Monday Morning Meditation #81: "Christ Bearer"

Rather than sharing my usual Scripture-based Monday morning meditation, I would like to take the opportunity this morning to ask readers' opinion on a dilemma that our prayer group will be facing at our meeting this evening (Monday). It involves a new member of the group, named Christopher, about whom my co-leader, I, and several members of the group are concerned. Christopher appeared one evening in our group, and, as with everyone else who has appeared unbidden at our door, we have welcomed him into our midst. He is in his early twenties; we have no idea where he came from for he shares little personal history. Once he mentioned a school in Seattle, and we think that may be his home area. He dresses in rosaries, literally, He wears one as a handband, another as a bracelet, and a third is wrapped around his left hand and fingers.

Christopher attends every Mass. Yes, literally, every Mass. He also attends every activity that is happening at Old Church: prayer group, Bible Study, rosary, and even came to my high schoolers' catechism class. He contributes to the discussion in every instant and seems sincere in his faith.

Christopher, however, has made some statements that have had us scratching our heads. Moreover, we have learned that Christopher has been sleeping behind the church. One member of our parish offered Christopher a place to stay in exchange for work, but Christopher turned that down. Behind the church is a Franciscan convent, and in true Franciscan style, the nuns have been caring for Christopher, feeding him, and trying to counsel him. When they have asked him to help them with some work, he has refused. He is always clean and sometimes hungry. He has a strange way, though, of looking at us individually seemingly from anther dimension, as if he is not altogether in the present and present with us. That look, as if he is examining us for some unspecified intent, has made each of us uneasy.

Here are some of the statements that Christopher has made that have us worried about him:

1. My name means Christ Bearer [this is true], and therefore I feel like I am one with Christ.
2. I am like Christ; sometimes I feel like I am Christ.
3. Sometimes I play chess with God. Sometimes I am God playing chess with me.
4. God talks to me; God told me to live without a wallet and not to work. [This is why he turned down work from the nuns and from the parish member willing to give him a place to stay.]
5. I do not have a soul. I gave me soul to God.
6. I cannot go to confession. I have not been to confession for a very long time, and I won't go.
7. I have asked God to send me women so that I will not be alone. [He asked one of the young women in our group to "join [him] in prayer;" by that he meant that she should leave her home and live behind the church with him.]
8. I don't want to hurt myself. [We are pretty sure he is speaking about spiritual, not physical, harm.]
9. People don't want to be with me. [He sees himself as a loner.]

None of us are psychologists or social workers. The most we have in the way of spiritual guidance is one of the nuns who attends our meetings faithfully and is great at guidance. We are not even sure whether our interim priest (our regular priest is fighting a sexual misconduct lawsuit, about which I have blogged in the past) is at all aware of any of this since he is only occasionally in the office. (He was retired and brought back to fill the gap until our regular priest is back -- it is pretty clear that the claim is bogus, but the court case has to be fought; the diocese has already made the determination that there is no legitimacy to it, but nonetheless we won't give back the priest who knows our parish and parishioners for some time yet, so there seems to be no local help here for us in dealing with Christopher.) We are relying on Sister for guidance tonight, and we are hoping that a former parish priest, who will be back in town in a couple of weeks for a retreat at our local retreat center, will be willing to talk to Christopher (if Christopher agrees); he is an especially appropriate person because he has a master's in psychology and a doctorate in theology and was the priest who guided me through my initial experience with locutions.

Without pointing out some of the obviously troubling statements made by Christopher, there is the issue of his claimed locutions (e.g., God tells him not to work). His unwillingness to have these examined by a priest is out of keeping with the guidance of St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the contemporary expert on locutions, the late Fr. Thomas Dubay. It seems unlikely that these are true locations because they are out of keeping with Scripture, which is the number one test that all who have dealt with locutions use and have used. Second, it could be simply something he is telling himself because it is what he wants to do and then has interpreted it as being from God when it is not. (This is a danger of which both St. Teresa and St. John warn. In my personal experience, locutions have required me to do what I do NOT want to do and often don't believe I can do, but somehow, once it becomes clear that the locution is real, I end up with the resources or new skills that I need.) I don't believe any of us, including Sister, can provide him help in discernment of what God wants of him, but we would like to get him to agree to talk to a priest, either via confession or just as a personal meeting.

None of us are qualified to determine or even make a guess as to whether Christopher is under the influence of evil spirits (or God's protection), psychotic, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (we don't know any of his bio), has a personality disorder, or is experiencing the results of previous drug use (he does not appear to be using alcohol or drugs now -- is always sober, just displays truly odd behavior at times).

I have shared all of this in in hopes that some reader will have had an experience with something like this. Or, perhaps there is a better approach than the one we have chosen: talking to him about our concerns for him (from the point of view of loving him and wanting to help) and trying to get him to agree to discuss all aspects of his current life (and especially his contention that God does not want him to work) with a priest.

That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to ask for guidance this evening and for grace and help for Christopher. Then I will move on to contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Sula, the Cat, Came to Confession

Tonight Fr. E arranged for six priests to be available for confession prior to entering the Christmas season. Our prayer group met briefly, then went to confession as a group. Sr. Maria and I helped Ruby, the disabled wife of our recently deceased Bible Studies director, get into the church for confession; it took some work, for which Ruby was very appreciative for it was the first time she had been to confession in a year, she told us. Our prayer group, which Ruby recently joined, is faithful about going to Christmas and Easter Pennance services, which are blessed by an abundance of priests, unlike some parishes.

I felt bad because while six priests were there, quite a wealth, considering that we have only two parish priest (Fr. E who celebrates the English Masses and Fr. M who celebrates the Spanish and Latin Masses), the other priests coming from a nearby parish and the local retreat center/monastery, only a small number of parishioners showed up. We hear so much about a dearth of priests. Yet, when we are blessed with them in abundance, we take that fact for granted. I am pleased that our prayer group, at least, always shows up in force.

Sula, our parish cat, shown above in a photo from an Easter Mass since I had no camera with me tonight, also always shows up. She was there tonight, taking care of the parishioners. She would sit beside one until he or she went up for confession to one of the priests, at which point she would look around, spot someone waiting, and move on to sit beside that parishioner. Since Ruby went before me, she had to wait for me. When I finished, I found Sula sitting on the pew beside her.

If the Holy Spirit resides in cats, then, for sure, the Holy Spirit is in Sula. If only we all were as faithful as she!

7 Quick Takes Friday #47

See more 7 Quick Takes Contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.

It must have been a really full week, and yet it did not seem so. However, as I sit here, trying to remember what I did, I cannot remember a thing except eating turkey yesterday at Old Mission and cleaning BIG pots and pans afterward. Oh, well, I will start with that and perhaps the rest of the week will pop back into my memory. Senior moments already? Or, just an overfilled memory?? (Ooh, I hope the latter...)

1. So, okay, yesterday. Old Mission Church puts on a feast for the entire town with donated goods. It looks like we fed about 400 yesterday, which, counting kids, would be 25% of the town. It is a good place and time for everyone to get together. The mission is the center of the town's life, and Fr. E is pretty much considered the town's father. (I think he looks at it that way, too.) Doah and Noelle came; Shane and his family had their own event in a nearby town with Lemony's family. I was able to snatch a couple of pictures. On the left is Donnie, Noelle, and Doah with a family friend, Bennie, who was working the serving line. On the right is Sr. Delores, who lives at the local convent for Sisters of the Atonement (Franciscan order) along with Sr. Maria, whom I have mentioned before. Sr. Maria was not in town; she went to the central valley to be with her biological sisters. It was, however, nice to have Sr. Delores, Sr. Catherine, and Sr. Mary Catherine with us at the feast. I believe some of the friars came down from the monastery at the retreat center since they usually do, but I missed the first wave this year -- had to pick up Noelle and Doah -- and so may have missed them. Saw some folks from there at Mass earlier in the morning, though.

2. Ah, now I remember Wednesday. It was a day of rubbing elbows with all the folks who work with me, which is really great. Too often I am at meetings at headquarters or at meetings in other cities. Being in Seaside the entire day of Wednesday and in and out of my office gave a different color to the day. All morning, the junior managers presented their programs to all the senior managers and some visitors, telling us of their accomplishments during the last quarter and their concerns for the next. That was a good discussion. The day ended with an all-staff meeting to welcome new faces and say goodbye to old friends moving on to other jobs through promotion or new positions.

3. It's working! Now I remember Tuesday! Tuesday was hell day. I had no less than THREE meetings scheduled at the same time for every hour of the day. None of them were my meetings, i.e. none that I had scheduled for my staff and could therefore postpone or cancel. Some were at headquarters (a 20-minute drive) and some in my building. Some were mandatory financial and personnel meetings; others were entertaining high-level visitors. I passed to my deputy all the visitors. That took me down to two meetings simultaneously, and I found other senior managers to take over those. Whew! Talk about exhaustion! (My sister says that she really likes the idea of triple-scheduled meetings because it gets them out of the way faster!)

4. Monday was a meeting day, as well, but also one of crisis resolution. My boss was grumpy, which did not help because he was trying to solve problems in ways that I knew were not supported by regulation. So, I had to maneuver around that approach. Also, one of my best and most essential senior managers had his pay level (which is about 50% of what he could make elsewhere) attacked by the head of the personnel office who is trying to remove the retention bonus I gave him when he was offered a job elsewhere at double his currently embarrassingly low salary. It seems to be a personal vendetta, and I am still working on trying to fend that off. I was really happy when time came for our prayer group.

5. Our prayer group is as much a faith formation as a time for prayer. We include both, as well as singing. We have just finished reading and discussing Richard Rohr's Things Hidden, from the point of spiritual direction (the co-leader of the group is a trained spiritual director which is likely why we have moved in this direction). We liked doing that so much that we decided to try out another book for the next few months, Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life. Has anyone read this book? It turned out that everyone in the group had the book at home, but no one had read it yet. Good candidate for our meetings! On Monday, we had a new member show up who was really hurting because of very recent trauma in the family. We spent most of the time, then, in prayer with and for her. It was appropriate timing and probably not a coincidence.

6. Sunday -- yes, I am remembering now -- we had a meeting of the Secular Franciscan Order at the St. Francis Retreat Center nearby (well, nearby for me -- I could almost walk the distance, but most members come from much farther away). I brought some sugar-free baklava (yes, there is such a thing -- order it from shilla.com), which everyone liked, especially the thought that it was not causing bad things for diabetic systems. Sr. Delores (yes, the same person pictured with Doah above) is our relatively new spiritual advisor, and she led a beautiful prayer service at the beginning of our meeting before we got into the experience sharing, Franciscan rule discussion, and baklava eating.

7. And then there is Saturday, and I am still pulling a blank. It would have been great had I stayed home and vegged out, but that is not me. Staying home is a vacation; the only time I get to do it is when I take a stay-cation. There is no better place in the world to be than in San Ignatio Since where I really was remains a mystery, at least for now, I am giving you a couple of pictures of San Ignatio to enjoy.

Wishing you a pleasant week -- and one that you will remember!

7 Quick Takes Friday #40

See more 7 Quick Takes Contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.

This is one of the strangest weeks I have spent in a while. It was a week with two Saturdays, no Korean Wednesday in Korea and no American Friday. That is what happens when you cross the International Date Line twice in one week. It has also been a high intensity week.

1. Last Friday (the Friday I spent in America), I spent most of the day at an EEO hearing for someone I helped into a leadership position three years ago (he did not know that his application had been turned down, and I had intervened) but who had not been accepted into an even higher leadership position, and he blamed me for that, so sued our organization and me for discrimination. Ironically, his "class" is overrepresented among our leaders and the "class" of the individual selected for the position is underrepresented, so he did not even have a prima faciae case. The investigator was rather put out that he had come in from out of town only to find out that the complainant had not checked the facts. Further, and this was pretty funny, I had nothing to do with the selection. I always delegate selection to the immediate supervisor, who uses a panel with external membership as well as internal to keep everything above board. In this case, I was two echelons above that supervisor. The lawyer for our organization did an excellent job in bringing all of this out. When I had to present the information that no one had wanted the complainant years ago for the low-level supervisory job he has held since then and that I had actually intervened, recommending that the immediate supervisor give him a chance, the complainant, who works at one of our remote sites and was participating in the procedure by phone, seemed overwhelmed and asked for a half-hour delay and recall so that he could compose himself and recoup from the stress he was feeling. While clearly the finding will be for our organization, I feel sorry for the complainant. It did not have to come to this if he could have put aside his ego and objectively looked at his own lack of qualifications compared to the qualifications of the person selected. The only good fallout was the opportunity of all of us -- the immediate supervisor and senior manager and I -- to forgive the complainant for all the extra work that we had to do in preparation for the investigation and negotiation. (Obviously, we did not negotiate since the case had no merit.) There could also have been ego issues, but no one in this particular chain considers himself/herself better than anyone else, so I don't think any offense was taken by anyone in that regard. I did not notice any self-defensive responses at the hearing. It is rewarding for me to see managers in my organization acting objectively and with compassion. I think everyone benefits from opportunities for forgiveness. For whatever he thinks was done unfairly to him, I hope the complainant will also ultimately feel the pleasure and release that forgiveness brings. (Note: picture drawn by Latuff, a Brazilian artist who does marvelous artwork -- take a look.)

2. On Saturday, we ran all over creation -- well, at least, the Central Coast California part of it. We picked up Doah's belonging from his old group home and visited a new possibility very near by, just minutes from us, and in the same housing development where his brother Shane lives. Before picking up the belongings, we had lunch at Dairy Belle, a quaint dinette where we could eat outside in the warm, dry California sunshine. We spent the evening at a members' night at the Monterey Bay aquarium, where they have new otter pups. (Note: If you recognize the picture, it could be because the Monterey Bay Aquarium was one of the locations of the Star Trek IV movie.)

3. On Sunday, I had a reception for visitors from my organization's oversight board, who would be spending Monday and Tuesday with us. Ironically, one of them is a former vice-president at a college in Vermont where I taught in the graduate program in the early 1990s. My old boss! It is always fun getting to see old bosses -- if one has had a good relationship. We did. Now we are a mutual admiration society -- if two can be considered a "society"! It' s interesting how relationships change as life goes on.

4. On Monday, our prayer group met at our house, as usual on the second Monday of the month for an inspirational movie. Sr. M had just heard what happened to Doah and was in tears. She is such a lovely person. The group has been praying for Doah, and things do seem to be working out for him. We watched a very short documentary because people mostly wanted to talk about the situation. Doah and Donnie did not want to be there since Doah has trouble sitting still for more than 5-10 minutes and Donnie does not like crowds, so they went out to McDonald's for a leisurely dinner where they could be alone together for Donnie's sake and Doah could run about as needed to expend his energy.

5. Tuesday was another eating day. Tough on the diet. One of our teams, including me, went out to dinner at an Afghan restaurant to do some team-building. We had had three members of the team come in from out of town -- two from Washington DC and one from North Carolina. Working together over the phone and Internet is quite different from working together in person. One person was quite new and is somewhat of a counterpart to me. I liked him immediately. It turns out he has worked with some of my former students.

6. There is not much to say about Wednesday and Thursday. I did not see much of either day. I got on the plane to Korea on Wednesday morning after forgetting my passport at home and making a mad dash back there for it and got off the plane on Thursday afternoon in Incheon, Korea, after having slept the entire flight. There I realized that having the passport in and of itself was not enough. The passport had only two pages left for stamps, including the extra pages I had sewn in when I was in Bahrain. Fortunately, Korean immigration found a page they had used earlier and put the new stamp on the old page. Otherwise, I might have had some difficulties at the US airport upon return. (Will have to get some extra pages immediately upon return since I have four more countries to visit in the next five weeks.) Then, too, I had not only forgotten my passport; I had forgotten to get money from the ATM. I arrived with $4 in my pocket. At least, there are ATMs in Korea, too, although the person meeting me, one of our senior managers, had to spot me bus fare until I could to one.

7. Friday was a tough day. (Yes, past tense here in Seoul, present tense in the USA.) I don't do jet lag, so I was wide awake and bushy-tailed, but I would rather have had the jet lag so I could have been a little out of it. I had come to conduct an evaluation of our programs. The senior manager responsible for this area told me that the local director was not doing her job, had crossed some legal and ethical lines, and that she would not listen to him. My job, while conducting the review of the work being accomplished at the site, would be to make the final judgment on whether or not she should remain and be trained or fired. I opted for the firing when we both learned more details about some of the things she was doing, including working for a competitor during work hours at our organization and throwing her work onto one of her subordinates. I gave the go-ahead to cut the cord to the senior manager and the junior manager who had come with him (and is the immediate supervisor of the local director). I was not present when they did it since that would have been micromanagement. I don't like doing these things. I prefer to reward people, not punish them, but some transgressions cannot be overlooked. Objectively, an easy call. Subjectively, a wrenching one, especially since this particular director was someone I had mentored a few years ago. (On a positive note, during my lunch hour I had a local deaf artist prepare Fr. Ed's name on a wall hanging in Korean calligraphy -- not the picture shown here, but very similar, in green on white, green being his favorite color, of course, given that he grew up in Ireland.)

And now I am off to bed to catch a flight back to the USA tomorrow afternoon. Crossing the international date line again, I will arrive tomorrow morning. For next week's 7 Quick Takes, I guess I will have to decide which of the two Saturdays I include as the real Saturday. May all my problems become as simple. May all yours be as simple.

Have a wonderful weekend.