Over at the Standard Today

Being a People and a Church of Mercy.

Watching Everything Become Fragile and Rigid at the Same Time

I've followed several threads about the current uproars at Stuebensville and the unfortunate rude emails directed at a singular person that revealed another person's poor thinking and even poorer understanding of the Gospel. Those who haven't followed it, it's not the point of this piece, but it's easy to google.

I concede, I followed, until I realized, it was a form of dark joy. It's fun to blast what we know to be stupid, misguided, foolish, rude, vulgar, insane and ignorant, particularly when it is directed at an individual we know and care about. I followed the blogger and sometimes shared pieces. Something made me pull back. There is a danger of engaging in a sin against charity, even when dealing with those who are uncharitable. It's a dicey thing to discuss.

The lack of kindness and generosity of spirit we receive, often allows us to think, we're justified in an equally angry response, whether the issue is politics, religion, or any other topic of import. The problem with this reflexive response to the words of others (even sinful evil words given without charity or presumption of good faith), is it makes us like the one who attacked us, and that's not the goal in any exchange of anyone who professes themselves to be kind. It's not what Christ instructs us to do either. The goal is to be like Christ to the one who does not see Christ, not in themselves, and not in us.

Turning the other cheek doesn't mean being a chump, but neither does it mean triumphing at our moral superiority of understanding. Being a peace maker, converting hearts requires not doing what would seem justifiable and reasonable in response to hate, in response to rudeness, in response to ignorance, in response to foolishness, in response to injustice. It's so easy to add to the darkness, and think this is deserved darkness but Jesus does not return the insults, He does not return the violence with violence. He offers no words of rebuke to those who in no way are righteous in their acts or words.

With scandal after scandal breaking, with injustice after injustice being exposed, it's easy to get caught up in what feels like righteous wrath at all the blindness, all the foolishness, and all the sins covered up and ignored. In social media, having a feral moment of dark joy is almost reflexive, because we want to defend our friends, pur faith, our values. We want to be on the side of angels, we want to be right and we want to be perceived as such by those friends, those fellow warriors in whatever battle we might find ourselves. We want to draw mental swords and lock in battle, cutting away at all the chaff, but God allows the wheat and chaff in each of our souls to grow up together, the weeding He will do at the end.

The reality is Followers of Christ neither punch up or punch down. They diffuse, they deflect, they respond with the unexpected grace of charity. It's a shock to the soul, like sun bursting through the clouds on a winter day, providing an unexpected shaft of warmth, or a crocus revealing beauty in a drab landscape.

We're to be that shock, but that requires we stop reveling in the lack of warmth, lack of beauty, and lack of wisdom, or celebrating our own coziness in the faith in relation to others' both splinters and planks. We also don't get to quit, wash our hands and go home.

Jesus wanted even the Pharisees to understand, and kept offering them the opportunity if they willed to listen, He came to their dinners knowing they wanted Him there for their own reasons. God invites us knowing we have alternative motives as well. Love breaks through, because it's much more shocking to respond with kindness and mercy, than with vitriol, cleverness and insults especially if when we think the person brought this upon themselves.

It's not easy, because bitterness and outrage is so much more intuitive, so much more reasonable and seemingly right. We might think, then how do we respond? How do we react? What do we do when faced with ignorance, foolishness, waste, cruelty, malice, misguided ideology, blind loyalty, hypocrisy and multiple sins beyond what we would have thought?

We must keep engaging not because it is easy, not because we will win friends (we'll probably lose some), but because we're called to present what we know to be true even if it is rejected.Offer the theology of an alternative perspective with all the love we can muster. Our job is to inform, not convince, and to feed, knowing there will be extra even after we distribute all that we have, even if all we began with were two loaves and five fishes. Our job is to lower the nets where Christ instructs us to, and not to insist that if people ignore Christ, that we can either pull down columns of fire or decide we will no longer engage. We do not get the luxury of not being involved because we are our brothers' keeper. At a time when everything seems both fragile and rigid at the same time, we're to strengthen and bind, to heal and soothe the wounds of the world.

Mercy, even in the face of ignorance, that's what Christ on the Cross offered. Followers of Christ, must do no less

Mercy, even in the face of rejection, that's what Christ on the Cross offered. Followers of Christ, must do no less.

Mercy even if it is not recognized as such, that's what Christ on the Cross offered. Followers of Christ can do no less.

Thank God for Errands and Ordinary Time

The news hit hard this week.  Fortunately, as much as my brain wanted to sit with the stories and consume article after article, sifting through the various perspectives to discern what's what, school starts tomorrow, and we still need hair cuts, lunch boxes, to put finishing touches on projects, and all the ordinary things of every day like laundry and oil changes and dinner.

Saints understood that even in the midst of crisis, the ordinary needed tending. By responding to the ordinary with grace, those ordinary moments became sanctified. Love will keep us sane.  It preserved the martyrs of the church as they went to their death. It preserved Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) such that she could step onto the cattle car train to Auschwitz and allowed Blessed Mother Teresa to carry on her work with the sick and the dying.   We the faithful know this to be true from Doctor of the Church, Saint Teresa of Lisieux.

"Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word, always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love."  Doing little things with great love, allow us to do greater things with even greater love. 

Right now, the internet and the world needs a lot of little things, like little words, little smiles, little gestures, little helps. Why?  Because only by beginning to work at the little acts of kindness, can we begin to repair the aches and wounds of the world.

1,300 Embraced Splinters

Over and over again, in everyday stuff and online, I find faces of despair.  People have much to be angry over, and they're hurt they have to wrestle with this pain when there's so much that needs tending too.  This great mess called life keeps getting somehow messier, and it's frustrating to people of good conscience, of good will, of good faith, to find themselves overwhelmed with the levels of stupidity, cruelty, indifference, clericalism, protectionism and self-indulgence and self delusion we're bombarded with on a daily basis. 

In the Church, people are taking their children from schools, and themselves from the pews, because the leaders/princes of the Church have shown themselves to be poor shepherds in one of the most primary of roles, and as such, it is legitimate to question, how good they are at shepherding in any of their other functions.  It seems, to the laity, the leadership of the Catholic Church does not yet grasp in its totality, how much damage they've created by their slow plodding approach to things in this situation. 

I'm reminded of this scene.

The faithful are the hasty hobbits.  They've said they'll address this in November.  It' rather like Treebeard's telling Merry, "We've just finished saying Good Morning." and Merry's terse response, "But it's nighttime already! You can't take forever." 

Elizabeth Scalia says as much in her very fine article here.  I second all she recommends.

People do feel put upon by the public calls for prayers and fasting when it does not seem those who perpetuated or aided and abetted or ignored these crimes/sins are doing much at all other than publicly wringing their hands.  However, what we are asked to do is still of great merit, not merely for their souls, but for our own. 

I would love for Bishop after Bishop, even those who are good ones, to say, I renounce, I resign, I will serve at the lowest position, and for them to do it.  We need to see something from the Bishops akin to this: 

Even if they've earned a spot on the team by their efforts, talents and service.   

They know the ways of the saints.  Saint Maximilian Kolbe said "Take me instead."  in the concentration camps.  If he could surrender a place of no comfort for a place of certain death for love of Christ, for love of the other, a father who cried out, how is it no bishops, no cardinals feel this same push of the Holy Spirit?  If they cannot see it, then what about us who can?

Well, if they don't, then, we who feel the pain of the fathers and mothers over their crushed children, and of the children who were so violated, we must say, "Take me instead." and that's why it's not wrong for the laity to pray and fast and offer penance.   We need to take on something, something which will cost us, something public and I do not know what it is, but since we see the pain, and we know the depth of it, it's not enough to howl "Do something."  If they don't get it, then it must be us who act. 

I go back to the report, there are over 1,000 victims.  There are over 300 priests.  So there should be a 1,300 day penance, if only to give some hint of action on the part of the laity and yes, we will do penance for the guilty, and penance in reparation for the damage done to the innocent. 

Yes.  But what do we do?   

1) Begin.  Write on your calendar today, Victim 1.  Writing it down, since we don't have the names, is a way of beginning.  

2) Offer a sacrifice of today, of something today for victim 1.   

3) Tomorrow, begin again, for victim 2. 

4) If you forget, begin again anyway. 

5) If you mess up, offer your foolish forgetfulness. 

6) Keep at it.  

For those who question, what good does sacrificial offerings do to the sufferings of the past, or of today, for the victims of the sufferings? 

Answer, more than we can understand. 

1) It acknowledges the reality of the injury done (something kept hidden for far too long).  

2) Spiritually, you become united with Christ by your sacrifice/atonement.  Christ suffered and died for each of us, we're not even doing much more than offering a splinter, but we can unite with Christ with that splinter.   

3) It might prompt you individually to more, because the Holy Spirit always starts with mustard seeds. 

The number of victims posted would take from today to Friday, May 21, 2021.  May 21st is a feast day in the Catholic Church, the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, instituted this year by Pope Francis. I didn't know that until I googled it, it seems providential, to pray for each of these little ones harmed by the church, to the Mother who birthed Christ, who loves the Church as none of us do, and who wants all of us home at the altar.   

7) When you get to day 1000, begin work on the alms giving and prayers for those who did or hid these acts.   Here, 

8) Give something away each day for 300 days. It can be time, it can be things, it can be money, but surrender something.   

9) Why?  

          a) Because these acts occurred over time, and so time is something that must be given in response. 

          b) Because the only way we won't be driven from the life of the Church even as we cling to the faith of it, is by willful obedience, and this is a discipline which will allow us to lead by example. 

          c) Because these priests, who did these things, they also held the Eucharist, they were consecrated to Our Lord, and God does not want any of his sheep lost, and they were/are lost.  We must be like the good shepherds to these lost shepherds with our prayers.  The prayers will not be wasted, (but I did put them after the victims because yes, I'm still annoyed and flawed and know we all need time to beat that down. Our prayers will be like the Lord's invitation to their souls, to respond to the feast.  We cannot save them, but we can participate in their salvation by our prayers.   We can imitate Christ's mercy on the cross which came before anyone asked or acknowledged what they'd done.   

It won't be a Year of Mercy or a Year of Humility, because it will take three years, six months and three weeks plus a day to embrace the  1,300 splinters, by the people of the Church for the Church, out of love of Christ, and all those injured by this grievous wound, this great thorn.. 

That day will be March 17, 2022, the feast of Saint Patrick's, and a feast day marking the chasing out of the snakes from Ireland. I didn't know that either when I googled it.  So to me, feasting for the victims with the promise of Mary whose foot crushes the serpent, and with Saint Patrick, who chases the snakes away, is the proper response.  For me, it is too wonderful and too perfect a timing not to begin.

So let us begin.  

At the Register today!

I know, it's been a while.  Honestly, since the kids got out from school, I thought I'd have more writing time.  Somehow, I have less. 

Examining the virtue of Forbearance, something the world doesn't quite understand...because it is a manifestation of charity and grace, even when afflicted.   I know I'm not very good at it.   

Reflections After the Fact

First, read this piece from the Washington Post. I'll wait.

ow many children have we abandoned?  

In reading Aaron Spark’s piece in the Washington Post, “I Would Have Been a School Shooter,” the unanswered question is, how many have we abandoned?  And how do we create a culture which does not abandon those who smell, those who are overweight, those who are poor, those who struggle in school, those who reveal in little and big ways, how they are so very different?  

Zero tolerance of bullying, like a gun-free zone, is a top down way policy means of addressing what is ultimately, a personal response to others.  What saved Aaron was the actions of two families, in place of the broader community and his own personal family, acting out of kindness, above and beyond the call of duty, even when it seemed hard.   The parents of Mike, might have sensed how dark and dangerous a place Aaron lived in, and felt fearful for their son and family, when asked to house him. The girl Amber’s family, likewise made a sacrificial act that required risk.   

We live in a society that tries to establish a risk free life...with guarantees, with waivers, with padded playgrounds and bike helmets.  However relationships, with real messy human beings, always involves risk. Policy without leadership in the arena of either gun control or anti-bullying, is tokenism at best, and won’t stop the next teen who feels cut off from everything and everyone.  What Aaron’s article reveals, is the necessary response from the community to those who don’t fit the mold, who don’t seem to have their acts together, who are difficult, and in many cases, the most visibly difficult to love.

If we want a healthier and safer community, we must create a community which provides the emotional and physical and intellectual support to all.   It isn’t just gun control. It isn’t just mental health. It isn’t just counseling. It isn’t just policies. It isn’t just any one thing. People spout the phrase, “It takes a village.”  We need to recognize, being we are all part of each other’s village, and to the extent we ignore or dismiss or fail to love one, we’ve failed to love all, and when we as a village fail even one, that one could one day, if pushed to the point of feeling, they are nothing to the village, eliminate the village.    If we want justice for all, we must be oceans of mercy. That's the only salve that erodes the desire for revenge, the desire to lash out at the universe, to reveal to the individual, to each individual, that not only does the universe exist because God cares, but there's a whole universe full of people who care, because each of you, is made in God's image, and a beloved son or daughter and our brothers and sisters. Wrote this a while ago, but never found a place it belonged, so it goes here.

What to do

Leah Libresco Sargeant writes a beautiful article discussing what we as Christians should do in light of Charlottesville.  She presents a lovely way of examing how to 1) create genuine peace and 2) be an authentic witness and 3) offer correction to those in grave error.  You go and you interact with these people, you learn their names, their fears, their loneliness, and you ask questions, you seek to get at what it is they think, and to present a living counter argument without argument.  Please, go read it.  It's so worth it.

There is a great rage in this country and a gleeful glowering joy at pointing out sinners, and saying to the crowd, "These ones, it's okay to stone.  Pick up your rocks."   But the reality is, to those who show mercy, mercy shall be theirs.  Mercy is the gift we give, the grace we allow to flow through us, not when it is deserved, but precisely because it isn't.   Jesus is still reaching out, even from the cross before His death, to enter into relationship with us, to bring us to the right place, to heal our broken hearts.  We are to do the same, whether it's racism or anything else.   That's a tall order, a hard order,  an order only possible to fill through grace, by grace, and so as to receive grace.

So don't blast with holy wrath or excommunicate a friend for failing to see the evil you see, ask them what they see.  Ask them why.  Ask them their fears, their concerns. Go out to lunch and find all the spaces in between, all the points where their gifts are, so as to see their true faces, which are not only the sins we know.  

Yes, these views must be challenged, must be countered, but the only way to stop hate, is not to stomp people into the ground, but to show a better way.  It may seem obvious to you, but that's the nature of sin.  It blinds us to others. It blinds us to good. It clouds the heart, and so we see through a glass darkly.  As Leah sagely notes, when you don't think anyone can see anything but the sin, it is hard to embrace anything else.

Be the option out, be the refuge, be the source of light that helps people cast off these views and the world will be brighter for it.  

We're Always Both And

By now nearly everyone knows, Hillary Clinton said that some of us are "irredeemable."  I would submit, the candidate for President is correct and yet not.  For she thinks only some of us are irredeemable.

Sitting in mass today, I heard the story of the Prodigal son, of the two sons who both misunderstood the Father's love, and yet both were the beneficiaries.  That is the true reality we face, both as a people and to a person.  I couldn't help but notice all the families struggling with children at the mass. I know this battle, it is a universal one.  This day, my kids kept trading off who would sit next to me, eventually resulting in two sharing a chair, one sharing my lap, and one glommed onto my left shoulder rendering me unable to move. They did in turn each need to go to the bathroom, which gave me a few moments to try and really attend, but I kept seeing the families.

I saw parents trying to hold those they loved more than life itself and pay attention, some having to take their kids back to the cry room, others attempting to tough it out.   They were trying to love with great fervor, squirmy little people who didn't want to obey, didn't want to follow, didn't want to be quiet, didn't want to do anything their parents wanted.  Yet, the parents held them, kissed them, prayed with them and for them, and spent all of their energy on what seemed like a meaningless endeavor to the outside world, trying to help them behave at mass.   They didn't stop loving their misbehaving children, not doing what they wanted, not doing the Father's will.  Some might describe the acting out of these kids all over the mass, as deplorable.   It did not stop the parents love, their children's disobedience.

What we need and don't have and haven't had in some time, is a leader or a person running for leadership, who loves those not voting for the "proper party." Additionally, ideology driven media, celebrities, politicians, social media, and all other means of communication, tend to stir the sense of us, them, and promote hating the other as irrational, unreasonable, uneducated, stupid, crazy, evil, corrupt, awful, sinful, and instantly tainting of anyone who doesn't fit whatever the group think deems appropriate.  I don't hear anyone disagreeing that someone in this country is irredeemable, only disagreeing about who's on the list.

The reality is, we're all on the list.  We are both irredeemable by our limitations and sins, and innately worthy of honor, being made in God's image and thus daughters and sons, heirs to God's kingdom.   We love with great fervor, but often, we throw that fervor into everything else except our neighbors.  So yes, Hillary is right when she says anyone is deplorable.  I am, as is everyone who votes for Trump, Hillary, or anyone else or no one else, anywhere in this world, any time in this world.  We are all broken.  We are all prodigal children who sometime are the older sibling getting mad because there's a party and it wasn't thrown for us to show everyone else how good we are or more accurately, how bad everyone else is by comparison.

We are all, irredeemable or would be, save for that great unfathomable fact, God loves us.  What we have to remember, both as citizens and as individuals, is that great truth, that mysterious truth of God's love for us, is true for all of us, for each of us, at all times. There is no one who is irredeemable save that soul which refuses redemption.  God's mercy is not a safety net, but the hand of the father, reaching out to each of his children, offering grace, divine help, redemption.

We are all both and.  What's great, what's wonderful, is God has invited all of us to the party, where He will show the world how much He loves us.  All we have to do, is be willing to come in to the feast.  

P.S. I saw the parents of the squirmy kids.  They bought their children donuts.

Time to get to Work

The shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and of Philando Castile and of the five officers in Dallas?  All of these executions were obscene acts of evil.

I spent the day in transit to a wedding, but know social media exploded with respect to these acts, all of which bring to the public conscious the need to really look at ourselves and have an honest discussion about what we want as a nation, and what we don't.

Here's what I know.

There is a disproportionate level of incarceration, stops, arrests, charges and abuses of people of color by law enforcement, and we as a nation have to recognize that level of systemic abuse of power breeds nothing other than resentment.  

We also have to remember,  most cops don't make the news.  Most desire to protect and to serve, Most cops offer their lives on a daily basis, dealing with the hard reality that people do act badly, people do break the law, people do sometimes do those horrible things that make the news and need to be stopped.  It is not a disconnect to say black lives matter or to also say, blue lives matter.

The reality is always both and.   Neither should be ignored.  Both should be addressed.  Both must be if we want something other than what we have.

But being a ring side observer to the actual incidents, it's only human that we want to do something.  The temptation is to either rage or cry or to pray, but the reality is, we have to do more than feel, more than symbolically gesture.  We must somehow stand and speak and help make things happen so that these sort of things stop happening.  

So now you're wondering, what?  What do I do.

Blessed Mother Teresa was asked, "How can I change the world?"  She answered, "The best thing you can do is go home and love your family."  and she meant it.   I view our whole world as our family, and we've done a poor job of loving many of them.

Today, the best thing any of us can do is to go and be kind to every person we encounter and then, to keep doing it tomorrow, and every day after, until the violence of this week becomes something unthinkable for everyone, always.

Pray for peace, work for peace by being a source of peace to all you encounter.  We've watched, but the sideline times are over if we want a less angry world.   Time to get to work.

The Light of Christmas

I have a friend I've made as a result of years of going to the same dry cleaner's.  She always greets me with a smile and a call out, even if I'm being served by someone else.  I've written of her mother, and her own unwavering faith.  Every once in a while, we have a conversation as I'm handing over my pile of laundry and the ordinariness of my day evaporates.  

"Merry Christmas," I said as I piled up the shirts.  My mind was full of the bills to pay, the pounds gained over the break, the work I needed to still get done for the evening.

"Merry Christmas!" she beamed, "You know, Christmas is a time for miracles.  Christmas time is a miracle."    I felt the beginning of an interruption in the dark chaos of my thoughts.

"Yes.  Yes it is."  Her eyes told me, she held a miracle she was bursting to share.
"For the past eight years, I've prayed."  She told me of how she's been begging for warmth in her marriage, but for years, they've not talked.  "Then on Christmas, I heard Jesus tell me, in my heart, "If you want me to work, you have to move."  and I got out of the way."  She smiled.  "I put my hand on my husband's hand."

"And it's better?" I asked.
"It's better. It's a miracle.  It started on Christmas.  It's a miracle.  You know, Jesus can take anyone, fix anything, anything we let Him!"
"The water is now wine." I smiled.  All my errands still loomed, but they didn't haunt, they couldn't in the face of her joy.

"Yes.  Exactly!  The water is now wine."

A line had cued up while we spoke.  "I'm so happy for you. Merry Christmas!"
"Happy New year!"

The Christmas star is shining at my dry cleaner's.  

Repeating My Call to Others

There's a new Planned Parenthood video, even more telling than the last.  But I posted my piece on Saturday (a low traffic day normally) and in light of this new expose, it's even more important that these people receive our earnest prayers.

Dr. Mary Gatter, Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Medical Directors' Council President wants a Lamborghini.  All I can think is, "But for Wales."   So I'm relinking to my Saturday piece, Prayers and Fasting in hopes of getting more people to publicly adopt a specific abortionist they will pray and fast for over the course of the next year.

It is not shocking that people sell other people for money, or parts for money.  We do this as a culture without thinking about it.  We sell human eggs, we sell sperm.  We sell wombs.  We sell porn (selling the outside while destroying the inside).  What we don't do is sell pieces...of people.  Except here, we do.  Why?  Because they've convinced themselves, these children are not people.

Once we stop seeing people as people (unborn), they become property, which can be bought and sold for lucre, and the more, the better.

Someone adopt this woman in their prayers, because a flashy car won't fill her anymore than the fine meal filled Dr. Deborah Nucatola in the prior video.

Don't think it can happen?  Check out Abby Johnson's And Then There Were None.  Abortion preys on the weakest, it enslaves those who perform it, to a constant need to bring others to the same dark place.  It's a hope we have to hold, if we would call ourselves Christians, that mercy and forgiveness are available for the asking.

It's easy to hold her in contempt. It's easy to rage at the evil.  But there is nothing more human than knowing the reality, "We are broken." and nothing closer to the divine, than to either ask for mercy, or give it.  We cannot absolve her of her sins, but we must pray she seeks forgiveness.  That is the only charitable response to what we now know, and we have an obligation now to this woman in particular, and those like her, because now, we know.  She is a lost sheep, a lost sister of Christ.  We want all of our brothers and sisters at the table.

Pray hard.

Limping into Easter

This is the high season for Catholics, especially those church going rosary saying apologetics reading catholic blog groupies like me.  

Except I am completely spent.  Emotionally, spiritually, personally, I am tired.

I have had a crummy Lent.  The irony stings. I wrote a column on Lent. I've tried adding things and taking away and I’ve forgotten and started again and forgotten and started again and deliberately ignored my resolutions and confessed and confessed and failed yet again. .

Trying to right the ship, I tried to lead a family rosary and we did it, if you don’t count the silent cold war between one child who refused to come in, and another who refused to come up from the basement after they’d screamed at each other.   I felt defeated.  How can I raise these people to be holy when I am not?  How can I be responsible for these souls when I am flunking with my own?

It occurred to me that I don’t envy the Pope trying to be responsible for the souls of the whole Church, trying to lead all of us to the heart of Christ.   We are an unruly lot of surliness...like my children on occasion.
Yet all of it can turn in an instant, from the clamor of a fight to the grace of unexpected extraordinary generosity.  We keep trying and sometimes, we can approximate the love we are called to give.

We have to lay hold of, the heart of Christ, and it is freely offered at every mass in the Eucharist.  That is the great miracle of His love, that is Heart is ours for the taking, it is offered like a lover, for He is love.   Take and eat.  Be at peace. Be not afraid.  Christ will fix everything we’ve broken if we let him.

We needed the Crucifixion, each of us needed Our God to suffer that that much …just for us because we are so messed up.  We are so angry. We are so injured, we hold onto our wounds fearful of the Divine Physician’s healing touch.  We want to hold onto our pain in our pride, and let it define us.  We cannot give a perfect Lent, we cannot save ourselves.  It is only in surrendering to God’s grace that we allow his Heart which as always beat for us, to enter.  

Easter happened.  Easter is happening.  This is the great reality, that a great or crummy Lent, Christ accepts all our offerings, the crumpled resolutions that got forgotten and abandoned and the ones well kept, it is the hearts He desires.   So to all who come to crowd the Easter mass, offer your heart, He will give you His, and all the weariness and wounds of this world will be washed away.  He will heal all of our lameness, world and self inflicted.

Have a blessed Easter.

Hey, Where's the Milk?

A friend of mine noted that the blog has been pretty serious and dark as of late and it is true.  Much more bittersweet cocoa than sugar or milk. More than once as a child, I tried to will myself to like those unsweetened baker's squares as I gnawed on it ferociously, hoping to make it taste better, wanting it to be what I loved. 

The blog has moved away from its original design to be humor, and delved into more about religion (specifically Catholicism), and the role of a lively faith in society, and the perceived threats I see to our existing way of life that protects the liberty of all to live out their faith fully.  I cannot play the clown or laugh at these serious things, they are too close, to near to the bone and they are frankly, constant. I'd love the world to taste sweeter, much as I gnaw on it.

So Sherry, why not add the sugar yourself? Why not be the light to the dark?

That is what humorists are called to do, to bring about a merciful break in the pain. I admittedly have always had this theory about humor, that it must at its core, contain an element of mercy, because humor almost always has to address at its core, pain. 

Slapstick is the counter to actual physical injury.  A clever comeback can disarm a bully.  The right bit of self depreciating asides in a speech can counter the perception that a leader is arrogant or out of touch.  It is a universal component that connects across cultures. A smile is a smile, in utero, in old age, at any time and anywhere and laughter can create friends in an instant.  Humor is a salve on the human soul when properly employed.

This isn't to say humor can't be abused --for recent examples, one need only see the sorry saga of Rush Limbaugh's comments on Ms. Fluke or any comments on people from the Conservative side of politics from Bill Maher. When the desire to inflict pain to the other side trumps judgement, we wind up with this sort of unsavory commentary served as humor.  As the cliche goes, dying is easy, comedy is hard. 

Humor also must contain an element of truth.  We live in an age that prefers that truths be "tacitly understood" or rather like children of old, seen and not heard.  When people speak truths, they get blasted for saying something that someone else finds disagreeable or told that what they say is truth, isn't, it's only opinion.  Few want to point out the irony of "There are no universal truths." is that the sentence itself is an assertion of an absolute, because the squishy world of relativism seems more comfortable than the possibility of hard real moral consequences to our choices that we are either ignoring or defying.

Humor is also fundamentally about relationships, juxtapositions, ups and downs, ironies, inverses and reverses.   The comedian offers the jokes to the audience, but can't make them laugh, can't force it, and when they don't reciprocate the gift of laughter in response to the offered jokes, it is like a desperate fight in public.  It is painful.  Humor has to be given and received to be effective.

 So I apologize for the lack of milk or sugar. I've been trying, but the muse seems awol at the moment. You can't fake comedy. You can recycle it some if it's good enough, you can descend into satire and snark and bite, but humor, genuine humor for me has to have an element of mercy in it. 

So if I'm not going to make you the best chocolate cookies I know, I'll at least explain, at the moment, I don't have all the ingredients and have to make a run to the store.

Thanks for reading. Will keep trying.   Maybe if I just bite down hard enough on this unsweetened square.

And Now, Equal Time

Anyone who thinks sexual morals discarded as easily as a wardrobe do not have an effect outside the two people enaged in the throws of whatever, need only look at the most recent example, the South Carolina Governor and his girlfriend in Argentina.

If you read the injured wife's piece as posted on Real Clear Politics, it is a beautiful reflection of what this man has lost, and it isn't his position of power in the world, but the relationship, the communion with a good woman and their four sons. Four young boys who must be heart broken to see suddenly themselves taller than their father at tender ages, and who now must shoulder a burden unasked for, trying to defend their broken family from an unloving prying world while each nursing their own individual highly concentrated pain they do not understand.

As an outsider, we can easily scorn, easily condemn, and easily judge, but this wife still loves this man and as outsiders, we should honor and mirror her behavior. Hers was a holy response to a complete betrayal, without being a doormat or an enabler.

In an age of instant access but no actual intimacy, this is what we as a society have, 24-7 armchair coaching/commentary on anyone and everyone who falls into the public eye. So keeping one's dignity when one is emmeshed in an undignified situation becomes difficult. She has managed it.

He has not.

In an age of blackberries, twitter, facebook, cellphones, Youtube and cameras placed everywhere, no one should consider themselves capable of living an anonymous life. And no one should be certain their worst moments as human beings won't become the subject of fodder for millions; least of all, politicians and people in positions of authority.

Perfection in our public leaders should not be a prerequisite of electability, but honesty and ethics ought to be at least skewed in the right direction. On a tangent, I have to rant, "Where to the Republicans go to find these sorts of people?" There have been moments when I have heard people remark that "This is the best." and then they reveal something, a school, a book, a show, a movie, a politican. And my first thought almost always is after I've read/watched/ listened, tasted, "If this is the best there is, then MAN are we in trouble." But I also know that my heart likes to try and harden, to be clever and cynical and that I have to beat that impulse down with a stick on a daily basis, but the world keeps giving me targets.

And then I remember, this is one family put under a microscope because of one family memebers' supreme stupidity and lack of moral and political judgment. I don't care how respected he was six days ago, he was stupid in his life and careless with those he professed to love. Dumb is the only word that is charitable in this circumstance. It is difficult not to want to unleash a score of seemingly righteous word rage on this person.

Fidelity is the first obligation of a spouse. It ought to be a willingly given given. Mark Sanford may have been a competent governor, but he put a woman before his wife, before his sons and before his God. Fortunately for him, his God and his wife love him enough not to strike him down, but those who do not love him, have struck and will continue to do so. If he had any sense, he'd understand that he is the most fortunate man in the whole world if he only lost the Governorship and the mistress. But if he had that same sense, he probably would have recognized, he had everything and surrendered it willingly for the wrong things.

I'd excoriate the man except I'm tired of all these cads and all these cackling harpies who glory in the destruction of a family as much as they do the emoliation of a career for political reasons, or because it justifies their own behavior, or because they hate the morals professed to be held true by those who have fallen.

So I've made a promise to myself to be restrained the next time and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next, regardless of political affiliation, because stoning the adulterer is not good for any of us, and this world encourages emotional and intellectual stoning. The men who left the adulteress behind had been the recipients of Christ's mercy as much as the woman herself.

I know I shouldn't have enjoyed raging at the Democrats for lining up to defend Bill Clinton, and I shouldn't stand with the firing squad to shoot Mark Sandford, because we aren't called to set fire to people, only to light the world on fire with the purity and holiness of our spirits and our lives.

And I've made myself a promise to give up being a snark about this President. This does not mean I will not disagree or fight to articulate why I disagree with his policies when I disagree with them, only that I don't get to be mean to satisfy my own spleen with ooh...that's a good line, that will get 'em type commentary.

Being funny by being clever and catty and making being funny a goal just to get attention is self serving and soul scorching, and I have to remember that for me, humor is supposed to be merciful, healing. Humor without mercy is satire, and I conceed, I have a natural progression, from quips to bites, from Horace to Juvenal, from Pope to Swift. The humor gets more acerbic and less merciful the longer I focus on a subject. The truth of the matter gets lost in the shuffle of clever phrases for the sake of a few comments and a few extra hits on the blog counter.

So pray for this broken family and all those who do or do not make front page news or go viral, to be healed by the only thing that can, God's love.