The Two Standards, part 1

When Jesus answers to Satan, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God”, (Lk 4:4 and Mt 4:4, cf. Dt 8:3) it means that he chose to renounce the immediate gratification in order to follow what God’s will was for him. - The Two Standards meditation, 140-142. First Part: The Standard of Satan, the “values” he uses to deceive and seduce all of us

I am not so good at making this choice consistently. I do it pretty well for the bigger things, but there are areas of purity that I miss out on because I indulge in immediately gratifying thoughts instead.

The second temptation of Jesus is to let the power principle dominate his life. The search for power, personal prestige and status, the exploitation of others in order to gain these, and the allure of “honor” is so much widespread phenomenon that Alfred Adler in his “individual psychology” asserted it as the basic drive in life. Although a certain level of self-esteem is necessary for a healthy psyche, the temptation of the power drive misleads us to seek status and honor directly, and the price to pay for it is in destroyed relationships, falsity and deceit. - ibid.

There can be a tricky balance between setting appropriate boundaries for ourselves and trying to exercise power over the lives of others. Sometimes the people around us can feel that we are imposing boundaries or values on them when we are really only setting them for ourselves. It's an important distinction. To keep from being taken advantage of in an unhealthy way, I must sometimes prevent another from taking unhealthy advantage of me. That can feel to them as if I am trying to make a decision for them that they do not wish to make for themselves, when in truth I am truly only making a decision about what is healthy for me. It is important, when we are on the other side of such a decision, not to allow our own wishes to outweigh our respect for the other person by acting in a dishonest way in order to coerce a decision in line with our own wishes. This is especially hard when we feel that we need our lives to be different from how they actually are.

Viktor Frankl pointed out many times that there are several things, like joy and happiness that cannot be willed directly but should come as a by-product of one’s deeds. As the pursuit of happiness does not lead to its fulfillment so is it with the power drive. - ibid.

I've been thinking about this lately. In fact, I have long been convinced that the single greatest obstacle to finding happiness is to pursue it directly. Matthew Kelly propounds that we maximize our happiness by becoming the best version of ourselves, by making physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy choices rather than pursuing happiness for its own sake.

The third temptation of Jesus as Robert C. Leslie points out is to escape from personal responsibility, which is a manifestation of self-sufficiency and pride. Harder to recognize than the other two this temptation is permeating our culture on personal and societal level. It works through the dominance of psychological and sociological determinism. We can excuse our behavior endlessly by past traumas and by what others did or did not. - ibid.

There is so much in these few sentences. First of all, I'm pretty sure that I've never thought of the third temptation quite in these terms, but this makes perfect sense. Jesus is tempted to escape the consequences of a personal decision. The one thing that I am pleased about concerning my initial experience with therapy is that, while I needed to learn the effect that my childhood abuse had on my adulthood decision making, I recognized from the beginning that I was responsible for my choices. No matter how many men may have sexually abused me when I was a kid, I knew that I was responsible for my own adult actions. But this temptation remains so very present in how we respond to stimuli around us, as it is so easy to feel that we have been provoked into our choices.

In reality the future does not depend so much on past experiences as on our conscious decisions in the present. - ibid.

Yes!! Now, it is true that our past may have trained us to make decisions in a way that does not maximize our future growth, but we have the power to recognize that and learn to make our decisions in a different way. But let's say, for instance, that I recognize that I have a tendency to try to fix things for those around me. It does no good to recognize that trait in myself unless I recognize when I am doing that at the expense of others.

Responsibility is an indelible characteristic of human existence and it means that we ought to give a response or an answer for our acts in front of our conscience. In religious terms, we are created beings and we are not self-sufficient but our life is constant gift from God whose creative love we respond to with our existence, choices and acts. - ibid.

Yes, all of our life is our response to God's creative love, in one way or another. I must choose to respond in ways that draw me more deeply into that love, believing that God's plan for my life is more trustworthy than my own wishes, which are subtly tainted by the influence of the standard of Satan in my life and on the world around me.

Okay I haven't even started looking at the reflection on Jesus' standard, but there is just so much in here! The really should have made this initial meditation part of a longer step; one week was just not enough to cover this along with six individual session readings. On the other hand, they do revisit it twice in short order.

A poor reason, and some good ones

Some scholars speculate that "Good Friday" comes from "God's Friday," as "good-bye" was originally "God be by you." But it is just as odd that it should be called God's Friday, when it is the day we say good-bye to the glory of God. Wherever its name comes from, let your present moment stay with this day. Stay a while in the eclipse of the light, stay a while with the conquered One. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

I find myself referring to quotes I've referenced on previous readings of this magnificent book, but in new ways. I've reflected before on the first part of what I've quoted here, but am now really wanting to focus on this latter part; I've only included the first two sentences of this citation because the part I wanted to include refers back to them.

I've been told before by a Catholic adult catechist, almost dismissively, that Catholics do a great job of focusing on Good Friday and a terrible job of truly celebrating Easter. Honoring Fr. Neuhaus' invitation to not rush to the resurrection, I nonetheless find that I am utterly convinced that the reason we're so bad at rejoicing in Jesus' (our) victory is that we are, in fact, just awful at truly entering into all that Good Friday should mean for us. If it were primarily about making us wallow in our guilt then, yes, we would excel at it! If the purpose of our meditation on this day is to make us more neurotic about the terrible thing that we did to Jesus, many of us could stop right now because we have that part down pat! As Jesus told his disciples about being clean, though: But not all. There are definitely some who do not associate enough of their lives with sin that something must be done about. And when I enter into eternity, I pray that I don't find that I am one of them.

But there is so much more about Good Friday for us to enter into than just the surface ideas at which we often stop: that it was my sin and guilt that Jesus bore on the cross so that I could be free from it, that God's love for me is so great that Jesus was willing to do this for me. Please don't think I'm being dismissive of these great tenets of our faith! So many of us have failed to grasp even the surface implications of these glorious truths.

But because God is infinite and eternal and Jesus is God, there is so much more depth to enter into in our reflections on this holy day, more than we can get in a full human lifespan, let alone in the time that most of us spend at the foot of the cross. It will take eternity for us to know it fully, just as to know God fully, in the personal-relationship sense. The purpose of a redeemed soul's prayerful reflection on Good Friday is not to increase our sense of the guilt from which Jesus has set us free, but neither is knowing that we are free from our guilt a good reason to forsake any further reflection.

I find that learning more of the depth and details of this mystery into which we enter (by the Holy Spirit) fills my heart with a greater sense of awe at God's infinite glory as revealed incomparably on the cross. It strengthens my desire to share God's love with those around me who have not chosen (or been able) to immerse themselves in the unfathomable depths of this incomprehensible love. It causes me to marvel at my increased understanding of the infinite vastness and infinitesimal detail of this glorious love. It gets my eyes and thoughts and heart fixed on something - someOne - inexpressibly beyond the limits of my mind.

And it makes me more aware of the utter abandon with which I am called to lay down my own life.

Have a blessed Lent!

Nature vs. nurture

Most people tend to believe that God or nature has made us the way we are, at least in the ways we consider most central to our personhood. There is obviously a degree of truth to that: I have no control over how tall I am, the color of my hair, my receding hairline, and countless other physical traits, and there may be many more important emotional and personality traits that similarly depend on our genetics - or are at least greatly influenced thereby.

Yet we also recognize that there are other aspects of ourselves that our experiences and decisions have played a critical role in.  A world-class athlete has a high amount of natural talent, but none become world-class without developing that talent into the skills of competition.  In addition to their accumulated experiences, or perhaps a result of them, there also seem to be factors involved such as a drive to excel and an ability to perform under pressure which also contribute to the final results.  Alternately, a person may have a natural tendency to be overweight, yet undertake diet and exercise practices that help them maintain good health.  A gifted scholar must still study to gain expertise, though they may not have to do so as strenuously as one to whom learning does not come so easily.  Where do these and countless other examples fall in the nature vs. nurture debate?


We also have other experiences from the mundane to the traumatic that play critical roles in forming us throughout our lives.  Both the positive and the negative ones reinforce or influence certain of our likes and preferences.  Physical, intellectual, spiritual and emotional joys, comforts, sadnesses and traumas form our being in ways we do not fully understand.  


So questions arise: what of our tendencies, even those which feel like a central part of our unchangeable identity, are the result of our experiences?  Which are ours by nature?  Do the different sources of our selves carry different weight in defining who we are?  Are some preferences more important than others?


These questions are so deeply philosophical and theoretical, yet touch on the central question of what makes each of us a unique person. Together they form the keystone issue in our discussions as society grapples with this one: how do we identify the things that are truly universal human rights, and balance justly between them, when conflicts arise?  The central tenet of our nation has always been that one person's rights end when they infringe on another's equal or more fundamental rights.  But our evaluation of that hierarchy of rights is becoming very different in our society from what it has been in the past, and we are reengineering entire societal institutions around our changed perception of that balance and its implications.  

All of this, though, is a long diversion on a reflection that started out being about what makes me the person I am.  When there are elements of my person that I think it best not to nurture or pursue, how do I draw the line so that I'm not denying a fundamental part of myself, to my own detriment as well as ultimately that of those around me?  Whether some aspect of myself is inbred, nurtured, or some combination thereof, does its source affect its fundamentality to my personhood?  Does that change if there are so many examples to examine going back so far in my memory that it is impossible to ascertain the source?  In the context of my spirituality:

• God is the source of both my nature and my experiences
• we are clearly not to embrace every impulse that comes upon us
• we are also clearly not to remain as we are; we are to grow in our holiness in the Spirit by shedding that which detracts from it and embracing that which nurtures it.  

So, can part of myself be less central to me than the same (or similar) part of someone else is to them?  Is denying even what may seem a fundamental part of myself part of what it means to lay down my life for those I love?

Did not the Son do the same to an infinitely greater degree, both as God in leaving the throne of grace to be incarnate as our savior, and as man in laying down his life for us? (Is that one a question or the Answer?)

There goes that Supertramp snippet again.

The verdict is in

The angels were stunned, the stars hid their light, the universe went silent at the audacity of it, the wrongness of it, the outrageousness of it.  The Judge of the guilty is himself judged guilty.  Here now at last, in all the thick catalogue of human rebellion, is the lie so brazen as to surely bring down upon the heads of the insurrectionists a punishment swift and terrible. But no, the prisoner standing in the dock calmly responds, "For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon


The judgment to which Fr. Neuhaus refers is not merely the judgment carried out upon Jesus of Nazareth. He spends a couple pages developing the idea of how we conclude that we are not to blame for the wrong in the world, and that therefor God is guilty, or nonexistent. But our audacious judgment meets its match in Jesus' willingness to accept it.

But how, we must ask, is God glorified by the humiliation and death of God? This great reversal of everything we think we know is too much to bear. Dark is light and light is dark, right is wrong and wrong is right and a lie is recruited to the service of the truth. The order of things is shattered. Precisely so, our disordered order is shattered so that things might be restored to order. - ibid.

I'm not sure we've ever been so insistent on our own idea of order, on the rightness of how we understand the world to be, on fairness as we insist it must be, on our right to determine for ourselves (and impose upon others) what is really right, as we find ourselves in this day. God will not insist on restoring order for us. As long as we insist that we know best, we will be allowed to continue in our disordered order. But if, gazing upon the injustice of Jesus on the cross, we quietly consider why a just God might have accepted it even though it was so exemplifyingly unfair, perhaps we get humble enough to reject the logic that screams how justice must be, and that any opposing voice - no matter how tender - is that of oppression, and must be silenced.

A character statement?

So I was meeting some people for dinner, driving separately because I was going straight from work.  When I arrived, I looked around for their vehicle.

I was taken aback when I spotted it, in a space reserved for expectant mothers or parents of young children. They are neither.

Great George Will piece

Here it is in full, and here is an excerpt from the piece Conformity for diversity's sake:

Here . . . is how progressivism limits freedom by abolishing the public-private distinction: First, a human right . . . is deemed so personal that government should have no jurisdiction over it. Next, this right breeds another right, to the support or approval of others. Finally, those who disapprove of it must be coerced . . .  Thus do rights shrink to privileges reserved for those with government-approved opinions.

Those on the left are quick to rail against censorship, even when it's really just free-market response, but they are also quick to invoke true censorship - government imposed restriction of free speech - when those with whom they disagree express their position.  


Not all disagreement is equivalent to bullying, nor is it akin to yelling, "Fire!" in a crowded theater.  Sometimes it is the free and loving expression of concern.


One person's right to do as they wish does not trump another's right to so much as express an opinion about it. The idea that it should is taking rapid hold, though, and soon individuals and institutions who promote unpopular societal positions will find themselves increasingly persecuted.  

Character?

It isn't what we think or feel, but it is the choices we make, including those to redirect our thoughts and feelings.  I started to suggest that those are simply brain chemistry, but maybe that's true of our choices, too.  At any rate, I believe our character lies in our choices, our decisions to do what the person we aspire to be would do, to live as the best-version-of-ourselves even when some part of us might want to choose another direction.  It isn't the disregarding of our thoughts and feelings, but putting them into their proper context.  It is choosing to be a loving person, doing what is best for the ones we love rather than what we think will bring us pleasure or satisfaction.

That all sounds harsh, though.  It is loving ourselves enough to be molded or grown into a better person.  It is doing what we think is right not out of sheer, imposed discipline, but because what we desire more is to be the person we know we're growing into, ultimately the very presence of Christ in the world through submission to the Father's will in the grace and power of the Holy Spirit.

Another slap

I'm never quite ready for the shock of seeing people whom I know and respect express their deeply rooted wish that I was dead.

Oh, it's never personal.  That's part of what makes it so legitimate.  If they knew that I was a member of the class of people they're condemning, they would probably bite back their vitriol against me.  Instead, it comes pouring forth in their well-intended desire for a safer world.

I find that I can't just explain myself.  It isn't that "they don't deserve any explanation," as if I am somehow above those who condemn me.  It's that I just can't go through life continually defending who I was in terms of a) what made me who I was, b) how I responded, and c) who I have since become.  I've always known I couldn't excuse away my actions, and I'm learning that there is no point in feeling as if I must somehow justify myself to others.

I believe my actions were deplorable, and that I am forgiven for them.  I must remember this in the face of what represents, at its root, my own former accusation against myself.

Conscience and the Tree of Knowledge

If good would have come from eating of the Tree of Knowledge, God would not have forbidden it. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon


My full quote for this reflection is quite a bit longer, but I find I must stop after just this much of it and observe how our inner rejection of this one statement reflects our deepest beliefs about God and about ourselves.  Don't even the most spiritual of us tend to think this is only mostly true?  At best, don't we often tend to really think that some of what God has forbidden is arbitrary, or rooted in the culture of those through whom the scriptures and sacred tradition have been delivered to us?  This attitude allows us to take another determined bite of that forbidden fruit.

There is value in considering the sociocultural circumstances under which the various books of scripture were written, but not for the purpose of rejecting its teaching.

Nor, contrary to popular myth, is the fatal knowledge the knowledge of sexuality, although God knows how large is the part of sexuality in glorifying our shame.  Yet the fall was not a fall into sexuality.  Adam and Eve were created as sexual beings, and the Genesis account leaves no doubt that from the beginning they knew what this meant. - ibid.

If it weren't for our wanting to justify our sexual decisions, we might be less inclined to define good and evil for ourselves.  Of course, people do the same thing in all sorts of other areas of life.  We think that God is a spoilsport, and our minds regard holiness as the opposite of fun.  As a result, our wishes to pursue our own desires without restriction, outside of the ways God lovingly provides for our needs, are an incredibly strong motivation to  rebel against our restrictive perception of God, or even to deny God's existence.

The shame came later, when they reached, when they overreached, for a different kind of knowledge.  The Hebrew verb "to know," yada, is rich in meanings.  In connection with what we call the fall, to know good and evil is to reach for a universal knowledge, to be unbounded by truth as it is presented to us, to aspire to create our own truth.  I say we were there in the garden when humanity aspired to "be like gods" by knowing good and evil, by reaching to know the power to define what is good and what is evil.  
This page of Genesis is rewritten every day in the living out of the human story.  Each of us has been there when we, godlike, decided that we would determine what is good and what is evil-at least for our own lives. - ibid.

Contrary to popular understanding of the role of our conscience, its purpose is not for us to define for ourselves what is good and what is evil.  I've written about this in great detail before, though not as well as Fr. Neuhaus.  Yes, when it comes right down to it, our conscience determines the decisions we make, and we ourselves are accountable for those decisions.  But that inner sense of the morality of our actions is always formed by something.  We can either accept what God has revealed through Scripture and the Church, or we will look to some other source - one we think more authoritative, or one more aligned with the way we already think or what we want.

Fr. Neuhaus will soon move on to the idea that our unwillingness to determine good and evil for others - a trend trumpeted as "tolerance" in present times - is an easy escape for us.  It's worth recognizing that the payout for that attitude is that we can reject those who would tell us what is right and wrong for us.  And it is true that we must exercise caution with regard to whom we heed in this area.  Our relativistic society would tell us that the chief sin of the day is to insist on such a thing as absolute good and evil.  Yet in our hearts we know there is such a thing.  There is - and should be - a difference between tolerance and endorsement.

For all that we may long for more power over our lives, to be more than infinitesimal, ever-so-briefly conscious specks of matter in the vastness of the universe, we reject the one thing that makes us matter most.  We'd rather this universe had no creator than accept any stricture upon our own free will.  We'd rather scoff at those who are so weak as to need such a construct to overcome their fear of insignificance.

Finally (for this post), this idea that we were (are!  All the time, we are!)  there in the garden is consistent with the idea that we are at the last supper, at the cross, at the resurrection, and mainly, at the eternal heavenly banquet.  I find myself most aware of this when celebrating the Eucharist, but I believe we will find that the eternity for which we are destined will be a celebration of everything at once that we cannot fully fathom while trapped in the flow of time.

Modern gnosticism

"The core of the gnostic impulse is the belief that we are not really part of the creation, that we are not really creatures.  Put differently, it is the refusal to accept the fact that we are not God . . . So what is wrong with that? someone might respond.  Isn't that precisely our human calling and destiny, to be like God? . . . Yes, but the quintessence of original sin, as it is also reflected in gnosticism, is the desire to be like God on our own terms.  It is to deny our status as creatures and assume that we can be like God by nature rather than by the gift of divine grace." Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon.

No, I haven't been neglecting this wonderful book.  

And how are we most determined to try to be like God on our own terms?  I believe it may be in our insistence on defining for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.  What I want, what seems right to me, what I cannot help doing, the way I can't seem to help being, these things cannot possibly be wrong!  My experience - especially when consistent with that of those who I also know to be good, caring, loving people - must be more accurately revelatory of right and wrong than God's inspired word or the teaching of God's church.  In fact, to the degree to which they disagree with the experience of my enlightened self, Scripture and the Church must be outdated artifacts reflective of the ignorant perspective of a primitive, simplistic, and unenlightened people.

I have engaged in this arrogance. 

Yet I must be careful of the equal arrogance of judging those whom I might tend to believe are yet under its influence.  Christ's love alone matters, and in Him I need put all my trust.  He is God, the derelict on the cross somehow reconciling us to God in ways I do not understand, in areas that I may be unaware are in need of reconciling.  More . . . 

"Note that in everyday language the word 'creature' is hardly ever used today except negatively . . . This is a triumph of gnosticism in our popular culture.  It is the most elementary fact about what and who we are - creatures.  We are not the Creator; we are not God." 

We interpret our independence as the freedom to do what we want, what we think is in our best interest, even what we have decided is right, free from the restrictions that others might place upon us.  When our desires, interests, and judgments encounter an obstacle, we seek a way to make our conclusions okay.  And if that means diminishing God's authority in our lives, then that is no great loss to such modern thinkers as us, is it?

The nth time

"I lift up my eyes to the hills.  From whence shall my help come?  My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth." - Ps 121, 1-2 (RSV)

(in an unrelated note, yesterday's Dilbert is a tad close for comfort.)

My strength and my hope are not of myself, not in my intelligence, talent, creativity, personality, fitness of body, strength of character.  Also, not in my family, friends, job . . . okay, I think I've got the idea covered, if not all the specifics.  If God has gifted me in any of these areas, I must yet put my hope in the Giver, not the gift.  And yet I must accept these gifts, as well, receive them as God would have me be blessed by them, make use of them as God would intend.

"God will not suffer your foot to slip." - Ps 121, 3 (NAB)

When I fail to turn to my strength, for whatever reason, I will stumble.  Yet neither is my hope in my ability to turn to God, or to not stumble.  I'm going to have to accept the reality that I'm gonna stumble.

There seems to be a difference between this and the defeatism of already thinking the worst of myself, so either no other misstep matters by comparison or every one serves to reinforces my poor self concept.  It also seems different from the permissiveness that says that nothing is any big deal.  Time will tell.

I'm tired of stumbling, though.

A not-so-blissful dream

I'm not sure what family members I was watching with, perhaps my daughter and son-in-law, fast-forwarding through the program on the DVR.  Suddenly one of them told me to stop, to back up, and a pornographic scene began to play out on the screen.  I was appalled by what I saw, embarrassed to be seeing it with them.  I started to change the channel, but they insisted on viewing this, entertained by it.  The scene before me grew increasingly perverse, and suddenly I was not watching but present in it.  Still dismayed, I was the only one who thought anything wrong with the drunken debauchery.  Yet as the scene resolved, I didn't feel angry toward the participants who had reveled in their pleasure undeterred by and uncaring of my presence.  Instead, I went about cleaning up the mess they'd left behind, my heart full of tenderness toward them.

I awoke knowing this was God's view of my life, not of the sin over which I've wrenched my heart for so long, but of that I've tolerated or excused.  He doesn't want me to beat myself up over it.  But he wants me to see it as he does, even if the world around me would scoff at this point of view and encourage me to continue to accept or excuse what God would have me reject.

We need to be careful with our dreams, and pay them neither too much nor too little heed.  Considered properly, some of them can reveal our unconscious thoughts; others may simply be random chemical and electrical activity in our marvelous, mysterious brains.  Some of my dreams seem best ignored, others bring insight simply taken at face value, and some seem to open up with further consideration.  One way that I've been taught to analyze some of my dreams doesn't seem widely practiced, but on the few occasions I've used it I've found it most revelatory.  I doubt I'll ever forget the first dream I considered in this way, nearly 14 years ago.

Assume each element of the dream represents the dreamer in some way - some different aspect, feeling, or attitude of myself.  So it isn't just dream-me that represents me, but the dream-others, the dream setting, and the different dream-objects reflect some part of me as well.  In this dream, I am the television, revealing the impure activity.  I am the other viewers, entertained by the sinfulness on display, feeling curious and titillated and envious.  I am represented by the participants in the scene, though in the dream I was not them, taking my pleasure heedless of its effect on anyone around me.  I am the setting in which the action occurs - a restroom, actually - intended for one purpose but now perverted for another.  There are other elements, too graphic to include here, that represent my shame and humiliation.  But in the end, I am the one who sees the harmfulness of the activity and is repulsed by it, yet somehow - maybe for the first time in my life actually cutting myself some slack - still loving those (myself) who have offended, wanting something more for them (me), and trying to clean up the wrongdoing and its aftermath.

I've never considered that the final element of the dream may be the one that represents the thing I should most be aware of, but that was certainly the case in that first dream I considered in this way, and it seems true of this one, too.

Or maybe it's just another goofy, meaningless set of signals to which my brain has added context that really doesn't apply.

Useless worry

The man hasn't returned a phone call in over a year.  So why am I feeling angsty about this sense I have that I should call my stepfather and visit with him while we're in Georgia this week?  It isn't as if he's going to answer now!

Okay.  I'm going to call him.  And I hope he answers.  I really would like to see him again.

My mask

If you've been away for at least a couple days, start here before proceeding.
Then read here.

Though we're strangers still I love you
I love you more than your mask
And you know that you must trust this to be true
And I know that's much to ask - Rich Mullins

It isn't just our dressers and closets and pole barns that are jammed.  That's the easy part to simplify.  The harder part?  Ceasing all of our complicated artificiality. - Lonni Collins Pratt, Benedict's Way

(I'm cheating, really.  The first quote was cited by the author of the second.)

It isn't that I'm terribly fond of my mask.  I hate it, really.  It feels disingenuous, and I hate dishonesty.  I'd rather know you hate me for my past than think that you likely would if you just knew it. (No "you" in particular, there; all of you, world.)  That's part of why I'm grateful for the other person with me in list 2.  The thing is, somebody I trust once suggested that my mask is my gift to those around me.

I know he didn't mean to imply that my true self is hideous.  He's a gentle soul, with wisdom and wit and a deep love for God.  He didn't express a trace of revulsion toward me, and was understanding of my quandary.

"I feel I'm being dishonest with everyone who thinks they know me," I told him, several years after having dealt with and worked through my great failing, yet still feeling less than fully resolved over it.  (This has a really long half-life.)

"I understand," he replied gently (I'm paraphrasing; it's been at least 8 years). "It's a testimony to your character that you feel that way."  (My friend Tom had said as much.)  "But when you share this with others, you lay a great burden on them.  By the time you trust someone enough to feel you ought to tell them, they'll feel obliged to forgive you, and it's likely to be very difficult for them to do so."

I suppose he was telling me that the people I love and respect would likely quote Rich Mullins to me, never dreaming that they'd be asking more of themselves than of me, and that I'd be pretty selfish to put them to that test.  So that leaves me longing for the authenticity and simplicity that I seem to have forfeited forever.

The simple truth is that it doesn't matter how many people are in list 1 as long as I remain in list 2.  Also,

• given how much affirmation I've already received, it is in fact most selfish - and perhaps neurotic - of me to want add anyone else to list 1 (so don't ask me!), and
• it would be most arrogant of you to think that you could make a difference being in list 1 when there are already so many good people there (so don't ask me!)

(Not to say that I'll never tell anyone else, just that those aren't good reasons.)

It would be the epitome of arrogance for me to approach life as if somehow Christ's sacrifice is sufficient for everyone else's sins (after all, I'm quick to offer grace to others) but mine.  But sin has many burdens beyond the spiritual alienation that is its greatest; all other burdens serve to dissuade one away from sin so as to avoid this separation.  One other of these burdens would seem to be my mask.

Sometimes I struggle to remember, or to fully believe, that Jesus' death was for a specific purpose, that He has borne the primary burden of my sin.  I must keep my eyes upon him, and to do so I must believe in Him.  I mustn't, for instance, dwell overlong on whether all of Christianity has somehow been built on the desire of his followers to salve their disappointment.

For when my eyes aren't on Christ, the burden of my mask grows quote onerous again.  At such times, it becomes a great millstone, and life is the raging sea.  But with a word he calms the sea, and all I need do is to listen for his voice.

Two lists of people

If you've been away for at least a couple days, start here before proceeding.

List 1:

Teri Christina Melissa Cassie Fr. Paul Mom* Chuck and Mavis* Herb and Maureen Gary* Tom, probably Andi Sandy

Dawn Marie Beth E. Charles Shirley, Jackie Fr. David Lynne and Allan Chuck Rick even Nancy, at last Kathy, Steve Kevin

Karen, Pat John and Gina Tom Chuckie* Steven Rob Mark Steve and Lina Fr. Dave Faye and Clive Bruce Jesus*

List 2:

• Terri M^c**
• me***

List 1 is everyone I can think of whom I know knows and who has shown me mercy and acceptance. There may be others who know, but I don't know for certain that they do.  There are certainly lots of others who partially know.  Even if I suspect that someone has only tolerated me for the sake of family harmony, they make this list, for they have treated me with compassion.

List 2 includes those who judge me harshly.

I always struggle to prepare myself to encounter the one person who reinforces my natural opinion of me, as will certainly happen this weekend.  I have to remind myself that it'd be pretty arrogant of me to actually believe list 2 over list 1 - I mean, just look at the disparity!  Luckily for me I've never been very arrogant. :-\  No, really.  :-/  Hardly at all!  :-|

Oh, the asterisks represent people who've died.  If my mind ever changes that to "people who are dead"? Let's not go there.

(** This person moved to list 1 at my nephew's wedding in the summer of 2010.)
(*** This person may have finally moved to list 1 as of 2014, but sometimes struggles to remain there.)

The cult of veniality

"None of our sins are small or of little account.  To belittle our sins is to belittle ourselves, to belittle who it is that God creates and calls us to be.  To belittle our sins is to belittle their forgiveness, to belittle the love of the Father who welcomes us home." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon


This is as complete, succinct, and eloquent a summary of this idea as I've yet encountered. It has been some time since I could engage in this particular self-deception with regard to the worst moments of my past; there's just no denying the evil of them.  But it seems to me that we all - myself certainly included - engage in this sort of thinking to excuse the "little things" we'd rather not give up, that we rationalize are "not really hurting anyone (wink)."  Rather than an invitation to self-hatred, a Spirit-led awareness of our sinfulness calls us to stop settling for our puny wants, and to strive toward all that God, in his infinite love, dreams for each one of us.  More from Fr. Neuhaus:


" . . . Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, 'The line between good and evil runs through every human heart.'  We would draw the line between ourselves and the really big-time sinners.  For them the cross may be necessary.  For us a forgiving wink from an understanding Deity will set things to right.  But the 'big time' of sinning is in every human heart.  We make small our selves when we make small our sins.  Fearing the judgment of great evil, we shrink from the call to great good."


It seems to me that therein may lie our chief sin, or at least, our great tragedy.

An interesting exchange

While we were in MD for my uncle's services, we also got to spend some time with mrs. tg's folks. Her mom is battling cancer, and it was good for us to be with her. On Sunday, we went to Mass with her dad. Most weeks they pick up an older neighbor so that she can attend Mass, too, and he was filling her in on how mom is doing.

This led to a really fascinating discussion when she observed, "I just don't understand why good people have to suffer."

Dad had already reflected on the Gospel reading, in which Jesus admonished the Pharisees that prostitutes and tax collectors were entering the kingdom of God ahead of them. It was in this context that he replied with a wry, matter-of-fact chuckle, "Well, it's so bad people can go to heaven." I immediately understood he was referring to a couple of things at once: Jesus, the only perfectly good person, willingly offered himself up and suffered unspeakably for our salvation; but also, God seems to work even through our temporal suffering to help draw those around us into eternal joy. But his response really took her aback.

"Oh," she responded, perplexed, "I don't think bad people go to heaven! If that's true, what's the point in trying to live right?" She then proceeded along a tangent that isn't pertinent here.

Sitting in the back seat, I gave my wife's hand a squeeze, knowing that my only hope is that he's right and she's wrong! Fortunately, that matches what I believe, and "the point" is that "living right" is my response to the love which God has poured out in my life, which I can never deserve. Throughout Christian history, this is what we have referred to as "grace." It is also how I make myself available as a vessel through which God might pour that same love into the lives of those around me.

It was a really neat conversation to be in on.

Deliverance

"I will call on the Lord, and I will be saved." Ps 17

Usually in my morning prayer time I find myself focused on the readings, but some mornings there is something in one of the Psalms that just really catches my attention. This was one of those mornings.

When we pray the Lord's prayer, we offer this petition (among others) for ourselves: "And lead us not into temptation."

Why do we so often find ourselves struggling against the same temptations? Looking at my life, I'm certain that every area of long-term struggle has been one in which I haven't really called on the Lord, or haven't trusted in the way God has wanted to deliver me.

I think this ties into previous posts. The simple (to say) prayer "Thy will be done" holds too little meaning for us. We don't want really want God's will be done. We want what we want, rather than trusting that what God wants for us is far greater.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Help me to call on you, especially at those times when I least want what I think you want for me. I know if I do, I will be saved.

Sometimes I struggle . . .

. . . but describing the struggle honestly is a challenge, and I suspect may be very important.

Sometimes I struggle to be the man I want to be.

Sometimes I struggle to be the man I should be.

Sometimes I struggle to be the husband my wife deserves.

Sometimes I struggle to be the man God calls me to be.

Sometimes I struggle to really want to be the man I should be, the husband my wife deserves, the man God calls me to be.

Sometimes I struggle to believe that I’ll really be happier being the man I should be, the husband my wife deserves, the man God calls me to be.

Sometimes I struggle to believe that the aggregate comfort/pleasure/excitement/experiences I’m afraid to miss out on in the world is really less than the joy I can only know in the Lord. (Is that, at its core, an issue of whether I really do believe in Christ? Yes, I've structured my life around Him - daily prayer & scripture reflection, faith groups, music & outreach ministry, commitment to family. I even know I have no other hope. Still, how fully do I believe in my Savior?)

Perhaps the real problem is that sometimes I’d rather not bother to struggle at all.

I know this: honestly considering the issue is better than ignoring it.

"Lord, I do believe. Help my unbelief!" (Mk 9, 24)

Advertising that has gotten under my skin, in one way or another:

Oh, it appears that the labels are always published in alphabetical order. I'd prefer them reversed for this post . . .

Have you noticed - and about the only way you wouldn't is if you don't watch television - the Visa Check Card commercials? Some complex, German-clockwork-like operation is humming along smoothly: hamburgers flying from grill to bun to tray to consumer (pardon me if the details aren't 100%), or happy customers and clerks juggle toys. In each scenario, consumers swiftly complete their transactions with a quick swipe at the card reader, until one thoughtless customer approaches and tries to write a check or - **GASP** - pay with CASH (IMAGINE the NERVE of some people!), to the utter inconvenience of those in a rush to complete their business and move on. Immediately the entire, formerly-efficient machine grinds to a screeching halt, and the offender either sheepishly completes his slow, outmoded transaction while everyone around him scowls, or knowingly smiles and breaks out her Visa Check Card, to everyone's approval.

I'm sorry, but I'm NEVER going to accept the premise that a credit/debit card is the only socially acceptable way to pay. Some would suggest that this is just another step toward the Revelation-predicted mark of the beast, without which individuals will not be able to participate in commerce. I'm not going there. Still, I utterly reject, and resent, the implication that using cash (which, in the U.S., still says "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private," right? I'm pretty sure the Visa Check Card doesn't say that!) or writing a check inconveniences others to such a degree that I should feel socially obligated to pay for EVERYTHING with a piece of magnetism. It is one thing to suggest a product's benefits, and quite another to imply that we all have a social obligation to use it.

And that doesn't even begin to address these commercials' underlying message about the rush in which we seem to live our lives.

Every time one of these ads appears, I grow more angry at Visa over them. They offend me to the point that I'm really glad I don't have anything in my wallet that says Visa on it!

Another one, which didn't bother me quite as much, appeared as a sidebar ad on an e-mail website. Match.com told me today: "It's okay to look!" It's the old cliché, "Just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't look at the menu." But isn't there a difference between noticing someone who walks by on the street and going to a website specifically to look? Isn't the latter a choice that moves me a step closer to at least considering a dalliance? Don't get me wrong: I look. I've even looked at such sites. But now that they assure me, "Oh, don't worry, it's okay . . . " I find that I must ask, "Is it, really?"

And further, I find that I know the answer.

I suspect that this actually ties into the recent conscience thread. It isn't always a matter of doing what is obviously or objectively sinful or hurtful. But rather than considering whether I can justify an action as harmless, isn't it better to ask what choice best helps me to be the husband - and in general, the person, in my current life context - I'm called to be?