Flos Carmeli

May 16, 2008

Sadness

I'm reading Jhumpa Lahiri's book Unaccustomed Earth for my book group later this month. The stories are as wonderful as those of her earlier collection The Interpreter of Maladies which won a Pulitzer Prize (well deserved) in 2000. The stories, almost inadvertently, put me in mind of several trends I have been exposed to that sadden me considerably.

I have noted that some of the young people who work in the office I do seem to eschew parenthood. One young man expressed nothing but contempt for children (easily done when you have none yourself), another expressed horror at how much children drain from the family coffers and, jokingly or not, expressed the sentiment that he "would never have any of those."

Where once the expectation was that one would marry and have a family, the present expectation seems to be a perpetual adolescence of worry-free sex and freedom from the responsibility of caring for a child.

I will admit that at one time my sympathies were with these young people. I had a horror of having children that knew no bounds. And I suppose that it doesn't help to say that my horror was of a different sort. My chief concern was that given the father I had growing up, I wondered about my own ability to raise a child in any way that would be beneficial. My horror was not for me and my "lost freedom" (whatever that may be), but rather what a wretched individual I was likely to raise in the wake of what I had learned from my father.

I don't know how common this experience might be. But I do know that as I lived with my wife and I saw those around me with children, I began to wonder what that might be like and wondered (despite my horror) why we had so long been deprived of this. Eventually the longing and desire became so great that when Linda came home and asked me what I thought of adopting the child of a relative of a friend, my heart simultaneously fell (with the thought of what a wretched father I would be) and rejoiced at finally being able to care for one of these most precious ones of God. I had been given a gift that surpasses all other gifts and all other things of value. Within a few weeks we were caring for a new baby boy.

As you all know we named him Samuel, very deliberately, because at that time he had been asked of God for nearly fifteen years. He is a source of constant and unending delight and joy.

I can only hope that those I work with, those who would eschew the greatest of the gifts God has given us, will in time come to their senses and come to realize that the riches gained in a child to share life with far outweigh the passing riches of this world. Like many parents we have had to give up the thought of European Vacations, cruises, and even, for the most part, vacations to places that don't have relatives to stay with. We don't have the luxury of rich food and expensive cars, we can't afford many of the things our neighbors have. In order to homeschool him we have to forego the two incomes many families have and often struggle along on what I alone can make. And there would be some who would view these things as tremendous sacrifices. But I see them as gifts--each one of them--ways of not being quite so enamored and attached to the world at large. Blessings, mitzvahs, things that enrich our life. Because we have Samuel to share our lives, all these other things fade into insignificance.

And what this taught me more profoundly is the lesson Jesus most wished to impress upon us. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you." In a microcosm, when our priorities are rightly ordered to the vocation to which we have been called, we begin to see the light of day. When I look upon my family situation, I see what God is calling me to and I long for it. There is almost no sacrifice too great for what we presently have as a family, because none of it seems like sacrifice. So too, there is almost no sacrifice too great to belong to God's family, because when our priorities are right, none of it seems like sacrifice. Perhaps that is why so many saints longed to suffer for and with the Lord, because suffering is not suffering when it is done in complete, abandoned love. Sacrifice is meaningless when the thing sacrificed loses all value--and so we long to repay in some way the great munificence, the magnificent love showered upon us by God our Father. And there is no way to do so except, perhaps, to love Him and cling to Him as Father forever--as the one who loves us so much that no Sacrifice was too great.

So, today blessing on all of those who accept, welcome, and nurture all the small people God has so generously blessed them with. And blessings on all those, who for whatever reason, have not yet received this gift--blessings that they will change their minds or hearts or be blessed as we have been blessed with an utterly unexpected gift.

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February 25, 2008

Continuing the Theme

Natural and supernatural--the relationship between them is the key to understanding much of the natural world. This excerpt from a longer essay by Orlando's Bishop Thomas Wenski is a hint in that direction:

from an Essay in the Orlando Sentinel
Bishop Thomas Wenski

And so the church supports the teaching of evolution as the best available account of how nature works. But, at the same time, the church rejects certain erroneous philosophical theories that are sometimes associated with it. To insist, as some scientists have done, that evolution requires a materialistic or an atheistic understanding of the human person or of the entire universe is to stray beyond the proper realm of science itself. To argue such a neo-Darwinist conception of a mechanistic universe without any sign of intelligent order is to argue from a philosophical bias and not from the results of any scientific investigation.

The scientific method has proved to be a powerful instrument in assisting mankind to come to a greater understanding of the world and how it works. However, as a method, it is limited to the physical objects and their relationships. Scientific knowledge does not extend beyond the physical, and, therefore, it is not sufficient to answer all the questions that men inevitably pose about themselves and their world.

As Catholics we believe that mankind was created by God for himself; that is, we are destined to share the communion of the life of the Holy Trinity. We are in physical continuity with the rest of life on the planet through the process of evolution. But, because we each have a spiritual soul created directly by God, we also are qualitatively different from other living beings. Science can rightly explore man's continuity with the rest of life, and thus uncover the causal chains by which God prepared the way for appearance of the human race. But, it is theology's realm, aided by Divine Revelation, to explore those dimensions of human existence that cannot be the objects of scientific explanation.

The Catholic Church does not have to reject the theory of evolution in order to affirm our belief in our Creator. As Catholics, we can affirm an understanding of evolution that is open to the full truth about the human person and about the world. With appropriate catechesis at home and in the parish on God as Creator, even our children in public schools should be able to achieve an integrated understanding of the means God chose to make us who we are.

(The Entire Essay)

Properly understood, the natural world takes its essence from the supernatural but its form (existence) from the rule governing the natural. God does not normally choose to intrude upon these governing principles. If evolution is one of these organizing principles, it is not in contradiction to the supernatural.

It has been pointed out before, by many and myriad, that evolution as a scientific understanding of the origin of life and development of diversity is not a problem. What is a problem is the unprovable and unscientific philosophical trappings that come with it. As Bishop Wenski points out--the development of life through evolution does not necessitate a materialistic or atheistic interpretation of the universe. Indeed, such an interpretation is far outside the bounds of science. Science has no intelligible comment to make on the existence or non-existence of God. Science exists to explain the natural world--a subset of the supernatural world. With its instruments and its philosophical underpinnings, it is incapable of plumbing the depths of the supernatural; however, it can occasionally point in that direction. As Gödel pointed out there are propositions and theorems that can be made from within a system that are unprovable with the axioms and corallaries of that system. The existence or nonexistence of God is one of those theorems that are unprovable and therefore beyond the bounds of the natural system we call science.

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The Supernatural Life

Yesterday's gospel reading provoked an interesting series of thoughts:

'The woman said to him,
“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water.” '

Reading this, it occurred to me that this is all too often my reaction. I'm told about the beauty of the supernatural life, about its promise and its durability. My immediate expectation is that when I embrace this life things will somehow be changed--there will be no more trials and sufferings and heartache and pain. I shouldn't have to go and fetch water from the well any more. Food should pop out of the oven already prepared and beautifully proportioned and seasoned. After all, isn't that more or less what Jesus promises with the whole "yoke is easy, burden light" rhetoric?

No, it isn't. Yesterday it finally slapped me upside the head. The supernatural life is NOT the counternatural life. The supernatural, as the name implies, sits about the natural and contains the natural as a subset of it. That is the supernatural life, the war in heaven, is the real life that we only catch glimpses of through the sacraments. Only rarely are we privileged to see the supernatural life superceding and counteracting the natural life--we call such moments miracles. But the physcially miraculous is only a very tiny part of the supernatural life.

The awareness of the supernatural life and the constant participation in it does change everything--absolutely EVERYTHING. But it neither contradicts it nor does it normally change the parameters of it. What it does change is our perception of what we are about in this life. That change of perception is critical. Once we have tasted the living water we cannot be satisfied with anything less. Once we have seen the Kingdom we cannot continue to live in the desert. The glimpse and understanding of the supernatural life sets everything around us in context. Pain, suffering, outrage, horror, even psychological stress and disease do not pass away. Rather, they become meaningful in a way that, formerly, they were not. Suffering means something because suffering here and now is part of the war in heaven, the battle of angels. The saints speak of sharing in the suffering of Christ as though it alleviated some of that suffering, and in some sense we can understand that when we see that our little suffering contributes to the overall victory--when we suffer in the knowledge of that ultimate victory and in the embrace of it.

So, the key point--the supernatural life is not counternatural. We should not expect that the embrace of it will immediately change all circumstances and change all those things that tempt us and try us. It won't. It will change us--it will make us amenable to further change, to the transformation that leads to the ability to lead an eternal life. But it will not suddenly undo all the choices we have made. If we enter into it tempted by greed, pride, or lust, we will continue to be tempted. However, we will have an awareness of new resources to draw upon. We will have the ability to turn the leadership of the battle over to someone who knows the path to victory, and we can become the footsoldiers we were meant to be--not trying by ourselves to conquer sin, but meekly following the lead of He who does it for us. In this is our victory and our ability to lead others to victory. We are promised a transformed life, but the transformation is not on the level of not needing to eat or drink or exercise or do all those things we do in a day. Rather the transformation is in knowing that whatever it is we do, we never do it alone--we never do it without help and without being loved into eternity.

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February 14, 2008

"Not Counting Our Trespasses Against Us. . ."

Here is the fundamental ground of hope. God is not a scorekeeper. He is not out measuring every doctrinal deviation or venial infraction. His concern is not with evening things out and making the playing field level. Indeed, His concern is lifting each person, every one of us to Him. He has no interest in finding reasons to keep us out of heaven--indeed His chief interest is to clear the obstacles that prevent us from choosing heaven.

The vast majority of humanity are little children--easily distracted, easily led astray, easily returned to a momentary interest in what is important, and then distracted again. He knows that. So time and again His message of love comes to each one person and encourages a return to Him.

He does not count our trespasses against us any more than we would count a todler's transgressions. And, if we, being evil, know how to give what is good, then how much more so Our Heavenly Father who is good.

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November 16, 2007

Gluttony--Wasichu

Whether or not Wasichu actually means "eaters of fat" or "the ones who take the fat," the myth of the meaning provides entry into today's brief exploration of Fr. Beck's book. The "eaters of fat" were those who were so all consuming that they ate at the expense of everyone else--immoderately and seemingly all-consuming, taking even the last, most precious of ther reserves.

from Soul Provider
Father Edward L. Beck

Gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins, can kill us not only physically, but spiritually as well. Saint John Climacus says: "Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach. Filled, it moans about scarcity; stuffed and crammed, it wails about hunger. Glutton thinks up seasonings, creates sweet recipes. Stop one urge and another bursts out; stop that one and you unleash yet another. Gluttony has a deceptive appearance: it eats moderately but wants to gobble everything at the same time."

The sin here is not only in the doing, it is is the inordinate desire even when the impulse is controlled.

I have a friend who has lost a large amount of weight; she has adhered especially closely to one particularly program of eating. She is justifiably pleased with how well she has done and she claims that food no longer possesses her. But in actual fact, it merely possesses her in a different way. Everything is oriented toward eating in this way--all thought is about the next meal or this meal and whether it conforms in every particular to the ideal. This isn't gluttony--but it is similar to how gluttony works. And gluttony, hasn't only to do with food. It has to do with any inordinate appetite for goods of any sort. Gluttony is when we rise from the breakfast table asking "What's for lunch."

A later quote from C.S. Lewis in Father Beck's book makes the point more clearly:

"Anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating will admit that we can ignore even pleasure."

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November 12, 2007

Sloth and Acedia

One of the worst things we face is a sense of boredom or the uselessness of doing anything at all. Father Beck addresses this:

from Soul Provider
Father Edward L. Beck

Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
--Dylan Thomas. . . .

In his famous 1978 Harvard commencement address, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned of the West's "spiritual exhaustion": "In the United States the difficulties are not a Minotaur or a dragon--not imprisonment, hard labor, death, government harassment and censorship--but cupidity, boredom, sloppiness, indifference. Not the acts of a might all-prevading repressive government but the failure of a listless public to make use of the freedom that is its birthright." If we are indeed a listless public, what has made us so, and what can we do to infuse our lives with new vigor?

We can do a few things. The authors I have just quoted suggest that boredom is an evil to be conquers it if leads to despondency, hopelessness, and ingratitude. Sloth is clearly the result of a refusal to celebrate the gift and potential of life. But there is another way to look at it. We can embrace boredom, hoping to transform it into something not boring at all. We have been convinced that we always need to be doing something to be happy, usually something other than what we are doing. So if we are driving, we can't simply be driving. We must also be listening to the radio or talking on the cell phone or doing both. Perhaps we are even listening to our 10,000-song iPod, the contents of which could last us our lifetime. What about simply listening to nothing instead?

The "art of doing nothing" has long been extolled by religious traditions. Nothing becomes something when nothing produces results that something cannot.The power of meditation is rooted in the power of nothingness. . . The reason for stillness in the midst of chaos is so that the chaos does not consume us. Stillness gives us distance from what we cannot see when trapped in the never-ending swirl of diversion. . . .

My only response is "guilty." We credit ourselves with "multitasking" when, what is actually happening is that we are not accomplishing any one thing with anything approaching the attention it requires. While I belong to an order that looks to cultivating silence, it seems that we've all bought into the idea of silence while doing something.

Silence, stillness, the embrace of the moment in which there is nothing in particular required of us is an art. We have difficulty, convinced by some inner prompting that such moments are "wasting time." But perhaps it is our railing against them that is the waste of time. Were we to realize that we are bored precisely because nothing is required of us at this time and rather than seek solace in a book, television, or endless iPod, we should seek solace in the silence, perhaps then we might make of boredom the gift that God intends for us.

Limitless diversion leads to limitless ennui, but a few moments of stillness, of letting the swirl and twirl of existence settle down--these have limitless potential--I need to become better at exploiting it.

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November 9, 2007

Bearing Our Crosses

I don't do this often, and probably should not do it even as often as I do; however, this notion has been on my mind a great deal in recent months. This is a meditation composed for another web site.

My thanks to Joachim who maintains the site and who gets a really good proof-reader/copyeditor to help improve each meditation.

Whoever does not carry his cross and come after me . . .
(Luke 14:27)

This passage may contain some of the most difficult words that Jesus shared with us. Hating father and mother, carrying crosses, renouncing possessions--what does it all mean, what sense can we make of it? There is such richness here it's impossible to encompass it all, but what I hear almost every time I go back is "whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." And I am always encouraged to remember that crosses are not "one size fits all."

Sometimes we look at others in our religious and secular lives and wonder, "Why is it so easy for them? What cross are they carrying?" It does us well to remember that what is a cross for one may not be a cross for another. Crosses are not one-size-fits-all. They are individually tailored to the person we are, and they are excruciating (literally) precisely because they are designed to straighten out what we have made crooked--they are designed to rectify what we have corrupted through our poor choices. Sometimes they are to help others bear their own burdens because we all participate in the economy of salvation--what another cannot carry, we help to bear so that we all advance together.

We must always bear in mind that, like Simon of Cyrene, we do bear the cross, but we bear it for the One who takes away all sin, the One who makes the crooked straight and the lame walk. Jesus doesn't say we need to be nailed to it in the way He was. Rather, He tells us that our job, like that of Simon, is to bear part of the burden for all of humanity. We carry our crosses, but ultimately it was and is Jesus who is nailed to it. We bring the burden of sin--He takes it all away.

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The Prayers of Clarence Thomas/Merry del Val

A friend sent this link to a very interesting article on the prayer life of Clarence Thomas.

In the course of it, there is a litany from Cardinal Merry del Val, that struck my friend as a hard teaching:

Litany of Humility

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should...

My friend noted that to take it seriously seemed to invite despair. But I pointed out that it was a detailed version of St. John of the Cross' todo y nada. That is, the litany does not prohibit one from accepting such graces as come to one, but asks God to grant us the freedom from fear or desire of these things, because such fear and/or desire was distracting from the "one thing necessary." It isn't that the objects mentioned are not legitimate things to desire or to fear, but rather that in either desire or fear of them we may find ourselves doing things that are not part of our particular vocation--going out of our way to seek or avoid things.

But this seems to be an interesting point and I'd love to hear what others think of the article and especially of the Litany.

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November 6, 2007

Repent

I particularly cherished the following experience recounted by Fr. Beck. It spoke to me intimately and provoked a line of thought that I had never really considered. We start as Father Beck is trying to avoid the eye of a modern-day John the Baptist in Time's Square:

from Soul Provider
Fr. Edward L. Beck

I maneuvered to get around him, but, seeming to sense that I was an unwilling convert, he would have none of it. He made a bee-line for me as I lowered my head and tried to get lost in the crowd that I now appreciated. He held a tattered black Bible that he massaged gently with his thumb.

"Do you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, young man?"

He was standing right in front of me, blocking my passage. (At least he called me young.) I didn't answer, pretending I thought he was talking to someone else.

"You, sir, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?" he persisted.

I looked up, unable to ignore him any longer.

"What?" I said, though I'm not sure why, since I had clearly heard the question.

"Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?" he repeated more forcefully. A woman bumped me from behind letting me know in her own not-so-gentle way that I was blocking the path.

"Yes, I do," I said. "I do, thank you." I walked around him and started to make my way down the street.

"Hey," he called to me. I looked back. "Isn't it wonderful?" His eyes were glowing.

"Not always," I answered truthfully.

I continued walking and was about a hundred feet from him when he shouted, "Well, then, repent, blue eyes, and it will always be.

I don't necessarily take the street-corner prophet at his literal word here, but it occurred to me that with a good deal more repentance, and a good deal less Steven, that personal relationship might be made more manifest to those around me. And a personal relationship with Jesus is next to useless if it isn't influencing the world around us. Perhaps what I need more of, then, is a spirit of continual repentance--heaven knows there isn't a day I go through that doesn't encourage me to confession before participation in Mass. I'm one of those who wishes that confession were offered moments before Mass so there would be some likelihood of making it to Mass before needing to get to confession again. I often wonder whether I've ever really managed to gain a plenary indulgence for any of the poor souls because the conditions are so rigorous. If Mass immediately follows confession and/or the action that merits the plenary indulgence, there is a remote possibility. Otherwise. . .

Repentance, it's not just a seasonal thing--it's a way to live, really live, a life.

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November 2, 2007

Renunciation

With merely the title of this post I have chased away half of the small audience that might drop by on a regular basis. Renunciation is not a popular subject--most often because it is not fully understood.

However, renunciation is one step on the road to union with God that we all can consider and that with God's grace we all can effect.

There is such a wealth of possibility in Father Edward Beck's Soul Provider, it is difficult to choose among the possibilities; however, for the purposes of supporting the main contention of the chapter, perhaps the conclusion would be most useful:

from Soul Provider
Fr. Edward L. Beck

Renunciation is therefore a kind of purification and asceticism that does not exist for its own sake but rather for the sake of higher goods. Thus, I renounce excessive use of alcohol so that I don't destroy my marriage or my work. Or I renounce consumerism so that I don't lose my soul to what money can buy. . . .

In view of John Climacus's Ladder of Divine Ascent renunciation lights us and frees us so that we can climb less encumbered, ascending without restraint toward the good. Renunciation exists for the sake of freedom. It liberates us and ultimately allows us to love more wholeheartedly. Who of us doesn't want that?

The man who renounces the world because of fear is like burning incense, which begins with fragrance and ends in smoke. . . . but the man who leaves the world for love of God has taken fire from the start, and like fire set to fuel, it soon creates a conflagration.

(Climacus Step 1)

Fr. Beck's book seems to be a very hard-headed, light-hearted, full-spirited survey of how to improve one's life with God. The advice given is solid, orthodox and complemented by insights from other religious traditions that both inform and help to bring out implicit aspects of each topic. Each chapter ends with a set of very hard, very pointed questions that allow the reader to reflect upon his or her own state with respect to the Ascent to God.

In coming days I hope to quote more from this book and to share more of Fr. Beck's insights. In the meantime, if this excerpt interests you, you might do well to seek the book out on your own and not wait for what small portions I might share.

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October 15, 2007

The Thorn in the Flesh

Reading Dark Night of the Soul one encounters a passage in which St. John of the Cross gives the fairly traditional view of St. Paul's "thorn in the flesh." During a recent community meeting, one of the community members asked me, "How did he (St. John of the Cross) know that St. Paul's thorn in the flesh was lust? I'd never heard that before."

I responded, perhaps vaguely, but appropriately, "Because he was male." The ambiguity here is which he I was referring to, but it works for both. St. John of the Cross understood because he was male, and the thorn in St. Paul's flesh being lust was perfectly understandable to any other male.

The human male is a very, very simple animal. If two simple needs/desires are satisfied (one of them is food), we tend to be a pretty contented lot. Upset the schedule of one or the other, we tend to get out of sorts.

Yes, it's a vast simplification, but when I think of the capital vices/capital sins and I look at much of human history and human legend, one crops up more often than any other, and it isn't pride. In fact, if one considers the idiotic things done in the name of "love," one can readily conclude that for most men pride takes a far distant second place to lust as the most common besetting sins. For example, Helen of Troy (admittedly legend), the rape of the Sabine women, the reign of Henry VIII, the reign of W J Clinton and role model JFK--the roll call goes on and on.

Judging by the state of society today, it is fairly evident that everything is set to keep that particular vice at a fever pitch. Now, this is not to say that the impulses in this direction cannot be subdued or with the aid of grace resisted. But one glance at the present state of society which, whether feminists like it or not, is a male-construct to which "liberated women" have foolishly consented in their desire to become more and more like men, shows the basis on which almost everything is done, sold, or considered. Again, I'll grant that it is a simplification, but there is an element of truth to it. That element is sometimes expressed in the outrage against celibacy and its native chastity. Some are outraged over the celibacy requirement, calling it unnatural, unrealistic, and gravely disordered. When I look at the same state, I do see something that is not natural--rather it is supernatural--a state exalted above that of most of us and preserved purely by grace. When a priest from time to time fails at maintaining this state of life, that too is likely in God's grace--a lesson in humility, because his fall is a matter of public notice. He cannot do what many in society do casually without causing scandal. But society at large is threatened by it because it is a sign that the thorn in the flesh can be removed or at least made subservient to the person who experiences it. Presently, one would think that the thorn was, in fact, the entire flesh and that such was a normative existence.

St.Anthony of the Desert heroically fought off the demons of lust throughout his time in the desert. St. Augustine, Blessed (?) Charles Foucault, and a great many others, perhaps many we do not know, spent a great deal of energy fighting those impulses that comprised for them "the thorn in the flesh."

In our conversation, I did go on to confide that I honestly didn't know what might form the most common or besetting sin among female kind. (Some women, exhibiting the need and desire to be more like men, have foolishly accepted the male vision of the world and see promiscuous and untethered sexual conduct as normative, rather than as the degrading objectification of persons that it actually is. Sexual congress outside of the sacrament of matrimony is sinful precisely because of its tendency to turn an person into a object. And, in fact, this can be a problem even within the sacramental union.)

Oh, and by the way, I still refuse to speculate. I'll tend my house, thank you, it's far more than I'm capable of on a day-to-day basis anyway.

Now, there is a theory that pride is more an ur-sin rather than a capital sin. That is pride is considered the source of all the other sins.

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October 6, 2007

The Dark Night of Blessed Mother Teresa

as explicated by St. John of the Cross:

from Dark Night of the Soul I:11:11-12
St. John of the Cross

11. Finally, insofar as these person are purged of their sensory affections and appetites, they obtain freedom of spirit in which they acquire the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit.

They are also wondrously liberated from the hand of their enemies, the devil, the world, and the flesh. For when the sensory delight delight and gratification regarding things is quenched, neither the devil, nor the world, nor sensuality has arms or power against the spirit.

12. These aridities, then, make people walk with purity in the love of God. No longer are they moved to act by the delight and satisfaction they find in a work, as perhaps they were when the derived this from their deeds, but by the desire of pleasing God. They are neither presumptuous nor self-satisfied, as was their custom int he time of their prosperity, but fearful and disquieted about themselves and lacking in any self-satisfaction. This is the holy fear that preserves and gives increase to the virtues.

I am not original in claiming that the dark night had for Blessed Mother Teresa a protective effect, an effect all the more necessary in a world where the entire world is at your doorstep and scrutinizing every action.

This deep and unsatisfied longing for God's presence has the unique attribute of taking away from her the many temptations that come as a result of success in the world. Satan's most effective ploy in dealing with someone like Mother Teresa would be to have them change their focus from serving and saving souls to better the lives of people. These two sound like hand in glove; however, they are as different in focus as a microscope and a telescope.

What if Mother Teresa, not wandering in a dark night of spirit had started to pay more attention to things that mattered, but were no the One Thing. What if she suddenly started to say to herself, "With a few dollars more, I could build a house for twenty more people." What is the focus of her effort became the betterment of lives through better buildings, more technology, what have you, rather than helping people to get what they needed to live a life and leave a life with dignity. No matter how holy the motive, when the focus slips from, "For God and God alone, a gift of His people," to "Look what we can do if we only try," Satan has won.

But the dark night has a paradoxical effect. The longing for and the apparent absence of God in a life, increases the focus on serving Him. It cocoons the person away from some of the yammerings of the world and helps them to see life as it should be seen.

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October 4, 2007

What Can We Learn from Dante?

Reading The Inferno gives one pause at moments. Frequently in fact. It isn't so much the punishments described in Hell as it is a number of factors that stem from that. For example, did Jesus not teach us, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." And yet Dante, with impunity, assigns any number of people to any circle of Hell he chooses. Now, were these living people (at the time of his writing) one could say that this were a cautionary tale; however most of them are dead as of the writing of the work. What then do we adjudge from this seeming infraction of a commandment of love?

Next, we get from the Inferno a God of infernal intellect, delicating designing and manipulating Hell as to be of the most exquisite pain to the sinners assigned there. The lavish and ornate punishments that make up the bulk of hellish existence beggar the imagination. What then was Dante about?

Finally, we have an image of a God of such remarkable sternness, indeed of such profound violence that one is at a loss to figure out what Dante wanted us to understand of God from this.

The last question first. I don't know what Dante wanted us to understand of God, but what one can see of God in this is that the image of God fluctuates in time with the society in which He is seen. In Dante's time a clearly stern judge, devoid of compassion for circumstances, hewing carefully to the letter and not the spirit. In the time of "the enlightenment" a God of watchmakers and mechanists, having set the stars in their courses and the planets in their respective paths, he sits back to observe all and watch it slowly unwind. Today's God, the "Good Buddy Jesus." Everything goes, God is all inclusive, completely open to whatever perversion of justice, thought, or principle we need to feel good about ourselves. The point: none of these are accurate pictures of God. Each shows some feature of God distorted through the lens of the time. Dante's God, is God the Redeemer, picking carefully among the flotsam and jetsam of humanity to select the few, the proud, the elect to ascend into heaven and occupy ornate circles of praise at appropriate distances from divinity. The God of the enlightenment, is God the creator, and only that, an uninterested tinkerer who plays with galaxies and universes and lets them spin away to their natural destruction, never giving another thought to them except perhaps how lovely they are and how nicely they reflect His glory. The God of our times is the Sanctifier, making everything holy and everything whole, compassionate to the point of idiocy, embracing all ideologies and all human choices. Murder? Why not, so long as you don't do it to excess and you have what you think is a good reason for it. Adultery? Well, after all, how can we expect one person to fulfill the needs of an aimless humanity seeking to fill a God-sized hole?

Not one of these images tells us anything useful about God. Dante's comes closest because it is the least distorted--at least His justice is meted out with something approximating the justice devised by the human mind--it is rational and considered and ordered, like everything else about Him. Still, it isn't the complete picture of God. However, looking at Dante's image of God should help counterbalance the lunacy of some of the images suggested by people int he modern world.

On the first question--how Dante assigns to Hell with impunity--we get at the core of the question of Allegory. Dante and Virgil couldn't very well walk through an empty inferno. Nor would it perfectly suit the purpose to invent people to populate the place--it would require enormous work and lengthen the tale to the point of losing the train of thought. Instead Dante says something like--if the tendencies shown in this life went unrepented to the grave, this person, whom you all know, would be exemplary of this class of sins, which is punished in just such a way. This would also help us to better understand the mythological figures who intrude from time to time. While a great many philosophers and poets are in the limbo of the righteous pagan, we meet an awful lot of the classical crew on our journey through Hell. Are we to think that Dante thought that Jason really existed, much less Zeus or Hera or Aphrodite--offenses against whom are being punished in this very Hell? Or rather, he took the figures of well known stories and said, you know what these guys did, well, this is where they would be under the circumstances. The judgment is allegorical. Dante may have believed or even in some cases hoped for his vision of assignments, but their purpose is instructive, to latch on to a universal that can propel the reader through the poem.

And the second point was more or less addressed implicitly in the discussion of the third. Above all else, Dante's vision of God is that of the Person who wrests order from chaos, who delicately balances the tendency toward destruction with the tendency toward elevation. He has ordered the cosmos, down to and including the elaborate, ornate, and poetically apt structure of Hell itself--giving rise to the whole term poetic justice.

There is much more to be learned from Dante, much more. But these were questions that have surfaced for me nearly every time Ihave read The Inferno and I thought I'd take a stab at answering them for those who follow asking similar questions.

And follow you all should--a good version of Dante, with acceptable notes and good typesetting takes very little time to read. I prefer Ciardi's translation because the notes proved most helpful to me. Additionally the set-up in terza rima breaks gives some sense of rhythm to the eye. Others have faulted him for being too free in his translation. Truth is, a translation is a translation, and poetry can only come so close any way because there is always much lost in the course of translation. So you pick the version you will read best and then read it. But by all means, please go to the effort to acquaint, or reacquaint yourself with at least the first division of this great work. By all means, read all three. But at a minimum The Inferno.

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October 1, 2007

What Makes "Great Books" Great

For one thing, continued relevance through time. I can't imagine the novels of Philip Roth, or even Saul Bellow surviving much beyond our present age, though I've been wrong in a great many things and perhaps do not have the breadth of vision required to see them lasting. (I think of John Gould Cozzens, and other such writers so lauded during their own times--but then Bellow already has his academic cultus who may see to his literary survival.)

But on great books, to wit:

from The Inferno
Dante (tr. John Ciardi)

As one who unwills what he wills, will stay
strong purposes with feeble second thoughts
until he spells all his first zeal away--

so I hung back and balked on that dim coast
till thinking had worn out my enterprise,
so stout at starting and so early lost.

A moment, a lingering second in the second canto of The Divine Comedy, but a telling one. I know I can sympathize with one who starts out with vigorous purpose and think himself into absolute stasis if not retrograde motion. And he captures it perfectly. I often pelt myself with all that could go wrong, with all that is imperfect in my suggested enterprise, with all that is folly about it, and with the limited expectations I have put together for it.

Sheer foolishness--but human foolishness, and a foolishness with which the reader can readily empathize.

Of course, it isn't universality of situation that keeps a book in the canon of great books--also required are depth of insight, range of vision, and to some extent ultimate intent.

However you may judge is, Dante's Divine Comedy has these things and many, many more. If for some reason you have missed the opportunity to read it, take the time now--get a good edition with good notes to help you through the more difficult references--you'll be glad you did so. Perhaps then, you can say with Virgil:

"so welcome is your command that to my sense,
were it already fulfilled, it would yet seem tardy."

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September 24, 2007

Why Is Doctrine So Darned Difficult?

For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. Luke 12:48

I have an interesting love/hate relationship with the doctrine of the Catholic Church. This was brought home to me by an innocuous request that arrived by e-mail this morning and provoked far more thought than I have time for or my correspondent had time to read. Pity him!

In point of fact, I belong to the Catholic Church for several reasons, approximately in this order: The Real Presence, the Church established by Jesus Christ, an ongoing authoritative teaching magisterium. Huh? What was that last? Yes, you heard it, the body of doctrine and dogma and teachings that might be termed advisory or cautionary, having not the weight of doctrine or dogma, but not so easily dismissed as many of our progressive friends would have us believe.

In fact, left to myself, I would be firmly in the ranks of the progressive Catholics. Why? Well, as much as I love the fact that there is firm and clear guidance in the Church, I know enough of the weakness of human intellect to question some of those more outré and far-flung notions that seem to come forth from this wealth of teaching. A case in point--although Jesus clearly teaches that it is wrong to kill in the cause of faith (after all, if it were not appropriate for Peter to defend Jesus forcibly, what can be justified in the name of the defense of faith?), we somehow derive from a relatively clear body of Christ's teaching something called "Just War Theory." Now, I'm not certain this rises to the level of doctrine, but let's just say that there are several aspects of this body of thought that I find disconcerting and unlikely when exposed to the fullness of the teaching of Christ.

However, I also know that in matters of abstract thought about such things, I am more often wrong that I am right. My intuition is guided by the part of me that prefers to be sensually enveloped rather than the part that seeks God. The Base Man triumphs in these matters.

But my own experience of intellect leads me to doubt the conclusions of other. What is the agenda? What are they headed for? Do they have my best interests in mind or were they in the service of some sovereign or power for whom my compliance in vassalage is advantageous? You can see what happens. I have no trust for humanity.

Now the Church informs me that all dogma (with which I have a good deal less problem) and universally taught doctrine is informed by, guided by, and kept on-target by the Holy Spirit. There is a certain amount of comfort in this. The difficulty is to know where that guidance ends and the speculation of theologians guided by more human motives might begin.

So, I'm stuck in this quandary. A little more humility and I would have no problem. a little less intellect (or a little more) and I'd probably see the matter straight. But the reality is that I am the flawed person I am. I have what I have been given. And from what I've seen, I have been given a tremendous amount. God has blessed me with a good mind (not a great one) a certain verbal felicity and flexibility, and a stubborn streak a mile wide.

It is to this last that I owe the greatest debt of gratitude. I do not join the progressive thinkers among us in large part because I have made a commitment to the Church and I intend to stand by it come Hell or high water. Period. My own doubts and questions be damned--I will stand by what the Church teaches.

That's the stubborn streak. Problem is, it means that I often have to put the brain in check for certain issues. I hear people begin to spiel out how war is just, owning weapons is a God-given right and obligation, torture isn't really against God's teaching. . . you name the controversy that rages.

Then you go to find a clear answer--what does the Church teach--and what you get is the muddy water of the millions of interpreters and theologians with their own understandings and interpretations.

So the bargain I thought I was getting in joining the Church--clear teaching--materializes more often than not. But it is insubstantial in a sufficiently large number of cases to be aggravating.

I suppose it is not doctrine I oppose so much as the ornament and filagree frequently attached thereto. However, to someone not sufficiently well versed in the sources and where to go to find the correct teaching, the doctrine and its accretions are indistinguishable.

So when I say that I don't like doctrine, I suppose I mean, I don't like the uncertainty that seems to surround some doctrine. For example, is it a doctrine that women simply cannot be priests? I don't know for certain. Some say yes, some say no. As this happens to be one matter on which a person who I came to trust completely had a clear statement, I can arrive at a conclusion which may not be doctrinal. And so it goes.

To whom much is given, much will be expected in return. For those of us gifted with intelligence, curiosity, and analytical ability, these problems will continue to chafe. Does that mean doctrine is useless? Absolutely not. But it does lead me to rely more on a direct experience of God in prayer and through the prayer and lives of the saints. Perhaps this doubt of mine is simply God's way of making me acquainted with him through a more human element. Perhaps, like St. Teresa of Avila, I should spend more time with Christ's humanity, while not neglecting His divinity.

And finally, why do I share this? Possibly because it is like the grain in the oyster that may become a pearl-malformed and mishapened as it may be. But perhaps others share similar difficulties--and perhaps their paths are likewise being directed to paths of knowing that do not rely exclusively on the intellect, but engage the other parts of our humanity.

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August 30, 2007

Morning Thoughts

You know, poetry really says it all. If you bother to listen to the voice under the voice, if you read between the lines, or if you just enjoy for the moment and let the moment linger--poetry says it all. I suppose that is one reason, one very good reason for praying the psalms. Poetry is, by its nature, closer to God. Which is not to imply that God is a poem--but God is at the heart of every good poem--just as He is waiting to surprise you in every work of art and nature, if only you are willing to be surprised.

It's amazing to me how the night
passes and the morning thoughts
born of dreams pass silently away,
unencumbered by the obligation
to teach, unaffected by the need
to nurture. They present and then fold
passing briefly into the light of memory
and fading with the stronger morning.

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August 29, 2007

The Emptiness of Prayer

We have long known that Blessed Mother Teresa went through a long dark night of the soul. I don't know that anyone knew its extent or depth, and shortly we should all be privileged to be able to find out. Privileged, I say, because such things are the substance of the life of faith and if we ignore them, we do so at our peril. More importantly, they are things that any person of deep faith is likely to experience. Likewise, they are things that ordinary sinners experience all the time. The two have different causes and sources, but the end result is similar. In the case of the sinner, the darkness is troublesome and not peaceful--something fought against, struggled against. In the case of the Saint--well, I wouldn't know that yet.

All of this in preface to a marvelous little passage that says it quite succinctly.

from The Monk Downstairs
Tim Farrington

My mind is a stretch of barren country and swirling dust; my heart has shriveled to the size of a dried pea. But this is all my private comedy. The emptiness of prayer is deeper than mere despair. Preparing us for a love we cannot conceive, God takes our lesser notions of love from us one by one.

Have you really never seen it, Brother James, somewhere in the grim efficiency of your industrial meditation? Have you never once seen all your goodness turn to dust? I tell you that until you do, all your prayer is worse than useless. It is gears of greed, grinding. Love is not fuel for the usual machinery.

What is remarkable is that this is in a work of "light" fiction-- something little more than a romance--what is it doing there? How did the author get it there without sounding preachy and overbearing? What is his point?

I suppose if I sustain my reading, I shall find out the answer and I hope I'll be pleased with it. Either way, I'll let you know.

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August 28, 2007

More Crossover Wisdom

More derived from reading Buddhist books. I should note a caution here--Buddhism is not something that everyone should approach or that the person young in his or her Christian vocation should look into extensively. There is a seductiveness to doctrine and idea, and particularly to the very appealing notions in Buddhism that allow us to overlook certain intrinsic difficulties with the dogmatic side of the religion.

I present here parallels in Buddhism. They are parallels. Buddhists and Christians do not share the same faith structure nor even, in any meaningful sense, the same cosmology. Nevertheless, we are adjured to take what is good among all the good things in the world, and Buddhism has much in it that could strengthen a Christian vocation. For example:

from Cultivating Compassion
Jeffrey Hopkins

In order to value the time we have--to cherish it--it is important to reflect on the certainty of death and the uncertainty of when death will be. In meditation, contemplate: "I will definitely die--as will all of us--but I don't know when I'm going to die. It could be at any time!" Such reflection puts a value--a premium--on the present, on the time you have.

Be prepared and aware of death which comes as the end. An awareness (though not a constant fear) of the end can inform the entire life in ways that bring forth the potential for sanctity. St. Therese of Lisieux has a passage that parallels the above, though not in its memento mori aspects. She notes that all our sorrows are in the past which cannot be rectified or in the future, which we have not seen, but the authentic Christian life is lived mindful of the present, which is all that we have. That is the "premium" of focusing on the end--a realization that every moment is precious, valuable, and important. God blesses us with time--we don't know how much--so it is better to count all the time in the moment and not to look into far futures that may not exist. Not to worry oneself over things that cannot be controlled, but to focus attention on those things which are within our control.

Before continuing to a final point, it is useful to reflect for a moment on a passage immediately preceding the one quoted above.

The actuarial tables say that males as a whole will live so many years and females as a whole will live so many more years, but such figures are irrelevant with respect to any specific individual; if you're going to die next week, it's a hundred percent chance you're going to die then. It's not a such and such percentage that you might live to be seventy-eight. If you are to die on the road today, it's a hundred percent certain you'll die on the road today.

Having quoted the first passage, in which there is nothing objectionable to Christianity, I deftly ignored the sentence that begins an exposition immediately following. I will note it below:

"Since it is obvious that the body and possessions are left behind, on need to put more emphasis on consciousness."

I'm intrigued by this statement as it seems to imply that consciousness does not pass away and if consciousness is the Buddhist equivalent of a soul, that goes without saying. But nothing I've read suggests this to be true. Consciousness is incredibly important in Buddhist thought because of karma. Every conscious act is at once the ripening of one of the potentialities of karma and the setting of new potentialities. And again, we can draw parallels, but this emphasis on what we would lightly read as aspects of the self can be misleading.

Now, to do justice, we must recognize that Buddhists do not think that Mind (consciousness) is equivalent to "self." And so to assume that what is meant by the common usage of the word consciousness is what is meant when discussing Buddhism is an error. However, it is an easy error that can easily lead astray. Hence my recommendation that Buddhist texts are not for everyone. There's too much there when read with the literalist, rational, western mind can be misread or mistaken for something other than what is actually meant. Better, if one is likely to stumble into this trap, to stay out of that forest entirely.

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August 24, 2007

Buddhist Compassion

Go to this link for a further link to a very, very interesting short video about the Dalai Lama and the Pope.

One of the central ideas of Buddhism is compassion, which is equated with mercy. Jeffrey Hopkins explains it this way:

from Cultivating Compassion
Jeffrey Hopkins

Chandrakirti pays homage to three particular kinds of compassion. The first is called compassion seeing suffering beings, because prior to cultivating wishes for person to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, you need to reflect on the dire condition of beings trapped in cyclic existence.

He describes the process of cyclic existence-birth, aging, sickness, and death--as stemming from ignorance and nourished with attachment and grasping. This means that our sense of self is exaggerated beyond what actually exists, and based on the exaggeration, we are drawn into many problems. Once the "I" is exaggerated, the "mine"--things that are owned by the I, mind and body--also becomes exaggerated overblown. . . . It is true that mind, body, hand, head, house, clothing are "mine"; they do belong to us, but we have an exaggerated sense of owning them.

In a word, the deplorable condition of humankind is a result of sinful pride. Buddhism wants to see an end to the deplorable condition of humankind and thus to its causes--sin. Buddhist compassion is not simply about alleviating suffering, but the causes of suffering. The difficulty with Buddhism is not what it wants at the root, but how one proposes to get to this end.

Compassion in Buddhism is a laudable quality. It is laudable in a Buddhist, it is laudable in a Christian. A Christian should desire to see the end of suffering and its causes, and ultimately hopes for this in the beatific vision. The ends are not so different--the means are a world apart.

Cultivating compassion is not an exercise in alleviating suffering--at least not at first. It is an exercise in becoming aware of the suffering of humanity that is directly caused by the fault of humankind--pride and attachment. Only secondarily does one enter a phase that desires to do something about it. Each of the great Christian Saints showed this compassion differently. Some showed compassion by combating the errors about God and Christ that led people into practices that were not pleasing to God. Some showed compassion by remaining in the cloister and praying for all humanity. Some showed compassion by feeding the poor, tending the sick, visiting those in prison.

A desire to see the end of suffering is not incompatible with Christianity. That Christianity recognizes that some good can come out of suffering is an artifact of the reality that whatever is our present condition, God has willed it for His own purposes and "all things work to the good of those who love Him and work according to His purposes." But even the great saints recognize physical suffering as a natural evil--not a good in itself, but good in its possible effects on the receptive soul.

To suggest then this wide gap between the two is to make a distinction where one is not so clearly made. I think part of the popular appeal of Buddhism, a great part, are Buddhists themselves. They are their own best advertisement. When one sees the peace, equanimity and calm that tends to surround a Buddhist who has long been tending to his or her practice, there is a tremendous appeal there. Even the best Christians seem to be washed around by the tide of circumstance--on again and off again. But this apparent imperturbability suggests a great well of calm, peace.

Of course, we don't live with the Buddhists we see in the news 24 hours a day. Few of us know any Buddhists who have come far in their practice. The reality is probably quite different than the appearance, but being one of the many not personally acquainted with a Buddhist deep into practice, I hesitate to say more than that.

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August 20, 2007

Compassion and Christianity

One of my frequent frustration with Christianity (although not especially with the Catholic Church, which as a teaching body does much better than the Body of Christ tends to do) is the lack of focus on the duty of love and on compassion in general. Too often different Christian groups are so busy arguing the merits or faults of their doctrines that they tend not to put those doctrines into practice. Try finding a Christian book about compassion and compassionate treatment of others. This tends to be left to the Buddhists, and so, for refuge, I sometime find myself turning there to learn what their great teachers taught.

Reading Cultivating Compassion by Jeffrey Hopkins, I stumbled across this "daily exercise" in compassion. The following prayer, mantra, reminder (call it what you will) is to be brought to mind six times a day:

I go for refuge to Buddha, his doctrine, and the spiritual community until I am enlightened. Through the merit of my charity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom, may I achieve Buddhahood for the sake of all beings.

This has few parallels in Christian prayer--although the Prayer of St. Francis comes to mind. And because I don't find myself taking refuge in Buddha, I would need to change the prayer:

I go for refuge to Jesus, his doctrine, and the mystical body until I am made holy. Through the merits of charity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom, may I achieve holiness (Saintliness) for the sake of all beings.

What good is personal sanctity if it does not better the lives of those with whom we have the closest relationships?

The Church hits this theme time and time again, but because we are the people we are we tend to regard these teachings with suspicion. Mention Social Justice and see how many good and faithful Catholics look at you askance. If you hear talk about a preferential option for the poor, it is likely to remain just that--talk. How often have we been stirred by understanding these teachings to actually make the lives of some other person better? Often the preferential option for the poor is left at the foot of the altar as the congregation goes out to play parking lot derby. Not only do we not internalize the teachings, much of our behavior suggests that we reject them entirely.

I was musing this morning as I drove my car in to work how much better things might be if every car was equipped as mine is. I have a hybrid civic, and one of the ways you can configure the instrument panel is to give you feedback on your driving to see how certain behaviors help to conserve gasoline and increase milage. As a result of these readouts, I have seen large changes in my behaviors behind the wheel, and coming with those changes, I have experienced a completely different attitude most of the time when I drive. Other drivers don't become obstacles or problems, but people in their cars, just like me, just as scatter-brained as I sometimes am, just as courteous as I can sometimes be. When I see a person driving foolishly, sudden starts, screeching stops, I think about how they might be different if they understood the effects of their actions.

Compassion, understanding that all people at heart want the same things we want for themselves and for their children. Compassion is one of the roots of charity--when we look at people in all their strengths and weaknesses and see ourselves.

Jesus taught compassion through His words and works. The Church extols and sets up institutions and groups to cultivate compassion. Dorothy Day's Catholic Workers are one such group, but far less radical and far quieter are the innumerable Martin de Porres or Vincent de Paul societies that are part and parcel of our Church.

But compassion isn't just for the church or just for a meeting--it is part of a way of life--living in Christ's love, being Christ's heart for the salvation and redemption of a world gone astray. That is part of the imitation of Christ to which we all are called. That is the root and source of sustenance for Christian compassion.

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August 13, 2007

Philippians Again

William Barclay tended toward universalism; that comes through clearly in the passages that follow. His universalism was of the sort that was taught and accepted by the Eastern Church and still has strong undercurrents in the Orthodox Churches. However, the universalist perspective, the underpinning of hope for all sinners, provides a unique and useful perspective on Philippians, the most hopeful, the most truly joyous of all of Paul's letters. There is in the text an undercurrent of such incredible intensity and joy that it's hard to rephrase it to make it more clear.

From William Barclay's Commentary of Philippians

It made certain that some day, soon or late, every living creature in all the universe, in heaven, in earth and even in hell, would worship him. It is to be carefully noted whence that worship comes. It comes from love. Jesus won the hearts of men, not by blasting them with power, but by showing them a love they could not resist. At the sight of this person who laid his glory by for men and loved them to the extent of dying for them on a cross, men's hearts are melted and their resistance is broken down. When men worship Jesus Christ, they fall at his feet in wondering love. They do not say "I cannot resist a might like that," but, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all." Worship is founded, not on fear, but on love. . . .

Php.2:11 is one of the most important verses in the New Testament. In it we read that the aim of God, is a day when every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. These four words were the first creed that the Christian Church ever had. To be a Christian was to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (compare Rom.10:9). This was a simple creed, yet all-embracing. Perhaps we would do well to go back to it. Later men tried to define more closely what it meant and argued and quarrelled about it, calling each other heretics and fools. But it is still true that if man can say, "For me Jesus Christ is Lord," he is a Christian. If he can say that, he means that for him Jesus Christ is unique and that he is prepared to give him an obedience he is prepared to give no one else. He may not be able to put into words who and what he believes Jesus to be; but, so long as there is in his heart this wondering love and in his life this unquestioning obedience, he is a Christian, because Christianity consists less in the mind's understanding than it does in the heart's love.

Christianity consists less in the mind's understanding that it does in the heart's love. Doctrine will all be blown away when we stand in the presence--the need for understanding will be gone because we will stand in His presence. And who among us really understands any other human being, much less God? Why do we presume to think that we can better understand God and His commandments than we can understand the person whom we are supposed to love, cherish, and help through life?

And, "Worship is founded, not on fear, but on love." Too often we seem to think the two are somehow related. And yet are we not told, "Perfect love driveth out fear." Fear as we understand it apart from such scriptures as "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. . ." is a negative predecessor to generally even more negative descendant emotions. Next to anger, I would suggest that the fear is one of the principle fountainheads of sin. Fear tends to drive people to despair and to desperate acts born of unreason.

But Worship is born out of love, not fear. Worship is the perfection of love. The adoration and whole-hearted devotion that is the essence of worship is a perfection of love--love unbounded. And Paul, in Philippians, clearly teaches the loosing of love on the world.

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July 31, 2007

One Last Point

Barclay's short study is filled with many rich and meaningful observations. It's impossible to choose among them without also saying that you must read the whole thing. Nevertheless, there are some things that all might benefit from. And for those Christians among us whose inclination is to deride or demean or otherwise detract from other Christians, Barclay has this observation:

from Barclay's Commentary on the Letter to the Philippians

There is a lesson for us here. Paul knew nothing of personal jealousy or of personal resentment. So long as Jesus Christ was preached, he did not care who received the credit and the prestige. He did not care what other preachers said about him, or how unfriendly they were to him, or how contemptuous they were of him, or how they tried to steal a march upon him. All that mattered was that Christ was preached. All too often we resent it when someone else gains a prominence or a credit which we do not. All too often we regard a man as an enemy because he has expressed some criticism of us or of our methods. All too often we think a man can do no good because he does not do thing in our way. . . . Paul is the great example. He lifted the matter beyond all personalities; all that mattered was that Christ was preached.

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Return to Philippians

Another quotation from Barclay's powerful and useful study of the Letter to the Philippians.

When people are in sorrow, one of their greatest comforts is the awareness that others are bearing them to the throne of grace. When they have to face some back-breaking effort or some heart-breaking decision, there is new strength in remembering that others are remembering them before God. When they go into new places and are far from home, it is an upholding thing to know that the prayers of those who love them are crossing continents to bring them before the thrones of grace. We cannot call a man our friend unless we pray for him.

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An Observation

Let me start, apropos of nothing, with a revised line from my journal this morning because it allows me to think about some beautiful things.

"Life without prayer is Life-in-Death."

Originally, I said, "half-life." But then I thought of Coleridge's poem and the remarkable image of Death and a woman casting dice for the Mariner's fate.

from "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Life-in-Death wins the Ancient Mariner. And it's interesting that the first part of the description of Life-in-Death is rather attractive in a seductive sort of way. And even white skin is lovely until we reach "as leprosy."

Life without prayer is succumbing to Life-in-Death--a life of sensuality that misses the point of life at all--not really living, but living in Death.

We have a choice--God or anything else because God has made it clear that He is not a God of half-measures, and He will let us have our choice. Not easily, He'll fight for us, but if we insist, He will not overwhelm us and subdue our wills to his choice.

And so, life without prayer is life without God and not a life at all.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 30, 2007

Keeping Perspective

Here's a passage from William Barclay's commentary on (what else) The Letter to the Philippians:

On the day when Christ comes it will be like the coming of a king. On such a day the king's subjects are bound to present him with gifts to makr their loyalty and to show their love. The only gift Jesus Christ desires from us is ourselves. So, then, a man's supreme tak is to make his life fit to offer to Him. Only the grace of God can enable us to do that.

I do not desire the fat of animals--the sacrifice I require is a rended, contrite heart.

Over and over gain we are told that the sacrifice acceptable to God is the sacrifice of a life lived with Him. Like any good parent, God desires not material things that we can "give" Him (because it all belongs to Him anyway), but our love. And our love is best demonstrated in living a life that reflects all that He has taught us of love.

He's not asking the impossible, merely the improbable. We can't do it, but He can, and His grace is both sufficient and efficient.

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July 26, 2007

Evolution and Faith

Once again, the sweet breath of reason is exhaled from the precincts of the Vatican on this--admittedly the least of issues, but a sore point for me.

Pope Benedict XVI on Evolution and Stewardship of Earth

This is the first pronouncement from the new pope that has me really thrilled. All the rest have been interesting or wonderful but haven't inspired me much. This one is inspirational because once again it seems as though the Catholic Church is insisting that one need not check one's reason at the door.

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July 12, 2007

Praise God High and Low

Today was another really interesting day. It started off in a wonderful morning burst of creativity and was kept up by high-octane excitement and participation throughout the day until the very end of the day. Then came the crushing kick in the teeth.

And I wonder now, what God is telling me in the pattern of the day. And what I hear, whether valid or not is, "Praise Him anyway." Praise Him on the mountains, praise Him in the valleys and the pits. No matter how you feel praise Him and thank Him and ask Him to shine His light on the day--only in that way will it become clear what the lesson for the day is.

I still don't know it, but I can choose to wallow in emotive misery or I can choose to praise Him, and it seems that the latter choice is the better.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:13 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Morning Praise

It's not much, but if it is the only thing I do in a day, it is well worth doing. From this morning's morning prayer (and yes, that is a deliberate echo of Hopkins):

Give thanks to the Lord, acclaim his name;
among the nations make known his deeds,
proclaim how exalted is his name.

If each person who believed in God, who worshipped and paid homage to Jesus Christ as Lord and God would spend one moment each day in public acclamation of his glorious name, what might be the effect on the world around us? Not a moment of diatribe, condemnation, doctrinal ranting, triumphalist crowing, or any number of other things that we confuse with praising God, but just a moment spent looking at a flower and saying, "What hath God wrought?" A second with a friend or group of friends when we say, "Praise the Lord," and really mean it.

Sometimes we are too shy about our faith, almost apologetic. One word of praise each day can help the transformation of the world. The effort reminds us of God's nearness and makes us disposed to recognize it in all that is happening around us.

If the Gospel is good news, why do so many keep it to themselves? Praise the Lord, for He is good, His love endures forever.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 23, 2007

Wandering in the Wilderness of Sin

It's fascinating that the first time the wandering of the People of Israel in the Sinai peninsula is discuss, it is related as follows:

Exodus 16:1

And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.

And it was for some forty years that they wandered in the wilderness of sin. So long that the first generation out of Egypt did not survive to enter the promised land--not even Moses.

Now, we did the Lord rescue a people from Egypt only to send them through a raging desert for forty years and not save a great many who took flight? Why would He act in so perverse a fashion as to half-save a group of people.

The reality is that the people of Israel wandered in that desert because almost as soon as the pillar of cloud and fire vanished, they began to complain and wonder why they had ever left Egypt. They were so confused about what they wanted that they could not have followed God even if He has shown up in person (as, indeed, He did in the person of Moses--not incarnated, but spirit-led).

How similar can I be to this stubborn people. God points the way and I wonder how to find the bar, the brothel, the gambling parlor, the restaurant. What kind of place is He sending us to that doesn't have these minimum niceties of a civilized society?

The chief desire of every person is to find the way home, but sometimes that desire for the comforts of home becomes misdirected into a desire for comforts. The transient and beautiful things of this world look very good to us. They seem to be the comforts of home. But they are mere ghosts of those real things. The realities in the vault that Plato spoke of cast these earthly shadows and so deceive those so ready to be deceived.

I count myself among them: lured by the good things of the world, I am too long diverted from the real Good One. I seek my comfort in those things I can hold and so manage to ignore the fact that I am being held, loved, cared for intensely by the God who loves me.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2007

Scary Matters of the Spirit

Free will can be a bummer.

Yep. Why doesn't God just wrap us up in bubblewrap and carry us home to be with Him. But the reality is that Love lets one make mistakes. I don't know why it does this--perhaps to prove our own reciprocal love when one returns home with tail tucked between legs; perhaps because that is the only way to learn to love.

Love is agony and sin is so easy because it helps to ease the pain of Love. Love takes endurance and sin takes a short-cut to what one thinks one wants. Thomas Aquinas (I paraphrase here) quite rightly says that the even the sinner is acting on a perceived good. Desire, which points the direction home, often leads us through brambles, briars, swampy tangles, and deserts of self. What looks like a short-cut is a convoluted, involved, messy trail of heartache, sorrow, and self-involvement. All, often, in the name of love. Contra Nietzsche, Christianity is not for the weak following the weak, because love, particularly love in the world he helped to forge, can be horrendously difficult.

But the name of love, the real name, the name whispered through centuries and shouted in Heaven--the real name of love is Jesus. And any action of desire that leads in any other direction is, at best, a fault, and often a sin. Many are so tangled in their sins that they cannot see the way home. This was brought to mind the other day when I read at TSO's about a bunch of Democrat politicians who were castigating the Pope because he dare say that they had excommunicated themselves. They have chosen their way and cannot see.

But they are merely a mirror for me and in that reflection I can see my own waywardness, the standards I insist upon, and if me, then I suspect a great many sinners who do not take the time to look inside and see what has gone wrong.

This is the reason Jesus was always so compassionate toward sinners--"They are like sheep without a shepherd," "Then know not what they do." How true is that of people today? How true is that of me? Do I really see what it is I choose when I make a choice. Do I pause even for a moment in my headlong plunge to destruction?

Oh, how I would pray for the bubble-wrap of God that would preserve me and take me home exactly as God would like me to be. That bubble-wrap, that protection against evil, is the Sacrifice of His Son and it is the outpouring of Love of Father and son that dwells within. Oh, but the glass around that lantern, around that inner fire is begrimed and filthy, darkened by all the ways I have chosen less than the best. But my longing, periodically restored, is that the glass be so cleaned that while it is not the light, it does not interfere with the light's transmission and even participates in the light, becoming light as it allows God's brilliant inner stream to light it up completely.

This is not a fairy tale, but a covenant made in blood. It is not an abstract ideal, but the pervasive and fundamental reality of our faith. God will restore me if only I will turn to Him and say, "Please help." Or, in the words of Brother Lawrence, "See what happens to me if I stray but a little way. Be with me, O Lord."

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March 21, 2007

Morning Prayer Thoughts

The antiphon for the first psalm for today's Morning Prayer is My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready.

I read the antiphon this morning and my immediate reaction was a recoil. "No, it isn't. Not even close. My heart is no where near ready." There are too many things in it, on it, around it. At best it is a divided heart, not a simple heart--a singular gift for a Simple God.

I couldn't pray this in all honesty. But also in all honesty, I could say, "I want my heart to be ready, O God, make my heart ready." That, I could say because it true at the core, at the very marrow of bones. I want to be ready, I know I am not. My heart is half hard, half missing--a rocky field fit only for weeds and dodder--a shadow life thrown into relief by the season in which shadows are drawn more sharply and light is more visible.

So even though I needed to pray a different antiphon, my whole heart was captivated by the second line of the psalm--so much so that I spent the rest of the prayer there and carry it forward into the day--

I will sing, sing your praise.

in the hopes that

Awake, my soul

I will wake from my deliberate slumber and see, if only for a moment--a moment is that that it takes for a God as magnificent as the one we stand before every moment. Blind and deaf though I am, He will save me.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:19 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 15, 2007

Why I Like the Blogging World

A short trip to the local Borders reminded me of why I so cherish the blogging world.

Sometimes I'm in the mood for a bite, not for an entire roast, cake, or sandwich, but a tidbit to tide me over. I glanced over the racks of magazines and saw specialties for sailing, gender issues, computers, finance, beadworking, photography, sodoku, kakaro, vacations, "gender issues," commentary, news magazines, and eastern religions and practice, among other things. Not a single Christian oriented magazine (except Sojourners) peeped around any rack or shield to wag a finger at me. Not a single periodical with some tantilizing small article on . . . well who knows what.

But pick your blog-world stops well and you can get theology as mathematical equation, mathematical equation as theology, satire, book review, serious commentary on issues of the day, nonserious comment on issues of the day, comment on issues of yesterday and WAAAAAAAY before, commentary and insight into almost anything you can begin to imagine in the way of Christian thought and practice. Some better written, prettier, and more civil than others, but all available just for stopping by.

We are gift to each other in this way, and I am most grateful for the gift of each day. Thank you all.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:49 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Continuing Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy

In a comment below TSO quite rightly notes that for many Orthodoxy ends at the pocketbook or at the bedroom door. And often orthopraxy never begins. We might say yes with our lips, but our lives are a vivid diorama of the exact opposite.

I thought it apposite to take his example of adoption. And it might be th