Pat Marrin's blog

"This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Luke 15:2

Church marquees, those lightbox structures displaying the sermon title or a scripture passage, are the first indication of what lies within. Who decides the wording gets to be the face of that church, the first impression.

I don't often see the sign above: "Come, eat with us sinners." There are lots of sermons preached about avoiding sin, but the logic of this includes avoiding sinners, meaning other people who are the occasions of sin. The real test of this is at the Communion table, where in some churches sinners must be turned away because Communion has come to be seen as a reward for being good, not as a means to forgiveness and healing. Good people fear contamination from bad people. If we have advanced in age and experience enough to know that good and bad come together in most of us, we are told to at least leave our failings in the confessional first, then come to Communion. Wash your hands, then come to the table.

"We, though many, are one ..." --Rom 12:5

I like the little stickers they give you at the polling place for showing up to vote. I wear mine all day, glad I got to participate.

The common good is one of the basic social justice principles, and I apply this to ballot issues that may not affect me directly but serve the general good. Retired seniors do this when they support school bonds or sales tax initiatives for projects they won't benefit from personally but that are good for the community.

Dorothy Day stopped by NCR yesterday. We go way back with Dorothy. From its start in 1964, NCR has emulated Day's commitment to journalism in and about the church in the world. The Catholic Worker newspaper, started in 1933, is still in business, selling for a penny, still promoting a radical approach to living the gospel through houses of hospitality, the works of mercy and by opposing all war as an underlying cause of poverty and social injustice. We sometimes ponder who has gotten the most coverage ("ink") from NCR over the years, Dorothy Day or Oscar Romero. Probably about even. In 2010, we will celebrate again these amazing exemplars of holiness and service on the 30th anniversary of their deaths in 1980.

One of the benefits of living next door to small children is that they have taken an interest in the toys we packed away long ago as our own son outgrew them. He is out of college now, so we are talking about ancient bins of plastic Legos and sets of Playmobile people who once inhabited little houses made of foamboard and lots of glue -- "projects" that threatened to take over whole rooms in our house. That first round of playing with him was a rediscovery of my own childhood, and now I get to do it again.

Mustard -- Matthew 13:31

My sister turned 58 last week. She said she had visited my blog to see if I had written something about her. She is my only sister. There are seven of us, all boys except Mary Ann, the last to arrive and survive in a steady succession of pregnancies that was my father's pride and joy but, as we know now, wore our mother to a frazzle from 1942 until 1952. Our father was very Irish, married at age 36 after taking care of his mother, and he was in a hurry to have a big family, actually a baseball team, he said. My sister would have been in right field, but the whole idea fell apart when my mother miscarried number eight and my dad realized that seven was plenty and that having a daughter was better than a sports metaphor.

Of all the lyrics that blend human love with religious longing, Leonard Cohen's 1967 song "Suzanne" is perhaps the most provocative and moving. It describes a relationship with a young woman that is both real and beyond real -- a spiritual journey in which the meaning of love transcends bodily union to achieve communion outside of time and space. In the second verse, the song shifts focus to the mystery of Jesus and describes our response to him with these words:

"And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind."

"In great fright they cried out to the Lord." Exodus 14:5-18

There is great danger in being put in a position from which there is no path of escape. In 1940, some 330,000 British and Allied troops were trapped by the advancing Germans in a pocket of beach called Dunkirk on the coast of France. With their backs to the sea, they would have been decimated had not every available boat come across the English Channel to ferry them to safety.

"Take my yoke upon you ..." Matt 11:25

A man sitting on the bench at the bus stop kept looking at me as though he knew me. I didn't recognize him, and things only got more confused when he asked me, "Do you know Bill?" He was about my age, looked a bit worn at the edges, but he was engaging and eager to talk. As our conversation continued on the bus, I learned that "Do you know Bill" was an AA catch phrase one alcoholic might use to identify another.

"Pharaoh's daughter came down to the river ..." Exodus 2

Women rule the world. One sign of it, if you need proof, is the invariable presence of a commanding woman seated at the front of the morning bus who holds court, chatting loudly with the bus driver and keeping the world together and on track with her regal observations. Coffee left standing all night is undrinkable. People do foolish things, and they always pay for it in the long run. What goes around comes around. Pay now or pay later. God help anyone who doesn't respect his mother.

"I am Joseph, your brother." Gen 45:5

There are many stories about the late Pope John XXIII, and some of them are true. Asked once how many people worked in the Vatican, the roly-poly pope answered, "About half of them." On another occasion, momentous for its significance, Pope John welcomed a visiting delegation of Jewish rabbis by quoting today's Lectionary reading from Genesis 44-50, introducing himself to his visitors with the words "I am Joseph, your brother."

"The Lord hears the cry of the poor." Ps 34

Two stories in today's Lectionary readings--Hagar and the child Ishmael expelled into the desert (Gen 21), and the two demoniacs who confront Jesus (Matt 8)-- might have come from the morning news.

Visit http://www.unhcr.org, the home page of the United Nations High Command for Refugees, to get information on the millions of displaced, stateless, asylum-seeking, emigrating peoples around the globe.

Google the phrase "homeless and mentally ill" to find scores of sites like http://anxietypanichealth.com and to read a 2008 report on "the estimated 744,000 people who are homeless on any given night, 40 to 45 percent of them with a serious mental illness. Most of these mentally ill people go untreated, and unable to work, live a hand-to-mouth existence out on the streets."

Or if you live in any large or mid-sized American city, read your local paper or call city hall and ask about conditions on the street in your home town.

"Don't look back." Gen 19:17

Baseball legend Satchel Paige probably didn't know he was quoting scripture when he offered this famous tip for staying young: "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you." But he lived the truth of it by outrunning and outliving the long shadow of racism in American sports. Regarded by Joe Dimaggio as the best and fastest pitcher he had ever faced, Paige was welcomed into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

In today's Lectionary reading from Genesis, Lot's wife failed to follow Paige's advice and was turned into a pillar of salt. Avoiding salt might have been another of Paige's tips for staying young, as anyone on blood pressure medication knows. He did warn people off red meat, which, he said, "angrys up the blood."

"By sharing the cup of the Lord's suffering, they became the friends of God."
Entrance Antiphon, Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles

A writing teacher once said that a piece of writing has to have good bones. How many speeches, editorials, even novels are rhetorically fulsome and flowing but lack an underlying structure that holds the whole work together. Sounds great but says little. Style without substance. It lacks bones.

"Cornerstones of faith." Matt 7:21-29

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus cautions his disciples that the foundation of faith is action not just words. Church membership, perfect attendance at worship, theological credentials are nice but not enough. The bedrock of faith is to do the will of God. Build your house on this rock, not on the sands of good intention or ritual practice.

Incidents in the Middle East and in the drug wars in Mexico have brought beheading back into the headlines. This swift and macabre form of execution was common in the ancient world. Herod's dispatching of John the Baptist, like the brutal fate of all the male infants in Nazareth under Herod's father, sent a signal that a faltering and corrupt royal house would do anything to preserve its sovereignty.

John's beheading also served as metaphor for the gospel writers who emphasized that his greatness was as the last great prophet under the Law. He dies without understanding the new dispensation of grace he had ushered in by pointing to Jesus. He serves as the blind wedge that opens new vistas for God's unconditional and universal love. As a faithful servant, he enters what he could not have imagined, the last martyr of one story and the first hero of the next, arriving headless into the kingdom of God.

"All the land that you see I will give to you." Gen 13:15

North central Kansas is home to one of the most significant yet little known monuments in North America. A stone marker and metal plate located in a place called Meades Ranch, Kan., is the geodetic base point for all the survey lines in North America. I have often wondered why some adventurous high school class, as their departing prank, has not gone there at night and moved the marker, theoretically altering every property line in the country.

"Let's cross to the other side." Mark 4:36

This reading from Mark 4 is rich in imagery that no doubt informed most of the homilies churchgoers heard yesterday. The boat carrying Jesus and his disciples in a night crossing of the Sea of Galilee is caught in a squall and is taking on water. The disciples are afraid for their lives and cry out, but Jesus is asleep in the stern of the boat.

"May Christ find a dwelling place" Eph 3:8.

I was up past midnight watching an old Will Ferrell movie, "Talledega Nights," and woke up this morning with a spiritual hangover. Lord knows we need our comedians, but someone ought to remind them of Molly Ivins rule that comedy is a tool for poking fun at the powerful, not trashing the underdog. The jokes are lame and crude, the hillbilly caricatures wear you down. And every time I laughed I dug myself in deeper, displacing what sense of fairness and sympathy I try to maintain toward real people, life's ongoing comedy, myself included. And I woke up this morning feeling trashed.

"The Lord's Prayer" Matt 6:7-15

Kansas City is a self-proclaimed city of fountains. Perhaps the crown jewel of this claim is the large circular fountain near the Plaza that features horses and other figures frolicking in multiple jets of water. Approached from the west in the early morning, the towering plumes of spray catch the rising sun and magnify it in a rainbow play of light and water. By late afternoon, people will be sitting on the edges with their feet in the fountain or standing in front of it for pictures.

A drastic budget contraction for the city had earlier threatened funding to keep the fountains going. But like swimming pools in the central city as the summer heats up, the human importance of these water works became evident. Fountains lift the spirit. Swimming pools cool the body and tap off frustrations that might go back into the community. We need public signs of vitality to soothe and inspire, bring us together for beauty and comfort.

"Whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully." 2 Cor 9:6

Summer has come to Kansas City. Even at 7 a.m. the air is sultry. But what is hard on people is a boon to nature. Hot weather on top of recent rains has lawns and gardens exploding with new growth. Carrots and radishes, though small, are enough reward for Quinn and Emme, the children next door who planted a garden in our yard with my wife's supervision and encouragement. Stuff really does come out of the ground, and if you wash it you can eat it.

"Be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matt 5:48

This is one of the most enigmatic sayings in the Sermon on the Mount. What is perfection?

Greek architecture and sculpture expresses conformity with underlying laws of proportion pleasing to the eye and satisfying to the mind's need for completion, fulfillment.

Jesus offers a more mysterious notion of wholeness, applying it to God's capacity to hold everything, even contradictory qualities together. God's wholeness encompasses both good and evil, his friends and his enemies. God's love is unconditional, and to be perfect as God is perfect, so must our love also be unconditional.

In the postcript to her 1952 autobiography, Dorothy Day captures the human striving toward wholeness in the following words: "We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community."

"The other cheek, the extra mile ..." Matt 5:38

The local Catholic Worker House opens at 7:30 a.m. for coffee and donuts. It is a rainy Monday morning, and the guests who file through the front door are wet, many showing the film and grime of homelessness. Except for a brief quarrel between two regulars about who was first to claim the dishwashing job that earns two bus passes, the crowd is civil to the point of courtesy. Hospitality takes shape as everyone gets coffee and finds a place at the four tables with plates of toast and donuts, the morning newspaper. Patty, a volunteer, works two four-slice toasters non-stop to keep the toast coming, while Jerry, another volunteer, warms aluminum pans of donuts in the big oven to replenish the plates.

"We hold a treasure in earthen vessels." 2 Cor 4:7

I have seen this epiphany before, earlier this year, but know I can never predict when it will occur. It is a privileged moment, and I feel both blessed and like an intruder to glimpse it.

A woman and small son boarded the bus and sat in the front seat facing the aisle. When I say small, I mean both mother and child. She was about 4 feet tall, sturdy, her broad face suggesting Central American Indian features, possibly from Mexico. Her blue polo shirt with emblem, creased black slacks and crepe-sole black shoes identified her as an employee of one of the large hotels in Midtown. Even her diminutive stature seems a characteristic shared by her cohort, riding the buses at shift change times or walking to and from work from the apartments in the neighborhood. Her son was 3 or 4 years old, tucked in close to her, his legs straight out from the seat.

"He was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith." Acts 11:23

The bane of bus riders is having a dollar bill that won't flow into the slot because it is too wrinkled. The machine beeps loudly until you get it right, and the line of people behind you, especially those with automatic swipe cards, send a collective message for you to get with it. A crisp new dollar is hard to find. From printer to shredder, most paper money must live a rugged life, all those George Washingtons jammed into pockets, used in thousands of small transactions, folded and crumpled over and over before being retired.

A long digital panel at the front of the bus posts the date and time and, when a rider pulls the cord strung above the windows, the display says succinctly; "Stop Requested."

The Broadway musical "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off," comes to mind. Or a poignant moment on the Sunday morning news program, "Meet the Press" in 1968, when Robert Kennedy, besieged by questions about his possible presidential gambit, sighed audibly and said, "I can't very well leave the planet," though in effect he would depart abruptly on June 6 of that tumultuous year.

"The answer is yes." 2 Cor 1:18

The closest I have ever gotten to the Throne of Grace in this world was my father's mohair chair, where he held court in the evenings after supper. He sat reading the evening paper, his head tilted back to see through the bottom half of his bifocals and, inexplicably, often wore his hat, a carryover from the Depression years in Minnesota when houses were cool and drafty.

He could field any homework question, especially math, and he was open to requests for permission for this or that. A quick no was final, but hesitation left room for negotiation. My younger brother discovered that "maybe" meant "yes," but at a later time. My sister, the only girl after six boys, could get anything she asked for.

I try to imagine a day in which the answer is always yes. Think of a drive into work where all the lights turned green as soon as you approached. What if we knew that a prayer would be answered; how carefully we would think through what we were asking for. What if the whole world was granted a yes day. What would be the outcome if every prayer were answered?

A whole neighborhood, or at least our block, took note this weekend as a five-year-old boy named Quinn attempted the first ride on his new two-wheeler. His feet still don't quite touch the ground when he straddles the small green bicycle he will grow into over the next few years. Better to get one too big than too small.

His dad guides him the first few yards until he gets moving fast enough to keep his balance, then he is gone, coasting and pedaling down the long sidewalk. At the end of the block he stops to turn around, falters but stays upright, pushes off and is on his way back, triumphant, his face beaming under his helmet.

"Liberation," his dad says, knowing from memory that his son is now free to go further and further into the big world.

As we enter the season of Pentecost, a guiding hand is withdrawn and gives way to an inner center of balance, self-motivation. Coming of age has its privileges and responsibilities. The world is ours to explore and influence.

Because I am a cartoonist and know how cartoonists think, I anticipate a spate of political art in the days ahead depicting President Obama in the form of an Egyptian monument. The Sphinx comes to mind. What the Egyptians think of our messing with their monuments is important but beside the point for most cartoonists. We are shameless when on deadline. Remember, you saw it here first.

The president will be depicted in monumental terms because he gave a very big speech in Cairo yesterday. His message was dead-on accurate enough to be criticized by all sides with a stake in the complex issues that plague the Middle East. The biggest criticism is that it was just a speech. Words disappear like a whisper in the desert if not implemented. A year from now we will know if anything will come of this.

Monuments of stone and metal can endure the test of time for decades, centuries, even millennia. The images and inscriptions from the ancient world that hold their place in our consciousness do so because they touch our need for greatness, heroic metaphor, stories that instruct us how to live.

"There is no greater commandment than these." Mark 12:30

Early reports are that President Obama's speech in Cairo has been well received. He specifically addressed the world's 1.2 billion Muslims, citing major areas of tension that, he said, must be engaged truthfully and resolved with patient listening and fair-minded resolve.

"God is not god of the dead but of the living." Mark 12:27

In today's Lectionary offering from Tobit 3:1-17, poor Sarah has had almost as many husbands as Zsa Zsa Gabor, and all of them have died on their wedding night at the hands of a demon. The Book of Tobit is a gripping tale about God's answer to prayer. Sarah will require the Archangel Raphael and her kinsman Tobias to rescue her.