A Lesson in Love

I wrote the following for my final class in the MA in Theology program at Ohio Dominican University. The assignment was to reflect back upon my goals and aspirations in my admissions essay and also to discuss growth in the following areas while attending the program: personal and spiritual maturity, vocational identity, pastoral praxis, theological formation and professional development.

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In my graduate admissions essay for the MA in Theology program, I discussed the importance of picking a single goal to pursue, even if I was not sure if it was the right one or not. For many years, I had postponed plans to do many things (including going to graduate school), because I felt I had not properly discerned whether it was entirely the right time, place or circumstance to do it. I would wait until I was more certain.

In this, there was a fear of making a decision. I had a profound awakening when it occurred to me that waiting to make a decision actually is a decision itself—it is a decision to do nothing and let life happen by default. I realized that being on the journey may be the best mode to properly figure something out. I can do a better job of discerning while I am actively trying something out. Sitting on the sidelines does not give a person the best perspective to know whether something is right for them or not. This is the spirit that prompted me to begin the Masters in Theology program at Ohio Dominican University.

I am surprised I did not learn this lesson years ago. One summer, I got a notion to start fishing as a hobby. My mother knew a local boy who was an avid fisher. Our mothers were friends and there was the chance that I would begin to spend time together with this kid, so I figured it made sense to start fishing. I spent a summer looking through fishing catalogues, comparing prices on poles and looking for just the right tackle box. This boy and I were going to be the best of friends, I just knew it. Months later, I actually met him and tried out fishing for the first time. After about 5 minutes, I caught a bluegill. It tugged on my line, and then got away. It was exciting but also disappointing, as it was hard to enjoy a hobby that injured another animal, especially when I was not planning on eating the fish. It also turns out that I did not get along very well with this boy once we actually met. After 5 minutes of actually trying it out, I knew that fishing was not right for me, despite spending a full summer pursuing it from the sidelines and being so sure it was what I wanted.

I have made significant progress on most of my vocational goals during the past few years. In my admissions essay, I listed the following possible career goals: University professor, retreat coordinator, director of an outreach agency, published author of scholarly work or spiritual reflection and composer of liturgical music. Through my Masters program, I have taken strides toward a teaching job. I will consider possible PhD work or an adjunct position in the future. My work at the Catholic Worker has strengthened my skills in conducting retreats, as we have hosted many. I have maintained the Catholic Worker’s online blog, and look to expand its reach by sending submissions to local publications. Last year, I participated in (and was a substitute leader) in the music ensemble of Mass on campus at ODU. I helped the ensemble of piano and voice turn into a stronger group with drums, banjo, guitar and trumpet. I did this by incorporating my own skills as well as encouraging fellow students to stretch out and showcase their own hidden talents.

I did not make significant progress composing liturgical music during this time, but in the future I may still work on that (it does not help that the leading publishers have had an indefinite moratorium on new submissions for Mass parts as the new translation of the Mass is being reviewed).

The Columbus Catholic Worker community formed about three and a half years ago. I joined because I had previously been involved in other communities in Akron, OH, and Worcester, MA. The Catholic Worker movement has always impressed me as a beautiful and deeply insightful approach to Christian service in the way it blends direct outreach to the needy with involvement in global issues of justice. Being involved in direct service has a grounding effect, as people know others who are suffering on a personal level. In a likewise manner, being involved in social justice work gives a vision to the direct service, so that it is not just random acts of kindness but rather has an underlying vision and direction. In addition to that, the Catholic Worker movement is about turning one’s very lifestyle into an act of service--my normal rent contributions and housekeeping responsibilities turn into acts of service in this environment. This is done by using one’s own home as a place to conduct this service. Some claim that intentional communities like the Catholic Worker are part of a new movement in community living, often dubbed the “New Monasticism.”

I got involved in the community in Columbus and dug right in. I eventually moved with two other people into the former Dominican convent at St. James the Less Catholic Church. The foundation of our community is a group of people who live together in a faith-based way. We pray together and through our living in community try to be a light for the neighborhood, the city and the world.

We facilitate numerous ministries, based on the expressed needs of the world around us. There is a large and well-organized St. Vincent de Paul food pantry that shares the building with us. We run a free clothing store (which is an ideal partner to the food pantry). We have a thriving community garden which is not only a wonderful community builder, but it also produces bushels of produce for the food pantry. Knowing English is worth more than gold to the immigrant, and so based on the recommendations of the local Latino Apostolate, we offer ESL classes. On top of that, there is much work for peace & justice efforts. Most notably, that has taken the form of opposition to the death penalty, militarism and support for immigration reform. We helped form a new local chapter of Pax Christi, the international Catholic peace movement. We also open our space for retreats and workshops and host numerous other ministries: Spanish language legal clinic, nutrition classes, canning & food preservation classes, H1N1 inoculation clinic, Bible study and Taizé prayer.

In the spirit of Benedictine hospitality, sometimes the best way to help a movement is to provide the support, encouragement and structure for it. For example, not only do I vigil and write against the death penalty, but we have opened our Catholic Worker house to be a warm and inviting (and free) meeting space for groups working against the death penalty. A Catholic Worker house is often a gathering place for activists to learn from each other and support each other.

Taken together, the Catholic Worker tries to help out the world in big and little ways. There are direct Works of Mercy, such as feeding the hungry and clothing those who are cold—if someone needs a fish, we give them a fish. We also take it to another level and educate people how to build community and grow their own organic food through the garden and also provide education through ESL classes—by teaching someone to fish, we can feed them for a lifetime. We then look at the underlying social justice issues—we ask why they need fish in the first place. We try to be good neighbors and partners with other organizations—we trade fishing supplies with other fishers.

At a point early in the first year, I had a realization. I remember the moment: I realized that I truly love the Catholic Worker movement, and, more specifically, that I love the Columbus Catholic Worker community. For one of the first times in my life, I loved something enough to put it first. I was not as concerned about making a name for myself, getting credit or winning ego battles—I am truly willing to do whatever it takes for the community to succeed. This is not to say that I have been totally immune from those human frailties and temptations, though. What it does mean is that once I was grounded in love, then everything else took second place.

I am also learning a lot about the entrepreneurial spirit through this process. In reflection, I realized that my parents and grandparents were very entrepreneurial. It has taken me many years to see that, since at first glace it may seem like they worked ordinary blue collar jobs. However, behind all that, they were always making and selling things, such growing vegetables and going to flea markets and other sales. They were opportunistic in the way they used the resources and environment around them. They knew how to network.

As an entrepreneur, it is important to take an active role in the job market. There are many folks who graduate with BA and MA degrees in Theology (or some related degree) from Catholic and other Christian institutions in the Columbus area. However, the sad reality is that there are only a handful of job openings within the diocese. While many of those graduates already have jobs or are not looking for employment within the Church, there is no escaping the grim mathematical scenario of the job market.

I decided that the best way to get a job is to create one. Yet, I did not set out to do that at first with the Columbus Catholic Worker. Like I mentioned before, I was spurred on by love, and the rest fell into place. While we began as a community, I soon discovered that my sense of commitment was different that many others, and little by little some people stepped aside or moved on for one reason or another, and I was forced to take on more. It was not simply a question of taking on more work, but rather taking on the responsibility. Someone had to make sure things got done, even if that meant staying until 2:00 am to finish something if others did not show up. In all this, I felt I was being shaped and formed in this work. Thankfully, there is now with me a dedicated team that also shares a strong commitment to the mission, but there was a time when I felt alone. I have cared for the Columbus Catholic Worker like a parent to a child. I am rooted in a sense of commitment. Perhaps this is the conversion of the heart that Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day talked about.

Despite the additional responsibility, I was also overjoyed at the opportunity: One of my primary talents is strategic planning. I like to take a bird’s eye view of an operation and put the pieces together from this vantage point. I created partnerships with other groups that met certain objectives. I put different ministries together in the hopes of generating synergy. Unlike other jobs and activities in the past, there were few people standing in the way. In any group of people, there are the ‘nay sayers’ and folks who create roadblocks for one reason or another, but in this case they were not as invested as someone who is in love.

Despite the fact that there was tremendous work involved, I also saw how feasible it was. I was part of a small group of community volunteers who put a structure together—I shepherded our group to incorporate as a non-profit organization. We are currently applying for 501C3 tax exempt status. I am the primary person forming partnerships with other organizations and negotiating with the host parish and diocese, maintenance and utilities companies. We have developed numerous ministries and outreach efforts. I realized that forming a completely new organization out of scratch is not an inaccessible, lofty goal, but rather something to be seized and tried. There are other options in life besides passively apply for jobs that are posted—we also have the option to go out and create our own. This has been a profound awakening.

The irony is that there is no shortage of job openings in the Church—if one is willing to wear a collar or habit. A priest is specifically ordained and stands in persona Christi. At the same time, we are all called to be co-workers in the vineyard, and we all share a common priesthood. The question is where the Catholic Church is willing to lean in this distinction. There is quite a bit of theology that the Church has to work through in order to shift the balance to include the laity more in matters once reserved for the ordained. The shift is not just administrative, because it requires a theological shift, as well. However, I believe that the groundwork for this shift has already been laid, most specifically at Vatican II.

Other religious orders have in some cases centuries of infrastructure and financial support for their work. The problem is that there are fewer people today taking lifetime vows of poverty, chastity and obedience than in previous generations. The result is that much of this infrastructure is left to sit idle—convents are closing down as orders consolidate.

New movements like the Catholic Worker show a different way for people to live in faith-based communities that resonate in the current culture. The three traditional, lifetime vows are not a requirement. Many communities are ecumenical. They allow men, women and families. They also allow for transition. People can either work outside jobs or not. It is a great experiment to see whether modern intentional communities will have the longevity of the Benedictines, Mendicants and others, but there is every reason to believe that these new movements are part of something substantial within the Church.

Traditional orders could benefit by trying to adapt to the modern culture. The ancient “order of widows” is coming back in fashion, as older people who are widowed or divorced with grown children are seeking out religious orders at that phase of their lives. There are also more third orders and “internship” type programs in place, but there could be more.

The Columbus Catholic Worker has a Catholic identity, but it is also ecumenical. Both are true. From the beginning, the thing that most impressed me by the founders of the Columbus community was the desire to work in concert with the institutional Catholic Church right from the beginning. We are a part of the Church, even though we do not report to the hierarchy. Many Catholic Worker communities have an adversarial relationship with their local parish or diocese. It is our desire to stay in relationship, even when we disagree, as that is the best context for true peacemaking.

My studies in theology have been extremely helpful in my leadership of the Catholic Worker. It is good to know what the hot button issues are in the theological world, so that we are careful about what we say publicly. It is important to represent what we want to say and not cause any unexpected responses—taking a controversial stand only when we want to and not by accident. I use readings from class in our group prayer and reflection time.

As Director of the organization, I am the “go to” person when difficult matters arise. People come to me to air out grievances about other people or the organization. I am the one called into difficult meetings when expectations have not been met or problems arise. My value is to be open and honest with people and carry myself in a measured way. I feel like I am in the public view 24/7, and I watch what I say and how I say it. At the same time, I have had to be mindful of my health. Finding appropriate people to confide in and vent to is critical, and I have learned that by experience: I developed a stomach ulcer last year, because I was walking this high wire act without creating enough space for my health.

Prayer is also critical. As a faith-based organization, we live on prayer and see the ministries as truly the fruit of the Holy Spirit and not directly our own efforts in isolation. Studying the Augustine vs. Pelagius debates in the Masters program have helped me to better understand the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives this way. I have a fuller appreciation for the orthodox view than I did before, as I used to lean a lot more to the Pelagian side before beginning the program.

I learned a great deal about Catholic Christian theology in the Masters program. It is valuable to have faculty who between themselves have different opinions and approaches to scholarship. I have truly come to understand the notion of God as Trinity in a way I never expected. I see the relationship between nature and grace, and our ability to explain it, as forming the dividing lines between many denominations. I see the foundations of Catholic Social Teaching in what Richard Sokoloswki calls “The Christian distinction”—that gratitude is the only appropriate response to creation, as creation is a pure gift from a God who does not need us but wants us. While I have never focused on sacramental theology, it becomes evident quickly that in systematic theology all of the fields are intricately related. I got to a point in my education where I had taken courses in eschatology and theological anthropology, and I touched up upon Trinity and Christology as part of other courses, and I knew that I had to study sacramental theology or else I would risk missing a vital link.

I am ultimately fascinated by ecumenism, and in my spare time I read up on ecclesiology. I read Avery Dulles’ Models of the Church the way some people read fiction for spiritual enlightenment. To me, systematic theology and spirituality are the same things. Notions of the Catholic, analogical imagination, as described by Andrew Greeley, have also had a strong impact on me. I have often struggled with people who hold that being a Catholic or Christian means affirming a set of beliefs—one is either in or out based on answers to certain questions. Both Dulles and Greeley describe ways to be Catholic that do not reduce the faith to meeting a short list of criteria. I struggle with many dogmas, magisterial pronouncements and the role of the pope. Yet, I know I am Catholic. Other denominations have never been a real possibility for me, even if I have had a hard time explaining why. My theology, the way I see grace in the world, is wholly Catholic through and through. This lumbering caravan of saints and sinners described by Dulles, the description of the Church as a great, big Renaissance Fair that never ends, described by fellow Catholic Worker Miki Tracy, are all part of the Catholic story.

I was deeply moved by the theologian Gerald W. Schlabach who envisions his own Mennonite Church more as a charism of the larger Church, rather than a separate denomination. The future of ecumenism may lie in a shift of definitions like that, as we are coming to see divisions in softer terms.

Inspired by Hans Küng, I long for a Catholic Church that is more conciliar in the way it makes decisions. Instead of emphasizing a strict monarchy of the pope, we should instead move back to an early Church approach that leans more on councils of bishops and grassroots decision making. An Orthodox friend has told me I should consider her Church, as they do not recognize papal authority in the way that Catholics do. I would simply say that I am rather a conciliar Catholic, and there is enough support for that approach to Church in our tradition to keep it as a vital possibility. In addition, inroads by Liberation Theologians, particularly at the Medellín Conference in 1968, give promise to a more bottoms-up approach to authority. The sensus fidelium--the sense of the faithful--has a role to play in magisterial authority, as the combined insights of all the faithful is theologically significant and is a force in the life of the Church. A rigid, papal-based system of authority is not the only tradition we have, even though it often gets the most attention.

I loved the Scripture courses as much as I thought I would. I began taking Hebrew language courses at the Methodist Theological Seminary, but with an outside job and other class responsibilities I was only able to complete a single semester. I am most impressed with some of the papers I wrote in those scripture courses. My technical mind came into play doing a word study on the book of Qohelet, and my final paper included a number of charts and diagrams of word usage and frequency. I loved taking the psalms apart and looking at them from various angles. My paper exploring literary devices in the Gospel of John stands as one of my proudest accomplishments.

The future is still up for grabs. I would love it if my work at the Columbus Catholic Worker could turn into full-time, paid employment. That would involve a development of more funding sources and administrative infrastructure. It would also challenge the charism of the organization, as Catholic Worker communities usually do not have paid staff and instead operate in Franciscan poverty. However, as the mission evolves, there is a possibility that we might move in that direction. I would like to continue my writing on community, theology and justice, and look for a larger audience. My passion for teaching is strong, and I have skills to share in both theology as well as writing/editing. I do not have other plans at the moment, but there is a limit to how long I will be able to continue without some kind of outside employment.

For the moment, my plan is to stay in Ohio, near my parents, friends and girlfriend. I realize that decision severely limits professional options, as ministry jobs are often available if one is willing to move. For the time being, I cannot imagine doing anything other than continuing with the Columbus Catholic Worker, and I want to see it through.

Whatsoever You Do

I grew up liking the song "Whatsoever You Do" by Williard F. Jabusch. It was often sung in Church. I always liked songs with themes of service and social justice.

It is an almost word-for-word adaptation of Matthew 25:

Whatsoever you do
to the least of my people,
that you do unto me.

When I was hungry, you gave me to eat;
When I was thirsty, you gave me to drink.
Now enter into the home of my father.

etc.

The difficulty is the last line. It has been hard on me the last several years, and it has affected my enjoyment of the song--Now enter into the home of my father.

I don't like thinking of Christian service in a rewards-punishment relationship. You do this service, you get this reward. If you help the poor, you'll go to heaven.

Nevertheless, there are consequences to our actions. Whatever we do will have a consequence, good, bad or indifferent. It is just hard to do the right thing for the right reasons when there are direct rewards and punishments in the way. I think it stunts our spiritual growth to dwell on that and to do good deeds in hopes of a reward or fear of the punishment.

Today, I had an insight that has helped me think about this differently. We the readers are the ones who are making this out to be about some kind of eternal rewards in the afterlife. The Gospels say the kingdom is now. You help the poor, you'll be living in God's home now. The joy is now. The quality of relationship is now. The impact is now. The prize is the gift itself, not (necessarily) some kind of pirate's treasure later on in heaven. The joy of participation in God's kingdom is the reward.

And maybe that is no different than the joys of heaven. Maybe my perception of heaven is that it is framed like the ultimate tropical vacation of feasting and good weather and non-stop parties. Cities of gold and all that. Heaven is sold to us like the ultimate drug trip, just constant euphoria. Maybe the Gospels are telling us not just how to get to heaven, but what heaven actually is.

The Freedom of Jail

There's a line in a Civil Rights protest song that goes:

"I ain't scared of your jail, cause I want my freedom."

I heard it on the Pete Seeger album, We Shall Overcome: The Complete Carnegie Hall Concert. Great album, by the way.

It is such a simple line that maybe the deeper meaning can be lost if one doesn't pay attention. Isn't it counter-intuitive to want freedom so bad that you risk jail? Isn't jail, like, all about losing your freedom?

It gives insight to the spiritual depth of the Civil Rights movement. Life can be a ledger sheet--you weigh the pro's and con's and try to come up with the best possible solution considering all variables. You live with what you can and try to eek out for yourself the best possible circumstance given all variables.

Then others end up in some place that doesn't make sense to that account sheet. Folks love life so much they are willing to risk losing it. Folks want freedom so bad they are willing to lose it. Folks want the hungry fed so much they are willing to go on a fast.

If you try to hold that up against some standard of measured productivity objectives, it isn't going to be deemed sensible. Yet, the greatest saints and leaders for social change did these very insensible things.

Christianity often comes up with theologies that are all screwed up and they miss the point. There have been strains of Christianity over the centuries that have deplored the goodness of creation, imagining that the human body or sexuality were a bad thing. Others have wanted to follow Christ's passion and death so much that they were not just willing but actually eager to die. But true martyrs die because they love life, not because they are in a hurry to lose it. Some people misinterpret the suffering that many Christians have historically gone through--martyrdom, or the fasting and deprivation that many monastic communities have supported--to be a sign of hating this life or hating the human body or creation.

Martyrdom is the opposite of suicide. A suicidal person thinks they have nothing left to lose. A martyr probably feels that he has everything to lose and everything to gain. As G. K. Chesterton pointed out, Christianity has a bad history when it comes to a lack of compassion on people who commit suicide--yet it loves martyrs. While there should be compassion to suicidal people, particularly now the more we understand about mental illness, Chesterton is at least able to understand why there is such a cold shoulder given: Suicidal people hate life, martyrs love life.

The danger can come in when you follow any strain of theology too far and get too literal with it. It is easy to start off and say that "God is the souce of all goodness" and end up saying that logically speaking, if that is true then all creation must be a totally depraved place with no goodness in it. Well, God said that creation is good, too. Is it good because God flows in and through it, or does it have instrinsic goodness in it? It is hard to say and various theologies take that in different directions. Somehow a love of God is tied to a love of life. Somehow loving God and loving neighbor become the foundation of Christianity, and perhaps they are not two separate guidelines but actually one expression. Somehow charity and good deeds are tied to religion, somehow, deep down, we know this.

ADDED LATER: Another way to look at it is that the person in the song won't let the fear of jail imprison them. Sometimes the very threat of being in jail is enough to paralyze people and cause them to back down out of fear. The person in the song refuses to let their spirit be chained like that--imprison the body if you can, but the spirit will always be free! Hang him on the cross, if you can, but his spirit will rise!

Dec 2--Martyrs of El Salvador

We used to laugh at the Soviet Union.

What a tragic waste it was that they had to drain their economic and intellectual reserves just forcing all their citizens to stay in their country and maintain obsessive censorship of speech. Checkpoints, endless scrutiny of the citizenry, what a shame. Not only was it a colossal humanitarian disaster, but it was also unnecessary and, in fact, counter productive of the very goals they were trying to achieve.

The more you let something go, the more you have it.

In America, we knew better. The more freedom you have, the more benefits. Our citizens can pretty much go where they want and say what they want, and we are stronger for it--not weaker. We used to shake our heads at the former USSR. They just didn't get it. No surprise that the system ultimately crumbled

But don't think for one minute that that same knee-jerk reaction out of fear isn't always still present in America. It goes back to that fundamental struggle of love and openness versus fear and control. Many people feel that the only way to arrive at a goal is to forcibly control others--the only way to have national security is to silence all opposition, the only way to be prosperous is to oppress all the competition.

Business needs to be reminded of this every day. Business thought that the whole system would fall apart if we had child labor laws. Turns out business prospered.

Business thought that the world would come to an end if we had labor unions. Turns out now that we all miss the days when daddy went to work at a union factory shop and made enough money for mommy to stay home with the kids.

Business thought that capitalism itself would be ground to its knees if they had to be accountable to safety standards. Turns out they did just fine and we have a lot more healthier people to show for it.

Business thought that the 40-hour workweek would be the end of life itself. Turns out it was a new beginning.

Business always thinks in the short term--don't believe the myth that the free market knows all. The truth is that in the narrowest possible sense, an increase in these rules and regulations can and does spell a decrease in profits for an individual business--but when enacted over the whole system, it actually improves business overall. There are simply lots of healthier, happier, richer people to spend all their money back into the system. We thrive. Forget the humanitarian outcomes for a minute--it just makes good business sense to treat people right.

The problem is that business never really learned that lesson. Citizens demanding a marginal increase in their wages, the right to organize, the right to learn and study and say what they want to say can and does often spell malicious death in Latin America and other parts of the world--at the hands of soldiers trained, supported and supplied by the US government.

This may astonish most Americans, as these run contrary to some of the most fundamental values we have--we're all about spreading democracy, right? Well, all those "anti communist" actions we've been involved in over the past 50 years have often been a ruse for putting down labor organizers and others clamoring for a small raise in wages. Somehow, we still seem to think that our entire standard of life will fall apart if all these countries we exploit somehow got their feet on the ground. But wait--isn't this what we shrugged our heads at the USSR about?

Colonialism meet neo-colonialism. New boss = same as the old boss.

On Dec 2nd, 30 years ago today, we saw it in El Salvador. For some reason, soldiers trained, supplied and supported by the US military found that it was essential for our security that two nuns and their two female co-workers needed to be run off the road, raped and murdered on the spot.

The dirty little secret ain't so little. While we are lulled into thinking that we are the freedom fighters spreading democracy and toppling terrible regimes all around the world, our country in fact supports about 150 militaries, and the track record of the kinds of activities they get involved in would make the jaws of most Americans drop. Can someone explain how a massacre of an entire village of peasants in Guatemala is justified? But as long as Americans aren't coming home in body bags and there's no draft to awaken the Nintendo minds, it all goes on unnoticed. Clothes from sweat shops in southeast Asia are pretty cheap and no one asks any questions.

It is easy to turn a blind eye and say it's all about national security. To that, I refer you back to the top of this post. Don't we know that freedom and prosperity are good for all? A tight grip doesn't work. Isn't that a big part of what we're all about?

The only difference I see between the former USSR and the USA is that the former acted as if their national security depended on keeping their own people down, and the latter behaves as if national security depends on keeping everyone else down.

Redemption

It's not that I'm angry.

I'm just too tired to be quiet anymore.

Inconsistent Pro-Life People

People betray themselves by their inconsistencies. Not that any of us is perfectly consistent, but inconsistency certainly raises some eyebrows and starts people asking questions.

Take the recent controversy over Obama speaking at Notre Dame. Some were infuriated that a pro-choice president like Obama was given the attention and honors he got, given that the Catholic Church is decidedly pro-life.

On the one hand, this could deserve some congratulations. When many churches are accused of trying to be "all things to all people," here you have one that is willing to take a stand. Perhaps this is something to be proud of.

The anti-abortion stance of the Catholic Church is rooted in a respect for life--all life, all the time, everywhere. There are many Catholics who take a hard line stance on abortion, allowing no if's, and's or but's about it. To them, abortion is wrong and that's all there is to it. Okay, that's a respectable stance. Then ask them about war... euthanasia... the death penalty... these are often considered "negotiable."

Many of these folks who would not support abortion under any circumstances seem to have little regard for the dropping of thousands of megatons of explosives on foreign nations--bombs which kill, most certainly, a number of unborn babies. You may remember that George W Bush--the unrepentant architect of those very actions--also spoke at Notre Dame without a peep from the pro-life contingency.

The inconsistency of the response of folks at Notre Dame reflects a trend that you can see elsewhere among some American Catholics--not all, but some.

It seems that the people I am describing are not pro-life. They seem to be anti-abortion, they have a particular call and desire to stop abortions for whatever reason. Maybe they just like unborn babies and really want to crusade for them. Fine with me. But when it comes to truly understanding what the Church is calling us to understand when it comes to respect for all life, they don't get it.

To narrow the pro-life movement to just abortion is to miss the whole point--all life, all the time, everywhere. The crippled and able. The living and dying. The young and old, born and unborn, healthy and sick, smart and dumb, friend and enemy, neighbor and foreigner, guilty and not guilty, you name it. Life is a gift from God and must be respected through all its phases and manifestations--none is greater or more deserving of their life than another.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Fr. Scott gave some reflections on the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in his homily today. This was in recognition of the influence of St. Robert Bellarmine in the formation of the US Declaration of Independence.

It is a very interesting list of rights. The order. The level of importance of each. Something to thing about.

It is curious to ponder what kind of list most folks would come up with if you ask what are the fundamental responsibilities of each person.

Or what list folks would come up with if it were a collective list rather than individual--we all advocate strongly for our own right to life, of course, but what about the right to life for the guy next door?

I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that most folks--even many well intentioned folks--would put the pursuit of their own happiness over and above someone else's right to life.

Now, folks won't necessarily come out and say that. This is something that comes from simply observing actions. Folks seem to put their time, talent and energy on their own happiness first. People literally exhaust their energy, their creativity and their bank accounts rehabbing their house, planning a vacation or doting over their friends and relatives. With some left over time and energy, some well-intentioned folks devote some resources to protecting the rights of others.

How different life would be if we all believed strongly in the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--in that order--and included all humanity and not just ourselves! Just imagine how differently we would have to live in order to put that into practice and act as if we really believed it!

Vow of Nonviolence

I went to the Pax Christi Conference and took the Vow of Nonviolence. I have to admit that I was sort of half-hearted about it. No, I don't have any objections to the content--I truly believe in the nonviolence of Jesus. But I'm not really a "vows" type of guy (except for the big ones like marriage) and especially not in this context. You get a large crowd of people are they are all asked to take an oath, it just seems fishy to me, no matter how good the intention. I don't like the Pledge of Allegiance, either. I hadn't been discerning much about non-violence to the point where I could have felt ready to take a vow. I wasn't against it, but I just wasn't "there" yet. So I mumbled through it and just wasn't sure where I sat with it.

But I feel like I'm taking the vow every day now, little by little. I was very moved by Fr. John Dear's workshop session at the conference. He talked about our absolute addiction to violence. We always think that one more war, one more fight, one more argument, one more exchange of harsh words is going to solve our problems, but we are left wanting. You see, violence is not solely the realm of physical fighting. There is violence all over in our relationships, the way we talk, the way we act, the purchases we make, our lifestyle, you name it. It is both out in the open and hidden.

When we talk about people as if they were objects, we commit violence. When we squander the earth's resources, we commit violence. When we tear down instead of build up others, we commit violence.

I now feel it is the right thing to say, so while I may have said it half-heartedly at the conference, I am saying it right now for real. There is a part or two that I still stumble over and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it, but I'm living into it more each day. It's quite beautiful:

A Journey Toward Disarming the Heart

~VOW OF NONVIOLENCE~

RECOGNIZING THE VIOLENCE IN MY OWN HEART, yet trusting in the goodness and mercy of God, I vow for one year to practice the nonviolence of Jesus who taught us in the Sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons and daughters of God...You have learned how it was said, "You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy"; but I say to you, "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. In this way, you will be daughters and sons of your Creator in heaven."

Before God the Creator and the Sanctifying Spirit, I vow to carry out in my life the love and example of Jesus

by striving for peace within myself and seeking to be a peacemaker in my daily life;

by accepting suffering rather than inflicting it;

by refusing to retaliate in the face of provocation and violence;

by persevering in nonviolence of tongue and heart;

by living conscientiously and simply so that I do not deprive others of the means to live;

by actively resisting evil and working nonviolently to abolish war and the causes of war from my own heart and from the face of the earth.

God, I trust in Your sustaining love and believe that just as You gave me the grace and desire to offer this, so You will also bestow abundant grace to fulfill it.

On Mission at Work

One of the most convenient places to help transform the world is right in your current community and workplace. Sure, it is tempting to want to go away and be with other like-minded people. It is tempting to quit your job so that you can pursue a ministry vocation full time. However, doing ministry while working through a church or non-profit may not have quite the impact you may think. It is probably already an environment teeming with people doing that very thing.

Working 8-5 for some corporation can put a real damper on your time and energy for outreach. However, it also puts you right on the front lines. There are valid points to be made for both approaches, and only you can know for sure what you are called to do.

There are so many possibilities to do good right where you are at: Start a recycling program at work! It is much less productive to start a recycling program at an environmental organization, whereas many of the businesses out there are ripe for sustainable practices. It often just takes an employee with initiative to get the ball rolling. Be pastoral with your co-workers--people who may never step foot into a church or be impacted directly by the outreach done from there. Work is probably the one place people can be reached who are otherwise inaccessible.

Be the Change

Maybe it's a sign of age. I have much less sympathy for folks (often younger people) who have no problem telling everyone under the sun how disappointed they are with organized religion. These people are on a spiritual quest and they experiment in all sorts of ways, attend all kinds of denominations, but they still end up unsatisfied. They say all religions are hypocritical, all are sub-standard, all of them don't live up to what they preach--they aren't even close enough when you factor in natural human imperfections!

And then what do these people do? Quite often, they just give up. Even worse, they feel self-righteous about it--they have looked where they could look and gave everyone an honest shot, and now they can wash their hands of the whole bloody mess and be done with it. As a result, they don't believe (much) about God, they don't practice spiritual practices, they don't do the charity and justice work of the churches, either. So they give up their entire faith just because they didn't like how some other church people were going about their business!

I don't want to criticize anyone's spiritual journey. There are times in your life when you need to be fed, and you yearn for a community or a group where you can find that nourishment and mentoring. The restlessness of youth calls the adults out of complacency and into accountability. We all need that.

But there also comes a time when the next step in the faith journey is to take responsibility for yourself. If all those groups are failing, so what? You be the change you want to see in the world, as Gandhi said. Try it for a while and you may become much more sympathetic about all those "hypocritical religious types." It is easier said than done. You might find out that as difficult as it is for you to live out the gospel, maybe, just maybe, others who are in religion find it difficult, as well. It has never been easy.

At some point in your life, you realize that you are an adult, too. If the church is failing in your eyes, what is stopping you from showing us all how it's done? The Pope isn't our "daddy" that we all look to for direction while we stay in quasi-infancy all our lives. He's a man like I am, and I can look him in the eye and we can talk about it and yell about it then go fishing when it's all said and done. He may not be any better equiped (or positioned) to live out his faith than I am.

"Be the change you want to see in the world," should be our constant reminder every time we want to get up on our soap box and preach hellfire and brimstone to everyone else who is failing around us. Don't come complaining unless you also come with a plan--or at least a desire to help make one.

Tomorrow Morning, 9:00 AM

Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone woke up tomorrow morning and decided unanimously not to do anything until all the suffering of the world were taken care of?

Some people say they are called to help the needy, like some kind of religious vocation. Some don't feel called. But do you feel called when your mother gets sick? Do you feel called when your best friend is in trouble? No, you respond out of a deep impulse within you. Instinctively, you jump into action, as if the whole world stopped right then and there. If your mother needed you, there would be no hill or mountain that could stand in your way.

I think this is what Jesus is getting at when he wants us to rethink our family relations. All people are your brothers and sisters. The same instinctive, immediate response to the suffering of one of your blood family members should be the same response you feel whenever anyone is suffering. All people are your family.

Our ancestors who lived several thousand years ago had an edge on us. Living in isolated villages, many of them probably lived out their entire lives without knowing that there is extensive suffering in the world. They went to sleep at night not realizing there were hungry people they could have helped.

If a neighbor fell on some catastrophe in one of those ancient villages, I would imagine people would have helped out. House burned down? Just stay with the folks next door. Food supply went bad? The town will pull together to cover the difference. How could you go to bed at night knowing the folks in the next hut are literally starving to death while you have plenty of food? You wouldn't let that happen. Human nature being what it is, I'm sure it was a few steps removed from utopia, but I think it is quite possible that basic needs were met in one way or another in a lot of these places.

We don't have that luxury today. We know that there are millions upon millions of desperately suffering people--from sickness, famine, war, drought, homelessness, emotional anguish, you name it. This is one of the most shocking changes in human culture over the last 100 years: We hear statistics like 'so many thousands of people die of hunger every minute.' People who lived previously saw suffering, for sure, but they didn't have quite that same information in front of them. What that does to our souls is something I don't want to consider.

I just wish all people expressed a collective "No!" one day. Let's not do a single thing until every person goes to bed with a full belly. Let's all stop everything we're doing and hit this hard--with the same fervor as if it were our very mother who were hungry, with the same immediacy as if it were our own levees that were about to fail. Let's take to the streets, boldly go where no one has gone before, and get 'er done!

Abortion, Infant Baptism, Stoplights and the Western Mind

The Western Mind

In order to break the stalemate in the abortion debate, it may be useful to step back from our culture and look at it from a distance. When historians tell our tale, they will probably have a lot of words to classify our era, but among the terms would certainly be "western individualism." Just like the Renaissance, Dark Ages, Enlightenment and numerous other schools of thought before, there are themes deep in the psyche of each era. Each movement is characterized by a particular world view and assumptions.

Individualism is many things, but one of the defining points is that the individual is the ultimate reality. The more distinct and separate the individual is, the better. Our society is oriented toward the individual, with everything else taking second or third consideration.

Individualism is endemic in both liberal and conservative ideology. In fact, it is the axis on which those viewpoints revolve. We see this manifested in capitalism, our environmental approach as well as religious movements today. The rights of the individual are paramount, and the effects of our individual actions on each other and the world are an afterthought.

We are starting to collectively realize the shortcomings of such a worldview: When each of us is focused on getting something for ourselves we end up shortchanging each other and ultimately ourselves, as well. Many of us are now looking for a more holistic worldview in which we acknowledge our togetherness and inter-relatedness.

Stoplights

Half of Columbus was without power a couple weeks ago. It amazed me how slowly traffic moved without stoplights. Many of us usually dislike stoplights--we want to drive unimpeded and hate having to stop at every 3rd intersection for a red light. Yet, without those lights, we move at a snail's pace. Instead of a long line of cars moving through an intersection when it's their turn, you instead have one car at a time. It does make people become more aware and cooperate on their own, rather than mindlessly obeying a stoplight. But the end result is that it takes forever to get from one side of town to the other.

In the case of the stoplights, if we were to focus so much on the individual's "right" to travel without being told when to stop and go, we would end up with a society in which we are more limited than before. When every intersection is a 4-way stop no one gets anywhere. Taking your individual freedom away and making you stop at red lights and go on green actually gives us all more freedom when it is all said and done.

Infant Baptism

Let's look at religion as an example: The current evangelical movements strike a chord with a lot of folks today. The emphasis on a "personal relationship with God" is very individualized. Many people think of religious salvation in individual terms--this person gets saved and that one doesn't. Maybe you think we all get saved--each individual. Whether you have a conservative or liberal view, many of us are still looking at the issue on individual terms. By contrast, traditional Catholic views hold for the salvation of a people, consistent with Old Testament Judaism.

Many folks have trouble understanding things such things as infant baptism, such as in Catholicism. People don't understand how an infant baby can make a decision for Christ when the infant is just a few days old! Well, that's a misunderstanding--infant baptism is a community sacrament.

We celebrate the fact that God's grace is a gift and you can't actually go and get it yourself. It is a sacrament of God's promise and our hope that the gift will be there through no work of our own. In this light, infant baptism makes all the sense in the world. Celebrating our faith, hope and love that God's grace will shine on this person in whatever way God wants, we make our commitment to raise the child in the body of Christ--the Church. It may even make more sense than adult baptism, which emphasizes the individual's decision for Christ.

In my view, both baptisms are just fine. Each version emphasizes certain elements and not others. With adult baptism, it is easy to forget that the adult is able to make a decision for Christ only through the work of the Holy Spirit in the first place. With a baby, it is much easier to remember that the baby isn't making any decision at all and the child is totally dependent on God's grace. And with infant baptism the decision of the individual for Christ is still to come.

Abortion

Pregnancy really boggles the mind of a western individualist. How can it be that two bodies are joined as one? This issue is really not that hard for someone living in another time period, but for our era of western individualism, this is a real stumper. The decision that gets reached in the mind of the western individualist is that the baby must not be a real life. That is the only solution that makes sense to the modern person.

To acknowledge the life of the child (and rights) would be to challenge western individualism itself--it would be to acknowledge that there is something greater than the self. It is not just your body anymore, no matter how much western individualism tells us that we are entitled to think that way. The western mind simply cannot conceive of two bodies ultimately joined, and in frustration the western mind simply devalues one in favor of another. It doesn't know how else to handle this. However, you can see the discomfort in people around this--they know deep down this isn't a satisfactory answer.

Western individualism is ultimately limited. The truth is that we are fervently inter-connected to each other. The actions of one person can and do affect others, no matter how much the western mind wants to pretend that we are totally separate. We all live downstream from someone and upstream from another. Your right to smoke impedes my right not to breathe dirty air. None of us is totally "independent"--that is another myth of western individualism. Instead, we are all in various stages of growth and development, and each stage is vital to us. All day long my actions affect others, and their actions affect me.

A lot of the hot button social issues today can be intensely challenging to figure out--abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc. We all have beliefs about life that we take for granted, but when we wrestle with extreme situations like these we can have real difficulty finding a way to make the ends meet. Some things just don't fit. It is easy to throw up our hands and be glad when we don't have to make decisions about these complicated issues. However, I would hold that when these issues are so challenging it is because they are exposing the limitations of our worldview. Maybe it's a sign to change our worldview. Individualism sounds fine in certain arenas, but it quickly falls short in describing what is going on here on earth as these issues show us.

We need to approach the issue of abortion out of the mindset of an inter-connected people, not as separate individuals who happen to be in society together. With individualism, we focus on the individual first, and we use our legal system to sort out what to do when the rights of one interferes with the rights of another. The focus here is the individual, with limitations imposed only when these clashes occur--considerations of society come second.

You see, the question in abortion is not a matter of deciding what the rights of the baby are versus the rights of the mother. The real question is deciding what the responsibilities of the baby and mother are to each other and our mutual responsibility as a society to and with these people. Only then are we going to get out of this abortion stalemate.

We are in stalemate, because we are asking the wrong question. We end up with all sorts of awkward ideas in order to maintain our western individual mindset, such as claiming that the baby is not a baby--or even if it is, it doesn't have rights because of some arbitrary criteria picked out of a hat such as which stage of development it is in. Let's be honest: Those criteria are not for the baby's benefit, those are designed to uphold the freedom of the mother first. In our society, the baby only has rights when the mother does not have to be involved anymore. So we define the start of the baby's life as the point by which the mother can check out--as if that actually has anything to do with the start of the baby's life at all.

A baby has become an object. The only way to support abortion is to devalue babies--probably the core value the human race has ever had. There is probably nothing that defines our species more than the intense love of adults for babies. This is the tie we have to sever in order to justify abortion. We have to make babies into objects.

I don't even want to imagine what that does to the human spirit or what long-term impact that will have on a society which is working hard every day to devalue life in all it's forms and reduce us all to mechanistic formulas--psychology, science, you name it. You see, the western mind does not just want to kill the unborn. The western mind wants to kill everybody. Scientists are working hard every day in their laboratories trying to kill us all as quickly as possible. "You see, there's nothing special about you--you're just a lump of cells in an impersonal universe!" That's what they tell us. I really have to ask why they are trying to hard to do this? They can't wait until they have taken everything special out of life. (Those of you familiar with G. K. Chesterton may notice his influence here, in particular on this last paragraph.)

On Pushing Rivers--Let's Review

If you've been following this blog, you may have seen a trend that I have seen as well: I'm convinced that many of the problems with America stem from a pervasive attitude that we can force the world to be what we want it to be. We expend countless resources to do this, when it would be more effective, efficient and gentle to work with our surrounding and bend with them.

The following is a snapshot of ideas that have been discussed in previous posts. While they may seem to encompass varied topics, I am hoping the following shows a common theme among them:

Instead of finding a nice shade tree to relax under, we would rather rev up an engine and sit in houses and cars with air conditioning. People don't think of wearing lighter clothing or working at a slower pace in the heat. The term "climate control" sums it up. There is tremendous irony there, as people who live this way are not in control, but actually trapped in their homes and cars, powerless to thrive as the environment changes (they could if they just gave themselves a chance to adapt). A lot of people don't know that you can really thrive in the heat, but you have to give it a chance.

Instead of practicing a lifestyle of health and working with the body when it falters, our medical community is much more geared toward invasive drugs and surgeries. Do whatever you want, and our doctors will "fix" you when you get "broken." It is oriented toward forcing a cure rather than enabling health. Diet and exercise are considered as an afterthought, almost like extra credit or when all else fails. Any doctor will tell you that the best cures work with the body rather than against, but people often think (and act) otherwise.

Instead of appreciating rocky landscapes or desert foliage, Midwesterners who move to the southwest instead try to force a green lawn onto the arid landscape--even though water is scarce and introducing foreign species may upset the local ecosystems. They move all the way to the desert, but want to recreate Ohio.

Instead of trying to work with other nations, the USA instead follows the imperial model of using military force to get our way. The "War on Terrorism" is a perfect example. The notion that we can simply end terrorism by military force is actually impossible, if you consider the definition of terrorism--the last ditch efforts of a group of people with little to lose, who aren't afraid of dying, willing to commit acts of destruction to make up for their small political or economic power, all in an effort to disrupt the imperial power. Reducing communication and the political power of others leads to terrorism, it does not fight it.

When Senator Obama stresses the importance of maintaining dialogue with other nations, that simple and common sense attitude is just too radical for many Americans. Yet dialogue breeds negotiation which breed compromise and commitment. Sure beats the current model, which is "I'm not talking to you, but I'm gonna bomb you." I realize that negotiating with people who are already terrorists may be hard to do, but the idea here is that terrorists come out of a context. If there were more opportunity, if their culture had more of a voice, terrorists probably would not exist at all--and if they did, they would not have the popular support they depend on.

It is for reasons such as the above that America as a whole is often considered spiritually immature--still convinced that strength in isolation is the way to approach the world and solve problems. We're like a strapping young teenager who hasn't fallen flat on his face yet, only to discover later in life that you can't go through life forcing it to be what you want or "taking it on" yourself. Health, happiness and yes--responsibility--comes by being in relationship--with yourself, your surroundings, your community.

You don't pull no punches,

and you don't push the river.

-Van Morrison

How to Memorialize?

Regardless of your feelings about war, it usually doesn't seem to be asking too much to grieve those who died as a result of war. Even many anti-war activists I know don't hesitate to participate in parades, a moment of silence, a "final salute" or 21-gun commemoration.

However, when you consider honoring America's fallen soldiers on Memorial Day, I ask you to think of your audience (this post is late, but we have a number of other holidays to commemorate soldiers coming up).

When you heap praise on fallen soldiers, think of the 18 year old in small town America. He has hormones bursting through his veins and a desire for meaning and to be part of something powerful that matches the energy he has. He also has little other than low-paying fast food or factory jobs to look forward to, assuming he doesn't go to college. Kids in small town America are BORED out of their minds.

Then suddenly someone talks in reverence about the "ultimate sacrifice" of soldiers. The kid doesn't hear the word "sacrifice," but he wants to be part of something that you can describe as "ultimate." I know no one has that intention when you use those words, but you gotta put yourself in their shoes.

Military recruiters know that bloody and gruesome movies about war help recruiting just as much as the sanitized John Wayne films. Young kids want to be part of something important, and the grit and talk of death is not a turn-off for them.

I want to figure out a way to honor the fallen soldiers without creating the next generation of them. War is too serious, people get chewed up. Those raging energies and a quest for meaning and drama can be better channeled other ways--saving the environment, improving society, mentoring young people. That same competitive spirit and thirst for adventure can be satisfied in other ways. We need to support that.

Outreach Really Means Reaching Out

Non-profit agencies often try to "look like" the people they are serving. If they serve women, they want to hire women. If they serve African-Americans, they want to hire African-Americans. Organizations that serve the elderly want elderly people on staff, and youth groups want someone "youthful" in charge. I have seen this play out time and again in the different agencies I've been involved with.

They are often more-than-willing to accept a lack of qualifications in their employees in order to meet this goal. This is not an expression of affirmative action. It is actually the belief that someone can better serve if they "look like" the people they are serving.

Commonality has a place. If I were on an expedition to a third world country, I would want a local guide with me. That is certainly part of the package. The problem is that as an overall guiding strategy, it is misguided at best, and at worst showcases a most dismal view of humanity.

This is more than just a lack of courage and vision among these agencies (although it is both of those things). It is nothing short of a profound lack of faith in human beings and a complete misunderstanding of what being in relationship means. At its worst, it resigns us to the belief that we are nothing more than the sum of our parts. There is no magic in this equation. It says we are just organisms in a behavioral universe--the better the match-up on a number of key compatibility areas, the better the outcome. So they say.

Mother Theresa was a white, celibate, Roman Catholic nun from Albania. She set up shop in a section of India that couldn't have "looked" any more different from her. Yet, her work was so successful it virtually defines outreach work today--or at least, it points toward the ideal.

All relationships involve the "other"

All relationships are a challenge. Mother Theresa would have known that she couldn't get lazy. There were huge cultural gaps of every kind. Sensitivity, attentiveness, focus and a willingness to work hard at those relationship were no doubt integral to her mission. If you "look like" the people you're in relationship with too much, you could risk getting lazy.

Her faith and love for all human beings was a guiding principle that she brought to any group of people, big, small, white, black, you name it. Perhaps she did not even concern herself with the surface traits at all, since she was so focused on our deeper commonality--our membership in God's family and our universal needs for love and food. But I think there's more to it. Its not just replacing once list of common traits with another, even if they are deeper things in common. There is a mystical belief that while we are channeled by the physical reality of this world, we can also transcend it to perhaps reach a point of ultimate commonality.

Any time two people meet, there is an experience of "other". No two people have the same background, education or worldview. Each time two people get into relationship--any relationship--it involves a reaching out toward mystery and an experience of tension. Nothing works effortlessly, at least, not in the long run. It could be argued this is critical to our growth. We need communication and a lot of effort to continually reach across those divides and find ourselves ever so closer, day by day. True outreach is thus a component of every relationship.

This isn't to say that cultural gaps aren't significant. Some relationships may accidentally work if you find yourself among the 'boys from your hometown'. On the other extreme, I've also experienced the unexplainable chasm of culture shock. However, a person who understands the difficulty of relationships should be able to reach across no matter how different the other may be. The quality of all relationships will depend on the ability of people to continually come closer and closer. I've seen married couples who couldn't have had a more similar background yet be more further apart.

In our western society, many people don't see relationships as an opportunity for growth. They are simply business arrangements, where you look for someone who matches your list of criteria. The special magic that many hope for is something they actually work against. They look for the end product from a list of attributes and are surprised when there is nothing lasting built from such a passive approach. They want something easy.

Sometimes the similarities are not what they seem, either. I have found some of the deepest and most immediate kinship with people who couldn't have looked anymore different: A shepherd in Spain. An Ivy League MBA student from China. My closest spiritual companions are often not the ones who grew up in the pews next to me. I can get more "amens" preaching to a group of inner-city African-American folks than in your average Catholic church. You could argue that each of these people have a small town heart or blue collar sensibilities, like I grew up with. But it wasn't about the costume, nor was it about race, age, gender or nationality.

Perhaps the above are bad examples, because they are "easy" relationships where the commonality was there, it just happened to be deeper than surface traits. And that may be. But if you consider these examples, you start to see that what brings people together is not so much what lies on the surface. The potential for greatness is in any relationship. And I would argue that there are deeper, more mystical possibilities for relationships that are sure tempered and facilitated through our 3-D world, but which also transcend it. This is a far cry from a mechanistic view of life. It points to a commonality, sure, but one that transcends any of the limitations of this world.

The Parable of The Widow and Her Coins

He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.’

New Revised Standard Version, Luke 21:1-4

Its so easy to complain about the wealthy people of this world. Mansions with billionaires who all seem to have criminal levels of wealth. How can anyone really justify having so much in light of the suffering in the world? We scoff at the inequity, and certainly look down our noses at more than a few people along the way.

The widow reminds us: What did you do? You judge the millionaires, and she--by her example--judges you. Many of us have convinced ourselves that we "need" so much of what we have. We tell ourselves that its the millionaires and billionaires who could stand to reduce their standard of living, but the rest of us are just "getting by." Tell someone starving to death that you "need" your car or your new clothes or your jewelry more than they need to eat.

These are some of my favorite verses in scripture. To me, its all about judgement. Or at least, a caution against it. Who can really judge the giving of another? If we have such a difficult time managing our possessions and giving what we have in service to the needy, we should be able to understand the difficulty someone else has in parting with their stuff, as well--even the very rich. There is something in the human condition that makes intentional poverty a very difficult thing to do.

Its too easy to say, "Yeah, I have a few extra dollars I could give, but they have millions they could easily give without even batting an eyelash." But did you give your few extra dollars? Did you give another dollar that wasn't extra? Careful who you judge, because while you may shake your head at the millionaires and billionaires, there might be someone in the third world who could shake their head at you.

I'm not trying to lecture anyone here, because I wrestle with this every day myself. The more we have, the more we convince ourselves that we need. While these verses are a reminder to us what 'gospel giving' really looks like, it may also help us to have compassion on the "rich" people of the world who hold onto their wealth. They are not that different from us.

There is nothing comfortable about this parable.

Matthew 25

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Matthew Chapter 25 includes some of the most famous lines in scripture. It forms the core of the Corporal Works of Mercy. It has so inspired our own Columbus Catholic Worker community that we have chosen to include it in our mission statement.

Its very clear in what it asks. While I am certainly open to many and myriad interpretations of any text, certainly on a literal level this one is rather upfront about its call for food, clothing, shelter, hospitality, comfort and dignity.

What I find most striking is what it does not say. It never says how much we should do. How do you live out this commandment? Do you give of your spare change and your free time? Do you put aside a set percentage of your resources? Do you work tirelessly?

Any of those answers (even the one about working tirelessly) would be easier than what Matthew offers: Silence. I've shouted this question out to God many times, only to hear the reverberation of my echo in reply.

But it is a reply, nonetheless. That is because the question is not to much to God but really to ourselves. The Bible invites us into a relationship with ourselves. Thomas Merton does a fine job pointing this out in Opening the Bible To think it out, to sweat it out, to wrestle with it, as Daniel Berrigan might say (Ten Commandments for the Long Haul). To sit up late at night. To try it. To immerse ourselves in it.

Its not supposed to be easy. Its not about checking items off a list, even if the tasks or sacrifices are costly to us. The answer is to personally involve ourselves in the question, as well as the answer. Bottom line is: You can't mail this one in (even though you may, after much soul searching, decide that mailing in a check may be the best option at a juncture).

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

New Revised Standard Version Matthew 25:35-36 (above), 40 (below).

Jesus: Love in the Face of Violence

Imagine a movie scene of the Gospel of John. The disciples are gathered around the table immediately after Jesus has washed their feet. Jesus knows his betrayer and lets him go and do what he needs to do. He hands bread to Judas, and then Judas leaves.

Imagine then the movie screen is split in two. On the one side, you see Judas scurrying down narrow flights of stairs and out into the streets, making his way quickly among the shadows until he finds the Chief Priests. He makes his deal.

One the other side of the screen is Jesus among his disciples. He knows that Judas is out there, right at this very moment betraying him. What does Jesus do? He gathers his disciples in a delicate, intimate scene, and talks about love--the Greatest Commandment, no less. While Judas is making his deal, Jesus--in full knowledge of this betrayal--at the very moment this betrayal is happening--Jesus opens like a flower.

While there is no mention of "turning the other cheek" in the Gospel of John, there can be no better example. In the face of violence, Jesus turns and shows his best side. He does not tighten up in anger, or slink away in fear, or keep a grudge, or make a list. He talks about the importance--the sheer necessity--of loving one another. Judas turned and struck him in the cheek, but Jesus responded--not with his hurt side--but as if we were never hurt. He turned and responded from his other side, his unhurt cheek--not from his pain or fear, but out of love.

Some argue that the Gospel of John is problematic in that Jesus only mentions the greatest commandment to his closest disciples. Many have wondered if he's talking only about love among disciples for disciples. The role of Judas in this scene, however--even when he is not present at the meal any longer--is critical to understanding Jesus' message. Even if John focuses on relationships among disciples, the ability of Jesus to remain in love and respect Judas, even as the latter falters, shows how a disciple can respond to the rest of the world. This message of love is for all people.