The emotions involved in coming THIS CLOSE to meeting Bruce Springsteen.
 
 
 

On more than one occasion, I found myself utterly forgetting the patient’s name when praying with the patient. Somehow praying for “Buddy’s” recovery and for God’s presence in “Buddy’s” life in this time of trial seemed less… personal.

Climbing “Mount Bond” was a challenge that I always lost but never stopped trying to conquer while growing up. The closest I got in my attempts were smoothly ordering a “Coca-Cola, two cherries, no ice” when going out to restaurants, my own underage version of the famous vodka martini… I know, I know, you only wish you could be THAT cool.

There’s no such thing as a normal life, Wyatt. There’s just life.”
- Val Kilmer (as Doc Holiday), Tombstone

I myself am not a fan of New Year’s resolutions; I much prefer Lent when it comes to endeavors of personal improvement. For Catholics, the practice of sacrificing something of value for 40 days is like a New Year’s resolution, except with teeth.

With a pork burrito in my hand, a song in my heart, and Fudgie the Whale back in my life, I am feeling generous, so I agree to partake in the survey. The first question: why did I leave USAA?

The following is a continued account of my first year in seminary with the Paulist Fathers.

Holy Thursday 2006 was spent in a bar. The screen writing class I had been taking finished its six week run and we all decided to go out for a beer. After the evening was through, the instructor of the class (Jim) and I were walking to our cars. He had graduated film school a few years ago and was working during the day for a wine store while working on some projects, one of which he was in the midst of finishing for a producer in Hollywood.  As it happened, I was heading down to DC to visit American University Film Program in the morning, and I wanted to pick his brain about graduate school possibilities.

The conversation started at “career” advice but got around to where he’s at in his life—specifically whether he should continue pursuing film or start settling down. Jim was seeing somebody pretty seriously and he realized that he was soon going to have to make some decisions. I’m a few years older than him and I told him of some of my experiences of trying to live out dreams within the context of living a “normal” life and suggested that there might be ways to do both.

I went home after that and hopped on the computer before going to bed. A friend of mine sent me an e-mail… and ex-girlfriend no less… about a new television show that was going to be on that weekend: God or the Girl. The show is a four part series about four young men going through the discernment process for the priesthood, and at the end of the series they would each come to a decision. Gerry, knowing that discerning had been a big part of my life a few years ago sent me a link to the web site with the subject line, “Are you going to watch?”

Discerning religious life had been a big part of my life for over ten years, but two years before I had finally come to the …

On the day I was to serve as an acolyte for the first time, I was nervous. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, the acolyte is essentially an altar server. But I was nervous because while I believe I have been given many gifts in life, hand and foot coordination has not traditionally been one of them; to this day small beads of sweat roll down my forehead whenever I’m at a wedding and the DJ busts out “The Electric Slide.” Granted, assisting the presiding priest during Mass is a little different from taking a step forward, taking a step back, wiggling your tush, and turning to the side… but from what I’ve seen from the pews, it’s not different by much.

Fortunately the priest who would be presiding that evening was very patient with me. So as I fumbled around with getting all of the “equipment” set up ahead of time, he took some time out to guide me through the process. He began by telling me, “You’ll need to get the Paten from this shelf; put some hosts in the Paten…”

“You mean the dish? Put the bread in the dish?”

The priest stared at me for a VERY long moment; he rightly intuited that I was going to be a bigger liturgical challenge than he had initially anticipated. Finally, he replied “Yes” and continued.

He went on to describe the need for the Corporal to be folded in a particular manner, the Purificator to be placed near the chalice… and as he went on I became increasingly confused. I was expecting a Purificator to be an android that might do battle with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the T-2000. It turns out to be a simple white cloth… NOT to be confused with ANOTHER white cloth called the Corporal: it’s relationship to Corporal Max Klinger on M.A.S.H. I have still yet to discover.

Intuiting my mounting confusion, the presiding priest started to simplify the process for me. “Basically, what you are doing is setting a table. So you do whatever you …

Where I grew up, there really was a danger of grandma getting run over by a reindeer.

Fifteen years ago I was living in Phoenix Arizona and my mother—someone who was born in Brooklyn New York and has only thee times in her life crossed the Mississippi River—wanted to know what “IT” would be like.

“IT” was, of course, Christmas… and I knew exactly what she was talking about. The ninety-degree December in Arizona did not square with holiday landscapes created by the Frosty The Snowman, Jingle Bells, and Marshmallow World. Rather, the countryside described by Bing Crosby in White Christmas closely resembled the small New Jersey town I knew as a child. Where I grew up, there really was a danger of grandma getting run over by a reindeer. And if that wasn’t enough, the place where all of the cool holiday moves seemed to take place—New York City—was a mere ninety minutes away; Rockefeller Center and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade were considered to be next door neighbors.

So it was that year in the Phoenix desert when I had to come face-to-face with the expectations I had about Christmas as opposed to the reality of Christmas…
 my expectations of what Christmas was supposed to be and what it really was.

Granted, that year the only gap I had to deal with involved the difference between grainy sand and soft-falling snow… but the truth is we all have to do that. For the past four to six week, we have been fed this steady diet of wintry perfection, family harmony, and holiday bliss. This sense of a “magical” season is so pervasive that even Elvis once asked—in all of his Elvis-ness—”Why can’t everyday be like Christmas?” He sings that, of course, because Christmas is a special time. But as special as the time can be, for a lot of us Christmas is a mixed bag.

I don’t know about you, I don’t think my waistline or my glucose levels could handle it if every day was really like Christmas. It is of course a time of coming together… …