The 23rd Psalm

Who among us did not learn to say the 23rd Psalm by memory as a child? Even now as an adult it is the one Psalm that seems most familiar even if it does not roll off the tongue easily from start to finish as it once done.

I have found myself often reflecting on the Psalm from the perspective of maturity. What was left on this reading was the verse about not fearing death. As a child I saw the verse through the eyes of a child and death I was being asked to not fear was my own. The idea of death was hard to under grasp anyway. There was a sense of finality and of loss but there was no clarity about what those things really meant. There was a sense of foreboding to think about walking through the valley of the shadow of death but no real understanding of shadows and death.

As we grew we came to understand that the valley referred to life itself because death is an ever present reality. To fear death was to acknowledge our own mortality and it was faith in God that was meant to free us from that fear.

Now there is more clarity. The death we were not to fear is not just our own death but also the death of others: our grandparents, parents, siblings, other friends and other family members and, most terrifying of all, the death of our children. The faith are granted through hearing the words of the Lord frees us from the fear of death, all death and not just our own. Faith is what allows us to endure the loss we find in the depths of the shadow and it gives the courage to step into the final journey of others.

Thirty five years ago on this day we lost a child, a son we named John. The sense of loss remains keen but any lingering fear about his death has long faded so deeply in the shadows that it no longer touches me.

What we once recited by rote but without full understanding still works for us today if we only we ask for faith. 

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff comfort me.

He is with us. Always.

Psalm 51

Some years ago while playing a round of golf at Buffalo Hill in Kalispell, my foursome came to a hole that is a short par 3. The Whitefish River flowed in an arc from behind and beside the hole, from the green to the tee box. Stately cottonwood trees protected the back edge and both sides of the green. I carefully lined up a shot and was rewarded with the crisp sound of a well struck ball. I watched the flight of the ball rise higher and higher and then start its sharp descent. Beyond the trees, well beyond the trees. We finally heard the ball splash down midstream in the river. It was my best hit 9 iron. Ever.

There was silence for a moment and then I said the only thing that couple be said, “Mulligan.” In a friendly round of golf among friends, it is typical to allow each person a do over, a second chance to make good after an errant shot.

Psalm 51 is all about God being willing to grant us a do over and his readiness to do so over and over again. In truth, his offer is for far more than a do over. It is for a make-over, a complete renewal. Using the golf analogy, God is not offering us just a second shot but all new clothes, new shoes, new clubs, a shiny new ball and a set a lessons from the best instructor in, and out, of the universe.

Imagine now how his promise really works for us. Our transgressions will be totally forgiven and we will be given the opportunity to make a fresh start not because we deserve it but because we don’t and he loves us enough to forgive us. No matter what. No matter how often. He will create in us a new heart.

This Psalm is the most well-known of the seven penitential Psalms and is considered to be the most powerful. It is first Psalm prayed in Morning Prayer every Friday morning and I eagerly look forward to praying it every week. The poetry, the imagery, the ancient appeal for relief from a timeless battle with ourselves all come together to offer hope of a better life.

“Lord, open my lips and my mouth will sing your praise.”

Let’s repeat it together 3 times as is done at the beginning of the invitatory before the first hour of the morning.

Who do you say that I am?

He said to them, “But who do you say that am?”

We have had a week to ponder the question asked of the Disciples and Peter since we encountered the Marcan version of this scene because it was the daily reading for Mass last Thursday. Peter answered that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God.

Jesus asks the same question of us. He asks who we say that he is. Who do I say that he is?

Peter had to make an unbelievable leap of faith to answer Jesus. There was no one else to show him the way. We, however, have had countless generations who lived before us who have shown us the way, a church built upon his teachings to show us the way and friends and family who bear witness to the truth of who believe Jesus to be. We take for granted that Jesus is in indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Consider however it is a question we don’t get to answer just one or two times nor is it a daily answer but it is a question that is both continuous and perpetual. If Jesus is the Christ, it is not enough to just answer in words but we have to take action to live a life of holiness in which we constantly move toward union with him. When we turn away or stumble, we can’t let such obstacles divert us from our journey, a journey that will never be completed in our in lifetimes.

Look to the example of Peter. He is the rock our church was built on yet he was oh so very human and his humanity should give us all hope that we too can move through the stages of holiness until we rest in Him even though we will stray, stumble, err, forget or even lie during the course of trip.

Peter backed up his declaration with action. He followed Christ all the way to his own death on a cross, hanged upside down because he did not feel worthy to share the same kind of death as Jesus.

When I was frantically waiting for word from my son who was in Christ Church the day an earthquake leveled the city and caused the Cathedral of Christ Church to collapse into rubble, I know how I would have answered the question if it had been asked of me at that time. But what about today? How would I answer the question today? I know how I would answer the question. We all would answer it the same way. We would acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ. The real question is if we will live our lives out as Peter did as a devoted disciple. Few of us are called to that state of life because it is a reality food needs to be grown, things need to be made, and services need to be provided and so on because the wheel of life has to roll on. If we all sat around expiating, the work that sustains life would be left undone.

What it does mean is God wants to be part of our daily lives. He wants to be invited to sit at the table with us, to go to work with us, to spend time with our friends and us. We owe Him great thanks that we have the freedom to live out our lives in ways that complete his plan for us but allows us free choice to decide our own path. He asks we involve him in our decisions, our actions, our dreams and our plans to and to seek to learn if what we desire is what his plan for us might be. To seek to do his will is how we respond to the question in way that our actions match our words.

Just think of it. The Son of Living God wants a relationship with us. While we will never get it completely right, we can get closer to the kind of relationship we both crave, both Jesus and us, by simply remembering Jesus is the Christ and aspiring to bring his teachings to life through our thoughts, word and actions. The reason we gather together as brothers and sisters of the faith is to remind and encourage each other to not only answer the question of who Jesus is but to model the answer for others. We are told to remember that what we say means little but what we do means everything.

Facebook - Good bye. For now.

Thursday, Cannon Beach, Oregon 

I have for some weeks been considering how to manage the dominance social media has come to have over my daily life. I began to seriously consider taking a break by simply deactivating during Lent as a Lenten penance as several of my friends and acquaintances have done in past years. I had not seriously considered going cold turkey in that fashion for the simple reason Facebook and Instagram have weaseled their way into being a routine and common form of communication. Rather than calling, sending a text message or even sending an email, increasing numbers of people have taken to using messaging or posting on my timeline as a way of communicating and I find it all too convenient to do the same. 

My thinking was that if I went cold turkey, I would miss out on not learning something from someone important to me. I thought it might be easy to just sign on to Facebook and then limit my attention to the red indicators telling me I had been sent a friend request, a personal message or had simply tagged me for some reason. The idea is that once the red lights were resolved, I would simply close out the application before sneaking a peak at my Newsfeed.

That plan might work, it just might work. For a while anyway. I am beginning to suspect, however, that for me the Newsfeed is like alcohol. Once I scroll down one screen, I can’t stop until I have consumed everything posted since the last time I checked in. I just can’t help myself.

In the aftermath of the 2012 and 2014 elections, the political hubbub died down to the point I could enjoy posts offering news about nieces, nephews and the rest of my family. I loved seeing pictures of soccer matches, dance recitals, first communions, weddings, engagement parties. I was sad to hear about pets that died or family and friends who were in grave peril or who had passed away but I appreciated the ability to share those losses those who hurting the same way I myself had been hurt in the past. I think it is wonderful to be a regular participant in the lives of friends and family who were once a big part of my daily life but who have now been separated by time and space. I would not trade those re-connections for the world but I have to also recognize the terrible cost I am paying at the same time.

When I look at Facebook now, I feel as though I have been trapped a New York City traffic jam of epic proportions. Long streams of cars have been jammed at an intersection and there is nowhere for any of the cars to go to start the process of untangling the snarl. Many of us are leaning out the windows yelling and cursing at everyone around them.

I understand the emotion. We all have something important to say and no one is listening. I have important things to say but I don’t because of the risk of being called a hater, a racist, a fascist, a misogynist – or even worse. I would hope that anyone who has ever known me for more than two minutes knows that while I have a very strong and well defined belief system I would never want to be in a situation where anyone who disagrees me would feel disparaged, minimized, or, worse yet, unloved. Pastor Tyler Amundson in a recent column in the newspaper lamented the fact we seem to have forgotten how to disagree. We have. I am seeing growing chasms between friends and family members, including within my own family, because of the mounting bitterness and anger rising out of a failed effort at dialogue that has faded into a vituperative exercise in social warfare.

As for my plan to venture in the world of Facebook, I fear I won’t be able to take care of business and move on but will instead find myself being sucked back into the spectacle. I know for certain I will not be able to wait until Lent to separate myself from discourse that seems to be growing every day. I had hoped we call get back inside our cars and cooperate with each other so we can move on down the road rather than uselessly laying on the horn. I hoped we could start looking for the things we share and which bind us together to remind us of what are looking for rather than hammering every larger wedges into the divisions that separate and antagonize us. Instead, it is time to make a change for sake of my sense of peace.

The events of the past year have reminded me I cannot change anyone or anything. All I can do is to change how I respond to the people and things that upset me. It is safe to say I have not said one thing on Facebook that has changed the mind of a single person nor has anyone said anything that changed my mind. Social media is not a place where effective change happen. That kind of change only comes from a softening of the mind and a willingness to listen respectfully to other.

I know peaceful discourse can be accomplished. I meet with a group of men for a prayer group on Thursday mornings and we share a sense of community and brotherhood that unites us because of a common love of the Gospel and the firm conviction we can lead each other to a closer union with Christ. We nurture our brotherhood and feed other with the fruit of our shared faith. We are stronger and better for it, better men, better husbands, better fathers, and better friends.

Understand, however, we are widely separated by our politics. Some of us are progressives, others more middle of the road and the rest of us would be considered rock-ribbed conservatives. Our differences do not divide us because we abide by the challenges given by St. Francis to first seek to understand rather than be understood. Peace fills each of us and sustains us until we meet in prayer again the next week.

I know calling those I disagree with libtards, or snowflakes is not going to lead anything fruitful. Likewise, calling me names is not going to help your cause one bit. Compassion, empathy, curiosity and patience will offer a better chance of meaningful change. I will also believe that as long as each side justifies their inflammatory and judgmental verbal and written expressions of outrage on the behavior of the other side, we will never find peace. Someone has to step away from the smoking cannons and trust others will do the same. I have despaired of this happening soon and I need to focus on building up kingdom of God by making a positive contribution in other ways other than devoting the amount of time I have been to social media. Maybe there will be a way to continue to participate in the lives of the people important to me, and you are ALL important to me, without risking my ability to find peace in daily life.

For now, goodbye. Please, please, PLEASE do not think I am blaming anyone for expressing themselves about issues they hold dear. I am, instead, blaming myself because I know I have crossed the line from time to time. It is my own actions and behavior that are prompting me to step back more than anything I have encountered from others.  Call me, text me, email me but don’t expect I will respond if you reach out through Facebook. I might not hear you there. God bless you and may He keep you in His care until we meet again.  Peace.