This is discussion recorded at the Paragon Pictures Virtual Film Festival alumni discuss
their experiences talking with the Class of '21. September, 2020
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Paragon Pictures Virtual Film Festival Panel - Discussion about Pay It Forward Class Visits
This is discussion recorded at the Paragon Pictures Virtual Film Festival alumni discuss
Friday, February 5, 2021
Interview with Joe Scavo, 2011
About the time of our 40 year reunion in 2011 I had a project that I was working on. I would
ask the question: "How were you Catholic in 1971? How are you Catholic now?
This recording was with Joe Scavo. I did not know Joe all that well during the Servite years.
But I was so grateful to have spent this time together with Joe. Joe's respect for all, his deep insight
into himself and others, and the wonderful kindness of the person he was is well expressed in this
discussion.
Charlie Motsko and the Legend of the Golden Gloves
Fr. Charles Motsko was the principal of Servite for all four years the Class of '71 was there. Charlie had a reputation for being an uncompromising adherent to the principle of swat first, ask questions later.
I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours with Charlie shortly after our 40th, in 2011.He was the 11th of 12 children, born the son of a coal miner in a small town in Pennsylvania. He and five of his brothersenlisted in the US military during WW2, but being the youngest he shipped out to the Philippines after the war ended.
There he became an aide to a Catholic military chaplain, Fr. Mulcahy and first encountered the Servite order when hereceived a publication "Novena Notes" sent from the Servites in Chicago ten thousand miles away. He met a lot ofpriests in the Philippines as his assignment was to drive them around. He had had a devotion to Our Lady of Sorrowsas early as age 8, so the Servites caught his attention.
He wrote for information, and the Servites sent him an application which he filled out and returned. He went to the Servite Seminary in Granville Wisconsin on the GI Bill. He was a classmate of Fr. Donovan and Fr. George Luznicky. He studied Philosophy at Lake Forest in Waukegan Illinois for 2 years.
He was ordained in 1955. His younger brother Andrew also became a Servite brother. Brother Andrew spent mostof his 40 year Servite career as a stonemason building churches and other projects in the Servite South African mission in Zululand. One year when he was Principal at Servite, the Parents Club gifted him a trip to visit his brother for 2 weeks in South Africa, which he greatly appreciated.His first year he was assigned as a math and religion teacher at St Philip's in Chicago, a Servite all boys high school. His next four years was spent teaching at the minor seminary with Fr. George in Hillside Illinois teaching the eighty or so students Latin, Math, History, English and Everything Else.His next assignment was to Anaheim in 1959, the second year of operation at the new Servite HS. Since there was no priory, 7 or 8 Servites lived in a second floor classroom of the high school that first year and ate meals with the students in the cafeteria. The following year the Priory was completed, and new Servites came including Fr. Grimes, Fr.George, and Fr. Brennan. Charlie taught Latin and Religion.During the course of our conversation I asked him about the Motsko Golden Glove Legend, and he was more than happy to fill me in...
Dave Molina
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Servite7121 Blog is Happening Now!
Welcome to Servite7121!
Hello, my name is Dave Molina. I am a graduate of the Servite Class of '71. My classmates and I have embarked on a project to connect with our 50 years-younger counterparts of the Servite Class of '21.
I created this blog as a meeting place for members of both classes. Our classes have already had some great events together. Many of my classmates have had the opportunity to come to Servite classrooms and share their stories with our younger brothers. I live in northern California (Grass Valley) and thought that having a blog available to all would encourage far-flung alumni such myself to be able to participate in this worthy effort. Also to give the members of the Class of '21 to weigh in on any topics or interests.
A few guidelines I would offer:
1. Be aware that anything published is public information. Use common sense, common decency, and be kind.
2. This is not designed to promote personal political agendas or personal commercial interests.
We will attempt to keep this blog free of the many ills prevalent in social media these days.
We should have several moderators prepared to step in to untangle things if need be. But my
hope is that we have all learned a modicum of moderation and have generous and kind dispositions towards our brothers.
This is a work in progress, and depending on how it goes it can be improved or changed.
There are other blog platforms out there, but this was cheap (free) and easy to set up. So we'll
give it a go.
My hope is that this blog can be a meeting place for sharing our stories, and make it a place to exchange ideas and experiences in a spirit of fraternity, acceptance, and courtesy.
Credo.
Dave Molina
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Robert Cotton : Eulogy
(This is the eulogy given by Robert Cotton's friend and colleague Mr. John Bowermaster.
I thank Robert’s family for the opportunity to speak, although I find this a most difficult task. Robert’s and my relationship took the form of a forty-year conversation. We never traveled together, joined a club or participated in some other organized activity. When I lived here in Southern California Robert, Justin and I visited museums, parks, galleries, and urban centers. Robert and I were particularly adept at haunting bookstores. We liked being out, and imagined ourselves as part of cafe society, without the cafe’s and absent the society. Not living in Paris, we settled for the grand boulevards of Westwood or the esplanade of some garish mall. We had fun though.
What complicates this occasion is the fact that our friendship was private.
Conversely, a eulogy performs a public act. But not only was our relationship private, the man about whom I am speaking luxuriated in his personal privacy. How then to honor Robert’s decision to refrain from a full public life while fulfilling my obligation to praise it? I fear that I will not say enough, yet more than I should.
Robert never compartmentalized his life, but he managed the roles and responsibilities in such a way as to create a distance between them. However, to each part he gave his whole person. Still, even as my friend he could keep maddeningly to himself.
Furthermore, I am apprehensive about giving this address. I have too much respect for Robert to mar his sending off. My consolation here is that Robert held such low expectations for this sort of ceremony that it is nearly impossible not to step over the bar he would have set.
My challenge, frankly, is to avoid violating his private trust. Moreover, how do I explore with you Robert’s interior life, an interior life of such richness that it beggars our imagination?
A final complication with this talk is that each of us has a Robert, or a Bob, or a Mr. Cotton we admire. My words shall not trespass on your attachment. Whatever I say will be personal to me, and must not compete with your memory and your bond. I shall try to raise a few general qualities and characteristics to jog your memory or revive a feeling. So, although I cannot speak for you, I might serve as your prompter. In this, no one of you should feel that your experience with Robert is diminished by my failure to recall what you would have preferred. Your relationship is as dear as mine.
And surely, if I had the talent to play a Bach cello suite, I would do so instead of speaking. Robert would have preferred that. My hope, consequently, is that my words will be heard as notes invoking recollections of moments you shared with Robert.
----------------------------
"For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made?"
I read these words of the Irish poet Yeats the night Robert died. They made me think: What do I owe him?
Gratitude surely is the right response to the gifts Robert offered me through his mentoring and friendship.
My bond with him was––is––as friend and continual conversationalist. Robert remains with me. He is my reading companion. From his example and from our engagement I first learned to read. Having taught me to read, Robert coaxed me to know the world. Consequently, whenever I encounter words, Robert guides me.
My first impression of him has not left me these forty years. Here, I mean an Aristotelian word, areté, translated as “excellence,” which also can mean virtue. One simply knew from talking a short while with him that the standards had been raised. However, that did not mean in the slightest that the exchanges with him were any less pleasant. Robert could cut you down a size, and all the while you enjoyed it; importantly, you accepted it as best-intentioned, as a gift to make you better.
Robert taught us excellence by example and through patient dialogue. He showed no interest in the strictures of a heavy moral didacticism. Instead, his way of engaging us was always encouraging, a welcoming to new ways of thinking and seeing the world, an invitation to the spirited life of the mind.
His professional excellence was well-noted, even lauded, by his students both before and upon his retirement. The tee-shirt his last class awarded him with his portrait and the label “Cotton Rules” emblematically testifies to their appreciation for his excellence. His unassuming but confident presence dominated the classroom––not as figure of intimidation but as interlocutor.
Robert’s excellence showed itself especially in the area of thinking. The Scot philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre says, “We continue until the end of our lives to need others to sustain us in our practical reasoning.” Robert was our sustainer. He disdained jargon as well as cute locutions. Instead, he modeled a use of language and a reflective rationality that promoted careful evaluation. And, we benefited through our interactions with him by becoming stronger practical reasoners, despite ourselves. He taught us how to think much more than what to think.
Teachers should possess the intellectual and moral skills they wish to inculcate in their students. They also need other virtues that depend upon the “type of learning intended.” Robert’s devotion to the English language as a means for truthfulness as well as beauty enlivened and then trained our imaginations; this excellence had both ethical and aesthetic consequences. He taught others of us to be care-givers, by which we learned how to be sensitive to the needs of others and provide for them. In effect the quality of a teacher is commensurate with the care given the learner, whether the learner be a student, a friend, or a relative. For us Robert was an excellent teacher.
Moreover, “friendship and collegiality” protect us from mistakes of mind and of character. Robert’s personal philosophy, for example, combined virtues and skills associated with the common good. This is another reason to be grateful to Robert. His excellence called us to be better persons, not just more accomplished reasoners––although the two are undeniably related. We know that Robert served others, and, thankfully, was in turn sustained by care-givers and family members right up to the moment of his death.
Robert’s effectiveness stemmed from, in part, his patience, which grew from his near-Stoical appreciation for the human condition, including his own. Robert’s body was a lifelong frustration; it circumscribed his activities and limited his range. Yet, instead of submitting to bitterness or self-pity, Robert tended quietly and patiently to us ––his own vulnerable body a testimony to the needs of others.
His social and political philosophies, I believe, derive, in part, from this sympathy as a positing of human need over human want, as an ordering of political power to address needs, never wants. Although an arch realist, Robert espoused a social hopefulness.
----------------------------
In gratitude: “"For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made?"
Robert taught English for most of his career but there was a period when he moved to religion. His mastery of the content was always apparent, but I think his most lasting accomplishment with his students, indeed with his colleagues, was as a teacher of independent practical reasoning. He taught others how to think! And, in this he better understood than most the purpose of high school as preparation for more in-depth serious study at the college level. Unfortunately, he felt more often than not that the colleges had so lowered their standards of thinking, especially in the humanities, that further study was an embarrassment to the great writers and thinkers college students were supposedly studying. This was a source of almost daily disappointment.
He surely held higher expectations of us than we were comfortable with, but he never prodded or made us feel less cared for because we failed to get over the bar. In fact, our infidelities and failures were accepted with equanimity and a certain sly humor, as if to say, “yes, I expected that. Now let’s try again, shall we.”
I don’t want to mythologize the man. He could be brutally honest. But is not honesty the primary intellectual virtue of self-knowledge? How can we know ourselves unless someone, our friend or mentor, speaks the truth about us to ourselves?
He frequently and with devilish humor deflated my pretensions to understanding certain philosophers. I had brought the most well known American philosopher to speak to students at my school, and I was quite proud of this achievement. Robert listened to my recounting of this proud moment, and choked out at me “That horrible man?” As chagrined as I was to hear this, the core truth of his criticism was apt. I had done it more for myself than for the students. How valuable to have friend who keeps you tethered to the ground.
The honesty that binds friends challenged us the afternoon he called to tell me of the original diagnosis of the brain tumor. The news stunned me; and the manner in which he delivered it was unusually clinical, not his normal mindfulness. That not being our way of talking together, we chose a silence to settle between us. Then, inexplicably, as if two well-traveled dancing partners, we struck on the allusive language of Shakespeare. We began to talk of the prognosis and of the impending complications through a poetic prism.
A few days later I sent him music and poetry. I could not imagine anything else, as words had left me. In return he sent one line on a blank card: “I knew you would understand.” I was consoled.
--------------------------
In gratitude: "For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made?"
We humans are to no small degree defined by how we treat others and how they respond to us. Sartre understood a version of this as a sort of threat to our freedom. We would like to imagine ourselves as insular beings, able to define ourselves through sheer will. But in the end it comes back, inevitably if often unpleasantly, to simple human social relations.
Robert maintained a deep commitment to his family. The bonds of familial love were unassailably important to him. He often recounted to me the events of family gatherings, especially when it involved politics. And he was tremendously proud of the younger generations, of their accomplishments and ambitions. But the privacy rule restrains me here. Fortunately, the family knows well his deepest affection and hopes for them.
Robert was Mr. Cotton to my five children, still is, even though the oldest is now forty. They grew up with him, virtually every Friday night for several years. Justin chased the kids around the house playing a game they called monster, stirring the kids up so that their mother could not calm them before bed. Robert, Monica (my wife), and I ate pizza, watched television, and talked while Justin cavorted.
When their mother sent them word of his death, they recalled Mr. Cotton as they knew him when they children. To them, and I quote, “he was a kind and gentle man,” with a “smile and a demeanor” “of kindness;” a man with a “calm and soothing voice” who was “always kind and warm.” He was a “humble man.” Those are the impressions of children.
I am touched by the simplicity of these words and by their accuracy. Children usually know, especially when they are forming their earliest impressions of the world, what is right with that world and not. Robert was a very complex man, to be sure: more complicated than most of us. But his character, his person, shown openly and naturally. Goodness requires no adornment.
As a private person, Robert shared himself with us in a completely present way; he was never “on” as they say today, making pretensions; thus, we can each, now, remember him as he was with us, fully engaging us in that quiet, seemingly unassuming but keenly observant manner. He was attuned to the world, wondrously open to its revelations.
In the eighties Robert became enamored by one German philosopher’s ideas of humans as language beings. He read widely and deeply on this subject, and that study informed the two great projects he undertook until last week: Shakespeare and Catholicism. Of the two he was far more sanguine about the former. Indeed, he had taken up grappling with Cardinal Ratzinger’s (née Pope Benedict XVI) writings, contrasting them with those of the early Church Fathers. I was not betting on the Cardinal’s measuring up under Robert’s analysis.
His studiousness, however, should not be overplayed. Robert was neither a puritan nor a dull boy. He enjoyed life in all its diverse expressions. He appreciated the excesses of DH Lawrence and bawdiness of the Bard. He was as amused by low comedy as he was moved by high tragedy. He admired the spy novel and was entranced by “Dallas” the soap opera.
Failure to recognize how complete was Robert’s life, especially his interior life, is a failure of vision on our part and an injustice to him.
----------------------------------
In gratitude: "For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made?"
The purpose of a life, suggested Aristotle, is to flourish. Robert lived such a rich and varied life of mind and of spirit that we must be grateful for his having shared himself with us. In the privacy of our relationships we experienced an intensity of feeling and a concentration of thought that spurs us to repeat this with and for others. It is our duty to recall him everyday through our devotions to one another so that others may flourish, as we have, for knowing this wise man. The Greek’s called this quality phronesis: a practical wisdom.
This morning we do not recall Robert’s life to memorialize him, but, on the contrary, to re-call him as a presence to us.
His counsel to us is a farewell: A fare you well. Not in the sense of a good bye but as a call to flourish: to be good to ourselves and to others––to pursue excellence and practical wisdom so that we fare well as persons.
My farewell will be in the lines Robert and I alluded to one another as we talked that stunning day about his illness.
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
No exerciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing will come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!
(Cymbeline, IV, 2)
God bless you dear friend.
I thank Robert’s family for the opportunity to speak, although I find this a most difficult task. Robert’s and my relationship took the form of a forty-year conversation. We never traveled together, joined a club or participated in some other organized activity. When I lived here in Southern California Robert, Justin and I visited museums, parks, galleries, and urban centers. Robert and I were particularly adept at haunting bookstores. We liked being out, and imagined ourselves as part of cafe society, without the cafe’s and absent the society. Not living in Paris, we settled for the grand boulevards of Westwood or the esplanade of some garish mall. We had fun though.
What complicates this occasion is the fact that our friendship was private.
Conversely, a eulogy performs a public act. But not only was our relationship private, the man about whom I am speaking luxuriated in his personal privacy. How then to honor Robert’s decision to refrain from a full public life while fulfilling my obligation to praise it? I fear that I will not say enough, yet more than I should.
Robert never compartmentalized his life, but he managed the roles and responsibilities in such a way as to create a distance between them. However, to each part he gave his whole person. Still, even as my friend he could keep maddeningly to himself.
Furthermore, I am apprehensive about giving this address. I have too much respect for Robert to mar his sending off. My consolation here is that Robert held such low expectations for this sort of ceremony that it is nearly impossible not to step over the bar he would have set.
My challenge, frankly, is to avoid violating his private trust. Moreover, how do I explore with you Robert’s interior life, an interior life of such richness that it beggars our imagination?
A final complication with this talk is that each of us has a Robert, or a Bob, or a Mr. Cotton we admire. My words shall not trespass on your attachment. Whatever I say will be personal to me, and must not compete with your memory and your bond. I shall try to raise a few general qualities and characteristics to jog your memory or revive a feeling. So, although I cannot speak for you, I might serve as your prompter. In this, no one of you should feel that your experience with Robert is diminished by my failure to recall what you would have preferred. Your relationship is as dear as mine.
And surely, if I had the talent to play a Bach cello suite, I would do so instead of speaking. Robert would have preferred that. My hope, consequently, is that my words will be heard as notes invoking recollections of moments you shared with Robert.
----------------------------
"For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made?"
I read these words of the Irish poet Yeats the night Robert died. They made me think: What do I owe him?
Gratitude surely is the right response to the gifts Robert offered me through his mentoring and friendship.
My bond with him was––is––as friend and continual conversationalist. Robert remains with me. He is my reading companion. From his example and from our engagement I first learned to read. Having taught me to read, Robert coaxed me to know the world. Consequently, whenever I encounter words, Robert guides me.
My first impression of him has not left me these forty years. Here, I mean an Aristotelian word, areté, translated as “excellence,” which also can mean virtue. One simply knew from talking a short while with him that the standards had been raised. However, that did not mean in the slightest that the exchanges with him were any less pleasant. Robert could cut you down a size, and all the while you enjoyed it; importantly, you accepted it as best-intentioned, as a gift to make you better.
Robert taught us excellence by example and through patient dialogue. He showed no interest in the strictures of a heavy moral didacticism. Instead, his way of engaging us was always encouraging, a welcoming to new ways of thinking and seeing the world, an invitation to the spirited life of the mind.
His professional excellence was well-noted, even lauded, by his students both before and upon his retirement. The tee-shirt his last class awarded him with his portrait and the label “Cotton Rules” emblematically testifies to their appreciation for his excellence. His unassuming but confident presence dominated the classroom––not as figure of intimidation but as interlocutor.
Robert’s excellence showed itself especially in the area of thinking. The Scot philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre says, “We continue until the end of our lives to need others to sustain us in our practical reasoning.” Robert was our sustainer. He disdained jargon as well as cute locutions. Instead, he modeled a use of language and a reflective rationality that promoted careful evaluation. And, we benefited through our interactions with him by becoming stronger practical reasoners, despite ourselves. He taught us how to think much more than what to think.
Teachers should possess the intellectual and moral skills they wish to inculcate in their students. They also need other virtues that depend upon the “type of learning intended.” Robert’s devotion to the English language as a means for truthfulness as well as beauty enlivened and then trained our imaginations; this excellence had both ethical and aesthetic consequences. He taught others of us to be care-givers, by which we learned how to be sensitive to the needs of others and provide for them. In effect the quality of a teacher is commensurate with the care given the learner, whether the learner be a student, a friend, or a relative. For us Robert was an excellent teacher.
Moreover, “friendship and collegiality” protect us from mistakes of mind and of character. Robert’s personal philosophy, for example, combined virtues and skills associated with the common good. This is another reason to be grateful to Robert. His excellence called us to be better persons, not just more accomplished reasoners––although the two are undeniably related. We know that Robert served others, and, thankfully, was in turn sustained by care-givers and family members right up to the moment of his death.
Robert’s effectiveness stemmed from, in part, his patience, which grew from his near-Stoical appreciation for the human condition, including his own. Robert’s body was a lifelong frustration; it circumscribed his activities and limited his range. Yet, instead of submitting to bitterness or self-pity, Robert tended quietly and patiently to us ––his own vulnerable body a testimony to the needs of others.
His social and political philosophies, I believe, derive, in part, from this sympathy as a positing of human need over human want, as an ordering of political power to address needs, never wants. Although an arch realist, Robert espoused a social hopefulness.
----------------------------
In gratitude: “"For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made?"
Robert taught English for most of his career but there was a period when he moved to religion. His mastery of the content was always apparent, but I think his most lasting accomplishment with his students, indeed with his colleagues, was as a teacher of independent practical reasoning. He taught others how to think! And, in this he better understood than most the purpose of high school as preparation for more in-depth serious study at the college level. Unfortunately, he felt more often than not that the colleges had so lowered their standards of thinking, especially in the humanities, that further study was an embarrassment to the great writers and thinkers college students were supposedly studying. This was a source of almost daily disappointment.
He surely held higher expectations of us than we were comfortable with, but he never prodded or made us feel less cared for because we failed to get over the bar. In fact, our infidelities and failures were accepted with equanimity and a certain sly humor, as if to say, “yes, I expected that. Now let’s try again, shall we.”
I don’t want to mythologize the man. He could be brutally honest. But is not honesty the primary intellectual virtue of self-knowledge? How can we know ourselves unless someone, our friend or mentor, speaks the truth about us to ourselves?
He frequently and with devilish humor deflated my pretensions to understanding certain philosophers. I had brought the most well known American philosopher to speak to students at my school, and I was quite proud of this achievement. Robert listened to my recounting of this proud moment, and choked out at me “That horrible man?” As chagrined as I was to hear this, the core truth of his criticism was apt. I had done it more for myself than for the students. How valuable to have friend who keeps you tethered to the ground.
The honesty that binds friends challenged us the afternoon he called to tell me of the original diagnosis of the brain tumor. The news stunned me; and the manner in which he delivered it was unusually clinical, not his normal mindfulness. That not being our way of talking together, we chose a silence to settle between us. Then, inexplicably, as if two well-traveled dancing partners, we struck on the allusive language of Shakespeare. We began to talk of the prognosis and of the impending complications through a poetic prism.
A few days later I sent him music and poetry. I could not imagine anything else, as words had left me. In return he sent one line on a blank card: “I knew you would understand.” I was consoled.
--------------------------
In gratitude: "For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made?"
We humans are to no small degree defined by how we treat others and how they respond to us. Sartre understood a version of this as a sort of threat to our freedom. We would like to imagine ourselves as insular beings, able to define ourselves through sheer will. But in the end it comes back, inevitably if often unpleasantly, to simple human social relations.
Robert maintained a deep commitment to his family. The bonds of familial love were unassailably important to him. He often recounted to me the events of family gatherings, especially when it involved politics. And he was tremendously proud of the younger generations, of their accomplishments and ambitions. But the privacy rule restrains me here. Fortunately, the family knows well his deepest affection and hopes for them.
Robert was Mr. Cotton to my five children, still is, even though the oldest is now forty. They grew up with him, virtually every Friday night for several years. Justin chased the kids around the house playing a game they called monster, stirring the kids up so that their mother could not calm them before bed. Robert, Monica (my wife), and I ate pizza, watched television, and talked while Justin cavorted.
When their mother sent them word of his death, they recalled Mr. Cotton as they knew him when they children. To them, and I quote, “he was a kind and gentle man,” with a “smile and a demeanor” “of kindness;” a man with a “calm and soothing voice” who was “always kind and warm.” He was a “humble man.” Those are the impressions of children.
I am touched by the simplicity of these words and by their accuracy. Children usually know, especially when they are forming their earliest impressions of the world, what is right with that world and not. Robert was a very complex man, to be sure: more complicated than most of us. But his character, his person, shown openly and naturally. Goodness requires no adornment.
As a private person, Robert shared himself with us in a completely present way; he was never “on” as they say today, making pretensions; thus, we can each, now, remember him as he was with us, fully engaging us in that quiet, seemingly unassuming but keenly observant manner. He was attuned to the world, wondrously open to its revelations.
In the eighties Robert became enamored by one German philosopher’s ideas of humans as language beings. He read widely and deeply on this subject, and that study informed the two great projects he undertook until last week: Shakespeare and Catholicism. Of the two he was far more sanguine about the former. Indeed, he had taken up grappling with Cardinal Ratzinger’s (née Pope Benedict XVI) writings, contrasting them with those of the early Church Fathers. I was not betting on the Cardinal’s measuring up under Robert’s analysis.
His studiousness, however, should not be overplayed. Robert was neither a puritan nor a dull boy. He enjoyed life in all its diverse expressions. He appreciated the excesses of DH Lawrence and bawdiness of the Bard. He was as amused by low comedy as he was moved by high tragedy. He admired the spy novel and was entranced by “Dallas” the soap opera.
Failure to recognize how complete was Robert’s life, especially his interior life, is a failure of vision on our part and an injustice to him.
----------------------------------
In gratitude: "For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made?"
The purpose of a life, suggested Aristotle, is to flourish. Robert lived such a rich and varied life of mind and of spirit that we must be grateful for his having shared himself with us. In the privacy of our relationships we experienced an intensity of feeling and a concentration of thought that spurs us to repeat this with and for others. It is our duty to recall him everyday through our devotions to one another so that others may flourish, as we have, for knowing this wise man. The Greek’s called this quality phronesis: a practical wisdom.
This morning we do not recall Robert’s life to memorialize him, but, on the contrary, to re-call him as a presence to us.
His counsel to us is a farewell: A fare you well. Not in the sense of a good bye but as a call to flourish: to be good to ourselves and to others––to pursue excellence and practical wisdom so that we fare well as persons.
My farewell will be in the lines Robert and I alluded to one another as we talked that stunning day about his illness.
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.No exerciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing will come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!
(Cymbeline, IV, 2)
God bless you dear friend.
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Seasoned by Seasons
Dear Servite Class of 2021,
Greetings from California’s Mother Lode country in Northern California near Auburn. I am writing in support of the efforts of my Servite Class of 1971 to mentor you through your Servite years. We began our journeys through Servite fifty years from the day you began your journeys. We graduated from Servite fifty years from the day most of you will graduate. Fifty years is a long time. Those fifty years have seen dramatic changes not only at Servite but in our society and culture. Each member of our class has travelled his own unique journey to this point. Some journeys have reached their ends. Others will continue for many years. None of us knows when our journey will end. One thing is certain. Each of us started our journey at the same place – Servite. Our Servite experiences helped prepare us for our life journeys. They helped shape our opinions and world views. Your journeys also will be unique. I wish each of you the best on your journey. I hope your journeys will be filled with curiosity, hard work, compassion for others, and the rewards that follow a good life. I can assure you, your journeys will not always be easy. You will face difficult decisions. My hope for you is that when you face these difficult decisions, you will have the courage, self-confidence, and wisdom to make decisions that are right for you, for your families, and for other people who are affected by your decisions.
I will share a story with you about one of my Servite experiences that may, if nothing else, provide context for your journeys and help you realize that members of my Servite class, two generations removed from your class, once faced decisions similar to decisions you face today. My introduction to Servite was through football. I arrived on the Servite campus about a week before classes started to participate in freshman football. I tried out for wide receiver. I never started in a game and rarely saw playing time. The game plan for our offense was hike the ball to Bill Zimmerman and let him run over the other team. He was a man among boys. Toward the end of the season, the coaches decided Zimmerman wasn’t much of a passer so they asked everyone on the team to step up and throw a few passes. The next thing I knew, the coaches moved me to quarterback. What I remember most about that football season is a decision I didn’t make to play quarterback was made for me.
In my sophomore year, I played quarterback on the junior varsity football team. I never started a game. Our team went undefeated, despite Zimmerman having moved up to varsity where he started at middle linebacker. What I remember most about that football season is our head coach, Ray Yoshida. He was a quiet man. Everyone on our football team loved him and respected him. We all felt he cared about the team and about us as individuals. After the football season ended, while walking across the football practice field, Coach Yoshida suffered a massive heart attack and died. He was planning to move up to the varsity football team to coach us and we were looking forward to it.
In my junior year, I moved up to the varsity football team. I learned the designated starter at quarterback had a mysterious illness that prevented him from practicing. The head coach, George Dena, was looking for someone to replace him. He offered me the starting position and I accepted. Suddenly, never having started a football game at Servite, I was thrust into the starting quarterback role. My focus shifted to football and away from academics and student government (I was the junior class president). What I remember most about that football season is the seniors on the football team rallied around me, supported me, and made me feel comfortable and confident leading the team. It was a great season and a great year.
In my senior year, expectations ran high for our football team. We would be playing two games in the Big A. We started the season with two victories. We won only one more game. What was anticipated to be a great season turned into a losing season. The reasons remain obscure for me. The easy answer is that we lost a number of starters to injuries. The reality is more complicated, as most things are. What I remember most about that football season is the sense of responsibility I felt to my teammates for a disappointing season.
Of course, I had many other experiences during my time at Servite. Among other things, I made great lifelong friends; I discovered interesting academic subjects; I read interesting works of fiction and nonfiction; and I decided to shift my focus away from football to a college education. Looking back at my Servite experiences, I realize now what I didn’t realize then. We don’t always know where our journeys will take us and what decisions we will face when our journeys take unexpected turns. The decisions I made while at Servite affected my future. They also affected the lives of some of my classmates. If you find yourself struggling with a decision, you are not alone. I am available to any of you, as are many of my Servite classmates, should you find the need and the courage to ask for advice or should you need someone outside your immediate family to listen to you.
Ever yours,
Bruce Emard
Saturday, September 22, 2018
The Hard, Hard Work of Wasting Time..
Servite was probably the finest high school to be had in Orange County. We didn't know it, and hence didn't appreciate it at the time. But that is not to say Servite students were thoroughly immersed and engaged all the time. Not by a long shot. I think I was no different than most of my classmates who came up with some pretty creative strategies to pass the interminable hours spent in the classroom. Here are a few pastimes that probably saved my sanity...
1. Doodling - as in these examples.
2. In religion class with Fr. Duplessis we would record his quotes and misquotes each class. He came up with some real zingers: "Saint Augustine wished humans could spawn fish." he once declared. Direct quotes taken completely out of context were our bread and butter. At the end of the school year we presented him with a scroll with his "104 Theses":
3. We used to play golf. I don't know if Servite still has the round floor electrical sockets in the classrooms, but they thankfully did back in the day. We would put some tinfoil over the socket so we wouldn't lose our coins, and would try kick a penny or nickel with our feet, trying to sink the putt into the socket. We would have several of these golf matches going on different parts of the classroom. I think Physics was prime time for socket golf. Guys got pretty good at it, in fact it was one part of our Servite education that turned out to be of practical use as many of us went on to become scratch golfers and talented soccer players
4. One of the most exciting pastimes we developed to cope with World History. Ms. Roche was famous for using certain phrases over and over, such as "As time goes on...", "compare and contrast..." "eventually..." So before class we would choose two teams. Even team and odd team. Then we chose a phrase..."and so on and so forth..." Then we would record each time she said the phrase. At the end of the period - the final bell - marked the end of the competition. If she said the phrase 1, 3, 5, 7 times, the odd team won. But the exciting part was the final five minutes of class, because both teams were frantically raising their hands to ask leading questions to try to get her to say the phrase. I am not sure she ever wondered why we were so involved in the final 5 minutes of class.
5. My personal favorite pastime was in the afternoon, after lunch.I would play the organ solo for the Doors "Light My Fire"(long version) on the top of my desk. It was a huge hit and I could imagine the bassline so vividly that I could actually hear it in my head. Then I would play the organ lead, using my fingers to play the notes on my desk, and I could just as truly hear every note I played in my head. I could do everything the Doors could do, but even better, and I could literally be a t it for the whole period and never get tired of it. Also did this with "In A Gadda da Vida" by Iron Butterfly. They really should have hired me.
There were countless other distractions, and it is hard to believe we were so busy in our unbusyness. And this was decades before smartphones were a thing. I guess survival instinct manifests in many strange ways.
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