We are not the only ones who matter, but we matter more than we can know. We are provided solid guarantees that we matter, that we possess individual, intrinsic value, but we do not comprehend this value. Our interior eye cannot pick it out. We know it is there and that it is critical, so we set out in an attempt to locate it, blindly fumbling about, grabbing at whatever is at hand and running our hands over it. Again, we read the words that guarantee our worth and even if we say "yes" to those words, how do we spend our days?
If I say "Christ is your savior" I have, first and foremost, placed myself before you to say those words so that you will recognize me as a person who says "Christ is your savior." Whether this is good or bad is not the point here. If I say "Christ is your savior" I have not told you something you have not heard, and I have not demonstrated or enacted the truth of what I mean. I have not communicated it to you. Whether I have in fact accomplished something of the reverse, either uncommunicating it or disqualifying myself from your consideration is a very real threat. I cannot afford to lose you, and so I say nothing.
Here is the problem with preaching if one is concerned more with the soul being saved than with how you look in the attempt.
The point that I have reached now, sitting here, is one that I can reflect on and understand by degrees. Given the topic, I find it necessary to do this, to in a sense retrace the thread of how I got here, recalling the path of bread crumbs that led me through the forest. To think of preaching in terms of how others preach is a dead end. You are bound to consider form, style, and efficacy as only you perceive it. One cannot preach as an effect of having watched others preach - though you can learn from others. But on the subject of preaching, one can only consider how one got to where one is, to open one's heart, and speak the truth that God put there.
What after all is this odd word, "preaching?" It serves to host negative connotations, to be sure. The immediate impression I have is of someone - a man, of course - telling someone what they should believe. Well, there are all kinds of things wrong with that picture, but it is true to the characterization of poor preaching. And yet. Can we confidently say that standard out-of-the-box preaching - yelling "Christ is your savior" on the street corner - is perfectly ineffective? I would not say that. I think that passion presides fittingly at the occasion of conversion. The street preacher, quoting from scripture, charismatic, defiant, can be just the one to serve as the lightening rod of epiphany.
Passion matters as does personal care and attention. So we have preachers who describe themselves as witnesses to the truth, or its ministers. People who minister or witness or more likely to represent their faith by good works than in preaching per se. One can do all these things of course, but what concerns me here is the specific topic of preaching.
"Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15)
This is a marvelous invocation and instruction. Anyone can see, I think, how people might be captivated and propelled by these very words. These words have sponsored the movements of missionaries, of saints and sinners too. The history of the world can be traced to the effect of these words, taken as absolute, as words of perfect instruction. This directive is really pretty astounding. It encompasses all people; or, arguably, all living creation. What "proclaim" means in this sentence must be more than preaching - unless one is St. Francis, we do not preach to birds and butterflies; but we can live in accord with the world, in unity with all creatures, and thereby proclaim the Gospel.
And what is the Gospel? Well, first and foremost, it is that Christ is your savior. (There, I said it!) But that gives the story away somewhat because a lot happened before Christ was resurrected as your savior. Obviously, he had to be born in the first place, which is where the Blessed Virgin enters the picture. But even before that, Christ was announced through prophecy (hello Holy Spirit); and before even that he was present, by the will of God, as "All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be." (John 1:3). So what we really have here is a story. And the reason this matters is that each one of us has a story too, and unless we bring our story into this conversation nothing is going to happen. Jesus Christ is not a picture hanging on the wall or merely a plaster Crucifix hanging from the ceiling. He is God and man, and each of us is man, created by God in his own image. Each of us - man, woman, and child - has a lot in common with Jesus Christ; more than is strictly comfortable, if you get my drift.
So, the Gospel is not merely a stated truth, a series of tenets, each with an assumption or premise, and arguments, and a conclusion. It is your story, if you care to see it in the light of revealed truth. The good news of the Gospel matters when and only when you - personally - decide it matters for you, personally. That does not mean that the good news does not exist unless you say it does. Oh, no. The Gospel will knock at your door, leave messages at work, drop little hints, show up in unexpected places. The Gospel will be, in turns, amusing and annoying, maybe even a little creepy. That's not so bad when you consider the entertainment value. After all, it's free. And then there's the potential for a reward which, I think it's safe to say, is without compare. Eternal life in the presence of the living God.
So, if all this is about story telling, then so is preaching, or witnessing, or ministering - whatever you want to call it. Maybe we should call it that: calling. What are you? A caller. What do you do? I call, what do you think I do? Well then, who are you calling?
By the grace of God, I am calling you.
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Preach, Proclaim - and, Blog?
While I have believed in God to a greater or lesser degree my entire waking life, until I became Catholic six years ago at the ripe age of 53 I held what were probably typical notions and opinions regarding Christian religious practices. Literal or fundamental biblical "interpretations" struck me as quaint, at best, and depressive, at worst. God, I was quite sure, simply wanted everyone to do their very best based on, well, whatever that meant for that person at the time. Insight, inspiration, and catechesis however has put to rest my "fundamental" skepticism regarding scriptural truth, allowing me develop a somewhat more developed ethos than what I was born with or drifted down to me through life in the suburbs. Why Christians, and Catholics especially, should hold to practices drawn directly from the Bible, measuring their days, as it were, against standards thousands of years old, makes perfect sense to me now. But the only reason this makes sense now, when it didn't before, is that I have come to accept and believe the tenets of the Catholic faith, expressed fully and conveniently in the Nicene Creed.
Nothing could be simpler. If a person believes a thing they are bound to act in accordance with the thing believed. It would be a failure not to, either hypocritical, or deceitful, or both. I prefer not to be any more hypocritical than is absolutely necessary. And as to deceit, I do not like the flavor of it. Not one bit. I hold that it is better to fail by one's lights than to merely succeed in the eyes of others, but who knows how I adopted this belief or where I got it from or from whom. It doesn't matter. What matters is now. I hold up to the light of Christ what I do, say, think and feel. What holds, abides. What fails must go. I do not pretend ever to be a model or substitute for Jesus Christ as everything I do, while it may not utterly contradict Him, is at the very best a pale substitute. But that's okay too, because my faith tells me so: my heart and the Church, who are closer to each other than I sometimes allow even myself to believe.
What concerns me here though isn't me per se but the topic of what we do when we believe and we set out to act on that belief. Furthermore, I will not be writing about politics. I know that must be a bit of a shock, and perhaps I should have warned you somehow that I would make such an outrageous promise. But I am convinced that, as important as political action is, it should be held somewhat to the side, or incidentally. That "incident" is the fact of the politics of one's time (giving unto Caesar what if Caesar's) whereas the practice of one's faith should be positioned directly before oneself and held to be first and foremost now and forever.
As Christians we are allowed a good deal of latitude on how we act, both in terms of what we do and how we do it. Christ himself provides concrete instructions to (and I paraphrase) love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves, to perform the Corporal works of Mercy, with the understanding (via St. Paul) that to each one of us different but equal gifts of the spirit are accorded. And so, you can imagine that your typical Christian, in addition to considering Jesus Christ as a model for their overall behavior, spends a good deal of time "discerning" (as the expression has it) what he or she has to give and what he or she should do with it.
This question of what to do with oneself is certainly an engaging one. It's what leads men and women to adopt the religious life as priests, deacons, nuns, or sisters. It's what leads laypersons in less dramatic fashion to lend their talents or propensities to church affairs or in actions on behalf of persons in the community. And it's not a cut and dried matter as one's faith is always evolving and deepening, and so new and different sorts of work may be presented to oneself. For my own part, as a poet for 30 years or so before I became Catholic, I was drawn to reading at Mass. Of course, it's all a bit more complicated when you consider that the reason you were given the gift of writing and reading well may have been so that you might one day read at Mass - but that's a conversation for another day. I was drawn to reading at Mass and to writing on the subject of faith (thus my OpenCatholic website and this blog) even as my life blossomed and was filled with various graces, and I was drawn to serving the poor, helping out at my church, etc. So, there was a lot I was drawn to and I have been quite busy besides Mass and prayer.
But all this leads to something - as blog articles so often do - and that thing is preaching. I am fascinated by preaching or what it means to preach the Word of God. What exactly is it to "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature"? (Mark 16:15) It can be many things, including the performance of good works and modeling good Christian behavior - but it is also, well, preaching. Speaking to other about their salvation in direct, certain terms. It is not something I have done...directly. I have written a couple hundred articles on this site that deal with faith or issues related to the faith, and you might say that is a form of preaching, and I would not disagree. You might say that reading at Mass is preaching, and I would probably agree there too.
But there is another form of preaching. The form, where a person speaks to another person about the salvation that is Jesus Christ. I have in mind that preaching is a form of confession of belief, on the one hand, and an admission of debt, or guilt, on the other. If all that mattered was that I am saved, I would not need to preach, No one would. But the fact that one feels personally charged to "go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature" means that a genuine obligation exists here, one that simply must be fulfilled.
But how to do it? I will consider that whats, hows, and wherefores in my next article, accompanied by related considerations, I am sure.
Peace be with you
Nothing could be simpler. If a person believes a thing they are bound to act in accordance with the thing believed. It would be a failure not to, either hypocritical, or deceitful, or both. I prefer not to be any more hypocritical than is absolutely necessary. And as to deceit, I do not like the flavor of it. Not one bit. I hold that it is better to fail by one's lights than to merely succeed in the eyes of others, but who knows how I adopted this belief or where I got it from or from whom. It doesn't matter. What matters is now. I hold up to the light of Christ what I do, say, think and feel. What holds, abides. What fails must go. I do not pretend ever to be a model or substitute for Jesus Christ as everything I do, while it may not utterly contradict Him, is at the very best a pale substitute. But that's okay too, because my faith tells me so: my heart and the Church, who are closer to each other than I sometimes allow even myself to believe.
What concerns me here though isn't me per se but the topic of what we do when we believe and we set out to act on that belief. Furthermore, I will not be writing about politics. I know that must be a bit of a shock, and perhaps I should have warned you somehow that I would make such an outrageous promise. But I am convinced that, as important as political action is, it should be held somewhat to the side, or incidentally. That "incident" is the fact of the politics of one's time (giving unto Caesar what if Caesar's) whereas the practice of one's faith should be positioned directly before oneself and held to be first and foremost now and forever.
As Christians we are allowed a good deal of latitude on how we act, both in terms of what we do and how we do it. Christ himself provides concrete instructions to (and I paraphrase) love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves, to perform the Corporal works of Mercy, with the understanding (via St. Paul) that to each one of us different but equal gifts of the spirit are accorded. And so, you can imagine that your typical Christian, in addition to considering Jesus Christ as a model for their overall behavior, spends a good deal of time "discerning" (as the expression has it) what he or she has to give and what he or she should do with it.
This question of what to do with oneself is certainly an engaging one. It's what leads men and women to adopt the religious life as priests, deacons, nuns, or sisters. It's what leads laypersons in less dramatic fashion to lend their talents or propensities to church affairs or in actions on behalf of persons in the community. And it's not a cut and dried matter as one's faith is always evolving and deepening, and so new and different sorts of work may be presented to oneself. For my own part, as a poet for 30 years or so before I became Catholic, I was drawn to reading at Mass. Of course, it's all a bit more complicated when you consider that the reason you were given the gift of writing and reading well may have been so that you might one day read at Mass - but that's a conversation for another day. I was drawn to reading at Mass and to writing on the subject of faith (thus my OpenCatholic website and this blog) even as my life blossomed and was filled with various graces, and I was drawn to serving the poor, helping out at my church, etc. So, there was a lot I was drawn to and I have been quite busy besides Mass and prayer.
But all this leads to something - as blog articles so often do - and that thing is preaching. I am fascinated by preaching or what it means to preach the Word of God. What exactly is it to "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature"? (Mark 16:15) It can be many things, including the performance of good works and modeling good Christian behavior - but it is also, well, preaching. Speaking to other about their salvation in direct, certain terms. It is not something I have done...directly. I have written a couple hundred articles on this site that deal with faith or issues related to the faith, and you might say that is a form of preaching, and I would not disagree. You might say that reading at Mass is preaching, and I would probably agree there too.
But there is another form of preaching. The form, where a person speaks to another person about the salvation that is Jesus Christ. I have in mind that preaching is a form of confession of belief, on the one hand, and an admission of debt, or guilt, on the other. If all that mattered was that I am saved, I would not need to preach, No one would. But the fact that one feels personally charged to "go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature" means that a genuine obligation exists here, one that simply must be fulfilled.
But how to do it? I will consider that whats, hows, and wherefores in my next article, accompanied by related considerations, I am sure.
Peace be with you
Sunday, January 14, 2018
Love in Ordinary Time
On the one side is what we recall, on the other is our hopes. We occupy, or say we do, a constantly shifting middle ground called "now." Or are we occupied by it? Who's the host in this arrangement and who is the guest?
You may fall in love or you may sign a contract. You will want to fall in love and then sign a contract. You do not want to be signing contracts that look like love but are not love. You do not need to put yourself under self-induced obligations to anyone or anything other than the few, the very few things you love. I do not need to tell you what you love. You can tell me. But I may say to you, Then why are you contracted to this thing that is not among the things you love? And you may say, Oh, I love that too. And I will say, I wonder if that is strictly true, or have opened the door to the slippery slope of disregard, by which many false, sad contracts are signed? Love is not accommodation, though can love and be accommodating.
Failure is not a thing one needs to induce or enter into in order to know the world or the love of the world. It may seem that way, by way of explanation or making excuses for ourselves, but it is not strictly true. Nothing is true which must be known by failing to get at another thing. You say, Failure made me humble. I say, do not treat humility as the offspring of failure. Failure made you aware of the sadness you carry within. You looked with yourself, having nowhere else to turn, and recognized sadness. Did you realize then that we all suffer in this way? That is a great gift and accomplishment, but it was not the result of failure. Instead, failure was the result of the sadness you could not bear. You acted as if you could not afford to be sad but now here you are. Now you know that you have nothing to fear as long as you remember that sadness within you. If you can keep in mind the sadness of others you will see failures for merely being failures. One does not need to fail in order to know the world, but the world knows us despite our failure to know ourselves.
Properly speaking, there is nothing that does not exist. Even dreams are an effect or property of effect. The idea of a thing exists as that idea. A saxophone-playing bicycle. Simple. I am interested in the notion that one can escape in dreams when of course there is no escape. Failure may overwhelm you and so dreams are a practical means of defeating that failure. A starving man needs bread; a failed man needs dreams. I take dreams quite literally as I do any signpost. There is no harm in this sort of conservative investment. Discounting dreams is a tactic employed by people who are inclined to over-invest in other fantasies, such as purpose and power. Purpose and power are as real as dreams, of course, but over-investment contorts the boundaries of purpose and power and creates fantasies and, often, poor behavior. Dreamers are likely to be better behaved than fantasizers. Or, one is bound to behave better dreaming. A dreamer has a goal to work toward, while a fantasizer misshapes and corrupts the form and nature of a thing that, for all we know, may serve as another person's dream. So, while there is nothing that does not exist, there are some things that should not exist. But even these things exist and serve a purpose, describing not paths so much as boundary limits.
One who loves posits the question whether they are loved in return. One who hates does so at no risk to themselves.
Hate is a means for evading the question, Do you love me too?
You may fall in love or you may sign a contract. You will want to fall in love and then sign a contract. You do not want to be signing contracts that look like love but are not love. You do not need to put yourself under self-induced obligations to anyone or anything other than the few, the very few things you love. I do not need to tell you what you love. You can tell me. But I may say to you, Then why are you contracted to this thing that is not among the things you love? And you may say, Oh, I love that too. And I will say, I wonder if that is strictly true, or have opened the door to the slippery slope of disregard, by which many false, sad contracts are signed? Love is not accommodation, though can love and be accommodating.
Failure is not a thing one needs to induce or enter into in order to know the world or the love of the world. It may seem that way, by way of explanation or making excuses for ourselves, but it is not strictly true. Nothing is true which must be known by failing to get at another thing. You say, Failure made me humble. I say, do not treat humility as the offspring of failure. Failure made you aware of the sadness you carry within. You looked with yourself, having nowhere else to turn, and recognized sadness. Did you realize then that we all suffer in this way? That is a great gift and accomplishment, but it was not the result of failure. Instead, failure was the result of the sadness you could not bear. You acted as if you could not afford to be sad but now here you are. Now you know that you have nothing to fear as long as you remember that sadness within you. If you can keep in mind the sadness of others you will see failures for merely being failures. One does not need to fail in order to know the world, but the world knows us despite our failure to know ourselves.
Properly speaking, there is nothing that does not exist. Even dreams are an effect or property of effect. The idea of a thing exists as that idea. A saxophone-playing bicycle. Simple. I am interested in the notion that one can escape in dreams when of course there is no escape. Failure may overwhelm you and so dreams are a practical means of defeating that failure. A starving man needs bread; a failed man needs dreams. I take dreams quite literally as I do any signpost. There is no harm in this sort of conservative investment. Discounting dreams is a tactic employed by people who are inclined to over-invest in other fantasies, such as purpose and power. Purpose and power are as real as dreams, of course, but over-investment contorts the boundaries of purpose and power and creates fantasies and, often, poor behavior. Dreamers are likely to be better behaved than fantasizers. Or, one is bound to behave better dreaming. A dreamer has a goal to work toward, while a fantasizer misshapes and corrupts the form and nature of a thing that, for all we know, may serve as another person's dream. So, while there is nothing that does not exist, there are some things that should not exist. But even these things exist and serve a purpose, describing not paths so much as boundary limits.
One who loves posits the question whether they are loved in return. One who hates does so at no risk to themselves.
Hate is a means for evading the question, Do you love me too?
Friday, January 5, 2018
Read, Believe, and Surrender
I would like to suggest a threshold event for humanitarianism, that being empathy.
I do not pretend to understand how we are capable of leaving our own skin in a very real sense to occupy the sensibility of others, to feel as they feel, to not merely sympathize but to feel as they do, to empathize. To sacrifice our own feelings to that. To put ourselves to one side to dwell in another's skin and to, furthermore, act to help them and, God willing, to save them. I do not understand how it is that we can do this, but we do.
I say "humanitarianism" even as I have Christ in mind, but I do not say "Christianity" as not every self-proclaimed Christian is of an empathetic nature. Empathy is a light burden if you are inclined, but if you are not it appears to be virtually impossible to obtain. The non-empathetic Christian is preoccupied with their duty toward God to the exclusion of mercy toward his or her neighbor. The non-empathetic Christian views empathy as a fault. As weakness.
The non-empathetic Christian is not, strictly speaking, Christian at all.
How Christian is empathy, after all? I believe that the entirety of the Gospels rests and relies on empathy as the critical distinction that signals the reign of Christ.
Do I sound a bit fed-up?
I am a bit fed-up.
I am tired of self-righteous posturing. I am tired of disregard. I am tired of people who say "God" but mean "Me." "My Me, have mercy on Me. Lead Me to greener pastures where Me is regarded in the light deserving Me. Teach all people the glory of Me. Let those who do not properly reverence Me suffer as Me sees fit. My Me, have mercy."
If you cannot put yourself to the side, if you cannot abandon your own feelings, thoughts, and opinions, you have slim claim as a Christian. Simply put: vacate. Abandon you. Shut. Up. Go. Home. Stop. Stop. Stop.
When the world is collapsing, when the world is burning and all is lost, the Christian will not be screaming I told you so. The Christian, whether he or she conducts themselves in the currently (2018) approved manner, will be the one reaching out to another soul to ask, "How can I help." In that act, the Christian is both honors their belief and is believable.
I know too many Christians who worry and argue about what Christianity is rather then simply believing in it and living what it is. For the love of Mike. If there is a clearer user manual than the Bible I would live to see it.
Read
Believe
Surrender
Let God take care of the rest.
I do not pretend to understand how we are capable of leaving our own skin in a very real sense to occupy the sensibility of others, to feel as they feel, to not merely sympathize but to feel as they do, to empathize. To sacrifice our own feelings to that. To put ourselves to one side to dwell in another's skin and to, furthermore, act to help them and, God willing, to save them. I do not understand how it is that we can do this, but we do.
I say "humanitarianism" even as I have Christ in mind, but I do not say "Christianity" as not every self-proclaimed Christian is of an empathetic nature. Empathy is a light burden if you are inclined, but if you are not it appears to be virtually impossible to obtain. The non-empathetic Christian is preoccupied with their duty toward God to the exclusion of mercy toward his or her neighbor. The non-empathetic Christian views empathy as a fault. As weakness.
The non-empathetic Christian is not, strictly speaking, Christian at all.
How Christian is empathy, after all? I believe that the entirety of the Gospels rests and relies on empathy as the critical distinction that signals the reign of Christ.
Do I sound a bit fed-up?
I am a bit fed-up.
I am tired of self-righteous posturing. I am tired of disregard. I am tired of people who say "God" but mean "Me." "My Me, have mercy on Me. Lead Me to greener pastures where Me is regarded in the light deserving Me. Teach all people the glory of Me. Let those who do not properly reverence Me suffer as Me sees fit. My Me, have mercy."
If you cannot put yourself to the side, if you cannot abandon your own feelings, thoughts, and opinions, you have slim claim as a Christian. Simply put: vacate. Abandon you. Shut. Up. Go. Home. Stop. Stop. Stop.
When the world is collapsing, when the world is burning and all is lost, the Christian will not be screaming I told you so. The Christian, whether he or she conducts themselves in the currently (2018) approved manner, will be the one reaching out to another soul to ask, "How can I help." In that act, the Christian is both honors their belief and is believable.
I know too many Christians who worry and argue about what Christianity is rather then simply believing in it and living what it is. For the love of Mike. If there is a clearer user manual than the Bible I would live to see it.
Read
Believe
Surrender
Let God take care of the rest.
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