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ir financial and material situations this kind of meditation is sure to include a consideration of the many economic political accusations and controversies that cloud our futures when investments go bad and the economy periodically falters taking with millions of lucrative jobs the automatic reaction is to lay blame on someone in power s doorstep since the 1940 s the easy targets for the public s venom have been the fat cats on wall street the 1987 movie wall street added a provocative phrase to the american lexicon that provided an extra layer of support for these accusations during persistent days of economic and financial uncertainty one of the supporting characters gordon gekko played admirably by michael douglas said in all positive sincerity that greed is good on its surface it seems like a selfish thing to say but like most things in the bible its truth resides in the interpretation as one financial observer asked rhetorically is not greed just another word for self interest his comment was not far removed from adam smith s classic the wealth of nations that taught about the importance of the divine hand which he defined as people s self interests coalescing to support an economic structure those blessed with clarity of vision can easily recognize god s providence in this when thinking about wealth from a catholic perspective the first thing that comes to mind is the biblical allusion to the eye of the needle this story was treated in all the synoptic gospels especially matthew 19 23 24 where jesus said it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven again i tell you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god there are a myriad of interpretations for this citation but i think they all share a common thread in that wealth brings with it a proportionate number of responsibilities that require greater attention and concern for our fellow man than we might expect to find from people who live in closely guarded gated communities for catholics wealth is always a mixed blessing by its nature wealth is purely neutral it can be used for good or evil the dangers of wealth revolve around its corresponding power it can be used to build a hospital or an abortion clinic it can be used to clothe the naked and feed the hungry or it can be used to buy a closet full of shoes or furs or stuff oneself with caviar and champagne that s what free will is all about the 2 nd century teacher clement of alexandria wrote a treatise called who is the rich man that shall be saved in order to explain that neither poverty nor wealth are sinful nor righteous of themselves what matters is how people respond to their relative riches or penury rich christians should know the companion verse in luke 12 48 and unto whomsoever much is given of him much shall be required and to whom they have committed much of him they will demand the more according to authors mike aquilina and james l papandrea book s seven revolutions clement s treatise as well as other church documents favored a symbiotic relationship between wealth and penury god gave riches to some with the hope that they would give to those in need the poor have a corresponding responsibility to pray for the souls of the wealthy jesus discouraged his disciples in thinking that wealth was earth bound instead he wanted them to understand that true spiritual wealth transcends riches and treasures and it can easily be shared with others on earth the fact that gordon gekko has become a stock character in the debate on economic inequality and equality points to the underlying prejudice against wealth that has been with us for several generations i sometimes wonder where the catholic church would be without the generosity of its wealthier members i think all catholics should examine their consciences and their attitude toward those who have much more than they do catholics should also remember that while excessive greed can be harmful to one s soul it is a two way street that can easily lead even poor people into sin those who covet the material possessions of others even to the extent of stealing them are also guilty of greed a more complicated sister version of greed is what psychologists call schadenfreude it means literally taking pleasure from the misfortunes of others especially the wealthy the 2009 crash and its historically long recovery with its attendant bankruptcies social and economic displacements have provided more than enough temptation for this sin the christian response to the vexing problems of wealth is that we all should pray for the scions of wealth that they use their financial blessings to foster the kingdom of god help the poor and advance the teachings of christ to do anything else especially to play the blame game is to engage in a practice that is nearly as culpable as those of the greediest billionaire posted in uncategorized time flight december 9 2015 leave a comment i love watches i must have over 30 watches ever since my grandfather taught me to tell time when i was seven years old i have loved keeping time my mother taught me to be punctual for appointments and dates i was always early and spent a good deal of wasted time waiting on street corners for my habitually late friends it is a characteristic that still shapes my life i think time awareness dominates american life everything is measured in hours minutes and maybe even seconds lawyers keep precise track of their billable hours because time really is money to them plumbers and electricians all charge by the hour in sports we keep records of who had the fastest time most professional sports except baseball tennis and golf revolve around a clock and its timekeepers i think that s why baseball is no longer the true national pastime because it doesn t move fact enough we all love fast foods instant breakfasts and glance at papers which measure world events in terms of sentences paragraphs and not columns working mothers talk of spending quality time with their children marriages have broken down because the couple never had enough time for each other some other commitment or interest had a greater hold on them than their marriage vows we have i pods blackberries and all time saving devices that paradoxically take too much time to learn to operate we have become virtual prisoners of our own devices as i get older i find that i do not like to wait for anything whether in a movie line traffic or the grocery store instant gratification is not quick enough for me i wont even buy green bananas part of this arises from the fact that i am not getting any younger i am in the inevitable stage of what the late sports announcer jack buck used to call playing the back nine time has become a subject for my personal meditation i think of all the time i wasted as a child when the poet john milton lost his sight he wrote a memorable line in one of his poems that said when i consider how my light has been spent while he measured his life in its light i find that time has been the literal measure of my life one of the real facts of life is that time waits for no man or woman it is not how much of the world s wealth i may have amassed or how many honors i might have received but what good i might have done with the nearly 38 millions or so minutes i have used since my birth in 1943 i am sure god will have his accounting on just how i spent my time amidst his generous gifts being an only child i always seemed alone and bored i regret having wasted so much precious time as child i guess that s what george bernard shaw meant when he said youth was wasted on the young as an adult i painfully recognize how really short life on earth is to squander even a precious moment seems sinful when there is so much we could be doing reading praying giving of ourselves or just enjoying this beautiful gift god has bestowed on us my uncle had the right idea he spent his retirement smelling both the roses and his coffee we all have a built in time clock that is ticking just like one of my many watches just like john donne s poetic bell it ticks for you and it ticks for me my college roommate peter died suddenly in 2004 i had written him a letter because i wanted him to know how much i enjoyed being his roommate and how much he had taught me my letter was six months too late he was a year younger than i but his time had taken flight he would never know how i felt about him because i had waited too long to tell him i had spent his last few ticks holding back my brotherly love from him i have now vowed to tell the members of my growing family and my friends how important each and everyone of them is to me because i don t want to be six months late ever again posted in uncategorized my baseball reverie october 30 2015 leave a comment in a 1978 segment of saturday night live co anchor jane curtin welcomed a new member to our update team the former all star second baseman for the new york mets chico escuela chico a dominican ballplayer deftly played by garret morris has a thick dominican accent and speaks very little english he starts by saying thank you berry berry much base ball been berry berry good to me thank you hane i can easily second chico appreciation of how good baseball has been especially for a young boy trying hard to get a focus on life and his place in it in 1950 my father took me to see john wayne in the sands of iwo jima in 1950 even at age seven though i found war movies exciting my concept of hero was reserved more for the baseball diamond than any tale of sanguinary combat the brooklyn dodgers were the darling underdogs of the 1950s while they won a number of pennants they always lost to the yankees in the world series until 1955 while all the dodgers were heroes that year to my adolescent mind the quiet kentuckian at shortstop pee wee reese represented to me everything a hero should be he was the team s leader and he played the game with the same grace and dignity that my contemporaries in st louis must have seen in stan the man musial these were the players that writer roger kahn called the boys of summer to me they were my men for all seasons when reese was inducted into the hall of fame in cooperstown in 1984 i was there to honor him as a player i calculate that i only had 50 at bats which might be considered a part of an organized baseball game most of my experience was playing with a few friends but hardly ever in a game with two nine man teams my success rate for those games was 12 50 for an even 280 mark mediocre at best i could run and i was a fearful but determined player at 3 rd base my favorite position i had one bunt single and only two extra base hits one year i did steal 7 8 bases a perfect throw nailed me at third base two derivatives came from my baseball participation during my 8 th grade team in 1957 we had a single man coach us and i use the word coach loosely i don t remember any practices or teaching he basically kept order and assigned who would play where one night before a game he called me and asked me if i would take over the team for the next game i was only 13 years old the first thing i did was recruit my neighbor who was a year below me in our school and therefore eligible to play gerry lived just down the block and if i had a best friend while i was growing up he was it i knocked out his two front teeth during a roller hockey game years later with gerry on the mound and me at shortstop we prevailed 5 3 and i had my first victory as a manager i spent most of my adolescent years in the country staying with my maiden aunt mal as we called her with my country friend a jewish boy from the bronx named stevie gardos i played all kinds of ball one year we organized a team to play the older boys from coolidge trail they had such intimidating names as butch whitey spider and his younger brother hoss two of their jewish players were known as big beak and little beak names than not even roger kahn could have conjured we played four games and we did win one of them that was the game i recruited another pitcher this fellow was a lanky italian who had played freshman ball at lasalle hs not too far from my xavier hs little did i know that these childhood experiences had prepared me for coaching my two sons and well over a 100 young boys in a modestly competitive league the ladue baseball league which i served with pride for 13 years i once calculated my composite record as 110 48 and i can still remember many of the losses several years prior to pee wee s induction 1973 74 i taught what is arguably the first accredited baseball history course in the midwest at then maryville college in suburban st louis james cool papa bell a player from the old negro leagues who later enshrined in cooperstown was my guest speaker my first choice had been the aforementioned roger kahn but i never heard from him until the following year when he was in town promoting his bos while it was too late for him to speak we did have a wonderful leisurely dinner before i drove him to the radio station for his interview the class also warranted an invitation from nbc s today show i spent an exciting 3 and half minutes with gene shalit on may 9 1974 local sportswriter bob broeg who is honored in the cooperstown hall of fame in the writers wing started calling me the professor of baseball i turned it around so that the sobriquet has been part of my identity ever since it is part of who i am i treasure that name and have used it ever since in my e mail id and on my vanity license plates i officially registered it as a service mark over 30 years ago it was at pee wee s induction that i got the idea for the st louis browns fan club an organization that is still going strong despite the demise of most of its players who now number a mere 19 out of 795 men who wore the uniform from 1902 53 it is truly a dying franchise since it is the only team name that has been stricken from the modern history of baseball save the short lived seattle pilots who moved to milwaukee in 1970 after just one season on august 17 2015 the st louis cardinals honored my fan club with a night at busch stadium we had 200 people buy tickets our cardinals host brian finch regaled us with an informative history of the browns this was quite a big step since the relation between the two teams was never that good when they were rivals for the affections of the st louis public the owner of the cardinals william dewitt ii has a very strong interest in the browns his father owned them when he was a little boy it was his small uniform that they used to clothe the most famous pinch hitter in baseball history the 3 7 eddie gaedel who had one major league at bat as casey stengel used to say you could look it up while my participation in the game has waned as i have grown older my passion for the game is still vibrant when walter o malley broke a 13 year old boy s heart with his move of the dodgers to the gold coast for t...
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