Back on the air?

Yes, I have been a way for a while.  I must admit that I've felt bad about not posting regularly, but, I haven't had a anything to say.  And I don't want to post just to post and drive up traffic.  I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that, it is just not my style.  Besides, I follow a lot of blogs like that and I get a lot out of them.

Perhaps it is the start of the season of Advent that, quite in line with the intent of the season, I have become more reflective.  Perhaps it is because I am traveling to Helsinki for some training this week that I have actually had time to do some reflecting.

So anyways, here I am in Frankfurt, Germany waiting for my connecting flight to Helsinki.  This week I will be at a workshop to learn about LTE as well as network with some folks.  Hopefully, I will be able to have a beer with some old friends from one of the other wireless programs I used to work on.  I will keep my fingers crossed.

So I am sitting in one of these airport lounges, waiting for my flight, and I am looking at all of the people.  About 100.  All sitting in their own chairs, going about their business.  With the exception of a few folks who are obviously business partners, no one is talking to each other.  We are a gregarious species who hunger for human contact. Why aren't we talking to each other when we are so far from our homes and families.  The ones we love?

A great many of them are probably Christian, why aren't they sharing their love of Christ and his Father?  What is it about our condition that we feel like we need to restrain ourselves with respect to our love of God around strangers?

I must admit that I would not make the first move to discuss something, so I'm guilty.  I'm just wondering why we are like this.  Why do I have to wait for my weekly bible study or write behind the facade of a blog in order to share my thoughts and love of God?

Just pondering.

Blessings

Tim

Stripping away our dignity

Great post from "The Heart of Things" about how our society and how we are objectifying ourselves. The part that really struck me:

"We're gorging ourselves on feelings and casting away our fertility. We've severed the life-line that is tied to the ship that is meant to take us home. The most God-like attribute we possess, that of generating a new human life, is stripped away from the sexual embrace."

This is true, yet our society is searching for something else in life.  Something I call the True Light. In addition we seem to be attempting to be god (small g on purpose) in other ways or trying to replace God altogether through drugs, porn, sex, etc.

Blessings

Tim

Prayer for Patience

I have a problem with patience. There is nothing wrong with patience, I just don't have enough of it. Through the Father, all things are possible. During my prayers, I ask for help with patience. One day, I was struck with the thought that I need to write a prayer for patience. Here is what I came up with. Be gentle.

My Father,
only through you are all things possible.

By your Grace, I am made whole.
You complete me.

Help me to recall
- the joyful noise that was their first cry.
- the unconditional love I felt when I first held them.
- the joy and pride in each small accomplishment.

Help me to remember that they are a precious gift from you. Left in my care for what seems like a lifetime but is gone in the blink of an eye.

That however impatient or angry that I may be with them, they will learn from my words and actions. Help me to remember that by teaching them these things, I am perpetuating that which must stop.

Help me to remember that I am called to protect, teach, and above all, love them as you love me.

Help me to unshackle myself from
- the stress and fatigue of the work day.
- the crush of the pressure from the World.
- the anxiety from the uncertainty of these tough economic times.

Father, I know that through you, all things are possible. Complete me with the grace of patience and perspective so that I may fulfill my sacred duty as husband and father.

Lord Jesus, pray for me.
Your Holiness JP II, pray for me.
St. Joseph, pray for me

Amen

Blessings

Tim

To Love and Serve the Lord

1. We were made to love and serve the Lord.
2. We are given a vocation. Either to love and serve the Lord as a religious or love and serve the Lord as a husband and father.

As a husband and father, how am I to love and serve the Lord? To love my wife and children as the Father and his only Son have loved and continue to love me. Ultimately, to boil it down, my job, my vocation, how I am able to love and serve the Lord, my reason for existence is to ensure that my children are able to love and serve the Lord.

QED

Tim

Ton of Bricks - A Solution?

Jen and the kids were off to Michigan to see family this past week for Spring Break.  I was unable to go with them because we usually spend quite a bit of time during the summer and Christmas there and I could not afford using up my vacation.  Besides I had to go to Espoo, Finland on a business trip.

When I'm away from my daughters for a while, I begin to miss them deeply. There is a hole in my heart that causes me to reflect on my relationship with them. In a one of my first posts, "Ton of Bricks", I talked about how I could be pretty overbearing. I've prayed for help with this and I have been blessed with some assistance, but I know that something else has to change. This past week has allowed me to take a step back and think about it more.

Jen, God bless her, is much more even keeled than I am.  She is slow to anger and able to handle the kids pretty well in almost every situation.  Whereas I am more quick to anger and more things tend to rub me the wrong way. She knows when it is time to discipline and she is not afraid to pull out the "wait till daddy hears about this" card.

When I get stressed out, my personality is such that I become more controlling. I'm wired to try and control my environment with the assumption that if I do, my stress will be relieved.  Unfortunately, this leads to more stress for myself and everyone around me. Things start to downward spiral. I can see that my oldest is not doing well when handling whatever stress she may have, I think that she is getting it from me.

To that end, I'm going to try and "let go" in regards to handling the kids when they are misbehaving.  I will take my cue from Jen. I will try to be as patient as she is and help discipline when she needs my help. I need to be more even keeled in order to provide a better example for living with others for my children.

St. Joseph, pray for me and all fathers.

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

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.

Flash of Genius, Justice, and Vindication. What About the Ones We Love?

One of the movies playing on my flight back from Washington, DC was "Flash of Genius".  It was a very good movie that told the story about Dr. Robert Kearns.  Dr. Kearns invented the Intermittent Windshield Wiper that is now on over 145 million vehicles worldwide.  Ford Motor Company, like all the other automakers in the world had been trying to develop the intermittent wiper for years.  In a flash of genius Dr. Kearns, an Electrical Engineering Professor, figured out how to make it work.

In good faith, he provided to Ford a prototype.  Ford requested a prototype because they said they needed it to prove out the longevity and the safety of the device.  A couple months after giving them the prototype Ford got back to Dr. Kearns with the news that they were no longer interested.

Several months later, a redesigned Ford Mustang was unvieled with...Intermittent Wipers.  What ensued was a long drawn legal ordeal that ended up causing Dr. Kearns to have a nervous breakdown, he and his wife to separate, and for him to come very close to totally alienating his children.  All for the sake of wanting Ford to capitulate and admit that they stole his idea.

The movie was good.  And indeed, Dr. Kearns was vindicated.  Ford paid him 10 million dollars, Chrysler paid 18 million. His kids, as they grew older, helped him out with the case.  I am happy that justice was served.

What saddens me is that his marriage was ended by Dr. Kearn's singular desire to prove that he was right.  Justice is important, but at what cost? At the price of his marriage? At the risk of his relationships with his children.

What kind of message does this send to people?  That it is ok to pursue justice even at the expense of ruining the relationships that are so important?  The relationships that are the basis for our society?

I have no bone to pick with Dr. Kearns and his family.  I'm inspired by the werewithall he had to stand up to one of the largest companies on earth.  But, my heart aches for the hurt it caused for those that loved him more than anything else.

I immediately thought about how this applies to me and the important relationships in my life.  On more than one occasion I've ended up hurting people I love for the sake of proving I was right, or proving a point, or insisting on justice. 

Our relationships with our spouses and children are the most important things in our lives after our love of the Father.  Nothing that we do should hurt them or do irrepairable harm to those relationships.

I hope and pray that I can do a better job of keeping this in mind.

Blessings

Tim

Indifference

Our bible study group is currently studying the Revelation of John.  Last week we read about and discussed the letter to Laodicea.  We are using William Barclay's commentary, and he discusses the issues that Laodicea had with respect to indifference.  When I read that part of the commentary, I didn't think very much of it because it talked mainly about the indifference of a community.

But, one of our bible study members discussed about the cruel power that indifference has on relationships, and the effect it had on them.  Are we guilty of indifference to our children, spouses, and other loved ones?  What kind of damage does that do to the ones we love?  I know that I am guilty of it.  Both in regards to my wife and children. 

I thank God for our bible study.  A Small Christian Community that helps to really understand our Lord's Word and how it applies to our daily lives. 

Without this tidbit of perspective concerning indifference, I would not have realized what potential damage I could be causing in my relationships.  Fortunately, armed with this info, I can do what I can to seek forgiveness, rectify the damage and work on improving my actions (or lack thereof).

Please look at your relationships and actions and see if your indifference is causing problems.  It may help you to put a better spin on this year's Valentine's Day.

Blessings

Tim

Toughest Thing About Being a Parent

Do you know what is the toughest thing about being a parent, at least for me?  It's not the long nights up feeding or changing a diaper.  None of the things that one might expect, although some of those things are tough.  

No, the thing that makes parenting tough for me is correcting all of my bad habits so that they do not pick them up.  Things like my short temper, over reacting to things, etc.  I want my kids to be better than me in every way, including not having my bad habits.  Especially the habits that make it extremely difficult to live with.

Children are incredible sponges in the first few years of life.  They soak up everything.  They view life through the lenses that parent's behavior creates for them.  That view of life shapes how they will behave now and in the future. Including, and probably most importantly, when they become parents.

I pray that I can change my bad habits to be a shining light (or reflection of the true Light) for them AND I pray that I will be able to work with them to break the bad habits that they have learned.

Blessings to you.

Tim

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