Blog 3: Baby Steps in Giving

Doing something….

One of the great quotes of the last century was voiced by noted cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead when she said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Jesus offered these words to his followers, “for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”

John F. Kennedy put it this way, “One man can make a difference, every man should try.”

We all know how seemingly insurmountable tasks can lead us to withdraw and keep us from taking actions.   The college professor who looks at a large stack of papers, says, to him/herself that no matter what I do today, there will still be more papers to grade tomorrow and then opts to head to sleep or catch a prerecorded episode of Jeopardy on the DVR.

From the student’s perspective, the term-paper due at the end of the semester seems so challenging, that s/he puts it off until the bitter end, when time for meaningful learning from the exercise is nearly impossible.

A great challenge can motivate us or turn us inward with the expectation that little things don’t really make big differences.   But indeed, little things can.  Students in my public speaking classes this week have noted that sometimes very small things said to them have (at the right moment) made significant changes in their own lives.

Two weeks ago my wife, her sister and I went to New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, for its annual blessings of the animals service (my son’s high school choir annually sings for this service.)   You haven’t really experienced the full range of worship until you’ve heard the beautiful cacophony of sounds coming from a large pipe organ, a squealing pig, and a relatively muted camel all sharing the same space.  

The annual service is in recognition of the great animal lover of ages ago, St. Francis of Assisi, who put personal giving into a more meaningful perspective.   

“For it is in giving that we receive….”  Most of us learn that lesson the first time giving a gift to someone means more to us that getting something for ourselves.

But of course, giving doesn’t always have an immediate direct payoff as Assisi knew.  There can be discomfort in the process.    Indeed he concludes that it is in “dying that we attain eternal life.”

                                                               ChristianMiracles.com

And perhaps Mahatma Gandi put it the clearest when he said, "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the company of others.”

And what I have found repeatedly is that some of the best parts of life are found when we each are able to lose ourselves in the company of others.    And those life changing moments can, at the time, seem phenomenally minute.  Yet, there’s a chance, a relatively good chance, that those little moments can make a big difference…change someone’s life for the better.   It can take the form of just a little smile.   I ask my classes to smile each day, not just because evidence supports the notion that it will make them happier, but it clearly makes me happy too.   

So every couple of years, I’m willing to make a little fool out of myself and raise a few dollars for a local charity.   It’s never much, but it gets me in the habit of looking outside of myself for just a moment, and thinking of a way that I can make a small difference (in the company of others). 

This year the  bi-annual Run/Walk/Volunteer for Super-Dwight takes place on Halloween morning, Oct. 31^st at the corner of 15^th and Potter Street start.   Here’s a news report (completed by two of our former COMS students, Zach Barlage & Dan Armenti, and of what the event looked like in one of our years.) 

And two years ago, three groups of our CAPSTONE students worked on three different programs for City-Team Ministries, one such program serves poor women and babies in the area.   Here was a film that highlights the program that we will seek to help out this year….

   

So feel free to share us in our joy.  Consider running or walking our 5K with us on our Chester campus on Saturday morning Oct. 31^st .  You can offer to volunteer or walk or run, or just contribute.  (We always have students wiling to run or walk but are not in the position to pay the $15 entry fee.) You can volunteer by simply making posters, helping set up our chalk lines, handing out water cups, or just showing up to cheer us all on.

Please consider joining us Halloween morning at 10 a.m. on the corner of 15^th and Potter Streets or by sending me a $15 donation to support a student who can run or walk but would have a hard time paying the $15 fee.   You can send it via mail or simply drop it by my office at Widener at 220 Freedom Hall.

                  BTW, participants get this a fine Tee-Shirt, with this design:

                    (unfortunately arriving a couple of days after the race)

Giving can be fun….So can smiling. So can taking a walk/run.   

It all starts with one step.

Hope to see you, rain or shine, October 31st at 10 a.m. Prizes are awarded to the first place male, female, and best costume....it is Halloween after all.

Yin and Yang: The Papal visit and the Colts

Blog #2

I was in line at the bank on Friday to talk with the teller.  When I got to the window, we got talking about the papal visit and she showed me that she was one of the fortunate ones and was so excited that she had the "golden ticket."

This was the ticket that would get her in a closer space to the festivities on Saturday and Sunday in town.  

I compared the Papal visit with crowds celebrating the Pope to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.   As a devout Catholic, she knew the Pope was no Jesus, but simply an ambassador for the church.  She said the real joy of the event would be in the people, sharing in the Holy Spirit.   I was moved by her faith and enthusiasm, just as I had been when watching TV Wednesday morning as the Pope arrived at the White House  to a royal fanfare of trumpets and drums and dignitaries.   Yet both his speech and President Obama's focused on "the least of these," something I've heard spoken of less and less in each ensuing presidential campaign.  (While there is a huge divide between the very rich and the middle class, there is still a very real, immoral divide between the middle class and "the least of these.")

The ensuing papal visits to the US Congress, the United Nations and to Philly, where I live has indeed been moving.  

So Sunday, after attending our local Presbyterian church, we Protestants decided to make the pilgrimage into Philly to watch the 4 p.m. mass downtown.   We had scored train tickets from the suburbs to the closed-off downtown and my son even had a golden ticket himself.   On the train, a man gave my wife another "golden ticket" and handed it to me.   So now my son and I would be among those within eyesight of the Pope himself.   Again, awe-inspiring and moving.

So, in lieu of staying home and watching my beloved Indianapolis Colts fall to 0 and 3 yesterday, we were to be blessed with this great opportunity.  Soon (after about a half-hour walk) my son and I found our way to 21st Street where those with "Golden Tickets" were exclusively sent for our entrance into the promised land.  It was a long line, but surely worth the wait.

We waited and waited and waited.  No manna fell from the heavens.  But I kept remembering my bank teller's remarks, "the power will be in the people sharing in the Holy Spirit."   So we all talked.  I had a good conversation with a professor from Notre Dame.  I talked with my son about his classes at school.   A little boy, named David, from Omaha took a liking to me and I hoisted him on my shoulders so he could see what's happening and try to catch a beach ball folks were throwing around.    It brought me as much joy as the boy.  

His mother, who was holding an infant daughter in a sling told me that the day before, her baby Felicity had been kissed by the Pope himself!  I boldly asked if I too, could kiss the infant.  She said yes, undoubtedly thankful that I was helping to entertain her son in the long wait.  So I kissed Felicity's head, the very day after the Pope had done so....(Two degrees of separation.)   It reminded me of the time, my sister Rebecca hoisted her daughter Ruth, into the arms of renowned baby authority, Dr. Spock.

Still we waited.   Some were catching sports scores and told me the Colts were behind by 14 after blowing a 14 to nothing lead...this with just minutes left.   I said "the season's over; I'll just start thinking about draft choices for next year."

Few were complaining despite the wait.   One said God knows our intentions and would certainly be reducing time in Purgatory.   Then I heard the Colts had rebounded in the last minutes and went ahead.  Finally, I heard they pulled out the win!   Since Protestants are not big believers in Purgatory, I took this as my Papal blessing for standing so long with the faithful.   

But despite the original cheer, the crowds starting getting angry.  We had the Golden tickets.   We knew the service was already well underway.   But of course, there was that feeling of the Spirit.  There was a joy in seeing the faithful throngs.  

I thought of a very pregnant Mary and her betrothed Joseph, heading to Bethlehem.  Even had they received the Golden ticket, they would have fared no better in our TSA inspection line.  (Indeed a pregnant woman was waiting slightly ahead of me.) By the time we neared the end of the line, the service was over, the Pope had left with all the dignitaries.   Still we were so far ahead in line, that we now had to wait to go through security screening, just to leave!   5.5 hours we waited for the Pope we never got to see.  Finally we were in!  I pretended to feel triumphant to witness the start of the clean-up.

Sure there was sense of failure and frustration.   I had not witnessed a sensational comeback from my beloved Indy Colts.  My son had had to leave his job early and had hours of homework due when we got home.   We were all hungry and tired.

But there is no Yin without Yang, no victory without loss, no Resurrection without a fall.  

In the end, that is the nature of life.   Sometimes the lowly are exalted. Sometimes those with the Golden tickets are sent away empty.  But every now and then, you just may get the chance to kiss a baby who was kissed by a Pope!

Joy....to Philly, the world, and the Faithful... 

Theory vs. Practice

Blog 1

September 19^th, 2015

I was listening to a ‘LateNight Podcast’ with Stephen Colbert on this last Saturday afternoon of this summer as he compared “writing comedy sketches” to the “act of performing that same sketch before a live audience.”  He compared it to the difference between studying theology and practicing religion.  

I thought about the same thing when students in my communication theory class listen to a theory but are then not challenged to connect those theories to their own methods of communicating.

There is something about studying a theory and appreciating the author’s essential ideas that can become a relatively easy task.  But applying those notions to oneself is much harder and indeed a very different task, akin to Freud’s defense mechanism of “intellectualization.”   That is the notion that we start thinking about hurt-filled experiences in our lives in the intellectual abstract to protect ourselves from the biting pain underneath. 

How often do we hear interesting ideas but fail to use them or apply them to ourselves….fit them into what the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget would call our own “schema?”

People often wonder why many therapists have so many personal problems themselves.  Or why communication professors can sometimes be the worst communicators.  Because using ideas is much harder than simply thinking about them in the abstract. What good are learning new ideas or even learning new software if we never make use of them? 

Don’t get me wrong.   There is indeed something inherently compelling about using our brains to grasp new ideas, new practices, new ways of thinking.   But studying theology without practicing some form of religious practice can simply result in a fun intellectual exercise. It lacks the meat of wrestling with our own understanding of God and of ourselves.  It fails to help us in our personal lives.  

Learning how to use Final Cut without ever making a movie can be fun, but in the end leaves one flat.   The power of the technology is in the way it allows us to express our visual and auditory ideas with others.  It is like cramming for a test for some elusive “grade” while failing to grasp why there might be any inherent value in learning the material in the first place.

We are empowered when we spend time applying insights to our lives and our relationships, when we allow ourselves the chance to express our artistic selves, when we take time to really listen to each other without launching into our own reflexive/defensive response.

Indeed that is when the real living begins. It takes practice and real intent, but ultimately making use of what we learn in some intentional way, actually leads us to intellectually develop ideas that we can develop for ourselves and share with others.