Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8
Impossible things just take a little longer.
Philo T. Farnsworth (Inventor of TV)
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Thomas Edison
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Benjamin Franklin
The biggest shortages in the Catholic Church are not money and priests, but faith and imagination.
Ronald Knott
The above quotes, from a variety of people, remind me that we are all called by God to cooperate with him in the working of "miracles" while we are here on earth. We are all called to work in partnership with God in the bringing about of those "miracles." To understand this, we have to look at our lives through the lens of faith or else we will end up assuming that we have simply gone from one accidental happening to another, or worse, that we "earned" all those good things we enjoy through our own power and effort.
Personally, I am a "project person." I need a project to feel alive. The main thing I have learned from so many projects is that it is one thing to have an idea and another thing to bring that idea into reality. I am not more imaginative than the next guy, but I am so determined and hard-headed that I may have a better track record than some in materializing my ideas. I "stay with them" "like a dog on a bone." Scripture says, "Without a vision the people perish." I might add that "without a vision, I would perish!"
Yes, I have had my failures, but with God's help, with partners walking with me and with my own drive and determination, I can say that quite a few of my projects have succeeded and some of them have bordered on being "minor miracles" in my estimation. There is nothing exceptional about me, except maybe my Knott-headed steely determination to "get it done" once I set my mind and belief to the task.
Let me give you some examples. I am not offering them to brag on myself. I am amazed, but I dare not brag because I am not the source of these "miracles." I was simply given some amazing opportunities by our "higher power" and all I did was respond positively to them because I literally believed that "miracles" were possible! I have seen it too many times before to doubt it.
Here are some of the opportunities given me that seemed at the time to have come from nowhere. I realize now that they were invitations from God to trust him by saying "yes" to those invitations. In hindsight, I see that together we have worked several "minor miracles" in my lifetime. I was guided through remodeling seven houses, publishing several books, writing my own weekly column for a Catholic paper for fifteen years, starting an interfaith campus ministry organization in Somerset and producing my own radio ministry in Monticello. I was given the opportunity to earn a doctorate in ministry from a Presbyterian Seminary. I was invited to be a campground minister for the United Church of Christ in a national park, a bar tender, a hotel desk clerk, a hospital orderly in an emergency room, an MC in a beauty pageant, an international motivational speaker in nine countries, a missionary in the Caribbean, a university chaplain, the creator of a whole new seminary department called the Institute for Priests and Presbyterates, lead five college-student backpacking trips to Europe, help remodel a deteriorating shrine, build a teaching kitchen and coffee shop, help restore a Cathedral while revitalizing its congregation, start an organization in my home parish called Saint Theresa Heritage Partners so as to establish a new Family Life Center in its old closed grade school building where I went to school as a child.
When I was pastor of our cathedral, and helping to lead it through a 22 million dollar restoration and an intense revitalization effort, there were many times I wanted to "give up" when things got tough. Oh, yes, there were many, many times I wanted to get on a bus and never come back! To help me and the congregation focus on the positive and keep going, I wrote a little piece I called “The Dream.” “Translating a dream into reality takes great courage. Doubt is a constant enemy. When doubt reigns, there is a strong temptation to let go of part of the dream as a way of resolving inevitable tensions. Success depends on the ability to remain enthusiastic, focused and purposeful to the end.” When doubt overtakes me, I try to remember the story I once heard about an engineer who designed a new controversial plan to dig a tunnel between Switzerland and Austria. To save money and time, it was his idea to have people digging from both ends. It had never been tried before. The diggers started. The engineer set the date when they would meet. When the day came and the diggers had not met, he killed himself out of shame and embarrassment. On the day of his funeral, it was announced that the diggers had broken through and the tunnel was perfect! The poor man had given up one day too soon!
Many people are held back from accomplishing their dreams by the circle of acquaintances who surround them. When they set out to exert themselves in some new direction, they often find themselves confronted by rejection or disapproval that leads them to adjusting themselves to fit whatever status quo that circle deems most favorable. Their compliance is rewarded and their failure to comply is punished. Their very need for love and acceptance becomes the vehicle of their subjection.
When we are held back by the need of others for us not to change, we must learn to stand up and follow our own instincts. When others protest our changing, it’s usually not that they don’t want us to change, they just want us to change to meet their needs, not ours. The truth of the matter is, a small number will like us, a small number will dislike us, and the vast majority won’t care one way or the other.
Other people are held back from accomplishing their dreams by self-doubt. When they set out to exert themselves in some new direction, they are often confronted by a whiny little inner voice that tells them to back off because they are not the type to do great things! Giving into self-doubt and fear are good ways of sabotaging their own efforts as a way of resolving the inevitable tensions that come with dreaming big dreams. When they devote ourselves to risk-taking, they must stand up to their own cowardice and need for comfort, multiple times over.
Still others are held back from accomplishing their dreams by their inability to ask for help. The refusal to ask for help is a kind of sickness in itself. Such people have come to believe that no one’s help is worth the price in vulnerability that it will cost them. People seem naturally to resist asking for help and advice, with its implications of their shortcomings, but simply asking for help is the world’s most powerful and neglected secret to success. One of the great surprises of life is to find out that God is waiting to send us help and there are plenty of people who will gladly give us a hand – if we only ask.
Presently, the next "miracle" that I am assisting in giving birth to is the new Saint Theresa Family Life Center down in my home parish in Rhodelia. Recently, I have reached one of those critical points, a crisis point really, where it is "make it or break it" time because of the soaring inflation levels in the building trades. At a time like this, as in every one of my projects, doubt is raising its ugly head tempting me "to give up," "back off" and "walk away!" In any project this big, to quote myself from my Cathedral project days, "Doubt is a constant enemy. When doubt reigns, there is a strong temptation to let go of part of the dream as a way of resolving inevitable tensions. Success depends on the ability to remain enthusiastic, focused and purposeful to the end.” Please pray for me that I can "keep the faith" and "remain enthusiastic, focused and purposeful to the end."
I am trying to keep believing that this next "miracle" will be completed. I have already received a hint from a fellow believer in "miracles" in our community who wrote: "I will help and together with others your legacy will be achieved! Keep the faith!" Now, I am actively "waiting (and working) in joyful hope" for this next "miracle" to unfold before me!
Let me end with a song that Elaine Winebrenner sang at the last Mass I celebrated as pastor of the Cathedral after that "miracle" had materialized. The music and lyrics are below.
Beautiful the Dreamer
Beautiful the dreamer in His eyes
Those who look beyond the darkened skies
To the light that breaks above the stars
To the place where vision wakes
And shines in our hearts.
Beautiful the dreamer in God’s eyes
For without a vision we will die.
So let the prophet speak, the vision soar
And rise forevermore
Beautiful the dreamer in God’s eyes.
Father, give us dreams alive and new
Come fill our hearts with what you want to do.
Fix our eyes on heaven ‘til we see
Just what your kingdom here on earth can be.
Blessed are the ones who do not see
And yet with perfect vision still believe.
Blest are those who let their spirits dream
Never stopping ‘til they see their King.
They forever fly on eagle wings,
Where stars and angels sing.
Praise to the Redeemer
Beautiful the dreamer in His eyes.
Praise to the Redeemer
Beautiful the dreamer in His eyes.
Mike
Hudson/Paul Smith
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