Snailbites

I live in New Jersey. Suburban New Jersey. The kind of place you think of when someone says the word suburbs. Or the kind of place a foreigner would think of when someone says the word America.

I live in a town called Maplewood. Just south of Newark, south enough to not be ghetto, but just east enough to be slightly gritty and away from the prissiness, and close enough to NYC to not be boring. My town is a strange conglomorate of races and ages. If Newark is full of “minorities“, and the Oranges and Livingston are full of “majorities“, then Maplewood is the penultimate mixing bowl of mixing bowls. Your likely to have good friends, best friends of all different races. Growing up I hung out with 4 guys – 1 black, 1 Italian, 1 hispanic, 1 Irish, and me the Filipino.

Maplewood has 4th of July celebrations complete with circus, pie eating contest, and fireworks. One year I got a bronze medal in a relay race. Maplewood has an ivy covered bridge over a babbling brook, complete with wood ducks, that runs past the Library. There is a pizzaria called The Roman Gourmet that has the best pizza in New Jersey. It was opened in the 70s by an Italian famiy who moved here from Brooklyn after emigrating from Italy. Maplewood is also the stomping grounds of a singer named Lauryn Hill, an actor named Zach Braff, and an army guy named General Norman Schwarzkopf.

Maplewood has its own movie theatre, supermarket, liquor store, ice cream shop and book store. It’s got everything all in one small, walkable, family friendly package. There’s no reason to ever leave it. My brother put it best when he said, “How could you ever leave this place?”

New Jersey is, and will always be, home. I strongly believe that someday, all of our friends who moved away will come back to settle down. One day, when we’re all married and our kids are grown, we’re gonna be taking them to gigantic Meat Day celebrations. And they’ll be asking us what are the origins of Mexican Ball? I want my 40th birthday to be in South Mountain reservation with all our kids, chili, burgers, and an eletrical hookup for Powerstone 2. By that time, I assume we’ll be so big that we’ll run that place over.

These past 2 weekends, I’ve been able to spend some good time with some very important people in my life, some since birth. Some are married, some are pregnant, some are just graduating college. And all of us (or most of us at least) are still here. Maybe I don’t have that big of an extended family here in the US, but it’s a great feeling to know that those who I grew up with, I’m still growing up with.

So here’s to New Jersey, to Maplewood, and to EDK. This New Year’s — Mexican Ball in my basement!

Here is the Session 4 video from CFCY Conference. This video is so meanigful, because it is the story of our lives. From member to leader, from hopeless to hopeful. But did you get the concept?

Ton, in the beginning, was going to kill himself. Cut to John, a frustrated leader who begins to lose hope in his service. No one reads his fliers, so what’s the point. But one day, a random person, Ditto, sees the flier and decides to check out a meeting. He meets people, becomes active, and soon becomes a leader. Now he is the one leading the meeting. At the meeting, he inspires a girl, Ton’s sister Lani, to write a letter. That letter reaches Ton, and he reads it, and regains hope. Soon after, John posts another flier, and lo and behold, Ton sees it. And the cycle continues…

The idea behind the video was that everything we do matters. Everything we say matters. Every little act changes the world. We lose hope because we only see the small things, like putting up fliers. But when you put on the God glasses, you will see that one letter affects one, who affects another, who affects a community, who affects a neighborhood, who changes the world. Everything counts.

Wanna pray with me?

Dear Lord, you have used us and this community of CFC Youth for your greater glory. We know that you have a great purpose for us and for our lives. We know that the service we do is changing the world. We know that you have annointed us to take on this incredible job.

It is because of this knowledge, Lord, that we cry out to you to restore the brokenness in our community. Please forgive us for our transgressions, and instead look with favor upon your people. We are still here to serve you and to build your kingdom. And we ask that you allow your Spirit to move through us and lead us, and may nothing get in the way of your work.

We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

I remember talking to Fr. Michael, my parish priest, about Hope. This was all before Conference, when I sought to learn as much as I possibly could about Divine Hope and about Lamentations. I remember something he told me very well — that, it is not until you experience Hopelessness, that you can fully understand what it means to Hope.

I remembered our conversation, and this line, and had a brief moment of clarity. I looked back on my life, and all of the hopeless situations in my life. I remembered feeling absolutely hopeless in college, questioning if I’d wasted 4 years of my life studying things I didn’t understand. I remembered feeling hopeless before my parents joined CFC. I remembered feeling hopeless when I got emails about the change in CFC leadership.

I remembered these things and the disparity I felt. And the pain of confusion that comes with not being in communion with God. I remembered the questions that had no answers — the finite human mind trying to finite-ly frame the infinite perfect plan of the Lord.

I remembered all these things and breathed a sigh of relief and of peace. Because in every desperate moment in my life, I have cried out to the Lord, and He has heard my pleas. It is in these incredibly hopeless moments that the Lord was closest to me.

There is no prayer that He has not heard and answered. I can’t explain that. Our own human intellect is always prone to justifying things against the workings of the Lord.

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, noted that the human mind will always seek to rationalize the unexplicable plan of God. It will always come up with a million and one reasons to believe whatever it can mentally grasp. But that is where Faith comes in. We believe in things unseen, no matter how irrational they are to the human mind. Scripture tells us that we are “citizens of Heaven”, and we should see above what the World tells us and trust fully in God’s plan.

I’ve been a Full Time Worker for this community for 3 years and I know that while I seek answers just as everyone else, what our community really needs right now is to simply love. We need to love each other, love our families, our leaders, our households, even our enemies… We need to come before each other in humility and honesty, and pray as One Body. We need to spread love and make it contageous. For Scripture tells us that if we do not have Love, then we are simply a noisy gong.

May I continue to lament for mine and my community’s broken covenant. There is no prayer that is unheard. And even in the present time, as we dwell in our own humanness, God is still concerned with us, with me, with you. And he continues to be absolutely fascinated with us. We have no choice but to Love.

Love is the answer.

does anyone remember this 80s tv show on nickelodeon? i sure do. i can still sing the melody word for word 20 years later…

today was a semi-epiphany day for me. i spent my afternoon eating cluck U in a park in south orange. i noticed while i was scarfing down my buffalo chicken sandwich with mac n’ cheese that i was terribly in a rush. i couldn’t get the food in my mouth fast enough. granted i was hungry, and granted cluck U is quite delectable. but i had to stop myself and ask, why am i eating so fast?

i guess it dawned on me that i was home. that conference was over. that i had no more deadlines. no more vendors to answer to. that God had used me. that Kato had passed. and that i was home. and home is good.

somehow in the midst of so much “business” i’ve become too preoccupied with life to even enjoy it. call it re-conforming to the fast paced nyc life style. call it conference preps. call it whatever you want. i dont like it.

i remember the last time i was home for some time. i would spend up to an hour every day, sitting in my backyard with kato, just being still and immersing myself in the silence of God’s presence. it was a good time for me.

i see now that so much is changing in my life and that if i try to race alongside the pace of current events at the present time ill end up… just like a pinwheel… spinning around and around.

and i guess i’m learning that its time to just step back in the midst of the circus of activity and be still… and know that God is God. be still, Vince. every second counts. savor it. soak it in. the little things are the big things. and the big things are not so big in the end. life is in the details.

may all of you reading find stillness and silence in the whirlwind of this world.
Godbless you.