How to fix a phone line

Running a phone line is, according to every tutorial on the internet, one of the simplest, most basic, and least dangerous wiring tasks that an amateur can attempt. There are only two wires involved—a red one and a green one. The task begins with simply locating the Network Interface Unit (the outside portion) and the phone jack that the wire has to go to (the inside portion). The Network Interface Unit gets unplugged from the network, so as to prevent any electrical shock during the process (this step is inexplicably omitted in the majority of tutorials), the red and green wire ends are unwrapped from their little screws inside the Network Interface Unit and the phone jack, the new wire is unrolled and connected in its place, the new red and green ends are wrapped around the screws, the box is plugged back into the network and voila. It’s ridiculously easy, particularly considering that phone companies generally charge upwards of $85 to do the job. The most difficult part is finding a screwdriver to take the phone jack off the wall.

After watching ten or twelve video tutorials of the job, I was confident that I could handle changing the wire. Out of everything, there was only one aspect of the entire process that was really making me shudder. It was the thought of a horrible, dark, tight space covered in spider webs and invisible moving things that cast eerie shadows; a place where creatures of all sorts had lived and died, a place where ancient bones lay for no understandable reason and spiders that may (or may not) have been brown recluses.

As I knelt there, staring into the abysmal hole I would have to crawl into, I came up with a brilliant idea. I called upon my most loyal friend. Then I called again, and again, and finally she came. “You first,” I said to my dog (who has been known to voluntarily spend time under houses). At any rate, I could hope that she would knock down the spider webs. Instead, she looked at the hole and wandered off, completely disinterested. Bereft of my last shot at a companion, I gave up and slithered into the crawlspace.

As I left the sunshine and entered the underworld, I was reminded of all the times that I had watched my dad disappear into the same hole to fix a leaky pipe, some wiring, and at least once, the very phone line that I was down there to replace. In that moment, I was filled with gratitude for all the times my dad had crawled into the spider webs and the darkness so that his family could have the convenience of running water or a working telephone. At the same time, I remembered just how many people in modern society don’t have the luxury of any dad at all, let alone the sort who crawls under the house to repair things.

In today’s society, one can clearly see the deconstruction of the family, society’s most basic unit. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that “The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God and make good use of freedom” (CCC 2207). With the family’s degeneration, the role that has crumbled the most seems to be that of the father. This can be seen pretty well in the ways that fathers appear in literature.

I recently gave my sister a copy of “Life with Father” by Clarence Day. In this memoir of one boy’s dealings with his seriously idiosyncratic father, the Father’s influence over his son is very, very clear. “Father made a great point of our getting down to breakfast on time,” Day writes. “I meant to be prompt, but it never occurred to me that I had better try to be early.” If these were the opening sentences for a chapter in a book written today, they would very likely be followed by an account of how the author’s father forced his views about timeliness on the author. We would see the way that the father’s old fashioned views about being on time stifled his son, breaking his spirit, and how the father simply could not understand why it is so important for his son to be late. In the book that was actually written, however, one reads the comical tale of how Day was all but tricked into being prompt because of an heirloom watch that he often broke and had to scrounge up the money to fix.

In the contrast between Day’s father (or Frank Gilbreth Sr. in “Cheaper by the Dozen,” or Mr. March in “Little Women,” or a dozen other fathers from older novels) and the modern image of fathers in books and television today, we see a shocking difference, a lack of respect, and, perhaps most dangerously, a lack of expectation. The father’s role has become almost optional, he is often not expected to stick around for any amount of time, and the results are disastrous—lower achievements in schools, higher prison rates, higher teen pregnancies, more depression, and less self-reliance … the number of problems whose roots can be found in the absence of fathers gets longer and longer. Meanwhile, the father’s role in literature all but vanishes, and where he does appear, it is rarely as a figure who offers real aid to the child, but rather as an enemy who can only be counted on to misunderstand everything, or else remains completely oblivious to whatever the child is doing. The wiring between generations today is completely burned out, and little is being done to repair the broken line.

As I unrolled the telephone wire under the house, and crushed the spider that may or may not have been a brown recluse; as I got my sister to pull the cable up through the floor using only a bit of floral wire (yeah, my dad never would have thought of that) and as I put my hand right on top of what was most definitely a rib bone, I whispered a quiet thanks to my dad, followed by a thanks to my mom, who made sure that I read enough books to keep my mind occupied while I was lying in a three foot tall dungeon under our house.

Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress

This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→

Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk

(Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Father Alphonse de Valk, C.S.B., a faithful, courageous and indefatigable Basilian priest, pro-life-and-family apostle, and the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. Here is what we wrote those on his entering into eternity five years ago, as we continue to remember him in our prayers and thoughts)[…]Continue reading→

My Name is Bernadette

April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→

Canonizing Sister Faustina and Divine Mercy

HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER  MASS IN ST PETER’S SQUARE FOR THE CANONIZATION OF SR MARY FAUSTINA KOWALSKA Sunday, 30 April 2000   1. “Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus, quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius”; “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever” (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of[…]Continue reading→

Divine Mercy Sunday – An Echo of Every Mass

Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe’…  ‘My Lord and my God!’ (Jn. 20:18)). Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and as we celebrate the end of the Easter Octave, we contemplate the wounded side of our Saviour, the Church’s source of life. On Good Friday in the[…]Continue reading→

First Holy Communion: Sermon from May 16, 1943

 Here is a sermon from the good old days by +Rev. Msgr. Vincent Nicholas Foy (August 14, 1915 – March 13, 2017), from 1943. Readers may recall that Pope Saint Pius X, by the decree Quam Singulari in 1910, lowered the customary age of reception of Holy Communion – after the rigours of the plague[…]Continue reading→

In the Glorious Light of Easter, Alleluia!

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory (Col. 3:3-4). The Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour[…]Continue reading→

An Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

The time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is one of waiting, in silence, as the world wonders – anticipates – what will happen, after the death of Christ. We re-live this time each year in the anamnesis of our liturgy, and in turn look forward to the glorious re-creation of all things at the[…]Continue reading→

Europe’s Long Descent

(As we meditate on this day on Christ’s burial, and His descent into hell, it is fitting to ponder here with contributor Peter Marcus how the world seems to be heading there as well. The difference is that, although God cannot ‘redeem’ hell, nor those therein, He can and did redeem the world. There is[…]Continue reading→

Pope Saint John Paul II’s First Good Friday Homily

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS AT THE COLOSSEUM Good Friday, 13 April 1979   When we make the Way of the Cross from one station to the next, in spirit we are always at the spot wherethis journey had its “historical” place: where it[…]Continue reading→