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.

Original Participation (Richard Rohr - Reflecting on His Reflections)

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--Original-Participation----Frame----April-21--2013.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=_PmS5zE8giY


An apt observation on the 175th birthday of John Muir.


http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/people/historical/muir/

Do You Believe in Mom?

Our priest told this story at church today.  I was trying to recount it when it occurred to me that it must be on the internet.  I found it and modified it a bit.  I suffered the pretense of thinking I'd be able to word it a little better.  Fortunately for me (and you) I'm a flippin' genius wordsmith.  Anyway, here it is:

In the belly of a pregnant woman, there were two babies. One of them said to the other:

“So you believe in life after birth, eh?”

“Of course I do. There must be something after birth. Maybe we're here to prepare for what'll happen later.”

“Oh, right! There's no life after birth! What do you propose that life would be like?”

“I don't know. Maybe it's a place with more light. Why else would we have eyes?”

“Don't be ridiculous! And how would we move around in this “afterlife” you talk about? I mean, how far could we go? The umbilical cord only stretches so far. And we need the umbilical cord. That's how we get our food. We'd starve to death in your afterlife.”

“Maybe in the afterlife, we'll be able to feed ourselves.”

“Ha! I suppose we'd put food in our mouths or something!”

“Why not? Didn't you ever suppose that maybe our mouths were for more than just sucking our thumbs? We may be talking about an entirely new dimension!  Who knows what life will be like out there?”

“I'll tell you what it'll be like. Short! In two minutes we'll dry up and die outside of this life-giving fluid we're floating around in.”

“Maybe we won't need the fluid. Maybe that's just a temporary situation. Maybe we'll be able to lose the umbilical cord and walk around out there.”

“On our legs, I suppose. That's a good one!”

“I happen to think they must be good for something more than kicking these walls – satisfying as that may be.”

“It is satisfying! When I get pissed off at the meaninglessness of our life floating around in the darkness, that sometimes feels like the only satisfaction I'll ever have. Don't take that away from me!”

“Maybe we're here for something better than just kicking walls. I believe there's gotta be more than just this. Maybe life will be different than what we're used to in here.”

“Look. No one has ever returned from the afterlife. Eventually, we get pushed out and that's it. You die and it's all over. Birth is the end of life. And ultimately, life is nothing but a distressing existence in the dark that leads us nowhere.”

“Well, I don't know exactly how it'll be after birth, but surely we'll see Mom and she'll take care of us.”

“MOM? You believe in MOM? And where is she now?”

“She's all around us! We're inside her and it's thanks to her that we're alive. Without her, this whole world wouldn't exist.”

Well, I've never seen Mom. And the reason I've never seen her is that she doesn't exist.”

“Okay, but sometimes, when we're silent, you can hear her or feel that she's caressing our world, y'know? I think there's a real life out there and that we're only just preparing for it now.”

“Okay, smart guy. Move over. Why don't you go out there first when the time comes? I'll take the extra couple of minutes of life, thank you very much. That may not sound like alot, but it'll seem like forever when you're getting forced out of this place.”

“Fine! Get out of my way. I'm not afraid of birth!”

Reflections on a Richard Rohr Meditation (and Perhaps Going a Bit Off-Topic)

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--Jesus-Lived-in-Darkness-and-Faith--Just-As-We-Do----Foundation----April-7--2013.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=ez0dW_2X1w4

My friend posted the above link to Facebook recently and I've read it several times since. I knew I wanted to share it here, but wasn't sure for some time what to say about it. The portion that struck me with the most impact was the following:

“We like to imagine that Jesus did not flinch, doubt or ever question God’s love. The much greater message is that in his humanity he did flinch, have doubts, and ask questions—and still remained faithful.” 

I suppose it's more accurate to say that my thoughts below flowed from this link – or were inspired by it – rather than to say that they directly addressed it.  To wit:

I wonder if it's distinctly American to imagine Jesus as the baddest motherfucker in the Valley of the Shadow of Death; a mashup of George Washington, G.I. Joe and Elvis – kicking ass, taking names and writing them on one side or the other of the Book of Heaven. I don't doubt that that's how many Americans see him and find him worthy of worship, but I don't know how distinctly that's unique to our country. Not being a world traveler, I can hardly know.

But in light of America's aggressive, acquisitive character, it seems distinctly un-American to understand that his great power is not in battling evil on its own jingoistic terms. Rather, it's in understanding that evil can't possibly contend with his true power where it lies: in vulnerability and the willingness to be exposed to it. In the utter surrender to the cross that -- because of that surrender -- sprouts roots and returns to its proper being as the tree from which it was hewn.

It seems that it's the mad proposition of Christian faith to surrender ourselves in the same way that Jesus did and to believe that therein lies our release from mean mortal coils. To, indeed, carry our cross -- and all the way to the time and place where we, ourselves, will be nailed upon it. To believe that this really is where we'll be subsumed and freed by the power of God. To accept the terror that claims that love is stronger then hatred; that Good really is more powerful than Evil. It's not enough to merely turn the other cheek. We have to accept that it'll be struck and even still, respond only with love.

I have no pretensions that I'm good enough, or strong enough, to have that in me, but so help me God, I hope to have the courage to try.

Some Republicans Propose Christianity as the State Religion in NC

My friend, Addison Hart, posted the link below on Facebook and I could hardly have said it better myself. I will add, however, that the morons who propose that their state can utterly defy the U.S. Constitution are likely the same sort of people who demand that we "take our Constitution back!"  Never mind that pesky First Amendment and its injunction that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."  I guess state legislatures get a pass on that one, eh?

There's been alot of talk about secession in this country recently.  Guns, abortion, legalization of marijuana, gay marriage . . . Civil War II can't be far behind.

I wish I was joking about that.  And oh, yeah; be forewarned: the assholes have the guns.

Addison Hodges Hart

I believe in the separation of church and state, mostly for the sake of the church than for the state. Further, I wouldn't trust any form of "Americanized" Christianity, whether right or left. It would be, without doubt, a civil religion. It would bless America's worst impulses towards imperialism, militarization, excessive moralism (whether leftist or rightist) with penal consequences, policing of citizens, corporation-protecting, bankster-pardoning, and war-mongering. It would remake Jesus into a flag-waving, grinning, all-American, platitude-spouting, gun-toting, war-condoning, "liberal" or "neocon" (take your pick), legislation-minded, and sports-loving cowboy type. We would drone-murder "towel-heads" "in Jesus' name", promote Capitalism and "pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps" morality "in Jesus' name", and have churches following "the corporate model" of authority "in Jesus' name". I can't think of a kitschier image than a blow-dried and stupefied "American Jesus" or a more repellent religion than an "American" civil "Christianity". God save his people from that ugliest of all possible Constantinianisms.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/06/christianity-state-religion_n_3022255.html#.UWFWrBA3Ow8.facebook

.St. Cyril: Not Trying to Take it All In

Today is the feast day of St. Cyril, a fourth century orthodox bishop who fought the Arian heresy. I came across a quote of his that I find appealing. He was asked why he bothered trying to write about a God he, admittedly, couldn't fathom.

"But some one will say, If the Divine substance is incomprehensible, why then do you discourse of these things? So then, because I cannot drink up all the river, am I not even to take in moderation what is expedient for me? Because with eyes so constituted as mine I cannot take in all the sun, am I not even to look upon it enough to satisfy my wants? Or again, because I have entered into a great garden, and cannot eat all the supply of fruits, would you have me go away altogether hungry?.. I am attempting now to glorify the Lord, but not to describe him, knowing nevertheless that I shall fall short of glorifying God worthily, yet deeming it a work of piety even to attempt it at all."


(The words in red are hyperlinks from the piece on the website from which I took this.  I was unaware that they would remain red when I published this and don't know how to change them.  So please know that as hyperlinks on this site, you might think of them as eunuchs -- contributing to prayerful thought, but themselves unfertile.)

Bienvenidos al Papa! (We've much work to do)

On Wednesday, the Catholic Cardinals elected the first pope ever from the Western Hemisphere – Francis I. Let's hope that this new world pope can spearhead a new type of vision for a church that very much needs one. It's time to address a church culture that has allowed drift, corruption and the horrors of the sex abuse scandal that's rocked the faithful for the last ten years and its victims for decades – and presumably, much longer.

Several years ago, I expressed to a good Protestant friend my horror, anger and reflected shame at the scandal. He counseled me that perhaps this would be an occasion for the Church to examine it fearlessly and come to grips with it through a collective penance and purging of its soul. I certainly hope he's right, though I've yet to see that to my satisfaction.

I continue to pray for the victims – primarily those who suffered the abuse directly – but also the Catholic faithful (especially good and innocent priests who are left to suffer the consequences; my former pastor once told me that the collar has been made to sometimes feel like a target) and the wider world. Non-believers whom the Church seeks to evangelize are only left less prone to receive Jesus as a result of this monstrously counter-productive activity. This, of course, is just a polite euphemism for what it really is – perhaps the gravest of sins.

I'm left to constantly remind myself that the Church is made up of very imperfect people who continue to betray the truth of the Christian message of love and forgiveness that promises salvation to the world. Here's hoping that that message, and the Church, can somehow rise above and beyond the sins of her children.

St. Francis of Assisi, our new pontiff's patron, pray for us.

Young Man v. Young Earth

As a Christian, I wish that everyone would come to know Jesus Christ, but evangelization is not a function of our public schools. And the myopic, stupid notion that a literal reading of the Bible can be seen as a scientific text or the basis thereof – or that a literal reading is even a valid interpretation of sacred Scripture in the first place – is not only childish but dangerous.

I have no truck with atheism but am in agreement with its proponents that religious instruction has no place in the public classroom. And the dumbass brand of Christianity that promotes fundamentalist, Creationist, so-called “scientific” theories is an embarrassment to the faith that I know and believe in.

Jesus loves us all. He loves the fundamentalists and, as with everyone else, wants to save their souls. But when they claim that the universe is 6,000 years old and that, therefore, man and dinosaurs must have co-existed, I think he must roll his eyes at the idiocy his saving presence has inadvertently spawned.

All of this is not to say that the young man in this interview is an atheist; the interview doesn't address his belief in God or lack thereof. And frankly, I'd never heard of the kid before seeing this interview. But whatever his spiritual convictions (or again, lack thereof) I'd be proud as hell if my kid was doing at his age what this young man is doing.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/zack-kopplin-on-keeping-creationism-out-of-public-classrooms/

Lord of the Starfields

As a catholic, I'm very proud of the fact that there's an astronomical observatory on the grounds of the Vatican. We find no cowardly and anti-logical fear of the spectacular findings of science in the holy city-state. People criticize the Church for that very thing in its suppression of Galileo in the seventeenth century.

But the Catholic Church has recanted of its treatment of Galileo and, unlike much of Protestant Christianity today, has embraced the universe he proposed. As this article states, it was a Catholic priest/scientist who first proposed the theory of the Big Bang. Today, another catholic priest -- the just-retired Pope Benedict XVI -- recently established an institution which seeks to resolve the perceived conflicts between science and religion – the Vatican's Science and Faith Foundation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karl-giberson-phd/pope-benedict-science_b_2679021.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP_CwMr7yvc

Ben Folds XVI (or The Pope Throws in the Alb)

A few minutes before I left for work yesterday, as I was waiting for the morning weather forecast, the bombshell hit. Pope Benedict had announced he was resigning. At that time, I only heard the basics they gave: the Pope had determined that, at age 85, he was no longer fit to administer the See of Peter, the “Holy Bark” that is the Church. They said the last time a pope resigned was over six-hundred years ago. (Actually, 700 years since a precedent for Monday's announcement – see the attached link.)

As I walked to work a few minutes later, I knew that the rumor mill and the late night comedy writers' rooms were already in a state of hyperdrive. And in all fairness, could you expect them not to be? This screams to be talked about, criticized, praised, dumbfounded by – and yes, laughed at. After all, old popes don't retire, they just slowly process away . . .

As many of us know, priests retire, bishops retire, but popes don't. Not normally anyway. Without knowing the history, I can only assume that other pontiffs have struggled to keep it together through illness and old age – perhaps even senility, I suppose.

It should go without saying that many people – even reasonable types that don't routinely sport aluminum pie plates as headwear – will ask the question that begs: Why? And the one hot on its heels: Is there some scandal beneath the surface that we don't know about? Perhaps something to do with the ongoing child abuse crisis that's rocked the Church in recent years? What good reason could there be? a reasonable mind might ask. After all, if he really is retiring merely because of age and growing infirmity, we need only look at his predecessor to see how that can be graciously endured.

I don't blame people for waiting for the other shoe of the fisherman to drop – or even actively looking for it. You can bet that TMZ is fervently on the case as we speak. I can also already hear the true believers excoriating the cynical secular hordes for their accusatory suspicions.

You can count me as one of the true believers, though unless they really take it too far, I won't get pissy on the nefarious agnostic nabobs of negativity. Inquiring – and not necessarily unreasonable – minds want to know, after all. In the words of one believer, “He was hired by God. He can't quit!” I can't say I'm in total agreement with the Pope or the Church on all things, but I do buy into the See of Peter pretty much as advertised. And that's the very reason that Benedict's announcement not only perplexes, but troubles me.

I can sympathize with his assessment of his own physical and mental incapacity to do one of the hardest jobs on the planet. I concur with panel members in the attached link in respecting his humility for admitting it and admiring his generosity in thinking for speculating that a new pope might better serve the Church. But whatever the Holy Father's good motives may be, I do have to wonder at the impact of this extraordinary act. It seems to me that it gives the world plausible reason to speculate on the possibility of a darker meaning behind it.

As of this writing, I haven't had much chance to follow developments. Of course, it was all over the news yesterday (Monday the 11^th; it's Tuesday evening now and I doubt I'll get this in before the timestamp moves to Wednesday.) Besides the initial report, I've since found that the Pope really has apparently gone downhill physically in recent months. And today they reported that he'll live his remaining days in a monk-like existence, praying and writing, in a refurbished former convent on Vatican grounds.

I can only join the rest of the faithful in praying that this is the right decision for Pope Benedict (soon again, I might suppose, Father Ratzinger) and the Church he's led for nearly the last eight years.

TJTM

http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2013/02/11/pope-benedict-xvi-resigns

Prof. Conor Cunningham -- "Why Study Nature and Grace?"

My friend and former associate pastor, Fr. Addison Hart, is a veritable volcano of interesting and thought-provoking posts on Facebook. The other day he posted a couple of links to a video series by Nottingham University in England. It's called the "Why Study? Series". The two links he shared are “Why Study Nature and Grace?” and “Why Study Evolution?”, both with Professor Conor Cunningham. Through these, I found the "Why Study? Series", including more with Prof. Cunningham. There's a lot to be explored here and I've decided to start doing so. I find them worth sharing and begin with “Why Study Nature and Grace?”

“God sent his son into (nature) to perfect it. Not to destroy it, not to subsume it, not to moralize it, not to spiritualize it, but to make it more physical.”

• Professor Conor Cunningham
  

  
  

  
  

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8jbytgfMjU

  
  

Awakened by Infinite Sons

Saturday, Jan 12, 2013

6:20am

My sons woke me up this morning.

A short while ago, I was dreaming that I was asleep and in the dream of that sleep, there was a knock at my bedroom door. Annoyed, I roused myself into recriminating wakefulness and got up to open it. It was my son Eric. In real life, he's nearly twenty years old but in my dream, he was a three or four year-old boy. “I remember,” he said in his little three or four-year old voice, which had the hint of a lisp, “that I used to sometimes come sleep with you when I woke up scared, and it's been awhile so I thought I should come do it again.” It was puzzling to me that this little boy spoke as if he wasn't scared at all and that he seemed to be recounting this from as many years ago as it now really is. It gave the whole thing the surreal quality of the infinite. I said, “Sure, monkey. It's always okay for you to do that.” I picked him up and, holding his tiny body next to mine, started to bring him into bed – and that was when I woke up in real life.

I lay there for a few minutes, remembering the days when, not long after his mom and I split up and he was about that same age, he used to sometimes wake up crying in the middle of the night. Even after he was well awake, he could sometimes not be comforted for at least ten or fifteen minutes. It was as if he refused to let go of the dream that terrified him.

Then, still lying in bed, I remembered a picture he drew at around that time. It was a picture of him and me as a child's stick figures, holding hands and walking under a big, round shining sun. Above us he'd drawn a large red and white heart. I still have it. You don't throw something like that away. If I wasn't so computer-illiterate, I'd post it here. I suppose, next time he's here, I'll have him show me again. (Yes, he showed me before how to post pictures to my computer, but, being the aforementioned computer-illiterate, I don't remember the simple steps. I think I have them written down somewhere, but I haven't used my camera in years and the batteries need re-charging anyway.

As it often is when woken from a powerful dream, my immediate thought was to sit down and write about it. My computer was still on from a few hours before (I didn't go to sleep until four) because I did something that left my monitor with the wallpaper still there, but all the icons missing. In that state, there was no shutdown button and I didn't know how to rectify it without shutting the computer down improperly. I knew that isn't good (or can't be anything other than neutral or bad) for it and I was too tired to fuck with it, so I just turned the monitor off and went to bed.

I remembered this when I came back to my desk just now. Pissed off that I might not be able to record this astonishing dream, I turned the monitor back on. I knew that if the compy didn't bounce back after the inevitably necessary improper shutdown, I'd have to call my other (and older) son Steve. Steve's even more of a computer whiz than his younger brother (who's also very computer-savvy) plus, unlike Eric, Steve lives just a few blocks away.

I stared at my monitor's wallpaper – again, the only thing that remained on the screen. It's a picture of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a family favorite of ours. Steve had installed it when (as a surprise when I was away) he revamped my entire PC and loaded it with a new browser and programs, including the Open Office Writer word processing program that I'm using right now. Over the years, Steve has done probably thousands of dollars worth of IT work for me and my dad.

Looking at the one-armed Black Knight (if you don't know what I'm talking about, rent the film; I regard it as the single funniest movie ever made.) I thought of Steve and considered the wonderful gift he had graced me with in the new setup.

Sitting there, I instinctively knew that in all of this, he was as much a part of my waking after less than three hours as was Eric. This entire episode was about my being father to them both.

It was then that it occurred to me, and seeming very much as if it was Steve who was reminding me,“when in doubt, hit Ctrl/Alt/Delete.” I did, and was suddenly a couple of keystrokes away from full restoration of my unit. It may not sound like much because I suppose even a ninety year-old chimp knows that old trick, but you're seeing this right now because of it. I'd like to think that Steve had something to do with it and, on some level, it's evident to me at least, that he did.

Last night (really, in the wee hours of this morning) someone posted to Facebook the picture of a fifteen year old girl who went missing a couple of weeks ago. Though I didn't know her from Eve, I knew that her parents must be in agony right now, not to mention, possibly her. Her name is Samantha and she's sometimes known as “Sammi Jo.” As I said in the post, “Don't know her, but it seems we gotta spread this far and wide. God bless you, Sammi Jo. I'm praying for you.”

I cried this morning when my little boy woke me from the dream I had where he woke me from my dreaming sleep. It was touching and a little sad to remember that he and his brother aren't little boys anymore but I'll see them soon and things will be like they always are.

Sammi Jo's parents don't have that right now and are going through what I don't even want to imagine, much less live. There's nothing more I can do than pray for her and hope that the simple act of sharing her picture on Facebook can contribute to a cloud of activity that'll bring her home. Again, God bless you, Sammi Jo.

Finally, my friend and my former parish priest, Father Addison Hart, posted a remarkable video last night. The video itself is actually less remarkable than cool -- computer-animated psychedelia of the sort we've all probably seen many times before, though above average for its ilk, I'd say. The remarkable part is the music. It's Bjork (formerly the singer with Iceland's band, the Sugarcubes, singing a beautiful version of “The Jesus Prayer.” I don't have reason to think she's a believer, but if not, she's certainly a talented voice actress.

I listened to it repeatedly as I composed this post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lEhq3rkbVr8#!

Good Sugarplum Dreams

Long ago, a Christian friend of mine said he would not teach his young children about the myth of Santa Claus as it was a distortion of the true meaning of Christmas. I don't know whether he went on to fulfill that assertion, but I think that if he did, it was to his children's detriment.

Santa is one of the “good myths” that C.S. Lewis talked about and he holds an important, formative place in the imagination of children. Long before I understood the meaning and primacy of Jesus in my life, Santa Claus occupied and in fact, created, a space within me which Jesus would later occupy. The myth of Santa was perhaps my first encounter with the magical sense of the otherworldly and supernatural to which good religion should bring us. Santa was the first being who allowed me to know and exercise faith in that which I couldn't see and who first caused me to feel responsibility to a higher power whom my senses couldn't know. In short, he prepared me to be a Christian.

He was a giver of gifts and taught me the value of being one myself. He was an unerring doer of good and inspired me to try to be the same. I was taught that he had the power to transcend time and logic in a way that a child could understand and accept. That acceptance was the first instance I had that prepared me for my eventual faith in the Almighty.

I hope that my friend didn't deny his children the capacity to dream the good dreams of “sugarplums dancing in their heads” which, in their maturity, could be replaced with the sure knowledge of God.

I thought about this after reading the following article posted to Facebook by my friend and former associate pastor, Fr. Addison Hart.

http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2012-09/saved-fiction#.UJ6C-bytCY8.facebook

Farewell, Monsignor Nelson

After seven years at my church, our pastor, Msgr. Glenn Nelson, is moving on. He's been asked to resume a position he previously held in our diocese, which is as an assistant to the bishop -- this time the newly installed Most Reverend David J. Malloy. As far as I know, he will continue to be the Diocese's point man for the deaf ministry as well. And he's the first and only priest I've ever seen use sign language as he delivered his homily. He also sometimes signed the mass when another priest was celebrating it.

While I never got to know Monsignor terribly well, he's a good priest with a good heart and his homilies were always excellent. I belong to a Newman Center parish (Christ the Teacher University Parish just off the campus of Northern IL University in Dekalb, IL.) Newman Centers, named for Blessed John Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), serve university parishes all over the country.

Monsignor's connection to our parish began when he was a student at NIU in the 80s. So being sent to Newman by then-Bishop Thomas Doran was a sort of homecoming for him. He served us well as pastor and had to hold back tears as he gave his farewell homily at mass this evening.

I'm a lector at Newman (one of the people who delivers the readings at a Catholic mass, for the uninitiated) and I had the peculiar honor of lectoring at his first mass there as well as doing so tonight – the first mass of his final weekend. (I'm a lector for the Saturday night “vigil mass”; he'll celebrate at least one other Sunday mass tomorrow) It was gratifying to me that I got to serve as sort of bookends to his Newman experience and told him so at a farewell reception for him after mass this evening.

Our previous pastor, Fr. Michael Black, was good enough to return to Newman to sponsor my son, Eric, at his confirmation mass some years ago. That mass was concelebrated by him, Monsignor Nelson and another of our associate pastors at the time, Fr. Godwin Osukwo. Each of those three men is a twin and I wonder if any other mass has ever been concelebrated by three twin priests. Monsignor, the principal celebrant that evening, got a good laugh at the end of mass when he told us that while they were all twins, they weren't identical. (Fr. Osukwo is a black Nigerian; the other two men are white.)

While all of us at Newman will miss Monsignor, we can be heartened by the fact that he will continue to serve our diocese well in his new position. Many well-wishes and blessings to him as he begins the next stage of his wonderful career.