A Letter from Father Larry -- December 2008

Before there was Festivus there was Advent, that time of year when Christians, standing in a recurrently darkened world, turn their eyes to the East seeking the dawn of the Light of the world. Every year the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem grows more distant and the Second Coming at the end of time grows closer. But the focus of this wonderful season of waiting is not only about the beginning and the end, it’s about the birth of Jesus in us … the ongoing mystery of the Incarnation.

Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1328), one of my favorite philosophers/theologians, said it nicely. "I believe in God, but do I believe in God-in-me? I believe in God in heaven, but do I believe in God-on-earth? I believe in God out there, but do I believe in God-with-us? Lord, be born in my heart. Come alive in me this Christmas."

Festivus, on the other hand, got its start on “Seinfeld” as a holiday for those fed up with the commercialism of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. It satirizes the worst that these holidays represent: gifts given out of obligation, sentimentality that forgets compassion and gatherings that feign togetherness. In case you’re not familiar with the connection between Festivus and Seinfeld … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQFLqMyo0fo&NR=1.

Before you head off to Harris for the Festivus Dinner this Saturday, Dec. 6, I invite you to join other members of the Catholic Community and their guests for appetizers and punch to celebrate Advent after 5 o’clock Mass. We will be in the Ernst Common Room at Blaustein because Harkness Chapel will be set up for Make We Joy. The reception will be right outside Ernst. I promise you’ll have plenty of time to get to Harris. Bring your friends, Catholic or not – all are welcome.

As we approach the end of the semester, stress is all too common. If you’d like to talk, please stop by my office in the Chapel basement. I’m on campus Monday evenings as well as Wednesday and Saturday afternoons and evenings. You can also reach me by phone at ext. 2452 or by e-mail at lalap@conncoll.edu. You will be in my prayers and the prayers of other members of the Catholic Community.

If you’re looking beyond exams toward Christmas, you’ll find Advent inspiration at “Camels Seek the Star: a Festival of Lessons and Carols” at 4:30 on Wednesday, Dec. 10 in the Chapel. For online inspiration, go to the “Resources” section of the Catholic Community’s web site at www.conncatholics.com (if any of these links don’t work, copy and paste them into your browser).

We will celebrate a Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on Monday, Dec. 8 at 5 p.m. in the Chapel. Our last Mass together this semester will be Saturday, Dec. 13 at 5. We return for our first liturgy of the spring semester on Jan. 24. I wish you a joyous Christmas and all God’s blessings for 2009. Remember the true meaning of the season. Keep Christ in your heart.

Devotedly yours,

Father Larry

Advent & the Jesse Window at Harkness Chapel

Jesse trees – like the one in the window high above the front doors of Harkness Chapel – are traditionally associated with Advent.

Why? Because they show Christ’s lineage from Jesse, King David’s father, in accordance with biblical prophecy: But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. Isaiah 11:1.

The Jesse window -- and all the others in the Chapel -- were fabricated by stained-glass craftsman G. Owen Bonawit in 1939. The Chapel was Bonawit's last commission before the Depression pushed him to give up his business and move West, where he became a successful technical photographer. More about the Harkness windows.

Above is an image of David (playing his harp, perhaps before slaying Goliath with a slingshot) from the Chapel's Jesse window. Below is Christ, with a flower blossoming from him. More about Jesse trees and their link to Advent:

Fish eaters
Wikipedia
Catholic Culture

Happy 80th Birthday, Marion!

Marion is an emeritus professor of government and has been part of our community for … decades (?). She is fond of quoting Bette Davis: “Old age ain’t for sissies.”

Marion is no sissy. We can learn something from her every day about how to live life: never stop asking questions. Notice the small things. Appreciate what you have while you have it.

Marion went to grad school at Penn in the 1950s over the objections of her father. She was one of the first American women to do research in Africa and was a Fulbright scholar. She still follows politics in Africa (and the United States) with great passion. Most days you can find her at one of the computers at Shain library, reading The New York Times or checking out the latest scholarship on Kenya or Uganda.

Forty of us celebrated Marion’s birthday after mass tonight with supper and luscious cake from Motta's in Columbia – actually two cakes, one chocolate mousse and one vanilla with strawberry filling. You can see photos at the right. Or view a full-size slideshow.

Faith and Learning: It's in the process as much as it is the content

I have been reflecting since my last post on how I have tried to forge the connection I described between cognition and embodiment of faith and cognition and embodiment of the ideas, concepts, and facts we encounter in our learning experiences at  college; and I have added to that introspection what Barb mentioned in her most recent post, about framing work as a pathway towards a kind of existential fulfillment. Too often I (and maybe others) are guilty of seeing the current work/tasks/people with whom we must work as a means rather than as both a means and an end. Although the work that is done as a student is often times advertised as a stepping stone (and I believe much of it is), what we do in "the now" does define us--we don't become defined only after we have completed the preparatory work as a student awaiting the professional world or as an adult awaiting retirement. Thus, the process of connecting faith and cognition is, it seems to me, just as integral to having purpose in life as is the actual connections we make between the content of our work and the work we seek to do for God. 

Maybe this emphasis on process will help in making the toughest, or the most aggravating, work more doable. Even still, it remains a task to apply this thinking in the midst of a hectic day; but I suppose it is important to remind one's self that it is the struggles that define and shape us most!...

Happy Labor Day

It’s Labor Day, and I am thinking about work.

I’m thinking broadly: work is everything I do that gives me a sense of having accomplished something when I’m finished. That could be making a summer-veggie pasta dish, drafting text for a web site, folding laundry or serving cake at the 227th anniversary of the Battle of Groton Heights on Sunday. (Notice that two of the four have something to do with food? Hmmm….)

Work is a gift although I certainly don’t always see it that way. I was starting to feel like a servant at the cake table on Sunday, and when deadlines loom or work piles up, I get frantic. I need to do a better job of managing my commitments.

But when I think of what work does for me, I understand its value. To do something creative, to be productive, is fulfilling. It gives my life purpose. What I do during my life is my legacy, and so much of that is tied to how -- and how well -- I do my work.

Who was it that said something like, “Your work is to discover the world and then give yourself to it”?

Gotta go – the laundry is waiting.

Some Spiritual Reflections on the Start of Classes

This is a post that was inspired by Barb's thoughts on faith as a will to believe and a challenge to act, congealing with my own reflections about the role of learning and knowledge, and the ways they could be enhanced by our faith--in light of the upcoming semester of classes at the College. 

Perhaps one way to act on our faith is to make our pre-existing connection with God a part of the new and upcoming cognitive connections we make with the content, teachers and students we encounter in our courses. Bringing my spiritual life and religious disposition to bear on my identity as a student is by no means easy for me, for it is easy for many of us to compartmentalize our life the way the disciplines are in any school: We classify our being as the "school me" the "work me" the "play me" and the "religious/faithful me". Bringing faith to bear on the knowledge with which we come into contact is not to suggest applying a Christian frame of analysis to whatever we read or hear; it is instead a way to challenge the objective epistemological position that is so highly valued in an age driven by, and supportive of, scientific innovation. Parker J. Palmer, in his luminous yet crisp work, "The Courage to Teach", suggests that "[w]e are obsessed with manipulating externals because we believe that they will give us some power over reality... We turn every question we face into an objective problem to be solved" while the heart remains merely "an escape from harsh realities". Instead, maybe it is worth it for us to try on a lens that asks how the content and dialog we encounter in our classes connects us--or detaches us--from our "will to believe", or how it could shape our behavior in light of what God is asking of us. Since, if God resides in the heart as well as in what we see (or don't see!) everyday, shouldn't the heart be more than a romantic aside for the learner or teacher?

This could have implications for us all: We are all teachers, and we are all learners: "Teaching" and "learning" cannot exist without one another; their meanings coalesce and reinforce one another in an ongoing cycle--a dialog, between people, or between person and text. Maybe this semester we make it a point to more purposefully include God--our faith--in that dialogue to facilitate the new understandings we will acquire, and to help more holistically mold the beings we are becoming....

Here's to a great semester!

Being drawn to faith

In today’s gospel, Jesus asks the apostles who they believe he is. Only Peter replies: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter believes. He is the first person in history to declare his faith in Christ.

Father Larry asked today, what drew Peter to faith? What draws us?

Is it what we see? What we read? What we do? What we think about? It’s an important question a college campus, where we tend to intellectualize so much of our experience.

However we arrive at faith (I don’t like the word “arrive” because I think the quest never ends), belief is not enough. We’re called to act on our faith. It's hard to figure out exactly how to do this.

Maybe it goes back to what I wrote last week. Ignatius saw God everywhere, in everything. A first step for us today is to discern God’s presence in our everyday lives and act on it. To affirm it when we see it -- and create it when we don’t.

How is faith like water?

Thirsting. Quenching. Washing. Cleansing. Swept away. Drowning?!

This blog is a place to reflect about faith. I imagine we’ll most often be inspired by everyday life. Pay attention to what happens through the day, St. Ignatius would say, and you’ll see God everywhere – in all that makes you more alive, more caring, more loving.

Why water? Well, its presence here is pervasive: the Thames River, the Arbo Pond, the lush campus with flowering shrubs and towering trees that rely on water for life. Faith gives life too. By faith I don’t mean certainty. I mean a desire to believe. To believe what? That’s up to you.

In the week ahead I intend to pay more attention to what happens through each day, to experience the tides and eddies. Here’s hoping I don’t drown :-). Norman Maclean writes in A River Runs Through It:

“Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river ... runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”