Of screens doors and wandering kings

It was about 4 B.C. -- in this case, fours years before children -- when my wife and I discussed replacing a screen door. Screen doors usually come in two sections, the top half being a screen to let in the cool air while keeping out the bugs, and the bottom being a piece of glass or plexiglass, the better for cats to scratch to ask to come in. My wife told me she wanted a one-piece door, a novelty I had never heard of . "Everybody has one," she said. "No way," I rejoindered. "We'll be the only ones that have one, and it will look stupid!" Like many marital arguments, this one went round and round on for a while until I said, "OK. Let's take a walk and see how 'everybody' has a one-piece screen door!" Naturally, and in spite of a history to the contrary, I expected to prevail.

And so went we went. And wouldn't you know it, but every third home on our street had a one-piece screen door. Sure, it wasn't "everybody," but such doors were far from being non-existent! I didn't know they existed, and so I never saw them until my eyes were opened.

This Sunday, we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, when the "three wise men" (who were not necessarily three, nor wise beyond astrology, nor men) brought gifts to the Christ Child in Bethlehem. But what set them off on their journey? The magi, priest-astrologers from Babylon, were students of the stars. Not in the Neil deGrasse Tyson sense, but in the back-of-the-paper-comics-pages sense. They would have mapped the heavens with reference to events and peoples on earth -- this constellation for this nation, and that planet for that human trait, such as love or martial spirit. But then, as now, this was all make-believe. If a comet blazed by or a nova appeared, the magi and their kind would have attached extravagant meaning to it. Two planets passing near each other in conjunction (a humdrum happenstance in a flat solar system with planets in orbit) would have got the astrological community buzzing. A triple conjunction would have had them in near delirium.

But something set them off, and it's not for me to say whether it was a celestial happening that we can recreate with our computers, or some other bit of arcane gobbledygook that only the magi understood. But off they went to Judea, where the heavens bade them go.

But where in Judea? Ah, that was the question. They knew the nation affected by the change announced by the stars, but little else. So, to the capital city they went. Jerusalem, home of King Herod the Great. He, the builder of great seaports and citadels. And the man who razed the Temple, which was showing its age after 500 years of constant use, in order to build a new Temple to God's glory and his own. Herod was also a paranoid ruler who, over the course of his reign, had one wife and several sons executed for allegedly plotting against him. It was to the court of this Herod the Great, mad and ailing, that the magi appeared one day, seeking directions to a newborn king of the Jews.

For all its peril, the visit to Herod in Jerusalem was unavoidable. The stars had brought the magi only this far. But surely, the locals would have information that would bring them the rest of the way. And so, these dusty and unimpressive travellers visited Herod's court. It defies imagination that Herod saw them personally. They were not royalty, nor where they travelling on behalf of a monarch. Yet whether Herod or an underling gave them an audience, they made contact with some sage who combed the Hebrew scriptures and his own memories. A messiah (a meaningless title to a Babylonian priest) was expected. He would come from the severed stump of Jesse's lineage -- Jesse, the father of the illustrious King David of old. David had come from the hamlet of Bethlehem, 6 miles down the road. Then, there was an obscure throwaway passage from Micah, that gloom-and-doom-and-restoration prophet of seven centuries past, about a ruler coming from Bethlehem. Circumstantial evidence, to be sure, but no more so than the stray movement of lights in the skies. Enough to merit investigation.

Herod does not seem to have taken the magi seriously. Based on their later movements, he does not even seem to have had them watched by his secret police. They blended in with the throngs of Jerusalem's dwellers, took the road to Jerusalem and reached the place in a few hours. There, they located a bewildered and probably terrified Mary and Joseph and left small tokens. Whether they thought they had located the child is unknown. Who knows how many other households they visited? Matthew tells us they were warned in a dream to avoid a return to Herod, but it's just as likely that Herod didn't bother with them. They left Judea, and disappeared into obscurity and myth.

There are those who tells us that Matthew invented this story -- the weird, wandering star; the gold, frankincense and myrrh; the goyish travellers -- or that he got it from a source who invented it. Maybe. But the story has God's fingerprints all over it. People are moved, quite literally, and apparently of their own accord. Their day-to-day business crosses paths meaningfully with others on life's seemingly random road. They undertake journeys in search of one thing, and find another of much greater value. Sometimes, they recognize what they have found immediately; oftentimes, not until years later; frequently, not at all. They seek a king, but find a poor child tended by peasants. They seek court and glory, but find a dirty stable. The magi's subsequent silence on the matter (they did not publicize who they had found) suggests that they did not understand it fully or at all. But they have done their part, perhaps unwittingly. A favored child had been honored; a destiny of kingship, divinity and brute mortality had been acknowledged.

But for a few lines written in Greek by a first-century nonentity named Matthew, the story would have ended there -- fulfilled, but another secret held in the mantle of God's boundless memory. Yet this secret got out, and amuses, frightens and nourishes us still. As does the greater revelation of God's love and kinship held in the developing mind of a tiny infant wrapped against the cold in a drafty stable in Bethlehem. And like a one-piece screen door, this treasure, once it has been seen, beckons forth from everywhere and everyone..

Looking for the real hacker

North Korea offering to look for the SONY hackers is a lot like O.J. Simpson offering to find the real killer of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Hey-oh!

Christmas Carols and literalism

My choir is practicing Christmas carols, which brings to mind how literally our carol writers have taken the gospel stories of the nativity.

Star in the East? Check.
Birth in Bethlehem because of a Roman census? Check.
Angels in the heavens? Check.
Fulfillment of messianic promise? Check.

Some scholars tell us that Luke (angels, census) and Matthew (Magi, star) were probably not telling history in the nativity narratives. Instead, they may have been using fanciful language to express the birth is divinely ordained, intended for the entire world, and thus significant.

Who knows?

In one sense, it doesn't mater whether the birth of Jesus occurred in Bethlehem or Nazareth or somewhere else. His birth's significance was that it came to unnotable people who lived in poverty in a politically and economically oppressed corner of the globe. Jesus was a nobody, something that the gospel writers might not have been able to wrap their heads around. And maybe they were right; selling the idea of a Messiah who had no claims to his title --neither through nobility of birth, lineage, place of birth or signs at his coming -- might have been a hard sell through the ages.

But I continue to be struck with the ordinariness of Jesus. He was born to unremarkable parents. His hometown was so small it did not even show up on maps. His schooling might have been rudimentary. His worldview would have be constrained by the ignorance of humanity in the period. He believed the religious slant that was common in his day -- that a messiah was coming and the Son on Man was about to arrive on the clouds of heaven.

Given all the commotion purported to have happened at his birth, it is remarkable that Jesus lived the next thirty years in obscurity. But did his life make any less difference because the herald angels might not have sung at his birth? Would his views on true worship of a loving God be any less meaningful if no one brought him gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh? Would God's plan be nullified were his mother not a virgin?

I am largely indifferent to Mary's virginity, and to all of the rest of the ornamentation that has been draped over the Nativity stories. If they happened as recorded by the evangelists, then wonderful. But if Jesus's birth took place in a dirty hovel in Nazareth on a cold and unlit dirt floor, his life and teaching would have no less value to me.

Can ye watchers be ye holy ones?

Hard to believe that it was just this week that a gunman held hostages in a Lindt cafe in Sydney. Now, that story is completely gone from the news, overtaken by the kerfuffle over whether Sony should have taken "The Interview" out of US movie theaters due to threats from hackers. Earlier, we were treated to reports of the murder of 100+ Pakistani kids at the hands of the Taliban. Thanks to Pope Francis, President Obama and Premier Castro, the US and Cuba are ready to normalize relations.

It's been a busy week!

I kept pace with the Sydney siege via Twitter and live feeds from the Australian media. I guess that makes me a news voyeur, something of which I am neither proud nor ashamed. I'm just following my fascination with a breaking story. You could easily argue that I could have been doing far more important things -- like helping at a homeless shelter or leading protests about police violence -- but I sat in my warm home, searching clips about far away tragedies.

Is there some value to this?

On the down side, you could argue that my time could have been spent better elsewhere. I had Christmas cards to write, presents to wrap, floors to clean, people to visit. On the upside, I guess you could say that I was bearing witness, filling my head with history for the time when these stories will have been completely forgotten.

There is value in remembering.

If you follow politics and the news at all, and see what people have to say about it on social media, you quickly learn that many, many people have very limited memories. They forget what their political party did in the recent past. They forget the position that their representatives held just weeks ago. This lack of memory makes it easy for them to accept whatever political attack is being made against those they dislike. It makes it easier for them to accept media falsehoods. It makes them easier to control.

In recent days, I have heard Senator John McCain blast Obama for establish diplomatic ties with Cuba. But that's exactly the position that McCain had espoused not that long ago. I have heard politicians and TV guests (including one former US vice president)  claim that torture was legal, without mentioning that its legality was proclaimed by those with political motivations to do so. I even heard on TV presenter claim that George Washington condoned torture, when history shows that to be a lie.

I would probably feel better about myself if I spent more time doing direct charity. But is there no value to seeking truth? Is there value to being the pest who calls bullshit when the truth is slanted or ignored?

I guess I am trying to justify myself and my preferences. I hope that at the judgment, being a guardian of truth will be enough to tilt the scales in my favor.

Keep dumb in Christmas

Will all the dumasses in the America PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop claiming that they can't say "Merry Christmas" anymore? It's not like you see them in church anyway.

 

 

And please park your hatred of foreigners at the door. Sheesh.

I would be a great married priest

I was one of those irritating kids who wanted to become a priest. That might have been a fairly common ambition for many first graders, but even by sixth grade, when most kids had become too cool to want to be priests, I was still raising my hand when Sister asked which boys (only boys) wanted to be priests. It wasn't long after that that I discovered girls and the Church-mocking albums of George Carlin. My interest in pursuing the priesthood faded for awhile after that.

But it did not disappear.

During high school, I travelled with a priest all over eastern Canada and the USA. I figured that he would have noted my interest in Church matters (even if it was couched in critical adolescent terms) and would have asked if I had an interest. No luck. College was a spiritual wasteland, so no need to delve into that period.Though that is when I read the gospels for the first time from end to end. An eye-opener -- the strange, nun-told tales were nowhere to be found!

But I still had the bug, even after I was newly engaged to my now wife. She was driving me to work as a math teacher at a Catholic school when I sprang on her a comment that I wanted to become a priest. She made it pretty clear, with the wedding just a few montsh away, that I had better make a decision soon! And I did, in her favor. Now thirty-five years later, I have not given up the dream, though I am highly doubtful that my Church will allow married men (certainly not of the progressive persuasion) to be priests anytime soon.

But why not?

My marriage and fatherood are the two critical components that made me a better human being. The ups and downs of being a husband and Dad have forced me to recognize my own shortcomings and strengths in a way that being a single man never would have. When you are the first  line of support and defense for a child for 18 years or more -- changing diapers, being a playmate, drying tears, helping with homework, counseling and protecting from bullies and letting them go out on their own -- it changes you in ways that are hard to describe. Helping a kid througn a romantic breakup becomes a 24-hour-a-day responsibility until it's over, weeks or months later. You worry and carry the burden, in way that seeing a kid for an hour-long Saturday afternoon counseling session would not. When you atre a husband trying to undertand why you can't get through to your wife on some seemingly insignificant matter, you have to deal with the frustration, rage and temptations to violence that come with an inability to communicate to someone you want to love, but can't. Similar to doctors who bury their mistakes, you have to sleep with yours. Thre's no walking away without enormous personal costs to yourself, your wife and your kids. The decisions you make -- whether to scold or to hold, to stay or to stray -- teach you about the limits and possibilities of love, in a way that no seminar or retreat could hope to.

I am a stronger and better man for having married and raised children than I would have been had I remained single. I feel good that I spared the world another vain, rageful, entitled priest, which I surely would have been had I not married. But I regret that my Church is missing out on the services of the more empathic and genuinely wise person I have become. It's not enough to offer me RCIA classes to teach or church suppers to cook. I want the entire sacramental package -- Mass, confessions, anointing the sick -- that goes with being a priest. Though frankly, the collars and vestments are not longer an attraction.

I suspect that there are many Catholic men who would become excellent priests if the Church realized that marriage is a path to self-control, self-understanding and self-acceptance, servant-leadership and humility -- in short, holiness. I wonder whether the abysmal experience of immature, pedophilic priests (and the morally-myopic bishops who managed them) would have been tempered, or even eliminated, if the Church recognized that God had it correct right from the beginning when he said (Genesis 2:8), "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him."

I can't speak for all men, and there are certainly some fine men who have chosen the single life and have made fine priests. But for me, there is no question that the path to formation that I needed to become a priest led not through a seminary or rectory, but through the nursery, marriage bed, playgrounds, parent-teacher meetings, late-night car rides, school auditoriums, pediatrician's offices, romantic restaurant and college tours. I found my manhood and my priesthood in the embraces of my children, and in the arms of my dear wife. I pray that my Church beats my Lord to tellling me, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."

A crack in the iceberg

Stupendous news from the Synod on the Family -- a draft document on dealing with gays and those in "irregular" (non-Church-sanctioned) marriages:

"Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home," said the document, known by its Latin name "relatio".

"Are our communities capable of proving that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?" it asked.

While Church marriages clearly were "the ideal" for Catholics, it said, there were "constructive elements in those situations that do not yet or no longer correspond to that ideal".

Catholics used to call such cohabitation arrangements "living in sin", another phrase that bishops at the synod were urged not to use when speaking about these couples.

The very fact that this discussion is being held at all is encouraging. The main threat that faces the Church is from careerists who are bankrupt morally and who use adherence to Church law as a way to advance in rank and influence. Now, Pope Francis has as opened another path -- one that is line with God's boundless love to all his creatures and that admits the complexities and seeming contradictions of the human person. The injury that has been done in the name of Christ to homosexuals is disgusting, blasphemous and an everlasting stain on the history of the Church. Clearly, the example of loving, committed gay and "irregular" relationships "even to the point of sacrifice" has broken through to the highest levels. Perhaps the Church, that whorish bride of Christ, has allowed herself to be raised out of the gutter of phariseeism and false piety to walk a new road with her Spouse. I am glad that I have lived to see the day. I sometimes think the only reason I remain in the Church is to hold it accountable for its crimes.

And it's not just the ordained who get ahead by crapping on gays and those in unsanctioned relationships. Anyone who feels morally superior -- just because they follow all the Church's petty rules -- is implicated in these sacrileges. We are called to love as Christ loved us. He who came into the world to save it, and  not to condemn it, is "honored" by those who judge and condemn in his name. This has got to stop, and it has got to stop now.

Bravo to all, whether in or out of the institution, who have so bravely opposed its unloving, unmerciful and biologically backwards teachings. As I told a gay friend, "you may never be able to forgive the Old Girl for her sins. But I am personally in communion with you, whether we express that in sharing Eucharist or a sacramental meal at a restaurant."

Lord, let us find a way to stop finding personal profit in the needless infliction of pain on our sons and daughters.

The passive-aggressive wedding guest

In yesterday's gospel, Matthew has Jesus talking about weddings. We get a story about a king inviting people to his son's wedding. But every invitee refuses to come, and some actually kill the messengers. The king ends up in a fury and wipes out the ingrates. Then he sends his servants to the highways and byways, inviting the "good and the bad" until the wedding hall is filled.

Brutal, but easy enough to understand. Those who were "worthy" rejected the invitation, but the lowlifes accepted. It's easy enough to read the king as God, the original invitees as the leaders and self-appointed worthies of Israel, the messengers as the prophets and the eventual banquet guests as the lowly who accept an invitation in spite of their unworthiness.

But in Matthew, unlike in Luke who also includes this parable, the story continues, telling about a man who shows up at the banquet without the appropriate wedding garment. He ends up getting challenged by the king and then thrown out of the celebration "where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth."

The homilist rightly noted that these are two different stories -- that Matthew and Luke both had access to the story about the king trying to fill his banquet hall, But only Matthew had (or was willing to use) the tale of  the guy wearing the wrong clothes. Matthew, with two wedding parables to tell, connected them rather than leaving one out or telling it separately. They're both about worthiness to attend wedding, n'est-ce pas? And so the homilist homilized. But I think that's going a bit too far.

It's long been a staple of Christianity thought that we can never be worthy of God's love. God is infinitely and perfectly good. We are...well, you know, less so. What can we do to buy ourselves into heaven? It's a question that bedeviled Martin Luther and led to a breach with the Church, which at the time was willing to countenance certain acts (donations, prayers, good deeds) as winning God's favor. But, as Luther and others concluded, what act could a sinful and limited human perform that would allow entry into the company of the perfectly holy and good God? To God, our feeble actions actions are beside the point. God invites us in spite of, not because of our worth or our charitable deeds.

So does this perspective appear in the parables? The key to the first lies in the way the king's servants "gathered all they found, bad and good alike" for inclusion in the banquet.  Their entry was neither due to their virtue nor to their lack thereof. But then how did they get in when others did not? It was simply because they did not refuse the king's offer. The original invitees, those thought worthy of an invitation, resisted the offer to attend the banquet, with dishonesty and with violence. So the king turned to those who would be more open to his offer.

The probable meaning? God has invited the pious and observant to the wedding feast, whether you construe the banquet as a life of fullness in this world or in the next. They refused to attend, intent on continuing business as usual, resistant to God's call to a communion beyond the confines of their social and religious mores. They were asked to leave their comfort zones, and resisted to the point of murdering those (like the prophets) sent to extend God's invitation to a banquet of true goodness. What choice did God have, in his love of humanity, than to turn to those whom society judged unworthy? It was these who ultimately entered the banquet hall to celebrate with their king.

So now let's turn to the second parable. Our homilist suggested that his appearance at the wedding without the proper garment was a case of him not having  made himself worthy through prayers and right action. But that flies in the face of the first parable, with its invitation to gather the "bad and good alike." It also raises the ugly possibility that the man could not afford the proper garment. It be like poor man showing up at a modern wedding in a dirty T-shirt and jeans because he couldn't afford better. But there is no indication in the story that man could not afford the proper garment. He just shows up that way. The point is that he dressed the way he did when he could have dressed better. What would make a person show up at an event, where there is a dress code, but dress inappropriately anyway? I suggest that the strongest reason is a passive-aggressive slap at the host, or the host's values. The man, unlike those who openly refused the king's invitation, does show up at the wedding, true. But his choice of garment showed that he was actually not doing so to honor the host. And that attitude earned him a trip out of the banquet hall and into the dark.

It's not enough just to show up for the Kingdom, Jesus teaches, not if you do so with reservations or hostility to the invitation that God provides. Even "the bad and the good alike" can enter the banquet, when their desires align with the graciousness of the host who has invited them. You cannot include yourself among the elect while harboring secret hatred of God's desire to save the lowly and the unworthy. You will be found out and cast out until your heart softens and your view widens. The kingdom is a place (or even a state of mind) in which one accepts God's invitation gladly, as one accepts God's invitation of others.

No holy smokes

A coworker, whom I'll call Mark, passed away the other day.He was 60 and his end was not pleasant.

He had smoked heavily for many years and had a nicotine-tinged voice and a horrid hacking cough. His skin was furrowed from decades of tobacco.

He was also the kind of acerbic and brilliant guy who was given an office and a computer, and spent his days reading the paper or skimming the internet. Once in a while, some higher-up would need wisdom or a vision for the future, and they'd drag Mark out of his office to a closed-door meeting. There, Mark would expound, amid fits of chest-rattling coughing, on the obvious direction the company should take. The execs would nod their heads sagely. Mark would tell them exactly what they should be doing next, his sad eyes belying the occasional digs he'd make to failed projects, with the obvious warning not to follow their example. those doomed projects that had not taken his advice, venturing off into the untracked wastes where stupid ideas go to die. Then Mark would be thanked for his time. He would retreat to his office to finish the paper.

Mark ended up (no surprise) with lung cancer. Then a stroke that left him unable to speak or read.A most cruel fate for a man whose reading and voice were his soul's tools. Though his family was devastated, his end was a mercy.

I think of Mark because of the curious approach the priest took when homilizing. "Why, why did Mark leave us in the prime of his life? Why cancer? Why now?"

Anyone who knew Mark and his habits knew the answer: "Because he smoked like a trash pile for 50 years, and was too damned stubborn to stop. That's why!"

A friend's father died "young" in much the same way many years ago. He smoked, but also drank himself sick and violent before finally giving up the booze and smokes. But the damage had been done.

"I guess the Lord was calling him wanted him to come home," some said. I thought, "Yeah. God wanted him home -- in thirty years!"

We do love to comfort ourselves with nonsense:

- A child dies of leukemia. "God wanted another angel!"
- Parents and an infant die when their van blows a tire and rolls into a water-filled ditch. "It was their time."
- A 45-year-old father of four throws a clot and drops dead of a heart attack. "God has a plan."

But why does God have to take the heat when bad things happen to us -- especially bad things that are preventable? Is it blasphemy to blame God for things that are ours to control? Is it sacrilege to suppose that God has plan when maybe he doesn't? Is it the sin of pride to refuse to be liable to the vagaries of nature?

The religious mind insists that God is in everything. To the simpleminded, that means that God causes everything; be it earthquake, train wreck, industrial accident, war or disease, God's hand is in it all. But what if God wants us to refuse to accept the randomness of life? What if his purpose is to make us so sick of chaos that we find ways to banish it from our existence? What if our chore on earth is to learn to predict the earthquake, to prevent the cancer, to banish war, the poverty , the injustice?

Let's be humble enough to accept our lot as the objects of the Universe's cruelest jokes. Let's learn not to palm off our misfortunes on a capricious deity, but to become one who, like God, will "smash the heads of the dragons ... (and) crush the heads of Leviathan." (Psalm 74:13-14)

Godwalks 1

One day, in the cool of the evening, I was sitting on a bench in a city park. Kids were playing on the war monuments. Moms and Dads sat on blankets on the grass, napping, or at least letting their eyes close for a few moments. Ducks touched down in a small pond. A soft breeze blew rippled kisses on the surfaces of the water.

That's when I met God.

He was not an old wizened man in a gray frock and pointed hat as in The Lord of the Rings. He was not bearded and robed like in Michelangelo's Creation of Man. He was not an ample black woman like in The Shack. He was not a rock star in a ballerina outfit, as in Dogma.

He was not even a he. I just call "him" that because I'm a guy and it's easier.

He was just God. You'd know him if you saw him.

God had been walkong along the path that pass in front of me. He slowed and looked at me expectantly when he passed.

"So what brings you my way?" I asked.

"Nothing in particular. I just thought you might notice me this time."

"This time? You mean you've gone by me before?"

"Sure," He said. "Dozens of times. Hundreds even."

"You're not sure?"

"Why keep track?" he said with juist the hint of a twinkle in his eye. "It just makes you sad to think about it."

"You get sad?"

"Sure. Wouldn't you if you walked among people and hardly ever got a nod or a hat tip?"

"I guess, " I said thoughtfully. "So what brings you here today? And why did I notice you today when I haven't those many other times?

"God knows," he said.

"Really?"

"I do, but that's not important. Better if you knew why you saw me when you haven't before. Hey, do you mind if I sit down? I'd hate to block the path. It's so narrow."

"Sure," I said, scooting over to make room on the bench, feeling like I had missed a joke. God sat down wearily.

"So, about those other times you didn't see me..."

I hesitated, trying to reconnect the threads of my thoughts. "Well, in my defense, you do look familiar. Maybe I didn't realize that what I was looking at was you."

"That does happen a lot."

"I think I may have seen you in my imagination," I opined, brow furrowed.

"Most likely."

And I didn't see you, but I felt you once."

"Yeah? And when was that?" God asked, with coquettishly raised eyebrows.

"That movie about the elves. They were so noble and kind. I think I felt you when that beautiful elf queen gave a magical sword to the travelers."

"Yup. I do get that a lot. Though most guys think they're feeling the hots for her."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Men can't untangle noble love from lust most of the time. Stir up feelings of nobility in them, and they want to 'marry' it, if you know what I mean."

"Sad to say I do," I said, a bit sheepishly. Talking inner feelings was going to be iffy with God. Probably no point in trying to hide them.

"By the way, for no particular reason, can you...read my mind?"

"No particular reason, eh?" God said, chuckling.

I blushed. "All right. For a good reason -- it would be weird to have someone know what you're thinking."

"It would," God agree. "Humans do spend a great deal of time hiding what they are thinking -- from others and often from themselves."

"So you can tell what I'm thinking?"

"I can tell what you are thinking, and a have a pretty good guess about what you're about to think. I can also read your memories. Even the ones you can't remember yourself."

"Really? Like what?" I said, intrigued and a bit unsettled.

"Well, would you like a cute one, an embarrasssing one or an appaling one?" God said, looking out through the tree trunks to the pond. The ducks were swimming by, a picture of harmony.

"I have an appalling memory that I don't remember?" I said. "Shouldn't I know what it is? It could be dangerous."

"Well, it doesn't hurt, sometimes, to forget. In this case, the player in the memory is long gone and no longer a threat to you."

I paused to let this sink in. It didn't take much to imagine some family member doing something unspeakable. Or a stranger at a mall. Or a nasty kid in grade school. I was disquieted by the thought of being molested -- or nearly molested. Or worse? I thought it might be better off leaving that memory dormant. But wasn't my imagination about it even more distrubing? I could think of a thousand and one things that might behind this long sleeping memory.

God cut into my revery. "You're right, of course." God admitted. "I shouldn't have brought it up. I keep underestimating the versality of the human imagination."

I paused, expecting more.

"You're thinking you had a creepy uncle or aunt, or maybe a priest who molested you. Sorry. But in your case, it was a spider. You were a year and a half old, playing in a sandbox at a park, not much different from this one. You thought it was pretty, with its shiny black belly with the red hourglass underneath. It was crawling on the back of your hand when your uncle saw it, flicked it off and crushed it before it could bite. You were furious. You howled with anger and never trusted him again."

"Uncle Mike," I muttered, half to myself. "I always hated him and never knew why. He was always so nice to me, too." I faced the Deity. "And that was why?"

"That was why."

"He's been dead twenty years. I said. "I wish I could apologize."

"A wish is good as a whisper," came God's reply.

After a moment, I realized I had forgotten what got us talking about spiders and Uncle  Mike. "So where were we?"

"Whether I could read your mind."

"Right. Looks like you can. So how about my future? Can you tell me how my life will turn out?"

"Do I look like Madame Esmeralda?" quipped the Deity.

"What? Who's Madame Esmeralda?"

"That fortune-telling mannequin at the beach arcade. Drop in a quarter and have your future told."

"Well, no. But are your the Lord of all time, or something? Past, present and future?"

"Goodness, where did you hear that?

"You would know, if anyone, right?" I pursued my lips and smirked.

"Fair enough, then. Sister Mary Elizabeth, who taught 4th grade at St. Michael's. It was a September morning, you were sitting behind Janey Beth Martinez, and you were picking a juicy ooger out of your nose."

"All right. All right! Get to the point!"

"Sister was droning on about the qualities of the Father." He leaned over, looked around as if for hidden spies, and wispoered mock conspiratorially, "That's me."

I rolled my eyes. "I get it. Go on"

the Deity's eyes aprakled and he continued. "And she said that God knows all of time, as though it is is laid out before him."

"And?" I interjected. "Son;t you?"

"After a fashion. I jnow nwhat has been, and what is. I also know where things are going if they don't get derailed."

"Derailed? How do things get derailed?

"Humans, mostly. You have free will, though not as much as you like to think. But that's a conversation for another time."

The Deity stood from the bench and stretched.

"Listen, it has been great, but I've taken up enough of your time."

"Seems like we just got started," I protested.

"I gave you plenty to think about for now. Plus, I have other people to visit. Or try to visit."

"Will I see you again."

"Oh yes," he said with conviction. "Now that you have seen me once, you'll have to work hard not to see me! Until next time!"

"Later," is responded somewhat dejectedly. For while a visit with God was not the lolapalooza light show I thought it wouold be, I was disappointed that it was over.

After a few moments, I got up and walked toward the park entrance. KIds were still climbing over the Civil War cannon and playing bide-andseek around the battlefield memorials. The sun was pierecing through the darkeing trees and sending shafts of sunlight and shadow over the manicured grounds.

"I just talked to God, " I thought. "And he knew me like I know myself. Better, even. And all I talked about was some old memories and dumb questions about my past."

Next time, I thought, I resolved to be more prepared

Rocks and rocks

Behold Peter the Saint:

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.  And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.  (Matthew 16: 13-18)

Behold Peter the Satan:

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matthew 16: 21-23)

Father Ken had a great sermon this Sunday about Peter, the Twelve's Bumbler-in-Chief. In back-to-back readings, Peter goes from blessed to cursed. He starts as the rock, the one strong and solid enough to build a church on, and ends up as the rock, the thing you trip over on your way. Jesus is setting out his mission, which includes leaving the familiarity and relative success of his homeland, Galilee, and traveling to The Show -- the dangerous city of Jerusalem, the den of his challengers, most learned opponents. Not to mention those with the means to have him silenced permanently. Jesus needs to bring his message to the highest representatives of his people. He knows the message will not be well received. Peter seems to think that everything will go well, and that no chump's reception will meet his teacher. But Jesus knows better than to give in to false optimism. He does not go to Jerusalem because he will succeed. He goes in spite of the fact that he knows he will fail, at least in the eyes of his opponents.

Father Ken's take? Stay on mission. When you are called to something, don't let work, fatigue, family obligations or the sheer impossibility of the task deter you.

We live in a world of obligations. We have mortgages, college loans, cars and bills to pay. We feel the limitations of church and society -- not to mention our own physical and mental limitations. We have family "obligations" -- whether a weekly meal or a holiday get-together -- that pull us out of our orbits. We have parents, kids and grandkids who need us. But how about our obligations to our integrity? How about our need to fulfill our God-given mission to look outside of ourselves, to serve those in need?

I don't have a definitive answer for anyone, least of all myself. In Jesus' day, the world was more stark and the necessities more urgent. The world was about to be upended in catastrophe! Jesus was able to tell people to leave their wives, children and jobs to follow him. He could tell a man to skip his father's funeral, or a rich man to sell everything her had. Though some turned him down, many accepted his offer, including Peter, who abandoned his job to follow Jesus. Who knows how his wife and mother-in-law survived his absence? (Though we know that his wife accompanied him as he preached after the Resurrection -- 1 Corinthians 9:5).

In our day, it's harder to see ourselves making the radical abandonment that Jesus asked of his disciples. But in the morass of obligations that make their demands on our time and energy, maybe we can be a little more careful about what we do spend our time on. Will I be late for work if my son calls me on my cell phone as I am heading out the door? Will I risk having people skip my Easter dinner if I don't go to their Christmas gift swap? Am I going to a wedding only to make sure my kids have "family" at their weddings?

Which of my obligations are done to guarantee that unloving  people love me back? And which obligations make me stronger, make love deeper and let me use my gifts for the betterment of all?

Maybe it's time to distinguish between rocks and rocks -- the rocks on which we build lives of love and service, and the rocks that just trip us up and send us sprawling in the dust.

Can the Bible be saved?

It's an old book -- written as far back as the Bronze Age (1600 BCE) from tales circulating for possibly centuries before. It has an archaic understanding of biology, math and science. It reflects ageless superstitions (goats mating in front of striped reeds will give birth to striped offspring) along with plain errors about science (the sun can be made to stand still, all animal species were created at once) and the complexities of human psychology (homosexuality and cross-dressing are inherently unnatural).

It is the Bible.

Does it still have relevance? Or would we be better off without it?

The Bible's take on the origin of the cosmos and humanity is one of reasoning backward from the present -- trying to look at a clay pot and running the film backward to its baking, spinning and mining of clay from the ground. In the case of the Bible's first authors, they observed the world and noted several things. One was its vastness, danger and incomprehensibility. This was a place far beyond the ability of human beings to manufacture. Some greater being must have been involved in putting this in place. On the biological front, plants grew mysteriously from the soil. While some were inedible or poisonous, others produced fruits and nourishment. Great lights spun overhead giving light that humans required in order to hunt or till. Beasts of many different varieties were spread across (and under and above) the face of the earth. They mated, giving rise to others of their kind. Moreover, human beings were different from the other beasts. They spoke; they planned; they learned in ways that animals did not. They gave birth in pain. They preyed on one another. Unlike other animals, they fed themselves at great cost in time and energy. For the early Bible writers, this combination of a sometimes-benign creation that provided many of the conditions that humans needed to survive, pointed to a creator who had designed a cosmos with human beings in mind. The world was a place of great abundance. Fish and fowl and fruit were easy enough to obtain. The earth was (on balance) good, as must have been the intents of its Creator. Yet Man's gifts of speech, cunning, sociability and adaptability were often used selfishly and cruelly, something that was not seen elsewhere in the animal world. Man's world had been blasted. Would a provident God create a less-than-perfect world?Or was lief hard for Man as a punishment? And if a Punishment, then a Crime. And what crime more heinous and worthy of punishment than the hubris of wanted to be God? And so, Genesis began as a story of God's loving involvement in the creation of the cosmos and Man's diversion from God's purpose.

We have been living with the consequences of that story for 3700 years.

Another example. The Jesus of the New Testament clearly believes in an imminent social catastrophe that will usher in the reign of God. The proud will be cast down from their thrones. The meek will inherit the earth. Illness will be healed and death will be defeated. But no such catastrophe occurred. Sure. the Temple was destroyed in 60AD, the Roman Empire started its fall in the 5th century and countless other social rumblings and reversals have occurred in the centuries since. But the poor are still poor, the proud still cling to their thrones, sickness still holds sway over huge swaths of the planet's population, and death will claim us all, sooner or later.

What to make of a Jesus who believed in a cosmic societal realignment that never happened? Can Christianity survive a founder who bought into a world-view that has been proved wrong?

Today, when reading the insightful guesses of the Bible writers, it's easy to see the book as directly reflecting the mind of God. God creates man first, woman second. Surely this suggests dominance of men over women! The Bible tells of a world-wide flood. Surely, we should see the this flood on the landscape -- such as the Grand Canyon! Fundamentalists fall all over each other to deny the findings of science. Less-extreme believers try to paper over the book's obvious flaws to psychologizing or allegorizing its stories. The Flood story is not historical, but a beautiful tale about God's unwillingness to destroy his creation, no matter how immoral it has become.

Whether these approaches are satisfying in the long run is open to question. Literalists may eventually have to recognize that their approach is a denial of everything we know about the universe. Allegorizers may eventually see that looking for deeper meaning in Bible stories deprives them of their raw, literal power.

It's no wonder that the 21st century has become the battle ground for the many believers who wish to hold onto the idea that the Bible is true in all its particulars. Unable to distinguish discardable ancient tribal "wisdom" (like the need to keep menstruating women out of sight and off the furniture) and possible psychosocial insights about projecting your own evil on others (the parable about the log in your eye), they have doubled down. The Bible is right and evolutionists are wrong, as are the cosmologists who believe in a 13.5 billion year old universe, rater than the 600-year-old earth suggested by the Bible.

Will we eventually whittle the Bible down to the sections that make sense? And if we do, will we inevitably lose its authority? Can Jesus, stripped of his insistence that changes were coming, and his desperately hope to save a few from the coming wrath, still be considered a savior? And if so, savior from what? Is a psychologized  Bible -- its lessons coming less from the historical/scientific reality of its words than from their insights into human/divine relations -- attractive enough to hold the attention and veneration of its adherents?

For centuries, certainly among America's original settlers, the Bible has been the bedrock of social policy and the inspiration for those who have helped the less fortunate. It has inspired people to assemble into bodies that sought to legislate solutions to intractable human problems. But the Bible no longer serves that purpose. For many in the secular age, it is hardly known. For believers, more and more conservative as time goes on, its use is to enforce millennia-old prejudices -- against women, gays and the sick. Has the Bible run its course? Is its continued use an impediment to human well-being?

Perhaps the Bible's long and popular run is over. Perhaps continuing to read it is dangerous to our personal and social health. Perhaps, like an orange that has been squeezed of its last ounce of juice, it is time to throw the dried out rind into the garbage disposal.

If so, it would be a shame. There is a great deal to learn from the book -- even if that is to understand how human beings have tried (and failed) to understand the divine. How kings use God to further their unworthy schemes. How those in power use their purported relation to the divine to sway whole populations in the wrong direction. How sinners and the humble can find greatness within themselves. How even prophets and Sons of God can further goodness (= Godness?) while holding social ideas that don't stand the test of time.

Unbelievable?

OK, I confess. I haven't been to Mass in the last 3 Sundays. No special reason - just had a late Saturday night or a need to collect myself.

Just the other day, I had this strange experience. I did not know what the Sunday reading was, and I didn't much care. I had this almost out-of-body sensation of living in a world without a religious overlay. In which the myths and stories that guided my life were no longer important. As though Jesus and the gospels had lost their vitality and their pull on my soul.

I imagined a world where a forest was just a forest, not a manifestation of Creation.Where a sky was just sky, without intimations of Heaven.

Yesterday, I was picking music for my community's feast day for the Virgin. And as I considered which old chestnuts to include in the program, I wondered if I, amateur songwriter, might write up something myself. But I didn't know where I'd begin. Mary, the woman for whom the Church has sprung cartwheels in ages past, seemed to have no immediacy to me. I don't feel that I need to approach Christ through her. I don't feel that she has special powers to keep me safe, or that praying to her has special resonance with God. Any decent God doesn't need me to memorize lists of intermediaries, praying to the right one for the right cure or help with the right problem.

I did feel a bit nervous, wondering whether the heavenly host had withdrawn from me, springing back into itself like a carpenter's measure, because I had failed to do it honor or give it my attention. Was this the dark night of the soul? A transition to another level of spirituality? Or a passing perception?

I'm not sure yet.

I do know that I still carry around the lessons of the gospels -- about love of neighbor, preference for the poor, distrust of wealth, the benignity of God. But I also know that the old stories don't have the same resonance right now. Some seem downright strange. For instance, I can't get worked up about Christ dying for my sins. I guess I should be grateful, but I don't understand the problem that his death was supposed to solve. I read today about Mark Chapman, John Lennon's killer, saying that he had found peace and forgiveness in his belief in Jesus. Maybe I am hard-hearted, but I can't imagine perpetrating that crime and feeling like I could put it behind me. Tone down its horror maybe, but its after-effects would keep pace with my life, like a jogging buddy. I would never forget that I had gunned down a Beatle. For no good reason.

Neither can I get excited about Jesus being the Messiah or talking about the Kingdom of Heaven. I almost wonder if these things were just features of a strange strand of Judaism that would have died out if it hadn't been picked up by Christians. Imagine 2000 years with no one arguing whether Jesus was or wasn't the messiah. 2000 years free of pogroms and crusades. 2000 years without original sin or the Trinity or the papacy.

I feel prepared to rebuild my faith from the ground up. Community, justice and truth still propel me. The wonders of the Universe and of Nature awe me. Let's see where this takes us!

Sugar, shoot!

A nine-year-old girl in Arizona is (inexplicably) being taught to fire an Uzi. The instructor shows her how to hold the gun, then tells her how to position her feet. Clearly, the girl has no experience with guns -- not even in play. He tells her to fire one shot. She does. Then, he says, "full auto" and flips a switch on the gun. She pulls the trigger. In a blur too quick for the video camera to capture, the gun kicks to the left, spewing a torrent of bullets. Here the video ends. But the rest of the story is known: the instructor is shot in the head and dies.

Gun enthusiasts will point to the video and claim that this is an isolated incident. But this kind of thing seems to happen every day. 3-year-olds shoot their Dads (it's always Dads, isn't it?) or themselves. Little kids shoot their friends. Grown men shoot themselves in the leg or groin. Over and over and over.

There is a very vocal faction in this country that sees all of this mayhem is acceptable collateral damage in the campaign to regularize the owing and public display of firearms. I am sure that my Facebook post on the subject will get shot down (an aptly-chosen metaphor) by self-styled "patriots" who see themselves as guarantors of Americans' precious right to arm themselves the teeth.

Our Founders were rightly concerned about royal attempts to disarm them, making them unable to stand against the depredations and stupidities of empire. But today's patriots have no communal sense -- only an individualist's sense of expressing his own stunted masculinity with gun play.

The sickness in our society stems from our switch from communalism -- villagers banding together against evil outsiders -- to individualism -- the desire to show off one's macho and terrorize one's fellow villagers. We won't make significant inroads against gun violence until we address the pathology of the personal -- the unrealistic need to protect one's own, and only one's own.

As a species, we have not progressed to our current state via the efforts of individuals. No pharaoh built a pyramid. No pope built a cathedral. No mogul built a railroad. No president won a war. All of our great accomplishments from the concerted efforts of hundreds, thousands or millions of people, all working in unison toward a communal goal. The gun nut's fantasy is that a firearm will make them king of their own universe. Something that hasn't happened in recorded history, and will never happen in then future.

Rather than becoming a legend in in their own minds, guns make them the widowed, the childless, the slain and the accidental killer.

Punctured dream

Michael Brown has been laid to rest, but the controversy surrounding his death continues to smoulder. The New York Times today just exacerbated things with a piece about Brown that was fairly laudatory, except for an outrageously badly-worded summary sentence:

Michael Brown, 18, due to be buried on Monday, was no angel, with public records and interviews with friends and family revealing both problems and promise in his young life. Shortly before his encounter with Officer Wilson, the police say he was caught on a security camera stealing a box of cigars, pushing the clerk of a convenience store into a display case. He lived in a community that had rough patches, and he dabbled in drugs and alcohol. He had taken to rapping in recent months, producing lyrics that were by turns contemplative and vulgar. He got into at least one scuffle with a neighbor.

He "was no angel" --  phrase typically charitably applied to good-hearted yet deeply troubled people. Yet all Brown's devilishness came down to one disputed charge of shoplifting, smoking some pot and drinking some beers, enjoying rap and once getting into a pushing match. Sounds a lot like the story of every kid's adolescence. Sounds damn near exemplary to me for a kid who lives in an economically disadvantaged area.

The last weeks have been a circus of character assassination and withheld information. The Ferguson PD delayed releasing the name of the officer who shot Brown. They released a video, taken minutes before the shooting, that seemed to show Brown stealing cigars from a convenience store. They claimed (without corroborating evidence) that Brown was trying to get hold of the cop's gun. After two weeks, and under intense pressure, they released the incident report, with large areas blanked out. They terrorized peaceful protesters and news media with military vehicles, weapons and tactics, tear gassing people, threatening to shoot them and arresting them for taking pictures. They even http://www.mediaite.com/tv/watch-cops-physically-push-cnns-don-lemon-during-tense-ferguson-protest/, because. Well, just because.

Elements of the white community -- both in Ferguson and beyond, closed ranks behind the shooter. His story had yet to be told. Innocent until proven guilty! Brown deserved what he got (execution for a petty theft). They raised more than a quarter million dollars. Fox News circulated false rumors that Brown had given his killer a broken eye socket, suggesting a vicious fight. They claimed that  Brown had been charging his killer, in spite of stories from numerous witnesses, gathered immediately after the incident, that he had been running away from the bullets and was surrendering with his hands up. Some claimed he was crazy on marijuana. Well-known black authorities were ridiculed. Today, they claimed that an unarmed 300-pound black kid is really "armed" due to his weight and strength alone.A Facebook page dedicated to the shooter gathered ugly comments about blacks, and exonerating comments about his killer.

The old, racist machinery that justifies heinous acts against blacks is functioning smoothly in Ferguson, Missouri. It's as if it was well-oiled and ably-maintained after the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. No wonder some blacks continue to claim that it was never put in mothballs, but has been in active usage all these years.

We have light years to go before we reach the color-blind society that Dr. King dreamed about.

The narrow gate for science and religion

 

I'll get to the point right a way. Given what we know about cosmology, evolution and biochemistry, there are only two general explanations for the existence of God. Either the atheists are right, and there is no god needed to explain life, the universe and everything in it. Or there is a God who operates in a way that sure makes it look like he's not there!

The principle of Occam's razor tilts heavily in favor of a godless universe. Occam's razor postulates that the hypothesis with the smallest number of assumptions is likely to be right. When it comes to thunderstorms, for instance, the existence of electrically-charged clouds is enough to understand when and where lightning will strike. You can throw God in there if you will, hurling thunderbolts hither and thither, but that adds neither accuracy nor purpose to the effects of the storm.

The same goes for much of the other activity in the universe. Whether it is a rock slide (gravity) or a stellar explosion (fuel burnout and more gravity) or the variety of lifeforms (mutations and natural selection) or the origin of life itself (self-replicating chemicals), the need to throw God into the mix is unnecessary. If mutations were nonexistent or rare, you might make the argument that God is needed to stir up the gene pool. But mutations are crazy common, as are the DNA copying mistakes, chromosomal breakage and other genomic folderol that makes redheads different from brunettes and Downs kids different from non-Downs kids.

It seems that science has given God nothing to do.

There is the argument that God (through the Holy Spirit) supports existence itself, which is certainly possible, but completely unprovable. It seems to hide nod behind the darkest veil of all -- the "is-ness" of Is. But it doesn't really help we poor suffering humans to know that the God who supports existence itself allows it to bump and meander the way it does.

Still, I believe in a benevolent being who sustains us in trouble and who influences the direction of our lives. I continue to measure myself against the treasured insights and teachings of Jesus transmitted in the gospels. I see hints of God's activity in the small events of ordinary life. And I believe that my job in life is to become more loving, and to bring that love, God's love, to others.

The God who exists may or may not have a solid relationship with the Universe we see. Neither is He a distant and uninvolved. I have no idea how to combine the existence of the visible or sensible Cosmos with the justice and humanity to which God calls me. The closest I can come is to assume that God is somehow expressed in all life and all existence. That His will works unseen through countless ages and numberless populations. That this messy, death-strewn world somehow effects his desires. And that my place in that existence depends on honoring God's presence in all things and in all people.

Is that the simplest way to look at life? Does my view survive Occam's razor? I don't know. I can only take comfort in the wisdom of those who perceive the world as more complex than our senses can discern. Who see that "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

I am humbled by the majesty of the Universe and my own puniness. Perhaps God's game is to show how little we really no about him. To dethrone him from the thundercloud, the rainbow, the music of the spheres, the birth of the Cosmos is to show how incapable we are of pinning him down. Maybe that's the ultimate lesson we all need to learn: God is to big for us to label or to own.

RIP, Robin Williams

My first reaction to the news of Robin Williams' was that it was probably suicide. The signs were there. His latest series, The Crazy Ones, seemed like a tired retrofit for his manic personality. And there was always a strong strain in melancholy in his characters. Maybe the "funny" had finally fizzled for this manic, but profoundly sad man.

I have to confess that my second reaction was anger. At him. For having put his family through the excruciating ordeal of dealing with the suicide of a loved one. I knew this was harsh, but it was what I felt. How could a person not take into account the agony of his wife and kids before taking such a drastic action

As I came to think about this more, it seemed apparent that the pain of depression is greater than most people can appreciate. If the pain of a toothache can be blinding (and it only last for a few days) what must it be like to suffer the constant stab of depression -- over a lifetime? You can escape it for a while -- I supposed that may be what propelled Williams to act so manically and to drown himself in chemicals. But how long can you keep that up, even with therapy and drugs to take the edge off? In Williams case, the answer was 63 years.

The consolation of Heaven is that for suffering people like Robin Williams, there is a place where your mind can survive while shorn of the frailties and fragile design of the human brain. Robin Williams did so much good in his life, so there is no doubt that his spirit lives with God. While we recall his incredible oeuvre, and sympathize with his grieving family, he rejoice that in the arms of the Lord, he is experiencing new life where pain and tears and death are gone forever.

Unholy alliances

Yesterday's SCOTUS ruling -- allowing Hobby Lobby to essentially choose which health care laws it will obey -- is a terrible legal precedent -- even though the majority tried to make it seem like a one-off affair. Hobby Lobby is OK with 16 of the 20 forms of birth control mandated by the Obama Administration -- that is, the 20 forms of birth control that are FDA-approved. Those seeking to minimize the damage insist that we should all grow up and not make a big deal about losing 4 BC methods. But for that, we can only thank the fact that Hobby Lobby's owners are rather moderate evangelicals whose main issue is abortion, not contraception. Had the owners been traditionalist Catholics, they might have objected to ALL forms of birth control -- condoms, tubal ligations, vasectomies and the Pill.To my mind, there's nothing stopping such a suit from coming before the Court. You have to wonder how that case would come out -- would the 5 Catholic justices from the majority really OK a ban on methods of birth control that nearly all married couples (and likely themselves) use?

I can't get it through the heads of Obama haters that a defeat for Obamacare is not a victory for them. I can't get it through the heads of religious people that a victory for a few religious people is not a win for all religious people. We have lost sight of the big picture. We can't understand how a victory for "our side" could come back one day and bite us in the ass.

The cornerstone of our democracy and our pluralistic society is the separation of Church and State. Letting the Church handle the levers of the State is a hugely bad idea. Because, who agrees on anything? Catholics and Protestants don't agree on the words of the Our Father. Protestants can't agree among themselves about who is saved and who is damned, and how you should be baptized. They may all pray to Jesus, but the similarities mostly end there. Secular governing is hard enough as it is. Why complicate it exponentially by having the government choose winners and losers in one of the most fundamental and emotional human activity: religion?

As I told a friend, the last time Church and State worked hand in hand, we ended up with the Salem witch trials and the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre. Our Founders escaped Europe to get away from that kind of lethal nonsense. They wisely decided that government had no business favoring one sect over another. They learned from experience that it was unwise for the state-supported religion to tax everyone for its upkeep, including those who belonged to other sects.

We may have to learn this lesson again the hard way. I hope not. The blood and suffering that resulted would be an unconscionable sin against humanity. And against history.

Digging up Vatican dirt

John Thavis's terrific book, The Vatican Diaries,  about his time as a correspondent for Catholic New Services is brimming with amazing behind-the-scenes glimpses of the Vatican and its denizens. Some stories are comical -- workmen refusing to ring the bells to announce the election of Benedict XVI because they didn't get the news from the right bishop. Some are sad -- Pope John Paul II, enfeebled by Parkinson's disease, powerless to stop the fall from his lap of a folder full of liturgical material. Some are pathetic -- Benedict the XVI, with his Germanic need for precision and control -- missing a chance to connect emotionally at his visit to the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem by failing to bring up his own unwilling service in the Hitler Youth. Some are maddening -- the inability of the Legion of Christ to stop spinning its innocence when the internally well-known pedophilia of its founder, Marcial Maciel, was uncovered. The impression that Thavis gives is not of an immensely powerful and dangerous cabal (the subtext of Dan Brown's novels) but of a bumbling, disorganized band of liars and clowns.

But nothing compares with the story of the Vatican's new underground parking lot. An American bishop with a mania for balancing budgets and removing automobiles from view has been placed at the head of the Vatican's city government. But his latest project, a parking lot under the Vatican, raises concerns with archaeologists. What treasures might lie buried beneath the long-undisturbed soil? But the bishop wants his lot and his head engineer wants to keep to his schedule. So archaeologists are forbidden from entering the site, and the digging begins. All proceeds according to plan until security cameras catch glimpses of open-topped trucks hauling away loads of dirt studded with ancient marble. An inscribed sarcophagus is found in a landfill near Rome's airport. Finally, the archaeologists are brought in. When they examine the muddy excavation site, they see sheared-off mausoleum walls, and shards of ancient tombs strewn about. Bulldozers have unearthed not just a few old tombs, but an intact cemetery dating from the 1st and 2nd centuries, complete with carved sculptures, delicate mosaics and even the votive lamps left by ancient mourners. The digging is stopped and the heavy machinery is removed. But the archaeologists are given a strict timetable. They are granted but a few short weeks to do their work, after which the mechanized digging will begin anew. The parking lot must go on!

Perhaps in a land where ancient treasures are common, antiquities no longer capture the imagination or compel interest. But the attitude of this churchman -- for whom a mere parking lot meant more than a once-in-a-lifetime archaeological find -- and meters away from St. Peter's tomb! -- took my breath away. It's no wonder that men like this, for whom history and knowledge hold no interest, couldn't be bothered about the living treasures of their own flocks. Just goes to show ya that a boor dressed up in purple is still a boor. That our church harbors so many such men, especially in its high ranks, is a cause for distress and alarm.

By the way, does our tale of bulldozed burials have a happy ending? Haven't read that far yet. But God, I hope so.

Bending the Pope's ear

A couple of years

ago, my wife scored tickets to a free James Taylor concert. She was working for an outfit that gave assistance to Haiti after the devastating earthquake of 2010, and the concert was Taylor's than you to her group and others. We had a great view -- balcony seats that overlooked the stage. And after the concert, we had a chance to go backstage to meet James Taylor himself!

He was gentle, kind and terrific. He came around to each person on our entourage and shook our hands. When he got to me, I was just star-struck, and babbled on and on about how we named our own "Sweet Baby James" after him, etc. etc. He smiled politely. But without warning, and mid-gush, he simply moved on to the next person in line.

It was a humbling experience for me. I guess I hoped that he would recognize me in some way. But I was just another face in the crowd.

It was an experience (among many others) that made me look at my own need to be recognized, but also at how desperate I might appear to people who have acheived actual greatness. Who am I to think that James Taylor would want to chat me up after a two-second introduction?

But what if instead of James Taylor, it was the Pope who would greet me in line? What if I had five seconds to say something to him? Or would it be better to say nothing?

What would you say to him?

Hoping not to be as goofy as I was with Taylor, I hope I could to keep a leash on my nervousness and say something that would express my needs as a Catholic. But there are so many topics to choose from -- imperialistic tendencies in my own country, anti-intellectualism in my nation and Church, the hatred of many for the poor, our Church's continued diminishment of women and homosexuals, the sad state of vocations. The list goes on.

But in  my 5 seconds, I would ask the pope to look at an area that might represent the bad faith and shoddy arguments underpinning too many Church practices and teachings. I would say this: "You must reexamine the intellectual support for a total ban on birth control."

Birth control has long been a sore spot for the Church. But ever since 1968, when Pope Paul VI promulgated Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church's ban on artificial BC, it has become a cornerstone of the Church's teachings, its entree into the culture wars that have divided churches and nations, and one of the main reasons that many Catholics -- priests and sisters included --left the Church. The teaching about birth control ignores so much about human life -- population growth, the nature of love between men and women, the need to soften the impact of young lust in an open and unsupervised society. The encyclical is an ignorant and deeply flawed document that only a theologian can love.

Today, because of Humanae Vitae, we have gained yet another a litmus test for Catholics. If you accept the teaching, you are a good Catholic. If you don't, you are a sinner and even an apostate. People, myself included, have kept ourselves out of the priesthood and the diaconate because we refuse to sully our integrity by swearing that we believe in the teaching. Catholics have to hide their use of contraceptives from each other, though every Catholic family with "only" 2 or 3 kids should be suspect. Meanwhile, the teaching has drawn the not-too-bright and not-too-virtuous into the clergy. I have met precious few deacons who are even intellectual lightweights -- never mind contenders or heavyweights. These men, good though they are, believe what the Church teaches, because the Church teaches it. As for priests, even for the brilliant and scholarly, their choice is to accept the belief and advance in rank, or question it and see their careers stall. There are few truly courageous men in the priesthood. Which is an irony for men who follow a savior who chose crucifixion to standing for his message.

In my five seconds, I would ask the pope to look at the totality of the teaching on birth control. Not just it theological ramifications, which involve spirit and the will of God, but the way it plays out in the real world of men, women and relationships. I would ask him to honestly study how the use of the Pill in the last 50 years has not been the unmitigated disaster that its critics believe it to be. How it has broadened women's choices, allowing them to use their God-given faculties. How it has relieved Catholic families from unwanted and unsupportable children. I would stress how Catholic parents are still capable and more than willing to cooperate with God in the creation of human life -- just not an endless series of pregnancies. I would ask him to sever the Church's ties to natural law as a means of regulating every aspect of human existence. We no longer need this medieval system of "science" -- especially in light of what we have learned about our bodies from medicine (we are by and large machines), evolution (sexuality is a biological imperative, not a pure gift from a loving Father) and psychology and anthropology (sex helps men and women maintain a pair-bond). It's past time to abandon the pseudoscience of natural law, an to top insulting the intelligence of educated laypeople.

I would ask the pope to take into account the real-world consequences of the Church's teachings as well. The overcrowded favelas in Brazil and the overpopulated streets of Manila and other great cities challenges the teaching that every human sexual act must be open to procreation. Those in Catholic countries have been forced into that situation. And it has not increased their human freedom or tapped their human potential. It has merely created an army of souls that can be registered in the church rolls and given the Church someone to succor as they toil in poverty and want.

I don't think Jesus would approve of a system that creates poor people -- especially when the only winners are churchmen in cassocks and frilled robes. He warned of those who:

"Tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’" Matthew 23:4-7

Replace "phylacteries" with "mitres," "tassels" with "red capes," "synagogues" with "church banquets" and "Rabbi" with "Father," and you have a good sense of what Jesus might have to say about our current Church. Humanae Vitae has made fools and liars of us. It diminishes the Church's authority as arbiter of morals. And it has brought out the worst in Catholics. The destructive urge to seem better than the people you serve is what drives so much of what is wrong with the Church. It is what allows weak teachings to be accepted when they bear no relevance to the lives of the faithful and to be institutionalized when they harm the very people they are trying to help.

Perhaps it's time to be a little less starstruck when "Father" or "your Eminence" or "your Holiness" comes to town. And more demanding that the teaching they promote has some basis in gospel values and in lived experience.

First Amendment Follies

Oh, why are people so confused?

This week, Robert Copeland, the 82-year-old police commissioner in Wolfeboro, N.H., resignedl under pressure after publicly and loudly using the N-word to describe President Obama. He not only admitted to doing so and refused to apologize, but doubled down.  "For this, I do not apologize -- [Obama] meets and exceeds my criteria for such."  

Wow.

I have known all my life that know there are racists in lily-white New Hampshire. I grew up among them. Jokes about blacks were a staple of one branch of my extended family. I have a cousin who loves n*gger jokes; he actually told one to me at the collation after my mother's funeral in 2002. Maybe he thought it would cheer me up. Shame on me, but I smiled politely, not wanting to cause a fuss. We haven't spoken since. I also had a grand uncle who didn't understand what the big deal about the N-word was about. Speaking about a black coworker from the 1930s or 1940s, he said, "Yeah, we had a guy we called 'N*gger Charlie,' and it didn't bother him." Thanks for the civics lesson, Uncle Al. Blacks in that era who objected to their treatment were listened to politely, right?

Anyway, there are several responses to the Wolfeboro story. One is outrage. It can seem a bit mindless, and consists of people upset, on principle, about any use of the N-word. Not having grown up among blacks, they know its a bad word used by bad people. Hence it's verboten. It's a well-meaning response, but a little shallow and scary since it has so little thinking or experience to back it up.

But other varieties of responses go into the weeds. I have run into those who won't deal with what Copeland said, but demand that his detractors address racist language used by Copeland's foes. "How about Al Sharpton, huh? He said racist things and the liberals didn't call for him to resign." That's pretty pathetic reasoning. These folks obviously didn't pay attention when their moms told them that "two wrongs don't make a right." But they aren't really interested in justice for all sides. Intentionally or not, they end up defending people like Copeland, since they have a bottomless well of perceived slights that must be addressed before they would consider admit wrongdoing. And who knows whether they would apologize even after their wounds have been completely healed? People like this have a permanent sense of grievance that no amount of apologizing will assuage. They like to be victims. They enjoy feeling persecuted. It gives them a sense virtue to be harassed by the mob -- like Christians in the arena. Problem is, their cause is not very Christian. And it's not very convincing to sit in a culturally privileged position and think you're being persecuted.

But then there is the curse-on-both-your-houses group that might be unhappy with Copeland's use of the N-word, but think that outrage against him is also silly. They argue that outrage against using the N-word is itself a crime against the First Amendment, and is just a form of political correctness.Whatever happened to "Sticks and stones my break my bones, but words will never hurt me"? This shows appalling ignorance of a period in living memory (I would argue that it is happening today) when mere names gave rise to laws and cultures that promoted segregation and violence against blacks.Throughout history, the N-word has served as a potent means of denigrating blacks and denying them their civil rights, often with the complicity of the police themselves. Using the word has social, political and economic weight that makes it especially fraught. Avoiding a word that was used to harass, intimidate and disenfranchise an entire class of human beings is not a matter of liberal oversensitivity. It's a matter of civics and American values.

If our society is to stand for fairness and equality under the law, we should expect that the people charged with enforcing those laws to do so with fairness and equality. Any suggestion that they might favor one group over another should be challenged. In the conflict between speech rights and civil rights, the free use of the N-word has to be limited. Tell your idiot friends all the black jokes that you want to. But when you are charged with protecting the public -- all of the public -- at least have the brains to keep your bigoted opinions to yourself.

Sticks and stones aside, words do hurt, because they communicate how worthy or worthless we are in others' eyes. Words (and the social constructs behind them) affect the places we are allowed to live, the banks that will serve us, the schools that will educate us and the jobs that will sustain us. Words haunt our past, bedevil our present and shape our future

I'm glad that Robert Copeland had the brains to resign. It would have been better if he had the heart to see his mistake and to apologize too. But if he thought his words would have found a better reception, he was wrong. For that, and for the citizens of Wolfeboro who demanded his ouster, I give thanks. The fight for civil rights and a civil society is not something that happened in the 1960s and has been settled. We are not yet in a post-racial society. Not by a long shot. The fight for justice will continue to be fought as long as there are people who seek to vest only those like themselves (whether by race, religion or gender) with more civil power than is afforded to others.