Patron Saint of Job Seekers

"If anyone thinks that he is a prophet or a spiritual person, he should recognize that what I am writing to you is a commandment of the Lord."
-1 Corinthians 14:37

Naturally, the context of the quote above is important. Basically, it says we should humbly accept the gifts God gives to us and to others. I agree with this, of course. However, even though it is not included in the Biblical reading for today, it's still beneficial to pray to God for what we want, enlarging our capacity for whatever he has in store for us.

Now I have a job teaching where I can benefit a number of young people each year, students that have a lot of problems and need the kind of special attention I can provide in a smaller setting. I am certainly getting to use some of my gifts, but not a lot of my gifts. There's an opportunity to use even more of my gifts that I want to pursue and I feel this is the year to ask St. Cajetan to help me again.

This is a special year because the memorial of St. Cajetan, the patron saint of job seekers, falls on a Sunday. Four years ago, when I was looking for a job closer to our families in Pittsburgh, I began to pray to St. Cajetan after looking for a year without success. The school district I work for now actually turned me down for a Social Studies position the year before when I was trying to win the job on my own, without prayers or intercessions. Ironically, the day of his memorial, August 7, I got a call to come in the next day for an interview, but I couldn't because Nancy was having her C-section that day, so they asked if I could come in now. I jumped into my suit, hopped into my car, and basically won the job that day. When I came back for the second interview, they had the contract ready and I signed it on the spot.

St. Cajetan may have been looking out for me the whole time because there were other jobs, like the Social Studies position, that I thought I wanted that would have put me back on step 1 of the salary schedule. This job required two and preferred three of my certifications, which allowed them to keep me at step 7 of the salary schedule, even though I still had to take a pay cut paying for health insurance. It was a good long-term decision that put us closer to family.

Likewise, the same may be true this year. There have been a couple opportunities that I have had to keep quiet on, praying for the job myself, but open to the idea that if I didn't get it, something better would be in store eventually. Since I don't have to keep quiet about this one, and since specific goals lead to better results, perhaps specific prayers do too, enlarging our specific capacities for what God intends. So even though I pray for all of you in a general sense (unless you had a specific prayer request) and you likely pray for me in a general sense, I am asking you to pray for me in connection with this new job opportunity, through the intercession of St. Cajetan if you are comfortable with that, or however you are most comfortable praying. My first interview for Director of Educational Technology is this Tuesday at 2:30 PM EST. God bless you.

National Debt

The king, however, replied to Araunah, "No, I must pay you for it, for I cannot offer to the LORD my God holocausts that cost nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty silver shekels.
-2 Samuel 24: 24

I wish I could better appreciate the national debt crisis. I was registering for a workshop recently and there was a link for government employees to click, which I clicked out of curiosity. The workshop was sponsored by Oracle and they were providing a breakfast and free promotional items valued at $75, but they would accept $75 from any government employee that wanted to attend to comply with ethics regulations. Now the comparison between this example and David is not direct, but it made me think of this because debt can be a moral issue.

I'd be uncomfortable cutting Medicare benefits because people depended on those being there, unless there was a way to protect those in the program and pro-rate it for those not yet in the program. Social security isn't one of the hot topics being discussed, but that eventual crisis could also be solved by pro-rating benefits. For example, you expect to get a certain amount when you are 65 and you are 61 now. Since you've been paying into the system for 45 out of the expected 49 years, you should get 45/49 of the old benefits plus 4/49 of whatever the new (less) benefits are calculated to be. Pennsylvania School Employees just worked out a deal like that for our pension fund. If our union representatives could do it for us, our political representatives should be able to do it for all of us. Spending money without a plan to pay for it seems like stealing. If the plan no longer works, not fixing it would also seem like stealing.

The Bathsheba Dilemma

The LORD sent Nathan to David, and when he came to him, he said: "Judge this case for me! In a certain town there were two men, one rich, the other poor. The rich man had flocks and herds in great numbers. But the poor man had nothing at all except one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He nourished her, and she grew up with him and his children. She shared the little food he had and drank from his cup and slept in his bosom. She was like a daughter to him. Now, the rich man received a visitor, but he would not take from his own flocks and herds to prepare a meal for the wayfarer who had come to him. Instead he took the poor man's ewe lamb and made a meal of it for his visitor."

David grew very angry with that man and said to Nathan: "As the LORD lives, the man who has done this merits death! He shall restore the ewe lamb fourfold because he has done this and has had no pity."

Then Nathan said to David: "You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'I anointed you king of Israel. I rescued you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your lord's house and your lord's wives for your own. I gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were not enough, I could count up for you still more. Why have you spurned the LORD and done evil in his sight? You have cut down Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you took his wife as your own, and him you killed with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah to be your wife.' Thus says the LORD: 'I will bring evil upon you out of your own house. I will take your wives while you live to see it, and will give them to your neighbor. He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You have done this deed in secret, but I will bring it about in the presence of all Israel, and with the sun looking down.'"

Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." Nathan answered David: "The LORD on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die. But since you have utterly spurned the LORD by this deed, the child born to you must surely die."

-2 Samuel 12:1-25

New details jumped out of this familiar story. First of all, Veggie Tales has a version of this that reminds me of the basics of the story. Some of the details that were omitted for good reasons was that David's wives were going to be given to someone else to punish him and that the child that he shouldn't have conceived died to punish him. I can't imagine it was very rewarding for his wives or the child, but who can judge that. Heaven is better than Earth, so death could be considered better than living if you are called there on God's time. Likewise, an argument could be made that even though men were permitted to have more than one wife, perhaps only David's wives after his first wife were to be given away since they wouldn't have been lawful marriages in light of the Gospel. I don't know enough to draw any conclusions, but since this made me think, I thought I would share it to see what it made you think.

God is Great

“And so – Great are you, Lord God! There is none like you and there is no God but you, just as we have heard it told.”
-2 Samuel 7:22

I know in our prayers we are to do one of four things: 1) praise God because he is God, not because of what he has done, 2) thank him for what he has done, 3) ask forgiveness for our sins, and 4) petition him for all our other desires if they are in line with his will. The quote from David above is an example of praising God just because he is God, but it comes right after God told David his reign will live forever. It’s also a good time to praise God when we are suffering like Job. When I think to do so, I try to include all four things in my prayer. Praising God is the most straight-forward, so it is usually the shortest. Thanking God always seems longer than petitioning God because God has given me more than I knew to ask for in a wife and children. Asking for forgiveness sometimes takes a lot of thought in discerning whether something was sinful or not, being careful not to rationalize with myself, but doing this regularly makes my time in confession more efficient.

I am always looking to be more efficient. I like blogging, but have other priorities in the summer that make it difficult to do so as often as during the school year. I also set a July deadline on myself to finish editing my book, so I have spent most of my writing time on that first and blogging second. During the school year it was the other way around because the deadline was so far off. Either way, the deadline has been met and if you haven’t shared your opinion yet, I’d like to hear which title you think is the catchiest, so I can name the book accordingly:

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Closed-minded Goliath

"When he had sized David up, and seen that he was youthful, and ruddy, and handsome in appearance, he held him in contempt."
-1 Samuel 17:42

It's not so surprising that Goliath held David in contempt, but it is interesting why. Children don't often get the respect that thier ideas warrant because of their appearance. Even when I was new to a job, certain groups didn't seem open to my ideas because of my age or experience. Fortunately, I could usually put my ideas through to someone who wasn't so closed-minded and who the group was also receptive to, so the idea could be implemented for the greater good. I like writing for similar reasons. I wish there was a way to make more people open-minded to what was being said and not on who's saying it. Granted, some kids are immature, but some are more mature than other adults I know. Maturity doesn't always come with age. Being more open-minded is a good way to make sure you grow in maturity in your faith as the years go by, so you can better articulate why you believe what you believe.