Back from Juarez

At least for a few hours. I'll be going back tomorrow. Maybe I'll actually sit down and blog once I get back to Chicago.

Peace,

Casey

one of my favorite poems

WHO AM I?

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell's confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a Squire from his country house

Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for works of kindness, for neighbourliness,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the Other?
Am I one person today and tommorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something withing me still like a beaten army
fleeing in disorder from victory already acheived?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

DD

"There is a kind of hypocrisy which is worse than that of the Pharisees; it is to hide behind Christ's example in order to follow one's own lustful desires and to seek out the company of the dissolute."

"Martyrdom is not gallantly standing before a firing squad. Usually it is the losing of a job because of not taking a loyalty oath, or buying a war bond, or paying a tax. Martyrdom is small, hidden, misunderstood."

"Christ continues to die in His martyrs all over the world, in His Mystical Body, and it is this dying, not the killing in wars, which will save the world."

"It is simpler just to be poor...The main thing is not to hold on to anything. But the tragedy is that we do, we all do hold on-to our boooks, our tools,... and instead of rejoicing when the are taken from us we lament."

"The saint does not have to bring about great temporal achievements; he is one who succeeds in giving us at least a glimpse of eternity depite the thick opacity of time."

"One must be humble only from a divine motive, otherwise humility is a debasing and repulsive attitude. To be humble and meek for love of God-that is beautiful. But to be humble and meek because your bread and butter depends on it is awful. It is to lose one's sense of human dignity."

"In this present situation when people are starving to death because there is an overabundance of food, when religion is being warred upon throughout the world, our Catholic young people still come from schools and colleges and talk about looking for security, a weekly wage.
They ignore the counsels of the Gospels as though they had never heard of them, and those who are troubled in conscience regarding them speak of them as being impractical.
Why they think a weekly wage is going to give them security is a mystery."

All quotes by Dorothy Day.

I hold Dorothy Day in very high regard. I suggest you google her and find out a little bit about her. She could be very abrasive, and I'm sure a lot of you wouldn't agree with a lot of her stands, but it's hard to ignore the power of a life lived like hers.

I forget who said it...

...but someone once said,

"A saint is never consciously a saint, a saint is always consciously dependant on God."

Hope

There are a few football players who just seem to have perfect names for what they do. Like Bronco Nagurski. I mean you can tell exactly how tough he is just by hearing his name.

Larry Hope is one of the biggest reasons I came back to Emmaus. I have never met anyone like him, and feel very honored to call him my friend. I'm not sure that I have ever met someone from whom the gifts that God has given him flow so freely. For our guys, his namesake is truly fitting. Emmaus would be a totally different place without him, and much the less I'm afraid.

Larry is one of those people that when I hear him speak, it makes me want to be a better Christian. Billy Graham has that affect on me. Rich Mullins had that affect on me. But the best part about Larry as oppossed to those other two is that I get to actually hang out and talk with Him. And maybe the best part about that is that I get to hear about his struggles, his insecurities, his frailties. In short, his humaness. It makes me respect him that much more.

A couple of years ago I spoke at my churchs young adult group. I talked about Larry for awhile. I think the address to that site is www.driverswanted.org, but I'm not totally sure. Maybe one day I'll bother to take the time to learn how to post a link. But if you bother to take the time to listen, I think it was June of '04. You can also read a bit about Larry at www.streets.org, which is the Emmaus website.

I like being able to say something about someone without them knowing about it. So if you happen to read this and know Larry personally, don't feel the need to tell him about it. Larry knows how much I respect him.

I'll not deny that I am a bit of a grinch.

I think anyone who has known me for more than a week or two probably knows that Thanksgiving is by far my favorite day of the year. I don't think that there could be one thing to make it any better than it already is. I mean, it's all about BEING GRATEFUL, which I think is about the height of all human emotion. What I mean is, I feel that the end result of loving and being loved, feeling inspired, feeling joy, knowing you have been saved or redeemed, or just realizing how wonderful it is to be alive brings about such a deep sense of gratefullness, thankfullness. I know that at every great moment of my life, big and small, I have felt profoundly thankfull. I forget who said it (it might have been Lewis or Chesterton), but someone nailed it when they said that the worst moment for an atheist is when he is truly thankfull, but has no one to thank. Thank you Father, thank you for everything.

With all of that being said, I have to say that Christmas is by far one of my least favorite holidays. I have to admit that I do very much enjoy getting good presents (particurally from my mom these days, who seems very intent on spending a lot of money on her kids), and even giving them, particurally when I find something that I think will be just perfect for someone. But I still feel all wrapped up in greed around this time. It's difficult not to hear all of the commercials, telling you you need to spend a lot, that how much you spend on someone tells them how much you love them. And I start thinking about all of the great stuff I'll be getting.

My family is pretty bad about the whole thing too. We all seem to spend more than we want to around this time. It's hard for me to focus much on the "reason for the season", when I spend so much time thinking about presents I'll be getting and giving, and all of the money. Every year I want to say, "Hey, lets just forgo gifts this year. Or maybe draw names. Or maybe even give to charities instead." But of course we never do. And part of it I'm sure is my greed.

I'll be driving down to Juarez again this Christmas day, the third time in a row. I love my family and all, but honestly I really like escaping to Mexico to build some houses around this time (I'm not much of a New Year's Eve fan either, it never lives up to the hype. Of course I'm not much of a partyer, so that probably has something to do with it).

Despite how it might sound, I think I'm actually enjoying the Christmas season more this year than usual. I have been listening to quite a bit of Christmas music (93.9 all christmas, all the time), and getting a bit nostalgic. I honestly have to say that I think part of it is because I'm not around my family much right now. I haven't felt overly compelled to join the feeding frenzy that is christmas shopping (though I did just about finish it all today in about an hour).

See, now that is one of the things that makes Thanksgiving all the better. It is a holiday that makes me think of my family, and want to be around my family. Family, friends, food, football. Four of the great things about Thanksgiving. And an aliteration, how convienent and wonderful.

So in honor of my favorite holiday, I want to say that I am, despite all appearances, thankful for Christmas. I'm thankful for the music, the traditions, the memories, the presents, and the egg nog. But most of all I'm thankful for the God who loved enough to come and experience the worst we had to offer, so that He could spend the best He has to offer with you, and with me.

Merry Christmas

This is Love, I'm absolutely sure of it.

Some people think it will never happen to them. I was usually not in that group of people. Sure sometimes I would question whether or not I would ever be totally in love, but this is it for sure. I kept the faith, and now it has happened to me. I'm totally, utterly, irreversibly, unabashedly, head over heals (that phrase never really made much sense to me) in love.

I know I'll get laughed at for finding it on the Internet, but there it was on Amazon.com. A Fein Multimaster. I had heard the guys talking about how great it was over at finehomebuilding, but until today I didn't realize just how wonderful this tool really is. I ordered it around Thanksgiving, and when it arrived I couldn't wait to use it. I thought I would just test it out today to see how well it would cut casing for tile installation. But then I needed to notch some cabinets. Last time I used a jigsaw, and that worked, but it was awfully awkward. Hey, this will be the perfect test I thought. And that's when it happened. That is when I fell in love. The cut was soooo smooth. And plunge cutting? Like sliding under blankets fresh out of the dryer on a cold, rainy day. Then there is the ability to get into the tiniest spots, it's like having the dexterity of a double jointed teenage gymnast.

I know I have loved more than a few tools in my day. And still love many of them today as I did when they were new. My paslodes, sliding compound miter saw, and positive placement gun all come to mind. But this one caught me totally by surprise. I've been around the block a few times now, and I didn't expect to find such a perfect tool for me again.

So to all of you who think you will never find true love, I offer up the Fein Multimaster. Well, if you are a tool junky anyway.

P.s. I forgot to mention that it has a ridiculously long cord on it. I may never need to plug it in to an extension cord.

Still more stuff that other people have said

"But the important matter was this, that it entirely reversed the reason for optimism. And the instant the reveral was made it felt like the abrupt ease when a bone is put back in the socket. I had often called myself an optimist, to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. But all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home."

G.K. Chesterton

More things that other people said

Death, on the other hand, seems less of a negative to me now than it once did. If somebody a while back had offered me a thousand more years, I would have leapt at it, but at this point I would be inclined to beg off on the grounds that, although I continue to enjoy things a good deal most of the time and hope to go on as long as I can, the eventual end to life seems preferable to the idea of an endless and endlessly redundant extension of it. The only really sad part of checking out as I think of it now is that I won't be around to see what becomes of my grandchildren, who are the light of my life, the oldest of them only seven at this writing. But maybe that is just as well. They say that we are never happier than our unhappiest child, and if that is expanded to include the next generation down, the result is unthinkable.

There is sadness too in thinking how much more I might have done with my life than just writing, especially considering that I was ordained not only to preach good news to the poor, but to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the imprisoned, and raise the dead. If I make it as far as St. Peter;s gate, the most I will be able to plead is my thirty-two books, and if that is not enough, I am lost. My faith has never been threatened as agonizingly as Chesterton's or Hopkins', or simply abandoned like Mark Twain's, or held in such perilous tension with unfaith as Shakespeare's. I have never looked into the abyss, for which I am thankful. But I wish such faith as I have had been brighter and gladder. I wish I had done more with it. I wish I had been braver and bolder. I wish I had been a saint.

This , in short, is the weight of my own sad times, and listening to these four voices speaking out from under the burden of theirs has been to find not just a kind of temporary release, but a kind of unexpected encouragement.

Take heart, I heard them say, even at the unlikeliest moments. Fear not. Be alive. Be merciful. Be human. And most unlikely of all:Even when you can't believe, even if you don't believe at all, even if you shy away at the sound of his name, be Christ.

-Frederick Buechner

"I don't think I really understood poverty at all until I met these kids-the poverty of those who go to bed hungry and the poverty of those who sleep with indifference. Wealth can't be defined in terms of what we have, but only in terms of how free we are to give and take."

-Rich Mullins

But maybe not so much as I thought.

I find it difficult to type anything remotely worth reading. Or typing. See?

Barnes believes in what he's doing

My former girlfriend said that I relate my life to books, whereas she relates hers to music. I won't disagree with her here in general, but of course we all relate ourselves to the music we listen to, the books we read, the movies/tv we watch.

I was talking to a friend of mine today, and I was explaining to him that I felt like I could some up where I'm at right now with a scene from Platoon. Now Platoon is a good movie, but I think I especially like it (as I am prone to do) on the strength of two or three really great scenes. One of those scenes is the conversation the guys have while cleaning up shit. You'll have to watch the movie for that one, but the one that I have been thinking about lately is probably the best part of the whole movie.

The characters played by Charlie Sheen and Willem Dafoe are in a fox hole at night talking. It's a short sequence, but the whole conversation strikes me as very honest. You really probably need to see the movie to appreciate what is said, but at one point the younger soldier says to the older one, "Barnes has really got it in for you." The reason Barnes has it in for him is because he stopped him in the process of abusing and murdering some suspected Viet Cong. The older soldier simply replies, "Barnes believes in what he's doing."

I can't help but think about myself when I watch that scene. Barnes believes in what he is doing. I look around, and that is what I want to say when I go to church, or talk to some of my christian friends. I don't know if it is because I am far away from God. I suspect that that could be a large reason for it. But still, so often when I am confronted with christian propoganda, hear those christian catch phrases, listen to sermons, or read a lot of christian literature, my b.s. alert just goes off. I don't know that I can even put my finger on it. There just seems to be something so wrong, or at least not quite right with what I hear on a daily basis.

The other day I was walking into what I thought was going to be a bible study. It turns out that I accidentally attended an AA meeting. I loved the honesty that I heard in there. I felt like that was one of the things that my soul had so been longing for.

Maybe the best part of that meeting for me was when a guy said that (after telling about his life of addiction and recovery) he didn't know a lot about God. The only things he could really be sure about in regards to God were: he wasn't God, God saved him, and God continues to save him every day. This to me was worth more than a thousand sermons about the evils of the world and the horrors of todays society. It was something that mattered.

I have a hard time reading "christian" literature. I have a hard time listening to sermons. I find myself feeling very alien in "christian" culture. And I think that a big reason for that is just how much b.s. is there. I just have such a low tolerance for it. I think that is why when I find someone that seems to really cut through that b.s., I'm so attracted to them. Whether it be a writer, a singer, a pastor, or just someone I meet, I'm feel instantly indebted to them.

I know I am not healthy right now. I can only hope that God continues to save me.

Because I'm bored

and I need to get stuff out of my head occasionaly.