Job

So, given that this blog is published by a Chaplain, but during a time of dramatic economic and employment downturn, did you think long-O "Job" (as in the-patience-of), or short-O "job" (as in I'm-about-to-lose-mine) as you scanned the title of this post?

Something to think about, I guess.

Because of the tanking of the world-wide economy, my civilian employer's investments have decreased dramatically in value. Not long ago, I received an email from the President of the University, explaining how dire the financial situation had become. A few days later I received an email from the Chair of my Department indicating that they need to reduce expenses by at least 20%, which means a reduction in the workforce in the Department.

This could mean I'll have no job to come back to when I return after my year-long deployment over here Down Range. I wouldn't be the first Reservist to whom this happens, should it eventuate. However, I also wouldn't be out on the streets, as so many military veterans are -- to the inestimable shame of the United States -- were this to come about.

It took some doing for me to end up here in Iraq, wearing the uniform of the United States Army, what with being an old fart with no prior service and all. Chaplains can only serve in the US military if they have a current Endorsement from a recognized endorsing agency. There are eleventy-seven endorsing agents for Protestant Chaplains (I've counted them), but only one for Roman Catholics, the Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS).

In order for me to get the endorsement of the AMS, I have to have the permission of my religious superior. For diocesan priests, that permission would come from their bishop, but in my religious order, the person granting permission is my Provincial. It's not clear to me who was more shocked in this process, my Provincial for being asked to consider this request, or myself for submitting it and being given permission to seek a Commission in the Army National Guard.

I'm grateful to Bob for his prayerful discernment, and his openness to being surprised by God's weird sense of humor. However, after granting me permission, first to join the Army, and then to get deployed for this present mission, he sent me a snail-mail letter indicating his skepticism that my being in uniform was an adequate use of my doctorate in molecular neurobiology. (That's probably an understatement!) It was thus his intention that my Endorsement would end upon my redeployment.

I was hoping to come over here and be worked so endlessly doing priest-things that I'd be able to go back and make the case for the pastoral necessity of my staying in the Reserve Component.

Oh well. At least I'm getting outside the wire a lot more lately than was the case for the past two months! If nothing else, this deployment can become an extended exercise in 'practicing being satisfied'.

So now, looming on the horizon could well be a return to the States at the end of this mission to find myself without my civilian job *and* without my military Commission.

Fortunately, when confronted by this sort of scary scenario, I've been taught by my friends who go to AA and Al-Anon meetings to pause, breathe, and ask myself to name ten true things about the present moment. Then, I've learned, I need to do 'the next right thing'.

The next right thing for me to do is to go take a shower.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. ²³For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. ²⁴Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! ²⁵And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁶If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? ²⁷Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ²⁸But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! (NRSV: Lk 12:22-28)

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

(I wonder if there are any molecular (neuro)biology teaching slots available at the Army Medical Department Center and School at Fort Sam Houston or at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda....)

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Peer pressure

Because of the nature of Army rank structure, Officers of similar rank often sit together in the DFAC (Dining Facility). Very often groups of Captains or Majors or Lieutenant Colonels will move en masse to or from the Headquarters at meal times.

When I see this, I'm often reminded of the schooling behavior of fish, or the movement of herds of hooved creatures across the plains of the Serengeti.

Lately I found myself wondering that if we refer to "prides" of lions, "gaggles" of geese, and "exaltations" of larks, what might the collective nouns be that would describe the curious movements of my fellow Officers? (I'm especially fond of the notion of an "exaltation" of larks.)

It seems to me that in a discussion of this sort among some of my Jesuit brethren a few years ago, some wag came up with the notion of a "cacophony" of pundits, a "rudeness" of New Yorkers (he being from New York), a "condemnation" of televangelists, and a "condescension" (or was it "conspiracy"?) of Jesuits.

I'm not going to venture a guess as to what the collective nouns might be for groups of Lieutenants, or Captains, or Majors, or Lieutenant Colonels, but it might be fun to try!

As I was considering these various groupings of peers it occurred to me that my Army "peer group" consists of Soldiers who, by and large, are more than 20 years my junior. Many of them are more than young enough to be my children. This is especially true of the Lieutenants I hang out with (there are actually very few of them around where I work, so they often meet up with us Captains).

In conversations amongst ourselves, it's clear that we're very different in terms of just about everything but rank. While my fellow Captains have been in the Army probably four to six years longer than I have, I've been a Jesuit for 30 years. More often than not, I wind up feeling more avuncular than fraternal when I'm with them. (It's probably only a matter of time before they lock me in the attic, which is what happens to the crazy uncle in a 'respectable' family.)

I'm nearer in age to, but older than most of the field-grade Officers (and above) around here, with the exception of some of the medical personnel and a very few others. Though I am much closer in age to these Soldiers, there are only two of them (both a couple of years younger, but two pay grades above me) who speak to me more or less as a 52-year-old.

Because of the rank structure of the Army I almost never have "peer" conversations with people my own age.

This fact struck me as very odd today, for some reason. Not bad, mind you. Just odd. Another thing to chalk up to the Toto-I-don't-think-we're-in-Kansas-anymore nature of having joined the Army in my dotage, I guess!

Blessings and peace to one and all,

Fr. Tim, SJ

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Decorum, please

I received an anonymous, very ugly, and possibly libelous comment -- about one of my friends, by name -- a couple of days ago, in response to a recent blog post of mine. I deleted it from the comments section, but am presenting it here (in redacted form to remove the full name and one other personal identifier from the screed). I figure we can all use this as a so-called 'teaching moment'.

Here's the anonymous comment:

I was trying to figure out what a priest would find enjoyable about reading [her] book [name withheld] since it is written about a mother's experience but now that I see that she is your friend.... However, this is a woman who openly wrote that she has had countless abortions, and writes of her hatred of others (Republicans). She also has a "filthy-mouth" way of expressing herself, at least in the written form. I would think that a priest would choose more "appropriate" friends.

Where even to begin?

Readers of this blog are more than welcome to post trash-talking, nasty, condescending, and even vicious comments ABOUT ME in response to what I've written here, but you are not welcome to trash my friends by name. Such comments about my friends will be deleted. One has only to peruse the blog to find examples of such comments directed my way which I've left posted.

I have gone to great lengths to hide the full names of anyone I mention via this medium, as a means of observing OPSEC (operational security). You'll notice that my full name is nowhere to be found, though it's easily discovered by anyone who cares to look. (After someone tattled to military mugwumps about one of my blog posts, *they* had no trouble whatsoever finding me within a matter of moments, it seems, to 'ream me a new one', despite the fact that I'd not yet registered the blog with the Army.)

So, this is not an anonymous blog. I stand by what I've written, and can be held accountable for my opinions (which, by virtue of being mine, are ipso facto correct!).

{insert wry smiley face here}

Negative comments, left anonymously, imply that the person leaving the comment does not have the courage of his or her convictions. As I have mentioned previously, before I stopped drinking more than 29 years ago, if we'd have had blogs at the time, I'd have left comments anonymously, too -- so I can identify with the allure of that kind of behavior.

I'm grateful I do not live with that kind of fear anymore.

Concerning specifics of the comment reproduced above: I checked with my friend, and she has nowhere written "that she has had countless abortions." At least get your facts straight if you're going to make such accusations, Anonymous Sir/Ma'am! Libel is a serious legal issue.

Furthermore, while I'm a long-time registered Republican (having voted for Gerald Ford in my first Presidential election), I'm able to see past my friend's rather impassioned rhetorical flights of fancy, agree with much of what she's written, and take no umbrage at the rest.

Moreover, I'm in the ARMY, in case you'd not realized that from the title of this blog, Sir/Ma'am, and I've been treated to much more 'flowery' language in this context than anything my friend has published!

As to "appropriate" friends, Sir/Ma'am: My friend has been clean and sober now for many, many years, and has been through many a wringer in that time, and stayed sober through it all. Her experience, strength, and hope have inspired, consoled, cajoled, annoyed, delighted, dazzled, and daunted me for many years now. I figure I can hardly do better, in the friends department.

It seems to me that Jesus could have been friends with the "beautiful people" of his day, who were practically perfect in every way (and made sure that everyone else knew it). Now, *they* were "appropriate"!

Instead, he hung out with the dregs of society -- he even *ate* with sinners, and got slammed for doing so by the (self-) righteous. One of the contemporary criticisms of Jesus himself was that "the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’"(NRSV: Mt. 11:19; see also Lk 7:34)

Jesus knew first-hand what it was like to have 'lower companions' (he was even accused of being one!) and he embraced them all with love.

Matthew, the tax collector was, by definition, a slimeball par excellence, yet Jesus called him, and he followed the Lord.

Zacchaeus was likewise an extortionist who preyed upon very poor people who were already living close to the bone financially, yet Jesus dined at his house, to the horror of the -- dare we say it -- "appropriate" people of his day.

Peter was a fisher (not a profession noted for its intellectual prowess and academic polish), who -- when the crunch came -- denied Jesus three times.

Judas betrayed him, which led directly to Jesus' death.

Contrary to the social and legal conventions of his day, Jesus pardoned a woman caught in adultery.

The list could go on and on.

And let's not even look to the Hebrew Scriptures to one such as King David, the polygamist who raped a woman, tried to get her righteous husband to sleep with her in order to make him think the baby (Solomon) was his, and then murdered him when that ruse didn't work, in order to hide his crime of rape.... "Appropriate," indeed.

(Let's hear it for the Biblical defense of traditional marriage!)

Amazing that God could use King David to be the author of the Psalms, eh, rapist and murderer that he was? I rather like the Psalms, and am glad they convey so much truth and beauty.

If God can work through someone so powerfully goofy as David, or Matthew, or Peter, or YOU, anonymous Sir/Ma'am, then being able to send my friend to be a gift in my life and in the lives of others is a no-brainer for my Higher Power.

That being said, there might even be hope that God could use someone as "inappropriate" as me to be an occasion of grace in someone else's life.

My friend's shared experience, strength, and hope have been blessings in my life certainly beyond my ability to comprehend or articulate. I thank God that our paths crossed in 1990, and have been crossing every so often since then. Who could be more "appropriate"?

There's only one, two-part question I have for you, Anonymous Sir/Ma'am: Which of your parents was the alcoholic, and when are you going to join my friends who go to Al-Anon to find some healing for those wounds? Please keep coming back. Let us love you until you can love yourself.

Blessings and peace to one and all,

Fr. Tim, SJ

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The moon, 12DEC08

SFC McG and I were waiting for the birds to come pick us up on Friday night (we lucked out that night: they came to us; we didn't have to be driven to the landing zone (LZ) to board) when the moon rose in the east just as the sun was setting. I took out my camera and attempted to capture some of the magnificence of the sight, but of course it's not a great camera to begin with, and what with my "idiopathic benign essential tremor" (I shake a lot; looks like I've got the DTs sometimes, ironically), my hopes for an award-winning shot were dashed.

All that notwithstanding, however, the moon appeared larger and brighter and more intense than I remembered it, perhaps since I was in the Amazon in the early 90s. It looked as though I could see every one of the Man in the Moon's zits. Amazing.

Once we were in the air and headed south, though, the real treat greeted us. The setting sun emblazoned the western sky with every color of the spectrum, as if the light were being refracted through a giant prism. Which of course it was, but I never really did like physics class....

There are no terrain features to speak of in that direction, so the prismatic color was unbroken by either earth or the cloudless sky. I have never seen a more dazzling color display at sunset. I suspect the dust in the air (though negligible these days compared to what it has been since we arrived) might have contributed to the aerial palette we saw.

SFC McG and I were the only two passengers on the aircraft, so I got to sit next to the window, as is my wont. The moonlight lasered its rather sterile whiteness into the aircraft over my right shoulder (I was facing the rear of the chopper) while the impassioned colors being pulled from sight along the western horizon by the setting sun bathed us in a warm multicolor glow from the left.

It seemed as if the lights were dueling for attention. I was transfixed, but getting a crick in my neck from having to look back and forth, trying not to miss any of the experience. Strapped into the seat by shoulder and lap belts, and wearing full battle rattle (as they say in Army parlance), I had much less freedom of movement than I'd have preferred in the moment. However, given my recent experience of 'tactical evasive movements' on the part of military aircraft, I was nevertheless glad to be buckled in!

Humbled by my relative smallness in the face of the expansiveness of the landscape below and light show above, I was reminded of the poem, "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins (a Jesuit with some *real* talent!):

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; 5
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; 10
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs­
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

My sober friend Sam (who, when asked once if he were a Jesuit because he was hanging around me so much, responded: "No, I have a life.") would probably just say, "God was showing off again."

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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Many thanks, OPERATION MOM!

A special shout-out to all of the wonderful people at OPERATION MOM in California, and to two of them in particular.

I met Jim and Beverly within a month of joining the Guard. I had just purchased the Class A (green) uniform, and the night I met them was the first time I'd worn it in public. (MAJ P, whom I also met for the first time that night, had to perform some on-the-spot corrections in terms of how I looked. He, of course, has a chest full of ribbons and other devices, while my uniform was/is devoid of all that.)

It was an evening in late January, and fairly cool-ish for being California. MAJ P and I, having reconnoitered at a Starbucks neither of us had ever been to before, showed up at Jim and Beverly's home, unannounced. I was inwardly terrified, and was saying the Serenity Prayer over and over and over to myself. (My friends who go to AA and Al-Anon meetings have recommended this to me for years, and I've even found myself recommending it to others. Amazing how that happens....)

Jim came to the door of their lovely home on a quiet street in a part of the Bay Area I'd passed by before, but never really visited. He showed us in to the living room, where Beverly was seated on a chair across the room from where I sat down, next to Jim on my right. MAJ P sat directly across from me, and though the room was comfy and intimate, he seemed almost a world away.

Just after MAJ P started speaking, Jim reached over and grabbed my right hand. He began to squeeze it, and didn't let go for what seemed an eternity to me.

"The Secretary of the Army regrets to inform you," began MAJ P. Jim and Beverly's son, SPC Michael, had been killed in action that morning in Iraq. I had had no training in the Army way of doing anything like this, and yet there I was. Wearing the dress uniform of the United States Army, I was present as these good people were informed that their beloved younger son had died while on patrol with his buddies, half-way around the world.

I was saying the Serenity Prayer like mad to myself as my hand developed gangrene, I was sure. Jim was holding on for dear life and did not let go for a long, long time.

And then, as my friend Annie L has written, "a little red wagon miracle" occurred. The situation did not change. There was no flash of celestial light and blaring of heavenly trumpets, but a miracle none the less took place in that room.

"...And if I don't drink in the next three weeks, I'll have 17 years clean and sober," Jim said. Jim had been talking about his own experiences in the Army during Vietnam, and about how proud of Michael he and Beverly were. And he mentioned that he'd gotten through a lot since getting sober, so he figured he'd be able to get through even this, too.

The very next day I would celebrate 10000 days in a row of being clean and sober. (My friends who go to AA meetings say that sobriety is a day-at-a-time thing....)

When I mentioned this to Jim and Beverly, they both visibly relaxed a little. Something in that room changed. All of a sudden there was a bond there that transcended that moment and its horror. We actually laughed at how weird God's sense of humor is.

Who'd have imagined that the Chaplain who would show up at their home would be a Chaplain who shared that experience and spirituality and vocabulary with them (all the more humorous, given that they're Baptists and I'm not)?

It was, indeed, "a little red wagon miracle."

Over the next weeks, as we buried Michael far from home, and then had a memorial service in the church where his family has worshipped for generations, Jim and Beverly and MAJ P and I became friends. I suspect that may not always be the case with Guard personnel who perform casualty notifications for Active Duty personnel.

I was able to be there with Jim and Beverly as Jim celebrated his sober birthday in February. No "little red wagon miracle" that! That was an honest-to-God, God-is-showing-off-again walking-on-water miracle, as sober birthdays usually are.

Jim and Beverly had been active in OPERATION MOM for some time before I met them in January 2007. OPERATION MOM sends wonderful care packages to deployed military personnel, and Jim and Beverly invited me to one of their meetings shortly after I met them. Those good folks get together and make a party out of planning, shopping for, packing, and sending those boxes.

I received a boat-load of them a short time ago, and they created a huge sensation among the Soldiers who received them. It was heartwarming to watch as eyes got big as the box was opened: a velour blanket: 'Ooohh!'; a thumb drive: 'Wow!'; a shrink-wrapped DVD blockbuster movie: 'I've wanted to see this!'; white socks: 'Mine have holes in them -- I can *really* use these!' -- and those were just *my* reactions (yes, I kept a box for myself).

Many, many thanks to OPERATION MOM for taking the time to plan and execute this mission.

Special thanks to Jim for his courageous and honorable service in the Army during Vietnam, and to Michael and all those who have served honorably and well during the present conflicts.

Blessings and peace to one and all,

Fr. Tim, SJ

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372

Today is the 372nd birthday of the Army National Guard.

Many thanks to all the Citizen-Soldiers who have served honorably and well both domestically and abroad! I'm especially grateful to the Soldiers of the former 1-149 Armor Battalion and the former 340th Forward Support Battalion who encouraged me to pursue a Commission, squared me away once I was accessioned, and taught me to "embrace the suck". I miss you Soldiers a lot!

Happy Birthday, Guard!

Hooah.

Blessings and peace to one and all,

Fr. Tim, SJ

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No matter how far down the scale -- part I

My friends who go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings have for years talked about "The Promises" of the program, which are found in their eponymous 'Big Book':

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not.

They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

Alcoholics Anonymous pp. 83-84.

Over the years of speaking with people struggling with addictions (or the family consequences thereof), I've seen the truth of those words as I've shared about my own experience, strength, and hope concerning sobriety. At first, almost 30 years ago now, when my friends who would go to those meetings would share their wisdom about recovery with me, I figured that what the 'promise' that reads, "No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others" means is that the lowest of the low-bottom drunks *really* know what's what.

The implication (in my own broken brain, of course) that followed on the heels of that notion was that a high-bottom drunk like myself could never have anything significant to contribute to a conversation about recovery. After all, I'd not lost a job, or a family, or wrecked a car, or awakened with my head in the refrigerator, or "come to" in a foreign country married to someone I did not recognize (true stories I've heard people tell).

(At least, not yet, as I've since learned. That could all happen, easily. It just hasn't happened yet.)

*Those people* with the bizarre and exciting stories were the people to listen to, who had something important to share, my brain tried to tell me. What good would my, rather vanilla, experience be to someone else? After all, I just drank, passed out, and threw up (in that order). Certainly not as 'glamourous' as having a spectacular slip on alcohol, cocaine, and crystal meth in the hotel room next door to the Secret Service contingent assigned to the President of the United States as he was on a re-election campaign swing in the midwest a few years back (another true story I heard)!

So for years as I hung out with recovering alcoholics and addicts and their hostages (I mean, families), I felt like something of a fraud. Less than. Not quite good enough. "Doesn't quite fit in, poor thing."

The 'tyranny of what others might think' -- which had plagued me all of my life up to the point of getting clean and sober -- followed me into sobriety and lurked in the darkest reaches of my psyche for years afterward.

A wonderful recovery tag-team married couple, Gil and Dorothy (he: sober; she: Al-Anon), took me under their wing in 1979 shortly after I stopped drinking and using, and they shared their recovery experience, strength, and hope with me as best they could. Given that I was then the poster-child for egomania-with-an-inferiority-complex, it's definitely not their fault that I made such slow progress!

Gil died 30 years sober more than a decade ago now, but Dorothy still goes to Al-Anon meetings and is into her fifth decade of recovery. What a great lady!

Anyway, it wasn't until quite a number of years into my own sobriety that I had a spiritual awakening about the whole no-matter-how-far-down-the-scale thing. I'd been hearing my sober friends who go to meetings talk about those 'promises' for so long that one day I realized that "no matter how far down" meant that even "high-bottom" drunks have experience that can benefit others! Wow.

For years I'd been comparing my insides to other people's outsides.

That's a recipe for spiritual disaster, I've learned. Just having a wild drinking story (or Al-Anon story, like the woman who (before Al-Anon) guided her once-again-for-the-eleventy-seventh-time-drunk husband into the bathtub, filled it with water, beat him senseless with a board, and then was holding his head under the water when she had a spiritual awakening of sorts along the lines of, "who's really the sick one here?" -- and later, when he finally came to the next morning, commiserated with him that he'd been in yet another bar fight he couldn't remember -- absolutely true story) is not the measure of recovery.

Once I stopped *comparing* the externals of my story to others' and began *identifying with* the feelings they were sharing (or at least, identified with *more than* I compared), I began to feel more a part of, less less-than, and much less a fraud.

Truely, no matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will come to see how our experience can benefit others.

That's how the spiritual life works. Not surprisingly, in AA's "Big Book," just before the passage I quoted at the beginning of this post are two sentences, one in italics, which read, "The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it."

When I'm living the spiritual life, I'm connected to others who are trudging the same road of Happy Destiny. Whatever our religious backgrounds (or none), we can have a spirituality which unites us in the sunlight of the spirit. These days I like to say that spirituality is "an acceptance of powerlessness, shared in gratitude, resulting in joyful service."

That definition works well in my own particular religious tradition (as a Christian, as some of you know, I have a God who, in Jesus, knows powerlessness first-hand, and so, in addition to being a Higher Power, is also a Higher Powerlessness), and it seems to fit with the traditions of other religions as well. It also works for those who are without religion at the moment.

Hooray!

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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New snail-mail address!

¡Happy Feast of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, amigos!

Before I forget, there will be some changes occurring over here, and among them will be a change in snail-mail address for your humble blog correspondent. Folks here are being encouraged to use the new address for anything mailed after the first of the year.

I'm encouraging people to hold off on mailing anything to/for/via me from 15DEC08 until 15JAN09 on account of changes that will happen during that time.

For those of you who'd like the new snail-mail address, please drop me a digital inquiry using the following email address (put into correct format, of course; I'm trying to outsmart the spambots which harvest email addresses from blogs like this so that they can send me the latest information on enhancing whatever they're hawking at the moment): cptdrfrtim a t g m a i l d o t c o m.

If you are unable to make that work, please ask a friend for assistance!

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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-92

Tonight, after I got back from a mission (after midnight), I was hurrying on my way back to my Containerized Housing Unit (CHU; aka, Dumpster) and passed by the thermometer I'd glance at when the weather was so hot, a few months ago. It felt *really* cold as I trudged along (I'd not brought a jacket with me, preferring to leave it in the office so I'd be sure to have it for my next mission), and I couldn't wait to get back 'home' and into bed.

Despite the cold, I spun around and retraced my steps back to the thermometer, because I wanted to know just what the temperature was. After all, I'm old and remember that my maternal grandmother always kept the temperature of her apartment on "broil" when I was a child, so I've been afraid that same phenomenon is about to happen to me, too.

This is the thermometer that read 130 degrees Fahrenheit one afternoon within a month of my arriving here, and 105 degrees one night as I was leaving the office long after darkness had set in. After a while I figured I needed just not to look at the darn thing, because knowing the temperature was just giving my broken brain more of a chance to do nasty things to my psyche.

I eventually weaned myself away from looking at the thing. Probably just as well.

It's easier to engage my well-honed powers of denial if I don't have all the information ready-to-hand.

This morning, having been warned in a dream or something, I put on my PT jacket over my PT shorts and long-sleeved shirt before going outside and down and around in order to do "personal hygiene" as they call it in the Army. (I sure won't miss having to go to two entirely different buildings to accomplish that mission, once I get home to the States!) An arctic blast assaulted my bare shins and sandaled feet. Good thing I'd remembered to pull on a knit cap before venturing outside!

Coming back from the shower was a delight. Not.

Anyway, I returned to the thermometer to compare its reading tonight (well by that time, it was this morning already, actually) with the 130 degrees I'd seen back in August.

Thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

That's a full ninety-two (92!) degrees lower than the 130 degrees I experienced less than 90 days ago.

Brrrrrrrr.

Sure would be nice to curl up in front of a crackling fire right about now.

Instead, I'm practicing being satisfied with remembering all my loved ones back home, and basking in the warm glow of gratitude for your presence and action in my life.

Try it sometime.

Blessings and peace to you in these troubled times,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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Road work

I posted yesterday about the rough places being made plain. That got me thinking about the rough roads around here where I'm living Down Range.

The roads around here are pretty iffy in a lot of places. (I was actually going to use different terminology to describe them, but figured this is -- or at least, ought to be -- a family-friendly blog, so I demurred.) In fact, one of the roads I travel fairly frequently is so hard on vehicles that I'll often drive on the unpaved shoulder of the road. While it's pretty bumpy, it doesn't hold a candle to the undulations and crevasses of the actual road itself.

(They're probably going to publish a new rule about having to wear Kevlar helmets even in non-tactical vehicles when on the roads here, because of all the bouncing around and bruising that goes on when traversing them.)

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed paving equipment appearing, and figured that help was on the way. It's as if someone else has been reading Isaiah 40, and would be following the admonition: "Make straight in the desert a highway for our God." (Be sure to listen to Messiah by G. F. Handel.)

Alas! It seems I miscalculated.

Today I had occasion to drive to a place about thirteen kilometers away from where I usually hang out. I noticed that probably a half-mile of the road has been resurfaced. It's nice and smooth where they've finished their work.

What's odd is that they're paving the part of the road that was already smooth to begin with.

They're not even moving in the direction of the worst parts; they're moving toward several kilometers' worth of fairly OK paving (for over here anyway).

My ride was as bumpy as ever.

Blessings and peace to one and all,

Fr. Tim, SJ

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And the rough places plain

I know a number of my colleagues do not like the Lectionary readings for Advent Sundays this year. (They're the readings appointed for use at liturgy, and very often Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, and some Methodists and Presbyterians will be reading the same readings on the same day, the world over. I think that's pretty neat, actually.)

I love them.

The reading this past Sunday from Isaiah 40 always evoke the celestial music of G. F. Handel's Messiah for me -- the lyrics for which, of course, are lifted from passages like this one. The tenor sings "Comfort ye my people" to get things going. He continues with "Every valley shall be exalted," and is followed by the chorus breaking forth with "And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed." Eventually the alto sings "O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion" and just before the end of the first section of the Oratorio, the soprano sings "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd."

And these are just the pieces setting words from Isaiah 40 to music.

Geographically, I'm located in a region that's not all that far away from where the people originally the recipients of this sacred story lived. Many of those people were nomads, and these days I'm "commuting" to work so much, I'm feeling a bit nomadic myself. Anyone who's ever traveled by land in these parts knows the values of good roads, and how difficult the going gets when the roads get rough.

So, I hear the echoes of Handel's Messiah when Isaiah 40 is proclaimed at Mass, and especially these days, the parts about every valley being filled in, mountains being made low, and the rough places plain.

Most of my travel of late has not involved being on roads, but even when traveling by air, a smooth ride is preferable to a bumpy one! (See my post of a few days ago, "Taken for a ride," for instance!)

We are enjoined by the voice of the prophet Isaiah: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,/ make straight in the desert a highway for our God." (Is 40:3) This admonition is echoed in the Gospel reading (Mk1:1-8) appointed for this past Sunday as well (which also quotes Isaiah): "A voice of one crying out in the desert: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.'"

These days, while living here in a desert land, I'm more and more convinced the desert that's referred to here is our interior desert, which is so often filled with spiritual rough places: lots of serpentine valleys and craggy mountains.

Those of us who are Christians have a God who is with us: Immanu El (literally, the with-us God). If I'm to have the eyes to see the presence of Immanuel in the midst of us, I need to prepare the way of the Lord interiorly. I need to fill in the valleys and level the mountains and make the rough places plain.

Prejudices, contempt prior to investigation, resentments, fears, shame, anger, bitterness, arrogance, stubborn refusal to acknowledge mistakes (even in the face of overwhelming evidence) -- the list could go on and on -- constitute the spiritual wadis and other obstacles which need to be smoothed out in order to prepare the way of the Lord. It's no small task, especially in my case.

After all, I have a powerful intellect located in a broken brain. That's a dangerous combination, especially when considering the spiritual life!

Those character defects are what prevent me from being able to recognize the hand of God at work on the ends of the arms of those about me. They blind me from seeing the action of God carried out by people my brain would have me believe are inferior, less-than, inadequate, fraudulent (amazingly, everything I've thought about myself, actually -- projection is an amazing phenomenon, eh?).

They deafen me to hearing the voice of God speaking tenderly to the Jerusalem which is my soul that "her iniquity is pardoned" -- which voice much too often comes from the throats of people whom I judge harshly, thereby giving me license to ignore. Those character defects harden my heart against a love with which God attempts to surprise me, but which I am unable to accept because it isn't occurring according to *my* plan and purpose.

Here in Iraq at the moment the desert is beginning to come alive with green, growing things because the temperatures are downright chilly and because we've been having rain. It's been fascinating and awesome to see from the air a landscape which only two months ago had been unremittingly gray and monochromatic burgeon into a lush emerald patchwork.

It's so amazing that it really did distract me from the terror of cavorting around in an aircraft seemingly piloted by a crew determined to get me to barf.

So, if this harsh and unyielding and dangerous terrain can be transformed into a land -- that at least for a season -- produces a rich harvest, then perhaps there's hope for my internal desert. Just maybe my interior wasteland of stony hillocks and barren slag heaps and sere arroyos can become a garden of rich spiritual delights. For the rough places to be made plain in my soul, I first have to recognize the truth of their condition, and ask for -- and accept -- help to prepare the way of the Lord.

That's what Advent is about for me this year, here in Iraq.

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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It's like deja vu all over again

Just a few days after "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" in the helicopter (see blog post "Taken for a ride"), I found myself seated directly behind the gunner on the left side of the aircraft. It seemed as though they knew I was a Chaplain in advance (maybe seeing my name on manifests practically every day will do that?), or perhaps just seeing the Chaplain Branch insignia on my uniform is what did it.

In any event, the gunner who escorted my Rent-A-Chaplain-Assistant and me out to the aircraft very deliberately had us get seated in the row of seats in the front of the passenger section of the vehicle. I was on the left side of the row, and SGT R was one seat away from me on the right, directly behind the gunner on that side.

After checking to make sure our seat belts and shoulder harnesses were fastened, the gunner buckled himself in, and we took off.

I noticed him glancing back in my direction a couple of times, which seemed a bit odd. He was also chatting into his microphone more than usual as he was glancing back. The crew of those aircraft wear rather idiosyncratic helmets which make them look like something out of a Star Wars movie set, and almost complete cover their features, unless the retractable visors are up. Even with his visor down, I could tell that that Soldier was smiling *a lot* as he communicated over his headset with whomever, and was glancing back in my direction.

I'd never seen this glancing-talking-glancing-talking thing before, so it caught my attention. Probably a good thing that I was paying attention, too: I noticed after glancing, talking, and smiling, the gunner steadied his weapon in the gunner's hatch, and then placed both of his hands on his seat, appearing to grab hold tightly.

I said to myself: "Self. This is probably not a good sign."

I did the same thing. I grabbed onto my seat with both hands.

Good thing, too.

Almost immediately we went into a much sharper, steeper, more terrifying series of zigs and zags and dives and recoveries than I'd experienced just a few days earlier.

While we were doing this, the other aircraft, which was ahead of us, just continued on its merry -- and smooth -- way, by now far ahead and above us.

Moments later, though, we were above them, though still far back, and nanoseconds after that, we were a mere 70 meters above the ground.

My gunner was looking back at me at that point with a huge -- humongous -- grin on his face, obviously laughing his ass off. I gave him the both-thumbs-up sign, and grabbed my seat again, just as we dived into a series of lurchings left and right.

(A medevac pilot I spoke with afterward laughed and told me he was pretty sure the pilot was trying to show me a good time and/or get me to barf. He seemed impressed that I'd not "lost it" because he's known many a passenger to do so.)

At the first stop on this multi-leg jaunt to get to where we'd be doing Mass, SGT R and I had to be moved to the lead aircraft, because where we were being dropped off was so small that only one chopper could land while the other would circle, waiting.

As the gunner from the other side of the aircraft led us to the lead vehicle, I told him the ride was awesome.

He partially removed his helmet so he could hear me. "Did you say, 'awesome,' Sir?" I gave him two thumbs up.

He replaced his helmet, and put the index finger of his right hand to his mouth as if to say, "Don't tell anyone."

Blessings and peace to one and all,

Fr. Tim, SJ

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How Can I Keep From Singing?

For the last two weeks I've been attempting not to be completely taken down by the catarrh again. Seems as though everyone has it these days.

I figure it's SFC McG's fault, seeing as he's been on a mission without me -- for almost three weeks. (Might as well blame him, eh?) I mean, I've had to utilize Rent-A-Chaplain-Assistants, and while they've been great, they're not SFC McG!

Since SFC McG has been gone, I've had to go out on a lot more missions than had been the case for the past few months now, and most of them have turned out to last from eight to thirteen hours each. So, on top of having to do my office work, and attempting to care for the Catholic Community of which I'm now the "pastor" about 13 kilometers from where I live, I've been buzzing around the AO (Area of Operations) almost every day.

When I'm on top of my game, I usually hum or sing melodies as we're moving about, but lately I've noticed that I'm not doing that. Part of it, surely, is that I'm much less likely to sing or even hum when I've got a sore throat or upper respiratory congestion. I suspect part of it is just that I'm pretty wiped out.

I love singing at Mass, so it's been frustrating not to have the voice or the energy to do that as I'd like. (This is especially true at my "parish" -- the community at one of the Masses I have there is the most musically-challenged group of individuals I've ever encountered. One Sunday, while I was distributing Holy Communion, it was positively distracting how cacophonous their attempt at singing was. But I'm actually amused by it, and figure they're just following the admonition found in Psalms 66, 95, 98, and 100: "Make a joyful noise" to God! " I'd *much* rather have them doing that than sitting there in stony and disinterested silence.)

Through all this I've been reminded of a wonderful Shaker Hymn which goes:

My life goes on in endless song
Above earth's lamentation,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing,
It sounds and echoes in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest round me roars,
I hear the truth it liveth.
What though the darkness 'round me close,
Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth,
How can I keep from singing?

Indeed.

Blessings and peace to one and all,

Fr. Tim, SJ

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Army-Navy Game

There I was, sitting in a PAX TERMINAL (passenger terminal), waiting for a ride home after being out on a mission.

(As an aside, it still strikes me as odd that the word PAX (Latin: peace) is the designation for "person(s)" in the Army.)

Anyway, a number of us were doing the same thing, waiting for the same aircraft to take us to our respective destinations. There was a TV in the room, which was tuned (if by tuned one means "with an antenna sort of pointed the direction of perhaps maybe receiving a snowy signal which fades in and out with accompanying white noise") to the Army-Navy game.

Just after Army's first possession (which lasted all of about 20 seconds, it seemed), a huge BOOM shook the trailer we were in. Perhaps it was a portent of things to come.

The noise and shock wave caught my attention, but the Battalion Commander and his Command Sergeant Major I'd just met barely took notice of it, so I held my place, and my tongue. (See, I *can* do that! Sometimes, anyway.)

A few minutes after Navy had scored the first six of their 200 points, or whatever it turned out to be, another BOOM shook the building. Still not much in the way of response, though the BC and CSM did look around the room and at each other. Someone else in the room said, "I didn't hear any announcement of a controlled det (detonation) taking place tonight."

The wavy lines of the TV oscillated whilst the white noise crescendoed and diminuendoed. Navy scored again, I think.

Two more detonations BOOMed out, one after the other, shaking us again, which finally prompted a verbal response from the Lieutenant Colonel in our midst. "Well, I suspect they're just controlled dets, but if they're not, they're not close enough to us to be of concern."

Maybe not to him.

Blessings and peace to one and all,

Fr. Tim, SJ

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Seen along the road...

In the Toto-I-guess-we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore Department: Who knew that there would be a "Clown Horns" problem over here Down Range?

I'd never seen a "NO CLOWN HORNS" traffic sign before arriving in this war zone. I photographed this near a place once frequented by Saddam Hussein. There are now a lot of American "Grand-Poohbah" types nearby.

Given that we are in the midst of a war, one might think that the levity attendant upon hearing a clown horn blaring in the midst of the chaos and fog of war might lift the spirits of those downtrodden souls whose lives have been torn asunder by violence. How cruel-hearted must be the one(s) who perceived a problem with Clown Horns to begin with, and then went to the trouble of crafting and posting this sign in response!

So, what I want to know is: When was this sign put up, and by whom?

If by Saddam, then perhaps he was an even worse person than anyone had heretofore imagined....

Or is someone calling us "Bozos"?

Blessings and peace to one and all,

Fr. Tim, SJ

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A Birthday Prayer

Offered at Mass this week by a member of the congregation, during the Prayers of the Faithful.

Posted here without further comment.

"Let us pray for my young son whose fourth birthday is today. Daddy has now been deployed for three of his four birthdays. For [him], let us pray to the Lord."

Blessings and peace to one and all,

Fr. Tim, SJ

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Taken for a ride

I've recently been flying more often than was true for about two months. Generally speaking, travel by helicopter is pretty enjoyable -- well, except for the whole having-to-wear-body-armor and will-they-shoot-at-us-this-time? parts.

As I'd mentioned in an earlier post, I'd never experienced military helicopter flight before showing up here Down Range (so much for, "we train as we fight," I guess). I've found it to be fun -- most of the time.

Not too long ago I was on my way somewhere with a Rent-A-Chaplain-Assistant, since SFC McG has been off on a mission without me for the past couple of weeks. Amazing how I've come to rely on his presence and equanimity in the short time we've known each other!

Unflappable is a great word to describe him.

He has an uncanny knack for being able to put the best spin on just about any situation, and I've rarely *seen* him angry. (I suspect that's at least in part because he's good at keeping a calm and happy demeanor.)

So there I was with my Rent-A-Chaplain-Assistant as we were flying to a place I'd never visited before. It's not all that distant from where we started, and yet the schedule had us taking an hour to get where we were going. Seemed odd, but not spectacularly so.

Turns out we were transporting a Marines Mugwump from where we initiated our travel to a Landing Zone (LZ) where only Mugwumps can land (I'd already been on aircraft that had landed there before, so that wasn't such a big deal), but that didn't really take much time.

We then landed at another place, but again for only a short time. Our next stop was supposed to be our destination, but we still had about 40 minutes until our scheduled stop. Five minutes later we were over our destination, but just kept flying.

Odd.

It was a beautiful day, and the sun was setting, so the sky was awash in rather intense colors and cloud formations. Because of the rains we've had in the last month or so, the fields below us -- many of them, at least -- resembled small, midwestern U.S. farm plots in the springtime.

Gorgeous, really.

Incredibly bright green rectangles interspersed with dull gray fallow fields, some of which were quite large, and almost invariably held the ghostly remains of a bombed-out large house.

The wounds of war are visible all across the body of Mother Earth everywhere I've traveled here.

As the sun set, the earthen berms which marked off the boundaries of the rectangular patches of soil appeared almost purple. The rows of young, bright green plants within each rectangle seemed an attempt to restore order to a chaotic environment.

There below us was new life struggling to take hold and achieve success in the short time before the withering heat returns -- or the bombs begin to fall again, I suppose.

In any event, it was idyllic. Great beauty, again, in the midst of a war zone. Great day for flying. Great flight.

Until.

It.

Happened.

Without warning, the helicopter suddenly zigged to the left, and then zagged to the right.

This caught me completely off-guard, in the midst of my late-afternoon aerial reverie. The helicopter sped up so quickly, the G-forces started pushing me against my lap and shoulder harnesses (I was facing the rear of the aircraft). I didn't know those things could go that fast!

(Why don't they fly that fast when it's after midnight and I've been on mission for twelve hours already, and really, really want to get home to bed?)

Then, all of a sudden, the nose of the helicopter was up, and the tail was down, and I was suspended by the lap and shoulder harnesses, facing downward. (Well, almost, anyway.)

The aircraft was climbing vertically, rather than ascending horizontally. This was a new experience for Fr. Tim. When I found myself wondering when, not if, the craft was going to flop over on its back, I decided it was time to say the Serenity Prayer.

Actually, I found myself singing the Serenity Prayer, again and again, to a jaunty little tune I came up with on my way over here after Summer Camp - South.

My Rent-A-Chaplain-Assistant, who was seated directly opposite me (and who was, at this point, directly beneath me), looked distinctly green -- and he's been in the Army for 14 years.

Just as suddenly as the ascent began, we leveled off, with the attendant sloshing of internal organs which accompanies a sudden loss of G-forces. Nanoseconds later we were diving earthward, with me looking up at my Rent-A-Chaplain-Assistant, hoping against hope he wasn't going to "lose it" (do the math!).

He was having a tough time.

More musical Serenity Prayer repetitions.

We hurtled toward the ground, going faster yet. No longer envisioning the aircraft turning upside down, I felt assaulted by the notion of a not-so-soft reaquaintance with terra firma.

My friends who go to a lot of Al-Anon meetings tell me that "whatever I feed, grows," so when I'm angry or afraid (for example), if I focus on the anger or fear, it just gets bigger. But if I move my attention to something delicate or pretty, like a flower or a sunset or a melody, I'm not feeding the monster.

Therefore I decided I'd focus my attention on the clouds out the window directly to my right, because the setting sun had illuminated them in a particularly wonderful fashion.

So there I was watching the sunset, as we were rocketing toward the ground, when suddenly I was watching the ground directly beneath me, because we'd gone into a sharp turn. The centrifugal (or is it centripetal?) forces slammed me back into my seat, and we executed an amazingly sharp turn. I did notice the rather long shadows being cast by the date palms beneath us with the sun just above the horizon at that point.

That sharp turn just kept going and going and going. I wondered what the dozen or so sheep being herded along the road beneath us thought about this loud contraption above them. Had I been the shepherd, I'd probably have felt somewhat intimidated by the rather large weapon protruding out the window of that contraption, which was pointed directly at the ground where I was walking.... And we kept circling.

Imagine the Energizer Bunny moving horizontally in a circle, 50 meters above ground.

How do you spell 'vertiginous'? (Then again, who'd want to?)

By this point I was pretty sure that the pilot was just practicing, and that we were not really in imminent danger from some enemy on the ground. The gunners had not engaged their weapons, and while we seemed to be executing tactical movements, we kept doing them essentially over the same area.

Since we weren't firing at anything, and we weren't getting the heck outta Dodge, I felt pretty confident we were being treated (unfairly? (at least to hear my Rent-A-Chaplain-Assistant later)) to a rehearsal for some air show or other.

I actually almost enjoyed the experience. Almost. One should remember that I do not like -- in fact I actually intentionally eschew -- roller coaster rides.

It sure felt as though we were on a roller coaster, but there was no track above, beneath, or beside us. It's bad enough, in my estimation, to be on one of those things (last time, for me was more than a decade ago, case in point) at least knowing there's some sort of support structure providing a modicum of safety against unfortunate gravitational interactions.

In the helicopter, tossed and whirled about, there's no such buffer against gravity, except the proper functioning of rotor blades and pilots.

I was grateful for the Serenity Prayer and that I was remembering to breathe -- great spiritual exercises when in a crunch [poor choice of word?].

Eventually the ride slowed down and smoothed out and we made our way to our destination LZ.

The sun had set by that time, and the last vestiges of roseate daylight had given way to the dusty dusk of an Iraqi desert.

I was reminded later by a friend that people pay good money for rides like that.

I reminded him that I'm not usually one of them, though I'm secretly hoping it'll happen again.

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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T-Mobile

I have been trying for four months now to get T-Mobile to suspend my cellular service, since I'm in a place where I'm unable to use it.

For four months now they have continued to charge me for a service I CANNOT USE, and they refuse to acknowledge my attempts to get them to do something about this via their "contact us" link on their website.

Way to support the troops, T-Mobile! Thanks a lot.

There, I feel better now, though I'm still out more than $200, and counting.

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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Deep Thoughts

Here's a deep thought:

It's much easier to get a hot shower here Down Range when the highs during the days are between 115 - 130 degrees Fahrenheit (and the lows are above 100 degrees) than it is when the days are in the 70s and 80s and the nights are in the 40s and 50s.

Just so we're clear on this.

Here's another deep thought:

On the other hand, it's easier to receive intact Dark Chocolate M&Ms (with or without peanuts) through the mail when the highs are in the 70s and 80s and the lows are in the 40s and 50s than it is when the highs are in the 120s and the lows are in the 90s or 100s.

Just so we're clear on this, too.

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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4

Four months ago today I arrived Down Range with SFC McG. It's been quite a ride so far, and not just on Blackhawk helicopters! (Much to my surprise, I really enjoy riding in them. Who knew?)

We had another new moon a couple of days ago, which seems to be the pulse by which I'm measuring my time here. Lately, perhaps because of the winds and rain, the skies have often been spectacularly clear at night, especially when I've been able to be outside the wire at a Combat Outpost (COP) or Forward Operating Base (FOB) or Joint Security Station (JSS) to provide religious support to Catholic (and other!) Soldiers.

Several of those places are at some distance from areas of great 'light pollution' (as the Jesuits at the Vatican Astronomical Observatory, La Speccola Vaticana called it during the summer of 1982 I spent with them), and the vividness of the celestial light-show causes me to stop in my tracks and just ponder the vastness and beauty of it all. Inevitably I offer a prayer of thanks.

Now the moon is slivering about the horizon, with Venus and Jupiter no longer aligned in a straight line with it. None the less, as those orbs shimmer in the night sky, I revel in the awe and wonder of it all.

I'm in a place where people are actively trying to maim or kill me, and yet there is beauty all around, if I pause to recognize it.

Wow.

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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Happy New Year!

For those of us who come from the tradition of liturgical worship, Sunday 30NOV08 is the First Sunday of Advent, and therefore the first Sunday of the new liturgical year.

Happy New Year!

Advent always amuses me, since every year during Advent we wait for something that's already happened, at least seemingly. The four Sundays of Advent lead up to our commemoration of the birth of Jesus in a barn long ago (and for me this year, not so far away). And yet the season is not just about looking backwards in time to an event which has been noted now for a couple of millennia, but also an anticipation of the return of the Christ in glory at the end of time.

In my liturgical tradition, we recognize Jesus as Emmanuel -- Immanu El, the "with-us God" -- as described in the Gospel of Matthew. Christmas Eve we'll read from the text which names him thus, from the beginning of that Gospel (Mt. 1:23). At the end of that same Gospel Jesus says, "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Mt. 28:20).

With us. Always. None will be left behind, deserted by him.

So as we wait for Christ's return, it's important to remember that admonition at the end of the Gospel of Matthew: "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Perhaps, rather than focusing just on the rather antiseptic and anemic images of Pattarino figurines in a Christmas creche, or on some off-in-the-future return of Christ in triumph, we might want to attempt to recognize how Christ is trying to be born anew in us and in and through those around us, since he is the "with-us God."

With us, right now.

No creche. No angels blowing trumpets at the end times. But right now.

For me, even right here in Iraq, of all places.

The Gospel reading today (Mk 13:33-37) sets the tone for our observance of Advent: Watch! Be alert! Don't be sleeping! The implication is: Jesus could show up at any time. Not just at the end of time, but right here, right now.

I wonder how many thousands upon thousands of times I've missed recognizing him because I was not watchful or alert or even open to discerning his presence in a given situation.

In Jesus we can have a "with-us God" who is revealed in the persons and situations which would otherwise seem impossibly antithetical to the presence of the Divine. Mother Teresa once said, in response to a question about why she would spend her life with destitute slum-dwellers -- many of whom weren't even Christians! -- replied: "The dying, the crippled, the mentally ill, the unwanted, the unloved -- they are Jesus in disguise. The poor people are God's greatest gift to me. I have an opportunity to be 24 hours a day with Jesus." (quoted in V. K. Supramanian, The Great Ones, p. 187)

She "got it" what this being Emmanuel thing meant about Jesus. She looked for him around her, and found him in the most unlikely persons in the most unlikely places.

I wonder how different the "War on Christmas" would seem if we didn't focus on who can or can't put up what decorations, or whether people *have* to say "Merry Christmas" or must avoid it altogether, but rather attempted to identify the Christ already in our midst -- cold, hungry, without documents, without work, in the cubicle next to us at work, in the pew in front of us at church, in the chow hall or latrine here in Iraq, on the TV, in the persons of our spouse or children, or alone in a darkened room trying to save money by keeping the lights off.

If Mother Teresa could see Jesus so clearly in the gutters of Calcutta, what's to prevent us, this Advent, from recognizing him as already come to us in the persons we encounter in our daily life?

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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APFT

The Army Physical Fitness Test supposedly is "designed to test the muscular strength / endurance and cardiovascular respiratory fitness of soldiers in the United States Army" by having us do as many push-ups as we can in 2 minutes, followed 10 minutes later by as manysit-ups as we can do in 2 minutes, followed ten minutes later by a 2-mile run, in as short a time as can be managed by the Soldier.

Except, of course, if one is a physical wreck (wretch?) like me, in which case one does a 2.5-mile walk in under 00:37:30 in place of the 2-mile run.

Each event is scored according to a scale which takes into account the Soldier's age and gender.

Male Soldiers who join at age 17 must complete 42 push-ups and 53 sit-ups within the allotted time, and finish the 2-mile run in 00:15:54 to pass the test. If they want to "max" it, they need 71 push-ups and 78 sit-ups, and 00:13:00 in the run to receive a "300". By the time they're 27, they're expected to complete 77 push-ups, 82 sit-ups, and the run in 00:13:18 to max out.

More than the maximum number of repetitions in the first two events, or a faster run time than the minimum can earn the Soldier more than 300 points, but only as long as the Soldier has maxed each of the three events. Otherwise, the extra repetitions or the faster time don't really "count."

As a person gets older than 31 years old, the standards are lowered. After age 52 (my age) they must figure they're reached the nadir, because the standards no longer change.

When I went to Chaplain Basic Training, as the oldest non-prior-service Soldier there, my classmates seized upon my advanced age and accused me of only having to do five push-ups and three sit-ups to pass. I actually did well enough on the APFT I took during Basic to have at least passed at the 17-21 age.

However, I wound up with a permanent no-run profile as a result of that test.... Sigh.

Because of the permanent no-run profile, no matter how many sit-ups I do, nor how many push-ups, nor how fast I get the 2.5-mile walk done, I can't ever score over 260 (out of 300) on the test; in fact, they don't really 'score' it at all. They just check to see whether I pass each event, and whether I meet the height-weight standards.

So I had an APFT today, here in Iraq. After doing 63 push-ups (the max for my age is 56; the minimum to pass is 28), I realized it didn't matter (I'd done 76 in two minutes last week), so I just stopped, with twenty seconds to go.

I know, I'm a quitter.

Saffar Arjmandi would have called me something else.

When it came to the sit-ups, I just did the minimum that a 17-year-old would need to pass -- 53. (For my age group, the max is 66, the minimum, 28.)

I'm not convinced that sit-ups really measure my fitness for combat, when you really get right down to it...

I had 00:37:30 to do the 2.5-mile walk, and completed it in 00:31:23. I'd sort of wanted to get it done in under 30 minutes, but seeing as I'd not been to the gym -- at all -- since I've been here (these 12-hour (or more!) days are real killers, if I want to write to my blog, etc.), I figure it wasn't too shabby a performance.

I did best the others who were doing the walk by more than 2 minutes, at least.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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Mortaritaville

I was in a place recently that hadn't received any indirect fire in many, many months. While I was eating dinner, a round detonated perhaps 100 meters away, and another round landed somewhat closer, but it did not explode. Miraculously, no one was seriously injured.

It felt a bit odd to hit the floor, surrounded by a mass of other people, also on the floor, jostling to get their bodies under the tables and chairs. It does wonders for the digestion. Seriously.

Perhaps because there hasn't been any of this sort of activity at that place for so long, some people I spoke with afterward seemed pretty wigged out. They have since reported not sleeping well.

I, however, slept fine that night, there. I've slept fine since then, too. Having a really, really, really big Higher Power helps a lot in instances like this, I guess. I'm grateful for that.

I have noticed though, that since that experience, the first time I heard a thunderclap, I found myself wondering whether it was really thunder, or a mortar exploding.

I'd never, ever wondered that before.

It's one thing to recognize that people who know me might want to kill me. It's entirely another thing to acknowledge that people who *don't* know me are trying to kill me....

What's up with that?

Happy Thanksgiving.

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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Spiritual Exercises V

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure."

"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough."

"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough."

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Humbug." (Dickens, A Christmas Carol, pp. 4-5)

During the holidays, it's easy for me to become aware of how much I *don't* have, especially as stores get engorged with gift items that are all "must-haves". This time of the year I become more keenly aware of my vow of poverty than any other time.

The more I dwell on what I don't have -- either for myself, or to give away to others as gifts (gifts that would impress with their extravagance) -- the more stressed and inadequate and genuinely grumpy I feel. I can lose sight of all the blessings in my life, and either become afraid they'll be taken away, or feel upset that I don't have "more" or 'what others have'.

If you've not read A Christmas Carol in a long time, download a copy and read the description of Scrooge in the first chapter. Ebenezer Scrooge epitomizes how I can get to be feeling, if I'm not careful. "He carried his own low temperature always about with him..." One line in particular stands out for me: "Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it."

If A Christmas Carol is unknown to you, think Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, but without his generous nature, good humor, and gentle spirit.

So what's to be done when I'm getting more Scroogy than even I'm comfortable with?

I've been taught a simple spiritual exercise that can help: I practice being satisfied. I act as if it's OK to be where I am, as I am, right here, right now.

I make a conscious decision of the will to accept my situation, just as it is, as being sufficient for this present moment. I deliberately attempt to let go of expectations (my own and/or others') that things/I/situations ought to be different. I focus on gratitude, rather than on misanthropy.

It's tough -- especially for a curmudgeon -- and takes a lot of repetition, but it works.

Here's a vignette to illustrate my point.

A number of years ago I found myself in a new city and not particularly happy about the confluence of events that brought me there. So I started hanging out with people who were trying to live one day at a time, and develop and improve their conscious contact with a Power greater than themselves. On a wintry day a couple of months after I'd arrived, I was with a group of those folks as we listened to a man talk about how he had been complaining about his life to his AA sponsor.

The sponsor had told him to practice being satisfied.

That was a new concept for the man, but he decided to give it a try. Much to his surprise, it was working, and his life was improving. The guy spoke with authenticity and authority.

People in rooms like that tend to be able to spot someone who's not really telling the truth. That guy was telling the truth.

Weird thing was, the guy was homeless.

It was winter, in the midwest. There was snow and slush and cold. I felt grumpy for being there, and annoyed at having to scrape off the car before going on my merry way anywhere. I felt put-upon at having to trudge through snowbanks and navigate icy sidewalks on my way to and from work. (I didn't have to do that when living in California!)

I had, what many of those friends of mine would say are "country club problems."

That guy, on the other hand, was HOMELESS.

He felt serenity as he practiced being satisfied.

I, on the other hand, felt restless, irritable, and discontented.

He made a habit of listing ten things/people/events for which he was grateful several times a day. I was rehearsing how wronged I'd been by others, multiple times a day. He tried to go out of his way to do something nice, anonymously, for someone else at least once per day. I was waiting for "them" to apologize to me.

(Never happened, of course.)

His serenity was leading him to be able to take actions -- sober -- that he'd never been able to do before, and he had gotten a job which he'd thus far managed to keep for several months. He was beginning to pay off some of the huge debt he'd accumulated, and had a line on a place to live, if he could demonstrate his reliability and trustworthiness by keeping the job. He figured he could be off the streets in a week or two more at most.

I was in a rut that was keeping me bitter and resentful and endangering my sobriety.

He was loving life as a sober person. His life was very tough, but as he practiced being satisfied, his life was improving because his attitude kept improving.

I kept my focus on what I *didn't* have, how much *more* I *deserved*, how wronged I was, and how UNFAIR life was -- all the while having a job, having a place to live, having food on the table (and living in a place where I didn't have to cook it or do the dishes), having friends and family who loved me and supported me. I was not exactly loving life as a sober person.

But that guy at that meeting was!

I was speechless.

If it could work for him, perhaps it could work for me.

It did.

It's still working -- when I apply myself to engaging this spiritual exercise -- even over here in Iraq. Even when we get mortared, and things here get blown up.

Go figure.

If the holidays are proving to be a challenge for you, try this small spiritual exercise which has worked for me: Practice being satisfied.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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Thankfulness

Most military personnel I've met who find out that I came into the Army with no prior service, practically in my dotage, ask me how this happened. I ask myself the same question, pretty much constantly.

I love the family and friends I am now so far away from. I love living in a place with a fairly temperate climate all year around. I love my job in the department where I received my doctorate. I love being close enough to the ocean to be able to go SCUBA diving if I can get the time away and a buddy to go with.

I love having the ability to jump on a plane, if need be, to link up with family and friends who are in the midst of some crisis or other. I love running around the country giving weekend retreats to people who are recovering from addictions of one sort or another, or recovering from the family consequences thereof.

I really love free-lancing doing priest-things on weekends and weekdays, in various parishes, all over the place.

Now I find myself far from home, and family, and friends. While the weather at this moment is quite nice, actually, this place could hardly be counted as having a temperate climate! There's nowhere around where I am to go SCUBA diving (at least recreationally).

When Mom had her back surgery, and Elaine had her cancer surgery, and Aunt Pat got so sick -- and then died -- there was no way to jump on a plane and just show up. I've not given a weekend retreat in a long time, because it wasn't fair to tell a group I'd do the retreat, only to have to cancel down the road because the Army had put me on temporary duty that weekend. (I've done a lot of temporary duty since getting commissioned.) I miss the folks at St. Thomas Aquinas (all three sites), St. Cyprian's, St. Bartholomew's, etc.

All of this 'missment' is not a surprise. I knew what I was signing up for when all this began three summers ago.

Whenever I find myself marveling at being in Iraq, wearing body armor, going outside the wire, and asking myself, "Self. How did this happen?", I always focus on my gratitude to the women and men in my life who are veterans or still serving in the military.

I think of my Dad, who was branched Field Artillery after he completed ROTC in the 50s. When I was commissioned, he pinned the only Captain bars he could find from his time in the service on the lapel of my BDUs, which I wore specifically so we'd get by with just one, rather than a pair. The BDUs are no longer authorized for wear, but I have saved that set because my Dad's rank is still on the lapel.

I think of my cousins George, Cathy, and Mike, who represent the Army, Navy, and Air Force (not a real service), respectively. [Before you give me all sorts of grief, just know that I'm constantly giving Mike a hard time about that, as he gives me a hard time for joining an outfit which guarantees that I'll NOT be sleeping in a bed with clean sheets, more often than not.]

They all served during the Vietnam conflict, and have amazing stories to tell. I know I can never live up to George's multiple Bronze Stars with "V" devices and his Silver Star; I hope I don't get to join him in the Military Order of the Purple Heart! Mike has become one of my greatest supporters -- and challengers -- and his experience, strength, and hope have seen me through a lot.

I think of my Dad's neighbors Joe and Andy, who served during World War II. Joe was a Captain in the Army, and he gave me his Captain bars for my dress uniform. What an incredible gift! Andy and his wife take really good care of my parents, who definitely need looking after!

I think of Ken and Paul who were Cadets back in the 80s when I was teaching in the midwest. They went on to serve with distinction into the 90s. Ken's struggles in the face of the constant pain he suffers from now, as a result of his military service, fill me with fear and awe.

I think of the Cadets of the All For One Battalion, and the grief they gave me for being a "leftist hippie" (which was, of course, true). I think of Saffar, RANGER and RAKKASAN, who adopted me as his "Dad" -- with so much reason not to have done so. He had the highest tolerance for pain of any human being I've ever met, and doing his funeral was almost as tough as doing my brother's a couple years earlier.

I think of Jason and Jonathan and Mason and Kael and Justin and Matthew and Brian and Lindsey and so many others who have served so well, at and such a great cost.

I think especially of Sam, Jason, Dan, and Patrick, whose love and support have come to mean so much. Words do not adequately convey the debt of gratitude I owe them. Carlos has become like family to me.

I think of 1SG B, who served here in Iraq in both Desert Shield / Desert Storm and in OIF. "Top" has become one of my closest friends and continues to square me away, even from far away. I think of Top from HHD in my first Battalion in the Guard, and all of my friends from that unit whom I miss so much.

I think of LTC K, LTC F, and LTC C who mentored me with such care, even though I didn't come close to being under their command. The first LTC C took me in under her wing even before I was in uniform.

I think of LTC W whose powers of persuasion and example, coupled with those of MAJ S, served to woo me into the Guard and keep me there when the going got tough.

I think of SFC McG, who's away on a mission without me, but who's in very good hands in so many ways.

I think of SPC C and SGT M at their outpost, and of CPT M, Roy E, SPC T, and SSG L who are trying to stay sober over here, and of all the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, Airmen, DoD Civilians, and contractors I've met since putting on this uniform, and I am filled with gratitude that in some small way (smaller than I'd like, that's for sure), I might be able to be of service to them.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Blessings and peace to one and all,


Fr. Tim, SJ

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