Lack of Worship

and lack of prayer, fellowship, and participation accelerates the corrosion.

Blessings

tim

In Memory of Kathy Westendorf

Kathy was a wonderful woman.  She and her husband Bill led the RCIA program when I "went through" it.  Their marriage was a wonderful example of how things should be in terms of love and marriage.  Their ministry in the RCIA program was also an inspiration.

I attended her funeral today, and I have to say that this is really the first time I have felt so emotional at the passing of a friend or relative or while at a funeral.  What is interesting is that I am not so emotional about passing, all though that is saddening.  What stirred my soul is that Kathy was a great reflection of the True Light that we are all looking for in Jesus Christ.

I've commented before that studying scripture and bible commentaries will often times "convict your soul" when you discover a nugget of truth that shines a light on a part of our life that is sinful or otherwise needs work.  When I say "convict your soul" I mean the part of you that feels like "oh no! I've been dong that. I really need to do better."

Kathy was the type of person that made you want to be a better person because of the way she lived and how the Father's love really reflected in her words and actions.

Kathy passed as a result of a long fight with cancer. Fortunately here family were with her. She was a loving person who was everyone's best friend.  Even through her struggle with the terminal illness, she continued to love.  The circumstances of her struggle also helped those who loved her to love each other more and as well as to learn more about what love is.  A testament to what I think is wrong about the "death with dignity" movement.

Kathy, you will be missed. I pray that the Father welcomes you into his presence and Jesus is there to hold your hand until you are united with Bill.  Kathy, please pray for me so that I may be a better husband, father, and friend

Tim

Loving the Father

Posted during a break taken while doing some work at a local coffee place.

How do we love the Father?  For the longest time I didn't feel love for the Father or Jesus.  Why, because the feelings I had for them did not feel like what I felt for my wife and kids or my parents.

I'd sit in my bible study and here folks talk about how in love with Jesus they are and you could tell from their sincerity that what they were saying was more than words and grandstanding.  They were in love.  I kept wondering to myself, why don't I feel that?  Where is the great burning in my heart for Jesus and the Father?

But I'm coming to realize, that through my spiritual journey and the cosine post from the other day, that we need to put our shields up to the outside world and put down our shields to the grace and peace of the Father and Jesus.

How is this done? At least for me it is continually trying to be "in the Spirit" through spiritual exercises such as prayer, bible study, frequenting the sacraments, Mass, etc.

Blessings

Tim

Flash of Genius update

A while back I posted my thoughts concerning the movie "Flash of Genius".  The son of the main character has left a comment on that post concerning his father.  Definitely worth a read.  It can be found here.

God Bless

Tim

The Post Only a Christian with an Engineering Background Could Enjoy

I am an engineer and scientist by training. I have a B.S. and M.S in Electromagnetics from Michigan Technological University. One of the greatest things about my education is that it has helped me to recognize similar patterns in seemingly different phenomena, activities, situations, etc.

On my faith journey, I have had many ups and downs. In mathematics there is a rhythmic function called cosine that fluctuates between 1 and -1, or up and down. It looks like this.

Not only does this represent the ups and downs during my faith journey, but it also represents how I think I waiver between feeling in the Spirit and feeling pre-occupied with other things. During the week, starting with Sunday Mass, I am Spirit filled. But as the week goes on, the crush of the world causes me to be preoccupied with other things. It is only until next Sunday's Mass that I am filled with the Spirit again.

So what I needed to find was something to keep me "centered" with the Father. One of the things that has helped has been our Parish's Bible Study. Our group is a great, faith filled Small Christian Community. It meets on Wednesday and it helps to refill the Spirit in my soul.

There is still a big difference between the peaks and valley's. The valley's aren't in the "shadow of death". But they could be better. And I had noticed that even though I am feeling more centered, I still let the crush of the world affect my relationships with the ones I love. At confession, a priest suggested I enhance my prayer life. Since then I have tried very hard to have some good quality prayer time in the morning after getting up and before going to bed. This has helped a great deal. So now, the ups and downs are more like this.

The goal of course is to keep smoothing out the peaks and valleys so that we are always in "tune" with the Father. A flat line across the top is where Jesus probably was. The Saints probably had curves that had minimal peaks and valleys.

So what do you think, is it attainable? Only through the Grace of God and discipline and a desire to continuously improve myself. St. Joseph pray for me.

Blessings

Tim

Quality Time From a Quality Husband and Father, #46

Today, I am standing on the shoulders of giants.  Two really good posts from the Catholic Dads Blog.  The first one is from Wednesday of last week, and it points to Fr. Wade Menezes' Ten Commandments of a Husband and Father.  Good stuff.  I couldn't agree more with the Jason's statement that it is a great meditation and couldn't come at a better time than during Lent.  Find the document here at the bottom of Father Meneze's bio page.  Two of the commandments that really touched me were:

1. Get your priorities in order: Jesus first, your wife second, your children third, your work fourth, etc. Develop a weekly schedule, blocking out quality time for the Lord, your wife, each child and the family as a whole. A husband’s most important time during any given day is the first five minutes when he gets home from work and the love and attention he shows his wife and children at that time. Remember that your human fatherhood is rooted in the Divine Fatherhood of Almighty God (cf. Ephesians 3:14-15; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2214).
2. Spend quality time with each child. Treat each child in a unique and personal way. The power of a father’s affirming love is tremendously overwhelming and something truly wonderful. Children need it. They require it for their full and proper development. Let each child share his or her ideas, feelings, fears and problems with you. Do everything in your power to ensure that your child can always approach you in any matter. Be sure to share periodically with your wife your insights concerning each child. Discipline with firmness and love (again, your model here is that of the wise and prudent king who rules over the inhabitants of his kingdom with a firm, but great love and not of the master who rules over his slaves).

Text in bold with italics is my emphasis.  The second point above struck me and gave me pause.  This is something that I really need to work on.  At the end of the day I am tired and I am usually stressed out about work or something that I need to do from the seemingly never ending task list.  When I get home it seems all I want to do is have dinner, get the kids to bed, and veg out.  How Selfish!  Not only that how am I making them feel if my attitude is such that I'm trying to get rid of them (by wanting to get them to bed) as soon as dinner is over.

Indeed, how selfish.  I really need to change this and take this commandment to heart.  I need to make sure that I spend good quality time with each one of the kids so that I make sure they feel loved by me.  So from this point forward, I am resolving to spend good quality time with each child either before dinner or just after dinner when getting home from work. 

The other post, entitled "All work and no play..." reinforces both of the commandments I listed above.  It talks about quality time with the family.  When I do spend time with my family, it has to be good quality time where I am present, thinking about them and concentrating on them.  Giving them my all.  All to often we come home from work and we are still thinking about a problem that we have to figure out. Because as men, that is what we do, solve problems.  But our family needs us to be ever present in their lives.  They need quality time from us.  When thinking about it, this is a no brainer.  They deserve it.

Taken with our other actions, it only makes sense.  After all, in everything we do, don't we try to give our family quality things?  Quality home, Quality clothes, Quality food, Quality Education, Quality Toys.

Don't they need Quality Time with a Quality Husband and Father?

Set in order of priority:  There is a time for the Father, there is a time for Family, and there is a time for work.

I have been working on spending more time with the Father by increasing how much and the quality of my prayer time.  I now need to spend more Quality Time as a Quality Husband and Father with the family that I love.

St. Joseph Pray for us fathers.

Blessings

Tim

P.S.  I was originally going to call this post #46 because I couldn't think of a title and this is my 46th published post.

How do you describe the indescribable?

How do you describe the indescribable?

A couple of years ago, Emily asked Jen and I what Heaven was?  How do you describe the indescribable to a 3 year old when you can't even imagine how glorious it is?

Emily loved (and actually still loves) going to our neighborhood parks.  When she was really young and first going down the slides we would say "Wheeeeeeee" as she slid down.  The word stuck and she called every park "Wheeeeeee".  She differentiated between the parks by some unique feature.  Like the "Horsey Wheeee" or the "Fishy Wheeee", etc.  Emily loved slides.

So when she asked us about Heaven, Jen was able to explain it right away. She said "Heaven is full of "Wheeees" and slides. All the best "Wheees" you could ever imagine."

How have you described Heaven and other indescribable things to your children?

Blessings

Tim

Sorry for the missed post

Emily's Birthday was on Saturday.  We had a big party with a bunch of her friends at Pump It Up. Here is a picture of the birthday girl with her Tinkerbell cake.

So, after a long string of posts regularly scheduled for Saturday mornings, I slacked off.  Sorry!  I do have some good stuff coming though.

Look for "the post only an Christian engineer could love" this Saturday.

Blessings

Tim

"My soul is sorrowful even to death."

I read this story and "my soul is sorrowful even to death."  It aches.  Granted the baby was born so premature that it may not have survived.  But they didn't even try...

All I can think about...to say...to pray is:  Father I am sorry.  I'm sorry we have lost our way.  I'm sorry that we have so objectified all that you created that the only thing that matters is our own wishes, desires, our own happiness. Why don't we understand that only through conforming our will to Yours will we ever be happy?  I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Forgive us.  Forgive me for not doing enough.

Pray that we can all do a little more.

Tim