An Evil Both Ancient and Modern

"The Spirit always connects, reconciles, forgives, heals and makes two into one.  It moves beyond human-made boundaries to utterly realign and renew that which is separated and alienated.  The "diabolical" (from two Greek words, dia balein, that mean 'to throw apart'), by contrast, always divides and separates that which could be united and at peace.  Just as the Spirit always makes one out of two, so the evil one invariably makes two out of one!  The evil one tears the fabric of life apart, while the Spirit comes to mend, soften and heal."
--Fr. Richard Rohr, Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent

The nation continues to reel in the aftermath of the Newtown school shooting.  We grieve and try to direct our anger toward a meaningful and helpful response.  As we always do in our modern, secular society, our first reaction is to figure out some legal, technical fix for our problems.  Profoundly simplistic (and, frankly, simple-minded) solutions blare out from across the political spectrum, from banning handguns to returning state-sanction prayer into public schools.  But there is something far more complex and perplexing going on here than new legislation can correct.  The Newtown Massacre reveals an evil among us that is at once both ancient and commonplace, and also new and modern.

Today's polite intelligentsia shy away from using the term "evil."  The moral relativism that dominates our public and private discourse prefers to see all ethical questions as being culturally conditioned and open to broad interpretation.  Tolerance is our highest value. 

And yet, the slaughter of small children seems to shock even the most hardened secularist into moral indignation.  Something horrible has happened, and it must be accounted for.

Evil of this scale is not new, of course.  Since biblical times, children have been victimized and brutalized.  Consider that the Church even has a feast day in memory of the Holy Innocents murdered by Herod in his attempt to prevent the Messiah from reaching adulthood.

But even Herod's evil had a motive.  Terrorists and tyrants have claimed innocent lives throughout history, but typically with some political rationale, however twisted.  The kind of senseless, directionless violence of the Newtown Massacre leaves us deeply bewildered and shaken.  In terms of its context, there is no historical reference point.

And this is why we must view this tragic show of evil from a broader, more theological lens than pundits and politicians will prefer. 
One hundred years ago, Americans had easier access to firearms than they do today.  They also had the full range of mental illnesses and familial hostilities we're familiar with today.  But people simply did not walk into schoolhouses and murder children.

Something has happened to us Americans.  I'm not prophetic enough to parse it out, and trying to link societal changes that may be relevant to the specific situation in Newtown would be foolhardy and futile.  But it's worth pondering how we are different now.  What role does the demise of the family, the decline of religious practice, the disintegration of a common moral tradition, the breakdown of civic society, play in all this?  What has happened to us that such evil, once inconceivable, is now a reality we must live with on a daily basis?

These questions don't preclude considerations of public policy, but defy any straightforward policy solution. 

It occurs to me, for example, that our horror over the Newtown Massacre does not extend to a widespread public concern for the abortion of several hundred thousand babies each  year, whose fate differs only from the children in Newtown in the fact that they are even smaller and more vulnerable, and were actually killed by their parents, rather than some random stranger.  But I don't for a second think that a public policy solution (outlawing or restricting abortion) would suddenly bring an end to that tragic loss of life any more than gun control laws would eliminate school violence.

Whatever has happened to us is more complex than just what was going on in the sick, diabolical mind of Adam Lanza.

Whatever our political response to these events, they will be incomplete (and thus ineffective) without a serious consideration of the collective spiritual sources and solutions to our condition.  Let us pray for clarity as a people, and the courage to confront our own brokenness and sin.

"O God, whom the Holy Innocents confessed
and proclaimed on this day,
not by speaking but by dying,
grant, we pray,
that the faith in you which we confess with our lips
may also speak through our manner of life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity
   of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.  Amen."
--Collect prayer from the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs

"What's Next, Lord?"

"When we demand satisfaction of one another, when we demand any completion to history on our terms, when we demand that our anxiety or any dissatisfaction be taken away, saying as it were, 'Why weren't you this for me?  Why didn't life do that for me?' we are refusing to say, 'Come, Lord Jesus.'  We are refusing to hold out for the full picture that is always given by God."
--Fr. Richard Rohr, Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent

In the many years before my wife and I had children (we were married 14 years before the first arrived), I often marveled at the endurance and patience of young parents we knew.  Even then I speculated that parenting must be one of the most profound spiritual journeys of life, calling a person to a level of sacrifice and self-giving nothing short of heroic.

Now that we are parents too, with two children both under the age of three, I can attest with conviction to what I could only speculate about then.  I am embarasssed to admit it, but the sea of spilled milk, spit up, dirty diapers, and copious quantitites of tears (more than a few my own), coupled with a numbing, never-ending sleep deprivation, has revealed enormous personal limitations, attachments, and all manner of other inner junk I barely knew was there.  Most days I stumble around irritably clinging to the last shred of patience and equanimity I can muster, only to watch it shatter when some simple task like going to the bathroom is interrupted for the umpteenth time by the piercing shriek by one of our precious but highly-demanding children.

And then there's the guilt I feel about feeling the way I feel.  Objectively speaking, I am the most blessed person I know.  My children are beautiful, healthy, and (when they get their way) happy.  My marriage is stable and strong.  We have more than adequate material resources and fantastic jobs that afford us a work-life balance (such that it is) that most people can only dream of.  Realizing how deeply attached I am to order and predictability, to the products of my work life (which have suffered subtly but signicantly in recent months), to regular periods of solitude and self-reflection...it all makes me wonder what kind of crisis I'd have if something really difficult actually happened in my life.

But my guilt is not enough to transform my exhaustion into energy or my frustration into gratitude. 
I pray about it, but mostly I think I secretly pray that God will somehow make it all better (restore order and regularity and some modicum of self-control to my life) rather than give me the grace to endure this natural but difficult time with dignity and faith.

Advent is a season of waiting and expectation as we prepare ourselves for the Lord's coming, not simply in the memory of the Christmas Incarnation, but in our everyday lives and in our own time.  It is extremely tempting to spiritualize my current state into some kind of prayer to make all this pass.  "Come, Lord Jesus, and make my son sleep through the night; come, Lord Jesus, and help me finish grading these papers today; come, Lord Jesus, and get us to church on time for a change."  As if somehow all of that would prove that he is Emmanuel, that "God is with us."

In fact, I do believe (intellectually, even if I truly lack the faith to back it up) that He is already with us, that He is already here amid the chaos and the dirty laundry and the endless struggles to find something a toddler will eat.  The appropriate prayer for me this Advent is to surrender to whatever mysterious graces the Lord is offering me in this present moment, just as it is. Rather than "Come, Lord Jesus," my Advent prayer should be, "What next, Lord?" as I seek to perceive whatever he is revealing to me in the latest temper tantrum, skinned knee, or tardy arrival to work.

Mostly, I think He is revealing how petty are most of my concerns, how I cling to all kinds of things that aren't, in the big picture, all that important.  I wish seeing this somehow made me stop these perpetual patterns of self-inflicted anxiety, but even my failure to "improve" these aspects of my personality are still teaching me about his goodness and glory.  After all, while we are called to holiness, His grace is nevertheless poured out to us just as we are.  Even as I love my children no matter how difficult they are each day, so He loves me, even in my brokenness and frustration.  Perhaps the most important thing he's asking me to surrender is my own fear of being human.

Emmanuel, come and open my eyes to the goodness all around me, including the goodness with myself, just as I am.  Help  me to find you in this present moment. 

What's next, Lord?  I'm waiting to find out.  Amen.

Politics: Palliative Care for a Dying World

"O God, who cause the minds of the faithful
to unite in a single purpose,
grant your people to love what you command
and to desire what you promise,
that amid the uncertainties of this world,
our hearts may be fixed on that place
where true gladness is found."
--Collect prayer for Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Like many others, I am profoundly troubled in the wake of this recent election.  My disappointment is not simply with the outcome, though that is a source of great worry for me. 

On that count: I believe we have crossed into new territory as a country, and I feel enormous anxiety about the financial security and freedom of my children and their generation.  I hope I am completely wrong about this (my liberal friends assure me that I am, that we can tax the "rich" to pay for our enormous appetite for public benefits).  Time will tell, but I harbor no illusions that should even worse economic hardships come to pass that then Americans will understand the sources of our failure.  Just look at people of Greece right now, furiously clinging to a disaster of an economic policy, even in the face of their utter financial collapse.  We will likely go down in flames, fiddling while Rome burns, oblivious to the cause of our own undoing.  Again, I hope I'm wrong. 

None of this, however, is simply a result of this election.  America got lost a long time ago for reasons both political and non-political, and our political lostness can be blamed on both political parties equally. And politics will not fix what ails us.  Certainly the election of Mitt Romney would not have solved our core problems.

That's why moving forward, we (by which I really mean "I") need a thorough realignment of our attitude toward politics.  I need to shift the way I have related to politics all my life.

Politics is a near obsession for me, consuming enormous amounts of time and energy as I read, study, write, and argue about the best way to organize our economy and our government.  It's a reflection of my personality type, in part, and a life-long passion to feel as if I was doing my part to make the world a better place. 

But politics can become an idol, a means by which we start to think our human designs and efforts can remake the world according to the image we desire for it.  We focus on our own efforts and cling to the outcomes as if the most important things depend on it.  For Christians, this is sin, and it's a sin for which I personally need to repent.  It is not, in fact, my personally responsibility to ensure that the world complies with a particular political philosophy, or to convince by force of argument that others share my views.

Christians are called to look at things in a much broader context and perspective.  What is really most important is the condition of our individual souls and the way we love and serve others in the short time we have.  Civilizations will rise and fall.  Political regimes will come and go.  Some regimes will be more amicable to the Christian vision of life and society, others will be hostile.  In the end, the Word of Life will remain, and "principalities and powers" shall not separate us from It.  In ways we cannot fathom, and in a time beyond our own engineering, all things will be brought to resolution, and will not be because our candidate won (or lost) an election.

Which is not to say that Christians should withdraw from public life.  Finding a truly Christian way to engage with the world will actually be much harder for me than totally surrendering all responsibility as a citizen.  It will require me to be informed, to act when called to do so, whether that means by voting in elections or speaking up on issues as appropriate.  But I may no longer cling to the outcome of my actions as if the outcome is somehow the measure of my discipleship.  The only measure of my discipleship is the extent to which I surrender every aspect of my life to Christ's redeeming grace.  And that means responding to disappointing political turns, and even to the evil and darkness in the world, with dignity, patience, and compassion and love for others (especially those who disagree with me).

There's a recent parallel in my professional life that illustrates what I'm talking about here.  Richard Elmore, the great Harvard education professor, commented a few weeks ago that he no longer believes in the institutional structures of public schooling.  This, after a lifetime of working ferociously to improve the quality of teaching and leadership in schools.  Elmore has simply observed that schooling as we know it has outlived its usefulness, and thanks to its own internal dysfunctions, is dying a slow death.  Schools of the future will look nothing like they do today, Elmore suggests, and all our attempts to shore up the flaws of the current system will eventually be met with failure.

And still, he said he remains committed to his work in improving the practices of teachers and school leaders.  But he sees this work as "palliative care for a dying institution."  If Elmore is right, that's what I do for a living too - I'm caring for a dying institution.

There's nothing wrong with care of the dying.  It is, in fact, one of the corporal works of mercy Christians are called to perform.  But it would be foolish - it would be a sin, in fact - to think that we could, through our own efforts, prevent the death of the terminally ill, or to carry out our care of them as if they were going to live forever.

Just like Elmore's assessment of schooling, I believe (in fact, it is a matter of Christian faith), that our political structures and the world itself, are also dying a slow death.  These human institutions are full of the frailties and flaws of the people who create them and will not last forever.  Nothing in the created world will last forever.

This is not some kind of nihilism or deathwish on the part of Christians, though.  We also believe by faith that this world is blessed and full of light and life.  But all that goodness comes from a larger source, from the God who created it, and all the brokenness and emptiness of the created world will utlimately be redeemed and restored by that same Creator God.  Until then, we are called to care for our bodies, for our families, for society and the world, with compassion, love, and justice.  We are called to engage in politics, because it is one of the means by which we steward this precious world and the precious life we have been given. 

But we are not to think for a moment that our political efforts are establishing some kind of permanent regime of peace and justice (the great modern, secularist, liberal conceit).  That is not within our power or our responsibility.  Politics is palliative care, a corporal work of mercy, for a world that is passing away.

Others have said this better than me.  See the thoughts of Elizabeth Scalia, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, and Bruce Frohnen.  But it's important for me to state this for myself as well.

We are wounded as a nation.  Of course we are.  And I am wounded too, because of my personal sinfulness, as are all of you.  But that is not the end of the story.  There is a source of redemption, of light and life, that brings peace and love and mercy.  May I approach all of my obligations - religious, familial, social, and political - with the mercy and compassion of the God who, in the end, saves us all.

Gratitude of a Christian Yogi

Feast of Cyril of Alexandria

I've recently committed myself to a regular yoga home practice, after years of owning books and DVD's but never really making an effort to make yoga a routine part of my life.  The results have been extremely rewarding.  I won't be tying myself into pretzel-shapes any time soon, but after several months of near-daily practice, I feel more flexible, relaxed, and centered.

Yoga practice has reminded me of the importance of my body and being firmly rooted in this physical experience.  Sadly, much of Western religion has contributed to a disconnect between spirit and body.  From the (heretical) tendency to view the body as a source of sin and weakness to an excessive emphasis on discursive, mental prayer, Christian spirituality has neglected the sacredness of our physical nature and the intimate linkage between mind, body, and spirit.

Yoga has reawakened this connection for me, and I've spent a lot more time lately practicing awareness of my physical experience, seeking to pray through my body and consciously surrender myself more completely to God on all levels. 

A great resource for my yoga practice has been the magazine and website, Yoga Journal, a wealth of practical advice and guidance on yoga as exercise, philosophy, and way of life.  I receive daily emails on a variety of yoga topics to enrich my knowledge and application of yoga.  Today's Daily Insight was titled, Grounded in Gratitude.  The meditation was filled with meaningful wisdom, but as a Christian yogi, I was left feeling a need to add something.  Here's how the message starts:

On the surface, gratitude appears to arise from a sense that you're indebted to another person for taking care of you in some way. But looking deeper, you'll see that the feeling is actually a heightened awareness of your connection to everything else. Gratitude flows when you break out of the small, self-centered point of view and appreciate that through the labors and intentions and even the simple existence of an inconceivably large number of people, weather patterns, chemical reactions, and the like, you have been given the miracle of your life, with all the goodness in it.

This is all true, of course.  Mindfulness deepens our awareness of the myriad interconnections of reality, and the resulting feeling is one of deep awe, reverence, and gratitude.

But for the Christian, there is another level of insight available, one that the author of this little meditation misses.  The vast interconnectedness of our lives arises from God, the ground of all being.  The doctrine of the Holy Trinity reminds that the essence of the Ultimate Reality is interconnection and relationship.  That creation reflects this multiplicity and interdependence is no coincidence to the thoughtful Christian.

Gratitude does not arise, as the author supposes from a sense of indebtedness, but from the sense of vast, spacious, immense and inconceivable love, a love which pours out upon us in waves when we still our hearts to see what is here, both in our physical bodies, in our social connections, and in the created world at large.  Indebtedness is too clumsy a word, too transactional, to reflect the transformative insight of resting in the enormous mystery of God.

In the light of Redemption, all things are lived out in adoration and intimacy with this mystery, including our minds, our bodies, and the practices (like yoga) we use to experience union of our total Selves with the Divine.

Being Saved

Feast of Saints Phillip and James

"I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
of the Gospel I preached to you,
which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
Through it you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain."
--1 Corinthians 15:1-2

As a convert to Catholic Christianity, I used to think a lot about the differences between the Protestant Evangelical understanding of salvation and that of the Roman church.  I don't give it as much thought anymore, since so much of my religious conversation takes place within Catholic circles these days.  But perhaps because I feel that God has been working on me with great intensity lately, and perhaps because a friend mentioned a question about purgatory recently, something about this reading struck me deeply today.

St. Paul says that, through the Gospel, we are "being saved."  These two words reveal so much.

I think Catholics are far too prone to just shrug off the evangelical emphasis on the salvation experience of accepting Jesus as one's lord and savior.  One of the great gifts of evangelical Christianity is its relentless refrain that a true disciple is engaged in a total love affair with God through Christ.  Every individual must surrender himself utterly to Christ's love and mercy, and until he does, the journey of faith hasn't really begun, no matter how much religiosity he displays.

Catholics, who are perpetually prone to falling into rote repetition of ritual and the acceptance of Christianity as more of a social identity than a way of life, need to hear that evangelical insistence on a personal relationship with Jesus.  They need to hear it and answer it by having one, starting right this minute.

Such an emphasis on personal conversion is not foreign to Catholicism, of course.  In fact, it is the heart of the Gospel as expressed in the Catechism, taught by the Church fathers, and lived out by saints throughout the ages.  But the Church also holds firmly to the faith as lived through the sacraments, and so inward faith and outward ritual expression of that faith always reflects a dynamic, creative tension in the life of Catholic Christians.  We are saved through Christ's grace, encountered in our hearts but also poured out in the sacramental life of the church as we make our pilgrim journey through life.

And this understanding of salvation as a journey is perhaps Catholicism's gift to the rest of Christianity.

Here's the thing: I have accepted Jesus as my lord and savior.  I did this first as a child, but I've done it countless times since then.  Not because, as some Protestant theologies would have it, I backslid and fell from grace, but because my desire to surrender to Christ's mercy and forgiveness does not mean I really have fully relinquished my own control into God's hands.

I want to live for Him and conform myself completely to His will.  But wanting it doesn't just make it happen.  I need to work at being a disciple, daily commiting myself to prayer and good works, not to earn my salvation, but to more fully accept the salvation that Christ has already effected for all of humanity.  Through God's grace, I gradually soften my heart so that Jesus' saving power can really work in me, sanctifying me into real surrender to the Father.

It's not like I once was not saved, then I was a little saved, and tomorrow I will be a lot more saved.  That's too simplistic an understanding of the ever-deepening relationship of love I share with Him.  He already effected my salvation through his blood and his mercy.  Now I am slowly learning how to love Him in return.  I am being saved.

This, I think, helps explain the mysterious teaching on purgatory, a state of being which exists within us, not something that God imposes upon us.  God is ready to bring us home to eternal peace with him right now.  We, sadly, aren't ready to go, even though we might really want to.  The process of letting go and really embracing God's love is slow and sometimes painful.  He's patiently waiting for us to finally get over ourselves and accept what he pours out so freely and generously, in reckless, unconditional love.

Lover of my soul, I accept you as the master of my life.  I am powerless to do anything without you.  Break me open so that I might see whatever remains uncoverted within me.  I will give it all to you.  Amen.

St. John Bosco Novena

Our friends at Pray More Novenas will launch the January novena next week in honor of St. John Bosco. 

I must admit I was largely unfamiliar with this fascinating 19th century Italian saint who dedicated his life to ministering to at-risk boys.  I wish I had known about him during the years I spent as principal of an alternative school serving the same kind of boys St. John knew well.

Read a profile of St. John Bosco here and join us for the novena!

Sunday Best

Another recent First Things column by George Weigel got me thinking about what we wear to church, and now Christianity Today's Duane Liftin takes up cause with a thought-provoking piece that raises important questions about our attire on Sunday mornings.

Supporting his thoughts with rich scriptural references, Liftin notes the obvious trend toward casual dress throughout society and most noteably in church and wonders what this says about the way we prepare ourselves for worship.  If take so little thought to how we dress at church, are we also putting little thought into how we prepare our hearts and minds for the experience of encountering God?

These are things I hadn't considered until recently, and I sure don't want to start wearing a tie to church on Sunday mornings (though that's what I wore almost every Sunday as a boy), but I think Liften raises some compelling points.

There's a real problem, of course, with choosing to "dress up" for church now that casual has become the norm.  You'll stand out, almost as if you are trying to draw attention to yourself or make some holier-than-thou point.  Liften acknowledges this issue, but suggest we should shy away from the challenge on account of this issue:

We all understand that the wrong clothes can distract our fellow worshipers. Elaborate, showy attire may reflect a prideful, elitist, egocentric display of wealth, status, and power (Mark 12:38; Luke 16:19; James 2:3). Or it may serve as a mask, a facade behind which lurks a very different reality (Matt. 23:27). In this way and others our choice of clothing can be sinful. But this does not render our everyday ("common"), come-as-you-are attire "spiritual" or "honest." If we care for our fellow worshipers as we ought, we will take them into consideration as we dress for worship. We will clothe ourselves in ways that edify them and strengthen their own worship. We will attempt to avoid the nonchalant attitude that says this event is entirely routine; that it merits nothing special from me; that my only consideration in what I choose to wear is what is easiest and most convenient. Such a self-centered attitude is corrosive to a true spirit of worship. Instead, the goal in our choice of clothing should be to express to the Lord and those around us that this event matters, that I view it as a holy occasion, one which deserves our highest regard. If the first audience for our nonverbal messages is God himself, and secondarily, our fellow worshipers, dress that best suits these first two audiences may also serve a third: outsiders who join our public worship.

Liften says he does not want to prescribe a dress code for church, and I appreciate that humility.  But I'll definitely think twice before dressing for church next Sunday.