History is key

Less than 1/4 of american school children know American History - enough to pass the required tests.

This made me think: 'What is the value of learning history and what are the most important subjects in school'?

It is a well known saying "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it". I think this quote does hold merit and truth. Human beings are naturally doomed to exist in a cyclical series of events if no effort is put forth to seriously change it. I think an example of this is with the political party of the president: it alternates, quite frequently, back and forth between the two major parties; rarely has it ever stayed in the hands of the same party for more than one or two presidents. We go back and forth, between our likes and dislikes and between our highs and lows. This is just the natural progression of human existence, I believe, and if no conscious decision to change this occurs, we will always fall back into the same lows and dislikes.

History. If I were to be a teacher or a professor, I would most certainly desire to teach history and literature. Why? I believe that History is the canvas by which Literature adheres. In my mind, you cannot separate the two and the two, if studied, will bring a whole new meaning to life and the horizons of our existence will illumine all the more.

History is an art. It is not a naive recitation of dates, facts and figures; but a study of human existence and how we have sought the great questions of our times and met the great challenges that threw themselves in our laps. History is the process of coming to know and understand individuals who lived before us and view living through their eyes and minds. We seek to know and understand what motivated them, what inspired them, what scared them, what challenged them, what they loved and how they loved; history is getting to know the people and ideas of teh past in an intimate way. When we know, truly know, more than just dates, we become full participants in this thing we call life and establish ethos for our current state of affairs.

Literature. Literature, to me, seeks to characterize, enunciate, create and make whole our lives. In understanding history, you will much easier and more wholly appreciate the beauty of the art of literature. You will understand how the people thought and what they believed and valued by understanding their literature and art.

The whole of humanity is encompassed in history and literature (and art as a whole). Everything else stems from this. You really cannot even discuss theology without understanding the people and how they thought.

History will enlighten us to have a direction of where we want to go. History creates the environment for discussing great ideas and for writing and reading literature and appreciating art.

History has gotten the shaft in the midst of an incredibly massive and complex educational infrastructure. The more that our youth and our fellow man loses touch with their history, the more rapid the deterioration of our culture will be. As that happens, we are doomed to be caught in a natural cycle of good and bad, high and low, war and peace, and tangled in a web of ignorance and naive assumptions of life.

Those who do not learn history are doomed to hurt by it.

Washington Distgust

This most recent bout of political posturing in Washington has got me truly wondering 'where have we come to'?

I am young, I cannot honestly testify to anything other than what I have known in the few years I have been of intelligence to follow and understand the game of politics and the art of government. I can only give witness to the yearning of times when statesmen carried a highly sought status and dignity, a nostalgia for something I have never experienced. I look and listen to these men who hold the highest offices in our country and the president of the this nation, at one time considered the most powerful moan on the planet, succumb to petty ideological stalemates.

I used to be a boy who admired and looked up to the image of the statesman. I admired the dignity, the reprehensibility, the commitment, the status and the power to effect so much - all for the promotion of people and the good. Now, all I see are politicians who effect for a reelection bid, who are in office to seek personal gain, who desire to make the other look bad by childish antics and immature and unintelligent, if at all, debates.

Where has the era gone where men went to Washington to debate, talk, dialogue and work to get problems and challenges met?

I never knew of a time in my life where this was executed, but I know as a boy, I admired a generation that did execute such dignity in their office. I still do admire that image and wish it was the image that populated our capitals. I have just become disappointed and disgusted with how these men, the highest and most noble in our nation, portray themselves and execute the offices they have been given.

This is an issue that I harbor a lot of opinions on and it will be something I will comment on as time goes on.

Sixteenth Sunday Ordinary Time, A

This past Fourth of July weekend I had the opportunity to go home and spend the holiday with my family. On the fourth, the kids had a picnic together without the parents! All my siblings, my sister in law, my one brother’s girlfriend and my niece and nephew all had a great time. We enjoyed the time together, had fun and lightheartedly made fun of one another. After we had picnicked, we decided to go see fireworks, so we all went across town and had fun while we were out there.

If you would have asked me fifteen years ago if I ever thought the Kleckner kids could get along and have a picnic without parental supervision – I would have said no way! We were really hurtful towards one another and we enjoyed it! It was a constant battle of three against two or four against one and allegiances changed hourly. My brothers and I also like to wrestle, so one day my mom acquired for us these huge floor mats that we laid out in a spare room, which undoubtedly became the wrestling ring! For some reason, we found it necessary and acceptable to be downright rotten and malicious – but we came through it. With the passage of time, growing up, the landscape of life ever changing and with new responsibilities of our own – we have become quite close and now do and say anything unkind in jest and with a laugh to follow. I consider us friends now – but when we were youg, I don’t think we would have had a consensus!

I bet many of you can relate to that. Either you had many siblings or you had many children, there is a dynamic that goes on among siblings / children where there can exist that crazy behavior and at times argumentative moments and as time refines us, in most cases, the bond cures and there, on the other side is a strongly bound group that no other human relationship can emulate or replace. Even if you don’t get along with your sibling, you know that there is that unique bond.

Jesus has given us three more parables in this week’s gospel. The reading is bookended by the parable of Weeds among Wheat. Jesus is still preaching on, just like last week, the mystery of the Kingdom. Jesus is telling us that good coexists with evil, and God allows this. The parable shows us that the servants ask the master “shall we pull the weeds?” The master says “No, let them grow together and at the time of harvest, we will separate the weeds from the wheat”. A natural response for us and question is ‘Why doesn’t God just get rid of all the ‘weeds’ and let the wheat live in peace’? Jesus doesn’t offer us the answer. Jesus, like we heard last week, wants the answer to unfold within us. Let me offer some guidance on that though.

The parable illustrates the dynamic relationship between God and the Evil One, between good and evil, and between sin and virtue. Sin and evil are real forces and entities in this world, truth. We can all sit here and think of our most difficult sin that we have to contend with; the most powerful temptations in our lives; the imperfection that perhaps blinds us; we can all do it. Now think of how you fight it, how you try to amend your life for it, think of how you pray for help, think about how you may ask others for help; think about how little, weak and humble it makes you and how you can only come to the recognition that you need a Savior, that you need God because alone, you can do nothing! As you overcome your sins, temptations and bad habits you are building virtue and fortitude and strength. As you work through the bad times an things of life, you are becoming a healthy stock of wheat. What you learn and become through your battles with sin and evil is what makes you a healthy grain of wheat. This reality of ourselves is wisdom into the great question of why allow evil? If God took away all the evil, then there really would not be free will anymore and no way for us to grow in spiritual and virtuous strength. There is no virtue of the martyr without the tyranny of the tyrant. This is not the textbook one-liner for why evil exists, but it is wisdom and a seed of the mystery to dwell within ourselves so we can see the truth.

If my parents forbid every act of aggression, every argument, every wrestling match from our childhood, we would not have grown through these experiences and become close and friends like we are today. We may have avoided some tears and blood, but, we would have been weak and had an artificial, of sorts, relationship. I am not here to give parenting advice! This is just a sliver of the big picture I’m carving out here to illustrate the gospel! What I am saying though is that the difficulties our humanity presents to us is what strengthens us, makes us humble and dependent on God, and gets us to be the wheat that God will pick on the last day and have us shine like the sun.

Fifteenth, OT A

I have never planted a garden. I don't even know if I have ever really planted a seed in the ground. I think the extent I have ever gardened may just be in the third grade when we put a seed in a Styrofoam cup and placed it on the window sill. Despite being anything but a gardener, I know that it requires a lot of work, constant attention, dedication, and it cannot take care of itself. A garden requires us to work.

Jesus is giving us a rather lengthy explanation of the parable of the sower and the whole reason behind Him employing parables to tell the disciples what He wants them to know. What it imporatant to take away here is that when it comes to us and God: God sows the Word that gets planted in ourselves and, if we are fertile, the mysteries will unfold.

The unfortunate thing is that the reality of it is that we are often cluttered with rocks, thorns and weeds and thus the Word of God has nothing to take root of. Indeed, we all have a spiritual dimension to ourselves and we all have the ability to pray and commune with God and experience what that means. We also, though, are humans living and surviving in this world so ther are far more things we need to worry about and have to consume ourselves with. We all need to work, pay the bills, save for retirement and find jobs if we lost them. We have things we want to buy, things we like to do, things we wish we could do, and things we should not do. We all like to consume our time by keeping busy and often times, it is those things that cause the greatest stresses in our lives that take the wheel of our lives. It gets quite difficult to meditate on teh mysteries of teh Kingdom of God when you have looming debt and a lot of unknowns in the near future. You take all this and add the stresses of family relationships, love relationships and SIN and you have a very rocky and thorny garden inside of you!

What do we do then? Are we to abandon our lives and become irresponsible by not taking care of things? No, we need to do these 'earthly' things because they are required to sustain ourselves and live in this world. They are necessary, but should not and cannot be the driving force.

The apostles ask Jesus, why do you speak in parables? Why can't you just tell us what we are to know and do? Jesus tells them that the truth of what they are to know is greater than what a mere imperative statement could give them. Indeed, the truths are mysterious and they need to unfold and take root in the deepest depth of their being; once that happens, they will know.

We are not called to be Carthusian monks who live in solitude for 22 hrs a day praying, but we are called to clean teh garden! Like I said, the demands and realities of life will not go away, I can guarentee you that. Jesus knew this. If it was easy for us to live here as we ought, then a simple statement from Chirst of what we ought to know would ahve sufficed. But, He didn't. He knew that in order for us to see God and experinece God as we should and as we were created to, we would need to have that experience and vision grow from teh inside out. Once you have the mysteries of God and the Kingdom growing and unfolding in your heart, then those take the wheel in your life. Yes, you still have the same worries, anxieties and demands this world puts on you, but you do them, not out of priority, but out of neccessity. Your only prioroty becomes loving. Loving is how we live out our experinece of God.

You have to carve out time to tend to your spiritual garden everyday. Just as we do for the ones in our backyards, we need to do the same for the ones in our hearts.

Let the Word of God rest in you. whenever a rock or thorn gets in there, push it out and go on. make that garden a priority in the midst of your life. slowly, as it starts to grow and blossom within you, you will see greater purpose to everything you endure for that garden.

The rewards are eternal and the fruit is heavenly