Considering Evil

The existence of evil is not so much an obstacle to faith in God as a proof of God’s existence, a challenge to turn towards that in which love triumphs over hatred, union over division, and eternal life over death.

Nicholas Berdyaev, Dream and Reality

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I am particularly alarmed at the verbiage in public discourse that conveys evil when faith is needed.  Mind you, the political rhetoric on the Left, in particular, has been most troubling … and it has ratcheted up over time and found allies in what must be a free and fair press and media.

What once was helpful dialogue has turned in time to ideology, division and too often to hatred.

In this is destruction and the foretelling of violence, if it is not halted – unless cooler heads prevail, and voices come to echo faith and wisdom, unity, good will, fellowship, compassion and community.

Let’s pause to consider evil – as our words seem to tell us now that we do not know the measure of evil, its destructive force – its capacity to destroy all in its way, tear down, maim and murder.

Think of this: “Judge, not, that ye be not judged.”  These the words of Christ.

Christ does not say we ought to be silent when evil appears – but rather that we first must judge ourselves before we judge others.

Sadly, I see not much proof of pause in the words of those so quick to accuse others of evil intent and evil acts.  So think again of Christ: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote in thy brother’s eye.”  (Matthew 7:5)

Today we are too quick to judge, to claim a moral ground that those who judge and condemn show no evidence of actually occupying.  Nae, what we see is ideological “got-ya” moments – the opportunity to make of morality itself a weapon of evil, a way to advance one’s quest for power, one’s idiocratic ideas and demonstratively discredited ideology.

Yes, evil is being “addressed” by evil.  There can be no greater harm done, no better way to perpetuate division and nudge us closer to more violence and bloodshed, than to hijack morality to advance one’s private desires for gain, superiority, power.  Such conduct is evil itself.

A response to evil must have pure objectives – to correct, to teach, to heal, to build relationship, advance fraternity, community, repair misunderstandings, restore justice, advance love, create a stronger bond with others, with what is right and good and lasting – to grow closer to God and others – while excising us from hatred and the craven desire for power and retribution for one’s real or imagined slights and injuries.

I close with this: those who see themselves as perpetual “victims” are consigning themselves to a life of unhappiness and anger when in their mere but sacred being they are, in reality, sons and daughters of a loving God.

Evil begets evil – until we seek the Good that is above and in us.

Shalom.

 

 

 

On Writing

Every writer I knows has trouble writing.

Joseph Heller

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Gee, that is a problem.  I never have a problem writing.  Maybe I am not a writer.

To me writing is like breathing.  Like seeing.  Like watching the human parade of the morally and spiritually disshoveled with a blithering idiot section (reserved for those with a public presence), each marching out-of-step with one another – and in this I include the upper middle class haughty bourgeiose – the pretenders of affluence, the self-proclaimed “special people” and those of faux status and little humor – the “intellectuals,” the people near the top of the pyramid, the celebrites and the life-long elected – “ahummm” – “public servants” who seem to gain more belly fat with each successive electoral victory – balloning in time to the size of a small banana “republic” or a well-fed water buffalo.

I was born poor.  To this day I have not become a man who looks like he swallowed a small Volkswagon or Toledo, Ohio.

I can still see my feet clearly with no interruption at the waist line.  Poverty, dyslexia betrayal and untimely loss kept me humble – a near failsafe against a culture of being “special.”

As to writing – life has always seemed to me to be hand to hand combat and an hilarious Marx Brothers adventure.  A combination of terror and hysterical laughter.  This – more than an adequate mix for a verbal man such as myself.

Long ago someone said to me – “You write like you speak.”  Ah, that is the answer to the puzzle.

I am who I have always been.  The same eyes looking at variations of the same insanity with rare moments of crystal clear brilliance on our worse and on our best days.

Light and severe dark produce the same product:  I write from this – the combat, the terror, the instinct to fight back, the absurd idiocy and the humanity of it all – delivered outside to reside within until its moment arrives.

The crowd and its antics, like God, write of me – I just transcribe.  Somewhere in my head and heart the notes have been stored, the images kept fresh.

If I am a writer it is all because of what God gave me.  Blame Him.  I write from the gifts of pain and suffering, from cunning and courage – and from the endless laugther at the folly of it … from the surrounding of beauty, heartbreak, sacrifice, heroism, pathos, common injustice, freinds, people who loved me and the uncommon victory that emerges now and again.

Shalom.

 

 

 

 

Battle of Words

… false seeing … a love affair with words and ideas … But you cannot really love words; you can only think them.  You cannot really love reality with a judgmental mind, because you’ll always try to control it, fix it, or understand it before you give yourself to it.  And it usually is never fixed enough to deserve your protected self.  So you stay on Delay, Stall or Pause forever.

Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now

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When you pause to think about it – each day we are surrounded by other people’s words – a virtual down-pour of words, ideas, concepts, complaints.  The mere saying of them is accepted in the culture and common discourse as if these words convey something useful, truthful.

Need an example?  We speak of “multiple genders,” children in the third grade “deciding” that they are not male, but female – not female but male.  A man says his male sexual partner is his “wife.”

Yes, words are appropriated and their meaning distorted.  What was once “A” is now “Z.”

When life as it is is abandoned, false words and proclamation emerge and Truth vanishes.  We see here a love affair with words – a love affair with self, with fantasy, distortion – words used to personal and political advantage and the “hell with reality.”  In this, a journey away from truth in favor of fiction … and the added feature of fragmenting, dividing and destroying culture and shared community. 

Think too of ideology.  Despite historic evidence to the contrary ideologues tout the utility and “benefit” of socialism and the road to Communism – advocate for it without regard to its destuctiveness.  Here we have selfishness – the desire to tear down what others have built – anything to deny reality and life.

Things successful and unbroken are smashed with these words so those who cannot wade into life as it presents, or into history and common sense – arrogantly attempt to bend us to their disorientation and even their unhappiness and hatred.

You see this battle and its divide in our political parties – one houses those who hi-jack, usurp words and ideas for their own use and the other party that fights to salvage words, protect ideas and concepts that afford common understanding, support the essential and successful structures (marriage, for example) and institutions that have given us peace,  prospertity and freedom.

The battle over words as we have seen it thus far does one remarkably destructive thing – it has the capacity to alter the experience of human experience … the likes of  which substitute illness for health.

Where are you in this battle of words and established truth?

Shalom.

Beto and Public Confessions

” … today … nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.”

Herman Hesse

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Yesterday I saw this fellow Beto O’Rouke on a midday T.V. show called The View.  It was actually remarkable because it was so pathetic.

Here was a youngish looking man offering all sorts of self-hating criticisms to three overweight, unattractive women – two of whom are far past their prime.  It was a dark and disturbed, inane act of confession.  Confession about skin pigment (being White), gender (being Male), affluence (being the Son-in-Law of a man who is a wealthy Texan) and simply being Beto.

It is strange to see self-hatred or self-loathing but there is a fair amount of it among today’s liberals.  Indeed, it seems to be a dreadful by-product of present day Leftism with their template of “identity” politics –  and especially prevalent among Democrats vieing to become President.

It is, of course, self-loathing … and as such – utterly unhealthy.  And, who, by God, would ever imagine that anyone would want someone with so such self-hated to lead a nation?

It appears the liberals have doubled-down on Mr. Obama’s nation-hopping “apology” tour that marked his early presidency.  No one, by the way, attaches admiration to a head of state whose instinct is to grovel.

This strange liberal instinct of self-loathing brings to mind Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution whereby in the midst of Mao failed economics he unleashed hoards of young brain-washed Marxists to corner individuals and extract from them public “confessions” for their real or imagined “betrayals” of the State.  Yes, the subjects were randomly selected for their “hatred of socialism” vintage Mao.

Some of those cornered were too “bourgeois.” Others were deemed to have courted “evil habits” of yesterday.

The Cultural Revolution is said to have resulted in 2 million dead, maybe more.  The take-away is this: Mao understood that a fearful populace composed of people who carry self-guilt in order to avoid harsh treatment, imprisonment, exile or death is easier to control.

Yes, it is alarming to see people on the Left evoking such self-loathing as young Mr. O’Rouke willing presented for all to see.  It is even more concerning that a political party seems to promote this sort of thing, expect it.

Cultures that separate from faith lead us to such states as self-hated.  Those who display this are in no position to lead.  A society were such illness is present had best rectify its disposition lest it decay and die a chaotic death.

Shalom.

Church and State

Ekklesia (Greek word meaning church)  … signified the assembly of citizens of the polis (a city or small state in ancient Greece), who meet to make decisions.

Dairmaid MacCulloch, in Christianity: The First Three Thosuand Years

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The history of Western Civilization aligns faith or church with governing – ekklesia with polis.  But we live in a time (a treacherous time) in which that nexus is lost … and that loss makes for a far more errant society and culture – a government more prone to chaos than tranquility, distain and division than gratitude and unity.

This is where we are now in the West and in America. 

If you want a source of our problems in government, in law and in public affairs – look no further than the disconnection between church and state and the hostility and sickness that arises when this nexus is ignored, or worse yet – attacked, disparaged and forbidden.

Really, there is not much more to say except – when you listen to public discourse ask yourself one simple question: Does this man or woman speaking convey any sense that he or she knows anything at all about who we are and who we have been for centuries, or for the tenets which have provided our foundation, survival, peace and prosperity?

If you answer in the negative – stop listening – for that speaker deserves none of your time or attention.

Shalom.

Your Spiritual Growth

The life of the spirit is not your life, but the life of God within us.

St. Teresa of Availa, in Life Written by Herself

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Spirirual growth is aided significantly when we allow questions to arise in us.  What might that mean?

When something happens to us that we cannot quite understand, or when we experience something that is puzzling, even hurtful or disorienting – or something quite suprising and quite unexpected, it is good to pause and spend time asking yourself – what just happened?  Ask – why did that happen and what does it mean or what does it tell or teach me about life, others, interactions, me and the nature and history of my personal journey and the themes that have thus far emerged in my life?

In becoming familiar with your spiritual journey, you become familiar with yourself, your potential, your present personal settings as they orient you (most likely) partially to what is within you, what is your whole and presently unlived story.  And more to the point, in this questioning, you become wiser, more secure and find a relationship with God – your Creator.

Our journey is not so much about complete comprehension as it is about mystery – allowing the presence of mystery, and gaining stability in knowing not all things, but rather that – in growing in Spirit we need not know all things but only that all things are possible, even the things that we least expect and cannot predict.  In this state, we depart from the common installation of those things that are not certain – our identity in politics, career, education, title, wealth, status, political party, ideology, possessions, habits, gender, sexuality “identity,” etc.

Remember as to the Spirit and spiritual development – we do not and cannot unilaterally craft a life; to attempt to do so is bound to lead to frustration, chaos, unhappiness and failure.

In parting, I remind you of Mother Mary: “[Mary] was deeply disturbed [by the words of the angel] and wondered what they might mean.  Luke: 1:29 (Emphasis added.)

Ask questions.  Aim them particularly at yourself.  In this, you grow in the Spirit and peace, understanding and wisdom emerge.

Shalom.

 

The Thin Guy with the Sandals

Interviewer: Q. “You knew Jesus?”

2000 Year Old Man: A. “Lovely Boy. Thin. Wore sandals.”

Carl Reiner (Interviewer) and Mel Brooks (Two Thousand Year Old Man), in a comedy rountine entitled The Two Thousand Year Old Man..”

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We often miss the humor all around us.  We miss the “important” people who, trying to be serious, are often incoherent, senseless, contradictory – hence, funny – amusing – (bordering on idiotic) whose ideas sound (well) slapstick.  We seem to let a whole lot of idiocy pass as acceptable public conversation.

Case in point: young, noisey First Term Congresswoman Cortez recently made a spectacle of herself by shamelessly proclaiming to the world at-large that she was utterly puzzled by finding that a switch on the kitchen wall of her new residence activated something she realized was a garbage disposal.

She confessed that she was mystified by this device … and she was serious!  So a woman who proposes to utterly alter the American economy with her “Green New Deal” has not had sufficient exposure to the world such that she might have heard that people have a garbage disposal installed in their kitchen.  Yes, she said it frightened her!!!

I find this comical … and a tad unsettling coming from a person full of zeal (and armed with limited knowledge) who intends to reorder American life and its economy?

Chances are if your would-be leaders do not know what a garbage disposal is, they are probably not capable of handling the government’s business.

Apparently it is time to be skeptical about people with “big ideas” and limited life experience.  Have we not had enough of these people running free of late?

And isn’t it a good idea to invoke this question as it applies to those who wish to lead: Do you know the thin guy with the sandals?

Shalom.

Marriage and the Mass

Today’s Blog is Dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Quinn and their families in Honor of their Marriage at the Basilica at the University of Notre Dame on this day May 11 in the Lord’s Year 2019.  May a life of happiness and faith be their’s day by day, year after year.

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The essential nature of marriage consists in a certain indivisible union of minds by which each one of the consorts is bound to keep inviolably his faith with one another.

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologicae III, q. 29, art. 2, 1272

To me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrillling, so overcoming as the Mass said in amongst us.  I could attend Masses forever and not be tired.

John Henry Newman, Discourses to Mixed Congregations, 1849

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I witnessed today several Masses in celebration of Marriage which were held previously at the Basilica at the University of Notre Dame.  In each I was moved to tears at the exquisite reality of those Masses and Mass itself, of marriage, of Sacred Matrimony, of Notre Dame, of the witness to Love and fidelity and to Christ that shown so bright in the Bride and Groom, their attendents as well as their parents, family and witnesses.

In seeing this, I know that Marriage and Mass tell us far more about life and eternal existence than most other things except perhaps the birth of a new born baby.

You see Marriage and the Mass are temporal and eternal, as is love.  Yes, God never dies and Christ never ceases.  No time.  No error.  No hostility.  No injustice.  No division.  No sin can deny or extinguish Love, or the God of Love, nor Christ, nor faith, nor Eternity, nor God’s reign and fidelity to us.  No man-made thing or argument, preference, problem, or purpose or proposition may tumble God from God’s reign, nor the good that God so generiously plants in each of us.  The Mass and Marriage show this – over and over and over again in each and all Ages.

My wish today for Stephen and Katie and each and all of us is this: May we live day after day in the proclamation of God’s primacy over all Creation and each man, woman and child and all institutions of this Earth so we might know forever a life of Love in each passing moment, no matter the challenges this wonderful life on Earth may bring.

Shalom.

Mystic or Nothing at All

“The devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic’ … or he will cease to be anything at all.”

Karl Rahner

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Have you ever asked yourself how Jesus might have experienced life, and faith, and His relationship with The Father?

Our life is more a question of fully experiencing the human and hence divine experience of being a human being than anything else.

Yes, our completion and fullness relies on the full experience of human experience for in that our gift is made for completion – for a joining of mortal and immortal reality.

We are made to know fully – from Aplha to Omega.  In this we enter the Mystery.  There is: Truth, identity and relationship with God and all others, all things.  Therein is contentment, peace, traquility and the absence of fear and doubt, and uncertainty, anger and hostility.  Therein is love – the all surpassing love that is of God, that is God.

But alas, we do not see and opt to divide one from another.  The lesser among us divide so as to control, claim authority, impose narrow views that they alone conjure up or acquire from some favortite figure whose wandering defied God.  Marx comes to mind.

In lesser “gods” is foolishness, conflict, ignorance and illness.

The land is littered with those who foolishly chose ideology over God and doing so they close the mind and heart, and alter all opportunity for wisdom, faith, tranquility, peace, truth, compassion, humility, understanding, the experience of human experience – and the transcendence that is available to all.

Yes, we are an odd lot – given fullness, we seek division and hostility.

It is far better to know how to know than be told what to know.  It is far better to know how to see than be told what to see.  This is the difference between the curse of ideologues and Christ, between the rote “believer,” and one who believes because he sees and knows from the experience God in the experience of human experience.

When we settle into division – the proclaimation of “me,” “me vs. them,”  “us vs. the others” we are the antithesis of fullness in being, we are less than we are made to be, blinded not sighted.  You see we are of the Whole, nothing less.

Shalom.

 

 

Relationship with God

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Gen 1:26

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Why did God make us in His image?  So we would have the ability to maintain a close personal relationship with Him.

This, Dear Friends, is fundamental to our understanding of ourself and our worth.

Knowing that we are made for relationship with God – we cannot be lonely, or feel insignifcant.  But alas, if we forfeit our belief in God and God’s desire for relationship with us – loneliness sets in and multiplies … particularly when we set about to define ourself as being important and set out to establish that which we already can know – that is: that we are important and never without God – hence never alone, never forsaken, nor abandoned.

Think just about this one verse from Scripture.  Then watch the daily news and see how many people act out of loneliness – how many seek intimacy in ways that insure their loneliness.  Imagine the pain the follows when one relaizes he or she sought intimacy in the most unwise ways while having possessed this right from their creation and birth!!!

Shalom.