"Cartoon Selfie"

Happy Leap Day!

"Cartoon Selfie," February 2020.

The "Neo-Pagan Politics" of Today...and Tomorrow

Here I would like to pick up and continue the considerations regarding "political idolatry" from the theme of the February 17 post (click link: "The Political Idolatry of the Emerging New Epoch"). The social orders of the near future might well claim for themselves a "divine" status, as did ancient pagan Rome and other empires of the past. This would not require any mythological symbolism, or indeed anything easily recognized as "religious" or "superstitious."

Rather they may well be constituted entirely from secular motivational ideologies or systems of imagery. All will be confined, nevertheless, to the measure of this apparently physically accessible world — extended in unparalleled ways through space and time by a vast and pervasive technological power, but ultimately limited to overinflated monstrous new forms of immanence.

These tribal, ethnic, partisan, national, or utopian ideological "divinities" will not be worshipped in temples. Instead, they will be "soft idols" — empirically complex, constructed social bonds that engender their own compelling "aura" (some manner of fearful and attractive force).

They will also have their own peculiar "rituals" which will command different and more psychologically manipulative kinds of "sacrifices" from their adherents. The dignity of the human person will be much violated in the environment generated by this "neo-paganism." Parts of the world already endured crude (albeit openly, horribly brutal) forms of such regimes in the 20th century. What is yet to come, and even now is beginning to take shape, is something more subtle, perhaps more externally "comfortable," but also pernicious in ways difficult to uproot. Whatever its form, the contours of a neo-pagan political idolatry are frightening to consider.

The neo-pagan political order, in its full realization, declares itself the Ultimate Concern of human life. It defines success and failure; It measures what activities are worth pursuing; It determines what should be praised and what should be blamed; It establishes the categories of your social engagement and It INSISTS that you are explained by these categories; It stigmatizes any creative and constructive proposals that deviate from Its system; It establishes which people deserve attention and which people should be neglected and discarded; It measures "greatness" as whatever conforms to ITSELF; It insists that everything said here accurately describes Its political opponents but has nothing whatsoever to do with ITSELF. It has zero sense of humor and zero capacity to poke fun at ITSELF.

[O great New Epoch of untrammeled material power, here are your gods! Bow down to them!]

The invasive trajectory of neo-paganism (as I have distinguished it from the revival of ancient superstitions) already dominates current perspectives. It runs through the whole spectrum of today's politics. It is a disease that is very easy to catch. It is dangerous.

I think that sooner or later Christians and others who want to hold to love of God and real love of neighbor (with "neighbors" understood to be the actual human persons who need us individually or communally, whether on the street, in the womb, at the border, etc) are going to LOSE to one or another of the implacable emerging trends of neo-pagan politics.

I wish this were not the case. Indeed, I hope I'm wrong. Miracles, after all, are possible even in politics. Let's all pray for a miracle. "There are precedents" (as Thomas More says). And a miracle will humble us all.

However, if events follow the ordinary course of God's providence with all the space he has given to fallible human freedom and its consequences in the unfolding of history, Christians who have been relying on political scheming to "make things better" are going to have to face increasingly inescapable failure.

I am not making a declaration of pessimism. I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I am a person of hope. I believe in the victory that has already been won for all time and beyond all time, and I have hope that the reflection of its light may yet illuminate the problems of our time in a fruitful manner for temporal society. For now, I am trying to situate those problems within a larger context. Rather than elaborate on all the various symptoms, I think it might be useful to make a more general diagnosis.

Let me be clear: I am not saying, "we should all just give up on political activity." More on that below, but right now I want to make a distinction. I think that Christians who are so much embroiled in politics because they are expecting to effect some wonderful overall political fix from within the present system are headed for failure. I'm not "hating on them." This is just the way I see it unfolding. My hope and prayer is that they will accept failure rather than silencing their consciences, "adjusting" the criteria for their judgments in order to fit into the system, and eventually even becoming acolytes of the neo-pagan order (again, forgive the blunt image — but there are historical precedents for precisely this kind of tragic turn).

On the other hand, there are people whose political activism within the current system is vigorous but specific: they are trying to further this or that initiative, or obtain this or that improvement, or patch this or that hole, or blunt the impact of particular or more general disasters. There can still be success in the pursuit of these objectives, and this work will still be possible — I hope — for a long time. I admire these people. I don't often grasp their methods, nor do I have the energy that is given them to fight for these things. This is a difficult path. But I discourage no one from following their particular mission in good conscience and good faith. Go for it! But "keep God first," pray every day, and be careful. There are dangers for everyone who ventures into the halls of power.

What I'm saying is that the whole political system is becoming "neo-pagan" (even if some who hold power still invoke Christianity or find it convenient to use faith in their strategy). In the midst of the upheaval of this emerging new (and tumultuous) epoch, politics across the board is once again becoming an uninhibited thrust toward a total grip on human society, and an ultimate defining measure of human personhood and its dignity.

Whether they realize it or not, whether or not they have "good intentions," the political forces of today aim to fill the pervasive gap in a society that has forgotten God and lost sight of the transcendence of the human person. There are so many ways to exercise power over people who are so impoverished in their hearts and souls. People are tossed about in a raging storm of "new things" they can't control, that increasingly shape their imaginations, that torment them with confusion about their own identity. "What does it mean to be human?" The question is drowned out by a desperate cacaphony of reductive identity claims, neo-tribal "ritual chants," conflicting demands for recognition, and endless rounds of misinterpretation and distraction.

The space left empty in the human spirit by the lack of this question is easily occupied by political forces. They have (potentially) access to dimensions of power beyond anything we can yet imagine: not only the "hard power" that relies on physical coercion, but also (and especially) the "soft power" of a multitude of subtle and diverse forms propaganda and new ways to distribute "social reward" for those who cooperate (and to marginalize those who don't).

In this new epoch, many will wield these demiurgic weapons without even realizing it. They will see themselves as giving order and meaning to the chaos of the ever-expanding "extensions" of technology and "information-overload" that have swept up the lives of multitudes of people into tangles of irresolvable complexity. Our power-politicians will come to us as our "saviors," with solutions (impressive ones, even), but also with the expectation of gratitude and unambiguous fidelity. And just as there were many pagan gods who made war against one another in the ancient myths, so there will continue to be many political power-systems that will fight and demand loyalty in different ways.

How can a Christian find a place for activism in an increasingly imposing neo-pagan political order?

This is an important question. The time may come when faithful Christians (and anyone who sincerely loves the human person as the image of God) will no longer be able to even pretend that proximate political "victories" are possible without compromising our consciences.

This would be very hard. But it wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen. I think circumstances are leading in this direction. Nevertheless ultimately we may all be better on account of it, because it will require us to acquire a fresh perspective.

We will feel the need to remember who we are and who we belong to and who is the foundation of our freedom and our community. This alone is of inestimable value. But it will also engender practical wisdom on many more mundane levels. We will be compelled to find more space for creative endurance in our political activity, including non-violent protest and prophetic witness (with all the risks these actions entail). Perhaps we will find that we can accomplish more for the good of people in our local environment or in other limited connections insofar as these can be wisely and carefully sustained. We may even begin to discover the value of a new kind of politics that has as its motivating ideal a commonwealth of greater human depth, with renewed forms of that openness to transcendence which is intrinsic and essential to every human person.

This new kind of politics does justice to our humble aspirations to build up the common good and for some of us to be entrusted with political office. But it is a politics that learns to "play the long game," that does not define itself by the desperate need to WIN the next election.

We can make a beginning in this new political mentality now. It's likely to be a very small beginning, without much coherence, but just taking that first step will have real political significance. We will be letting go of political fantasies, and entering the realism that embraces all the factors of participation in common life here and now, with an adequate perspective on its possibilities and limits.

This means coming to terms with the fact that a single election or legislative proposal has at most a relative importance in relation to our long term goals for the renewal of the foundations of politics. But in this way our reason will be freed to grapple with the particular problems that come within the purview of our freedom, allowing us to propose specific actions shaped by a political vision that is not subservient to the "success" of one or another of the presently dominant neo-pagan ideologies or tribal cults. We will look for concrete action that enables us to take responsibility for our society step by step.

Much of this will seem inglorious in our own eyes (though some humble, apparently insignificant works may be celebrated for their heroism by future generations). In any case, we will be free from craving for glory and recognition, because we know the real basis of our dignity as persons and the value of our work.

It is crucially important to begin, however poor and divested of power such gestures might appear to be.

We may not even agree about how to take this first step, but we all need to GET OFF the various factional roads that currently dominate political and social life — roads that lead inexorably to "worshipping Caesar" (trusting Caesar, forgetting God, forgetting to be human).

This task is urgent. It will be less traumatic and wrenching, I believe, if we do it NOW, before it becomes an evident and inescapable duty for all of us.

God's Love is the Measure

We have begun our annual season of penance and preparation for the celebration of the great mystery of our salvation, the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Last year's Lent seems vivid to me in this moment, encompassing as it did the long vigil of our family with my father during his last days, his death on April 3, and his burial in the hope of the resurrection. We continue to pray for him and entrust his soul to the mercy of God.

Sometimes I think I have "gotten used to" his passing from this life, but then other times it feels like it just happened and the sorrow hasn't diminished at all. It can be overwhelming.

In any case, this year's Lenten pilgrimage begins for me in a different way than ever before. It all seems more "concrete," somehow. My emotions are perplexed and I don't feel very strong. Jesus, have mercy on me!

Ultimately the mystery of God's love is the measure of everything.➕

A Call to Life and to Relationship

"Human beings ... possess a uniqueness which cannot be fully explained by the evolution of other open systems. Each of us has his or her own personal identity and is capable of entering into dialogue with others and with God himself.

"Our capacity to reason, to develop arguments, to be inventive, to interpret reality and to create art, along with other not yet discovered capacities, are signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and biology. 

"The sheer novelty involved in the emergence of a personal being within a material universe presupposes a direct action of God and a particular call to life and to relationship on the part of a 'Thou' who addresses himself to another 'thou'. The biblical accounts of creation invite us to see each human being as a subject who can never be reduced to the status of an object." 

~Pope Francis, Laudato Si 81

"Rose Study, No. 10"

"Rose Study, No. 10" (it has been a while since I did one of these and posted it here).

Signal Knob in the Morning Light

This is Signal Knob, the northern peak of Massanutten Mountain, as we see it from the East side in the late Winter morning light. 

We see it in so many places around here that we could almost get used to it. In the past, I drove by this particular view every day. I can still almost see the mountain from my window at home. It ends up in many of my pictures, somewhere on the horizon. 

It's a part of this place, and it's been here for a long long lonnnnng time.

Remembering Luigi Giussani

Today is the 15th anniversary of the death of the Servant of God Msgr. Luigi Giussani. It is very beautiful that this great priest died on the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, in light of his remarkable devotion to Peter's successors.

His longtime friend, Saint John Paul II, would go to join him in eternal life a month and a half later.

But before that, the ailing Pope sent his personal representative to celebrate the funeral of this great “teacher of humanity,” a Cardinal who once said, "Fr Giussani changed my life." Within two months, that Cardinal became Pope Benedict XVI.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world from Rome, another Cardinal helped present his own country’s first editions of some of Giussani’s books, saying “He has helped me to appreciate and live more deeply my own priesthood.”

Seven years ago, as this Cardinal prepared to retire after a lifetime of intense service to the Church, planning to reside in and become chaplain of an elder care home, he received an unexpected call from Rome for one final service. A conclave.

But it turned out to be rather a longer task. On March 13, 2013, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected Pope Francis.

But Giussani did more than inspire the Popes of our time. He taught thousands of ordinary people in Italy and all over the world. One of those people is me, even if I have been one of the more distracted of his students. Still, insofar as I have anything worthwhile to communicate, the credit must go first of all to the two men in the first picture who taught me and showed me how to stay with Jesus.

My dear friends of the CL Movement: it is distance and distraction that keep me from seeing you more often, but it is also illness and my debilitating condition. I miss you all, but hold you close in my heart and prayers.

"Is There Anyone?" Demi Lovato's Long Hard Road

"A hundred million stories / And a hundred million songs / I feel stupid when I sing / Nobody's listening to me / Nobody's listening."

I have a big place in my heart for Demetria Lovato.

She has had so much pain, and has been fighting so hard. Over the past decade, she has fought for success, and to use her talents and expand her creativity, while fighting against bipolar disorder, drug and alcohol addiction, anorexia and bulimia, and other forms of self-harm.

"Anyone, please send me anyone..."

The depression-and-mania-swings came first, before her days as a teenage star on the Disney Channel, where she introduced everyone to her remarkable charm and sense of humor, and before her career as a pop/R&B singer established her as a familiar face and formidable voice in the 2010s.

But all the fame and the money and the scrutiny of emerging social media platforms only made things more difficult for Demi as she struggled with her body-image and with the propensity for self-medicating that she inherited from her estranged (and since 2015 deceased) father. Still, she kept trying, not only to return from setbacks but also to share her vulnerability with a level of honesty that only proved itself more admirable by the generosity of heart and guileless effort she put into it.

After her first public breakdown in 2010, she went through treatment, wrote articles to encourage other teenage girls, and made a documentary where she spoke frankly about her illness and addictions and how important it is to get help. She seemed determined to set an example of "being in recovery." She wanted so, so much for things to work out. (And she was very impressive... even a little bit too impressive, perhaps?)

"I need someone."

But being "honest" about such things is like peeling an onion: there's always another layer underneath. It's a process. I don't think Demi realized the layers of that process back in 2011. Still, her struggle was sincere, candid, and earnest. She helped raise mental health awareness especially with the younger generation.

"I tried and tried and tried some more / Told secrets 'til my voice was sore..."

Demi has tried and tried, and told plenty of secrets. She is generous and gutsy, and really has a passion for showing people that mental illness and addiction are real, by letting people see so much of her own suffering.

It's inspiring.

But I have many years of experience with mental illness and I know how it can drive or exacerbate all kinds of self-destructive behaviors. And I know that life is long and hard. A lot of things change. We don't have the strength in ourselves alone to engage and endure life's challenges, difficulties, and confusion.

We need roots. And good soil is hard to find in the storms of our times. So, dear Demi, I am worried about you. I'm concerned for you.

"I feel stupid when I pray / So, why am I praying anyway? / If nobody's listening."

I have known about Demi Lovato's story over the past decade, and I have followed her mental health journey with a sense of solidarity because I understand some of these deep psychological and emotional holes she has been in, even if I haven't faced some of her other specific issues.

But in the past, I wasn't really interested in her music.

I knew that she had a strong singing voice. But (as I've said before) I don't go in much for the music that's big on the charts "these days" - a designation which for me, at my age, covers a whole decade. From the general and vague impressions I had of her overall image, it seemed to me at first like she was just making a kind of Disney-manufactured "teen pop." Then later, her presentation of her music took on many aspects of mainstream pop's typical overloaded sexualization in style, imagery, and theme (though less than some of her peers). It's a recording industry trap (especially for talented young women) that so often spoils or banalizes music even as it objectifies and disrespects the female body.

I'm not being a prude or trying to be mean. I'm just looking at the reality of things. And I've been around long enough to see how this approach plays out in the long run.

This bodily objectification is pushed on women artists today as "empowerment." But in fact, it's a depersonalized reductive and excessively sensualistic pseudo self-assertion that only weakens them and makes them slaves to the trends of the market. It frustrates their deeper need for a relational intimacy within the inherent boundaries that guide and protect genuine human relationships. And for someone with body image difficulties, trying to wear all these outfits to "be sexy" (i.e. according to someone else's definition) and then trying to stay "sexy" day after day, constantly comparing your body and finding that it falls short of a (fake) "ideal" - all this must be a living hell.

Demi, I'm so sorry that you have been burdened with all these things, with so much pain from such an early time in your life. You are a very special person, with abundant gifts, a rich sensitivity, and a deep desire to share yourself, to inspire others, to be a good role model, to be courageously authentic even in your vulnerabilities. You are awesome. I have so much respect for you as a human being; I know how hard it is to deal with mental illness, and I can also empathize with your sufferings in the complications of self-harming disorders and addictions.

I have admired your tenacity in this struggle. I know it's really hard.

You have serious bipolar depression - this chemical imbalance with a hereditary foundation in Dad (and Mom too), which has been aggravated by the addictions to alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines, and other drugs. Being famous in the entertainment industry has brought additional pressures. I can't imagine what it must be like, to feel that everyone is watching you and expecting you to "look" a certain way. It has exacerbated your difficulties with your body image (so that even your success in music has been scarred by terrible anxiety because, as you once put it, "no one loves a fat rock star"). I can appreciate how all of this weighs on you and conspires to push you to harm yourself more, binge eat even more (and purge), drink more, and take more pills.

But you know that you don't have to do this. You don't have to live this way. You are worth so much. I know it can be very difficult to see sometimes, but it remains true. You are precious.

Demi, you are a person, and the value of yourself is beyond measure. 

I think you are growing toward the realization that you can be free from all this other junk. It's not worth what is ultimately an ephemeral affirmation from people who don't care about the whole reality of you - all that you are as a human person.

"I used to crave the world's attention / I think I cried too many times / I just need some more affection / Anything to get me by..."

You deserve more than just "anything to get you by." And you will find much more. Music matters to you, and that's good because music is a beautiful thing and you are exceptionally talented. But remember that your humanity has a far greater beauty (in itself) than anything you can create.

As an artist, you still have much to give. Your voice has an epic quality, a deep range, compelling strength and precision. You have already worked hard and demonstrated so much of its potential, but there are new vistas opening before you. Take all that aspiration and energy and all the talent (which has gotten you this far) and aim higher! In music, aim for the level of artistry that you are capable of achieving.

I know you won't see these words, but they express what I ponder in my mind and heart, trying to articulate what I would say to you if I could. These are the words I am highlighting in blue type.

I find myself addressing Demi in my thoughts and on this page which she will never read. But this is what I would want to communicate to her (and to anyone else going through any of these kinds of trials). Others must be saying some of these things to Demi, because she seems to be turning a corner in many important ways in her life (as well as in her art).

I am definitely interested now in where she is taking her music (her voice continues to develop impressively, and the prime years for her as a singer are just beginning). She may be finding a new creative groove, and gaining the personal balance she needs to make some really outstanding music with her powerful emotionally evocative voice. (But, first of all, Demi, take care of yourself, please! You are a person first, a precious human person.)

Several weeks ago I wrote a couple of long articles about the Grammy Awards, or about topics more or less related to them: recorded music, celebrity, a few of the artists who won awards. I did promise to write one more article. Something awesome happened at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards last month. Though I didn't watch the show, I was able to see and hear it on the Internet the next day.

It was all over the Internet. Demi Lovato sang, for the first time since 2018. And she Brought. Down. The. House. Wow!

Behind this musical event, however, there was the resilience of her humanity and her determination to continue to live and tell her story, with new levels of honesty.

In 2012 she made a documentary called Stay Strong, in which she speaks openly about her bipolar diagnosis, her drug use, her self harm, her eating disorder, and her experience of being in recovery.

She acknowledges in the video that she is still 'not always perfect.' No doubt she learned much from her first rehab experience, but in fact she was already falling off the wagon. More interventions would be needed.

In her second documentary in 2017, Simply Complicated, she admits - with unflinching candor - that she was using cocaine even during the interviews on the 2012 documentary. We might wonder at this point: How can we believe anything Demi Lovato says about herself? But skepticism would miss the point of what's really happening here.

Demi is opening up about so many difficult and very complicated and perplexing experiences, even while she is engaged in the very process of trying to cope with them. It's not surprising that she doesn't tell us everything, hides things, cheats and backslides and doesn't even want to admit it to herself much less us.

The fact is, she doesn't have to tell us anything at all. How many well-known people have faced similar circumstances and kept everything private? I don't blame them. But Demi - unpolished, beaten down, damaged, and confused on lots of things - has an exceptionally big heart. She's trying to be open about an ongoing experience, to give us a window into the reality of her suffering. It's a long hard road she has to travel. Demi, her care givers, her family, everyone involved is undergoing a learning process, and she's allowing us to see that. It's pretty remarkable. Obviously, these documentaries are not for everyone. They really are for "mature audiences" who are able to use discretion.

In 2017, she celebrated five years of sobriety, and the latter documentary takes us through many of the ways that were helping her keep it up. It gives us a frank picture of how grim things had gotten beneath the surface before her second breakdown. Apparently, however, she had found some stability, although she admits in the video that the eating disorder is still flaring up sometimes.

But she had so much to handle in the time to come. Life got harder in 2018 (we don't know why, and she doesn't have to tell us) and this now 26-year-old girl with a huge nine million dollar house in Southern California fell in with bad company. Somewhere in the midst of this new wandering into booze and drugs, she got onto some downers, something like oxycontin - but "from the street," jacked up with the cheap but dangerously strong drug fentanyl that is often used to "stretch" the quantity of illegal opioids (without informing their desperate consumers).

On July 27, 2018, Demi Lovato nearly died from an overdose. After several days in the hospital, we all heard that she was going to pull through. But she pretty much removed herself from the relentless gaze of the public eye for a long stretch after that.

Though it's impossible to know from a distance, this quiet period of over a year seemed like a time for healing and rebuilding and renewing her life.

Then word came that she was working on new music and preparing a comeback. I was a bit nervous that she might be rushing things. (This is another frustrating feature of pop music and entertainment culture: the relentless demand to stay up-to-date. Of course, many performers love the spotlight and are anxious to get back to it, and Demi had recorded six albums in ten years.) Everyone would have understood if she had decided to take a few years off. But some artists are driven to create and some performers are driven to get back on stage. They have the urge to give more of themselves, but also perhaps a distorted dependence on cheering crowds and the grandiose but fleeting euphoria they bring. The spotlight is a dangerous place.

Of course, we hoped for and wished her all the best.

Demi Lovato took the stage at the Grammy Awards show on January 26, 2020 in a billowy white floor length gown with just a piano player accompanying her. The crowd of celebrities and VIPs at the Staples Center seemed to remove their "invisible masks" for a moment. Everybody remembered that they were just human beings, whose hearts couldn't help rejoicing just because she was alive. People were glad to see her. Millions watching the awards show were glad to see her.

She began to sing and then faltered, choking back sobs. The crowd cheered her on. She could have sung any song, if what she wanted was merely "more attention and affection" from the audience. But in this moment, Demi showed her depth as an artist. She had a new song, shaped from out of the dark and seemingly hopeless caverns-of-the-soul that she had fallen into (and that she is no doubt still trying to find her way out of). And she sang it with all of her anguish and all of her hope, in a bold, resonant voice that was impossible to ignore. People weren't expecting anything like this. They were stunned by what they heard:

I tried to talk to my piano
I tried to talk to my guitar
Talk to my imagination
Confided into alcohol
I tried and tried and tried some more
Told secrets 'til my voice was sore
Tired of empty conversation
'Cause no one hears me anymore

A hundred million stories
And a hundred million songs
I feel stupid when I sing
Nobody's listening to me
Nobody's listening

I talk to shooting stars
But they always get it wrong
I feel stupid when I pray
So, why am I praying anyway?
If nobody's listening

Anyone, 

please send me anyone
Lord, is there anyone?
I need someone, oh
Anyone, please send me anyone
Lord, is there anyone?
I need someone

There is another verse (which I quoted earlier) but this conveys the power, the moving quality, the soul-provoking character of this song which is called "Anyone." In this song, Demi reaches back and gets hold of something deeper than her own personal struggles or the struggles of people who suffer from mental illness and/or addiction: she finds a suffering, a terrible fear, a loneliness that every human being experiences in some form or other - the agonizing question that often lies buried deep in the heart but bursts open in all the painful and incomprehensible moments of life that we all face.

A question, a lament, an angry frustration that gives way to a plea...

And suddenly, in the very expression of loneliness it becomes a dialogue - it's a desperate, begging plea but there is nothing degrading about it. It's our plea, the cry of the human heart that knows its own need. The cry of the human heart, stripped bare, uncomfortably exposed for most of us.

We want quickly to cover it up, interpret it in terms of the sick person, the desperate person, the person on drugs with a broken brain who is crying for help. But the song doesn't ask for "help." It asks for "someone." It doesn't ask for "someone to talk to" or "someone to help me" or "someone to take this problem away." It just asks for someone. Indeed, it yearns just for the be-ing of another: "is there anyone?"

Demi herself perhaps can't bear to reflect on the absolute vulnerability of this song. She points out its significance (rightly enough, in its most immediate sense) by indicating that she wrote it and initially recorded it four days before her overdose in 2018. It emerged from the particularities of her desperate state at that time.

Still, she sang it at the Grammy Awards in 2020, and the immediate and compelling character of the performance proclaimed it in the present tense, a year into her third recovery. The question doesn't go away. It doesn't get healed. It grows deeper.

"...why am I praying anyway? / If nobody's listening..."

This is a terrifying question, and something of an angry question. It doesn't assert that there is no one to hear her prayers. Rather it expresses frustration at the inaccessibility of this mysterious one who seems beyond the reach of words. This should be the point when the singer gives up. "Nobody's listening..." Instead, Demi plunges directly into this unbearable silence, with the agony of her own need.

"Anyone, please send me anyone / Lord, is there anyone? / I need someone, oh / Anyone, please send me anyone / Lord, is there anyone? / I need someone"

On the second time around with this refrain, Demi cuts loose and puts all her voice into it, wailing but without losing her pitch. She slays some high notes that take your breath away. She's putting everything she has into this plea, this empty space, this eloquent wound: "please send me anyone ... / I need someone"

Demi is not a "conventionally religious" person, but she believes in God, and she prays. (Lots of music people believe in God, regardless of how messed up they are - because music is the sound of the human heart searching for transcendence.) Right now, I'm not interested in what she thinks about this or that. I'm just hearing her voice coming right out of her heart, and ... this is a prayer. This is a prayer. It's also an impressive work of art, making something beautiful out of these experiences of suffering, and putting it out there and lifting it up as far as it can go.

But first of all, it is a prayer.

"Lord, is there anyone?"

What can I say when someone is praying such an open and ardent prayer?

I can't say anything that will "answer" the depths of the question, the need, the plea expressed in this prayer. I myself have this need. My life is shaped by this same plea.

I have been given the conviction that there is a "someone" who is the meaning of life, and who has taken up the whole of life to transform and fulfill it. But this does not change the fact that I need the presence of this "someone" in every moment of living (quite the contrary!)... I need to reach out and adhere to this "someone" - reach out even in the dark, or just cry out and let that "someone" hold me always, even when I feel like I'm free-falling through the rushing air or drowning in the overpowering waters.

Therefore, I want to join my own prayer with Demi in her prayer. This is the prayer from my own heart (which she has helped me to remember - thank you, Demi). This is the prayer from the depth of what I know to be my own need: "Lord, I need someone. I need the One who makes me to be myself, who has awakened and who shapes my heart in its fascination with the goodness and beauty of reality every day, and in its anguish when so much that I think is secure slips through my hands like sand and vanishes. Lord, I need you.

"Come near to me now. Open my eyes to see your face [because all the theology and eloquence in the world will not save me]. I need a human face that reminds me of your love, every moment, every day. You came into the world, Lord, in human flesh and blood, with a human face, and you gave yourself. You didn't give yourself to us so that you could become a myth or an ideology. You didn't come just to give us more rules.

"You came to be with us, and you called us together so that you, yourself, could accompany us on the journey that leads to you. And you told us to love one another, because we can't do this thing called life all by ourselves. We can't make this journey alone.

"We need someone. I need someone and it's too easy to forget that need during so much of my time. Please send me anyone ..."

... and I could qualify that further with all kinds of words (I have already used too many) but I'm going to leave it open. Demi is taking that risk, plunging her heart into the Mystery of God. She has great courage. I don't, but I want to follow her as much as my small heart can right now, and join her in taking that risk... What am I afraid of? "God is good. All the time." Why should I be afraid?

Demetria, let me tell you something. Often "I feel stupid when I pray." Yes, I do. You expressed it very well. There are lots of reasons why we might feel stupid when we pray or sing or do anything else.

You and I have these strangely wired brains that are firing all over the place, signals and chemicals, too much here, not enough there. We can trace the pattern of ancestors with these precious, odd brains who passed them on to us. But there's not just the hindrances of our complicated wiring; there are strengths and gifts and aptitudes that come with it too. And our brains serve our beautiful minds, our intelligence, our creativity.

I heard you say recently that you are going to "accept" your body. You're not going to pretend it's perfect, and you're going to keep fighting the urge to try to make it look "perfect" by messing around with the way it works with food. You also need to "accept" that very special part of your body that is your brain. It's not perfect, and you can't make it "feel perfect" with a sledgehammer of induced chemicals you get on the street (you know that better than I do).

Take care of your brain, Demi. It still has amazing possibilities to heal and to grow in new ways. Work with your brain.

There are fine medicinal tools that can give our brains a little help, and doctors who know how to guide us to use them very carefully. You may not be able to use those options, but I'm sure the people who are helping you with your recovery know what's good for you (and what's not good). Listen to them. You're praying for "someone" and these people are gifts - persons who are with you, who are part of the answer to that prayer.

Keep praying, especially when you feel stupid doing it. There are those throughout history who have great wisdom in the ways of prayer, and they say that - sometimes - "feeling stupid when you pray" can be a sign that you're getting closer and deeper to the One you seek.

That lovely name, "Demetria" - I don't know what your parents had in mind in giving it to you, but it's a Greek name and it links you to a very special young person from the early fourth century, Demetrios of Thessalonica. He was a warrior, a man of real courage, a defender of the poor, a martyr for his faith, and - according to the traditions of many peoples down through the centuries - a wonderworker, a worker of miracles, a source of healing. I'm just tossing that out there, because he's a real person and I have found that these people are not so far from us as we may think. There are others who can help you too - perhaps some people you have known during your own life. It's not superstition to ask for their help. It's a relationship with another person, a friendship with people who have gone before us.

We're not ever alone, really. Sometimes we feel that way because of our illness. Sometimes we feel that way because we are made for a greater love, and the whole of life is a journey to that Love. Sometimes when our hearts feel broken, it's because they are being made bigger. Or it's a combination of all these factors and others too, because God writes straight with crooked lines. Life is messy. Do your best, day by day.

And (I'll say it again) keep praying, no matter what. Never give up. This is fundamental and essential. You've got a song. Sing it.

Demi, I am not going to have to write a memorial article about you. Because you're going to make it. You may not always be able to "stay strong," but please, just "show up" every day. Show up for the people that matter, the people who have been given to you. Make your music, perform too, put on a show if you want, but don't get lost in all that. Don't disappear from the lives of the people who really love you.

This song shook me. Dang! There's a lot of pain here, beautifully expressed pain. It ends with "nobody's listening" but those don't feel like the last words, Demi. This is not the voice of somebody who is giving up. Bring whatever you're feeling to God, all the "nobody's-listening"-feelings however deep and awful. It has been a hard road. But the assertion your mind suggests to you from those feelings (that, really, "nobody's listening") - that assertion is not true. In any case, just give it all to God and let God carry it with you. Then keep going, step by step. "Please send me anyone..." That is your heart calling out to the One who made your heart. The Lord will not fail you.

Be assured also of my own poor prayers for you, and my prayers along with you, dear Demetria, as a fellow sufferer and sinner and brother. And keep the plea, the yearning of this song in your soul, and of the songs yet unknown and unheard that will be born from it.

***Everybody else, listen to her. It's been a long hard road for Demi Lovato. Stick with her through to the end of this song. <<<<--- click this link. Or if that doesn't work, click this link HERE!

Or here:

Baseball 2020 Begins

It's "Spring Training" season in Florida.🌴 Even though we hardly have the weather for it up here yet, it's nice to have that sense of anticipation. Spring Training makes me feel the same as when I was 10 years old.

⚾“Exhibition Baseball” starts on February 22.⚾️ I can’t wait to see the DEFENDING WORLD CHAMPIONS in uniform again!!⚾️

Let's Go NATS!!!

The Political Idolatry of the Emerging New Epoch

These distinctive times of explosive technological expansion are ushering in a "new epoch" in human history in which humans have access to unprecedented levels of material power, and must grapple with the bewildering scope of possibilities and dangers entailed by that power. Among other things, the epoch of power poses dramatic challenges for politics — it gives humanity the "tools" to construct human (or inhuman) societies which immerse and involve their members on a larger scale than anything we have seen or imagined before.

For Christians who seek to follow the Gospel, this raises important issues regarding faith and the community within which we hold that faith. Living our faith in the context of a vital, concrete Christian community is first of all proper to our ecclesial vocation, but it also grounds our way of being in the world, and therefore has implications for our formation as mature and free persons engaging in the secular affairs of temporal human society. If faith is not incarnate in the actual lives of believers, in a communion of life through which Jesus is present to form, nourish, and hold accountable those who belong to it, the existential human need for "belonging" is left without an adequate object. History has shown (and current events continue to prove) that when Christian persons lack the experience of belonging communally to Christ (and therefore concretely to one another "in Christ" and radically to every human person), they inevitably gravitate toward some lesser commonality with a particular group and seek therein a definitive communal experience, a belonging that anchors and gives meaning to their personality, that provides an adequate measure (and limit) for their love.

Certainly there are levels of belonging and degrees of intimacy and affection that are natural to being human: the family (immediately and organically "given" as physical relation and basic, formative foundation of human communal experience), the neighborhood, the town, friendships and associations, clubs, etc., right up to the political community which concerns the temporal common good of a "people" and their homeland. All of these communal relationships are important and good, and in them we experience in different ways our flourishing as human persons and our responsibilities toward one another and the particular community as a whole. None of these communal belongings or experiences, however, fully correspond to who we are as persons or to the mysterious and entirely particular vocation of each of us to love and to be loved.

So far I have been addressing Christians. But any human person can grasp that his or her fundamental and definitive identity is rooted in and tends toward a transcendent love, a kind of belonging greater than any that can be found in this present material universe which may be vast and intricate but inevitably has limits. The person is made for a limit-less love, and will never be finally satisfied with anything less. The Infinite, however, is not something that existentially limited humans can construct for themselves. It is a Mystery they must search for and follow, a Mystery of Love that the human heart somehow senses wants to give itself.

Many people of good will sincerely seek to follow this way of love, often in a courageous and admirable manner. Others at least acknowledge that this is true, even if they don't measure up to it in their lives or are perplexed and hindered in various ways. Or they live within the heritage of one of the great religions of the world that seek transcendence, or are embarked on other particular journeys that their conscience has directed them to follow. All these people recognize that human society must have at its heart respect for the transcendence of the human person.

Perceiving this inviolable, mysteriously "given" and radically "guaranteed" basis for human dignity, they can make common cause with Christians in political action without fearing the intrusion of proselytism that would try to manipulate them, or that they are unwittingly furthering some secret Christian plan for the imposition of a "theocracy." Such tactics are unworthy of the freedom of the person, and the freedom of the Gospel. Christians are called to follow the teaching and example of Jesus, whose "kingdom is not of this world," and who always showed profound respect for human freedom even to the point of death.

Christians, of course, also deserve to have our freedom respected; we must be free to speak about our convictions and allow them to shape our political judgments regarding the good of the commonwealth. We are committed to the transcendence of the human person because we hold that human dignity is rooted in our belonging to God, who creates, redeems, and calls us to Himself; who took flesh in Jesus Christ and who remains with us in the unique communion of discipleship wherein He calls us to "love one another." This grace-given experience of belonging fills up our lives and also flows out to renew and perfect all forms of human relationships and community. It sustains our freedom. Without it, the Christian person is alone and isolated in living their faith, and becomes prey to illusions that lesser allegiances can take the place of communion with God.

If we lack an adherence and participation in the “gathering of people” (ekklesia) that Jesus consecrated to continue His transforming presence in history, our Christianity becomes abstract and “distant.” God appears to be “absent” as we face the difficulties and fragility of life. We neglect (or approach only with an empty formalism) the many ways that Jesus “accompanies” us through the communion of believers and the ministry which He has established and through which He has promised (even with all the failures of its members) to “be with us always.” With all this “empty space” that has crept into their lives, isolated Christians are tempted to adhere to anything that appears to be a plausible substitute, or to elevate lesser relationships to an "ultimate status" in the hope of finding some defining reference point in them.

This temptation affects not only Christians. It affects every person, because everyone desires to “belong” to something that secures their identity. There are of course many ways human persons “belong” together (as I noted above). The temptation is to turn a temporary, merely-humanly-constituted community into the source of ultimate meaning and the unconditional context and exhaustive object of a person’s vocation. This aims in the direction of what the Bible calls "idolatry."

It has political implications.

Historically, we have seen the destructive nature of particular important-but-limited communities that take on an "absolute" definitive status for their members. The result resembles a kind of idolatry — a kind of "divinization" of an ideology or a system, or of a nation, race, ethnic group, or tribe. And we see now the rise of "new tribes" not connected by kinship, but defined by what (or whom) they exclude, and by the pseudo-identities they generate through the images of electronic media, simplistic slogans, superficial "rituals," and other classic propaganda techniques that are accessible to everyone in this new epoch.

This kind of idolatry is casting its shadow over our times. It exists in full realization in some places in the world, while in others it lurks as a tendency, as the possible future of present unhealthy aspirations, as an inchoate or partial reality, as a danger, and — undoubtedly — as a temptation. This is not the old "hard" religiously-specified pagan idolatry of worshiping statues or personified forces of nature. It is the much more subtle new "soft idolatry" that marginalizes and effectively replaces God — the One who alone fulfills the transcendent destiny of the human person — with a merely human social or political project.

This new idolatry is subtle because its gradual but ultimately totalizing absorption of the human person spreads covertly within society like an incubating disease. It builds itself up through diverse inflammatory manifestations of social problems that often seem to contradict each other. It grows within societies when there is widespread insecurity about personal identity, weak interpersonal and communal bonds, rival ideologies, various artificially aggravated fears, rumors and confusion, negligent ignorance, cultivated superficiality, lack of civil discourse, lack of principles, reliance on pseudo-"authorities" and magnetic or manipulative personalities, pressure for cultural conformity, revenge, group-think, nostalgia, utopian dreams, excessive hopes for prosperity, for progress, for total safety from danger, for many other things (the list could go on and on) ... and — of course — the increasing (and always justified as "necessary") application of good old fashioned brute force.

It all conspires to eclipse the transcendence of human destiny, suffocate the heart of the human person, and preoccupy people with a multitude of distractions. It infects the politics of our time, which in various ways pretends in a practical sense (or sometimes pretends — which is already too much) to rule over all our thinking about the meaning of things, to fill our minds with its claim to be the highest measure of life.

The politics of the new epoch is idolatrous insofar as it aspires (even without the awareness of all who participate in it) to "deflect" the human search for transcendence and invade its space, or to use power to suppress it and take its place. It is accompanied (and "enabled") by the reduction of the scope of human desire to the empirical categories of objects-to-be-possessed, and the prevalence of practical materialism as the social norm.

In terms of depth and danger, these emerging forms of political idolatry are venturing into "uncharted territory." Politics now has at its disposal the continuing expansion of material power for everything from making things to processing and distributing information to bridging distances and gaining unprecedented dominance over space and time to enhanced forms of multi-sensory engagement through media technology.

What are the monstrous political possibilities that might emerge in the future, perhaps even the near future? Will we have the awareness and attention necessary to recognize them and the courage to resist capitulating to them?

[...to be continued]

The Rhododendron is My Favorite Wintergreen

Rhododendrons, you ROCK!💥

Cold nights are rough on those other plants when tiny buds peep out in February, but the Rhodos stay green all Winter and they are not conifers. Instead of looking like Christmas trees, they have a “tropical” vibe.🌴🌱☀️😉

I’m glad there is somewhere I can find green leaves all year round. It lifts my spirits to see them.

Human Dignity and Belonging to the Absolute

The human person realizes the maturity of his or her identity in relation to other persons, by living in communion. Various kinds of human interpersonal communion enrich the persons who give and receive love within them and also build up and strengthen the "common life" they share.

But the space of ultimate, definitive belonging for the person is sacred. It is transcendent. The person is "aware" (in some fashion, even if not explicitly articulated) that he or she "belongs," radically, to a Mystery, a Reality-of-Love-and-Affirmation that cannot be reduced to any person or group or object that is merely of this contingent, finite universe. The heart of the person cries out for the unique belonging to the Mystery that calls him or her into being, into a vocation to freedom that is inviolable, a vocation to love the One who is Absolute.

The dignity of the human person is founded on this belonging-to-the-Absolute. Any other person or community or ruler of this world who pretends to take the place of the Absolute in relation to a human person or group of persons violates their dignity. Sometimes we see this carried out in brutally obvious fashion, in an openly totalitarian dictatorship with a ritual personality cult. It happens whenever persons are reduced to the status of "things" and given over to the domination of others to use or dispose of as they wish. It happens to some degree, or casts its shadow over any human relationship insofar as it is not shaped by respect and love, but rather slips into even the most subtle forms of manipulation or abuse.

Every natural human mode of belonging has its proper place within that fundamental vocation of belonging to the One who alone establishes a person's identity, corresponds to a person's freedom, and constitutes a person's ineradicable destiny and radical fulfillment.

Taking Our View “From the Heights”

Cold hearts and narrow minds can easily turn a small perspective into "a great illusion." Saint John XXIII insists that "we must take our view from the heights and courageously embrace the whole."

The Politics of Loving Our Enemies

Christians who are serious about following Jesus seek to view the situation in the world today with the "eyes of faith." What we see, and endeavor to respect and promote in every way, is the inherent value, the unique preciousness of every human person created in the image of God and loved by Jesus. This recognition doesn't provide any easy solutions to the enormously complex problems people face in our world, but it invests with ardor and focus our commitment to engage these problems.

In politics and in the work of building a more just and equitable society, Christians collaborate with people of other religions or existential stances, with anyone who is dedicated to the transcendent and inviolable dignity of the human person. Not surprisingly, we have very real opponents in the current political and social realm. This ideological and practical opposition involves more than differences of opinion (of which we have plenty among ourselves). We have opponents who are aggressive, who want to undermine our work, and who actively perpetrate violence, confusion, and disorder in the world. Their efforts (in practice at least, if not in theory) attack the dignity of the human person.

In a certain respect, we cannot help perceiving them as "enemies" even if we are determined not to judge people, but rather to focus on the good and foster it as best we can in society. Even when we try to view individual persons and their motivations in the best possible light, we cannot deny that there are people and groups who engage in or advocate some very bad things in many societies. They sabotage the work of others who are struggling to live in peace and in economic and cultural conditions worthy of their humanity.

Indeed, we see all over our world forces trampling over the good with raw and obvious contempt for human dignity. We may try to seek justice from our current governments, but all too often these destructive forces are permitted, favored, or even unleashed by political leaders themselves.

What can we do?

We certainly cannot capitulate to being redefined by the ongoing social and cultural "revolution" fueled by the desperate alienation of our confusing times. (And it should be noted that this revolution — even as it claims victory and promulgates itself as the new measure of normality and common sense — is already breaking into fragments, engendering new forms of dissent, new factions, and new animosities.)

This makes it pretty clear that we have to regard some political leaders, groups, and cultural influencers as "enemies" — not in their humanity-as-such nor with regard to the good that is in them (and often they have very much good, and accomplish good and admirable things in certain contexts) — but only insofar as they actively promote an inhuman agenda or their own selfish whims or a pathological cult of personality as the norm for the common good in society. And even though they are "enemies" to the degree that they participate in destructive activity, we must still love them as human persons.

We cannot permit ourselves to hate — that is, to will evil precisely as evil toward any human person. Hatred is never an option for the Christian or for anyone who seeks the good with a sincere heart. But we must do more than refrain from hatred. We must love our enemies. This love is not a sentimental or emotional state, but a firm commitment of our freedom, to will what is truly good for them as persons, as brothers and sisters. We can love our enemies and still be "angry at them" because of what they are doing. But the work of cultivating agape as active love seeks to encompass all the natural human impulses and transform them into vital energies at the service of love. This is difficult work, but Christians have confidence that they will make progress in the ways of love through the One who is at work in them.

Loving our enemies is fundamental to political action, and we shall return to it again and again. Love — the commitment to the good of the person and the actions that flow from it — is the only dynamic that can generate change and true progress in the world.

We have seen the most obvious way to identify a "political enemy." But when we look to other public figures who claim to oppose some of the bad things our "enemies" want, we soon find that these would-be allies are not much better. Usually, if we're honest with ourselves, we realize that we can't trust them. They may in fact be our "enemies" in other respects that we don't yet perceive as such. They may be trying to co-opt our desire for justice and goodness into their own (ultimately violent) ideology. Or perhaps they are persons of such poor character or psychological instability that they are virtually insupportable as political custodians of the common good.

In any case, today's political game involves using the enormous power of communications media to "get inside people's heads." Political campaigns forcefully (and mendaciously) manipulate images to generate impressions (and illusions) about the office-seekers they promote and their opponents. As a result, we increasingly find ourselves at election time in a situation where all the candidates on the ballot are demagogues playing on the diverse, particular needs, fears, and overall sentiments and prejudices of their factions.

What can we do when the scramble to attain (and hold onto) public office inevitably favors politicians who are in one way or another inimical to our core convictions? We may face situations in which all candidates are likely to obfuscate, violate, or work against what we are convinced is the essential, integrally human approach to preserving and fostering the common good of a society of human persons called to live in communion.

When it comes to politics, I think many Christians stick with the "lesser evil argument" and therefore have no political enthusiasm. They try to withdraw from association with any of the shady characters of the political class, but they will "hold their noses" when election time comes and vote one way or another, for the candidate whose victory seems to them to be the "lesser evil."

This is an understandable strategy. But in this time of immersive, pervasive, invasive multimedia, once you pick a candidate it's harder than ever to escape the pull of partisanship, of wanting to belong to the winning tribe. Christians and other very fine people in my own country and elsewhere inevitably feel this force.

We must be aware of the influence of this pull toward factionalism, and how it can subtly manipulate our inclinations and constrict with an unwarranted narrowness the contours of our perception of political and social life. In our times, new and belligerent "tribes" are emerging, united by common orientations of sentimentality, desire, fear, and unconsidered impulses and aspirations driven by images of a violent "victory" over dehumanized "enemies."

If we allow the impulses of the new tribalism to take over within us, it will become harder and harder to recognize our political enemies as human persons worthy of love. And if we forget to love them, we will be drawn into an arrogant, dismissive hostility toward them. We will begin to hate them.

We must guard ourselves against these things. We must remember who we are. We must pray, humble ourselves before the Lord, and beg that in politics as in all things we might be grounded in the merciful and loving heart of Jesus.

"World Day of Prayer for the Sick."

I cast this text for today's "World Day of Prayer for the Sick" in two different color schemes. Perhaps neither of them really works all that well, though I am inclined to prefer the second one.

In any case, the words of Pope Francis for this feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes mean a lot to me. As someone who remains one of "the sick" (a fact that still hinders certain aspects of my life), I am grateful to be reminded again of "that gaze into the heart of each person" full of healing and "tender love."

Jesus "embraces people in their entirety" by becoming our brother, which entails also the precious gift he shares with us of his Mother Mary who becomes our companion with all her maternal solicitude.

The motherhood of Mary brings the real humanity of Jesus "close to us," and she remains faithfully with us - as she did with him - in all our sorrows and pain.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Christina Grimmie's Great Affection For Life

There are good reasons why I have marked this day every month for the past three and a half years through some form or mode of engagement with the life and legacy of Christina Grimmie.

This is not simply an exercise in personal nostalgia. Indeed, I didn’t have much familiarity with her prior to June 2016.

I have been a musician for nearly 50 years, and avid appreciator of a wide spectrum of music for as long as I can remember. And though I was forced by health problems to step back from classroom teaching, I remain active as a university professor through writing and research on — among other things — the task of understanding the nature, impact, and pedagogical potential of “new” communications media.

By the middle of the last decade, I had seen quite a bit of the range of creativity and personal engagement taking place on YouTube and Instagram. Meanwhile, Christina’s stunning breakout on The Voice before millions of viewers on mainstream broadcast television could hardly fail to draw the attention of music people, even people like me who were not especially tuned in to the styles of pop music that the kids were listening to.

When I heard about Christina Grimmie's tragic and astonishing death I was shocked and deeply sorry. I started to give special attention to the YouTube videos of the small girl with the huge voice who had amazed everyone in 2014 and had been so suddenly, inexplicably taken from us less than two years later.

That was when I began to see that her achievements as a singer, a musician, and a "presence" in the emerging environments of digital interactive media were beyond any ordinary measure. I was struck by the depth and commitment of her faith in Jesus Christ, but with time I realized more and more how pervasive that faith was "within" everything she did.

She didn't hide her faith, but she spoke of it with simple directness, and not all the time — indeed, not very often — but in a timely fashion, in those moments when it was "necessary" to "use words." Otherwise, she carried out a vigorous engagement of her music and many other interests with a vitality and affection that were so evidently human, and at the same time so 'different' — in a way that was fascinating and provoking.

People found that they wanted to respond to her immense affection, in which her whole life was invested with joy, spontaneity, gratitude, positivity, sincerity, hope, and humor; a great embrace that she opened up to everyone and invited them to share, always with tremendous respect for their freedom and their own particular personal gifts.

I never met Christina in this world. I wish I had. Still, I have found that her luminous life is a gift to me. Her humble, courageous, confident living of her faith in the midst of a difficult and often discouraging world is a sign for me that I have come to cherish.

I never expected to find anything like this on YouTube, or in 2010s popular music. It's easy to grow cynical, to forget, to assume we have nothing new to discover in life. Yet it always remains possible to be surprised. I return to Christina's legacy at least once a month (often in the midst of many other preoccupations) and I find myself surprised all over again.

She helps me to remember to continue to hope, to persevere even when I feel helpless, to grow in the conviction that in the mystery of life (and no matter how it may appear to our narrow vision of a given moment) evil does not have the last word.

"Then Light Shall Rise For You..."

Share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
clothe the naked when you see them,
and do not turn your back on your own.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!
If you remove from your midst
oppression, false accusation and malicious speech;
if you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday. 

~Isaiah 58:7, 9-10

The Witness of Saint Josephine Bakhita

Today we celebrate a woman who was empowered by the love of God, and who gives hope to all powerless women, abused women, trafficked women - to oppressed women and men throughout the world. 

She was abducted from her African village and native people of South Sudan in the latter half of the 19th century. She never remembered her birth name, but the Arab slave traders had called her "Bakhita," which means "lucky." 

There was nothing that looked lucky about the horrible abuse and mutilation that she suffered for years as a slave in Northern Sudan, but then she was brought to Italy, found Christ, and was baptized Giuseppina Fortunata ("lucky"). She became a religious sister and for 40 years worked at the convent and among the people simply but with profound charity. She not only forgave her oppressors, but said she would kiss their hands if she saw them, because they brought her to Jesus.

Jesus overcame evil with good, hatred and violence with the love beyond all measure, the love of God poured out and given to free us from sin, to free us to share in eternal life - to attain the joy for which every human person was made.

Jesus gave Bakhita her true freedom, and formed within her a heart overflowing with mercy and compassion. 

Saint Josephine Bakhita, you have a lot to pray for. We need you. Pray for an end to violence, human trafficking, and child abuse. Pray for South Sudan, for those suffering persecutions, hunger, the ravages of war in Africa and through the world, for an end to all forms of slavery, for respect for the dignity and beauty of every woman and every man, for the perseverence to never give up searching for God's will, and trusting in him when he shows us the way. Pray for us, that we might love and forgive our enemies out of the conviction that God loves us and them, and orders everything in his wisdom and mercy to the good.