Everything I Really Need to Know, I Learned from...

 It has been a running joke in my family that we “kids” (adults now, but we’ll always be the “kids” to our parents) can quote just about any Disney movie from our formative years at length.  This includes a LOT of Winnie the Pooh.  My dad is known to lament our lack of knowledge of “the greats” like Shakespeare, in such depth…  To which I respond:  “Life’s but a walking shadow – a poor player who struts and frets his hour on the stage and then is heard no more” (“Macbeth”, Act 5 Scene 5).  In other words:  Life is short.  Let us get our enjoyment where we can!

Give us a lead in, and we’ll give you a quote. My sister-in-law is a self-proclaimed Disney addict, so now, it’s even more true.  Disney has a life lesson for just about every situation.  It’s true, some of the older Disney animated classics are “problematic” when viewed through the lens of our modern world, but that doesn’t mean the life lessons and core values are any less meaningful.

Some examples:

Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio – “Let your conscience be your guide.”

Dumbo – Be accepting of those who are different from you.

Thumper from Bambi – “If you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.”

Cinderella – “I know it isn’t easy, but we should all at least try to get along with one other.”

Alice in Wonderland – “‘Be patient,’ is very good advice, but the waiting makes me curious.”

Peter Pan – “Sooner or later … people have to grow up.”

Sleeping Beauty – Perseverance in the face of adversity and evil.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians – Taking charge of a situation. – “The humans have tried everything, now it’s up to us dogs.”

The Aristocats – Not judging based solely on first appearances

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – Acceptance of people as they are (Rabbit accepting Tigger for who he is) and the importance of loyalty

Beauty and the Beast – Looking beyond someone’s outward appearance to the person they are inside

Pocahontas – Respect for nature and respect for other cultures

The Emperor’s New Groove – Respecting others and not being full of oneself.

Ratatouille – following your dreams – You can be anything you set your mind to being.

There are, of course, many, many more.  What are some of your favorite life lessons and Disney quotes?

Constant Vigilance is Unrealistic for Us but NOT for God

You know why everyone pretty much ignored Mad-Eye Moody (or really Barty Crouch Jr., who was pretending to be Mad-Eye Moody) in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire?  Probably because he was always harping on about constant vigilance, and people were tired.  People were tired of having to keep their guard up all the time.  They had lived through eleven years of Voldemort, followed by thirteen years of relative calm and they thought the worst was over.  Not Moody!  He knew what would happen when and if he relaxed, and it did.

Constantly being on alert is tiring.  We are tempted to give up when things get difficult or drag on for weeks or months on end.  We are merely human after all.  But that is not how God works.  God can maintain constant vigilance because He is a divine being.  He does not suffer the same “weaknesses” of humanity.  That is why we can and should always place our trust in Him.

Fr. Erik mentioned in his homily this past weekend that if God ever stopped caring for us, we would simply cease to exist.  This same theme comes up in our Gospel reading for this coming Sunday.  Peter goes to Jesus across the water of the Sea of Galilee and when he starts to doubt, he begins to sink.  But Jesus is there to lift him up again and help him back on the path of following him.

When our vigilance wavers, God is always there waiting for us to return to Him.  In what ways have you lost your path, and how can you ask for help to return to God?

Affirmations for Making it Through Your Day

I get it.  There are some days when it’s just hard to keep going.  These kinds of days may have become more frequent since we have been dealing with COVID-19 restrictions and restructuring of work and school routines, not to mention simple, everyday routines like going to the grocery store or taking a walk.  Something that might help in dealing with the stress of facing yet more weeks of the ominous “unknown” might be coming up with an affirmation to repeat to yourself throughout the day.

One that I am particularly fond of, which I have as my laptop wallpaper is a saying popularized by John and Hank Green of YouTube fame.  Just some of their channels include vlogbrothers, scishow, and crashcourse if you want to check them out.  They remind each other, as well as their YouTube audience, “Don’t forget to be awesome” or “DFTBA” for short.  I like this one because it is an invitation to evaluate my own behavior.  It is a chance for me to think about the consequences of my actions, in the immediate sense as well as in the near and distant future.  Also, it ties into a pop-culture trend I was a fan of in my college years.

Another affirmation I am reminded of recently is one of my grandmother’s sayings.  “Don’t be that helpless.”  Take control of your situation as much as you can.  Don’t just be a spectator in life.  I shared this affirmation with a group of music teachers who invited my mom and me to be a part of their Katinka Day, in honor of my grandmother being the founder of their organization chapter.

An affirmation we get from a saint is St. Julian of Norwich’s “All will be well.  All manner of things will be well.”  It never hurts to have a hopeful outlook on life, even when the situation seems dire.  It’s a good reminder that things won’t be terrible and awful forever.

And of course, there is the classic, “Keep Calm and Carry On,” which speaks for itself.

What affirmations do you use or might you use to help you get through rough days?

Parabolic Language

Is “parabolic” a word?

Yes, it is, but not in the sense I would like it to be for the purposes of this blog!  We’re in the summer months of Ordinary Time, and especially in Year A (this year’s cycle), we’re hearing a lot of parables about the Kingdom of God.  Jesus told parables to make things easier for merely human minds to comprehend.  After all, the true nature of God, and of Jesus Christ possessing both a fully human and fully divine nature, is hard for us to wrap our heads around.  Some older Catholics might recall being told, “It’s a mystery!  We’re not meant to understand it.”  But, Jesus tries to make it easier for us to try to understand by putting heavenly realities into earthly context.

This past Sunday, we heard about the weeds and the wheat, the mustard seed, and yeast leavening dough.  The week before, we heard about different kinds of soil.  But it goes beyond the physical elements of each simile.  As Father Erik mentioned in his homily on Sunday, It’s not about the seed itself.  It’s not about the soil.  It’s about our souls and the being open to God’s Word at work in our lives.

This is what I would like to call parabolic language!  It isn’t hyperbolic – making something grander than it actually is.  it’s making things more relatable!

Yes, Have Trust, But Be Prepared Too

This past weekend, I got to put the saying, “courage under fire” to a very literal test.  Saturday’s Crestwood Fire was mere streets away from my house.  I never thought I would ever spend an evening eating dinner and watching flames out the kitchen window.  I never thought I’d ever be so close to a wildfire that I could actually witness an air tanker dropping water or a crop duster plane dropping retardant.  To be quite honest, it’s an experience I hope I never have to repeat.

Smoke from the Crestwood Fire:

 

The resulting burn scar:

It was one of those moments when you realize, it can actually happen to you.  Those events in life, like natural disasters or personal tragedies, that always seem to affect other people can and will affect you too.  I also think it’s interesting to look at people’s responses to these kinds of events.  My parents took the view of wait and see what happens.  My neighbor across the street went closer to the fire to check it out.  I was of the opinion that, since fires can be unpredictable, we should be ready to evacuate.  I was running contingency plans through my brain at a pretty decent clip.

At first glance, my response might not seem very trusting, either in the first responders or in the power of God’s protection.  BUT, there is a saying, “God helps those who help themselves.”  Yes, it is important to trust in God, but if you don’t take action on your own and use the gifts He has given you to respond to these kinds of events, are you really trusting fully in God and recognizing how He is working in your life?

Thanks be to God, the firefighters were able to get control of the fire before it got out of hand.  No homes were affected, and no one was hurt.  It could have been so much worse.  That doesn’t mean it wasn’t unsettling still.  It was definitely a reality check, a wake up call. 

“It” can happen to you.  Inevitably, it will.  What will your response be?

Kindred Spirits in a Time of Pandemic

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m a millennial.  I grew up in the time of almost nobody having a computer at home, and now, almost everyone has one.  I still marvel at the fact that schools now are working toward a one-to-one student-to-device ratio, because that’s just how education works right now (especially with online learning and home-based instruction).  When I was in elementary school, first at Cosgriff and then at the Madeleine Choir School shortly after it opened, “computer class” was Oregon Trail, and typing games, and that was pretty much it.  When I got to high school at Judge, the library had two rows of big chunky iMac computers.  I didn’t have e-mail until college, and I didn’t have social media until my second year of undergrad.  Now, technology has taken over almost everyone’s lives, right down to toddlers who can navigate an iPhone.  Life moves pretty fast sometimes.

When I was growing up, “screen time” wasn’t a thing.  If someone referred to screen time it meant how long a certain actor was actually on-screen during a movie or television show.  Now, that phrase is used to refer to the amount of time people spend on the computer or looking at their mobile device.  I’ll admit, I spend way too much of my time engaged in “screen time.”  I can justify some of it as necessary to do my job, but a lot of it, I could probably do without.

But even with its definite downsides, technology can serve to connect us during times of social isolation, like the last several months have been.  It can serve to create a virtual community.  It can connect us to our “brick and mortar” communities when we aren’t able to visit them in the physical world.  One can also find groups of like-minded people to connect with.  An example of this is Fr. Gray’s morning coffees with his St. Mary’s parishioners in Park City over Facebook Live.  Using technology to build community rather than to escape from it is a wonderful thing.

At St. Ambrose, we on staff have been working hard since the pandemic restrictions really began to impact our city and state to keep people connected to the parish through social media and YouTube Masses.  We are learning and evolving together.  Let us hope and pray that technology will help us to remain kindred spirits in community even during isolation.

If It's Broken, Fix It!

Here we are in a new month.  Finally.  Or is it already?  Or is it both?  Time can be funny like that, seemingly plodding along when one is in the thick of things and then seeming to have flown by.  The beginning of a new month typically feels like a good time for me to hit the “reset” button.  July usually is doubly so because it’s my birthday month.  It’s a good time to take mental stock – what has been a distraction?  What has been a detriment to me in the last month that I can try to get rid of?  What was a good and constructive way to spend my time?  How can I budget more time for the good activities and less for the detrimental ones?

Typically, one of my monthly “resolutions” will have to do with taking care of certain things I’ve been neglecting to do, whether in my secular life or in my spiritual life.  I ask myself, what feels broken or out of place?  Can I do something about it, or is it out of my control?  If I can do something about it, how can I fix it?  Do I need help to fix it?  How can I get help if I need it?  It’s an interesting mental exercise to go through, and most of the time, if there is a problem in my secular life, adding something to my spiritual life is a good way to try to fix what is “broken.”

Is there something in your life that feels “broken” right now?  Do you have control over it?  If you do, what could you add or change to “fix” it?