Never Giving up and allowing ourselves to be helped

I participated in a triathlon over the weekend, and I was incredibly moved by an event that happened during the race. A group by the name of Cadence, which takes kids that are from difficult social backgrounds, and introduces them to training for running and cycling, which through participation in races does an amazing job at building confidence, and they have achieved some tremendous results, of kids who were couch potatoes, losing significant unhealthy weight, and doing better in school. About 20 kids entered the triathlon last year, but could not do the swim, because they never learned how to. When the event was over, the kids felt so great, that 3 of them proclaimed we want to do the whole thing next year. So a company that donates a lot of money to Cadence, agreed to pay for swim lessons for the kids, and I mean swim lessons from the very beginning, they each never swam before in their lives, the kids were 14 through 16. Over a year, they trained, and were ready for the swim on Saturday. Five guys from the company that sponsored their training swam around them for safety reasons, and about half way through the 1/2 mile swim in open water, the youngest boy had a pretty major panic attacked, and wanted to get out of the water, the main executive who sponsored the team put the boy on his back to help him calm down, and said to him, "your safe, let me carry you to the finish line,", the young guy agreed, and my friend did breast-stroke with a 200 pound kid on his back for 1/2 the race, they made it to the bike, were the kids literally dominated with their speed in biking and running.

There was an amazing lesson here, we know that happiness is only possible if we live lives that help others, when we give of our strength, but the opposite is also true, we need to be willing to allow ourselves to be helped. Our weakness is nothing to be ashamed of, and the kid did not quit, he finished the race, he allowed himself to be helped in areas where he was weak, and he made it to areas where he was strong. Allow yourself to be helped by God and by others, we do our best, and then in humility, we let God take it from there.

The Power of Beauty

I read a great article on the painter Thomas Kincade last week from the journal First Things www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/06/thomas-kinkadersquos-cottage-fantasy. The premise of the article is that Beauty matters, you will be shocked at the power of Thomas Kincade's early works, but he seems to have traded the pursuit of objective beauty for commercial success, judge for yourself. Above is a painting that I really like from Thomas Kincade which brings the viewer into a summer night. I was searching for Fyodor Dostoevsky's quote "Beauty will save the world," and instead found 8 quotes that will get your week off to a great start. Much of our life's success hinges on understanding that our hunger for beauty is really just a hunger for God's love. Once we figure that out, so much of life just falls into place.

>"Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side."
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

If there is no God, everything is permitted.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

To live without Hope is to Cease to live.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

To love someone means to see him as God intended him.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Levity and the Spiritual Life

Levity and Joy are so important to the spiritual life, because they are the antithesis of Discouragement and hopelessness. The reason its so important to fight against discouragement and hopelessness is because these are the times when we are most easily tempted. When we are thankful and full of joy, we are more likely to choose virtue and love. The saints knew this well, below are some examples.
St. Thomas More- thought that Levity was such an important part of the spiritual life that he actually bought a pet Monkey to run around his house, because he always wanted his home to be a place of jokes and laughter. In fact, basically the last thing Thomas More ever said was a joke. He told the person that was about to behead him that, he'd better sharpen the blade, because he was known to be "thick-necked". What Faith, he is about to get his head removed, and he is cracking jokes.
St. Phillip Neri- Was known as the Clown, he valued Joy and Laughter so much. Whenever a person came to confession taking themselves to seriously, he would give them a penance to lighten them up, for example he asked one man to shave 1/2 of his beard for a week. He begged God for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and God gave it to him in abundance. It was discovered at his death that his heart was almost double the normal size, he was so kind to people in confession, that people reported feeling warm whenever they would leave confession with him. He was truly a Lion from the pulpit, but a lamb in the confessional.
John Paul II- It was found out after his death, that he would sneak out of the Vatican to make ski trips in the northern part of Italy. He thought exercise was so important, that he asked the Vatican when he became Pope to build a swimming pool, when they stated it would be too expensive to build one, he replied, can you imagine how expensive it would be to elect a new pope, and they built the pool. When a reporter spotted him skiing one time as Pope, he was amazed how talented he was, and asked, "isn't it a scandal that the Pope is such a good skier," to which JP II responded, "It would only be a scandal if the Pope weren't a great skier,"
St. Francis of Assisi- It was said that whenever a brother would come into the community looking downcast, he would tell them, "return to your cell for prayer, until you discover the Joy of your salvation,"
We are made for Joy, just look at children, its their natural response to life. Prayer and the Sacraments are the road to Joy, especially confession and the Eucharist. As St. Francis said, after spending time before the tabernacle its very hard not to find the Joy of our life. I love the below quote from Tolkien,
"Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament . . . There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth . . . which every man's heart desires."

Positive News for a Change

I am always harping on the news and the media for giving the world so much negativity, when the truth is the world has so much wonder to enjoy. But when the media gets it right, I think its fair to give them credit.

1.) Better than Perfect: The blown perfect game last week for Detroit Tigers Pitcher Armando Galarraga was the first major news story. When I first heard it, my immediate thought was to give him the perfect game, it was obvious that he deserved it. Until I heard George Will's commentary in the Washington Post. He said that if you give it away, all you have is the 21st perfect game in history, but what happened was actually better than a perfect game. The actions of the pitcher and the umpire, was an incredible life lesson, and it made me realize what's terrific about the imperfections in baseball. Baseball mirrors life, in baseball the imperfections make it great, maybe we should realize that life's imperfections are what make life great. The truth of the matter is, "you can pitch a perfect game, literally do everything right, and on the very last play, the umpire kicks the call," True in baseball, and true in life. In life, we should expect that maybe God has something better planned.

2.) One of my heroes dies: John Wooden died on Friday night last week, and again the media caught the true essence of the man. I've never met John Wooden, so I can't vouch for anything about him, however I have to say that I have been greatly influenced by his thought and his philosophy since college. What has always struck me most about him, was how he placed process over results as the true measure of uncovering our own greatness. He never mentioned the word win, it was only about meeting our potential. When he was asked about this in a pbs special, the interviewer took exception with him, "I find it very hard to believe that after 10 national championships that you never cared about winning," Wooden stopped him, "oh no, you have it wrong, I cared about winning everyday of my life, I just never let the scoreboard be the judge of whether I won or lost," He would speak often about how there were many games where they lost on the scoreboard, but they won, because they met their potential.

3.) Shrek- Forever after: I took the kids to see Shrek, Forever after over the weekend, and I was expecting Hollywood to give my kids plenty of worldly ideas for their minds. But thankfully the exact opposite happened, I was amazed that Hollywood has given the world a true gem with this movie. It was fun, and had an incredible message: Life is sacred, so live it with true thanksgiving everyday.

The Best Things about Summer

Now that summer has unofficially kicked off with Memorial day, I wanted to offer some of my personal favorite things. Summer offers so many things to look forward to and enjoy, here's only a few, I hope to contuinue to add to the list over the next week:

1.) Summer Food (Bar-b-q's)- I absolutely love summer food, this could be a list in and of itself, I always think how food reflects God's goodness in so many ways, He could have just made the body to have limited needs from food, and those needs don't have to be enjoyable either, but God made it so that we need food to survive, and we can enjoy it. Corn on the cob, Jersey tomato's, wine or beer while over-looking the ocean at the beach, sea-food, water-ice, this could be a post unto itself. Food is a great opportunity for gratitude.
2.) Swimming- Pools, Ocean, Bay, Lakes- I love it all, and the fun things you can do- Surfing, water-skiing, body-surfing, exercise. Again, water reflects the goodness of God, we need it for survival, but God makes it enjoyable, I even like drinking water.
3.) Increased Family Time- There are so many things to do together as a family in the summer- Beach time, bike rides, concerts together, parades, baseball games, hikes, going for walks together at night time. We need exercise for health, but God makes it fun.
4.) Vacation-

I will add to this list as the week goes on, and please add any comments about the best things of summer;