covid-19

The Lively Art of Writing

At the same time, I do not wish to intimidate you with my letters. His letters, they say, are severe and forceful, but when he is here in person he is unimpressive and his word makes no great impact. Well, let such people give this some thought, that what we are by word, in the letters during our absence, that we mean to be in action when we are present.

2 Cor 10:10-11

We’ve been experiencing growing pains in our Latin Mass, the Mass in the Extraordinary Form, here at St. Jane, and between that and helping many with coronastress I’ve found myself on the phone or writing letters, e-mails, and texts constantly for months on end. I haven’t written so much since I was graduated Liberal Arts school, though thankfully typewriters are out of style.

It’s helped me to realize I need to sharpen my mad writing skills.

And in the interest of doing so, I looked up an old book we worked through in High School, called “The Lively Art of Writing“. The Yoast readability analysis of my last blogpost recommended I have more structure, which is something right out of TLAoW.

Basically, before you write anything you make an outline – for blogposts that outline basically becomes your headers. I used that formula throughout my life until I kept a weblog, since it was more or less just a weblog, not the self-published magazines they’ve become.

Back to the Terrifying Reality of Writing

Modern sensibilities are terrified of putting things in writing. I get it.

“Look what you said! What did you mean by this word?! What did you mean by that phrase?! He’s talking about me! Me Me Me! You used this word wrong!!!!”

It’s easy to be misunderstood when you write something down. So when you do write things down, it’s best to stick with the facts and simply acknowledge that many will read their own interpretation into things.

Let them. It’s fine when you know that what you’re saying is genuine, non-harmful, and meant to communicate in a healthy way.

Clarifications and Terms

In our ongoing Covid realities, situations are changing constantly and it’s helpful to give updates that aren’t always possible any other way. I’ve done my share of live streams and video messages, but people usually prefer having something in writing.

The video messages go over well, and I’m overdue for another. But what I found is that many liked that the video presentations were there and that I was doing them, but they didn’t/couldn’t always take the time to watch them. The presence they brought was more comforting than the actual message, to most. 😐

Back to our Latin Mass, I was experiencing confusion regarding it. So – the only thing I’ve really done the last few months is to stop acting as a mediator and healer and allow others to start seeing the confusion for what it is. Overall it’s just a growth phase in the spiritual life of the Mass-goers here. It’s a growth phase for myself as well.

Phone Tag Lag

Writing texts and e-mails begs the question “Why don’t you just call?”

The life of the phone message can be exasperating and takes on a cycle uniquely its own. Here, and in many areas I’ve come to find out, phone messages will often show up a day or three later.

So the cycle can go like this:

  • Monday: “Father, it’s Daisy, can you give me a call?”
  • Message shows up Tuesday: “Daisy I’m returning your call, let me know what you need.”
  • Thursday – Message from Tuesday evening shows up: “Father we’re playing phone tag, I’ll try again.”
  • Thursday afternoon: “Hi Daisy, returning your call. Can you leave me a message about what you need, and we can work from there?”
  • Sunday evening message appears along with three calls from the Archbishop that he made Friday, and an emergency call from hospice: “Father, we keep missing each other! I’ll send you an e-mail, you never return your calls!”

Texting

Texting works great, and so many hate it. Immediate responses are possible, or realistically as soon as possible if not immediately. Everyone and their cousin learned how to text after Katrina hit and that’s all we could do.

It can get overwhelming when everyone texts out of the blue all at once, or when you’re exhausted and a random text floats in. But it does work.

But again, it’s writing and you’ve put it down and put it out there for people to misinterpret. “What did you mean by the Latin Mass is going through a growth phase? Are you implying that we’re immature? Maybe it’s you who are immature!”

Granted, I am always growing through life. That’s a healthy given.

The Scourge of E-mail

E-mail can be an energy-sapping reality that needs to be put in its place. Currently, my auto-responder is set to notify senders that I’ll answer e-mails on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, while monitoring for emergencies.

Research shows that in order to work at a level of thought with enough depth to expand the mind, focus, and develop ideas, you need a good three hours for the level of concentration required. If you’re checking email constantly and needing to reply to it immediately you may as well hang up your prayer life, your homilies, your ideas, and any serious work you need to get done.

The Ancient Art of Letters

The art of letter writing is something that currently eludes me.

Every now and again I just have to sit down and get some ideas out to help clarify situations or to state something, draw boundaries, etc. At times I just don’t have the time necessary for it to be an art form, but it’s at least something.

I’ve reached the end of clarifying anything to do with our Latin Mass, which is good.

I can also be extremely strong in my writing, which I’m aware transfers over into my letter writing. I’m intent on working through that into a better style of business writing, but given everything going on these days, sometimes you just have to type something up and send it.

The thing is that I write a lot. I’ll force myself into brevity, but I can sit down over coffee in the morning and type up a five page e-mail in ten minutes, edit it, peruse for misspellings and grammatical errors, then hit send.

Too, instead of sending off a one page letter, I’ll send off a five page one. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I decided to start typing into my little weblog again, and practice readability and structuring while I work on ideas for another blog I’m considering.

A work in progress

Writing is never something to be afraid of. And a lot of people read things into my writing that simply aren’t there. Well, not a lot of people. A few people do that, and I’ve more or less moved beyond worrying over it.

Texts and e-mails can lead to electronic clutter, which is a different story entirely and definitely a task to stay on top of. But writing is healthy and fun.

All the best in your writing adventures. And all the best in mine, too. 😳

Keep it lively.

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Ken-AYE

Random life

When you’re named Kenneth it doesn’t really matter what you prefer, because people make their own decisions on what your name is. (In the same way, the cover picture on this post doesn’t really matter as to the content of the post. But Fox Squirrels are fascinating creatures. Less fascinating than us, but still… More on that later.)

Kenneth

For instance, growing up my family always called me Kenneth which to this day most of my grammar school friends and all of my family still use.

My grandparents were pretty formal on both sides and called me Kenneth. The Monsignor in my Parish growing up also called me Kenneth, as did all of my teachers.

I love it.

I still remember Monsignor Melancon coming into class with our Report Cards, sitting down in the middle of the room as the entire class was rearranged, and calling our names to come up and get our reports, as we trembled in fear and expectation.

“Kenneth?”

*tremble*

“Very good.”

*reflect*

Kenny

Some of my friends shortened that to Kenny. That transferred to music, and all of my music friends have and still call me Kenny. The Archbishop of NOLA is friends with some of my music friends and has always insisted on calling me Kenny.

I love it.

Ken

The business side of the world has always decided they can’t call someone Kenny, and that Kenneth is too formal, and Kenny too informal. So they call me Ken.

I’m OK with it.

At times I’ve encouraged it because I don’t really have the time to deal with people’s personal issues over my name. I can’t help but feel that anyone named Kenneth goes through the same thing.

“What’s your name?”

  • “Kenneth.”

“What would you like to be called?”

  • “?”

Call me what you will, but don’t call me late for dinner. ;-]

But the thing is, my brother eventually took to calling me “Ken-aye”! (A for Allen of course, and a play on Kenny.)

So, to this day I often sign my name as Ken A.

I know you’re fascinated by these tidbits of info. But I’m actually fascinated by the tidbits of info which you all share with me. It’s not that I have a low threshold of excitement, it’s that you are all fascinating people. I’m just trying to share and be open while we’re all going through this COVID shutdown mess. My heart goes out to all who are struggling.

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KenA

The Courageous Catholic

Calix

I’m always hearing about courageous priests. “The world needs more courageous Priests!” “We need a courageous Priest to defy the Bishop!” That type thing.

What we actually need are courageous Catholics who do something more than complain about the Church. We can find fault in every corner of the Church, and never run out of fodder. We can find fault in the life of every Priest, and never run out of fodder. At some point, one tunes it out and focusses on the spiritual life, and one’s duty, because nothing is ever courageous enough. No deed is courageous enough unless one ends up in prison, and then one is promptly forgotten as the populace turns it’s attention to another Priest in the public’s circus of entertaining commentary.

But the search for courageous Priests is ruining the lives of some Priests.

Defy the Bishop and be assigned to a place of lesser impact – then what? What authority has the time to deal with rudeness, anger, and confusion caused for really no reason other than the fact one is being prompted to disobedience, impoliteness, and lack of charity for the sake of pleasing a populace which is entirely incapable of being pleased?

Many also complain about the Church and deciding that their children will never go to a Seminary, or never enter a Convent unless it’s a “good” one.

But the problem there is – if the Lord is calling one’s child to religious life as a Priest or religious, who is anyone to deny the Lord? If the Church needs betterment, perhaps one’s own sons and daughters are the ones who are going to be changing it.

One is never wrong in praying for and hoping for courageous Priests. One is never wrong also in living their own lives courageously – and dealing with the matters of the world which need to be addressed with great courage, and which can only be addressed by the laity, whilst Priests tend to their own matters.

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“Just the Flu”

Flew the Coop

“I may speak with every tongue that men and angels use; yet, if I lack charity, I am no better than echoing bronze, or the clash of cymbals.”

1 Cor 13:1 Knox

There’s a growing number of people who simply don’t care about coronavirus – it’s just the flu, it’s a hoax, don’t lock me up – and I get all that.

But why on earth would you not care about getting the flu?

I had the flu once in my adult life and have taken precautions ever since. I cleaned my apartment immaculately and lay around for three or four days with a high fever praying I wouldn’t die. But if I did die, at least whoever found my body would at least see I had a great, clean apartment, and know I’d had some bright spots in music. I don’t want to get “just the flu” and I don’t want to go through that ever again.

If you don’t care fine, that’s your choice. But don’t complain if I wear a mask and/or gloves to give you Communion, especially if you’re coughing all during Mass. It’s a perfectly valid and legit thing for me to do, backed up by history and Tradition itself. And don’t complain about the many people who don’t want to get “just the flu” from your lack of charity in not caring about anyone else.

Does it affect the blood, which is why it appears to affect certain populations more? Or does it simply affect the lungs? Do you know? Is your will written? Your funeral planned? “Just the flu” kills many each year – especially the elderly though I’ve known younger who’ve died also.

Aside from that, I’m very much looking forward – as are we all – to the gradual reopening happening soon, more and more, all around us.

And on a brighter note – these baby birds flew the coop! They’re out of quarantine too – all grown up and flying around the countryside as birds ought to be.

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The Rev. Kenneth Allen