INRI (A Poem)

I love my pen;
by it I post
the page, the lines that cross

my mind have crossed
here through my pen
the page to which I post.

But what I post,
has it, then, crossed
the soul with mortal pen?

I that penned and posted to the cross?

The Office (A Poem)

I am a book

A weapon

A yoke

You know this

You must!

You set my ribbons in place

Firmly, grasping at the words within

Gasping at the “Glory Be”

Slipping into slumber

As the world turns

I sit on my shelf

My pages unturned,

Containing within myself

Liturgy! The Word of God spoken! A life worth living

Oh but why do you ignore me?

Adore all else until the last light

Forces you awake

Asleep in my pages

You lie.

I see frustration burrowing within you

Pages drifting out of your spine as you

Forget.

Who you are?

What you’ve done?

Then all you can do is heave

Your rot-less husk of a hardback

Into your shelf and open

Me. I. Your friend and your mentor.

Your closest ally and your starkest reality.

It is I, bound in this menial leather,

That is freest.

And you will again fall asleep,

Many hours forgotten,

Unwritten.

Unspoken.

Not so much prayed as endured. Not so much spoken as sighed.

Candlemas (A Poem)

The crowd comes to gather the darkness.

No light to their wicks has yet sprung.

The church doors allow them no entry.

The night is no longer so young.

Face spreads to face a grey pallor.

No mouth to an ear spreads a lie.

Years upon years mark the aged.

In darkness, they ready to die.

Yet hark! Now a spark among tinder!

Yet see! Now a flame doth arise!

Its light, now a color ‘midst pallor!

Its warmth, now a shine in their eyes!

Now candles light, one to another!

The flaming bright, miming the sun!

Face looks to face, sees a brother!

Hope, with the fire, has won!

For Christ has now entered the temple,

And the Holy of Holies revealed!

The veil is now torn for the priesthood,

The crowd opens doors to be healed!

Glory to God in the highest,

For the people have longed to be free!

Glory to Father, Son, Spirit,

One God and one Lord, Trinity.

Ron Dicianni: "Simeon's Moment"

Philosophy According to Boot Laces

     On a normal day, I have gotten into the truly odd habit of wearing a pair of tough little work boots that I brought back from Christmas break with me. These suede ruffians that I attach to my feet, while being resistant to the rain, ice, or snow that we here in Juneau to intermittently experience, have an uncommon and ignominious curse bestowed on them by the footwear gods: the curse of boot laces.

     Every morning, in order to function correctly during the day, I have set before me a grim and time-consuming task: lacing up my boots good and tight. It is my burden to make sure that each lace that threads through the 7 pairs of lace-holes on each boot is tightened to a sufficient strength. This task is made all the more complex due to the fact that my laces stretch and drag in and out of the holes in a most un-smooth and thoroughly dissatisfying way. This means that I must tug voraciously at the laces for each hole to get them satisfactorily snug. It is only after this that I can tie the knot well, which is another set of complains completely. Let us just say that my knot-tying skills have diminished since I learned back in Kindergarten.

     As a consequence of this drudgery in the morning, it falls to me every evening the task of then undoing all of my morning’s work in order to take the boots off. This morning tightening logically makes it impossible for my foot to even contemplate freedom from the boot without substantially loosening the laces. This I particularly despise, as my former habit of tying my shoes only once, and then slipping them on and off had become muscle memory, now only to be frustrated by a constrictor of a boot. This tightening up and loosening out of my boot laces would drive me up the wall and force me to give up my boots forever if it were not for one virtue that the process entails.

     In this morning and evening ritual of precise tugging, I have learned that boot laces require intentionality. I have to be completely sure that I am going out the door before I actually do it. These boot laces make me think about what it is that I am doing, and answer to why I am doing it. As I step out of my dorm room, I have to know where I am going and why I am going there. If I did not know these things, I would never have laced up my boots. Likewise, I must also know when I am home to stay, and unlacing my boots solidifies this. If I did not go through the process of taking off my boots at the end of the day, would I feel at home at all? No, I would not, and I would not value being at home, either. The patience required by such antiquated means of foot-security makes me have to know and value where I am and where I am going.

     My friends, we live in a generation cursed by the craving for accessibility. We don’t just want to go somewhere, we want to be somewhere, and be there quick. I mean, how many of us would jump at the chance to have a portal gun, or a flying cap, or even just a plain old car? To have things like this would mean that we could go anywhere, anytime, in just minutes. But would we ever appreciate it being there?

     I’m not saying we should all wear suede work boots (well…maybe I am), I’m just saying that a little inconvenience makes for a lot of appreciation. I’m just saying that when you tie your shoes, when you make the walk from housing down to campus, when you make homemade food (hey, I'm a college student, it's a longed-for commodity), when you lock and unlock your door and the beginning and end of the day, you have a greater ability to appreciate what you are doing with your life.

     Happy lacing.

Miseri Cordis (A Poem)

There is a man who I must be
And yet I do not know his name.

Not yet his body rightly see

Though his cross for mine I claim

Oh the quest through dark night weary

Now my soul must surely claim

For it finds nothing certain clearly

Save uncertainty of name.

And now my wretched heart I know

Holds yet a pain I cannot name

And O this melancholy sow'd

What in reaping will God claim? 

That starkly nameless go I now

Flying fast from flaming claim

Of my soul as is, but how

To crack at the ice and name

The Godhead I so endow

As with life of me, my name

And so freely give up, now,

The free will that I had claimed.

O God, this wretched heart of mine
Is now a mercy that I claim
For though mercy's fogged in time
Heaven's splendor lights my name.

Evangelism: Gunfights and Boxing

My college happens to have a Baptist Campus Ministry. And while I am not Baptist, it is technically for all denominations of Christians, and since my roommates are Christian as well, and they invited me, I decided to go. 

It was alright for the first hour. There was praise and worship (of which I am not fond), and then there was a sermon on evangelization.

That's when it got interesting.

What the pastor said amounted to this: always look for opportunities to witness to someone, even if you've never met them before. Make friends with them, cultivate their acquaintance in order to share the Gospel with them. Get their story and ask them if they know Jesus. Then, if they do not, launch into the gospel. See if you can't get them 'saved'.

This may be a bad paraphrase of the man, but it is what I took away from the thing.

Now, my friends, this does not strike me as the right way of going about the thing. It is making friends, but with an agenda, which is both insincere and self righteous. I would compare it to a duel. Two men meet up somewhere, face off, and fire. It takes three, even two shots, maybe even one for one man to claim victory. In dueling, the two men never really respect each other, they never really become closer to one another. In fact, a duel was often initiated because of a perceived offense to one man or another. 

In this form of evangelization, the Christian initiates conversation because of something he sees is wrong with the other guy. 

Allow me, then, to explain a metaphor of what I think is the right way of going about the thing.

This summer my family went on a fishing trip with a few family friends, and I had to work for the first day, but got to join them for the next days after that because one of our friends had to delay driving down as well. So I got to carpool with him. He is a former boxer from Puerto Rico, and a devout Catholic.

Among the long conversations we had on the way down, I remember this the best: 

He said "Evangelization is like boxing...ya know? You circle the other guy...jab...jab...hook... and you bait him into the knockout."

Now, from what I know about boxing, this makes much more sense than the gunfighter approach. Boxing is characterized by enormous respect, and you really get to know someone by boxing against them. You could take your best friend into the ring, beat him up, and walk out and have a drink with him, or even vice versa- he could beat you up. And it's also the same outcome if the two guys didn't walk into the ring as friends. I mean, take classic boxing movies for example. Rocky's fiercest opponent was Apollo Creed, and they ended up as very good friends because of the respect they earned for each other in the boxing ring.

In boxing, the two guys walk out as friends. In dueling, only one guy walks out.

That is the way it should be: two people spend time becoming friends, circling, if you will. One begins simply referencing the little bits of his faith as it pertains to daily life, like visibly praying before meals, or dressing up for Mass on Sundays. These are the jabs. They lure the other guy in, they inspire and they pique curiosity. Then it is the other man who strikes up the conversation, not the Christian. This initiation is far preferable, too, because often, if the Christian initiates, the other guy will be put off and dismissive of the subject because of the general culture's fears and stigmas about religion. But if the other guy initiates the conversation, he does not enter in with that unwillingness to talk. And I know I would far prefer to talk to someone who actually wanted to have a conversation.

In this form of evangelization, the Christian enters into conversation because of a respect he has for the other man's honor. The Christian may have jabbed first, but he knows that this is simply the way of the game. The game is life, and to jab is natural, else one would not be active in faith. 

Therefore the Christian does not walk into the friendship with a gun and a target, but with a pair of gloves and a willingness to fight. Not picking a fight, but letting a fight pick him. Not as a competition but as a sport. Not death before dishonor, but fighting a good fight.

Prophesy (A Short Story)

In the spirit of fellow BadCatholic Marc Barnes' latest post on Almsgiving, I now present this short story I wrote a few years ago.

The man was psychic. That's what the sign said, the sign he was holding, cardboard soaked by rain and flimsy in his hands: Psychic and homeless, please help!
Sometimes he would get food, arms extended to the passing car, grabbing at the faceless arm's package. Sometimes it was a cheeseburger or a fish sandwich. Nobody ever knew if he was actually psychic or not, because he would take whatever he got and bite into it hungrily without even checking to see what it was.
Sometimes all he would get was venomous glances, I mean, what was this old man doing, anyway, this cancer of society, this man who "simply refused to get a job like any decent human being. I mean Christ! What's the world gonna do with all these bums all over the streets..?"
Most of the time the eyes of the people in the cars seemed just to slide over the old man, as if he were not there at all. In any case, the cars never slowed down.

Day and night the man stood on the corner, highways on both sides. He would stand there, a lone figure, isolated by his many layers of filthy clothes as well as concrete. Isolated by the pavement that surrounded his grassy divider. Isolated by the glass of car windows, the metal of car doors.

One night, I heard, he got beat up by a bunch of drunk kids. They stopped, got out of the noisy pickup, and surrounded the poor old man. They hit him when his back was turned. "You're psychic, eh? Tell us who hit you?" They struck him again and again, and all he could do was turn and turn and turn around. "Who hit you? Tell us, old man! Ha! Who hit you?"

Today I saw him still standing there on his median, still bearing the bruises and the blood. They didn't kill him. Not yet, that is. His eyes do not hold fear, though. No, when he saw me drive past, when our eyes locked, they held...hurt.
He stands, holding his sign for all to see. Now, it does not mention that he is psychic, nor that he is homeless. It simply bears the words: God Bless. And every time I drive past, it strikes me like a knife to the heart.