​I woke up in silence today, an hour before my alarm. I rested in silence for an hour before getting up to begin Lent. Yesterday we burned last year’s palms at School Assembly, and today I will impose ashes from that fire. Each us must pass through the fires of earthly death one day; our ashes will rest in the silence of the tomb for a time.
 
I woke up in silence today, the first day of Lent. Usually I wash up in the morning to the sounds of either Mozart or a stimulating podcast. But for the next 40 days I will shave in silence; I will do my morning stretches in the still emptiness of a city before dawn. I will listen only to the Word of God before going downstairs and watch nothing more than the light quietly rising from the east.
 
Fasting from food is essential, but fasting from noise is no less essential. Giving up sweets heals our bodies, but giving up noise heals our souls. Silence of the ears, silence of the eyes, silence of the touch: this purifies our souls to receive God and His wonders. This Lent, I warmly recommend fasting from screen time, from music, from podcasts and “news,” from useless conversations (e.g., gossip). Read a book instead. The written word, received in silence and recollection, is still the best way to see and hear God’s truth, goodness, and beauty.
 
I woke up in silence today, dreading my usual discipline of silence for forty days. Having entered the emptiness, however, my deeper senses quickly sharpened, and I rejoiced in the stillness. In the silence of the heart God speaks, and I’m ready to listen.

There’s one thing we can all agree on these days: The bad guys are in charge. The right says the left has seized power, and the left says the right still calls the shots. Someone paints a huge “resist” sign above the city, and someone else paints “damn right” underneath it (in San Francisco the “damn right” gets quickly erased). Republicans say Democrats take their orders from the “deep state,” and Democrats say Republicans take their orders from some Fascist Man in the High Tower.
 
Everyone, it seems, suspects there is a “deep state” pulling the levers of global power, and not without reason. My contribution to these ruminations is to point out that … the Latin language has three degrees of intensity: positive (“deep”), comparative (“deeper”), and superlative (“deepest”). In Latin that would be profundus, profundior, and profundissimus.
 
I’m going to say that there is a “Deep State” and a “Deep Church,” but that is not new. There have always been clandestine structures of power beneath the visible structures of every organization—things are never quite what they seem. The leaders of both Church and State say one thing and do the opposite—why? Why does Pope Francis repudiate homosexual acts but then empower those who promote homosexual acts? Why does the Mayor of San Francisco condemn homelessness but then encourage homelessness? They are influenced, and perhaps at times even controlled by, deeper powers.
 
I’m also going to say, however, that there is a “deeper state” (before that term even becomes popular), and I’m going leapfrog over the “deeper state” to say that there is a “Deepest State.” And I’m going to say that no one tells the leader of the Deepest State, the Profundissimus, what to do. I’m going to say the Deepest State is Ipse Actus Essendi Subsistens, in the words of Aquinas, the “Subsistent Act of Being,” and that that this Being Itself is a Person, and that that He is all good, and that the Deepest State of the universe is good. In fact, He said that the world is "very good," because it was made by Him. The bad guys always lose when they pick a fight with Profundissimus (which in Latin means both the "The Deepest" and the "Most High").
 
So don’t worry about the Deep State or the Deeper State, or anything else, because there is in fact a Deepest State, and Jesus Christ is He. Living in San Francisco, I see the marks of a disordered Deep State all around me: gender bender sloganeering on every street corner (paid for with my extraordinarily high California taxes), poop and needles and trash littering the sidewalks of a city that "prides" itself, Mom-and Pop shops boarded up and neighborhood pharmacies driven out of business thanks to a city attorney paid to protect the little guy, potholes big enough to swallow a scooter in a city that has billions in accumulated revenue, and general sadness on faces still hiding behind masks. But, I have to say, amid these ruins, I see vastly more evidence of a beautiful and rightly-ordered Deepest State: birds that welcome the day every morning, blue skies and blue seas and white clouds and white flowers, fresh air and fresh faces in my school and church, smiles and laughter from the street dwellers who gladly receive a sandwich, a pair of socks, and a smile from us on Sunday afternoons.
 
The Deeper State (run by a guy with two horns and a forked tail) tells us he is in charge, but old hairy-legs is not in fact in charge. There is a Deepest State, and His Goodness always prevails in the end. Just Stay Calm and Believe in Him!