It's been kind of amazing to hear the glowing descriptions of Tim Russert's life and faith, and the way he kept his work and family life in balance. I always found him to be someone I enjoyed watching, both for his insightful, probing questions and for his refreshing lack of grandstanding. For the masses who didn't know him personally, a picture is emerging of someone whose faith was very important to him, and as much as it could in his position, it found its way into his work in some subtle and surprising ways. Newsweek is running an article by an Anglican friend of his whom he convinced to debate Christopher Hitchens on the air, even though he doesn't typically engage in debates (and was concerned that Hitchens would eat his lunch).
I heard a suggestion today that too much is being made of Tim Russert's faith, because it wasn't front & center in his work (in terms of content choices, presumably meaning he should have stuck with Catholic themes or somehow consistently identified himself as a Catholic on the air). I don't think that's a reasonable test to apply to someone; there is no moral imperative that a person who is a journalist by trade be a "Catholic" journalist, meaning that he only works in Catholic media or does stories with a Catholic theme. That wouldn't be any more reasonable than expecting someone to be a "Catholic" doctor, or lawyer, or mechanic. It quickly becomes an artificial distinction. We're called to bring our principles and a well-formed conscience into the workplace, no matter what we do. That's going to mean that our values and our choices should reflect Catholic teaching and values; it doesn't mean that we have to build a separate Catholic sub-culture.
A Catholic surgeon doesn't need to insist on praying with his patients or only operating on Christians to live out his faith though his work; he does it by using his skills to save lives, by making choices consistent with a Catholic world view, and by treating colleagues and patients with respect. A Catholic attorney doesn't have to only work on Church related business or restrict himself to civil liberties cases. Living his faith might mean that he turns down certain kinds of cases or restricts himself to potentially less lucrative areas of the law in order to avoid ethical dilemmas. In my case, there are radio formats in which I wouldn't work, certain kinds of commercial reads I wouldn't do, etc., were I to go back to a secular format. It's very challenging to live one's faith in a secular setting, but I also think it's were a person can often do the most good.
I choose to work in Catholic media because I feel it's where I can do the most good, and where I've had the best opportunities to talk about things that are important to me. It doesn't mean I couldn't work in a secular talk format, or go back to my roots in music radio. If I did make that kind of choice, it would be incumbent upon me to make sure that the station, format, and subject matter I chose lined up with Catholic teaching. It doesn't make one choice right and another wrong.
The remarkable thing about Tim Russert was that he lived a life that embraced his faith, and won the respect of a lot of people who didn't share his views. He worked at the highest level of an industry that often spurns and ridicules people of faith. He presided over "Meet the Press" for 20 years, and was NBC's Washington Bureau Chief. The many glowing accounts of his life have included accolades from a bishop or two, as well as news people and politicians. They respected his work and appreciated his ethics and morality. In a culture growing increasingly hostile to faith in any form, that's pretty remarkable.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Thanks, Jim
Over the weekend I converted my Sean Scales Down blog to basically a private journal. I had gotten uncomfortable with the amount of information I was putting on it; to be honest, I was embarrassed to see my entire dieting saga right there in black and white. I've sort of been struggling with what direction to go in terms of a weight-loss program, and I basically just felt stupid describing what I was going through.
I received a very nice email from Jim, who said that the blog had inspired him to try to lose some weight himself. He also said he understood why I might want to keep my thoughts about my weight loss private. I read his email this morning, and have been thinking about it off and on ever since. I was glad to hear it was actually an encouragement to someone, but I also acknowledged something I already knew to be true; I had some good reasons for starting that blog, and some bad reasons for taking it down (in a nutshell, a mixture of pride and embarrassment). This evening I decided to reset the blog to public and once again link to it from this one. I've written a rather lengthy (and honest) post about it over there.
It's really not accurate to say that this blog is the one where I write about spiritual matters and that one is where I deal with the mundane business of dieting (although it is accurate to say that dieting-related minutiae will appear there and not here). That's the joy and the ongoing struggle of embracing a genuinely Catholic worldview. Nothing is outside the scope of our faith. Nothing gets left out, glossed over, or set aside for later. The Gospel demands that our whole lives be lived pursuing love of God and love of neighbor, and that everything we do, say, eat, and drink be a reflection of that pursuit.
Blog-wise, I sort of segregated that aspect of my life for a couple reasons: 1) There would be something crushingly, mind-numbingly narcissistic of me to devote almost every post to one very personal topic, especially in the kind of detail I go into there; 2) I wanted to have a place where I could set my thoughts down about this one thing and view my progress; and 3) as I mentioned in a now-deleted post, Blogger is free. They don't charge per word or per blog, so you can just basically go nuts with it. It's kind of fun to start a short-term or single-topic blog, and as someone who's been blogging for quite a few years now, it's a good way to keep my main blog from getting overly cluttered with other stuff. Some of those blogs flourish for a short time, some develop a nice little life of their own, and some die a quick, merciful death. By the way, you'll never see the blogs that fall into that last category.
My own efforts to lose weight are part and parcel of my battle against my own concupiscence and sensuality (let's face it; most fat people are fat because we really, really like to eat). There's a reason why gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins (and isn't it interesting how it's probably the only one a person can actively engage in and still be thought of fairly well by others). In this struggle, as in all of our struggles against sin, I am quite literally my own worst enemy. I saw that running as a thread through the Sean Scales Down blog, and quite frankly, it embarrassed me.
I mean, that's really the whole point, isn't it? It's what I talk about on the radio every day. It's why I've been blogging about my faith since 2002. It's the reason I became Catholic. Catholicism isn't any of the things it's often purported to be in the distorted descriptions made by those who oppose it. In a way, it's also not many of the things we Catholics represent it to be, either, at least if you judge our view of the faith by our behavior. The Catholic faith is an opportunity to look at every aspect of our lives, and every moment of our lives, and determine whether we are living in harmony with the Gospel or in opposition to it. Through the Sacraments, the faith is an ongoing opportunity to touch heaven and be touched by it. It is a chance to see the face of God and let that intersection with the divine work itself into our everyday lives.
Something as mundane (and in my case, as important) as losing weight isn't peripheral to the story of our faith journey. It goes to my need to deal with long entrenched patterns of sin, to improving my own interior life, and to honoring my commitment to my vocation as a husband and father (by keeping myself healthy, more actively participating in the life of my family as the weight becomes less of a hindrance, and by simply staying alive longer).
You're unique, so your issues aren't my issues. All I know for sure is that you do have issues; we all do. The Catholic faith doesn't take us to some far-away land where it doesn't matter how we've lived our lives, spent our money, or conducted our affairs. The more we allow heaven into our daily lives, the more important those very things become. Great saints have talked about this in a myriad of ways, from St. Therese's Little Way, to St. Josemaria's establishment of Opus Dei, to St. Francis de Sales' spiritual direction, to St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises. They're really all about the same basic truth; as we respond to God's call to holiness, everything matters. The more fully we embrace his mercy, the more they matter. It's not a matter of scrupulosity, but of harmony. Scrupulosity is actually the opposite of (and a hindrance to) that harmony as one or two things are singled out and exaggerated.
We're called to live lives of consistent faith. That ain't easy.
I received a very nice email from Jim, who said that the blog had inspired him to try to lose some weight himself. He also said he understood why I might want to keep my thoughts about my weight loss private. I read his email this morning, and have been thinking about it off and on ever since. I was glad to hear it was actually an encouragement to someone, but I also acknowledged something I already knew to be true; I had some good reasons for starting that blog, and some bad reasons for taking it down (in a nutshell, a mixture of pride and embarrassment). This evening I decided to reset the blog to public and once again link to it from this one. I've written a rather lengthy (and honest) post about it over there.
It's really not accurate to say that this blog is the one where I write about spiritual matters and that one is where I deal with the mundane business of dieting (although it is accurate to say that dieting-related minutiae will appear there and not here). That's the joy and the ongoing struggle of embracing a genuinely Catholic worldview. Nothing is outside the scope of our faith. Nothing gets left out, glossed over, or set aside for later. The Gospel demands that our whole lives be lived pursuing love of God and love of neighbor, and that everything we do, say, eat, and drink be a reflection of that pursuit.
Blog-wise, I sort of segregated that aspect of my life for a couple reasons: 1) There would be something crushingly, mind-numbingly narcissistic of me to devote almost every post to one very personal topic, especially in the kind of detail I go into there; 2) I wanted to have a place where I could set my thoughts down about this one thing and view my progress; and 3) as I mentioned in a now-deleted post, Blogger is free. They don't charge per word or per blog, so you can just basically go nuts with it. It's kind of fun to start a short-term or single-topic blog, and as someone who's been blogging for quite a few years now, it's a good way to keep my main blog from getting overly cluttered with other stuff. Some of those blogs flourish for a short time, some develop a nice little life of their own, and some die a quick, merciful death. By the way, you'll never see the blogs that fall into that last category.
My own efforts to lose weight are part and parcel of my battle against my own concupiscence and sensuality (let's face it; most fat people are fat because we really, really like to eat). There's a reason why gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins (and isn't it interesting how it's probably the only one a person can actively engage in and still be thought of fairly well by others). In this struggle, as in all of our struggles against sin, I am quite literally my own worst enemy. I saw that running as a thread through the Sean Scales Down blog, and quite frankly, it embarrassed me.
I mean, that's really the whole point, isn't it? It's what I talk about on the radio every day. It's why I've been blogging about my faith since 2002. It's the reason I became Catholic. Catholicism isn't any of the things it's often purported to be in the distorted descriptions made by those who oppose it. In a way, it's also not many of the things we Catholics represent it to be, either, at least if you judge our view of the faith by our behavior. The Catholic faith is an opportunity to look at every aspect of our lives, and every moment of our lives, and determine whether we are living in harmony with the Gospel or in opposition to it. Through the Sacraments, the faith is an ongoing opportunity to touch heaven and be touched by it. It is a chance to see the face of God and let that intersection with the divine work itself into our everyday lives.
Something as mundane (and in my case, as important) as losing weight isn't peripheral to the story of our faith journey. It goes to my need to deal with long entrenched patterns of sin, to improving my own interior life, and to honoring my commitment to my vocation as a husband and father (by keeping myself healthy, more actively participating in the life of my family as the weight becomes less of a hindrance, and by simply staying alive longer).
You're unique, so your issues aren't my issues. All I know for sure is that you do have issues; we all do. The Catholic faith doesn't take us to some far-away land where it doesn't matter how we've lived our lives, spent our money, or conducted our affairs. The more we allow heaven into our daily lives, the more important those very things become. Great saints have talked about this in a myriad of ways, from St. Therese's Little Way, to St. Josemaria's establishment of Opus Dei, to St. Francis de Sales' spiritual direction, to St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises. They're really all about the same basic truth; as we respond to God's call to holiness, everything matters. The more fully we embrace his mercy, the more they matter. It's not a matter of scrupulosity, but of harmony. Scrupulosity is actually the opposite of (and a hindrance to) that harmony as one or two things are singled out and exaggerated.
We're called to live lives of consistent faith. That ain't easy.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Another opportunity to develop the virtue of patience
NOTE: I'm leaving this post up, but it turns out the premise for the thing was all wrong. In its update, the airline used a different desgination for the same airport. The schedule appears to be exactly the same, so I'm now kind of mystified as to what inconvenience they were apologizing for...
I just got an email from Northwest Airlines. The good news is that they apologize for any inconvenience they've caused; the bad news is that a confirmed reservation for my wife and daughter (to attend a relative's wedding) was changed. The departure airport was changed from the metro airport ten minutes from our house to a teensy-weensie municipal airport an hour away. The flight leaves at 6:30 AM, so that means we'll have to leave the house at around 4:45. Other options would be to stay the night near the airport or use some kind of shuttle; I'm guessing the room would actually end up being cheaper (although you'd still have to factor in the cost of gas).
Pretty clever there, Northwest Airlines! Rather than retroactively raising the price of our ticket(which would probably be, you know, illegal), you're passing the cost on to us! Presumably you save money on this deal (I'm guessing by running a smaller plane out of a smaller airport, in response to reduced demand). At the same time, you've put us in a position where we're having to spend more to get to the airport. You've quite literally passed the financial burden for this flight onto almost every person who will be taking it. You're a clever bunch of heartless corporate weasels, you are.
Editor's note: "Weasels" was not the first word that came into my head, but it's far more blog-friendly than what I'm actually thinking right now.
Well, at least my daughter won't have any trouble shifting from central to pacific time on the other end...she'll be tired enough to hit the sack at her usual bedtime, local time.
This is where I'm reminded that we are encouraged to "offer up" our suffering, large and small, and unite it to the suffering of Christ:
Sometimes I feel like offering up the smaller irritations of life is almost an insult to the whole idea of entering into Christ's passion; I know that when I feel that way, I'm actually looking at the whole thing backwards. The more that we actively, deliberately unite our suffering to his--from the mundane to the profound--the more our minds are on him in those moments. As we grow in holiness this should become a more frequent response, not a less frequent one. In this situation, there will be a cost in terms of inconvenience, frustration, gas, and fatigue. It's going to be a perfect opportunity.
I just got an email from Northwest Airlines. The good news is that they apologize for any inconvenience they've caused; the bad news is that a confirmed reservation for my wife and daughter (to attend a relative's wedding) was changed. The departure airport was changed from the metro airport ten minutes from our house to a teensy-weensie municipal airport an hour away. The flight leaves at 6:30 AM, so that means we'll have to leave the house at around 4:45. Other options would be to stay the night near the airport or use some kind of shuttle; I'm guessing the room would actually end up being cheaper (although you'd still have to factor in the cost of gas).
Pretty clever there, Northwest Airlines! Rather than retroactively raising the price of our ticket(which would probably be, you know, illegal), you're passing the cost on to us! Presumably you save money on this deal (I'm guessing by running a smaller plane out of a smaller airport, in response to reduced demand). At the same time, you've put us in a position where we're having to spend more to get to the airport. You've quite literally passed the financial burden for this flight onto almost every person who will be taking it. You're a clever bunch of heartless corporate weasels, you are.
Editor's note: "Weasels" was not the first word that came into my head, but it's far more blog-friendly than what I'm actually thinking right now.
Well, at least my daughter won't have any trouble shifting from central to pacific time on the other end...she'll be tired enough to hit the sack at her usual bedtime, local time.
This is where I'm reminded that we are encouraged to "offer up" our suffering, large and small, and unite it to the suffering of Christ:
1505 Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: "He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.".112 But he did not heal all the sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his Passover. On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the "sin of the world,".113 of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.
Sometimes I feel like offering up the smaller irritations of life is almost an insult to the whole idea of entering into Christ's passion; I know that when I feel that way, I'm actually looking at the whole thing backwards. The more that we actively, deliberately unite our suffering to his--from the mundane to the profound--the more our minds are on him in those moments. As we grow in holiness this should become a more frequent response, not a less frequent one. In this situation, there will be a cost in terms of inconvenience, frustration, gas, and fatigue. It's going to be a perfect opportunity.
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