I know some people who hate God right now. One lost a child to illness. Several have simply had a bad run of luck in recent years. They can’t understand why an all-loving God lets bad things happen to them.
I used to be there: When my brother died or when my friend Sean Marley died. In the aftermath of those events, I wasn’t on speaking terms with God. At other points in my life, like my struggle to contain OCD and addictive behavior, I was talking to God, but nothing coming from my mouth was making much sense. I was rattling off prayers designed to make my life safer and more comfortable.
My relationship with God has gone through changes in recent years. I no longer pray for the safety of everyone I know. I just pray we’ll all have the wisdom to live our lives the way we’re supposed to for whatever length of time we’re going to be around. I’ve come to see life’s body blows not as a punishment but as situations we’re supposed to work through to come out stronger.
To those who ask why it’s worth having faith when there’s always the chance that there’s really nothing there after death, I ask, what’s the alternative? Even if there’s nothing on the other side, I’d still rather live by beliefs that include treating those around me right and striving for good. I’d still rather strive for a clean soul, though I admittedly have a lot of work to do on that one. If there’s nothing on the other side, at least I’ll have taken a shot at being a better person.
In the movie “Pearl Harbor,” there’s a scene where FDR meets with his military advisors and expresses his desire to strike back at Japan. His advisors give him all the reasons why it can’t be done. Then he mentions the polio that left him in a wheelchair and how he’s spent every hour of his life wondering why God put him in the chair.
Too dramatic? Maybe. This was a product of Hollywood and the scene was probably only loosely based on what really happened.
Still, I can totally picture FDR saying those things. He did say them at various times of his presidency.
His faith helped him deal with some of the biggest challenges mankind had faced up to that point. In that war and wars since then, faith has helped a lot of people push forward with the tasks that terrified them.
They chose to believe despite all the terrible things that happen around here.
Crosses aren’t nice things. We all have them. But they make us who we are.
Mood music:
Jesus carried his Cross to redeem the world. The way we carry our Crosses define us.
We can complain that we are victims and that God is cruel. Or we can carry our Crosses like Jesus did, and turn adversity into strength. We can learn from our suffering and strive each day to be a blessing to others.
I always try to do the latter. I often fall to the former.
But I press on, because it’s the least I can do for the King who died for my sins.
Recent beheadings at the hands of ISIS have caused a spike in news-show rhetoric about the need to profile those who look like Muslims as a way to stop terrorists. My Facebook feed is frequently overrun with talk about how Islam is a savage and evil religion.
We’re doing what we do best when scared: painting entire groups and faiths with the same bigoted brush.
Mood music:
I understand the anger.
I absolutely loathe ISIS. Every time I see footage of innocents beheaded, I want to throw up. I felt the same way when watching the violence committed by insurgents in Iraq a decade ago. I have no stomach for murder. When it’s done in the name of religion, it makes me feel worse.
I won’t lie to you: When seeing this violence, my imagination has run wild with thoughts about how great it would be to wipe out these bastards with nuclear weapons. I’ve thought about how fitting it would be to see these guys getting their heads cut off. In that regard, I’m not much better than the people who litter my news feeds with hate and cries of vengeance.
But when I reflect some more, I always come back to a stubborn fact — evil exists in all religions.
I’m a Catholic whose faith was shaken by the news of widespread sexual abuse at the hands of priests. It’s also hard to understand the blood spilled in the name of Christianity in places like Northern Ireland. Christians have done terrible things in the name of Christianity since the beginning. The Crusades are but one example.
What I always come back to is this: Non-organized religions breed evil. So do individuals. Organized religion breeds evil, too.
I consider myself faithful in the belief that Jesus Christ is my savior — the guiding hand through the minefield set by my personal demons. If that makes you uncomfortable, so be it. I see it as a personal relationship. The problems begin when people make it about more than that and attach politics to the mix.
I don’t buy into the rhetoric of organized Christian denominations that invites hatred of gays and others who don’t follow doctrine to the letter. That malarky is the seed that leads to violence against homosexuals. As a Catholic, I do have high hopes that Pope Francis is going to move us away from that. This statement is especially telling.
Most people follow their faith, be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism, what have you, peacefully. They don’t turn it into a political vehicle or a militaristic recruitment drive. I’ve met a lot of people of different faiths in my travels. In talking with them, a shared distaste for religious extremism always comes to the surface.
If we stopped blaming entire faiths for the evil acts of a few, we might actually get somewhere as human beings.
I’ve written a lot about how my mental ticks give me the holiday blues. But let’s face it: Sometimes the mood is sparked by the hypocrisy I see in capitalism, religion and government.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/4Y5GtaTrPHM
Every year in church I hear someone talking about the so-called war on Christmas, where Godless people apparently do everything possible to tear the Christ out of Christmas, from the public schools banning Christmas decorations to people saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”
Then I turn on the radio or TV and see suggestions from retailers that everything would be just fine if we would all walk into Best Buy and max out our credit cards on gifts for all the special people in our lives.
I’m a devout Catholic and I agree with those who say we need to keep the “Christ” in Christmas. But to me that means celebrating the birth of Christ and what his arrival meant for humanity. It does not mean putting stupid bumper stickers on my car and sticking my nose in the air to anyone whose holiday customs don’t fit the strict teachings of the Catholic Church.
It means repaying the favor Jesus did for all of us by being as good as we can be. It means helping out family even when it’s inconvenient as hell. It means being the best parent and spouse we can be.
It also means respecting the broader array of beliefs people have and how they observe it this time of year. I think it’s ridiculous to get offended when someone says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” It’s not about people being Godless. It’s about people realizing that there are a lot of cultural AND religious observances this time of year: Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day. If someone wants to wish you happiness during all these holidays, including Christmas, you should pay it forward instead of getting all high and mighty about your own beliefs.
That’s how I see it anyway.
Of course, there’s the other side of the extreme: school systems and government offices banning Christmas decorations because it might offend people of other religions and cultures. Here’s a thought so simple it stings my tired brain: Why not festoon the schools and government buildings with decorations observing every December holiday? Teach the Christian kids about Hanukkah and Kwanza? Make December about embracing spirituality in all its forms?
During Mass yesterday, the priest repeatedly told us that “Jesus lives inside you.” I couldn’t help but think about what that must be like in my case.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/R3BA7OXI8CA
If I were a house, I could imagine Him grappling with a constant flow of repair bills. There’s more square footage than the heating system can accommodate and the place is drafty as a result. The roof leaks constantly. The place is teeming with vermin.
Yet He continues to live there.
He patches the roof every time the water gets in. When wall frames and flooring threaten to give way, he replaces them with sturdier pieces of wood. And he calmly keeps doing these things no matter how many times the house seems on the verge of caving in.
That’s how I picture it, anyway.
I try hard to get life right. But I know I’m still a sinner, making the same mistakes repeatedly. If I were a house, I might be condemned. But Jesus won’t let the house go down. He refuses to let it give way.
I’m glad he’s inside of me. If he weren’t, I’d have been knocked down and cleared away along time ago. And because I know He’s so invested in my future, I’m going to keep doing my best to be a sturdy, safe house for those who need refuge from the storm.
I remember the photo well. It was a man falling to his death in a zen-like pose that haunted me for a long, long time. It haunted us all.
Mood music:
Yesterday, I came across an entire documentary based on that one photo. The program, like the photo, is called “The Falling Man.” Associated Press photographer Richard Drew snapped a series of pictures of a man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:41:15 a.m. during 9-11-01. He was one of about 200 people who jumped from the upper floors, presumably choosing to die this way because it was better than a slower death by smoke and fire.
The program includes all the haunting footage you would expect. But there was something more, something that shook me to the core:
The family of Norberto Hernandez, the man initially identified as the man in the photo, couldn’t accept that it was him, because as Christians, they believe suicide in any circumstance is a mortal sin — a ticket straight to hell.
Though the identity is still not 100 percent certain, it is now widely accepted that the falling man was Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old employee of the Windows on the World restaurant.
The stigma around suicide is something I’ve wrestled with for nearly 15 years, since my best friend took his life. As a devout Catholic, I’m well aware of what the church says about suicide.
Then there’s the matter of people who know they are going to die and decide to go out there own way, as many 9-11 victims apparently chose to do.
Were they suicides, fitting the criteria of that mortal sin?
I would say no. I’m sure most of them didn’t wake up that morning with plans to die, especially by their own hand.
Terrorists sealed their fate, and, knowing they were going to die, made a choice on how to end it.
The episode:
We’ve heard a lot about courage that day, and there was plenty of it all around the world. Obviously, there were the firefighters, police officers and civilians who kept climbing the towers knowing they would probably die. They got other people out before thinking of themselves.
But there’s another kind of courage people often don’t think about. It’s the courage of accepting your fate and and dying with your dignity intact.
In the program, one survivor recalled looking up at the people hanging out the windows of the upper floors. She looked up, made the sign of The Cross, then lifted her arms and let go.
That’s not someone giving up and choosing suicide.
That’s someone with enough Faith to decide it’s ok to let go and let God.
People are always shocked to hear I used to be Jewish but became Catholic. They want to know how the hell that happened. Here’s my story — an important part of which is how my conversion actually gave me a better appreciation for my Jewish roots.
Mood music:
Truth be told, I didn’t appreciate being Jewish when I was a kid. Our family observed the Jewish holidays on a secular level that had little to do with spirituality. Each December, we put up a Christmas tree (my father jokingly called it a Hanukkah bush) because most other people did so. That was a secular, cultural act as well.
In recent years, my father has grown in his faith, probably because of the three strokes that left him sitting in a rehab center in Swampscott, Mass. It’s a Jewish rehab with a room for services, and those Friday and Saturday services became the big thing he looked forward to all week. I’m glad to see his deepening faith, because it was always hard to tell where he stood during my younger years. He has always believed in God, but other than the high holidays and some of the obligations of childhood, God usually didn’t have much to do with our upbringing.
On the high Jewish holidays, we did attend service at an old temple in Lynn, Mass.
When my brother Michael had his Bar Mitzvah in 1979, it was a big, huge deal. The reception was bigger than most wedding receptions I’ve been to. I was 9 and he was 13, which is typically the age when a kid undergoes the rite of passage. But I was 13 when Michael died, so having a Bar Mitzvah was the last thing on earth my angry, rebellious younger self wanted.
My father eventually made me do the Bar Mitzvah when I was 16. It was done in the old Lynn temple. The rabbi pointed at a few sentences that were Hebrew but written out so I could say them.
“Just recite these when I tell you to,” he said.
“What do they mean?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it. Just read it at the part of the ceremony when I tell you to,” he said.
The rabbi was cutting me a lot of slack. He knew I was embarrassed to be doing this so late and wanted to make it as painless for me as possible. I appreciated that immensely. But by the time I entered adulthood, the Jewish faith had failed to permeate my soul.
Fast forward to 1993.
Erin and I start dating, and on the day she takes me home to meet her family, pork chops are on the menu. My future father-in-law takes Erin aside, and, somewhat panicked, asks: “Wait a minute. Isn’t he Jewish? He can’t eat pork shops.”
I ate the pork chops, and, about a month later, attended a Mass at what is now my home church. Something about it interested me, because I frequently came back.
I spent the next decade in the religious wilderness. I went to the occasional Mass, but usually when Erin went, I stayed behind.
Meanwhile, between 1994 and 2003, my great-grandmother, grandfather and both grandmothers died, and their funerals soured me on the Jewish faith more than ever. There was no family rabbi, so we hired one for each funeral service. They’d come and ask about the newly deceased, and during the funeral would talk about everything they had been told about the person.
I thought it was all a bunch of bullshit, not seeing at the time that the problem wasn’t the faith, but how my family observed it, which was not much.
I started going to church regularly when Sean was born, and sometime between 2001 and 2005, something struck a chord and made me decide to become a Catholic. Erin never forced it on me or made it a condition of our getting married, though we did agree to bring the children up Catholic.
I slowly inched toward my Faith over time, and my battle with OCD marked a turning point. Somewhere in the summer of 2001, I started to feel the need to explore my faith and see where it would lead. By 2005, I was going through the Right of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA). In 2006, I was Baptized a Catholic.
Part of my OCD therapy involved relentless self criticism and loathing. Self-hatred is not too strong a description. I was so convinced that I was flawed beyond repair that I simply plowed along with my self-destructive behavior. I couldn’t get out of my own way.
Catholic conversion entered the picture because, as I was peeling back layer after layer in the struggle to find myself, I found that I simply couldn’t get there without help from a higher power. In 12-step programs like Overeaters Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous, a central theme is that you need to put all your trust in a higher power.
Through the struggles, my beliefs have come into sharper focus. And something unexpected happened: I came to appreciate my Jewish roots in ways I never could as a kid.
One of the reasons is that my conversion involved a deep dive into The Old Testament, the first five books of which — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, book of Numbers and Deuteronomy — comprise the Torah. The struggles of the Jewish people is something I appreciate and identify with more than ever. Without the education I had on the road to Catholicism, I’m not sure if that appreciation would have materialized.
I’ve learned that some of the central virtues of Christianity are rooted in Jewish teachings, particularly justice, truth, peace, love, kindness and compassion. I try to live by those virtues every day, though I admittedly come up short some days.
People always ask how my parents felt about my becoming a Catholic. My mother didn’t seem to mind, but then she married an Irish Catholic more than 30 years ago. My father didn’t seem to mind. His view of God has always been broader than the Jewish teachings he grew up with and tried to pass on to us kids. One day the subject of religious denominations came up and he said, in his typically unfiltered manner, “Won’t people be shocked after they drop dead to discover it (the different denominations) all comes from the same place.”
Some people want to debate me on my beliefs, but I don’t give in. I’m fully comfortable with my faith and don’t need to explain it to anyone.
For the most part, though, people show the proper respect. My friends are all over the place when it comes to religion. I count atheists, Protestants, Mormons and Wiccans among my closest friends.
Sometimes, it leads to some enlightening discussions. One of my closest friends did the exact opposite of me and converted to the Jewish faith. We’ve talked at length about the differences and similarities between our faith and have found much in common.
Jewish and Catholic guilt, for example, are pretty much based on the same things.
One time at lunch, I asked my friend the question that was burning in my head:
“So, for an adult who becomes a Jew, you have to get circumsized, right?” I asked.
“Well,” he said between bites of his sandwich, “They just sort of poke it.”
The latest example: Pope Francis skipped a concert over the weekend where he was to be the guest of honor. On the surface, some could see it as a snub, the act of an ungrateful person. But cut through all that and the message he was sending is clear: He’s going to focus on the people’s business, not spend his hours drinking in all the pomp and opulence the Church likes to bathe itself in.
Minutes before the concert was due to start, an archbishop told the crowd of cardinals and Italian dignitaries that an “urgent commitment that cannot be postponed” would prevent Francis from attending.
The prelates, assured that health was not the reason for the no-show, looked disoriented, realizing that the message he wanted to send was that, with the Church in crisis, he — and perhaps they — had too much pastoral work to do to attend social events. …
The day before the concert, Francis said bishops should be “close to the people” and not have “the mentality of a prince.”
It’s also worth noting that since his election on March 13, Francis hasn’t spent a single night in the papal apartments, which is known for its grandeur. Instead, he sleeps “in a small suite in a busy Vatican guest house,” according to Reuters, “where he takes most meals in a communal dining room.”
The Reuters story notes how the bishops were left disoriented by the no-show, with one Vatican source saying, “We are still in a period of growing pains. He is still learning how to be pope and we are still learning how he wants to do it.”
The Vatican may indeed be struggling to learn how Francis wants to do things. But I think he sent them a clear message. As for Francis learning to be Pope, I think he’s got it figured out. It’s just not the way the old, complacent power structure wants it. My prayer is that they will learn and fall in line.
A lot of evil has attached itself to the Catholic Church over the years, and I’ve struggled to stay faithful. I do so by always remembering that my beliefs are centered on Jesus and how he gave sinners like me another chance to get things right. My faith has never been tied to the random and intolerant rules of the Holy See.
The sex abuse scandal tested my faith, as has the often-hateful messages toward gays.
You could say I need a pope like Francis. I hope this fresh approach of his continues.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella reads a message from Pope Francis before a RAI National Symphony Orchestra concert in Paul VI hall at the Vatican. (photo credit: Reuters)
I got out of bed this morning after another rotten sleep and it hit me: I’ve been having trouble sleeping through the night and controlling daytime anxiety because I’m in one of my classic control freak-outs, in which I get depressed because I am anxious about everything and want to control it all.
In other words, I’ve been stewing over things beyond my control and forgetting to put my trust in God.
Mood music:
[spotify:track:7v0mtl6oInUtHOmTk2b0gC]
Big, positive changes are potentially afoot in my life. That’s usually the way it is for me: When something big is in the wings, especially something good, I lose all patience and my mind gets stuck in the future instead of the present, where it belongs. The result is anxiety, which screws with my mood, my energy level and my ability to get a proper night’s sleep. The nose and head congestion certainly never helps, but I find my eyes snapping open at 2:30 a.m. lately, thoughts of what may or may not be shredding my brain like a cheese grater.
Then I get angry with myself, because I have the coping tools to keep myself in the present. I also believe every minute of every day that when I trust God to let things unfold, everything works out fine.
But in the crush of a control freak-out, everything I know is suppressed.
It’s good that I’m spilling my guts on this now, because it means I might be coming to my senses. I can’t promise I’ll proceed in a care-free, sunny fashion, but at least I might get a good night’s sleep.
After the world got its first gander at Pope Francis yesterday, the inevitable “Lighten up, Francis” jokes started flying.
But there’s more than a cheap joke in all this. The question of whether the Church will lighten up under Pope Francis is a legitimate one.
Mood music:
[spotify:track:7GCBUUTGCGYKwx0kpVay60]
I’m a devout Catholic, which is to say I follow Jesus and believe he’s my savior. But I’ve often turned my nose up at the Vatican bureaucracy and have spoken up frequently about my belief that major reforms are needed to revitalize the Church. We need to put it all on the table: The role of women must be expanded. We must stop treating gays like lepers. We need to revisit the priest celibacy issue. Above all, we have to stop being self-righteous jerks. In other words, yes, the Catholic Church does need to lighten up.
Is Pope Francis the man to get us there? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be a bad pope.
Based on published reports, including this one from CNN, the man is no friend of the so-called liberal wing of the church. Says CNN:
Francis opposes same-sex marriage and abortion, which isn’t surprising as leader of the socially conservative Catholic church.
But as a cardinal, Francis clashed with the government of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner over his opposition to gay marriage and free distribution of contraceptives.
But that and other reports also describe him as a simple man. He chose the name Francis — the first Pope to do so — because he wanted to honor St. Francis of Assisi, a servant to the poor and destitute. St. Francis of Assisi was born into a world of wealth but chose to live in rags among beggars at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
More from CNN:
Those close to Pope Francis see similarities between the two men.
“Francis of Assisi is … someone who turned his back on the wealth of his family and the lifestyle he had, and bonded with lepers and the poor,” said the Rev. Thomas Rosica, Vatican’s deputy spokesman. “Here’s this pope known for his care for AIDS patients and people who are very sick. Who is known for his concern with single mothers whose babies were refused to be baptized by priests in his diocese.
“He scolded those priests last year and said, ‘How can you turn these people away when they belong to us?'”
If Pope Francis sticks close to that passion and leads by example, the Church is going to take big strides in the right direction.
Change is often a painfully slow-moving beast. I don’t know if the reforms I’d like to see will happen in my lifetime. But if we at least move in a more humble, more tolerant and kinder direction, that’ll be huge.
My prayers and best wishes to Pope Francis. May he do us Catholics proud.
Source: 
