S&F-The Wedding Crashers

Wedding planning is tough.  People send back their invitations so hopefully at least the planner can know how many people are there to plan for food and drinks.  But I think sometimes weddings end up having more guests than planned.  Hopefully there will be enough food and drinks for those wedding crashers.

This doesn't seem to be a new problem.  2000 years ago Jesus showed up at a wedding in Cana and brought all his friends.  The hosts probably didn't expect this and ran out of wine.  Mary, Jesus's Mother, asked him to take care of getting some more wine.  He initially said no (I guess there was no liquor stores in the day).  But his mother didn't let him off the hook, and Jesus completed his first miracle, turning water in to wine for the wedding.  This was probably the incident that started his public ministry and eventually led to his death on the Cross.

There is much to say about this incident as written in John's Gospel.  Mary, knowing her son, not allowing him to let the opportunity pass to help the wedding party.  The fact that the wine that Jesus made was just wine, but the best wine.  The miracle itself of changing water into wine is obviously a big part of the story.

The part that struck me as I was hearing the Gospel today is the fact that Jesus said it wasn't his time.  That "His hour had not yet come."  But in the end Jesus did what he was asked to do.

How often do we ignore our calls from the Lord?  How often do we think its not our time, that we are too busy, or that we will get to it later.  Maybe we just don't want to do it.  But we need to listen and be ready to do whatever God asks of us.  Just like Jesus did that evening in Cana when his Mother asked him to help, God is asking us to follow him by doing helping out here on Earth.  If Jesus can stop what he was doing to preform a miracle, we should be able to follow God's instructions today. 

1/14/25-Expiration Dates

Have you ever gone to the store and went to buy milk or eggs?  The first thing you have to do is to check the expiration date and make sure you are going to get the through item before the date comes up.  You need to make sure you are getting your value out of the milk before it goes bad and you have to throw it away.

What I am learning now is that people have expiration dates as well.  And when you see yours approaching a decision has to be made on whether things we do or purchase are really worth it, just like that expiring milk.

I don't really know when my expiration date is, but I know its out there.  It may be 6 months from now or a year, maybe even two.  All we can say for sure is that its out there.

So everything I do has to be weighed against its value for the next year or so.

I have a dentist appointment next week to get some work done.  Is it worth it to spend a couple of hundred dollars for teeth that need to last a year or so?  I look in my Amazon shopping cart and I always need to decide if I'll be able to get the enjoyment out of anything if I only have it for a year.

What I choose to eat even has a time value to it.  I shouldn't eat unhealthy food, but if I only have a year left maybe I should just eat what I want.  Of should I try to eat healthier and maybe extend that expiration date out some.

Time considerations even comes in to effect when thinking about medical issues.  Chemo sucks, but it keeps the expiration date out further.  So is it worth it?

Right now its important to keep that expiration date out as far as I can.  And in for my mental heath and attitude I need to think that I'm going to be around for a while.  So I will get the dentist work.  I will do what I can to continue what ever I need to do that seems to be working against the cancer, whether that's chemo or a healthier diet.

My expiration date is coming up, but its not here yet.   I am not ready to be that stinky carton of milk that needs to be dumped down the drain.  Not yet.

1/6/25-Gotcha Day

Today is Wade and Abby's Gotcha Day.  I never heard that term until a couple of years ago, but it is the day we adopted our pups from the dog rescue organization.  It is the day we got each other.

I think I have written about all my dogs before.  They have all meant more to me than I could ever imagine or put into words.  But I was laying in bed with Wade today and I was thinking about what he feels when he looks at me, and how maybe we can learn from that.

When I was young in school I saw hundreds of people every day.  I had conversations with a variety of people, some were people I agreed with, some not.  In the Navy, I was on a ship with just over 100 other guys.  We were enclosed for months at at time.  Every day I would be forced to work with people hand in hand.  We depended on each other for our very survival (sounds dramatic, but true).  Some of these people were people I liked, some of them not so much.  After the Navy, the my circle of relationships shrunk even more.  I still worked with people to get jobs done, but only for 8-hours a day.  And the fact that if we make a mistake the place where I live and sleep sinks isn't part of my current job makes the relationships I have with people less important than they were on the USS Hampton.

I know what you are saying.  "Matt has no idea what he is typing. What does this have to do with his dogs?"  Bear with me, I'm getting to it.

In a roundabout way, what I am trying to say is that I see in the world today, myself included, there is a lack of actual physical companionship.  The group of people we see or deal with on a daily basis has shrunk.  We try to use the forced isolation of covid as an excuse, but honestly, this was years ago and  evolution to isolation has been going on for years (decades?) now.

And that's what we can learn from our pets.  They need the actual contact with their owners.  They need the physical interaction to survive daily life.

We may say that we have 100's of friends on Facebook.  We may have thousands followers on Instagram.  People may have millions of views of their YouTube videos.  And some of those pages may actually be pages of pets.  But I don't know of any dog or cat who counts those as actual relationships like we do.

I see those ads for metal health websites (talking about you BetterHelp) on YouTube and Facebook.  I submit that maybe those social networks they advertise on are part of the thing leading to this mental health crisis they claim to be fighting.

Having a friendship on Facebook is not the same as having a friend you go see and drink coffee with.  Belonging to a group in Instagram with a common cause does not make you part of something unless you are willing to go out and have a discourse with people who might not have the same views.  In that case you are creating an isolated echo chamber for yourself.  Having 10,000 people view your video on YouTube about the dinner you cooked does not make you popular.  Maybe you would be better off cooking with friends and sharing a meal.

I know that we can't go back to the pre-social network days.  But maybe can scale it back some.  Its time we realize that we are meant to be social creatures-not via the wires going into our routers and the satellites above, but through actual physical presence.  Our pets seem to know this-and I know of any of them clicking on those BetterHelp ads.

Oh-and Happy Gotcha Day Wade and Abby!  Thanks for being part of our family!

Epiphany-Our Invitation from God

In the United States, we observed the Epiphany on Sunday.  However, today is the actual date the feast is celebrated.  So, this post is either right on time or a day late.

This year two things came to me as I reflected on the Feast of the Epiphany (not including how hard the word is to spell).

First-I don't think I ever really understood what the day meant, and how important it should be.  Today is the day that the 3 wise men (or kings, or magi-depending on the interpretation) arrived at the birth site of Jesus and gave him gifts fit for a King.  I never put the fact together how these were the first gentiles, non-Jews, to be lead to Jesus by a star and to worship the King of the Jews.  That's the Epiphany; the realization that Jesus is brought here to save all people Jews and gentiles.  Those 3 wise men represent all future Christians.  They are our forebearers in worshiping the Christ.

Second-The Gospel of the Sunday Mass was the story of the 3 wise men.  It is a story we probably are familiar with either through tradition or the "We Three Kings" song.  But until I listened to the homily (Thanks for a good one Father Marc) I never really focused on how little of the story was about the journey.  I would assume in the 1st century, travel in the middle east was not something to be taken lightly.  I would think that the 3 men had stories from their journey that could have filled pages about the difficulty of the travel or the people they met or dangers they faced.  But the Gospel doesn't mention it at all.  It focuses not on the journey, but the destination, their arrival at the new King to show him homage.

So, let us all Christians, celebrate the Epiphany as we should celebrate it.  As the day we received our invitation as gentiles into Christ's family by focusing not on our daily journey but on the star at the destination when, we too, will meet our Savior, Jesus Christ.

1/4/25-A Mother's Love

There is nothing more deep and impactful than a mother's love for her children.  

I definitely see that in the way my Mom looks at Amber and me.  Even as we are both in our middle aged years and our relationship with Mom has evolved from nurturing to supporting, I can see the love that Mom has for us.  I hope she knows how important that love for us is.

I see that same love in Cindy's love for our kids, Steve and Jeff.  As a father I love them both, but my love for them is nothing compared to the support and closeness that Cindy has for them.  The connection between them cannot be broken, nor can it be measured.

That motherly love is out there for all to see in the world.  In the grocery store the way a mother take's care of her baby in the shopping cart.  A mother cheering for her young child in athletics.  A mother rearranging her day to see the play or concert her teenager is in.  A mother supporting her adult child who is struggling to find direction in life.  It seems no matter where you turn you can see a mother's love for her children.

A mother's love has no limit, sees no fault.  A mother's love knows when it needs to be there for support.  A mother's love knows when it needs to be tough.  But mostly a mother's love is always there when you need it, even if you don't realize it at the time.

What I have as a Catholic is both the love of a Earthly mother, but also the love of my heavenly mother, Mary.  Jesus gave her to us at the foot of the cross to intercede for us and to support us down here on Earth until we can be united with her in Heaven.

So thank you Mom, for loving me.  Thank you Cindy, for loving our boys.  Thank you Mary, for loving me from heaven.  And thank you any mothers that might be reading this out there, it is your love for your children that gives hope to this world.

1/4/25-New Year's Blog Update

It's a New Year.  I have always looked at a New Year as a time to look at what I am doing and to try something new.  And that applies to this blog as well.

This purpose of this blog is for me to put down my thoughts and feelings for my therapeutic reasons.  I hope people do read these posts, and can get something out of them.

For the past couple of months I have been splitting out my feelings between two blogs, a general one and a more faith based one.  I thought it would be a good idea to separate my blog so people wouldn't be inundated with my more religious posts.  But they are all my feelings and my thoughts.

So I have made a decision to combine my posts into a single blog.  I will continue to link all my posts to Facebook, and I hope you will continue to read them.  It does make me feel good that people are ingesting my thoughts.  If my post for the day is one based more on religion, I'll make sure to make that clear in the Facebook post.

I know that some of you out there may not agree with my posts all the time.  I don't promise that my thoughts are popular or even correct, only that they are mine.  Let me know how you feel either directly in the comments of the post or in the Facebook comments.  I would love for my posts to start a discussion.

Why Did God Give Me Cancer?

Why did God give me cancer?  I ask myself that a lot.  I'm a good person. I go to church.  I pray.  So why does God give me something that is so hard to fight.  A fight I'm probably going to lose.

I take solace in realizing that everything has a purpose.  I got cancer for a reason.  God thought I needed cancer.  I just need to figure out why.

Maybe it was to show me the importance of getting the most out of every day of my life.  Maybe it was to center me on my faith in God.  Maybe it was to help me appreciate the Eucharist and the sacrifice Jesus made for us.  Maybe it was to write this blog to get my feelings about my faith out there for the people to read.

Whatever the reason, having cancer is hard.  But I need to remember that Jesus put me in this situation for a reason.  And when I think it it too hard, I need to remember that He knows what I can handle even more than I do.

He made me a cancer patient because He knows I am capable of handling it especially with his help and grace.  I continue to pray for His healing everyday, but I need to understand that He has a plan for me.  Maybe that plan includes a miraculous healing, maybe not.  But I have to have the faith that He knows what is best for me.   

1/1/25-"Why Not Me?"

Happy New Year.

I have never been one to make New Year's Resolutions.  However I always made goals for the New Year.  I would make figure out how many miles I wanted to run, or the number of hours I wanted to ride on my bike or how many times I wanted to strength train.

My goals for 2024 were different.  I wanted to walk enough steps to cover the distance of the Appalachian Trail (2148mi) and climb enough stairs to summit Mount Everest (2700 floors).  I was on track to meet those goals when I got sick and everything stopped.  I ended the year about 50% of my goal for both.  As I reflect back I think I knew something must have been wrong with me when I made those goals.  Compared to running 1000mi or cycling 200 days, those goals were rather tame for me.  Maybe I made them knowing that my body just wasn't right.

That brings me to 2025.  I really can't set fitness goals, because exercise isn't really part of my life at this point.  I think I need to just set life goals.  I know I have said before that I take every day as a new day before, but I think in 2025 I need to make sure that I'm getting the most out of every day.

Sometimes I just lay in bed or sit on the couch and feel sorry for myself.  I say, "Why me?"  Every thought revolves around cancer or treatment or an upcoming procedure.  There's more to life than cancer.

So for the first time that I can remember I am going to have a New Year's Resolution.  Rather than saying "Why me?" I'm going to try to change my attitude.  I am going to try to say, "Why not Me?"  After all I see the commercials for St. Jude Hospital and all the people who have to deal with childhood cancers.  I would rather it be me than one of them.  What I am dealing with is nothing compared to what those kids and their families deal with.

Hopefully 2025 will be a better year for me than 2024 was.  And if it is I will owe it all to a change in attitude.

And I'm still tracking my step and stair climbing goals. The progress is way slower than I intended, but everyday does bring me closer to my 2024 goals.