Our Lady of the Good Deed

Holy Firehose – Our Lady of the Good Deed

Is it too ancient history to think about the Boy Scouts of America? Remember when they were such a respected and active movement in our American culture? Their motto was to always “Be Prepared”, and their mantra was that each scout should perform at least one Good Deed every day. The common image was to help an older person with their groceries across the street safely.

Even though the Boy Scouts, not that different than the Catholic Church, has gone through a decade or two of scandals and loss of favor in much of the society, is there something we could be sure not to lose in the baby’s bathwater? If there is one thing to resuscitate and re-invigorate our communities, modeled after the scouting history of the past century, we suggest it might be the sense of doing good deeds for others.

We have such stresses in our society now. With unemployment, stagnant wages for the middle class, serious flaws in our educational systems and preparedness for meeting global competition in the future, a great number of us have gotten more selfish. More and more we look for ways to try to get ahead of others so that we don’t fall farther behind ourselves. This is a tragic situation. . . . that is growing worse every month.

We need our communities of faith to help us find healthier things to focus on than our own selfish security. We need to help each other build on each other’s gifts and resources and creativity and wisdom and inspiration and influence however it can be shared for the common good.

As a first step to keep moving in this direction, we suggest that we keep thinking of others and not ourselves. Let us think of the common good, not the selfish personal success. Let us think of others. Make an effort to help others. Think of Good Deeds that might contribute to the common good.

How about communities of faith that constantly promote thinking of the common good and reminding ourselves every day of doing Good Deeds for others?

Our Lady of the Holy Hug

Holy Firehose – Our Lady of the Holy Hug

If we have in mind building the Kindgom of God on earth, as we profess, and we presume we are about building worshipping communities, shouldn’t we be about building each other up?

Were you aware that researchers around the world agree, roughly, that humans need 4 hugs a day for survival? We also need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We
need 12 hugs a day for growth. How on earth can we build a kingdom on earth without growth? This is a no-brainer.

If you were to look at much of the writing about therapeutic touch and hugs as a prime example, you see terms describing the value of the physical contact. You see terms like: transfer of positive energy, creating bonds, and building self-esteem. Isn’t this all good stuff . . . things to be encouraged all the time?

Here is one description on the internet for Hugging :

Hugging is healthy. It helps the body's immune system, keeps you healthier; cures depression, reduces stress, induces sleep. It's invigorating and rejuvenating, has no unpleasant side effects, and hugging is nothing less than a miracle drug. Hugging significantly increases your body's production of endorphins. Hugging is all natural. It's organic, naturally sweet, no pesticides, no preservatives, no artificial ingredients, and 100% wholesome.

While there are individuals that have cultural or other reasons to avoid physical contact, it is almost always desirable. Over the centuries, and in some cultures, more ritualistic ways of greeting people, handshakes and namastes, were designed to keep us apart rather than bring us together.

We want to suggest however that hugging is a tool of transformation. . . that hugging brings people closer to each other. We think it is  a potentially wonderful focus for entire groups of folks that are building their local communities. Our communities of worship need transformation . . . invigoration . . . vibrant new energy and focus. We need more hugging!!

How about communities of faith that focus year-round on promoting this growth and mode to help transform us and our communities themselves?

How Do We Operate?

Holy Firehose  Church– How Do We Operate/Proceed?

Other than parish priests who are now charged with its implementation, we have not come across Catholics this year that buy into its recent focus. The Catholic Church has revised its Missal and wants all Catholics around the world, at services, to use the old, literal Greek and Latin translations of prayers and responses during the services. It sadly is a pathetic denial of its recent history and current problems, an obliviousness to its enormous opportunities and resources to move on those opportunities, and a tacit acceptance of the blindness, deafness and ignorance that so aptly describes our current faith communities across the land. Our media, our politics and our culture is rampant with evil content and our local and global justice measures are tanking, but we have to use the right spelling of our prayer words, no matter what bombs are shattering our neighborhoods.

What do most of our faith communities / parishes do on a weekly basis? Some of them run parochial schools. Most have a complex set of ministries and commissions and prayer/study groups that meet during the week. On the weekends, on Saturday evenings and Sundays, they hold Masses and worship services. When we think about it, nearly all of the week-long activities are taken for granted, and none of it is part of the weekend services. This is an amazing disconnect!

Most of the Sunday services have homilies packaged by the archdiocese. The songs are designed/outlined by the archdiocese. The themes of the services are mostly framed by the scripture readings defined by the Roman church officials for that weekend on a 3 year rotating cycle. Unfortunately, this leaves out most of the real world! It leaves out most of the community activity going on all around us. AND . . . . it leaves out most of the real problems, needs, evils and opportunities around us too.

Shouldn’t we do things differently to build the contemporary Church??

We are trying to build a more meaningful and appealing framework for operating as a church. We are convinced it cannot be a top-down operation. We need to appeal to young and old, rich and poor, We cannot be told what to pray, what to sing, what you are to learn or memorize today. It cannot be based on Dogma. Maybe principles. Start with loving relationships and virtues. Scripture has its place. Music and the arts, absolutely. Lots of arts. Real neighborhood problems and opportunities. Actual programs and efforts reviewed and celebrated, EVERY WEEK. Scriptural scholar inputs on readings is fine, but we profess that the spirit of the Lord is in each one of us. We should tap, then, each one of us at our services to see what and how the Lord is manifesting the grace and wisdom that we need right now.

All your thoughts are welcome. Let’s build this together!

Parish example -- Our Lady of the Holy Nudge

The Holy Firehose  -- 

Our Lady of The Holy Nudge

In the second installment of this series, we suggested that one of the Holy Firehose parish or group names might be this, focused on The Holy Nudge.The Holy Nudge definitely needs some context and some explanation. What on earth is it?

 Well, we believe that the act of nudging is the absolutely most critical value and operation of a healthy, meaningful, functional  Church. Anywhere. Any time.  So why not acknowledge, for a group trying to profess and build their sprirtuality to be willing to say out loud, that it is often a holy act.

What are we about fundamentally as a church community? Surely we are a worshipping group. We have an administration. We have sub-groups, maybe parishes, maybe teams, prayer groups, athletic promotions, schools, lectures, social action outlets,  bereavement for the aging and dying. The list goes on and on. We form sub-groups and later dissolve them after they have helped handle a task or need or responsibility that is a priority for the members. If the need goes away, the sub-group can go away.

So the point is, how do we discern what the needs are? The bottom line is that the members need to alert each other to the needs and the opportunities. Once the needs are more clear, the path to responding to them is more clear. How do we alert each others to needs and opportunities? We suggest that the best way is through nudging. As you think of real world examples, most needs should not be dictated from above. Most of us don’t like the idea of no freedom and all obligations. We also know it isn’t fair to have the squeaky wheel always getting the grease. Managing a group, and in this case a church, is not a matter of simply taking leadership turns and handing over all the planning tasks to one or two individuals. We should also avoid having a single input source. (One of our most tragic examples this past decade in the US is how way too many people, for example, use Rush Limbaugh as their sole political “news” source.) What we need is a community of inputs, of nudges.

We all have different perspectives and sets of needs. We all have skills and talents that might be called upon to help ourselves or others in time of need. Sometimes our input, our nudge, is to argue against suggestions that you know would be harmful. Sometimes it might be to endorse someone else’s suggestion and help decide and move on. All of these inputs help fill up the reservoir of grace in the Firehose.

With the overwhelming pace of information in our 21^st century world, many of us have trouble treading water to keep pace with things around us. We often feel we need to have an efficient and reassuring source of information in some areas to regularly keep up with things. We look for websites or blogs or calendar notices and other mechanisms.

In fact, not all needs are clear building blocks of the community and positive.  Some are negative or worrysome or scary. Some are threatening. Some need immediate attention and resolution or members may be hurt. Some members may be threatened to lose their jobs etc.  Whatever the need may be, some part of the community often needs to become aware of it and help get it resolved. We need to pray and discern and plan but also to be always open to the Firehose of grace to help direct next steps. The Firehose will often help provide short-term steps and resources, including people needed to handle urgent needs. It will also help inspire a hopeful vision that will lead to future steps that will also be needed.

This framework actually should be similar for most any type of community or group: a civic community, a neighborhood watch group, a social club, an athletic club. Its members have needs and opportunities to build. They need to see what structure and sub-groups will help them meet those needs. And they should be thinking of ways to help keep each other aware of  …

There is another aspect of these nudges that we want to put forth here as well. Sometimes a very welcome and healthy input is a form of complaining. We suggest that nagging can be a virtue, and we should acknowledge it and encourage it. A critic often has a critical role to play in our world.  So too in our communities. We should cherish those who ask “Why not…”  at least as much as the curious who simply ask “Why…”. Bobby Kennedy has maybe the most powerful historical remembrance of this value. We want to encourage community members to frequently ask why the community is not doing some healthy works that used to be done in the past. Why, for example, are we no longer participating in homicide vigils or sending flowers and personal visits to those who had a family member deceased in the community. Why are we not protesting the distortion of news in our media outlets?  We should also be encouraging members to ask why we are not using more modern communication channels to respond to current issues, harmful trends, militaristic trends etc.  Why  are we not using blogs, social media sites etc to build support for healthy, virtuous activities in our communities and discouraging or protesting distorted, disrespectful, un-Christian ones?

Lots of forms of NUDGING. We can certainly look at many or most of them as "holy" activities. How about a community or two that focuses especially on promoting this?

Example firehose experience - BH

Ann and Bill’s Christmas Angel (out of the Firehose)

It was Christmas eve. Time for the glorious Midnight mass at Uncle Doc’s farm in Beavercreek. The sheep and horses and chickens would be there. Lots of cousins, aunts and uncles too. Two bales of hay for an altar. A few candles, Christmas carol sheets. Luminaries of carved out gallon milk cartons with candles lit inside, leading from the farmhouse to the barn for the Mass. Father Cy wearing his knit cap, nose dripping and breath vapors coming in constant streams in the chilled air.

Bill and Ann and their 4 children, mostly teenagers, had driven 11 hours from New York, like usual, on this day to begin their holiday visit to grandma and grandpa’s in Dayton. Ann’s parents were almost empty nesters with a 7-bedroom house and un-rivalled hospitality looking forward to the visit. It was hard to get away in their Ford van, bringing all they would need for 10 days for 6 people in Dayton. All seemed to be working OK, except time was short. No time to stop for another tank of gas right before the Midnight Mass. Might be late and miss many of the carols. Gauge is low, but get  gas on Christmas Day. Something will be open.

Ann was the oldest of the 7 children in her family. Jane was the youngest and still single. After the fantastic richness of the homespun Midnight Mass, Jane asked if she could ride back to Grandma’s in Bill and Ann’s van with their family. There was room, and it was fine. It was 1 AM Christmas morning. We left Uncle Doc’s property and got only about a mile down the road, when the gasoline ran out. The car died, and everyone wondered where that left all of us on such a thrilling but desperate evening, all of a sudden. We all exited the van and thought a moment. We knew the road we were on. We knew there were stores and a gas station about a mile or two ahead and the road was relatively flat between here and there. It was not at all likely that any of the stores or gas station was open, however, at 1 AM.

Undaunted, we put Ann behind the wheel while the other 6 of us pushed the van. We had gone only about a hundred yards when we got to a side street on the right.  . . . and the doggone firehose opened up wide and hit us broadside!  We noticed that, waiting at the stopsign, there was a red pickup truck. We noticed that the driver of the pickup got out of his truck as soon as we approached. He came over and said, “Looks like you folks need some help. Out of gas?”

We explained our predicament to him and said we hoped we could just get to the gas station up the street and then hoped that it would be open and get us home for the night. We asked him how he happened to be there at such an (un-Godly??) hour of the night. He mumbled something about visiting his mother. We didn’t get a very clear answer, but what did it matter. This was undoubtedly a guardian angel . . . in a red pickup truck! Mission of mercy.

We reviewed with him the option of his driving up behind us and pushing the van. He said he preferred pulling or towing us forward so he didn’t do any damage to the back of the van. He said he just needed something to tow us with. He said he’d look in the back of the pickup to see if there was anything that might help. He had no idea what was back there. Not 60 seconds later he returned saying, “Well, what do you know? A long strap. Just what we need!  I think I can tie it onto your front and my rear tow-ball, and we may be in business.”

A couple minutes later, we were in tow and heading toward the intersection with the gas station. To make the rest of the story short, the station WAS open. We got our gas. The fellow helping us wouldn’t accept any money in compensation for his services. He just headed off into the night. Mission accomplished! Grace overflowing! O Holy Night!

Our children and Aunt Jane and we will never forget it.

Foundational thoughts - holy firehose

The Holy Firehose  --  Part Two

Foundational Thoughts

As we have thought about the Church of the Holy Firehose,  we have wondered if we might be talking more specifically about a Movement or even a Religious Order here. Maybe it is the Order of the Holy Firehose. We will see where the sprit and the thunderous rush of the firehose takes us on this, but there are several more terms we wanted to posit . . . to plant . . . and to try to germinate. Many of them we throw out here as potential names of the equivalent of parish church names. We hope to issue additional descriptions of each one (and many more as suggestions and inspiration come back in trickles and splashes and gushes and torrents. We can stop short of tsunamis!)

As mentioned in the original description of the Church,  we are seeking to find new language and metaphors to describe and capture the framework that we will need to build the healthy structure of this Church. We think that many of the following “parish” names may be a start toward that goal. How about . . .

Our Lady of the Holy Nudge

Our Lady of the Holy Hug

Our Lady of the Good Deed

Our Lady of the Real World

Our Lady of the Moral Compass

Our Lady of Encouragement and R-e-s-p-e-c-t

Our Lady of Mother Nature

Our Lady of the Holy Gay

Our Lady of the Holy Foxhole

It may seem like a strange collection of terms, but we would like to see if some might take root. And it is only a tiny start. Please suggest others if you are reading this.

Any functional church surely needs to maintain rituals, routines, and have rhythms for its activities. The new proposal that we are describing should be no different. What we are proposing however is a different framework and foundation for the modern, life-giving church.

We should at least be willing to take a step back and look at ourselves both in a mirror and in a modern context. We are not a first-century church, even though we were established then. We should not be trying to fossilize ourselves in that early framework. Sadly, however, one gets that impression from many of the Roman Catholic initiatives in the past decade. In fact, the latest program to introduce a new Roman missal, seems to be precisely reverting us to old language and ways, tragically missing or ignoring the elephants and rhinos in the room.

Do we really think these old practices and language bits will appeal to current church-goers or will lure back the non-church goers (75 to 80% of US Catholics or 90 to 95% of European Catholics)? Why do we see such a global surge this past decade in Islam membership? Are we not shamed to note that many segments of the US population ridicules and fears Muslims and is either ignorant or ignoring the fact that their two main tenets are mercy and forgiveness and they heed the call to pray 8 times every single day. With any eyes even cracked open the slightest, practicing Muslims make most Catholics look like blooming heathens.

We brag that we are a Christian nation, and the media notes that the Religious Right is a powerful force in our public and political life in the US, but how do we compare as religious people or spiritual people . . . compared to the Muslims in our communities?? We often see video clips of Americans listening to the song “Proud to be an American” and it portrays us as a faith-filled nation and a light to other nations. We would have to say, however, that the most distinctive characteristics of our country’s image both at home and abroad is definitely not of a compassionate entity promoting the common good at every turn. Instead we are probably the most militaristic country on the planet. We are always looking to support our private interests and our financial interests. I think our international aid overseas, as a fraction of our economy, for example, is the lowest of all developed nations.  What we lead the world in now is the highest drug use per capita and by far the largest numbers of people in prison. This is nothing to be bragging about . . . for a Christian country.

We want the new revitalized church that we propose to carry a very different image. To help build this image, we think it is instructive to look at two key elements  in the foundation of the new community  -- relationships and virtues.

Those of us Catholics who are now senior citizens remember well our Catechism days. Among other things we learned about the faith and marriage and the sacraments and about the hierarchy and the Church community itself.  We learned that God is love,  and love needs to be the basis for all relationships, starting with our relationship with God. Love of course was not at all the only virtue, but it was the primary one. Virtues will be addressed in a few paragraphs  here shortly, but first the focus is on relationships.

We learned that Baptism is our introduction to the Church, and the value of the sacrament was not at all just for the child or person baptized. It was for the entire Church community. We were all called to support each other, especially new members to the congregation and starting with the newly baptized. We learned that the love so powerfully expressed in marriage  is a model that we should extrapolate from the love of two persons to the love and care we should have within our families, and within our neighborhood, and within our Church congregation, and within our city and country extending to the global Church. Tragically not said at all back then should have been that love and care for our planet and its environment (the only one we’ve got!) should have been on that love chain too, but . . . . . that is our history. Most of this awareness and sensitivity and extrapolation has gone far, far away from our consciousness. We need a re-birth!

How many of us who live either in suburbia or in apartments or condos know many of our neighbors anymore? Doesn’t that shock you at all? Here we are, in a neighborhood, and most of us are not even neighborly to our neighbors, much less strangers or immigrants. We have long learned that one of the most valuable rationales for marriage is to develop intimacy and close relations hip with a spouse . . . and this can carry forward on a somewhat less intimate level with others at many levels. We learn of course how difficult it is to have any good relationship with others in our own household . . . and we are supposed to carry this forward to other levels, but we just ignore it and go about our daily grind most days.  Simply note that relationship building is a foundational basis of any church and this one is no exception. One additional metaphor to consider here is to note that the two most intimate relationships one can have, short of mother and child, is with a marriage spouse and your buddy in wartime in a foxhole. Talk about learning to get along!!!  Think about it.

Lastly, for this foundational segment, we ask you to think about the concept of considering church members as church-goers. We don’t believe there is a direct correlation. Church-goers go through the motions and not necessarily the real practices. As you saw in the first segment of this series, something very different is required of members of the Church of the Holy Firehose than regular attendance in dress-up clothes to services. We are called to be saints . . .which means we are ALL called to be Jedi masters. We are called to be holy, and vigilant, hard-working, virtuous community members. We believe we can tap into the goodness and energy of the universe at a moment’s notice and move mountains. This model needs to be exhibited every hour, every day, not just inside the church or temple during services.

Most of us can recall well the song “They’ll know we are Christians by our Love.” It sounded very  appropriate and reasonable every time we sang it, but we wonder how often it was a reality when “they” or others witnessed our daily routines. Our church needs to help us consistently be that beacon and witness, … and not just of Love. It must be of ALL the virtues. We should be beacons of virtue, not simply of love (which is defined differently by everyone you would ask).

What we need is a grassroots church of JEDIs who organize themselves, paying attention to their Catholic roots and formation, focused on building relationships, founded on virtue, and affecting both their local and global communities. That is the foundation.

We request that those who may respond to this on our blog consider suggesting additional “parish” names or useful metaphors or worthy foundational elements for the new church.

The Holy Firehose Blog

The Holy Firehose

Is there anyone who would deny that the Roman Catholic Church is desperately in need of renewal?  Is there anyone who thinks their current practices and structure is building a hopeful global spirituality? Some of us are convinced we need to build  alternative frameworks to invigorate the community of believers . . . and to attract future believers.  . . . with practices that express our real mission as a Church. Our conviction is that there are monumental reservoirs of good will and grace that we have very feeble ways to tap as individuals or as a community.  We also do not believe at all that a church is mostly a group of weekly church-goers who attend Mass and believe the teachings of the hierarchy/ magisterium.

We have learned a tremendous amount over the 20^th century about communities and the evolving role of both the religious and the laity. We have transformed ourselves with Vatican II to be much more community-centered and count more on the involvement of the laity. All of us will readily admit, we suspect, that we are all called to holiness, to sainthood, and to each play a role in building the Kingdom of God on earth. We would also admit that the impact of any of our individual activities is meager or inconsequential compared to our impact as a community or a church denomination. We fall pathetically short on almost all our efforts to tap this community strength, however. This realization is the first of two primary motivating factors for this new church venture that we call the Church of the Holy Firehose.

We have very abstract and almost empty terms to talk about the tangible power of God’s grace in our lives, especially in the potential for building the kingdom through our Christian community. We talk, for example, about the will of God and the encyclicals that are issued out of the Vatican. These are supposedly  larger than life ways that God, thru His mystical ways and channels, influences the world and His body of believers.  In fact, my favorite  spiritual and inspirational talks are from the writer Wayne Dyer who masterfully talks about our power to accomplish anything coming from our “source” and he has a globe or generic sphere on stage with him as a prop. But we also say frequently in our faith lives, repeating from Matthew,Mark, and Luke’s gospels, that all of us needs faith to spread God’s word, and that faith the size of a mustard seed is sufficient to move mountains. This phrase stopped us in our tracks. All of the Catholics that we have asked about this say two things about this phrase. One is that this is a very common admission that we frequently say we have faith and therefore profess that we can move mountains with that faith. Second, they have never ever felt that they themselves can move mountains, nor do they know anyone else who has ever felt that way!

We desperately need something infinitely more tangible, more real to us. Not a souce. Not God’s will. Not some document. This brought us to the second powerful yet paradoxical factor in the new venture that we are initiating. We admit it is strange to hear, but the most tangible and real symbol / metaphor we want to promote is from the science fictional accounts in Star Wars!

For anyone who has seen any combination of the 6 movies or books in the series of Star Wars, the drama is based around two opposing forces of good and evil. The evil side is called the Dark Side (represented by the Empire and the Sith). The good side is essentially those who utilize the Force (represented by the Resistance or Coalition or Galactic Republic ). One character after another is exhorted at every dramatic turn to connect with the Force. “May the Force be with you” is the mantra for all the good guys. There is an awesome sense in these movies (or books) that this Force (for good) is not only magical, it is limitless, it is unfathomable, and it is always available to anyone who can connect with it. Without ever saying so, anyone who connects with the Force can essentially  MOVE MOUNTAINS.

Our sense is that all of us who truly believe that if we have . . . . and that indeed we do have faith at least the size of a mustard seed, then we surely indeed also have the power to move mountains. Every one of us! How can we help each other realize that in a more tangible way? We need a better description, a better use of language, an enabling metaphor. . . . and we have one to suggest. A firehose. A gushing, pounding, transformational, potentially destructive but innately refreshing, scouring, cleansing, out with the old-in with the new, start again from scratch, say goodby to the former structure and start rebuilding something better baby, wall of water. Just like the heroes and heroines in Star Wars, we know it is out there for our use every minute of every day, we know that all the grace we ever need is there for us. All the grace to change our hearts and the hearts of our enemies, to summon the courage to face any challenge or any evil, to say YES or NO when it is the right thing or the healthy thing or the humane thing or the merciful thing or the philanthropic  thing to do. We can connect with this reservoir any time, We can tap into it. We can stop taking steps away from it or ignoring it and be carried by it at any moment. In order to connect, we need very specifically to let go (and let God some would say) of our plans, and be open to the awesome unfathomable richness of God’s grace all around us.

We are spreading this message in lots of circles and finding more and more folks connecting with this. We find ourselves communicating with each other and celebrating any time we notice the spirit working marvelously by winking at each other. Often we mouth the words to each other, “it’s the firehose again.” . . . or “someone’s got connected to the firehose”, etc.

One of the key aspects to how God works thru this Holy Firehose, is that, being God, it is far beyond our imaginations. We all try to do good work, and we plan many things in our lives, but we know something very special and powerful is taking place when we connect with the firehose. People we had no idea might be involved, resources we had no idea were available, synergy we had no way to fathom often come together to avert a crisis, to defuse a dangerous situation, to soften hearts to accept valuable changes, to create new ways to operate or pray with each other, and a million other heart-warming activities that poignantly are infused somehow with the divine. When my mother notices such things, she frequently is heard to say, “Praise Jesus!” When more and more of us see them now, we often say, “Holy firehose!”

It should be noted that we are in no way interested in denying the marvelous and rich resources of the Catholic Church. We accept and want to build on many of its traditions, some of its structures, its worship and prayers and rites and especially its music and symbols. It is just that we need to go way beyond these to build the future Church. We need to be more real, more honest with what is needed and more tangible in knowing how to summon the grace to help build its future.

We also believe that our early efforts to build this better church future happens to be involving Catholics for now, but there is nothing uniquely Roman Catholic here. We have been raised in the Catholic tradition and look forward to building our church in a much healthier way. We also encourage believers in any other faith tradition to use this metaphor and understanding in their own churches as well.

In a very strange way, we are convinced that we are all called to be saints . . . and that we are also called to be . . . Jedi’s. May the (Lord’s) force be with us . . . every moment of our lives and in each of our relationships!

We encourage anyone responding to this on our blog to submit their own Firehose experiences. The more practical examples, the better for (prospective) members to hear about and celebrate.