Jesuits, Buddhism and Christmas

I was in a rough place a few years ago around this time of year.  Halfway through my senior year of college at Xavier University, I ended a messy relationship and started questioning my chosen career path.  The relationship should have ended much much earlier than it did, but we both held on because sometimes the bad patterns we know are preferable to the patterns we don’t.  Also, I think questioning your direction in life is always a good idea, but doing so halfway through your last year of college produces a fair bit of anxiety in everyone.

I went to the last student Mass of the semester with quite a bit of personal trepidation.  Fear of being single.  Fear of my chosen path.  Fear of unchosen paths.  Sadness over lost time and opportunities associated with my recently failed relationship.  Just an all around uneasiness concerning life, not to mention a looming graduation with uncertain job opportunities ahead.

Fr. Graham, Xavier’s President who celebrated the Mass, gave his homily and, of course, talked about Christmas and why we celebrate and what it means worldwide.  But then, as Jesuits often do, he asked us to reflect on the message from a personal standpoint.  What would it mean to let Jesus be born within us this holiday season?  How would we be different?  I wish I could say something exploded inside of me, that I jumped up from the pew and realized everything there was to realize, but, of course, that didn’t happen.  It definitely gave me something to think about, though, as I walked to Dana’s to grab a post-Mass beer with friends, but I pushed it to the back of my mind to get through finals, travel home and weather normal family madness associated with the holidays.  

My family is small, so Christmas day consisted of me and my parents opening presents and then settling in for a day of watching holiday movies and reading new books.  I have this distinct memory of sitting in an old brown recliner, surrounded by wadded piles of torn wrapping paper and opening a new book, The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama.  One of his main theories in the book is happiness vs. pleasure, which are two different things our society often confuses.  He, not surprisingly, believes that happiness leads to greater personal joy than the addictive nature of pleasure.  

Sitting in the chair, book in my lap, I thought about happiness, pleasure and Fr. Graham’s message of a personal Christmas.  My ex-girlfriend certainly provided me with pleasure on many different levels, but our lack of real happiness had become more and more apparent.  The same with my chosen career path.  I had wanted to write for newspapers my entire life, it seemed glamorous and exciting, but the high divorce rate I saw for journalists, endless story chasing and disposable nature of print media left me feeling empty at the end of most work days.  In both cases, I constantly chased things for pleasurable reasons with no regard for greater happiness.

This greater happiness, not just fleeting pleasures, is what God calls for me.  My wife, my home, my job all fill me with a peaceful joy I feel in my bones.  This bone-deep happiness gets me through good and bad days, easy and difficult times.  God meets me in these places and walks with me along our path.

I know this means a lot of different things for different people, but Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and good luck.  I hope this is a rejuvenating time for you, and I’ll see you next year.  

Childish, yet poignant

The first rule of being a hipster is never admit to being a hipster.

To me, this is where most of the hate comes from for Childish Gambino, the rapping persona of Community’s Donald Glover.

Critics love to hate on him. He’s too boastful or too insecure or too scattered in his many many references to movies, television, clothes and women for people to get behind his lyrics. He also embraces the hipster culture, which can turn hipsters against you pretty damn quickly.

His scattered boastful insecurity is kind of refreshing, though, isn’t it? He’s not walking around in a straight billed baseball hat, sagging his pants and proclaiming his greatness. He’s wearing skinny jeans, talking about feeling uncomfortable being the center of attention while simultaneously challenging anyone to take the spotlight away from him.

His unapologeticlly intelligent lyrics keep me coming back to his mixtapes, EP and two albums (Culdesac and Camp), but his musical juxtaposition usually makes it beyond my musical enjoyment and into my thoughts during the day.

I’m reasonably successful at my job. Not in a “Here’s a giant bonus,” sort of way but in a “Hey, I really appreciate the work you do,” kind of way. This moderate success created a little conflict with former graduate school friends who weren’t able to find work and weren’t happy for me when I started thriving in our profession.

It continues to leave me feeling lucky and grateful that my set of job skills matches up with my employer’s needs, and also some serious pride for doing meaningful work and doing it well. My own juxtaposition of insecurity and boastfulness doesn’t come off quite as intense, neurotic or, sadly, witty as Gambino’s, but his themes strike a chord in me none-the-less.

The Art of Blogging...

I had a really nice weekend, and I keep trying to pull a blog post from it without forcing it.

Can I be honest with you for a second? I’ve started other blogs. A couple didn’t even get a first post, while others got several before sputtering out. Don’t feel like I’m cheating on you, because I swear this is the only blog I’m working on right now. I’m a one blog kind of guy.

But there’s a certain kind of pressure to produce posts on a blog. Not just in a “God, I hope someone, someday, reads this and finds it interesting enough to check back every now and then,” but in a “God, don’t let this blog attempt be as large of a waste of time as my other attempts.”

So we had a great weekend. We bought a Christmas tree, decorated our house and put plastic over most of our windows to see if they are 1. effective and 2. cat magnets. So far so good on both counts. We made great homemade meals, watched just the right amount of TV and laughed with our whole bodies.

So where the hell is the post in that? Nothing really bothered me. Nothing angsty. Nothing even really exciting. Just a Norman Rockwellesque weekend.

Maybe this is the key to blogging. Not trying to force anything. Not trying to be too insightful or inspired. Just inviting you along for the ride.

Funny Advent Story: We had to go to a creepy “Christian Life” store to find an advent wreath for our little home. These places creep the hell out of me. Lots of plastic shit with Jesus quotes on them and bad/entrancing music playing in the background about how Jesus loves everyone. Has anyone eve 0r played that shit backwards to find the hidden messages?

Anyways, we can’t find it, and we’re getting ready to leave when I see “The Tehran Initiative” by Joel Rosenberg. About Iran getting an atomic bomb and the West (White people and Israel) are on the verge of war with ALL MUSLIMS EVERYWHERE.

So I’m gaping at this strangely racist book, which was #2 on the Christian Life store’s top 10 list, when I see the advent wreaths above them. We grabbed one, got out of there and have been trying to ignore the subliminal messages etched in our minds ever since. God is an awesome God, isn’t he?

Blog Thesis

So I’m driving around with my Mom over Thanksgiving weekend, probably doing a little shopping or talking about this year’s successful Thanksgiving (My wife and I hosted in our new home. Good food, great time cooking and no drama with any family members).

She starts talking about my Dad, who died a few years ago. (Don’t freak out on me, this blog isn’t about my Dad, your Dad or my grief. Stay with me here.) Turns our a small business owner back home (he owns a dog kennel) that we’ve known for years told her he was thinking about my Dad recently and that, “He was a good man.”

We both smiled, I mean who wouldn’t want to hear that about their Dad? What a wonderful gift to leave behind for family members.

It got me thinking, though, about my own life. Most days, I try to be the best version of myself as I can manage. Titles can get in my way, and when I focus too hard on being a friend, husband, employee I can turn into kind of an asshole. The trick is, that when I focus on being the best Dan I can manage, I end up being a really good friend/husband/employee.

So how does being a good man fit into that? How does being Dan and a good man match up? Where doesn’t it match up? That’s what this blog is all about. Figuring out how being the best version of me also helps me be the kind of man a kennel owner will talk about with my family after I’m gone.