The Way of Barabbas

On Tuesday, I gave what will likely be my last talk as lecturer to my Knights of Columbus council for this term. However, I was graciously offered the opportunity to continue in the position for another year by the incoming Grand Knight, and I accepted. For this post, I offer my talk "The Way of Barabbas." My speeches and talks being generally too long for a regular post, I post them on separate pages. This one is posted here. Comments can be posted at the bottom of the linked page.

Monday, Monday (Of First Communion and Other Things)

I've let almost two weeks go by without posting. I think it must be the time of year. A couple of the podcasts I listen to have been slow to upload new material, and the only blogs that seem to be running at full speed are those dedicated to the downfall of Barack Obama by repetition of every immoral, improper, or just plain dumb thing that the president or some member of his administration says or does.

Just to be clear, I'd love to see him go away too. But, by my calculations, he's got somewhere in the vicinity of 1,400 days left in his presidency. And, while we all hope for the repeal of the health care law in the near-term or at least the striking down of the HHS mandate, and pray fervently for early lame-duck status, there's little else most of us can do about these and other political things that we haven't done already. We just have to wait. Oh, and live our lives.

So, in the spirit of living one's life without constant reference to the national news, I offer a few notes on my life following my last blog post:

My older daughter, who is also my middle child, received her first communion on Sunday. She was aglow, I was aglow, Jesus was present under the appearance of bread and wine, and my wife finally got her revenge on the 1970s. Although I wasn't Catholic back then, she was and she very vividly remembers that she was cheated out of a white dress and veil for her first communion. In the post-Vatican II swirling of countercultural slush, someone at my wife's parish (or more likely a confederacy of people who should have never been put in charge of anything) decided that the kids should just "come as you are."

It's widely known, though, that women almost never come as they are. Even the most natural look is the product of an intense investment of time both in shopping and the application of cosmetics. Daughters learn this early on, and there was no shortage of princesses in the Seventies to remind young girls that looking just right when you meet your prince is important. One can hardly expect they would have lesser expectations for their first encounter with the Prince of Peace.

But, those were the dark days of polyester as a primary fabric in clothing and a Church that was trying to become a polyester version of its previous self. My wife hasn't told me what she wore, but it was obviously some of her everyday clothing. When we were married, she insisted on a veil. And, when our dear daughter went to receive Jesus' body and blood for the first time, she had the white dress, the veil, the wreath of pink flowers, the white silk purse and the crown. Going and coming in the cold morning, she also had the faux fur-fringed white princess wrap with the train that we had to carry behind her. Take that Seventies! So, there, weirdo, Birkenstock-sandal-wearing, hippie, Seventies Catholics!

I'm not sure I can ever fully relate. After all, we just made my son wear a tie and a jacket when it was his turn a couple of years ago (really the outer limit of what you can expect boys to wear, and then only for maybe the length of a short Mass). However, the look on my wife's face as she watched my daughter reminded me of the time nearly two decades ago, when a priest gave me permission to go through the parish library and either keep what I thought would be useful to the parish or throw away what I thought wouldn't. I threw away anything and everything by Matthew Fox, Edward Schillebeeckx, Hans Kung and anyone else who was admired by the baby boomer-aged parish secretary. Also out went any book that had the words "liberation" and "theology" printed within several pages of each other.

After I was sure the garbage had been collected by the city, I told the parish secretary, under the guise of speaking to someone else, that of which I had rid the parish library. I don't think she every forgave me.

I will admit, my wife probably had more charity in heart with her strike at the Seventies than I did. I need to work on ways of provoking heretics in a more charitable manner.

***

 

I have read well into the first volume of Pope Emeritus Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth. It's a book rich in understanding of the man who is both man and God. Although I consider myself well-read, my knowledge of Christ started increasing from the very first page.

 

I'm also simultaneously trying to watch through Father Robert Barron's Catholicism series. It's a good juxtaposition of media because Father Barron draws heavily on the former pope's work. Although I'm only a few episodes into the series and about a third of the way into the book, it's clear that Father Barron has used Pope Benedict's work as the foundation for significant parts of his series. Of course, we all lean on others, and you could do worse than to borrow from Joseph Ratzinger.

 

***

 

However, it never fails that my disciplined reading starts to fail when I am reading books that require deep thought. I inevitably divert to lighter reading and then, later, come back to further read the weighty tome I had started. It's been no exception with Jesus of Nazareth. Having read an amazing explanation of the significance of Barabbas (the murderer released by Pilate instead of Jesus), I picked up The Story of Henry Tod, the fifth book in the Blackford Oakes spy novel series by William F. Buckley Jr. Thus from the first century Roman Empire, I jumped to the early 1960s to witness the confrontations in Berlin between the Soviets and the Americans. As with the four previous Blackford Oakes novels I've read, it kept me turning pages and admiring the late Buckley's writing style.

 

Finding the period of interest, I then launched into Bomb by Steve Sheinkin, a recent release that tells in quickly read chapters of the development of the atomic bomb by the United States. Most of the information isn't new, but it is presented in the accessible way of a story being told through the eyes of the participants. The subtitle, The Race to Build-And Steal-The World's Most Dangerous Weapon, conveys the author's non-scholarly, but interesting, approach to the subject. I will probably be on it another week before heading back to the first century and Jesus of Nazareth.

 

***

 

Last night, I was elected Faithful Pilot of the Knights of Columbus fourth degree assembly to which I belong. The office, which I will hold for a year, continues my gradual evolution from back-bench member in any organization I belong to, to officer with no real responsibilities (I've been both inside and outside guard), to officer with responsibilities but who doesn't have to lead or organize. I've been lecturer two terms which, while much work, doesn't require me to organize or combine with anyone to accomplish anything. The pilot's position seems to continue on this responsibility without needing to organize anyone motif. However, there's a chance it may be the first step toward actually leading something someday.

 

It's not that I can't lead or organize, it's just that I've led before (both in military and civilian life) and found that the best position in most organizations is to be the assistant of someone who doesn't know how to delegate. You wind up with a nice title and a lot of time on your hands. The Knights though is dangerous territory. There are a lot of accomplished delegators among them.

 

***





Home Run

In the Great Circle of Suburban Life, the coming and going of movies is a stream of consciousness that one connects into at an early age. When I was a child, the local movie theaters used to have kid movie mornings in the summer months and we watched a lot of never-to-be classics like The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber (the much anticipated sequel to Professor), The Shakiest Gun in the West and, of course, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.

The better of these movies had Don Knotts stumbling around and causing much of the problems he would eventually resolve by more enlightened and braver stumbling around later in the film. Oh, and there was usually a villian who got uncovered or put in his place along the way. The movies without Don Knotts could still be successful movies, they just had to try harder.

Cheap tickets, cheap popcorn and a two-hour break for mom were quite a draw. And, it made of us children a future audience of full-price paying moviegoers. The stream of movies changed with increasing age. There was Star Wars, which was still playing in the theater a year after it came out, and which I finally went to (I was a Star Trek fan, thank you very much) and every sequel for every Wars or Trek movie since (I was probably the only person alive in 1999 who didn't loathe Jar Jar Binks).

Then there was The Jerk, my first R-rated movie. The John Hughes films and those that imitated them followed, along with the occasional James Bond movie and, into the Nineties, just about anything that might be considered an intellectual film like Run Lola Run. Somewhere along the way, though, the stream washed me up on the banks. It may have been the awful local revival of The Rocky Horror Picture Show I went to in 2000. It may have been age and my realization that flickering lights on a screen don't of themselves generate life, in much the same way words on paper don't by themselves create wisdom.

My guess is it was probably age. I just expected more from movies that were frequently giving me less. I was reading the great Catholic works and comparing them to what the American entertainment culture was offering, and finding American culture lacking. Then came 2004's The Passion of the Christ, in which moviegoers were given an intelligent and intense movie of great artistry about the crucifixion of Jesus, made all the more powerful by the fact that God used an intensely self-absorbed loser to write and direct it.

Since then, there have been various efforts at tapping the religious movie audience that was discovered lying amidst Passion's $600 Million in box office receipts. That draw showed both Catholics and Evangelicals that they could make films about the Faith that people would pay to watch thus making even more movies possible. But, like movies in general, the new Christian films have been mixed in quality. Of the Catholic films, For Greater Glory, has been the one I've found the most worthwhile. And, while I'm not fully plugged in to Evangelical culture and its cinema, I was really moved by October Baby. Both of these movies were in theaters last year.

So, it was with interest that I went to see Home Run on Friday. I had been given the gift of an unexpected babysitter by my wife who was going to a crafting party and who thought I was leaving with my son on a Webelos campout about 12 hours before I actually was. Dining solo at my favorite restaurant, I checked the Showtimes app on my iPod and watched this trailer:

It didn't exactly seem like the sort of movie I like, but I wanted to support the cause, and my wife said she wanted to see my other choice, Oz the Great and Powerful, with me on a future date night. So, I bought my ticket. There were two things I didn't know until I got into the theater: First, it was the movie's opening night which meant, mostly, that all the good seats in the balcony were taken. Second, that the movie had been filmed in Tulsa, where I live, and the surrounding area. And, I don't think that helped.

In Home Run, Cory Brand (Scott Elrod) is a professional baseball player with a past that both drives him to greatness and keeps him from it. He plays for the mythical major league Denver Grizzlies baseball team. And, he's become a YouTube sensation for his wild, drunken behavior both on and off the field. He has an agent who tries to contain him and, failing that, contain the damage he causes when he (frequently) escapes her control. When an argument with an umpire gets him suspended by the league for eight weeks, he is required by his team to show he has attended a 12-step program before he comes back.

Making amends for public relations purposes takes him back to Okmulgee, Oklahoma, his hometown (which is about 40 miles south of Tulsa). But, more drunken acting out gets his brother injured and Cory finds that he, in yet another public relations move arranged by his agent, must coach his nephew's baseball team while his brother recovers. It's here that the movie tries not to be cliche and fails pretty badly. I don't have to tell you that the coaching experience is supposed to bring him to a new understanding of his life, but it doesn't, or at least it doesn't in a convincing way.

The other track that is supposed to awaken Cory, the 12-step program, doesn't either. Even though the best performances of the movie come from the actors playing struggling addicts, the movie never really seems to connect Cory's own circumstances with those of less famous addicts. There is a moment that brings realization, but it comes late and seems contrived.

During his coaching and rehab stint, though, he discovers that he has a son. It is this discovery and his desire for a relationship with the boy that ultimately drives his redemption even though the writers and director of the film don't seem to know it. They spend way too much time developing the 12-step recovery angle and way too little time on the son and his mother.

In baseball terms, Home Run plays deep when it should play shallow and shallow when it should play deep. That may be the fault of the editor and perhaps a better cut of the film would go a long way to correcting this movie's problems. Still, much of the plot is both cliche and contrived, and that's the fault of the writer. It feels like you've seen it before but that the writers are trying to move deeper with it, deeper into the struggles of a society that is bound up with so many addictions and which, ultimately, will only find its peace in Christ.

Kudos for the theme and realizing this is an area that a Christian film could bring light to. Disappointment that Home Run didn't quite do that. In the end, Cory finds peace but in a way that also seems cliche, forced and improbable.

I said above that filming it in Tulsa and Okmulgee may not have helped the movie. But, I don't think that would be an issue for most people. I go to the movies to escape, and I wasn't able to because I recognized most of the landmarks as my everyday places. For example, I knew things like they were using the old Double-A baseball stadium in Tulsa for the major league scenes, but that tight shots keep you from noticing it's not a major league park. However, that's trivia that won't affect most viewers.

Home Run is worth seeing. But, it should be approached as one would a made-for-TV movie. There are parts you are going to enjoy and remember, and those will help you overcome the feeling that the pieces only sort of fit together in the end. Home Run is a good solid double. But, it leaves it to some future movie to bring the theme of addiction, recovery and redemption all the way home.

Mirage

Sometimes when I sit and reflect on my writing for Dulcius Ex Asperis, it occurs to me that there is an amazing flexibility in writing a blog in which the aim is to provide worthwhile reading on matters not written about in the mainstream of Catholic blogging. Were I writing for a major Catholic website, or had I gotten in on the ground floor of blogging and then ridden the wave of popularity that lifted established bloggers into regular readership and appearances in traditional media outlets, I wouldn't be able to write the post I am writing today.

Instead, I would be obliged to write about how wonderful Pope Francis seems to be or make observations about the simplicity he shares with Saint Francis. I would have to say things like "Isn't it cool that he used to ride the bus to work? It really shows he's a man of the people." Or I'd have to gently remind you, my readers, that no matter what the major media are saying or whose feet the former Cardinal Bergoglio is washing, the college of cardinals really did select a pope who is Catholic and who will uphold the doctrines of the Church. And, I'd have to do it from the vantage point of Oklahoma, which is to Rome what Pluto is to Jerusalem.

I would also have to, at regular intervals, encourage you to hold fast to your faith in a world that is fallen and doesn't make any pretensions of not being so. I confess that there are writers who do a much better job of that than I do and will leave that to them. Still, while that's not what I'll be doing in this post, I want to be generous. If you came to my blog looking for hope in a world gone mad, I grant you three Plenary Encouragements from the vast treasury of encouragements at Dulcius Ex Asperis. 

For those just looking for something different to read, though, I want to tell you about something that you won't read about anywhere else without really looking for it. I want to tell you about the movie I didn't fall asleep during last night. Although a very good movie, I really had to get outside the box of routine to make it through. Normally, my movie watching time fits neatly into the thirty minutes between tucking the children into bed and falling asleep in the living room chair. If you've gone searching for the calculator app on your iPod, I can save you some time by saying that that's about an hour and fifteen minutes short of a full-length movie.

But, it was Friday, and I had managed a nap after getting the children off the school bus, and so I was wide awake through the movie I had recorded several months prior after searching for films with Walter Matthau. The late Matthau is one of my favorite actors because he played a narrow range of characters that mostly resembled himself—and he did it successfully for 50 years. He was never really the leading-man type of actor even when that was how he was cast, but neither was he a character actor in that he could only rarely convince you he was anyone other than who he was. Still, he had a face, voice and mannerisms that would carry you through a well-written movie.

And, the movie I watched last night, Mirage, was very well-written. A suspense thriller with a slight romantic twist, it is the story of David Stillwell (played by Gregory Peck), a man who can't remember his life prior to two years in the past, but who doesn't realize he has amnesia until odd things start happening to him, and a woman with a fur hat and a man with a gun, separately, start appearing in his life. It's the piecing together of how he came to not remember and what he's not remembering that drives the plot in a tightly-written script that will keep you guessing until the end.

Matthau plays the inexperienced detective, Ted Casselle, who gets his first case when Stillwell comes to his office looking for help. Matthau gives a credible supporting performance and his acting meshes with that of Gregory Peck to a surprising degree. Less challenged in her acting by the roll, but still convincing, is Diane Baker playing Shela, Stillwell's mysterious love interest. Other notable characters are Dr. Broden, the psychiatrist who starts to help Stillwell piece it all together despite not believing him and not wanting to get involved. Broden was played quite convincingly by the late character actor Robert H. Harris. And, George Kennedy, who went on to play in the Airport and Naked Gun movies in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, is convincing as the more brutal of the two men with guns who are trying to bring Stillwell back to the movie's villain, The Major, played by Leif Erickson.

The mystery behind Stillwell is ultimately solved for the audience by Stillwell himself. Along the way, you get to ponder some moral questions such as under what circumstances we are obliged to help one another, and what would happen if we could really do something incredible that could have both beneficial and destructive application. While the full explanation of what happened that comes at the end of the movie has an early Sixties vibe to it, it is not as dated as most movies of that era seem now. It contains moral "what ifs" that we can still ponder today. In fact, if you can get past the old cars, the revolvers, the rotary dial phones, and men wearing hats, it could almost play to a modern audience. Of course, it would have to be a modern audience that appreciates that sex and violence can be implied without losing any of the realism.

This movie reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest with Cary Grant. Mirage, however, was filmed in black-and-white and relies less on big-budget action, and both of those qualities make for a more subtle film. Mirage, however, breaks out of the subtle often enough to keep you glued to the screen. I recommend this movie for one of those nights when watching more modern fare isn't really appealing—when, you are looking to be lured into a good, classic movie instead of being bludgeoned into a modern thriller full of profanity and nothing-left-to-the-imagination sex and violence.

Mirage is not currently available on Netflix or from other streaming video services. It is, however, available on DVD from Amazon for as little as five bucks. It's also destined to show up on cable TV again.

40 Under 40 (or One Day Unplugged)

It happens two or three times a year, but sometimes I don't notice. Usually, if I'm posting regularly to Facebook or tweeting on Twitter, I totally miss it. However, the times when I don't miss it, when it confronts me in bound, four-color, ad-supported glossy paper, that's when it really sinks in.

I'm speaking, of course, about Oklahoma magazine's April edition in which they announced their 40 Under 40, a spread about "Oklahoma's top young leaders," the movers in our state who are destined to do great and wonderful things over the next 20 years mostly in business, but also in medicine, education, the arts and non-profits. While there's a picture of each one and a blurb about what makes them important to our small state, the magazine's editors very wisely put a picture of the most attractive female in the group on the cover. There's balance and objectivity, and then there's the magazine business.

Oklahoma isn't the only magazine to run these types of stories. There are other magazines in both Tulsa and Oklahoma City that have variations on this story praising the people they see as community leaders and as having the potential to boost the magazine's public profile and circulation. Other cities have these magazines as well. They're usually free, and usually sitting in places where you might get stuck for awhile and will gladly read whatever you don't have to pay for that isn't a Jack Chick pamphlet.

For me, it was Sunday brunch at the diner. I had deliberately not taken my phone to church with me so that I could pretend I was living in an era where it wasn't of life-sustaining importance to have an electronic communications device within reach. I was doing pretty well, not noticing my self-imposed disability, when we entered the diner and my wife picked up Tulsa Kids meaning to read it later. I picked up Oklahoma because, even ignoring the 36-year-old, best-looking young professional, it had an attractive cover.

At the table, I soon realized it wouldn't be a talking brunch. We have those as a family, but we also, blissfully, sometimes don't. My girls started coloring the pictures on the kids' menu and my son, who wasn't unplugged, started playing on his iPod. My wife started reading her magazine and then I followed suit, seizing the moment, knowing that the casually dropped question or disagreement among my children could ruin it all.

It was then, reading through those pages, that I realized that there is a good chance that I'm not nearly as important as my 2,243 followers on Twitter might make it seem that I am.

You see, I've never been designated by a local publication as important to the future of the city or state. It's true that I'm a teacher and I work to make kids successful, but as education went on the list you were either the principal of the diocesan Catholic high school; or, you were the director of the cutting-edge charter school that enables a few children in a failing urban district with parents who care about their education to get away from children whose parents don't—at public school prices. Neither of these are bad, and both men are accomplished in their fields (I met the Catholic principal years ago when he was still a seminarian. Nice guy.), but being an educator of the upper end of the bell curve is, well, exactly the sort of thing that gets you noticed by the local glossy magazines.

When we finally did talk, I told my wife of my disappointment. She consoled me by reminding me that I haven't been under 40 for quite awhile. I countered that I had pretty generously offered them the extra years to get caught up and finally give me the recognition I deserve. She then offered that I had deliberately eschewed leadership roles because of my inability to sit through long meetings without playing Tetris, or doodling portraits of meeting participants as the would appear if they were warrior dwarves. I countered again that leadership in this article had been pretty broadly defined and that it seemed that "leadership" at Oklahoma was synonymous with "having a cool job."

"Oh," she replied. "Then, you're definitely out." Even as I thought of my rejoinder, I knew it was never to be. After all, I've been waiting for 17 years for the 30 Under 30 people to catch up.

One of the things I noticed over Lent when I drew back from social media sites is that, when I was on them every day, they tended to magnify my own sense of importance. On Facebook, I can dispense my own press releases and send out photos of my life to a waiting audience of friends and family who, inevitably, applaud and congratulate. I can discuss the issues of the day and pretend my opinions are every bit as important as those of the pundits on Fox News or CNN. But, in reality, I remain one of 310 million Americans who, day-to-day, have no real effect outside the small circle of their lives. And, pretending otherwise with thousands of Twitter followers just makes for frustration and a reality-check that only increases with intensity the longer it is delayed.

When we Facebook, when we tweet, when we blog, we select ourselves. We form our own appreciative groups. And, in many ways that's a good thing. For too long in the years prior to the internet, the broadcast and print media did the same thing on a vast scale and held too much power in deciding who and what was important. That the internet has blunted that power and that a few have even successfully used these new media to rival traditional media is to be welcomed.  Still, most of us will never be known or have our voices heard outside a small circle made slightly larger by technology.

OK, sure, I never really expected to be on a list of Who's Who that wasn't a publishing scam to get me to buy a book with my name listed along with hundreds of other suckers. But, there's something to being told you are a person worth paying attention to by someone who has gone to some expense to put you forward as among the two score important people in the state in your age bracket. I congratulate Oklahoma's forty who really are under forty and who have managed such impressive accomplishments.

And, where will I go from here? Well, I could try humility and doing all things for Christ. Still, there is The Top Ninety Percent Under 50 to shoot for. I think I've got an even chance—if I buy the book.

Spring Break

One of the enduring myths in my life is that, when a break or vacation comes along, I will get caught up on all of the things that I've been putting off or shoving to life's edges. However, whether it is yard work, photo albums, finishing up that Father Magrini short story that I started on the blog back in November, or any number of minor matters that I've put off to another day, they never seem to make it onto the schedule during that time off work.

Not that I don't have the intention of scheduling them. I even go so far as envisioning myself doing them in some systematic order that would make the venerable People of Lists and Calendars nod in approval. Something, though, always comes that seems to take precedence. This year's spring break, which is drawing to an end, has been no exception.

It's not that I have been unproductive. I've actually been amazingly productive, just not on the things I'd hoped to get done. Perhaps it is a form of Attention Deficit Disorder, but I find that the easiest way to get lots of other things done is to plan to do one thing I don't really want to do. So, if "clean the bathroom" is on the list, I can get the entire backyard raked and bagged, re-read The Lord of the Rings trilogy, clean out the rain gutters on the house, and play chess on my iPad (losing against the computer 15 out of 16 times). I cannot, however, get the bathroom cleaned.

I have at times used this to my advantage. Knowing my own nature, I've set for myself something tedious like "clean out the garage" as my goal so that, when the time for doing it was done, everything in my house but the garage would have been cleaned and put in good order. I would then promise that the very next weekend would be "garage-cleaning weekend" only to let two or three liturgical seasons pass before doing so.

When I was single and childless, this life lived in productive diversion went almost entirely unchecked. The advent of married life made it somewhat less probable that I would continue. Given a wife who is very organized, the first several years of marriage seemed likely to redirect my productivity into a, well, more productive productivity. Children, though, have been the great equalizer. Not in the sense that I am now free to return to my own scattered approach to getting things done, but instead in the reality that all of the things that they are doing now take precedence and, whatever I thought I was going to do, can wait. The reasons have changed, but the diversionary effects have remained the same.

So, I did not get the backyard cleaned up this week. I also did not finish up our Summer Vacation 2010 photo album. I will, however, have played several games of checkers with my five-year-old (losing 15 out of 16 times), gone to dinner at my children's favorite restaurants, and seen more G and PG movies with cartoon characters than I had planned. Also, we will have gone to the indoor swimming pool at the gym, and my son will have thoroughly updated me on the world of Minecraft (just in case I ever have to build my own dirt house and battle zombies with a diamond sword).

In spare moments, I have managed to continue the preparations for the renewal of my Consecration to Mary and started reading Pope Emeritus Benedict's book Jesus of Nazereth.  In the dark hours of the night that follow my children's bed times, I have even started watching Father Robert Barron's Catholicism series. And, tomorrow, I have set aside some time to attend both the county Republican convention and to take the concealed handgun carry class (if any of this seems incongruous, it's because you don't live in Oklahoma).

But, none of these things are the things that would escape being done at other times. They are intellectually or spiritually stimulating, or both, and could be considered, no matter how worthwhile, diversions from ordinary tasks. So, on Monday, I will head back to my classroom with that feeling of having accomplished both a lot and nothing at all, and begin my resolutions for things I will accomplish when summer break arrives.

A Mid-Lent Rift

Laetare Sunday, the rose-colored vestment Sunday in the middle of Lent, not only didn't start so well for me, I very nearly didn't notice it at all. By a mixing of the solar calendar which governs our common time and the lunar calendar which governs much of our liturgical time, Laetare (Be joyful!) Sunday arrived on one of the least joyful days of the year: the day when an hour is brutally wrenched out of the weekend by the government, and Daylight Saving Time begins.

I understand the concept and the reasons why we all need to pretend that noon is actually 1 p.m., 1 p.m. in actually 2 p.m. and so forth, but it always takes some getting used to in a way that receiving the hour back in the fall doesn't fully compensate for. So, on Sunday, I arose from an unusually peaceful slumber, went and made coffee, grabbed my copy of National Review and sat down in my favorite chair, only to see that the clock on the mantel was dictating that it was time to shower and get ready for church.

So much for that gentle "good morning" I expect at least two of the seven days of the week to afford me. So much for slowly moving my mind toward things beyond myself. So much for Peace on Earth Goodwill to Men. The news that day, as could be expected, was full of wars and rumors of war, nation rising against nation, famine and earthquakes. And, for what? A little more light during whichever part of the day it's supposed to be shifted to (I get confused, but I know they aren't shifting it to the early afternoon)?

At any rate, we went to Mass. And, Mass on any Sunday is a true joy. It is a joy, however, best reserved for when one is awake. Although I had managed a cup of coffee on the fly, I was not awake in either the physical or liturgical sense until the collection was being taken up and gifts presented. It was then that I noticed that our priests were wearing purple vestments. Though only newly alert, I knew something was wrong.

Maybe it wasn't Laetare Sunday. Maybe there were some rose details in the vestments (but one would have had to have been in that heightened state of awareness known as Standard Time to have noticed). But, no, those vestments were purple, or violet if you insist, and it was clear that the rift in the Clock/Solar Time Continuum had affected our clergy's choice of vestments.

As happens every year, the temporal confusion started to wane after a well-placed nap in the middle of the afternoon. By evening, I was back in good form and having fun with the misspellings in the agenda of the Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus Assembly meeting. It seemed that one of our events was going to require all knights to be on broad, despite the scandal that might ensue. Another event had been "concelled," which is probably a combination of "convene" and "cancel," although it is rare that we bother to convene what we have already decided to cancel. I would blame the time rift, but the Faithful Navigator, in addition to being that invaluable person who recruited most of the knights for our council and without whom we might not have been, is in a spelling dimension of his own.

After the meeting, I went home and prepared myself for the next day which would, as it should, contain 24 complete hours. I prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet before going to bed and also managed a bit of mid-Lenten reflection before drifting to sleep.

What I found in review is that my Lenten walking away from social media has been semi-successful. While I have tweeted, and putzed around with my blog too much (putzing includes all of the things one can check and do without actually writing a post), I have drawn back my Facebook presence quite a bit. I had allowed myself the weekends but find that, even then, it has lost much of its allure. And that has freed up a lot of time not only for my real, non-cyberspace life and the people in it, but also for the things I really like about the internet.

I find that I like those things that are extensions and improvements of what I did before the internet. I used to like to sit down each morning and evening with the newspaper. Newspapers aren't what they used to be content-wise (many of them are little more than ad sheets). But, sitting down with the iPad and reading the newspaper websites provides much the same experience with better, more current stories. I also enjoy reading books on my Kindle. Being able to download nearly any book I could ever want to read is definitely an improvement over the pre-web era. And, downloading music and only paying for the song I want instead of a lousy album is now a given.

Also, I like streaming video, but not YouTube which has decided that every two-minute video now needs a twenty-second commercial. Much like Facebook, my addiction to YouTube is waning. But, Netflix, Amazon Prime and the wide assortment of channels available on Roku have not only improved the pre-cable television experience but the cable-TV experience as well. Downloading podcasts from distant and diverse radio/audio sources has also enriched the time I spend with media.

I would add that, Facebook aside, I also like that the internet allows me to keep up with people I otherwise wouldn't remain in contact with due to the cumbersome nature of  snailmail correspondence. Here, however, the internet has been a bit too efficient. Instead of narrowing the gaps in communication it has eliminated them which hasn't always been a good thing. Relationships need a healthy space and that space isn't kept when Facebook is checked daily or several times a week. And, perhaps, that constant communication is best lost in favor of more fruitful communication.

Lent has always been a time of losing and gaining for me—losing bad habits and gaining good practices, both materially and spiritually. I hope this year I will walk away with a better relationship to the internet as a whole; that I will lose my addictions to its less worthwhile aspects and gain in my enjoyment of and spiritual profit from its many benefits. If that happens, then Lent 2013 will have been a success.  But, alas, even Lent cannot give back or transform that hour that I lost early Laetare Sunday morning. That hour is gone until All Souls Day.