A Good Discourse

 This post requires homework.  First, watch this talk given by Fr. Steve Grunow of Word on Fire.  

Fr.'s words strike me as hitting at the core of what we're trying to do with this conference, trying to remember we need to be active rather than reactive in ministering to the world by our words.  

I've seen it in the demand that we condemn everyone who ever voted for the current President.  I have family and friends I love, who didn't want to vote for the President Elect and who felt strongly that there wasn't a good choice.

The rage at anyone who didn't feel happy voting against one or for the other (and in this respect, it doesn't matter who the other is), was a dupe, a useful idiot, or worse is systemic.  Everyone feels justified in their rage.  Everyone feels that it's time to rage.  It's necessary that the other, feel the rage we feel and know it is directed at them.  That's the problem.  When there is great wrongness, great evil, there is great temptation to feel justfied in rage.  We're not good at righteous anger, we don't stay there. It's too quick and too easy to fall into wrath.  It's why Christ tells Saint James and Saint John they should not reign down fire on the towns that rejected them.    

There's a great struggle in our lives, how do we love someone with whom we disagree, and not lose hold of our values in the process? 

The reality is that social media creates an untrue binaryness of conversation that precludes any both and, and demands instead a fealty to an either or, but declares itself as authoritatively correct.  Real relationships go beyond the binary. Real relationships are messy, hard, and yet forgiving even when we don't want to, not because we wish to be dormats but because we wish to extend the opportunity always for something better than what was.   

The demand that those who are in the wrong beg for forgiveness before offering mercy is itself rooted in the eye for an eye and not the turn the other cheek. People may want to point out, "They had it coming, they deserve it," but this likewise glories in the suffering of others not as merely deserved but richly so. We are spiritually always in danger when we proclaim it safe to enjoy someone suffering, especially if the consequences are really bad. Being on the side of angels means grieving that souls were this wrong, and praying for them with a whole heart that they somehow, through God's grace, heal.   

BUT THEY'RE WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG --They did bad things.  They're evil evil evil evil...we can name their sins.  We know they sinned. We can prove they sinned.   

Yes...but they are also as hard as it is to remember, both and.  They are humans we must encounter. They are enemies we must love. 

If we cannot out mercy God, then we cannot be too merciful to others.   It's a reality we were supposed to really wrap our hearts around in the year of mercy. We still haven't, not by a long shot.  Those who stormed the capital and smeared it and swore to hurt people and did these wrong illegal immoral things, they will face consequences, both in this world and the next.  But we don't get to hate them.  They are the most pitiable of people, showing they lack pity themselves.  

I go back to the reality of how Mary responded to Christ's crucifixion.  If anyone only human could justly rage at the crowd for their wrong thinking, for their group thinking, for their stupidity, it would be her.  She who had not sinned, did not rage at them for crucifying her Son.  If anyone could justly condemning all of the crowd for refusing God's friendship, it would be Christ, and yet even here he offers.   It's beyond us absent grace, great grace.  Yet here, we aspire. 

I'm reading a fantasy novel series to my youngest daughter, and in the denouement, the main protagonist, Taran, Assistant Pig Keeper is shocked that the king, Lord Gwydion declares he will raise a barrow to King Morgant who had betrayed them all in a quest for power. 

"...Gwydion replies, "It is easy to judge evil unmixed," but alas, in most of us, good and bad are closely woven as athe threads on a loom; greater wisdom than mine is needed for the judging.  King Morgant served the Sons of Don long and well," he went on.  "Until the thirst for power parched his throat, he was a fearless adn noble lord. In battle, he saved my life more than once. These things are part of him and cannot be put aside or forgotten. And so shall I honor Morgant," Gwydion said, "For what he hused to be, and Ellidyr Prince of Pen-Llarcau for what he became." (The later had sacrificed himself to rid their world of an evil despite a lifetime of selfishness). --The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander.   

Or, to use a more current favorite fantasy fiction, "The world is not divided between good and death eaters."   

Loving your enemies mean not wishing them anything other than reformation, than restoration, than finding themselves surprised by joy, not abandoned.   If we can see no good in the people around us then we will find ourselves surrounded by monsters, and we will meet the enemy and it will be us. 

Want to be part of the work for a better dialogue, for a stronger sense of how to infuse social media with charity in truth and truth with charity?  Come to "A Good Discourse," and be a part of the dialogue.

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Fellowship, Facebook and the Holy Spirit

The original caustic title was "What is Wrong with You People?" which became "What is Wrong with Us" which became something far less accusatory. But being a Catholic blog junkie and a Catholic writer want-a-be, I've watched several firestorms erupt within the Catholic blogosphere that resemble the fellowship exhibited within the confines of the Senate between political parties.

I am for Simcha!  I am for Greydamus! 

The tenor, which began as a discussion, often became a poor witness of what we say and believe and know we are to be. 

Noah is a stupid film with rock monsters! 
Noah is a serious if imperfect film!
See it! 
Don't See it!
How about, there is no mortal peril to laughing at Noah or to going to see Noah? It's not an occasion of mortal sin except to the extent we forget that ours is not the defining opinion. 

This also happened with The Catholic Stand and a fight over the issue of romanticism and marriage, where advice given freely became fodder for personal attacks because others were protective of their friend who voiced her understanding in a piece, but with more force than experience or doctrine warranted.   Truth in Charity we are called to give, but we often forget one or the other, and the public nature of the internet can make discussion easily turn from instruction to entertainment, to something less noble.  We're supposed to be known by "look at how they love each other" and the witness of fights over Facebook, does not reveal anything but camps, camps of friendship, camps of loyalty, camps of intellectual agreement, but not Catholicism, which is "universal." It bothered me, but I also feared losing friends on both sides. It is my always great fear, losing friends. 

Then I hopped over to Creative Minority Report and saw the continuation of what has been a long discussion over weeks, that doom is upon us, that the end time is near.  These are also friends,  but at least one of the writers is indulging the notion of despair, that the enemy is warming up the Lions, and our long Lent shall continue even when the season ends.   Now I know all the fights he speaks of, lurking, growing, growling on the horizon, they're legion. I see the coming moral storms and ongoing ones we have to navigate.  None of us are under any illusions, much will be demanded of us if we are to call ourselves Catholic, but to quote from a movie I watched last night:

"Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."


There is not an age, not a country, not a person in any of the world who embraced Catholicism, who did not at some point feel the weight of the cross they were called to carry and tremble, wish it were taken away, wish the person chosen were anyone else but them, wish the world were lighter, wish the work were less. Some brave souls do this every day. Folks in these great stories that are told every day, didn't know how it would end. 

Sam: It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy?

How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

But in the end it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why.

But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.

 It is the dark night of the soul, when the only thing one can do, is pray and carry on.

The desert we travel in, is not our time or our nation, but our hearts.   We need to stop looking outward and despairing, that is judgment; we need to look inward and beg for mercy, that is Lent.   Then, we need to put on our best, to wear our hope and trust in God's mercy, and our friendship with his son Jesus on our faces.  Then, we will be lights to others in places where all other lights go out.  Scared? Sure, that's why we need courage, courage for our friends.  We need to ride out and meet them for there is always hope.     "Anyone who wishes to follow me, must pick up their cross,"... "for the yoke is easy, and the burden light."  I love the constant truth of both and that is our faith.

And it is hard, and yet not.

This week, I fretted.  A friend constantly posted things that I found offensive, that I found hurtful, and they were because that friend sincerely believes his political side is on the side of angels.  Admittedly, I understand the blind allegiance, I've been there.  It's easy, it requires no thinking, it justifies one's own opinion and makes one feel righteous in all things.  I worried how to illustrate my disagreement, i.e, how to "turn the other cheek," so I did not agree and did not run away, and did not lose the friend who has been a bright light for me.  How could I approach this delicate topic of believing all children are infinitely valuable, even in their preborn and even pre-implanted state? 

I didn't want to fail to speak.  But I'd written a response earlier to a prior similar post, one where I used reason and logic, and received no answer.  So clearly, stating a position, even defending a position, telling my position wasn't the answer.  This person knew my faith and that wasn't a compelling witness or argument. 

That day, my brother  posted a picture of his unborn child. And I was reminded of the writing adage, "Show, don't tell." 

Then he posted a picture of my dad holding the picture, two days before he died. 

And there was the continuum, right there, on Facebook.  All life is precious and equally infinitely loved, from conception to death.   I couldn't miss it.  It is right there alive in that picture.  And I remembered the words from Luke, 12:11, "When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say; 12for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say."

Just in case I was slow on the uptake, and the Holy Spirit knows I need overkill to get the point,  there was this piece on my Facebook feed at Word on Fire!

And the final smack across the heart, a piece by a fellow member of the Catholic writer's guild about his newborn daughter's diagnosis of Down Syndrome, Stage Six: Joy.

 

Which brings us back to how we are to be in the face of everything, joyful, even as we scour our own souls, even as we know there is a tremendous amount of labor to do.  Even the smallest act of kindness is a rebuke of the seemingly endless waves of chaos, pain, suffering and evil, both in the virtual and actual world.  

 

The hardest thing for us to do, is love someone we cannot see, either because we do not know them, we seek not to see them, or we want to pretend they do not exist because to acknowledge such existence would demand something of us. The internet provides us with a constant challenge, to see the person on the other side of the keyboard, regardless of their politics, positions, opinions, power or reach, as people of infinite worth, pearls of great price, people we hope to keep and call friends. 

 

Hold true, hold fast, hold. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prayers Please

Most of you know through this blog that my father has Alzheimer's.  Sometimes, it can cause people to misjudge distance and thus fall.  Yesterday, my dad fell.  He broke his left hip.

Today, he will have surgery to replace the ball in the hip. 

So I am asking all of you to pray for the surgeon, for the team that helps the surgeon, for my dad, for my mom, and for all of us who get the frustrating task of having to keep going, because we don't live close enough to go and be simply present. 

While I am at it, I will also ask you to pray for a complete stranger.  Yesterday at mass, I took my youngest to the cry room.  We were at our "It's-5-o'clock on Sunday Mass" Church precisely because they have a cry room.  The space for children at this church is a large open kitchen, walled in with a large glass window, used for meetings where whoever is meeting, will also be serving coffee and probably food.   There is a bin of toys, and there are chairs stacked available for the adults who bring their children there.  

When I arrived, there were two mothers and seven children in the room.One mother had an 8 month old and a 3 year old boy. The other mother had two sets of twins, ages 5 and almost 7.  The sets of twins were very busy playing and the mother's face looked stretched like leather, too thin, worn from pain and stress.

I cannot help myself.  During the offertory song, I said "Hello." 
She spilled open. 
"I don't know why I come to this mass. I've been coming here since they were babies and I can't get them to listen or get anything out of it and I'm getting less and less."  If ever there was a soul that seemed to be begging, "Please don't let me quit coming to mass but help me get something from it," it was she.

I sympathized, told her I understood that there were masses like that for every parent, and she mentioned that she normally goes to the 11:30 where there's a children's mass but they don't like to get in the car.  I admittedly made a joke about how if they want to control the schedule, they should learn to drive.  She smiled.  I then suggested bringing along a friend, that she needed some help.  I couldn't stay because at that point, my two year old found the door knob, opened it and was skipping back to where the rest of my family was.  

But her lament stayed with me all mass.  The Communion song felt like a love song from a Smitten God to her soul to me, "Come Back to Me...with all your heart...stay with me..." I could hear God courting her.  The closing song was an encouragement, "My grace is sufficient, My Grace is enough. My Grace is enough."

After mass, I returned to the cry room. She was still there packing up.  I told her I'd hoped I'd find her again and suggested the Magnifcat as a way of feeding herself daily, and Fr. Barron's Word on Fire for Sunday preparation.  It was all I could do, my family was already bustling out the door to get back home for dinner.   So I would also ask also, that all of you pray for this woman, that she heard how much God wants her and her children at the mass no matter how they act, His Grace is enough.