Putting Our Shadow Where it Belongs...

My family has a tradition of watching National Lampoons Christmas Vacation around Christmas time, and if you haven't seen it I recommend checking it out at least once.  Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't, all depends on your personal tastes.  This isn't a review, I have another blog for that.  This is more about what occurred to me as I viewed the film.

The central character is Clark Griswald, a loving father and husband who works very hard to provide for his family, and in general a very kind man.  While some of his kindness is begruding, its still there amid the complaining.  He could easily give into his own selfishness on multiple occasions but he pushes through because at his core he's a good person.

His major character flaw is a sense of entitlement he has.  He wants the best for his family, and a major plot point revolves around his expected Christmas bonus.  He feels entitled to this extra money at the end of the calender year and has, in fact, already spent it.  This character flaw actually bothered me when I first viewed the film, this weird sense of entitlement, that he deserves something he didn't earn.  It took me a while to figure out why it hit me son close to home and why it was so terribly irritating.  Its because it reminded me of...me.

I know a lot of my generation, myself included, struggles with that sense of entitlement, and most psychologist will tell you that you get irritated with negative traits people posses that remind you of yourself, because deep down we don't like facing our own faults, our personal darkness.

However facing our flaws is essential to our spiritual growth.  Our flaws don't define us, but because we spend time dwelling on them we think they do.  Our flaws, rather, are a road map to get closer to God.

Things like entitlement are very childish.  In the film Griswald throws a temper tantrum and in our weaker moments we do to.  Our selfishness leads to anger and disappointment when we don't get what we want and when we let that dictate our moods we become as children, without control of our emotions.  Look at 1st Corinthians 11-13 "11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known."

A mirror darkly.  That selfish child we have lying inside us, that is our dark, sinful self.  We have to examine ourselves, not to wallow in self effacing guilt but to overcome the part of us that holds us back from God.  Turn away from that sinful you, turn to the light of God.  When you know your darkness and push it behind you, not within you but behind you, you face the light of God.

Let us help each other to make this a year of renewal, and show that through is this world can know the love of Jesus.

Thank you for reading, and God bless you.

Beginning the Journey: Part 1-The Prodigial Son

Going over what I've shared up until now, I realized that I'd never told you how all of this got started in the first place.  This is not an easy story for me to tell, but if it helps to share, then share I shall.

Whenever I speak to folks about God’s plan in life, I always tell them “God doesn’t take you where you want to go, but sends you where you need to be.”  Those words come not just from years of studying, but from my own personal experience.  In the summer of 2008 I was living in Corpus Christi, Texas, a delicate gem of a city on the gulf coast, and I was at an all-time low, both professionally and personally.  After seven years of law enforcement, I was not handling the strain very well, and I had just broken up with a woman I thought I was going to be with for the rest of my life.  Through all of this I felt myself drifting away from God, and that September, I followed the advice of some friends of mine and joined them in Bellingham, Washington, 2000 miles away from everything that reminded me of my troubles.  I gave my two weeks’ notice, cashing in all the money I had saved up, sold my truck, packed up my bags and headed to the Pacific Northwest.  At the time I didn’t know what God wanted out of me, and I frankly did not care.  I didn’t care about anything.

Arriving in Washington, it was a nice change of pace.  Things were slower; I had far fewer personal or professional responsibilities.  Granted the fact that I had no social life and no job had a lot to do with that, but it gave me time to walk and to think about what I really wanted out of life.  I tried going back to church.  Being raised Missouri Synod Lutheran; it had always been reinforced in my life how important a church family is, so I tried out the local Missouri Synod church up there.  I didn’t care for it.  I went in there a complete stranger, and felt like I left exactly the same way.  So I went to the local Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) and found it a lot more welcoming, but there was something just not right, not clicking for me.  It didn’t help that I found myself in a job I did not like at all, flipping burgers at a local restaurant.  All of my high and mighty law enforcement experience hadn’t paid off like I thought it would.  I could not, for the life of me, shake the funk I was in.

So I prayed.  I prayed for guidance, for some kind of message that would tell me what I needed to do.  In praying, I realized how far off of God’s path I had wandered, because when I was younger I could talk to God like he was an old friend.  Now it was like I didn’t know him at all.  But he came to me in the form of friends.  The few friends I had made when I was up there, would point out “You talk about Texas all the time, why not go back.  We like you, but we know you’re not happy here.  We love you, go home.”

It became very clear to me that this was, in fact, the direction God wanted me on now.  Almost as soon as I booked my plane ticket, I received a phone call from a friend still living in Texas stating that he had a car lined up for me.  It wasn’t anything fancy but it would get me around town.  I stopped at my aunt’s house, who lived in Seattle, to visit before my flight left and, that night I got a message from a friend of my family’s stating that she had a job lined up for me at the daycare attached to the church my parents went to.  Already my life was shaping up to be at least 60% better just by turning myself around and following the direction God wanted me on.

When I arrived in Texas, I once again found myself conflicted.  Here was the only real home I’d known for the majority of my life, but here too were all the problems I’d left behind.  I didn’t know how to feel about my return.  I was thankful and grateful to have a job and a car, but nagging doubt told me that I had just came back right where I started from, that I hadn’t made any progress at all.

It was here that God gave me something else to ponder, a different struggle to face off with.  The pastor at our church, a man not far off from me in age, one who had helped me as much as he could during my turbulent times, was called to another church.  This calling offered him enormous opportunity to spread the word and he accepted it graciously.  Thus we were left in a church that had no pastor, which is as functional as a ship with no captain.  The crew knows what to do to keep the ship running, but that’s not much use when you don’t know where to go.  To compound the matter, we couldn’t afford a new pastor, our previous one made ends meet by working as a DJ for a local radio station.  Pastors from other churches stepped forward to lend a hand and a voice, but they could not truly lead our congregation.

This isn’t the challenge God laid before me though.  I believe firmly that he did not want me to suddenly jump up and go to seminary, but He did want me to teach His word, to have an open dialog with others about God’s grace and the power of faith.  One Sunday morning, we were expecting a pastor from San Antonio to come and preach, but he suffered a car accident on the way and would not be in attendance.  I was on the elder’s committee and we discussed what to do next.  I said, “I’ll take today’s sermon.”  I still have no idea what I was thinking.  I’ve spoken before groups approximately one time prior in my entire life, and certainly hadn’t prepared anything.  I had an hour to figure out what I was going to say, an hour to prepare a sermon from scratch and deliver it before a group of people who knew me literally my whole life.  Some of them were at my baptism when I was an infant.  So to say there was some pressure there would be a gross understatement.

So I sat in the pastor’s vacant office with a yellow legal pad while the rest attended Bible study and I prayed.  “What, God, do you want me to say today?  What do you need them to hear?”

I had two words written on the page by the time my hour was up, “Prodigal Son.”  A Bible story that I’d heard my whole life, but had taken on new meaning for me over the course of the last year.  So I stood at the pulpit, hands wet with sweat, looking out at a small sea of faces.  I could feel my heart thumping in my chest.  I took a deep breath, channeled everything I’d learned in high school about public speaking, and I could feel a presence, something that felt like it was beside me and around me, like a comforting hand on my shoulder.  It propelled me forward, and I started to speak.  I spoke about my own personal journey, about the perspective that it had given me to our relationship with God when we go astray, and how no matter how far we go from Him, all we have to do is turn around and He’ll be there, waiting with a smile and open arms, because every day, in our own very special ways, we are that prodigal son.  This was not a polished sermon by any stretch of the imagination, but it was unfiltered and honest, and it resonated with the congregation.  For the first time in my living memory people actually talked about what was said on Sunday morning well into the next week.

That led me to a new ministry within the church.  We called it “Mobile Ministry”, where I would write up weekly Bible studies and e-mail them to anyone who was interested so they had something to carry through the week, to learn from and discuss with others.  I changed careers, got back into law enforcement and as I talked with my co-workers I learned of their various personal struggles and we addressed that in Mobile Ministry.  During this time I also spoke a few more times, only with better prepared sermons in hand.  I will never really know how much those listening to me took with them as they left and I suppose it is better that way in the long run.  The church is gone, the Ministry has faded away into a dusty, unused blog somewhere on the internet, but those lessons I still carry and I pass on as much as I can as I look to the next road God wants me to take.

Next time…Part 2: Finding a Home.

Its a LOT more complicated than that...

By faith, we live in the world but don't have to be of the world.  We exist living in a place that is fallen and tired, and sinful, but we are called by Christ to come out of that place, and that's not always easy.  Not everyone makes it out.

Obviously this blog is about my journey into becoming a member of the Catholic Church and, it was inevitable that I would have to talk about the various scandals that have loomed over the organization for the years.  The chief among them is, without about, the accusations leveled against various priests concerning the sexual abuse of young children.

A friend of mine, Brian Sweeny, recently shared on his Facebook page a clip from an interview with Billy Connolly, a popular actor and comedian.  In the clip he is asked about his relationship with the Catholic Church.  He naturally addressed the child sex abuse scandal and he stated that he does not have a relationship with the Catholic Church anymore for that and various other reasons.  I’m going to refer to Billy Connolly again in a little bit so stay tuned.

Now, I cannot and will not belittle the sex scandal, the actions, the events, or the victims.  That’s not what this is about.  I won’t justify the actions of the church other than to say that before they could take action it was their duty and responsibility to investigate each allegation for what it was.  This is actually where my criminal law background comes into play because that is the lens I have to look at it through.  I have no choice, I’m in too deep (in criminal law).

I cannot take any accusation at face value.  I have to wait for the investigation to prove, disprove, or remain inconclusive.  If the investigation proves inconclusive, then the law has no choice but to side with the defendant, because you are considered innocent UNTIL PROVEN guilty.  They are an organization over 2000 years old, so they are accustomed to handling problems behind closed doors.  Its just that these incidents were reported in an era that the church, I think, was not prepared for.  The era of the internet where every opinion was taken as absolute regardless of what actual facts said.  That, I think more than anything, colored the views of those who cried foul on the church.

That’s not to say that the church did everything right in regards to the scandal, but the actions of these priests, and those that actually made an effort to cover it up, these were not the actions of the church but of individuals.  I cannot hold the body of faith responsible for the actions of men.  Let me give you an example from my life.

While attending the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, we had a pastor that, frankly was questionable.  Our church oversaw a day care and it was later discovered that he had child pornography on his computer, in his office, at the church.  Well, question answered.  I personally never trusted the man, but that was my gut instinct, not based on any facts that I had.  He was removed from his office at the church, I don’t know if there were any criminal charges filed, and he’s no longer endorse by the Lutheran Church, but he’s still a pastor.  He may not have a congregation, but officially he’s still a pastor.

So, was justice served?  I don’t personally think so, but I also don’t know what was found during the investigation.  I also don’t hold God responsible for the actions of this man.  I’m very big on personal responsibility.  The priests who conducted these terrible acts on children, I hold them personally responsible for their actions.  The people who covered it up, I hold them personally responsible for their actions.  You know who also holds these people personally responsible for their actions?  God.  They sooner or later, are going to have to square up with God on their actions, and abuse of office is not limited to the Catholic Church, as my personal story illustrates.  It can happen anywhere because people are, at their core, just people.  Their actions do not invalidate the faith or the teachings of the church.

One thing that is very important to remember is that yes, you can be mad at the church, you can question it’s teachings, and ultimately you should evaluate how they apply to your specific life.  Billy Connolly did.  After the loss of his sister and of his friend, Robin Williams, Connolly did ultimately return to the church.  Whether or not he participates in mass itself is his choice, but he makes it a point to pray and light a candle for his lost loved ones.  I think that, more than anything expresses the point of the whole sordid affair.  You can be mad at representatives of the church, but remember that God exists above all of them, and God, regardless of your actions, will always be there for you.