luminousmiseries

On a Mission

2012-02-24T14:54:00.000-05:00

Well this is embarrassing. I don't know how to write this post in a way that doesn't end up sounding like I am tooting my own horn which is inadvisable at any time but especially during Lent, thank you very much St. Matthew's gospel chapter six. Neither does it work to write in such a way that sounds like you are not trying to toot your own horn because for all the self effacing jokes and demurring chatter most people will only end up saying, I see what you did there.

So let me just get to it and say I am grateful to have been invited by two parishes in the diocese to be their Lenten Mission speaker. I'm also pleased to have art postcards featuring 10 designs of my own art combined with various scripture verses, prayers and the like which will be for sale during the missions.

Two loves come together for me in such an opportunity, making art and sharing the faith. The theme for the Mission is "Being A Confident Catholic" with an emphasis on evangelism and conversion. Oh there will be catechesis because we need to know our faith but often the head doesn't listen unless the heart is fanned into flame once again so the focus will be to open the heart to Christ, to renew a personal encounter with the Risen One through the beauty and truth of the Church he instituted and established for all time.

My own journey this Lent is similar, a renewed journey of my confidence in Jesus, lover of my soul. To put it plainly, I need to let Jesus love me, or love on me, if you like or again to renew the intimacy of my relationship with Jesus. Bring to mind or better to heart the words of John 10 were we see that Jesus knows each of his little ones individually and calls them by name. It's not a head knowledge, one, two, three, seven ten sheep. It's a heart to heart knowledge, Peter, Paul, Mary, Fred, Sue.

I love gaining knowledge of Church teaching and Catholicism is inexhaustible in its presentation of the riches that are ours "according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" [Philippians 4:`9] but Lent is a marvelous time to experience those riches, to step right into the waters of baptism with Jesus. It is absolutely true that we are born-again, born anew each time we receive the sacraments but we do not experience that renewal in a meaningful way if we are lacking understanding of the sacraments, of what it means to encounter Christ there intimately. Oh my, we are back to knowledge. Well, no wonder faith an d reason are not mutually exclusive but uniquely interdependent. Lent is perhaps the best season to bring faith and reason, experience and knowledge together.

Blogging and social networking will likely be less frequent then from tomorrow through to and including next Thursday. The second Mission will be mid March. Your prayers for all are most gratefully received.

I'll leave you with a couple more images of the cards on offer and the Act of Confidence (slightly updated from older English usage) which is the basis of our Mission conversion stories and scripture exploration.

Act Of Confidence
My soul,
open your heart;
your Jesus can give you every good gift;
He loves you ardently.
Hope, then,
for great favours from Our Lord,
Who, through an impulse of divine love,
comes to you as total Love.
Yes, my Jesus, my hope,
I trust in Your goodness,
that in giving Yourself to me this day,
You will kindle in my soul
the flames of Your pure love,
and of an ardent desire to please You,
that, from this day forward,
I may desire in life only what You desire.
Amen

P.S. For those reading by RSS or e-mail if you'd like to see the blog header and colour theme change for lent, drop by the site.

Lent Head

2012-02-22T11:02:00.001-05:00

Smudge day has arrived. I'm not being disrespectful, only silly. OK, only partly silly. See, I commute on my bicycle year round and I wear a helmet. That means I bike to mass on Ash Wednesday and receive my ashes but then I slap that helmet back on and bike away which means, if the ashen Cross ever looked like a cross and often it doesn't, by the time I am at my next location the sweat of my brow has reduced what was there to an expansive grey mass such that it looks like I was cleaning my chain or brakes and distractedly wiped the dirty back of my hand across my forehead. Except, it smells really nice.

I suppose if there is any application that be made from that bit of nonsense it might be this: Lent is about messy Christianity, it's about dirt and self honesty, it's about not worrying how we look before God or others when we are being honest with ourselves. Lent is about roughing out the less than pretty spots in our lives and being cleansed and renewed in Christ. Lent is a season of focusing on oneself but not in a narcissistic manner. Lent is about someone at the office or store or school saying, Dude, you've got bike gunk on your forehead and thus being given the opportunity to stop hiding in our holy closet and explain your faith. "And they will know we are Christians by our Lent head."

With that in mind, while many people have an ultimate Lenten bible verse let me suggest this one as appropriate to having a Lent Head:

but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you. - 1 Peter 3:15 NRSV

P.S. If you are unfamiliar with Lent and I suspect most of my readers are not, Scott P. Richert has a concise article on About.com and Fr. Robert Barron of Catholicism Project and Word on Fire has two dandy vlogs on Lent.

Image: Smartphone photo and say, the ash Cross on my forehead turned out quite cross-like. Nice work Father.

Cycling towards Lent

2012-02-18T10:47:00.000-05:00

I am a commuter cyclist. As in bicyclist. I ride the better part of twelve months of the year most years. I've done this for some time so I am seasoned, careful, ride smart, share the road et cetera. When I see other people who ride bikes doing stupid things I let them know they are in the wrong and not helping 'the cause.' Drivers can't know that I'm not one of those jerk cyclists but they shouldn't need to know. But all they should need to do is obey the laws and share the road.

Wednesday it was cold, still icy. I was approaching an intersection with the intersecting street having the stop signs. Guy in large pick up rolls the stop, looks my way, hesitates, gauges my speed wrong and begins to cross. I have to break, naturally. He continues to drift through. I'm seeing red. I know he saw me. I change course and follow him down the residential street. He has to stop for a car making a parallel park. As I pull up he rolls his window down and I'm ready for his righteous self justifying blast. I know this because while I have no window to roll down that's just what I'm about to do myself, let'em have it.

Instead this early 60s age guy with his business name and phone number clearly displayed on a magnet sign on his door looks at me, smiles and says, Sorry, my fault totally. Didn't see you.

I'm disarmed by his apology but I still say, You saw me. I saw you see me.

He says, Yeah, well, you're right I guess, Sorry.

The way he said it I have to believe him. True, I was looking at his name and phone number or at least his boss's that might mean he'd be careful to make a good impression but experience informs that such a fact hasn't stopped people clearly in the wrong from maintaining they are not at fault.

I'm glad I didn't pay for his bad judgement with my life or some portion of it and no doubt Guy was also relieved. He had made genuine amends and I was not hurt so that was that. I told him to be more careful, thanked him for his apology and made my own for being so angry (even if I thought I had a right to it, I added to myself).

Wednesday next is Ash Wednesday. Lent begins. I have been considering what particular practices would be helpful for me to observe this year. What would be spiritually purposeful for me to give up? What would be beneficial for me to add that would be spiritually purposeful? I consider my own necessary changes not only in terms of what would help me but help others. If you know where this is going, you're probably right.

That near miss and it's result gave me all the object lesson I need. I could stand to give up getting angry quickly. I could certainly stand to stop holding on to anger surrounding actual and perceived offences.

Just last week at Confession (or if you prefer, Reconciliation) I was, again, confessing my pettiness in regard to taking and holding onto offence. I did my penance and all that but the Lord sent me Guy in a pick-up truck four days later and God's word to me sunk in.

You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; - James 1:19

and elsewhere,

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. -Colossians 3:12-14 NRSV

Two of the many places in sacred scripture that convey the truth that we should emulate the Lord by being, as The Message paraphrase puts it, be "quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you" [Col.3:13] and "Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you." [Ephesians 4:32].

How un-coincidental that this should so closely follow my recent trip to the sacrament of Confession or Reconciliation because among the names that the Catechism of the Catholic Church gives to describe the nature and virtue of this specific sacrament is the name forgiveness.

It is called the sacrament of confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament. In a profound sense it is also a "confession" - acknowledgment and praise - of the holiness of God and of his mercy toward sinful man.

It is called the sacrament of forgiveness, since by the priest's sacramental absolution God grants the penitent "pardon and peace." -CCC 1424 emphasis mine

The forth coming is a stretch, don't make overly much of it but it's humorous to me that this brief conversation between Guy and me was face to face through a window. Neither of us priests and as such unable to offer one another sacramental absolution --a forgiveness that carries the authority to remove the eternal consequence of sin-- but as fellow pilgrims in this life able to model the love of God in Christ for us.

Oh, to really live Jesus words, "leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift" [Matthew 5:24 NRSV]. As Lenten a commission as one may hear and isn't everyone in a certain sense my brother and my sister?

Image1: Aristide Bruant on His Bicycle by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892. Source.

Image 2: Bike 1 by Owen Swain.

Be the cup

2012-02-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

[Part Two. Part One.]

Some further thoughts on being people present.

I walked through the snow from the parsonage to the smaller of the two nursing homes in the rural town where I was pastor. It was the more expensive of the two. It was the one where there was still a small chance that you might leave at some time in the future to go home or somewhere that wasn’t the other nursing home from which people only left by first departing the mortal coil.

All the local ministers knew the four digit code to enter the building. I punched it in and filled my lungs with the last fresh air I would breathe for an hour. It was true that I usually received more from the souls I visited than I gave, at least I thought so at the time and I mostly think that’s still true. I didn’t have to go. There was no one from our tiny congregation who was a resident there. No one in our congregation was related to anyone who was a resident. I went because I had this odd notion that whole village was my parish though I wasn’t much acquainted with the word parish. Besides, in a place that small everyone knew what everyone else did and what everyone else’s minister did so it was good to go if for no better reason than public relations.

Still, I went because I had this idea that I might do some good.

I met Mary, she was new. Salt n’ pepper hair cut short. Large bright eyes the same colour as my wife’s, hazel. Her body indicated a life of attention to physical fitness rather than the luck of a small frame and a decent metabolism which was only recently fading. It happened to be the day when we would have a short “sing-a-long” lead a capella by me (back when I had a voice) and a shorter sermon. Usually a reading and a sentence or two. If anyone was still with you by the end of your first sentence it was rather a blessed day.

Mary met me at the entrance to the main room handing me a faded blue hymnal and directing me to a place I could sit. Thanking her I explained I was the ‘reverend’ to which she smiled and said, Oh, everyone get’s to sing. I wasn’t sure she’d followed my drift. I’d not known anyone to meet and greet at the nursing home and most times the residents were wheeled in with a hymnal in their lap or sitting in a bag hanging from their walker while the more ambulatory ones carried their own. At the end of the ‘service’ Mary collected the hymnals. I’d never seen that done either and in some cases it was a bit of a battle. Even residents who hadn’t used their hymnal didn’t want to part with it. Funny, how sometimes as life lets go of us we hold onto things the more.

Mary told me it was a very nice message and she would see me again next Sunday, though this was a Tuesday and she told me that her husband had been a minister too. I asked where. She didn’t recall but lots of places and it didn’t matter because he was dead. I wasn’t sure if I should say I was sorry for her loss or how to proceed. Happily she filled the pause with news that today they were serving ham and cheese melts, her favorite and then she was going shopping with her son. A nurse passed by, caught my eye and nodded, No. I understood she wasn’t talking about the lunch serving.

Mary couldn’t recall when her had husband died or his name but that he was nice, very nice and good singer like me. I thanked her. I wanted to cry.

Before leaving I went to visit the residents who would allow me to do so who had not “come out” to the “service.” I met Mr. Franklin. He was watching the Jerry Springer show. It was new back then. Mr. Franklin said, So you’re the priest? I told him I was Pentecostal not Catholic. He said, That’s all right Father, we all have our weaknesses. I laughed. He didn’t.

We chatted for a little while and I began to get the idea that he had been a minister. I asked him directly and he said yes and told me the places he had pastored, mostly in Northern Ontario, often three and four point charges with the United Church of Canada. He clearly loved the gospels and told me portions of them in case I had not heard them. Clearly he loved Jesus. He told me that he was fairly sure he’d been married and had children but he knew he got confused and so that might not be true.

The nurse came in just then and invited me to stay for lunch. May as well, I was overdue at whatever appointment had been next and I was hungry. I walked Mr. Franklin, Rev. Franklin? Down the hall and we ended up sitting at a table with Mary and another woman. That’s was pretty much it.

I was at the door sliding my rubber boots on when that same nurse came by. She touched my elbow and said, “The Reverend and Mrs. Franklin don’t know they are husband and wife. They came here at the same time. Their children don’t come. It’s such a shame, pastor.” Mrs. Franklin?, I asked. “Mary, love, Mary.”

How can we be present to someone who isn’t present themselves? If you’re hoping I’m going to answer that you are about to be disappointed. The best I can come up with is that we should be present to that soul simply because it is what Jesus would if he were present and wait, he is present, in us, in the other and even if not in the other he is everywhere present and nowhere absent.

For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. --Mark 9:41 NRSV

Right now I'm not that focused on and reward, though I have respect for that! Right now I'm focused on just trying to be more compassionate, more truly caring. We must simply be present, be really there to and for the other. A cup of cold water for the thirsty and if he is the water, I must be the cup.

1st Image: Old Aker Church by Edvard Munch 1881. Source.

2nd Image: Child with dove by Pablo Picasso, 1901. Source.

Being people-present

2012-02-13T12:50:00.000-05:00

[Part One of Two.]

The recent set of readings from the gospel attributed to Mark has taken me back to when I was a young pastor in a rural town making visits to nursing homes. I was green. I was conscious of my own lack. I was aware I was young. I was trying to hard to be professional. Clearly I was too focused on myself rather ~~then~~ than on those I was going to visit but the decades in between effect a certain kindness towards my younger self. I did go with the intention of giving. I wanted to give the love of God. Was that too much? Is it possible that the love of God is best expressed in presence? What isn't contestable is that it didn't take too many regular visits to understand that words are not always necessary and often fail to communicate what it is we are really trying to say and then there's the truth that perhaps it's listening that matters most in these visits and certainly listening requires presence.

We may practice the presence of God all we like but unless we are also learning to become truly present to people, present to our brothers and sisters, little progress is made for the kingdom of God. No worries, I'm pointing the finger back at myself here.

Mark's device of using "immediately" throughout his narrative isn't just about speed or obedience. As I reflect in this pre-Lent season I am hearing immediately as immediacy, as proximity, as intimacy.

Jesus is in constant close-up, there are no long-shots in Mark's movie. There's no establishing shot to tell us of Jesus' human lineage or to set us in a certain time and place. No. Immediately we are in God's face and his is in ours in the first verse in the second person of the Holy Trinity. Even his forerunner, John the baptizer, presents us with an immediate, personal God who will do something for us no one else will who is present to and with us. Immediately we are with Jesus as he is with the people

Sure, Jesus spoke all kinds of words and they were words spoken with authority and not like the other lot that people were used too. But why "with authority? Not because of showy miracles. Maybe in part, OK, but I think only in part and, if I may, Jesus didn't seem to be too big on miracles himself. Was it that his words carried an intrinsic truth that people recognized that gave his teaching authority? Getting closer, yes.

Alan Alda delivers a line in a movie I saw recently where he says, "Great people and principle are the same."

Jesus words were/are his person and his person is God's Word to us, even his final (full and complete) word to us (consider Hebrews 1). With Jesus one cannot separate his words from his person and he made his person totally present to people and he made them, each of them fully present to himself. I've read accounts by people who have said when Pope John Paul II looked at you it was as if you were the only person in the room. I've heard people say that about Gandhi and Mother Teresa.

A professional clericalism isn't what's needed in this seemingly ever imploding first couple of decades of this new millennium, is it? We need is Jesus present to us, in our priests and in each other. We need to be Jesus present to one another. That is in fact what the Church teaches us about the Sacraments, Jesus is really present to us in the Holy Eucharist of Communion. Jesus is truly present to us in the Confessional. In the priest, regardless of his personal nature and deportment and abilities or even likability, we truly meet Christ present, in persona christi. I know, like you I wish more priests grasped this ontological reality and were not so casual about Confession. Those two Sacraments are arguably those most intimate moment with Christ that the priest and we can share.

Like the people in Mark's gospel we know the real deal when we experience it. Whether in a priest or anyone else, we know authentic love when we experience it. We say, there's a truly great person and even, now there is a saint!

Father André Provençal was the pastor of Alfred Bessette, the chronically sickly young man who because of his illness failed at every occupation he undertook, who was practically illiterate and had little to credit him to a life with Congregation of Holy Cross.

Knowing of his piety, Alfred’s pastor in Quebec encouraged him to join religious life and sent him to a nearby community of Holy Cross brothers with a letter boldly telling its superior, “I am sending you a saint.” Becoming a religious brother, Alfred took the name Brother André. [Source.]

Bro. André was officially recognized as a saint by the Church on October 17th 2010 following a lifetime of being present to people, often in their most desperate moments, in pain, in fear and in confusion. He was "only a doorman" but he was 100% present to each person.

I'm not like that. Not consistently like that. Though, I've probably had a few moments that approach being really present to at least a few folks. I have a long way to go. I don't worry about anyone saying of me, Now, there goes a saint.

When I think about Mark's gospel and God's full and complete Word to humanity and I reflect on Jesus' feeding of thousands on meager fair I am taken back to that rural town and my pastoral visits to nursing homes.

Invariably I came way feeling I had received more than whatever I had given. In retrospect and with the benefit of Catholic teaching and spirituality I think, rather than rating or berating myself I might do well to simply settle on the loaves and fishes and leave it at that.

I mean, we do what we can (if we really do) and we are there for others, present to them, and allow God to make up whatever may have been lacking and thank God that somehow both we and they were fed and blessed by God. That's what I tell myself. What do you say?

Eternally existent. Logos. Word. If you will, Christ yes but not just Christ, Jesus. Word. Logos. People present.

1st Image, St. Anthony Visiting St. Paul the Hermit in the Desert (detail), by Matthias Grünewald. Source.

2nd Image, by Owen Swain.

3rd Image, On a Visit, by Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky c. 1930. Source.

Rorhing Wisdom

2012-01-30T11:20:00.000-05:00

I subscribed a short while back to the daily meditations from Fr. Richard Rohr. Right there that will send some of my online Catholic friends/acquaintances to wondering if I have entered the slippery slope to whateverness. However, one my challenges to self for this year is to stop jumping to simple and accepted-by-some conclusions as well as to learn to live at peace within certain tensions. It's one of the reasons I have chosen to read the NRSV-CE this year but each of those things are really others posts. The tie-in of those things to this post returns us, you dear reader (and you are dear to be reading this blog) and me to Rohr or at least to a quote from an unknown source on wisdom.

Here, let me just get out of the way and let Fr. Rohr set it up. He begins with a quote from the Deuterocanonical book of Wisdom:

“I begged and the spirit of Wisdom came to me.”

~ Wisdom 7:7

People’s willingness to find God in their own struggle with life—and let it change them—is their deepest and truest obedience to God’s eternal will. We must admit this is what all of us do anyway, as “God comes to us disguised as our life”! Remember, always remember, that the heartfelt desire to do the will of God is, in fact, the truest will of God. At that point, God has won, and the ego has lost, and your prayer has already been answered.

To sum up the importance of an alternative mind, this message from an unknown source says it all:

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

As we are already in day Two of a new week in which I am to consider and apply the wisdom of God and of 'unknown' I can honestly say have already proven to lack wisdom. One the other hand I that failure is good, or it can be as it can be an opportunity to press on toward the goal in Christ Jesus, yes? I have to hope so.

Many Catholics talk about offering it up, up to God that is, our weakness, failure, suffering et cetera, offer that up to God. When I am trying to be spiritual I try to do that, offer it up. When I am not thinking at all, when I am not trying about being spiritual is probably when I actually am. Follow? I mean, I'm desperate so it just happens. Options are way low and frustration, anger, hurt, whatever and et cetera are so high that I just call out and say, Look, God, you take this, You can have it.

So I'd like to nuance that wisdom from unknown a bit, first acknowledging it that it is very wise and secondly acknowledging its limitation, namely, self. It's good to watch 'me' and hold 'me' accountable. I am not negating that. It's all true when applied serves me well. It's also limited, limited to and by 'me.' I need more than me to break through what going on in my inertia and pain right now so I add:

Watch God's nature; it becomes your grace. I add this because wisdom is best my guide when enabled by grace. I think that is a very Catholic, which is to say, Christian way.

Image: Tree Against a Yellow Background, Artist: Odilon Redon 1901.

Friday (3Blog) Finds

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

Man, The Lost Cow by Gustave Dore in 1852 is a heart breaker; agree? Poor Bessy. To get over this tragic state here are some lovely finds.

Pannone Appétit! is a foodie blog fresh out of the environmentally friendly grocery bag this month. While the brand name in Catholic food blogs must be Jeff Young's The Catholic Foodie, happily you can't have too many cooks in the Catholic kitchen and believe me when I tell you the dishes Jason Panuone comes up with are not Cafeteria style. Jason was kind enough to comment on my post on suffering with depression and his profile link is how I found his blog.

What my two young-adult daughters will love about this blog is that not only are there simple yet creative recipes, Jeff also serves up dishes for one that look as gorgeousness as I imagine they taste. As our girls each cook one night a week for our family I am hoping they will be referencing "The culinary adventures & musings of a Catholic philosopher-librarian & foodie" because both red meat eaters and others, like me, will be satisfied. Chicken, Kale, & Red Lentil Soup, behold!

After one of Jason's scrumptious meals it's time to log on and look for something worth reading.

Heather King of Shirt of Flame is not the Catholic Anne Lamott because she is Heather King. I mentioned reading King's books to an acquaintance who said, Oh yeah, she's the Catholic Anne Lamott. No. She is her own self.

If you want to read thoughts that are not simply a rehash of what mainstream Catholic blogs are disgorging, consider reading Heather's work. If you enjoy self effacing humour, compassionate but gutsy writing spun with that special convert slant (a slant I appreciate) Shirt of Flame, the Blog is waiting on for you.

I mentioned Anne Lamott. Over the years I've enjoyed reading Lamott who as an adult convert to Christianity (via Presbyterianism) has been something of a voice crying in the wilderness of Americanized Christendom, a breath of fresh air, a challenge to religious and even theological complacency, a champion of the poor and marginalized and a flawed but intensely real novelist, diarist and columnist. She is at times wickedly funny.

However, Lamott also contributes to that wilderness because of her beliefs around moral issues and a feminism that puts "the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women" in the same sentence. There Lamott and this reader part ways. Heather King isn't easily pigeonholed but unlike Lamott, while posts such as Am I My Gay Brother's Keeper? and Avoiding Both the Catholic Left and the Catholic Right or Why I am For Life Not 'Pro-Life.' seriously challenge ones thinking, King comes down solidly and consistently in support of the teaching authority of the Church, at least in what I've read. And, if she's the first to admit she is "not a theologian" I say, please Lord, give us more non theologians like Heather.

Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux, which I took with me on a recent retreat to a Benedictine Monastery in Oxford Michigan, is King's blog's namesake or the other way around. Either way, read Heather King.

Now, one of the things I am most grateful to God for in my time as a Protestant Christian is having gained a deep appreciation for the Bible. While I have happily moved away from the ironically unsupportable sola scriptura Bible only position for our faith a practice, the passion for reading, learning and attempting to faithfully apply the truths of the sacred scriptures established in those Protestant years has remained and grown deeper.

To this end I note the wonderful blog, Catholic Bibles by Timothy who "teach[es] Theology at a local Catholic high school" in Michigan. I've been reading his blog for some time, often finding my way there via searches related to various translations, study notes and discussions on Catholic and the Bible. One of my personal growth projects this year is to read through the bible in a translation I have not used much as well as the practice of Lectio Divina.

I found Catholic Bibles to be a great resource in offering a balanced background on how the translation and compilation of the scriptures has been formed over time as well as keeping up to date on translation changes, comparisons, new releases including reviews of formats and editions of the various translations from a Catholic perspective. Many of Timothy's readers are well informed and add significantly to the discussion in the comment box. All translations are treated with respect and the pros and cons given their due. When you visit be sure and take the Poll on which translation you prefer.

Yes, this is who you think it is reading the Holy Book. The photo was taken by the recently deceased American born photojournalist Eve Arnold (d. age 99, January 4 2012). Source = a Google image search for, believe it or not, 'Catholic Family Bible'.

FatuousBook

2012-01-25T10:40:00.001-05:00

Possibly erroneous thoughts from recent combox chatter on a post by Terry ---long time blogging acquaintance, fellow art-guy and probably friend if we ever met in person--- that expresses the fatuous nature of a certain social media platform. The bit's in quotes are from other commentors and I wrote the stuff in blue (wait, that's an FB colour; Freudian?).

Circa January 2012, "People barely email me anymore - they all use Facebook messages." Circa 2002, "People barely call me anymore - they all use email."

"FB is essentially narcissistic." But personal blogs in general and a blog post on the wanton waste of FB and our vital comments on same aren't? Heh, heh, down girl, just having fun.

"...lewd and suggestive photos young girls post of themselves in massive numbers [on FB]" Golly, I must be using the wrong FB.

"Even tv bores me..." Haven't had one in decades myself. However, I have an eReader and love it so that'll no doubt add years to any purgatorial stop over.

"It is definitely the technology for a selfish generation." Well, not to visit the telephone again but you should have heard what my cranky old Methodist Gran had to say about that contraption back when I was 13.

Well, it's been fun...

P.S. The Word Verification and I am not making this up is, wait for it, "wayholy"

OK, silliness aside, plenty of people use FB and other social networks for a kind of networking that does not involve silly amounts of personal disclosure or an inordinate waste of time. What do I mean by plenty? Um, one in every 1,000? Me anyway.

I hardly use FB except to scandalously promote my own blog posts and to follow along with those whose stuff I want to read and not miss. The best way to reach people and be reached by them is to use the method in which they choose to be reached. Not to go all religious on us or anything but I kind of think of St. Paul preachin' it in Athens by the statue to the 'Unknown' god and quoting a contemporary poet to move his hearers from the known to the Unknown.

I know authors who promote their books and other writing via FB and G+. I know Catholics who have a group to support Catholics and promote the faith because "Catholics Are Christians." I know artists, even casual amateur artists like the folks on the Every Day Matters FB Group who share their art and love for creating. I know grandparents who use FB to stay in touch with family and actual, real in the flesh, friends. For people who use it that way they might even say it's a godsend.

I find it hard to get all bent and grumpy about this these days. I've been a crank about stuff like this in the past so I'm not looking for halo props here. I'm just trying to learn to live and let live a little more than I used to. I think that is the main thing behind my wanting to say anything about this at all. Make sense?

Oh, I do have one social network that I truly value. I do. Plurk. Not all of it. Just my/our corner of it. It's a very small group of people and most of us a) are faithful Catholics, b) keep our profile and messages set to private, c) do note some silly things and some ephemera but mostly we share one anothers prayer concerns, burdens, joys, victories. It's a warm, supportive place.

P.S. Posting on social media...man, this must be hump day or what?

Prize Fight, by Albert Bloch. Source.

Depression, who needs it?

2012-01-23T20:39:00.000-05:00

Depression. It's no joke. It suffocates. It exacerbates. It stilts and stigmatizes. It eats creativity and absorbs light. It doesn't suffer foolish advice or pop gospel fixes. It never sleeps and when you suffer you don't sleep much either.

It makes the sufferer look inconsistent, careless, apathetic, undisciplined, without focus. It makes reading all those psalms about God's care and provision for his own really hard to take. It causes one to stop starting and it does this over and over. It hinders faith and compounds self doubt. It makes a lie of what is true and good. It isn't any fun. It makes a person small. It can cause a person to be in constant need of affirmation. It takes lives and loves. Sometimes it does this suddenly but mostly it does it over a long period of time. It is very skilled at laying waste. It thrives on being medicated. It makes you chase after things, things that don't materialize and then it slaps you up the side of the head as if to say told you so. It can seem like an easy out but, I assure you, it is not mere excuse.

All of those things roll around together, the propagate, the become the unholy children of the Big D and feed mercilessly on their host.

Even so, IT IS NOT impossible to overcome but it must be overcome each new day. No wonder alcoholism (which I do not suffer from) and depression make such killer bedfellows.

I'm just grateful I no longer live in the part of the Christian world (and I do not mean a geographical location) that pretends real Christians don't suffer from depression or that perceives it as the inherent result of sin or that automatically try to cast demons out.

Depression doesn't have to win in the end, after all we are told we are more than conquerors through him who loved us [Romans 8:37]. But it's blanking hard. The promise is there and I've experienced it,

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! [1 Cor 5:17]

However, I've long since stopped believing this happened once, positionally in-Christ perhaps once but in actual practice it happens over and over, daily, especially as we receive Christ in his sacraments.

A part of my on again off again web presence has been due to this battle. I don't really know that is anything to apologize for but I do want to say thank you to readers old and new. I am sorry for great ideas I've had that I've not followed through on. That has probably cost me, friends, potential earnings and stuff. Yeah.

I have so much to give to others and to the Church. And to my family. And, if it doesn't sound sacrilegious and, even if it does, I have so much to give myself. I see that. I've seen that. People always say that but then the big D comes and I doubt, I stagnate. Me, is my worst enemy. No one is harder on myself than me. No one pays for that most than those who are closest to me. As the years go by I understand my deceased father better, his suffering and trials. He died 11 years ago this March. His birthday was yesterday. Maybe that's why I'm opening up about this now? Someday I'll tell you about the posthumous and spiritual healing that took place. Well, I believe it did.

Now, I'd like to impress my readership and say my best friend is Jesus but he's my God, my Lord, I know he calls me friend [it says so in the gospels] but my best friend is my wife. I don't know where I'd be without her love and belief in me. She's God's gift of grace to me. She says I'm her gift from God and I work at believing that. I know I need to be more like Saint André Bessette who allowed God to love him and then gave that love away. He was small, so small he was like a St. Thérèse of Lisieux small. Being tiny was not his curse but his blessing, it is exactly why he impacted so many thousands of thousands of souls. I know that finding the way to really be lives as God's beloved adopted son with Brother Jesus is a part of my process for meeting the Big D head on.

Structure helps too. After saying farewell to ordained ministry at our conversion structure and identity and worth all took serious hits. People think the financial suffering has been hard and they are right but it's nothing compared to the soul wrenching discord of those other things. It is a constant battle. Perfection is a very long way off, you know?

In the meantime I'll keep being as honest as I can and I will really work at not stopping this this time. I do this for my wife, our kids, our Lord Jesus and in some respect for you.

Image1: Art by Owen Swain

Image2: Moses sees the sufferings of his people - Marc Chagall, c.1966 Source.

[Edited for clarity, Jan 24 2012. I wrote fast and from the heart so there were a number of glaring errors which people kindly looked past and managed to understand my meaning, fully.]

Every 3 years Catholics 'read' the bible just by going to Mass. Right?

2012-01-20T17:16:00.000-05:00

Wrong. Even the Catholic who attends daily Mass never mind one who actually attends all 52 Sundays in a three year liturgical cycle will complete reading (by way of hearing) the entire Bible in that same three year span. Nope.

The Coming Home Network has an excellent pamphlet for reading through the bible in a year along with reading through the whole Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC] at the same time. It is very doable. No, really.

My wife has been practising this method for three years. As former Protestants (I was an ordained minister for two decades) we take bible reading to heart. It’s great to meet and encourage Catholics to know and love the sacred Scriptures.

If you really want to read the bible in a year but do not want to have to refer to a chart and you have money to burn, there is also a Catholic Edition (i,e, includes the 7 Old Testament books removed by the Protestant Reformers) under the My Daily Catholic Bible product name is available in a number of translations. Your reading won't be a deep and reflective Lectio Divina but you will read the whole bible in one year by reading about twenty minutes a day.

Hey there, quit with the exscuses and you know you can find that 20 minutes.

Add about another ten minutes more and you will also be able to read the entire CCC. Wow! Won't you look like the scholar at your next KofC or CWL or whatever.

Here is the link to the downloadable, freely distributed PDF pamphlet.

OK, I've got a fish dinner to cook so, see ya later.

Move over Pokémon, here comes Popeymon

2012-01-18T11:31:00.001-05:00

Apparently there is a new initiative out there to help the increase of priestly vocations. If you had asked me to guess it I could not have. Ready? Playing cards. You can read all about it in the post I'll Trade You Father Paul for Archbishop Listecki by Joel & Lisa Schmidt or go directly to the original The Catholic Herald article which they cite. Can't say it isn't creative.

Now, I am good with pretty much whatever works. I'm decidedly good with what most definitely works.

This week I'be begun reading an author who suggests that the thing that would increase vocations, especially priestly vocations is victim-priests. Granted, it's an idea that is not as immediately fetching, particularly for priests. The author asks, "Could it be that one reason for the lack of vocations is our [he's writing to and about those who have received the sacrament of the Holy Order of Priesthood] failure to stress sacrifice?" Bring that up at the next deanery meeting. See how it goes. But he continues,

"Could it not also be that our [again, specifically priests] failure to be victims discourages those who enter the seminary from persevering and becoming priests?...Lacking this example, they easily come to think of spirituality as something to be practised only until the day of ordination.

A survey among three hundred young men to determine what kind of priest inspired them most revealed that foreign missionaries ranked first, those who concerned themselves with the poor ranked second and those whose apostolic was among workers ranked third. The point is that the young prefer the heroic or sacrificial priest.

The emphasis in the quote above is mine but it is in keeping with tone and meaning of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen's entire first chapter and the overall message in his book, The Priest's Life Is Not His Own.

Yes, Fulton J. Sheen. The emphasis in the quote below belongs to Sheen.

Seminarians say, "I am studying for the priesthood." How often does a seminarian say or even think, "I am studying to be a priest-victim"? We insist on the dignity of our priesthood by quickly reprimanding those who show us disrespect. But do we ever insist on the indignity of our victimhood? We boast that our High Priest is Offerer and Offered. We say that we offer Mass, but do we ever think we are offered in the Mass? Our Lord wants no more bullocks or goats; He wants those who "have crucified nature, with all its passions, all its impulses: (Gal 5:24. Saint Augustine said there is no need to look outside oneself for a sheep to offer to God. Each has within him that which he can crucify."

The book was originally published in 1963. Does the date seem at all significant or is it just me? Written as the Roman Catholic Church was about to be tested and tried and in many respects severely beaten up by the cultural morays and theological bending and liturgical digressions (I'm trying to be gracious here, come on). Homosexual priests, naturally. Married priests, sure, must be the answer. Woman priests, whoda thunk? But Priest-Victims? Get real.

The book is "timeless classic" which means someone, seminarians?, priests?, seminary professors? diocesan vocational directors? must have been reading it. Right?

To be clear, I am not saying those trading cards won't work or that the idea is inherently flawed. No. I genuinely hope they work in Milwaukee Wisconsin. The idea is neat, cute, engaging... I'm only saying that had our spiritual leaders followed Sheens advice and example perhaps the ingenious would be superfluous.

You may read portions of the book at Google Books on this page which even has chapter by chapter hyper-links. A note in the sidebar says "no ebook availalbe" which may be true for Google but is not true overall as the publisher, Ignatius Press has it in several ebook formats.

CNS photo of Sheen swiped from Ubi Petrus, Ibi Ecclesia

The Visitor

2012-01-17T21:04:00.000-05:00

When I visit you say so little

sometimes nothing at all

nothing I can discern

At first this silence comforts me

but later when I leave you

its a discord that burns

When I visit you I say to much

always trying to get

mostly to get you to speak

At first is seems purposeful

my busyness, my busyness

breaks down for I am weak

I come because of hope

out of respect; obligation

not for a rebuff

I look at you

you look at me,

I wish it were enough

Should I visit you again,

overcome my disappointment

and my apprehension,

Will you please, dear God,

show me just a little

heaven?

[End]

I questioned adding an image. To use an image of a Monstrance or the Eucharistic Host or Blessed Sacrament would have been to give it away at the start. However, as I set the precedent of using images I went a-looking.

IMAGE: "Old Man with Flowing Beard, Looking down Left" by Rembrandt. Source.

More than cliché

2012-01-16T19:08:00.003-05:00

Three days out from Pamplona

This past Friday we had the blessing joining a handful of folks who met informally with our former priest, a Basilian, to view his slides and hear the stories from his recent Camino pilgrimage. The Camino de Santiago de Compostela, also known in English as The Way of St James is travelled by all manner of seekers not only Catholics but perhaps they are best equipped to appreciate its history and spiritual depth.

Father has a wonderful, open heart but somehow it is more evident now. He divested himself of many things to make that journey and along the way (pardon the pun) and while on the actual journey there was more letting go. He let go of things he realized he did not need and could not afford to carry in his backpack. He let go things in relation to his much loved dad who passed away not that long ago and began to let go of other things, perhaps painful things as he first learned of the severity of his mother's illness while on his pilgrimage. He also learned of his next assignment, a parish in Mexico. He will take but two suitcases into the country and nothing may follow him, that is nothing may be later shipped by other means.

Father is in his mid fifties. He's dealt and is dealing with losses but also gains. A new language. A new mission. The shared experience of those souls he met on pilgrimage and an ever increasing and very evident love of Our Lord.

If his Camino was about "letting go" it is a lesson that is clearly not over. As a priest belonging to an Order and not a diocese, potentially being called anywhere in the world that his confrères are is both the cost and the freedom of being a part of that spiritual family.

We viewed but a fraction of the more than 400 photos he took while on the pilgrimage but most of the ones we saw were of two things and he said this was indicative of the lot; road (or path) and people. What you see little to none of are vistas, or church interiors and exteriors, or historic buildings secular or religious. What you see a lot of is road and people. The journey not the destination, yes it is cliché, and the people whom one shares the journey with. The rest is nowhere near as significant. A good lesson for me.

I love the the story recounted of walking along the designated Camino through a set of impressive buildings and hardly noticing them only to find out later that he had walked directly through the University of Navarre, Pampplona Spain, home to the internationally renowned Navarre Bible. Some Catholic bibliophiles (and I really mean biblEophiles) might consider that a kind of hallowed ground. But at the time it was just buildings and land through which the Camino and fellow pilgrims were passing. It's the Way and the people that matter.

All manner of spiritual application can be made from this observation but you do not need me to do it nor do we need to travel the actual Camino to make the application in our lives. I am confident Fr. would agree.

Both images are from Fr.'s blog camino55

Confession: I am not a 'follower of Jesus'

2012-01-15T17:20:00.001-05:00

There are some phrases that seem clever but are affected, contrived and misguided even if the intention is genuine. This one for example, "Christ follower" or "follower of Jesus."

I mostly heard it in my former Protestant circles but I do hear and read it among those who are Catholic Christians (that term itself being an unnecessary distinction borne of misconception but for now let's let it pass). Follower of Jesus is a clever unnecessary contrivance borne of misunderstanding. At the very least it is an unhelpful attempt to distance oneself from "religion" as though religion were inherently corrupted, as though being religious and loving Jesus were mutually exclusive or inherently opposed.

Russ Rentler (M.D., medical missionary and re-vert to the Catholic Church) writes about this current phase of follower of Jesus as yet another occurrence of a very old heresy originated by a deluded Catholic, Montanus. Read it here.

Jesus had many followers. After the Wedding of Cana no doubt they increased and any time he healed people the followers grew such that they were happy just to get close enough touch the hem of his garments for a few seconds that divine virtue and healing might flow out to them. The number of followers who were fascinated by his moral teaching or, let us be honest, wished to catch him out in error and defeat the strange new sect, grew in number as to be so great that they required being feed on mass --not The Mass, just on mass.

Some followers of Jesus were very, very close to him and yet we read how even they turned away for ever after hearing Jesus give and not retract the literal meaning of what we know now as the Bread of Life discourse.

A person may wish to point out that that kind of person was not a true follower but I would say, no, they were very much a true follower what they were not is a true disciple. These people un-followed as easily as they began following him. The disciple says, Even though this is a hard teaching and I do not pretend to grasp it all, I remain with the One who gave it and will be faithful to him and to that teaching. A disciple says, I will even leave something else to align with truth, I'll pay the cost, even my livelihood because I cannot not remain with Christ.

I don't want to be a follower of Jesus. I am not at all interested in following him. I want to be his disciple. Though it's much harder and I fail often Jesus makes room for redemption in my failings. Peter, a disciple who loved Jesus and more than once professed his intention to follow Jesus at any cost, sinned to the point of denying Christ. But, as he was chosen, as he was a disciple he repented and being not a mere follower remains with Christ to this day.

It is true that the Gospels Jesus said to numerous individuals, "Come, follow me." This is likely where phrase in its current usages seeks its bible basis. Those make for adequate proof texts. But Christianity is more than a set of bible-only proof texts. The goal of an soul responding to the initial invitation to follow Jesus is that through conversion they would become a disciple.

To come and follow is an invitation to begin a journey. Satan even said to Jesus, in essence, come follow me, forget the Father, and I promise you what is not mine to give. Jesus was not a follower, thank God.

Christ follower is a term that tries too hard. It's easy to follow. All manner of people have followers and I'm not talking about leaders of major ideologies. I'm mean I, you, anyone, can have followers and nowhere do we see the capriciousness of followership than in this very media, the Internet. Followers come and followers go. Followeship is capricious, it costs little.

Jesus calls us, as St. Paul reminds anyone who reads his letters, to suffer with him, to actually and actively join in his suffering, is that conveyed in being a follower of Jesus? I don't think so.

But this is not or should not be a Protestant / Catholic issue. I mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the previous post. Bonhoeffer, a Protestant, wrote a book that he did not call, "The Cost of Followership." In it he said,

- The first call which every Christian experiences is the call to abandon the attachments of this world.

- Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.

- Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others, we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as ourselves.

- Our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility… As a Christian I am called to treat my enemy as a brother and to meet hostility with love. My behavior is thus determined not by the way others treat me, but by the treatment I receive from Jesus.

Even in this small sampling we get an idea of why Bonhoeffer called his book, "The Cost of Discipleship." When he does use the phrase, follower of Christ, he does not us it in the glib, North Americanized Christian way. I still have the dark green paperback copy I first read in Bible College.

- The followers of Christ have been called to peace. . . . And they must not only have peace but also make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods. . . . His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce hatred and wrong. In so doing they over-come evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate. [Emphasis mine.]

I don't think for a moment that everyone who uses the term follower of Jesus is less than dedicated to Jesus Christ than how ever dedicated I think I am but I do think the use of the term is not helpful, not even to the enquirer or the uninitiated. Let us say, Come friend, follow Jesus, but let us not leave it there.

Jesus said, Come, follow me, but he also said, Go and make disciples. I think that's about right.

Follow me, Satan (Temptation of Jesus Christ) by Ilya Repin, 1901. Source.
Jesus in a crown of thorns by Ilya Repin, 1913 Source.
The Martry by Marc Chagall, 1970. Source.

[UPDATE: following writing this I came across a good piece on the now infamous Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus YouTube vlog.]

Our God is a suffering God, He reigns...

2012-01-13T16:12:00.003-05:00

Does God suffer? Does God himself suffer with us when we suffer? If we answer Yes, does that argue against His Divinity and Primacy? Does the foreknowledge of God presuppose he doesn't also suffer as those events transpire in what we know of as real time? Did he suffer as we waited for our son to die?

Catholic popular piety (private revelation, devotions) throughout the Church's history speaks of the suffering God experiences as we sin against him, his way, his Word. Consider the Sacred Heart devotion where we grieve the heart of God, not in some time warp sense taking us and him back to before the Crucifixion up to the Resurrection but making the Sacred Heart suffer now as we sin against him in the present tense. Jesus, and Jesus is God therefore God, suffers because of us but is this not also carrying the sense of with us? Any number of books for meditation at Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament contain reflections and prayers of reparation for sins against our Eucharistic Lord taking place in the present tense. God can't die on the cross again, there is no need, the salvific work took place once and for all time but how does that presuppose that God does not continue to suffer in some sense when his message of love and acts of mercy are ignored or worse?

Consider the Holy Rosary. I recently completed a 54 day Novena. No, there's nothing heroic in it. It was an act of faith and of desperation. I cannot go into that now. Note the tenses indicated in this prayer:

1st Sorrowful Mystery - THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN

O MOST SORROWFUL Mother Mary, meditating on the Mystery of the Agony of Our Lord in the Garden, when, in the grotto of the Garden of Olives, Jesus saw the sins of the world unfolded before Him by Satan, who sought to dissuade Him from the sacrifice He was about to make; when, His soul shrinking from the sight, and His precious blood flowing from every pore at the vision of the torture and death He was to undergo, thy own sufferings, dear Mother, the future sufferings of His Church, and His own sufferings in the Blessed Sacrament, He cried in anguish, “Abba! Father! If it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me!”; but, immediately resigning Himself to His Father’s will, He prayed, “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt!” I humbly pray: Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, Glory be to the Father ...[Emphasis mine.]

This prayer, arising out of popular piety says Christ cried then considering not only the then present suffering but also looking forward to what he knew he would continue to suffer in the Blessed Sacrament.

It seems clear to me, and I admit I am no theologian, that God suffers not only because of us but also with us.

Now, here is a theologian on the idea that God suffers with us and not just any theologian but Pope Benedict XVI.

"But not only are we restless for God: God’s heart is restless for us. God is waiting for us. He is looking for us. He knows no rest either, until he finds us. God’s heart is restless, and that is why he set out on the path towards us...God is restless for us, he looks out for people willing to 'catch' his unrest, his passion for us, people who carry within them the searching of their own hearts and at the same time open themselves to be touched by God’s search for us". We too, children of modernity, may not remain completely insensitive to a God who is restless for us.”

Fr. Terry Brock, Sacred Heart Parish, Terrace, BC quoted that passage in his homily found here.

I am again reminded of a passage from the Book of James that I happened to mention when discussing the same topic over at Heather King's blog,

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. [2 Peter 3:9 NRSV]

I'm guessing "patient" is an understatement. I can't conceive how God can wait for us, especially in the sense of waiting for us to come to repentance, and not suffer. I also cannot conceive of some kind of intellectual suffering where the head of God is removed from the heart of God. No, I think that God's heart, like BXVI says is restless, at unrest, it's his real-time passion and I think that carries more weight than God merely waiting us out, no skin off his divine nose, as it were.

When our son Joel was dying and died, I certainly sought God believing he could spare Joel and when he did not I fully believed in God's mercy and perfect will, though it killed me, was too hard to fully grasp and wasn't as antiseptic as this sentence makes the experience sound.. I'd like to tell that story for its own sake but not this time. Moving on -

What I never thought of was that God might have suffered, fully, the pain of our loss, Joel's pain, physical and otherwise. I never thought of God as waiting with us, that is waiting and suffering with us as we waited for Joel to be flown to Sick Kids in another city and then again as Joel's nearly expired self was flown back to us that we might share his dying moments. In my particular Protestant tradition I had no framework from which to reference that possibility in my heart or mind, not theologically, not in terms of a popular piety, that God was actually suffering along with us in real-time not because of us then but solely with us.

Does the foreknowledge of God presuppose he doesn't also suffer as those events transpire in what we know of as real time? How can Jesus be Emmanuel and not also be God suffering with us?

Finally, not all Protestants are as bereft as I was in my training in theology and in life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is well known for this quote, “only the suffering God can help.” No doubt he took flack for that because that concept was not common in Protestant theology. If God was capable of suffering didn't that call into question his very nature as God, omni-this and omni-that, and therefore God the Judeo-Christian musn't actually be God. What a mess. But Bonhoeffer took history into account with scripture moving thought into the passion the person Jesus of Nazareth when he stated, "The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering, only the suffering God can help.”

Not everyone agrees, even today, no surprise there. They note that suffering is a privation, a lack of something and if God lacks then God is not God. God must be 'impassible' (not capable of suffering) lest he suffer from a kind of broken metaphysics, his nature not being in fact "God" and see the suffering God as a busted theological construct borne of the last century's theological such as liberation theology, process theology and feminist theology.

I wonder would the folks who understand the suffering God to be a faulty concept read the Holy Father in a different way? Perhaps I am misrepresenting his meaning?

As far as I know I am not a feminist and I do not believe the limited god of process theology where he merely works in people to "actualize potentialities" nor do I endorse liberation theology. Who can forget the iconic photographs of said century where Pope John Paul II gives the wagging finger of rebuke instead of the papal blessing the Jesuit Marxist liberation theologian Ernesto Cardenal was hoping for?

Thank God for the theologians who haggle this stuff out. Again, I am not one and it probably shows. Yes God is omni-everything, absolutely but he's my Saviour not my super-hero.

Image1: "Jacob, having recognized the tunic of Joseph that his son reported to him tinged with blood, think that he is dead and abandons himself in his grief (Genesis XXXVII, 31-35)" by Marc Chagall c.1956. Source.
Image2: "Chrystus Frasobliwy" or "Worried Christ" by Wladyslaw Skoczykas. Source.
Image3: "Jan Kochanowski over the dead body of his daughter" by Jan Matejko. 1862. Source.
Image4: As noted above and is ubiquitous on the Internet.

Nearly Dead?

2012-01-12T06:32:00.000-05:00

In the mid sixties during the height of Batman and Superman TV shows, there was a kid who jumped from his garage.

Standing on the roof, overlooking our driveway the sky above the house across the street seemed easily reachable. The tower of the Scarborough General Hospital could be seen about half a mile north. It didn’t seem that high.

I adjusted the bathroom towel, safety pinned at my neck. I felt the breeze teasing the bottom of my makeshift cape. My father was walking home from the bus stop, newspaper tucked under his arm, when something in my direction caught his eye; me. He bolted, hard, yelling “What the hell are you doing?” As he made the driveway he slowed down and held his arms up, “Back up, step back now son.”

Geeze, I thought, Dad’s more strung out from work than usual. I froze.

In seconds I heard the sound of his shoes on the gravel. I wanted to turn but I couldn’t. Then his hands were on my shoulders, gently, pulling me back from the edge. After we climbed down the TV antenna ladder he showed me the newspaper article about the dead kid.

Reflecting back on that day with the benefit of umpteen years as a Christian I find myself making a connection between that event and the words of St. Paul who was quoting the prophet Isaiah when he said,

Again I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says,
‘I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;
with a foolish nation I will make you angry.’
Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,
‘I have been found by those who did not seek me;
I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.’
But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’*

Dad was alcoholic and manic-depressive so obviously the analogy between my father and my Heavenly Father breaks down but my dad loved us in his way and certainly on the day I would have been a super-hero he was the one I wasn't looking for who saved me.

Image: timemachinego.com/linkmachinego/ for January 5 2012
*Romans 10:19-21 NRSV

Language of the broken

2012-01-11T09:30:00.000-05:00

He cursed as his father before him cursed. For a time he had control over this, by a great exercising of the will. But self will is by nature, limited. Self is not enough. One the other hand he could not find the key, the action, the prayer, the faith, the whatever that would move God into action that he {God} might magically or miraculously remove the thorn.

Nor could he imagine his dereliction of language to be the kind of thorn that God would want to have remain in a persons life, say, as in the life of the great apostle St. Paul where God’s answer to Paul’s persistent supplication for deliverance was, “No, you keep that thorn, son. I want you to have it. In fact, I gave it to you. My gift, to keep you humble, to keep you leaning on Me. Other’s will see Me in you in your weakness. Peace be with you, child.”

At least people with a cancer that goes unhealed gain the sympathy of others but little compassion is given to those with a leper’s mouth.

A quote in a magazine, a magazine that was laying about, that he had to pick up in the course of his job cleaning an office, came to his attention:

Swearing is an effective way for an author to show impotence in a character. A change in the way a character speaks during the course of a story can show a character’s deterioration or weakness. Exhaustion from excessive pressure can be shown rather than told. A character dealing with extended seasons of pain, sadness, disappointment…

Cursing is not the language of the powerful but of the broken, it is the displacement of soul, the voice of the un-empowered. Understood in these terms, he thought, it matters little whether a person considers
cursing to be an actual sin or not. Either way it's rotten.

Is this who or what I am, he wondered, a weak character in a devolving plot line?

For too long an abiding unhappiness, a disappointment in himself clung to his insides. The disappointment wasn’t sin or thorn or divine disabling or lack of faith or ineffective prayer. It was the sadness of living his life by proxy. Taking on the fault of another and making it his own. Sadness was the carcinogen formed by exposure to years of a secondhand life. He admitted failure. He took ownership. He went to Confession. He received graces to "go, and sin no more."

In a way that raw will had not been able to overcome or that any amount of or particular kind of prayer had gained in victory, in a way he could not fully articulate were he asked he nonetheless knew that he was going forward. Something like oxygen filled his spirit.

Image: Self Portrait by Chaim Soutine c.1918 Source.

Disengage

2012-01-10T18:38:00.000-05:00

We clash

like salt on rash

like road burn

lovers spurned

taciturn

we don’t learn

come at it again

shape gets bent

cars dent

no angels sent

it’s rage

disengage

send for the sage

turn the page

ice age

prayers turn

hearts yearn

words squirm

like a secret stash

like snow on ash

we clash

[by ows]

Painting: Fighting Forms by Franz Marc, 1915. Source.

Surprised at the earth

2012-01-08T15:43:00.002-05:00

"Surprised at the earth" is a line from the poem, For the Anniversary of My Death by W.S. Merwin posted earlier today, Epiphany Sunday, by writer Heather King.

"Surprised at the earth" makes me think me of the opening lines of the screenplay for Million Dollar Hotel. Tom Tom runs the width of the roof under the neon sign advertising the hotel. He is not afraid. He is childlike though certainly conflicted and misguided; his death a kind of repentance.The sun rises on New York city as Tom Tom leaps to his death. The scene sets up the movie which is told in one continuous back story. The camera takes Tom Tom's point-of-view in slow motion and we hear him in a voice over.

"Wow, after I jumped it occurred to me, life is perfect, life is the best. It's full of magic, beauty, opportunity, and television, and surprises, lots of surprises, yeah. And then there's that stuff that everybody longs for, but they only real feel when it's gone. All that just kinda hit me. I guess you don't really see it all clearly when you're - ya know - alive."

Lord, daily help me to celebrate my death to self and celebrate my life in You while it is still today. Help me make my life a gift to you that it might be a gift to others as, " it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." [NRSV]

::thrive!

Photo from jetadorexx.blogspot.com via a google search for 'Million Dollar Hotel'

It ends

2011-12-31T19:01:00.000-05:00

Early in December I found the pocket size Moleskine sketchbook I had begun years ago as a gift for Mary Beth. It had been lost in the house since, well I don't know when otherwise it probably wouldn't have been lost would it? Several years at least. I gave it to my wife on Valentine's Day with several drawings in it and with a promise to create a new ones on a monthly basis.

A token of love. My good intention. But then I didn't follow through.

It wasn't because of anything in particular or bad unless one considers neglect and broken promises bad. All right, something particularly bad happened. I neglected my word. I broke my promise. No wonder the little book was lost. It grew legs and went hiding so it would not be a mockery of itself.

Sorting through old CD's I came across one by an artist who hasn't made an album since 2003. It was her third. It was her most commercially viable disc. It was getting great reviews and the launch to whatever Christian stardom is seemed more than probable. Then she met the man who became and apparently still is the love of her life. Having found life very full and very purposeful she stopped recording. I find this incredible. Remarkable. Unselfish. Beautiful.

OK, maybe I'm reading too much into the story but it seems to me that she put her husband and marriage over her career having discovered love and creativity and a re-purposing of the self.

On the same day I found that CD I found the Moleskine. THE Moleskine. I knew what to do. As we had decided that we would have a largely home-made gift giving Christmas I would re-give her the sketchbook, with a drawing inspired by a photo on the insert of the CD and this time I would keep my promise.

Mary Beth received it with grace. Happy the sketchbook was found. Happy to have a new drawing in it after --to my shame I am reasonably sure of the timeline here-- five years. And not one word about my broken promise. That's the kind of love with which Christ greets us every time we are found by Him again. Yes, that's right, we are found by Him when we have stopped looking, or never began to look, for Him.

My blogging is consistently inconsistent. I've been online since 2001. I began on Blogger. I have a lot inside. I'll try to keep my promise this time. I hope you will receive this as Mary Beth received that Moleskine.

It's the beginnings that matter in the end.

::thrive!

Re-purposing your life

2011-12-16T15:37:00.000-05:00

[A re-post from my previous blog. Wanted to see if this works the way I hoped it would.]

Heather King, wrote, in a post called And The Darkness Has Not Overcome It,

The priest at St. Dominic’s a couple of weeks ago observed that Advent is a penitential season and never have I felt the truth of that more keenly. In particular, I refer to the penance of bearing with my own shortcomings, chief among them trying to be all things to all people and sometimes ending up not being very much to myself or others.

How is it Heather so often writes precisely what I am thinking/experiencing? I don’t know.

The psalmist (pretty sure it’s David) wrote about how his sin made his bones feel like they were wasting away inside him. Whether or not what Heather describes above is technically sin, she describe my current (all right, my for-quite-some-time-now) ‘space’ and sinful or not it’s makin’ me waste away inside myself, like the psalmist said.

You know, I think the halo above my head probably looks more like that “no” symbol, no idea what I’m doing, no idea how to get to a place in life I know nothing, or little about. People tell me I’m ‘special’ and I’m finally beginning to think they be right but maybe not in the way they mean special.

Heather’s most recent book
and one
called Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux and another called A Priest’s Life is Not His Own by the late, great, Archbishop Fulton Sheen (and no, I’m no priest, not of the dog-collar kind anyway) are heading with me into a silent retreat next week at a monastery in the USA. I’m also taking my breviary (prayer book) and my sketchbook. I’ll eat, pray, work some, read some, draw some and hopefully shut-up a lot, enough, I hope, that I will hear from the Good God again. I hope to be able to land with my feet on the ground such that I can head into the new year with greater clarity and be of greater worth to all, including to me.

Working through re-purposing your life is no easy thing and until I land that or land it enough that such that I can at least stumble forward with direction I will be of little use to anyone, including myself. Knowing who you are isn’t enough. Being confident enough in who you know your self to be and for me, being confident in-Christ is closer to 'enough', enough to be of value to myself and to others.

If I don’t see you online here before the New Year, I’ll see you then.

::thrive!

Image El Greco, The Nativity 1587-1614

[comments carried over manually by me and were actually left prior to the end of December]