Uncommon Sense

Ten Reasons you should move to Peru: Reason 2

Reason one, cheap land, should have a wide appeal for many, especially those who live where real estate is unreal estate. The second reason is closer to my heart, the parish church.

St. Charles was glorious in it's heyday before the wreckovators came in after Vatican II and installed orange carpet and painted the ceiling mud brown. Don't even ask, I don't know. Maybe it was on sale because nobody else would buy it.

Certainly, no crew from "Total Makeover - Ecclesiastical Edition" was involved. Take a look at the first picture, it is from the 1930's. I'm not sure if they had "applique" in those days, so I'm assuming that the images to either side of the crucifix are frescoes. The ceiling was ornate and the detail work was amazingly delicate. Now this is what a Catholic church is supposed to look like.

According to whom? Why, people with uncommon sense, of course.

I have another picture of the church from 1964, and not much had changed. the altar rail had been painted white, the adoring angels on the outside pedestals of the high altar were gone though the ones directly to either side of the tabernacle remained.

If you really want to see it, let me know. But for now it will suffice to introduce picture number two, or what St. Charles Borromeo in Peru, Indiana looks like today.

Yeah, I know that the unwieldy and, shall we say, uncomely Advent wreath is blocking out a lot of the altar view, but it does show off the neon orange carpet and the brown ceiling.

And so I give you reason number two for moving to Peru. A lot of potential to work with. You see that someone had the foresight to suggest they put the altar out in the nave and wrap some pews around it to the right and left, thereby leaving the high altar undisturbed.

When somebody goes to that length to assault the Catholic sensibilities of the average parishoner, suggesting something completely unheard of and one might say "discontinuous" with tradition, they sometimes leave a base or two uncovered. In the end, it is pretty easy to reverse the ill conceived work of perhaps well meaning but destructive persons.

Another pretty church in the diocese also had the misfortune of enduring such an arrangement. I spoke with the holy priest several years ago after he was installed as pastor, and he didn't hesitate to bring up the subject of the altar arrangement.

After a campaign to institute perpetual Eucharistic adoration and months and months of down in the street pastoral work, he implemented a church renovation plan that ended up with the results captured in picture number three. So you see, we could have similar results here in Peru with St. Charles.

I say that it wouldn't take much, but it say it with tongue in cheek. But I've seen it happen, right down the road in Kokomo at St. Patrick's, where the third photo was taken from.

And yes, if you move to Peru, you can tell people that you live just north of Kokomo, and they'll think you're in the Florida keys.

St. Charles Borromeo is my domiciled parish, to use a canon law term. And I attend some weekday Masses there, but I attend the parish of my childhood in neighboring Wabash.

Once you get here, we'll figure it out. Stay tuned for reason number three.

10 reasons you should move to Peru: Reason 1

Today, I'm picking up where I left off in an earlier post (Auburn).  Don't freak out because there are some pre-conditions.  I'm not going to let just anybody move here.  But if you're Catholic and serious about it, if you have a desire to simplify your life and basically get off of the fast track and onto the Nickle Plate Trail, if you don't have a fear of "glad poverty" and you want to live in a small Midwest river town where you could walk to work, school and church, and are interested in transforming a town into a place where everyone (like us) would want to live, then consider my list carefully.  You think I'm joking, but I'm not.  You don't have to build an Ave Maria to have Auburn.  All you need is enough like minded families to band together, pray and work.  If we're going to build up a civilization of love, a small town in the Midwest is as good a place as any to start.  So humor me!

Reason number one:  Dirt cheap real estate.

Want to live in town within walking distance of church and work?  Here's what $100,000 will get you. 

Want to live in the country?  Add 22 acres to the above and add another hundred grand.  You could raise your own beef, pork and chicken, and have a garden big enough to feed the entire parish. 

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Just shine

 I went to Mass this morning at St. Bernard's.  That's BER'-nerd for those of you  who don't live around Wabash.  To the rest of the world, its ber-NARD', as in the dog.  But not in Wabash.  BER'-nerd.  I don't know why, unless folks were of the impression that the local non-Catholic population would think the church had gone to the dogs.  I for one would be proud to explain to everyone that the dog was named after the Saint, and not the other way around.  But I digress...

Mass was moving, not so much because of the way it was said, or the music selected, or the attendees.  It was moving for spiritual reasons that far tranend space and time.  I was connected in a way that rarely happens, to me at least.  Just a simple realization that in that place, I was united with every soul who had ever attended, or will ever attend Mass.  I was connected to the Church triumphant, suffering, and militant.  I was as connected to St. Paul as I was to some far flung congregation this very day.  I was connected to all those dwelling in the presence of God, bathed in the light of Christ's glory.  Because I was there, separated from divine rapturous obliteration only by the thin sacramental veil. 

I was feeling down because I'm worried about so many things and my heart has been heavy lately, but by the end of Mass, I believe some seed fell on fertile soil somewhere in my soul.  My heart lightened, not of my own doing I'm sure, and the words "just shine" pierced through the fog I'd been in like a ray of stinging sunlight on an autumn morning. 

Good and bad things are going to happen.  God is in charge.  I won't go through anything that wasn't designed for my good.  People are more important than things.  You were created to love God and spread that love like a flame.  Just shine.

So I will.

I got home and changed into some cycling clothes and hit the Nickle Plate Trail, rode to Bunker Hill and back, and on the way this guy said hello to me from the side of the road.  Does anyone know his name? 

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10 mile bike ride, destination: chili dog!

Now, Madame is getting in on the Nickel Plate Trail action with me.  She's been enjoying the sights, the weather, the destinations, and the conversation.

There's nothing quite like enjoying a leisurely pedal across the countryside, mostly on a barely perceptable downward slope, with the sun on your back, culminating in a 99 cent spanish dog with pungent onions and tasty yellow mustard.  That hits the spot. 

The eldest's first day of college

My inaugural child got in his car this morning and drove to college.  If you don't know what that feels like yet, I envy you and pity you.  My emotions have been casting themselves across the landscape of my mind like weather across the Indiana sky. 

My understanding, the classical Western understanding, of time is that it is linear.  I get that.  As the cosmic clock keeps ticking, I'm getting older at the same rate as everything else.   There was a time before I was, and there will be a time after I die.

But we're talking about my kid here, come on.  Can't we just stop the ride for a few minutes every now and then so I can savor the moments? 

Thats why we have memories, I suppose.  Some people would hit the stop button and decide thats where they wanted to stay.  Have you ever had a perfect day like that, that stands out in your memory like the full strength noonday sun after a month of clouds and rain?  There are two pictures in this post.  Both are "noonday sun" moments.  They're glorious but you don't want to stare at them for too long with unsheilded eyes. 

It was just a car trip.  Twenty miles or so.  But it was more than that, because it was the first of many trips that will eventually lead him down roads he has never known, and Ican only pray he nagivates them well.

And I wonder how many highways will end up between us in the end.

Congratulations, Aaron.

Scaling back to scale the heights

You know, I've been thinking a lot lately about scaling back. This is particularly because I have been doing this very thing myself, but also because I haven't gone far enough, and because there are spiritual reasons why I'm doing it. But I'm extending the scenario further. I'm focusing on the things I should be doing, the things that don't matter, and the things I shouldn't be doing. These are three categories, but if you get the right activities in the right categories, it can change your life. Once you throw the third category out and pare down the second, the focus becomes clearer. Reflection on the three categories reveals that I should be loving God more. I should be praying more. The focus of my life should be from "Catholic time" and not pop culture. By that I mean sanctifying time through the daily Office, the liturgical season, Saints' feasts and memorials, which decade of the Rosary is prayed on each day and actually praying it, and so on. Is it a feast day or a fast day? Is it an ember day or rogation day? I think of how rich my life could be, and I cringe when I see how shallow I am, and how shallow I've allowed my family to remain. I shouldn't be watching television at all. I should be seeking holiness and not wealth. I should be involved in parish functions such as Rosary and Benediction and Stations of the Cross. Just a few thoughts. What does your list reveal to you?

To hastening ills a prey...

More thoughts on Dr. John Senior.  This humble professor really makes me think...deeply.  The Domino's pizza guy is buil ding a brand new, outrageously priced Catholic city in Florida.  The SSJ tried to do it in Pennsylvania before they were uncovered for what they truly were. 

Meanwhile. across the nation, Auburn seeks a kinder shore.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but my point is that there are plenty of half abandoned towns across this land with empty storefronts, quiet parks, half empty churches because everyone has made himself so busy.  Why build new when the same thing could be had right where you are by becoming unbusy and simplifying your life?  Ave Maria will end up being a half empty church in a town full of overly busy people if they don't focus their priorities.  But you don't need an Ave Maria to accomplish something great.  I'm not knocking Ave Maria, Florida, I'm just saying...

My own Peru is no different than any of the thousands of similar places where you can buy a house for a song and open a shop within walking distance from your home, sell the car and cancel the auto insurance, and have time to spend with your wife and kids.

If we were to but reject the allure of wealth be content to live more with less possessions, these dreams could be reality.  I know, I'm on that road.  I'm a man in transition, but I've taken the first steps.  Much more to do, but now that the doing is in progress...

...there is hope.

Just one of those things

Something I had to do, if you know what I mean.  Recently, a great addition to Miami County, Indiana was the paving of a couple portions of the Nickel Plate Trail.  Now, I can get on my bike, hit the trail and basically ride to Kokomo, about fifteen miles away.  I did it a couple days ago, and believe me, my legs were sore.  That's fifteen miles each way, mind you.

And this from a guy who just stopped smoking cigarettes at the beginning of August.  This sign right here in the picture is in Miami, Indiana.  Going South from Peru, you hit Bunker Hill, Miami, and Cassville.  When I got to Cassville, the asphalt was still too sticky to ride on, and the crew a quarter mile away was laying it fresh.  I did get several nice pictures of the late summer foliage and botanical specimens.

I'm still too stupid to know what most of these plants are, so if anyone reading this knows and would be kind enough to "skool" me, I'd greatly appreciate it.  I thought this one was cool and purply.

If I stopped to take pictures of everything I wanted to, I never would have gotten any riding done, but I'm happy with the ones I took.  It was quite a day.  I went through two bottles of a popular brand of electrolyte replacement sport beverage, a bottle of spring water, which is funny because it was in a bottle, and an ice cold can of a popular brand of carbonated lemon/lime soda.  I liked the soda best of all but I would have gone for iced tea if any homemade stuff had been available.  Unfortunately, there were no enterprising kids with a stand replete with sweaty, ice melty pitchers of iced tea and lemonade.  Now, the picture below is of a crabapple tree.  I know this for a fact because we had one in the back yard when I was growing up.  We also had regular apple trees there, too.  In the fall, we neighborhood kids would stockpile the rotten and fallen ones as ammunition, grab trash can lids as sheilds, and have all out wars.  The crabapples were not very good for apple fights.  None of us were smart enough to go and get a slingshot and try lobbing the crabapples with that, but this is speculation and has no bearing on what might have been.  If YOUR children want to try it, they can be my guest, and email me to tell me how it went.

More later.

Where's the Clarifying Document

07/07/07 came and went. It was a glorious day, a day that will go down in history as one of the sanest days of the young millennium. Then a bunch of uppity prelates got the idea to defy the pope and refuse to allow priests to celebrate the new-old Mass. BXVI responded that there would be a clarifying document on the way to help with the implementation of the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum." Now, 08/08/08 has come and gone, and still no clarification. Is this thing dead in the water? I can tell you one thing. There are many, many prelates who are simply dragging their feet, hoping that BXVI will die before SP is fully implemented. I can't put it any more bluntly or clearly. They're hoping for a modernist successor to affably wave away all the stinky "Ratzingeresque" implementations, all the while chuckling about what a lovable, doddering old sentimentalist he was, and how, now that he's gone to his reward, the real agenda can be addressed. Far from me to be the first to bring it to your attention, but this IS the real agenda. This IS what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church today. Are you up for it? Will you back up the Pope? Or will you, like the obnoxious foot dragging prelates, simply stand back and wait for another forty years in the desert?

Heading to Carmel

This afternoon we're driving the family to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Carmel, Indiana to assist at the Gregorian Rite (Extraordinary Form) of Mass. The availability of this Mass is the fruit of the Holy Father's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, and we are grateful to Bishop Wm. Higi of the Diocese of Lafayette in Indiana for greatly expanding the availability here in north central Indiana. Though the Mass is currently held in a small day chapel on the Seton parish grounds, and I'm sure it will be standing room only, I have no complaints. I encourage anyone living in the area to support this important work. If you're further north, you'll be happy to know that Bishop John D'Arcy of the Fort Wayne - South Bend diocese is also expanding the availability of the Gregorian Rite.