Keeping It Together When The World's Gone Mad
Taking breaks from social media and the news contribute to a better headspace, and can lead to doing little things with big impact.
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs… you don’t understand the predicament you’re in…” - Vin Scully
I’m sitting in the suite at a Dallas Stars playoff game in Texas last spring, and I’m next to my great friend Father Joshua Whitfield, and we’re watching the game and attempting to solve the world’s big problems. I ask - he solves - is how that dynamic goes.
Father Josh, a married Roman catholic priest with five children, (and yes - that’s a story all to itself) and I got to know each other when we were both writing OP-EDS for the Dallas Morning News in 2015. We had a podcast together - “The Priest and the Pragmatist” for a short time, and we collaborate on writing projects from time to time now. He’s brilliant. Truly brilliant. And he’s now on SubStack.
I’m agnostic, and raised UBER catholic - 12 years in catholic schools, altar boy, all of it. Styles make the fight, and Father and I had and have some fairly dynamic exchanges. He honored me by giving a very memorable invocation at the Dallas Stars Hall of Fame induction ceremony in November, where I was an inductee. “Yes… I am as surprised as you are that Ralph Strangis wanted a prayer to start this ceremony…” he quipped up there. He is, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, “the official priest of the Dallas Stars.”
During one of the intermission breaks at that game we were watching together in the spring, Father and I find ourselves in a quiet spot in the suite and I turn to him and I say — “What the hell are we gonna do with all this shit?”
He knew what I was asking.
He nodded, and considered his answer. I’ll paraphrase from memory.
“Ralph - I’m working on a new book on the importance of the parish. Parishes are not as strong as they once were. I believe the key to all this is to ignore the huge global and national things which we can’t do much about anyway. But locally is where we can make a difference. Focus local…”
I’m like that anyway, but that was wonderful validation from an unimpeachable source. Focusing local, supporting and working with the people closest to me and in my community, leads to measurable results. I’m in Southern California, people I know, friends of mine, are scared of the ICE raids. They know of people who have been grabbed off our neighborhood streets.
Focusing local is one, but an important part of the things I do to “do my part” - and still keep my sanity. That’s important. It’s more important than you know.
Because “staying informed” - following these perpetual and daily unconscionable dumpster fires, and weighing in on every single damned one of them - is exactly the opposite of keeping my head straight and doing my part.
Paying close attention to - and engaging with the world close around me - now - that’s the start of it.
