Individuals with children face these questions: Should I be more or less involved in the lives of my children? Should I choose for them, or let them choose? Should I steer them away from all risks, or let them discover the world for what it really is and has become? Should I keep my ‘safe’ job, or take a risk that could put my family in financial jeopardy?

If you are in a marriage or relationship, you face different, but similarly important questions. Is this the person for me? Do I want to spend the rest of my life in this relationship? Is my partner happy? Am I doing all I can to make this relationship happy, successful, and sustainable? Will we be better off if I subjugate myself to him/her right now? Are we healthy together? Are we better apart?

As individuals, we must answer the more basic questions. Am I happy? Can I be a better person? Should I be more charitable? Is it time to sit down and take it, or stand up and fight? What are my goals, my visions, my dreams? Can I attain them? Is what is good for me in keeping with the greater good? Does that matter to me? Take a good look at these questions, because they are cumulative. We all answer the basic questions. Those of us married and with children must answer them all.

But I’ve left out the most basic, most essential question of all. It’s not “How shall I live?” buy “Shall I live?” if you believe that life requires an energy, a force of will, than this becomes a critical question. But why, WHY would someone answer no? Certainly we’ve seen those who, in a fit of loneliness, pain, or alienation have thought living was no longer valuable. What of the father, who for years has supported his family, who now cannot do so? Perhaps he’s discovered he’s worth more fiscally dead than alive. Maybe he simply cannot watch as his family struggles to stay alive. Maybe the guilt (justified or not) he feels in his failures weighs too heavily on his soul. These days, many individuals must be in this mindset. I’ve felt their pain. All I can say for them is that no family is better off in their absence. No amount of money would ever replace a loving parent, or assuage the pain and guilt stemming from their absence.

What of those who are older? If life requires an energy force, how long can any of us sustain it? Have you 50 years in you? 65? 80? 90? There are days where I wonder how I will find a forty fourth. If you reach 80 years, haveyou worked hard enough? Could you hang on to be with your mate. Hopefully your children are settled and no longer need your care. If you’ve taught them everything they need to know, can you give up without guilt?

As I sit with my mother-in-law, I consider the gifts I have, the gifts she’s given me, and the life force she’s carried for so long. Clearly I haven’t been paying attention during the lesson. I can’t answer the Essential Question.

I’ve spent many years observing the arrival times of people to Sunday Mass. In the R.C. churches I have attended, the earliest attendee arrives at Mass approximately 30 minutes before the scheduled start time. Because she is so unique, and her arrival time so much earlier than the rest, she (and yes, it’s ALWAYS a ‘she’) is an outlier, a bit of data that falls outside the normal distribution. Most if the rest arrive in a block,so the normal range for arrival begins at 8 minutes prior to scheduled start (T minus 8 minutes, to use a familiar parlance), with an increase in incidents at T minus 90 seconds that continues through T plus 5 minutes. Outliers on the other side of the range continue through the T+15 range.

Departure times are equally revealing. Departures begin immediately following individual procession to receive communion (which researchers have termed “eat and run”) and occurs approximately 8 minutes prior to the end of mass, or D minus 8 minutes. There are a few of these, and they appear to skew towards younger members of the study group. The vast majority of attendees depart, or attempt to depart, at least 1 minute before the ending, or D minus 1. Only a scant few stay for the end of services, which is officially termed at the end of the closing hymn. Coincidentally there is a single outlier for departure as well, but she has already been discounted from the study because she is the same woman who arrived thirty minutes early. We have no statistics on her departure time, as the researchers tired of waiting for her to leave and just went home for lunch.

Researchers have determined the average time of a Sunday Mass to be 48 minutes. Using that as a base, eliminating the outliers, and applying a high level statistical regression analysis, the average R.C. Churchgoer appears to attend only 92% of the actual service. Anecdotally (and to be studied in depth with a future study) time on task during the service appears to be low as well. Adjustments to cell phone ringers, text messaging, writing checks for the collection basket, and whispering to your neighbors about that lady’s hat appear to consume more of the time, leaving less than 90% quality time during the service. Another consideration could be that people are unaware that Mass ends at the end of the closing song, and that it is not ‘exit music’ for the congregation to recess.

All of these statistics lead this researcher to only one conclusion- Roman Catholics may be too busy for Weekly Mass. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish this later. The Homily is ending, and I have to get back to work.

Resolution 4- Remember that “Name in Vain” thingy
For a man who teaches the youngest of children, you would think I had better control of my mouth. I don’t. I also work across the hall from a first grade teacher who can keep pace with a sailor on leave. It makes it really easy for me to fall into a pattern of terribly ugly language.

I also have tweenage and teenage children. I get frustrated and lose control of my mouth at times. I also managed to teach my wife somewhere along the way to do the same thing. I need to stop. Not only is it degrading to my children, but it also sets a terrible example for them. Finally, it also pushes me further from my faith. So I resolve to clean up my language.

Resolution 5- Say thank you to the One who helps most

Resolution 3 addresses my most important earthly relationship. I need to do a better job maintaining my most important spiritual relationship. I pray two or three times a year, except if there is a crisis. I don’t go to confession. I hardly pray when I am actually IN the church.

Grace x3 annually is not enough. I’m a realist, though. I know I won’t be getting on bended knee each night before bed, but a few minutes every week to give thanks for that which is good would certainly be an improvement. I resolve to give thanks in prayer each week.

Check out my resolutions for Marriage and Family and Technology.

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faith, prayer, religion

1. A proper introduction and/or self-introduction.

Many sermons fall down right here. If you don’t grab the audience, it’s hard to get them back. One of the better preacher at my church used to start with “while I was in Target the other day” or “as I stood in line at the grocery store.” This helps to humanize him, and connected the sermon immediately to us, as we thought “this might actually apply to my everyday existence.”

2. Acknowledge and touch the audience.

The preacher is a step above us all, literally and figuratively when he enters the pulpit. Somehow, a preacher needs to be sitting with us, and not above us. Otherwise the sermon is just dogmatic, and the sentiments lost on folks who can discount it with “he doesn’t understand what it’s like down here.”

3. A concise statement of purpose of the speech.

Many preachers bury the statement of purpose late in the sermon. If you front-load it, it’s heavy-handed. However, if you bury the lead too far in, we never get it. The drone has become too loud, and we can not be called to attention to hear the most important statement of all. A clever or moving anecdote followed by our statement of purpose brings it home. Say it a few times. It helps.

4. Acknowledge and honor the audience’s resistance and doubts about your topic/purpose or about you.

A good preacher knows just how to make us all feel in the same boat. “I know you have bills to pay, I know you have mouths to feed, I know the economy is hurting us all, but God’s work is even more important today then ever! Men and women are struggling to meet their obligations, and they need our help. Heaven knows that it might someday be us in need. I would come to the community just the same to ask on your behalf. Be there for your neighbors.” Find a man not reaching for his wallet, and I’ll show you a deaf man.

5. Create a sense of urgency.

Why is this important to me? I’m a pretty good guy. I don’t have to be that much different in my day-to-day life. Often the story is of some person who had a life changing event and can no longer do what is needed. The man killed after a fight with his wife. The father whose daughter runs away, and he realizes he’s never told her how much he loves her. The son who gets a girl pregnant because his family was too embarrassed to bring up sex. These stories create an urgency, a “don’t let this happen to you” vibe.

6. Present the solution.

There is a lot of thought and reflection required in religion. Thought and reflection are easy to postpone. People need actions that they can enact that will create the change sought. Sure, it would be great if we were all holy and virtuous, thoughtful and community-minded. We’re not. Being faithful is difficult for many of us. We need to be led. We need to be told what to do. Those who do should be kind enough to say QUIETLY to themselves that they already do these things, and be encouraging to those who don’t. Too often preachers aren’t prescriptive for fear of offending those who don’t need prescriptions.

7. Make your specific points, the steps needed and the obstacles to reaching the objective.

Walk me step by step through the process. “If he were to have done this, then that, then the other thing, he might have made it work.” If it sounds simple and accessible, I can do it.

8. Share or draw a conclusion.

Now we need to take the whole thing and sum it up. Remind me of why I need this. Let me know that this is not just about what is right, but how my ever-living soul benefits from this. Tell me how this is better for you, me, my family, and my faith.

9. Ask for something: action, willingness, a change, support.

You can leave church with the idea that the changes asked of you are so far beyond your control or grasp that you can’t manage it today- it will have to be for another day. A good sermon gives us something to do right now. “Go home and sit with your children, and tell them how you feel.” There should be a long-range plan, but we need to be aware of the first step, and we need to know that it has to happen- now.

10. Q&A or a fresh statement of the speech.

In my opinion, this comes at the end of the service. The sermon is buried mid-service. We need to be sent out the door with our marching orders. The last thing I hear needs to be your call to action. Remind me before I go to get it done now.

The best sermons I’ve heard have often been from non-priests. Rabbis, Ministers and deacons. People who, in my opinion, lead lives more closely related to those of their parishioners. They can marry. They can have children. While they are still religiously ‘above’ where we are, their status as family men and women puts them one step closer to ‘us’ on the ladder.