Being! Or Nothingness

Beginning Day 2007

Last Saturday, me and about 40 other GS (Gioventu Studentsca) students gathered at St. Francis of Assisi Parish for our annual Beginning Day.  The theme of the day was "Christ in his Beauty Draws Me to Him" and Chris Bacich came down from New York to accompany us and lead the important day.

Chris gave us three points to keep in mind, and after the talks, we ate and went on a hike around Lake Needwood to the dam to sing some (as the pun of the week went, which annoyed so many people) "dam" songs. All of us returned to St. Francis for Mass.

The points Chris emphasized in his talk were so beautiful because they tied directly into the last couple of GS meetings we had had, and it was useful to hear them with such passion and certainty. (In a nutshell) Chris laid out the limitations we face as human beings (physical, from society) and told us that the only way we are free from these limitations is that we are a direct relationship with the Mystery, which is manifest in the infinite desires of our hearts.

This was the understanding I came to at the Radius meetings about the Jena 6 incident.  We examined the case and came to the conclusion that the only way to freedom, to equality, is a certain "religiosity" that needs to be lived.  That is, to live with the awareness of our relationship to the Mystery, which man irreducibly possesses .  After these meetings, the awareness that the Radius provoked in me was not just about blacks and whites, or down-trodden minorities. It helped me look at my classmates, teachers and most importantly friends and family. One big thing happened that moved me greatly.

Since more than half the Latin II class was gone due to a football game (its only about 7 of us) our teacher let us off for the day and let us go outside on a bright, clear, sunny day at about the time the 6th grade has gym class. They were playing house football (the school is divided into four of them . . the idea having been lifted from a certain J.K. Rowling book) and my two friends and I went to watch. We stood next to the gym teacher overseeing the game, and watched. The teacher yelled to one team "How long are you gonna let so and so and Matthew sit out?" I don't remember or care who the other kid was, but Matti is my cousin, and not exactly inclined to football.

He has mild autism, is not exactly an athlete, and is inclined to dreaming.  I said to the gym teacher "Matti is my cousin". I had been telling most of the teachers this in hopes that they would pay attention to him because he gets a great deal of bullying from the popular kids.

The teacher turned to me and said " You need to kick the shit out of that kid, he's such a fucking nerd."

Matti, to his gym teacher and classmates, is only the fact that he can't play football, or that he runs like a gay, or that he tucks his gym shirt all the way into his pants.  They reduce him to this.

But he can't be reduced to this. He is something infinitely greater than that: a direct relationship with his creator. It was the education I received to that fact in GS that helped me to see Matti in a different way, to stand in front of that teacher with a great certainty, and in the end, to love my cousin in a new beautiful and concrete way.

On Becoming Friends

    This afternoon, after school, two of my students stopped by my office and proceeded to spend the next hour and a half shooting the breeze with me.  We talked about life, Jesus, my class, Ramen noodles (which they found in a cabinet and promptly made use of), and general nonsense.  I told them about the diet that I'm on (more on that later) and they told me about their work-outs. 

    It was all pretty low key, yet there was something else about it, something new.  It never fails to surprise me, the novelty of Christ, which is his presence in anything that is new and draws the human heart toward a more true position, exposing desire in it's most authentic form.  In the Book of Revelation, John tells us that in his vision Christ says, "Behold, I makes all things new."  (Revelation 21:5)  I was a witness to this "happening" which can be seen as the first moment in a new friendship.  One which has no possible explanation for itself except that He is.

    I remember a colleague of mine once saying that the problem with some teachers is that they wanted to be their student's friend.  I found it bothersome then, and repulsive now, that this would be considered a bad thing.  I guess the common mentality would assume that adults and teenagers should not have friendships and any relationship between teenagers and adults is always perceived as suspect, riddled with innuendo and suspicion.  Either the adult is immature or wickedly intentioned, and therefore dangerous in each case, or the teen is presumptuous or needy (and therefore a loser).

    Yet, it seems that what a "teen culture" needs more than anything is friendships with adults, real adults, who don't just want some simple, immature "re-living" of their youth, but a genuine educative friendship which moves toward the Destiny of each friend.  When Giussani founded Gioventu Studentesca in Milan in the 1950's, it wasn't out of some desire to found a youth group, rather it was the natural outpouring of a friendship that developed between him and his students.

    Father Giussani has himself said that he never started out in order to found something.  In fact, I think even if a Movement hadn't been born from this, he would have been happy.  Christ is not communicated by a program or a solution dreamed up to help young people.  This isn't true in my experience either.  I don't want someone who comes to offer me the next great solution to my existential dilemma, I want someone who can be with me in this, who loves me through this, who cares for me in spite of it.  I want a friend.

    And, so do young people.  It is not without reason that John Paul II continually referred to us as "My dear young friends."  This position is the only authentic one, the one that does not begin from a position of suspicion, but rather an invitation to staying with us, living with us, and in turn living with Him, because he is made present in the world through us.  And every time he is made present, something new happens, a novelty.

    And so, the novelty of a friendship with two students begins.  And He is.  And I am glad.

Sticking it to the Man?

A courageous blow to the music industry, a really bad money-losing idea, or has Radiohead just completely whacked out?

Find out at this website and pay as much as you want for the new Radiohead album.

Helping out C.S. Lewis

As an assignment for the book Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis in my 9th grade Literature class, our teacher gave us a list of creative options and told us to choose one. 

Among them was an option to create an episode for the book using the characters and setting used, as this was the one most appealing to me, I chose it.  Other options were to draw the alien creatures used in the story or to write a conversation between you and one of these creatures and being the two easiest choices most of the class chose them.

It was not surprising to see that their idea of Lewis' created characters mirror the scribbles they draw on the desks and bathroom walls, and the dialogues that they have with "Malacandrian" creatures (the name for Mars, the planet the story takes place on) sound exactly like the kind of useless conversations conducted on the playground and in the hallways.

I decided to take this project seriously and wrote on the main theme of the book, human nature. But one thing I thought to be missing in the protagonist of the novel was the heart, the reason why he takes the steps he does in the novel and makes the changes he does. Heres what I wrote.

(Insert in Chapter 16, towards the end between blood" and " It was a tiring...)
    As the group sat down, the young sorns continued their interrogation of Ransom, for the mention of things so contrary to the ways of their planet sparked great curiosity.

    "With no Oyarsa how is your planet not destroyed?" asked one of the pupils.

    Ransom opened his mouth defensively, trying to think of a legitimate answer but stopped before saying anything.  He thought that having a legitimate answer was not enough, but his answer had to be true.  The human had never given thought to how Earth was not a wasteland after being ravaged by war or pollution or how it could be with great enmity between races of people.  These things had always been familiar in the pattern of his life; not welcome, not joyous, but never alien, and something he certainly never questioned.

    The young sorn sensed Ransom's lack of an answer and did not pursue the subject.

    Later, as the creatures of Malacandra prepared to sleep, Ransom crept outside and sat in the bitter cold of the night and the powerful brightness that lit up the area.

    How different would Earth be with the same ways as the creatures of Malacandra? was the pressing thought in his mind as he sat in the night, occasionally glancing at the still harandra, the dead area on the surface of the planet.

    Ransom thought back to his native Earth, to his homeland in England, and the horrors of war and other tragedies that have plagued it since he could remember, and still plague it so many miles away. He was troubled by this, but he could not pinpoint why.  This something inside of him, this burning, was something familiar to him, yet he often neglected it.

    And with that Ransom rose and retired to bed.

It was 20 years ago today...

Or maybe 23 days.  But I decided to invoke the help of Sir Paul to try and ease back into the whole blogging thing without anyone noticing that I haven't gotten off my lazy ass to post after since my original post.

Anyway, my birthday came and went (September 13th) and I am completely happy for it.  It was a simple and profound reminder of how much I am loved and how much I am blessed to have the family and friends that I have.

But life keeps chugging on, even for us uber-blessed people, and I am now in school and busy out the wazoo.  It's the normal 15 year old things: enduring a hyperactive 40 year old man with flaming red hair who teaches Why the Barbarians Were Like So Totally Kick Ass 101.  This class is known most educated people as something like "Medieval History."  I'm vigorously studying for all of my other classes and trying to cram in every opportunity to pursue the things I love most . . . usually all in one day.

With all this, I have the original attachment to this blog I have always had, and with that I feel responsibility, not only to Steve or to the readers, but to myself, because if blogging is any way beneficial to the life I'm living, I shouldn't half ass it. So that comes to at least one article a week, no excuses. I'm 15, time to make the jump into being a living person. Ciao!