threat of destruction, self-interest pulls at the center of purpose and unity. With the final battle of the American Revolution won, we see Benjamin Martin bidding farewell to French military officer Jean Villeneuve who was present throughout the war fighting alongside the colonials while promising great French assistance – which was ultimately necessary to end the war. As Martin rides away to begin again, we see Villeneuve (who had lost his entire family in a British attack years earlier) looking unsettled as-if wondering what’s next in his life. Most likely, his character will return to a France that will soon undergo its own, bloodier and uglier, version of the American Revolution. Centered in a cause that saw its ideals trampled by human passions. Have we lost the plot? Is the great story of our founding buried in the myriad self-interests driving faction, power, and division? Singer’s final challenge is to suggest that there is still time and the right choices can be
Jun 28

We’re All the Difficult Kind. Love Us Anyway.

Can you remember a time when you walked on this earth unencumbered with self-consciousness? A moment when you dressed, spoke, played, danced, laughed, or raged without concern for appearance, judgment, or consequence? For most reading this, the answer is “no, I cannot,” because you were probably 3 or 4 years old. The three-year-old is absolutely consumed with self: it’s all about what he or she wants, when he or she wants it, and the overwhelming feelings of injustice that accompany any occurrence that impedes those desires. It is pure. It is innocent. It is a hurricane of uncontrolled emotion. We may not remember feeling unencumbered by any self-conscience hesitation about the chaotic emotions that accompany frustration or disappointment, but, no matter our age, we still recognize the feeling. Moving from three to adulthood, we are trained and molded to control the outbursts that accompany moments when we don’t get our way. However, the raw emotions are still there, churning just below the surface. The beautiful thing about the three-year-old is that there is no mask, no attempt to hide exactly what he or she is feeling. Living with several of my grandchildren within this age range over the last week, I was able to watch this dynamic is numerous situations. Conflicts arose over the smallest of things – like someone wants what someone else has; as well as bigger things – like so and so hit me. Of course, each one of us has our own personality, so reactions differ somewhat, but from 2-4 years old, the tantrum is pretty standard. The interesting thing about a tantrum is that it really reflects the worst of the one throwing it. It is the elemental throw-down of anger, frustration, stubbornness, and inconsolability that accompanies any hindering what the tantrum-thrower desires. From the outside, the tantrum is the display that those watching least want to see. Of course, we tolerate it in children because, well, they are children and we expect them to get upset and throw a tantrum from time to time. Learning to manage through disappointment and frustration is simply part of growing up. But feelings of frustration and disappointment don’t go away. The passions that drive us remain throughout our lives, as do the realties of the world, particularly other people, that impede them. Alas, the tantrums also remain. Sure, we get better (mostly) at masking them, but the chaos that is a will frustrated appears regularly throughout our adult lives. It does not always manifest in a direct outburst, but we see it in business, at home, on the beach, in the store, and pretty much anywhere people gather together. Sheryl Crowe reminded me of this in her song, Difficult Kind: I think I was wrong, I think you were rightAll my angry words will keep me up at nightThrough the old screen door, I still can hear you say“Oh, honey, won’t you stop treatin’ me that way?” The songwriter reflects on angry words and the emotional outbursts that accompany disappointment, frustration, and hurt. She goes on to lament them. Isn’t that the way of tantrums or angry outbursts? We feel ourselves tipping into a reaction and it’s like flood carrying us away. The three year old has no paddle, isn’t really even aware that he needs one. But we, as adults, know that it’s not a good look. We often know it while we’re caught up in and cringe inside as we watch it play out. Crowe gives us an insight into that sensation and a hint at what is needed: Tell it to me slow, tell me with your eyes‘Cause if anyone should know how to let it slideI swear I can see you coming up the driveAnd there ain’t nothing like regret to remind you you’re alive Regret is a high impact word. Six letters that land like a ton of bricks. But the first two lines provide the answer: please, love me anyway. Sitting at dinner the other night, I watched as my granddaughter slipped into three-year-old defiance. She became a bundle of “no,” “I don’t want to,” and then pouty-lipped stubbornness. My default response is a justice-oriented authoritarianism that creates a battle of wills, a battle that offers two possible results: the breaking of her will or the retreat of mine. Feeling the irritation welling up within me, I paused for a moment and received a glimpse of something different. I had new eyes to see that it wasn’t about me and what I wanted or expected, but was suddenly about what she needed. Tell it to me slow, tell me with your eyes‘Cause if anyone should know how to let it slide Love me anyway. Even when I’m not my best. Love me out of this fit. I leaned over to her, smilled and whispered, “Do you want to go out and look at the restaurant’s aquarium?” Her disposition changed instantly. Not because I had given her what she asked for. Not because I accommodated a tantrum or rolled over to stubbornness. There was no mind game. There was no smoke and mirrors. I just picked her up, held her close, and took her on a solo trip to see the exotic fish. Just her and me. My behavior said: I love you, even when you’re not your best. Tuned-in to this dynamic, I saw it play out throughout the week. Answering the pettiness of a tantrum or stubbornness with the magnanimity of loving them through it was far more effective than any amount of authoritarianism I could muster. Sincerely and actively Loving them through their worst brought them back to their best. None of us ever really outgrow the tantrums of our childhood, they just manifest in new ways. It is simply part of being human and as much as we try, the anger, frustration, and disappointment will come upon us. The truth is, we’re all the difficult kind in one way or another. I think this is where Christ was calling us in Matthew 5:38-39: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I say to you, do not show opposition against an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other toward him also.” Loving someone at the point when they least deserve it is the call. It is difficult and counter-intuitive. Our sense of justice suggests that your “evil” behavior deserves punishment. Perhaps that’s true. But we bring degrees of “evil” upon others in our lives in so many ways and rarely does their punishing us change anything. When we take on the role of judge and executioner, we harden hearts and more distance in the relationship. If you could only seeWhat love has made of meThen I’d no longer be in your mindThe difficult kind‘Cause babe, I’ve changed Crowe claims that she’s changed but that’s really not true…or the point. What she’s really saying is: can you see me at my worst and love me anyway? Sometimes that is a bridge too far and we just can’t get there. But the reality is that we are all the difficult kind and there is great power in loving someone through their worst. Sure, it’s a lot easier to look at my three-year-old granddaughter and love her through her tantrum. But we come across many difficult kinds in our lives and its worth asking: how effective has an eye for an eye been in dealing with them? St. Thomas Aquinas defined love as “willing the good of the other, as other.” But willing the good of the other is not a passive activity. Actively loving a person at their worst and through their worst has the power to change their heart. It is a radically disarming form of turning the other cheek and inviting the other into a unifying encounter. To do it requires heroic virtue. Sound like too much? Start with the three-year-old. Then try it with the teenager. Then, bring it to bear on the adult. Look for what each needs in that moment when they are behaving their worst. Not in coddling, acquiescence of bad behavior, but in a bold, active affirmation of all that is good in the person beyond the moment. Show them you love them, even when they don’t deserve it, and watch their heart soften. More importantly, watch your’s soften along the way.
Jun 21

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, Turn and Face the Strange

During a long drive about two weeks ago, the song Changes, by David Bowie, came on the radio. Bowie and his music have been on my mind ever-since. It’s kind of odd, I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a fan. Released in 1972, neither the song nor Bowie were a household music staple in my youth. His 1983 album, Let’s Dance burst into my musical world through his iconic MTV debut video for the title track, which went to number one on the charts. But it was his 15th studio album and the only one of his 26 that I purchased. But Changes appeared like an old friend as the following lyric jumped-out to me: And these children that you spit onAs they try to change their worldsAre immune to your consultationsThey’re quite aware of what they’re going through This lyric is quoted in the opening title screen of 1985’s The Breakfast Club, a classic John Hughes coming-of-age movie, set in a Saturday detention session at a Chicago high school. It beautifully captures the spirit of that movie, setting up the tension between a group of teens moving through their growing pains and the authoritarian Vice Principal who assigns them an essay with the prompt: “Describe to me who you think you are.” Who do you think you are? The classic challenge to the youth who has overstepped, defied, or challenged authority. It drips with the high-handed voice of experience that has forgotten its own journey of defiance and error, as it intones: how dare you. How dare you challenge me. How dare you pursue your selfish aims. How dare you screw up. Looking back on my 34 years as a father, I’m sure I’ve used it a few times. Perhaps my sense of these changes was made more acute this week as traded-in our Yukon XL. The family truckster that has been a staple of our family life over the last ten years, overseeing our final transition from kids at home to empty-nesters, to grandparents, to that stage of life in which one moves from the blur of child-rearing to, hopefully, a deeper, more reflective, and perhaps more intentional engagement with a world that looks unlike anything one could have imagined. Still don’t know what I was waiting forAnd my time was running wild, a million dead-end streetsAnd every time I thought I’d got it madeIt seemed the taste was not so sweet Bowie evokes his own sense of rebellion while recognizing that many of those things we chase, young or old, are ultimately unsatisfying. Walking through changes, we begin to see some of our own dead-ends and the hard lessons learned. And then, re-learned. Do we ever learn? Parenthood pushes and pulls us through the many places where our becoming moves from labor pains to growing pains to the acute pruning of the many accretions we gathered along the way. We experience it on the front line of a life that is often changing wildly while wildly changing us. Reading a recent LinkedIn post entitled The Visible Signs of Our Lives, from my friend, Anthony Manno, the pressing sense of change hit me in a different way. In his post, Manno, the third generation owner of a clothing and tailoring business, shares a beautiful reflection on his business, his catholicism, and expressing belief in a visible manifestation of things that necessarily remain invisible. He connects the threads wonderfully but my reflections sit up one layer. I’ve watched this young man move from college student athlete to husband, to father, to business owner, and now to someone with profound insights on life, purpose, and his place in it. Like my own children, this young man is suddenly “grown up.” But of course, none of it is suddenly. These are all long, difficult becomings. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strangeCh-ch-changes, don’t want to be a richer manCh-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strangeCh-ch-changes, just gonna have to be a different manTime may change me, but I can’t trace time And beautiful ones. I reflect today as these changes continue. Occasionally, we can tune-in to the tectonic shifts in our lives, and see them with new eyes. See them in the context of the great sweep of existence that gives them an epic, epochal, flavor. Our small place in some great and grand story. Today, I celebrate my 34th year of fatherhood and my 9th year of grandfatherhood, with almost all of my children, all of my grandchildren, and my own father, who ironically was born in the same year as David Bowie and shares a love of the album Let’s Dance, and particularly the song, China Girl, with me. I get to look upon these visible signs of my life, which reveal all that is most important to me while reflecting those invisible things that give it all meaning…the hidden that makes it all transcendent. Change is truly a beautiful, magical, challenging, and strange thing. I’m still trying to figure out how best to turn and face it but I suppose that too is part of its compelling power. The deep wrestling that demands something from us, costs us, and ultimately moves us to the next version of ourselves, is its own necessity. We may try to run from it, but it finds us nonetheless. That’s ok. We’re quite aware of what we’re going through.
Jun 14

The Good Life. For That I Came.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;As tumbled over rim in roundy wellsStones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’sBow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came. We’ve been blessed with some beautiful days this week. Sitting outside in the sunshine a couple of days ago, I noticed dragonflies flitting about our backyard. The breeze was light, the humidity low, and the there was a lighthearted whimsy to the movements of the dragonflies. I wondered about them, pausing in the moment to think of the good of their design. The perfect simplicity of their creation and purpose, for this they came…to do what they do in a form unique to them. Truth has been much on my mind this week, as well as the prudence it takes to see it clearly. Prudence is the reasoned discernment of reality, seeing the truth of things, then acting rightly. But what is acting rightly? There are, of course, right actions in the sense of the most efficacious thing to do to achieve an end. If I am driving to the store and the most direct path is a left turn rather than a right turn, that would be the right thing to do…if getting there quickly is my primary aim. But what if my aim is the good of the moment, to live fully in the glory of creation in during the five minutes it takes to drive to the store? Perhaps the right turn brings me closer to the full good of what that drive might bring to my day. The truth is that we are designed to live the good life, a life made good in living morally. An existence brought to the fullness of its design by engaging with it virtuously. We manifest our God-given dignity most fully in living that good life; in choices made less for the effectiveness of their outcome than for the good done in their making. Yes, the outcome may in fact reflect the virtuous good achieved in the choosing, but we don’t always strive for outcomes that reflect the good for which we were designed. I say móre: the just man justices;Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not hisTo the Father through the features of men’s faces. In his poem, “As kingfishers catch fire,” Gerard Manley Hopkins is reflecting on the truth of our great design and living for the good of the imago dei in which we were created. For that I came. Curiously, I awoke today thinking of Beowulf, the great hero of the epic poem written in his name. Believed to be a product of the 8th Century, the poem was written in Old English and comes to us as a tale of courage in the face of frightening evil. The hero Beowulf hears of a monster terrorizing the hall of King Hrothgar, attacking in the night and carrying off dozens of the king’s warriors. King Hrothgar suffers these attacks for 12 years, until the brave Beowulf agrees to battle the monster in single, unarmed combat, pitting his strength against that of the monster. In the great struggle, Beowulf prevails and the the monster, Grendel, limps back to the dark fens to die of his wounds. The great poem is very long and this is not Beowulf’s only adventure. It is a story of courage, fortitude displayed in the face of danger and the uncertainty of the dark night and real monsters. The foe I must grapple, fight for my life then,Foeman with foeman; he fain must rely onThe doom of the Lord whom death layeth hold of. Beowulf has been given great strength and great prowess. He knows the truth of this and sees it as gift and responsibility. Honor demands he meet the creature unarmed in a test of that strength though he is uncertain whether it is enough to overcome the monster. That is courage. The truth is that he is made for this, designed to confront such evil, and the good life is living fully in the truth of that design…even if it means his death. The notion of a violent death as a measure of living the good life is jarring to our modern sensibilities. We go to great things to avoid pain, and certainly no one is attracted to the idea of their own death. We expect to live long lives and hope for happiness along the way. But a warrior of the 8th Century would see a good death, a death brought in the name of courage and honor, as a glorious measure of a good life – a virtuous end and fulfillment of his design. For that I came. This week, I was asked to pray for a young warrior recently deployed to a place that will put him in harm’s way. I have prayed for his physical safety and the safety of his soul. I have prayed for his prudence and courage, for his sense of just conduct in the face of aggression, and for the integrity of his heart as he attaches himself to a greater mission. Ii pray he can see the purpose in it all and the goodness of his great design amid the broader movements of God’s Providence. I pray for his absolute good and for all those who love him and await his return. It is easy to speak of noble virtue as I sit safely in my kitchen, sipping on a craft cup of espresso infused with just the right amount of perfectly heated water to delight my senses, as my loyal dog lays at my feet, my beautiful wife moves about at the start of her day, and I anticipate the company of my grandchildren in our shared celebration of Mass shortly. I like the notion of the good life in those terms. As we approach the 250th year of our great American experiment, we should remember that our good life, however we define it, has not come cheaply or easily. Or that it is guaranteed. We also need to remember that there are worse things than death, both in this world and in what follows it. Living the good life is remembering that it is a gift, we are made with great care and purpose, and acting rightly in the face of the many reasons not to, is the ultimate measure of just how good our life has been. Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not hisTo the Father through the features of men’s faces. For that I came.
Jun 7

What Does It Mean to Be Human?

In the 2021 movie, Dune: Part I, the young Paul Atreides submits to the Gom Jabbar, a test administered by the leader of an order of semi-mystical priestesses. In the test, he must put his hand inside a small black box while the priestess holds a poison-laced needle near his neck; the test is to see whether or not he can keep his hand in the box as it heats up to excruciating levels of pain. Removing his hand will result in his death, while keeping his hand in the box will result in the loss of his hand. When Paul asks the Reverend Mother about the purpose of the test, she tells him that it will reveal whether or not he is truly human. The movie scene, based on the novel written by Frank Herbert in 1965, touches on a fundamental difference between a human being and an animal. The animal, will instinctively react to the painful stimulus, unable to control the deeply wired impetus to survival. The human being has a mind able to discern the circumstance, and the will to choose. The young man may panic, choose incorrectly, and fail to endure, but he has the capacity to overcome his fear and will his body to endure. Successfully completing the test, and removing an unharmed hand from the box, Paul is told, “Congratulations, young human.” On a recent tour in Rome, art historian, Liv Lev, pointed to a collection of sculptures depicting men that were part animal and shared that these reflect man’s inner struggle with his animal nature and our ongoing journey toward a higher level of being – aspiration toward the divine. Later during our trip, Sally and I stood in front of a fountain in the Piazza Navona, looking at figures that were half-men, half-fish, mythological tritons, pondering Lev’s reflection on humanity’s animal nature, and the struggle to control our baser instincts. In a presentation last week at Catholic University of America, AI expert and technologist, Taylor Black, opened his lecture by asserting that the question that the tech industry finds itself asking today is “What does it mean to be human?” Going on to argue that our culture’s “thin anthropology” around the value of work and our purpose in it is creating a crisis of meaning as artificial intelligence rapidly takes over increasingly complex tasks that once defined the work we do. He sees a growing sense of “hollowness” as AI prompts many to confront fundamental questions of purpose and value. Black goes on to say that AI’s capacity to quickly process massive amounts of information, compiled human knowledge, and then take action on it creates the perception of judgment and choice, key differentiators between human beings and animals. The illusion of a disembodied intelligence follows, creating many to ask: what is my purpose, what value can I add, in a world where a machine can do the things I can do? Though a machine’s ability to rapidly find patterns in natural language may create the illusion of intelligence and self-awareness, this is a far-cry from the unique combination of body, mind, and soul, that comprise the human person. However, the question of what it means to be human will remain a central issue for all living in an era in which machines eerily seem more and more human while also more than human in so many of their capabilities. The great news for we humans is that we’ve got over two thousand years of Christian anthropology to help us with these questions. Human beings, made in the image of God, have a body, mind, and soul, to reflect the origin from their Creator and ultimate destination toward him. In this creation, we’re also given the great gift of self-awareness and free will. The power to believe. The power to hope. The power to feel and to know, particularly right from wrong. The power over our own will and the power to choose – as imperfectly as it might be – our own way. We will continue to wrestle with the animal within, those baser instincts that so often drive us. We will continue to wrestle with notions of purpose and meaning, in our work, in day to day, and in our ultimate destiny. We will also continue to wrestle with the struggles that mark our brief existence. And yes, we’ll continue to wrestle with other humans, their choices, and the creations they unleash upon the world. But all of that too is part of being human. Thank God.
May 31

Beautiful, Amazing, Magnificent Humanity

During the preceding week, a flurry of thank you cards found their way to our house. Apparently, some of our grandchildren found them to be a great canvas for artwork, practicing writing their letters and words, testing new metallic markers, and for actually writing “thank you” note. Some of these envelopes were hand delivered in a running, pony express, across our backyard and some found their way into our mailbox. All brought a smile. We’ve had the cards out on our counter all week and I have found my eyes drawn to them daily. The colors, the words, the letters, the swirls and swoops and designs…the love and desire to share their creative energy. The urge to create and share is universal. We still have folders of works from our children and the collection of such moments from our grandchildren fill a new generation of a priceless gallery that seems too precious not to keep. Last week, Pope Leo XIV issued his first Papal Encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. There are many great summaries and commentaries, however, it is really pretty self-explanatory and I encourage all to read it. The title, meaning “magnificent humanity” has rolled around in my head all week. We all have plenty of examples of not-so-magnificent-humanity that may jump to mind, but I can’t help but look at those cards on my counter and feel the tug of a profound thread the Pope is drawing us to in his Encyclical. Today, the Catholic Church celebrates Trinity Sunday, the great mystery of a belief in one God, comprised of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In a reflection this week, Father Dwight Longenecker describes human beings, created in the image of God, reflecting the Holy Trinity in our composition of mind, body, and soul. He describes these three unique elements of our person, when properly integrated, as reflecting the unity of the Trinity. What makes humanity magnificent? There are certainly moments in which we show our best selves – I really do love the creative art work of my grandchildren and in its way, all of it is magnificent. However, humanity is made magnificent in its creation as an image of God. Furthering this magnificence, this inherent dignity, God took on human form, in Jesus Christ, as an expression of His love for humanity. Today, Catholic Churches the world over, universally proclaim John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish.” At a dinner event in Rome just over a month ago, I had the opportunity to sit next to His Eminence, Cardinal Michale Czerny, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. I didn’t know what that meant either so I asked. Essentially, the Dicastery promotes Church teaching on social justice worldwide; integral human development is concerned with the God-given dignity of the individual and justice is about recognizing and honoring that dignity in all forms, particularly for those who are most vulnerable. Integral human development – the integrated person. Head, heart, and spirit. Behind all the big words, centuries of theology, and Church organizations, is the universal truth that human beings have objective value, an innate, God-given dignity, that does in fact make us magnificent. Not because we earned it, but because we are loved into existence in the image of our Creator. Pope Leo’s Encyclical affirms this truth, sharing the beauty of Catholic social teaching as an answer to the dangers of technology. It’s really quite simple. When technology, AI or otherwise, affirms human dignity and supports human flourishing, it is good. When it doesn’t, it is bad. The closest thing I can imagine to the love described in John 3:16 is what pours from my heart when I look at the collection of cards laying on my counter and think of my children and grandchildren. In my mind, I can see each of them, running across my backyard, reaching for me in the middle of a crowd, wanting to sit on my lap at breakfast, jumping into my arms after a recital, or just saying “Hi, Pop!” as greeting. They cannot earn what I feel for them and nothing they do will change that. Beautiful. Amazing. Magnificent.

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Becoming the best version of yourself

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Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself
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