Here’s What it Takes

July 16, 2021 (104 words)

It doesn’t take a certain kind of life to be a writer, because any kind of life will do. It’s not a matter of social pedigree, or having a blue-ribbon educational background, or even a flair for the arts. All that’s required is a heightened level of attentiveness. And being given the privilege of wrestling with your problems in solitude.

(Okay, so maybe a reasonable facility with one’s native language will also come in handy.)

It’s really just a variation on the “grow where you’re planted” thing. The “stand still and look, until you really see” approach to daily living. That’s all it takes.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
July 16, 2021

Could This Be Love?

July 12, 2021 (412 words)

Coming out of a 35-year marriage (and a 39-year relationship) you’re not supposed to fall for the first person who smiles at you. There are a lot of fish in the sea, and you’re supposed to sample at least some of what life has to offer in the way of female companionship.

The idea is to approach the search for a new love interest with an open mind and a casual attitude. Dating a series of women, and not honing in on any one person too quickly, will allow you to develop a clearer picture of what you are looking for, and who might be the best match.

All of which sounds swell in theory. But this playing the field can be a time-consuming pastime. Making the initial overture, arranging for that first meeting, then plowing ahead through a few actual dates. Repeating this process with several women in sequence can eat up a precious amount of calendar. And keep in mind, the women you are taking the measure of are not standing idly by, patiently waiting for you to make up your mind. What if, after six months or a year of testing the waters, you realize the woman you dated back in the beginning might just be the one? What happens if that individual has moved on in her own search, and is no longer available?

You’re not supposed to fall for the first person who smiles at you, but what if you luck out and meet an unusual female early on who is an appealing combination of practical and ditzy, hard-working and easy-going. A lover of children who naturally tries to facilitate everyone else’s happiness. A true romantic, based on her continuing search for what she describes as a trusted friend. What if your sensibilities and life experiences seem to sync up after only a few encounters? What then?

I’m brand new at this, but already I’m making an adjustment in my approach. There seems to be no point in going through the motions of multiple dates with any woman unless you both feel something right from the start that might extend beyond the admittedly important criteria of physical attraction.

Of course, there is no guarantee such a kernel of kinship will pan out and develop into something alive and well. But being hip and casual and doing a series of trophy dates with pretty people I might want to horizontal mambo with makes no sense to me now.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr July 12, 2021

Summer Love

July 11, 2021 (20 words)

Summer love, and winter love, and everything in between love. The best kind of love. The only kind of love.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
July 11, 2021

Finding a Match

July 10, 2021 (691 words)

Much to my surprise and dismay, my long-running marriage unraveled over the last few years, and is ending in divorce. The decision is mutual, the lawyers are working out the details, and the decree should be finalized in a few months.

I wish the dear woman with whom I raised four children nothing but the best in the years ahead. She is the one who became disenchanted with our relationship several years ago. I hope she is able to find a measure of peace moving forward, and a modicum of happiness.

But since I am too young to die, I have decided to try and see if there is a female out there who might be receptive to my overtures, and who might, in turn, be persuaded to give a hoot about me. While, you know, I still have a little tread left on my tires.

Which let’s face it, is not going to be easy. At this age all of us former boys and girls have developed some quirks, and have become more than a little set in our ways.

For those of you whose long-term marriages are still intact, let me be the first to inform you the only way to meet new people these days is through an internet dating site. It’s both a valuable public service, and the weirdest thing you could possibly imagine.

Trying to determine potential romantic compatibility with a total stranger based on nothing more than a few pictures and a brief summary description of that individual’s likes and wants… Really, it’s an impossible task.

There are a lot of attractive women in this world, and it turns out many of them happen to be on the internet at the present time, looking for a new and improved partner. Every single one of them enjoys music, has a great sense of humor and likes to laugh, is comfortable dressing up for a night out or staying home and cuddling on the couch, is devoted to their family and friends, loves their job, is very active and outdoorsy, and is an avid traveler. Every single one of them, without exception.

And these women are all looking for an ambitious man who is successful and knows what he wants in life. But the ideal candidate should also be courteous, suitably humble, emotionally intelligent, and a good communicator.

This is not meant to be sarcastic or disparaging. Only to point out the difficulty of conveying one’s personality or any insight into one’s essential nature with a few keystrokes. And don’t forget, I’m having the very same issues with my own presentation on these sites. As one lady confessed to the world at large: “If we are meant to be together, I hope you won’t let my inability to write a catchy profile stand in the way of our meeting.” I agree with her sentiment wholeheartedly. But what else do we have to go on?

In scrolling through the pictures and profiles of dozens of lovely hopefuls, you find yourself making snap decisions that defy logic. And you become downright embarrassed at the arbitrariness of these little judgements. This woman is dismissed from consideration for being too short, while another gets set aside for being too tall. There are the too young, and the too old. Those who strike you as a bit too artsy, or not artsy enough. Way too blue blood, or way too blue collar.

After a while your head is spinning. You have to back away from the screen for a deep, cleansing breath and force yourself to return to the day’s regular activities.

Physical attractiveness is the first criteria we all use to gauge initial interest. Yet we all know that will only take a relationship so far. Whether a sense of sympatico can develop once the thrill of physical excitement dissipates a little, and the two of you come back down to earth again, is anybody’s guess. The phrase “trying to find a needle in a haystack” comes to mind.

So please wish me luck. And yes, I’m open to a blind date, if you know someone you think I might like.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr July 10, 2021

Adaptations

July 6, 2021 (488 words)

It’s always a challenge when they try to turn your favorite quirky novel into a movie. What makes the novel so rich and rewarding in the first place is the way it takes us into uncharted territory. The best quirky novels make us think about something or someone from a perspective we haven’t previously considered.

When it comes to capturing a revealing detail about a person or a place, the novel has a distinct advantage over a movie. Sure, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometime it takes a thousand words (or more) to really capture the essence of a thing – a physical locale, a given character’s motivation, the underlying dynamic of a particular relationship.

What makes any story hold our interest is the way the familiar is used as a path to the unfamiliar. Places we’ve heard about or maybe even visited, but haven’t gotten the full flavor of. Characters who are immediately recognizable on the surface, but who surprise us in the end as being unlike anyone we have ever known.

Some stories just take time to develop and unfold properly. The novelist has the opportunity to do his or her work in stages, layering in more context as the plot moves along. Like a bird building a nest. The reader, in turn, has the ability to pause and reflect, to maybe even put the book down and go about one’s daily chores, returning at a later date. This does wonders for the reader’s ability to understand and appreciate the proceedings.

A movie, on the other hand, has to get in and get out. It only has ninety minutes, give or take, to get the job done and the story told. (Unless you are the famous writer-director Terrence Malick. In which case you have about three hours to get your point across.)

Given the inherent time constraints, it’s difficult for a movie to truly break new ground. And when one does manage to accomplish this feat, that film is usually not seen by too many people.

While any movie worth its salt will hold a surprise for the audience – the proverbial plot twist – the stock-in-trade of a release that does big box office is the familiar. Stories we kind of already know featuring actors and actresses who are easy on the eyes, and help hold our short attention spans. Without wanting to come across as too much of a cinematic snob, most popular entertainment is aimed at reassuring us about what we already hold to be true.

The quirky novel, and the rare successful movie adaptation of such a novel, usually sets out to show us something different. And in so doing it often tries to challenge a familiar assumption in some fundamental way. Sitting through such a challenge, whether issued from a page or on a screen, is just not a popular pastime, when all is said and done.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
July 6, 2021

Denying Biden Communion

June 23, 2021 (1,225 words) In what made headlines on every media platform, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) overwhelming approved new guidelines for receiving the Eucharist during Mass. If rigorously enforced these guidelines would deny communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians like President Joe Biden. The vote was 73 percent in favor with 24 percent opposed, and is being described as a dramatic show of force on the part of the conservative Catholic movement in this country. It’s also being labeled as further evidence of a dramatic ideological rift with Rome, which is generally viewed as tilting more than a little left these days. Hints of such a rift make for juicy click-bait, but don’t do justice to the facts. The real story has more layers, more nuance, and is not so easily categorized. For one thing, Pope Francis may indeed be on record as wanting to expand the cultural conversation on familiar hot-button topics like same-sex marriage and artificial contraception. But his opposition to legalized abortion has never been in doubt. Rather than grapple with complexity, though, it’s much easier for reporters and consumers of news to caste everything as an easy-to-digest tale of good guys versus bad guys – of liberals versus conservatives. Contrary to how the story is being reported, this latest dust-up is not an indicator of a deepening disagreement between a so-called liberal Vatican and a burgeoning conservative Catholic movement here in the States. It is, however, another example of widespread confusion on the part of American Catholics – clergy and lay persons, alike – as to what Catholic social teaching is, and how best to implement that teaching in a liberal democracy founded on pluralism. A complicated subject, to be sure, and one not given to a simplistic choosing up of sides. As if to cleanse our national palette of its partisan tendencies, Francis has not been shy about taking on what he describes with disdain as the rising conservatism in the United States. He openly clashed with the recently-deposed Republican administration over nothing less than what it means to be a true Christian. He repeatedly challenged that administration’s approach to persistent poverty, immigration reform, and climate change. * In case you are wondering, I am 100 percent in favor of denying communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians. My only question for the USCCB is, what took you guys so long? Our good bishops should have pulled the trigger on this decades ago, back when Mario Cuomo (1932-2015) as Governor of New York (1983-1994) first rolled out the “personally opposed, but” defense of his public support for abortion. That being said, I’d like to note the active participation of conservative Catholics in our political process should not begin and end with this moral sanction – as gratifying as that sanction may feel in the moment. Unfortunately, conservative Catholics have made the mistake of dismissing an entire policy platform because it extends to include support for a woman’s right to choose and marriage equality. Their otherwise admirable righteousness prevents them from comprehending the obvious: such support does not constitute a mandate. No one is being forced into having an abortion, or told to marry someone of their own gender. Equally unfortunate, conservative Catholics have simultaneously embraced an opposing policy platform that runs directly counter to Catholic social teaching as it pertains to economic behavior. They have been seduced by soothing pro-life rhetoric, even though the trickle-down fiscal policies that define this platform erode respect for life. (In dismissing my concerns over economic policy, conservative Catholic friends are quick to cite Donald Trump as the most pro-life President in history. To which I say, go right ahead, revel in the conservative appointments to the federal bench made during his term. And the three – count ‘em, three – conservative appointees to the Supreme Court. But what about Trump‘s unprecedented tax cut for the wealthiest Americans that made even Warren Buffett blush? At this point the long-awaited power-play repeal of Roe v. Wade, now to be instigated by these newly-minted Republican judicial appointments, will just start a civil war. Especially among the female population who would like to bring a child into this world, but don’t have the financial wherewithal to do so.) * Lest you get the wrong impression, it’s not just conservative Catholics and their automatic support for Republicans that bothers me. I take issue with groups like “Catholics for Biden,” as well. It’s not enough for such groups to tout a Democrat’s praiseworthy initiatives in the area of economic justice, or immigration reform, or climate change, while calmly stating “of course, the Church can never endorse support of abortion,” etc. No, there has to be more to your objection. If you are going to support a pro-choice Democrat because of his/her social justice agenda – which I encourage, by the way – you must be strenuous in your disapproval of that politician’s support of abortion and gay marriage. Groups like “Catholics for Biden’ are just way too polite in letting these politicians off the hook when it comes to sexual morality. This, of course, is the very same thing conservatives are doing with their pro-life Republican champions – letting them off the hook for their laissez-faire answer to everything economic. Our pro-life Catholic Voter Guides, along with the 73 percent of American bishops who just voted to deny President Biden communion, insist there can be nothing of value in the Biden administration’s economic agenda. They claim by supporting abortion it fails to exhibit a requisite respect for life. But this is painting with too broad a brush, and displays a worrisome lack of discernment. * In a liberal democracy founded on pluralism we are never going to have the chance to vote for a politician who represents Catholic teaching across the board. So why have conservatives turned our elections into these dire, either/or choices centered on political support for abortion and gay marriage? Better they should direct their consternation at our founding doctrine of individual liberty in pursuit of one’s own definition of happiness. Since that’s the ideological wellspring of both legal abortion and gay marriage. It just took a couple hundred years to play out. Let’s admit the whole thing is a mess, in the sense that figuring out how to implement Catholic social teaching in a pluralist democracy is a nut we American Catholics are still trying to crack. And things have only gotten messier since the 1973 passage of Roe v. Wade. That’s when the divide-and-conquer strategy was put into play to muffle Catholic influence. We have been reduced to cheerleaders for trickle-down economics on the one hand, or enablers of the libertines on the other. So by all means, my dear bishops, move forward with your principled stand on denying Holy Communion to pro-choice politicians. This will eliminate the confusion we are always being told rank-and-file Catholics feel when people like President Biden profess as Catholics, yet also profess support for abortion. Just don’t stop there, thinking your work to implement all aspects of Church teaching in the political realm is complete. Come up with a way to call out Republicans for the collateral damage their fiscal policy creates, without jeopardizing your tax-exempt status in the process. But call it out, you must. Economics is morality in action, in the public arena. It’s not merely a matter of prudential judgment. Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr June 23, 2021