I'm a thief!

"Recall now the two criminals. Mentioned in all four Gospels, they were called thieves by two of the Gospel writers. Whatever else they had stolen in their lives, the one, commonly called 'the good thief,' stole at the end a reward he did not deserve." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

I am convinced that the chief obstacle to Christians living our calling is our failure to realize that we are all, at best, the good thief. At whatever point we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we enter into the transformative journey to become Christ present in the world. And yet, rather than embrace the truth that we remain unworthy of the priceless gift that God has given us through Jesus, we often live our lives as though the purpose of our faith is to help us reach the point at which we no longer need a Savior. I'm pretty certain that isn't God's plan for us, but rather that we continually embrace our complete dependence on God's grace and mercy as poured out for us in Christ Jesus. 

We think of heaven as a reward, and indeed it is. But it is Jesus' reward, not ours. At our best moment, we are the good thief, undeserving of grace but receiving it because God is love and we, wretched though we be, are God's beloved sons and daughters. We deserve that no more than we do our own conception. 

Passionate Grace

In our reading of the Passion today, I found a moment of connection with my darkest, most shameful moment. As it briefly washed over me, I found a response other than crushing regret. I remembered that the intervening years have brought an abundance of grace and reconciliation and resurrection out of something that definitely needed to die in me.

Seems to fit today's reflection from Dynamic Catholic.

I'm sure that video link will be cleared at some point. The theme was not rushing past Palm Sunday and Holy Week to get to Easter.

A physical/emotional response

I just noticed a strange and revelatory response I had (have, I'm pretty sure; it felt familiar) to a frequent thought. I was setting aside a temptation to engage in an impure thought process that leads me to sin, partly because I just received prayer for this area last night in preparation for this weekend's Unbound seminar. It was the most subtly sublime moment of grace-filled, Spirit-driven self revelation, concerning a physio-emotional response that I have to temptation. As I decided to not engage in this thought process, I felt the muscles at the base of my skull contract, and I noticed that I thought of why I don't want to engage in that thought process right now, as if I was reserving it to return to at a later time.

As I say, this felt familiar, and I considered other recent times that I have felt this physical sensation. It turns out that it has never been so much a rejection as a postponement of my tempting thoughts, and it is a reason I have not been able to persevere in purity in this area. I then considered when else I have felt like this: it also turns out that this response was seared into me when I was being sexually abused. It is directly related to my resignation to my physical inability to ever force my way past my stepfather to escape from the room when I was a teenager. It became part of the inevitability of my submission to him sexually, and subsequently of my submission to sexual impurity in general.

Wow. This is exactly the sort of red flag I should have learned about in one of my rounds of therapy. It's a question I would now ask of anyone who shared that they struggle in a given area: go back to the beginning of the latest incident, and let's go through how your body physically responded before you realized you were responding. Then: when is the earliest time you remember feeling that way?

I'm not going to assume that the battle is over now. But I understand something about it that I never did before, a physical and emotional and thought process that ties in with the spiritual aspect that I've tried to invoke previously. Perhaps, now that I have all four pieces, I can have lasting victory in this area.

A memory from out of the blue

I just remembered again how certain I was that God wasn't going to answer my prayers for my dad because of my sin. I didn't know, of course, that he was already dead.

I felt responsible for his death . . . even after (much) later learning that his death was self inflicted, although then for a different reason. I suppose that the emotional memories linger even after the understanding grows up.

Transforming (phase 4) - Jesus appears to his disciples behind closed doors – Divine Mercy Sunday (step 29) - session 1b

Jn 20:19-23 (cont.)

I understand why the process of Lectio Divina calls for multiple readings of the same passage. Today I'm struck by this passage:

Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." (21-23)

It seems to me that these words are related to Jesus' response to Philip request at the Last Supper, when he said, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." (Jn 14:8)  Jesus' reply included, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father." (14:12)

It is comparatively easy for us to see wondrous things for which there is no explanation and recognize in them the glory of God. In St. Luke's gospel, the scribes and Pharisees were amazed when the paralytic - whose determined friends had lowered him to Jesus through the roof - got up with his mat and walked away.

Yet Jesus made it clear in the moment: that sign was only performed so that we might understand that Jesus had the authority to forgive sins. Likewise, every physical healing that Jesus ever did was simply a means to display a greater truth: the mercy and forgiveness of God to us who sin.

Now, there has been great theological debate in recent years - and for all I know, since Jesus' time - concerning the necessity of Christ's fulfilling the ancient law with regard to the sacrifice required for the forgiveness of sins. Would a merciful God really establish the shedding of blood as a requirement for forgivenss? Many conclude that this doesn't sound very loving. But the offering of sacrifices was well established before Abraham was called to offer up Isaac as a holocaust; what if God merely assigned it a new meaning that would allow us to recognize our forgiveness in Christ Jesus?

Fr. Neuhaus expounds on the idea that a prerequisite for for forgiveness was needed not to satisfy God's sense of justice, but our own. God accepted our condemnation of him so that we might not condemn ourselves. So God's establishment of the need for blood sacrifice within the law was intended to allow us to have context in which to recognize and accept Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf. He very well knew what we were going to do to Him.

When Jesus promises we will do greater works than these, let us not forget that the greatest work of all is the forgiveness of sins that we might receive our spiritual freedom in place of our slavery to sin. "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you . . . Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven." The mission of the Church is the "greater work" which Jesus promised, not miracles that will pass from corporal existence when the bodies that have been healed are planted in the ground, but the greater miraculous healing of the soul for all eternity.

By comparison, nothing else matters, and in fact all other things matter only in this context.

Confirming (phase 3), - The Last Supper – First Part (step 22) - session 1

I must take these events in a different order from that presented in the retreat. I cannot break the Matthew reading at verse 26 as indicated, so I will reflect here on Mt 26:17-25.

The disciples by now must no longer have been shocked to find things as Jesus told them they would, especially following so closely upon his entry into Jerusalem. It is easier for us, in our skeptical age, to believe that Jesus had arranged things with the owners of both the colt and the upper room in secret, outside of his disciples view. But arranging your own death so that you could "predict" it for your followers would be a bit extreme, and his death and resurrection are the most impressive things for which Jesus prepared them in advance.

Some - well, I - interpreted Jesus' words about it being better for the one who betrays him "if he had not been born" to mean that Judas was condemned for eternity. Certainly popular thinking would conclude that he, of all people in history, should be. And if we end up in heaven for eternity, isn't whatever we have gone through in this life to get there worth it?

Being unable to deny the facts of my own betrayal makes me a bit less hesitant to judge even Judas for his. And the truth that overcomes my own betrayal makes me dare to hope that Judas - indeed, that every single one of my broken and lost siblings - ultimately enters into eternal Grace that is greater than any sin. In places, Scripture seems to indicate otherwise, and I am not going to argue with God over this. But I will hope, and pray.

For when I imagine myself in the midst of this account, I am not so utterly foolish as to ask Jesus: is it I?

It is *hard* . . .

. . . to know that there is a significant percentage of the population that thinks the world would be better off if you were dead, and to not entirely disagree with them.

Eventually, obviously, they will get their wish - after all, I'm pretty sure I'm mortal - but I'm not going to take an active role in obliging them.

Two things from this morning

First item:

My nephew:

Van Hagar > Van Halen

I direct anyone who disagrees to these recent live recordings.

Me:

Agreed, but your argument is invalid. It's like arguing about who was a better athlete in their prime based on who's better now.

My nephew's friend:

Sorry--Wrong. Sammy Hagar was always a better singer than Diamond Dave ever was. Dave was a performer--nothing more. Sammy was a successful singer in his own right long before Van Halen. Sammy - Van Halen = Sammy. Dave - Van Halen = Nothing.

Me:

I'm not disagreeing with you *at all*. I never liked Dave precisely because he was all show. I'm just saying that using a recording made this decade as proof of that point isn't valid. I'm quibbling. Sorry.

If the reader didn't already know: I'm somewhat of a stickler for logic, and generally won't support a poor argument even if I tend to agree intellectually or emotionally with its conclusions.

Which is why this rant is problematic for me even though I am evidence of the false premise near the end of it. Second item:

Okay maybe he served his time or whatever but that does not change the fact that he did something to a child . . . . Sick bastards always do something again. Shoot every damn person that touches any child.

On one hand, I recognize the glaring flaw in the premises of the argument. On the other, I know that a poor argument doesn't equal a wrong conclusion. Emotionally, I've been dealing again with my teen-aged relationship with my stepfather, and that makes me vulnerable to this sort of rave.

You'd think I'd get past this over the course of a couple decades, given the evidence of my own life (and probably my step-father's, for that matter; I don't know that he ever abused another minor), but it's always a kick in my head.

Today I am fighting a desire to hurt myself.

Conforming (phase 2), Who is Jesus? What quality do I long and pray for? - AtaDc (step19), session 5

I'm going to take this session in a single reflection. This session addresses what are probably two of the most important answers to the first question in the title of this step - and certainly two that matter most to me.

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" - Jn 1:29

This week one of the radio evangelists I sometimes hear during my short commute has been talking about this identity of Jesus, and to do so he has been talking about the Day of Atonement sacrifices of which Jesus' sacrifice is the fulfillment. In fact, I myself believe that the chief reason that these sacrifices exist under the Mosaic law is to enable us to recognize Jesus as the Lamb of God. The radio preacher described the thousands of lambs which were slaughtered on this single day each year, during which he says the lambs' blood would literally run in the streets. Jesus is both the great high priest who offers sacrifice once for all so that no more animal sacrifices are ever again required, and the lamb of sacrifice, the Lamb of God, sacrificed for our sins.

The preacher pointed out that there is a decidedly different emotional dynamic to our deliverance from sin in Jesus versus that provided under the law of sacrifice. There were sacrifices for sin made throughout the year, but what if we missed some? The Day of Atonement was intended to cover that, but as soon as someone committed some other sin they were bound by it until the next sacrifice. Jesus' sacrifice was one time for all sins, and we need never fear the punishment of them again. St. Paul is careful to make sure we don't interpret that as license to sin freely, but now it is a matter of our desire to respond to God's infinite love as completely as possible.

Someone like me may sometimes be tempted wonder, though, whether this entire belief system is just a way to help me live with myself.

"This is he of whom I said, `After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.' I myself did not know him; but for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel." 

And John bore witness, "I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. 
I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, `He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God." - Jn 1:30-34

Were back to testimony again, a common theme in St. John's gospel, and St. John the Baptist provides the first public acknowledgement of Jesus' divinity in this gospel, besides the writer's own assertions at the beginning. The works of Jesus will serve as the greatest witness to the truth of his divinity. The reason that one sacrifice can suffice for all is that Jesus was both sinless man and eternal Son of God.

I agree with C. S. Lewis that Jesus intentionally leaves us with only two possibilities. He can't be merely a wise man, a sage whose wisdom is to be embraced but who has been deified , given what he claimed to be. Either he was a deranged nutcase or he is who the Scriptures proclaim him to be.

And so we are back to Jesus' own question to the disciples, and to us: Who do you say that I am? (Mt16:15, Mk 8:29, Lk 9:20)

Conforming (phase 2), Jesus Heals: To be Free to be Able to Choose - AtaDc (step18), session 2a

A final thought from one of the sessions in this step - before moving on to step 19 - which struck me when I was reviewing sessions so that I could back-link to a previous one. It seemed to me that I should spend some time thinking about an additional implication of the reading for the second session. It isn't anything new or especially profound, but may be critically important, and it turns out to touch on my reactions to a couple pieces of entertainment from the weekend.

And he stretched out his hand, and touched him . . .  - Lk 5: 13a

With some down time on Saturday while I was frequently blowing my nose, I caught up on some back episodes of Elementary. This series deals pretty significantly with Holmes' drug use, which most movies and series have ignored. I'm not familiar enough with the books to know how Doyle treated this, but in this series a now straight-and-sober Sherlock has to regularly face the aftermath of his addiction. Watson comes into her (!) relationship with Holmes as a surgeon who has left that practice due to a tragedy that a patient experienced under her care, who turned to a second career as a sober companion for addicts and takes on Holmes as a client. The series' first few seasons have followed the arc of his recovery, as Holmes must overcome his arrogance to come to grips with the idea that attending meetings and having a sponsor, and eventually becoming a sponsor, are beneficial for him rather than beneath him. In an episode I viewed on Saturday, he had to face a newly-discovered murder that been committed during a time that he had blacked out; he was a suspect because the victim was found with a hand-written note indicating that he wanted to meet with her. This made him the police's main suspect, and he had to deal with the possibility that, as an addict controlled by his drug use, he might have actually killed her.  What caught my attention was something he was explaining to Watson as he engaged in comparatively less self-destructive and more potentially beneficial actions than relapse would have been: he explained to her that she knew the deep regret of making a terrible mistake, but that didn't compare with the shamefulness that he had experienced in his addiction, as under the drugs he had become a person who he could imagine committing such a crime. (The plot hole was that in such a state even such a brilliant mind as his probably couldn't have hidden the body so well.)

And below my breath, I had to offer an amen: the difference between deep regret and deep shame is inexpressible.

The other program we watched together this weekend was Blue Bloods, on which a young woman whose family had been murdered when she was a young child dealt with the request of their killer to meet with her. I was not so dismayed by the harsh words that the surviving member of the family expressed to the murderer who had killed her family at least fifteen years earlier, for one reason: if he had true remorse for what he'd done to her and her family, he would have understood that he should never contact her except to provide her with the opportunity to express her feelings. I was pretty disappointed in the jaded attitudes of so many cast members, whose Catholicism doesn't seem to include the concept of mercy. There's a difference between wanting violent criminals serve their time as they deserve and placing them beyond the reach of God's transforming power.

So this entertainment-based tangent returns at last to the point: Jesus touches the untouchable. He did it while he walked the earth, as we see over and over again his central belief that he came for the downtrodden, the outcast, the sinner. We see it for the physically untouchable: lepers and blind men whose infirmities are believed to be caused by sin. We observe it in his response to those whose sin is undeniable, the woman caught in adultery, the woman at the well, the tax collectors Matthew and Zacchaeus. We don't encounter anyone whose sin we'd consider unforgivable today: there are no encounters with murderers or molesters, and we don't meet a thief with Jesus until Calvary. Maybe this is why we so often fail to grasp the concept of mercy; most of us are able to hold ourselves above the "really bad people" who have done truly horrific things.

Oh, God help me if his mercy is not for all of us. (contradiction not intended, but not corrected)

But the thing is, I think we will be surprised when we fully understand the nature of sin, and of our sinful selves. I think we will be blown away by God's grace and love in a way that allows us to see how fully we have needed it for ourselves and that leaves us wanting every lost brother and sister to receive it for themselves, too, no matter how terrible or close-to-home their offenses.

Regret

When I hear a remorseful person say that they're going to live with the pain of what they've done for the rest of their life, I have multiple reactions.

• I wonder if they truly understand how much pain the survivors of their actions are in, and just want to let them know that they understand and are sharing in their pain, or whether they are merely absorbed by the painful consequences in their own life.
• If they are sincere, my heart goes out to them, because of my personal knowledge of the truth of how lasting true remorse is. Sometimes I tend to focus on the pain in my own soul, but I usually turn my thoughts to the aftermath of the people I've hurt - the one directly and the rest indirectly - especially as I see the decisions they make in their own life and wonder how much those decisions are rooted in their brokenness.
• I tend to pray that the person will be surrounded by people who can share forgiveness with them, as I have been so blessed to have. When someone is on their way to prison, I pray all the more for them, as that can be a hard place to find mercy.

Today's downer brought to you on behalf of the FAMU band guy who was convicted in the hazing death that occurred.

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!

Mystery and wonder

These pages are an exploration into mystery. The word "mystery" in this context doesn't mean a puzzle, as in a murder mystery. It is not a thing to be solved, but an adventure into wonder, with each wonder that we encounter leading on to the next and greater wonder. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

I've shared this quote before, as the conclusion to another reflection, but haven't really reflected very much on its implications in its own right. It seems appropriate to be reading this the day before we hear the story of the fall from grace.

Wonder, it seems, has become not nearly enough for us anymore. We insist on fully knowing and understanding for ourselves, and insist that things must be as we have come to know and understand them. It is not without reason (excuse the unplanned pun) that the original sin was to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and it is not without reason that we are told that we have all inherited this sin. Indeed, our reliance upon reason is often the very reason we are susceptible to so many other temptations. Unless we understand the harm for ourselves, we refuse to acknowledge that there could be any. Of course, even when the harm is undeniable, we still have our rationalizations, greater fears, lack of trust in God's providence, overwhelming desires and countless other motivations to outweigh and overcome any consideration of the harm of our choices.

But in focusing on our fallen nature, already I digress from mystery.

It is our insistence on knowing and understanding that prevents us from entering into the mystery of Christ as anything other than a puzzle to be solved, a truth to fully get our minds around and completely figure out. "If I'm not smart enough to solve it, dammit, it must not be true." I've heard a variety of people express the opinion that God is not necessary to explain anything; perhaps the non-necessity of God is an essential part of the free will which is a central part of our nature. "Since everything can be physically explained without any need for a god, I will do just fine without." Some go so far as to add, "and anybody who doesn't is making the world worse."  But the Good Friday mystery, which is part of the Jesus mystery which by Christian understanding is an eternal part of the God mystery, rather than a mystery to be solved until it is known, like Rubik's cube, so well that we can carry out the solution in world-record time, is to be embraced and entered into, a relationship with a person.

Consider this for a  moment: what human person can we ever know completely?  And yet, too often we approach our human relationships the same way we approach God: as soon as there is a change that doesn't fit our understanding of this person, we terminate our relationship with them. Now, in human relationships there may be the element of needing to make physically and emotionally healthy choices, but too often we are quick to reject someone to whom we should be committed rather than entering into the mystery that they are.

If it is true that another finite human person might be the sort of mystery that we can never solve, but only enter into relationship with over the course of a lifetime, how much more does that apply to an infinite God? Only by entering into each wonder God reveals to us can we begin to know God at all, and as Fr. Neuhaus suggests, each one leads us to another, deeper, more inscrutably mysterious wonder.

I don't know that I believe what so many say about the substitutional atonement: that Jesus' death was necessary to pay the price for our sin in the eyes of God, and only thereby could he remain both fully just and fully loving. I am willing to consider that mystery, though, to accept not having that issue settled in my mind once and for all so that I never have to revisit it again. I most certainly believe that, necessary or not, the Father has used his Son's death to restore us - me - to relationship with himself, that (again from tomorrow's readings) Adam's sin is mine - have I not seen it evidenced over and over again? - and that Jesus' victory over sin and death is mine as well. I do not fully understand why that is, except that God's infinite loving grace is greater than my finite sinfulness. I certainly know that I would be forever unable to stop judging myself if I did not believe that Jesus has paid whatever price is required for my sin. What a wonderful mystery, and the more we willingly we enter into it - free from the insistence on solving it - the more we know it and wonder.

The wonder that God has wrought from Jesus' suffering is mystery worth entering into, and  my conclusion from two years ago still rings true: it falls to each of us to enter into the mystery of Jesus Christ for ourselves.

Change one word. Please.

And when upon the cross He died
the wrath of God was satisfied. - Stuart Townsend, In Christ Alone

This is a great song, with which I have one quibble. Let's understand from the outset: I believe in the substitutional atonement. I'm just not sure that I believe the same things about it that other people who believe in the substitutional atonement do.

So when I hear people say things like "Jesus had to die to satisfy God's anger over our sin," I cringe. Maybe I'm wrong about this and misunderstand the nature of God. Certainly it's true that God is beyond our full comprehension. But I think that we'll inevitably misunderstand the motivation behind the historical blood sacrifice as atonement for sin so long as we insist on interpreting it according to how it was understood by those who lived in sacrificial times. Yes, Jesus did take the place that we deserve because of our sin, but to attribute that place as being due to the wrath of God represents yet another way in which we apply our own motivations to God.

When we sin, God doesn't get so angry at us that the only way to satisfy it for someone to pay with their lives; rather, I think that God gets angry for us, on our behalf as well as for the sake of those we've hurt, with a lamentation over what we have done that we too rarely enter into for ourselves.

Oh, I'm again falling short of conveying what is in my mind.

I believe that, when we die, we will see each thought and act of our lives as God sees them, and we will be deeply ashamed, knowing to the depths of our soul that we are not fit to enter into God's perfect presence. At that time, Jesus will remind us that he has given himself in our place, and welcome us home.

If I don't believe, exactly, that Jesus died to fulfill the ancient covenant and satisfy God's wrath, what do I believe? I think it's possible that God established the ancient covenant so that we would have the slightest hope of recognizing Jesus' fulfillment of it and responding to the love God has shown! What difference would the crucifixion of one man make for us if we were unable to recognize him as God's own Son fulfilling all that we know and that remains hidden?

There is so much more to be said about what Jesus has done for us that I should probably spend the rest of my life writing about this and nothing else. But to come back to the thought that prompted this post: I wouldn't feel that I must remain silent on this one line of this song that I otherwise love if it instead indicated that the plan of God was satisfied.

For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

(way) More on Monday (edited)

Caution: probable megapost ahead, with links to previous posts.

I was as nervous as I was excited to see them again, for a combination of reasons. But first, why these relatives that I saw only a half dozen times in my youth mean so much to me.

Well, that will take sharing some more details related to this post. Yes, I was finally going to be reunited with the people that I was with when my dad died. That trip would have been quite memorable for other reasons had it not ended so catastrophically. The idea was to go by train. I don't know how Amtrak pricing compared with flying in those days - it can be significantly more expensive today - but the cost wasn't the main issue. Mom wanted us to experience the country by rail. Dad couldn't go, as he didn't have enough vacation left: he had a Sunday package of Orioles' season tickets, and he never felt good enough to get to work on Monday morning after a game. By then I had come to understand why that always took so much out of him, why my mom objected to my going along with him very often, and why I was forbidden to tell her about the stop that he made just down the street - what was in that odd shaped bottle wrapped in brown paper from which he drank on the way to and throughout the rare games I was allowed to attend with him. (That was by no means the worst thing that I was never to share with her, but it was the most frequent.) Anyway, for this trip it was just the three of us, Mom, my sister and me, with none of dad's alcohol-fueled complications..

The rail station was a different experience, but not that different in nature from an airport. We had dinner in the dining car, and I seem to recall going back later for a snack before it was time for us to sleep in our semi-reclining coach seats. Along the way I developed a crush on one of our fellow passengers who, like most kids my own age, was way less naive than I was. She tried to convince me to let her paint my fingernails with clear polish - lots of guys do that, she assured, and no one will be able to tell because it's clear - and the only reason she didn't succeed was that I was too tied by the apron strings to not check with my mom first - so I guess that wasn't entirely a bad thing. I think we had only one overnight on the train between Baltimore and . . . I can't remember . . . Topeka?  I'm pretty sure it wasn't Kansas City. From there we transferred to a bus - this was the second night of travel, I think - to ride to Dodge City (another "I think") where my dad's brother and/or sister-in-law was picking us up.

There are other details I remember from this trip. It seems to me that this was the year we went to the Seward County fair, which I thought was way fun. We had fairs in MD, but I don't think I'd ever been to one. In the ensuing years I'd go with my high school girlfriend (now my bride of 32 years) to the Glen Burnie carnival, but hadn't been as of yet. Anyway, I remember on that trip and the next playing baseball with my cousins and their friends in the field behind my aunt and uncle's double-wide. When there weren't enough friends around for a game, my cousins and I had plenty of games of catch and rundown - though for the life of me I can't remember the different name they had for the latter. I've finally figured out why I've been remembering them as closer to my age than they really were: they were at least my equal in sports ability, even though Bill and Mark were two and three years younger than me. I can't remember which of the years it was that I helped with the mowing at my grandparents' house, taking a little bit of flack from my cousins and then my uncle for not "following the pattern."

I'll spare the reader (and myself) the details of my clearest memories from before The Call. They happened at night, in youthful ignorance and curiosity. I may not have understood the nature of what we were doing, but I knew it was forbidden. We weren't trying to be naughty, yet I knew we were. And I'm remorseful about it now, but will probably never get a chance to tell them so, because it isn't the sort of thing you raise without it being clear that the other person hasn't already moved past it on their own. I talked about it in therapy, but am not completely without difficult feelings about it. This was the biggest reason for my nervousness about visiting this week.

The power behind those lingering feelings is undeniable. We were in the latter days of the trip, preparing to retrace our steps back home, when The Call came one evening. Some time later, our mom called my sister and I together (I thought I was remembering, though now it is occurring to me that maybe she told me but not Karen?) to tell us most gravely that dad had become very suddenly and seriously ill. It wasn't at all clear that he was going to survive. We were going to have to fly home the next day and pray for the best.

Pray I did. I remember my cousins praying the rosary with me, under the impossibly starry rural Kansas sky. As we offered our repetitive, ritual prayers, I silently begged God to answer my prayer for my father in spite of the bad thing I'd been doing. I was afraid that if he died it would be my fault, because I'd learned that God doesn't answer the prayers of a sinner. We were up, praying and afraid, for most of the night, though I suppose I must have slept for at least several hours.

The seriousness of his condition was underscored when Grandma and Grandpa made the trip back to Maryland with us, too; I can't remember for certain who else came along. We drove to Wichita to catch our plane, but the rest of that part of my life is a distant blur, starting with the flights home; I think I slept through most of both (?; I'm sure it was at least two, even in the "pre-hub" days of air travel) of them. Once we were home in our own living room, Mom told us that Dad had already been dead when she'd gotten The Call before we'd left Kansas, and that she'd wanted to wait until we were back in familiar surroundings to break the worst part of the news to us. She explained that he'd died of a sudden, unexpected cerebral hemorrhage, saving the rest of the truth for some day much later, when I was older and she'd had a chance to deal with it. (That would be after she revealed that my dad wasn't my biological father, I think.) One of my uncles - I'm thinking it was my Kansas uncle, but I just don't remember for certain - dropped the "man of the house, now" line on me, but it didn't seem like the unreasonable burden that it might have been had I been younger. I remember the funeral home behind our school, run by the family of a grade school classmate. I'm pretty sure I had been in it before, but it's way different when it's your own dad and you're there for the duration rather than just to pay your respects and leave. There were a few of his friends from work with whom we'd visited over the years - always at their homes rather than ours - who came for the viewing or funeral. Our pastor led a service at the funeral home and prayers at the gravesite; he was a bit of a rebel, honoring my mom's request that he preside despite my dad's professed atheism and undeniably non-Catholic status. My clearest recollection is the tender moment back in the limo at the graveyard when, remembering my uncle's admonition from our arrival home, I asked my tearful mother if she was okay. She seemed legitimately bolstered and comforted by my asking. Grandma and Grandpa stayed for another day or so, I think. In just a few weeks I started high school, from which there are all sorts of memories that are part of my whole story but are well beyond the scope of this post, even though emotionally some of them might be considered part of a continuous weaving.

The following year we had our big road trip, which included a side trip with our Kansas aunt, uncle, and cousins to the Ozarks (though I suppose it's possible this side trip was the previous year). It was the only time in my life I've ever enjoyed fishing, though I think that maybe I enjoy it more in the memory than I did in the moment. I remember very clearly, though, how patient my uncle was with me, very different from how my dad had been.

So the family members with whom I was reunited on Monday, for the first time since I was fifteen years old, are very dear to me. I was surprised when we got there with the chance to also see the ones who'd almost let my paternity cat out of the bag 38 years ago. My secretive, overprotective mother was so mad at them that day she could have spit fire, as she told me the day she finally revealed my paternity, but then, "Spitfire" did become her nickname. Now, it was nice to visit under these circumstances when there was no longer any need for there to be such secrets between us, and I found myself caught off-guard by how nostalgic I felt toward them despite having only met them on the one previous occasion so long ago. It was wonderful to hear their stories of my dad, who over sixty years ago lived for at least one summer in that small town. I had a short moment of panic near the start of their visit when his aunt looked me in the eye to interrogate as to whether I remembered breaking her ribs, until my aunt reminded her that that had not been me but my dad. It was great to hear stories from before he'd become enslaved to the bottle, when he was once just an enthusiastic kid, too, struggling to find his place in this world, which apparently ever eluded him. The years seemed to contract as I shared with my aunt and cousin how much my late uncle had meant to me, too, and some of what I had learned from his example. His generous spirit lives on in his son who, when showing me his memorabilia room, would not allow me to leave without two baseballs autographed by famous Orioles from the '66 championship team. "They'll mean way more to you than they will to me," my cousin insisted, perhaps not understanding that the biggest reason for that is because of who gave them to me and the renewed relationship with him that they represent.

Hunted

In my dream, he was hunting me because I refused to have sex with him.

The house wasn't at all like either of his houses where he actually abused me; in my dream, it was set well back from the road amid farm fields. He was waiting for me to come back from across the road to the house. He could see me there, knew I was avoiding him, and I knew what he wanted and I didn't want to go back. As night fell, he went back inside, so I made my way back along the field to the right of his house and hid in a culvert, well behind it.  Early the next morning I crept along the edge of the property line on the other side. There were no windows on this side, and I knew he wouldn't be able to see me until I crossed the road again. Now it seemed as if the road was far enough away that I thought, in the early morning light, he wouldn't be able to tell me apart from one of the ducks in the field (silly dream), which cooperated in my flight by crossing the road toward where he was now looking out for me.  I thought he spotted me, though, and started making my way away from him along below the (now) frozen ridge, about six feet high, separating the fields on this other side of the road. I kept looking back, and from several hundred yards away I thought I saw him beginning to follow me, now on my side of the road. I wasn't sure, at first; maybe he was just trying to get a closer look, but as I hurried, trying to still keep low to the ground so he wouldn't recognize me as a person moving away from him, it seemed he was beginning to make progress toward me, and I could hear the faint strains of him singing as he came along behind me. I was preparing to move in another direction, where I thought there was better shelter from his searching eyes, when I awoke in a panic.

In my dream he was definitely my step-father. But I've been taught to interpret my dreams as if every element represents me in some way.

I can't hide and can't escape, no matter how desperate I am to get away . . .

I'm afraid to go back to sleep.

Same old day

Was waiting to see if things might look different in the morning light.

They don't.

Legacy

It feels like it's my failure, bequeathed to my loved ones in perpetuity.

Two articles a number of my friends would rail against

Why I Don't Call Myself a Gay Christian - by Daniel Mattson
Catholic, Gay, and Feeling Fine - by Steve Gershom

I so respect these writers for acknowledging their struggles to live as they are called. We live in a world in which any attempt to live without indulging our sexual impulses is derided as disordered. Whether it is because of the violence which the actively gay community has historically received or is merely rooted in our natural inclination to justify ourselves most strenuously when we are most inwardly aware of our wrongness, I'm certain that people who speak words such as this are met with widespread derision from those who disagree with what they are saying about our nature.

Holy Thursday/Good Friday adoration reflection, 2013

(The time indicated below is for the benefit of one brother who might like to know a specific time that I was lifting him up in prayer, and others who are also praying for him. Also, this color text was in my mind but not on the paper.) 
With Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel at St. Helen Parish:

Usually, Lord, I am here at a later hour, and my meditations have moved on to the events of that holiest Friday when you finished pouring out your life for me. Perhaps I have given this time with you in the Garden short shrift, so maybe it is appropriate, Lord, that I am here earlier this year, at the conclusion of a Lent in which I have frequently fallen asleep, as (if I may be so bold) my fellow disciples are doing this night.  You have called us to keep watch, and though you have gone off to pray, Lord, where I can't see you, I will wait this night with Peter, James and John, and await in prayer what is to come.

After night prayer:

Fr. Satish, our associate pastor, has encouraged us to view the Triduum through the eyes/perspective of one of the witnesses of these events. I am finding myself drawn to Peter:

"I would go to jail or even die for you!"
"You will never wash my feet!"
"I do not know the man!" 

Lord, you know how like him I am anyway: rushing into commitments I don't understand; thinking I've "got it" in one moment only to have you remind me in the next that I will never in this life be able to fully "get" all of you there is to be gotten. And how many times have I denied you with my own decisions? You don't rebuke me harshly in any of this, Lord, unless I get stubborn about it.

Take this first Eucharist that you shared with us tonight, Lord. Even with two thousand years of perspective, even as deeply as I think I've entered into and experienced it, I know I have only begun to feast on your Presence. How much more confusing it must have been for Peter and the others who partook of this Paschal meal with you while your Passover was not yet complete! No wonder we celebrate these three days as one event of salvation. You give us your Body and Blood in the upper room, but the giving isn't finished until tomorrow when you die, or fulfilled until Sunday morning when you rise again, or completed until we are transformed in you. Just as each Passover your chosen people celebrate their own delivery from slavery, so at each Eucharist we are present with you in the upper room, and at Calvary, and at the heavenly banquet we will celebrate with you for all eternity. Then we will get it.

But now I just hunger for you, Lord, that the infinite, eternal, holy You which (whom) you give us will take hold of my limited, time-bound sinful self and transform me as you long to, for my sake.

And like Peter, Lord, I often don't fully get the fullness of this foot washing thing. I keep feeling as if being yours carries with it some sort of perquisite, some benefit that I can get puffed up about. I sometimes feel "above" being served and so miss the crux of really laying down my life and serving. Of course, tomorrow you're going to show what that really means, but we're still in the Garden, and I think I shouldn't rush ahead just yet. Let me realize for a while that I'm still confused, I still don't "get" all of it. And though I've fallen asleep at times this Lent, Lord, I know you're going to use even that for good, somehow.

How often, Lord, we eat of you without allowing you to fully transform us into you.

11:07 p.m. (which is 8:07 where a dear brother is who is on my heart:)

As I sit here in your Presence, keeping watch, I am reminded both of my unworthiness of you and of the wrong ideas I've had of my unworthiness. I've had the idea that it is either something that disqualifies me from you or something I must amend. I know that this thing you're doing for me, Jesus, is exactly to address the whole issue of my sin, to teach me the full extent of love. I'm so grateful to be here with you, and pray that my brother has a deep sense of being with you, too, this night in the Garden and throughout the sacred Triduum. Bless him, Lord, with a deep, peaceful awareness of being in your Presence, of being in You.

Has Simon Peter drawn his sword yet and cut off Malchus' ear? So many of us who follow you are trying to defend you rather than lay down our lives with you! We think we're doing right, but in getting militant we fail to love, fail to allow you to love through us. Help us instead drink the Cup you have given us, the cup of your Blood.

later:

As I sit and struggle for alertness, for focus, I'm struck by how judgmental we can be of others' shortcomings. How often I hear people put down the apostles for not quite "getting it," failing to see how inadequately we ourselves have gotten it so far. Likewise when we spout the phrase, "There but for the grace of God go I," we too often mean something more like a Pharisaic prayer: "Thank you, God, that I'm not like that wretch!" It is an odd and great blessing to know my own wretchedness and be transformed by Jesus out of it.

My Jesus, you're about to be betrayed by someone you love. Too often it has been me. I pray tonight that  instead of abandoning you, denying you, or betraying you, I might instead walk along your way.