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.

Matthew 11 

My wife and I have an ongoing bemusement with how experts try to claim bits of your time throughout a day. You need to stretch 10 minutes a day. Exercise 30 minutes a day. Cook a nutritious and delicious meal in an hour each day. Sleep at least eight hours, not counting an hour you give yourself to wind down at the end of the night. Spend an hour with your children each day. Spend an hour with your spouse each day. Clean for 15 minutes. Learn a new skill in just 10 minutes a day. Of course, none of that counts the eight hours a day many of us spend working, or the time it takes getting to and from your job (an average of about 50 minutes a day for Americans). A Google search for the phrase “minutes a day” pulls up nearly 18,000,000 results!

My spouse and I find this amusing (and a bit exasperating) because there, of course, only so many minutes a day to cram everything in — 1,440 of them, to be precise. A big chunk of them are taken up by sleep, work, and other essentials, leaving a few hundred minutes a day for lots of things that are demanding your time. Juggling all the things we should or want to do is a pretty big burden at the end of the day.

In today’s Gospel selection from Matthew, the notion of burden is foremost in Jesus’ words. His message is so earnest and simple, it’s easier to paste its 49 words than to summarize or omit: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

When I came back into the faith almost decade ago, I sighed a bit at the idea of trying to add Jesus to a life that was already jam-packed. Like the minute-counting above, how could Jesus not be one more demand upon already-busy days?

Yet today’s Gospel explains why that hasn’t been the case for me. Jesus promised to give rest to those who come to him, and he has delivered. His yoke is easy, and his burden light.

The reason is that, for me (and I suspect many others), the faith seeps effortlessly around the events of the day. If each individual task is a pebble placed in a glass, and that glass is filled to the top with pebble after pebble, then Jesus is like a cup of cold water poured over those pebbles, filling the gaps, surrounding and soaking into each pebble.

Exercising? Spend those moments conversing with Jesus. Cooking? Contemplate God at the same time. Stuck in a rush-hour commute? A great time to turn off the radio and spend minutes with Jesus. Working? There are surely many idle moments where you can say a quick prayer or reflect for a moment in gratitude.

Even those “demands” that come from following Christ are not, indeed, a burden when he lives in your heart. When I started going to Church on Sundays, I found I just woke up earlier, starting my day sooner instead of wiling away Sunday sleeping in; I ended up with more free time on Sundays, even with the worship obligation! Spending time in prayer meetings or being engaged with daily prayer— or even writing reflections— has been straightforward; somehow, I’ve found the time and energy, as other “must-do” hobbies haven’t seemed as vital. As today’s reading from Isaiah says, “He gives strength to the fainting; for the weak he makes vigor abound . . . They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength.”

Modern life is incredibly busy. I suspect that human life has always been busy, with endless tasks and obligations filling our days. And human ingenuity often comes up with new things to fill the “free time” we don’t really have. Yet a life with Christ is not burdensome in the way that other obligations are. It is a “weight” that, upon wearing it, can make the other things weighing us down less burdensome.

As we prepare for the coming of Jesus during this time of Advent, it’s a good opportunity to see about pouring the living water of Christ over our pebbles, filling in the gaps of our days and getting more out of this life than we thought was possible . . . all of which helps to prepare us for the next life.

Revelations 4

This passage from Revelations is not unlike the rest of the book, beautifully crafted, full of vivid imagery and opaque symbols. Let’s spend some time unraveling the images and symbols to come to a better understanding of what the writer is telling us and why the book was determined to be divinely inspired and included in the Bible.

The mysticism expressed bears more fruit in later centuries through the witness of other mystics like Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich and my favorite, Walter Hilton. To be honest, however, the imagery captured by John has more in common with the mysticism of certain southwestern shamans who liberally utilized mescaline and peyote to and color and fill in the blanks.

Before we get started, there is another question to ask first.

“How about them Cubs?”

Back to the question in a moment.

Obviously, when we read a passage like this we are not to imagine that it in any remotely literal way corresponds to the reality of God. It is simply the use of language and images to express the inexpressible. Another way to say it, John, when he wrote Revelations, was speaking in code to a community with the cultural capacity to know what he was talking about even if it did not make sense to an unsuspecting outsider.

When I asked the question about the Cubs, I was speaking in code to you. You have the cultural understanding to understand that I was not really talking about the Cubs as much as I was not taking about Revelations. In this case the code was I was changing the subject rather than trying to climb a ladder with too few rungs and too far to climb.

Writing in the 60’s, after the letters of Paul and before the earliest compilation of the Gospels, John used imagery and symbols found throughout the apocalyptic literature of the Old Testament such as Ezekiel and Daniel to tell a story the Jewish listener would instantly understand but gentile would not comprehend.

There is one part of the passage that doesn’t require cracking any codes.

“Worthy are you, Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things; because of your will they came to be and were created.”

John speaks to us directly today, asking us to join in with the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 Apostles and all the rest of Christendom to praise God, our creator.

Let us repeat the verse together as one.

01/17/1935 - 10/25/1966

10.25.1966
During the ordinary course of days, we encounter countless situations which impact how our life will proceed on any given day. Less frequently we face obstacles or opportunities that can impact the course of several days or even several weeks but such changes don’t often result in a dramatic redirection of our lives. There are days, however, when a single event can change everything and the arc of life spins off in a new, sudden, unexpected, and unknown direction in a previously inconceivable way.

October 25, 1966 was such a day. I went to sleep the night before an 11-year-old boy part of a family of four, counting my father, my mother, and my sister. When I woke early morning on the 25th, long before dawn, I heard the voices of my grandparents and my aunt and uncle. I knew immediately, with a now familiar sense of dread, something was catastrophically wrong. I got out of bed and went into the living room where, with my eyes blinking before adjusting to bright lights, I learned my 31-year-old father had died of a heart attack.

Nothing would ever be the same for any of us. My father was highly educated in a brand-new field then called Special Education and he held a management position with the Great Falls school district. The course of my entire life from the day of my birth up to the day he died was influenced by his pursuit of advanced education and the advancement of his career. We have always considered the job in Great Falls to just be the beginning of a long career and we have speculated he would have many other offers to move into other opportunities. Who knows what might have come after Great Falls? A federal job in Washington? A bigger school district out of state somewhere? A teaching job in a college or university? All of those possibilities slammed out of existence in a blink.

We were suddenly bereft of our leader and needed to begin our lives again. And we did. 50 years have passed and on my older son’s next birthday he will be the same age as my father was when he died. There have been many times when I paused to consider what might have been but as the years drifted by, the images of unrealized futures have darkened against the light of what came to pass for each of us. What is left is just a powerful, yet undefined, sense of what was lost or gained in a single moment just after midnight on October 25, 1966.

The most powerful impact I can articulate is that his absence from our lives has defined each of us, my mother, my sister, and I, just as radically as if he had lived beyond that day. I have learned to no longer ask how God could have allowed such a thing to happen but instead to ask what we should learn from the experience. 50 years later we are still learning because virtually every day brings a reminder of a past that is certain and a future that was changed forever.

Today I no longer fear and grieve at his absence as much as I have learned to be open his to his presence in all of the little ways that construct his legacy. When the 25th slides in while we are sleeping tonight, however, it will be appropriate to pause and remember and to consider what might have been. Other tomorrows will come soon enough.

I think I am going to have a son.

Danny's Song

I listened to Danny’s Song today for the first time in a very, very long time. Suddenly decades compressed into hours and the 70’s were only yesterday, maybe even this morning. The album the song was on was released in 1971 while I was still in high school and given how popular it was, we listened to it countless times. In the beginning, the lyrics offered hope and a picture of how my life might unfold.

Perhaps, like Kenny Loggins, I would find a good woman, get married and have a son. At least that is what I hoped for, what I wanted but could never count on with certainty. We just don’t know what our futures hold whether we are 20 standing on the first steps of adulthood or 60 and have reached the top of the stairs.

In time, I met the woman and we married. Years went by and we listened to the song often and hoped. And hoped. And dreamed. After more time a son came but left before we got to walk with him. Still more time passed and then came another son. This one became my Danny. Our Danny. As time continued to pass, there was daughter who joined our first son but then, finally, came a second Danny. We have two Dannys, two sons who walk through life with us.

When I listened to the song in the days after our children came, I no longer was moved to live in anticipation but instead felt fulfilled and experienced satisfaction from being a husband and father. Today, the song took me to a very different place, one of appreciation, recollection and remembrance. It is a good place. I have a good wife. I have good sons. They, together, are the reason I have had a good life.

People smile and tell me I am the lucky one and I know I am. We have come far from the beginning and we have 2 sons. They are free, to be like doves, conceived in love, yes, but they live every day in our love and are busy about the business of making families of their own. Danny 1 and Danny 2 are the reason the sun shines above us no matter the time of day or the kind of weather. We ARE the lucky ones.