Echoes and Moments

The Transfiguration, John Giuliani After I wrote my last post , many of you reached out to me with words of encouragement, support, solidarity, and appreciation. All of this I am immensely grateful for, especially since much of what I wrote delves into deep, unexplored, and certainly vulnerable parts of my being. There is a challenge in writing to invite your readers into your journey, whether through story, song, or poetry, each form allowing the writer to share a larger narrative where our humanity is allowed to shine through a little more freely. So much of our culture, I lament, is focused on self-perfection and independence. Individualism is a gift; it is not wrong. Yet it is only part of the story. Paradoxically enough, I've found that in order to reach into the deepest parts of my unique identity, I must explore the stories of the many who came before me. As I learn more about my ancestors, particularly those Indigenous peoples of the American Southwest, something awak...

We go through phases in terms of the stories that really captivate us, that connect to our humanity, connect us to each other, and to our deepest selves. Growing up as a kid in the Nineties, I remember a slough of disaster movies. Comets, asteroids, volcanoes, and other things threatened to end all life as we know it. We counted on people smarter than us, the scientists, engineers, and astronauts, to save us (unless you're Michael Bay, who will tell you that it's easier to train oil rig workers to fly into space than it is to teach actual trained astronauts how to use a drill). Later, in the early Aughts, it was fantasy that took over. The post-9/11 era taught us to depend on clear lines of morality, of good versus evil, and epic quests and heroic virtue that will rid the world of the darkness. That decade ended and ushered us into an era still in its heyday: that of the Superhero. Although Marvel and DC have different textures and color palettes, they both tell the sam...

26 Martyrs of Nagasaki, Japan. When it comes to literature, as with any other art form, there come to mind a few standouts of the many books I've read over the past year or so. I've let Dostoyevsky take me through Raskolnikov's anguish in Crime and Punishment. I liked the book so much that I eagerly took up The Brothers Karamazov, drawn to the story of intertwining lives as Alyosha, Dmitri, and Ivan find themselves amidst the brokenness of their family and how it shaped their (quite different) worldviews. Then there are the sci-fi greats: Frank Herbert brought me to Arrakis and I watched Paul Atreides ride sandworms to overthrow the villanous Harkonnen dynasty that usurped his family's claim to the planet they all call Dune. I picked up Walter Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz, which let the realm of monastic life provide a terrifying lens through which we view an apocalyptic and fatalistic future. All of these books have left a mark, introducing me to cul...

It's no secret that sci-fi is one of my favorite genres. Though I was raised consuming volumes of fantasy novels, sci-fi is cut from the same cloth. A good science fiction story draws upon enough believable material to make us engage with the story, with some good imagination and speculation to draw us into deeper, unknown, and perhaps bolder territory. I just saw a great example of how science fiction engages our deepest, very human questions, asking us to think and feel familiar things while venturing into new narrative territory. But before I talk about the film I'll give you a little background on why (and how) I came to love the genre. The journey began with some classic novels new and old (although science fiction is a relatively new genre, coming to prominence only in the middle of the 20th century). Some highlights include Frank Herbert's 1965 masterpiece Dune , where I followed the Messiah-like Paul Atreides on his quest to seek justice for the injuries again...

On a recent weekend trip back to my hometown of Roseville, near Sacramento, I marked an important milestone on my literary checklist. I completed Tolkien's epic Lord of the Rings  for the second time. By the time I closed the pages of the well-worn and dog-eared copy of The Return of the King , I felt like I had parted company with a group of close friends. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are the soul of the story. Though most of the story sees them traversing different parts of Middle Earth and facing different conflicts with the supreme power of the Dark Lord Sauron, ultimately they lie at the core of what makes the story great. The last time I read through the series I was scarcely out of sixth grade, acquainted with the fantasy genre through Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis, who led me alongside the Pevensie children through the enchanted realm of Narnia and beyond. Lewis placed the seed, while Tolkien watered and ultimately brought it to maturity within me. I'm surprise...

This has been a lonely season for me. I would describe my station in the spiritual journey as a desert, or the wilderness, if you prefer. Don't be alarmed for me; this is a familiar (and deeply sacred) place.  If you've been reading this blog at all, you'll know that I love the desert for its beauty, peace, and tranquility. Not only does the desert remind me of my patria , New Mexico, but it encourages me to look to God when all else seems hopeless and all life seems distant.  I am reading an excellent book by that great master of spiritual formation, Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932-1996), called Reaching Out . In it, he explains how loneliness is one pole of a spectrum of the spiritual journey. The other pole, which God draws us towards, is solitude. He quotes that great master of solitude, the Trappist Monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968). I hope you find this helpful if you, like me, struggle to allow God to draw you away from yourself, into himself, and into the deeper consc...

Dorothy Day is one of the most famous converts to the Catholic faith, and so it is no surprise, as I wander through her account in the autobiography The Long Lonliness , that I find much that resonates with my own journey into the faith. Her circumstances took her from the itinerant, bohemian life of a communist community in the Northeast, writing articles for various periodicals and newspapers that circulated her revolutionary proletariat landscape. Through the birth of her daugher, Tamar Theresa, she found a joy beyond words, and saw the hand of God melting the paradigms and destroying the boundaries that mankind had erected in the unjust schemes of capitalism that her community was revolting against. When she writes of her imprisonment for participating in a protest in Washington, she recalls the experience of reading the Bible to pass the time and seek encouragement, yet still clinging to the stubborn pride of her agnosticism: "I tried to persuade myself that I was read...

Allow the great near-eastern poet, Kahlil Gibran, to woo you with his words from his masterpiece, the Prophet , which provide me comfort as I reflect and remember the power and beauty that words can hold... In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to  die but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And ...

Sunset over central New Mexico, from atop Sandia Crest, August 2011. In my house there remains a recurring conversation about our dreams. As we arise in the morning, readying ourselves for the day ahead, I hear the now familiar question, "How did you sleep?" now paired with, "Did you have any dreams?" At times this question is hard for me to answer. Many times we awaken with the last glimpse of our dreams fading into the morning, and nothing is left but that feeling of mystery. It seems all detail of the arc of the dream has been left behind in the night. At other times these dreams are vivid and remain with us and allow us to process our unanswered questions, our longings, anxieties, and even hopes. The  popular culture  of my generation certainly has an interest in it. Still, I find I can connect more with those dreamers that remind me of my own roots, who therefore give me ground to engage an ever present struggle to carry the rich history of my family wi...