Complications and Happiness

The feeling comes upon me every now and then: the desire to pull up stakes and relocate the family.

Some enterprising pollster recently decided to measure people’s happiness and catalog it according to geographic location. Ohio, it turns out, is way down on the list of states, ranked according to happiness. We are 44th out of 51. The District of Columbia, so it appears, is now a state. I can’t help but wonder why Puerto Rico and Guam were left off the list. Any relocation that we might make based on the happiness ranking, however, would have to be fairly far. None of the states bordering Ohio ranks any higher than 34th, and both Indiana and Michigan fare even worse than we do. The closest state to rank in the top ten is Tennessee at 4th. Ah, Tennessee, with its rolling hills and its country music! I could learn to like Tennessee.

It’s never going to happen, though. Especially now.

We’re in the middle of a construction project on our 80 year-old house, and we’re taking on a bunch (for us) of new debt in the process. We now “own” the house even more than we did before. We’re not going anywhere. The accumulated complications of life aren’t going to offer us an easy way out, not that I ever really expected that they would.

The temptation to look around and see greener grass anywhere other than in your own yard is a powerful one. It also usually turns out to be an illusion.

I used to scoff at people who warned me that my teen-aged kids would drive me batty. “Not mine,” I would insist. “I’m raising mine right.” I don’t scoff anymore. Instead, I wonder that God has entrusted such a responsibility to me, and I hope and pray that I don’t screw it up too much. I know that all too soon, they’ll be moved out, accumulating their own complications. I only hope (selfishly, I know) that they don’t move far.

Shepherdless, Hungry Sheep

In the liturgical calendar, Christmas continues for another week. We don’t begin Ordinary Time until after the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord this coming Sunday. In this Christmas Tuesday following Epiphany, the Church has selected as the gospel reading for the mass Mark 6:34-44, which recounts one of the instances in which Jesus multiplied the loaves. Where does this passage fit into the Christmas season?

As I read Mark’s account, two observations come to mind. First, the convergence of signs and symbols that I noted in my post, Something About Christmas, continues. Second, the numbers are significant.

“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” (Mk 6:34) God’s people were like sheep, so He sent to them the Lamb of God. They were without a shepherd, so He sent to them the Good Shepherd. “You give them something to eat.” (Mk 6:37) Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means “house of bread” and was laid in a feed box. God gave the Israelites manna in the desert, but Jesus identified himself as the “true bread from heaven” and the “bread of life.” “He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (Jn 6:35) The Eucharist is woven throughout the gospels, from the Christmas narrative, through the miracles of Christ, to the Last Supper and the passion, death, and resurrection. It is truly the source and summit of our lives.

The numbers (five thousand fed with twelve baskets left over) are significant. Don’t take my word for it, though. Two chapters later, in Mark 8, Jesus feeds four thousand with seven loaves and seven baskets left over. When the apostles then misunderstand His words about the leaven of the Pharisees, thinking that He’s talking about physical bread, He seems to become a little exasperated. “’Do you still not see or understand? Are you hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see; and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets did you pick up?’ ‘Twelve,’ they replied. ‘And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ They answered, ‘Seven.’ He said to them, ‘Do you still no understand?’” (Mk 8:17-21)

We can only guess at what the numbers mean, since scripture isn’t explicit, and our culture doesn’t place as much symbolic meaning in numbers as Hebrew culture did. One interpretation, which I believe comes from Dr. Scott Hahn, is that the fives and twelve refer to the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) and the twelve tribes of Israel, whereas the four and sevens refer to the four cardinal directions and completion or perfection, such that the two miracles of the loaves represent the extension of God’s covenant to all people, and not just to the Israelites.

Whatever the numbers might mean, Jesus seemed to think it was important that the Apostles understand the significance. We can only trust that the point He was making has been transmitted to us by the successors to the Apostles, such that we get the teaching, even though it isn’t explicitly explained in this passage of scripture.

Happy Anniversary

My wife created this wonderful video last year, on the occasion of our 16th Anniversary. Today we celebrate our 17th.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Bicycle Race

A few weeks ago, in the runup to the global climate summit in Copenhagen, NPR aired a story on cargo bicycles and the alternatives that they present for “green” transportation. These are pedal-powered bikes with a front bucket capable of transporting anything from beer kegs or groceries to school children too young to ride bikes of their own.

My first thought was that the practice of loading small kids into a basket on the front end of a bicycle and pushing them through traffic is never going to survive first contact with trial lawyers. The tykes will have to be properly restrained in a tested and certified roll cage and wearing approved safety devices – at which point it will be fabulously expensive and nearly impossible to move.

My second thought was climate-inspired. This was a December morning in Ohio, with about an inch of newly fallen snow on the ground. That makes the whole concept a hard sell. The last time that I rode my bicycle to work, I got caught in an afternoon rainstorm on my way home. I haven’t ridden my bike to work again since. It would take some pretty hefty incentives to get me to opt for a bicycle in sub-freezing temperatures or in any type of precipitation.

Something About Christmas

I would be negligent if I didn’t write something about Christmas. The fact is that every year, the holiday overwhelms me. Between the parties, the gifts, the atmosphere, the shopping (both before and after the big day!), the food, the drink, the house full of kids home from school, and everything else that I’ve forgotten to mention, I’m just not inclined to write much of anything.

And yet I have to write something.

Someday, I hope to be able to immerse myself in the spirituality of that Holy Night. When, in the fullness of time, God took upon himself a human nature and made his dwelling among fallen humanity, he did so in the most modest of ways. He was born into the barest of amenities, in a stable, to the wife of a carpenter. Mary and Joseph were not rich, and the census called by Caesar had required them to leave their home and travel to Bethlehem, the city of David, of whose line Joseph was descended.

The Son of God, Jesus, the “true bread from heaven” was born to descendents of David in a town whose name means “house of bread.”

The birth was not without its glory. Indeed, the event was announced by angel choirs, but not to the priests or to the sages of Jerusalem. Rather, the angels appeared to humble shepherds, tending their flocks. And so, the shepherds came to the stable to adore the new born Lamb of God. The found the Lamb, the Bread, the Son, the King, lying in a manger – a feeding trough.

The signs and symbols stagger the imagination. To think that God should come to earth in such a way!

The only gift that really matters at Christmas is the gift that God gave us 2000 years ago by becoming one of us. The circumstances of His birth demonstrate to us that the comforts of life are unnecessary luxuries. It should make us feel foolish for pouting if we didn’t find the gift that we wanted to find under the Christmas tree.

Meanwhile, the mad rush of “the season” continues. All the cheery carols flee from the radio and lopped-off trees stripped naked of ornamentation start to appear at curbside. Retailers try to squeeze the last few holiday pennies from shoppers’ purses while the media turn their attention to recapping the newsworthy stories of the last year and the last decade. The important things rarely make the top-ten lists.

There is so much more that deserves to be written, not just about Christmas, but also about the feasts that follow: St. Stephen, St. John, the Holy Innocents, the Holy Family, the Mother of God, and Epiphany. For me, however, the kids are still home from school, and once I get home from work, it’s family game time. All of the family members that we feasted with last week will gather again to ring in the New Year. I’ll be there in the middle of it, basking in the warm glow of good will, rushing to defuse ill will when siblings start to squabble, and above it all, trying to keep it all in the perspective of the greatest gift of all.

Merry Christmas, and may God bless the New Year!

The Types of John

Mark Twain famously noted (or so I am told) that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. The same can be said of the events recorded in Sacred Scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The Church, as early as apostolic times, and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son.”

Sometimes, the writers of the New Testament books explicitly link figures to their Old Testament types. In the case of John the Baptist, Jesus says that “he is Elijah who is to come” in Matther 11:14.

The Church also makes clear in the selection of Advent readings for December 19 that it considers Samson a type for John. It might be more accurate to say that the wife a Manoah is a type for Elizabeth. Both were barren, until God decided to bless each of them with a son. In both cases, the son of the blessing was set aside by God for a special purpose. The similarity between Samson and John is limited, however. By Christian standards, Samson is hardly a model of righteousness. Reading Judges 14-16 is downright scandalous by today’s standards, with Samson smiting Philistines hip and thigh with the jawbone of an ass and visiting prostitutes.

A stronger type for John might be found in the prophet Samuel. His mother, Hannah, was barren until the Lord heard her prayers. “The Lord remembered her; and in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, ‘I have asked him of the Lord.’” (1 Samuel 1:19-20) As soon as the child was weaned, he was taken to Shiloh to minister to the Lord, in the presence of Eli the priest. Samuel would go on to receive the prophetic call and then to anoint David, the youngest son of Jesse, to be king after Saul is unfaithful. Similarly, John will baptize Jesus, whose legal father, Joseph, was of the house of David.

Ya gotta love the ways in which Scripture rhymes!

Agressive Mistresses and Unfaithful Husbands

Every now and then, I read an article or column that brings me to the brink of despair. I don’t know why it should produce such a reaction, but Maggie Gallagher’s take on the whole sordid Tiger Woods scandal is one such column. Marriage is important, as an institution, because it provides the vital center of the fundamental building block of society, the nuclear family. That foundation is under attack on multiple fronts. The latest front appears to be the aggressive mistress.

The unfaithful husband is breaking vows. The mistress, however, who knows that he is married and cooperates in his unfaithfulness is no victim, and she is deluding herself if she thinks the cheat of a man is going to be true to her.