Uncommon Sense

Now, Madame is getting in on the Nickel Plate Trail action with me.  She’s been enjoying the sights, the weather, the destinations, and the conversation.

There’s nothing quite like enjoying a leisurely pedal across the countryside, mostly on a barely perceptable downward slope, with the sun on your back, culminating in a 99 cent spanish dog with pungent onions and tasty yellow mustard.  That hits the spot. 

My inaugural child got in his car this morning and drove to college.  If you don’t know what that feels like yet, I envy you and pity you.  My emotions have been casting themselves across the landscape of my mind like weather across the Indiana sky. 

My understanding, the classical Western understanding, of time is that it is linear.  I get that.  As the cosmic clock keeps ticking, I’m getting older at the same rate as everything else.   There was a time before I was, and there will be a time after I die.

But we’re talking about my kid here, come on.  Can’t we just stop the ride for a few minutes every now and then so I can savor the moments? 

Thats why we have memories, I suppose.  Some people would hit the stop button and decide thats where they wanted to stay.  Have you ever had a perfect day like that, that stands out in your memory like the full strength noonday sun after a month of clouds and rain?  There are two pictures in this post.  Both are “noonday sun” moments.  They’re glorious but you don’t want to stare at them for too long with unsheilded eyes. 

It was just a car trip.  Twenty miles or so.  But it was more than that, because it was the first of many trips that will eventually lead him down roads he has never known, and Ican only pray he nagivates them well.

And I wonder how many highways will end up between us in the end.

Congratulations, Aaron.

You know, I've been thinking a lot lately about scaling back. This is particularly because I have been doing this very thing myself, but also because I haven't gone far enough, and because there are spiritual reasons why I'm doing it. But I'm extending the scenario further. I'm focusing on the things I should be doing, the things that don't matter, and the things I shouldn't be doing. These are three categories, but if you get the right activities in the right categories, it can change your life. Once you throw the third category out and pare down the second, the focus becomes clearer. Reflection on the three categories reveals that I should be loving God more. I should be praying more. The focus of my life should be from "Catholic time" and not pop culture. By that I mean sanctifying time through the daily Office, the liturgical season, Saints' feasts and memorials, which decade of the Rosary is prayed on each day and actually praying it, and so on. Is it a feast day or a fast day? Is it an ember day or rogation day? I think of how rich my life could be, and I cringe when I see how shallow I am, and how shallow I've allowed my family to remain. I shouldn't be watching television at all. I should be seeking holiness and not wealth. I should be involved in parish functions such as Rosary and Benediction and Stations of the Cross. Just a few thoughts. What does your list reveal to you?

More thoughts on Dr. John Senior.  This humble professor really makes me think…deeply.  The Domino’s pizza guy is buil ding a brand new, outrageously priced Catholic city in Florida.  The SSJ tried to do it in Pennsylvania before they were uncovered for what they truly were. 

Meanwhile. across the nation, Auburn seeks a kinder shore.

Maybe I’m being too harsh, but my point is that there are plenty of half abandoned towns across this land with empty storefronts, quiet parks, half empty churches because everyone has made himself so busy.  Why build new when the same thing could be had right where you are by becoming unbusy and simplifying your life?  Ave Maria will end up being a half empty church in a town full of overly busy people if they don’t focus their priorities.  But you don’t need an Ave Maria to accomplish something great.  I’m not knocking Ave Maria, Florida, I’m just saying…

My own Peru is no different than any of the thousands of similar places where you can buy a house for a song and open a shop within walking distance from your home, sell the car and cancel the auto insurance, and have time to spend with your wife and kids.

If we were to but reject the allure of wealth be content to live more with less possessions, these dreams could be reality.  I know, I’m on that road.  I’m a man in transition, but I’ve taken the first steps.  Much more to do, but now that the doing is in progress…

…there is hope.

Something I had to do, if you know what I mean.  Recently, a great addition to Miami County, Indiana was the paving of a couple portions of the Nickel Plate Trail.  Now, I can get on my bike, hit the trail and basically ride to Kokomo, about fifteen miles away.  I did it a couple days ago, and believe me, my legs were sore.  That’s fifteen miles each way, mind you.

And this from a guy who just stopped smoking cigarettes at the beginning of August.  This sign right here in the picture is in Miami, Indiana.  Going South from Peru, you hit Bunker Hill, Miami, and Cassville.  When I got to Cassville, the asphalt was still too sticky to ride on, and the crew a quarter mile away was laying it fresh.  I did get several nice pictures of the late summer foliage and botanical specimens.

I’m still too stupid to know what most of these plants are, so if anyone reading this knows and would be kind enough to “skool” me, I’d greatly appreciate it.  I thought this one was cool and purply.

If I stopped to take pictures of everything I wanted to, I never would have gotten any riding done, but I’m happy with the ones I took.  It was quite a day.  I went through two bottles of a popular brand of electrolyte replacement sport beverage, a bottle of spring water, which is funny because it was in a bottle, and an ice cold can of a popular brand of carbonated lemon/lime soda.  I liked the soda best of all but I would have gone for iced tea if any homemade stuff had been available.  Unfortunately, there were no enterprising kids with a stand replete with sweaty, ice melty pitchers of iced tea and lemonade.  Now, the picture below is of a crabapple tree.  I know this for a fact because we had one in the back yard when I was growing up.  We also had regular apple trees there, too.  In the fall, we neighborhood kids would stockpile the rotten and fallen ones as ammunition, grab trash can lids as sheilds, and have all out wars.  The crabapples were not very good for apple fights.  None of us were smart enough to go and get a slingshot and try lobbing the crabapples with that, but this is speculation and has no bearing on what might have been.  If YOUR children want to try it, they can be my guest, and email me to tell me how it went.

More later.

07/07/07 came and went. It was a glorious day, a day that will go down in history as one of the sanest days of the young millennium. Then a bunch of uppity prelates got the idea to defy the pope and refuse to allow priests to celebrate the new-old Mass. BXVI responded that there would be a clarifying document on the way to help with the implementation of the motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum.” Now, 08/08/08 has come and gone, and still no clarification. Is this thing dead in the water? I can tell you one thing. There are many, many prelates who are simply dragging their feet, hoping that BXVI will die before SP is fully implemented. I can’t put it any more bluntly or clearly. They’re hoping for a modernist successor to affably wave away all the stinky “Ratzingeresque” implementations, all the while chuckling about what a lovable, doddering old sentimentalist he was, and how, now that he’s gone to his reward, the real agenda can be addressed. Far from me to be the first to bring it to your attention, but this IS the real agenda. This IS what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church today. Are you up for it? Will you back up the Pope? Or will you, like the obnoxious foot dragging prelates, simply stand back and wait for another forty years in the desert?