Gabe

Time Flies: A Thorp Family Update

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment
The most recent photo of us all, with my folks and
sister’s family thrown in for good measure.

I’ve remarked more times than I can count in the past year: “My age doesn’t bother me; it’s the fact that Brendan is heading to college.” It’s my kids’ ages that get to me — not the the additional salt in my pepper, the aches and pains, the fact that I’m often tired and can rarely sleep.

This past year has flown, and with a grad party and a trip to Poland for World Youth Day, the summer promises to be even faster. So I thought I’d offer you all an update on our family before we blink and the leaves fall again.

Prom-goers: Brendan and Olivia

Brendan, as you may have heard, is headed to UMary in the fall. He will graduate early in June in the top 10 in his class, with a varsity letter in wrestling and local scholarships from Knights of Columbus Council 4174 (of which he is one of the newest members), the American Legion, and the Hanover Athletic Association. He loves Ultimate Frisbee (actually all four of our teens/tweens do), dabbles in swing-dancing, and is still happily dating Olivia. (Last night’s consisted of Adoration and ice cream.) He is still working at the hardware store, and just starting a second job with a local electrical contractor for the summer. He loves his bass and his music (Foo Fighters is his current favorite band), and yesterday, he bought an acoustic guitar for song writing and kicks. And he has a pipe, which he smokes on occasion.

Swing-dancers: Gabe and Kate

Gabe is now the tallest in our family, by perhaps a quarter inch. He is working on getting his driver’s license this summer, helping our friend’s taxidermy business, and preparing for his junior year of high school. He was confirmed this month, was just inducted into the National Honor Society like his older brother (NHS at our high school does a great deal in service to the school and community), and will be one of the leaders of the high-school pro-life group in the fall. He played soccer but didn’t wrestle this year, and is on the fence about next year — too many other interests, including reading and writing, teaching himself piano, learning Quenya (J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish language), and swing-dancing. In this last activity, he works hard and excels — especially when paired with his friend and fellow Lord of the Rings geek Kate. They aren’t dating, just dancing and discerning together.

Emma and two of her flute-playing besties

Emma is easily the tallest female in the house and explored the high-school for the first time yesterday as an incoming freshman. She played volleyball in the fall and is running track this spring — plus playing flute in the band and woodwind ensemble and singing in the middle-school choir. The music, at least, will continue in high school. Emma has followed her brothers to help with the church’s Core Team and is also an avid swing-dancer (which means boys); Gabe’s dance-partner is one of Rosebud’s mentors in becoming a young woman of virtue. Emma dabbles in piano, too; reads voraciously, and bakes like our family is twice the size (and it will be, unless we share her goodies). She is hoping to start baby-sitting soon and wants a new dog almost as much as her dad.

Trevor rocking

Trevor will be our sole middle-schooler next year, and plans to work out this summer in hopes of wrestling on the school team in seventh grade. He is a rhythmically gift version of the boy his father was: a creative thinker and storyteller, easily distracted, heart-on-his-sleeve…but coordinated enough to rock a drum kit (or the kitchen table, a couch cushion, his thighs…), to play basic piano music with relative ease, and to dance to almost any song when the mood strikes him. Also an avid reader and a good student, but with a style all his own: whereas Gabe has a hat collection and wears them on occasion, Trevor wears a brown fedora each day to school. He shows signs of a mechanical knack (another difference from his father) and still loves Legos.

Typical Lily

Lily completed her year of Catholic co-op preschool yesterday. She is colorful, funny, opinionated, and creative, with an ever-expanding vocabulary and a precocious sense of humor for a four-year-old, included puns and word-play and physical comedy along with the typical (non-sensical and never-ending) knock-knock jokes. She, too, likes to dance and to watch her swing-dancing elders, and she makes her siblings friends her own whenever she has the chance. She, too, has sprouted in the past year — she is a head taller than her plastic barn playset she so enjoyed last summer — and although she rarely eats a lot at a sitting, she would eat constantly if allowed. And she loves superheroes, especially Batman and the Justice Leaque.

Jodi and I are well — and abundantly blessed, in the midst of such breakneck activity. My bride often says it feels like only a short while ago that Brendan got on the bus for kindergarten the first time, and so it seems to be as well. We will have been married 20 years this August, and for my part, I am as happy as I have ever been.

That said, I had to be reminded of something not long ago, with the help of a priest friend: as Christians, spouses, parents, we have a serious call in this world, which requires a serious, heartfelt response — but none of that means that God doesn’t desire our happiness or enjoyment of this life. He came that His joy may be ours — shame on us if that joy does not pervade all that we do, and all that we are. It can seem terribly romantic to think ourselves unworthy of the blessings in our lives — the soft warmth of the one who lies next to us in the wee hours before waking, or the noise of a full and laughing house — and to strive and sacrifice to show our appreciation and earn our worth. But in truth, we are worthy — intrinsically — as God’s beloved children. So while I must not take my beautiful bride and these five awesome children for granted, I can love them best if I realize that my worth, and each of theirs, comes from our creation in His image and in resting in his embrace.

We are so blessed. As sinners, we don’t deserve it…but what else should we expect from such a God as this?

Last summer…where does the time go?

Movie Review: Batman Versus Superman

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Maybe it’s because I heard almost nothing except how bad the movie was, so my expectations were quite low. Maybe it’s because we paid matinee prices and didn’t buy snacks or drinks. Maybe it’s because I watched with a Batman superfan and had read one tentatively positive review from another superfan whose views I generally trust.

Whatever the reason, I saw Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice this weekend, and was pleasantly surprised. It was far better than I expected.
Perhaps I should also say that I did not grow up on comic books, so I don’t have deep knowledge of the various iterations of these heroes, or a purist streak. I like what I like — and generally, I like my heroes to be heroic, to have virtues we can emulate, and to make those around them better people. That’s why I like the recent movie version of Captain America best of all the current superheroes on the silver screen: he makes the people around him better people.
And in my current job, I find myself watching a fair amount of Father Mike Schmitz and agreeing with him on many things. So I was excited to see his take on the movie.
  • From the outset, Batman is a bully, and Superman is slacker — I like that analysis.
  • Parts of the movie (dream sequences; climactic shift in perspective of the two (anti)heroes, etc.) are incoherent and unnecessary.
  • Lex Luthor is also incoherent. He’s like a brainy, less intimidating Joker — only menacing briefly in the final prison scene and from a distance involving a jar labeled “Grannie’s Peach Tea.” (One of my favorite scenes, but very Joker-y to me.)
  • The movie is dark, angry, tortured, and violent: not a good introduction to heroism for children.
…and yet, it felt almost as though Fr. Mike didn’t watch the end of the movie.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS!
At the end of the movie, after a brutal combat scene between our two heroes, they find some coincidental (and ham-fistedly foreshadowed) common ground. Once they start working together and trusting each other, the characters evolve (albeit very abruptly, leaving me wondering how they went from mortal enemies to self-proclaimed buddies in a matter of minutes).
Here’s the big picture I saw: a middle-aged, bitter Batman whose been fighting criminals and weirdos a long time with very little to show for it. He is jaded to the point that he doesn’t trust anyone except Alfred, and he’s operated outside the law long enough that he regards himself, in his own words, as a criminal. I also saw a young Superman who is still just coming to terms with what he is. His parents didn’t know how to raise an alien, and it shows: he has no idea what to do with himself.

Bully Bats; Slacker Sup.

Toward the end of the movie, however, that changes. When Batman sees the humanity in his alien adversary (and the parallels between them), he begins to mend his ways, to protect and to serve, again. The final Batman scene in the prison drives home that change in attitude. 
Meanwhile, Superman begins to reconnect with his heroic side (albeit still focused on Lois and his mother, more than humanity writ large) and realizes he is ready to die to protect those he loves. Also heroic and virtuous.
These two super men actually have a model of heroism to follow in the final battle, though not a masculine one: Wonder Woman, who has no proverbial dog in this fight and is simply trying to preserve her secret identity. She’s on a plane out of town when she sees the dire straits our two embattled title heroes are in, and rushes to help. She helps because she is needed, willing, and able — and her gameness further sparks the men to change.
So they aren’t ideal models for masculine heroism for most of the movie, but they do change — for the better — and become merciful and self-sacrificial protectors.

It’s not a great movie, but I’ve seen and even enjoyed worse. It’s not a great superhero movie in my book, but I didn’t find it to be any more ridiculous than any of the other superhero blockbusters of recent years. And like my batty second son, I think this laid the foundation for a potentially good Justice League franchise, with a world-weary but wiser Batman and several younger supers coming into their own.

A final note: If you want to hear some top-notch Fr. Mike analysis of superheroes, check out this video on superheroes, Captain America, and the nature of grace. It’s a great 10 minutes of pop culture and Catholicism!

The Flitter-Flutter of Tiny Wings

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“Geronimo!”

For the past several days, we’ve had just two kids at home, Trevor and Lily. The elder three were at Extreme Faith Camp, Brendan as a leader, Gabe as a member of the prayer team, and Rose as a camper. Their return, I think, was bittersweet for the younger ones — although bored and (allegedly) overworked at points, they enjoyed having Mom’s and Dad’s full attention. Lily got in trouble for interrupting far less, because there was far less to interrupt. And Trev got to go to Culver’s and Jurassic World with just Jodi and me.

We parents, on the other hand, missed our teens. It took only a day or so for me to stop and calculate that we are just six years from potentially being a permanent four-person household, and eight years from Lily being alone with us, At some point unmarked in the past, the pitter-patter of tiny feet was drowned out by the flitter-flutter of tiny wings as the fledglings prepare to leave the nest.

This, I’m discovering, is going to be harder for me than the fact that I, too, am aging and yet still feel like I have much to learn — in fact, my own feelings of inexperience in this world only magnify my anxiety for my offspring. Have a taught them what they need to know to survive? Will they thrive? Will they avoid the pitfalls and snares in which Jodi and I have become entangled over the years? Have the courage to be faithful in public? To remain Catholic, with all that entails?

We see encouraging signs from each of them. Bren, now 17 and approaching his senior year, has changed his views on a military career, primarily due to moral concerns. He takes his faith very seriously: donates to Catholic causes, joins his friends for weekday Mass on Wednesdays, joins his girlfriend Olivia in the Adoration Chapel in our church. Gabe, nearly 15 and a coming sophomore, still has his eyes on the priesthood, joins his brother and friends at Wednesday Mass, and just last night asked where he could find the Divine Office that priests commit to praying daily — hinting that he’d like to take it up, but that he’d rather not do it alone. Thirteen-year-old Emma came home from having been deeply impacted by Eucharistic Adoration at camp, trembling with emotion before the Blessed Sacrament and alternating between sorrow and joy (ending on joy) as she prayed.

Yesterday I came home from the church for lunch, and popped in a DVD that would not play in my work computer. The video came up immediately, and featured Fr. Robert Barron tackling common Catholic apologetics questions in short video clips. I began cherry-picking a few that might be interesting, and Trev, who will be 11 in few days, sat down to watch. For more than an hour, we watched and discussed the rational foundations for our Catholic faith. It’s amazing to see what he absorbs in such a short time, and I pray the same has been true for the others.

Lily, of course, is only three. She knows Jesus by sight, likes to pray (the Angelus and petitions, in particular, and especially for her friends and for babies) most evenings, and is at home in our church, if not fully engaged by the Mass yet. As I continue in my job as faith formation director, planning the coming year’s program, I realize how much more we could be doing with our parish youth, and by extension, how much more I could have done with my own children. Lily will benefit from that realization — and yet when I look at her four older siblings, I wonder how much I should do differently. But how can I give anything less than my all for my family when the stakes are so high and the implications, eternal?

Are We There Yet?

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Gabe, napping in the minivan…

Back in my newspaper days, I wrote a column each Tuesday called “Almost There.” My bride and I were young parents of two preschool boys at that time, so “Almost there!” was a constant refrain wherever we went. But the name also captured the sense that we were on the verge of putting it all together—of making sense of marriage and family life, and of my newfound faith and fledgling career as a writer.

That was more than 15 years ago, and that sense has never left. The novelty of feeling so close to understanding wore off years ago, however—as a result, I am prone to asking our Lord like the spiritual child that I am: “Are we there yet?”

The answer, invariably, is no.

This world so loves achievement that we have turned even baseline accomplishments like participation and attendance into certificates and celebrations. In what other facet of life besides our faith do we commit ourselves to weekly participation, devotion, and study, year after year, and discover that we have done only what is expected of us?

We long for recognition of our efforts, and this longing even skews our perception of the sacraments. As children and as parents, we are pleased with having made it to Mass or Confession, but sometimes forget that these are not ends in themselves, but means by which we conform ourselves to Christ and reorient ourselves toward Heaven. We treat both Confirmation and Marriage as the culmination of work already done rather than the beginning of something new. The certificates we receive look for all the world like diplomas, when in fact they are birth certificates!

The path to Heaven leads out of this world, and among those born into humanity, only Jesus knows the path in its entirety—so we have no choice but to follow Him and go where He leads. Since we cannot know the path ourselves, the only way we can help others get to Heaven is to teach them to follow Christ who said, “I am the Way.”

Road trip!

How does one follow Christ? St. John of the Cross writes, “God carries each person along a different road, so that you will scarcely find two people following the same route in even half of their journey to God.” As a result, we need to teach others where to find God and how to engage Him—in the Church; through scripture, prayer, and the sacraments. And we need to do this as a community. Why? Since there are as many paths to sanctity as there are unique persons, each of us will resonate with others in ways that no one else can. Somewhere in this parish, someone needs your example!

Fr. Robert Barron shares a story of Jewish academic and Catholic convert Edith Stein, now St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who before her conversion went into a cathedral to admire the architecture and saw a woman still laden from her day’s shopping, kneeling and rapt in silent prayer. This simple act of devotion struck the future saint profoundly, advancing her on the path toward holiness and heaven. Who knows what saints we will help to create simply by showing up each week to bend our knees in prayer and worship?

Blogger’s Note: This article appears in the Sunday, June 14, church bulletin.

On the Verge: Local Band Pabulum Shakes the Shed With Eclectic Mix of Rock and Humor

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment
Set List:
Are You Ready? – Pabulum
Seven Nation Army – The White Stripes
Simple Man – Lynyrd Skynyrd
Thinking Out Loud – Ed Sheeran
Luminous – Luke Eicher
Apologize – OneRepublic
I’m Yours – Jason Mraz
Tribute – Tenacious D
Fun-Size Love – Pabulum
Valley of Lights – Pabulum
Verbigeration – Pabulum

Who: Pabulum with special guest Luke Eicher (all ages show)
When: Saturday, May 16, 2015, 10:30 p.m.
Where: The Shed in St. Michael

It’s a rare treat for a rock reviewer (or a rocker’s parent) to get in on the ground floor of a band’s rise to stardom, but that was the vibe at The Shed last night, where rock trio Pabulum and guest pianist Luke Eicher played their first-ever show. Local promoter Abigail Herbst took a chance on the new band to close Catholic Prom, a do-it-yourself formal dance for the youth St. Michael and St. Albert parishes and their friends hosted by the Eicher clan. The result? A rough and ready glimpse of young rockers in the making.

Although the three founding members of the trio aren’t related by blood, Pabulum is very much a family affair: cymbal-smashing drummer, accordian player, guitarist, and vocalist Joe Eicher is brother to part-time contributor and classically trained pianist and singer Luke Eicher; and laconic bassist Brendan Thorp’s bowler-hatted and bow-tied brother Gabe is the band’s stage manager, tech, and jack-of-all-trades. The band’s primary front man and lead guitarist Jeff Geiger is their brother-from-another-mother, setting the tone for the group by alternating freely between aspiring rock god and manic musical comic.

The band changes configurations between songs.

In fact, that dual identity pervades Pabulum’s music, their influences, and even their name. Webster offers two opposing definitions for pabulum: “intellectual sustenance” or “something that is insipid, simplistic, or bland.” The band enjoys the irony, and their set Saturday included radio- and  chick-friendly pop songs as well as classic rock tunes and their own unique sound. The band opened with the surging “Are You Ready?”, which ends abruptly just as the crowd swells to a fever pitch — the laughter showing that the band and their fans share a special brand of humor. A raw stomp through The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” kicked off and held together by Brendan’s deft bass work, was followed by a soulful rendition of “Simple Man.” (“By Lynyrd Skynyrd, covered by Shinedown, perfected by Pabulum,” Joe told the crowd). A cover of Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” with the Eicher brothers harmonizing on vocals elicited a chorus of “Awwws” from all the ladies in The Shed (including the moms, I think), then Luke’s original piano-and-vocals composition “Luminous” brought the house to a hush, his voice and keyboard work highlighted only by accents from the rhythm section.

The crew…

So rapt was the audience that they didn’t notice Joe, who had gone out into the wet night to retrieve his accordion, which he played through the crowd and back to the stage to lead a cover of OneRepublic’s “Apologize.” The song reached its climax with Jeff leaping from a chair to match Joe solo for solo with his gleaming Strat and Joe’s accordion. The battling front men made amends moments later, combining voices and acoustic guitars on Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours.” (Jeff’s scatting was one of several humorous highlights of the evening.)

But Pabulum really hit its stride beginning with the cover of a band favorite, the epic rock-comedy masterpiece from Tenacious D, “Tribute.” Brendan set aside his bass to tell the tale of the band’s confrontation with a shiny demon who demanded they “play the best song in the world, or I’ll eat your soul.” They succeeded, of course, crushing the demon utterly — but they have no recollection of the song and are powerless to repeat it. What was essentially a hard-rock in-joke signaled a shifting of gears to three original pieces showing the depth and diversity of the band’s musical interests. The first, “Fun-Size Love,” dedicated to 6′ 2″ Brendan and his diminiutive girlfriend Olivia, was two parts ’80s power ballad; one part heartfelt ribbing among friends who share an affection for miniature candy bars and “short” jokes. (Best line: “I got to know you/It didn’t take much time.”) The second was the show-stopping “Valley of Lights,” a prehistoric slab of psychedelic blues rock penned by Jeff and propelled by Brendan’s huge, brontosaurus bass — showing the bands love of the sounds of the ’60s and ’70s and calling to mind Led Zeppelin, the early days of The Black Keys,  and Jack White’s post-Stripes projects, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather. They closed the set with “Verbigeration,” a rousing blast of punk-piano-rock (or something like that), with Jeff’s rapid-fire rapping about Culver’s cheese curds and his emotions at the death of Jabba the Hutt in Jedi — Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys over a mellow-yellow summertime groove. It was classic Pabulum: smart, funny, energetic, and totally rocking.

According to Pabulum’s management, they are booking now for grad parties this summer. Email them at pabulumrocks@gmail.com, and catch them while you can — definitely worth the price of admission!