"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" #36

 

MY LIST OF JOB EXPERIENCES

For one who thought about priesthood at age six, who made a public declaration at age seven and never seriously thought about anything else except a not-too-serious back-up plan (a chef) if that didn't work, you would think that he would never have experienced any other options along the way. If you thought that way, you would be wrong. 

When I was trying to think up life-episodes to include in my 2025 Saturday posts and later in a new book to be called YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP, it came to me to list the variety of jobs that I have had on my way to priesthood and beyond. Since I grew up in such a small town and was secluded away in the seminary most of the year, I remember thinking in my third year of college that if I was going to be a priest, I needed as many life-experiences as I could manage. As a result, I intentionally set out to explore as many things as I could, not so as to look for an alternative to priesthood, but to enrich it! For this blog post, I tried to remember the variety of jobs that I have had.

My first paying job was helping Junius Greenwell plant tobacco. It required that we help him pull tobacco plants from his plant bed and use a gadget shaped like a large ice cream cone with a water tank on one side and a slot to drop one tobacco plant at a time. The gadget would spear the ground open and then when you pulled a lever it would deposit the plant and water it. When you pulled it out of the ground the dirt would close around the plant. If I remember correctly, h did most of the planting and we caried plants and water to him. I was probably in the 4th or 5th grade. 

My second paying job was working in the country store in my hometown of Rhodelia, owned by Harold and Verna Vessels. I learned to pump gas, cannel eggs, slice baloney, cheese and cold cuts, load animal feed into trucks, stock the shelves and even operate the cash register. I was probably in the 6th or 7th grade. This was one of my favorite jobs because Mr. Vessels taught us how to do things we had never done before. It had variety and interacting with customers. 

My third paying job was the help the school janitor after school sweep and mop the classroom, hallway and cafeteria floors, as well as clean the the black boards. This was not one of my favorite jobs because it was repetitive and there were no people around to interact with.

Then there were the self-employed jobs like picking blackberries to sell for $.50 a gallon and picking up soft-drink bottles along the highway to return to the store for $.02 each. 

Next were the jobs working for my father and mother to contribute to the family upkeep: working in t garden (planting, hoeing and spraying), canning food, milking a cow, feeding pigs, chopping wood, loading hay, picking up roots, loading and unloading building materials, mowing grass, digging ditches, killing and cutting up chickens, weighing nails, mixing paint, loading fertilizer, cleaning manure out of animal stalls and chasing cattle which had "gotten out" because our fences were in terrible condition. 

Even though I was still in the seminary, I left home and moved to Louisville to live in my sister's basement when I had graduated from college. My first job in Louisville was to load trucks at a pickle factory one summer. The next summer I work at St. Joseph Infirmary as a grounds keeper, emergency room orderly, front desk clerk, medical library filing clerk and server in the chapel. 

The following summer, I went to Wheaton, Illinois, to live with a classmate and his family. My classmate and I bid on painting jobs and painted houses, inside or out, all summer long. It was the best-paying job I ever had up to that point. We never lost a bid, but we worked under the radar by not letting union painters know about our little operation. We even painted the ceiling of an old church from rented rolling scaffolding 

The next summer, I signed up to be part of a United Church of Christ ecumenical summer program for seminary students. I was the first Catholic seminarian to apply. The program was called "A Christian Ministry in the National Parks."  I attended an orientation program in Chicago at St. Richard Episcopal Church and was assigned to Crater Lake National Park in the state of Oregon. To get there, I helped deliver a used Lincoln convertible to Seattle, Washington, for a company called "Drive-A-Way."  

At the park,  I conducted two ecumenical campground services each weekend. During the week, I was a temporary garbage truck driver and a full time night desk clerk, a temporary bar tender and wine steward. I was even the Master of Ceremonies at the annual "Miss Crater Lake Beauty Contest." I even danced with the girls at the monthly Hotel Workers/Park Rangers dances. 

As a Deacon, I was a hospital chaplain and parish associate. As a young priest, I was a home missionary, a college teacher and chaplain, a volunteer at a juvenal delinquent institution, had my own radio program, got my doctorate in parish revitalization from a Presbyterian seminary, took five youth groups back-packing in Europe, pastored two small parishes and engaged in social services. 

After that, I was assigned to a historic Catholic parish in central Kentucky - Holy Name of Mary Church (established in 1798). In my three and a half years there, I renovated the church, the old school and convent, two cemeteries and cleared a park across the road from the church. 

After that, I was pastor of the Cathedral of the Assumption for fourteen years. We grew from 110 parishioners to 2100. The income grew from $90,000 a year to $900,000 a year. We completed a $22,000,000 renovation of the buildings and started an ecumenical organization, with an annual community-wide celebration, that still exists today: Cathedral Heritage Foundation which has morphed into the Center for Interfaith Relations. We started a Dessert Festival to support a home for people with AIDS and a Filipino Festival. During that time, I wrote my first two books of homilies. 

Following that, I became the Archdiocesan Vocation Director for five years during the national sexual abuse scandal. After that, I became a staff member at St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology and was founding Director of he Institute for Priests and Presbyterates after securing an almost $2,000,000.00 grant from the Lilly Foundation to design an ongoing formation for priests after ordination through retirement. During that  time I wrote several books for seminarians and priests, opened Jack's in the Commons (a coffee shop), a teaching kitchen and renovated a floor of rooms for the continuation education of older priests. 

In retirement, I started the Catholic Second Wind Guild and RJ Mission Projects to help support two mission countries in the Caribbean, Barbados and mostly St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We raised over $1,250,000.00 in funds for 2 automobiles and 2 vans, school supplies, computer camps and tuition assistance, remodeling a retreat house, remodeling the Pastoral Centre, church renovations, orphanage support and 3 shipping containers of medical supplies for hospitals and clinics. After 12 trips, a volcano explosion, a COVID epidemic and a couple of health issues, my involvement has been cut back significantly, but has not stopped completely.  

I CHOSE THIS A LONG TIME AGO ON A SEMINARY FIRE ESCAPE

 

A BIT OF WISDOM FROM MY LATEST "FAVORITE BOOK"

 

from pages 294-295

YOU HOLD THE POWER AND YOU ARE THE ONE WHO HAS BEEN GIVING IT AWAY

You’ve been trying to control the uncontrollable, trying to force the world to conform to your expectations. But what if, instead, you focused on your own response to whatever the world throws your way? You can’t change the weather. But you can change how it impacts you.

No matter what happens around you, you decide how it will affect you.

You decide if a comment from a loved one destroys your self-esteem or rolls off your back. You decide if all the bad dates you’ve been on cause you to lower your standards or you become even more discerning. You decide if someone else’s success makes you quit or inspires you to work even harder.

It’s that simple. You have the power.

This realization is like finally understanding the true nature of the sky. The clouds that once frustrated you are now seen as part of a larger, ever-changing masterpiece. The storms that once frightened you are now moments of power and beauty, teaching you resilience and strength. You start to see that the sky’s unpredictability is what makes it so magnificent, so endlessly fascinating.

Think about that for a moment. The sky will do what it does— clouds will gather, storms will come, and the sun will shine when it pleases. You can’t control it, but you can control how you navigate beneath it. You can carry an umbrella; you can dance in the rain; you can chase the sun when you need to.

The people and situations around you are like the weather. The fact is, you can never control other people — how they think, how they act, whether or not they love you, or how fast they check you out at the grocery store.

So why on earth would you ever give them the level of control over you that you have been giving them?

Why would you ever entrust something as precious as your confidence, your peace of mind, your happiness, and your dreams to the whims and moods of the people around you?

HUMILITY: NEITHER EXAGGERATION NOR DENEGRATION OF ONESELF

                            

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,

but the one who humbles himself will be exalted." 

Luke 14:1,7-14 

As we said in the Confiteor today, we can sin in two ways – by what we do and what we fail to do. We can sin by excessively over-inflating our worth and by thinking too highly of ourselves, but we can also sin by devaluating ourselves and by thinking too little of ourselves.  

When we think too highly of ourselves and too little of others, we are guilty of narcissism. Narcissism is the term used to describe excessive vanity and self-centeredness. The condition was named after a mythological Greek youth named Narcissus who became infatuated with his own reflection in a lake. He did not realize at first that it was his own reflection, but when he did, he died out of grief for having fallen in love with someone who did not exist outside himself.  

Narcissistic personalities are characterized by unwarranted feelings of self-importance. They expect to be recognized as superior and special, without necessarily demonstrating superior accomplishments. They exhibit a sense of entitlement, demonstrate grandiosity in their beliefs and behaviors and display a strong need for admiration. 

When narcissistic people talk about church attendance, they usually say things like “I don’t go because I don’t get anything out of it!” “I, I, I, I, I!” When they say things like that, they inflate their importance by putting themselves in the center of the picture. The purpose of church attendance is not about "getting" something. It's about "giving" something! We come to Church to give God worship and praise! We come here, not to get, but to give and to learn: to give God thanks and to learn how to give to, and serve, others! 

When narcissistic people talk about marriage, they talk about what it will do for them. People who marry successfully get married to be love-givers, not love-getters! As Jesus said, “It is in giving that one receives!” Receiving is not a goal, but a by-product, of both marriage and ordination.  

When narcissistic young people talk about what to do with their lives, they ask themselves “what do I want to do or what do I want to be” that will make me happy? The real question is not what do I want to do, but what is God calling me to do and be” that will lead me to happiness? Jesus was right, “Those who seek to save their lives will lose them, while those who seek to give their lives away, will save them.” Albert Schweitzer was right when he said, and narcissistic people will never get it, “The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found out how to serve.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was right when he said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?”  

Pope Francis talked a lot about a “self-referential church,” in other words a narcissistic church. He said that when the Church does not look beyond itself, when it is always focused on itself, it gets sick. The Church is the moon and Christ the sun. The Church exists to reflect the light of Christ to the world, not to live within herself, of herself and for herself.  

The other extreme to narcissism is self-deprecation or the minimization and devaluation of oneself. Both narcissism and devaluation of one's self are sins. The first and last reading today is about humility, but what many of us were taught about humility needs to be reevaluated! Humility is about accepting the truth about who we are, without exaggerating it or minimizing it. “Humility” comes from the Latin “humus,” meaning “earth.” “Humility” means “grounded.” A truly “humble” person, truly in touch with his strengths and weaknesses, neither inflates his worth nor devalues it.  

It is this truth that Jesus spent his ministry trying to teach. He taught it to the religious leaders of his day who were so arrogant and self-inflated that they started out talking about God and ended up thinking they were gods. He taught it to the marginalized of his day who were so beaten down that they did not recognize their own goodness and the image of God within themselves. As Mary said, "He pulls the might from their thrones and lifts up the lowly from their dung heaps."  

God has entrusted gifts to us to be used! When we do not use our gifts, even deny we have them, we neither serve God nor the people we are called to serve. There is great responsibility that goes with being the light of the world and having talents! It scares us. We tend to shy away from it.  

The fact is, we are afraid of failure and success. A calling makes us wonder if we are good enough, smart enough, disciplined enough, educated enough, patient enough, and inspired enough. We manage our fear by “going to sleep,” “settling for too little” and “self-sabotage.” We both crave and fear becoming all we can be!  

Thomas Merton was right, “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.” Maybe our biggest sin is not what we do, but what we fail to do! Michelangelo put it this way. “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”  Abraham Maslow called this habit, ‘the Jonah Complex,” the evasion of one’s growth, the setting of low levels of aspiration, the fear of doing what one is capable of doing, voluntary self-crippling, pseudo-stupidity, mock humility.”

Magnanimity and humility are the virtues specific to leaders. Magnanimity is the habit of striving for great things in oneself, reaching one’s full potential. Humility is the habit of serving others by bringing out their greatness, giving them the capacity to realize their human potential. Together they constitute the essence of leadership. In short, magnanimity and humility are about loving oneself and loving one's neighbor.  

Magnanimity affirms our own individual personal dignity and greatness. It is the thirst to lead a full and intense life through passionate and enthusiastic action. The magnanimous person is one whose heart is set on achieving personal excellence because he considers himself worthy of doing great things. A self-doubting, insecure, self-hating, lazy and timid person will never be able to lead effectively in the world, in the church or in the family.  

The other virtue essential to leadership is humility. Humility affirms the dignity and greatness of others. Humility is the thirst to love and sacrifice for the good of others. Humility is not about displays of personal power, but the empowerment of others. Humility is about authentic love. Authentic love is not merely about having warm feelings toward another. It is about offering them practical helpfulness in their growth as human beings.