The Refining Fire of Doubt - as excerpted in "Give Us This Day"

 

The Refining Fire of Doubt

"Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God."

I can't remember now if I only learned about Rachel Held Evans when she died or if I'd learned of (and admired) her shortly before. No matter. From what I've read of her writing and learned about her character, she was a brilliant and wonderful woman.

Years ago, I helped put on a Catholic retreat that changed my life. One of the things I most loved about it was the ecumenical nature of the thing. I'd been born Catholic and fell away from the faith as a teenager (as kids are wont to do.) The initial resurgence of my faith in high school (I guess it was really a “surgence;” I'd never properly understood Christianity) was facilitated by some Protestant friends. As a result, ecumenism has always been crucially important to me.

Our small retreat team of maybe eight guys was roughly half Protestant or non-denominational. I'd been assigned to speak on the topic of “Christian Community” and the ecumenical nature of my personal story figured prominently in my “witness.”

I came across this excerpt of Ms. Held's in a Catholic prayer book I consult daily: a Protestant woman's writing in a Catholic publication. Right down my alley. Despite her Protestantism, I consider her to be “St. Rachel,” in the Catholic sense of the term. Right up there with St. Peter, St. Patrick and St. Therese of Lisieux. And for that matter, St. Martin Luther King.

Here, she rightly indicates that the moment you think you know everything should be your first clue that you don't.

* * * * * *

Many of us entered the world with both an unparalleled level of conviction and a crippling lack of curiosity. So ready with answers, we didn’t know what the questions were anymore. So prepared to defend the faith, we missed the thrill of discovering it for ourselves. So convinced we had God right, it never occurred to us that we might be wrong.

In short, we never learned to doubt.

Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter is a virtue.

Where would we be if the apostle Peter had not doubted the necessity of food laws, or if Martin Luther had not doubted the notion that salvation can be purchased? What if Galileo had simply accepted church-instituted cosmology paradigms, or William Wilberforce the condition of slavery? We do an injustice to the intricacies and shadings of Christian history when we gloss over struggles, when we read Paul’s epistles or Saint Augustine’s Confessions without acknowledging the difficult questions that these believers asked and the agony with which they often ask them.

If I have learned anything over the . . . years, it’s that doubt is the mechanism by which faith evolves. It helps us cast off false fundamentals so that we can recover what has been lost or embrace what is new. It is a refining fire, a hot flame that keeps our faith alive and moving and bubbling about, where certainty would only freeze it on the spot.

Rachel Held Evans, Faith Unraveled

Rachel Held Evans (d. 2019) was a best-selling author who wrote about faith, doubt, and life in the Bible Belt. Her books include Searching for Sunday, Inspired, and Wholehearted Faith.

A Rueful Laugh at a Golden Calf

 We look back on some ugly moments in history – for instance, the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany – as if they were mysterious specimens captured in amber.  We see they’re so grotesque and ridiculous that, of course, they could never happen again.  No sane people would allow such history to repeat.  Until it does.

We’ve seen it happen over and over again: whether the aforementioned Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot or any number of bastards from a bellowing past.  This time the would-be dictator is Donald Trump, a man so abrasive and divisive that we said he couldn’t possibly do anything but crash and burn as a candidate.  Of course, one by one, he destroyed the clown car of Republican primary opponents he faced and cruised to his party’s 2016 nomination.  And then to the presidency.  

All through the absurdity of his candidacy – best described as the constant immaturity of a five-year-old on a sugar high – were snapshots of an increasingly empowered sociopath: the racially charged “birther” gambit; descending that escalator to call Mexicans criminals and rapists; the TMZ “pussy-grabbing” interview; the constant and overt racism, misogyny and base rudeness; and on and on.  Speaking of “base,” no word could better describe the millions of cretinous people who saw in him a reflection of their own miserable selves.  Hillary Clinton was right. They are “deplorables.” Unfortunately, saying so was the confirmation of a sad axiom of politics: one is often penalized for telling the truth.  

That’s not to judgmentally paint all his followers as people of only cretinous character.  I’m sure many of them are otherwise decent folks with mortgages, nice children, reasonable concern for the future and love for America – however twisted.  

But they coalesce around a commonality of the worst of the human psyche: selfishness, unconcern for the “other,” hatred of immigrants and an abject failure to conceptualize that their own forebears were once immigrants too.  They have a pre-disposition to favor the use of torture and mistreatment of that despised “other.” And they embrace what was once a closeted racism that Trump has made okay to consider a virtue.  

We find that the small government, low tax character of their Republicanism was a sham.  They freely embrace the Trump-imposed tariffs that Republicans have always detested – that is, the heavy hand of the government upsetting free markets. Free enterprise be damned – as long as ethnic hatred of the Chinese can be given vent.

And that’s just it.  Their common organizing principle isn’t politics at all.  As conservative Matthew Continetti might put it, it’s “pessimism, nativism and grievance.”  And I’d add racism, small-mindedness and an underlying hatred toward their enemies – real or perceived.  

Likewise, one of their other organizing principles is what they call Christianity. But the version of it we usually see on display from these religious privateers isn’t really Christianity at all.  It’s a toxic combination of conniving power, prejudice and self-righteousness – practically a stereotype of what one might imagine as the makeup of the modern American Pharisee.

It’s as if the love, mercy and forgiveness that Jesus insisted upon would cause them to “primary” him out of their party. It would be replaced by the actual golden Trump idol they created for the 2021 CPAC convention (and displayed again in 2022.)  Which serves as a reminder that these people are collectively too obtuse to understand what fools they are; a biblical metaphor for their disillusions stares them in the face – one to which they’re completely blind – even proud of.

Moses and Jesus, both, would be pissed.  But why should they care?  Those guys are just a couple of Jews, anyway . . . 

Empty Praise From Minds That Glaze

May the peoples praise you, God;

may all the peoples praise you!

Psalms 67:4

(God) destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ,

in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of

his grace . . .

Ephesians 1:5-6

The notion of praising God has sorta taken a weird turn with me lately. It's kinda started to rub me the wrong way. Let me explain.

As a Christian, of course I see the rightness and efficacy of praising God. He made us, he loves us utterly, his is to be our full devotion. You know the drill. But lately, when I'm called upon in scripture or at mass to praise God, I can't help but think of the overweening, overarching neediness of praise that Donald Trump has. It's so puerile and juvenile. In his world, everything is about him. And if you want to find favor with him, all it takes is bald-faced obsequiousness and deference shown to him, the Dear Leader. The man is sooo a wannabe dictator. His wet dream is to be the American version of Kim Jong Un, who demands and receives fearful, unmitigated praise from his people.

I'm convinced that God doesn't want praise in that sense. In fact, what good can it do him? Anything we say can add neither jot nor tittle to his greatness. In some sense, at least, how can he possibly care?

But here's the sense in which I believe he does: he doesn't need our praise but he knows that we need to praise him. Doing so helps us put and keep right our relationship to him. We need to always be mindful that he has to be primary in our lives. Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers had it right in titling his autobiography, I Am Third. He ordered his life so that “God is first, others are second and I am third.”

Of course I praise God and will always continue to do so. But I don't want it to be a rote, blindly self-abasing response to his overwhelming love and power. My hope is that I can always bear in mind that he really has no need for it. But that I very much do.

It's a Woman's Prerogative to Challenge Our Expectations

I'm not necessarily against the notion of Catholic priests being able to marry.  My understanding is that the Church doesn't view celibacy as an absolutely necessary characteristic of the office.  I've heard that the male gender is one, though I question the reasoning behind that.  But that's a discussion for another time.  

The point I wanted to make is that the willingness to take on celibacy -- which represents a total surrender of one's life to God -- is something I view as heroic.  It's one of the things that I feel sets Catholic priests apart from clergy in other faith traditions.  That and their level of education.  Basically, you have to spend just about as much time being educated to become a priest as to become a doctor.  

But all this leads me to my real point.  When I think about religious vocations, it usually brings to my mind the priesthood.  Far too infrequently (and surely because I'm a man) do I consider the call that a woman follows to be a religious sister.  But while it's a different role, it represents just as extraordinary a surrender of one's life to God.  And one that's just as heroic.

I have the author of this piece to thank for crystallizing that thought in my mind.  I hope to honor her and all the selfless women religious in our church by more frequently contemplating, and thanking God for, female vocations.  As a priest friend of mine once said, between female administrators, teachers, office workers and gift shop clerks -- as well as nuns (and often, they're the same people) -- women are the backbone of the church.  It simply couldn't function without them.

I particularly admire this young woman's priorities.  


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/angela-svec/too-pretty-to-be-a-nun_b_6819678.html?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

His Kingdom Shall Have No End; Who Said It Hasn't Begun?

A priest friend of mine posted this on Facebook.  He used to be an associate pastor at my parish and there, he became and probably remains the person whose been most influential in my spiritual life.  Well, let's just say that he and C.S. Lewis are both prominent in the team photo.  But my friend gets the prize among people I actually know.

Anyhow, he puts forth a veritable torrent of fascinating posts -- many of them religious, but many that cover a variety of other subjects.  In the past, I've shared in this space at least a few of them and will, no doubt, continue to do so in the future.

This is an interesting article that discusses something American Christians typically pay no mind to: exercising wise stewardship of God's creation.

http://www.plough.com/en/articles/2015/march/jesus-is-coming-plant-a-tree

A Man of Modest Mien

If anyone were paying attention (which, fortunately, they're not) they'd see that it's been over a year since I posted to this thing. I have another blog, Clutterjam, to which I'm somewhat more attentive, but even that's a spotty proposition at best.

That's my principle blog, such as it is, but long ago I decided to set this one up as a depository of religious (or religion-inspired) posts. The idea was to separate the religious from the secular – not because of any weird “American separation of powers” jag or because I'm ashamed of my religion (Catholicism); on the contrary, I'm quite proud of it. But it seemed to me that two different (purely theoretical) audiences were at play. Maybe I was the one who needed the separation. If nothing else, it was a way to help me organize my thoughts.

Whatever.

Anyway, Clutterjam – Clutterbread. Get it? The pun, incidentally, was accidental. I thought “Clutterbread” was a clever way to reference the Catholic Eucharist – the “source and summit” of our faith, as Pope John Paul II put it. It was only after a little while that I saw the double pun of “jam” and “bread.” Apparently, my humor is so subtle that I even trick myself.

I've lately thought about trying to be a bit more regular with my entries, whether on one or the other. I started recently to be a little more active on Jam while entertaining the notion of inhabiting Bread again. The fact that Lent began recently gave the latter a bit more priority in my thinking, but a coupla weeks into it, I hadn't pulled the trigger yet.

My immediate inspiration for doing so now was the recent death of my good friend's father. More specifically, I got a thank you note in the mail yesterday from his widow. It was her response to the sympathy card I sent when the news came of her husband's passing. It was very touching and, well, here I am.

Ken Helm was an inspiration. You talk about your solid Christians. Ken was that in spades. I met his son, Mike, on the first day of my freshman year in high school. He was (and oddly, remains) only a few months older than me but was a sophomore. The Helms (Mike also has an older sister, Cindy) were a solidly Christian family.

I'd been born and raised Catholic, but like many of my peers, I'd pretty much begun ignoring the Church by adolescence. When I embarked upon a young adult understanding and acceptance of it, Mr. and Mrs. Helm were two of a handful of grown-ups who were key to nourishing my new-found faith.

According to Mike's eulogy of his dad, at one point Ken considered becoming a minister, but on the advice of a friend and spiritual adviser, he remained in his job as a field engineer with General Electric. In his years with the company, he and his family lived and traveled all over the world. After his kids were grown, Ken took early retirement and he and Jinnie continued their international hopscotching, doing missionary work (principally in Europe and Asia, I believe.) This was a couple that, even in their twilight years, were knee-deep in the grunt and tussle of spreading the Gospel, or as Mike put it, enacting “practical love through service.”

Ken was a rather astonishing physical specimen. Not that he was The Hulk or anything; he was a normal looking guy but he was extremely fit and active. I believe he swam most mornings. (Perhaps not, I suppose, when he was on one of his many mission trips. I imagine lap pools aren't readily accessible all the time in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Thailand, etc.) He wouldn't do them all at once, but even shortly before he was recently diagnosed with late-stage cancer at age 86, Ken would drop and do a hundred pushups during the course of the day. And being a WWII navy man, I have little doubt that they were done with proper form. His kindness, good humor and all-around decency would never betray it, but Ken Helm was a bad-ass.

As it happens, he wouldn't betray it either. He was a man of impeccable modesty and good taste. As Mike describes it, Ken was fastidious in smothering attention aimed at himself – always, but always shunning his own glory in favor of deflecting it toward Jesus. “I never knew a guy,” Mike said, “so worthy of a compliment who had such a tough time accepting one.”

In my long and sordid odyssey of faith, I was eventually drawn back to my Catholic roots about fifteen years ago. Ken was (and Jinnie still is) of the denomination known as the Church of Christ. I've known the Helms for over a third of a century. In a world where Christians are often pissy about their sectarian differences, they've never once even hinted at disapproval of my Catholicism. I know that anti-Catholic sentiment is not always a rare thing among Protestants.

In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis uses the metaphor of a mansion with many rooms to describe the body of Christ and its many denominations. He says that the believers in the various strains of the faith (Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, etc.) have their differences, but that it's the believers closest to the core of each that he thinks are closest to one another. I happen to agree with him.

I have no doubt that Ken and Jinnie Helm have long been close to that center in the Church of Christ. I try to accomplish the same in my own Catholic Church (with middling results, perhaps). If I can even cover a fraction of the distance toward it that Mr. and Mrs. Helm have, my priest might try to recruit me for the seminary.

And a note on what some may call semantics. Several years ago, Jinnie said it was okay for me to call her by her first name. I explained (perhaps at the cost of awkwardness for her – by making her feel old) that old habits are hard to break. When my brothers and I were kids, my parents were adamant that we address our elders as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” Maybe I'm unfairly indulging those habits, but I simply can't think of her in any other way. Referring to Mike's parents as “Ken and Jinnie” will always seem foreign to me. I've even felt that way in writing this.

If, as the Bible tells us, a tree shall be known by its fruits, Mr. and Mrs. Helm can be justifiably proud of the orchard they've planted. I've been privileged to walk in its shade and eat of its fruit for many happy years.

Which reminds me of something. One of my fondest and earliest memories of my friendship with Mike was watching cable TV at his house and eating Mrs. Helm's delicious frozen fruit cups . . .

But that's another story.

Me and the Man Behind the Horn

Jazz trumpeter Roy Eldridge was born this day in 1911. It might seem remarkable had he been an ancestor of mine (especially since he was black and I'm white.) But the fact that we share a name is a mere coincidence. 

But I did briefly know by telephone a man who said Roy was one of his best friends. I work customer service for a company that sells hearing aids by mail-order. (Yeah, that's what I said when I was hired there ten years ago.)

Perhaps my most memorable customer interaction came when I took a call from an old man named Leon Merian. (I googled the guy that night and everything he told me was true.) Leon had been a professional big band trumpeter from the time he was sixteen years old in the late 30's. Not long afterward he was making more money than his old man.

He played with everybody – Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich and Diana Ross are just a few of the names I remember. He played on Broadway and on the soundtracks of films such as “Ben-Hur” and “The Godfather.” (Sadly, he wasn't the guy who played the enigmatic cornet solo on the latter. Now THAT would have been a true brush with greatness.) And also with a galaxy of stars as a performer on all the major television networks. He blamed his hearing loss on Buddy Rich, having spent a decade standing ten feet from Rich's drum kit.

He was also perhaps the first white man in America to play with an otherwise all-black touring band. He shared with me the story of his first exposure to obscene racial prejudice when the band toured the deep south. “They wouldn't let me stay with the rest of the band in their colored-only motel. I was told, 'You'll have to go to an all-white motel down the street.' I went there and – naïve as I was; I was just a teenager -- I told the manager there, 'You wouldn't believe it. I play trumpet with an all-Negro band and I can't stay in their motel cuz I'm white. Ain't that a thing?'

“The hotel manager just looked at me and said, 'Get the hell outta here, nigger-lover!'”

“I spent that whole part of the tour sleeping in the bus, but it was worth it to play with those cats!”

I'm no musician, but apparently one of Leon's outstanding qualities as a player was that he could play in some ridiculous range of octaves – like six or something – which I guess is really incredible. He said the key to it is that he had this tremendous capacity to blow really hard. I don't understand this kind of thing, but if you're a trumpet player, I guess your mind should be blown. 

He also taught music at the university level and created a line of trumpet mouthpieces which were reputed to be very good.

I must have talked to him for close to an hour that first day he called. The moment in that conversation I remember most was when Leon set the telephone down and played a killer, jazzy version of “When You Wish Upon a Star” for me. It was sublime. I talked to him a couple of times after that first call and he was the coolest guy. Friendly, funny and just in love with people. What a gift it was for me to share his friendship for a short while.

Sadly, our hearing aid got stuck in his ear and he had to go to the ER to have it removed. As always in those rare instances, the company paid to cover his hospital visit but I never heard from him again. How I wish it had helped him so I might have occasionally talked to him over the following years. But he left an indelible imprint on me and reminded me of the many friendly oldsters I get to talk to in the course of my job. I wish it paid more but I love my job and sometimes it astonishes me that I get paid for what I do. And don't even get me started on Mrs. Vaccariello, God bless her.

One day a few years ago, out of curiosity, I googled him again only to find his obituary. He died in 2007.

You may never have become a household name, Leon, but I know you had the respect of your peers and became much more than anyone might have expected out of a poor kid from Boston. Keep blowing, trumpet man. I'm certain the music is endless where you are now.