Preface

Faith or Bust Revisited

The Musings of a Father to His Children on his first trip to Kolkata

(Note to self: read this to the girls last night 4/19 and eventually need to re-write less complexly, but will work on future sections first, since the girls want me to write more for them.)

Preface

You are a mirror to judge myself

“Well, I don't claim to be smart."

When I read that to you today, you were astonished. Technically yesterday 4/18, but it was bedtime stories and I’m writing this around 2 am before I go to bed. That was from the last story I read of the three: "Take a left at the Goat", "Being surrounded by a bunch of nuns is a bit unsettling...", and "A motley experience".

Hope said “But you’re very smart, didn’t you skip two grades?” And while her intent was right - in terms of “knowledge” of the world, I’ve had outsized success - the truth is she was wrong. Which is yet another example of how “not smart” I’ve been. I haven’t taught you what to value. With God's grace and Mother's help, I hope to fix that. You probably want to know why I call Mother St. Teresa of Kolkata, Mother... some of my stories will explain that, so I'll save it for later, but know that I will mostly be talking about her when I say "Mother" and not "my Mom."

A Definition of Terms

Self Portrait

Let’s start with the word Humility. When I was in ministry, I would constantly espouse that the concept of Humility is harmed in two ways by our culture.

First, Humility is completely misunderstood by the world - St. Thomas Aquinas’ Question 161 Humility (One day I hope you will dive deeper into his beautiful work) tells us what the world believes about humility:

1. It’s not a Virtue
2. It’s a Vice
3. It runs away from great things
4. It is a desire to be imperfect
5. It is not intellectual, moral, theological, or inspirational

BUT THIS IS ALL WRONG! This is a perversion(distortion/corruption of original meaning) of Truth, one of the foundational redefinitions that make our language fight against the Lord. We must be savvier! Thankfully my spiritual father continues and to spare you my geeking out, let me poorly summarize.

There is a spectrum at one end is pride, at the other false humility, and in the middle is Humility. And false humility is exceptionally dangerous as it is a pretentious pride. True Humility is centered firmly on Truth. It is recognising who and what we are. Not withering from that truth, not denying it in false humility or embellishing it in pride.

Aye, there's the rub! How can the world understand Truth, when truth is believed to be created by each individual man. They cannot find the middle way, because it’s a contradiction of terms to say Humility is not about one’s self interest but instead about one’s position in reality. We are not called to darken in false humility and we are not called to burn fast with pride, we are called to recognize we are a candle that is meant to light the world around us.

Second (and boy this section is getting longer than I expected), True Humility requires humiliation. They come from the same root for a reason, it’s not just an accident of our language. Think of it as a spiritual easter egg. My humble (spiritual) Mother, St. Teresa of Kolkata taught me this and this pamphlet/booklet/book (wherever God inspires me to) is about those things I learned from my Mother when I met her. I hope to remind myself of this and other truths.

Now why would I talk about humility before I get to the why?

It's her eyes.

Let's be honest, there are two relevant truths in my life:

1. God has always worked on me
2. I’ve always been a cocky jerk.

Over the last two years since Serafina’s birth, He’s really moved my heart and graced me with openness to humbling. The first big change occurred on paternity leave, I became aware that the way I carried myself at work - as a multi-patented genius who knew the right way to solve problems (and of course everyone else was wrong) - was not who I promised myself I’d become. With His strength, I went back and started to right that wrong. I am by no means complete in that regard, but I’ve started. And we should not ask ourselves to be perfection now, but to make the choice and action of moving to perfection in Him. We will fail, but we have Confession and His grace to carry us while we fall.

The next big change was humiliation, being unable to leverage my worldly gifts due to the mysterious illness I’ve now had for 7 months. And there is no one like family to humiliate you for your shortcomings, even in sickness. I am realizing how deeply thankful for that. One day when I have been graced with greater perspective and insight, I’ll be able to explain that to you, but trust all things are for our good.

Since the Catholic Men’s Conference 2022 and the start of the Ukraine war, I’ve led you in changing our daily prayer time to center around a nightly Rosary. If you recall, I’m the speaker liaison and I get to chat with them and sometimes get to listen. This year, I got to listen and thanks to Mark Houck’s talk (he's the Founder and President of a ministry to men - The King’s Men), I had conviction churn in my soul. That's the uneasy feeling you sometimes get when you know you've done something wrong. He reminded me “memento mori” (remembering our bodies will die and we will then live with the choices we make now for eternity, so make now count for eternity). He also admonished us fathers (reminded us of our wonderful and serious duty) that the Father is the Bishop of the family as a church, and something I learned so long ago, and strengthened in Kolkata, comfort sucks!

Over the last few months and especially the last few days I’ve had the increasing blessing of conviction. I’m not where I should be. After your mom and I left ministry as a job in 2013 due to a dangerous leader, I’ve felt my calling as a father meant being provided for you through business success. The sadness and bitterness of losing what I thought would be my life’s work in ministry pushed me away from many aspects of evangelization/sharing with others about God’s goodness. Thankfully, God has given me an anchor experience which has centered my life upon His Rock. Not only will I talk about that, my spiritual parents (Mother Teresa and St. Thomas Aquinas), my shortcomings, my challenges, but I hope to do it all to bring you my dear children to Him who I hope you will love deeper than I. Thank you Maria for telling me I should write more and for the compliment that I sound like Percy Jackson.

I am not right, I am on the path to the Right.

Welcome to my stories, my loves.