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Opinions / Columnists / Soren Johnson
  • Johnson-soren_NEW%202018

    Between the stirrup and the ground

    “Here in Sweden,” an old friend emailed me recently, “a true Christian is a curiosity, but the upshot is that there’s no point to fake it.”

     

    ... More

    4/4/18
    Soren Johnson | For the Catholic Herald
    Johnson-soren_NEW%202018

    Sunday at 9 p.m.

    At about 9 p.m. on a recent, stressful Sunday evening, which came on the heels of a stressful weekend, which came on the heels of a stressful week, I turned to my wife and asked, “How am I doing at being emotionally available to you and practically responsive to the needs of our home?”

     

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    3/1/18
    Soren Johnson | For the Catholic Herald
    SQ_ideas_AdobeStock_82179861

    How to break our habit of contempt

    We owe it to all of these beautiful people in our lives to break our contempt habit, to decisively kill off whatever contempt may be prowling the precincts of our hearts. 

    ... More

    1/30/18
    Soren Johnson
    SQ_woman-prayer-sillhouette_AdobeStock_70136860

    2018 and the gift of tears

    To begin, the “gift of tears” is not a pity party. Neither is it a Debbie-downer idea from a columnist of Swedish lineage (yes, a depressive people, I know), a Hallmark mush of sentiment, a TED-talk call to vulnerability or celebration of emotivism.

    ... More

    12/27/17
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    Siege2Surge: Fire watch

    It is 2100 or 2200 and you are beat. The dishes are drying, tomorrow’s lunches are made, tempers are cooling after a clash with your teen, and the coffeepot is set. If every man is a comfort-seeking missile, then you are now homing in on proximate targets.

     

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    12/20/17
    Soren Johnson | For the Catholic Herald
    Soren-Johnson-111

    From Siege2Surge: Debrief

    Dinner is done. Plates are flying, moods are all over the map, and you fear the onset of a siege. Lotsa fun this! You are deep in the scrum of family life. The second wind you begged for in your controlled re-entry (No. 3) mercifully has arrived, putting just enough in the sails for you to execute your fifth Standard Operating Procedure (SOP): the debrief.

    ... More

    11/29/17
    Soren Johnson | For the Catholic Herald
    Soren-Johnson-111

    From Siege2Surge: Mess

    “An army is a team,” General George S. Patton Jr. told the Third Army on June 5, 1944, the eve of the D-Day invasion. “It lives, eats, sleeps and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is (feel free to Google it).”

    ... More

    11/8/17
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    From Siege2Surge: Re-entry

    Before every mission, soldiers join the members of their unit and their leaders to review their mission and the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) they’ll use to accomplish the mission. Virtually everybody knows the TTP, but that doesn’t matter, because today is a new day. The unit walks through the scenarios they may encounter and how they will respond. They rehearse so that they can perform. “Like a well-oiled machine, a well-trained ballet,” one Iraq war veteran recalls of these pre-mission meetings, “we were ready to dance.”

    ... More

    10/19/17
    Soren Johnson | For the Catholic Herald
    Soren-Johnson-111

    Siege2Surge: Sight the sun (Son)

    This is the second in Siege2Surge, a six-part series that outlines how a dad’s six Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) will equip him to lead his family spiritually each and every day.

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    9/27/17
    Soren Johnson

    From Siege2Surge: Daybreak

    The “grinder” is a stretch of black asphalt familiar to every aspiring Navy SEAL who is lucky enough to be accepted into the BUD/S boot camp. On it he does grueling daily physical training (PT) evolutions, hits the wall of his limits, and continues on. His trainers berate and indiscriminately punish him, and if he has what it takes to be an elite warrior, he will drive through. In Hell Week, he will face battle conditions for five days on a combined four hours of sleep.

    ... More

    9/7/17
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    Our summer of gratitude

    If our kids set out early this summer to buck the national trend on gratitude, they haven’t yet told my wife and me. And if we come up short of 1,000 by the start of school, I’m going to get out my pen and put us over the top.

    ... More

    8/9/17
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    One dad’s five actions

    The son of an evangelical preacher and first-generation Americans, my dad rose early to provide for his wife and three sons. Since no quantity of words will ever capture the way he has served his office of fatherhood, this Father’s Day I will settle for five verbs. 

     

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    6/13/17
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    In memory of my brother, Naseem Fahim

    It was a good Lent in so many ways for my family, and as my wife and I got the kids ready for Palm Sunday Mass, there was a sense of anticipation throughout our home.

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    4/26/17
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    The lost art of lingering

    “Guys, we’ve lost the ability to linger.”

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    4/4/17
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    Deserving a break

    “I deserve a break.” 

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    3/1/17
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    Dear Wormwood

    The following is inspired by C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters, a fictionalized correspondence between two demons.

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    2/1/17
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    Going dark

    Braindead after a recent day at work and stuck in traffic, I turned on the radio to hear former House Intelligence Committee member Jane Harman say, “Among other things, the head of the CIA has to go dark.” 

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    1/11/17
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    Assembling your Christmas™

    Congratulations on your purchase of Christmas! Your satisfaction with this Christmas is guaranteed if you follow the assembly guidelines specified here.

    ... More

    11/30/16
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    The heart of a pastor

    For those who work with Bishop Loverde daily, the little things eclipse the big labels: the kindness as he holds the elevator for you; or remembers that today is the anniversary of your brother’s death; or takes the time to learn the name of the temp assisting down the hall. 

    ... More

    11/2/16
    Soren Johnson | Catholic Herald

    Dads who fish

    I’m beginning to wonder if something sacred is vanishing.

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    9/29/16
    Soren Johnson
    Soren-Johnson-111

    Anatomy of a breakdown

    The Tuesday before school started, the washing machine quit. Just like that, it went ominously silent —halfway through a big load. 

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    9/7/16
    Soren Johnson

    Looking up

    A friend and I jog regularly through Arlington, recently named “America’s most walkable suburb” and the “best place to live” in the country. And yet, in this supposed paragon community: nobody is looking up.

    ... More

    8/10/16
    Soren Johnson

    Looking up

    A friend and I jog regularly through Arlington, recently named "America's most walkable suburb" and the "best place to live" in the country. And yet, in this supposed paragon community: nobody is looking up.

    ... More

    8/10/16
    Soren Johnson

    How to say goodbye

    When my wife and I first moved to Northern Virginia, I introduced myself to a neighbor and learned that he was one of those rare native Virginians. Smiling at my surprise, he informed me that I was a “come here” and he was a “from here.”

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    7/7/16
    Soren Johnson

    How to say goodbye

    When my wife and I first moved to Northern Virginia, I introduced myself to a neighbor and learned that he was one of those rare native Virginians. Smiling at my surprise, he informed me that I was a "come here" and he was a "from here."

    ... More

    7/7/16
    Soren Johnson

    Dads who fish

    I'm beginning to wonder if something sacred is vanishing.

    ... More

    5/31/16
    Soren Johnson

    Homily shopping

    Garrison Keillor once described a type of sermon that is like watching paint dry on a barn. Several years ago while observing paint dry in a now-forgotten parish in a far-off diocese (to be clear, Father Mosimann, this was another diocese), I glanced around at my fellow laymen and saw that most of them had adopted recumbent poses: One in seeming prayer had folded his hands and closed his eyes; another leaned forward, elbows on knees, holding his temples like Edvard Munch's subject in "The Scream."

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    5/4/16
    Soren Johnson

    Post-synodal exhor-what?

    Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation "Amoris Laetitia" ("The Joy of Love") should be out (or nearly) by the time you read this.

    ... More

    4/6/16
    Soren Johnson

    Father-son challenges

    "We cannot depart here unchanged," said Father Paul D. Scalia in the funeral homily for his father, Justice Antonin Scalia. Indeed, as I listened to a son reflect on his dad and glimpsed the justice's nine children and 36 grandchildren at the funeral, something about Justice Scalia's fatherhood confronted me.

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    3/2/16
    Soren Johnson

    Snow’s spiritual smackdown

    On the fifth day home with five young kids five miles down an unplowed gravel road, something broke.

    ... More

    2/3/16
    Soren Johnson

    Boycott New Year’s Resolutions, Inc.

    New Year's Resolutions, Inc.-surging in a bull market as I write these words-may appear benign but it propagates a Doctrine which should offend and scandalize every Christian. I should know. I was once a loyal foot soldier, disseminating its pamphlets. I used to be a card-carrying member of the Doctrine and its Party.

    ... More

    12/22/15
    Soren Johnson

    Living with a jealous Father

    "For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God." I was helping my 6-year-old with her religious education homework the other evening when we came across this verse, tucked away within the 10 Commandments. All these years, I've skimmed over it as if it was some residue from the old King James translation, a bit of quirky English we're stuck with.

    ... More

    12/2/15
    Soren Johnson

    Our road to Zarephath

    One spring day in 1976, Henrietta Van Der Molen woke in her suburb of Chicago to find herself a widow. Her husband of nearly 40 years was dead of a heart attack at the age of 59.

    ... More

    11/4/15
    Soren Johnson

    Five minutes after Mass

    Let's draw a line. A stark choice confronts every Catholic, every Sunday after Mass: to run, or to linger.

    ... More

    10/20/15
    Soren Johnson

    To winterize or procrastinate

    Unbelievably, gold leaves are already spilling over the edges of our gutters. A/C window units - now silent - have yet to be moved to the basement. The entire yard cries out for a deep clean. The peeling back deck still needs that new coat of sealant.

    ... More

    10/7/15
    Soren Johnson

    In the pre-papal visit locker room

    The riptide of images, soundbites, reports, misreports, clashes and traffic jams is now just hours away. This papal visit is no preseason scrimmage for the Catholic. This is prime time.

    ... More

    9/17/15
    Soren Johnson

    Far more than just a ‘visit’

    As Pope Francis' historic six-day apostolic visit nears, consider what you could say as he departs for the Vatican Sept. 27: "The papal visit raised my level of confidence as a Catholic. Doors opened to share my faith, and I walked through them."

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    9/2/15
    Soren Johnson

    Fathers’ Day and decades

    The inexorable passage of time that any father faces is, well, humbling. Our children race through the days and years, and we wonder what sticks. But as anyone knows, we carry memories of our dads with us. Heaven knows why only a few moments - words, gestures, embraces - arise from the dross of time.

    ... More

    6/17/15
    SOREN JOHNSON

    Men of reparation

    Men repair stuff. I know - I'm resorting to stereotypes. But I don't know any guys who find happiness by waking up day after day to a bunch of broken things.

    ... More

    6/3/15
    SOREN JOHNSON

    An uncommon tribute

    I was 4 years old, and not Catholic, when Karol Wojtyla was elected the 264th bishop of Rome. By the time I was 27 - and as he entered his final four years - the Lord would call me to the church. St. John Paul II was central to this pilgrimage of faith.

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    5/19/15
    Soren Johnson

    The road to character

    Call it my Lego epiphany. For many months my 10-year-old son has been building Lego ships. Then one day he started to hit me with questions about hulls, torpedoes and naval maneuvers like "crossing the T." Then he asked me about the Battle of the Denmark Strait and other World War II battles. And suddenly, there we were, talking about courage, loyalty and sacrifice.

    ... More

    5/6/15
    Soren Johnson

    On retreat with Pope Francis

    Biographies - much like hunting or birdwatching - track elusive prey. So my hopes were set relatively low for The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope by Austen Ivereigh, especially when the media narrative of Pope Francis, the "pope of surprises," is so often clouded by the trifecta of bias, ignorance and superficiality.

    ... More

    4/22/15
    Soren Johnson

    A punch in the gut

    "The conference 'high' wears off fast," one dad told me the week after the record-breaking 1,100-man-strong diocesan men's conference earlier this month, "and you're back in the thick of daily life." That said, in talks that were at times fierce and gentle, hilarious and sobering, keynoters Father Larry Richards, Father Marc Drouin, and Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde never let the thick of daily life out of their sights. What follows are the concrete changes five fellow attendees shared with me since the conference.
    The Word
    "I'd been in the habit of reaching first and last thing each day for my blinking phone by the bedside," one dad responded, "constantly checking my emails and texts." In the span of one fiery keynote, Father Richards upended this man's entrenched routines, calling us out of our stupor with his challenge of "No Bible, no breakfast" and "No Bible, no bed."
    "Now, I put the phone in the bathroom and keep a Bible on my nightstand," this dad said matter-of-factly two weeks post-conference. "Since that day, I've been taking time every morning and every night to spend time reading the Scriptures, to make sure that the first and last voice I'm hearing each day - the first and last conversation I'm having each day - is with God rather than with the world, the flesh, and the devil via my phone."
    Note well this man's counsel: "It's like feeling scales fall quietly from your eyes, and you wonder why you haven't been doing this all along. How easily we forget that the word of God truly can transform lives."
    Renunciation
    "In the name of Jesus," we repeated aloud together after Father Marc, "I renounce a spirit of unforgiveness." In a 360-degree renunciation of dozens of sins, idols and evil spirits - from workaholism to pride, pornography to anger - Father Marc led us through a powerful prayer based on the "five keys" method of Neal Lozano's Unbound prayer ministry, with which the Arlington Diocese has a formal partnership.
    "The speakers went to the heart of the blockages for men," one dad in his 60s told me, "those areas of unforgiveness, sins, evil spirits and lies that prevent us from becoming the men who God created us to be.
    "With 1,100 men standing in the authority of Jesus Christ forgiving and renouncing," this dad continued, "I had the image in my head of the demons scrambling over one another trying to quickly leave the building." Another replied that Father Larry's insistence that "whatever you love more than God - even if it's simply the time you're not giving Him - is your idol," personally convicted him.
    Forgiveness
    "Forgiveness," one dad told me about his key takeaway, "is a choice of the heart to put up with an uneven score."
    "I sensed," said another, "that we were truly dealing with men's issues as, in the name of Jesus, we forgave our parents for many things, including not showing us the love we needed; not being the parents we needed them to be; and not showing us how to be real men; and as we, again, in the name of Jesus, renounced our sins, bad habits and the lies that we believe; and as we were filled with the love of our heavenly Father."
    Sentinels
    "Husbands and fathers," said one dad, paraphrasing Father Larry about our need to be spiritual sentinels for our families, "need to live in such a way as to say to the devil, 'If you want to get to my family, you're going to have to get through me."
    "Each of us needs to drop to our knees on a daily basis," Bishop Loverde said in his homily, "and let Jesus fight our battles within us and for us and so break the sinful cycles in our lives. He will if we let Him."
    Blessing
    "Bless your children and wife each night," one dad told me was his primary takeaway. How foolish to forego this biblical, powerful act of love.
    "So how have I changed?" asked another. "I have hope and joy that we no longer need to play the roles of 'Type A' personalities, wearing expensive suits to cover up our woundedness and the weaknesses we have as men, as husbands, as fathers, as sons. All of us men are in desperate need of a Savior and of a heavenly Father we can call 'Abba' - all in desperate need of being led and transformed by the Holy Spirit."
    Amen.
    Johnson, a husband and father of five, is Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde's special assistant for evangelization and media. He can be reached on Twitter @Soren_t.

    ... More

    3/25/15
    Soren Johnson

    Aggressive tenderness

    Pope Francis' "Joy of the Gospel" is a 50,000-word treasure trove and arguably his blueprint for the church today, but two words have been ringing in my head ever since I first laid eyes on them: "aggressive tenderness." The words are addressed to all those who would like to share Christ's love today - but what do they look like in the life of a husband or father?

    ... More

    3/10/15
    Soren Johnson

    Geography of hope

    "Dad," my 9-year-old son yelled over his brothers and sisters from the back seat on a recent drive home from town, "this is where we heard on the radio that Dallas lost to the Packers."

    ... More

    2/24/15
    Soren Johnson

    Accelerated parenting

    As a dad of young children, I sometimes think that my wife and I are workers at a muddy and chaotic construction site - setting (I hope) solid foundations. Every once in a while we emerge from behind the construction perimeter fence and go out on a rare date together, only to disappear down below to our hidden foundation work for weeks or months at a time.

    ... More

    1/28/15
    Soren Johnson

    Brimstone for dads

    The fire-and-brimstone sermon has gone from being a common fixture of Christian life for our great-grandparents to a much rarer occurrence today. Perhaps that's why Pope Francis' pre-Christmas address to the Vatican Curia hit such a chord with so many people, churchgoers or not; no soft touch or "attaboys" for those guys. It was a cold shower and in his own words, an "examination of conscience."

    ... More

    1/14/15
    Soren Johnson

    Dad’s Christmas dilemma

    "What's your favorite time of the year?" I asked my 7-year-old son the other day. Without a pause, he nearly shouted, "Christmas Eve."

    ... More

    12/17/14
    Soren Johnson
    More
  • COLUMNIST BIO

    Soren Johnson
    Soren Johnson
    Associate Director of the St. Thomas More Institute

    Soren Johnson is Associate Director of the St. Thomas More Institute, where he facilitates evangelization efforts for the Diocese. He writes a monthly column for the Catholic Herald on issues of evangelization, family life and culture. Soren and his wife have five children, and are parishioners at St. John the Apostle in Leesburg. 

     

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