God's Will

Strasbourg, France

                           Jesus said to his disciples:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’

will enter the Kingdom of heaven,

but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.  Mattthew 7:21

God's will or the will of my Father in heaven is something we find throughout the gospels.  If God is a mysterious figure, surely God's will is even more mysterious.  But however mysterious it might be, God's will is essential to the Kingdom of heaven, the world to which Jesus called his followers.  The Our Father is a prayer that all Christians say.  In it they say to God "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  So what is God's will, in general and in specific circumstances?

There are two ways God's will has been understood, one biblical and one not.  We hear the second meaning when something happens that is tragic or difficult or not desired by us.  A person dies and the grieving relatives are told it was God's will.  The death is either mercifully short or excuriatingly long.  That was God's will.  God has a plan for everyone and every circumstance and that plan will come to completion because God is omnipotent, all knowing, and unchanging.  The problem is that it often means that God causes pain and suffering because it is somehow part of God's plan.  It suggests a sadistic rather than merciful God.  We don't like to hear that for all sorts of reasons, most importantly because it is not scripturally sound.

In the New Testament, the word translated as will is better understood as desire or wish.  That is the core meaning of the Greek word "thelema."  It certainly makes more sense when it is used in the quote above.  "The one who does the desire of my Father in heaven."  A more idiomatic translation would be "the one who does what my Father in heaven desires."  When you read God's will or some variant in the Gospels, substitute a more accurate "what God desires."  It makes more sense and is more relevant to our lives.

So what does God desire us to do?  Jesus was asked this question and gave an unambiguous answer.

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37-40

God's will for us is right there.  God desires that we recognize the existence of the Divine Being who is the source of all life and to take care of our fellow human beings and by extension all of creation as though we were taking care of ourselves.   God has this desire for all human beings.  If we all acted on those desires, then indeed the Kingdom of Heaven would be here on earth.

When I was young, I was taught that God is an omnipotent being for whom nothing was impossible.  If God's will means the plan God is implementing in the world, then how does it happen that it doesn't exist.  If nothing is impossible for God, what happened?  This omnipotent source of all life endowed each human being with free will.  We can and must choose to live a life in line with God's desire or not.  Our free will limits God's power.  God chooses not to force us to live out God's desire for us because what would be the point.

So the next time, someone says "It was the will of God" to explain tragedy or death, remember that God's will is not about that but rather a call to us to live our lives in the way Jesus described and in the way that Jesus did.

Is ten percent of my heart enough? Not even close.

Chalk used by sketch artist outside Notre Dame de Strasbourg

 

When Jesus looked up he saw some wealthy people

putting their offerings into the treasury

and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins.

He said, “I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest;

for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth,

but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.”  Luke 21:1-4

 

This is a familiar gospel story, one I remember from my years in a Catholic grade school under the care and supervision of the Sisters of Mercy from Omaha.  Until recently, its meaning for me had not changed much.  It speaks to generosity in giving.  Even though the rich people may have given more than the widow in absolute terms, her gift of two small coins represents a great percentage of her limited, if any, wealth and thus she was the more generous.  So if I donate to charity a recommended ten percent of my income,  should I be satisfied that I am being all that generous when others with substantially less resources give a smaller amount but one which may far exceed that ten percent benchmark?  Who is the more generous?  The answer is obvious.

The motivation for giving is important as well.  In another version of the story (Mark 12:41-44), Jesus prefaces it with the following:

 As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.  They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” Mark 12: 38-40

 Clearly the teachers of the law and some wealthy people are giving because of the social status it confers.  Those who give large gifts even into the billions of dollars receive enormous social benefits.  They are routinely respected and sought after.  They are praised for their generosity.  Buildings and endowments carry their names.  There is nothing necessary nefarious about this but it does reduce the cost of giving by providing benefits back to the donor.  It is not ;surprising that those who create and operate Ponzi schemes typically make large and very public donations as a way of establishing a social status of success and public spiritedness.

All that aside, I recently came to see the fundamental message of this short story as something other generosity or charitable contributions.  The point is about a commitment to the message of Jesus that he has come to establish a kingdom of peace, justice and compassion.  His message is seen as dangerous by the powers that be and their regimes.  So those who follow Jesus and his message must be silenced, one way or the other.  What is needed is a whole hearted commitment to follow Jesus.  A carefully calculated ten percent contribution may be acceptable to the world but it is not enough in the kingdom.  It does not require a financial contribution but a commitment of the heart.  Am I with Jesus or not?  Just being with him a little bit is not enough, not even close.

The First of my Three Misconceptions about Christianity: It's all about you and me, God.

First light, Grand Canyon

I have been a faithful Roman Catholic since birth.  During those 80 years, a lot has changed in the world, in Christianity, in Roman Catholicism, and in me.  In fact, so much has changed that it is difficult to remember exactly what I was like at different points in my life let alone remember what the Church or the world was like.  But recently I have come to realize that for much of that time, I labored under at least three misconceptions about Christianity.  And these are not minor or trivial issues but ran right to the heart of what it means to be a Christian.  This post will focus on the first of these three.

First, I understood Christianity as fundamentally about my relationship with God.  On the surface that doesn't seem so wrong-headed.  What else could religion be other than how I related to a Supreme Being?  As a child, adolescent, and then young adult, I was taught and came to believe that my religious faith was about my individual relationship with God.  Sin disrupted that relationship.  So my goal was to avoid sin, especially mortal sins which would lead straight to hell.  There were a whole set of rules, mostly based on the Ten Commandments as well as Commandments of the Church.  As long as I obeyed these and restricted my failures to minor sins, I would get to heaven and eternal happiness.

This seemed a reasonable approach and actually quite doable until I hit puberty and SEX.  The first six months weren't bad--actually pleasurable--until that retreat during my freshman year at my Jesuit High School.  That's when I got the depressing news that with SEX there was no such thing as a venial sin.  They were all MORTAL!  My life became a series of danger zones between masturbation and the next available confession.  I lived in dread that between Saturday confession and the obligatory Sunday Mass--see Commandments of the Church above--I would indulge and then be forced to go to Communion rather than have to explain to my parents why I stayed in the pew when the rest of the family along with 99 percent of the congregation got up to receive.  My scarlet letter would be midway in the alphabet but still.  Oh, and by the way, if I did receive communion with that mortal sin festering in my soul, I would earn a second mortal sin.  Would I go to two hells?  Simultaneously?  Sequentially?  Just one but twice as hot?  At least, it would only take one confession to erase everything and get back in God's good graces.  Until the next time.

My Catholicism and thus my Christianity became more and more focused on keeping my relationship with God righteous.  My relationships with other people were involved only to the extent that I avoided behaviors listed in the various commandments:  no lying, no cheating, no stealing, no adultery, and no coveting--as though coveting would be a big problem.  You could covet but as long as you didn't do anything you could wiggle your way out of any sinning.  And even if you ran afoul of these, there was always confession.  Oh, and no killing.  

While all this seems a bit silly in retrospect, it was a serious business.  Quite apart from the specific sins and infractions, there was a meta lesson.  All I needed to do was focus on my relationship with God and stay in the state of grace by following the rules.  If I added the right prayers and attended the required religious services, I would get into heaven.  None of this had anything to do with my relationships with other people, other than the generally negative prescriptions of the Ten Commandments.  I don't remember anything about healthy relationships with family members and friends.  And I don't remember anything about my relationship with the poor, the marginalized, the different, the stranger, or the migrant.  In short nothing or almost nothing from what I would later come to learn was called Catholic Social Teaching.  So it was basically up to me and God.  If I kept that relationship in good shape, things would end well for me.  And the key was reining in and controlling my urges and desires.  If I could just keep my thoughts pure, everything would be fine.  So my religious struggle was an intensely individual one.  The focus was on me and my interior thoughts and desires.

In retrospect, it seems strange that all those Gospel stories about concern for other people never had much of an impact.  I just recently read the story of the Good Samaritan in Pope Francis' latest encyclical, "On Fraternity and Social Friendship."  You have to be pretty dense, or just not interested, to hear that teaching of Jesus and not realize that his concern was with how we treat each other rather than any sexual sins.  Maybe it was because I grew up before Vatican II and its emphasis on scripture for Catholics.  The Sunday readings were proclaimed, so to speak, in Latin and the sermons were rarely treatments of the scripture readings.  Homilies, which by definition begin and stay with the scripture readings, became more prevalent, but hardly universal, after the liturgical reforms of the Council.

To be fair, however, there were a lot of mixed signals in the scripture, especially from Paul and his epistles.  What was I to make of the following from the Epistle to the Galatians?

 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.

It takes a lot of theology and anthropology to get to the full sense of that tantalizing and dangerous sentence.  Left to my own devices, I understood it to mean that I needed to crucify my human nature with its desires and urges to belong to Christ Jesus.  Paul didn't mean that exactly.  In fact, he meant quite the opposite.  If you belonged to Christ Jesus, your human nature was transformed by faith.  "If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit."  For Paul it was never a question of disciplining one's physical body to avoid sexual sins, but rather to live in the freedom of the Spirit.  As with so many other things, it is both/and not either/or.

However it happened, this emphasis on my individual relationship with God had disastrous results.  I could consider myself to be righteous as long as my personal prayer and behavior were righteous regardless of what difficulties or challenges other people faced.  Some of my ancestors owned enslaved people and built their livelihood and well being on the foundation of chattel slavery.  Some of them fought in the Civil War to preserve this odious practice.  But at the very same time, they were active Christians.  Some of them were leaders in their local congregations.  Their highly personal and individual Christian faith allowed them to feel righteous even as they perpetuating evil.  I have often achieved a certain level of prayerful calm that exists only because I have looked away from the injustice in the world around me.

The teaching of Jesus was clear.  "Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me."  We are called to do only two things.  We recognize the existence of God, the source of all life and the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ.  Then we are to take care of one another.  Either one without the other falls far short of what Jesus proclaimed.  I try to overcome this misunderstanding by opening myself to my brothers and sisters who do not have such an affluent life as I do.  I try to focus on the abiding truth that Pope Francis proclaimed in his encyclical, "The Joy of the Gospel."

99. Our world is being torn apart by wars and violence, and wounded by a widespread individualism which divides human beings, setting them against one another as they pursue their own well-being. In various countries, conflicts and old divisions from the past are re-emerging. I especially ask Christians in communities throughout the world to offer a radiant and attractive witness of fraternal communion. Let everyone admire how you care for one another, and how you encourage and accompany one another: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35). This was Jesus’ heartfelt prayer to the Father: “That they may all be one... in us... so that the world may believe” (Jn 17:21). Beware of the temptation of jealousy! We are all in the same boat and headed to the same port! Let us ask for the grace to rejoice in the gifts of each, which belong to all.

Let us set this first misconception aside, finally and firmly.  Justice and mercy are the heart of Christianity, not piety and purity. 

What keeps me from listening to the Divine One? Expanded and revised

Lookout Mountain, Denver CO

If the Divine One is in everything and in every event, how is it that I don't experience that?  How is it that I don't hear or even listen?  Can it be that I am not present to the reality around me, the reality within which I live and move?

It seems that most of the time I am occupied with my own internal life and simply being unaware.  If I am not aware of the people and events around me--on their own terms, not mine--how can I ever be present to the Divine One?  Just being does not come naturally to me.  It takes a conscious effort to slow down and observe without any kind of agenda.  For me, this is difficult.

Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), wrestled with this problem and came to the conclusion that desire was at the root of the problem.  If we experience other people and things as objects of our desires, we don't really experience them but rather our desires.  He expressed this in "The First Principle and Foundation," a prayer that is central to the Jesuit spirituality he developed.  David Fleming, S.J. wrote a modern version he entitled, "The Goal and Purpose of Life."  While I was experiencing the 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises, I wrote my own prayer based on his.

Goal and Purpose of Life

October 2013 

You created me to know, love, and serve you.  There is no other purpose for my life, nor need there be any other.

All creation is from you and is meant to support me in living out my purpose.  All creation forms a “context of gift” into which you have birthed me.  Nothing you have made is anything else but good, true, and beautiful because all is one with you and is an expression of your unfathomable love.  I can use creation in ways that are conducive to my purpose in life or I can use it to retard that purpose.  It is my choice and it is based on what advances your reign and what retards it..

Thus my fundamental stance is one of a caring, involved indifference toward creation so that my choices are ones that are based on pursuing the goal and purpose of my life.  I should not fix my desire on

• health or sickness, 
• wealth or poverty, 
• success or failure, 
• a long life or short one, 
• acceptance or rejection, 
• order or chaos, 
• pleasure or pain, 
• serenity or turmoil, 
• connectedness or isolation, 
• strength or weakness, 
• knowledge or ignorance.  

I pray for the grace to respond ever more deeply to your loving presence within me so I too can say with St. Paul, "Now, not I live, but Christ lives in me."

So it is "desire" that impairs my ability to listen to the Divine One.  It is not what I desire as much as the desiring itself.  Those desires whether for "good" things or "bad" things prevent me from being fully present to my reality at the moment.  If I am not engaged with my reality at the moment, I cannot be present to the Divine One who is always there in that reality.  It is not so much desiring things to be better; it is even in desiring things to stay the same.  The desire itself distorts my perception of and engagement with what is right in front of me and all around me.

My classical Jesuit education reinforced my natural inclination to analyze people and events.  Identifying cause and effect in behavior or events demystifies them.  They become predictable, understandable.  That understanding gives me a sense of order and control amid disorder and chaos.  The problem with the present is that thinking doesn't work.  We can't think about the present.  If we use the present to understand what has happened and its causes, we are in the past.  If we use the present to prepare for what might come, we are in the future.   The present is a flow of thoughts, images, sounds, relationships that comes without our bidding.  As soon as I try to focus on any of these, I step out of the present and into the past or into the future.  If I can't think about the present, what in the world am I to do with it?  How can I be "present" whatever that means?

The current pandemic and social distancing have brought me face to face with this.  How difficult it seems to just "be" in this current situation.  I am constantly listening to and reading media reports on the virus, how we got in this mess and what it will take for us to move forward.  I tend to think about how things used to be and how much everything has changed.  I imagine what it will be like when it is over.  Of all that has changed in my life, what will remain after the crisis?  Will my new way of living continue once the virus is no longer a threat?  What will the "new normal" be like?  I find it difficult to just relax and feel what it is like to be, right here, right now, in just this way.  I think I know why but I want to avoid thinking about that.

I want to be clear.  In no way do I think that the Divine One sent humanity this virus and pandemic to teach us something.  I don't think the Divine One caused this pandemic any more than of the Holocaust, World War II, the AIDS epidemic, climate change or any of the other tragedies of human existence.  I do believe that the Divine One is the source of all life, of all that is and all that happens.  Everything is an expression of divine love and carries meaning for each of us.  All reality--the good and the bad--is meant to teach us something:  the Holocaust no more than the spring warmth and rains that bring the greening and flowering of our world.  There are lessons from both, not one more than the other.  

Life, all of it, is a gift from the Divine One.  Our appropriate response is thankfulness and gratitude.  Sometimes our lessons are easy and comforting:  the beauty and joy of a spring day amid blossoms and sweet fragrances.  At other times the lessons are discomforting and difficult:  human beings freely choosing ugliness, death, and oppression.  I learn that I too can choose evil because I am human.  Hitler was inhumane but he was not inhuman.  I am capable of what he did--though not on such a scale--because I too am human.  I can choose to do otherwise as he could have done.  Eliminating Hitler and people like him does not establish justice and mercy.  Only changing the hearts of people will do that.

So back to why I avoid listening to the Divine One in this time of a pandemic.  In the quiet and isolation, I sense a frightening lesson.  I am not in control.  For someone who values order and calm as I do, this is bad enough.  But there is a further lesson:  no one--not even the Divine One--is in control.  This virus has upended our lives.  This unseen entity has stopped us in our tracks, sickened millions, and killed hundreds of thousands...so far.  And it's not done yet.  Sure, we can change our behavior to "flatten the curve."  This might prevent overwhelming our health care system but the infection will continue to spread, albeit more slowly, and run its deadly and disruptive course.  We can do some things to impact the virus but as Dr. Fauci continually says, "The virus is in charge."

Maybe it's my age, maybe it's just how I think but reflecting on the virus-induced pandemic quickly brings me to my ultimate loss of control, death.  I know I will die but how and especially when are hidden.  People sometimes say that it is in the hands of God but I don't really believe that.  I have had too many friends and relatives die too soon and too painfully to think that God's hands had anything to do with it.  No, death and especially my death is certain but far from under anyone's control.  It would be silly to pray to the Divine One to avoid death or even a painful death.  Like all things in life, death happens.  It just happens.  The Divine One is not a director sitting before a heavenly control board making instant micro-decisions about the lives of billions of people.

I do not believe that the Divine One intervenes in human existence to heal people, to divert hurricanes, to conquer enemies, to protect the weak and vulnerable, to advantage believers or punish sinners.  All that work is up to us, unfortunately.  But I do believe that the Divine One is an active presence in our world who holds the key to eternal life.  I believe that the Divine One wants to engage with me, to enter my life at a fundamental level and change me into the being I was always meant to be, a child of the Divine One, destined to enter eternal life.  The only thing in my life over which I have control is whether or not to accept that offer of life.  Everything else about life and about my life is accidental.

If you are a bit confused about all this, so am I.  My project is a lifelong one.  How can I connect with the Divine in a way that is real?  This has been the question I have been trying to answer my whole life.  Sometimes it has been a quest hidden, even from me.  At other times it has been out in the open, obvious and intentional.  I have tried many different methods.  Childhood prayers and beliefs, highly devotional practices, Baltimore Catechism, Scripture reading and reflection, philosophy, meditation, contemplation, retreats, graduate study in theology, even a monastic experience.  Most of them worked for a while but none became a consistent part of my journey.  I would get a taste, a glimpse.  It was enough to keep me coming back again and again.  Here I am in the time of the pandemic trying again.

Here are my three conclusions.  First I need to sit quietly as reality flows around me without engaging with the thoughts and images that are unavoidable in that flow.  This requires me to set aside some time--15-20 minutes--in a quiet place away from distractions.  While this is often difficult and frustrating, it is the only way for me to be in the now.  This is often called meditation or contemplation.  I have done this off and on for the past 35 years but have never been able to maintain a constant practice.  It is not a question of disciplining myself to adhere to this practice.  I just need to attend to what moves me deeply.

Second, this meditation prepares me to pray.  My prayer is simple.  I ask the Divine One to intervene in my life, not to change my circumstances--see the list in the prayer above--but to intervene in my life by filling me with the grace to accept fully and completely the spirit of the Divine One.  The spirit changes me at a fundamental level into a child of the Divine One filled with divine life.  As a child, it seemed simple.  If I were a good boy and followed all the rules, said the right prayers and gave the right answers, I would go to Heaven when I died.  As I grew older, things became more complex but the central bargain remained:  be a good boy and you get God's favor.  In fact, it was just the opposite.  All those things I thought I had to do to be in God's good graces--things like ethical behavior, almsgiving, church membership, caring for those in need--did not cause my life in the Divine One.  It is the other way around.  The divine life within me bears the fruit of those behaviors.  Mercy, justice, and charity are natural to human beings once they have discovered who they really are and accept that.

Third, my spiritual reading has changed over the last few years.  When I studied theology, I focused on dogma, social justice, sacraments.  Now I turn more to evangelical theologians because of their grounding in scripture, especially the New Testament.  The essence of Christianity is all right there in the gospels, epistles and other books of the New Testament.  Elegant and abstract theological propositions have become more of an obstacle for me.  Just reading the gospels and epistles affects me in ways it had not before.  In some ways, this reminds me of Ignatius.  While recovering from serious wounds suffered in the Battle of Pamplona, he began to read the only books available:  scripture and especially a Life of Christ.  He began to change in ways that radically changed his life.

I am not sure what to make of all this.  Maybe this is another period of quiet meditation and reflection and may not last beyond the isolation of the pandemic.  Maybe it will continue long after that as part of my everyday life.  I pray that it does but I have prayed that before.  So the pilgrimage continues.  I look forward to sharing that pilgrimage with you again in the future.

How, exactly, can I "listen" to God?

Spent aspen leaves hanging on. 

Then Eli understood that the LORD was calling the youth.

So Eli said to Samuel, “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply,

‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’”

When Samuel went to sleep in his place,

the LORD came and revealed his presence,

calling out as before, “Samuel, Samuel!”

Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”   1 Sam 3

Samuel's mother, Hannah, had dedicated him to the Lord and taken him to live in the temple under the tutelage of Eli.  As the boy was sleeping, he was awakened by a voice calling his name.  Thinking it was Eli, he went woke the old man only to be told to go back to sleep.  Eventually after this was repeated a couple of times, Eli realized what was going on and told Samuel what we read above.  "Speak, for your servant is listening."  Roman Catholics often hear these words in the Mass just before the Gospel is proclaimed.

What can that possibly mean for me?  How do I listen to the Holy One?  What is it that I think I might hear?  I think it unlikely that I would somehow hear complete sentences that provided me with clear direction or understanding.  If that were to happen, I honestly think my sanity would be suspect.  People who hear disembodied voices tend to have severe emotional issues.  This only happened to me once and that was during my month long stay at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky.  I was awakened in the early morning by what I experienced as a voice saying "Do it."  Without any clear reference for "it," it made little sense.  Was this the Divine One telling me something?  But what exactly?  Was this a generalized call to "do?"  That didn't make much sense.  The only meaning I could come up with was that I should join the Trappists but that made the least sense of all for a man with seven children, four of what would become 17 grandchildren, and a large extended family.  Whatever it was, I concluded it was not the Divine One talking to me.

Some people say that God is present to them, perhaps even speaking to them, in nature or in the good acts of people or in the smiles of young children or the wisdom of the elderly.  But then what about natural disasters or the evil acts of people or the tears of abandoned children or the elderly.  And on and on.  If the Divine One speaks to us in "good and beautiful" things then how does the Divine One speaks to us in the "evil and ugly" things of life?  If the Divine One is the source of all life, as I believe, then the Divine One is in everything and thus arguably speaks to us in everything that happens including the things that are hard, difficult, ugly, unjust even despicable.  

In reading Thomas Keating, I came upon these lines in The Human Condition,

Contemplative prayer is a deepening of faith that moves beyond thoughts and concepts.  One just listens to God, open and receptive to the divine presence in one's inmost being as its source.  One listens not with a view to hearing something, but with a view to becoming aware of the obstacles to one's friendship with God. (25)

If this is true, then listening to God opens us to awareness of our own deepest sense of self with a particular emphasis on those aspects of our self which make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for us to draw close to the Divine One.  Those aspects have been summed up as our "false self" by Keating, Thomas Merton and other spiritual writers.  For me, the biggest obstacle is my need/desire to live a life of order and control, a life where I am in charge.  When things do not go my way, I can become frustrated and agitated.  These can be small things like a disorderly room, a minor car accident, being late for an appointment.  or they can be major things life death, illness, financial uncertainty.  

Perhaps we listen to the Divine One by becoming aware of those aspects of our self that keep us from experiencing life and other people on their own terms rather than on our schedule or needs.  So listening to the Divine One may be as simple and as challenging as listening deeply to myself.

 

Means or end?

Maroon Bells Colorado

Sometimes I think of the Catholic Church as a massive, dominating, and unchanging reality much like these two 14,000 foot peaks just outside Aspen.  I feel small, insignificant and inconsequential in its presence.  However much I desire that it change or even how much I desire to change it, it is impervious to my desires or efforts.  On the other hand, sometimes I feel part of a community of people who share beliefs and friendship and even a sense of faith about reality and about the Divine One.  Even in those times, however, the monolithic institutional church feels distant and unapproachable.  

Unfortunately the statements, policies and actions from the church come from that granite-like institution.  The people who lead the church go to great lengths to set themselves apart from us, the regular everyday members.  They dress differently, hold important offices, are not accountable other than to themselves, and actually understand themselves as radically different from the baptized faithful.  The teaching on the ontological change wrought by ordination explains this misguided notion.  (If you click this link to a Vatican document, search for ontological and you will see the relevant paragraph.)  

All of the above creates a dual reality for the church.  There is the official, institutional church with all its paraphernalia and authoritative teaching and there is the day to day life lived by ordinary, baptized Christians.  While I have spent most of my life studying the former, I know that it is the latter that is the more important.  Jesus didn't teach doctrine or creeds.  He taught in word and deed a way of life to which he called his followers.  

This way of life wasn't new.  The belief system of Jesus was thoroughly Jewish and he drew on that tradition when he articulated the basics of his call:  love the Divine One and love your neighbor as yourself.  He not only taught this in parables and conversation but he also gave powerful examples by being with those considered to be sinful or corrupt by his community.  His call to love was not in any way exclusive but racially inclusive.  The institution that grew up around his followers was probably inevitable but unfortunately over time it eclipsed this radical call to live a different kind of life than the one which seemed normal and expected by what Jesus and Paul called "the world."

The Catholic Church and indeed any church is not and cannot be the end of a life of a religious life but a means to that life.  It may be a necessary and at times an important means but by itself it is not enough.  The focus has to be on the way of life.  It was not an accident that the early followers of Jesus the Christ referred to themselves as followers  of "the Way."

I need to spend a lot less time and energy on the means--the church--and more on the end--living the Way of Christ.

A New Year and a new beginning

First light in Grand canyon from Yavapai Point

Taking a photo of a sunrise can be tricky.  At first you want to capture the sun coming up over the eastern horizon but that can result in what has become a hackneyed image often devoid of context.  Eventually you realize that looking away back to the west provides a much more interesting image.  In the above photo, one can see the first light on the sun in the Grand Canyon as it illuminates the northern rim.  There is enough ambient light so that the details of the canyon and the Colorado River become visible.  So sometimes we can get more information by looking away so we can see and experience the impact of something on its environment.

I begin 2020 with this in mind as I think about my relationship to the Roman Catholic Church.  2019 has been a difficult year for me and the church, nationally and locally.  No need to catalog the issues that plague the church of my upbringing except to say that the lack of accountability to the members of the church by its leaders on every level can be infuriating and debilitating.  It certainly was for me.

I actively investigated membership in other Christian denominations.  I found much that was important and attractive but in the end I couldn't get myself to leave the Catholic tradition.  So I am committed to membership in my local parish and will continue to support it and indirectly my diocese and the Roman Church.  I wish I could withhold my financial support to the last two without penalizing my local parish but that is not possible given the organizational format of the Roman Church.

I am under no illusion that remaining in the church, participating in weekly worship, serving as a lector, volunteering in social ministry, and generally being a "good parishioner" will address my need for spiritual enrichment.  Indeed what I have learned during my year of prayer and discernment is that church membership is a necessary but far from sufficient condition for a vital faith.  My spirituality vitality is a function of my personal relationship with the Divine One.

This blog for 2020 will focus on just that, my personal relationship with the Divine One.  Sometimes this will seem in perfect concert with the institutional church and sometimes it will seem completely out of sync with that institution.  I look forward to diving into those waters and sharing my insights with those who find their way to this blog.

It would be so much easier if heaven were in heaven

Garden fountains at Longwood Gardens

20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed,21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”  Luke 17:20-21

 As a child I was taught the fundamentals of Christianity--in school, at church and at home--in a way appropriate to a child.  Be a good boy and later man and I would enter heaven (the kingdom of God) when I died.  The definition of "good" was not left to chance.  There were a set of rules that provided guidance of how to live a good life.  There were the Ten Commandments and explications thereof.  They largely told me what not to do; they told me what sins were so I could avoid them.  Honoring my mother and father and recognizing God always seemed easy enough.  Not stealing and telling truth were sometimes challenging but understandable.  Adultery and coveting people and stuff didn't make much sense but no harm, no foul.  There was another set--the Commandments of the Church--that specified obligations related to the Church and the Sacraments.  Frankly they seemed innocuous and easy enough.

Once puberty arrived, all that coveting stuff took on new relevance.  While adultery seemed out of the question at the time, other sexual sins were certainly on the table.  What had started out as a more or less reasonable set of rules became pretty much the sole focus of my religious education and formation.  Now, getting into heaven was serious business and not to be taken for granted.  Over time a grand bargain took shape.  Follow the rules about personal and especially sexual behavior and you would go to heaven where you would be perfectly and eternally happy.  Increasingly, "being good" became over focused on personal and sexual behavior.

As I matured, got married, fathered seven children, raised them, got divorced, changed professions, remarried, became a grandfather, I bit by bit came to the realization that the "grand bargain" was a lot more complicated and challenging than simply being a good boy and then getting into heaven.  As I began to read the gospels and to study them, I began to realize that Jesus wasn't so much talking about heaven to come as the kingdom.  Rather he was calling his followers to live their lives in the kingdom right here and right now.  Heaven or the kingdom was a way of life that we are called to create in our daily life.  More to the point, it is not just our daily personal lives but the communal life of societies and political entities.  If this social aspect is not recognized, we end up with perversions of the Christian message, like the one that justified slavery in this country or that led church leadership to bow down before Hitler and the Third Reich.

Certainly Jesus did not have a political--let alone a partisan agenda--but he did have a way of life agenda that extended before our families and our face to face communities.  The Sermon on the Mount, the story of the Good Samaritan, and the lesson of the sheep and goats makes clear that Christian are called to created a way of living that exemplifies these values of simply taking care of each other and especially those who are different, isolated, marginalized, discriminated against.  In short, those who are not like us. 

As we begin to do that--unreservedly and without qualification--we begin to build the kingdom of God right here, the only place we know for sure it counts.  If we don't do that, no amount of personal rectitude makes any difference or any sense.

Potential for a dangerous misinterpretation

Before sunrise

He also told them, "Take care what you hear.
The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you, 
and still more will be given to you.
To the one who has, more will be given; from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away."  Mark 4:24-25

These less than direct sayings of Jesus are repeated in the gospels of Luke and Matthew.  It is therefore pretty clear that the earliest Christian communities took them as authentic sayings of Jesus the Christ.  Our modern ears are tempted to pass over these sayings without giving them much attention.  They seem to be saying that the rich get richer which strikes us as inconsistent with the overall message of Jesus.  And, it is.  So what is going on here?

Perhaps as 21st century Americans, we are primed to think that we are masters of our fate.  To our ears, it makes perfect sense to think that what we do determines what the Divine One does.  Whatever measure we use is the measure that the Divine One uses.  The text does not specify what is being measured.  Nor does it specify what one has in the final verse.  If we reflect from within the context of the full message of Jesus, we quickly realize that we cannot determine or even condition the way that the Divine One relates to us.  If we can determine divine behavior then the Divine One that we thus conceive cannot be divine, cannot be God.  Quite the opposite.  The central message of Jesus is grace.  Our faith and salvation is pure, unmerited grace, a gift freely and fully offered by the Divine One regardless of our acceptance or rejection.

Indeed the measure we use to measure others will match the measure the Divine One uses to measure us, not because our measure causes the divine measure but exactly the opposite.  The divine measure--accepted fully by us--will be reflected in the measure we use to measure others.  That is why more will be given, no matter how much has been given because the source is inexhaustible and limited only by our capacity to accept.  Using a more familiar term may be helpful.  Our generosity towards others will be a reflection of the generosity of the Divine One toward us to the extent that we accept that generosity.  This generosity buds and blossoms in our lives naturally the way fruit buds and blossoms in an orchard.

Which comes first: forgiveness or acceptance?

Bonaventure Cemetery outside Savannah GA

Some scribes who were Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinners
and tax collectors and said to his disciples,
"Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?"
Jesus heard this and said to them,
"Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."  Mark 2:16-17

This little story about the earliest stage in the ministry of Jesus holds particular meaning for those of us who are Christians in 21st century America.  These few lines are significant because they present to different, even contradictory, approaches to living a life of faithfulness.  The scholars who question the disciples are members of a sect of Jews we have come to know as Pharisees.  We don't know a lot about this sect.  It was not a large group.  It did not have all that much influence.  Its power was based on its approach to a righteous life which focused on detailed compliance with the rules and regulations of religious practice.  Jesus once criticized them for laying heavy burdens of observance on ordinary people.  They were particularly concerned with the laws of purity and the necessity of living within a community of believers and excluding non-believers.

They were scandalized by Jesus' insistence on fellowship with a diverse set of people, especially non-Jews, publicly recognized sinners like prostitutes and tax collectors, lepers and others concerned unclean, and the poor and imprisoned.  This was made even worse by his failure to abide by rules of ritual purity and the sabbath.  His very existence and life was an affront to the central self identity of the Pharisees.  While the Pharisees sought to influence people through their detailed and rule-based religious observance, Jesus was generating a large following by seemingly living in direct opposition to their rules and judgments.  His popularity was an indictment of their core principles.  This dynamic helps me understand the intensity of their opposition to Jesus, culminating in his death.  He was a threat to their existence.

So there are two approaches to living a righteous life.  The first focuses on rules and regulations and a life enclosed within a community of "true believers."  The other focuses on relationships with all kinds of people and does not make "righteousness" a requirement of fellowship and acceptance.  It was not the case that Jesus was sharing table fellowship with former sinners and tax collectors.  He clearly intended to all include all especially those who were "sick" and just those who were well.  The love of his father was not exclusive and he was intent on living a life that reflected that all inclusive love.

During my lifetime, Catholicism in the United States has grown from a "ghetto" religion into one squarely in the mainstream of American culture.  That transition is a challenge and is on-going.  It is easier to maintain your identity within a community of like-minded true believers but that is not the world into which we are called to be disciples.  How to maintain our identity and spontaneity in a world whose values are inimical to ours is our central challenge.  The message of Jesus, to me at least, is not to turn our backs on the world and retreat into closed communities but rather to trust the inclusive love of the Divine One.

Don't just stand there. Do something!

Discovery Cube, Orange County Science Center

By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said,
"This is a deserted place and it is already very late. 
Dismiss them so that they can go 
to the surrounding farms and villages
and buy themselves something to eat." 
He said to them in reply,
"Give them some food yourselves."   Mark 6:35-37

 As Jesus and his disciples sought to get away by themselves, people from the region figured out where they were headed and they found a huge crowd waiting for them.  Jesus looked at these people and " had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things."  The content of his teaching is not included but we surely know that he taught the message described in 1 John 3:23-24.

"[They]...should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit that he gave us."

 And further that Spirit is love as John makes clear in today's first reading.

This passage describes one of the miracles or wonders performed by Jesus.  This miracle tends to obscure the fundamental message of the story and the reason why we can still read it today with some sense of relevance to our own lives.  Admittedly the miracles of Jesus have always been a problem for me.  It seems so unlikely that Jesus, living as a fully human person, could cause all these physical miracles and cures.  Yet Christians believe that he is fully divine.  Stories such as this one are often cited as proof of the divinity of Jesus the Christ.  If they are all true, it seems hard to deny that there was something supernatural about this person.  Multiplying a few loaves and fish to feed a crowd of more than 5,000 seems pretty strong evidence.  Yet, it did not convince Jesus' contemporaries.  There were still plenty of people, arguably the vast majority, who did not recognize him as Messiah, let alone as the Son of God, whatever that might have meant to them. 

There are two questions here.  Do I have to believe these stories as historically accurate in order to be a Christian.  Second, what is the message of this passage for me today?  I have been reading Dynamics of Faith (1957) by Paul Tillich, one of the major Christian theologians of the 20th Century.  According to Tillich, "faith is the state of being ultimately concerned:  the dynamics of faith are the dynamics of humanity's ultimate concern."  The language of faith deal with symbols, images that express the ultimate concern of human beings.  The language of faith is not historically accurate narrative, scientific analysis, or philosophical reasoning.  Faith is about stories and images that convey the ultimate concerns, concerns that take precedence over other concerns.  As others have pointed out, the historicity of biblical stories is, respectfully, beside the point.  The stories tells us what our predecessors in the faith have believed, what they have held as ultimate concerns.  So I can have my doubts about the miracles and still be a committed Christian.  I can also fully accept the historicity of the biblical narratives and be a committed Christian but not because I believe the stories.  Faith comes from a different place.

So what does this story tell me about the ultimate concern of Jesus, what is he trying to tell me today about my ultimate concern?  It is pretty straightforward.  When I see people in need, I need to do more than just point out the problem and hope that someone will respond.  I need to do something about it.  I may be and feel inadequate to the task but that doesn't get me off the hook.  Doing something, anything, gives shape and reality to my compassion.  And that is what Jesus is trying to point out in this story.

Compassion, not anger

First light in the Grand Canyon

This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.  1 John 3:16-17  Translation from The Message Bible  Daily Lectionary Readings

 At its core, the Christian message is simple.  If I have means and advantages and I see others in need because they do not have those, I am called to compassion and appropriate action.  If I do not, then the love of God disappears from my life because I have closed my self to the Divine's One unending offer of love and life.  This seems straightforward enough when it comes to those caught in poverty or discrimination.  But what about those who are called "the left behind?"

These are the people whose education, skills, and opportunities have not prepared them for the economic realities of the 21st century in America.  They are the ones who assumed that manufacturing jobs would be there for them as they were for their parents and grandparents and now find that the global economy has shifted those jobs beyond their reach.  They have consolidated their isolation and desperation into a political voice that has elected a President who promises a return to the way things used to be and who has demonized migrants and those who are not "real Americans" as the scapegoats for these difficulties.

As someone who came from a lower middle class working family, I find anger rising in me.  My father made clear to me and my siblings that we were going to college so we would be better off than he was.  He harbored no illusions that we, especially his sons, should follow his steps into a well paying job as a mechanic in the local electric utility.  H and my mother sacrificed to send us to excellent high schools and then on to college.  It was not easy for them but they understood what they wanted for their children.  I honestly feel resentment toward those who had the same opportunities open to them but who failed to take advantage of them and I specifically mean white males.  (Being female or African American meant that you did not have the same opportunities.)  I feel resentment when they and their children now demand special accommodations because the world didn't turn out the way they anticipated or hoped it would.  I get particularly upset when they blame the very people who did not these same opportunities:  African-Americans, women, and more recently Latinos.

And yet, my Christian faith calls me to compassion not anger or resentment.  I continue to struggle with this.

My body, my life

Hike in Abraham Lincoln Park, Rochester NY

I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this agebut be transformed by the renewal of your mind,that you may discern what is the will of God,what is good and pleasing and perfect. Rom 12:1-2

These two verses from Romans encapsulate the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Unfortunately this translation used by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in the lectionary used in the U.S. uses a literal rather than an idiomatic translation for "your bodies."  Most translations use "your lives" as a more accurate rendering of the underlying meaning.  For the Jews of the first century, there was no distinction between "you" and "your body."  An alive body was the reality of an alive person.  When the early Christians professed a belief in the "resurrection of the body," they were professing a belief in the resurrection of the person into eternal life.  This confusion over "body" and "life" has led to a great deal of angst about what our bodies would look like, where in the universe would we be embodied, etc.  The fact is that Jesus talked about life, not bodies, and promised eternal life.

Unfortunately this use of "body" in this passage can send us into a state of inattention.  We have heard all this before about how we have to sacrifice our body because the body with its ever present danger of uncontrolled sexual desire and behavior is what keeps us from the Holy One and a life of discipleship.  How different it is to consider offering our life to the Holy One so that we are transformed by a new way of thinking that does not force us into the mold of our contemporary culture.  With this new way of thinking, we can, perhaps for the first time, think about what the Divine One desires for us and our lives.

The kingdom of heaven is like....

Waiting

The kingdom of heaven is like....  Mt 13:44

The 13th chapter of Matthew's gospel is known as the Parable Discourse.  It is a series of parables that all begin with the words quoted above:  "The kingdom of heaven is like" a sower, pearl of great price, a field with a treasure, a field with both wheat and weeds, yeast, mustard seed, etc.  Although the early parables are spoken to crowds that contain both disciples and those who are not, especially the Jewish authorities of various sorts, the later ones are spoken only to the disciples and the great explanation of the parable of the sower is only for the disciples, i.e. those who believe.

Those who have ears to hear and eyes to see will understand the message.  But those who are insulated from new understandings by their engagement with the old will not understand no matter if they hear and they see.  If one comes to Jesus without preconceptions and without unchangeable notions of how things are, one will understand his message.  One will understand what he means by the Kingdom of Heaven.

It seems to me that the Kingdom of Heaven is the reality that is hidden in the "world" and yet provides the ultimate meaning of my life in the world.  It is difficult, though not impossible, to arrive at such a conclusion or one very much like it by focusing on the world and my experience in it.  But the great wisdom men and women of the human tradition have always tried to share their insights with us.  Erich Fromm summarized that wisdom in his conclusion that each of us have to make a fundamental choice or our stance toward life.  His question was simple:  What is most important to us:  to have or to be?  His review of those he called the Great Masters of Living concluded that a full and satisfying human life came from a "being" rather than a "having" orientation.  He included Jesus in this group along with Moses, Marx, Mohamed, Buddha, Freud and others.

The good news of Jesus goes well beyond this important understanding, however.  Jesus was not just concerned with the quality of human life as it unfolds but with life everlasting to which he invited us all.  Most the parables end with a description of the "end of the age" when the angels will sort out the righteous from the evil people with the latter consigned to everlasting fire and the former to everlasting life.

Jesus invites us to consider that there is something of vital importance hidden in our lives as they unfold in the world.  It is everlasting life.  Do we hear and understand?

Healing miracles...what to make of them?

Sumac blooms along the Erie Canal

While Jesus was speaking, an official came forward,knelt down before him, and said,"My daughter has just died.But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live."Jesus rose and followed him, and so did his disciples.A woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind himand touched the tassel on his cloak.She said to herself, "If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured."Jesus turned around and saw her, and said,"Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you."And from that hour the woman was cured.  Mt 9:18-22

The readings from Matthew this past week have been filled with stories of Jesus healing people including bringing them back from the dead and with stories of his casting out devils and demons.  These stories are well attested in the canonical gospels as well as other gospels and contemporaneous accounts.  Clearly the early Christian communities knew of and believed in the ability of Jesus to cure and give life.  That these were expected signs of the Messiah does not undercut the accuracy of these accounts.  In fact, today's gospel in Matthew 10 says that Jesus bestowed this power on the apostles as well.

What am I to make of these stories?  How do they fit into my own faith and spiritual life?  When I was younger, it was easy enough to find "natural explanations" for these healings but that misses the point.  The primary miracle, if you will, is the incarnation.  If I believe that the Divine One was incarnated as the human Jesus and that he was fully human and fully divine, what's a few healings and exorcisms.  It is the incarnation that is important for me and my life.

If the Divine One became accessible as a human being, it was to show us how to live a life that would lead to eternal union with the source of all life.  The path he called us to follow is not one that has no difficulties, pain, suffering and ultimately death.  No amount of righteous living can result in a life devoid of these human realities.  The simple rule of Jesus was that we are to love others--even our enemies--as ourselves.  His life demonstrates that such way of living does not eliminate pain and suffering but rather the opposite.  Such a life will bring us into a radical conflict with the world and its values and will result in our crucifixtion in small or large ways depending on our life and the extent to which our life threatens the world and the "powers that be."  This is what happened to Jesus and surely the same fate awaits us if we have courage enough to live out our values in the midst of a culture that encourages just the opposite.

Cognitive dissonance is the fountain of learning.

Wetlands in Tinker Park, Henrietta NY

Blessed are all who fear the LORD,and who walk in his ways.
What your hands provide you will enjoy; you will be blessed and prosper:
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your home,Your children like young olive plants around your table.
Just so will the man be blessed who fears the LORD.
May the LORD bless you from Zion; may you see Jerusalem’s prosperity all the days of your life,
and live to see your children’s children.  Peace upon Israel!  Psalm 128

Sometimes the comforting words of scripture come into a profound conflict with our life experience.  Most of the time I, at least, just try not to think about it because it is uncomfortable.  "Cognitive dissonance" is a term used to describe this situation.  "In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values."  (Wikipedia)  It is uncomfortable because something has to give.  Either one belief is accepted and the other rejected or both are changed to eliminate the contradiction.

Psalm 128 is the responsorial psalm in today's liturgy.  It presents a comforting thought:  If I fear the Lord and walk in his ways, I will prosper.  It is a scene of domestic tranquility and peace that is very appealing.  There is, however, another truth.  During the 20th century about 2 billion human beings lost their lives to wars, infectious diseases and famine.  It is reasonable to assume that these victims had nothing to do with these disasters that befell them.  They were victims in the truest sense of the word.  Their faithfulness to their religious traditions could hardly have had anything to do with their fate.

How can one hold both of these realities at the same time?  How can one resolve what appears to be fundamental contradiction?  One thing is certain:  to ignore this and pretend that there is no contradiction does not help very much.  This presents an opportunity of coming to a deeper understanding of my relationship with the Divine One and my role in the world.