Author: J. Thorp

The Second Third, Week 26: The Roots of the Family Tree

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

This particular Second Third post is 90 percent inspiration and 10 percent shameless self-promotion in the form of an opportunity to cross-promote a post I wrote two months ago — a post that I loved, but according to Blogger stat-keeping technology, was largely unread.

Back on St. Patrick’s Day, I posted a piece explaining precisely how Irish I am, and in what ways. (Go on, read it!) I talked about an ancestor who used to go looking for Catholics to fight. Dad reminded me over Easter that this ancestor supposedly became sheriff of Tuscola County, Michigan, during Prohibition, however, and supposedly ignored the moonshining operation of one of my mom’s ancestors in return for a package or two left in the culvert up the road from the farm. Mom’s family was 100 percent Polish Catholic, which just goes to show that a drink between adversaries can occasionally sew the seeds of peace and religious tolerance.

All at once, we fell to googling ancestral names. My sister pulled out a handwritten family tree she’d worked on with my Grandma Thorp, and I quickly turned up a few graves in the cemetery records of rural Tuscola County, then some old obits. Pretty soon we had learned that the sheriff was likely a deputy sheriff and was probably a brother to our brawling ancestor Dad had named at first. We also learned that the particular branch of the family we were investigating appeared to have moved in fits and starts to “the Thumb” of Michigan from a particular area of Ontario, Canada, and that their surname, Hutchinson, may trace back to English royalty in the Middle Ages.

This lit a little fire under us due to a pair of old stories passed down among the Thorps: first, that we are somehow distantly related to an English Queen (Victoria is what I heard as a boy), and second, that a woman among our ancestors was alone in her cabin in the wilds of Canada, and killed an attacking bear with the butcher knife from her kitchen. An hour or so on the internet began to suggest that these stories could, in fact, be true!

We all have great stories and intriguing twists among the roots of our family trees, a few of which I remember (vaguely) and hope to verify:

  • My Grandpa Thorp was stationed in the Philippines, I think, at the end of WWII, and was crawling through the underbrush when he found himself beside the largest snake he had ever seen. He didn’t dare fall behind his crawling companions, and his heart raced as he prepared to encounter the head of the serpent, which appeared to be hidden in the foliage ahead…until he realized it was just the snake’s massive shed skin!
  • My Dziadzi (JAH-jee, or Grandpa Galubenski) was stationed on the Aleutian Islands in Alaska during WWII and was the company bugler, though he couldn’t play. He paid another guy with cigarettes to cover for him!
  • We had always thought my great-dziadzi, Bronislaw (BRONE-ee-swaff, aka Brony, Bruno or Brownie) Galubenski had come to America from Poland, but according the digitized documents on Ellis Island’s web site, he seems to have come by way of Russia, where they had been living. (Also, he may have been a bootlegger…)
  • We are rumored to have some American Indian blood in us; that, coupled with the fact that some Pacific Northwest Thorpes (with an “e”) traced themselves to us, has fueled speculation that I may, indeed, be related to the great Native American athlete Jim Thorpe, who, I just now learned, was given the name Jacobus Franciscus Thorp, was baptized Catholic, and was said to have French and Irish blood. Interesting…
  • One of my great(-great?)-grandfathers on my dad’s side rolled into Michigan from New York state in his 20s to start a grocery in the Thumb. He stopped by a local farm, introduced himself, stayed for supper, then stayed the night. In the morning, he told the farmer he was starting a business and was in need of a wife. He asked the farmer if he might part with his oldest daughter (age 13), and the farmer reckoned he would — ask, and ye shall receive. According to all I’ve heard, they had a long marriage and many children!
  • At Yale, a Polish language professor told me she had never heard of the name Galubenski (Americanized pronunciation: Gal-yoo-BEN-skee; Polish pronunciation should be more like Gah-loo-BEHN-skee). It’s a style of name that should have a meaning; you should be able to see Polish words or roots in it, but they aren’t there. Within our family, at least three different spellings of Galubenski have evolved based on how my great aunts and uncles were taught to write it (by grade-school teachers who didn’t speak Polish and just sounded it out as best they could, I think): Galubenski, Galubinski, and Galbenski. Googling any of these names turns up no results in the old country. These facts make me wonder if, in fact, the original misspelling may have happened on Ellis Island. Perhaps a more common Polish name, like Golubiewski (pronounced roughly Go-lum-BYEV-skee) was misheard and thus misspelled?
There are others, no doubt, which I will add as I can. The point is, our histories are rich with story and tradition, humor and adventure, if we can uncover it. My grandfathers and maternal grandmother have passed away, but in my Second Third, I have stories to gather!

Touching the Supernatural

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

I suspect it’s fairly common for faith-filled people to nevertheless long for a sign of some sort — something to let them know for sure that God is really there, that there’s an Almighty Hand on the tiller. I was a skeptic for a lot of years myself; even called myself an agnostic, which I thought was sensible, even clever, and didn’t recognize until later was a lukewarm atheism at best, and at worst, a lukewarm faith:

“I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” — Revelation 3:15-16

Even when I began to come around to faith, I was, like Thomas, a doubter, and wanted to touch and be touched by God. And I believe I was once — an event I recorded in an essay of sorts called Thomas and Me. (Weak title, I know, but I was emotionally weak at the time, and who ever heard of a soft-hearted editor?)

At any rate, for a few brief moments I felt full-up with God. After that, I’m been hesitant to ask for more signs.

It’s not that I don’t still wish for something tangible, or want to be closer to God. And it’s not that I doubt more or less than I used to: distance and time has diminished the certainty I felt in that moment, but in the years since, I’ve met so many people (who I know and trust) who have experienced soul-shaking, life-altering, heart-changing conversions — and yeah, even miracles — that the tendency to raise an eyebrow is now tempered.

But touching the supernatural is a scary thing. First, there’s the immensity of it all, of a God who exists outside time and created everything of which we can conceive. Then there’s that feeling of smallness, which may translate in our tiny human hearts into insignificance or desperate unworthiness, misguided though it may be. Then hits the enormity of the implications: that if we are not the be-all-and-end-all, the bomb-diggity, all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips, as it were, maybe we owe something to Someone who is…

So when a friend mentions a miracle in his or her own life, I only pursue the conversation so far, and when my own close encounters crop up, like last week’s God-Incidence, I find myself both shaken and stirred. And I don’t think this discomfort is mine alone. Another friend of mine talked about his own unease with anything to do with the Catholic Church’s teachings on the devil, demons, or even angels. And watching the mainstream media’s coverage of the beatification of Pope John Paul II, you could hear and see the journalists’ discomfort with miracles and intercession…they’d like to believe, but it would shake their very sense of who they are.

Then on Saturday morning I went to daily Mass at St. Michael’s with my bride. The gospel reading was from John, which recounts Christ walking on water, but was a telling I’m less familiar with:

That evening the disciples went down to the shore of the sea and got into a boat to make for Capernaum on the other side of the sea. It was getting dark by now and Jesus had still not rejoined them. The wind was strong, and the sea was getting rough. They had rowed three or four miles when they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming towards the boat. They were afraid, but he said, “It’s me. Don’t be afraid.” They were ready to take him into the boat, and immediately it reached the shore at the place they were making for. — John 6:16-21

These men, who had been with Jesus and seen him perform wonders, were again amazed, this time by his appearance on the stormy waters. And guess what? They were afraid, too, and doubted as to his very identity (as evidenced by his very loving response, like a father to a child: “It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”).

I take comfort in the fact that his disciples, too, were frightened to encounter the supernatural and continuously awestruck and terrified by the power of God. But I took something else from this passage. In the better-known version (at least to me), Peter steps from the boat to walk toward Jesus, but falters in his faith and begins to sink. But John’s account is different. Read that final line again: “They were ready to take him into the boat, and immediately it reached the shore at the place they were making for.”

Here is a kind, gentle, and generous God: just welcoming Him aboard is enough to get us where we need to go.

Blessed to Bear Another’s Suffering

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

Last Thursday, May 5th, I drove to work like any other morning. The commute wasn’t great, but it almost never is; the sky was overcast, but that’s been the norm this spring, and sun was expected soon. Work was work, and I didn’t listen to the news on the way in. But as I walked from the parking garage to my building and office, I felt deeply sad. The birds were singing; the trees, finally beginning to bud; the students busy about their classes and exams — and I felt none of it. Instead a great hollow ache slowly spread within my ribs. I had no idea why.

I fired up my computer, checked my work e-mail, then logged into my Facebook account. I typed “My heart is aching today.” — then, not wanting anyone in my network of friends and family to assume I was having chest pains, amended it: “My heart is aching today (in the emotional sense). No idea why.”

A friend, L, suggested it was the Rainy-Day Blues and assured me that “The sun’ll come out tomorrow!” I told her that a colleague had written the very same thing on my white board earlier in the week, but that this felt deeper (and more soulful) than the weather.

Then another friend, B, made this observation: “Maybe you’ve been blessed with bearing someone else’s suffering for the day…what a gift!”

That struck me, not only as especially Christian and profound in some sense, but as true — I thanked her, and fell to contemplating who it might be, and whether one so blessed could ever learn whose suffering he bears.

Not an hour later, a dear friend of mine learned that her mother, who has been battling cancer for some time now, was dying. She dropped everything to book a flight down South. It was the same colleague who had left the sunshine-y message on my white board. My friend B was right: I knew it now, and I believe my colleague thinks so, as well.

This is not to suggest my momentary sorrow compare to hers in any way. I don’t know how much of the load I carried — in the big scheme of things, perhaps it was only the last straw. But it’s tweaked my thinking, about friendship, and prayer, and suffering, and especially coincidences. I knew something was wrong that morning, and that it wasn’t just the rain.

My love and prayers go out to my friend and her family in this time of loss. I’ll bear whatever I can — whatever I’m blessed to — for you.

There Be Dragons

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment
Just returned from the movie in the trailer above, There Be Dragons, based on the early life of St. Josemaria Escriva, who founded Opus Dei (God’s Work). This post is not a review, and contains no plot spoilers — but lots of people in our parish are interested in the film and want to know how “strong” a PG-13 it is, and I wanted to capture a few thoughts before I lose them.

I would rate it a solid PG-13. It is violent and emotionally intense at times, and characters are juxtaposed to show virtue and moral ambiguity. Numerous people die in battle, and others die from assassination, murder, suicide, illness, and (thankfully) natural causes. Most of the deaths are not dwelt upon, however, there are a few relatively brief but bloody scenes. There is no nudity, relatively little sexuality (implied or actual), especially for a PG-13 movie in 2011, and a sprinkling of strong language throughout (it is a war movie, after all). Our 13-year-old, Brendan, will see it tomorrow with a friend of ours and her son. Our almost-11-year-old, Gabe, wants to see it, too, but despite his desire to be a priest, and the film’s beautiful portrayal of the priestly vocation, he will wait until we can rent it and I can watch and discuss it with him, pausing as needed.

I knew very little about Fr. Escriva, Opus Dei, and relatively little about the Spanish Civil War, and yet followed everything well enough. The structure of the movie, which features a handful of complex relationships between people shown at different ages and times, and used flashbacks and a present-day narrator to convey the story, can be a little disorienting, but again, I followed well enough. I was struck early on that this is a film shot in an old way: somehow it looks to me like a classic film of the 1960s, and some of the scenes (particularly of the main characters as children) seem more deliberately acted, almost theatrical. It occurs to me that this may help convey the sense of a young boy’s memories, but I will admit, I noticed it as film-making (assuming it was intentional).

Two final thoughts:

  • First, another friend at the same showing said he enjoyed watching it so soon after Blessed John Paul II’s beatification. I missed the beatification coverage, but not long ago, listened to the JPII biography Witness to Hope, and you can definitely see parallels between the lives and priesthoods of the late Fathers Escriva and Wojtyla.
  • Second, there is a powerful scene following a heartbreaking act of violence in which Fr. Escriva teaches his followers how close the edge truly is, and how any one of us might slip into darkness and violence. On the heels of Bin Laden’s death, that scene was particularly thought-provoking to me.

The reviews I’ve seen for this movie have been mostly mediocre to terrible.* I thought it was a very good movie, but I’m Catholic and had some idea what I was getting into and what I hoped to get out of it. See it!

—–

*The USCCB has a complete review of the film online, which may also help parents decide which kids to take. I find they are more conservative than me, and they suggest that older teens could see it, so I think we’re in the ballpark…