I’m 33,000 feet above ground flying back home after spending the last ten days on a pilgrimage with my 14 year-old daughter to World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland.  I’m physically exhausted, but my soul and spirit are flying high too after this trip.

World Youth Day is a pilgrimage where young Catholics from around the world get together to celebrate and share their faith.  I absolutely stumbled into this.  First off, I’m not “youth” anymore.  I had never heard of WYD and still didn’t know what it was even AFTER I signed myself and my daughter up and paid for the trip.  I had no idea what they meant by “pilgrimage.”  I had no idea what it meant to be a “pilgrim” (come to learn, it’s got nothing to do with Plymouth Rock).   It wasn’t until I finally looked through the paperwork, including the packing list, about ten days before the trip.  It said to bring a sleeping back and pad.  What?  I thought I paid for a hotel?  I didn’t have a clue.  So I call the pilgrimage tours company and talk to the president.  He’s telling me about how amazing it is to sleep out on the “vigil” before Sunday Mass with 1 million people in a big field.  I’m sorry, but all I could think about was how do 1 million people sleeping out in a field go to the bathroom?  The president of the tour company stressed, “Just remember, this is a pilgrimage, not a vacation.”  Huh?

Turns out he was absolutely right, it was physically and mentally exhausting (sleep deprived, jet lag, walking 5 miles+ each day), but it was WAY better and WAY more inspirational than any vacation could have ever been.  I’m on fire right now.  I hope I can keep it going.

Saint Pope John Paul II started this “World Youth Day” event back in 1985 and it’s held every three years at a different host country.  While it’s called World Youth “Day”, pilgrims generally attend for ten days to two weeks and there’s all kinds of other activities going on.  This year was in Krakow, Poland.  Three years ago it was in Rio.  The US hosted it once in Denver in 1993.  I really wanted to go Poland because of its rich and interesting geopolitical history (German occupation, concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Soviet control, Solidarity movement and first country to break free from Russia, EU membership, etc.) and Catholic history (JP II born and raised in Poland, Saint Maximillian Kolbe volunteering to die instead of a fellow inmate at Auschwitz, Saint Faustina and the Divine Mercy shrine revealed to her by Jesus himself, the Black Madonna, etc.).  I didn’t know it before I went, but 94% of Poles consider them Catholic, although less than 50% are practicing today.

[Side note – isn’t it interesting that Catholic participation among Poles was sky high while under Communist rule, but now that Poland is free and independent and subject to greater western influence, religious participation has dropped dramatically.  Folks look to religion when times suck but look to the altar of consumerism when times are better?]

This year there were pilgrims from over 180 countries participating in WYD.  Over 500,000 people attended the welcoming event for Pope Francis, 1.6 million participated in the vigil sleepover, and an estimated 2.5-3.0 million participated in Mass with Pope Francis on Sunday.  Read those numbers again – 180 countries, 500,000, 1.6 million and 2.5 million+ participating in events over three consecutive days.  It was hot and humid and there were hours long lines for everything – food, entrance, exit, bathrooms – but guess what?  Everyone was kind to one another.  I did not see a single fight or argument; in fact, I didn’t even see anyone raise their voice.

There were times when the crowds were overwhelming.  As someone who suffers from a touch of claustrophobia, when you’re in the middle of a sea of hot, sweaty bodies as far as the eye can see in every direction and you can’t move, it would be easy to freak out.  But I didn’t.  No one did, because everyone was kind and nice and singing and praying – literally.  It was unbelievable.  Huge masses of people of every color and nationality. slowly trudging forward praying the Rosary or the Divine Mercy chaplet and singing churchie songs and national ballads.

[Side note – you know what else was unbelievable?  Over 1 million college age kids sleeping out in a big field and I didn’t see a drop of alcohol or drugs.]

In the weeks leading up and while I was in Krakow there was terror and violence breaking out all over Europe — in Nice, Germany and even the slicing of a Catholic French priest’s throat on the altar by two members of ISIS.  There had been terror threats against WYD, my wife and family were freaking out, even texting me to “come home, you’re sitting ducks!”, but you want to know what I saw?  I saw JOY breaking out all over Krakow.  Take a look at this nun singing on the street corner:

 

That’s pure joy.

Look at the dancing and singing in the streets and fields of Krakow:

 

That’s pure joy.

Connecting and sharing our humanity with others from different cultures and countries.  Check out my daughter and her new friend from Jordan sharing ear buds to listen to the translation of Pope Francis’ homily:

That’s pure joy.

Times are scary.  I get it.  But we can’t let ISIS steal our joy.  Connect with your neighbors.  Reach out to those in need.  Focus on what’s good and right.  What comes from God.  Then share it with others.  Millions of young people got together to share hope, love and joy.  Since nothing negative happened, the mainstream media barely mentioned it, so we need to start doing it at a grassroots, person-by-person level.

Pope Francis told the pilgrims to avoid becoming “paralyzed” with fear.  “When we are paralyzed, we miss the magic of encountering others, making friends, sharing dreams, walking at the side of others.”  He also encouraged us to avoid complacency, that “this itself is a great form of paralysis, whenever we start thinking that happiness is the same as comfort and convenience.”   He encouraged the 1.6 million pilgrims to take risks and make their mark on the world, adding “My friends, Jesus is the Lord of risk, of eternal “more.”  Jesus is not the Lord of comfort, security and ease.  Following Jesus demands a good dose of courage, a readiness to trade in the sofa for a pair of walking shoes and to set out on new and uncharted paths. To blaze trails that open up new horizons capable of spreading joy, the joy that is born of God’s love and wells up in your hearts with every act of mercy.”

Amen.  Trade in your sofa … or computer … or smartphone … for a good pair of walking shoes and go meet your neighbor.

Last night we took the kids to the Portland Symphony Orchestra “Magic of Christmas.”  It was amazing.  They ended with “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”  The conductor said they wanted to find the perfect song to promote peace in the Christmas season during these crazy times of ISIS, school shootings and terror.  The words of the song come from Portland native poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

“Peace on earth, good will to men” always conjured up a feel good image in my brain.  A warm fuzzy phrase to share during the Christmas season.  Boy was I wrong.  Wadsworth wrote the poem during the Civil War.  It was a poem of lamentation, questioning and pain.  He had lost his wife, his son had been critically injured in the Civil War.  He saw war, death and suffering all around.  Wadsworth heard the sounds of Christmas bells amid the pain and couldn’t help but question,

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;

“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

But Wadsworth catches himself.  Even amidst the pain and suffering he finds hope.  He finds God in his darkest hour.  That is the message of Christmas.  “Emmanuel” means “God with us”.  Let us not despair in the violence, pain and suffering of our times.  Let us remember that a child was born thousands of years ago to give us hope.  To remind us that God is not some far off “Oz” in the heavens above, pulling strings and judging from above, but rather he came as a small child born in a barn to be with us and for us here on earth in our darkest moments.  In the end, good prevails.  God prevails.  As Wadsworth concludes,

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

Merry Christmas.

 

 

I love poetry.  Good poetry expresses things of the heart.  Things of the soul.  I haven’t written poetry since third grade (“I once knew a postman named Jud, who had problems holding his Bud …” Wow.  Lots of material for psychoanalysis in that 3rd grader’s life!).  Not sure if this is “good” poetry, but it did come from my heart.  My soul.

I was inspired by story of the Samaritan woman at the well.  I heard the reading at Church one Sunday.  Went home and read it again and my first poem is what came out.  Here’s the reading:

John 4:4-28

Jesus Goes to Galilee
4 Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), 3 He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. 4 And He had to pass through Samaria. 5 So He *came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; 6 and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about [a]the sixth hour.

The Woman of Samaria
7 There *came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus *said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 9 Therefore the Samaritan woman *said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11 She *said to Him, “[b]Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? 12 You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

15 The woman *said to Him, “[c]Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” 16 He *said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” 17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” 19 The woman *said to Him, “[d]Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” 21 Jesus *said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 God is [e]spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman *said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” 26 Jesus *said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

27 At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” 28 So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and *said to the men, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not [f]the Christ, is it?” 30 They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.

Here’s my poem:

Jacob’s Well
(based on John 4:4-28)

She came alone unknown in sinfulness
to satisfy her thirst.
With head drawn low he startles her,
asking for a drink.
You can’t mean me,
you know the rules.
“The rules I’m here to break.
I know you well, I love you still.
I am he,” He says.
Accepting grace, she drops her urn
and runs to tell her story.

As you can tell from the title of my blog, I’m not tech savvy (oops!). That being said, I feel excited to have a canvas to share my thoughts, prayers and inspirations. I don’t have any particular goals or objectives for this blog other than to publish. Put it out there. All things Frank.  Don’t really care if anyone reads or comments. I’ve been inspired by reading Seth Godin to take the leap, put it out there and see what happens!