The other day when I was returning home I drove by the nearby cemetery where our son, Peter’s, ashes are in a cremation niche. There is a block of niches on one side of a mausoleum and another block of niches on the other side. Both are built into a hill, sometimes called Jesuit hill, since many Jesuit priest and brothers from the Wisconsin Province are buried there. In fact the niches on the other side are all Jesuits, many whom I knew as teachers and friends in the Jesuits. It is paradox that Peter’s remains are at the bottom of Jesuit hill since Peter and I would have many a discussion about God and religion. I remember that Peter looked on life as a paradox so he might appreciate the placement of his urn. My wife and I have purchased the two niches next to Peter’s so our other son will need to worry about a burial place.

Peter was right; life is full of paradoxes, some good and some not so good. Marquette University, a very expensive school, offering scholarships and aide for the poor is a good paradox but when that education money is tied into violating the Gospel values, like teaching war and killing in an ROTC scholarship that is not so good. St. Catherine, a mostly white Catholic parish, has a school serving African American non-Catholic youth. Yet the same Church is storing away in trust fund money it received that was intended for use in North Central Milwaukee. The paradox of the garden is that the seed must die in the soil in order to grow in the light. Some say I talk too much yet others will say I am a good listener.

One of the differences, in my opinion, between a good paradox and a bad one is that in a good paradox the means and end are both good. In a bad paradox like the General in Vietnam who said “We must destroy this village the save” the means, destroying the village, does not justify the end, saving the village. Peace can be obtained through military strength and superiority is a paradox and myth that many Americans accept. It is just like saying in the garden I will use some ‘nasty’ soil to grow some wonderful vegetables. This is a paradox that just does not work.

My beloved son Peter dying at such a young age is a paradox. I do not understand it but accept it as something that gives new life. One thing I know that “walking in shadow of death” since his death has made me a much more compassionate person and more aware of living in the moment. So we live with paradoxes and relish in the good ones and endure and suffer with the bad ones. We do not need to understand a paradox but just live with it.

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