AA and the Big Stone First

I recently decided to read the biographical story of Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1917, at the age of 22, Bill tasted alcohol for the first time. He felt as if he had found 'the elixir of life.' By the 1930's, he was a raging consumer of alcohol--he had lost his job, marriage on the rocks, and simply could not stop drinking on his own. In December 1934 he checked into a hospital for Alcohol Addiction. As he underwent withdrawal from alcohol, he felt as if insects were crawling across his skin, and was so nauseous he could hardly move, but the pain too intense to stay still. In the empty room, he yelled out "If there is a God, let Him show Himself! I am ready to do anything. Anything!" At that moment a white light filled the room, the pain ceased, and he felt as if he were on a mountaintop. He knew at that moment that he had been set free.

Bill's friend Ebby, who had gotten sober through the help the Oxford Group, planted the seed for Bill, who was initially resistant to the religious elements of Ebby's recovery. "Well then, why don't you choose your own conception of God?" Bill did just that, as reflected in the Third Step: "Made a decision to turn our will and lives over the care of God as we understand Him."

AA has been discounted and criticized by those in the scientific and psychological communities. With new studies and insight into the neurological pathways for addiction, AA can seem like folk medicine, since it has no real grounding in science of most accepted therapeutic methods. Seven of the Twelve Steps relate to God or one's encounter with a Higher Power--of course, uncomfortable to more high-minded communities. Yet, as many as 10 million alcoholics have achieved sobriety through the group.

The story of Bill's recovery reminds me of a passage in the 9th chapter of John's gospel, when Jesus heals a man born blind and gives him sight.


"They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore, the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. 'He put mud on my eyes,' the man replied, 'and I washed, and now I see.'


But the religious authorities were not satisfied with this simplistic answer. They press him further:


Some of the Pharisees said, 'This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.' But others asked 'How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?' So they were divided.

Finally, they turned again to the blind man, 'What have you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.'

The man replied, 'He is a prophet.'


Notice that the man did not reply in the manner Peter did when Jesus asked him who he thinks he is, and Peter exclaimed "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!" to which Jesus sternly warns them not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. (Mt 16:20). Peter's statement was a profession of faith, both personal and theological. The man cured of his blindness was not as much concerned with such professions, but simply recounted what happened when Jesus touched his eyes. He didn't know who he was or why the authorities had such a keen interest in him.


The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they set for the man's parents. 'Is this your son?' hey asked. 'Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?'

'We know he is our son,' the parents answered, 'and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him, he is of age; he will speak for himself.'


When the Pharisees do not get the answer they are looking for, they go to his parents. Our family knows us better than anyone, and while we may be able to 'act the part' of being a pious religious person, sometimes family will see the situation differently. In this case, however, they provide more of the same.


Finally, the deposition reaches the point of frustration. And the man nails the matter of hand in v. 25, forcing the authorities to later throw him out in disgust, exclaiming "you were steeped in sin at birth, how dare you lecture us!":


A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. 'Give glory to God,' they said. 'We know this man is a sinner.'

He replied, 'Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know, I was blind but now I see!'


One of my struggles as a Christian is how to balance the dogma of religious practice with the spirit of the divine. I have often made the analogy of the human body, one comprised of skin, bones, blood, organs, and soul. If we did not have a skeleton to protect our vital organs and give our extremities form, we would be a pile of loose body unable to move. If we were simply a configuration of bones and ligaments without blood and organs, we would be a scary walking skeleton. If we were skin and bones, blood and organs, but without spirit or soul, we would be nothing but material beings, hollow at our core. Everything works together. Everything is important.

But when we start to prioritize one part of the body over another, we lose sight of the whole picture. "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body." When religious practice or pietism becomes the most important thing in one's life, things can get out of whack. "Now the body is not made up of one part but of many...If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?" (1 Cor 12:17). We become like "whitewashed tombs, full of dead men's bones" (Mt 23:27).

Now, Paul is writing this in the context of spiritual gifts, but I think it applies to this balance of dogma and spirit, what's important and what's peripheral. Sometimes we forget what's at the heart of things, the core. And yet there is also the danger of neglecting things that seem unimportant (like, maybe, the spleen perhaps?) yet contribute beneath the surface to the health and functioning of the whole.

When it comes to alcoholism, addiction, or anything else that threatens the health, relationships, and soul of the person affected, it's like a hemorrhaging that needs to have pressure applied immediately.  The Pharisees in the story of the blind man healed are like those in the Buddha's Parable of the Poisoned Arrow, who demands to know who shot the arrow, what kind of arrow it was, where it came from, etc, as he is bleeding out. He would die and those things would still be unknown to him.

Though it seems like a trite example, I refer to it often in my life. Though it is used in the context of time management, I think it can be applied to the spiritual life as well.

A professor is giving a lecture. He pulls out a jar and places it on the table, then brings out a pile of tennis ball sized stones. He fills the jar with the stones and asks, "is it full?" The class says yes. He then pulls out some smaller pebbles and empties them into the jar, where they fill in the spaces between the big stones. "is it full?" he asks. They reply "probably not." He nods, and fills the jar with sand, while filters down into the even smaller spaces. "Now?" "No!" the class yells. "Correct," he says, and pours water into the jar until it is completely full. 

To the alcoholic in the pit--really an analogy for all us sinners, unable to escape from the bondage of sin on our own--the first big stone that needs to go in first is God, or, in the context of AA, a Higher Power greater than ourselves. It's a desperate plea, like the Israelites in Egyptian bondage who "groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God." (Ex 2:23). If we start with religion, or spiritual practice, or community--all good things, but not the BIG THING--all the stones don't fit. GOD first, everything else follows and fills in in it's appropriate place.

Better Together Than Apart

I have started reading a book on marriage by Francis Chan titled You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity that a friend leant me. I'm not very far in, but something he wrote gave me pause early on in the introduction:

"Recently we have met many singles who fear marriage. They watched friends who were passionate followers of Christ get married. The result was either an obsession with the pleasures of family or an unending string of arguments and counseling sessions. We are writing to say that it doesn't have to be this way. You can be more effective together than apart. In a truly healthy relationship, we enable each other to accomplish more than we could have done alone. This was His plan."

It was the line "you can be more effective together than apart" that spoke to me.

Although I am an introvert by nature and like my alone time, I have always struggled with loneliness, especially after I graduated college. I had a great group of friends in Philly, worked, went out, was engaged in activities. But I often dreaded going home to my apartment where I lived alone. I was not especially healthy, either physically or mentally, because when you are lonely you tend to look for salves for the discomfort.

I was always pretty resistant to the idea of marriage. The usual reasons--didn't want to be chained down or have my freedom limited, was afraid like everyone else of living a life of dreadful monotony and routine. I was also attracted to and discerning monastic life for a good ten years. But even (and especially) at the monasteries where I spent summers living, praying, and working with consecrated men 50 years my senior, the weight of aloneness was heavy. I think the superiors sensed this, and gently discouraged me from pursuing the life further. "After all," one abbot said, "most people are called to marriage as a vocation." I didn't want to be like 'most people,' but he had a wise way of seeing my nature, and saw that the shirt didn't fit.

I remember frequenting the adoration chapel at St. Mary of the Assumption in Manayunk pretty regularly and praying (as a priest in college told me I should do) for my future spouse, even if you didn't know them. Unbeknownst to me, my future wife was doing the same thing at the same time. "I know he's out there," she would later say, "and I just pray that God keep him safe and save him for me."

When I met Debbie in 2009, I was struggling with having a sense of stability in my life. I had moved out of my apartment and since I was not accepted as a postulant at the monastery, I figured I would have a go at the life of a hermit, albeit an urban hermit. I bought a school bus and converted it to live in, figuring I would read and pray all day parked on the streets of Philly in a quiet neighborhood. The endeavor didn't last long, for logistical reasons partly, but also because I simply was not happy. Not having a permanent mailing address became a kind of metaphor for my inner life--I had no where to lay roots, no sense of belonging, and was, yes, lonely.

I moved in with a friend from grad school and parked the bus behind the house while I figured out what I would do next. Wildly enough, Debbie seemed more fascinated by my bus adventure than put off, and as we began to get more serious I realized I was comfortable with her to be vulnerable enough to share my struggles with bipolar disorder, finding meaningful work, finishing school, and realizing where I fit in this world. Early on in our relationship, my dad came down and we had coffee at a bakery on Germantown Avenue. "You know you've found the one when you are more comfortable being with them than apart from them."

While Deb is beautiful and smart and has a good sense of humor, we joke that what initially attracted me to her was that she was stable (after all, opposites attract, yes?) I was waiting to hear about a job in Niagara Falls, NY in campus ministry, and she was ready to let me go if I got it. By the hand of God the funding fell through, and they could not hire me. So I stayed, and it became apparent that her and I shared common values and vision for the future, were attracted to one another, and could have a good life together.

To this day, marrying Deb has been one of the best decisions (if you want to call it that) that I have ever made. I don't even like being in the house alone or away for extended periods of time apart from her. It's like leaving a part of myself behind. Joined in a sacramental marriage, this should not be a surprise I suppose. But still, it's weird in a cosmic way that two people are not two but one. My struggles with mental stability have greatly diminished, and her support and companionship have nourished my well-being, without being co-dependent. We argue and get selfish with each other, but those are the exception rather than the norm. We recognize that it is not the job of the other person to "make me happy," but in trying to serve one another, we find the happiness that seems so elusive when you are living just for yourself. Being blessed with children has pushed us even farther out from that self-focus, has demanded a lot of sacrifice, but it's the kind of sacrifice you don't even think about much because it's just what you do, and it comes with its own rewards that there are no substitutes for.

I think God knew what I needed, and also knew what Debbie needed, and thankfully needing each other became the key that unlocked a small part of the cosmos. Happiness is the byproduct, not the end goal, and there is great joy in serving and focusing on Christ together, preparing one another for eternity, and holding hands in the process. Celebrating six years next month, I have no doubt we have hard times ahead. But I am also certain that we are, like the author said, better off together than apart.

Children of Men

I'm not real into sci-fi, but I came across a film tonight--Children of Men--that I had seen ten years ago when it opened. The film is well done, the premise thought provoking, and the themes of faith, hope, and redemption, while not overt, seemed to stretch beyond the immediate setting and were apparent enough for anyone looking for meaning in the work.

Set in London in 2027, a world-wide infertility epidemic has prevented any new births from occurring for 18 years as humankind faces extinction. Refugees stream into Britain (the last stable government), which is in a police state, and pro-immigrant underground resistance movements work to advance their agenda. In the midst of all this, the protagonist, Theo, a jaded civil servant, is kidnapped by the resistance and forced to protect a young refugee named Kee, who is pregnant (the only woman in the world with child). The future of the human race depends on her giving birth, and Theo is sworn to protect her so that she is not co opted by the government and stripped of her baby for political purposes.

It is a neat modern-day spin on the nativity narrative in Matthew and Luke's gospels: A young refugee finds herself miraculously with child; her husband is sworn to protect her and her baby from government co-option. They travel in secret. Wise men come from afar  to behold the sight. The child born will be a savior to the world, to redeem mankind from death and destruction, all of which was foretold by the prophets.

We seem to almost be living in a science fiction novel today. 59 million lives have been lost to abortion since Roe vs Wade in 1973, and 1.5 billion worldwide since 1980. We manufacture human life in test tubes and freeze or destroy embryos, bank sperm, take a morning after pill to terminate a pregnancy after contraception fails. Governments enact policies to limit children to 1 per household and force sterilization and abortions when citizens don't comply, while black market surrogacy is thriving. Human life is commodified and exploited by merciless systems of production, and traditional nuclear families are in the minority. Meanwhile, Europe faces a population disaster due to plummeting birth rates, the economic implications of which are starting to be realized.

In short, we have taken human life for granted, and there will be a price to be paid.

A quote from the film that stayed with me was when Kee's midwife reflects on the beginning of the infertility crisis in 2009, when people stopped getting pregnant and giving birth. "As the sound of the playgrounds faded," she said, "the despair set in. Very odd what happens in a world without children's voices."

2027 is only a decade away. Let's pray such a world does not come to pass.

The Day That Became Like Night

I recently read a testimony from a man who was redeemed by Christ.

"It was 1999, I had spent the last decade as a very sexually promiscuous gay man and would-be porn star. At that point, my life had really spiraled out of control. For, on that very night, I willingly took part in an extremely sick pornographic scene which included everything from extreme physical cruelties to desecration. Then, I don’t think I could have fallen any lower. Everything I touched was filled with darkness; the day was like a perpetual night. In my eyes, the sun was always in total eclipse. I had been falling down this pit for years, and now – it seemed as if I were reaching the bottom."

He would later go on to recount a near-death experience in the hospital in which he had an out of body experience:


"Oddly, I could make out little beings jumping about all over the room. They defied any outline of shape or form, but were more like a ripple of movement upon the air. I didn’t know why, but they startled me and I could somehow make-out that they were there to harm me. At first, I noticed them looking into every curtained cubicle around the entire emergency room. They would peer in at each patient and then move on. When I rampaged against God, they immediately noticed me and took a keen interest. On each side of the bed, they huddled about. I hated them, as they were taking some horrible glee in my sudden anguish and discomfort. At the same time, my being was continuing its slide out from my body. Now, about mid-chest and up was flittering above everyone; at the near center of the bed. For, I was high enough to see the top of each nurse’s head."


On the precipice of the abyss, however, he makes a desperate, last ditch plea:

"I fought against it; only, I knew I was losing. Out of the gloominess and desperation, a strange thought overcame me: Jesus! Could I call out to Jesus? I abandoned Him long ago; He will not help me now. Anyway, I really don’t think He exists. It all happened in a matter of ticking moments, and I called out to Him: Jesus, Please help me! In a flash, the darkness left, the demons disappeared, and I dropped back into my body. I looked around, and I knew that I was alive. But, I didn’t know who I was, or where I had been, or what had just happened. Everything seemed new and strange. I couldn’t move a finger, but my eyes endlessly darted from side to side, trying to take it all in."


What struck me about this man's account was not that he was a would-be gay porn star. Nor was it that he encountered the reality of the spiritual realm (both dark and light) on the verge of death. What really stayed with me was the power of calling on the Name of Jesus.

"I called on your Name, O Lord, out of the lowest pit"(Lam 3:55). 

As this man admits, "I had been falling down this pit for years" until finally he was on Hell's doorstep. When you are in the bottom of a well, you reach a point where you cannot get out yourself. You can't claw, can't get a foot hold, can't dig. And yet, the power of the Name--even when one self-admittedly had "abandoned God long ago" called upon in brokenness of spirit, has all power to banish the darkness and evil. God steps into the picture and takes dominion over what was thought to be lost, ransoms an redeems it.

"Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord" (Ps 130:1). 

You literally have no recourse but to call out in desperation. This is not a polished, well-crafted invitation for help, but a powerlessness, a terror-stricken plea, to be saved from inevitable destruction. If no one comes, you will assuredly die.

"He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire" (Ps 40:2). 

I don't think we really realize what we are being ransomed from, what vies for our soul, what will stop at nothing to claim us. The pleasures of the world are like an inoculant, til we find ourselves faced with the fate of the rich man in Hell begging Abraham to allow Lazarus to warn our family members, "lest they come to this place of torment." We stay ignorant of the spiritual realm to our own peril.


I was having a conversation with a guy my age who served in our armed forces. He told me of a military base where he was stationed in Alaska, that served as a defensive point against Soviet invasion. The men and women stationed there, he said, were basically a bulwark should we be invaded to "slow the bleeding" (the offensive attack). They were there to die should this happen. "There were times when I was there, not too long ago, when we were at red alert and we were literally holding our breath because the Russians had planes over head and we had deployed planes to meet them. And if it would have gone south that would have been it. And people, all these people--on the streets, shopping, walking around--had no idea. No idea how close we were as a country to being attacked. Just oblivious."


Scripture says there is more rejoicing in Heaven over one lost sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. If only we knew the gravity of our sin, the deceptive nature of evil, and what awaits us on the other side of the curtain. This young man, stained and degraded, broken and abused--a modern day Mary Magdalene--had turned his heart to God on death's door, demons literally pulling his soul out of his body, uttering--and maybe not even believing!--the Name of Jesus, calling on Him, and was brought into the Light. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow" (Is 1:18). So great is the Power of God that the simple utterance of the Name banishes darkness and casts demons out. S

And what is left is grace--amazing grace, how sweet the sound...that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.

You Do Not Have Many Fathers

Ever seen a computer generated rendering? Architects love them. It's kind of like a graphic simulation of a projected proposal for say, a new shopping mall, or an eco village. Single people jogging, or having coffee, moms pushing strollers. They simulate the vision, how something could be, and have an underlying utopia theme. There's a place for them, I suppose. I personally can't stand them. Kind of like a Thomas Kinkade painting.

Why do I bring this up? I suppose because it's Father's Day, and I've been reflecting on what it means to be a man and a father. Marriage and family has a way of stripping away the theoretical. How does it work? How do I put it into practice? What does it look like in REAL LIFE? These are the questions I am more concerned with nowadays.

In 1 Corinthians 4:15-16, the Apostle Paul writes:

"Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. There, I urge you, be imitators of me."

We can read all the articles and essays we want about how to be Christian men, or good fathers, or husbands. But I have found there is no substitute for real flesh and blood. I am blessed to have a solid fellowship of men who model what it means to be a Christian in the everyday. Some are single, most are married with children, working in various professions. I look to them to see how they act, how they respond to situations, and how they carry themselves because I know they are living in the real world. They are men of prayer, men of integrity.

I have also been fortunate to have had a great dad growing up who was a model of unconditional love. When I think about the problems in our culture today, so much of it seems to go back to an absence of fathers--fathers who love and stay married to their wives, who teach their sons and daughters life lessons, who protect and discipline, and who are there when they need them. The loss of a father--either through abandonment or divorce or death--leaves a deep wound in a child that sometimes never heals, and which they attempt to compensate for through different means. When a child is secure in his or her father's love, it's amazing what it does for human flourishing.

As a father, I need to model Christ to my children--in how I love their mother, in educating them, disciplining them, healthy behavior, and being rooted in prayer, reading the Bible, and worship. They look to me as a model, just like I look to my those men in my life who are models. It builds on itself, for generations to come.

Happy Father's Day!

Put Them To Death. Every Last One.

We have a good number of trees in our yard. Now that they are in season, I often find the driveway and lawn littered with black walnut, maple seed helicopters and tulip poplar seedlings sprouting up all over the place. Most of the little saplings are small enough that they come out easily, but there is one tulip seedling that took root near the garage what must have been a couple years ago, hidden in a tall patch of grass, that I never noticed. It is now over six feet high, and I cannot pull it out from the ground no matter how hard I try. I will have to, at some point, cut it down, and work hard to dig out the roots that have so stubbornly worked their way deep into the ground. Neglect has a way of catching up to us, and little things have a tendency to accumulate into big problems later on.

In 1 Samuel 15 the Lord gives the command to Saul "Go, now, attack the Amelekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them." (1 Sam 15:3) The Amelekites were a pernicious enemy of Israel. Saul carries out the command, but not in its entirety. He keeps king Agag alive, along with the best of the sheep and cattle..."everything that was good," reasoning that they could be sacrificed to the Lord as a holocaust.

What is the problem here? As Samuel confronts Saul later when he hears "the bleating of sheep and the lowing of oxen" that Saul had spared, he makes clear "The Lord anointed you king of Israel and sent you on a mission, saying, "Go and put the sinful Amalekites under a ban of destruction. Fight against them until you have exterminated them. Why then have you disobeyed the Lord?" (v18-19). Saul, in turn, maintains that he has obeyed the Lord, but Samuel calls him out:

"Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission better than the fat of rams." (v22)

The Lord, in turn, rejects Saul as ruler of Israel, the kingdom stripped from him, and Samuel is forced to finish what Saul failed to do by killing Agag himself before the Lord in Gilgal.

What is the takeaway here? I think this is a lesson for how God wants us to deal with things in our life that oppose His plans, i.e., sin. "Good enough" is not, in fact, good enough. Partial obedience is, in fact, no obedience at all. God doesn't want 99% of our hearts--he wants our hearts in their entirety. He is not satisfied with someone who puts a hand the plow and looks back, for such a person is not fit for the kingdom of God (Lk 9:62).

Saul was using worldly reasoning in his dealings with the Amelekites, keeping what he thought seemed good with the even more erroneous belief that it can be sacrificed to the Lord. A "better way" than what the Lord had proposed.

There is a danger here too--when sin is viewed as the cancer that it is, leaving 1% of cancerous cells is an invitation for them to multiply anew. The Old Testament is replete with commands against intermingling with pagans, "lest they make you sin against me by ensnaring you into worshipping their gods." (Ex 23:33).

This is a lesson for me, for there is more than "one thing that I lack," in my obedience to the Lord of Hosts. We should not 'consider' what the Lord commands, and then make our own judgements. We should obey! Like the bleating of the sheep that Saul left behind, so too do my sins bleat in the crevices I have hid them. When you surround yourself with godly people, they know the sound, so we have a tendency in sin to surround ourselves with people who can't hear, or don't make a big deal of it. We hide in the darkness, because darkness blankets and muffles the sound.

Light is not "99% light" or "sort-of" light, but LIGHT. That which is not light is darkness, and there is no in between. There is Heaven, and there is Hell. So too with the commands of the Lord, and so too with sin. It takes discernment and prayer to be attentive to what the Holy Spirit is calling us to, and it is so easy to turn a deaf ear or simply by filling our ears with the sound of the world. When we are given clear commands to do what is right and avoid what is evil, we would do well to listen lest we find ourselves stripped of the kingdom inheritance.

Bonafide

If you're into food at all, there's a couple buzzwords used when it comes to labeling you may have heard used.

The first is "All Natural." Now, all natural is, as you may (or may not) know, a bullshit term. It means nothing--or more accurately it can mean whatever you want it to mean--but it sounds good. Marketers love it for this reason, and they usually combine it with pictures of a barn and silo, and cow grazing in a field, and bank on people not really knowing the difference or caring.

There is another term you might have seen--"USDA Organic." Now, this is another crunchy term, but unlike 'all natural,' for something to be certified organic, it needs to meet a stringent set of objective criteria to meet standards. Slapping a USDA Organic label on something that hasn't been certified is like pirating music and carries similar legal ramifications. This is part of the reason why organic food is seemingly so expensive. But it's also necessary to prevent counterfit organics capitalizing on the label and higher profit margin.

I also see these food label parallels when it comes to the spiritual life. The Church has always maintained a pragmatic and certifiable approach to canonization. The investigative process is extensive, and two verifiable miracles--which themselves must meet certain criteria--due to the intercession of the holy person being considered are necessary. It is not a willy-nilly process, but lengthy, thorough, and conservative.

Why is such a scripted and seemingly legalistic approach to declaring someone a saint necessary? I suppose for the same reason why 'USDA ORGANIC' certification is necessary--to protect people from 'all natural' counterfit. When I ask St. Jude the Apostle to intercede on my behalf, I can be assured he is in Heaven close to the Father and trust that he is able to work miracles through the power of God. He is Certified Holy, as are hundreds of thousands of others named by the Church.

Can we pray to those who we trust are in heaven though not yet canonized? Of course. If you want to make the parallel, it can be likened to eating organic food from the local farm whose organic practices you know are legit, but who haven't gone through the formal USDA certification process. This is the communion of saints after all--the Church Penitent (those being purified in purgatory on their way to Heaven), the Church Militant (those working out their salvation on earth), and the Church Triumphant (those in Heaven). Prayers for intercession to those holy people who have died are, after all, what often lead to miracles and eventual canonization or beatification.

As we grow more and more accustomed to terms that sounds legit but in reality mean very little and have little basis in objective reality, I appreciate a little certifiable objectivity to reign things in an overwhelming subjective culture, as well as to those who speak to certain objective realities. As G.K. Chesterton famously noted in Orthodoxy:

"Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.

Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. "

"I Liked You The Way You Were Before"

One afternoon a few months ago my wife and I came downstairs and the boy who lives across the street was standing in our living room, petting our dog. "She's a nice dog," he said.

Yes, nice dog, thanks. Now, um, can we...help you with something? Where is your dad?

I do know that he has Asperger's, so was not totally alarmed, but still, it threw me a little that he would just walk in a stranger's house without knocking or anything. Most people would take that as a given that that's not something you do. It's funny the things we take for granted.

I recently read a NYT article about a man with autism who underwent experimental treatment so that he would experience emotions. ("An Experimental Autism Treatment Cost Me My Marriage"). He went from being "autistically even keeled" emotionally (which his wife, as a chronically depressed person, appreciated) to someone "joyfully shedding the cloak of disability" and being in tune with not only his own emotions and social cues, but others as well--something foreign to him as an autistic man.

The NYT article made me think about the question the author poses as it relates to marriage: "Normally, people change in a marriage over time. What happens when one person changes overnight?"

There has to be something deeper than what we see when we marry someone. Something at the core. I don't know because we haven't hit that, but I have to trust that it's there. If you've ever been to a wedding where people have written their own vows, sometimes you might hear things like "I love it when you laugh at my jokes; I love spending Saturday mornings with you sipping coffee and listening to the birds chipping outside out window. I will always be your partner in crime." Great stuff, no doubt.  But not core material.

We took the standard vows at our wedding--you know, the "for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health..." I wanted to share the same vows that hundreds of thousands of couples before us shared with one another. I don't know why--maybe it made me feel in corporal solidarity or something with those who have gone before us down this path. But regardless, vows are vows. They are your life raft in the choppy ocean that you cling to sometimes when there is nothing else to hold on to; the mast you tie yourself to, like Odysseus, when the siren songs of temptation threaten to crash your ship into the rocks.

If I did write my own vows, though, I would hope it would be something like: I will love you when I am changing your adult diaper. I will love you after the lobotomy when you are a shell of your former self. I will be there when you are no longer the person that I married. 

It's scary to think that you might wake up one day next to a stranger--same body, different mind. Same mind, different emotions. Same emotions, different spirit--when your partner in crime says to you, "I liked you better the way you were before." You see this situation (sans the preference qualifier) sometimes with those sweet old couples where one has Dementia / Alzheimers. It's a testament to the vow--the external, objective, the anchor in a choppy sea of feelings, expectations, and change--and to a love that runs deep, that drills down to the core of a person when they are in fact a shell of their former self.

We are coming up on our 6th wedding anniversary this summer, and also have a few weddings coming up we are attending this busy summer. We're babies in the game, and have a lifetime of change ahead of us. It's made me reflect on the core of my wife, what exists ephemerally beneath the beautiful skin and bones, the glowing spirit, but also to the dreadful uncertainty of a future that isn't here yet and doesn't metaphysically yet exist.

Dig your nails into those vows. Clutch them close to your breast, stake them down hard. Believe them when you don't believe anything else and everything in you is screaming to leave. Drop anchor in the storm. If you're in good times now, enjoy it, don't take it for granted, and drink it in. If you're not, if life is not happy and is in fact a living hell, for God's sake...just hold on. And don't forget your promises.

Those Who Know Mercy Speak To Mercy

I read the full gamit of Catholic blogs and commentaries online. I read conservative blogs and I also read less-than-conservative blogs. I read comments. One thing I've noticed is that whenever Pope Francis drops words like 'mercy' and 'love', traditionalists get defensive and are quick to qualify. "Yes, we need mercy, but we also need THE LAW and CLEAR MORAL TEACHING!" "Sure, the woman caught in adultery in the bible was forgiven, but JESUS SAID TO HER 'SIN MORE MORE' YOU CAN'T FORGET ABOUT THAT PART!"

Terminology like mercy and love seem to have twitchy PTSD type effects for those who have grown up grudgingly through the Vatical II era and associate such words with the "feel-good, wishy-washy, social-justicey type of cafeteria catholicism that got us all into this mess in the first place." Vatican II was a response to the (in my opinion) comfortable and insular enclave of traditionalism and clericalism that saw the modern world passing by through the stained glass windows and shrugged its shoulders.

Likewise, radical traditionalism is a counter response to the Vatical II response of how to be the 'Church in the modern world.' Radical Traditionalism does not 'open the windows to the modern world,' but shuts them tight lest the noxious gases waft into the sanctuary and spoil the wine and hosts. It seeks to circle the wagons and preserve the remnant of what is left of the 'true church' in a kind of Donatist-like vetting system for who is a true Catholic and who is not.

Now, I don't fall into either of these two camps very squarely, though I appreciate what each is trying to accomplish. Which is maybe why I appreciated Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis' recent apostolic exhortation on marriage, family, and the 'Joy of Love.' Because I think it tends to speak to the middle--that is, upholding and reiterating the Church's traditional teaching on the ideals of marriage and family while also speaking pastorally in recognizing and acknowledging that members of our human family--real live people--do not always live up to this ideal, and what should the response to those 'irregular' situations be.

When I read flabbergasted and sometimes angry responses from traditionalists in the combox of blogs criticizing Pope Francis and his 'confusing, unclear message that opens things up to misinterpretation' when he references squishy things like love and mercy, it comes across like this: Mercy should be prudently dispensed in a restrained manner to qualified recipients and only then, with restrictions, after a inquisition like period of judiciary discernment by a tribunal determining whether or not said person qualifies for mercy.

If you've ever known mercy, been shown mercy, experienced mercy...you know this is not how mercy operates.

The examples in scripture are not lacking. The parable of the unforgiving servant, the parable of the prodigal son, the story of the woman caught in adultery. These stories paint a picture of mercy, what it looks like, using the canvas of real life. It illuminates us to the character of a God who is both just AND merciful.

You see, to those who have not experienced it, mercy is an abstract concept talked about in abstract terms, a catch phrase that is easy to criticize and dismiss as peripheral. They don't really need it, it is kind of nice but optional.

But those who know sin, know mercy.

I am currently at a professional conference for work. Nice hotel, catered meals, vendors with flashy displays, boring seminars, rehearsed and polished presentations...what you would expect for a conference.

But something interesting happened at lunch today. There were about 600 or so attendees seated at round tables in the ballroom, sitting down to their meals being brought out by servers, just kind of chitchatting, when a woman is introduced on the big screen and invited to say a few words. She is wearing a tee-shirt that says "Love Heals". She looks out into the sea of people and begins to speak. "I was addicted to drugs and working the streets. I've been arrested 87 times. I lost my kids. I had no hope." Not polished, not rehearsed. We didn't even know who she was or we she was being so uncomfortably honest in addressing a large room full of higher ed professionals. She stops for a few minutes and her eyes get wet.

"But God...God is so good."

This is a woman who has known what life is like on the other side, on the streets, where sin and darkness are the norm, not the exception, and certainly not simply concepts. But she was given a chance at a new life through the co-operative she was representing. They had a table in the lobby selling candles and beauty products made by women who were rebuilding their lives in a supportive, loving, and safe environment and seeking through entreupenerial means to provide for themselves and their families. Love and mercy were not abstract concepts to be debated in a combox--they were the embodiment of what had rescued and ransomed her from not only a metaphysical death, but a physical one as well.


God is both just and merciful, and these qualities are not at odds. He does not mete out mercy. He POURS it to excess, lavishly and unreasonably, til it is spilling over the sides and overflowing and you are drowning in it so that there is no doubt in one's mind that they have indeed been forgiven and that sin has been washed so far away that you couldn't scrounge around for it in the gutter drain if you tried...it was already out to sea.

Pharisees want a prescription, a formula that if followed correctly will lead to righteousness in a very clear A+B=C kind of way. Unfortunately real life does not always fall so neatly into line. You don't just hand someone a bible or catechism and tell them to start reading with no context, no foundation, and no instruction. Sometimes showing love and mercy is not even about teaching or instruction, but sitting on the sidewalk with someone and being late to a meeting as a result, or listening, really listening, when someone is telling you their story, or even making yourself vulnerable to caring about someone's life and being hurt as a result. Being in relationship, whether with a spouse or parents or each other or with God Himself, is dynamic and calls us to step away from the screen and get dirt under our nails. It's messy, it can sometimes be 'irregular,' it's full of ups and downs--and there is simply no substitute for it.

My Son and His Broken Heart

I want to tell you a little story. It's the story of a little boy and his broken heart.

I met Deb and the kids at the park after work. We both had had long exhausting days, I had driven up from DC that morning, and by the time we got back to the house it was late. Everyone, including me, was tired, hungry, and a little cranky. We ate some pizza and tried to get in bed a little early, but the kids were being defiant and Deb sent David to time-out.

"I don't want to go in there," he said.

"Don't be such a scaredy-cat, David," Deb told him, exacerbated.

Now, this was an innocent enough reply, and she obviously didn't mean it to make him feel bad. But feel bad he did, and he began to act out. He ripped up a picture of me he had just drawn and stomped around. Bedtime was difficult, and we couldn't figure out what was going on. Eventually things that had been bottling up for the last hour spilled over into a cacophony of unprocessed feelings. I tried to hug him but he pushed me away and told me he hated me and to leave him alone. Crying inconsolably. I had been away for work and the night before he was crying on Facetime because he said he missed me so much. Now he wanted nothing to do with me. It was emotionally exhausting, the push-and-pull.

Eventually it started to come out in little phrases between his cries and gasps for breaths. "Nobody loves me. I'm bad. I'm a scaredy-cat. I don't love anyone. I made daddy sad. This is the baddest day. My heart is broken."

As I began to see what was going on, what was at the root of it, I started to get really upset. Before Deb and I got married and started a family, I confided in her my fears of bringing life into the world burdened with the cross of mental illness, which has a strong genetic predisposition. If you knew what it was like to suffer from it, you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy.

Now, I know what you might be thinking--that this was just a toddler having a tantrum, and isn't it a little premature to be diagnosing him like that? We've had plenty of those instances. But something about tonight was different. As my son cried and wrestled with his feelings, I could literally feel his toddler pain in the way only a father can. He is so sensitive, such a little boy with such big feelings, almost too big for him. He swings from extremes. And I knew exactly what he was feeling, because I was feeling it with him, because he is my own flesh and blood...just as my my father felt the pain I went through in my darkest hours when he could do nothing to help me but be there with me in it. When you hate yourself, when you feel that all you do is cause people you love pain, when you push people away when you really want them close, when you really do feel like you are no good. It came back tonight in a flood, feelings that I hadn't felt in a long time. And the weirdest thing was it wasn't me going through it, but my son. But the feelings were the same, as if there was  an invisible bridge connecting our hearts.

I continued to struggle with him, holding him in a bear hug but it was all I could do to keep his thrashing body from wrenching free. Exhausted after several minutes of it, I let him go, and he threw himself on the ground. "I need to be alone," he said. And so we all left the room.

I sat by the stairs outside his room with my head in my hands. And I began to hear him praying and crying. "Oh God, please. This is the worst day ever. I made daddy feel bad and ripped up his picture. And I love you God. And I don't want to be bad or scaredycat. My heart is broken, God. And I know you love me. And the Spirit, and Suzy and and God you love me. And your Son. Please God please." It was a junior psalmist's prayer--a heart rendering, offered up, honest and raw prayer of a little boy with big feelings and big hurt.

When he was finished he came out of his room and was sitting on the floor in the hallway. I came in with tears and sat down next to him. He fought it back for a little while, lips quivering, but then something broke free and he just sobbed in my arms. "David, I love you and forgive you and need you to forgive me and mommy too. Sometimes we hurt each other but there's nothing you can do to make me stop loving you. Just like God loves us, and will never stop loving us. And I know how you feel because when I was a little boy I had big feelings too that I didn't know what to do with. And it does hurt because sometimes your heart isn't big enough to hold it all. But everything you're feeling now I've felt, and granddad has felt too. But you know what? Everything we feel, God felt too, because his son felt it, because he was human like us. So it's good you talk to God like that, and that he talks to you, because that's what prayer is and only God can heal a broken heart." We talked for a bit after that. The storm had passed and left us drenched and sitting.

Like many people who struggle with mental illness, I thought early on maybe it would be better, more responsible and better, not to marry and bring life into the world and risk the chance of passing my genes and everything in them through another generation. But if I did listen to that fear and did not let love overshadow me, the world would not have David. There would be one less soul praying tonight in his room sharing his suffering with the Father who suffered as his Son suffered, who listens to little boys sharing their pain as if it were His own.