Tag Archives: Catholicism

Founding Principle

Posted on by under Literature, Memoir, The Edison Project Blog

Of no small consequence to this endeavor I’ve dubbed “The Edison Project”, from the outset, was the intentional digging into myself I felt needed in order to expand my voice.  That in order to have something to say, I needed to know the core of myself.  While not near the heart of my core, as of yet, I have devised a first tenant of life: purpose.

That is to say that it is in finding purpose that we find what feeds us towards our goals, our ambitions, our happiness.  No matter how small or large a person’s penchant for competition is, at the heart of each of us lie certain constructs of winning and losing.  We set goals and we measure them.  If we succeed in our task, we measure that out to be a win, and are therefore happy.  If we fail in that task, we measure that out to be a loss, and we either are unhappy, or resolve to create happiness by reinvesting ourselves in accomplishing what was once failed.

In setting goals that satisfy our core, we increase our happiness by building further purpose for our lives.  The best way of doing this is to establish initiative and accountability.  No matter how large or small the aim, establishing accountability to the things we say we are going to do ties us to our words, creates a mission and sense of purpose.  By constantly probing our deepest selves, we begin to take initiative to both reach out to the world and accomplish goals, while simultaneously uncovering more of who we are.  I believe there are central tenants which need to constantly exist while we dig, lest we venture off the path:

 

  1. God (read: Faith) – While I certainly advocate for the adoption of Christianity as the pillar behind our faith, any faith with ambitions to achieve the Golden Rule propels us towards enriching the fabric of ourselves and our immediate communities.  An accredited Faith in this sense cannot be one that is warped into maliciously creating harm towards others in the name of that faith.  To be fair, there are pockets from nearly every faith that seek to abuse the central aspects of their theology.  None can be accepted over others, merely because they fit our understanding of what is beneficial to us.  There are other aspects created by faith that are so large and important, that I will list them later.
  2. Family – Whether through the course of marriage, or the family to which one was born, purpose is derived from family.  Role models are created first in this core component of creating purpose.  Ideologies and pathologies are first communicated here and can also be the source of rebellion in later stages of life.  The role of both a father and a mother are critical, as despite recent beliefs, men and women bring to children different examples of love, authority, acceptance of individuality and permission to be oneself that the other cannot mimic genuinely.  Parents must work through differences and set a tone of compassion, teamwork, and handling of conflict in healthy ways in order for children to see compromise as optimal – in order to see that people don’t need to agree completely to get along properly.  Purpose in this sense, is more of a passive understanding of right and wrong.  A foundation of formulating virtue over vanity; where it can never be questioned that moral and philosophical right and wrong are not relative.  They are fixed.  If one strives towards virtue, they can never proclaim to subscribe to a separate set of virtues.  In part, this is why religion and family are so critical to back each other up.
  3. An understanding of the power of evil against the power of good – And the willingness to acknowledge the evil that exists within ourselves.  Dr. Jordan B Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychologist, a man to whom I am now becoming acquainted through his work, describes perfectly the virtue of power.  He dismisses out of hand that power is found through manipulation or exertion of force or the threat of it.  He says that is tyranny.  I agree with him.  Power is standing on moral principles and executing them with the authority and discipline given earned as we move along in the world.  Power is when a man uses his strength, or any otherEdisonProject71 masculine trait for good.  Power is when a woman uses her love, or any other feminine trait for good.  Peterson aptly describes that both men and women posses the same virtues; only that they posses different quantities of each virtue, as well as the focus to develop certain traits over others.  Put together, men and women complement one another.  Neither can be removed, or silenced, without creating a vacuum of virtue in one form or another.  Peterson claims that we are first charged with defeating the evil within ourselves before we can expand that fight towards fighting evil in our communities, or society at large.  I believe that is the inability to do so that creates in our leaders and inability to lead by example.  How many times have we seen authority figures brought up on the very charges they espouse to disdain? It is in understanding evil that we defeat pluralism, moral relativism and vanity – in order to harness that evil and employ virtue against.  The presence of this knowledge cannot be overstated.  When one begins a new effort, if he, or she, has not accounted for the malicious existence within themselves, that effort can be easily forced down a path of destruction.  To illuminate my claim further, one has only to watch Star Wars.  As silly as that may sound, the entire epic rests solely on one’s ability to keep the evil that rests within each of us in check.
  4. Social Connection – A friend and mentor of mine, Andrew Bustamante has said it be when he put to me the thought, backed up by several studies that loneliness may become the next great epidemic in mental health.  The fact that so many people now derive a majority of their interaction with friends and family through social media has led to the distilling of group thought, and advice, as crucial.  I am certainly guilty of this fact.  He has his own plans, which can be seen here, but for the purposes of my thoughts on purpose, social interaction and connection to society must be maintained in order to assure that purpose exists within the framework that society gives us.  Without incorporating our purpose into the greater good, it is impossible to determine whether or not one’s goals and purpose establishes a productive element to society.  As an aside, I’d encourage you to visit his website.  Andrew is an excellent motivator, and has proved an even more valuable curator of ideas, as I try to bounce ideas off of him as often as I can.

TheBestArmourFor it was Marcus Tullius Cicero who said ” The best Armour of Old Age is a well spent Life preceding it; a Life employed in the Pursuit of useful Knowledge, in honourable Actions and the Practice of Virtue; in which he who labors to improve himself from his You, will in Age reap the happiest Fruits of them; not only because these never leave a Man, not even in the extremest Old Age, but because a Conscience bearing Witness that our Life was well spent, together with the Remembrance of past good Actions, yields an unspeakable Comfort to the Soul.  This is invaluable advice.  For each day, age eats at us.  Each moment, we pass up a purpose-filled life in exchange for nothing of benefit to us, we are less likely to reward ourselves with a soul full of comfort and gratitude for the moments we have left to spend.

Yours in the Pursuit of Purpose,

Will O’Connor

My March

Posted on by under Memoir, The Edison Project Blog

This might be heavy.  It also might sound political.  I promise it is as personal as I can approach a thing.

In light of yesterday’s March for Life, the 45th edition of the collection and peaceful demonstration, speaking to my experience on both sides of this issue, and in the middle, felt like something I had to do.  The march for life, sponsored and attended by those who believe abortion ought to be eradicated from the earth gather in our nation’s capital on the third Friday of January and spend the day listening to a great many speakers, while also marching the streets of the capitol to display the mass of their movement. I’ve never been.

Growing up Catholic, it was just a fundamental truth that abortion was wrong and that conception of a child meant only deliver or miscarriage. It was never specifically discussed with me beyond the basic tenants.  I received no defense training of our position as a culture.  It was not until I began expanding my circles that I encountered those who differed.  There were a wide variety of reasons; abortion is a health-care issue, I was told.  Abortion is a woman’s right to choose, because pregnancy requires the mother to endure countless changes to her body, psyche, lifestyle and future.  Abortion is merciful to a child who would otherwise be unwanted.  The one that got me the most; abortion is not a man’s domain because it he has no choices to make, no changes to endure, beyond conception.  As a youth and then a young man, too timid to wade into those waters, I accepted my obsolete opinion, and stowed myself on the fence.  I lived there for many years.  In many ways not able to understand my true roll in the debate until my daughter was born.

At the height of my indifference and confusion, I had ended a relationship with a girl I’d dated for nearly two years.  Knowing I did not want a long-term relationship with her, yet unable to find an alternate relationship that took hold, she and I began interacting with each other merely on a sexual level.  My world shattered on the day she told me she was pregnant.  Prior to even gaining my footing, she told me she wanted an abortion.  I recall feeling relieved, as the alternate would require a commitment on my end I desperately did not want to make at that point in time.  I was able to trade self-respect and accountability to my actions for the elimination of my offspring.  For some time, I felt as though I escaped that crisis on top.

I am not sure where to start to turn the coin here, but I’m absolutely certain I lost – that I created an eternal crisis to escape a momentary one.  Given that it was a direct desire of mine to avoid accountability and honesty from the age of seventeen to the age of twenty-three, its a wonder this event didn’t occur more than once.  I think about what my 10 year old child would have done for my life.  I think about who he/she would be.  I am ashamed I didn’t speak up, that I allowed myself to be persuaded by tertiary concerns to spite primary issues.  Although true that I ultimately could not have held the final decision, perhaps it would have changed the course of events had I possessed the vantage point I hold now.  I am sorry that I ever allowed myself to believe that fatherhood was less vital to a child than motherhood.  I am sorry that I forgot the role my father, his father, and so many other strong men played in my life.  That none of them ever sought to recall their integrity for the course of expediency was a gift I benefited directly from.

Now, nearly thirty-three years of age, I now have three beautiful children with my wife.  Even if they weren’t so stunning, I can’t image ever not wanting to protect their life and dignity with fierce obstinance and pride.  As a Catholic, I value the just law of Jesus to protect and defend every life.  But had I never come across Jesus’ teachings, and somehow still had the three children I have now, I would still know in my heart that these miracles turn every argument for abortion on its head.  I know now that abortion does nothing to advance or protect society, the mother, or the baby.  Abortion, and the arguments for it, have numbed generations of men to the salvation that is a loving and committed family.  The culture of interpersonal communication between men and women in romantic settings has simplified due to the immediacy contact can occur and then be severed, both between man and woman, and the offspring they create.  Culture has plunged with the “me first” mentality that has invaded the public persona of the individual on the path to “enlightenment.”  It isn’t just obvious through abortion.  Countless avenues of human interaction have taken a hit in the past 50 years with the ripening of socialist-styled government programs.

From what I have seen, I feel even more for those young men and women just now coming to the age I was when I traded everything I’d been taught for the immediate freedoms that are delivered when we sit on a fence.  I worry  that those too insecure to properly weigh justice and mercy may overwhelmingly choose the side of mercy, afraid to stand up to pluralism, globalism and the dawning of the age of American Politi-theocracy.  Perhaps they aren’t even afraid.  Perhaps they’ve been convinced that “it doesn’t matter if its true, you just can’t say that sort of thing to somebody.”  These are things I see growing – and they feed the pro-choice argument.  Moral relativism negates the ground held by pro-life proponents.  Secular society demands we separate church from state, even when the framers of the constitution merely wanted to avoid a state-sponsored religion.  The fact that someone publicly proclaims Jesus Christ to be the Lord and Savior of  all is not exclusive of those who would not share the same claim.  It is not hate speech, and it does not foster an environment of discord.  Jesus Christ was the authority of inclusivity, thoughts on love and environments of peace and understanding.  Refusing to agree does not make it less true.  He, and all of His teachings were designed to include those on the margins.  Respect for life, dignity and individual agency are chief among the ways we can include others.  Outlawing abortion would only bring us closer to those ideals.

I’m not sure I have much faith in abortion ever being overturned in this country.  Perhaps I am too cynical, but progressive legislation and jurisprudence seems to be on the down-hill portion of the slippery slope.  I regret contributing a child to the hideously enormous list of children killed at the hands of their parents.  I believe it will be the major sin I will have to do penance for when I meet God in Heaven.  I can only hope that perhaps, someone out there can learn from my mistake.  That they can understand that trading accountability and truth for a pliable moral reality always means we make the least harmful decision for us in the moment, yet very frequently the most harmful choice for our long-term outlook.

Yours in the Pursuit and Growth of Happiness,

Will O’Connor

Listen Up, Son

Posted on by under Memoir, The Edison Project Blog

My wife and I were born to parents who were baptized into the Catholic Church as infants.  That I am aware of, all four of my grandparents and all four of my wife’s grandparents were also born into the church.  Tradition is our family’s thing.  Conversion has historically not.

It takes, I think, total submersion into a Catholic Parish in order to come away from church with more than two readings, a series of songs, a clear understanding of when to sit, stand and kneel and a murky sense of which prayers you may be able to one day convert in your brain to the new version they switched over to ten years ago, and which just are hopeless.  Connection on an individual level, during the process of the mass, is not the highest priority.  While I understand the reasons for why, I sometimes look to other friends, who attend other churches filled with a greater mission to praise through prayer, music, etc and feel a twinge of jealousy.  I have to remind myself that the Catholic Church believes its mass not only provides us with the nourishment of the body of Jesus Christ on Sunday, but sets us up to be good Christian people most every other day of the week.

So as my wife and I, throughout the course of an infrequently granted date night, occasionally danced in and out of what we might do to benefit our spiritual journeys, and those of our children one day, we found ourselves simultaneously upset by the failings of the church – and our inability to grasp some of the greater meanings, and the myriad of reasons we have achieved successful faith-filled blessings throughout our time together.

By all appearances, just as God intended we found ourselves that next morning at 11:15, listening to the sacred scripture for the first week in ordinary time.  The first reading was from the Book of Samuel.  Two prophets, Eli – an established church leader and teacher of students like Samuel, a boy who was one day to be another to foretell the coming of Jesus.  In the story, Samuel is woken many times to a voice saying only “Samuel”.  The logical choice being that Eli, his teacher, is calling him – Samuel goes to Eli three straight times before finally Eli arrives at what is happening – Eli is experiencing his own calling from God.  As Samuel answers Eli the 3rd time, Eli says to Samuel “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”  Samuel does so.  When the Lord calls the final time, Samuel does as he is bid.  This results in Samuel knowing God, and God blessing Samuel’s words, that he be heard and believed for all of time.

For the rest of the mass, including the homily, I reflected on the church’s position relative to mine.  I sensed that I’d been thinking as those of old with respect to the earth and sun.  The earth, no matter its significance to us, does not hold the orbit of the sun.  Alternatively, the earth orbits the sun.  Just as I may wish the Catholic Church cater to what I believe I need, it is the centerpiece in this relationship.  Its constant in my life is what has allowed me to know God, even if only in a minor way.  Here I am, Lord!, should be my sentiments toward the possibility of a greater relationship with God, and yet I am worried about comparing the lifeblood of the Catholic Church to that of a non-denominational church that opened 5 years ago and probably won’t survive being handed down to another due to faith-based differences that naturally exist between to lives of faith.

My position within the church is one of many callings.  The trick is to call on those vocations at the proper times.  I am called to listen to those who might teach.  I am called to minister to my children and my friends.  I am called to promote the future of the church.  I am called to be a member of a flock.  I am called to be a shepherd in times in which a wolf presides.

It is hard to know which of these is needed at various times.  Right now I get the feeling that God, and Samuel, are trying to remind me that the parts of me that need to connect with my faith in all of the various ways needs me to listen.  Something that does not come easily, or naturally, to me.  For the time being, my happiness, or the expansion of it, seems to be calling me into the realm of “Speak, Lord.  Your servant is listening.” As I am called by my faith, church community, wife and children to fulfill various roles, I am to listen first.

I’m always amazed at the rate at which at least one amongst the readings specifically speaks to me or to an issue I’m having or concern I’m contemplating.  This Sunday’s was no different.  If we are to truly exist in happiness, then we must do so hand-in-hand with God.  Step one starts with listening.  But we can’t listen without truly first believing there is something to be gained by listening.  I think I’ll start there.  I’ll let you know where it leads.

Yours In the Pursuit of Happiness,

Will O’Connor

We Stand Resolute

Posted on by under The Edison Project Blog

Greetings and Happy New Year!

2018 Got off to a slow and quiet start for me, as I was swallowed up by the flu bug on Christmas afternoon, taking all of my energy from me up until this past weekend.  Drained from having completed our family Christmas circuit, focusing on properly stowing all of the gifts the kids got from their overly generous grandparents, aunts and uncles and ready to get some much-needed real estate back from our Christmas tree, writing has not been on the forefront of my mind.  Until yesterday.

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Our nearly 5-month-old daughter, being the last to dispel the flu from her system, was not fit to attend church this weekend.  My wife needed some time and my kids had also recently on the mend, meant that I would attend church on my own.  The sixth of January being the feast of the Epiphany, the gospel at church was taken from that this week.  The priest’s homily is what shed light on my post today.  He spoke about the imagery of dawn, and its ties to the gifts the wise men gave to us when they recognized Jesus as the King of all people, for all times.  Their gift to us is illumination.  When they brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to Christ, they illuminated, much as dawn does for a landscape, the beauty of the gift of Christ in human form.  Both the fact of Christ’s divinity, and his humanity, and the new light of day call for us to be a city on a hill for all.

And this got me to thinking, am I truly a Christian in the sense that my life reflects the Love God has brought to my life? Do I reflect God in meaningful ways to my wife, my children, my community? Decidedly, I do not believe I’ve done a good enough job of that task, that requirement.  Whether worn down from a long day at work, frustrated that my individual desires are bogged down by family responsibilities, or just caught up on worldly thoughts, too often I miss my opportunities to be a Christ-like leader in these environments.  So here I find myself taking the time to reflect and resolve what my 2018 goals will be.  Last year, I think I did a decent job of achieving a myriad of goals.  I intend to use these achievements as stepping-stones to a more fulfilling 2018 goal: namely that I will spend more time internally processing where my conflicts lay, and will rise to meet them, as best I can, in the manner in which my faith commands me.

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Lofty tho this may be, it is what I am called to as a Christian husband, father, son and brother.  It is what I am called to as a member of my company, community and country.  I plan on defining these roles, and the ways I can reflect the light of Christ as those opportunities avail themselves throughout the days, weeks and months ahead – but I also know that being present in my daily vocations and responsibilities will help me to reach these on a consistent level.  I intend to report back in the ways in which I’ve both succeeded and failed – and what lessons I’ve learned along the way.  This will be my theme for both my writing, and my living over the next year.

Good luck in your ventures here in 2018! I hope each and every one of you find the path calling you, and stays within its bounds as regularly as possible.  I hope to do the same.

Yours in the Continued Pursuit of Happiness,

Will O’Connor