Category: Culture

You'll Sleep Better at Night…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

if you remember that the media does not exist to tell you the truth. The media exists to get you to watch, read, or listen to advertisements. That’s how they make their money and so they’ll focus their energies on whatever it takes to get you to watch, read, or listen.

That’s why a politician with a dead hooker in his house will always be the most important thing they want you to know.  It’s also why you never hear about the millions of people doing good things and trying to live the best they can. There’s no gawker value in that, no blood, no scandal, no potential wardrobe malfunctions. As you figure this out you can cut the head off that monster by simply refusing to swallow the spoonful of turds they’re trying to feed you every day. If you don’t eat it they starve.

Whenever…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 1 Comment

you notice a politician, a preacher, the media, a salesperson, a celebrity, anyone in fact,  start shouting about a crisis that requires immediate and drastic action do just three  things.

Step back.

Take a breath.

Then ask, who gets something out of this? If you do you’ll find that nine times out of ten the whole thing is manufactured and somebody is making money, gaining power and influence, or somehow getting a “taste” from your panic;  if you let them.

Example. What happened in Florida with Trayvon Martin  is a tragedy no matter how the situation pans out. Notice, though, that  a whole industry has sprung up out of nowhere, or so it seems, to get TV time, influence, even to sell products all based on an emotional response to an investigation not yet completed.  The dead young man has almost become an afterthought, a tool in a larger campaign for whatever the people agitating about this feel they need.

This kind of thing, sadly,  happens all the time, across the political and social spectrum, and sometimes it seems the only way people try to get our attention these days. Just follow the money, follow the power, follow the flow chart to see who gets what out of the panic and you’ll gain wisdom. You’ll be able to separate truth from fiction, make solid decisions in the face of loose emotions, and know how to direct your energies towards good things.

 

The Answer…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 1 Comment

to the struggles and challenges of those who are dying is not to come to their house and dispose of them but rather to walk with them in love, compassion, caring, and friendship along the way. Even the dying have the image of God and should never be considered an inconvenience. The sick and the dying are given to us so that we can grow out of our self centeredness and become more human.

On Instinct and Life…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‘people.’ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war…. Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest….

C.S. Lewis

All I Ask…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

is one simple thing. Don’t complain to me about any politician, party, program, government issue, or anything else for that matter unless you also have a solution to the problem. We seem to be a nation where a vast majority of complainers whine about what a minority of doers are about. It doesn’t seem to make much sense to complain about something without having a solution to the problem, there is enough noise in the world already.  I hope to follow my own advice.

Orthodoxy and Yoga…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

I will actually give you another of my favorite examples, which is taken from the saint of our parish, St. Ephraim the Syrian. He has a beautiful image which tells us what kind of effort we are to make. St. Ephraim sees the human person as the “harp of the Spirit,” this lovely musical instrument. To play well the music of the Holy Spirit, we need to be clean: the harp needs to be clean and well-tuned, and its strings neither too tight nor too slack. That is our spiritual effort, the ascesis, all the things that are recommended in the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox tradition of fasting, almsgiving, repentance, thanksgiving, prayer: all these are means to achieve the tuning. That is what I see synergy is: a redirection of energies God-wards so that God’s energies can flow into us and transform us. I hope that answers some of the criticism.

Read more here…

Living La Vida Decaf…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

On Sunday, February 5, I went decaffeinated. Not by choice. It just happened.  Apparently they don’t give throwback Mountain Dew to people with jittery hearts. Thus the end. No tea, coffee, pop, those little cans of whatever they put in to make you get up and go. They bounce your heart around so if it has caffeine, forget it.

Now I’m just out of step with things. I’m the guy in slow motion while the world keeps spinning faster. Everyone around me is jacked up and I’m the one up to my knees in mud. We’re fueled by the stuff, the energy drinks, the coffees, the pop, and I was right in there. When I was traveling to LaCrosse for church I’d have one Monster on the way down and another on the way back. Then pop in between. Diet pop to be sure but still full of the juice. I was in the race, scratching with everyone else for. perhaps, those few extra minutes of awake that were supposed to make the difference between success and failure. I don’t know.

Now I’m living la vida decaf. I’m tired when I’m supposed to be and sometimes when I’m not. I’m sure my ticker is happy that my foot is off the soda accelerator but I’m still trying to catch up. So this is how people lived when they didn’t have Red Bull. The day just did what it wanted to do and you floated along as you could. Sun rise, sun set, work hard, go to sleep. Nothing buzzing, nothing fluttering, nothing wide awake at a time when nature normally says “Go to bed.”

I’m in the eye of the storm, watching the world swirl around me. It’s good because its calm, and quiet, and a lot less jumpy. Yet in a 24 /7 world I’m feeling like a throwback, like someone who just doesn’t get it, an upright bass at a Metallica concert. Some time before early February I had energy to spare and now I bounce along in the current. Maybe this is part of what Jesus meant when he said “Come unto me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”  It just takes some getting used to.

A Thought from the Pope…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Source: Catholic Education Resource Center| Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.

She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members….

It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.