November 2005 Archives

My brother-in-law just took this photograph. You see, I came to League City last Wednesday to visit my sister and her family for Thanksgiving. I think that her cooking has had a salutary effect on me, because I'm feeling quite happy. Does it show in the picture? Of course, there are other reasons for feeling better, but no one should discount eating well, sleeping well, and relaxing well! Actually, I've made considerable progress in discovering the direction in which I want to continue with my life. If that doesn't cheer a man up, I don't know what will!

Back in August I received an email from a gentleman in response to my blog entry entitled "Time Travel." Below is a portion of his email to me, and what follows is the email that I wrote back to him...albeit three months later!

John,

I used some of your "time travel" post in the following-- that I sent to family and friends-you will see it below...

Would love to keep abreast of what the LORD's doing in your life. You're a great conversational writer! Pardon my "Southern-ese" in the following, used to get my southern relatives attention...

Peace be with you,

Ray

Subject: A "New Kitten" and Prayer, Time Travel & the Fourth Dimension

. . . [cut] . . .

Time travel: well, um-- is it possible, maybe... Theoretically, some think so, although there are certain mathematical issues and practical issues like avoiding blowing up or setting off a nuclear reaction in the process if we ever figured out how. Plus, time travel, from one perspective says, "you can go 'back'
in time, but not 'forward.'

HOWEVER, there is one way. One way to travel forward in time is prayer! And YOU can do it!!

YOU CAN AFFECT THE OUTCOME of events by intercession, by agreeing with God's ideas about the matter at hand, BEFOREHAND. IN THIS WAY, YOU ARE TIME-TRAVELING if your prayers are in line with the Father's ETERNAL PURPOSES.

Dear Ray,

Thanks for writing me. SORRY for not replying in, well, almost three months. Like I mentioned in my blog, there's hardly enough time for travel--much less anything else!

I appreciate your insight--how through intercessory prayer we can travel through time and affect the outcome of future events.

I have often thought of prayer as being able to affect past events, too, actually. It usually comes up in the context of praying for a friend. For example, many times I have told a friend I would pray for her so that she might do well on an exam at school. I know that her exam is at, say, ten o'clock in the morning--but by the time I remember to pray, it is already three o'clock in the afternoon! Did I just blow it and miss my chance? I don't think so.

God is outside of time. I understand eternity not as time going on and on without end, ad infinitum, but as being "constantly" in the present. Time, in many respects, is a measurement of change. But if there is no change, then there is nothing to measure, and hence no time. God, theology tells us, is immutable--that is, He doesn't change. God is eternal because He is outside of, transcendent to, all that is created. He is the Un-created One, the Creator. But only that which is created is changeable. God is so vast--infinitely so--that He encompasses everything, so that there is no need for change in Him. All that is, is in Him. I hope this is making sense; I'm not just making this stuff up, but trying to synthesize what I know from my studies in theology.

Anyway, the point of this is that for God, everything is in the present. Our past and our future are all part of God's "present." He sees and knows everything at once, in one act of knowledge. Sooo, at ten o'clock in the morning, when my friend is about to take her exam, God knows that five hours later--according to our way of reckoning time--I will say a prayer for her and intercede for her. Knowing that I will do this--not in God's future, but in my future and in the future of my friend--God takes that into account. Now, I'm not saying I know how intercessory prayer works, but I do know that it does work! So, however God takes my prayer into account, even though it hasn't taken place yet in time, He "applies" it and helps my friend.

So, what is it that I say at three o'clock in the afternoon? I usually ask that God, being eternal, will retroactively hear and answer my prayer of intercession for my friend. My prayer is a real act, a real decision I make with my free will to love another person and to love God, and so it makes a real difference in the world and acts as a "channel", perhaps, of His grace. Why God chooses to "honor" our prayers of intercession is another question entirely, of course, but it shows a bit of His omnipotence that He chooses to allow us to play a part in the drama of events in the history of salvation--even if we never leave our couch.

Interestingly, the same blog entry that you quoted from also contains a short passage about St. Therese of Lisieux, commonly known as The Little Flower. I don't know if you are familiar with her, but she was a Carmelite nun in France in the 1800's, and she died at the age of 24, never having left her convent. But she is the patron saint of missionaries, precisely because through her prayer--at the heart of the Church, she called it, which is love--she could reach out to peoples all over the world. Now, theologically, I think it is quite reasonable to extend the power of prayer not only to all places geographically, but to all times, both in the past and in the future.

Thanks for your email. It provoked some interesting questions!

For all of those dedicated fans out there, breathlessly waiting for the next blog update, your time of vindication has come. Tee hee.

I actually updated my blog, after I-don't-know-how-many months. Come to think of it, this little action deserves it's very own Blog Update Party. Hmmm, sounds like the title of my next entry.

Don't get me wrong. I'm actually deep into the job search here at the public library. But one can only concentrate for so long on such things before mental fatigue takes its toll. So, what's a hard-working man to do? Blog!

Now that I think of it, I've just decided to copy and paste this email, wholesale, to the blog. Not that this entry will say anything new. Still, it's fun.

Thanks for listening...

Well, I wouldn't necessarily call it an "hogar," but it's getting close. Why, only after last Friday, my last day of work, did I have time to fix up my apartment a little. That just goes to show how busy I was--and more to the point, how mentally and emotionally exhausted I was. What did I do? I bought lamps for my apartment, for one thing. The place was dim and dreary, and I lived that way for three months because I never "had the chance" to do anything about it. I even bought some new posters and put up the few posters that I had brought back with me from Rome--including a print of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the original icon of which I was privileged to see while in Rome. Among other things.

All of this is to say that I have a new mailing address, because I'm no longer living with the friend I mentioned in a previous blog entry. In fact, I've had my own apartment since August, but I just never "had the chance" to update my blog. Another sign of being completely overwhelmed by a job that I should never have taken to begin with? Perhaps.

Please email me with inquiries as to my new address, if it is of interest. Thank you!

Yes, that's my Latin professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome: Fr. Reginald Foster, O.C.D.

Peter mentioned that I should try to blog every day, even if only for five minutes. That doesn't sound too hard! But it does presuppose that I have computer access every day, which is a bit more doubtful.

The reason? I'm no longer working at St. Augustine High School, as of last Friday--and hence I don't have regular internet access. It seems that another door has closed on me, for the present, so I will continue forward by looking for an open window somewhere.

I thought I had a "calling" to be a teacher, but it seems that a number of factors were against me--overwhelmed by a workload that literally kept piling higher and higher on my desk, struggling to relearn material I hadn't looked at in 14 years while desperately trying to be prepared enough for the next day's lesson, trying to perform a role in front of the class every day that just didn't fit my personality. And so on. I think you get the idea?

It was comforting to think that I was teaching at a school under the patronage of St. Augustine of Hippo--doctor of the Church, and one of my favorite saints. It was reading his The City of God during the summer of 1995 that inspired me to take up and study philosophy, imitating in a way that moment of Augustine's own conversion when, hearing a neighboring child cry out "Tolle, lege", that is "Take up and read," he opened the Bible to Romans 13 and found a message that spoke directly to his soul. That was the summer of 386. Now, many centuries later, I seem to have flunked out of Augustine's school--maybe because of my bent for St. Thomas Aquinas who is, after all, the patron saint of students. Not that there's any real conflict between Augustine and Aquinas...but maybe I ought to continue down the road that I started so many years ago, with Aquinas as my guide.

Who knows, maybe I will end up as a teacher again? If I have anything to do with it, though, I won't be teaching math, and I won't be teaching at the high school level!