Challenge and Opportunity

Togetherness and Autonomy

Sorrow and Hope

Joy and Celebration

seasonsOF FAMILY AND FAITH

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Things got complicated when I went to high school. The Christian Brothers

who ran the school taught the familiar Christian code, but other values were

important among the students—things like popularity, swagger, and cun-

ning. It seemed to me that my classmates were more like the pagan Romans

we studied in Latin class than the early Christians, admiring power and

beauty rather than humility and service. People who cheated got ahead of

people who played by the rules. Boasting, threatening, and sneering got you

into the in-crowd. Showing off got you dates. A gap began to open between

what I believed and the way I lived.

I collaborated with many wonderful people, but I also regularly dealt with scoundrels and liars.

18 Season of Challenge and Opportunity

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Jim Manney is a senior editor at Loyola Press and the author of A Simple, Life-Changing Prayer, which explores the Examen, a 500-year-old form of prayer that dramatically altered his perception of spirituality. (For more on the Examen, visit www.loyolapress.com/a-simple-life-changing-prayer.htm.)

Things got more complicated still when I went to work. One of my first jobs out of college was working as a newspaper reporter. I collaborated with many wonderful people, but I also regularly dealt with scoundrels and liars. I often had to do favors for these people to get what I needed. I learned the advan-tages of telling less than the full truth and how to manipulate other people. I became adept at getting what I wanted, and I didn’t worry too much about what I did to get it. I went to Mass on Sunday, and for the rest of the week, I did what I thought I needed to do to get by.

For some years now, I’ve been trying to break down that wall between what I believe and what I do. It helps that my career has been in religious publishing; my colleagues are more gracious than the “fixers and consultants” I dealt with as a reporter in New Jersey. But I still have challenges—at work, with my family, with my friends. Sometimes things don’t go my way, and I feel resentful. Sometimes I’m sure, absolutely sure, that I know what people should do, and I’m amazed and hurt when they do some-thing else. Sometimes, hard as it might be to believe, I’m wrong. Sometimes I give in to these feelings of resentment and pride and make things miserable for other people as well as myself.

Two things have helped. One is to be aware of myself, especially my weaknesses. When I get triggered, some of my reactions can be excessive and inappropriate. I’m on the watch for these responses—and once I see them, I face up to them. I ask for-giveness for my faults, both from God and from the person I’ve wronged. And I ask God to show me how to improve.

The other thing I try to do is to look for signs of God’s presence throughout my day. Breaking down the wall between faith and life isn’t just a matter of doing the right thing when you’d rather not. It’s also a matter of finding God in all things. God is there in church on Sunday. But he’s also there in the meeting at work, in the lunch date with a friend, in the errands you run. Just look. And when you see, pay attention. Let your awareness of God’s abundance change the tone of your day, your work, your life.

God is love. Notice the times you feel moved to compassion, empathy, or love during your day.

Whenever you forgive or are forgiven, know that God is present.

Take a moment to appre-ciate nature—God’s handiwork—at least once every day. Listen to the birds outside your win-dow, spend time in your garden, or simply look up to feel the sun on your face. Say thank you to the one who created it all.

Tell God how you’re feel-ing. Tell the good, the bad, and the ugly just to let God know what’s going on for you right then, right there. Listen for God’s response.

Read Matthew 25:31–46. Whenever you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, or clothe the naked (and that’s what parents do!), know that you are caring for Jesus.

WAYS TO FIND GOD

IN YOUR DAILY LIFE

I collaborated with many wonderful people, but I also regularly dealt with scoundrels and liars.

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S toryGoodMy dad read to me a lot when I was young. We always had a storybook going before bed. Later, I asked him why he read to me so much. He said that if you can find your way into a story, you can often find your way out. That sounded pretty Zen-like coming from Dad. I’m not sure I understood it at the time.

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36 Season of Sorrow and Hope

Several years later, I listened to poet Robert Bly talk about fairy tales and why they’re so  enduring. He said something very much like my father had. He made his point by talking about certain doctors in Europe who worked with patients in psychiatric wings of hospitals—many of them troubled by bad dreams and feelings of inescapable panic.Frustrated by their inability to reach these patients, the doctors began reading fairy tales to them before bed. Startlingly, many of the patients reported finding doors in nightmares where there were only walls before. Others saw light where there had been only darkness. Some patients showed marked improvement in moods and a lessening of agitation.

If I’m honest with myself, I didn’t always appreciate my father’s gifts, but I did always love him. He was an orphan, and his childhood had been tough. He lived in a foster home with lots of children moving in and out. The woman who ran the home liked my dad and raised him as her own. But there was nothing easy about growing up as a foster child in an orphanage in rural Maine during the Depression.

When he turned 17, he graduated from high school and immediately joined the military. It was a perfect marriage for him; it offered him structure, a way to find himself in the world, and a good job for almost 30 years.

Joe and his dad

at the beach.

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