Of Amy Grant, Spanish Skype, and Gifts from God

Whew, Coffee Talkers!

I need to jot down a bit about the last 24-ish hours, just so I can keep it all in mind. Enjoy!

A generous friend offered for me to accompany her for an Amy Grant concert last night, and in a surprising turn of events, I was one of twelve people who got to sit in on the band's sound check, and then to meet Amy Grant and her band. Fun! Then I met a bunch of great people from a Friend's of Amy group over dinner, and then enjoyed front row seats during the concert. And I have to say, the most moving part of the evening was that is was so relational. I've always enjoyed Amy Grant's music, but I don't really consider myself a 'fan' of many people. Having met her and her band personally now, I must say that I am very impressed by Amy Grant as a person, and the time, attention, and love she clearly gives to each person she knows. I enjoyed her beautiful music and message, and overall it was a lovely evening and great experience.

Then this morning, my girls and I went down to the Cathedral of our Diocese for a World Youth Day Reunion at the Cathedral Hall. It was a lovely experience, and it was nice to be able to bring my girls, since they are still far too youthful to have attend World Youth Day itself. Both of our Bishops joined us, and we were able to communicate via Skype with our hosts from Toledo, Spain, which was wonderful! We had developed such a feeling of familial closeness and fraternal affection for our parish hosts and hosting families that I think we experienced a feeling of true reunion with them, as well, through our brief call (chaotic though it was with the large crowd assembled on our end).

In trying to help set up the Skype call, I had sent an e-mail earlier in the week to a few of our hosts, expressing our gratitude to them and letting them know of our interest in communicating with them today during our reunion. Because my Spanish skills leave something to be desired, I had typed up my message in English and put it into Google translate for the Spanish version. Before mentioning our desire to communicate with Skype, I specifically wanted to thank our hosts and to tell them that we hoped we could someday return their kindness by hosting them in California. However, I realized (after sending the message, of course) that I had typed in 'hose' instead of 'host' in English, for which the translator offered its best Spanish rendering. Thus, I basically offered to return the favor that our hosts had so graciously extended to us by greeting them in California with a hose. Nice. And then, to top it off, the e-mail address that I had for the priest turned out to be one letter off, so I realized that now I was even offering to hose off international strangers upon their first visit to California, as well. I cried from laughing so hard at my ridiculous mistake, and tried to correct my errors in a follow-up message.

But today was lovely -- we were able to arrange the Skype call, despite my numerous communication mishaps, and this afternoon I received this kind and amusing e-mail from one of our wonderful hosts:

"Hello our dear friends, thank you very much for your interest in Skypeing with us. When we read your first email, we were impressed by what we thought was an ancestral good practice in the border of the Californian desert: to welcome people you appreciate with a generous hose of water, that precious element essential for life. It is like saying: OK, I wish you a good and hydrated life. It is beautiful. Thank you very much, we were also crying from laughing so hard, and still we are, whenever we imagine the scene."

Ahh, what a blessing to have made such kind and gracious friends, and with a sense of humor, as well!

I also received a little award at today's reunion, present by our Bishops, for leadership during World Youth Day. That was a pleasant surprise! I have to say, I used to be sort of an award-a-holic, winning nearly every award and scholarship known to man back in my high school/early college days, and placing much more importance on such things than I should have. As always, God and life always have their way of revealing to us the truth about ourselves, and so I'm happy to have been broken from the fixation on recognition. (Well, I'm happy for it now, although humility is oftentimes acquired through the acceptance of humiliations, which are never occasions of happiness at the time.) Still, it was an honor to have received the certificate, and in my heart I received it on behalf of all the good people who sent us to World Youth Day through financial and prayer support, and for all the people who personally helped me through those couple hellish (or purgative, at the least) years of life that, thanks be to God, have already borne many fruits of grace and redemption, so much so that to my surprise I recently led this international pilgrimage group to World Youth Day. In all things, Deo gratias.

My girls and I came home for a bit, and then went to a going away party for one of our pilgrimage group members who is college-bound. God-speed, Alex, y vaya con Dios! Use your voice, and keep the faith!

And now that the day of partying has ceased, it is time for sleep!

As always, thanks for stopping by, and be assured of my prayers.

Peace and all good,
Leslie

Merit and Grace and Aquinas -- Oh, My!

Dear Leslie,

I think it would be a great idea for a future post on Salvation and the Catholic Standpoint of "Merit" and "Grace".

Thanks,

Shane

Well, Shane, guess what? No sooner did I get started on thinking of a good way to summarily and clearly respond to your excellent, though complex, question I found something great! A friend of mine, a professor of Scripture and theology with a PhD and a blog of his own, answered this very question just yesterday! So rather than trying to paraphrase what he said, how ‘bout I just send you to his link?

http://www.thesacredpage.com/2011/01/grace-and-merit-st-bernard-of-clairvaux.html

And before signing off for the night, I’d like to give a shout out to my buddy St. Thomas Aquinas, whose feast we celebrate today! I consider him a buddy now because I have learned many wonderful things about his life, but I must say that before I knew much about him, I think I considered him to be among those sort-of-scary saints. Not that he did anything that scared me – more that he was known by all to be an intellectual giant! I mean, the man’s most famous work, the Summa Theologica, was intended as a sort of beginner’s manual to introduce all of the main theological teachings of the time. Have you ever seen that thing? If it is a beginner’s manual, then I am a big dunce! 

(The term ‘dunce’, by the way, is derived from the name of Franciscan philosopher Blessed John Duns Scotus, who was berated in his own time for arguing scripturally on behalf of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Nobody believed him. But guess what? The little ‘dunce’ was right, after all! Poor guy.)

Anyway, back to St. Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologica. This massive work addresses the eternal law, the natural law, and the human law, and Thomas does so by posing questions, possible objections to these questions, and finally an argument to defend and clarify the issue at hand. He cites the Scriptures and many Christian, Jewish, Muslim and ancient pagan scholars while answering these various questions, which makes for interesting reading.

While the format of the Summa is a bit daunting at first, I think anyone can catch on pretty quickly if you stick with it. And it can even be fun! Take, for example, a birthday greeting that I gave to a philosophy student friend of mine on the occasion of his birthday, in the style of St. Thomas’ Summa:

Article 1. Whether we should celebrate the birthday of Kevin?

Objection 1. It seems that we should not still celebrate Kevin's birth today, since he has been on earth for twenty-two years already.

Objection 2. Further, it seems that celebration does not befit an occasion that marks his advancing in age.

Objection 3. Further, as shown above, the day of Kevin's birth far pre-dates the current day in question. Therefore, today is not Kevin's birthday.

On the contrary, It is written, "May the LORD bless you from Zion, all the days of your life" (Ps 128:5).

I answer that, as the Philosopher relates, "Old age: A great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold, you ...may have escaped, not from one master but from many" (Plato). We should, therefore, celebrate heartily the anniversary of Kevin’s birth and his advancement in age.

Reply to objection 1. "We are always the same age inside." - Gertrude Stein

Reply to objection 2. "It takes a long time to become young." - Pablo Picasso; and "We turn not older with years, but newer every day." - Emily Dickinson

Reply to objection 3. A birthday is defined by Princeton University as “an anniversary of the day on which a person was born (or the celebration of it).”

See? Philosophy and theology can be fun, and now you, too can impress your friends with your own birthday and holiday greetings in the style of the Summa Theologica!

(If you want to check out the real Summa, go here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/)

Or if this is all still a little much for you, then maybe you can just share this great quote:

“Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.” ~ St. Thomas Aquinas

As always, thanks for tuning in, Coffee Talkers!

Peace and all good,

Leslie

My Visit With a Wonderful Man...

I wrote this on December 23, 2009, just days before the passing of a man who had a tremendous impact on my life. A year has now passed since the death of Robert Nygaard, and in his honor, I post this as the first entry on my blog:

When I heard that my high school band director was very ill, nearing death perhaps, I found myself wishing that I could see him one more time. I moved away from the high desert after high school, and just recently returned to the area after many years living out of state. I realized that I actually could go see him! Then the whole litany of concerns and excuses started running through my head: "What if I go, but he's sleeping? I don't want to interrupt his time with family. What if he doesn't remember me, or I just don't know what to say?" I finally realized that my reservations had much less to do with Mr. Nygaard than to do with me; when we visit someone nearing death, honest people have no choice but to confront our own mortality, and examine how we've lived our lives so far. But I always find that, despite my initial fears and reservations, whenever I have the opportunity to be with someone nearing death, they teach me so much not only about how to live this life, but also about how to prepare for the next. So I called and found out that Mr. Nygaard was able to receive visitors, and then I went to see him.

It was a brief visit, but a beautiful one, a time that I will always cherish and will never forget. But what I want to share is not so much about the visit itself as what I've realized in these past few days as I think of all that I've learned from Mr. Nygaard. Let's start at the very beginning....

It was the summer of 1992, and I was very excited to have been accepted into the SunDevil Marching Band at Apple Valley High School, under the direction of Robert Nygaard. The band had an excellent reputation, and I was amazed at all that I'd heard about them. As an incoming freshman clarinetist, I received a packet of music that Mr. Nygaard had chosen for the next school year's field show, and was informed that I was to practice and memorize the music in preparation for summer band camp. I looked over the music, and thought it all looked pretty good - maybe a little bit of a challenge, but nothing that I couldn't handle. Then I flipped to "Russian Sailors Dance." I had never seen that many black notes on a page. It seemed all at once terrifying, impossible, and awe-inspring - in a word, it was glorious. To be honest, I had never really practiced my clarinet much before that - I never really had to, and still always did well. But this was something entirely different, and there was a man known to some as the "Draagyn" to whom I'd be reporting - I figured it was better to practice than to risk the wrath of the Draagyn's flames. I practiced that piece all summer long, so much that as I type this, 17 years later, I still know every fingering to the clarinet part of the piece. I knew from that moment on, I was going to have to work harder than I'd ever worked before, and that I was going to learn more than I had ever learned before. And thanks to Mr. Nygaard, I was not disappointed.

I have heard it said that the modern world does not want teachers but witnesses, and that if it does listen to a teacher it is because they are first of all a witness. Mr. Nygaard was a true witness. He didn't just ask us to work hard - he worked harder than all of us, and inspired us to keep up with his pace. He took us where we were, but pushed us to do more, to be better, to become greater versions of ourselves. But he didn't just ask this of us - he did this himself, too, as evidenced when he quit smoking in his final years directing the band. Many have fondly recalled his love of Jujubees, which took the place that the cigarette pack had once occupied in his shirt pocket, and some have said that he chewed those Jujubees with greater vigor when he was upset with the band. One band alum said that he thinks Mr. Nygaard chewed the hardest when addressing the tenor saxophone section - I think we all needed Jujubees to deal with the tenor saxes, and the tenor sax players probably wanted Mr. Nygaard's discarded cigarettes to deal with each other! But in all seriousness, Mr. Nygaard was a great model of conquering bad habits and always striving to be your personal best for the good of everyone you live and work with.

Mr. Nygaard allowed those of us who were in the band, dance team, drill team, and tall flags to not only flourish as talented individuals, but to become a part of something much bigger than anything any of us could have done or been by ourselves. We learned the value of practice, focus, determination, teamwork, and we collectively rose to a higher plane than ever before. Mr. Nygaard was sometimes hard on us, but always because he wanted the best for us; he loved us as we were, but far too much to let us stay there. And when he would express his disdain for field shows that looked to him like a "floating porkchop," I think that he wanted all of us to strive for greatness and even for perfection. By choreographing mirror image field shows, Mr. Nygaard not only expressed his deep appreciation for order and symmetry, but also knew that these kind of shows were the hardest to do well since the symmetrical formations easily reveal imperfections when not done properly. This never stopped him, or us, however, from striving for the very best. Because, after all, even a slightly imperfect mirror image testified to a symmetry and order that was greater than all of us, and in our striving for perfection we all experienced a little taste of greatness and, dare I say, grace. This is what made Mr. Nygaard's Marching SunDevils truly great. And thanks to him, even in our weakest moments, we were always much better than a floating porkchop.

During our visit, I was able to thank Mr. Nygaard for inspiring me to earn a degree in music education and performance, and he asked me what the future held for me. I told him about being busy with my two young girls, and shared a bit more about my life. He said, "You're a wonderful girl, and I know you'll be a great mom." As for me, I didn't have to ask Mr. Nygaard what his future holds. We both know that he is nearing the end of one journey, and preparing to begin another. And so in my heart, I say to him now, along with so many who love him, "Mr. Nygaard, you're a wonderful man. And I know you'll be a great saint."