NATURE AND NURTURE

All four of my grandparents were born and raised in Italy. They migrated to this country in the early 1900s to begin and raise their families. When others learn this about me and then discover that I do not like garlic, wine or opera, they shake their heads in disbelief. They assume, I assume, that there must be a defective gene in my makeup. Is it not the nature of an Italian to love all three? My siblings love garlic and drink a little wine now and then, but I’ve never asked them about opera. Am I the odd man out or simply odd?

Perhaps if my parents liked garlic and wine and listened to the opera on the radio when I was growing up, they might have nurtured me into loving or at least liking all three. But they did not either like or nurture or encourage. My Dad, when he was told that he had to learn to like hard liquor simply asked “Why?” Why do we have to learn to like something we don’t like, like garlic, opera or wine?

The truth is that both nature and nurture play a very big part in who we are. I naturally do not like garlic. I cannot explain why I do not like it just as I cannot explain why I do not like liver, Brussel sprouts or sushi. On the other hand, I don’t think I came out of the womb being a bleeding-heart liberal. I believe my parents nurtured me in that regard. By nature we are all born good because our Creator is good. But we can be nurtured to be bad.

Nature and nurture: is one more important than another in how we turn out as individuals? I really do not know the answer to that question and leave it to those who have professional expertise in that area of human make up and the human condition. Yet it is our fundamental nature and how we were nurtured that explain why two people looking at the same situation can have opposing opinions, sometimes diametrically opposing views.

The issue becomes even more confusing when siblings, raised in the same household, nurtured by the same parents, can be so different when it comes to likes and dislikes, to religion and politics, to, well the list is long. It is those differences that make life so fascinating and yet so difficult, so enjoyable and yet so painful. In my family it is those differences that make conversation around the dinner table loud and long and leaves my wife shaking her head because she was raised where only one conversation at a time goes on and not three or four.

Nevertheless, even if we concede the fact that we are who we are because of our nature and our nurture, that truth in and of itself, does not excuse us from doing what is inherently wrong. Not only does the devil not make me do it or say it, neither does my nature or nurture. As old as I am I can learn to like garlic, wine and the opera if I so choose to do so.

I can also learn to be more kind and caring towards those with whom I disagree. I will never understand why they believe what they believe and they will never understand me. That is always frustrating and even maddening, but it is what it is. Sometimes, sad to say, there is no happy ending other than to agree to disagree. For me that leaves a garlicky taste in my mouth.

BEING RIGHT IS SOMETIMES WRONG

There have been times in my ministry when I have been visiting a parishioner in the hospital who was very, very ill. And while I was at that person’s bedside, the doctor came in to speak to him or her. When I tried to excuse myself so that the doctor could have private time with the patient, the doctor often said, “No, Father, you can stay.” And so I stayed. What I heard when I stayed was sometimes very honest but not what I thought should have been said.

Those were the times when the doctor was brutally factual with the patient. He cut no quarters, did not soften what he said and he certainly did not tell anything but the truth. “The cancer is malignant and inoperable and you only have a few weeks to live,” he said. “The paralysis in permanent and will never be lessened.” I’ve heard others in a similar vein. None provided any hope for the patient.

As a priest I deal in hope. Without hope, we cannot go on. We will very easily simply give up if we believe all hope is lost. However, even if that hope is only a small sliver, at least it is that, and with that we can go on. When I heard those hopeless diagnoses that came from those doctors’ lips, I believed while they may have been right in what they were saying, they were wrong to say it.

Yes, we need to know the truth. But when the truth will not change anything, when the truth will not allow us to hang on waiting for a miracle, then why destroy another’s bit of hope? Not only does offering a bit of hope help the patient, it also helps the family as well. They need a bit of hope too even if they know they are really hoping against hope. It is human nature to do so.

Years ago I attended a local ministerial gathering where the featured speaker was the hospital chaplain. He said, rather bluntly, “You know, don’t you, that the doctors think we’re just a bunch of clowns.” At first I was very insulted. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe it was a compliment even if back-handed. For is not a clown someone who lifts up spirits, who, in truth, is a symbol of hope?

But, then, aren’t we all? Is not that one of the responsibilities we have as Christians, to be bearers of hope, to lift up spirits? Yes, there are times when we are called to tell it like it is. But there are also times when we don’t have to do so. There are times when telling the truth only makes things worse, when being right is the wrong time.

Those times don’t happen all that often, thankfully. I didn’t take the doctors to task who were brutally honest with their patients. I just wish they had not been so, that they could have found words of hope; and if they could not have done that, they could have at least understood that that moment was the wrong time to be right. There may never be a right time, but there are times when it is the wrong time to be right.

DIVINE PROVIDENCE?

A while back I received an invitation to the ordination to the priesthood of a colleague. The invitation announced that the bishop who was to do the ordaining was the bishop of that Bishop’s diocese “by Divine Providence”. I disagree. I also disagreed with another colleague who had been in the election process and was a final candidate to be called to be the bishop. When the elections results came in and he was not elected, he sent a kind email to all those who had supported and prayed for him saying that the result of the election was the result of the Holy Spirit – in other words, by Divine Providence.

As I said, I disagree on both accounts. Episcopal elections, the calling of Rectors, the choosing of the Pope, the election of the President of the United States, none of these are the result of Divine Providence. They are all the work and result of what we human beings do and not do. If we honestly and truly want to rely solely on Divine Providence in any election of any kind at any level, religious or secular, all we need do is place in a container the names of every individual qualified by age and then draw out one name. We would then conclude that the choice was the result of Divine Providence if we were believers. Non-believers might say that it was simply dumb luck.

The danger in believing that any election result is the work of Divine Providence is to conclude that everything that person then does must also be the will of Divine Providence as well. But we know better, or at least we should. I hope none of the congregations that have called/elected me to be their Rector ever thought that I knew God’s will firsthand and that everything that I said and did was in accordance with that will. I also hope they believed I was called not because it was God’s will but because I was merely the best candidate among a list of candidates. I may have also simply been the best of an extremely bad lot.

To be sure it would be wonderful if we knew what the will of God is for every decision we make. It would be even better if, knowing that will, we actually fulfilled it each and every time. But we do and we don’t. There are times when we know exactly what it is God wants us to do but we still refrain from doing it. That’s what sin is. Sin is knowing what we should do or not do and then not acting accordingly.

We in the Church really want to believe that our leaders have been specifically chosen for us by God. But we have seen our leaders do some of the most ungodly deeds – all in the name of God, of course. Somehow they must have come to believe that they were chosen by Divine Providence and not because they knew how to work the election game.

The Holy Spirit is indeed alive and well and works in deed in and through you and me. Nevertheless, we need be careful when we claim that the works we do are the works of the Holy Spirit ordered by Divine Providence. Enough damage has been done already by thinking that way and, even worse, actually believing it.

WHY EVERYONE DOESN’T AGREE WITH ME

While I am serving as Priest-in-Charge in Kittanning, I spend two nights a week at the Quality Inn. It’s no 4-Star motel by any means, but it is fine for me: decent breakfast, small exercise room where I can spend some time on the elliptical to burn some calories, good bed. Nothing fancy. Many of the men working the gas fields stay there as well. But since they work twelve-hour shifts, I usually see them coming or going. No conversations but only a nod of recognition or a “good morning”.

The only person I have any semblance of a conversation with is the manager, Michael, who works the day shift, seven-to-three.  But we don’t talk much anymore, not in depth anyway. Michael has FOX news on all the time, which drives a liberal like me up the wall. A while back I said something about how I had lost all respect for the Republican Party back in 2008 when they nominated a totally unprepared person (in my humble opinion) to be Vice-President. His first response was, “Look what we got” (meaning President Obama) and then, “Let’s not talk politics.” We no longer do.

Nevertheless, I still wonder why Michael can’t see what I see, why he doesn’t agree with me about politics. To me what I see is perfectly clear and obvious. Can’t he see that? Of course, on the other hand, internally he is probably asking me those same questions. We both look at the same situation and see things almost the polar opposite. I wonder how this can be. Why can two people see the same thing and yet not agree on what they are seeing or certainly, when I am one of those two, not see what I see?

The world would be so much better, again in my humble opinion, if everyone saw what I see. There would be less fights, if any, no disagreements. Life would be pleasant and we could get on with solving the world’s problems because we would all be on the same page. What a wonderful would that would be!

 

But that would be a fairytale world simply because no two people have the same experiences. And it is those life experiences that color how we view the world and thus what we believe and how we should act. Michael obviously believes what he believes to be true based on his experiences: single, Navy veteran, under VA care because of an injury suffered when he was on active duty: his list is long. I would find myself nowhere on that list just as he would find himself nowhere on my list.

It is that list of personal experiences that make each of us so different and why we can find ourselves in total disagreement about the same issue. I know that. We all know that. We also know that, when we are open to hear what another has experienced and why that person sees what he sees, we can at least agree to disagree in peace. Unfortunately, tragically, as the mess in the Middle East exemplifies, that does not always happen. Fortunately for Michael and me, agreeing to not talk politics makes our conversations peaceful if not, at times, inane. But I still wish he would agree with me politically.