Tig Notaro has Cancer and You Can Too

"Hello."

[Applause]

"Good evening, hello. I have cancer. How are you?"

[Applause and some weird laughing from the audience.]

"Hi. How are you? Is everybody having a good time? I have cancer. How are you?"

[Audience laughing.]

"Ah, its a good time. Diagnosed with cancer."

[Awkward audience but still laughing.]

sigh "Feels good. Just diagnosed with cancer." sigh

Tig Notaro walked on stage in Largo, Los Angeles in 2013 and opened her stand-up routine with this deadpan greeting.

Over the next thirty minutes Tig externally processes her very recent (days, if not hours prior) diagnosis of cancer, her mother abruptly passing away, and a horrible breakup.

"Its okay. Its gonna be okay. It might NOT be okay. But I'm just saying. Its okay. You're gonna be okay. I don't know what's going on with me."

I'm not a comedy expert, but when this album came up on Spotify the other day it caught me totally off guard and transported me immediately to a very strange space. An oddly humorous and wonderfully honest and special space.

The Human Experience 

Someone once told me that as catechists and evangelists, we should pay attention to and learn from comedians' ability to observe present human experiences and explain it so completely to an audience. They have a finger on the pulse of contemporary culture. Comedians can take an experience so banal and familiar to us, dissect it, and present it in such an insightful way that we all are left saying "Yes! Yes. There is no way to argue with you. That is absurd and hilarious and I do it every day."

A large portion of popular stand-up comedy right now is observational humor. The surprise of something familiar suddenly exposed as completely absurd is what makes it so funny. Its a tangible kind of funny.

"Its so hard because right now in my life when I have a show I don't feel like 'Oh I want to go talk about how funny it is that a bee was taking the 401 freeway.' Like all the jokes I've written I just am like, I can't even bring myself to talk about it. Because, and just, everybody relax: my mother just died."

The audience reacts in a sad manner, with some awww's and gasps, and a few shocked chuckles. You can feel the tension between tragedy and comedy. Like Bruce Willis as a crazy and nervous cop with wild eyes cracking a joke to himself as he rolls out of a moving car.

"Should I leave?"

And the audience bursts into laughter.

"I can't believe you're taking this so hard. You didn't even know her."

More laughter. It dies down and one solitary man is heard chuckling in that silence.

"Sir, this should not tickle you that much." 

And everyone loses it.

A Strange Thing

Thomas Nagel, in an essay on The Absurd, tried to pin down why a situation, or life in general, could be considered absurd.

“In ordinary life a situation is absurd when it includes a conspicuous discrepancy between pretension or aspiration and reality.”

— Thomas Nagel

This pretty much sums up Tig's whole stand-up set on coming to grips with her mother suddenly passing away and her battle with cancer.

"After we buried her we drove back to Texas... And I was checking the mail, and the hospital had sent my mother a questionnaire, to see how her stay at the hospital went. Mmmmm...not great."

Absurd.

And the way she explains it, its hilarious.

Tig bounces back to the topic of cancer.

"I had to get a mammogram done so I had to stand there with my shirt off and the technician said, 'Oh my gosh you have such a flat stomach. What is your secret?' And I said: 'Oh, I'm dying.'"

Absurd. And again, hilarious.

People are laughing, and crying, and laughing while crying, and are awkward, and silent, and can't seem to get enough of it. She went through treatment for her cancer, got out and a week later her mother died, then to top it all off she went through a rough breakup. And she's explaining all of these experiences just as you can imagine yourself experiencing them - laughingly realizing how absurd everything becomes when you are constantly thinking about very near impending death.

And during her set, I think the magic of it all is that for thirty minutes, we all have cancer. We all are able to put on the cancer goggles and view the world for a bit with the veil of time and the lie of immortality torn back to reveal the weak, frail, shallow experiences that take up most of our day.

"What if I just transitioned right now into silly jokes?"

"No!" the crowd screams.

"This is f***ing amazing." one guy yells.

That is exactly how you feel once you've put on the cancer goggles, listening to this set. You don't want it to end.

Tig transported all of us to a space where the veil is suddenly torn back and life is seen for what it really is: a letdown that doesn't ever really live up to our aspirations for it, and foolishness when seen in light of the assurance of death. Our death.

At the end she tries to tell one of her jokes from the material she actually wrote for the night. Every word is seen through the lens of the assurance of death and the horribleness of cancer. Every word is seen for the absurdity that it is.

She successfully brought the entire audience to a place where everything about life seems absurd and small and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, especially with death looming over every daily boring situation.

"I was driving here. Ugh, lotta traffic."

The crowd is doing the crying/laughing thing.

"My car hadn't moved in several minutes."

I'm laughing at myself at this point. I think everyone is.

"And a bee, flew past me. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is when a bee passes you in 5 o'clock traffic?"

Cancer looms over every word. The more Tig feigns frustration with traffic after just processing her cancer diagnosis, the more absurd rush hour traffic seems, and the funnier it is.

Life is absurd if it lacks any way to make sense of death. I think this common human suspicion that all of life is a little absurd is one of the most powerful starting points for the conversation with modern man about God.

There is a reason the Catechism of the Catholic Church begins with man's desire for God before getting into the Creed. To talk to modern man about his need for God requires and implies that we start with common human experience - man's own language. This is God's method of revealing Himself. This was Pope St. John Paul II's method in his writings (I'm thinking right now most especially of Love and Responsibility).

This is what every good spouse knows, especially when you hear "You're not understanding what I'm saying! You're not listening to me!" If you want to have a better marriage, be sure your spouse feels like you understand their perspective completely before trying to explain your side of the story.

When you're in this space and can feel the absurdity of life, you can strip away things like school and careers and sports and "I'm too busy" and whatever is right in front of your eyes that stops you from considering the idea of God or purpose or meaning. You're forced to be honest about the insignificance of all of life's bells and whistles.

And in that space, there is room to talk candidly about the meaning of it all. And that is a special space to be able to bring people into that is not easy to accomplish.

We ought to think hard about ways we can be more honest and create spaces where people can see life for what it really is.

We should also work a lot harder at explaining the human condition to modern man better than he can explain it himself (like Jesus did) using our own words.

Tig did it by sharing her cancer with us.

And she invited us to realize for thirty minutes that, in a way, we all have cancer.

Memento Mori.

**Side note: You can listen to the whole 30 minutes here on iTunes or find it on Spotify but just be warned that the cover of this album is Tig shirtless holding her hands on her (double mastectomy-ed) chest . Its not extremely inappropriate but isn't the most modest cover either. Just wanted to give you fair warning so you don't write me email about modesty and the evils of "the culture" and etc.

**Also: Tig is brilliant and I never thought someone could make me and an entire audience laugh by pushing a stool around a stage for four minutes straight.

**And: Here's a great NPR's Fresh Air interview of Tig about this performance.

do u wanna b happy?

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hh-gGb0Mvk[/embed] REVERB CULTURE IS BACK! Check out a ranty little article I wrote after listening to J. Cole's Intro to 2014 Forest Hills Drive album and reflecting on the section of the catechism dealing with our desire for God and happiness. Make sure you listen to the song. Let me know what you think and get pumped that Reverb Culture is back. Lots more to come.

---

Press play and stick it on repeat like a gentleman. Close the blinds, turn down the lights, and grab a seat. I'm drinking some coffee, want some? I know its late. But its a warm night and I'm feeling introspectively awake.

I think about death a lot since becoming a 26 year old home owner and father.

Heavy, I know. But bear with me.

You don't think about death? You don't visit your parents now and hug Dad just a little longer and realize he got another year older this year and that isn't something that can keep happening forever? You don't look at your wife, girlfriend, or loved one and wonder what they'll look like when and if they're 60, 70, - God willing - 80? Will they get those wrinkles in the corners of their eyes? Will their head shake ever so slightly like grandma's did? When your kids talk to them will they trail off mid sentence, smile, and turn around with no warning? What will the hospital be like the first time they stay longer than a day?

I just want to be happy. Some days I wonder what I really want though.

Read the rest at Reverb Culture

First Communion Parent Workshop

I gave a workshop today for parents of children receiving First Communion. It was part of a two hour workshop where the kids were taken out for catechesis on the Eucharist and the parents stayed for a brief session put on by me. We ended the workshop with a few minutes of adoration in the Church. [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/189988038" params="color=1b595f&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

I focused a great deal on initial evangelization and invitation to a personal relationship with Jesus and less on the actual content of the Eucharist and Confession (which I did cover for the last 25 minutes of the workshop after the prayer when the recording stops) because often sacramental preparation is an opportunity to reach out to people who may not have ever been invited to a relationship with Jesus or experienced a profound conversion experience that gives meaning to everything we do as Catholics.

This was my attempt at a proclamation of the kerygma centered on communion with Jesus in the Eucharist.

"He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in Him." John 6:56

This talk was influenced a great deal by the book Forming Intentional Disciples and statistics from the book (which I totally botched at the beginning of the talk) as well as focusing on an explicit invitation to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

To say this talk was heavily influenced by Michael Gormley's talk (here) would be a huge understatement. I borrowed a great deal from him and owe him a big, pandering, groveling thanks.

If you are interested in more on the Jewish and Old Testament roots of the Eucharist (like the Temple, Passover, and Bread of the Presence) I highly reccomend this book by Dr. Brant Pitre: Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist.

This talk was published on The Frank Show, the podcast of St. Francis of Assisi in Grapevine, TX. You can checkout the podcast on Soundcloud, iTunes, or the podcast app. 

Blue Jeans and the Catechism

I wrote something and Word on Fire thought it was good enough to publish! Read the Catechism! Just wanted to share it with y'all here. You can read the full article here. Do me a favor and leave a comment on the article on Word on Fire. :)

---

There was one thing on the minds of all Bishops gathered in Rome on November 25, 1985: blue jeans.

George Cardinal Law addressed the Bishops with these words: “Iuvenes Bostoniensis, Leningradiensis et Sacti Jacobi in Chile induti sunt ‘Blue Jeans’ et audiunt et saltant eandem musicam.” 

And for the first time in the history of Catholic Synods, Bishops were talking about blue jeans. In Latin.

This is the opening of the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, twenty years after the close of Vatican II. Cardinal Law spoke to all the bishops tasked with reviewing Vatican II’s twenty year impact on the Church. His argument was simple but clear.

Cardinal Schonborn, a major editor of the Catechism who was present at this Synod, summarizes Cardinal Law’s speech in Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“In a world where young people all over the world wear the same blue jeans, shouldn’t it be possible to express the faith in a common language? It is not only possible, it is necessary – and mainly for two reasons: first, because the world has definitively become one, sharing the same problems, the same anxieties and hopes; and second, because the faith in itself is unity.

Unity is an essential feature of Christian faith. This vision of one faith in one world fired not only Cardinal Law’s inspiration; it became the driving force of the synod’s discussion about the idea of a catechism. At the end of the synod, the Holy Father made the idea his own.” (p.39)

At the close of this Synod Pope St. John Paul II put together a commission of Bishops and Cardinals, assisted by then Cardinal Ratzinger, to take up Cardinal Law’s idea and write a universal Catechism of the Catholic Church. It would be the first of its kind since Catechism of Trent written in 1566, over 400 years prior.

The call for a Catechism might sound antiquated. It might sound this way most especially for people passionate about the New Evangelization. The New Evangelization is a call for evangelistic efforts new in “ardor, methods, and expressions” that engage modern culture and modern man.

How could a Catechism possibly engage our culture and the people we find ourselves tasked with evangelizing? How could this be an authentic fruit of Vatican II? Is this a return to the painful Catechisms of the past forcibly shoved into the minds of so many Americans?....

Read the rest of the article here.

An Evangelistic Model for Youth Ministry

There are a few problems I’ve come across frequently in conversations about youth ministry. The first is sweeping generalizations. “Large group models suck.” Or “Life Teen is inadequate.” Or “We need more cowbell.” Most critiques of any type of youth ministry model I’ve read create a straw man based on personal experiences of deficient youth ministry. A good model or strategy can always be poorly executed. Another problem is a misunderstanding of the purpose of different types of events or programs a youth ministry may do. To me, looking at the large group event and crying “This doesn’t go deep enough or make disciples!” is like expecting an Alpha course to prepare people for Baptism. That's not the purpose of Alpha. There are multiple contact points with youth that should constantly be pointing to a next step in the Christian life.

What I don't see much of is anyone formally proposing a model of youth ministry that extends beyond a specific weekly event. I wanted to propose a paradigm loosely based on the Catechumenate that I currently believe is the best way to approach youth ministry.

The Mission Territory

Youth ministry reaches out to a specific mission territory in a specific time and place and culture. Pope St. John Paul II in Redemptoris Missio defined three mission situations of evangelization that exist today.

First is the situation in which people haven’t heard and therefore don’t care about Jesus Christ and the Gospel. This is the area of ad gentes missionary activity.

The second is the situation in which people have heard and do care about Jesus and his Gospel. This is the area of pastoral activity.

The third, and most culturally common, is the situation in which people have heard or think they’ve heard about Jesus and everything He has to offer, and have decided to reject it. This is apparent in America even on the scale of whole families, generations, or communities. They’ve been exposed to the Church in some degree, and have rejected it. This is where the need for the “new” evangelization comes from. It is a new territory to be evangelizing people who have already been exposed to the Gospel message and are not hearing it for the first time.

I think this third situation is the most commonly experienced in youth ministries around the country. But to some degree all three situations are present and should be dealt with if youth ministry is going to make disciples.

Acts 2

The Catechumenate is an ancient model of Christian Initiation that has been used in some form since the Early Church. It is a process that leads a person on the fringes of the Church into full sacramental communion with Jesus Christ within the Church. In our post-Christian cultural context of Catholics who are sacramentalized but not evangelized, I think the Catechumenate is still a powerful organizing model for evangelization, because of its focus on conversion and movement.

The Catechumenate exists in a seminal form as early as Acts 2. Go read Acts 2. Do it.

The Apostles "going out" into Jerusalem after Pentecost caused non-Christians to take notice. They were amazed and perplexed and asked "What does this mean?" St. Peter stands up and gives the first sermon of the post-Pentecost Catholic Church and proclaims the kerygma, or the proclamation of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. The crowd is "cut to the heart" and asks "What shall we do?" This is a moment of conversion and they crave to respond to what they've heard. "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

So the three thousand in the crowd do as Peter recommends and they enter the Church, the first RCIA class of  33 A.D. But what do you do with three thousand newly baptized Christians? Form Church communities where the Christians can live out discipleship! What does that look like?

"And they devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching and the communal like, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." Acts 2:42

I'll save my rant about the Catechism (creed, sacraments, morality, and prayer) and its importance in the whole discipleship conversation for later.

A Process of Evangelization

The early Church's evangelization efforts, and the Catechumenate, take on this loose rhythm:

I think this is the best way to organize a youth ministry because it focuses on outreach, conversion, movement, and discipleship. Its christocentric. It is balanced. Focus too much on one area and you'll have unhealthy results. If we aren't focused on conversion, then we are just running a club. If we aren't intentionally focused on moving teens from where they towards a deeper relationship with Christ, then they are moving backwards. If we aren't focused on discipleship and only focused on initial proclamation, then we are providing a superficial spiritual high.

It also takes into consideration and addresses the various levels of commitment to Christ a large group of teens will have.

Fringe

"They were perplexed and amazed and asked "What does this mean?" but others mocking said "They are filled with new wine." Acts 2:12

You'll notice that there were two reactions to the Apostles. One was open and curious and one was hostile. Just like JPII's three situations of evangelization, there are two forms of fringe youth: those who have never really heard the Gospel, and those who are openly rejecting it. The first step in youth ministry is engaging and building trust with youth on the fringes of the Church.

Examples: meeting teens at school, going to sports games, fun social activities, outreach outside the parish, softball tournaments

Proclamation (kerygma)

"Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth..." Acts 2:14-36 "Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart...'What shall we do?'"Acts 2:37

St. Peter proclaimed, in a powerful and definitive way, the Person of Jesus Christ and the Gospel message. He appealed to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the prophecies that foretold his coming, and the witness of the Apostles. It was intentional and direct and it cut them to the heart. It demanded a response. Youth ministry needs to create moments where the basic Gospel message can be proclaimed to youth in a way that demands a response from them.

Examples: large group model, Lifeteen model, Steubenville Conferences, Covecrest, Summer camps, Confirmation retreats

Conversion (metanoia)

"Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the same Holy Spirit." Acts 2:38-40

The climactic transitional moment for the hearers marks a turning point where they no longer are passive or on the outside. They make a public and definite decision to repent of sin and "turn" their lives fully over to Jesus, beginning discipleship. They encounter the Person of Jesus Christ in the sacraments and become initiated into the Church

Examples: Connecting youth to the sacraments, Mass, encouraging repentance of sin, renewal of baptismal promises, adoration, Confession

Discipleship (didache)

"And they devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers." Acts 2:42

Only AFTER conversion can the newly initiated begin diving deep into the demands of discipleship. This is the place for proper catechesis and for a challenging of youth to dive deep into the life of a disciple. This stage requires more individual attention and accountability, and small groups seem best suited for this period of growth.

Examples: small group model, yDisciple, Bible study, discipleship, Forming Intentional Disciples, deeper formation and catechesis

Mission (apostolos)

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." Matthew 28:19

The final stage of discipleship is being sent by Christ with the mission of the Church to go make disciples. You'll know your ministry is thriving and youth are maturing when they begin using their charisms and gifts to go out and make disciples of others.

Examples: youth taking on ministry, youth helping lead small groups, giving their witness, putting on retreats, giving talks, leading others in discipleship

So...

This is just a quick glance at the way I've grown to think about youth ministry. None of this is mine, its all stolen from a hundred different places. There is so much more that I could have said and have left out, but I think this gives a good starting point. The big takeaway is that there are so many ways this can be accomplished. But I do stand by the argument that this is one of the most effective ways to approach and think about structuring a youth ministry at a parish.

What do you think?