#Hard stuff

[momentsbeforemass]

Alone

One of the saddest things is giving up. And falling into despair.

When the hard stuff of life hits – whether it’s death or divorce, illness or addiction, betrayal or money problems. And you’ve been praying and waiting, hoping and believing for someone or something to make it all go away. Or at least be with you in it.

But often the hard stuff doesn’t go away. And if no one comes, it’s hard not to give up. It’s hard not to fall into despair.

I’ve talked with a lot of people who have given up. They’re good people. People who care, people who try. People who would help you in a heartbeat if they knew you were hurting.

For most of them, the reason they gave up wasn’t the hard stuff they were facing.

They gave up because they felt isolated. Like no one else knew or cared about what they were dealing with.

They gave up because they felt alone.

Which makes giving up even more tragic. Because none of us are ever alone.

Which is why today’s Feast of the Guardian Angels is so important. To remind us that before we were ever born, God gave each of us a guardian angel.

An angel to be with you, every step of the way. In good times and bad.

To support you, to strengthen you, no matter how hard life hits you.

Even if you don’t really believe in angels. Even if you’re not sure you have a guardian angel. You do. That’s how much God loves you.

No matter what you’ve done. Or how far you think you’ve run. Your angel is there. Now.

Watching over you. Ready to support you, to strengthen you, to be with you. All for the asking.

If you’ve never done it before. And even if you have. Take a moment today to follow the advice of St. Ambrose. “Pray to the angels, for they are given to us as guardians.”

Ask your angel to be with you. In whatever you’re dealing with.

And ask God for the grace to know in your heart – no matter what you’re going through, no matter how hard life hits you – that you are never alone.

Today’s Readings

[fieriframes]

[Everything from the hard stuff to find to just the basics. Stay, tr. -Give me the rundown here. -We've got the bottom round trimmed off a bit of the fat.]

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

"taken" style action movie where a man searches for his wife. as he fights baddies in gunfights and hand-to-hand combat, it's slowly revealed that:

his wife hasn't been kidnapped

their marriage is not healthy or functional

this guy isn't rescuing his wife, he's hunting her down

his wife is a crime boss, those are her henchpeople he's fighting in a john-wick bloodbath

the tension builds until, drenched in blood, our protagonist steps forward for the final showdown. he pulls a manila envelope from his bullet-torn jacket and throws it at his wife's feet. he's just spent an entire trilogy biting & killing & maiming....all so he can deliver his shit wife her divorce papers

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

god i love my friends. shout out to people who love their friends. this is a post for friend lovers

[a-method-in-it]

You know that Chris Fleming line that goes "Call yourself a community organizer even though you're not on speaking terms with your roommates"?

I honestly think every leftist who talks about the "revolution" like Christians talk about the rapture needs to spend a year trying to organize their workplace. Anyone who sincerely talks about building a movement so vast and all-encompassing that it overwhelms all existing power structures needs the dose of humility that comes with realizing they can't even build a movement to get people paid better at a badly run AMC Theaters where everyone already hates the manager.

[pastadoughie]

[thepeacefulgarden]

[anotherpapercut]

yesterday I went to a little meeting at my local queer community center and I was admiring their bookshelves and mentioned that I work at the public library and someone said "well I bet they don't have any [LGBTQ+ books] at our library" and I was like um. yes we do. we have tons of them. half of our employees are queer leftists so they said "oh well I bet they don't in [nearby rural county]" and I was like uh once again yes they absolutely do. gay people live and work there as well

so here's a quick reminder that if you don't think your local library has enough queer centered materials you should actually check before assuming, and if you're not satisfied with their collection you should submit a request for more such books. I don't know what the political landscape of libraries looks like outside the us rn, but within the us no matter where you are, I promise you there are employees at your library fighting for inclusion and intellectual freedom and they can't win without vocal public support

[bli-o]

hey autistic people who get overwhelmed by large groups or noise or conversation or etc etc etc you’re not evil for wanting to leave a family gathering. just so you know.

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[momentsbeforemass]

I can't

Think about the worst times in your life.

The very worst.

I don’t mean trying to sort out which moments were the objectively worst times in your life. I’m not asking you to rank horrible things.

This isn’t about figuring out some sort of scale. Or putting labels on where divorce ranks versus cancer versus becoming homeless versus death versus mental illness versus domestic violence versus losing the fight with your addiction.

And please do not compare your worst moments to someone else’s worst moments. Comparing who had it worse is waste of time.

What I want you to think about is personal. The specific facts of your worst moments aren’t that important. The important part is your personal experience.

This is about when life punches down. On you.

The times in life that are the worst for you. Because they hit you the hardest.

For most of us, myself included, the times in life that hit us the hardest are the ones where we get lost in them. Where you and I get focused on whatever it is we’re dealing with. Whatever it is that’s punching down on us. Whatever we’re trying to get through.

But there’s something else that must be said.

However objectively bad something really is, there is no situation in life that you and I cannot make worse for ourselves – by focusing on it, to the point that we get lost in it.

But it’s hard not to do that. Especially when it’s something that we’ve told ourselves “I can’t” about.

There are a lot of things in life that we say “I can’t” about. “I can’t do this.” “I can’t go on without them.” “I can’t take this anymore.”

And we say it in different ways. “I’m not going to make it.” “I’ll never get through this.” “It’s not going to happen.”

Those are just some of the ways that you and I say, “I can’t.”

And that is what we’re seeing in today’s Gospel. When Peter steps out of the boat.

Focused on Jesus, Peter starts off doing what Jesus asks him to do.

And for one, brief, shining moment, Peter is actually doing it.

Then Peter takes his eyes off Jesus. Everything falls apart. And Jesus has to save Peter.

And you’re thinking, “that’s a miracle, what does that have to do with the worst moments in my life?”

Everything, as it turns out. Because Peter is just like us.

Where does it all change for Peter? It all changes right here. Right in the middle of a miracle, when Peter says to himself, “I can’t do this.”

That is the turning point.

Peter quits focusing on Jesus. Peter quits filling his heart with Jesus and His simple command, “Come.”

Peter starts focusing on the wind and the waves. Peter starts filling his head and his heart with “I can’t.”

That’s when it all falls apart.

It all falls apart, because Peter has greater faith in “I can’t” than he has in God’s own Son.

Peter trusts “I can’t” more than he trusts God.

I want you to get out your missals. Turn to today’s Gospel reading.

Scan today’s Gospel with me. When did the wind and the waves die down?

That’s right. It say it right there. “After they got into the boat.”

Wait. What?

“After they got into the boat.”

The wind and the waves don’t die down until after Jesus rescues Peter.

The whole time Peter is focused on Jesus? The whole time Peter is walking on the water? In the middle of the miracle, the wind and the waves are still there.

Nowhere in the Gospel does it say, “and the sea became calm when Peter stepped out of the boat.”

You can look for it. Tell me after Mass if you find it.

As he walks towards Jesus on the water, Peter is still dealing with the wind. Peter is still dealing with the waves.

Peter isn’t ignoring them. But he isn’t focused on them either. His shoes may be wet, but Peter is focused on Jesus.

It’s only when Peter stops focusing on Jesus, and gets lost in what he’s dealing with? That is when it all falls apart. Because Peter is just like us.

So here’s our roadmap. And our choice.

Deal with what you need to deal with – and it may be hard stuff, stuff you’ve told yourself “I can’t” about. But keep your focus on Jesus. And Jesus will see you through.

Or take your focus off Jesus. Fill yourself with “I can’t.” Focus on whatever you’re dealing with, to the point that you get lost in it.

Until you end up trusting “I can’t” more than you trust God.

But know this – even if you do take your eyes off Jesus? Jesus still has His eyes on you.

Even if you do fill yourself with “I can’t?” Jesus still says “you can.”

Jesus is waiting to help you. Just like He was with Peter.

Jesus will see you through it. Just like He did with Peter.

All you have to do is ask.

Don’t trust “I can’t” more than you trust God.

Sunday’s Readings

[multimemes]

[flimflamfranky]

hi buddy

[vennitrii]

hey man maybe if you think about the fact that dogs dream, and that non-human animals play, and that octopuses decorate their dens, and that there are non-human animals that have cultures, and that ants teach each other, and that fossils exist, and that there are so many forms of language and communication, and that fellow apes look so much like us, and that we are not alone you'll see the beauty and joy

[dinosaursr66]

Hard Stuff is about one of those 70s bands that just missed it. Not for me. I loved and still love this gem. Hobo is one of many great tunes on this record.

SONG OF THE DAY - July 13, 2023

[thesnadger]

You ever see a take so bad that years later you're still having arguments with yourself about it in the shower?