DRAZEN’S LAW OF RESTITUTION

“The time it takes to rectify a situation is inversely proportional to the time it took to do the damage.” (Murphy’s Law, Book Two) For example: it takes longer to glue a vase together than to break one. It takes longer to lose ten pounds than to gain ten pounds.

It always takes more time to correct the mess than to make the mess. We all know that from experience. We also know from experience that we never seem to learn how to stop getting ourselves into even bigger messes. We know better, no doubt about it. But we don’t do better. Oh, we're more careful next time when we rush through the house. And we really watch what we eat for the next few months.

But then we seem to forget until we're all-of-a-sudden another ten pounds over­weight, or we've knocked over the lamp because we were, once again, too much in a hurry. We seem to have a knack of reminding ourselves of our frailties and failures and usually at the most inopportune moments. I mean, the reason we knocked over that vase is that we really were in a hurry to get to that really important meeting. And we really didn't notice the ten pounds until we were getting dressed for our best friend's wedding and the suit was too tight.

And then it's too late. What we do, then, is berate ourself all through that meeting we were hurrying to because of our clumsiness and thus get little out of the meeting. And we're so uncomfortable throughout the whole wedding event because, not only is the suit too tight, but we're sure everyone else notices just how tight it is on us. It's no wonder we can get inferiority complexes. Would that we could be perfect. Would that we would not just learn from our mistakes but, even better, not make any in the first place. We’re just clumsy, error-prone, mere mortals.

Because of that we’re continually putting Drazen’s Law into practice. We pay for our mistakes and we pay almost immediately, if not immediately, for them. That certainly takes the fun out of life sometimes. The wedding was going to be a ball; but how can you have a great time when you can hardly breath? We were going to strut our stuff at that meeting, but all we did was waddle through because all we could think about was that broken vase, that expensive, antique broken vase.

Well, now, if you’re waiting for an astute solution to avoiding Drazen’s Law, you’ve come to the wrong place. Let’s face it, I, for one, am always making restitution. I can’t recall a vase I broke while hurrying although I’m sure others can. But I can recall putting on and taking off pounds—for almost all my life. I should have learned the first time back in 1958 or 1959.

It’s all part of the penalty we pay for being human, for sin. It’s always easier to commit a sin than to try to undo the damage done. The remission is always more difficult than the commission. All we can do is try to learn from our mistakes and pray for the strength not to make them again. Aside from that, I don’t have any other words of wisdom: just a wish. May 2023 be less of learning and more of loving.

THE “WHY” OF CHRISTMAS

Uncle Remus tells us something to the effect that we don't have to stand directly behind a mule to discover just how powerful its hind legs are. But sometimes we do. Some­times we do have to touch that hot pan not only to discover that we should listen to our elders when they say we shouldn't, but also just to discover exactly what "hot" feels like and means.

Sometimes we have to walk a mile in another's shoes otherwise we will have little or no idea what he is going through. All the books on hunger, all the tales of misery and woe, will never do nearly as much as our being really hungry ourself and not knowing from where our next meal will come. Sometimes experience, deep, personally involved experience, is the only teacher. Sometimes we just have to get kicked by that mule, no matter how painful the experience.

And sometimes I think that that's one of the reasons why there is a Christmas, why Jesus, the Son of God, became man and, as one of the Bible translations has it, "pitched his tent" among us. God really had to see how the rest of us live. There is no way in the world, God being God, that God would know what it is like to be human – someone who is not God, unless God actually became one of us.

To say that God had to become one of us to know what we're going through here on earth, to say that may not be sound theology. But it sure makes sense to me. God as God is not tempted. God doesn't get sick. God doesn't catch cold or have headaches. God’s God. And so it's rather difficult, if not impossible, for God to know what it's like to come home from a hard day at work, head pounding, feet aching, the kids wanting your total attention, husband oblivious to it all, all the while trying to get supper ready—God doesn't know how difficult it is to smile and be living in that situation.

Or at least God didn't until God sent God’s Son to become one of us and find out. Jesus' birth, in a barn no less, immediately gave God a new perspective on life in this world. God's education didn't stop in Bethlehem either. It stopped at Calvary. Now God knows what you and I are talking about when we cry out to him in pain and hurt and sorrow. Jesus went through it all.

There are other reasons why God became human, other sound, theological reasons. But sometimes I don't want theology. I want practicality. And so sometimes it helps me to know, to realize, that God really does know what I am going through in this life – both the joys and the sorrows, the good days and the bad. For God did walk a mile in my – in our – shoes, much more than a mile.

And God was kicked by that mule. God knows. That's why Christmas is so meaningful to me. I know why God became human: to get to know you and me a lot better, to be, if that were possible, an even better God. Christmas is much more than the celebration of the birth of a very special person. It's the celebration of God's saying to us "I know what you're talking about, what you're going through."

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Some say the Garden of Eden the figment of the fertile imaginations of a biblical writer who was trying to convey a religious truth. Others say that it was an actual place inhabited for a time by the first man and first woman. But does it really matter?

Most biblical scholars look upon the first eleven chapters of Genesis more as parables than actual fact. Most fundamentalists look upon Adam and Eve, the Garden, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Ark, the Tower of Babel as real live people and events. It doesn’t really matter. Want to believe they’re parables? Fine. Just live out what they mean to teach. Want to believe the literal fact? Fine. Just don’t believe. Live out that belief.

That’s what is essential to all biblical truth and teaching: that we live it out. Take the Garden of Eden as an example. What does it teach and what does it mean? Parable or fact aside, the story says something very important to you and me. This is what I think it says, at least in part:

The Garden of Eden, as it is portrayed in Genesis, was paradise, heaven on earth. The inhabitants, call them Adam and Eve, had absolutely everything they could possibly want that would make them happy. Everything. It was all there. We don’t know what was all there; but whatever everything was, it was all there.

In the biblical Garden Adam and Eve had absolutely everything they could ever want to make them happy. But guess what? That “everything” didn't make them happy. They wanted something more. And when the biblical writer says that in their search for happiness they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he is telling us that that act of disobedience was the beginning of mankind’s discovery of what brings true happiness.

No, disobedience doesn’t bring happiness. What it brought for Adam and Eve was getting booted out of the Garden, woman bearing children in pain and man having to sweat in order to survive. And, believe it or not, that was the best thing that ever happened to mankind. When God closed the gate to the Garden, man and woman finally found happiness, finally discovered paradise.

For they found each other. They found out that happiness/paradise does not consist in having everything one’s heart desires but in having someone to love and care for. That’s what makes work, even with all the sweat and pain that is sometimes involves, worthwhile. We are doing it for someone we love and who loves us and not because it can or will bring them or us things to possess. That’s what makes the pain of childbirth bearable. It is shared by husband and wife. The physical pain is hers. He shares in it because of his love for her.

Yes. the best thing that ever happened to mankind was that our ancestors lost the Garden. For what they found, and what we must find, is that paradise, heaven on earth, consists in loving another and being loved in return. Things, possessions, just won’t do it. They can't. To cry because a loved one is in pain is understandable. To cry over possessions lost or cry because we can’t have something we want is tragic.

The Story of the Garden of Eden – real or parable, your choice – is a good reminder that real happiness is found in people not possessions. God help us if our possessions ever become more important than another person, any person.

THE GREAT CANDLE-SNUFFER

 A friend of mine of the Senior-citizen variety, one who, when he opens his daily paper, turns first to the obituaries to see if any more of his friends have gone on to their eternal reward—this friend of mine likens life and death to a candle; each of us is one. And we go on glowing until the Great Candle-Snuffer in the Sky goes "WHHH."

Well, I've never heard it, death, explained quite that way before. It's a good analogy at any rate. God is in charge. When it comes time to be our time, that's it. And God's the one who puts out the fire, blows out the flame. God's in charge of death just as God is in charge of life.

So if we look at life and death that way, we have two choices, a negative and a positive, about how we can live our life. The negative, as the term implies, is the bad, the wrong choice. Life lived negatively as regards the GCS is one in which we're constantly looking around awaiting our turn. The fear of the dark, the fear of the lights going out syndrome. Growing older means growing towards death. And it means not living. It means we're busy about dying.

On the other hand, the positive side of the candle analogy means that we're busy about living. Sure, our candle will get snuffed someday, maybe someday soon, maybe before we're ready. But that is not our concern. Our concern is to make sure our candle burns brightly up there on the lampstand and not under the bushel basket. It'll burn slower under the basket, of course. No ill winds will get to it there causing it to burn almost out of hand.

But it can't be seen under the basket. And candles are to be seen so that they can lead the way. Besides candles under a basket can go out just as easily and just as quickly from lack of air. They suffocate to death.

So it can be with us. We need air to live. Our flames of life need air to breathe. Sure, sometimes it may be that our life is burning out of control – all manner of winds, good and ill, are blowing at us, around us, wearing us down so much so that we're tempted to hide for a moment under some basket to get some rest.

But that's not what candles are for—remember? Yes, it's risky to stand out there in the wind, to get blown hither and thither, to say by our light: "Follow me; I’ll show the way." But – need I say it again? – that's what candles are for.

A good baptismal custom is to present the newly baptized with a small candle symbolic of the Easter Candle. It is a reminder that as a Christian we are to be the light of the world. We are, by our very life, to show others what it means to live a life of faith in Jesus Christ, to be the light in this sometimes dark and windy world.

And that light of ours is to glow brightly until it is blown out by God. Yes, it can go out if we don't give it enough fresh air. This fresh air comes from making sure we don't hide our light, our faith, but live it. And it also comes from renewing that air around us through learning more about our faith.

Okay: I'm beating around the bushel basket: Life, our life, is to be lived fully at all times. It is to be lived in faith, not fear. And it is to be lived knowing that when we’ve done all that God has asked us to do, when we've lit the way by our life, God will blow out that flame and give us a new life with God forever.

FAITH PLUS

Faith alone is not enough. Not even faith plus hope plus love. That’s not enough. In theory these three may be what we need to have in order to lead a Christian life. But theories, even facts, only go so far. When reality is played out, something more is usually necessary. That something, at least as far as our faith-hope-love is concerned, is patience. Patience, that which allows us to keep the faith when it is all too easy to give up on God because our prayers are not being answered as quickly or in the manner in which we would like. Patience: that which gives us the strength to go on, knowing, in spite of everything to the contrary, that there is a future to hope in. Patience: that which enables us to keep on giving of ourself to the other even when the other slaps the other cheek again and again.

Patience, it seems to me, is what gives us the ability to be a people, a person of faith, hope and love. That is not to say that patience is a greater virtue than these three. It is not. A supremely patient person may simply be an idiot: one who gets kicked in the teeth for no good reason and just takes it, also for no good reason. Or s/he may be oblivious to what is going on and/or could care less.

No, patience is the strengthening agent of faith—hope—love. It allows us to put all things into perspective rather than going off half-cocked in every direction. With it we can keep the faith, hang on to hope and learn to love. Without it: disaster.

A patient in a hospital needs patience. Faith in the doctors, hope for recovery, and love for one’s own self-worth are important. But the healing process is always slow. An impatient patient delays and can even prevent altogether physical healing.

The same is true not only for spiritual healing in particular but for the spiritual (Christian) life in general. We certainly need to have faith in God. That’s a given. No faith in God: no faith. We believe God can and will answer our prayers; but in God’s own time and in God’s own way. Thus we must be patient.

Even if today is good, we always hope that tomorrow will be even better. If today is bad we hope tomorrow will be not so bad: better, unless, of course, we have no faith. If it is not better, that which will keep us from despair is patience. That doesn’t mean we’re laid back. It means that we give God the time to do God’s thing while we do our thing: hang in there patiently, giving even more of ourself—which is what love is all about. Impatient love is a contradiction in terms. Love is always patient (as St. Paul reminds) — by definition. Love takes time to grow. That’s why patience is necessary.

But it is never easy. Never. That’s because we need to be impatiently patient. Sounds crazy, I know. But look at it this way: we have to be impatiently patient with God. On the one hand, we have to give God time to do God’s will. On the other, we have to keep bugging God to do it. Same with hope: sure, we believe, even know, the bad will get better, the pain will lessen, the wound will heal. But hurry up, will you, God. And God will, hurry it up. We just have to keep banging on God’s door.

Same with love, we give of ourself. The other isn’t getting the message. So we give more and more, sometimes just because we’re impatient for a response. And that may be the only way to get the message across: to overwhelm the other with love. Isn’t that how Jesus did it? There still and always will remain these three: faith, hope and love—plus impatient patience.

PEACE AMONG PANDEMONIUM

'Tis the season for pandemonium: the rushing here and there, to and fro, from wherever to whatever, all in the name of getting ready for Christmas, preparing for the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace. It's almost a contradiction in terms: peace among pandemonium.

And yet, when we think about it, when we get to the deep theological roots of what this season and what the Christmas celebration are all about, they are indeed about the finding of peace among pandemonium.

My dictionary tells me that "pandemonium" means uproar, and utter confusion. My Greek reminds me that the word means a place where all the devils live. My Literature Course reminds that it was the worst place in hell in Milton's Paradise Lost. Not a very pretty picture is it?

Sometimes, sad to say, the season almost seems like hell, what with all the demands we impose upon ourselves: we impose, not society, not the church, not anyone. We impose them upon ourselves. Yes, there are those temptations to listen to all those devils vying to get our time, our attention, our money, maybe even our soul. But we're not obliged to listen or give in.

So, amid all this uproar and utter confusion, we desperately search for peace, for quiet, for a semblance of sense. We don't have to look very far, of course. We only have to look beyond the pandemonium to the One who came to make sense of it all, to bring that peace which surpasses all our understanding: Jesus.

The peace of God is not the opposite of uproar and confusion. The peace of God is found among all the uproar and confusion; or, as Catherine Marshall reminds, "to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart." 

No, finding peace among pandemonium is not and never will be easy. But it is not something that is found anyway. It is something that is made or discovered. If we go looking for peace, we'll never find it. We have to make the place and space in our lives for peace to become alive. Otherwise, all those devils that fill our lives will never stop their uproar and noise.

Advent is not simply a time for preparing for the celebration of the Birth of the Prince of Peace. It is also, and perhaps more importantly, a time for making room in our hearts and lives for that peace to become a reality, a daily reality. That won't be easy, as we have all discovered. But as we have all also discovered, when we make those moments for peace to reign, we begin to make sense of our lives even amid all the uproar.

How we use this Advent Season is up to us, as is all of our life. No one can live it for us and no one can take it from us. Hopefully it will be a time for finding peace among all the pandemonium.

WALKING ON WATER

We read in Matthew's Gospel (14:26) that Jesus walked on water. It frightened the daylight out of the Apostles and would prob­ably do the same to us. No one, not even the world's greatest magicians and illusionists, has been able to duplicate that. To be able to walk on water one has to be divine.

That’s what we who believe believe. We believe that Jesus' walking on water is proof positive that he is who he said he is and whom we believe him to be: the Son of God. Now for those who don't believe or don't wish to believe, Jesus' walking on water is written off as so much hokum: the product of the fertile imaginations of those who desperately wanted to believe Jesus was someone he was not.

But both are wrong. Belief does not come from the miraculous, from the extra­ordinary. Belief in another comes from the mundane, the ordinary. The Apostles came to believe Jesus and to believe in him, not because of his miracles, not because he walked on water or raised Lazarus from the grave or fed 5000 plus people with five loaves of bread and two small fish. No, Peter and Andrew and all the rest found the basis of their faith in Jesus because he always loved and cared about them.

It is the little things we do for the ones we love that matter. The big things are icing on the cake. We may be impressed by expensive gifts. Walking on water, making a blind man see, giving clean skin to a leper can almost, if not, overwhelm the receiver and the beholder. They almost demand belief, the big things do.

But we don't fall in love with the gift giver because we are impressed by his/her magniloquence. We fall in love with the gift giver because of all the little, everyday gifts of love. Not the big but the little. Not the extraordinary but the ordinary. Not the out-of-this-world, the you'd-have-to-see-this-to-believe- it; but the mundane.

For you and me, our faith in God comes not because he cures an incurable disease— for us or for a loved one. Our faith comes because God helps us get through each day when we are in pain, when we are ready to give up, to despair.

Faith in another, love of another, comes and grows. It flourishes little by little, day by day. We sprinkle another, God sprinkles us, every day. The water to grow comes drop by drop and not by bucketfulls. Trying to overwhelm the other usually results in drowning.

In any relationship—God with us, us with God, one with another—it is never the size or the cost of the gift that matters, really. It never is. What matters in the beginning, in the end, and all along is the love behind the gift. If love is not there or if the love is selfish rather than of the other, the gift, no matter how impressive or miraculous, will mean very little.

We need not walk on water to show our love for God, for another. All we need do is wade through it with them.

SALTSHAKERS

Somewhere in one of our cupboards we have a saltshaker just in case any guest would like to sprinkle some salt on the entrée being served. The only time I use it is when I may be baking some cookies and the recipe calls for it and usually no more than a quarter of a teaspoon: so little and yet so powerful a spice! That is also why we don’t have potato chips around: we would open the bag only once. All that is on the mundane level.

On the theological level we are all saltshakers: we are the salt and we are the shaker of the salt as in “You are the salt of the earth,” says Jesus in Matthew 5:13. It’s our job if you will, to bring life to everyone and everything around us. And it doesn’t take much, usually just a pinch of salt here or a dash there is all that is needed.

Sometimes I think we think that being a Christian, bringing Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness is a daunting and difficult task. And at times it may seem like it, especially in this world in which we are now living. But I suspect every generation has thought the same. Sin and selfishness have been there from the beginning, as the parable of The Garden of Eden so pointedly teaches.

We are not called, you and I, to change the world. Jesus wasn’t either. All we are called to do is effect a change in the world around us as best we can. We do that by salting that world with our living example of what it means to be a Christian. That is what Jesus did. By his life he showed those around him what life is to be about, what real life truly is. He was met with opposition and, yes, got killed in the process. That is always a possibility, make no mistake about that.

The reality is that there will be opposition. There always is. No one, including you and I, likes to be reminded that what we are saying or doing is sinful and selfish. When that is the message that we/they are hearing, the tendency is to lash out and find fault with the messenger. The salt, if you will, is just a little too much to take at the moment. And yet, if we/they allow ourselves to be honest with ourselves, we will sooner or later, hopefully sooner, admit that what we needed was that pinch of salt. It conveyed the message and that was all that was needed a that time.

No change happens overnight. Any and all change take time and it all begins very slowly and almost imperceptibly: one person at a time, one moment at a time, one day at a time: in us, in others, in the world. It is frustrating and often infuriating, both when we see needed changes in others, and even more, in ourselves.

The impetus for that change is the salt that we have shaken on others and the salt others have shaken on us simply by the example that has been given by the life of the saltshaker. We are indeed the salt and the saltshaker of our world today. A pinch here, a dash there is all we can do, is all we need do. Sprinkle some today.

THE GREEN, GREEN GRASS

With apologies to Erma Bombeck--it is true that the grass is always greener on the other side of the- septic tank, also on the other side of the fence. Always and invariably, it is greener. It is also just as difficult to cut. The one on the other side of the tank and/or the fence didn't get that lush and verdant field simply by looking at the patch and praying that all would be well. He and/or she toiled long and hard and at a great deal of physical and financial cost to produce something that makes us green with envy; pun intended.

There is not very much in this life that comes easy or cheap, except perhaps envy. We see what another has, think it is so much better than what we have, and desire it. That would not be so bad if our dreams stopped right there. But sometimes they don't. And they are dreams, you see. Because once we start fantasizing about what the other has, we start living in a dream world. We quite easily forget all that is entailed in making our dream come true; or we mesmerize ourself into believing that it'll all be easy. All I have to do is toss out some seed, sprinkle a little of lime and fertilizer, add some water (preferably of the rain variety) and, presto!, the green, green grass of our dreams.

We really know it doesn't work that way. We really know that if we want our neighbor's lawn, we'll have to work just as long and just as hard as our neighbor; maybe even longer and harder. And if that is what we really and truly want, we ought to go for it. Give it our all. But we must not forget: the end results will demand more, not less, of us.

What we also forget, what we fail to realize while we are gazing over our fence in envy, is that our own yard might not be all that bad. All too often envy not only hides the reality of what we desire but it also prevents us from seeing how good what we already have really is. That green grass is so deceptive. And we fall for it. Readily, easily, almost willingly. While we are watching our neighbor toil and labor to make what he has the object of our dreams, our own grass gets out of hand with weeds and dandelions and whatever. And that's too bad because what we had really was so good.

For each of us there is a greener grass, a greener pasture. Sometimes it only remains in the realm of our dreams. Sometimes we start to make our dreams come true and discover that they'll take more work, more sacrifices, than we're willing to give or make. Sometimes, as we gaze longingly over the fence, we look down at our feet and feel just how comfortable we are, how good what we have is. And so we smile and go back to cutting our own grass.

We’ll sweat, of course. We might even cuss a little. But when the job is done, we'll sit back and enjoy the beauty of the green. But if we listen closely, we'll probably hear all those blades making noise. They're laughing at us. They're growing. Our work is never done, is it?

It’s all right to dream, to be green, to want, to be envious at times. But at the same time, we cannot allow ourselves to overlook what we already have. It is probably better than what we see over the fence. And if it isn't, it can be if we want it to be.

ACT YOUR AGE?

All of us sometime in our life, probably many times, have been told "Act your age!" We were doing something silly, maybe downright immature, and an elder called us to task by reminding us that some­one of our years does not act in that sort of way. They were right – but they were also wrong, for the most part most of the time.

So, too, would someone be wrong if he told us to "Act like, a Christian" when catching us doing something unChristlike. You see, the problem we all have is not so much in acting our age or acting like a Christian. We do that all of the time. I act like an 80-year-old Christian almost all of the time. What I don't do is always react as a Christian should.

We all know what actions are demanded of us by both society and ourself according to our age. We don't expect a six-year-old to act like one who is sixteen or sixty, and vice versa. With age and maturity comes a knowledge of how to act, how to live. The same is true as for us acting like a Christian. Six-year-olds and sixty-year-olds act differently. The emphasis is not on acting, as in faking it. It is acting as in actions. Our actions, what we do, are done according to what our age and maturity would require.

Our reactions, often, are not. We tend to react not as Christians, not according to our age. Someone hurts us and we react quickly. And in that reaction, we turn, not the other cheek, but the back of our hand or the back side of our character. We do and say things that, given time, given thought, we would not say or do. Reactions, all too often, are passionate responses to a situation. Actions tend to be reflective responses to that situation.

We get hurt and we immediately react. We become defensive. We pout. We shout. We repay in kind or worse. Acting as Jesus would, responding as Jesus would have us, is not in the forefront of our thinking at that moment of real hurting, at that moment in our life. What we wind up doing then is something stupid...and paying for it for a long time because the person whom we are reacting to reacts to our immature, unChristlike reaction – and then the vicious cycle begins and goes on and on and on.

That has to stop. That has to change. That's basically what the Church is about: teaching us, helping us to make our reactions Christlike actions. It's not easy to spontaneously do the Christian thing, say loving words, especially when we've been hurt. That takes a lot of time and effort and very hard work.

There will probably never be a time when we always say and do what we know we should. We will never always react as a Christian. But that does not mean that we give up. We must keep working at it through prayer, through good works, through the Sacraments, through reading Scripture – through doing all those things we know are necessary in order to grow up into a Christian person. When we fail, we ask forgiveness and start over. When we succeed, we simply thank God for God is the one, through God’s Son and Spirit, who enables us to react as our age and faith demand.                                              

IT’S THE LAW

Sometimes, not often, mind you, just every once in a while, I walk the straight and narrow simply because I don't want to go to jail – or maybe worse (although I can't think of anything worse than being locked up). There are times when I am really in a hurry that I'd love to go 80-90 miles an hour. But the "law" says that I can't. And if I do...So I don't.

For that I cannot pat myself on the back or remind myself of my virtues or anything else along the lines of self-serving justification. I'm "good" simply because I am afraid of the consequences of being "bad." Sometimes it's simply as simple as that.

Now it shouldn't be that way. We should all do what we know is right, even what the law demands, just because that is what we should be doing as a Christian person and not because we are afraid or are unwilling to pay the price for doing what is wrong. But sometimes fear of pain is the final deterrent.

Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it's "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" What allows us to be so brash as to defy the law is that sometimes (that word again) we do manage to avoid the torpedoes – or the radar. Sometimes we don't get caught. And that gives us the courage to maybe try it again next time. Then, if we don't get caught that time.... The jails, however, are living proof that discretion should have been the better part of valor.

But the jails are also living proof that fear, discretion, good common sense, Christian principles and the law win out more often than not, but not always. I would like to believe that our Christian faith is our first and last deterrent from straying off the path. It probably is. But the law is also a powerful force.

What is somewhat unfortunate is that it is all too tempting to cite the law, to instill the fear of punishment, to scare people into doing good and avoiding evil rather than trying to teach right attitudes. It's easier and takes less time to pull out the wooden spoon and wave it around (and maybe use it) to keep the kids in line than to sit down and talk with them about what would bring out the spoon in the first place.

But the wooden spoon is only a temporary deterrent. It doesn't get to the root of the situation. Neither does the threat of jail nor the fear of hell. Hell-fire and brimstone works only for a time, "time" being the time it takes to realize that that's a threat the consequences of which will only be experienced some time off in the distant future, if ever, and not now.

That's not to say that the law or the wooden spoon or even some reverential fear of the Lord is unimportant. They do serve a purpose: they remind us that perhaps we are for the moment taking our Christian responsibilities and obligations for granted. As a reminder, the law is good and necessary. As a reason for doing or not doing something, it should not even be a reason.

Unless that law is the law of Love. Then it's the only reason.

AVOIDING THE TRUTH

There's a classic line, okay, semi-classic, in the Tom Cruise - Jack Nicholson movie "A Few Good Men." Lawyer Cruise is confronting General-and-Antagonist Nicholson about the truth. Nicholson rises from his witness chair and shouts at Cruise, "You can't handle  the truth!"

Most of us can't. Not the Gospel truth anyway; or perhaps I should say the truth of the Gospel. We may not be as contemptuous as Pilate who asked Jesus, "What is truth?" But we run from it, shy away from it, almost avoid it at all costs. For the truth of the Gospel message is very, very costly in terms of commitment and consequences. It comes at a price: that of our very lives.

Most of us, I suspect, pick and choose when it comes to the truth, like Nicholson's General. We choose that part which suits us and neglect, overlook or deny that which causes us anguish. Then in order to defend our denial of the whole truth, we turn the tables and accuse those who call us on the carpet of not being able to understand or, in Nicholson's words, handle the truth.

We also use the tactic of vociferously defending that part of the truth, that part of the Gospel message which suits us and which we can uphold. We make so much noise that those who would challenge us on the other aspects of the truth which we neglect can hardly get a word in edgewise. We become relentless in our pursuit of a partial truth, often very relentless.

We become crusaders for an issue that seems valid but which seems to become the only issue. But what we do in the process is miss the greater issue, the greater Gospel truth perhaps because it is so clear and so simple. That very basic message is that we must love everyone else with our total being, no matter who they are, no matter what they do., even what they believe.

But we do not. We claim that we love the sinner but hate the sin. But the sin that we crusade against subsumes the sinner and we can no longer recognize that fact. We claim we love Joe Smith but hate his adulterous ways. Actually we hate that Adulterous Joe Smith. We cannot seem to separate the two.

It is easy to condemn sins. It is very difficult to love the one who commits those sins or what we perceive to be sins: they may, in fact, not be sins, only that we have decided they are. Jesus loved everyone no matter what they did. He loved each person as a person. That was what brought about their conversions, not the condemnation of their sins.

Nicholson was right. As Christians, we do not really want to hear the truth of the Gospel because we would have to spend most of our time dealing with how we as individuals do not live out the truth of the message. That's no fun. It's more fun telling others that they can't handle the truth, that they are sinners. It's not fun realizing that at times we are no better than they, no fun at all.

AD-LIBBING OUR WAY THROUGH LIFE

 I saw a cartoon the other day of a husband and wife in bed, not being able to sleep. The husband says: "It's funny...when I was a kid, I thought grown-ups never worried about anything. I trusted my parents to take care of everything, and it never occurred to me that they might not know how. I figured that once you grew up, you automatically knew what to do in any scenario. I don't think I'd have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I'd known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed."

A little comic license in that conversation. Not all of life, nor even most of life is ad-libbed. Most of the time we know what to do, what is right, what our faith demands. That does not mean that it will be easy to do what we should. It does mean, though, that knowledge and experience give us the courage to do what is right even when it is difficult, sometimes very difficult.

But there are indeed times in our lives when we simply are not sure what we should do, what is right, what our faith demands. But we have to do something. We have to make a response. When we do, while we are responding, or at least in hindsight, it often seems like we are ad-libbing our response. Our prayer is that before we act, we get it right or after we have acted that we got it right.

We all want answers, the right answers. We all want to know what to do, what our faith demands that we do – or not do. We want black and white. We want the church to be the place where the right answer is given to every question. We certainly don’t want our church to be the place where there are more questions than answers, even more and worse, a place where there is no answer.

And yet to believe that we have all the answers means that all the questions have already been asked. They haven't, of course. Moral and ethical questions keep being asked as we learn more and more about the human condition we live in. And when in our daily lives we come up against a question that has not been asked and for which an answer has not been ascertained and for which we have to make a response, we have to ad-lib, do the best we can.

There is a lot of controversy in the church today over certain questions, questions to which many demand answers, questions which some say are already answered but which others say otherwise. There are those who are unwilling to live with uncertainty, especially in this time of change, time of discontinuity. There are those who say that the church must be the rock of stability with rock-solid answers.

No one of us really wants to ad-lib our way through life. It would be too discomforting, sometimes too discouraging. Yet, there are times when we really do not have any other choice. We have to live our life of faith as best we can, not always knowing for certain, praying that our ad-libbed response is based on what we truly believe Jesus would have us do; and if it is not, asking for forgiveness, insight, and the strength to make amends if at all possible.

JAPE, DUSTY AND BIG D

For whatever reason, last week I was reflecting back on my days in seminary: twelve long years that actually passed quickly, as have these past 53 years as a priest. I thought about all those men, and they were all men back then, who passed through my life as I did with theirs. So many of them have passed on, of course, time waiting for no one and nothing, some in the prime of life, others after having lived a good, longer life.

There was Chuck who died of cancer at 54. He and I had entered seminary as high school freshmen in September of 1957. Chuck was usually "Charlie" to all of us. We all had nicknames (mine was "Willy"). There was E.J. (Skip, to others), Frenchy (who has a French name), Herc (for Harlan), Ishtvan (Hungarian for Steve), Eli (whose last name is Whitney), Tiny (who was anything but). But you get the point.

We even had nicknames for our professors/teachers: Monsignor Gerald Durst, whom we all called "Dusty" -- not to his face, of course! There was also "Jape" (for Joseph P. Marzen, our Dean of Men who was called "The Disciplinarian" back then, and rightly so); and "Big D" (our English teacher who stood 6"4").  These also are resting in peace with no more students to torment or to torment them.

Sometimes it takes a reminder to remind one of one's past and the people and places who were part of that past and who helped make us what we are today. When we reflect back on that past, what we discover, or at least what I have discovered, is that it was neither as bad as I had imagined it to be going through it, nor as good as I would like to have remembered it to be.

And even though that past has had an effect on our present lives, the effect is not as profound as we often attribute it to be. For depending on the present situation, it is easy either to romanticize the past beyond recognition or to indict it for all present failures and shortcomings. The past is never that good, that bad, or that powerful. And if it is, then we are still living in the past.

And neither are the people who have passed through our lives, no matter how long they were in our lives, no matter how strong of a hold they had over us at that time. They, too, were never that good, that bad or that powerful. For, I hope, we have moved on and so have they.

Jape, Dusty and Big D were truly powerful forces in our lives as young seminarians, mostly, upon reflection, for good, and sometimes, to be honest, for not so good. But so am I in my relationship with others. So are all of us, I suspect.

We are what we are partly because of our past. But who we will be depends more now on the present than on the past. That is true for us as individuals, as a church, as a diocese, as a community. We may well sing the praises of the saints of the past, and justly so. But we must always be in tune to the present if, in the future, we want this present to be remembered well.

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, PETER, PAUL, AND MARY?

I'm a romantic. I think part of the good, old days were a lot better than today. Then, too, maybe I want to idealize that part of my history that shaped and molded me. Either way, I'll stand by my beliefs.

Part of those beliefs are the fact that much of the idealism my generation believed in, peacefully fought for and expounded centered around helping the helpless. That idealism was put into song and called us to our task. The Pete Seegers and Peter, Paul and Marys of my college days reminded us that putting another down in order to lift ourselves up was not only wrong but it was wrong-headed. It would come back to haunt us in the end. We were advocates of the Social Gospel.

Seminaries were full and they were full of idealists right out of college. The average age of those in seminary was 24-25. Today it is 45-46. The bottom dropped out of seminary enrollment about the time that the so-called Me Generation kicked in. Instead of others coming first, this new generation put them a distant second, expect where the other could be of use in making them even more comfortable and secure. Peter, Paul and Mary lost out to Looking Out for Number One.

The times? They aren't a changing very much. What is changing (and here I have no sociological proof expect my own assumptions, and you know what they say about assumptions) is that those who sold out to self found, twenty years later, that it was not all that rewarding or fulfilling. A few even went to seminary in order to serve those whom they may have once used.

The church, sadly and tragically for all involved including those who dropped out of being part of a church, did not recognize the loss of several generations until it was too late. Because of that we are older and grayer and want to know how we can capture young people again. We won't do it by catering to what the Me Generation desired: their needs. My opinion of the rapidly growing non-denominational churches is that they are Me-Generation Churches in disguise.

I say that not out of jealousy. Honest. I say it out of the conviction that our first call as Christians is a call to serve others, to serve, in the words of my favorite theologian, Robert Capon, the last, the least, the lost, the lonely, and the dead of this world. They are to come first, their needs. In Jesus’ own words: “I am among you as one who serves.” He did not need to add: “Go, and do likewise.”

If we are to capture the hearts and minds of our younger generation, we must do it by challenging them to think of others first, as Peter, Paul and Mary challenged my generation. What we discovered, if I may generalize, is that we have been rewarded one hundred-fold, although in ways we never imagined but better than we could have ever hoped for. There is more joy in serving others than in being served. We need to teach that, maybe re-learn that. And when we do, when my generation's grandchildren learn that, we'll need to build more churches. Guaranteed.  

LIFE IN THE MIDDLE

If one believes that the Bible is a commentary on life, and in many ways I truly think it is, then one can discern a short synopsis of life: life begins as good and life ends as good, but it is in the middle that we have our problems. Genesis begins by reminding us that all of creation, including and especially life itself, is good. It can be nothing else but good because God is good and God creates nothing that is not good in and of itself, including and especially we human beings.

The last book of the Bible, Revelation, ends with the reminder that the ending of life will also be good. There will be new heavens and a new earth when all will be well. No matter what has happened to us in this life, no matter how painful or tragic, in the end all will be well because we will be celebrating and living an eternal life with God, who, because God is who God is, will make all things well.

In the meantime, between birth and death, life is not always so good. In fact, as Genesis records in its parabolic manner, things went from bad to worse very quickly, from a simple sinful act of disobedience to brother killing brother in a fit of jealous rage to the whole of creation being damned because of humanity’s sinfulness. Yet starting all over after the Flood unfortunately did not correct the mess.

Life is, well, messy. It’s not a disastrous mess at it may sometimes seem to be but it’s certainly not pretty and certainly not something to brag about where one given the opportunity to sing life’s and humanity’s praises. In fact, we would be hesitant to do such because we all know that we are the makers of this mess and the reason why, in spite of our best efforts, little if any progress seems to be made – can be made.

We live in a confusing and unsteady world, a world made so not because God has abandoned us but because God gives us the free will to make foolish and selfish choices. But we go on. We have no choice. Well, we do, but let’s not go there. We go on because we want to go on because, in spite of the messiness of life, in spite of our sinfulness, in spite of the bad that sometimes clouds the good, there is much good about our own personal lives and life itself, more good than bad. And even when that which is not so good seems to have the upper hand in our lives, we know we are not fighting the battle alone. We have one another.

In many ways that is why we gather each week as a parish family. We come here to St. Brendan’s to support one another in our individual and corporate faith journeys. We prop each other up, hold one another accountable and know that God will give us both the will and the means to help clean up the messes we have made and become less messy in the future.

We live life in the middle, between birth and death, between those good times and, at the same time, experiencing the good of life itself that comes between the bad times. We are never discouraged and we never give up because we are fed by the Eucharist and by the love of one for another.

LIVING WITH UNCERTAINTY

Most people I know are quite comfortable living in a confusing and uncertain world where one does not always have all the answers. I find myself in this position most of the time, but not always. There are times in my life when I do not like the uncertain nature about life. There are times when I want to know what is the absolute right thing to do, what is the absolute right answer.

And because I cannot separate my faith from the rest of my life, the questions always boil down to one: What is it that God would have me do in this situation? Sometimes after much thought and prayer, I know what God would have me do. Now that does not mean that I will always do it. It only means that I know beforehand what I should do. I know that I should turn the other cheek. That does not mean that I always will.

Yet there are other times in my life when I just do not know what is right, what it is that God wills, what it is I should do. I know that there are those who believe that they have a lock on the truth, that they know what it is that God wants, and that they can quote chapter and verse to prove it. And then they do. The problem is that it is not that simple. For as soon as we use scripture to back up one belief, we can't play loose with it when it comes to other situations.

If, for instance, one believes a certain action is immoral and then cites chapter and verse, one must also say that women are forbidden to talk in church, divorce is wrong and we should stone our children when they disobey us – also citing chapter and verse. We hold that war is immoral. But then, is it? They killed people by the tens of thousands, if you go by the numbers, in the Old Testament, and did so in the name of God. They, and we, were also told that we shall not kill and should turn the other cheek. We can't pick and choose our sins or have our actions be sins on one occasion and justifiable on another depending on circumstances. But we do!

That is not to say that anything goes. It does not. But it also does not allow us to state that one sin is worse than another. Yet we do. We insist that killing is worse than stealing. And even killing and stealing have their degrees of guilt. But to restate what I have said so often, difference in degree makes no difference. We are all sinners. A sin is a sin is a sin and it does not matter the sin.

What matters and what is truly important, is that we clean up our own house before we start to try to clean up someone else's. It also means that there are times when we may even be uncertain not only about what needs to be swept clean but where to begin and what to do next.

We live in a sinful and confusing world where the temptation is for the quick fix and the simple answer. There is no quick fix, at least for the great issues of our time. There is, however a very simple solution but one that is not easy to live out: love everyone all the time. We're not there yet. In the meantime, the struggle goes on. With God's love and grace we will grow stronger and better each day.

ON NOT BEING SATISFIED

Psychiatrist Gerald May: "We have this idea that everyone should be totally independent, totally whole, totally together spiritually, totally fulfilled. This is a myth. In reality, our lack of fulfillment is the most precious gift we have. It is the source of our passion, our creativity, our search for God. All of the best of life comes out of our human yearning, our not being satisfied."

One can read what May says with mixed feelings. It can be a case of good news and bad news. The good news is that     our frustrations with our failures are part of our natural longing to be fulfilled, to be satisfied, to finally find what we are looking for. The bad news is that we may never know what we are looking for, cannot even define what it is that would satisfy and fulfill us. That could lead us to simply being satisfied with the status quo and never striving for anything more than what is. It can allow us to accept our failures as part of human nature, a what-did-you-expect-from-a-limited-sinful-human-being-? approach to life. It can do that.

But there is that part of us which prevents this in all of us. It is that search for God or, rather, our desire to draw closer and closer to our Creator. That desire, I think, is innate. It arises from the fact that it is God who has created us and that godliness is part of our being and we want to know and understand what all that means.

As Christians we are quite aware that we always fall short of perfection in our lives. We also will not allow ourselves to be satisfied with anything less than with what we know is to be our goal in this life. And that is to be as God-like as Jesus was as frightening as that can sometimes be when we actually are like that. Knowing that we will never totally arrive at that point in our life in this life does not deter us from trying every day to be better than we were yesterday and to be even better tomorrow. And when we fail to accomplish this today, we know tomorrow is another day and another opportunity to be a better person than we were today.

Nevertheless, knowing all this, there is still that nagging feeling, as May intimates, that there is always that possibility that we will find a way to be perfect, to be fulfilled, to be physically and spiritually altogether. If that were not possible, we would never begin to try in the first place. We don’t start off on any adventure or project knowing that we will absolutely fail. Perhaps the reason for our making the attempt each day to be as perfect and fulfilled as possible is that our Creator is perfect and we have that part of God in us that believes perfection is possible.

What all this means to me is that life will always be a struggle between being satisfied with what-is and never being satisfied because what-is is not enough and what-we-want-to-be is an impossibility – in this life, of course. Perfection and complete satisfaction only come, of course, in eternity.

In the meantime, the grace of God, which is the Holy Spirit living in and working through us, keeps us never being satisfied with what is, no matter how good it is, because we know we can always do and be better. And it keeps us from being dejected by our failures because we know we have tried our best even though we have come up short. I guess it means that there is good news in the bad news and bad news in the good news and that no matter what, God always loves us and will never abandon us. Never.

FULL-SERVICE OR SELF-SERVE?

When I was growing up, all gas stations were service stations. When you drove in, one, and sometimes two people came out to fill your tank, wash your windows, check the oil and battery and whatever else they thought needed to be checked. If there was something wrong, they worked on your car right there. And if you wanted something to eat or drink while they were working on your car, there were candy and pop machines available, but no more than that.

Not so today. Today, we can buy all the food we want, even stuff for the laundry, but we have to fill our own tanks, wash our own windows, check our own oil. If my observations are valid, most people are like me: we fill our tank and our stomach and forget about everything else. We're too much in a hurry any more. Back then it was full service for your car. Today, what is offered is full service for your stomach and barely lip service for your car.

Today my body may be taken care of but my car gets neglected, except for the gas. Today it is all self-serve. I would prefer the full service. That way I do not neglect what I often do now. When left to my own desires and devices, what most needs to be taken care of often, my car, gets neglected and what needs to be neglected, my stomach, often gets full treatment. At least that is what is being offered. It is truly a crazy world we live in these days, isn't it?

Gas stations - service stations are almost a metaphor on all of life, perhaps especially our lives as Christians, as people of faith. Today, instead of taking care of all that needs to be done, we tend to the most immediate need. Instead of allowing other people to help us do what has to be done for us, we try t do it all by ourselves. We want to be self-service Christians.

That was never the way it was, nor is it the way it should be. God did not create us to be alone. God created us one for another, to help one another -- and not just when the other is in desperate need to be helped. In the old days I hardly ever needed oil and my windows did not always need to be washed. But the oil was always checked and the windows were always washed, needed or not.

In the age of self-serve only immediate needs seem to be the concern. We do not allow others into our lives except when there is an emergency. We'll take care of ourselves, thank you. But we don't do a very good job. We neglect to check what needs to be checked. Then when the oil runs out and the engine develops problems, we wonder how we got into so much of a mess and worry how we'll get ourselves out of the mess, all of which is our own doing; all of which could have been avoided had we not been so self-serving.

When we gather to worship, we are reminded that we are here one for another at all times and not just in emergencies. Our faith is a full-service faith: gathered together we remind ourselves that we are here to serve one another and not ourselves alone. 

NO EXCEPTIONS

Every once in a while on my travels I come upon a billboard with these words: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” That is true from several perspective even though, when I read those words, I often cringe because the people who pay for the billboard really do not fully understand what those words mean. Their understanding is that only baptized Christians can enter heaven, which makes one wonder what they do with Mary and Joseph and Moses and anyone else who has never heard about Jesus?

Even so, those words are true. First of all, if one’s vision of heaven is life after physical death here on earth, one certainly will have to be born again to enter heaven. There is no other way. We must first die and then be born again to live the new and eternal life God freely offers to each and everyone of us, Mary and Joseph and Moses an all those Chinese non-Christians, etc., etc., etc. No one excepted and no exceptions on how to get into heaven. The billboard people just don’t or won’t understand.

What I think they, and maybe you and I, don’t fully understand is those words are true right here and right now in our own lives. Jesus came among us not to die so that we can get to heaven when we die, because that is God’s free gift to us: unmerited and undeserved on our part. Rather Jesus came to bring about the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, here on earth. And we do that by living out what he taught us, fulfilling in our very lives his one very simple message: love God above all else and love our neighbors as we love ourself.

To do that we have to be born again, and maybe again and again and again. While in the womb and once out of the womb, the only person we were concerned about was ourself. Life centered around everyone fulfilling our needs whatever they were, food and security being at the top of the list. It took a while before we learned and understood that others were just as important as we were. That was a born-again experience. And it was a difficult lesson to learn. We had to die to our selfishness in order to be born anew into the life of God’s kingdom even if, back then, we didn’t have a clue what that is. That’s the way it was for us and for every human being. No exceptions.

That’s the way it still is. God’s kingdom is alive here on earth. Sometimes it is very alive and well and at other times not so. It is alive and well when we live our lives in love and care and concern for others. It is not well when we revert to putting ourself and our wants over the needs of others. Unfortunately, and I think this is what the billboard people do not understand, we need to understand that the kingdom of God is not just lived in the life to come through death, but it is here on earth and it is to be lived out by each and everyone of us if it is to be lived in its fulness.

And, unfortunately again, and this time for all of us, if I may be judgmental, we fail everyday to live out our life as our faith in Jesus asks us to do: to the fullest. And so every night at the end of the day we can and should reflect on how well or how poorly we helped make God’s kingdom a reality where we live and move and have our being. And then off to sleep to rise again the next day, born again, to live and love as best we can.

Yet none of this can happen if we believe that the kingdom of God is somewhere out there and not right here on earth. God is in charge of what happens when we die. We are in charge of what happens while we are very much alive. It is up to us to make the kingdom of God here on earth what God wants and expects and even demands that it be. It won’t be easy as we know all too well. But to do that, sinful human beings that we are, we must be born again each and every day. And for that there are no exceptions.

WHAT IF GOD TOOK THE SUMMER OFF?

 ...or the month or the week or the day of the hour or the minute or even the second? What if God said, "I need a vacation from all this God-business, of listening to and helping answer prayers and all the rest of the stuff I do. I think I'll take some time off and let them fend for themselves for a little while."? What if?

I know what you're thinking: "Here comes the guilt trip. In fact, he's already started it with that question. Of course, God doesn't take time off. God doesn't leave us to fend for ourselves, not even for a moment. That is not God's way." So you are thinking.

Guilt trip? Maybe. But guilt trips are never very effective precisely because of their very nature. They appeal to our heart and not our head, to our emotions and not to our intellect. Yes, we do much of what we do not because our head says we should. Often it does not. But our heart says otherwise. If the Good Samaritan had used his head, he would have quickly passed on by.

Yet, on the other hand, we often do things we would rather not do, like study for an exam, but do so because we know in our head that we simply must if we want the results of what passing the exam will bring.

Of course, there are times when we don't do things we know we should do because we just don't feel like it. We should get up and go to church even though we feel like sleeping in, but we just don't feel like it. Momentary guilt sets in. But we overcome it and turn over onto the other side and say to ourselves: "Next Sunday." Then when next Sunday comes, we so often repeat the scenario. We take another trip down Somnolence Lane, Guilt Trip Lane notwithstanding.

The reason why God doesn't take time off from being God is that, I think, God loves being God. God could not take it for even one millisecond to be out of our lives, uninvolved in our lives. We, on the other hand?

That is not to say that we take ourselves out of God's life because we roll over in bed instead of getting out of it and going to church. Sometimes that is just what we need, maybe even what God needs for us that particular Sunday morning. And sometimes, well, let's not get into that. It would sound too much like a guilt trip, certainly very judgmental.

So let's get to the heart of the matter: as a former pastor my need to see you on Sunday, not from an ego standpoint (well, maybe a little) was great. When you were not there, I missed you. In the same way, when you are not in church, others miss you. God does not take time off from us because God would miss us no matter how much we drive God up the wall at times. We are part of God's family.

A church community is a family. And when part of the family is missing when the family gathers to celebrate, we cannot celebrate as fully as we could and should. More guilt trip? Only if you think so. If so, then what?

HOPE IS FOR THE DEAD

The great spiritual writer and thinker – and one who certainly lived what he wrote and thought because he truly believed – Thomas Merton: "Hope then is a gift...total, unexpected, incomprehensible, undeserved...but to meet it, we have to descend into nothingness. It is the acceptance of life in the midst of death, not because we have courage, or light, or wisdom to accept, but because by some miracle the God of life himself accepts to live, in us, at the very moment we descend into death."

I don’t know about you, but I never looked at hope like that before. In other words, hope is for the dead, not for the living. While we have life in us, there is no need to hope. We are alive. It is when we are dead that we need to have hope. And because we are dead, because there is no life in us, hope, as Merton says, is a "gift... total, unexpected, incomprehensible and undeserved."

That means we have to reserve the word "hope" to very few occasions in our lives. Hoping to win the lottery, to make an "A" on the exam, to get that job: those are all desires of the living. Most of the work of bringing about those desires is up to us. But when we are dead, it is all up to God. When the doctor says "there is no hope," that's when we begin to find hope, in and through God. It is when God, the God of life, not the God of death, accepts to live in us that we truly find hope. But it is only when we "descend into death."

All of that may seem rather profound, theologically deep. And it is, if you think about it. It is for me now that I have been thinking about it. The word "hope" like the word "love" -- and maybe even like the word "faith” (I'll have to think about that more) -- is bandied about rather blithely without ever really understanding what is being said.

The commitment of love comes from the very depths of our being and demands the very soul of our being. Anything less isn't love. It may approach love, but it isn't love and we dare not call it such. Think of Jesus's death on the cross because of his love for us: that kind of depth (that came in death!). So, too, with hope. It comes from the very depths of our being and demands that we give that being over to God. The reason we dare to hope is that life, this part of our life, is now out of our hands. We can do no more. All we can do is give our life over to God and hope that God will bring new life.

We have all discovered this because we have all died at one time or another. When we gave the moment, the situation, the person, the life over to God because we could do no more, because we were dead, we were totally, unexpectedly, incomprehensibly, undeservedly surprised by the presence of God. But not until then.

We do take God for granted -- until we're dead, dead to whatever has been holding us back from God: pride, doubt, self-sufficiency. And God lets us be that way, maybe the better to surprise us by his grace and love in the midst of our despair, depression and, ultimately, death. Personally, I would rather have hope come more easily. But then, I'm not God.

SOMETHING ALWAYS HAPPENS

We are all wounded. It goes with being human, being alive. We will always be wounded. Heal one wound and another opens up. Several wounds may be festering at the same time. The bleeding never stops until we die. Until then we are a mess of wounds, often a bloody mess.

The wounds are usually more spiritual, psychological, than they are physical. Would that all our wounds be only physical. We could deal with those even if they could not all be healed. It's the other wounds that are the real stinkers. They make the physical wounds even worse. Many physical wounds are simply that: physical. If there is a psychological scar attached, it is usually the result of our own foolishness and nothing more deep-seated than that. Break a leg: we know why. Injure our back: we know why.

But there are some wounds whose reason is beyond our comprehension. For those, we find a reason, a spiritual one: sin. The fundamentalists are good in this area. Their standard reason for anyone being sick is that the person has sinned. Cancer, MS, diabetes, etc., are all the result of personal sin. Repent of that sin and one will be healed. And in a way the fundamentalists are correct. Sometimes our own sinfulness causes injury to our physical being. A smoker who gets lung cancer knows the reason for the cancer. But for the most part, no one deliberately sets out to do something sinful so that the action will cause a debilitating and life-threatening disease.

Yet, even though personal sin is not the cause of breast cancer, for instance, if one wants to be healed of that cancer, one must want to be healed and must believe that healing is possible. If we believe breast cancer is an automatic death sentence for us, it is; and there is nothing that the medical profession can do about it.

On the other hand, the medical profession can determine that there is no cure for our disease and we can still be healed -- physically and spiritually. But the spiritual always comes first. We must want to get better before we can get better. And it does not matter what the cause of our illness was -- sin, foolishness, or the luck of the draw. It is only after we are wounded that the healing process begins.  We are wounded: now what? Now let the healing begin. And once we want to be healed, once we begin to pray for healing, something always happens.

What happens is not always what we pray for, the outcome we may desire. But something, some good, always happens. Prayer brings God directly into our lives because we have personally asked God to be directly involved in the healing process. God never says "no" to that prayer.

How God answers our prayer is up to God. Without God we will surely bleed to death, physically and spiritually. Even with God, we will never be free of wounds, given our humanity; but we will always be healing, getting better spiritually, if not always physically. Something always happens when we let God into our lives, something good, no matter how wounded we are.