It's been more than a month since I last posted, so I guess it's time for an update!
Like I wrote in my last entry, my Metro commuting days have come to a merciful end, and I have embarked on a new and entirely unexpected journey. Looking back I really couldn't tell you how this all happened. It just did. I mark my one-month anniversary this Thursday, and I still pinch myself on a regular basis.
I don't really have the words to articulate how much I love my new job. Aside from the surface things -- the money, the location, the greater responsibility -- this opportunity is really turning out to be something special. I haven't felt so "at home" in a situation since I was a college student.
When I was in high school and was first bitten by the journalism bug, I dreamed of doing such noble things -- giving voice to the voiceless and righting wrongs. With my pen and paper and keyboard, my writing could have an impact, my work had a purpose for the greater good. Well, I did write a few stories that fit that description and I will be forever proud of those efforts. But not everyone in the business strives for or considers such lofty ideas.
For the first time since I realized the power of the pen, I'm waking up in the morning filled with that same sense of purpose. My byline isn't on the front page of the paper or online every morning anymore. And I'm not chasing after the governor or some other high-profile state official.
No, instead, I'm traveling up and down the Northeast coast meeting and getting to know a group of men who've given their lives to the service of the Church, specifically the poorest and most abandoned of her members. My abilities are now at their service. My words -- written and spoken -- and my photos are the tools that will help them support themselves in the future, and, God willing, draw more to their ranks.
I really don't know how I got here, and I don't know how or why these men have so quickly found their way into my heart, but I know my priority every day is to do my best for them. They are and have been a gift to so many. My prayer is that they continue to be such a gift for years to come.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The end of my Metro days
Yes, yes, I know, I fell off the face of the earth there for awhile. But Easter, interviewing for a new job, accepting said new job, preparing 26 kids to become Catholic, and resigning from my existing job have all kept me kinda busy.
At the moment I'm enjoying some long-awaited downtime before I start this new chapter in my life. Last week was my last one as a commuter on the D.C. Metro, and true to form the nation's capital's public transit system just couldn't let me go without a little drama on my last afternoon ride home.
I had a seat in the middle of the first car on the train. We were stopped at the last station in the District. The doors opened, people got off the train and there was the usual few second lag before the driver closed the doors again. In that lag of a few seconds, a black kid, probably 18 or 19, comes running on the train through the first door in the car. He was pursued by a police officer -- short black guy wearing a navy blue vest that said police on it. The kid exited the train through the car's middle door, still pursued by the officer who was yelling into his radio that the kid was coming back toward what we all assumed was more police officers.
There was zero reaction among the train passengers, by the way, through all this -- no screams, no talking. Everyone simply looked up from what they were reading or watching on their iPods and watched the cop chasing this kid.
When the cop and the kid exited the train, we all started craning our necks to see behind us where it seemed the kid had been caught and the chase was over. But then, a few seconds after the kid and the cop left, another police officer boarded the train through the door the previous two had just exited. This was a short white guy, again same blue police vest...this guy had his gun drawn and just stood there looking around the car.
At this point, a number of passengers spoke up and told the cop, "they went that way!," pointing in the opposite direction. The cop looked bewildered and hurriedly left the train. How he got on the train without seeing the swarm of his colleagues around this kid, I'll never know. But he left us all on the train in stitches. Everyone got a good chuckle out of it.
Once the second cop had left the train, the doors closed and we proceeded on our way. There wasn't really any delay...all of this happened in the space of maybe two minutes.
But I guess I simply couldn't end my days as a Metro commuter without a little drama.
At the moment I'm enjoying some long-awaited downtime before I start this new chapter in my life. Last week was my last one as a commuter on the D.C. Metro, and true to form the nation's capital's public transit system just couldn't let me go without a little drama on my last afternoon ride home.
I had a seat in the middle of the first car on the train. We were stopped at the last station in the District. The doors opened, people got off the train and there was the usual few second lag before the driver closed the doors again. In that lag of a few seconds, a black kid, probably 18 or 19, comes running on the train through the first door in the car. He was pursued by a police officer -- short black guy wearing a navy blue vest that said police on it. The kid exited the train through the car's middle door, still pursued by the officer who was yelling into his radio that the kid was coming back toward what we all assumed was more police officers.
There was zero reaction among the train passengers, by the way, through all this -- no screams, no talking. Everyone simply looked up from what they were reading or watching on their iPods and watched the cop chasing this kid.
When the cop and the kid exited the train, we all started craning our necks to see behind us where it seemed the kid had been caught and the chase was over. But then, a few seconds after the kid and the cop left, another police officer boarded the train through the door the previous two had just exited. This was a short white guy, again same blue police vest...this guy had his gun drawn and just stood there looking around the car.
At this point, a number of passengers spoke up and told the cop, "they went that way!," pointing in the opposite direction. The cop looked bewildered and hurriedly left the train. How he got on the train without seeing the swarm of his colleagues around this kid, I'll never know. But he left us all on the train in stitches. Everyone got a good chuckle out of it.
Once the second cop had left the train, the doors closed and we proceeded on our way. There wasn't really any delay...all of this happened in the space of maybe two minutes.
But I guess I simply couldn't end my days as a Metro commuter without a little drama.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Hope for us works in progress
I especially enjoyed this reflection at this point in Lent. Here's an excerpt (courtesy of the National Catholic Register's commentary section):
God is an artist who has given his works the tremendous gift of being able to participate in their own creation. In his Letter to Artists, John Paul II tells us, “All men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: In a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”
But becoming a masterpiece is not easy. It requires courage. The man who gambles his entire life for pennies will never win big. Or, as Kierkegaard puts it, “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
Imagine if St. Joan of Arc had decided that it would be better to just stay in Rouen and be a nice, pious, good little girl? Or if St. Peter had decided that it was irresponsible to leave his fishing nets untended? If St. John the Baptist had tried to find a way of calling Herod to repentance without offending anyone? If St. George had been too modern and sensible to believe in dragons?
The courage required to become ourselves is, more often than not, the courage to be taken for a fool. “We are fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Corinthians 4:10). The respectable Christianity that is so often mocked and abused by atheist writers deserves every ounce of venom that it receives; Christ never called anyone to be respectable.
Why? Because heroes are never respectable.
They are very often respected (though generally not until after they have completed their quests), but, nonetheless, they are always a little odd. There is a kind of glamour that hangs around a Bilbo Baggins after he returns from the Misty Mountains, but the upright, ordinary folk will continue to warn their children that people who go in search of treasure are liable to become a dragon’s dinner.
Now, not everyone is called to be a public hero.
. . . . .
The soul that risks little cannot accomplish its own being. ...
Yet, it is frightening, because we do not know what we are called to become. Our identity is a mystery, hidden in the mind of God. It cannot be penetrated by our attempts at knowledge, “for no science can say who man is, where he comes from or where he is going” (to quote Benedict XVI’s address to a conference on “The Changing Human Identity”).
It cannot be discovered through navel-gazing and self-realization workshops. It can only be discovered in the process of living. ...
Read the whole thing here.
God is an artist who has given his works the tremendous gift of being able to participate in their own creation. In his Letter to Artists, John Paul II tells us, “All men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: In a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”
But becoming a masterpiece is not easy. It requires courage. The man who gambles his entire life for pennies will never win big. Or, as Kierkegaard puts it, “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
Imagine if St. Joan of Arc had decided that it would be better to just stay in Rouen and be a nice, pious, good little girl? Or if St. Peter had decided that it was irresponsible to leave his fishing nets untended? If St. John the Baptist had tried to find a way of calling Herod to repentance without offending anyone? If St. George had been too modern and sensible to believe in dragons?
The courage required to become ourselves is, more often than not, the courage to be taken for a fool. “We are fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Corinthians 4:10). The respectable Christianity that is so often mocked and abused by atheist writers deserves every ounce of venom that it receives; Christ never called anyone to be respectable.
Why? Because heroes are never respectable.
They are very often respected (though generally not until after they have completed their quests), but, nonetheless, they are always a little odd. There is a kind of glamour that hangs around a Bilbo Baggins after he returns from the Misty Mountains, but the upright, ordinary folk will continue to warn their children that people who go in search of treasure are liable to become a dragon’s dinner.
Now, not everyone is called to be a public hero.
. . . . .
The soul that risks little cannot accomplish its own being. ...
Yet, it is frightening, because we do not know what we are called to become. Our identity is a mystery, hidden in the mind of God. It cannot be penetrated by our attempts at knowledge, “for no science can say who man is, where he comes from or where he is going” (to quote Benedict XVI’s address to a conference on “The Changing Human Identity”).
It cannot be discovered through navel-gazing and self-realization workshops. It can only be discovered in the process of living. ...
Read the whole thing here.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
And that has made all the difference...
It's Wednesday. Two more days till Friday. Can't wait for the rain they're calling for tomorrow so it washes the pollen out of the air.
The economy still stinks. Obama's still apparently on track to deliver the commencement address at Notre Dame. And we've got 18 more days till Easter.
But the good news is that a little more than 2,000 years ago, a poor young Jewish girl said "yes."
And that has made all the difference in the world!
Happy Solemnity of the Annunciation, the commemoration of the Word made flesh and dwelling among us!
The economy still stinks. Obama's still apparently on track to deliver the commencement address at Notre Dame. And we've got 18 more days till Easter.
But the good news is that a little more than 2,000 years ago, a poor young Jewish girl said "yes."
And that has made all the difference in the world!
Happy Solemnity of the Annunciation, the commemoration of the Word made flesh and dwelling among us!
Friday, January 2, 2009
The Muse: Morning colors
This is the first of what I hope will become a regular feature on this blog. A little bit of writing about whatever happens to strike my fancy that particular day. This morning it was the sunrise. When you live near the water like I do it can be spectacular!
The horizon warms to a pale golden glow, lightening the water from black to a deep royal blue and edging the blue-gray clouds with pale pink. Rays of light cast sheathes of mauve and deep rose on the tips of the tallest trees and on certain patches of forest -- but not all -- leaving most in an indistinct steel-gray shadow, as if the light were filtered through a pock-marked concrete wall.
The horizon warms to a pale golden glow, lightening the water from black to a deep royal blue and edging the blue-gray clouds with pale pink. Rays of light cast sheathes of mauve and deep rose on the tips of the tallest trees and on certain patches of forest -- but not all -- leaving most in an indistinct steel-gray shadow, as if the light were filtered through a pock-marked concrete wall.
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