About Prayer

It’s been more than a little bit since I’ve posted anything here, and that’s just because I’ve been really, really busy.  That happens.  My journey through faith is still continuing, I just haven’t had a real opportunity to update you faithful followers.  So today I want to talk about something very specific:

Prayer

Now, I’m not going to go into what I pray about, that’s between me and God.  Rather I want to address how to approach prayer. When we pray, we are entering a direct dialog with God, we are going to him with our concerns, our wants, and our needs.  If you find yourself confused on how to start off praying, if you’ve never really prayed before, don’t worry, Jesus himself gave us a template in Matthew 6:9-13

“⁹ “This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

¹⁰ your kingdom come,

your will be done,

    on earth as it is in heaven.

¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.

¹² And forgive us our debts,

    as we also have forgiven our debtors.

¹³ And lead us not into temptation,[a]

    but deliver us from the evil one.[b]’”

 

If that reads as very familiar, it’s because most churches pray this, the Lord’s Prayer, at least once per service or mass, because it is pretty spot on.  I won’t break it down for you, that’s more for something like RCIA to cover, but it is sufficient to say that if you don’t know what to pray, start here.

 

More directly I want to talk about how to approach prayer.  Hopefully you’ve either gotten a chance to read the book or see the film “War Room”.  If you haven’t I encourage you to talk the time to check it out.  Now the basic premise of the “War Room” is that is brings the suggestion of having a space somewhere in your home dedicated exclusively to prayer.  I fully support this, however I’ll be the first to admit I have no such space in my own home.  So in order to compensate I talked with my wife and we decided instead to keep “War Journals”. The idea is the same, we write down things that we think need God’s intercession on and refer to them when we go into our times of prayer.  The “War” is the spiritual warfare that we are conducting against evil in the world. 

 

Whether or not you have a prayer room or a prayer journal, the second part is more important, and that is dedicating time to prayer.  I mean DEDICATE time to prayer, not fit it in where you can, if you can.  No, you need to make a decision that you are going make that time just for your relationship with God.  For me, this is when I first get up, after my shower.  I usually spend 5:30am to 6ish, sometimes a little after, in prayer.  Its…not always easy.  I struggle sometimes, but I try.  We have four kids right now, three of which are little, but its important to make that time for the Lord.  If they are awake, I’ll take care of their immediate needs, and then they can join me in prayer.  Or they can watch cartoons in the other room.  It’s a pretty even split when it happens.

 

So, we have our prayer, we have our things to pray on, and we have our time to pray, what else could you possibly need?

 

How about the mindset to start praying? Often, when we approach God, we do so with our needs as our focus.  It makes sense, that’s what we want/need and that’s where our head is going to be at.  But I caution you against going from this ego-centric starting point, because while God understands and respects your needs, wants, and desires, He also is looking at a much, much bigger picture.  A good case in point is praying for a new job.  Happens, I think, to all of us at some point.  We find ourselves in a situation where we need to examine our finances and find we are falling short, not to mention we are miserable in that job so we pray “Lord, give me a new job to better pay my bills.”

 

So your bills aren’t getting paid, that’s legit, but are you balancing your budget properly?  Are you being a good steward with your financial blessings?  You should examine that before you get bent out of shape because you didn’t get that raise. You are miserable at your job so you want a new one?  That’s fair, but how are you approaching your current job?  Are you a good and faithful employee?  Are you kind and courteous to your co-workers?  Or are you acting miserable and bringing the moral of the work place down.

 

Often God doesn’t put us where we want to go, He puts us where we need to be.  When you approach God about finances, you may not get a “new job” but rather direction on how to make ends meet by extending on your current circumstances or capitalizing on some previously unused talents.

 

Basically don’t get upset if you don’t get astraight answer right away.  God knows what He’s got in store for you.

 

Lastly, as you do your personal reflection before praying, look at what it is you really need.  Go to the Wedding at Cana, for instance.  The servants at the wedding went to Mary, explaining they were running out of wine fast.  They identified the immediate need.  The thing is, that had always been the problem, they didn’t have enough wine to start with.  The manager of the servants (there’s always one) should have been looking at the people coming in and if he’d done just a little math would have realized a lot sooner that they were going to need more wine.  So now one person’s lack of preparation or adapting to a situation became an emergency that could have shamed a newly wedded family.  When the need was identified, they turned to God.

 

We talked about this not long ago in RCIA and one of my instructors said that “God needs you to tell Him what you need…” and I agree with that up to about 75%.  God is fully aware of the needs of his children. Christ at the wedding for instance wasn’t shocked that the wine was running out, because being God he knew.  He knew before the servants knew.  He knew before anyone got up that morning.  God knows what you need.  But before you can go to him in prayer, YOU have to know what you need.  You have to examine yourself and determine where you need God’s help. That’s a big part of it because that is a humbling experience, to need something from someone else.  We like to want, we hate to need.  We like to say “I want a new car because this one is a little old, and the engine knocks around a bit, and I have to do an oil change and new tires and…” but we hate it when our car is smoking on the side of the road and we need the grace and mercy of someone outside ourselves.  We want a new job, because it can be stressful to stretch finances and make cuts, but we hate to need a new job because our car got repossessed and we are skipping meals and dealing without light or water until the next check comes.

 

God knows what you need.  Are you ready to talk to Him about it?

On Reconciliation...

In any journey of faith we take moments down long, winding roads of self-examination, and these times are extremely important because it helps put us in a head-space to really think about our relationship with God.  Part of that journey is reconciliation.

But what are we reconciling with God about?  I mean, what has caused this rift between us and the Father?  Well that would be sin.  But then there is that ever present question of what exactly is “sin”?

Sin, in broad terms, is any action you knowingly take or refuse to take that puts you at odds with God’s plan, will, and commandments.  We really don’t have the time or the space to dive into all the different types of sin out there, nor do I feel particularly qualified to do so.  Instead I’m going to shore it up with the root of all sin, the center of sin.  “I”.

When you look at the very word “sin” the center of it is “I”, and that really establishes a foundation for understanding sin.  When you go to confession, you can’t talk about what everyone else has been doing, you can only hold accountable yourself.  “Forgive me father, for “I” have sinned.”  When we sin, we are placing ourselves, our wants and desires, above what God has intended.  We love ourselves more than we love anything else.  When we sin, it’s an egocentric action, regardless of what the particular sin is.

Let’s go back to the Garden of Eden.  Original Sin, as we understand it, is Adam and Eve taking the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, eating it, and becoming aware of basically everything.  You’ve probably heard this story a thousand times, but let me offer you a different perspective:  There wasn’t anything special about that tree.  Think about the command in Genesis 2: 17: “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”  Now, in Genesis 3:6 “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

Notice what didn’t happen?  They didn’t drop dead.  They ate from the tree, and in doing so came to the realization that they could make their own choices, and started coming to imperfect conclusions about the world around them rather than relying on God’s instruction.  They placed themselves before God, the ego, the self, became more important, and that is when they lost their way.  God placed the commandment “do not eat of it, or you will certainly die”, but that was an outcome, a result of their decision, not an effect of the act.

Let me unpack that last part, there is a difference between the action and the decision to act and sin is a choice.  You have to make a decision whether or not to sin, whether or not you are going to place yourself ahead of God.  Exodus 20:3 plainly states “You shall have no other gods before me.”  Now, in an era of polytheistic societies, that means you worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Period.  God comes first in the line of priorities.  Christ himself expands on this in Matthew 22:37-38 “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.”

If you love something with all your heart and soul and mind, then you love it more than you love yourself.  That is a very tall order, but there it is.  Sin is placing God anywhere beyond #1.  So, regardless of what your personal sins are, they are all derivatives of placing yourself ahead of God.

                Now that we have identified what sin is, we can actually start looking for reconciliation.  God is a God of mercy, grace, and forgiveness, and he is always wanting us to come home.  A perfect illustration of this is “the Good Shepherd”, where Christ is carrying the lamb on His shoulders, bringing it home.  That is what Christ has been trying to do, He’s trying to bring us back to the Father, back to Paradise, and we need him to do that, because if we try to figure it out for ourselves, then we are going right back to placing ourselves ahead of God.  So how do we reconcile this?

Well, if you’ve been reading this far, the answer should be pretty straight forward.  We need to start by placing God ahead of ourselves.  That’s the “how”.  When we find ourselves tempted, either by our friends, our family, our addictions, the pleasure centers of our brain, or the devil himself, then we need to examine the action and ask “Is this pleasing to God?”  Years ago I was working with a gentleman and he asked me “Hey Michael, would it be ethical if I…” and I stopped him right there.  I said “If you ever have to ask “would it be ethical if I did this…” the answer is probably a resounding “no.””  The same applies here.  If you have to ask if something would be pleasing to God, the answer is probably going to be a resounding no.  If something is pleasing to God, we know that pretty much right off the bat, it’s kind of a gut instinct for the most part.  That’s not to say it’s easy, and I highly recommend reaching out to a pastor or a priest or an accountability partner or someone to get a second opinion if you ever find yourself confused.  When in doubt, pray it out.

Now WHY do we need to reconcile with God?  Because, in short, we’ve severely damaged our relationship with him.  Our sin caused our divide from him.  Our continued sin required the sacrifice of Jesus to atone for sin, and our continued sin spits in the eye of Christ every time we do it.

That’s a hard truth right there, because a lot of times we like to gloss over sins by saying “well I’m not really hurting anyone.” But no, we are hurting Christ when we do this.  Further we are damaging our relationship with not only God, but those around us.  So reconciliation is very important.

Many, many years ago, while my grandfather was still alive, my father was looking through the local newspaper and saw that an elderly woman with our last name had passed away.  Our last name is not common in our area, so he reached out to my grandpa and asked if he knew who this lady was.  Boy did he.  My grandfather said that, when he was about to ship out for the army in WWII, he was going around to various friends and family saying his final goodbyes, just in case he didn’t make it home, which you can imagine had to be a very sobering time.  He arrived at this family members house and saw a copy of “Mein Kampf” on the table, (the autobiography of Adolf Hitler) and various Nazi party paraphernalia around the house.  He was understandably upset and told her as much in probably a very loud and colorful way.  He then reported her to the FBI, and that was the last we heard of her until the day my dad read her obituary. 

On one hand this story serves to illustrate the fractioning war and choices can have on a family.  Obviously at some point in their shared history, this person meant a lot to my grandpa, enough that he wanted to tell her goodbye.  So to have this massive rift between the two, to the extent that the greater portion of her extended family had no idea she even existed, that is a devastating thing.  I calculated it out, that was fifty six-ish years.  Over five and a half decades of no communication.  Five and a half decades of missed weddings, of missed birthdays, of anniversaries, reunions, funerals, celebrations of life, landmark events that were lost because of choices made in the heat of the moment.

Yes, being a Nazi sympathizer is no small thing; neither is being reported to the FBI.  But no one can say how she would have viewed the Nazi party during the run of WWII, a month later, a year later, ten years later.  It could have been the very next day she opened her eyes and renounced the party all together, but we’ll never know.  In her defense, had it not been for WWII, Hitler would have been remembered by history as a great leader.  He was Time Magazine’s man of the year prior to the war.  The man she was defending wasn’t declaring a holocaust on humanity; he was the man who revitalized her nation of origin, a place she felt very strong emotional ties to.  She might not have known, and for her ignorance was condemned.

When God became man, in the body and blood of Jesus Christ, he sought to reconcile with us.  He walked the world from our point of view, saw the whole of humanity and understood on a fundamental level what it is we go through.  He understands why we make the choices we make.  Jesus dined with tax collectors and sinners not to condemn them but to show that God understands, and still wants us to come home before it’s too late.  He wants to carry us on his shoulders home.  In order to do that, we need to walk in his will and turn our back on sin.  Nobody said it would be easy, but that’s why we have the church and confession.  The Gospel is not about condemnation, but the fulfillment of a promise of father to his children.

 

Thanks for reading.

Are You “Okay” with “Not Being Okay”?

On the surface, it comes across as a rather pedantic question.  Obviously if you aren’t “okay” then you aren’t “okay”, however the issue can be far more complex than that.

There is no dispute that in the scriptures Christ flipped the societal scales.  He dined with the less-than-reputable people in the land, the tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners.  But there is an important point there that a lot of folks get confused on: his tolerance of their life style wasn’t acceptance of their lifestyle.

We need to break it down:  to tolerate something is to “allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference”, while to accept is to “believe or come to recognize (an opinion, explanation, etc.) as valid or correct”.

Google Dictionary

I want to highlight one specific part in the definitions: tolerate “something that one does not necessarily like or agree with” and accept “recognize as valid or correct”.  These concepts are not synonymous; they don’t mean the same thing.  You can tolerate something without accepting it; you can be “not okay” with something.

What brought this about was, my wife and I were watching “Sister Wives” the other night and, while that in of itself is a whole other can of worms, the episode in question dealt with this this family dealing with one of the daughter’s revelations that she was a lesbian.  Her biological mother, Meri, in the episode kept going back and forth during the interview sessions stating that she was concerned that her daughter felt that she (the mother) was “not okay” with her being a lesbian.  If you watch the episode its pretty clear that, deep down she’s not okay with it.  My wife pointed out “it doesn’t really matter if you’re “not okay” with it.”  She stated that it was something that has happened and there it is.  Like it or not.  What I noticed in between the interviews and the footage from their home was that no, she was clearly not okay with her daughter being a lesbian, but more, she wasn’t okay with herself not being okay.  That is what is going to cause some problems.

Society, the world, has us wrapped up in expectations for our responses.  It’s a very “like it or not” world we live in, and if we DON’T like something we are made to feel lesser about it, like we are the one with the problem.  “I’m gay, and if you don’t like that, you have a problem.”  “I use drugs, and if you don’t like that, you have a problem.”  “I’m getting an abortion, and if you don’t like that…” you see the where this is going.

But where the world is demanding we accept something, we have to understand that Christ called us to tolerate, not accept.  We do not have to like it, and we need to be okay with not liking it.  We need to be okay with not being okay.

If you have a friend who is overweight and you know their health is failing due to their weight issues, it’s okay not to be okay with that.  You can “not like” the situation, but still be their friend.  You can tolerate the situation for the sake of the person.  You absolutely do not have to accept that they are overweight, and when you pretend to accept something you are not okay with, you are placing an unnecessary conflict within yourself.  When everything in your head is screaming “You need to lose weight or you will die!” but on the outside you are silently watching them kill themselves, you are not doing them a favor and you are hurting yourself to boot.  If you acknowledge that you are not okay, then you can stand as someone trying to help them out of their situation.

Going back to Jesus, he tolerated their situations for the sake of the person.  He said “I love you, but you need to fix this situation.” And that is love.  Love isn’t accepting someone’s lifestyle unquestioningly, its understanding and tolerating, in the hopes that together you can help them fix the rougher parts.

Going back to Meri and her daughter: she can be “not okay” with her daughter being a lesbian, which is perfectly acceptable and not unfounded.  The LGBT lifestyle has a lot of dark roads around it, and there are two ways people go down these roads: When their families don’t accept who they are, and when they are too accepting of what they do.  Meri’s daughter is a lesbian, and there’s nothing she can do about that, but she can be there as a supportive parent, tolerant of the dynamic, but still not okay with it.  By being there, she can help keep her daughter from the darker paths of the LGBT lifestyle.  She can say “I don’t like the path you are on right, now, but I will walk it with you in the hopes that you don’t get hurt.”

That is love.  Love is not wanting someone to get hurt, and not wanting them to hurt themselves.  Love is patient, understanding and kind.  Love understands that there were things in that person’s life that led them to this point, but love also wants to change trajectory to something that heals.

Now I’m not saying that homosexuality, obesity, and drug use are interchangeable, they aren’t. Each one is its own thing, but they are all something that you can be “not okay” with.  But before you decide you are not okay with something, you may want to pray on it and determine WHY you aren’t okay with it.

I think we’ll cover that another time.

 

Thanks for reading, and God bless.

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.

Love Does not Judge, Love Forgives.

Hey folks, it’s been a while since I last posted because we were traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Now that I’m back I wanted to address something that, as we spend time with others in the close quarters of the holiday gatherings we may all want to remember: be tolerant.

All too often we find ourselves in the mixed company of people who have lives or have made choices that we actively disagree with.  Perhaps they’ve made relationship choices that prove consistently destructive, perhaps they’ve turned to substance abuse, and perhaps they’ve resorted to a kind of “Peter Pan syndrome” where they refuse to advance their life beyond a certain point, they won’t (from our perspective, grow up).

Judging other people is very easy to do, because we judge based on our perspective of the situation, based on our choices, our lives, and our responses, but that’s also dangerous for our hearts.

I’ve used this example in conversations in the past, but I think it takes precedence here: working in law enforcement whether you’ve done it one day or done it a decade, you run into people who are not happy to see you.  I’ve had multiple co-workers voice the same complaint, that people they contact have a bad attitude.  I have to remind them that, before they contact police something bad has to happen to them.  I’ve never had a situation where someone pops their head into my office just to say “Everything’s fine, having a great day!”  No, we meet people on their bad days, sometimes the worst day of their life.

When we sit in judgement of other people’s choices, are we taking into account what they themselves are going through?  Think back to your last really bad day, did you show grace under fire?  Did you fail to be charming when life, the universe, and everything seemed to turn on you at once?  Were you a Job or a Jonah when things didn’t go your way?

I want us take a quick jaunt to John 8:2-12.  This is where the Pharisees drag a woman caught in adultery to Jesus.  They cite that Mosaic law, the law passed down to the Israelites by Moses, states that this woman should be stoned unto death.  This was a set up for Jesus, either he would rebuke Moses’ law (which was the word of God) or he would condone the death of this woman.  Jesus handled the situation like he normally does, by spinning it back onto the Pharisees asking them if their slates are clean.  He points out that only one without sin can truly sit in judgement of another person.

Let’s go to the woman right quick, because rarely is she talked about in the scenario and that’s a shame because in many ways she’s the stand in for us.  She’s us with our problems, she’s us with our faults and our lapses in judgement and our self-destructive behavior, and our substance abuse and our Peter Pan syndromes.  She was forcibly dragged from wherever she was and brought before the Son of God with the very real possibility of being bludgeoned to death with large rocks looming over her by a crowd that clearly did not care for her welfare, who only wanted to prove a point at her expense.

If you are starting to feel empathy towards this woman, good.  That means you are a good hearted person, that on some level you understand.

If we can extend that empathy to a woman who lived 2000+ years ago, can’t we extend it to the person sitting less than ten feet from us whom we might have known two minutes or all our lives?

Part of the problem we have when it comes to dealing with people who we view as needing to get their lives together is that we, as a society, have lost the meanings of two very important words: tolerate and accept.

To tolerate is to “allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference.”

To accept is to “believe or come to recognize (an opinion, explanation, etc.) as valid or correct.”

See there is a difference in the two concepts.  When we tolerate someone else’s life choice, we don’t have to accept them, we don’t have to view them as correct, but we still shouldn’t judge because we don’t know what’s going on with them.

So what do we do then?  We can’t accept the choices others have made, but we can’t judge them because we don’t know what’s going on with them.  Let’s flip back to “why are you judging?”

You judge because you don’t agree with it.  In the vast majority of cases we are prone to judge because we love that person, because we feel that person can be better than the situation that they are in.  Let’s face it, you don’t spend a lot of time thinking and feeling about a topic that you don’t care about, so if you are so wrapped up in what this person is doing, then it’s because you feel you have a vested interest in their life.  You have a vested interest but approaching with a judgmental attitude can cause that person to withdraw into the very lifestyle you are trying to get them out of.

What did Christ do?  Christ understood.  By law, yes the woman could have been judged and sentenced to immediate and painful death, but that’s not what he lets happen.  He gets the accusors to leave her alone first, then he waits, he loves, and he forgives.  Christ is the Son of God, there is nothing in this woman’s life that he doesn’t know.  He looks at her and sees every step that led her into her situation, and knows every wrong things she’s ever done, and he forgives her.  These are some of the same sins He’s later going to die on the cross for, but he forgives her.

That is love, my friends.  That is forgiveness.  Our brothers and sisters in humanity have to deal with a lot.  Hearts are broken, lives are torn apart, and sometimes at the end of the day, when they are sitting there glaring at the mirror they can’t forgive themselves for all that they think they’ve done.  Forgive them.  Forgive them in your own heart, and approach them as you should, as a fellow human being, and give them compassion.  You can tolerate their decisions without accepting them, but by showing them compassion and love you offer them hope and grace.  Through this, you shine a little bit of God’s love into their world, and that little bit can go a very long way.

 

Thanks for reading and happy holidays.