Tag Archives: faith

August 26, 2026 · 12:17 pm

Greg

“Sorrow’s springs are the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It is the blight man was born for… “ Gerald Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall

My brother died. To write that makes what seems impossible, possible, what seems surreal, real. He had done something he loved in the morning – a round of golf with one of his sons, Mark.

In the early evening, he was doing something else he loved – walking their border collies with his beloved Margy. He just stopped. Everything stopped. And he fell. One moment he was present with the sights and sounds of a quiet neighborhood summer evening in coastal Massachusetts, present to his curious and leash pulling dogs, and present to his wife in pleasant familiar companionship. The next moment he was not. He was one of my kid brothers. There are six of us. Always will be six of us, present or not. Greg is the guy with the grin and the Ireland sweatshirt he brought back with him from an anniversary trip with Margy.

Eight years younger, but he rarely did what I told him to do. I had insisted that the oldest one gets to go first, I was not going to say goodbye to a brother, that was the younger sibling’s burden to deal with. Greg didn’t listen. Or if he did, he ignored me.

Barry, Marty, Greg, Mark, Jack, Beth, Sibs forever

We talked or texted almost every day. Eight decades into this sibling thing, and we all still communicate to each other almost every day. Debating current events, politics, stories about our latest adventure, our Patriots, Bruins and Sox, music, philosophy of life, a meme, an odd story link someone came across, whatever was troubling us. Sometimes animated. Sometimes laugh out loud funny reading a text. Frequently that would be a text from Greg. Sometimes sharply disagreeing, but never without love. Very rarely more than a week passes without hearing from any of them unless someone is travelling far afield for a while. I haven’t heard from him this week. That isn’t an ache yet, but it’s a troubling void that will be a chronic ache and a hollow spot I cannot fill.

 Paul Gregory Parquette was born in Norwood, Massachusetts on February 15, 1954, the son of our parents John and Elizabeth (Laracy) Parquette. Greg was raised on Marguerite Road in Walpole, Massachusetts with his five siblings.  Next to youngest. Greg channeled his energy into sports from my earliest memories of him; playing baseball, football, and hockey. After graduating from Walpole High School, Greg attended two technical colleges, receiving certificates in HVAC and computer technology restlessly searching for something to make a living he would like to do. At GTE Sylvania Technical School Greg was top of his class. He was very bright but not academically drawn beyond that. Eclectic continuing education for the rest of his life. He never stopped learning.

Greg explored several career paths over the years: tried working keyboards at Adage in Woburn, as a machinist at Bird and Son in Walpole, and then a building superintendent at Castle Village Apartments in Randolph. He built his first serious career at Nippon Electric Corporation as a field technician. With NEC, one of his favorite tasks was to prepare for the World Series of Golf in Akron, Ohio. Greg set up all the computers, televisions and wiring necessary to broadcast the event across the nation. Got to know and befriend golf pros and CBS television sports personalities. He took on all challenges.

In 1992, in a major career path change, Greg left NEC for an opportunity with Fidelity Investments, a challenge he was well suited for and normally a job that required a degree or two. With Fidelity Greg learned Vendor Relations Management, acting as a liaison between the benefits and financial planning company and their clients, organizing their retirement and benefit plans. Until his retirement in 2017, for twenty-five years Greg helped his significant clients, including General Motors, protect the futures of their employees. While doing this he coached his son’s teams and served many years on the elected Franklin School Board where he lived.

Greg with our Mom at our daughter Meg’s wedding

In 1977, a young Greg hit the local social scene in his then fashionable leisure suit, visiting Dixie’s in Wrentham with friends. He caught the eye of his future bride, Margy, who was there with her friends. Their first date ice skating led to a second date, and over a few months, their love at first sight deepened. Our lad was completely smitten. On June 1, 1979, Greg married the love of his life, Margaret Rose Hanley, at Saint Mary’s Church in Franklin, Massachusetts. The newlyweds made their home in Randolph, moved to Braintree, then purchased their first home in Franklin in 1983. There they grew their family, welcoming their sons John and Mark.

Greg was a present and active husband and father who loved spending time with his family. As his boys grew older and became interested in sports, Greg was always there to support them with what he was so passionate about. He had coached Pop Warner Football and jumped at the opportunity to lead his own kids. He helped any way he could, whether it was coaching or volunteering his time and athletic skills for their teams. Greg never missed a game, sometimes leaving work and calling home to tell the kids to be ready and waiting in the driveway for him. Greg was able to keep up with the kids on the field and at home, swimming in the family pool every evening after work and playing “Wingo”, a rowdy game they created together with developing rules.

The Franklin branch of the Parquette family enjoyed traveling across the US from the Grand Canyon to Florida and North Carolina. They went biking across Nova Scotia, camped in Arcadia National Park, and rode in an RV to Toronto where they caught the Blue Jays playing in the World Series, getting access to the dugout thanks to friends. Later after their children had grown, Greg and Margy continued to travel, visiting Montana and other sights in the US. They celebrated their 35th anniversary making lifelong memories on a 10-day trip across Ireland. 

In his free time, Greg was a friendly information source for local sports. Whether catching the Beanpot Tournament with friends or watching the Sox play, every season he stayed current with his favorite teams Patriots, Bruins, and the Sox.

He continued to play golf with gusto and some self-provided entertaining play by play and to ride his bike all over town. He rode in a 150 Mile fundraiser for Multiple Sclerosis in two grueling days while in his fifties. He especially loved golfing with his sons. After Greg and Margy retired in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 2018, Greg organized the Redbrook CC Golf League every Wednesday. At home, Greg kept busy around the house, doing yardwork and home improvement projects, including a complete finished basement build out.

Greg was lovingly described as talkative, always having an interesting topic to discuss. Always ready for a conversation. He loved debating politics, much to the chagrin of those around him, with Greg often sharing news to make sure that everyone was “well informed”. Within his music-loving family, he was the one who most closely inherited their father’s beautiful tenor. Greg was the anchor leading Christmas caroling. Greg and Margy put in many hours of work for many years on the hospitality details while hosting our large extended family Christmas Eve gathering at their home. In addition to the beautiful carols, a highlight was a cutthroat Yankee Swap with deviously wrapped gifts. The competition to provide the most swapped gift and the consolation of bringing the gift no one wanted to be stuck with was ferocious.

There are many ways to describe Greg: loving, funny, kind, passionate, considerate. He was a mischievous son and sibling, a dedicated father and husband; and finally, a loving grandfather.

Three years ago, Greg was promoted to the role of “Papa” with the birth of his grandson Declan, whom he loved with all his heart. He will be sorely missed. I expect more than a few times in the coming weeks as has already happened, it will leap unbidden to my mind, “I’ve got to send that to Greg. That’ll make him crazy or make him laugh.”

Expecting still his advent home;

   And ever met him on his way

   With wishes, thinking, ‘here to-day,’

Or ‘here to-morrow will he come.’ Alfred,  Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H.

I must share some anecdotes that will always make Greg real to me. He won’t mind. Growing up in a family of eight, there are a thousand stories that made my mother prematurely gray. Car accidents, old beater $200 cars that only lasted until the next inspection, sports injuries, broken furniture from boys rough housing in the family room, school pranks that got out of hand but somehow avoided permanent police records, girlfriends gained and girlfriends lost. I could write for hours, but your patience would soon wear thin. All families have their favorite oft repeated stories.

One comes to mind that exemplifies Greg’s self-deprecating humor. He thought it demonstrated the Parquette boy’s aptitude for social miscues, a talent which we all share. Always a Parquette genius: if we are to make a funny screw up, make sure it is as public as possible and leaves us in an embarrassing situation. Greg enjoyed making us laugh at ourselves and our shared family proclivities, even if the laugh was at his expense.

When he was NEC, a large multinational Japanese owned computer corporation, he was awarded “Employee of the Year” for the whole company. A large annual awards dinner had him at the head table near the CEO and board members from the U.S. and Japan. Sitting on a raised stage in front of a roomful of well appointed dinner tables in a luxury hotel convention center. He bought a new suit for the occasion and was understandably nervous. The fall motif featured colorful autumn leaves centerpieces and pitchers of apple cider at every table.

During one of the major addresses by a senior executive, his attention was firmly fixed on the podium and the speaker. He refilled his glass from the apple cider pitcher over his lap but neglected to make sure the glass was under the pitcher. He realized his problem when he felt wet, a half glassful of cider poured out on his lap and soaked in. He managed to cover it up as well as he could and got through the dinner. We never heard what his exit was like. He told this story, ended it by pulling a wry face as only he could, and burst out laughing.

Yearbook picture

A second memory exemplifies his dogged persistence. In the early eighties, interest rates were ruinous. Not just for credit card debt, but even home mortgages were out of reach of those of us with modest means. Greg had a good job, but he was not rich. To qualify for a mortgage for the house of their dreams in Franklin, he shopped hard for interest rates. I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but a bank offered a substantially lower but limited rate and capped the offer. First come. First served, and when they were gone, they were gone. He had great credit and knew if you could get in the door, he could grab the mortgage rate that would allow them to buy the home. Doors opened Monday morning.

He spent the weekend in a foldout flat lawn chair and a blanket outside the bank so he would be among the first in line Monday morning. I remember visiting him there and bringing him coffee and something probably unhealthy to eat. He had a book and a portable radio to listen to a Sox game.

It was for his family. His Margy. Sleep is overrated. I cannot think of this sacrifice without remembering he thought it was a tiny price to pay. He spent a lot of the next twenty years improving that home. Building decks, putting in swimming pools, erecting a fence, and finally a big addition to help with Margy’s mom after she was widowed.

Ah Greg. I would believe you special if you weren’t my brother. But you are.  Oh my.

C.S. Lewis wrote a book about the death of his wife, a wife he had met after years of believing he was a bachelor don forever. He married his good friend to care for her and her son as she was dying of cancer. He wrote that what shocked him was how deep grief felt like fear. I understand that profound insight better. The book is one worth reading and rereading. He titled it, “Surprised by Joy.” He alludes to his wife Joy, his awakening as her husband, and both the joy and pain of being with her until the end.

The tile was taken from the William Wordsworth poem, “Surprised by Joy.” In that poem, Wordsworth mourns the loss of his three year old daughter Catherine. After her death, he experienced something beautiful that triggered joy. His mind told him to share it with Catherine and was reminded abruptly that she was no longer there to hear it. I know how that feels.

Christmas Eve Greg and I caroling

My last personal memory with him was two weeks before he died.  Occasionally we’ll go to a Newport Polo match five minutes from our home. We especially enjoy it with our local grandkids and our California grandkids when they visit. This year it was the America Ireland match always hotly contested. Greg and Margy showed up. That’s the thing about Greg. He often shows up. For our granddaughters dancing in Nutcracker or Swan Lake. He brings flowers and drives an hour to join us.

The kids love the ponies and the speed and stomping the divots between halves. Before every match, the full crowd stands for the national anthems, first the Irish, then the Star Spangled Banner. The piped music over the public address system and the dozens of flags along the sideline are moving. But hardly anyone sings. Except our family. I stood shoulder to shoulder with Greg. We sang. Loud. His always good pipes were well lubricated.  As grief slowly dulls its edges into lasting gratitude, what a grand memory to hold.

I’ll miss having Greg to share something beautiful with. And to sing together again. My faith tells me I will, and I can anticipate that with great joy. He was one of my most faithful blog post subscribers and commenters. Dozens of comments over the years that I can reread and cherish. Wish I could send him this one. He definitely would join the conversation.

“But how could I forget thee?—Through what power,

Even for the least division of an hour,

Have I been so beguiled as to be blind

To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return

Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,

Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,

Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;

That neither present time, nor years unborn

Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.”   William Wordworth, Surprised by Joy

I expect Greg would prefer a less somber and more hopeful epigraph. Love you, bro. See you on the other side.

“Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.” 

Dylan Thomas And Death Shall Have No Dominion

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July 14, 2026 · 5:24 pm

Journeyman

“A human community, then, if it is to last long, must exert a sort of centripetal force, holding local soil and memory in place. Practically speaking, human society has no work more important than this.” Wendell Berry, “The Work of Local Culture.”

Apollos Rivoire, a French Huguenot refugee, immigrated to Boston when he was thirteen. Apprenticed to a silversmith, he learned his craft well and built a good business. His son followed in his footsteps apprenticed to his father as was the practice for millennia. Joseph was a carpenter as was his son in Nazareth.  There is much to be said for the personal handing down of skills and understanding. The nurturing of young lives, training them day by day into respect for themselves, for each other, for hard work and its fruits. Apollos later anglicized his name to Paul Revere.

Paul Revere, J.S. Copley

His son was born in 1735 and became renowned for his beautiful craftmanship; some of his works are still displayed in art museums including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. [i]After the Revolutionary War that helped make him famous riding through the countryside to Concord and Lexington, to further his status in Boston society he decided to switch teams from a skilled artisan to a wealthy merchant as a nascent industrial age emerged.

Revere the son developed the business into lucrative trade after expanding out into other metals: copper and iron. He began manufacturing iron sash cord weights, church bells and rolled copper roofing, including the roof of the original capitol building in Massachusetts. Revere Copper Works started with a foundry and rolling mill in nearby Canton and still exists as the oldest still operating manufacturing company in America, albeit no longer in New England. Paul Revere was an early advocate of tariffs to protect his business from foreign competition, not to protect jobs, but to enhance profits.

Paul Revere exemplified America’s transformation from an agrarian society of rural farmers and local artisans into a nation massing in cities. American citizens converted by necessity from small-farm stewardship and skilled apprenticeships into specialized wage laborers ever more fragmented and distant from the self-sufficient small community folks who led the sort of lives Thomas Jefferson considered necessary for the American experiment in democracy and a constitutional republic to flourish.

Our agriculture and food supply providers devolved as well with thousands of skilled farmers gradually shrinking to far fewer large international corporate agribusiness managers, machine and chemical dependent, with its primary goal production and bushels per acre the sole measure of success. From mules and sweat and careful planting to harvesting combines and giant tractors. Utilization, not nurture. From the patient, observant skills of the artisan to tending the repetitive pounding of our technological wonders. From painstaking, paying close attention, respectful husbandry to mechanized plowing and harrowing. From rolling contoured pastures to strip mines.

“The first belt knife given by a European to an Indian was a portent as great as the cloud that mushroomed over Hiroshima…Instantly the man of 6,000 BC was bound fast to a way of life that had developed seven and a half millennia beyond his own. He began to live better and he began to die… In the sum it was cataclysmic. A culture was forced to change much faster than change could be adjusted to. All corruptions of culture produce breakdowns of morale, of communal integrity, and of personality….” Bernard DeVoto, The Course of Empire, 1952.

Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder

What can be learned from this brief quote and history lesson about what befell Native Americans? Can that lesson be applied to the great unsettling that seems to have uprooted our culture leaving us all unmoored and trying to figure out how we wound up so divided, adrift, and confused? Our two oldest granddaughters are on the cusp of Generation Z. They are the first generation in human history to grow up with an instantly accessible and seemingly unlimited portal into a strange, dangerous, and contentious world wide web in their pockets. Discerning information from disinformation, a tower of Babel unrivaled[ii]. As Jonathan Haidt put it, “The phone-based life makes it difficult for people to be fully present with others when they are with others, and to sit silently with themselves when they are alone.” [iii]

We have always struggled with what Blaise Pascal called “Divertissement” or distractions. In his posthumously published in 1670 “Pensées,” he lamented that most human tendency to seek distraction in entertainments, amusements of every kind, work, trivial conversations, gambling, addiction, ambition, even war. Anything to avoid confronting ourselves and thinking about our mortality, and the question of God. “(J)’ai dit souvent que tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre.”   (“I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”)

Already well-practiced talent in our predilection to distracting ourselves from the “Big Transcendent Questions,” our creativity and invention have led us to the most pernicious distraction ever devised. Not ex nihilo, but a progression, a development of our irresistible and relentless pursuit of distraction from what we most want to avoid.  Can this profoundly disrupting technology now be accommodated to in a few years?  Or like the Native American suddenly discovering a whole world beyond their centuries old culture, are we “forced to change much faster than change could be adjusted to.”

For everyone older, the transformation has been no less disorienting than for our befuddled Generation Z, and we are just as perplexed about what to do about it. Some of us long in the tooth can even remember a world before the web, even before the blinking cursor, MSDOS, our first desktop personal computers with no hard drives, and the first awakenings of our future: before the deluge of data that assails us every waking moment, and certainly before the shocking portent of artificial intelligence and synthetic consciousness. We old ones are truly anachronism personified.

We have barely cleared the highest rise of the world’s scariest rollercoaster, having endured the slow, clanking, inexorable, hooked-up tow to the top. Now we have crested the peak and are experiencing that vertiginous moment and glimpse of what’s to come. You thought the ride so far has been disconcerting? Raise your hands over your head, maybe start screaming if it helps some, and get ready for the ride of your life.

The Machine manifests today as an intersection of money power, state power and increasingly coercive and manipulative technologies, which constitute an ongoing war against roots and against limits. Its momentum is always forward, and it will not stop until it has conquered and transformed the world. To do that, it must raze or transmute many older and less measurable things: rooted human communities, wild nature, human nature, human freedom, beauty, faith and the many deeper values which we all adhere to in some way or another but find difficult to describe or even to defend.” Paul Kingsnorth, Against the Machine, The Unmaking of Humanity, 2025  

So, we ask, ‘what is to be done?’  How do we survive the plunge?  Perhaps more relevantly, how do we find peace from the din? Silence the unremitting tumult, the cacophony of the screens, the absolute noise of it all? Always connected, often lonely. The Solution will not be found in some innovative Federal program. There is no Solution in a new Progressive Program devised in a focus group or think tank. Never has been.

Not Solution, only solutions. Tens of millions of them. One heart, one mind, one soul at a time. With shared hope, we will gather to support one another in small communities of faith and comradeship, volunteering our time and energy. We can grow a few things in our gardens and relearn that connection with wild things, with the soil, sun, rain, and gentle husbandry; plant indigenous pollinator gardens instead of clearing more ground for chemically sustained fairway lawns squandering thousands of gallons of water. We can patronize local small agriculture through farmer’s markets, buy from artisans in our own towns, and frequent local coffee shops rather than do business with corporate chain stores. Learn their faces and names and stories. Have conversations we don’t have to type or thumb onto our phone screens. We can regularly worship with our brothers and sisters in that church down the street, acknowledging that there is a God and we are not Him.  

But, just maybe, we can shore up a foundation under it all, more essential than even those precious common efforts. Our healing and hope will take place in quiet rooms early in the morning with the window open and a good cup of coffee. Listening. Just listening.  

“The LORD said: ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord; the Lord will pass by. There was a strong and violent wind…then an earthquake… and then a fire—but the LORD was not in them; after the fire, a gentle breeze.[iv] When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. 1 Kings 19:11-13

[i] Image: Paul Revere, J.S. Copley, Museum of Fine Arts, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

[ii] Image: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babel, 1563. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons / Google Art Project

[iii] The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt, 2024

[iv] The original Hebrew text, “qol d’mamah daqqah,” translates literally to “the sound of a thin, gentle silence”

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July 5, 2026 · 5:26 pm

Visitation

“But even old men have young memories.”  Allen Levi, “Theo of Golden”

Ralph Town, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Decades ago, the first time I watched a moose swimming on Webb Lake in Weld, Maine, I had no idea how to help the poor thing out in the middle of a near mile wide stretch of water. If it started to founder and go down, I’d never get it into my small canoe, and a moose may not understand I’m just trying to help. My panic built. My embarrassing ignorance was apparent about the power of a moose in the water. I tagged along parallel for the rest of the way, and the bull unintentionally demonstrated how foolish I was.

The trip started on the east side of the lake where the huge animal was leisurely browsing knee deep in the water lilies, pondweed, duckweed, and horsetails off the shore. When it reached the far shore, it stood up without a pause and began to leisurely browse in similar water weeds to those he left behind as far as I could tell, not even breathing hard. I failed to see the improvement in the deliciousness of pondweed that induced a moose to swim nearly a mile, but I was not privy to the moose’s unhurried unconcern with the effort required to get to a new patch of soggy fodder.

A second lesson in Webb Lake wildlife lore occurred a few years later when I paddled a couple of miles down lake toward the southern end of the lake and the outlet into Webb River. The river was the route more than a century ago for the winter harvest of thousands of pine, hemlock, fir, and spruce logs as they were sent down the spring high water seventeen miles to the Androscoggin River and the timber mills. The longest ones with straight grain were valued as masts; they went all the way down the river to the sea and the colonial shipyards in Bath. Now the Webb River is rarely navigable most of the year as it meanders down through Carthage and forms the border between Mexico and Dixfield before it empties into the big river.

I always am the earliest riser in the camp and cherish those times when I can slip away in the canoe on the mirror surface of the early morning lake undisturbed by the winds that usually flow down from Tumbledown at the north end of the lake as the day progresses. The red predawn sky accompanies the silence broken only by the quiet splash of my paddle and the occasional plaintive loon cry, creating treasured memories. I’d get back in time to the camp to greet the sleepy ones and make breakfast.

The lake narrows considerably at the south end, and one time I came too close to a hidden loon nest I didn’t know was there along the darkened early morning east shore in a wooded area with no cabins. The male blasted out of the reeds and rose up out of the water in an impressive noisy display of aggression and wingspan spread intimidatingly wide to protect his mate and the small clutch of one or two eggs or the tiny brood of little loons (as distinct from the brood of our little loons back at camp). I detoured as fast as I could paddle to the opposite shore.  I regretted spooking the birds because too many encounters with too many people could cause them to abandon the old nesting grounds they return to every year and seek a remote lake not so infested with people like me. Webb Lake without loons would break my heart.

Today’s third lesson was what prompted me to remember these Webb Lake canoe stories.  I was on the lake in a large flatbottomed canoe by myself in the early afternoon and loaded no ballast rock in the front to keep the bow from lifting. I struggled to paddle without any counterweight in the front, and the wide beam made it awkward to move up in the tandem configuration.  Large lakes surrounded by mountains have their own weather, and unexpected wind can flow down suddenly over the hills down into the lake like a waterfall with considerable power. The wind came up along with whitecaps. With my unwieldy bow acting like a sail, I fought uselessly to resist it and paddle back to the camp. What I could manage was to guide the canoe to a nearby shore, drag the canoe up into the woods, and walk back on the camp road. Later when the wind subsided, it was easy enough to walk back and paddle home. In the early morning, the lake is often as calm and steady as the gaze of a wise old woman on a porch waiting for the sunrise. Fighting the wind is foolish, much better to go with it to safety.

“Telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told.” Wendell Berry, “Jayber Crow”

Raphael, Deliverance of St. Peter, Vatican Museum, Public Domain

What provoked all these canoe memories to bubble up was reading about the deliverance of St. Peter from jail in Acts 12. But I expect you’ll need a connection.

Peter witnessed the bloody death of his lifelong friend James, the brother of John, at the order of King Herod. Herod then had Peter arrested to ready him for the same fate the next day. Trusting nothing to happenstance, Herod had him chained up behind bars with four guards on a rotating shift, two of them chained to Peter, one on each side. The text said the fledgling Church was praying earnestly to God for him. Peter did what anyone would do in such terrifying circumstances: he fell asleep.

The same Peter who denied Jesus in the courtyard out of fear and panic on the night of the Lord’s execution on the cross, the same impetuous, emotional Peter leaping from the boat to try and walk on water, the same Peter drawing his sword to cut off the ear of the servant in the Garden of Gethsemane, the same Peter terrified by the storm while Jesus slept in the boat. That guy once so easily riled up. Chained up awaiting a certain painful death, he nodded off now secure in the trust he had in God. Clearly something had happened to Peter.

But in my reflection on the reading, what struck me first was the angel, the messenger, the envoy on a mission from God to rescue Peter. There was no turmoil, hardly any effort, and like the wind on the lake in a flat bottomed canoe, no possibility of resistance. The jail doors fell open silently, the guards fell asleep, the chains fell off Peter like autumn leaves drift to the ground when it’s time for them to let go. The angel gently woke a drowsy Peter and led him out to the street and away. No drama and not a chance of another outcome. If God, ipsum esse, the ground of all existence from moment to moment, wills that an envoy leads Peter to safety, well, Bob’s your uncle, he’s as good as free.  

Angels are sent on missions which they always complete with the power of God. Our task is to listen and do what they tell us if ever we are asked. Resistance is as futile as fighting the wind on the lake in a flat bottomed canoe. We can grumble and struggle, but all that will accomplish is to make us anxious. Guide it where it’s taking you, be thankful, pull into the woods, walk home.

“When you are old and can look back and see yourself when you were young. It is almost like looking down from Heaven.” Wendell Berry, “Hannah Coulter”

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November 9, 2025 · 3:49 pm

Afterward

  Ed died a couple of weeks ago. We went to his funeral, incongruously in the stately beauty of St. Mary Church in Newport where the Camelot Kennedys were married. Regular readers have met Ed here in another post. He was the gentle and once suffering soul who lived in an unmaintained mobile home with filthy floors, smoked too much, could barely clear the couch in his hovel to get to the bathroom, and took in homeless people just a click worse off than he was. He slept fitfully on his sagging couch with disheveled gray blankets of an indistinguishable original color, and his guests slept in his bed.

   Later he was moved against his will to a nursing home when pneumonia and advancing neuropathy and Parkinson’s took him down. The ambulance brought him to the hospital, and they wouldn’t let him go home again. We continued to bring him the Eucharist on Sundays after Mass there and celebrate a brief liturgy. It wasn’t a bad place as such places go, and the staff was kind. He was always astonishingly attentive and grateful and reverent with the Blessed Sacrament.

   I took him on an outing one morning in late September after he had recovered somehow from a bout with COVID. He was officially in hospice, but the nurse said I could take him out if I promised to bring him back as soon as he got tired. He could no longer walk, but the nurse helped me move him into the car from the wheelchair. His frail body weighed about as much as my twelve year old granddaughter.

  I had hoped we could go in the chair to a bench overlooking Second Beach outside the Sachuest Point Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center where we volunteer on Fridays. He once loved to walk the trails there when he could. Now even the move in a wheelchair to the bench was beyond him. So, we remained in the car and talked and just sat. Then we drove a couple of miles to Sweetberry Farm, drank coffee, and ate blueberry muffins from their small bakery there. We parked overlooking the orchard and fields and distant hills next to the tall hydrangeas. He most wanted to lower the windows and examine more closely the blooms on the hydrangeas. He was content to sit in silence and contemplate the flowers until he asked quietly if we could go back to his shared room so he could take a nap in his bed.  

“When they heard the sound of the Lord God walking about the garden in the breezy part of the day..” from Genesis 3

  Adam and Eve hid from God because they were afraid and ashamed, though they had never been that before they listened to the snake. They ate the fruit of the tree of good and evil, which was the only fruit of all the delightful trees in the garden from which they had been forbidden. Even though they were completely happy, they wanted more even though they had been warned it would ruin them. They wanted to become like God, to be God, and we still do strive to be so. In doing so, we struggle, fail, alienate ourselves from God and from one another; hurt ourselves and others. We want to be God, but we’re not and cannot be.

  But we are given a lovely image, a glimpse before the Fall when the Lord God walked about the garden in the breezy part of the day. Adam and Eve could join Him, talk with Him about all that is wonderful, laugh with Him, take in the incomprehensible beauty of the garden, of all God had made for us to enjoy, to be utterly joyful within.

  Now, this little bit of anthropomorphizing God is metaphor. We have no idea what before or after are.

  We have been told that whatever comes after our earthly heart stops and our brain stills will be more than we can ‘ask or imagine,’ but we cannot know what the beatific vision will be like. We have been told that there is more than dying and returning to the earth – dust to dust. More than ‘that’s all folks.’ More than a final corruption.

  We have been promised a new body that will last forever, a spiritual body, but not a spirit alone. We won’t be angels. Angels are a different order of creatures. We will be human beings with bodies as we were created from the earth, but in the image of God. Like Jesus, we will be resurrected as He promised for us. We will be ensouled but also embodied. A perfected body in the presence of God. Without disappointment or fear or pain. The breath of God will be within us.

  I dreamed last night. Ed was there. We somehow slid down along the stair walls together in a circular rotunda, very fast, laughing like fools, nearly flying. At the bottom I walked down a well-lit whisper quiet institutional corridor with light tan Formica walls with a pleasing design and matching Formica countertops until I came to a doorway and entered a small room with a desk. Ed was in the room helping an older lady write a letter she needed to petition some authority for help. He was happy to be her companion and aid. He looked up at me and smiled. I woke up.

  My imaginings of heaven are woefully inadequate, but I hope there are little houses in neighborhoods of friends that I love and with whom I am completely affable. Laughter is often heard. We share leisurely conversations about all things that are beautiful with lots of comfortable pauses to enjoy the evening breeze. And there is a yard with a garden to work in until it is green and pleasant and orderly with healthy shade trees, oaks, maples, and birch, perhaps there is a hammock looking up into one of them through the branches into a bright blue sky and billowing clouds, and hydrangeas to prune when I want.

   In the evening when the sea breeze comes up, maybe a walk in the vineyard overlooking the beach with my Lord talking softly or merely silent in sublime company and nothing needs to be said. Blissfully leg weary at the end of the day accomplishing fruitful things in the garden with my well worked hands leaves me pleasantly tired from a day well spent.

  Although Jesus told us that there will be no marriage in Heaven, deep friendships will persist. I like to think I’ll still be able to spoon sleepily with my dearest friend, Rita, with her hair that smells like spring. I like to fall asleep at night. In heaven I hope to fall instantly asleep and dream the unfettered joyful dreams of the redeemed.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High and abides in the shadow of the Almighty says to the Lord: My refuge, my stronghold, my God in Whom I trust” Psalm 91 and the beginning of Sunday Night Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours.

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December 18, 2024 · 2:01 pm

perspectives from a few steps back

“It is better to take refuge in the LORD

than to trust in man.

It is better to take refuge in the LORD

than to trust in princes.”   Psalm 118: 8-9

 Papa standing at the rimIf we had lived in the Roman Empire, which lasted about 500 years as the Western Roman Empire and another thousand or so as the Byzantine Empire based in Constantinople, we would have expected that daily life probably would never change[i].

If I was a carpenter in a village outside of Rome in the year 200 AD, I’d get up before dawn for a simple breakfast of bread, cheese, and water, and gather my wood and iron tools, some I had made, some I inherited from my father and grandfather.  Off to work making doors or furniture or a larger project in a team like an aqueduct. Return home at the end of a taxing day, maintain and clean my tools, readying them for the morning, a supper of fish or grains or occasional meat. Time with my family, a quiet conversation about the kids with my wife, or perhaps head out to the tavern to debate the games or the latest battles up north or the comely suppleness of the new barmaid. A few times a year, if I was so inclined, I might head off to the games. Gladiators, animal hunts, spectacular and gruesome executions, maybe a few of those annoying Christians thrown in among the hungry lions, bears, and tigers.

I would expect my sons to follow in my trade, join the guild, learn the skills. As I had. As my father and grandfather had. There would be a sense of inevitability and the survival of my culture, a natural permanent order of things that always were and always will be. I might complain about the excesses, stupidity, and corruption of the current emperor, grumble quietly to friends or family that I trusted. My best hope might be that an illness or assassination would bring about a change in the emperor. That there would be no emperor would probably never occur to me. I’d have little understanding of the eventual effervescence of every system or culture.

We bicker, fuss, complain about, and regret (or perhaps celebrate) the recent election or the woeful character of the choices presented to us, but do we spend any effort on the why or whether or the finitude of the fragile and vulnerable structure of the society that spawned such an election? Are we bedeviled by the trees and unaware of the danger to the forest? Are the smoldering coals in old fires even now biding time until a little breeze fires them into a conflagration?

But we ought to consider that we may be in a period of profound change that historians will regard as the collapse of a civilization. Not to panic, the transition may be several centuries in the making and another in the denouement, but for we who are living in it, a lasting confusion may accompany us throughout our lifetime.

“Schism in the soul, schism in the body social, will not be resolved by any scheme to return to the good old days (archaism), or by programs guaranteed to render an ideal projected future (futurism), or even by the most realistic, hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating elements [of civilization]. Only birth can conquer death―the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new.”  Joseph Campbell, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” commenting on Arnold Toynbee’s “A Study of History.”

Why does the disruptive populism of a Donald Trump resonate with seventy million voters? One contributing factor is the sense of powerlessness and disconnection of so many. Why are depression, drug use, and loneliness at historically high levels, especially among the young?

We wander around in a time afflicted with “presentism.” From a Rusty Reno article, “Resisting Presentism”, on the fallacy of naively looking towards a perfect future while ignoring the hard earned lessons of the past: “We live in a time of hot takes. Websites rush to post commentary of the latest Trump nomination. Denizens of X and other social-media sites swirl in cyclones of denunciation and attack. Everything is keyed to what’s happening right now. The latest triumph. The latest outrage. The latest meme.” And this societal addiction by its nature leaves us terribly anxious in a constant knawing state of feeling unmoored.

A culture of self-invention, radical subjectivism, and materialist utilitarianism is what we have. A seething cauldron of conflicting values with no umpire who everyone accepts to call balls and strikes or who is safe or out because there are no agreed upon rules. Or commonly understood definitions for that matter.  We are a society of dueling egos and wills in a Nietzschean or Hobbesian nightmare. Some of our disagreements leave little room for compromise because they are so fundamental. A warm baby or a fetus torn asunder before she can draw a breath.  A man somehow changed into a woman or a surgically mutilated, permanently sterile male human body with missing parts and now committed to a lifetime of taking debilitating artificial hormones while still suffering from a tormenting mental illness.

Blame social media, the computer in everyone’s pocket, coercive and intrusive government and institutional reeducation, ideological programs that undermine trust and family structure, the deep and growing hostility and anger in the culture split along ideological lines, the twenty four hour alarmist news cycle, the predominance of nihilism, violence, and exploitive sexuality in popular entertainment, ubiquitous, addictive, and ever more degrading porn, fatherless households, racism, sexism, transphobic animus, Big Corporations, Big Pharma, billionaire tyrants, elite technocrats running our lives, lack of gun laws, too many gun laws, far right extremism, far left extremism, Nazis in the woodshed, communists in the Senate, forever chemicals in the water, overpopulation, death spiral birth rates, or pick your lead story of the day. Reasons for societal unhappiness are not in short supply and reducing our woes to one or the other also breaks along ideological fault lines.

We are the confused mess that is living through the death of one civilization and the unknown beginnings of the next.

“It’s a restless hungry feeling

That don’t mean no one no good

When ev’rything I’m a-sayin’

You can say it just as good

You’re right from your side

I’m right from mine

We’re both just one too many mornings

And a thousand miles behind” Bob Dylan, “One Too Many Mornings.”  1964

 In July, a post here discussed in detail the weakening infrastructure of Sagging Bridges in our home state of Rhode Island. The physical deterioration of what we rely on every day was a metaphor for the deep-rooted breakdown of what we rely on every day for our societal coherence.  Like the road bridges, the bridges of our civilization – their pilings, supports, beams, and the strength of what keeps us from plunging into the river are corroding and creaking a bit each time they are driven over.[ii]

I’ve been fascinated by the various and unlikely voices over the last couple of years who are lamenting the loss of a “Christian civilization,” a culture with objective truths and values, a culture with defined borders, and agreed upon norms of behavior.  Defining for its members what’s good and what’s evil. Defining a solid foundation of an agreed upon understanding of the nature of human fulfillment and happiness. Among these are Richard Dawkins, one the four horsemen of the new atheism, Jordan Peterson, social influencer extraordinaire and still on a spiritual journey, and Bill Maher, celebrated TV host, comedian, atheist, and mocker of all things religious. Others too. They understand the loss and turmoil of living in a post Christian culture but fall short of understanding what is required. They think that we can build a vehicle to the future by our own efforts. Perhaps a few tweaks and little Kantian categorical imperative. Similar to me trying to fix my car with a YouTube video, a screwdriver, and vice grips.

“Said the Lord God, “Build a house,

Smoke and iron, spark and steam,

Speak and vote and buy and sell;

Let a new world throb and stream,

Seers and makers, build it well.”   G.K. Chesterton, The Kingdom of Heaven

 They understand the loss and turmoil of living in a post Christian culture but cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that the center of a Christian culture is not a set of rules, boundaries, and definitions, but a relationship with a Person.[iii] A Christian culture without Christ is incoherent.  We will try in vain to build a tower to heaven as did the people of Babel.  Don’t we ever learn?  A tower buiilt with our own tools  isn’t what is needed, but a road, a path, a Way.

The road to heaven is already leveled and built. We must learn to walk on it.

 “And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”  Matthew 7: 26-27

[i][i] Other cultures have lasted even longer than the Roman civilization. The folks who lived in them probably never foresaw any different state. Here are a few.

[ii] In that post was some discussion of Patrick Deneen’s insightful 2018 book “Why Liberalism Failed.”  A worthy read which asks the question has liberalism failed because it succeeded? Its failure was preordained in its premises.  The book was praised by such diverse reviewers as Barack Obama and Rod Dreher.  Rather than reiterate what’s already been written, read last year’s post in the link above or better, read the book. Another powerful book on a related theme was Charles Chaput’s 2016 “Strangers in a Strange Land.”  How does one begin to live an authentic Christian life in a post Christian culture? Way too much for a blog post, I suggest strongly for your reflection and to gain deep insight into our times, read the book. Accessible, wonderfully written and powerfully insightful about what we are living through, yet the book is hopeful about where peace both inner and corporately can be found.

[iii] A brilliant debunking of “Christian civilization” without Christ is in the current First Things issue. “Against Christian Civilization” by Paul Kingsnorth. Taken from his Erasmus Lecture a few months ago. Well worth your time.

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