An analogy you need to "hear"

If you destroy your sense of hearing, or that of someone else, that does not mean that the world stops making sounds. You, or that other person, simply have become deaf.

Likewise if you destroy your own or someone else's ability to hear God (as he actually speaks), that doesn't mean God has gone away. It simply means that you have committed spiritual suicide or murder. God is still there even if you destroy your own or someone else's organs of hearing.

This is why God insists that children be raised "in the faith." It is not an "adult option." Would you pour lye in your children's ears figuring they shouldn't hear anything until they are adults and can have "hearing aids of their own choosing" installed.

Wise up. Hell's packed already but has infinite capacity, expanding to need.

understanding faith, hope, charity & other concepts

I love when I hear people discuss the scripture, especially when they have a restored joy in their actual understanding. However, I am dismayed when a fundamental error continues to take place. So here is the error and how to avoid it.

The error: You correctly understand from the scriptures that God instructs that one must have faith, hope and charity. You get that part just fine. However, you then try to understand "how" to apply faith, hope, charity and etc. by looking at fellow human "role models." That is so fundamentally wrong.

For example, you look around you for people that you think have a "lot" of "good" faith, and or a "lot" of "good" hope, and or a "lot" of "good" charity, and then you try to copy them. There is a breakdown of both faith and reasoning when you do that. The first is that God is speaking of divine faith, hope and charity, not human based faith, hope and charity. So you misunderstand what God speaks of if you think human faith fully explains what God means by faith, that human hope fully explains what God means by hope, and or that human charity fully explains what God means by charity.

Quickly I will give examples of how in scriptures you know that is an error. Jesus points out the loudly praying Pharisee as a hypocrite (comparing him to the quietly humble publican who is praying for forgiveness). Yet in those times many people would have used that arrogant Pharisee as the "biblically accurate role model for faith." The odds are that if you are looking at someone who is highly visible in their faith that you are open to being misled inadvertently because you short circuit developing your own faith based directly on what the Bible instructs and speaks to your own heart, because you truncate your understanding by studying only a human who may or may not be actually a "role model of faith."

Second, "hope" means hope of being saved, not hoping for the things that humans "hope for," whether those are good things or not. I will hone in on helping you to understand that by writing more about it below. But to make the general first point Paul states that hope is for eternal life, and you need to notice that no one describes hope as being directed toward any earthly event or object, regardless how worthy it might be to hope for, in a human context. Biblical "hope" is reserved for salvation alone.

Third, "charity" is a highly individual concept, and cannot be viewed as "works," "acts" or some sort of heavenly accounting. How do we know that? Because if you read the Beatitudes you understand that tons of really poor people are in heaven, and if you think about that, how many poor people can really do "works" of charity? Most are lucky to feed their own children. Obviously middle class and wealthy people are very tempted to fall over the stumbling block of thinking that the more you "have" the more you can "give away in charity" and thus the more "works of merit" and "good deeds" you earn. Wrong! Remember Luke 16 where that rich guy ends up in hell not because he was not a worthy Jew and probably did all the right things, including charity, but he didn't help the ONE man that God wanted to help.

I'm going to copy a list from the index of my Bible of hope related passages. Sometimes reading an index or a table of contents really conveys the point succinctly and holistically. So here it is and then I will discuss some of the specifics. But I can well imagine that you will get my point after simply reading this index!

A gift of God 2 Thess 2 16
Saved by Rom 8 25
Should abound in Rom 15 13
Called "blessed" Titus 2 13
Inspires holiness 1 John 3 3
Helmet of salvation 1 Thess 5 8
Given by Scriptures Rom 15 4
A heavenly treature Col 1 5
For eternal life Titus 1 2
An abiding principle 1 Cor 13 13
Leads to patience Rom 8 25
Is not seen Rom 8 24
Of Christians, in death Prov 14 32
Deferred, makes the heart sick Prov 13 12
Prisoners of Zech 9 12
"Hope against hope" Rom 4 18
Maketh not ashamed Rom 5 5
Anchor of the soul Heb 6 19
Assures immortality Acts 24 15
Of wicked, shall perish Prov 11 7
Christians rejoice in Rom 12 12
Give a reason for 1 Pet 3 15
A triumphant Rom 8 38,39
A living 1 Pet 1 3
Amid trials 2 Cor 4 8

Here is the list for "hopelessness":

State of unbelievers Eph 2 12
Caused by apostasy Jer 2 25
Caused by affliction Job 17 15
The cure for Isa 49 13-16

You see the problem? None of these scriptures refer to either earthly hope (such as "hoping" that something will happen) or to role modeling people who seem "hopeful" aka optimistic, perky, uplifting, etc. People who are hopeful in an earthly sense are optimists about earthly things, and that may or may not be wise or appropriate, but teaches you nothing about God's concept of hope, which is only directed toward salvation and being close to God.

Ephesians 2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.

You see, Paul is explaining one thing you might wonder in the list of scriptures of "hope" that I provided from my bible above. Why are so few Old Testament scriptures about "hope?" Because when the people of Israel lived within a theocracy (a king appointed and anointed by God and the Jews lived entirely within God's instructions and word) then they "have God," they are not "without God in the world." That's by the way why there is few references to hell or heaven for that matter in the Old Testament. The Israelites were a people of God, saved, or fallen away, as a whole. That does not mean that individual people are not judged by God on death, of course (Luke 16). But when one lives in a nation founded by God and compliant to God's will, then one does not need hope per se because one is living within the hope that God established for them. Christians, however, had to find their own hope individually as they went out into the world from the safety of the Old Covenant and into the assured, but invisible, New Covenant with God.

So Paul is explaining here that someone who is foreign to (not native of, and thus the word "alien" which does not mean imaginary space visitors) God's community, which was previously Israel and the Jews, is new to the concept of hope and, indeed, had been living in ignorance without hope.

In the Old Testament, therefore, you can now understand that hopelessness is not a state as moderns think of being pessimistic, being depressed, losing expectations of gaining some earthly object or event, but of being estranged from God and or thus risking loss of salvation.

Jeremiah 2:25 Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst, but thou saidst, There is no hope: no, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.

When one abandons the true God for imaginary strange gods and concepts, then one loses hope through apostasy, whether one realizes it or not, or whether one goes through the motions of outward obedience or not.

Job 17:15 And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

Job has lost everything he had. But he is not hoping for restoration of his goods. He realizes that he had been blessed by God and now for some reason unknown to him (Satan) is unjustly estranged from God. So Job wonders where God is because God is his hope.

Isaiah 50:13-16

Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually before me.

By the way, this passage about hope never mentions the word hope. This is one critical reason you must not rely on just looking up occurrences of certain words representing concepts you are researching in the Bible, because many times there is a wealth of information that is NOT actually mentioning the one word you are thinking about!!!!!!!!!! You learn about "hope" by reading the whole Bible (imagine that) rather than assuming hope is "discussed" or "explained" only where the translated word "hope" appears, like this is a legal text or a big old dictionary! The entire Bible is about "hope!"

God is saying that his people should rejoice in him, even in their misery of earth, because he has not forgotten them (unlike nursing mothers some of whom actually do neglect their children!) That is what is truly meant by God's hope.

Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Notice Paul does two things that are crucial. He explains that hope is found in the scriptures, reading, studying and following the scriptures using patience and for comfort. But he also continues to role model as hope being a work in progress, not a slam dunk assurance that someone has in their pocket! This is why he phrases it as "we...might have hope." None of the Apostles, including with them Paul, ever misleads people into thinking that "hope" means anything but forward looking hopefulness, not something that once gotten is never lost and never needs to be continually worked upon.

1 Thessalonians 5:8

But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breast-plate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.

OK, how many of you in sports who use a helmet take your helmet off after wearing it once and saying "Hey, I wore the helmet once, and I own one, so I don't need to wear it every time I race." Um, that would be dumb. A helmet needs to be worn all the time, not just "owned" but put in a closet. Likewise hope is an ongoing condition where one wears it as a helmet, just as one covers the chest with the breast plate of faith and love.

Why does Paul use this imagery? Faith and love (charity) are matters of the heart (the chest). Hope is a matter for the head (the brain, for thinking and remembering through logic).

I hope this has helped and do read the other scriptures I've listed. Understand that this is how to understand holistically a singular concept such as hope.

Wrong: "Nothing is free"

There's an old saying that "Nothing is free" and I just had to blog quickly about it. Yeah, I really mean quickly this time as I'm tired and soon to sleep. I heard the phrase in a song I like and it was great in the context. But I realized I could and should write something very important about it, which is that for the most important matters on earth, that practical and wry truism is wrong.

1. God is free. I don't mean some mushy just kind of wander around believing in some sort of godly spirit etc. I mean all the Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Knowing God is totally free to everyone, and knowing God within the faiths of one's forefathers is absolutely free. In fact, that's the whole point of God having made himself known to the faith children of Abraham, Jews, Christians and Muslims. He's there and he gives his words and his attention for free. No one should "pay money" to know God, the actual true one God. God requires our attention, not payments made between human beings.

2. Air is free. How quickly people forget that the very thing of life that is needed the most, air, is free, all the time and everywhere. [Remember the line from a pop song: "All I need is the air that I breathe and you."]

3. Sun is free. For thousands of years humans lived with no light to speak of but the sun. It is always there, even behind the clouds, keeping the earth warm enough for life.

4. Photosynthesis is free. Anyone can harvest a growing plant, and anyone can put a seed into the ground and watch it grow. The world's first "manufacturing capability," plants, have always been free, and one need not give a credit card number to make a plant grow and bear fruit.

I hope that you have found this helpful :-)

Bible reading and commentary: John 12:34

One of the reasons that the Jews did not recognize that Jesus was the Messiah can be easily understood looking at this passage. A crowd of people had gathered around Jesus, asking him questions and listening to what he taught and replied. Here is the passage to look at:

So the crowd answered him, "We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. Then how can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?" (John 12:34).

When the Jews say, "the law," they mean what is written in the Torah, in their scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament. So they have the impression from some scripture that the Messiah will live forever, remaining with the people until the end of time. Where have they seen this written? Look to Psalm 89:4-5.

"I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant: I will make your dynasty stand forever and establish your throne through all the ages" (Psalm 89:4-5).

This is one of the places in scripture where the Jews have the impression that the Messiah will be a man, a descendant of David, who will be just like David (a king with the throne of the Israelites), who will "stand forever." So you can understand that with these words of prophecy from God most Jews thought that another David, but this time one who rules on earth forever, was to be the Messiah. Thus they are confused and dismayed when Jesus says that he, the Son of Man, would have his time of death, and then resurrection into heaven. When Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, he is reminding people that he is indeed in a human form, that he is not just occupying a body, or an illusion of being one of mankind. The crowd gets that, but then figure that the Son of Man must be a different person than the expected Messiah.

This is one reason why the Jews did not recognize Jesus. They developed a certain mental image based on scripture (and done so in good faith), but then did not have sufficient trust of God that he can and will work marvels and deliver the Messiah in ways they cannot imagine, visualize, or comprehend.

Jesus tries to explain to them how this is by comparing himself to the light (not "a" light, but the light of God).

Jesus said to them, "The light will be among you only a little while. Walk while you have the light, so that darkness may not overcome you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light" (John 13:35-36).

Now, Jesus is not trying to confuse them or be obscure. He is with a few sentences giving them a lot to think about, knowing that there is not much time left for him, as he says this shortly before the Last Supper. So Jesus is leaving those in the crowd with a few powerful images to refute the stereotype expectations they had of what the Messiah would be like, and then left them to think about it. Some would have understood his words, looking back on them just a matter of days later when Jesus' death and resurrection unfolded. Others would never have understood.

What Jesus was saying is that yes, as Son of Man, he is there as a real human being, a member of the human race, but that as Son of God, he is also of God's light, and that light is of course eternal. Jesus is thus saying he is not at all in contradiction of the scripture, just, actually "above and beyond," so to speak, their expectations. They expected a Messiah who would be completely a human man, but one who would live and rule forever, and bring their faith to the entire world. Jesus is exactly that, but not one who is going to do so as a man living forever among humans.

You may wonder why God did not "opt" to, in fact, have Jesus do just that: to live as a human among humans forever. The answer is simple. The Messiah is needed to draw humans closer to God, not to provide a living intermediary that would, in fact, be an additional "layer" between God and humans. Jesus brought the face of God to humans but the intention is that humans have the New Covenant with God which brings them closer to God, an upward reaching toward God, rather than God sending a governor, for lack of a better world, to "rule," while God is more distant, rather than closer. This is why Jesus often explained that the Kingdom of God is at hand. By "at hand" Jesus meant both "now" but also "within reach." The Messiah makes God more, not less, accessible to humans.

The Jews, in all fairness, could not have easily imagined that this is what God planned. They would have needed a lot of faith to understand that God would fulfill the scriptures in a way that they simply had not expected. Like the square peg in the round hole, the Jews who disbelieved were continuing to walk around with their square or their circular image of the Messiah, and when they did not see a match they would move on looking for the next "Messiah candidate" (and there were plenty, though not a single one performed the miracles that were Jesus' alone as only he had God's authority).

So Jesus is explaining to them that yes, he is the descendant of David, and yes, he has the throne, from God, but that the "forever" of it is when Jesus returns to God in the light of his eternity, not as his bodily Son of Man form. Jesus is explaining that the light of God is there with them, for a short time, while Jesus lives and walks among them. While the light will go back to God, those who believe in Jesus and follow him completely will therefore still benefit from the light, even though the light has gone back to God, because they are now become "children of the light." Jesus as the light of God that God has sent does indeed return to heaven, and the light itself does not stay on earth, nor can any human claim to have it, but instead, those who believe and heed what Jesus taught about God's expectations, God's Kingdom and the New Covenant are "children of the light" and therefore know the way and are not in darkness. It's like when you have memorized your way through the rooms of your home and can walk through them even in the dark, just to use a broad analogy. You "know the way" even though you don't have the light on. The children of Jesus "know the way" even though the actual light of Jesus has returned to heaven, and thus the children of Jesus do not walk in darkness, as do those who never believed in the light that he is and brought. Thus even when the light has returned to God those who believe in Jesus retain the knowledge of how to find God and the way just as if the light were still there, even though it is not.

I hope you have found this helpful.

An exercise to help traumatized keep God in their lives

You tend to see three kinds of people with three different reactions to a horrible trauma or loss in their lives. The traumas I am speaking of are things like losing a loved one in an accident, a fire, to illness, or being the victim of a crime or some other form of deeply traumatizing abuse.

The first group are those who have a deep faith in God, and that is not shaken even after the trauma. They may, of course, question why this happened, and the larger meaning within the body of their faith, but they do not diminish their connection to God. Many, actually, feel a stronger attachment to God.

The second group are those who have faith in God, which they may have felt was deep prior to the event, or it may have been a moderate or nominal background belief. Individuals in this group feel anger at God that is beyond the normal "getting back one's bearings" after the trauma and often deny God, blame God and as they often say "no longer believe in God" or have "lost their faith."

The third group are those who are mostly secular in orientation. Thus when they have a trauma they tend to interpret the trauma and their reactions using a philosophical and logical attitude, which may or may not help. For the many that it does help this is because they retain their focus on the facts, which is that a fellow human, or a factual circumstance (mechanics, illness, accident) caused the trauma. For those who find they cannot fully feel better and heal by focusing on personal philosophy and facts, some feel a calling to God (a second chance at life after surviving their trauma), while a small number harden their stance that there must not be a God because a "good" God would not allow these things to happen anyway.

Just in the past week we have seen in the news examples of all three.

Now, this is the point that I wish to make. I want to address those from group two and group three who feel even farther from God after a trauma than before. I have here an analogy, an exercise, to help you to understand that this is not only a matter of faith, but that such a reaction, carried to an extreme, is not rational.

1. Suppose that you have been kidnapped and abused by a gang. Would it be a logical response to no longer believe in the existence of police?

2. Suppose that you have been injured in a car smash and are lying, wounded, in your car, or on the side of the road. Would it be a logical response to no longer believe in the existence of ambulance crews? And if, when the ambulance crew shows up, would you say that your wounds are their fault?

3. Suppose that you are trapped in a building that is on fire. Would you lock the door on the firemen who come to rescue you, saying that you no longer believe in them? Would you say, "Well, you obviously must think that fires are a good thing or you would not have chosen to be firemen in your career?"

4. Suppose that you or a loved one has been sexually abused. If God came to comfort you, would you say to God, "Go away... I'd rather stay here with my living abuser." Rather than accompany God and abandon either the continuing reality or the living memory of the abuse, would you cling even tighter to the ongoing endless loop of the abuse, and refuse to go with God and thus start to leave the abuse reality or the grip of its memory on you?

5. Suppose you saw terrible things done by humans to fellow humans in times of war. Seeing just what humans do to other humans, would you continue to then "cast your lot" with humans alone and remain in their value structure, at their fickle mercies? Why is it a logical decision when repelled and abused by what you witness in a war to remain even firmer in that milieu, and refuse to find refuge in the values of God, which are far, of course, from the evil that humans do to each other?

It is important to be sympathetic to reasonable faith being reasonably shaken in horrible circumstances.

However, it is not helpful to enable illogical thinking. If one is horrified by what humans do to fellow humans, why would you reject being more of the values of God and less of humans as a result? By any measure that does not make sense, and that does not promote healing.

This is why I have developed this exercise for you to think about when you experience a trauma, or have already done so, or read about one in the papers, or hear about it on the news. Think of the trauma and the factual human/mechanics/biological cause (taking a leaf from the wise people of group three). Then think about how for every trauma there are fellow humans who try to prevent it, even if their numbers are few and their voices not heard. This helps you to recall that trauma is a human/human situation.

Then contemplate how illogical it would be for the trauma sufferer to further "endorse" the existing situation by rejecting the only alternative to human failures, which is God's realm, where there is no death, or suffering, or betrayal by loved ones. Why would you draw strength by only believing in the half of life where there was such a dismal failure or tragedy?

I do understand the pain and I hope that this helps.

Case study: falling away from the faith

While visiting a Catholic site I've not read for a while, I noticed a comment by someone who wonders why some of the most angry and atheist apologists and attackers of Christianity and the Church are "former evangelicals." The answer to this is somewhat straightforward, so I'll make it a quick case study.

Even when one is a Christian, the farther away that you are in your faith from making God the center of it all, the more you are at risk of losing your perspective, and then your faith. So if you think of faith as being a series of concentric circles, the innermost circle being God himself, if you are in a faith that is in a close circle to God, where your focus is always kept on him, it tends to be a good indicator of future stability of mind. This is true, obviously, if one is Christian, Muslim or Jewish. The more that you view your faith as "being all about God" and not yourself, the better you yourself will actually grow in spirit and in love of human life.

Now, say what you will about the problems of the "hierarchy" of those big bad institutional churches, but there is an advantage to enforced humility. Humans tend to puff themselves up pretty big and fast when they are on their own. This is one reason it is not such a bad thing to belong to a large institutional faith, such as being Catholic, and I also include the highly humble and egalitarian faith of Islam (witness three million people on Haj even as we speak, side by side, rich and poor, all men wearing two white cloths as their clothing). Many hajis (people who have gone on haj) say that remembering that it is all about God and his mercy, and all being equal in his eyes, is the highlight personal illumination of haj. The Catholic Mass is, likewise, a liturgy that is focused entirely on God, as revealed through Jesus Christ, and in the prophets and forefathers and mothers.

Likewise, the institutional churches of the children of the Reformation, such as the various sects, called denominations, of Protestantism, Methodists, Baptists and so forth, also retain this focus on God. Their communal worship within an institutional church helps remind them that it is not all about themselves, but it's all about God, and Jesus Christ, the Savior.

However, when a number of Protestants began to self identify as "Evangelicals," a subtle form of temptation crept in. So long as they remained in the mainstream of the institutionalized denominations, that temptation to increase one's own individual importance, and diminish one's focus on God, is usually kept in check. This is one reason I am a great admirer of Baptists.

But the problem is that many take a worthy objective, to "evangelize" and have done two things. One is that they give themselves a title, merited or not. Suddenly they think of themselves as being "evangelicals," with all due honors and privileges, if you know what I mean. Second, many break away from their denominations and "create their own churches." What exactly is one's "own church?" Whenever a few in the congregation get angry, off they go and "create their own church." Where's God in all this, and God's equal expectations from everyone?

Thus, ironically, when an "evangelical" loses faith for some reason or another, it is not at all surprising that they tumble far and hard, with great anger, often going to the extreme of virulent denial of God himself The reason it is not surprising is that with each step one takes in faith, no matter which faith or denomination you are in, away from God and toward self focus and meeting "your own needs" for "your own church," you are already having one foot in a sticky pit of temptation without even knowing it.

Many people, as an aside, are baffled by the grandeur of the interior of Catholic churches. But one important reason for that is to continue to keep people looking upward toward God, and not mistake that the worship is all about themselves and their "message" "on behalf of God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit." Catholic churches are deliberately designed to appear as two things 1) the sacrificial altar and 2) a glimpse into the sanctuary, which is the gateway to heaven. That sure keeps it focused on God.

When an "evangelical" (or anyone else) starts to subconsciously and then consciously focus on whether or not "his or her church" is "meeting" "his or her needs," you've got a big potential problem of temptation of hubris and the falling away of faith. One has, at that point, already taken a big step away from God, by lowering God in one's own mind and raising one's self up as being the "one who really understands what it is all about." When that evangelical has inch by inch step by step moved farther from God being the center of it all, one day they wake up and feel there is nothing there, and then they lose their faith, they deny, they get angry, and they attack the very people, the remaining faithful, who the evangelical him or herself had "left behind" as being "indoctrinated" or "stupid." It's like running away from home and then denying that a home ever existed. It's exactly like that.

Sometimes you can better understand this drift if you compare it with groups where the drift does not happen, for the most part. Look at Orthodox Jews, for example. You just don't tend to see an Orthodox Jew shake his head and say, "You know, this worship thing really doesn't meet my needs or work for me. I know what God really wants, so I'm going to 'plant' my own synagogue, and we will do in it whatever 'meets our needs.'" Um, you just don't see that. Likewise, look at Muslims. The Sunni and the Shi'a have sometimes bitter disagreement about the spiritual successors to the Prophet (PBUH). But I do not know a single Muslim who would go up the the Grand Mufti and say, "You know, this haj schedule really doesn't work for me and my friends. We are going to start our own haj, but it's going to take place in some month that is not haj." LOL, imagine that. You just would not see it, because all Muslims are proud of the five pillars of their faith, not trying to "edit" them and become "non denominational" in order to "better meet their needs." I also don't know Muslims who run around saying, "You know, parts of the Qur'an really don't work for me, so let's remove those chapters." Sometimes individuals err in the direction of deeply believing but not understanding their own faith, and that is something mainstream Islam is trying to address. But none of them take their eyes off of God above all to "create their own mosque" that "meets their own worship needs."

With every step that one takes from keeping God himself at the very center of one's spiritual and secular life, one is taking one's self farther into an area where one is tempted to think that faith exists in order to "meet your needs" because it is "all about you." That is the shadow, to use a psychological term, of "evangelicals." They feel a great love and vigor of faith, but their unnoticed shadow is that they feel they are interior and individual custodians of the "truth" of their faith, and that is a dangerous slope of inflation and ultimately disappointment, anger, disenfranchising and disbelief.

This, again, is the reason that some are baffled that the Methodist church has an empty cross, with a red cloth draped to signify that Christ has risen, while Catholics have the crucifixion cross, with the corpus of Christ. The people who are baffled think that Catholics are "stuck" on the gory figure of Christ, and not focused on his having resurrected and "left the cross." But to quote St. Paul it is about him, Christ and him crucified. Catholics, even the weak ones, never forget that it is about God through Jesus Christ, and that one must always keep one's gaze on God and on the Savior he sent, that the Savior was crucified and that all must carry one's cross.

Sometimes I worry that my friends the Methodists have a psychology that the Cross is a "completed project." That is one step away from being totally God centric. I'm not bashing, I'm analyzing. Trust me, I grew up among many Methodists and they think they have it figured out, while the Catholic Church has the wrong orientation. Nope. One is never wrong if one is totally focused on God, and Jesus Christ crucified. When one is not "comfortable" with that focus on God and Jesus Christ, crucified, one has to ask, why is it about your "comfort" level, your faith? Again, I'm not criticizing, but I am critiquing, since, after all, I've endured silently decades of being critiqued unjustly, and now I reply.

Again, if one need to understand faith, look at Orthodox Jews. Have they edited their faith in order to be "more comfortable," to eliminate the suffering and anguish in faith history and replace it only with "spreading the good word," and have they people who break away when they quarrel and set up their own "non denominational" "place of worship?" No, because as I've said before, no one comprehends God better than Orthodox scholarly Jews, and it is on God that they keep their focus, where they keep their eyes and ears, and their hearts. People often wonder why God did not charter the Israelites to be "evangelicals," to convert and spread the word. This is exactly why. God understands humans more than you can ever imagine, and he knows that it is hard enough to keep humans faithful and focused on him through the centuries, even, as the Bible demonstrates, a small group of people such were the Israelites. That is part of the miracle, and proof, of the Savior, of Jesus Christ, that humans had reached a point where they can evangelize and still stay focused on God, and not inflate their own personal attributes as "representatives" of God. But see, over time, there is that temptation, and it started in the Reformation.

So that, my anonymous friends and readers, is why we see some who seemed so in love with Jesus Christ that they called themselves "evangelicals," fall so far that they become bitter atheists who are not only against God and denying him, but hating upon the faithful who stay in the fold. Any evangelical or any faithful for that matter who starts to think that spreading God's message as they understand it personally, rather than staying in the institutional church and providing personal witness, is the course that "meets their needs" is already putting their feet on a path that, God forbid, could bring them to crashing into total lack of faith. The Bible explains that if you put your trust in yourself or your fellow human, you will fail. If you put your trust in God, and remain focused on only God, you will not fail. It's as simple as that, really.

Story about my former best friend

I think people can learn a little bit about how to avoid their own mistakes by listening to this story. My former best friend's birthday is December 3, and so she automatically crossed my mind, as I wrote out a birthday card for my mother, who is next week. We were best friends for about forty years until our friendship ended, totally. Here is just a few sentences on the subject so that you can avoid making the same mistakes in your life.

We grew up together and I often looked to her mother for the relaxed and unconditional affection that my own mother is far too uptight and angry to ever have had. So we had a particularly deep and trusting friendship even though we were quite unalike in personality. My former best friend is not very modest, and she also does not have a very deep faith. But I loved her as a best friend and would have trusted her with my life.

One thing we laughed about is how she had a perfect sense of direction, except it was the opposite of the correct way. She would insist that the left turn is correct, and it would turn out that the exact opposite, the right turn would be correct. If, when navigating, you did the exact mirror image of what she insisted was correct, you would then find that you went in the correct direction. You just could not let her navigate or hold the map, ever.

Well, it came to my attention some years ago that behavior changes that she showed toward me were not caused by distraction, suffering and stress, as I had compassionately assumed. She had allowed herself to become enmeshed with the cultists who stalked me, allowing herself to be used. Once again she chose the direct opposite of the correct direction. I gave her two chances to admit it and repent, but she denied it all, and so I terminated the relationship, for good. It's alright to choose against me, for some bizarre reason, but it's never alright to do it to fulfill a defiance of God, a disrespect of God, by fulfilling "action steps" by those who work in the direct opposite direction of God's will, refusing to believe in him as he has revealed himself.

Don't have a perfect sense of direction in the opposite direction of what is correct. Further, two wrongs never make a right. If you should have turned "right" and instead turned "left," turning left again does not get you back to the correct place. I lost her son, my godson, too, for that very reason, as he too thinks that many secret left turns equate a correct right turn, instead of understanding that a right turn, having been missed, must be immediately corrected by faithfully backtracking. I often have him in mind when I speak to you, the young readers of my blog, because he was deeply led astray in his secular education, his friendships, the narcissism of the entertainment media (he is a gifted musician), and his lack of upbringing in the faith. So I try to help those who read and who listen to me to avoid those pitfalls, into which he and his mother have fallen and sadly, so many others, despite my pleadings and stern warnings.

God knows, sees all, so if you are treating someone this way, even if they never "know about it," God knows, from the moment it was first a thought in your head and, of course, even before then, since God knows all that each human ever did or will do.

Faiths not supposed to "loosen" core doctrine

There are two interesting and important meetings taking place this week. One is at the UN where a two day interfaith conference is taking place. The other is the regularly scheduled meeting of the US Catholic Bishops. Both are examples of activities where those who do not understand the workings and efforts of people who have conservative, orthodox core faiths are sniping in the media. That's fine, because it gives us another opportunity to discuss the basics of belief in God.

Let me start with an analogy (of course!) Suppose you have a family with many young children, and you worry about keeping them safe from all dangers. So when you hire people to work on the house, let's say electricians, who do you hire? (Let us assume in this analogy that money is unlimited). Do you hire someone who swears to adhere to the complete safety code of electricians, or someone who follows the parts of the code he or she thinks is "good enough?" So if you are worried and want your children to sleep safely in your home, do you select the electrician who does absolutely everything by the book, with safety and proper procedure being his or her highest priority? Or are you impressed by the electrician who waves his or her hand and announces to you, "I am wiser than all of the other electricians, and am also wiser than all of those governmental agencies who establish so-called safety codes. I will pick and choose what parts of the code to follow, and which to break or to ignore, and you will trust me."

Obviously you would select the electrician who follows the code precisely and who seems to care about your family as if your family was his or her own.

This is what those who safe keep the core doctrine of the faiths are like, whether they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish. They are not following their own codes and "loosening things up" because the safety codes are "old fashioned" established by "oppressing and repressing religious leaders." Those who safeguard and keep the core doctrine of their faiths are like the good electrician who faithfully follows the code because he or she both believes and knows that the code is wise and applies in all cases. Things that are not in the code, well sure, maybe one electrician will offer you choices that have nothing to do with safety, but help in convenience or aesthetics, such as where you place your lighting, or how you position the light switches. But on the code, the core safety code, the good electrician will not budge from that.

This is why the Catholic Bishops are reiterating, more strongly than ever, their professing of the Catholic doctrine that abortion is always morally wrong. Abortion being morally wrong is part of the Catholic Church's core "safety code" from which one cannot deviate. By that I mean that even if someone disagrees with what is in the state's electrical code, that doesn't make the rules and the words disappear. Likewise, sure, the Catholic Church has laypeople who in their heart of hearts may think, "Well, surely there are times that abortion is OK." That is fine, you can think that in your heart and still be a good Catholic. God understands the confusion. But it is not alright for you to run around, as if you are an electrician, and tell people that parts of the state's electrical code book are "wrong" or can be ignored. You would actually be doing something of malpractice, if you were an electrician, and in training an apprentice, you told him or her "Hey, don't worry about the safety code. Just follow whatever parts you feel like, and ignore or change the rest." Then there is a fire and who is responsible?

This is why, to use this analogy, that the Catholic Bishops are correct in continually reiterating and restating that the belief that abortion is morally wrong is core Catholic doctrine. They are not being "inflexible" and do not need to be "liberalized," as those who just plain do not understand religion say they should do. I mean, core doctrine exists because the Church traces that doctrine directly back to the word of God, which is not a matter of "where you put the light switch," but a matter of following the safety code. Where there is room for discernment is how the Bishops address members of their flock who, and this is important, speak out in public in order to "teach" others to ignore the safety code. This is the problem with the most recent controversy with Catholic politicians, both those who are sincere in their faith and those who are nominal, to put it charitably. When a Catholic politician claims to be "explaining" Church doctrine, they are opening their mouths to take on a role that is as if a master electrician now has the job to train apprentices. Therefore, when a Catholic politician misstates the pro life doctrine of the Catholic Church, he or she is like the master electrician who explains to the apprentice wrong information that changes and thus dangerously deviates from the safety code manual. That cannot be unchallenged because it is teaching dangerous error to those who hear his or her words. This is why certain Bishops choose to chastise Catholic politicians who openly "teach" erroneous doctrine, claiming it to be correct. It is not a matter of the Catholic Bishops being "oppressive" or "old fashioned," anymore than the master electrician who faithfully follows the safety code of his or her profession is "oppressive" or "old fashioned."

Thus the Catholic Bishops are being perfectly correct, to be united in being clear about the unchanging Catholic doctrine regarding abortion, but to use pastoral discernment individually about how each of them might or would react within their parishes to those who are publicly misstating and flouting core Catholic doctrine. When Catholic liberals or the larger liberal secular audience to these public reiteration of Catholic core doctrine criticize the Catholic Bishops, it is the critics who just don't "get it," which is why I have provided this analogy. Every faith has core doctrine that is there because it is the truth and the way to not only remain in that faith community but more importantly to achieve salvation in eternal life, and not gravely offend God. There is a nuance among those who criticize the Catholic Bishops that imply religion is some sort of "cultural" system that people are expected to "modernize" as time goes along. That is the opposite of the truth and the point of religion. Religion is a gift from God, not an invention of humans.

Repeat: "Religion is a gift from God, not an invention of humans."

Again, as I have written and explained before, God understands that the temptation to believe in the "right of abortion," aka "freedom of choice" is strong, since temptation, especially in selfish sexual matters is a continuing weakness of humans. God understands the Catholic who in his or her heart struggles to understand this part of the faith, including those who have had abortions. But that does not mean that just because he understands and has mercy that the person with this conflict of heart should open his or her mouth and entice others to weaken their faith. THAT is the boundary that is a grave sin, and this is why the Catholic Bishops are vigilant shepherds. They are not trying to deny anyone their "rights," but they are going to insist that people understand that saying it's "not in the safety code" is a lie, and that it "is in the safety code." Those who have abortions and make mistakes still have all the avenues of the Church open to them, to get "right with God" with a sincere heart. But those who have a dilemma in their heart are not doing God's work if they make public their slanted "belief" and either proclaim it as "true" doctrine of what the Church "should" believe or, just as bad, do it as solidarity to entice others to, and there is no nice way to put it, sin.

Who of you would feel better if you talked someone into an abortion? Sadly, I know there are some who are proud to talk those who waiver into having an abortion, rather than arguing for life. But I believe two things about those people. One is that I believe there are fewer of them than people think, since I do not believe the polls reflect how proud someone would be to talk a woman into having an abortion. I'm just not sure that so many would feel covered with glory if they talked a wavering woman into having an abortion, if not right away (perhaps in the panic of youth) then later, when one values life more as one matures. The second thing that I believe is that those who genuinely are proud of talking women into abortions do so out of an unspoken almost superstitious feeling that "the more the merrier," and that if lots of women "stick together and have lots of abortions" that they are somehow demonstrating that abortion is "OK" and there is no God who sorrows at abortion and who will, if he must, punish those that do not regret the taking of an innocent life. Humans have that tendency, it's human nature, where they feel "safety in numbers" as the saying goes. They somehow are tempted to feel that if lots and lots of women have abortions, that somehow that proves that they have "critical mass" (pun not intended!) They think that they are collecting many "enlightened" people to prove that it's "OK to have an abortion." "See, you had one, and 'nothing happened.'" By that "nothing" they mean like God does not exist, or that God exists but "understands," or that God disapproved but he would never send such an otherwise good person to hell. Humans have always suffered from that "safety in numbers" mentality, of tempting each other into sin, as some sort of inoculation or "insurance policy," all the while saying that "it's OK." It's not OK. Abortion is like everything else, something that will have to be answered to directly to God upon death and judgment. Just because the sky didn't fall down and cave in when a million women got abortions does not mean that God isn't there, didn't "notice," or is "OK with it because she is such a giving and loving bubbly woman anyway so what the heck, her being desperate or nice 'cancels out' having that abortion." Sadly, this is one of the character weaknesses of humans, and it has only increased, not decreased, over time as human self centeredness and enabling technology has increased.

This is why the Catholic Bishops must restate the core doctrine that abortion is never morally right. However, humans are supposed to be so mature, and so in cases of extreme suffering (as the pro aborts like to use as everyday examples, such as rape or incest), do not people do things in private that they must answer to, either way, to God? It's not like the Catholic Bishops are checking everyone's medical records each day. (Goodness, the pro abortionists don't want medical records checked even when young girls are raped and forced to have abortions, "privacy" you know.) So the Catholic Bishops have two responsibilities. One is to repeat the core doctrine so no one can say they did not know or understand. The second is to deal with public profile people in their parishes who advocate flaunting of the core doctrine and thus lead others into sin or error of thought. They also gently correct those who just babble wrong doctrine. They understand the difference between erroneous babbling and deliberate disbelief of one of the core doctrines of the faith, and they respond accordingly.

Now, using my analogy, let me turn to the UN interfaith meeting. I have been peeved to read some sniping in the liberal press about "how" can the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, promote "tolerance" when the Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia is "so intolerant." Huh? Again, there is the analogy of the good electrician who follows the safety code. It is a non sequitur to accuse a leader who is responsible for the faith of his or her people to be "intolerant" when they insist that the people "follow the safety code" of their faith! Sheesh. Exactly as I said above the whole point of believing in God and joining (or being born into) a faith is that you subscribe to their creed and their code doctrine, as given by God, does not change. It is exactly people like King Abdullah who are entitled to lead interfaith efforts, not people who have lukewarm faith and who demonstrate it with their eagerness to edit God's instruction and word.

That does not mean that, like the good electrician who will, after following faithfully the entire safety code, allow for optional decisions where safety is not a risk, that Saudi Arabia will not inevitably adjust their optional manifestations of tolerance. I have every belief that only good things will come from the many faithful of Saudi Arabia, and the Muslim world in general. It is precisely the people who are firm and joyous in their core faith (even the parts that are difficult to live up to and may be hard to understand) who have the wisdom and confidence to know, then, where they can make decisions that create new traditions and tolerances. This is another thing that lukewarm or non-believers do not understand about the conservative in faith, whether the conservative are Jewish, Muslim or Christian. They do not understand that those of the most solid and consistent faith are those best positioned not only in the eyes of God but in the respect of the world and their own faith community to make sound non-core doctrinal changes, expansions and manifestations of tolerance. These are the very people who have the credibility and the wisdom to pace their leadership of their faith community to make good discernment of traditions, not core doctrine, that can and should be modified or expanded. It is exactly the exemplary "master electrician" who can serve on an agency to add new safety code or to find alternate solutions when, for example, new electrical service technology is discovered. It is not the person who doesn't really care if he or she follows the book, pun intended. It is the person who is pious, believing, orthodox and who understands that God and his expectations are unchanging, no matter how humans "change," who can then discern genuine avenues of increased tolerance, expanded faith traditions and genuine allowable and safe "progress."

I hope that you have found all of this helpful.

I have here for you a parable to work as analogy

Here is a parable, though it really is more like an analogy, because I’m not trying to write a story with a beginning and end, but help you to better understand the issue. This is a parable about what modern unbelievers or those of weakened faith are like.

A man lives in a wonderful old elegant mansion that was built by one of his ancestors. He delights in the house and it provides for his every need. It is well and beautifully placed on the land and it weathers every storm.

The ancestor left many documents of how he constructed and paid for the mansion, such as blueprints, letters of agreement, correspondence, and bills for materials and labor that were fully paid. His ancestor lived before the time of cameras and photography, and so there are no pictures or paintings of him. Yet among the documents are letters from his many friends and merchants, all of whom praise him and his honesty, reliability and truthfulness.

One day a believer comes to visit the man to have tea. While the man serves the tea the believer praises the home and admires its many graces. She then comments what a wise man the ancestor must have been, filled with foresight and care for his family, his descendents, and his integrity in all things. She is surprised to see the man is frowning, rather than being proud of his ancestor. She asks him why. The man replies, “I am very angry at my ancestor. Just because this house exists and there are all these documents testifying to him, why should I believe that he was a good man, or that he even existed?”

The believer is astonished at the man’s reaction and “viewpoint.” She is actually speechless at what to say to such obviously distorted, bitter and erroneous “logic.” And so she said to the man, “What could your ancestor have done to make you believe?”

The man replies, “The ancestor should have built the house right in front of me while I’m alive so I can see and believe with my own eyes.”

(continued) Understanding God's plan for each

So in the previous post I reminded you that Jesus affirmed that what happens to a person in life, specifically to the topic at the time, hardship, has nothing to do with God punishing them or placing them in that position because of some imaginary individual or family sin. Instead God creates an individual soul, with accompanying guardian angel, for each and every new person conceived, and each soul is clean, new, loved and equal in God's eyes.

I understand that it is hard for humans to understand this. Humans tend to think, well, if God "knows" in advance everything that is going to happen to a new person, if it is a "bad" and "hard" life, won't he send a "stronger" soul, or make some sort of other discrimination about which soul to which body? No, absolutely not, because that is a human mindset, not God's. The only time a soul was ever "assigned" to a body in anticipation of earthly events was obviously Jesus Christ, who was fathered and whose soul was provided by the "overshadowing of the Holy Spirit." That should be obvious to anyone. This is another way for those who puzzle over God having "a Son" to understand it. Jesus was the only one who was given his soul as part of the pre-existing plan by God and you know that because of the giving of his life (and obviously soul) by the actual indwelling of the Holy Spirit. All other human beings receive a new, clean and equal soul at the time of their conception and quickening (first life impulse) in the mother's womb, one that is not "matched up" with what God "knows" will happen, but one that is individually created through God's grace.

How to help you better understand this from "God's point of view?" Well, think about angels. There are uncountable numbers of angels, yet each one is individual. They are individual even though they don't really "do anything" easy or hard, except dwell in the presence of God and for a few, manifest his will among humans. So each individual angel is absolutely unique even though they do not have individual corporal bodies and in fact humans cannot tell them apart unless they self identify. For example the four cherubims that appear to Ezechiel appear identical to him (Ezechiel 1:5-7). Yet obviously God created them individually and "can tell them apart." It is like the humor we have about some of God's animal species here on earth where a human can't tell male or female of the species, and the punchline to the joke is that "Well, they can tell the difference!" :-)

So God being God, obviously, creates and perceives an uncountable number of his creatures, in this case angels, that are equally loved and yet unique in his eyes. It is therefore using this analogy easy to see that at the time an embryo is conceived that God creates one of his individual but equal clean souls to send, just as he did the uncountable number of angels.

Think of all the preborn babies who have died. I do not mean to be sad here or to raise the topic of abortion, so just think of it as the miscarriages of babies that have occurred throughout human history. Each baby received a unique and equal soul, and none of them lived an actual life since they died before birth. Yet they each had a unique soul and they each go to heaven with their one soul that has been shaped by their experience of being alive, no matter how brief, since they resided, even very briefly, in their body, which is the temple of the soul. Suppose the baby was in a mother who experienced deprivation and starvation, and that was the reason she miscarried? The pre born child shared with her the experience of not having enough calories, of having to perhaps travel long miles for a handful of food. The baby did not suffer consciously in this case, and so the baby was serene, even as it did not thrive due to lack of calories and died. Yet as a soul the preborn baby shared the hardship of being in a body that could not thrive and did die. Therefore when the soul goes to heaven (as all infants do) the soul will have been shaped in a pattern that has some of the glory of martyrdom and sacrifice, and will join with members of the family already there (grandparents for example) in a way that is a full member of the family and with that "orientation." In other words, even a few months of life as a pre-born baby gives a dignity and individuality of life that is equal, within heaven, to someone who lived for a hundred years.

So this illustrates the second part of God's individual plan for each person which is equality in love and equality in soul "maturity" and potential access to heaven regardless of the actual length of the human's life. There is no such thing as an "old soul" or a "young soul." All souls are the same "age," whether the human body lived for a few months as a pre-born baby or a full life span of one hundred and twenty years or more. A pre-born baby who died from starvation due to its mother's deprived calories as in the example I give up above is as "old" in soul as a person who died after a full life and achieved heaven. To help you to understand that, think of a soul's "age" as not being about time (which does not exist in heaven), but about virtue. A baby who shared his or her mother's suffering and lost their life as a result is as full of virtue as a human who, on and off, pursued a good and worthy life and even with sins, repents and finds heaven. A soul's "age" is not about time frames or "lessons," but the amount and type of individuality and virtue the soul lived, however short the time.

And that illustrates the third part of God's individual plan for each person which is that regardless of what happens to that person when they are alive, the potential for God to find the good and to steer them in that direction is consistent for everyone, but obviously varies according to their environment of birth. A pre-born baby that starves in the Sudan, for example, is dependent on the limited earthly options offered to the mother. It's not like if the mother walked long enough that she could reach a grocery store and find a wallet full of money. So God's "plan" for that pre-born baby is not that he or she should starve and be miscarried. God's "plan" for that baby is that 1) the baby obviously is a child of God's and will achieve paradise and 2) the Holy Spirit will continually move to try to bring people with grace to bear on the situation so that some good can come from even corners of the world that suffer.

So, for example, a fourth part of God's individual plan for each person is to promote charity and goodness in the surrounding individuals so that no matter where one is on earth there is no total absence of goodness and hope. It may not be enough to result in a long life, but it is part of that individual's "plan" by God that agencies, governments, individuals and religious groups feel the stirring of both brotherly and sisterly love AND God's love so that they try to bring peace, they try to bring medicine, they try to bring food. In a way, the starving pre-born baby, even if never individually known about, is like a glowing light that tries to pull goodness toward him or her, by the calling of people who care who try to remediate the larger situation of hunger, poverty, refugee status, violence victim, and war. So in both a spiritual way and in a bodily way, God's "plan" for that pre-born child who does die of starvation is that no life is wasted and that even the greatest sadness attempts to bias other humans toward the performing of greater good, if for no other reason than "this type of thing should not happen again." While humans are very numbers driven, God is not. For example, every child who dies of starvation has "equal credit" and "soul maturity and virtue" in heaven for resultant good deeds that develop from their hardship.

So think it through along with me. Humans tend to think in terms of receiving a report with an outrageous number of starvations, which they call a "humanitarian crisis." This will focus awareness and initiate intervention programs. There are also humans who have a "local" focus, who strive to eliminate starvation and hunger in their own village, for example, or on a local scale in a needy place of the world. So let us suppose that the pre-born child who is miscarried due to starvation of the mother is one of thousands that occur in a given place and time. Let us also suppose that at some point agencies, governments and individual food programs say, "Enough is enough" and they get some relief to the area, although obviously months or even years after our example pre-born child has perished. Obviously the people who made the intervention exhibit virtue and gain grace because as Jesus said, "he" was hungry and they "fed" him, through the poor. But you need to look at the "flip side" of what has happened to understand how God perceives humans and their souls. That pre-born baby "receives" "equal virtue" and "credit" as if he or she was the very child that was the last number of deaths that made the agencies etc. say, "Enough is enough" and send the aid. Every child who dies of starvation, for example, is honored in heaven as if he or she is the one whose death brought the saving food for everyone else after them.

Think of a modern day adult example, such as a pious person who dies of cancer. The suffering ill person may have prayed and believed, and their family may have prayed and believed, yet still they die. This is because it is the natural way of things where there are illnesses and failures of body, and it is up to humans to be charitable (and earn a living, there is nothing wrong with that) in researching cures, or better lifestyle practices and choices, or working on cleaner environments with less cancer causing chemicals and compounds. And someone says to the grieving family, "It is God's plan." Now you can see with discernment how it is God's plan, but not in the self hurting way that many humans perceive "God's will."

It is not "God's plan" or "God's will" that the person die of that disease and at that time in life, but it is God's will that humans do not live forever and that humans have resources to allocate according to their ability and charity to solve medical and other societal problems. However, one can look at the flip side of the example to understand that "God's plan" for that person is that if all else is equal (the person is a believer who lived a good life and sincerely repented of sin) that the person who dies of cancer has the credit and virtue in heaven of having been "the one" who stimulated cancer research, cancer palliative remedies, cancer home aides, stimulus to clean the environment if there is an associated cancer risk, etc. God's "plan" is to turn even the worst and saddest hardship that a person experiences into the maximum good, in ways that humans cannot see or fully comprehend (though I obviously hope that you understand more as a result of reading these two postings!) The person's soul will be shaped by their cancer experience so that they have the virtue just as if theirs was the "enough is enough" case of cancer that causes all of the good things to be stimulated as a result of the desire to mitigate the disease and condition.

See, one does not have to be a "superhero" or a "suffering martyr" to achieve heaven and to be honored there. Likewise one does not have to live long lives of super virtue and numerous charitable deeds to have a soul worthy of heaven (and in fact, works without grace is not the ticket). Soup kitchens without honoring God and having a prayer life, for example, is problematic. But this is why the average Joe or Mary has the easy road to heaven. If they live good lives of believers they arrive in heaven with the virtue of say a Mother Theresa. Suppose the average Joe lives a good life and dies of cancer. Like I said, Joe is viewed in heaven as one of the warm flames of inspiration that draws out of others around him on earth and after his death to do good deeds in the name of mitigating the cancer disease in others, even if no one ever knew Joe existed outside of his family. A guy who has a big breakthrough in cancer is "inspired" to do so by "Joe," even if Joe died years ago and he never knew him outside of being one in a table of annual cancer death statistics for research. That is because God "credits" the soul of Joe with the virtue of having the condition that caused him to suffer or lose his life, but stimulated charity and goodness (and as I said, economic stimulus) to be directed toward the problem of cancer.

So God's plan for each person is indeed individual, but it is not a checklist of things the person "must" experience. God knows in advance what will happen, obviously, because God has created the universe, and knows all and sees all. But the new person is conceived because of human free will (we all know the biology behind that), not because God has a checklist saying, "OK, it's now time for this person to pop into being!' When humans conceive according to free will and since it is God's will that humans be fruitful and pro-life, God gives the embryo a soul and the guardian angel, and the individual soul now has "a plan." That plan is to help the person navigate through the many, or the few, choices in life offered to him or her, not to rack up accomplishments or EITHER grace or works. Like I said, the pre-born infant who dies of starvation has the grace, honor and virtue as if he or she had personally caused the "inventor of the way to end hunger" to achieve their goal! So how can a human think, "Well, if I volunteer at 100 soup kitchens I am closer to heaven and better off than that other person over there?" While God exhorts humans to be good and to do good, they cannot begin to "keep score" or make assumptions about how the soul is viewed by God. And when hardship occurs, humans can only have human and neighborly charity toward their fellow human; they cannot begin to answer the "why" and the "how will they be judged" questions.

Generations of humans understood this, though obviously not to the detail that I've explained through this analogy. But modern humans are all caught up in their own double thinking complexity that is often entirely wrong. Why has this happened? First of all it's because modern humans have become so detached from the glory of normal life. It is less and less easy for people to have the simple desires that their ancestors had, for a spouse, a place to dwell, water, food and children. So as life has become more sophisticated, humans have become more unrealistic in their views of themselves, and thus see life itself as some weird and complex puzzle of risk and reward, forgetting entirely that life itself really is as simple in its foundational reality as it always has been. The second problem is that modern humans have much less faith in God, and so they become paranoid and restrict in their minds the possibilities of how good God really is and how God actually might, you know, being all powerful and everything, might actually see things differently than humans, less numerically, less scoring, less debits and credits and certainly more lovingly. Being loving does not mean telling humans that sin is "OK." Being loving means that God does everything he can for humans to understand his realness, his love and his mercy and forgiveness, and most of all, that God's love is for everyone, not segregated by human types of imaginings. So, for example, as I've shown you, even a life that is cut short in the womb can and does have individuality and virtue when the soul arrives in heaven that often is more than a "do gooder" who had a long check list of hundreds of charitable activities, but does it without love and understanding of God in his or her heart. Humans cannot even begin to understand God's goodness and how truly easy it is to achieve heaven if one only resists chronic sin and who works for the humble greater good, not the self glorying or "butt covering" greater good.

I hope this also helps you to better understand that not every little thought that enters your head and every deed that you do is prompted by God's "plan." Just like the guy going to work and stopping at the stop sign, you have a list of to do things, but you have both conscious and unconscious life plans. You may turn to God to ask what is his will in, for example, vocations, or a relationship. But remember, the first thoughts that pop in your mind are your own assumptions, both desires and fears (and random dopey thoughts that people have). Even when praying, you are still a human and your own noise can sound profound, but it is not. The wise saints knew that one must be open to God's will not so much through hoping for a "message," but by prayerful living and getting on with it. You cannot know all the implications of every decision, and the more you try the more you become astray from truly and actually understanding God. God knows what you will choose and do, but that does not mean he is "telling you" what to choose or to do. As I demonstrated, even the pre-born child who has no choice in action at all accrues virtue and individuality of their soul. Adults humans tend to be too achievement, yes/no and action oriented to actually be quiet (as in serene and open) enough to trust that God will help them to do the best that they can with whatever they choose to do (assuming it's not a sin OF COURSE!) Though God will still try to help mitigate and give chances to the person to clean up their act. God does not "send lessons" or "instructions," God travels along with you in your journey and the Holy Spirit continually influences all humans to bias toward goodness and faith.

I hope this helps!

Picture of King David my visual refreshment

My St. Joseph edition Bible, from my childhood, remains my favorite Bible and the one I keep nearby. It has beautiful pictures that are just right. Some would call them sentimental art, but they would be missing the point that the pictures correctly capture the spirit of the portrayal. Probably my favorite picture is one of King David, and I've made copies so I can have one on my desk nearby.

It shows David in his kingly robes and crown standing on a rampart at night, under a starry sky. His eyes are closed as he is in communion with God in his role as Prophet. His hands are outstretched and on the one side the artist portrays King David's vision of the crucifixion of Christ. On the other side is a picture of him envisioning God in his heavenly throne surrounded by child angels. Beside David is an open book, portraying both his study of the scriptures and his writing of many of the Psalms.

The picture's caption reads: "David, King and Prophet. David was both King and Prophet; through the Psalms he prophesied the suffering of Christ and the universal kingship of God.---Psalms 21 and 46."

When I need visual refreshment, I gaze on that picture. Several years ago I made a collage of him playing the harp; it's in storage and I've not seen it in years. It has actual medieval bells from my collection added to it. :-(

David NEVER lost his faith in God for even a moment, something that one cannot say about even greats such as King Solomon.

Keeping kids in church, synagogue and mosque

While on my drive this morning, admiring the full parking lots at some churches, I also started thinking about churches and synagogues that are much less full. We of course in the Catholic faith have had this problem for years. And it is not a news flash for me to confirm that much of the problem is the young people who fall away from attendance, if not actually fall away from the basic belief.

There are lots of reasons for this, and I don't plan to make this particular blog posting about all the reasons. I just was thinking about what happens when a family attends church, for example, with young children, and then the children grow up and start to resist going, or at least question it and fall away.

It is not productive or even accurate to have a conversation with them about their church attendance that is focused on salvation or other dire concerns. The whole thing about kids is that they are not supposed to be thinking about death, the end of times and so forth. They have their lives ahead of them, not behind them. (Don't even get me started about the cult crap where kids are raised thinking they have 'past lives' behind them already. I'm talking here about sane mainstream children and families in sane mainstream religions).

Children and teenagers have too much performance and danger stress placed upon them by society already. Pressuring your kids about the need to go to church or something bad might happen to them (either regarding their salvation or regarding future bad moral choices) is not the way to talk to your kids.

First, look at their timetables of activities. Homework and other school or non-school activities take away from peace of mind and true "free time" of kids. Everyone is trying to make over achieving kids. If they are too tired or weary to go to church, yet were raised as church goers, this is the first obvious thing to look at. What shifts in schedules can improve the use of time so that a child does not feel that church is a competing time and energy resource.

Second, start a dialogue with your child or teenager about their personal relationship with God. It's not just as simple as "accepting Jesus as their Savior." It's not like they sign a contract with Jesus and they are now "covered with God," and that church is part of that contract renewal each week! You ought to be teaching your children that they are in constant communion with God, and that God is their true guide through life.

It's easier for me to explain this in relationship to the Catholic Mass than Protestant and non-denominational praise and worship services, so bear with me while I mix metaphors and language from both church cultures.

Children need to understand that God is very hard for humans to hear on a personal basis. God is easily drowned out by the noise of the culture and everyday worries. People who teach scripture and Bible studies, for example, tend to over emphasize how easy God is to understand (it's all there in black and white). That is true, God's word is easy to understand because God's purpose is to make religion and belief in him as understandable to humans as possible. (That's one thing the Muslims have really right for them, as they recognize that their God wants to make it easy for them to worship, not complex and mysterious fraught with rules and strictures). So faiths that rely a lot on Bible study tend to neglect teaching children and teenagers to have a rich prayer life. Prayer is their means to have their personal conversation with God. You can use the obvious ubiquitous cell phone example.

God is like the person you can reach on your cell phone. God is always on the line, so God always hears what you are doing, even if you are not on the phone with him. So the one way listening is always "on." However, do not make your kids creeped out by this example. It's not like God is "watching" when they are in the bathroom, getting undressed, or doing something personal. Explain to them that it's like if they are in the room with sibling or college roommate and the other person turns the other way to give them visual privacy when they change their clothes, or have a personal phone conversation, etc. God is "always there" but God is not focused on the day to day details of a person's bodily functions or acts. So, to recap, tell your child that it is like they have their own cell phone connection with God, and that God is always "on the line" even if they are not actually making a call.

Church is where you learn the lingo that God speaks. Church is where you learn to understand what God is saying when you do pick up that phone and have a conversation with him. So it is like learning the texting abbrevations and the dialect of language that God uses to speak to you when you go to Church. Church ensures that you are learning how to listen to God, when he does speak to you, in a way you can understand what he is actually saying.

Explain that when they are little it is like they are given a toy phone to play with. Eventually they are given a phone that they can use for emergencies when they are out of sight of their parents. And then when they are older they get "big boy or big girl" phones with more features, and they have to learn how to use them. Their conversation with God is like that through their entire lives. Not because God's language changes, but because as they grow up the things they need to talk about to God, and listen to him in return, changes. Little kids have different concerns than big kids, teenagers from kids, young adults or college students from the rest, young single people from the rest, young couples from the rest, young families from the rest, and so forth throughout their lives. A fifteen year old does not need to text message God about his or her retirement plan, IRA or not? The things that each person needs the guidance from God regarding changes throughout their lives. And ongoing Church attendance keeps the person agile in "text" and "dialect" understanding so that they can hear God in return accurately when they do place the call.

This is one of my quarrels with "speaking in tongues" and "channeling the Holy Spirit" faiths. Much as they love God and I'm not one to criticize anyone who proclaims the authentic Jesus, as I pointed out in the scripture study example, confusing the rush of emotion with actual communication from the Holy Spirit is a serious hindering of authentic listening to God. It is like having big calluses on your feet and then wondering why they are no longer sensitive to the touch. Thinking that you are constantly screaming on speaker phone with the Holy Spirit drowns out the small and humble voice of God, and yes the Holy Spirit, when he actually does try to be heard. Thinking that the Holy Spirit just told you something about your neighbor's "bidness" is not hearing what God is saying. That's you getting caught up in having a big megaphone and listening to your own feedback.

So explain to your kids that sure, there will be months or years that you think the sermon in Church has nothing to do with your life, and you wonder why you are going. To use the example, what if the preacher or priest is homilizing about "IRA retirement plans" while you are just thinking about getting good grades to pass your exam and how you are going to spend your summer vacation and what's on your IPOD. But if you stick with being once a week "immersed" in God's language, even if the topic is not 'cool' or 'relevant,' someday when that topic IS of vital importance to you, you will know the texting and know the dialect so you can actually hear what God is saying to you. Explain to your kids that college is an example of that first huge test. Just when they most need to hear what God is saying is when they tend to drop out of attending Church.

Back to the topic of teaching your children that there is a difference between going to Mass, praise or worship service, etc and having a personal prayer life with God. Explain that Church is like a conference call, where everyone is listening to God at the same time to different degrees, about topics that may not be your choosing, but at least you stay proficient in God's lingo. When a child or young adult prays, however, this is their personal phone call to God. Now, don't make them think that they must put things a certain way or God does not understand. That's not true. Tell them God is like the universal speech translator in Star Trek or something, ha. God understands everything that humans say, mean to say, want to say, intends to say. But prayer is like that text message or verbal phone call that your child places to God where the child actually wants to hear the response. It is the response that Church and other worship services of authentic mainstream churches teaches the child and young adult to comprehend. This is what prayer is in its purest form.

Now, the response may be, and for the most part is often the comforting presence of God. That's a subtle thing that is easily missed. Media has made so much of thunderbolts and constant frenetic action that unless God is an action figure zorching someone, kids today don't actually hear him answering their prayers. Kids may be misled (and it's entirely human and natural to do so) into thinking that prayer is either a duty to perform to God or something to do when you need something, and expect either a yes or a no. That is totally to miss the point of prayer and again the cell phone analogy is a perfect example to use to instruct your kids.

Ask your kids this. Out of a typical one hour chat fest with a friend, what percentage of their time is talking to their friend because they "have to" or because they "need something from their friend that will be answered with yes or no?" Your kid will quickly see that they are not chatting with their friends because they "have to" (obligatory prayer) or "need something" (petitionary prayer). Your kid gabs and texts endlessly in order to "hang out" with their crew. Well, a rich prayer life is when a part of your life, even if it is just before bed (night time prayers) or first thing in the morning, or whenever you can, you "hang out with and gab with God." Most of the time God is just going to be "hanging with you" saying "I know what you mean." But once in a while there will be a crucial reply. You might be pondering an important life change, for example. And if you were gabbing with your friend, your friend might go, "Whoa, yeah, but what about this and that problem with what you are saying?" In prayer, God might send a queasiness, or a question, or the Holy Spirit might warm your heart in a certain direction, just as that friend would in a cell phone chat. The thing is that God is very quiet and subtle, and like the foot calluses, if one is all loud in one direction but not keeping up with the subtle and "big picture" lingo of God through Church services, one could very easily miss hearing God's reply in prayer.

So to wrap up, even though we could do a lot more with this analogy, explain to your children that Church is the way to continually "keep in the loop" of their personal dialogue with God, which will evolve during their lives, whether they see that clearly now at that stage in their lives, or not. Also encourage them to have even a minute of their life set aside to personal prayer and explain the broader purpose of prayer as I did here. Understand that a growing young adult may not find "just before bed" as easy a time for prayer as a child once did, for many reasons. Start to encourage your teenager to chose another time during the day for personal prayer and cultivate that before they join the work place or go to college. For example, you could teach your kids to set their alarm clock just one minute early each day and spend that minute saying the "Our Father," asking God to look over them during the day, and maybe a verse from Psalms. If you teach your child to do that while they are still at home, this is a glorious gift that anticipates that their lives will be changing and they can be flexible with their "God time."

I hope you find this helpful, and God bless all parents, and young people, who are making their way through these very difficult times.

God's Consolation in Times of Loss

With the loss of life in the recent tornados in the South US, and the tragic loss of life in the baseball team accident in Atlanta, Georgia, people again ask each other what their beliefs are regarding God's love and consolation.

I wrote a little email to a dear commentator, and wanted to share some of what I offer.

Why this is a great question, and opportunity:

You may have noticed that many, many people in media, both believers and not, ask the question of what to think after a tragedy, how could God allow it, and what is the role of faith in the occurrence of a tragedy, and the subsequent consolation. I consider this question to be one of the most important opportunities to address the faith (and indeed, comfort and witness) to a broad audience, and one that is questioning. I think people truly want to hear about God, and not about the psychological aspects, such as the stages of grief, for which there are abundant alternate resources.

God does not "cause" the tragedy:

Start by saying, God does not "cause" the human behavior that triggers the tragedy. God does not put up poor lettering of road signs, poor lighting, shoddy pavement, cause the darkness of the dawn, or create the confusion in a driver's mind. This may seem obvious to you but you must reassure people of this explicitly. Especially in these "new age" and magical thinking secular times, where people are somewhat paranoid. God has given free will for people to invent cars, busses, planes, roads, etc and use them. You could add, and God expects people to use their tools in a "love thy neighbor" way. This means compassion and care on the road. I'm not saying anyone was negligent, but I am saying that you must set the framework that God does not create the circumstances for accident or tragedy.

God working "within" the tragedy:

Then you could say, once a tragedy occurs, there are often signs of supporting faith. For example, people who perform great rescues.... God, through the Holy Spirit primarily, or guardian angels, works to promote rescue, survival, and healing in all circumstances. Sometimes the physical reality is too much (Jesus Christ is not physically present and changing nature's bodily law to perform a miraculous revival of the dead), but you can see that in almost every tragedy, there are ways that God's love (whether the survivor is a believer or not) is working through others, often with miraculous survivals.

What does God "allows" mean?

God does not cause the tragedy or the behavior/actions that contribute to it. The bible explains that these things happen according to "God's will" because all that happens on earth is within God's ultimate control of allowing humandkind to have life at all, and the free will to act. So God allows this to happen because he has not taken away humankind's life and actions.

What does God's plan mean?

Then you can say, yes, when people suffer, they must ultimately trust in the greater plan of God. The plan of God is not that a particular beloved child of God dies in an accident.... but the plan of God is that no life, whether a small baby or an aged man, is ever a waste and for nothing. That is the greater plan... not the causing of a tragedy or death, but how that person moves on into the larger plan of eternal life. Healing people who have survived or experienced a loss comes when they can trust in eternal life (and the thought of their young child in heaven) as the overall plan. And this is why many survivors of tragedy become crime or consumer advocates, because they know that God's will is also that "love thy neighbor" can translate into "I don't want what happened to me to ever happen to someone else".