Things to pray about

Whenever I’ve run out of things to pray about, I can take a look at this list:

- I can pray for all the people who have used me, manipulated me, walked all over me or taken me for granted. I can ask God to give these people every good thing that I would want for myself. In fact, I could ask God to give them good things instead of giving them to me.

- I can pray for people who have no sense of having harmed me, when they have.

- I can pray for forgiveness for all the mean, petty, selfish, inconsiderate things I have done lately.

- I can pray for freedom from deep-seated anger, my inability to let go with humility, and with surrender to God’s desire for my peace of mind.

- I can pray for the grace to speak plainly and honestly at all times with those in my environments.

- I can pray for the grace to bear with the trial of loving my neighbor when it’s particularly inconvenient.

- I can pray for those who are experiencing the same difficulties that I have, that God will find cause in my suffering to alleviate theirs.

- I can pray for my prejudices to become apparent to me, enabling me to see past them to the goodness, worth and dignity of all people, no matter who they are, what they have done, or what they believe.

- I can pray that God will show me my stinginess, which I paint prettier and justify and rationalize

- I can pray for deeper gratitude for the abundant blessings in my life, and for the grace to remember that my gratitude is cause to uplift others and God, and not occasion to think better of myself for being so grateful.

- I can pray for the people who right at this moment are dying with hardened and embittered hearts, that the light of Jesus Christ will so overwhelm their conscience that they can utter deep in their spirits a simple “I’m sorry.”

- I can pray that in every circumstance of my life I can see myself standing in God’s presence as I think, say and do.

- I can pray that my religion is more than some pious notion, more than a few half-hearted prayers, more than two dollars in the collection basket – but a commitment of head and hand and heart, of my life, all of it, turned over, turned inside out, sold out to Jesus Christ; a religion so radical that it just doesn’t go well with the world and its ways; a religion so radical that the world laughs and pokes fun. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on May 10th, 1987

Hanley

When I was a boy I had a neighbor whose name was Hanley. I liked Hanley, and I still think of him often even though he’s been dead more than 25 years. He fell asleep with a cigarette and burnt up in bed. He was a good man, though many in the world may not have considered him such. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice. Sometimes he called me Tommy, but mostly he simply called me boy.

The reason the world may have looked askance at Hanley was because he was addicted to alcohol. We’d sleep out in the tent under the apple tree in the summer, and we’d wait for Hanley to come up the back alley from the First and Last Chance. We’d greet him, but at those times he often didn’t speak. He’d be drunk and staggering.

On many occasions I went to his house in the morning. He lived with his elderly mother who would pour Hanley his cups of strong coffee before he went to work at the light plant. His mother would smile broadly at me with her teeth out. Hanley would be unshaven and groggy, but it would be obvious that he was pleased that I had come in. Somehow I found their company warm and pleasant.

I know that alcoholism is a dreadful thing, and I don’t dismiss it in Hanley’s case. He died because he was an alcoholic. Being just a neighbor kid, I was spared the probable terrible ramifications of Hanley’s malady. As it was, I liked Hanley, and he liked me. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes and I remember the tar stains on his fingertips. He was a raw-boned fellow and tall, with a weathered face and long hands.

My friendship with Hanley was by no means deep. There was enough distance between us that I took the news of his death with shock, but not with grief. I don’t want to sound cold, but the shock I felt was not disbelief, more the quality one experiences when stark reality sets in. Hanley’s end was not unexpected in our environs. Folks said well, they were shocked but not surprised, seeing how he was, seeing how he drank.

Sometimes I wonder how I ever had any kind of relationship with Hanley. Perhaps it was because I was a child. A child will go in where adults fear to tread. I never saw an adult neighbor at Hanley’s house at 7:30 in the morning, people who just stopped in early for no particular reason. Kids do that, but adults don’t. Trusting children take people as they come, without preconditions.

I read the 13th chapter of First Corinthians today, St. Paul’s great teaching about love; and I prayed that the Lord would teach me to love. After I read the Scripture, I was a bit apprehensive, wondering if I would ever understand love in my time. In my mind, I saw Jesus on the cross and I knew that was love, but I don’t pretend to fully comprehend it.

I ask myself if I loved Hanley, and I think maybe I did. I don’t know what else to call it. Now that I’m old and crotchety, I don’t have relationships with people like I had with him. I have a tendency to judge. I’m forever imputing motives, second-guessing, suspecting, finding fault, making sure I find a shortcoming or two. In Hanley’s case, I never did do those things. I didn’t condemn him, didn’t think to condemn him. Even when he staggered up the back alley, I actually looked forward to seeing him. In my child’s mind, I’m sure I chuckled and probably said, boy he’s really staggering tonight. But I didn’t think that was good or bad or what an awful man Hanley was for being so drunk. He was just Hanley. I accepted him with no reservations, no expectations that he should change. He did not, in fact, ever change.

For sure, love is more complicated than the love I had for Hanley. Jesus’ love for me and Hanley is indeed infinite compared to the simple, detached friendship a man and a neighbor kid shared so long ago. Nevertheless, there was something there, a beginning perhaps, a place for greater love to begin.

It would be easy for me to take my adult perceptions back to those mornings in Hanley’s kitchen and recast them with all kinds of judgments. Rather, I prefer to bring those mornings into now and again smell the strong coffee on the gas burner, hear Hanley’s gentle bass voice say how you doin’, boy. There is no ego in the air, no condemnation – just acceptance. Maybe it takes a child’s eyes to see the beauty and good and sweetness in a broken man. Love is more than the love I had for Hanley; but simple as it was, it was greater than prophecies and tongues and knowledge… and has endured. –T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on May 3rd, 1987

Then, now, and friendship

My good friend, your letter arrived today, and soothed like an ointment an exposed and aching lack of hearing from you. I have missed you, these too many years.

You mentioned that we may be seeking the same thing in our lives now, if on a parallel, like two hunters going into the woods. You didn’t mention specifics. So often it is hard for two friends to share where they are, having come from what was, the way it was.

The old days were full of the wonder of boys in men’s bodies, of dreams and self-confident goals. Someday we would write the Great American Novel, visit the peak of Everest, tour the Balkans and the Lapland tundra, discover the Great Unknown. Money would be a given. We’d be freed to hear the Muse, to stalk the hart and the nuance of language.

I have tried, how I have tried to avoid orthodoxy. I grew my hair long and wore old clothes. When the “Hair” singers sang about long, beautiful hair just stopping by itself, I had no idea they meant it quite so literally.

Discovery still intrigues me, but somehow I can’t make one. I keep discovering what others already know. My dear good friend of so long an absence (Oh, grit my teeth. Can you bear hearing it? Can I bear telling it?) I, well… uh, you see, uh, what’s happened, uh, the thing is, uh, I didn’t mean to, but, well, I have changed.

I’ve put away Balzac and Voltaire and Ken Kesey and Unamuno and picked up Author Unknown and Duck and Bear and Jack and Donald. I’d mull the great verities of the cosmos with Vivaldi and Menuhin, now I sing Mr. Froggy Went a Courtin’, and he did ride, uhuh.

You are sitting down, aren’t you? I have become responsible. That’s right. I am so damn responsible I can’t stand it. I pay the bills and mow the grass and wash the car and take out the trash and watch out for what the kids watch on TV. You are sitting down, aren’t you? I go to church.

Now I know you knew I went to church before, but what you don’t know is that I have fallen in love with God. Some admission for a leftover, beer-drinking, 1960s-reject, pseudo-intellectual, hippy, stargazing, anti-establishment, rebellious, angry young man.

Before, the days were pointless, as if they were endless. Now they are precious, though ironically they pass in melancholy like a forgotten mist.

Old acquaintances have scoffed, saying sardonically, “I guess you’ve found the Lord.” Oddly, I love them for their honesty. They genuinely cannot see a happy life without boozing and hell-raising. My nemesis now is the arrogant, self-righteous, puffed-up, religious person, the modern Pharisee. They load up those around them with heavy burdens, but inside they are rot. They make me mad. Imagine. My embarrassment is that I know them too well.

No longer do I long for the vague, exquisite insights of intellectual trivia. My challenge now is to love the hard-core self-possessed without lapsing into my own pride and condescension. God loved me that way, in that condition.

Loving God is where it’s at, my old friend. Ain’t that a kick? He’s where’s it’s always been. He’s who we seek on our parallel, like two hunters going into the woods. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on April 26th, 1987

Looking at life through my son John’s eyes

My father-in-law died not long ago, and one of the things we brought home with us from Detroit was a picture of my wife’s family when she and her sisters were little. Our children have been fascinated with it.

Our two youngest sit on the couch and stare at the picture in its frame and talk. I’ve never been able to pick up all their conversation. I gather what’s happening is that they’re internalizing that their mother came from a family, too. But there’s more that our children are aware of concerning this great mystery that is life.

When my wife was still a little girl, her mother died and she went to live with aunt and her uncle. Subsequently they adopted her. For our children, that has meant grandparents in Maine and grandpa in Detroit. Our children always have known that grandpa in Detroit was their mom’s “real” father, and that their Maine grandparents are the adoptive parents of their mother. I don’t suppose we see things, though, until we see them through a child’s eyes.

I passed by my youngest’s bedroom the other night after he had already been to bed for a while. I saw and heard that he was crying. I stepped in to see what was making John so sad.

Why are you crying John, I said, what’s the matter? Grandpa, he said, I miss grandpa. He was my favorite grandpa.

John is named after his grandpa. His middle name is Robert. We call him that a lot. We call him John Robert. He is six years old. I touched John’s hair and hugged him. I told him I understood that it was hard to lose his grandpa. Grandpa had died, I said, but he had gone to be with Jesus and that we would be with him again someday when we die and go to be with Jesus, too.

Grandpa was mom’s real dad, he said. That other grandpa and grandma in Maine are fakes. They’re fakes, he said, and you could tell he wasn’t happy about that at all. It made him mad that his other grandpa and grandma were fakes.

I said, they’re not fakes, John. They love your mother. They adopted her and took care of her. They provided her clothes and her food and gave her a home and sent her to school. They cared for her as one of their own and she really was, and still is, a member of their family.

No she’s not, John said. They’re fake. A lot of people say that, he said. If they’re not your real mom and dad, they’re fakes and that’s what they are.

People may say that, John, I said, but they are wrong. Your grandpa and grandma in Maine are your mom’s foster parents. Who was Jesus’ real father, John? He was God, wasn’t He?

John gave me one of those faraway, thoughtful looks through his moist eyes. Yes, he said.

Yet when Jesus came down to earth, He had to have a father to take care of Him, to love Him, to be His dad. That man was St. Joseph. St. Joseph was not Jesus’ real dad, but he wasn’t a fake. He was Jesus’ foster father. St. Joseph gave Jesus hugs, made sure He had food, taught Him how to do things.

People may say that grandpas and grandmas who are not real moms and dads are fakes, John. But that just isn’t true. They’re foster parents, just like St. Joseph was Jesus’ foster parent.

John Robert didn’t say anything. I love you, John, I said, and I grabbed him close to me. I know it’s hard to lose your grandpa, I said. I smoothed down his hair and he pulled the covers up around him. Very soon, he was asleep. –T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on April 5th, 1987

On finding the Truth

Dishonesty is hard work. One of my more outlandish lies occurred one Saturday afternoon when I told my wife that I was on my way to confession. My real purpose was to idle about with the boys, but I knew my missus would have no part of that.

After my return from an absence of unseemly duration, the wife of course questioned me about the reason. I thought you said you were going to confession, she said. Indeed I had been to confession, I said. But my sins were of such a grievous nature that they could be forgiven only by the bishop. Owing to Father’s having to make arrangements and our having to wait upon his excellency, the hour grew very late, I said, against my best intentions.

So much for one of the redwoods in my forest of saplings.

By contrast, one of my favorite stories about honesty features Betsie ten Boom, Corrie’s sister. Betsie, it seems, so valued telling the truth that her very nature would not allow even slight equivocation. The ten Booms were hiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland. The family received word just before the arrival of the SS and hid their precious charges under floorboards, atop which they placed a table. When the Nazis burst in, Corrie said she feared the worst because she knew Betsie would tell the truth if they asked her any questions. Sure enough, a soldier asked Betsie if they were hiding any Jews and she said yes, they were under the table, which was in plain sight. The Nazi mistook Betsie’s truth for sarcasm.

Somehow I have a hard time figuring Jesus for telling a white lie or a fib or mixing fact with fiction to avoid bruising somebody’s ego. I doubt that He harbored any false humility or pride when He came before His Father in prayer. I doubt He had a complex system of denial about the shortcomings of human weakness. I think He was honest with His Father, others and Himself. Would that I could be.

Dishonesty will work you to death covering bases, backtracking, stirring in enough true-seeming deception to get you through the day. Through the grace of God, I’ve found a lot of peace in making a clean breast of things with God, myself and others. Still, though, I know I’ve got arthritis of the tongue, a few spurs and outgrowths in my efforts toward rigorous honesty.

When I come to the Lord in prayer, I want Him to see me just as I want to be or as I’m trying to be, rather than as I actually just plain am. Surely I have a better shot at the Lord’s love and forgiveness with a few qualifiers on my is-ness. You know what I mean. I’m lazy, Lord, but… I have lust in my heart, Lord, but… It’s easy for me to say I’m the most wretched of all creatures; just as easy for me to thank the Lord that I’m not like the rest of men. Why is it I can’t just come before God acknowledging my deliberate choices and my gratitude for all that He has given me? Too much theology, perhaps, and not enough honesty.

My neighbor will call inquiring about my interest in some service to the Church. Surely my hems and haws must sound almost comic. Say that sounds pretty good, I’ll say, but I’m pretty busy. What night? The boss has been pushing me pretty hard lately. I really need to get more involved. ‘Course the wife has been after me to finish wallpapering the bedroom. I’ve been called away on a journey to a faraway land. I’ve bought a yoke of oxen and I have to try them. I’ve taken a bride and I will be unable to attend.

One of the last great victims of my deceptions and dishonesty is me. I lie to myself all the time. I can lie to God and say I’m willing to change, but He knows the score. I can lie to others and say I’m willing to change and some will believe and report back to me how touched they’ve been by my courageous resolve. They, too, however, ultimately bear witness to the fruits of my actions. They’ve got eyes. They can see the same old so and so. Come we now at lengths to the heart of the man, telling himself with confidence and satisfaction that he’ll get going on that self-improvement campaign first thing in the morning. Never was there a lie repeated more often to such a naïve and spellbound believer. I’ll believe anything I tell me with the faith of the fathers.

Jesus said He was the truth. It seems ironic that a poor, broken sinner, in a grace-filled moment of honesty, will acknowledge that he is in fact unwilling to change, that in that moment he will meet Christ. I guess it’s true that if we can find the Truth, then we can find the Way: and if we can find the Way, we can find Life. –T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on March 29th, 1987

The beauty of forgiving and seeking forgiveness

The second week of February was International Forgiveness Week, and doggone it, I missed it. I could have used the opportunity to forgive and seek forgiveness, but I let it pass.

I could have forgiven my mother for that time she punished me for something I didn’t do.

I could have forgiven my father for those times when I just couldn’t make him understand all my anger.

I could have asked my brother to forgive me for all that blind, immature selfishness I had that time he said, “You’re a punk, Tommy. A New York, Chicago punk.” I couldn’t see that he was right. I couldn’t see all the hurt I was causing my family. There has been a barrier between me and my brother for 20 years.

I could have forgiven the nun who was vindictive toward me. I could have asked her forgiveness for the mean acidic things I said about her behind her back.

I could have forgiven that person for being so empty-headed toward my children, thinking her kids could do no wrong, but scolding mine. The nerve!

I’ve never personally known Lyndon Johnson or William Westmoreland or Stanley Resor, but they are archetypes in my mind of the draftee Army. I gave myself over to full-blown, unrepentant hatred in the Army toward this government which had so much power over me, and these people represented this government. This same government did not send me to Vietnam in the heat of the Vietnam War. This same government has helped me buy two houses, and paid for advanced education. I know forgiveness would heal the hurt, but I let it pass.

What about that landlord that kept my rent deposit? I could have forgiven him, but I didn’t.

The crazy woman that drives me crazy could have been on my list. She never listens to what I have to say, but is ever expecting me to endure her great wisdom.

Ah, my dear mother-in-law. I’ve never known what to call my mother-in-law after all these years of being married to her daughter. Generally, I avoid the subject – talk around it, you know. Whatever name I choose to call her will be the wrong one, you can bet on that. It’ll be disrespectful or too familiar, and I refuse to call my own mother-in-law Mrs.

I think of the boss I need to forgive, stealing my ideas, earning credit for the work that I did.

The Church has made me mad, so blind to my needs, so irrelevant to my circumstances, so smug and rich and intellectually arrogant, answers changing from one priest to the next, one decade to the next. I could have forgiven my Church. I could have seen in Her leaders the same imperfect exercise I see in my own parenting.

I could have forgiven God for taking my mother and my father and my only dear grandparent. I know that God has no need of my forgiveness, that the change has to take place in me. But somehow I have preferred the bitterness, perversely enjoyed the resentment which feeds on itself, and grows – even though I am the only one who suffers. I know in my heart that forgiveness would bring peace and a whole new dimension to living, but I hang on.

Reliving these old circumstances in my life has helped me to appreciate anew the sheer beauty of forgiving and being forgiven. Knowing that I have in fact dealt with each of these relationships has changed the very quality and nature of my life. I do have peace.

Sometimes we sit between the ledge and the mountaintop, separated by a cloud. The peak is just a leap away. As the cloud passes, in the bright clarity, we have our chance. A little courage, a little action will bring us safely to the other side.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on February 15th, 1987

Self-centeredness has always been in vogue

Pride is a difficult subject these days. So much is said about the importance of a good self-concept, and justifiable pride and the worthiness of pride in accomplishment. We say we’re proud of our Catholic faith, proud of our families, proud of our new car - not that all these things are equal, but we’re proud of them nevertheless. And rightly so.

Where, then, do we draw the line and cross into the Great Defect so ably exposited in the Story of the Fall? The sin in Eden, we know, was not so much disobedience as pride: man and woman thinking they could be equal with God.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t go around thinking I can be equal with God. I rather doubt, though, that that puts me in the clear with respect to pride. No, it seems to me that pride is not cut and dried, but insidious.

It seems to me that the very nature of pride would disable our ability to recognize it in ourselves. That is, if I’m swelled with pride, oozing with it – the worse the case I’ve got the less willing I am to acknowledge that I am indeed puffed up. How then to break the cycle of spiraling big-shotitis, sacrosanctity, gooey self-satisfaction and holy-and-worthy-of-praise-am-I?

Pride is no more noticeable than it is in someone else. I can spot pride coming up the road. I’ve noticed, however, that when my sensory-receptors become especially keen, I have to run and look in the mirror, there to see his excellency himself sitting in the judgment seat. In short, I’ve learned that one clue to recognizing this beast in myself is the recognition of it in others.

Once recognized, the pill is bitter. Seeing those pompous, egomaniacal, sick-with-self qualities in others, I become forced to admit that I myself must be schooled in these attributes, nay steeped in understanding.

Oh, society will come to my rescue with balms and ointments aplenty. I can round up confederates quickly - quickly stir the gossip mill against my boasting, pride-bloated target. It’s easy to find support to boo the overbearing fop, the woozy drunkard at the trough of self.

Being proud is chic. It’s in. Self-centeredness always has been in vogue, but it has taken on a certain religiosity. It’s true that God didn’t make any junk; but He also didn’t make any other gods. Recognition of self-worth can easily become the Cult of the Self. We may be worth it, but we also may be full of it. The Gospel message is still he who would gain his life must lose it; it’s still the last shall come first; it’s still never act out of rivalry or conceit; rather, let all parties think humbly of others as superior to themselves; it’s still looking to other’s interests rather than to our own.

It’s particularly difficult for me to think as superior to myself of someone who already thinks he’s superior to myself. I’d just as soon assign the jack-a-napes to you know where. I know I’m in a dead run ahead of him, though, if I do. It doesn’t seem right, but I guess it is.

The bottom line again, ever and always is prayer. I can’t get into the right understanding of who I am in relationship with God and my neighbor if I distance myself from the question. Once more, pride breeds a barrier to seeing its ugly face, so plain in others, but so hidden in the mirror. Praising God reminds me of Who indeed is worthy to be praised.

Pride comes in many forms inside this aging clay of mine: vanity (if you can believe that), an air of superiority, thinking little of others, smugness, being a gossip. It’s most insidious when it creeps into my self-confidence, my accomplishments, in the exercise of the gifts God has given me.

I know that there are those who need ego-reinforcement as therapy for crushing and painful circumstances. I know also that it can go too far, that it’s not a cure-all, cure-everything. Somehow in all the blessings afforded by counseling and the other helps we know in our world, a person’s relationship with God has to enter into the picture. Pleasing ourselves, feeling good about ourselves, satisfying ourselves is not a blessed objective without a deep understanding that we are who we are only because God made us that way. In and of ourselves, we are nothing. We gain our worth and dignity only in relationship – to God and to others.

God commanded us to love our neighbor in the same way as we love ourselves. I take that as a command to love ourselves, too. But love is patient, love is kind, is not puffed up, forgives all things and bears all things. To love means to die to self, and that brings the fullness of life.

My biggest hang-up with pride is recognition of good things I have done, thinking how I’ve helped and served and suffered long and patiently. There, too, Jesus taught me: “Why do you call me good?” Jesus said, “Only the Father in heaven is good.” That’s something for us moderns to ponder. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on February 8th, 1987

Making God my Pilot, instead of my Co-Pilot

We’ve all seen the license plates which say “God is my Co-Pilot.” That’s a nice expression and expresses a faithful attitude, but one which, to my mind, doesn’t go far enough. The saying would be better expressed: “God is my Pilot.”

Now license plates saying that might be enough to strike fear into the hearts of motorists everywhere, having folks craning to see who was driving the car. My distinction, of course, is a spiritual one.

Having God as a co-pilot seems like a relationship with the Lord out of perspective. Either God would be taking over the controls when I let go; or even at best, He would be flying along with me. In the latter scenario, I would still be calling the shots.

I’m not saying that there’s necessarily any conflict between what I want and what God wants for me – but there could be, particularly because I have a strong inclination to sin. My point is that only insofar as God is in control am I in tune with the way things are supposed to be in my life.

So how does that work? I’ve never received any messages from God like Samuel received, or like Paul heard. I have been aware of the Lord working in my life in a lot of ways, but somehow I have perceived His Hand as I went along, or often I will see Him at work only after something has been accomplished. I will ask the Lord’s help to do some work, for example, or to help me talk to someone. During or afterward I will see how He helped me, guiding, giving insight, someway being a part. These understandings have helped me to build up my faith, to see as Thomas did that Jesus is alive.

My problem is common to most of us, I believe: It is in knowing what God wants me to do beforehand. I can think of plenty of things to do, things that are in the scheme of things wholly good and meet and proper. Which, though, should I do? I obviously can’t do everything.

How does a person decide, for example, to be a teacher, or a brick mason, or an engineer, or a janitor? Each of these things can be pleasing to God but one occupation is more suitable to one person, another to another. In our more common experience, among all the charities that beg for support, which one deserves my attention? Should I take the initiative to go to this neighbor or that with a kind word or a help, or should I keep my mouth shut and mind my own business?

I wish I could have a clear and unequivocal word from God about things out front, but alas it doesn’t work that way.

Like my friend Dick is wont to say: “God’s voice often sounds an awful lot like mine.”

The answer to the dilemma of making God my Pilot instead of my Co-Pilot I believe can be found in the very nature of the relationship I have with God. The more intimate and enduring the relationship I have with Him, the more I am going to “know” what He wants me to do. If my wife and I never talked, I would not – could not – be sensitive to all the things I “know” about her. Of course, many are the circumstances when I simply have to ask my wife what she thinks. So it is with God.

The more I come to Him in prayer, the sacraments and in reading His word in the Scripture, the more I will know Him, and understand how all that He has said and has to offer applies to me in the nitty-gritty circumstances of my life. If I never talk to Him, never receive Him into the home of my heart, never hear His word spoken eternally in the Bible, I just won’t know Him, that’s all.

If I keep the Lord on as Co-Pilot only, I may find myself high and dark and trying to find my way on instruments I can’t read. I need to become sensitive to His direction and guidance. If God Himself is just my Co-Pilot, there’s a poor pilot indeed at the controls. Maybe the motorists ought to be afraid of that. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on February 2nd, 1987

Marriage: living and loving together in Christ

Just because my wife and I have been married for 16 years doesn’t make me an expert on marriage. I’m sure my wife will testify to that. It is true, however, that I have learned a thing or two. I don’t presume to suggest that I have a world view or that my views apply to anyone’s marriage other than my own.

One thing I’ve learned is that I shouldn’t be callous and domineering. I once suggested to a group of people there is only one thing in the world that I expect of my wife – that she keeps the bed made. A woman remarked from the group, “Why can’t you make the bed?” Gee, I said, I didn’t think it was too much to expect only one thing.

Of course, I was simply trying a little humor – that I was clinging to a last strand of chauvinism among the millions and billions of things involved in a marriage. It was a poor joke.

Even though I’m writing this from my perspective, I “feel” my wife’s attitudes and ideas and perspectives. For the record, my wife makes the bed if she feels like it. Far be it from me to tell her what to do. That becomes particularly significant in matters of faith.

I know that Lizzie needs to be free to be who she is in Jesus Christ, just as I do. He made us one and we are as one, but we are not one and the same. I’m what you might call lockstep wishy-washy, for example, and demand the freedom to be so. Elizabeth, however, has a tendency to regard matters with more conviction. I take a broader view, she a more detailed approach. She accepts people as they are, whereas I accept people as I think they ought to be.

Elizabeth needs freedom to go places and do things, particularly as she seeks the Lord, even if I believe she’s dead wrong. That does not mean that I cannot voice my opinion, that I cannot share deeply and intimately my own faith and feelings. However, I cannot tell her what kind of relationship to have with God. It is her relationship with Him. In the last analysis, we both worship the same God the Father, in Jesus Christ, together with the Holy Spirit.

If God wants my wife to make widgets or to associate with people who, uh, don’t always see things the way I do, then who am I to judge? I’m confident we are in agreement that God loves all His people.

Another thing I have learned is that I shouldn’t be selfish. I am decidedly selfish, but only in letting go of my laziness and preferences and pride do I find real peace.

One thing my wife won’t let me do is be patronizing or false. She has a highly developed awareness of the dishonest. I can’t say “It’s OK if you go there” if I don’t genuinely think that. She’ll catch it like a frog catching a bug. No, she wants the dignity of my honesty with her, not the indignity of my pseudo-complicity only to find out later I was really opposed.

Even if I am opposed to some of the things Elizabeth does, that doesn’t mean that I’m right and she’s wrong. Just the same, it is incumbent upon me to be honest about it and respectful of her freedom as a child of God. I ain’t saying I’m good at it, either. I just know it to be true, that’s all.

We Catholics share a common faith. That does not mean, however, that we do not have different talents, different gifts, different inclinations as we seek to know God and His will in our lives. Differences occur in our faith community and in marriages, too. God knows they do in mine. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on January 18th, 1987

It’s about time

At a communal reconciliation service, Father Larry Zurek related a story he’d heard about the devil calling a brainstorming session, soliciting his underlings for good ideas for getting more souls into hell.

One devilish soul scratched his head and said, “Why don’t we tell them there is no God.” The devil said that wasn’t bad, but he figured that would not get too many. Another demon said: “I know. Let’s tell them there is no hell.” The devil liked that one, but still, it was short of the mark. Finally, a third fiend spoke up: “Let’s tell them they have plenty of time.” The devil threw his head back and laughed a scornful and hellish laugh. “That’s it, my boy,” he said. “That’s it.”

My mother had a sampler on the wall when I was growing up. It was called “God’s Minute.” Here’s how it went:

“I have only just a minute,
Only sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon me, can’t refuse it,
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it
But it’s up to me to use.
I must suffer if I lose it,
Give account if I abuse it.
Just a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.”

Time is very different from our other resources. We seem to be able to get a little more money, more food, more information. This, though, is the only right now we get. Ever.

We’re preoccupied with time. People are always taking time, or trying to find time, or losing all track of time. I suppose the most intriguing aspect of time for me is the enormous significance of single moments, little snippets of whatever time really is, that have such profound effect.

Take, for example, the moment the first light appeared in the first filament in the first light bulb. Or what about the moment it occurred to Albert Einstein that space and time are interdependent, that indeed time itself is relative.

What about the moment Jesus said: “It is finished.”

It seems to me that each of our lives could be filled with such moments, relative to our own circumstances, of course. If you’re anything like me, life is either something that was or something that’s going to be. Surely life, though, can be neither. Life is. This is our life, mine as I write this, yours as you read this. This is how we are spending our life now. We don’t accept that really. We have this intractable idea that life is something other than what life is right now.

St. Paul says in Ephesians 5: 15-17: “Keep careful watch over your conduct. Do not act like fools, but like thoughtful men. Make the most of the present opportunity, for these are evil days. Do not continue in ignorance, but try to discern the will of the Lord.”

The King James has verse 16 as “redeeming the time.” I like that a little better than the New American because it spells out what can be done with a moment. It can be redeemed. This is such a moment, isn’t it? Is this not a good one? When is a good one? Do we have plenty of time?

I find it a lot easier to look back in time and say, “My Jesus, have mercy on me,” than I do to look ahead and say, “My Jesus, change me.”

I know Scripture talks about everything having its season. Even Jesus spoke frequently about the coming of His hour. But Lot didn’t have much time to get out of town, and the Jews didn’t have much time to smear lamb’s blood on their doors. The tribes of Israel did not slow their march from Egypt as pharaoh’s army approached. Neither did Joshua hold back at Jericho, nor did Matthew tarry at the tax table. Jesus’ hour did come, though He sweat blood begging His Father to let it not be, not this way, not here, not now.

What if He backed down like I do all the time?

One thing I’m absolutely, positively sure of: This is the only moment I will ever have this moment. I can waste it or redeem it.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on January 4th, 1987

Perceptions and truth

They say we remember things the way we perceived them to be the first time. I recall my oldest brother grabbing me from my bed one winter morning, taking me outside and setting me down in the new fallen snow. It was up to my waist! I had never seen so much snow!

Many snows have come and gone, but my memory shows the great snow of my childhood. The point is: It wasn’t that we had tall snow, but that I was a short boy.

I used to think that the home of my birth was very big, but it wasn’t so big. The overgrown hilly field behind our house was not a jungle but a thicket.

Many more perceptions come into play as we grow older, things a lot more complicated than big and small. Take marriage, for example. That can be a shocker.

I’m sure I went into marriage satisfied with the old ’60s adage: “You do your thing and I do mine; and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.” That seemed like a reasonable sentiment. Certainly I believed my wife and I had it together, each of us with something to keep and something to share.

Good golly Miss Molly how things change. Things just didn’t work out 50-50 in our wedlock. Come to find out that marriage can be ninety-nine to one or a hundred to nothing. Come to find out that marriage just won’t work any other way.

It seems that so much of maturity deals with coming to terms with disillusionment. It seems so unfair that big things are really small, that snow that once prompted awe now prompts dread, that love can be hard and thankless and painful.

I don’t mean to imply that I go around disillusioned all the time. Far from it. Actually, in a kind of ironic twist, disillusionment has been a great teacher, demonstrating to me that real beauty is found in truth itself rather than in a perception of it.

Who can know the peace, the deep satisfaction, of a couple married 50 years, a Sister celebrating her Silver Jubilee, a priest who has been a priest for 30 years or 40 years? You and I know that they didn’t make those milestones easily or alone. Indeed, they could not have made them without God.

My wife and I have discovered that Jesus Christ must be at the center of our marriage if we are to do the loving that’s called for. We have discovered that He was there all along, whether we chose to acknowledge Him or not. He has that kind of love.

One of the things I tell my kids is that Jesus loves them and that He never stops loving them. Even when they are doing wrong, even when it seems nobody loves them – when they are happy, when they are sad, Jesus loves them. I tell my children this over and over and over again. Sometimes they say, “I know, Dad.” Or they will say, “You always say that, Dad.” Sometimes, though, they don’t say anything – they just look off in one of those childlike stares, seeing what a child sees as he grapples with believing.

Having come through a few disillusionments in my time, I know that my children will face them, too. I cannot spare them that. Maybe, however, when the going gets rough, when life gets unfair and they are called upon to love someone who doesn’t love them back, they will recall with confidence that Someone does love them after all, and never stops.

The Hebrew scholar says that God did not tell us how to begin things. That is His secret. He did, however, reveal to us a precious secret: How to begin again.

That’s what I’ve had to do as I have recovered from my disillusionments. I’m surely thankful that God, Who is Truth, has pulled back the curtain, from which way to go.

As I have begun fitfully and timidly on these new journeys, I know that the snow may not be deep, but it can be serene and pure and awe-inspiring, and that I can appreciate it in a child-like way. I know that love out there will not be based on some preconceived idea, but will be beyond all understanding. –T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 23rd, 1986

Feelings and temptation

The insight came to me with a freshness and a sense of peace and security. Surely this understanding about temptation was a gift. I do not know why I had not had this awareness before.

Certainly I could say the words – “Just because you’ve been tempted doesn’t mean that you have sinned.” People had explained this to me over and over. Just the same, I had grasped the idea only intellectually and not with faith. It was in the gift of faith that I was able, I suppose, to have an epiphany of understanding, a kind of manifestation of the truth underlying the concept. It’s like an “aha!” experience. We call dumbly poll-parrot that two plus two equals four. But when we understand what that means in a concrete situation, it makes more sense.

For example, if I have two dollars and you give me two more, two plus two equals four has much more meaning.

So it was when I came to understand about temptation.

You see, the thing I saw into was that the devil is a liar. Not only does he put a thought into my brain, he then follows that up with a subtle lie usually along the lines: “You sure are a bum for thinking such a thing. Look at you. You say you love God and you say you love neighbor. How can you love? Would a person who loves God be thinking what you’re thinking? You’re doomed, brother. God doesn’t want the likes of you around.”

It’s all a lie.

The plot thickens, of course, with feelings that come into play. A greedy thought sets up certain feelings. A lustful thought feels one way, a slothful thought feels another. Now I know that God gave us our feelings, and they do indeed make our lives very interesting. The thing I’ve discovered about feelings, though, is that they are unreliable. Feelings just exist. Just because feelings can be appropriate in a given situation doesn’t mean that they are. Feelings are not an unmistakable clue to the truth.

How often do we feel anger toward someone, for example, only to find out that we misunderstood? Or how can two people encounter the exact set of circumstances, one feeling serene and the other wired for sound? Feelings may add spice to life, but they certainly are no recipe for understanding.

In the case of temptation, the devil will put a lustful thought in my mind, and sure enough, I’ll start feeling, well, you know what those feelings are like. Then, though, the devil will begin his accusations, chiding his victims for not feeling disgust and revulsion, for after all, wouldn’t a truly faithful, believing, spiritual person feel horrified? The poor victim’s feelings are involuntary, but they do seem to confirm the devil’s lie.

And that’s the whole point, that’s what the big lie is: falseness represented as the truth. We can get tangled up in fiendish logic and lose sight of the fact that what has been happening is a plain old homespun run-of-the-mill temptation.

Let me lay it out simply. The devil puts a thought in our head. Quickly now, he lies, telling us we’re no good for thinking such a thought. Then, before we have too much time to think about that, he starts running on about our feelings. Then, so the devil’s plan goes, since we’re no good anyway for thinking such thoughts and feeling such feelings, we might as well act on or act out this initial thought, which was not our idea, but his.

To be sure, the devil knows exactly which thoughts to put in my mind because he knows my weaknesses, my stress points, my areas of confusion and doubt. But guess what, so does God.

God knows I have sinned, but Scripture and my faith confirm in my heart that, for those who will turn to Him, there is no condemnation. That does not mean there will be no battle. Spiritual warfare is very real, I should think. Just because I have gained some insight into the devil’s wiles is no guarantee that the father of lies won’t try again.

This gift of understanding, however, has been comforting to me, giving me strength for the struggle and encouragement toward the victory.

My nature is broken, inclined toward evil. Like St. Paul says, though, not that I live, but that Jesus lives in me. He is my hope, my strength, and my song. I have found that in the heat of temptation, in the pack of lies, in the confusion, in the tugging toward the wrong and the yearning for the good, if I simply say “Jesus” the devil can’t stand it, not for long. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 2nd, 1986

Life at the checkout

I’m at the grocery checkout. The woman in front of me waits for her groceries to be tallied. When the job is done, she needs to stand there for a couple of minutes to let the full impact of her bill sink in. In about a month, after she has stared blankly at the numbers on the machine which proclaim the harsh reality of her circumstances, she begins a process known as opening her purse.

Somewhere in there is – no, not there, or here, or under that – ah, another purse. Extracting that in the modern day science of non-filmed slow motion, purse No. 1 needs to be snapped shut so as to rest purse No. 2 on the top of it. Opening purse No. 2 is a millennial event, accompanied by dabs to the nose, sniffs, and sundry other ceremonious trappings befitting the bittersweet occasion.

After my children have become mature adults with families of their own, we begin a surgical technique which is accomplished by holding a wad of bills safely inside the purse with the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, while sliding a single note from the bundle with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand. That leaves for my middle and most productive years the counting out of change.

The change, of course, is taken out and put back in an elaborate scenario, each coin arrangement displayed on the flat of the hand until a mercifully accurate combination can be found. Meanwhile, wife dear wife is at the morticians attending to the necessary details.

As my family and friends return to the limousines and the scruffy gentlemen begin shoveling in the dirt on my aged and long-suffering remains, the woman is about to begin an evolutionary phenomenon called putting purse No. 2 back into purse No. 1.

Patience is a difficult thing to have to live with. To be honest, sometimes I think I’m going to die. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on October 19th, 1986

An unlikely partner to goings-on in Purgatory

I sat in the city room at the daily newspaper doing what we call in the trade: “moving copy.” A routine obituary came to me for editing and typesetting; but my job, of course, was to look for errors and to see that they were corrected before the information was published in the paper.

In this particular case, I noted that the woman had been a member of a purgatorial society at our local cloistered monastery. Trying to resurrect from my memory the exact wording of those arcane old words has proved impossible. Nevertheless, from the context of the group’s name, it was apparent that the members promised to pray for one another promptly upon death.

Arcane then as now, I felt it necessary to call the monastery to verify the name of the group, the spelling of the words: routine procedure for a routine obit.

Somehow I was also reluctant to make the call. The usual press of deadline bore down, the hour of the night was not early; and the picture showed in my brain of a gruff, officious editor rushing to get the facts from a meek little nun. However, with the reluctance was also a sense of urgency. I dialed the number.

After identifying myself, I said, “Uh, we’ve received an obituary notice, Sister, on a Mrs. ______ I just want to check the name of a group. I note here she was associated with the monastery. From the context, Sister, it seems she was in a society, the members promise to pray for one another promptly at death…”

The meek Sister cut me short, “Oh,” she said, “has she died?”

At the time I made this call, I was not exactly your lockstep, practicing Catholic – more the gadfly exterior with the lukewarm interior. But the experience was surely mystical for me. I felt used, like the Lord wanted to get the word to the deceased’s comrades quickly, so he tapped this joker.

Now I don’t want to make more of this situation than was there, but what was there for me has held a special place in my recollection each November as we pray for the Poor Souls.

I know some people have trouble with the concept of Purgatory, an article of our Faith we accept on faith, the Scripture reference in 2 Maccabees notwithstanding. My faith, though, has been reinforced in a very practical way.

As with so many things about faith: logic, reason, documentation and argument don’t hold a candle to a personal peek in the door of something profound and holy.

The cigarette-smoking editor and the gentle nun became involved in the ongoing life of a woman who had died, two people at least one of whom was an unlikely partner to goings-on in Purgatory. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 16, 1986

Sainthood is not reserved for the few

All Saints Day has always has been special to me. I am reminded of all the good and holy and God-fearing people I have known who are now with the Lord. I am reminded that sainthood is not reserved for the few who luck out, but for as many as will come to Him.

Now I’m not being presumptive. Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, but I have known saints. I am sure of it. None is on the Church calendar, but how would any of us know the Gospel – which is to say, really appreciate the Gospel – if we had not witnessed it in the lives of those around us.

I think of my friend Leo. He was a businessman who gave me a job, but my relationship with him went way beyond employer-employee. He was the most generous, selfless, giving man I have ever known. He accepted people just like they were, and that included me.

Leo’s fairness, right-thinking, patience and honesty have been an example to me throughout my life. There are times I made him mad with my shenanigans, but he always put up with me benignly. His evenness would make me see how cruddy I had been. By the example of his life I could come to see the shortcomings in my own.

He had an accident one time, and it was a freak accident. He was backing up and hit a lady with his car, severely injuring her arm. I’ve never seen Leo so distraught about something. Besides seeing to her financially, he went to visit that woman every day until she recovered.

Leo would honor a commitment uncompromisingly, fully and without fail. I know that in his business he had an arrangement with another business. Although his partner fell down completely on his end, Leo never flinched. He was a man of his word.

Long after I stopped working for Leo, I was always invited back to the company Christmas party, and of course went back to see him many times just to visit.

On his last Christmas on earth, I was living in Lafayette and could not make it back to the party. A former fellow employee told me that after the party that afternoon as they were leaving, Leo stopped, looked off and said, “I guess Tom’s not going to make it this year.” It made me very sad.

When I received word that Leo had died, I came back to his funeral. With the exception of two, every person who had ever worked for Leo was there.

I remembered seeing Leo at noon Mass during the weekdays in Lent. I remembered his laugh, a hearty chuckle, and his expression: “Good morning, glory.” Often he would talk about his World War II days in Italy.

The night before Leo’s funeral Mass, I went back to the place where I had worked for five years during high school and college and walked around the buildings. They had a spray of purple carnations on the door and I sniffed the fragrance of each one.

I loved him. I miss him.

Leo will never be canonized, but he’s a saint all right. He was a decent and good man, a caring father and husband. He loved his neighbor and he loved God. He was unassuming and gentle, but there was no doubt about his ethical convictions. He was surely conservative, but ask anyone who knew him about his magnanimity.

I pray for my friend all the time. But on All Saints Day, when I think of all the people God has called into His kingdom, all the simple souls who have passed unheralded into glory, I will think of Leo. – T.R.

written by Thomas Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on October 26th, 1986