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Starbucks, Christmas and Misguided People

This is from the “people need to get a life” file. It will be my only statement on this uproar over Starbucks’ red coffee cups.

My faith is well documented in this blog. I go to church just about every Sunday, and my family is heavily involved in parish activities. To me, the “War on Christmas” rhetoric has always been a stupid distraction — just another thing for people to get whiny and self-righteous about. This coffee cup controversy is simply more of the same.

Starbucks has never put anything religious on its cups; its holiday cup designs mostly focus on winter themes and Santa Claus. Nor should it venture into religious territory: Starbucks customers are of all creeds and colors. There’s no Star of David or Buddha designs on the drinkware, either, but you don’t hear about that from Christian extremists. All they care about is that their personal brand of faith be present in the marketing.

Exhibit A is this guy. He claims to be a big evangelical personality online, though I’ve never heard of him before this. He’s very proud of himself because he went into a Starbucks and told them his name was Merry Christmas so they’d write it on his cup. He even brags that he brought his gun into the store, because nothing drives home the Christian message of “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men” like a firearm.

Even Donald Trump is getting in on the action, telling supporters to boycott Starbucks over this. Because, you know, Trump has always worn his faith on his sleeve.

https://youtu.be/E54DAlBqiFM

“If I become president, we’re all going to be saying Merry Christmas again. That I can tell you,” Trump declared. He must have discovered some way to control our minds and make us say certain things.

Fortunately, most people in my network are seeing this for what it is: a non-issue.

It’s telling that while I’ve seen a bunch of headlines about Christians freaking out about this,  I haven’t seen s single Facebook post with Christians actually raging about Starbucks cups.

And therein lies the problem with social media: One or two lunkheads make a fuss about something, and the good people of Facebook and Twitter translate it into a fuss by whole movements and organizations.

The human race is a puzzling one.

Jesus holding a Starbucks cup

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Life Doesn’t Suck, We Just Need Our Life Jackets

Lately, I’ve been going through a tough period and been documenting it here because it’s another journey and I like to document all my journeys.

One thing I’m re-learning on this trek is that it’s important to find life jackets that keep you from drowning when the floods come. Put on the life jacket for a couple hours or a couple of days pockets to keep your head above water.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/EkPy18xW1j8

Last weekend while the kids camped with their Boy Scout troop, Erin and I enjoyed a full day of quality time, walking around Newburyport, watching TV and having a romantic dinner. This weekend, as I type this, we’re having the first family camping trip in the new camper we were fortunate to have. We’ve been taking sunny walks, reading by the fire and taking life slowly.

Yesterday I went to the gun range with my father-in-law. I picked a target with a big, ugly mosquito on it. Like most people I hate mosquitoes, and I blew off a lot of steam shooting at it, trading off between a gun and a rifle.

The troubles of life aren’t far away. My father is still in hospice, and managing his real-estate business for him is a full job atop my real job. But I’m visiting Dad a lot and talking about old times. I call him every day. It’s a blessing to have that time with him. The business stuff is hard, but I’m figuring it out and it will be fine.

I can deal with the stressful side of those things because I’m also taking time for myself. It’s easy to forget to do that when life gets chaotic. It’s easy to let the harder things eat you alive. I’m grateful that through the grace of God and a lot of support from family, friends and work colleagues that I can find the pockets of solace.

Life’s journey is full of peril. Remember to bring along your life jackets, and everything will be fine.

The author, taking aim at a giant mosquitoPhoto by Robert Corthell

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Ireland’s Gay Marriage Vote Was Inevitable

Some on social media are surprised Ireland voted so overwhelmingly to legalize gay marriage. One reason may be because Ireland is so predominantly Catholic, and Catholic doctrine says homosexuality is wrong.

As an American Catholic, I think the vote went as it did because more and more Catholics are thinking as I do on this subject.

Mood music:

My conscience tells me that government has absolutely no business defining what marriage — and, more to the point, love — should be about. The Catholic Church believes it should define what marriage is and the government should support that. I don’t agree with that, either.

I accept the Church’s opinion on gay marriage. I’m part of a union between one man and one woman, just as the Church wants it. But that’s my belief system. I don’t believe in imposing a lifestyle on other people.

There’s this notion that a person wakes up one day and decides being gay is a great lifestyle choice. All the people I’ve known over the years who fought against and hid their sexuality have shown me that’s bullshit. They didn’t get a choice. When they denied who they were, they became slaves to shame, escaping through false personas, drugs, and suicide.

For more on my take on homosexuality, see:
“Gay Haters or Just Idiots?”
“Racists AND Idiots”
“Depression and Being Gay”
“One More Thing About Being Depressed and Gay …“

No one should be forced to live a lie because of stigmas set down by church and government. No one should be told who and how to love.

I think, quite simply, that there are a lot of people in Ireland — globally, really, — who have had similar experiences with this issue.

So count me among those who are thrilled with the Irish vote.

The marriage equality symbol, with a Black Flag twist
The marriage equality symbol, with a Black Flag twist.
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When Life and Death Dance on Eggshells

I mentioned yesterday that my father is bedridden and that things aren’t looking good. I’ve lost count of how many times in the last four years we’ve gathered as a family, thinking he was at the end.

Each time he’s bounced back, like some unseen force keeps pulling him back for a few more rounds.

Mood music:

When I visited him last Sunday, he was too tired to talk much. He just wanted to sleep. I’ve seen him that way many times, but this time I got the sense that it’s getting harder for him to perk up. He’s said many times that he doesn’t want to live like this and be a burden to others.

But he keeps hanging on.

He wants to make sure his affairs are in order and that he leaves his family with the tools to survive, specifically, financial tools. Part of me feels like he should be allowed to leave, to be free of his broken body once and for all. Part of me respects him for being such a survivor, even when life doesn’t seem worth surviving.

I know that how this ends will be up to God. We can hope for things all we like, but God makes the final call.

It’s hard as hell for us mortals to sit around and accept that. We want to do something, to make some kind of plan and see it through, whether it’s family wanting to know the full path ahead or my father wanting to maintain some control, to run the timetable and tie up loose ends.

Although we know how little control we have, we continue to cling to our hopes and impulses. It’s an uncomfortable place to be. It will sort itself out, because it always does. I’m just praying for the strength to do what God wants of me.

If I figure out how to do that, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, any prayers for my father are appreciated.

silhouette of a man kneeling in prayer

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A Priest Comes Clean About Binge Eating

I’ve written at length about two things in this blog: my struggle with compulsive binge eating and my faith. My faith helps me deal with my demons, including the eating. So when a priest comes forward and admits he has a similar demon to fight, I take notice.

Mood music:

Rev. Ryan Rooney, a parochial vicar at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Parish in Springfield, Mass., did just that in an article he wrote about his struggle. I dug further and found that he writes quite a bit about his journey in his blog, The Weigh and the Truth: A Catholic Priest on a Weight Loss Journey.

In the opening paragraph of the article, Rooney describes a scenario I’m all too familiar with:

A year and a half ago, I would have been sitting down in a room of similar size but crowded with food wrappers and neglected dirty laundry. I probably would have been wolfing down a carton of Chinese food and binge-watching endless episodes of a Netflix drama. I was 200 pounds heavier, stressed, depressed, unsure about my future in the priesthood. My body was slowly shutting down, and I was inching closer toward being unable to dress myself.

I too spent long hours in a room, scarfing down food, ignoring my personal hygiene, and feasting on endless TV.

Rooney met his demon head on. He refocused on his faith and set about losing some 200 pounds. He’s an inspiration.

He’s not the first priest to open up about his sins. My former pastor, the late Rev. Dennis Nason, once went public about his battle with alcoholism. At the time, it was one of the things that inspired me to face my own maladies.

As Easter approaches, I’m more grateful than ever for Church leaders who are willing to show their humanity.

Dream of Sacrifice by EddieTheYeti
“Dream of Sacrifice,” by EddieTheYeti
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Jesus’s Drafty, Leaky House

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.

Jesus the Carpenter

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Be The Blessing

This was originally written after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings. Many tragic events have happened since then, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic and its lockdowns, the resulting economic calamity and now race riots in cities across America after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after being pinned down by a white officer. Now more than ever, we must put aside hate and be a force for good in the lives of our friends, family and neighbors. In other words, be the blessing.

***

I get frequent messages from readers. One was from someone tormented by current events — be it the government spying on citizens or any number of potential calamities.  She asked how to make it stop.

I didn’t have an answer. I have no psychiatric degree — only my personal experiences.

Mood music:

The reader’s message said, in part:

I deal with scrupulosity, ruminations over heaven and hell, conspiracy theories and intrusive thoughts. It’s gotten to the point where it’s become impossible to function when I read a new headline about what the government is doing to us. I get depressed and I get obsessed. I see my intense fear and read things about the government tracking us, and suddenly I regret all the research I did about conspiracies over many years. I don’t know if I even believe it all, but I somehow feel like the more I know, the more I can somehow save my family.

I don’t know what to do about current events. I don’t know how to save my family from government tracking (even though we’re not doing anything illegal or anything that would be of concern), yet I feel like my OCD is making me out to be this inadvertent target due to the fact that I’m always obsessively searching through conspiracy websites attempting to find “answers.” How did this stop? How do you deal with this?

I can relate to her fear of current events. It’s something that used to paralyze me on a regular basis. I felt the need to give an answer broader than the fear of current events part, because to me that’s merely a symptom of the bigger problem people like us must confront. And so I mentioned how, for me, the biggest helpers have involved:

I noted how, even after adding these tools, I still struggle. Some days I forget to use some or all of those tools for a variety of reasons. Using them actually takes more energy than I have some days. And if something really big dominates the news, it will still have an impact on me. The Boston Marathon bombings come to mind.

After I hit “send,” I remembered something a friend wrote not long before she died of cancer. Renee Pelletier Costa wrote about her despair over leaving all the people in her life and how her pastor replied simply, “Then don’t leave.” That statement made her realize that in a world she couldn’t control, she could still use whatever time was left to be a blessing to others.

That was a huge point for me as an OCD sufferer. I can’t control most of what goes on in the world around me, but I can still carry on each day in ways that make the difference to family, friends and colleagues. It can be as simple as saying good morning to someone and holding a door open for them. You can talk to them about their struggles — or better yet, just listen to them. Bring them a coffee. Make them laugh. Any of these things go a long way when someone’s having a shitty day.

The NSA will keep spying on us. Stocks will rise and fall. But none of that can keep me from being there for my family, from playing guitar and doing other things that make life worth living.

To the best of my ability, I choose to be the blessing. What happens from there isn’t up to me.

Boston Marathon Explosion

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I Like This Pope

As a Catholic who has rebelled against the political structure of the Church, I gotta say this new Pope is giving me a lot of hope. Francis is turning out to be a rebel in his own right, shunning the trappings of power and putting the focus squarely back on Jesus, where it belongs.

Mood music:

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.

Here’s how Reuters descrbed the no-show:

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.

Pope Francis
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)
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If the Charges Are True, This Man Is a Monster

I tend to avoid the abortion issue, because it’s a no-win topic. But I’ve been following a murder trial recently that turns my stomach so severely that I can’t keep my mouth shut.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:21MwEJ8tHezcPy77BaELJ6]

The Catholic Church tends to label anyone who is against Roe v. Wade as being a baby killer. I don’t think the situation is that simple. I agree that abortion is wrong, tragic and evil. It disgusts me that some women choose to terminate a pregnancy because it’s inconvenient.

There are cases, however, when a pregnancy becomes a grave medical circumstance, such as when the mother’s life is in danger. This scenario is not abortion in my book; it’s a lost baby. And I’ve never met a person who was happy about losing a baby. They’re almost always devastated.

Yet the case of Kermit Gosnell is pretty straightforward. The Philadelphia abortion doctor is on trial for allegedly delivering live, screaming children and then snuffing them out. If the testimony of witnesses in this case are to be believed, and they seem pretty credible to me, this guy is a baby killer. He’s a monster who deserves a special place in Hell.

CNN paints the following picture:

A Pennsylvania doctor is accused of running a “house of horrors” in which he performed abortions past the 24-week limit allowed by law — even allegedly as late as eight months into pregnancy.

He used scissors, authorities say, to sever the spinal cords of newborns who emerged from their mothers still alive. …

Gosnell faces eight counts of murder: for the deaths of seven babies, and in the case of a 41-year-old woman who died of an anesthetic overdose during a second-trimester abortion.

The babies were born alive in the sixth, seventh and eighth months of pregnancy, but their spinal cords were severed with scissors.

This story has not made the front page much. Melinda Henneberger of The Washington Post offers a possible reason:

I say we didn’t write more because the only abortion story most outlets ever cover in the news pages is every single threat or perceived threat to abortion rights. In fact, that is so fixed a view of what constitutes coverage of that issue that it’s genuinely hard, I think, for many journalists to see a story outside that paradigm as news. That’s not so much a conscious decision as a reflex, but the effect is one-sided coverage.

That’s why I choose to write about this case today. This is a case study that forces us to look long and hard at our own positions. As disgusting as the details are, I think we need that look in the mirror sometimes.

If the charges are true, this man is a monster.
Kermit Gosnell

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I Forgot to Trust God, Now I’m Paying for It

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.

I’ll let you know how it goes from here.
Now Panic and Freak Out