Chaos

The last two or three weeks have been both very busy and very emotional for me. Just too much going on and too much to think about. It's times like these when I start getting angry, first at life and then at God. And that's when I start critiquing the universe and pondering why everything's so screwed up. Next comes self-pity, frustration, rebellion, and ultimately chaos. It's a little viscous cycle I go through from time to time -- more often than I care to admit.

Things kind of came to a boil yesterday when I found myself watching one of these horrible shows on television that show humanity at its worst. This one happened to be on sex slavery -- young girls being forced into prostitution. As I watched, I kept asking, "how can God let this happen?"

This begs the question, "how can God let a lot of things happen?" How can he let wars, and executions, and torture happen? How can he let birth defects, famine, and disease happen? And so on and so on. This is another little cycle that I get trapped in from time to time.

The temptation is to give up on God or, at the very least, to distance myself from God. "I don't understand God. I don't understand his ways. I don't understand why he lets these things go on. Therefore, I'm just going to keep my distance ...ignore things. Just do what I want and try not to think about it."

This is when I begin to unravel.

It's hard to explain. So let me borrow an illustration that was once given to me by a Greek Orthodox priest.

He told me that truth, or order, or sense, if you will (i.e., that which makes sense) is central to who God is. When we move towards that center, things that don't make sense to us now will begin to. Or at least we will begin to trust God and have peace. He said the opposite of that center is chaos. The nature of evil is not so much nefarious as it is chaotic. It is the absence of reason, the absence of order, the absence of truth. Chaos is dangerous because there is no order and there is no truth. Rather, we become the arbiters of reality. And that's when people lose their senses and all kinds of nightmarish things occur.

There's a great quote from theatrical literature that underscores this. It's from the play The Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt.

Thomas More is arguing with William Roper, his son-in-law, against the idea of vigilante justice and people being their own arbiters of truth. Roper, in turn, maintains that it's alright to violate the law for the greater good. But then More questions who's to decide what that greater good is. At the height of the argument, More says:

"And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you,
where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is
planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, man's laws, not God's, and if
you cut them down, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds
that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the devil the benefit of the law for my
own safety's sake."

His point here is that we need rules. He's talking about the civil law of course, but the idea that without rules we are indeed subject to the "winds that would blow" is well taken.

Earlier in the passage he makes an equally astute observation about God's law.

"I am not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager."

His point here being that we as humans can't fully comprehend God's will. What he's confronting here is the lynch mob mentality of his son-in-law, wanting to take the law into his own hands. More does acknowledge that God's laws are indeed superior to man's, but that we're are not in the position of enforcing them as much as we are deferring to them. It is not our purview to figure them out as much as it is to obey them. Hence the need for our own civil law -- something we can navigate.

Therefore, I defer to God again regarding the evils of this universe. Adopting such an attitude doesn't make everything make sense, but it does place the burden on the proper shoulders (God's, not mine).

C.S. Lewis, in his book A Grief Observed, where he was trying to make sense of the tragically non-sensical death of his wife, concluded that, "Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our contradictory notions. The notions will be knocked from under our feet."

I submit to God's sovereignty thereby placing myself away from the outer fringes of chaos. Let us pray for those who dwell there.

Spiritual Voyeurs

Last night I was composing an email message when I got on the topic of the author Roberston Davies. This woman I was writing to had said that Davies was one of her favorite authors. I wanted to say something about him (to impress her, of course), but the only book of his I ever read was Fifth Business, the first of his Deptford Trilogy. And that was a long time ago. I remember finishing the book but not finding it quite compelling enough to read the other two in the series.

That being said, the more I thought about the story, the more I remembered. I even vaguely remembered a certain passage from the book where the main character, Dunstan Ramsay, recalls the different churches in the town where he grew up.

"We had five churches: the Anglican, poor but believed to have some mysterious social supremacy; the Presbyterian, solvent and thought--chiefly by itself--to be intellectual; the Methodist, insolvent and fervent; the Baptist, insolvent and saved; the Roman Catholic, mysterious to most of us but clearly solvent, as it was frequently and, so we thought, quite needlessly repainted."

Another interesting thing about the Ramsay character was that he made a point about not being particularly religious (or perhaps not religious at all) and yet his profession in life was that of a hagiographer -- one who studies saints. As I recall, this came as the result of his life being spared in a bomb explosion during World War I. Right before the blast, he saw the statue of the Virgin Mary, and from that moment on he had an undying curiosity about saints.

The phenomenon of people being attracted to religion in some sort of intellectual way, yet not expressing piety or acknowledging its truth, has always intrigued me. I call these kinds of people "spiritual voyeurs."

In my first year of college I took a course entitled Early American Religious History. It was an upper division seminar that I enrolled in by mistake. However, since I was interested in the subject and since there were dismally few students enrolled, the professor let me remain. (He even kindly gave me a B- on my term paper.) The course was not about Native American religions as the name might suggest. Rather, it was mainly about American Protestantism, from its beginnings in Europe through the Second Great Awakening. I remember the professor asking the class up-front whether any of us were actually religious. Only I and one other fellow answered affirmatively. I always wondered at that. Why would people enroll in a course on religion if there felt no spiritual pull?

On this same subject, another character from fiction that comes to mind is Roger Lambert from John Updike's Roger's Version. Lambert is a defrocked and disaffected Methodist minister, who teaches church history at a modernist New England seminary. Again, it's been a long while since I read the book. But I do remember the scene where Lambert is sexually tempted by his promiscuous niece. I also remember him having all but abandoned his religion. And at the end of the book, when his young wife begins attending church again, he is greatly chagrined and asks her why. She responds, "To annoy you." I enjoyed that ending.

And then there's good ol' Sri Joseph Campbell. I was going to transition to him at this point, but I think that's another blog entry in itself, perhaps two.

The Ringing of the Angels

In my childhood, I had the good fortune of growing up across the street from a park -- a park with the rather humdrum name of "City Park."

I spent many hours at City Park -- hours filled with playing, fighting, running, football games, teasing and being teased, juvenile lewdness, playground politics, and the first pingings of boyhood crushes. Childhood.

The park was my second home, my respite from my parents and older sisters. Throughout my childhood, from my earliest memories until the age of 15 when my parents separated and we left the neighborhood, the park was there for me.

At 6:00 each evening, as I would be running across the grassy field or climbing on the monkey bars, I would hear them. The clear cooling sounds of bells. There was something about them that would always make me pause, something that would alter my awareness somehow. It was always a calming feeling. Always. Afterwards, my activity would resume for a time, but never with the same fervor as before. And then it would soon be dusk and time to go in.

Eventually someone explained to me that those were the bells from the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church in our town (there was only one) was named Holy Rosary Church.

It was at some point during my last years in the neighborhood -- the sad years of my early adolescence, when my world began its spin into uncertainty -- when I was sitting with my friend Mark on a wooden picnic table, under a large oak, and the bells came ringing across the air from the steeple of Holy Rosary.

"The ringing of the angels," said Mark.

"What?"

"The ringing of the angels, from the Catholic Church," Mark asserted.

"Oh, I didn't know it was called that."

"Yeah, every evening at 6:00 they ring the angels."

I didn't pursue the matter beyond that. I figured, since Mark was a Methodist, he probably didn't know much about it anyway. But I was left with a wonderful image in my mind of angels responding the ringing of the bells, being called down from the heavens into our community -- coming down, circling the bell tower and then dispersing into the evening light, to minister, or to hold vigil wherever the need may be. To protect all those good Catholics out there in the city of Woodland against the coming night.

Whether Mark's information was wrong, or whether I just heard it wrong, I do not know. However, I've since learned that "the ringing of the angels" is actually the ringing of the angelus bell, which dates back to the middle ages when a special bell (other than the main church bell) was used to call people to prayer, specifically the Angelus devotion to the Virgin Mary.

Angelus Domini nuntiavit Marie, Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto.

(The Angel of the Lord brought tidings unto Mary, and she conceived by the Holy Ghost.)

My notion of angels swooping down into our town, like Capser and his ghost friends, though perhaps cute, was just the imagining of a thirteen year-old boy.

There was something good and other worldly that came to me through those sounds of my childhood. But since there was no one to instruct me, I had to make sense of it on my own. However, despite my ignorance, I think the bells still had something of their intended effect.

I think within us there is a susceptibility to daily rhythms, even a desire for such. When those bells rang at 6:00 every night, something inside me responded and turned to them. There was a change in my day at that point. And even though I may have returned to my play or conversation, I knew the day, now evening, was heading in a different direction. Home -- to dinner, to bed.

And I think the prayer itself, The Angelus, being prayed by the faithful across town, was a part of this. Penetrating my spirit, turning me even then towards truth.

We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts, that as we have known the Incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by His Cross and Passion we may be brought unto the glory of His Resurrection; through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jesus and the Stock Market

Last night I was channel surfing when I came upon an infomercial where an older Asian man was hawking a get-rich-quick scheme to middle-aged folks like me, stressing how much money they (we) would need in order to retire comfortably. He said 1.2 million. I don't have anywhere near 1.2 million. In fact, I'm quite poor. And I found it depressing to watch.

This all comes at a time when the stock market is crashing and Wall St. executives are getting little bitty hand slaps for having bankrupted the American and world economies, and then trotting off scott-free to their luxury condos in the Caribbean or their New England estates. And Nero fiddles while Rome burns.

But as I was watching this guy, the words of Christ mercifully came to my mind: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth consume, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth nor rust can consume. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Then it occurred to me how blatantly opposed to Christ our society has become. In the "good old days" (whenever those were) we at least made the pretense of having Christian values (or Hindu, Moslem, Jewish, or Buddhist values -- with respect to charitable behavior, all religions basically agree). That we care for the poor, that we are abhor deceit and dishonesty, that we adhere to some form of "golden rule." But now we are unashamedly greedy and selfish, we even celebrate it. We have dignified looking men in coats and ties -- the type we tend to respect and look to for leadership -- telling us that greed is good and that our aim should be to beat down the other guy.

We are voyeuristic as well. We seem to almost take glee in the misery of others. We watch Jerry Springer and Maury Povich exploit people on their TV shows. We have an insatiable appetite for violent entertainment and pornography. The news is full of gruesome stories of parents murdering children, and teachers and clergy sexually abusing those in their charge. And we as a society take it all in like Roman citizens relaxing in their seats at the coliseum.

We must continually be reminded then...

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures here on earth."

"There is a way that seemeth right to man, but the end thereof is death."

"Man cannot server two masters."

"Trust in the LORD with all thy heart and lean not on thine own understanding."

"In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."

"God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded back from you. Now who will get the things you've accumulated?'"

"And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell."

It's amazing how potent, and how right, the words of the Bible are. We truly must keep our eyes averted from the transitory lies of this world. We must be about the business of preparing our souls for eternity.

Etched in Stone

I struggle with the notion that all matters of faith are absolute -- etched in stone -- that one's belief system must be adamant and unwavering. And, to the degree that we change our opinion from what we originally held, we are deviating from the "faith which was once delivered unto the saints."

Saint Paul talks about the idea of there being a "received faith." He says in his second letter to the Corinthian Church, "...if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully." And at the end of his life he writes: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith." So there's this notion of a faith that was received at conversion and that any wandering from this constitutes apostasy.

Now, I do agree that truth (ultimate truth) is indeed eternal and universal. There is nothing that is genuinely true in one time and place that is not true in another. Slavery is a good example. Slavery is always wrong and has always been wrong. It was wrong in the United States of the 1850s and it was wrong during the span of the Roman Empire, it was wrong in ancient Egypt. There are also other such universal truths (i.e., it's always wrong to murder or to abuse someone, neglecting the poor is always wrong). Truth -- ultimate truth -- is not changed by popular consensus or the law of the land. Think of the Old Testament prophets standing up to idolatry, or St. Francis standing up to the opulence of Rome, or John Brown standing up to slavery, or Gandhi or Martin Luther King standing up to racism and injustice. Think of how often the tide of public opinion and power has been wrong.

But then there are those matters of religious doctrine that aren't so clear -- those infamous gray areas. Some things I myself have changed my mind about. I used to not accept infant baptism, for instance. Now I do. I used to not believe in the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. Now I do. I used to have a more literal (and self-authorized) interpretation of scripture and I used to eschew the idea that the Church historic was the lens by which we focus our understanding of scripture. I've since reversed my thinking on these things.

My question then is this: What if the faith you "first received" later turns out to be not entirely accurate?

I think about St. Peter and his view on circumcision -- that he originally sided with the more traditionalist Jewish arm of the early church who held the idea that converts to the faith must be circumcised. St. Paul contested him on this and Peter eventually conceded that that belief -- that truth -- was not as he had originally thought.

This might be a bit of a trivial example. (Though I'm sure it wasn't trivial at the time -- especially to those adult males who were about to get their foreskins lopped off.) But there are other examples as well.

There were a couple of incidents in the Acts of the Apostles where the disciples of Saint John the Baptist were converted to Christianity. Their faith was incomplete and they required further instruction. Their understanding of the truth was shifted, or broadened if you will.

I have no conclusive statement on this matter other than that I don't think it's heretical to be open to reconsideration. Think of this: if you do change your belief on a certain issue and you turn out to be wrong. The ultimate truth is not altered in the slightest. For we haven't the capacity to change the truth.

That being said, it should be our ultimate aim to draw closer to the truth -- the true ultimate truth -- as we move through life. For to wallow in being wrong is foolish. If the truth sets us free, then it stands to reason that falsity imprisons us.

What the Pope said yesterday.

I thought it was good what Pope Benedict said yesterday "...He who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career, and money, builds the house of his life on sand."

We all need to be repeatedly reminded of this.

Luke 12:16-21

When Sinners Get Old

I hadn't written anything in my old blog (steelchicken.blogspot.com) for so long, it was pretty much dead in the dust, so I decided to start a new one. This one has a theme. The concept is simple. It's this: I don't view life, and my spiritual life in particular, the same way I did when I was young. Perhaps my writings will meander around over time (isn't that the beauty of blog writing?), but this is at least how I'm starting out.

Now this premise may seem like kind of a "duh" topic to introduce. Anybody who considers this for a bit will most likely observe that it's just a given that, as we get older, our minds change. But when you actually get to the point where it happens, it can be an interesting thing to examine.

And, as an aside, I'm not sure that all minds do change, at least not that much. There are a good many relatives of mine whose political and spiritual perspectives (or lack thereof) have not changed over the years. They've only become more entrenched in their biases and intolerances. (And, with my family, this usually takes the form of intolarance towards tradition and piety -- intolerance swings both ways.) Enough said.

I'm 48, almost 49. I think what got me started thinking about this was when a young Baptist man came to my door a few weeks ago and tried to proselytize me to go to his church. It was a short but intriguing conversation, at least in retrospect.

When I told the fellow that I went to a Catholic church, he responded, "well, did you ever think of changing churches?" (Ah, if only he knew. If only he had walked a mile in my moccasins.)

I told him I wasn't interested in changing churches.

He then questioned me on my salvation. Having spent years in the Evangelical Protestant church, I expertly spun off the answers that he was looking for. I did this mainly so he would leave me alone. I didn't lie. I do believe all that I told him. However, I now believe it differently than he does. I now think there's more complexity to it all and, in an odd way, more simplicity.

The last thing he asked me was whether I had prayed the sinner's prayer -- had I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins -- had I asked Jesus into my heart. I told him, "yes, many times."

He jumped on this and told me that I only needed to do it once. I knew before I gave my answer that my words would push a button. However, I didn't pursue the matter any further. The guy was beginning to wear me out. What did occur to me though was to ask, "well, I guess you've yet to experience a fall from grace then, have you?" (And I think I will discuss this issue later on -- the need for continual repentance.)

Also, the young man seemed happy ...and convinced, so why get into a battle with him? (I guess that's another way that I've changed.)

The experience reminded me of myself some twenty-five years or so ago. I was like that young man. So convinced. So right. It's interesting how, since then, the darknesses of life have wearied me but have also brought with them greater mercy and (I say with humility) a kind of wisdom.