The Last Lecture

In the April 6th issue of Parade Magazine, terminally ill professor Randy Pausch provides an excerpt from his last lecture: The Lessons I Am Leaving Behind http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2008/edition_04-06-2008/1My_Last_Lecture. Pausch writes, “At many colleges, professors are asked to give a “last lecture.” In this talk, they ruminate about what matters most to them. As they speak, audiences mull the same question: What wisdom would you impart to the world if you knew this was your last chance?”

Shortly after being asked to give such a lecture at Carnegie Mellon University where he is a professor in the computer sciences department, he found out that he had terminal pancreatic cancer. This lecture was no longer a hypothetical. Pausch is in his 40s, married to a woman he describes as the “woman of my dreams” and the father of three young children, ages 6, 3, and 1. This lecture would be not only his gift to the university but also his legacy for his children. In his lecture, he told his audience to “dream big, ask for what you want, dare to take a risk, look for the best in everybody, make time for what matters, and let kids be themselves.” It is all very good advice.

Reading about Randy Pausch made me wonder what I would say if I was in the same situation. If I knew I was dying soon, what lessons would I want to leave for my children? Here are a few of the things I would tell them:

1)Spend time with your own children.
If you are ever blessed with children of your own, remember that I was very rarely too busy to do something with you. I hope that you recall the hours we spent reading books on the couch or playing games, or simply spending time together. Enjoy your time with your own children, because childhood flies by all too quickly.

2)Love to learn
There are so many wonderful things to learn in this world. Never stop learning. The library and the internet are wonderful tools to help you find out more about whatever interests you. School is just a starting point. Your real classroom is the world.

3)Be Generous
There are so many who have less than we do. Always be generous with your time and your money.

4)and most importantly, Live Your Faith
God is the foundation of all that we are. Pray morning and night and during the day. Go to mass. Read your Bible. Connect with the one who made you. Follow the commandments – your life will be better for it.

The truth is, of course, that none of us have a guaranteed tomorrow. I read somewhere that death gives our days importance. We have a limited amount of time on this earth and we need to use it wisely. Each day we have the opportunity to pass on important lessons to our children by both what we say and what we do. Life is short. Randy Pausch's last lecture is a good reminder to focus on what matters.

What lessons would you want to leave behind for your own children? Please leave a comment and share your wisdom!

"Moment of Beauty" in the news!

Many thanks to Mary Ann Romans for posting this great article on my Moment of Beauty blog:

Moment of Beauty Part 1
Moment of Beauty Part 2

A Mom's Salary

Here is a link to Salary.com's determination of what a stay-at-home mom's salary would be:

Salary for a Stay at Home Mom

Results of Survey on Catholic Marriage

The US Bishops' Committee on Marriage and Family Life has released the results of its survey on Catholic Marriage. You can find the results at http://www.usccb.org/laity/marriage/marriage_report.pdf.

It makes for interesting reading and examines the marriage question from all angles - generational differences, differences among people who attend mass frequently compared to those who don't, those who were married in the Church compared to those who have civil marriages, and those who are currently married with those who are currently separated or divorced. It looks at difficulties people have in marriage, their feelings on Catholic marriage,and their thoughts on cohabitation before marriage among many other topics. One topic that was notably absent was thoughts on birth control. "Openness to life" was a topic but perhaps the bishops simply did not "want to go there" with the birth control question as it such a bone of contention among many Catholics.

Of course, now that this information has been gathered, the question is what will be done with it? How can we help pass on to our children the sacramentality and beauty of a Catholic marriage? How can we help convince them that it does matter? While much was discouraging in the report, there are some hopeful signs that the youngest generation has less tolerance for divorce. Perhaps they have seen first-hand that it is not the cure-all so many think it will be.

Book Review: Good Neighbors / Bad Times

2008 marks seventy years since the tragic events of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. On November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed a wave of destruction against Germany's Jews. In the space of a few hours, thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses and homes were damaged or destroyed. Mimi Schwartz, author of Good Neighbors, Bad Times: Echoes of My Father's German Village wasn't born yet. She would be grow up in Queens, New York, on milkshakes and hamburgers, and her father's stories of life in Germany, a life she had very little interest in. Her father grew up in Benheim (the name of the village has been changed to protect privacy), a little village of Christians and Jews in southwest Germany where according to all accounts Jews and Christians lived peacefully side by side. No allied bombs fell on Benheim during WWII so much of it is still preserved. The synagogue which was attacked during Kristallnacht is still there, now as an Evangelical Church. One can still visit the Jewish cemetery with 946 old graves.

Schwartz was in a village in Israel when she saw an old Benheim Torah and was told that “the Christians of Benheim rescued the Torah for us during Kristallnacht.” That story sent her on a quest to discover all that she could about this little village, to determine if, like her father had always told her, Benheim was special in that the people there got along and would do anything to help one another.

In “Good Neighbors / Bad Times” Schwarz interviews many old Benheimers, some in Israel and some in America. She also visits Benheim several times, a village which now has no Jews. The Jews that were there either escaped in time or were killed in the concentration camps. Only two Benheimers who were interred in the concentration camps survived. The other eighty-seven were murdered. On her journey, Schwarz discovers a series of individual stories and individual perspectives which each tell part of the whole story. She discovers both the Jewish and the Gentile perspective on what happened. She struggles with knowing what everyone knows now versus what people knew then. There was a large swastika that had been erected in the town in 1934, but as one Benheimer stated, “It was not important; no one knew what it would mean.” She learned of other kind deeds that occurred in Benheim and of a second Torah that was saved and is now located in Burlington, Vermont. She learned of how good people struggled to live through such difficult times, of people too scared to take a stand and the punishments that came to those who did. She learned of children being indoctrinated with hate in the local school and parents who struggled to fight against it.

“Good Neighbors / Bad Times” is a valuable work of social history. It is so important to preserve the stories of those who lived through these tragic events. In the end, Schwartz decides that Benheim was special, that decency managed to prevail there despite the Nazi hate that infected the land. As Schwartz states, “decency is often such a solitary act; it's evil that draws a noisy crowd.” “Good Neighbors / Bad Times” is recommended for anyone who wants to learn more about Jewish / Christian relationships during the World War II era. It would also make a wonderful text for a college course on the topic.

St. Gerard Walkathon Follow-Up

Back in February, I wrote about Kathleen LaPlante and the St. Gerard Walkathon to help unwed mothers. Kathleen wrote me today to provide a couple of updates:

The National Catholic Register article you mentioned is now available on-line at the bottom of the Founding History page of the web site, or here's the direct address:
www.stgerardwalkathon.org/files/ncr_article.jpg

The spring newsletter just came out too. It's available from the home page or directly from:

www.stgerardwalkathon.org/files/spring_newsletter_2008_rev_of_email_.mht

Thank you, Kathleen, for sharing this and best wishes for your ministry.

Caritas Part One: The Need for Love

Catholic Exchange has asked me to write a 4 part series of articles on Caritas for Children. Here is part one:

They are children, much like the ones you know and love. Edward is 8 years old. He likes science and playing with other kids. Betty will be turning 12 in April. She likes to write and swim. Judith is nine. She likes math and spelling. Their eyes are full of dreams for the future. The difference is that they live half a world away and their future is anything but certain.

Edward, Betty and Judith are children waiting to be sponsored through Caritas for Children, a Catholic organization dedicated to providing love, hope and financial support to improve the lives of children around the world. Over the course of this four article series, I will introduce you to Caritas: the reason why they are needed, what they do to help, the fruit of their labor, and, perhaps most importantly, how you can help.

The statistics are staggering. Nearly 115 million children are out of school in the world, the majority of whom are girls. In Africa, 15 countries have populations in which over one-half of the people can’t read. Approximately 854 million people across the world are hungry. Every day, nearly 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That amounts to one child every 5 seconds. Seeking to alleviate their circumstances, many children go to work in hazardous conditions. An estimated 8.4 million children work under circumstances where they are forced into debt bondage or other forms of slavery, prostitution, pornography, armed conflict and other illicit activities.

Many of these children have experienced the death of one and, in many cases, both parents. Sometimes they have been abandoned. While some are lucky enough to have extended family to live with, they spend their lives in meager circumstances simply trying to survive. Education is put far on the back burner.

Even for those fortunate enough to have both parents, education is all too often still out of reach. In Uganda, where Caritas maintains two programs, there is a government program called the Uniform Public Education (UPE) which provides a fraction of the cost of a student’s education. It does not cover the required school fees that must be paid for a child to attend school. Nor does it cover the cost of books, supplies, and mandatory uniforms. For those who do manage to scrape together the money to send their children to school, hunger is often a very serious problem.

It shouldn’t be this way. It doesn’t need to be this way. As Catholics, we are called to love and minister to our neighbor wherever we find him or her, even if it is half a world away. In Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI instructed that “Love – caritas – will always be necessary, even in the most just society. . . There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbor is indispensable. . . This love does not simply offer material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which is often even more necessary than material support.”

Caritas takes this teaching to heart. They work to nurture the whole person, to provide for a child’s physical, educational, spiritual and emotional needs. In next week’s article, we will examine the ways they go about fulfilling that mission.

To find out more about Caritas, please visit www.caritas.us or call toll-free 1-888-227-4827.