Sometimes people ask me where I get ideas for these blog posts. Usually they occur on my daily bike rides. Saturday morning, for example, I approached a four-way stop at which an opposing car was signaling a right turn, the car facing him had no signal on, and two of us were on bikes. Everybody froze, and nobody knew what to do, or how to communicate with each other. It reminded me of a self-driving Jaguar “Waymo” vehicle that froze the other day. No one could get it to move. Its algorithm switched on the car’s flashers and the vehicle just stood there like a paralyzed elephant in the middle of the street. Cars began to line up behind it, drivers looking passively at the situation or blandly at their screens, and nobody moving.
 
Decision-making, which requires logic and personal communication, seems to be distinctively challenging these days. People don’t seem able to “choose their lane.” In a recent homily to our young adults I was urging the men, in particular, to either enter a seminary or get married. There are boatloads of women in the parish who are just waiting for a man to commit to “a lane,” but the men seem stymied by indecision. After Mass the young adults were all talking about the “choose your lane” sermon.
 
How do we learn how to make decisions? Here are three recommendations: First, listen carefully, and that means mostly in the silence of prayer. “In the silence of the heart God speaks,” quoth Mother Teresa, and He usually offers decisive recommendations for those who listen carefully. Second, learn the rules of logic. Gaining the capacity to distinguish what is rational and true from what is false and irrational allows one to “choose a lane” with confidence. And third, practice making decisions. Try not to be afraid of making a wrong decision, which can usually be corrected later. At this juncture, it’s more important to make a decision than to make the right decision. Practice makes perfect, as they say.
 
Older people, like me, grew up with much less disposable income and fewer “options.” It was easier for us to make decisions, and in any case we had to make decisions or perish. Last night I parked my motor scooter on a sidewalk as an old man walked by. He called out as I pulled my helmet off: “How many miles to the gallon?” He saw that I was a priest, and we entered into a lively conversation about everything. He is 90 years old, attended my parish school in the 1940s, and walks the steep sidewalks of his neighborhood every day to keep his balance. What a lovely conversation we had! He decided to talk to a stranger, and he knew how to do it. I suppose he’s been decisively engaging life since his boyhood, and it never gets old. I encourage all of us to cultivate decisiveness! 

Our beloved national holiday of Thanksgiving recalls Plymouth Colony in 1621. The 53 surviving pilgrims of the Mayflower expedition had put themselves outside of the King’s protection and faced the wilderness alone. They had turned to the King of Kings for protection, but more than half of them died that first winter. God’s ways are mysteries.
 
The Mayflower Puritans had their issues, one of which (obtuseness) would lead to a series of “witch trials” in a town they founded six years after Plymouth called “Salem.” The Puritans loathed the Church that their Lord had established, which was in great need of reform then (as it is today, and ever will be). For all their issues, the Mayflower Puritans were pilgrims, seekers of truth, goodness, and beauty. When they landed at Plymouth Rock in November of 1620, they were the seventh attempted English colony in the New World, and the second attempt at Plymouth itself. All the rest had perished, and half of the Mayflower travelers would die that first year. But the King of Kings provided Squanto, a Native American brave who had been sold as a slave by the Spanish, escaped to England with the help of some Dominican friars, and converted to Catholicism. He served as translator and advocate for the Plymouth colonists to the native tribes around them. Through Squanto’s good will, the Wampanoag tribe helped the Puritans survive that first winter, and together they gave thanks to the Great King and the Great Spirit.
 
Despite our Puritan obstinacy, our anti-authoritarian, “question authority” mindset, even Americans yearn to live under the rule of a good king. Some of you watched the deeply-moving coronation of King Charles III last May. The Archbishop of Canterbury lifts the crown toward God and prays: “King of Kings and Lord of Lords, bless, we beseech thee, this crown, and so sanctify thy servant Charles, upon whose head this day thou dost place it….” The Archbishop then gently places the bejeweled crown upon the frail old man’s head to shouts of “God save the King!” It is clear throughout this ceremony, one of the last and most impressive vestiges of Christendom, who the King is. Christ is the King, and Charles is his viceroy. God is the Sovereign, and Charles is his emissary. Today we thank God, as pilgrims, in our great national holiday.
 
Today our nation thanks God, and on Sunday our Church acclaims Christ the King in the great Mass entitled in Festo Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Regis. All human authority is subject to this King. In 1976 a smiling peanut farmer from Georgia was running for President of the United States, and I was a freshman in high school. My imagination was fired by his words and I believed in this man! I appointed myself Jimmy Carter’s campaign manager for Big Spring High School and posted his gladsome image in every hallway. He won, and he wasn’t that bad as modern presidents go (it’s awfully hard to be a U.S. President these days), but he didn’t live up to my exalted expectations. Two years into his presidency I won an essay contest and joined high school students from around the country in Washington, where the President of the United States spoke to us in the Rose Garden. Seeing this exalted man in the flesh, I was surprised to find him so frail, and so unsure of himself. I remember him nervously licking his lips every few seconds, and this was only in front of a group of pimply high schoolers! I realized that the President of the United States is only a man of flesh. I realized that he must appeal to a Higher Authority as much as, and even more than, the rest of us. Today, we frail men and women give thanks to that Higher Power, rejoicing to be subjects of the Great King who can do no wrong. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
​

​This morning, after Mass for the Adoration Sisters at their Haight-Asbury convent, I had $30 cash in my pocket and a sore feeling in my sinuses. So on the way home I stopped at the Whole Foods in the heart of San Francisco’s hippie district.
 
I picked up a bright bag of organic lemons and went to the checkout. “Good morning!” I greeted the lonely checkout girl. She didn’t look up but mumbled “hello.” Some employees at woke stores are angry, but most are just sad. This 20-something, overweight, slumped and vacant-eyed person was just sad. “Would you like a bag?” she whimpered. I tried to infuse some energy into our conversation: “No, but thank you!” She didn’t respond, but just waited for my payment. “How much is it?” I asked brightly. She dumbly gestured to the credit-card reader, which I had to swivel around to see (I surmise most customers at Whole Foods don’t need to know how much things cost).
 
I handed her a twenty and she asked plaintively if I wanted a receipt. I thanked her, but what I didn’t say was “God bless you.” And I’m so sorry I didn’t. What this sad daughter of God needed was not my money but my blessing, a kind word, someone’s witness that there is a God and He loves us all.
 
It’s easy to dismiss or, worse, to despise the “losers” in our culture’s race to happiness. San Francisco abounds with Amazon trucks, usually driven by young people of color being paid the minimum wage. Amazon’s vehicles make this promise, painted on the sides of their trucks: “Caution: contents may cause happiness.” That’s funny, because the drivers don’t look happy. Maybe they can’t afford Amazon products on their Amazon salary. It’s so easy for these “losers” to remain invisible, a brief irritation to us who like to imagine that we are overcoming inequality.
 
Yesterday I walked around the city block of our cathedral church praying the rosary with about 25 people. We walked past the Chinese embassy on the way, a massive fortress-like structure bristling with cameras and armed guards. Yesterday a dozen luxury limos were lined up outside. As we ambled by saying our prayers, several of the limo drivers smiled at us—most were Latinos and some were Asians, but I would guess that all were wage slaves of a capitalist system that pretends to be socialist. I glanced into their faces and felt, rather than the usual antagonism for “the enemy,” a burning love for them. It was a surprising grace of God for an old culture warrior like myself. Certainly the limo drivers are not “the enemy,” and even the rich and powerful Chinese government officials they drive around are not “the enemy.” No one is essentially an “enemy” if God gives us the grace to love every person made in His image.
 
Back to Whole Foods this morning: the sad checkout girl gave me my change, which was supposed to be 52 cents. But she gave me a dollar coin instead of a quarter, and Whole Foods lost 75 cents because their checkout girls are depressed. It made me think how quickly our economy—both in its narrow financial aspect but also in its broad human dimensions—falters when people are dehumanized. What has this poor checkout girl already suffered to make her so sad? Did her father abandon her, or her boyfriends treat her like a piece of meat, or her educators teach her that her country is evil and that there is no God? Did every social media post tell her that overweight women are trash, and that she was a loser?
 
She is not a loser. There is a God, and we can see His beauty in every human face, if we apply ourselves. As I get older, and learn better to be a father, I find it more natural to see this goodness in other people. Lots of prayer helps!