GRABBING THE BRASS RING

ONE VERY IMPORTANT LIFE LESSON

Brass ring devices were developed during the heyday of the carousel in the U.S.—about 1880 to 1921. At one time, the riders on the outside row of horses were often given a little challenge, perhaps as a way to draw interest or build excitement, more often as an enticement to sit on the outside row of horses which frequently did not move up and down and were therefore less enticing by themselves. Most rings were iron, but one or two per ride were made of brass; if a rider managed to grab a brass ring, it could be redeemed for a free ride. References to a literal brass ring go back into the 1890s.

As the carousel began to turn, rings were fed to one end of a wooden arm that was suspended above the riders. Riders hoped that the timing of the carousel rotation (and the rise-and-fall motion of their seat, when movable seats were included in the outer circle of the carousel) would place them within reach of the dispenser when a ring (and preferably a brass ring) was available.

"Grabbing the brass ring" or getting a "shot at the brass ring" also means striving for the highest prize, or living life to the fullest.

 

"GRABBING THE BRASS RING" 

ONE AT A TIME

A Review Of My Own Evolution

I have spent most of my life standing up to that little coward inside me that has tried it's best to run my life! That little coward had several significant people egging him on when I was very young, but I finally decided to stand up to him and tell him to shut up and stand back! Three years ago, I detailed the story of my battle with him in a little book called BETWEEN COURAGE AND COWARDICE: Choosing to Do Hard Things for Your Own Good. I guess it's part of getting older to take time to reflect back on your own life and either regret it or be amazed by it. I have done that and I have even summed my life up in four simple words - Simply Amazed, Forever Grateful.

My life may not be amazing to anyone but me, but I don't care! I would say, without giving myself full credit, that it has turned out to be much more amazing than I could have imagined growing up in Rhodelia, a small Kentucky town of twenty-seven people, where I was told regularly that I "wouldn't amount to a hill of beans." I looked that expression up the other day. Here is what it says. "Beans, being fairly easy to grow, are commonly used in everyday expressions to indicate something of little value. Consequently, someone who "isn't worth a hill of beans" is seen as being worth very little."

With the help of God's amazing grace, I refused to turn those words into a "self-fulfilling prophecy" so I fought back long before I even knew what a "self-fulfilling prophecy" meant. Thinking back, they actually did me a favor. They super-motivated me to prove them wrong. I decided to be intentional about my own life, rather than its victim. I stood up to the naysayers sounding off around me and to the negative voice blaring inside my own head. I would not want to dictate to others how they ought to live their lives, but if they asked, my only recommendation to them would be this: never say "no" out of fear or low self image to unexpected opportunities to grow and to change. I know so many people who have committed personal and spiritual "suicide," one cowardly "no" at a time, and now live lives filled with the regret that has resulted from missed opportunities.

My courage has fallen into two categories: the courage to seize an opportunity and the courage to leave an opportunity when its time is up - especially in order to make room for another opportunity. I give God the credit for presenting these opportunities. I call these opportunities for change and growth "moments of grace" or "unmerited divine assistance" offered by God. As such, they have two parts: (a) they are spontaneous invitations or opportunities offered to us by God that mysteriously show up when they show up and (b) they require our ability to seize the moment by stepping up to the plate in doing our part to see where a response to those invitations will take us.   Yes, grace "takes two to tango:" God's offer and our acceptance.  

 ANYBODY CAN DO IT

Summon the Courage to Stand Up To Your Own Cowardice

Don't Let Life Just Happen To You

 Be Deliberately Intentional About How You Live

After spending quite a bit of time measuring my own courage and cowardice in face of opportunities to grow and change, I want to recommend this "life review" process to anyone who is reading this blog post. If you see that you have a life-long habit of seizing opportunities, pat yourself on the back and "keep on keepin' on!" If you see that you have a life-long habit of giving into fear and laziness in response to the scary opportunities coming your way, it not too late to change that habit and take a path that is much more life-giving. The reason I decided to share my "life review" with you is not to get you to follow my path or to admire me, but to hopefully inspire you to follow your own path and be proud of yourself! Your own "life review" will give you the insight you need to make corrections, if needed, before regret becomes a common thread running through your life. 

One of my first remembered deliberate responses to a spontaneous  invitation to change and grow came when I was about ten years old. It was an opportunity to go to Camp Currie on Kentucky Lake in western Kentucky one summer for a week. It was a camp operated by the Kentucky State Conservation Department where I was exposed to things like learning to swim, archery, boating, shooting, first aid, wildlife identification, plant identification and conservation. I decided, even at that age, to stand up to my fear and seize that opportunity. That decision started a process of learning to overcome my fear and to say "yes" to other growth opportunities.   

                     

                                                                           

"Pray, Take A Deep Breath And Then Go For It"

THE OPPORTUNITIES I HAVE SAID "YES" TO AND THE RESULTS

NONE OF THOSE "YESES" WERE THAT EASY

 

Growing up, I did some farm work, worked part-time in a grocery store and mainly worked in my father's building material business. 

I had always thought about being a priest, even as a child, but it wasn't till I was 13 and in the 7th grade that I heard about a seminary in Louisville that would take students right out of the 8th grade. I seized the opportunity and managed to convince the adults in my life to leave my country home at age 14, against their advice, to begin a 12 year program in the city to become a priest. (I think they allowed me to do it because they were convinced that I didn't have a chance in hell to succeed and would soon come back home. They were wrong. I didn't come home. I did succeed!)

I attended three seminaries: graduating from two Catholic seminaries with a High School diploma, a Bachelor of Arts degree, a Masters of Divinity degree and from a Presbyterian seminary with a Doctor of Ministry degree. I was the first in my family to graduate from college. 

As a seminarian, I broke a long-standing seminary tradition by leaving home and moving to Louisville and renting my own apartment during summer and holiday breaks. I don't think I even asked for permission. After ordination, it was very rare at the time for a priest to own his own house, much less live in it, but I have owned, renovated and flipped six houses to pay for the condo I now own and live in.  

As a seminarian, after first choosing to no longer go home during summer and holiday breaks, I got a job loading trucks at Paramount Foods, a pickle and catsup factory the first summer.  Next, I worked at St. Joseph Infirmary as an information desk clerk, medical library clerk, emergency room orderly, chaplain assistant and grounds keeper during another summer.  

After that, I painted houses outside Chicago during another summer. During my last summer before my ordination as a Deacon, I worked at Crater Lake National Park as a limousine driver, night desk clerk, bar tender, beauty pageant master of ceremonies and a campground preacher for the United Church of Christ. I drove out there in a used Continental convertible that I agreed to deliver from Chicago to Seattle. I drove home from Oregon, on a dare, in an old 1951 Buick that someone gave me at the end of that summer. I made it home, barely, but that old car never started again and had to be junked.  

After ordination to the priesthood, I taught Sociology at Somerset Community College and founded IF (Inter-Faith: an inter-denominational Campus Ministry Program). I gave the Baccalaureate Address at a Public High School with no Catholics three years in a row. I belonged to a small weekly support group of ministers for 10 years: a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Disciple of Christ, an Episcopalian and a Lutheran. I took 5 groups of college students on month-long back-packing trips through France, Spain, Switzerland, Italy,  Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and England. We spent a week of each trip at an ecumenical monastery in Taize, France, dialoguing with 1500 students from 50 countries around the world. After fifty years, I am am still in contact with a few of them. 

That's me with the beard and stripped shirt talking to students from various countries in Taize, France.

I have hosted visitors in my home here in the US from Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Togo, Tanzania, Italy Mexico, Korea, the Philippines, Kenya, Poland, El Salvador, Trinidad, Barbados and Nigeria to name just a few.  

I became the first Catholic priest ever to live in two Kentucky counties while pastoring two small Catholic parishes as the youngest pastor in the diocese at the time. I served as a volunteer Chaplain at a state Boy's Camp for juvenal delinquent boys. I had my own Sunday morning radio program called "Morning Has Broken." I started a summer volunteer program for seminarians and high school youth from northern Illinois and Louisville to work with the poor of Wayne and McCreary Counties. I also founded Clothes 'n Stuff, a large used clothing store. I was a member of the Somerset Jaycees and directed the hosting of exchange students from Italy and Austria in their  International Students Program. 

In Calvary, Kentucky, my third priest assignment, I led the renovation of an old convent into a retreat house and parish hall, the renovation of the church, the renovation of the rectory, the cleaning up of two cemeteries and the clearing out of a park area across the road from the church. 

At the Cathedral of the Assumption (1983-1997) I led the revitalization of that parish from @ 110 members to @ 2100 members. With the help of an interfaith organization we created, the Cathedral Heritage Foundation, I helped lead a $22,000,000.00 restoration project. At the end of that process, as much as I wanted to hang on I chose to resign and make room in my life for another adventure. 

During my 7 year tenure as the diocesan Vocation Director, I was given the opportunity to visit seminaries and seminarians in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Baltimore and Louvain, Belgium, in Europe. I was able to recruit our first Spanish speaking seminarian who is now a priest.   

During my 17 years as a weekend Campus Minister at Bellarmine University, besides Sunday night Masses, I celebrated over 20 Baccalaureate Masses with homilies and gave Invocations and Benedictions at those graduations.  I introduced an annual standing-room-only Blue Christmas Mass for the Grieving, wrote two books about my experiences as a campus minister there and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Bellarmine University at my retirement.      

I accepted the opportunity to address all the monks at St. Meinrad Archabbey in two sessions about the need to re-invent seminary training to include serious ongoing formation. Those talks led a $1,750,000.00 grant from the Lilly Foundation to found the nationally recognized Institute for Priests and Presbyterates

During my years as a staff member at Saint Meinrad Seminary, and continuing a few years after, I conducted over 160 Priest Convocations, Retreats, Assemblies and Study Days in 9 countries: England, Ireland, Wales, Canada, the United States, The Bahamas, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad. 

Besides teaching classes in preaching at Saint Meinrad Seminary and publishing several collections of my own homilies, I was invited to present a paper (later published) at the fifth annual Conference on Catholic Preaching at Notre Dame University, Indiana, in The John S. Marten Program in Homiletics and Liturgics.

I accepted the opportunity to lead 2 Monastic Retreats: St. Meinrad Archabbey (Indiana) and St. Benedict Abbey (Kansas) and two College Seminary Retreats in Texas and Indiana. 

Besides teaching Homiletics, I taught Pastoral Practice, Introduction to Presbyterates and Transition Out of the Seminary courses. I was a seminary Spiritual Director. I was responsible for  building Jack's Coffee Shop in the Alumni Commons; the Vianney Center with its "teaching kitchen" and the St. Simeon Residences in Bede Hall for senior priest programs.  I was a partner in the renovation of the Saint Meinrad Archabbey's Marian Shrine at Monte Cassino.  

Over the years, I was given the following awards: the National Conference of Christian and Jews Community Service Award, the National Federation of Priest Councils' Touchstone Award, the Saint Meinrad Distinguished Alumni Award,  the Louisville Forum Fleur de Lis Award, the Louisville Defender Community and Spiritual Enrichment Award and Louisville Central Area "COMMUNITY AWARD For Significant Contribution to the Revitalization of Downtown."

I was able to conduct over 75 Parish Missions in Kentucky, Indiana and Florida 

Leading up to my retirement, I founded the R J MISSION PROJECTS, the CATHOLIC SECOND WIND GUILD (a mission outreach to Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines Chapters), made 12 volunteer trips to the Caribbean Missions (four countries) over 5 years and raised over a million US dollars and helped send several tons of medical and school supplies to the Caribbean missions. 

I was an invited speaker at US Conference of Catholic Bishops meetings in Florida and Chicago and at a Antilles Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting in Port of Spain (Trinidad).       

I have published a total of 33 books (2 in Spanish, 1 in Vietnamese and 1 Swahili) and several articles in magazines and journals like AMERICA, ORIGINS, CHURCH, SEMINARY JOURNAL, THE PRIEST, DEACON DIGEST and PASTORAL REVIEW (London, UK) 

I was a weekly columnist for The Record newspaper for 15 years (An Encouraging Word). I served on the Louisville Priests Senate (4 terms) and the Archdiocesan Board of Consultors (1 term). I served two terms as a trustee: J. Graham Brown Foundation, Kentucky's largest charitable trust. I have been a blogger for 6 years

I accepted the opportunities to take cruises to Alaska, to the Caribbean and to the Greek islands and Turkey. 

These days, I am serving as the founder of the St. Theresa Heritage Partners and overseeing the design and fundraising for the St. Theresa Family Life Center at the parish where I grew up. I am serving as a part-time chaplain for the  Little Sisters of the Poor in Louisville and filling in part-time at the Cathedral of the Assumption, my old parish. 

I haven't said "yes" to every opportunity. I turned down leading priest retreats in Singapore, Tonga, Nigeria, India and Hawaii, as well as a tour of the Holy Land, because of conflicting responsibilities and a couple of minor health issues.  

Together, that's not bad for a boy from Rhodelia, who was too bashful to read in front of his classmates in the seminary - if I have to say so myself. Believe me, if I can do it, anybody can! It's not about luck or magic or anything special like that. All it takes is over-riding your fear and getting up the guts to say "yes" to God-sent opportunities as they present themselves. The more times you say "yes," the more opportunities present themselves. The more you say "yes," the easier it becomes to say "yes." 

I challenge you to take the time to write your own "life review." It is an excellent spiritual practice. It's sort of "an examination of conscience" on steroids! I think you will be surprised at all that you have accomplished so far! I believe it will make you feel good about yourself. Even if you don't do it now, God will do it for you someday so you might as well get started! 

The best news of all might be this:  as long as we are alive, we all still have time to "grab the brass ring" when it comes around!  God is always sending us "opportunities." It's up to us to stay alert, to summon our courage and to seize the moment!