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November 19, 2006
Catholic Manicheeism
One of the difficulties I have most often with the Catholic Church and with the people in it is not a lack of intellect, but a focus so intense on the intellect that one would think that people are mere disembodied intellects wandering about without either sense or emotions. This comes up most often in the question of response to certain church teachings. I was reading a really fascinating book by John Allen, and he happened to mention Sister Joan Chittister--a person for whom I cannot summon up a lot of sympathy or empathy in many ways. However, the attitude I hear most Catholics take with regard to her central issue is not one of compassion for the hurt and sense of disenfranchisement it entails, but rather a "It's the law, get over it."
I'll be first in the line to enthusiastically trumpet that I believe it to be an infallible teaching of the Church that women cannot be ordained. I'll also be among the first to admit that I'm not certain I follow the reasoning entirely. My reasoning is drawn from Camille Paglia, of all places. Her observation that the female "cultus" is nearly always "transgressive" is argument enough for me. In facing the eternal, I don't particularly need transgression. However, that said, what does one do about Sr. Joan and thousands or hundred of thousands of women who feel this sense of disenfranchisement and a sense of being second class citizens?
"Get over it" is insufficient. Put the shoe on the other foot and walk in it for a while. How do we feel as Catholics when a group of nine men and women over whose election and office we have had no real say determines that key elements of the moral system we uphold and declare to the world have no validity? What recourse have we? What rights have we? Why are our voices not heard? This is only vaguely analogical, but if you think about how you feel when yet another ruling from the council of Death is passed down, you'll get a sense of how some women might feel at the fact that a council of people over whom they have no control and through whom they no sexual representation determine that the door is closed to them. Kind of like when some of us were kids and we had a clubhouse door with "No Girls Allowed" emblazoned on it. (As an aside, how refreshing it would be to see more of that among the young persons of our present age, rather than the present plague.)
"Get over it, your feelings don't matter only what is right matters," may be true, but it is not inclined to helping the human and humane person get over it. It is this fundamental insensitivity to a major part of human life that I find problematic. "Tenderness leads to the gas chamber" (a misquotation, by the way) is the mantra of the intellectual set. So, by all means, let us avoid tenderness or pastoral concern or care for those who have been wounded and hurt by Church teachings or Church practice. Actually, I know of no one anywhere in the Church who would support the statement made in the previous sentence. So obviously, tenderness and concern are important to us, why then is the thrust of many Catholics so violently apologetical as to dismiss this aspect of our lives?
Well, for one thing, we aren't all psychologists and analysts with days to sit around and listen to our brothers and sisters explain their difficulties with the faith. And of course there's the pastor and various church committees to listen to the problems of others.
These are mere excuses. We don't listen because we are in the "triumphant" class and more often than not the reality is we don't care how other people feel about it. The truth is, after all, the truth.
Time and time again I have been wounded and I have seen others wounded by the cavalier imposition of one person's "truth" in a way that neglects the emotional needs of another. "You're childless, oh well, too bad, that's just the way it is. Learn to deal with it because the Church (quite rightly) prohibits doing much of anything about it." "Come to our 'family day,' but if you don't have children you'll be made to feel like some sort of freakish outcast as we arrange all of our activities around those who do have them and there will be nothing for those not blessed with children--because, after all, God has singled you out anyway." "Oh, you have same sex attraction, well that's gravely disordered and you'll just have to put a lid on it anyway 'cause the church teaches that that is evil." And so forth. Not everyone is nearly so callous, but there is enough of it that if I were asked the great fault of the Catholic Church I would respond not that it has no head, but that it has no heart. Obviously, that is a vast overstatement, because it does. It has in fact many hearts, starting with the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus and extending to every Catholic who reaches out to feed the poor and comfort the afflicted. No, the real injury comes from the sheer thoughtlessness of the everyday and the devaluation of the life of emotion that is implicit in most apologetics, if not in the teaching itself.
The emotional life of the person must be addressed even as the truth is taught. It is insufficient to say, "You can't practice birth control and if the next baby means you will die, oh well, then you'll just have to live sexless lives from now on. The great saints did it." (Something actually said to a twenty-two year old married friend of mine.)
I'm tired of hearing that if you feel it, it must perforce be wrong. I'm tired of seeing people cast to the side in the name of truth. I'm tired of the dichotomy that says that reason is always to be trusted and emotions are to be repressed, suppressed and otherwise disfigured in its service. I'm also tired of hearing of the exaltation of reason. Right reason is a gift from God, but it is fabulously rare in the normal conduct of life. For some reason we're able to think quite clearly in the abstract, but I rarely see those who think these great thoughts put them into practice.
In short, I guess what I'd like to see from the Church is something akin to compassion. The Catholic Church in Florida is losing members right and left to various evangelical Churches. There are a great many reasons for this, but one of the primary reasons I hear is the friendliness and the welcome and the warmth of the Evangelical Churches. It's really funny seeing some of my evangelical Hispanic friends telling me about the wonders of the evangelical church right before they kiss their rosaries and join in the prayer circle.
If the Catholic Church continues to be the Church of cold reason it will continue to lose its members to Churches with doctrine less accurate, but with the ability to integrate the emotional life of the person into the fabric of faith. For the most part the Catholic Church fails spectacularly at this, noting mostly that to be a faithful Catholic you must suppress whatever you may feel. Right doctrine does not necessitate incapacitating the individual, and unless and until Catholics come to terms with that, the Church will continue to lose members throughout the world as Catholicism becomes a joyless but eminently reasonable way to believe. You may mock the megachurches, perhaps even rightfully so, but we could learn from their sense of hospitality, warmth, and true interpersonal consideration.
I guess my final statement here is to remember that the Church is the mystical body of Christ made up of the people in it with Christ as the head. When we're waging our war of reason against error, it is wise to consider the source of the error and address not only the facts of the matter, but the person with whom we are engaging in discussion. Compassion for the plexus of emotions that underlies much incorrect thought will not only help eradicate the error, but it will also help support the person in a way that will allow continuity in faith without bitterness. There will not be the sense of "this is a pill I must swallow," but "this is a liberating truth I can embrace." Above all else, take it upon yourself to be the smile and the handshake or hug of Jesus Himself. Have the heart of Jesus for all--and that means when the young man discovers he cannot sell all and follow Jesus, you don't follow him around with a harangue about how it is the just, right, and reasonable thing to do. Humans will not do the just, right, and reasonable thing in an unsupportive emotional vacuum.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:31 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
November 20, 2006
Interesting Answers
John Allen, someone I will have to pay more attention to, addressed the issue of the role of women in the Church in a way that I see as solidly holding forth Church teaching and then suggesting what could be done within the framework of Church teaching to make clear the full and equal status of women in the Church. Full article here. Even this may be controversial to some, but I don't see much that would be problematic about it (though I do have to admit that some DREs seem to run away with their own agendas--but wouldn't that happen male or female?). Moreover, it gets around the "it's the law, get over it," by framing the possibilities. One thing I like a lot in the argument is the notion that we can maintain our understanding and framework and still make room for a number of voices to be heard. (We have to remember that not every woman is a Hildegard or a Catherine of Siena--allowance should be made for those whose lives do not command our attention by extraordinary holiness, but who still have important things to say about how we live our spiritual lives.)
First, while no one directly put the question of women’s ordination on the table, we might as well deal with it head-on. Given Pope John Paul II’s 1994 document Ordinatio sacerdotalis, which stated that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, and … this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful,” there will be no official movement on this question in any short-term future scenario I can imagine. I’m aware that some Catholics dream of revisiting the issue somewhere down the line, and I have no crystal ball that tells me where the church will be in 200 years. What I can say is that the Catholic Church does not lurch from position to position, especially on something this sensitive, and at a minimum anyone living in hope of rapid evolution will likely be disappointed.
Further, it’s correct that Pope Benedict and other church leaders see the revitalization of the priesthood as a top priority, including the fraternal nature of relations between bishops and priests – especially in light of the strain under which those bonds have been placed in some parts of the world as a result of the sexual abuse crisis.
However, the right Catholic answer when faced with a seeming disjunction is rarely “either/or,” but “both/and.” Hence one hopes that strengthening the all-male character of the priesthood does not have to come at the expense of greater efforts to hear the voice of women. We ought to be able to do both at once.
In reality, there are vast areas in the life of the church where authority and responsibility can be exercised without sacramental ordination. On the parish level, the Catholic church in the United States and elsewhere could not operate without the contributions made by women as directors of religious education, liturgists, pastoral associates, and in myriad other capacities. Roughly 25 percent of the diocesan chancellors in America are now women, and one hopes that trend will accelerate until it hovers around 50 percent, better reflecting the percentage of women in the church. Women today serve as diocesan spokespersons, as general councils for dioceses, as chief financial officers, and in a wide variety of other capacities. These efforts can become much more systematic, especially in positions of high public visibility. (The American bishops’ conference is presently hiring a new communications director, for example, and all things being equal, it would be exceedingly positive symbolism if that post went to a lay woman).
Even in the Vatican, one can detect “baby steps” in this regard. In 2004, Pope John Paul II for the first time appointed a woman to a superior’s-level position in an office of the Roman Curia, naming Italian Salesian Sr. Enrica Rosanna as under-secretary of the Congregation for Religious. It’s true that a cleric co-signs letters from the congregation that exercise the pope’s delegated “power of jurisdiction,” but nevertheless the appointment put Rosanna in a position of leadership in the universal church. In the same year, John Paul named Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon as President of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, and appointed two female theologians to the International Theological Commission, both firsts. (One was an American, Sr. Sara Butler). While these are admittedly small moves, and perhaps open to the charge of “tokenism,” they nevertheless set precedents upon which one can build.
Moving more comprehensively in this direction is important, it seems to me, for two reasons.
First, church teaching unambiguously supports the full equality of women, and offering the world models of female leadership is thus an important way of demonstrating that we mean what we say.
Second, doing so could also perhaps allow us to approach the conversation about the priesthood more rationally. Church spokespersons routinely say that the all-male character of the priesthood is not a matter of excluding women from power, because the priesthood is not about power but service. The practical reality, however, is that ordination has always been the gateway to power in the church, if not theologically then sociologically. If the church were more systematic about the full representation of women in every area of life that doesn’t require ordination, it would perhaps reduce some of the suspicion that the teaching on the priesthood is really a smokescreen designed to preserve a system of male privilege.
I recognize that for some Catholics, including many deeply faithful Catholic women, none of this amounts to a fully satisfying answer. Yet under the rubric of “the art of the possible,” it seems to me to be the best answer one can give about what can be done under the present circumstances to help the church “breathe with both lungs” – in this case, not East and West, but male and female.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Re: Catholic Manicheeism
In the example given below, I chose a progressive cause; however, the same truths hold for traditional causes. Too often much of our attitude toward traditional causes is , "It's done, get over it."
As with the purveyors of the progressive causes, it is true that some people supporting the traditionalist cause can be very aggravating in the way they choose to make their points. However, this does not "undo" the nature and extent of the hurt, and as the complaint centers around the center of the faith life, the wound is that much more painful and difficult to heal. As a whole, I'm not certain that the Church has been particularly compassionate toward the traditionalist movement. I know that while I have some sympathies for the complaints, I am often tried to the limits by the complainers, and so I have perhaps not been as responsive as I might have been.
True, it is sometimes difficult to deal with people and their emotions with regard to change. And even more true, unlike reason, which in right-minded persons speaks all-for-one, dealing with emotional injury is a one-on-one and therefore more difficult and exhausting. These facts in no way remove the obligation for each of us, to the extent we are able, to deal compassionately and faithfully with our brothers and sisters who have received real and/or perceived wounds at the hands of the Church.
The Catholic Church struggles not with right reason, which I believe she has a fair bead on, but with the reality of human emotion. There are people and times where this has been handled better and worse than at present--but our present reality is that people expect the Church to help meet these needs. And by that expectation, they expect the people of the their local Church to be a real community. This is a perceived, if often illusory, strength of our evangelical brethren. It is a reason many leave the cold comfort of the truth and join the warm brotherhood of our separated brothers and sisters in Christ.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 21, 2006
Compassion--"They are like sheep without a shepherd."
Could there be any more pathetic image than sheep without a shepherd? Sheep are a true example of the herd-mind, not one of them can do anything if all of them do not decide to do it and because they are sheep none of them has the sense to decide anything at all. Even cows are smarter than sheep who will stand and be plucked off one by one by a predator because they simply don't know any better.
Add "sheep without a shepherd" to the answer to the question "Am I my brother's keeper?" and you have the point of compassion. In fact, each of us is responsible for the people around us. We are all the images of Christ. Each of us an image in miniature. If so, then we are each shepherds of a small flock, a small number of people with whom we come in contact and interact every day. It is part of our vocation to holiness to the the shepherds, the tenders, the ones who care for, feed, and guide to the extent possible our brothers and sisters. And like the Good Shepherd we need to do so in truth and in love.
Love is not love without the truth. Compassion is telling the truth in love. Part of this truth-telling is a matter of timing. We don't sit down with the woman who is mourning her divorce and tell her that if she hadn't slept around before marriage, she would have had a better chance. We don't scold the woman who is mourning the abortion that made her sterile by reminding her of the sin--she's already learned the truth, now it is time for compassion and support.
The truths of Christianity can sometimes be very hard truths. Sometimes it is difficult to understand that one cannot do evil that good might come of it. It seems reasonable and logical that if by breaking one person you can save twenty-thousand it is something you ought to do. But "the good of the many exceeds the good of the one," is a principle that may only be chosen, not forced upon a person. If my personal sacrifice might save twenty-thousand, then it is legitimate--but I may not choose to sacrifice another that the twenty-thousand are saved. These are hard truths.
Compassion is about loving our brothers and sisters and speaking the truth in love. More often than not, we need not use words to speak the truth. With a sympathetic ear and a loving heart, they will often work out for themselves where and what went wrong. And our duty and privilege is to be there to help them live through the consequences and set out on a new path where similar things will not happen.
Compassion also extends to loving those who haven't the means or opportunities we have. Some desperate situations are not the choice of the person involved, but the result of societal conditions prevelant in the area. The starving poor of Bombay, Calcutta, or Appalachia do not choose this situation for themselves. In a sense, there is no truth to speak here except that they are beloved children of God. To speak that truth, we must find a way to feed and care for those who do not have enough for themselves. Some theories of government suggest that this is a governmental enterprise. But the Christian truth is that it is our responsibility. The sad truth is that most of us, regardless of our view of the government, do rely upon the government to support these people. As a result, the people never really feel compassion, merely obligation.
We are each sheep and shepherds. Those who know a bit more and understand a bit better are obligated in a greater way--"To those to whom much has been given, much will be expected in return." That means most of us at St. Blogs have a greater obligation than the majority of humankind. Most of us living in the wealthiest and most privileged nation on Earth are required to give of that wealth to help our brothers and sisters. And this giving should not come through the involuntary redistribution of wealth that is our tax-and-spend government system, but through our direct encounter with the needs of those around us who have less.
Compassion is reaching out in love. Shepherding requires sacrifice--sacrifice of time, energy, money, even of self in some sense--that the sheep may prosper grow and follow the right path. Think of our obligation as a kind of peer shepherding. Responding to the call of the One Good Shepherd we, though sheep ourselves, take upon us the duty to shepherd those even less aware of the divine. It is a hard job and not one that is particularly well-paying or recompensed in any way. Indeed, we are often despised and hated for doing it. Nevertheless, it does not remove from us the obligation to serve as we have been served, to be Christ for brother and sister, and to do it personally in whatever way God has given us the strength and wisdom to do.
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
This is the first book by Mark Haddon and it is a very quick read. The story of Christopher Boone, an autistic young man with an extraordinary ability and affinity for "maths," follows the young man as he attempts to investigate the killing of a neighbor's dog. The book is his narrative of that investigation and its fall out.
Not being autistic myself, nor having much personal experience with autistic persons, I cannot speak to the authenticity of the narrative. However, it seemed quite authentic. Told in the first person, I got a sense of what the world of the autistic person must be like.
The story also traces the trials and tribulations of the family that must care for the autistic person. At times it is heartbreaking and aggravating. You can understand the mother who is pushed to the snapping point because she can't even go to the store to pick up groceries or clothing. You get a glimpse of the pressures that might cause a marriage to dissolve.
In a sense the novel is an instruction in empathy, a help to understanding, a guide to comprehending and trying to embrace difference--even very difficult difference.
Well told, fast read--not literature for the ages, but a remarkable glimpse into an extraordinary parallel world. Highly recommended for adults.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:35 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Knowing Christ Jesus
or defending a doctrine?
Tom at Disputations points out that winning a point may mean losing a soul. If we make the system of beliefs the object of faith, then we're arguing for a falsehood.
I read (into) this to mean in part, our mission is not to prove the doctrines of the Church but to bring people to know Christ Jesus. The rest will follow naturally as the heart is inclined to the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Or not--and at that time we look more carefully at the doctrines and help and lead the person to understand the point being made, all from the point of view of Love. Compassion--leading another to the source of love, the only place where Truth can be found unalloyed.
Read Tom's magnificent exposition in several parts--this one marking a beginning.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Must Read
TSO's Spanning the Globe is an unusually good round-up in a column that is always top-notch. Go and see.
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Fulton Sheen
I can't vouch for how good the site may or may not be, but here's a place where you can download Fulton Sheen talks.
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An Interesting Item from E-mail
Once again, I must admit to being ignorant of the agenda, politics, or ideas behind the Glenmary Home Missioners; however, this story was interesting in a way that I'm sure the author did not intend. From it I learned that there is a town in Mississippi by the name of "Vardaman."
Now, why would this even be of minor interest? Well, one of the point-of-view characters of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is named Vardaman. And though I read the book ages ago and have not returned to it, burned into memory is Vardaman's reflection on his mother Addie (the one who lay dying), which constitutes an entire "chapter" of the book. "My mother is a fish." (Read the novel to find out why.)
Anyway, reading the letter from the Priest reminded me of As I Lay Dying and I wonder now why the book has made such a powerful, indelible impression on my mind. I mean I read it thirty or more years ago and I can remember scenes in it vividly. Unlike say the swill I read last week which vanishes into the memory hole almost as soon as the cover is closed.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 12:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 23, 2006
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
May your day be blessed and may whatever gathering you attend be a joyous celebration of life and of true thanksgiving for all that we have been given.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Check Out the Review of Battlestar Ecclesiastica
An excerpt:
Thogh the pees of Kent pleseth me much, yt is right hard to fynde goode bokes ther, so as ich make my stay in Londoun for Parlement, ich haue been going crazy about the purchasyng of bokes. Euery daye ich visit the scriveneres for to see the newe bokes and maken requestes for copyes. My shire doth paye me IV shillinges for ech daye ich am in parlement, and by cause of al the monkey business of this straunge parlement yt is lastinge longer than a voyage to Spayne. By cause ich lodge myself with my frende Langeland, ich spende but iii pens for a capon ech daye (and a somedeel greter amount for ale, wyn, and batidas), and thus a gret surplusage of cash moneye remaineth for the acquiringe of bokes.
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Free SF E-Books and More
Can be found here.
They are generally of the militaristic brand of SFbeing from the Baen Books library, but there are a lot of them, and it's entirely possible you'll find something you'll really enjoy in amongst the titles. Go and see.
Everything almost anyone could want to know about Nematodes (and probably a good deal more than most care to know.)
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 25, 2006
Children's Cinema Offerings
This may be too late for some of you, but I post in hopes of alerting the rest as to the relative merits of three children's films I've had the duty to sit through this season:
(1) The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause--A mild entertainment--neither offensive nor particularly compelling. Whatever message is here is so coded and buried by all the fluff that surrounds it that it will at worst do no harm and at best encourage some form of family solidarity. The worst part of this is that family solidarity, as good as it is, is not the central message of the Christmas story.
(2) Happy Feet: The one with the greatest potential for damage. Another of George Miller's nearly endless and endlessly preachy films. It seems that after Babe, Miller got up on his hobby horse and has been riding it into the ground ever since. Ostensibly the tale of the Penguin who is not gifted as other penguins are, the main messages of this film are dissent, disagreement, and headstrongness. Most children won't see it, but it is a two hour long polemic on preserving the fish for the starving penguin populations of Antarctica. In addition, it has some fairly strong anti-parental and anti-religious elements. Again, very young children won't catch on, but Samuel came out of the theatre lecturing us on the need to preserve fish populations for other animals. And while it is good to have one's consciousness of these things elevated, it does make for preachiness and polemic that are hardly worth the spectacle of dancing penguins, particularly when compared with . . . singing slugs.
(3) Flushed Away: The film that most amused me and featured the inspired talents of singing slugs and a city of sewer rats. A straightforward adventure film/love story with, as I said, singing slugs, some "adult" humor a la "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and a tight and clever plot line. One example of "adult humor--" La Frog is summoned by his British cousin Big Frog to help capture the heroes and play out his evil plot to drown sewer world and populate it with his voracious tadpoles. The French ninja-frogs show up and La Frog tells them, "Time for action, men." At which the dozen or so frogs raise their arms and say "I surrender." "Not that action!" (My sincere apologies to any French readers I may have.) There are other moments as well, but overall, it is fast paced, with amusing interludes featuring fleeing slugs, singing slugs, flying slugs, and yes, dancing slugs. Overall, it seemed pretty message free and a lot of fun. Recommended.
The other two films I can't really recommend because I was bored by the preachiness of Happy Feet and simply bored by The Santa Clause 3, neither charming nor inventive. But the latter has no discernible harmful message and the former has a strong but relatively coded anti-religious message that will be missed by pre-teens, and perhaps by some adults.
Now on the kid scale--Sam loved all three. I don't know which one he liked best because best usually means most recent. So your pre-teen child is likely to enjoy all three.
Oh, how I long to see a film made for adults!
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On the Road with the Archangel
I like Frederick Buechner, a lot. I've liked his work since Godric and Brendan, when I went out in search of some of his nonfiction.
One of the collateral results of seeing a couple of films this weekend is that we happened by a bookstore that was truly going out of business. It dealt only with remaindered books to start, and now these were 40% off. There's nothing I can resist less than the lure of deeply discounted books, and so we brought home a bunch. Blood Meridian, Black Robe, The Preservationist (a novel about Noah and his Ark), a book of essay by the poet Geoffrey Hill, the most recent book of Joyce Carol Oates literary essays. (Does Oates have temporal lobe epilepsy? Every time I turn around she seems to have two dozen other books out.) But I have digressed.
Buechner's book is a small gem. It is the story of Tobit and the great scorekeeper in the sky and the Archangel Raphael whose main job is to present the prayers offered here on earth in the great throneroom of the sky, and who often shakes with mirth over the misconceptions and misconstructions of the people who do the praying.
The story is faithful to the biblical account of Tobit and gives it weight, substance, and bearing without falling into faux biblical language or off-hand explaining away. And as such it works superbly as a bit of exegesis and an inspiring message about God's love and compassion for all of us. Buechner is a minister in one of the protestant faiths (Presbyterian, I think) and he has an amazing ability to bring out the message that is often hidden in the very terse prose of most of the Bible--God loves us. God is not the great score-keeper. God is not busy trying to smash us like the flies that Tobit squashes with his shoe. He does not delight in our sorrows, nor is he distant a merely allowing things to play out in the course that has been formed. In short, God is love, and his love-letter to us--every word of it, hard as that is to imagine--is the Bible. Every story, no matter how fraught with trial and turmoil is endlessly about His reaching out to us.
And so Buechner makes very clear in this very entertaining small book. If you happen to see it on the remainder shelves or find it at your library, pick it up and spend an hour or two. You'll be glad you did. Highly Recommended.
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