30 December 2024

 

Conscience, Freedom And Such

“It’s a free country; I can do what I want …”

A misbehaving grammar school classmate occasionally invoked this specious rationale to justify his mischief. We all knew he was out-of-line (so did he) but, in childish snit, he snarled this shallow, self-righteous rationale. Despite his preening insistence, we knew his logic was foolish, his excuse ridiculous, his reasoning absurd.

Since then, abundant research says that even children intuitively know freedom always comes with limits. These limits originate in human nature’s gift of conscience which extends into law and education, moral admonitions and social customs, cultural expectations and family traditions.

Laws of conscience are also codified in religion’s beliefs about good and evil. Some religions promote tranquility. Others preach condemnation and encourage violence. But it is obvious that God and humanity are best served by Christian Virtues such as Truth, Empathy, Kindness, Forgiveness, Civility and Justice.

Sadly, conscience’s call to Virtue doesn’t prevent massive abuse and violent polarization … often in the name of God, more often for the sake of errant vanity.

Human Nature

Nonetheless, even children know that no one has the “freedom” to exceed certain norms and restrictions or violate the dignity of others. From our earliest years, we know that freedom and rights are never unconditional.

• We know the proper exercise of freedom requires self-restraint.


• We know freedom is always contingent upon laws, traditions, responsibility and accountability, respect for customs, family, school, church and one another.


• We know that acting as if these factors do not exist is immature and, often, sheer arrogance.


• And we know (or should) that human dignity is based on acknowledgement of, and obedience to, conscience.

How do we know? For starters, (1) Natural Law and Common Sense whisper to us in the earliest stirrings of youthful conscience and (2) thereby proclaim the boundaries of moral right and moral wrong. Even in youth, we “know” that respecting the rights of others is essential for the Common Good. In fact, knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, defines us as human beings.

Despite the voice of conscience, some people ignore legitimate restrictions, demean Virtue and reject self-restraint. They have no respect for family or community. They’re offput by Virtues which they see as confining, stifling, irrelevant. In the process, they deny (willfully or not) the authority of our Creator and reject the moral wisdom of a mature conscience which serves as a roadmap for moral action and civil behavior in every culture.

Note Well: Educated Conscience

We have a conscience because we are moral beings. We all possess (to some degree) the ability to (1) learn moral rules, and (2) respect the limits of the moral universe into which we are born.

So, some degree of moral clarity is rudimentary in every life. It is part of human nature. BUT… by itself, this rudimentary ability is insufficient for the adult demands of age and maturity.

Thus, from our earliest years, we possess the moral Common Sense to know the difference between good and evil. That’s conscience at work … BUT as we grow into adulthood, the moral demands of maturity and Right Reason are far more complex than in childhood.

Our society is a‘brim with lots of so-called “rights.” Some rights serve legitimate purposes. Other “rights” are ridiculous, unworthy of consideration. But, as we grow, moral education is crucial so that we know what’s morally right and what isn’t.

Maturity demands that we obey the admonitions of a rightly educated conscience and grow out of our childish urges.

Freedom Isn’t Free

Knowledge of, and attention to, moral responsibility is the work of an educated conscience, the mark of adult maturity.

A rightly educated conscience recognizes the need for a Final Authority, for a definitive source of Objective Truth Who determines (1) what is morally essential if human nature is to flourish, and (2) what is morally harmful to self and others.

Our Creator God is that Objective source in time and in eternity. God is the First Cause of our moral nature and the Final Cause of the moral universe. Our educated conscience knows and honors God’s Commands.

Our educated conscience tells us what is morally good and objectively right (not just subjectively satisfying). Our ensuing behavior determines our character (or lack of it) in the eyes of other human beings … and our standing with God.

Within this context, Guilt is intended to be an inspiration rather than a weaponized, debilitating emotion.

In addition, given our need for a stable moral system, the populist mantra of “spiritual but not religious” becomes a doorway to moral relativism … and we know the chaos which awaits therein.

Clearly, freedom is not free – and should not be. Without Divine guidance, we flounder. We must grow morally, intellectually and emotionally according to proven standards if we are to be mature adults who have no doubts about our status as children of God.

Relationships

The Christian life calls us to a relationship with God - and with our neighbors near and far. These relationships require the Virtues of Altruism, Empathy, Love, Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Justice and the best of our humanity.

We must not be imprisoned by our conceits or dodges. Moral and social maturity ask far more of us than shallow escapism or self-righteous denial.

Honoring the Christian Virtues is logical and reasonable. Why? Because the Virtues are our best guides for human behavior and for the Common Good. The Virtues nourish respect for one another and alert us to our own sins and errors.

Obviously, then, we must obey objective laws and limits. That’s why we need an educated conscience, which insists that:

1. we follow God’s norms of good and evil,


2. we exercise adequate self-restraint


3. we choose goodness over indifference, and


4. we avoid evil and choose the right thing.

Choosing Goodness is the role of our educated conscience.

Conscience And Choice

The word “conscience” is from the Latin word for “knowledge.” To be clear, conscience is a power of intellect, along with memory, judgment, perception, attention and other mental functions.

Conscience is enlightened - or distorted - by knowledge which may be correct or incorrect; by valid or erroneous information; by balanced or biased ideas; by truth or by lies; by history or by propaganda. In short, conscience can be influenced by truth and facts or by errors and distortions.

Thus, a badly-formed conscience may be seriously off the moral track. Even if we mean well, a seemingly good outcome does not justify an evil means to achieve it.

In addition, conscience is intended to inspire morally good choices. BUT conscience is also weakened by flabby willpower or by wayward emotions such as dread or conceit or meanness.

So, it takes (1) intellectual clarity and (2) courageous will to act with moral conviction and seek Goodness, especially when others are swayed to lesser paths or seduced by evil.

We can, therefore, see how crucial it is that we (1) obtain morally correct information from reliable sources, and (2) choose the morally right path ... choose Goodness.

In this context, “should” and “ought” make lots of sense.

The Right Information

The Christian moral code is most fitting and practical for human nature’s need for moral clarity. The Christian ideal rests on the example of Christ, and is spelled out for us in numerous sources, such as:

• The Ten Commandments,


• The Moral and Theological Virtues,


• The Parables (i.e., moral lessons) of Christ’s life,


• The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy,


• The ever-present command to Love God and Neighbor


• Centuries of trial-and-error,

… and countless ways which emphasize the Christian message of Forgiveness and Redemption, which are the bases of a morally educated and mature conscience … enlightened by Revelation and reinforced by Common Sense, which is Reason’s inner voice.

Question

How about the person who “feels” something is right and follows that feeling? Isn’t he following his conscience?

Conscience is not merely a “feeling.” It is reliable knowledge based on objective facts, not subjective, personal urges. These facts have been proven trustworthy by history and experience, Scripture and Tradition over millennia. Feelings are subjective urges, fleeting wishes, self-centered concerns.

The educated conscience acknowledges that it is the province of God - not us - to decide what is moral in human affairs.

Conscience does begin with childhood sensibilities which translate into an intuitive “feeling” … but, as knowledge and experience accumulate, an educated conscience is gradually formed by the addition of objective truths from reliable sources.

The educated conscience reveals our Creator’s wishes, made known to us (as we say above) by many sources, starting with the miracle of the created universe in front of us - and with ourselves.

Some people ignore the grace (i.e., the gift) of Creation and its constant epiphanies around us. But Faith reminds us that it is folly to act as if we have unlimited control over our lives; to act as if we are not beholden to God; to act as if our behavior is without consequences; to act as if we are accountable only to ourselves.

Finally . . .

Given the mysteries with which life abounds, the power and logic of the phrase "Thy will be done" comes alive. For many people, this utterance becomes a personal prayer of Sincerity and Humility, qualities of mind and heart which do not flatter a preening ego nor promote evasions of Truth.

As created beings, it makes eminent sense that Faith is (or ought to be) our priority. Faith recognizes the need for an educated conscience and for the Divine guidance it offers. And, in the last analysis, an educated conscience inevitably leads us back to the salvific embrace of Faith.

• Faith is an act of our trust and our resignation-beyond-knowing.


• Faith reveals to us that the world is a constant epiphany, a panoply of miraculous events.


• Faith resolves curiosity about the mystery of Creation.


• Faith offers us the eternally comforting premise that (as Georges Bernanos says) God's grace is everywhere.


• Finally, Faith and our educated conscience say to us, “You are loved. Be in peace…”

23 December 2024

 

Christmas: A Child Comes

Why Christ? Why did – and why does – God become human, especially as a child? What traits of childhood does God find so appealing that He appears to us as a newborn baby?

What traits does the Child Jesus display (as does every child)? Innocence, humility, lack of guile, no pretense, disdain for the trappings of wealth, openness to life’s vagaries, vulnerability to the aches of heart and mind to which we are heir.

When we consider the helpless state which the Child Christ chooses, does it not stir in us a sense of wonder and admiration and awe at Jesus’ message: “Become like Me; become a child, if you wish to follow Me and enter My Kingdom, which is not an earthly kingdom, to be sure.”

When we are subjected to distortions and self-serving agendas of others, then are we tempted return the pain.

• T’is then we are to remember the universal love of the Child.


• T’is then we are to rise above our own self-righteous delusions.


• T’is then we are to stifle our angry urges to tantrum and spout.


• T’is then we are to be as a child – to be as The Child, Patient in our distress, resolute in our Faith, persevering in our Hope, seeking within ourselves a spirit of Forgiveness, praying for Virtue beyond what this world will ever offer or understand without The Child’s example.

The Child Jesus comes. He is here again to remind us that He asks us to be like Him, to act in extraordinary ways, to know and honor (as He did) His Father’s desire for us on a personal level; to forgive those who trespass against us as He did, even to the point of His painful death, when He asked His father to forgive them, for they did not know what he they were doing.    

To be followers of The Child is our calling for our few years upon this Earth. For this were we born. Christmas is, once again and always, our reminder that, of all we may accomplish in our lifetimes, our awe and our adoration come first. For this has He come into this world.

This is what Christmas means. This is why we behold a Child Who is God.

May we love Him and love one another as He would have us do.

May it be so. May The Child Jesus help us all to make it so.

8 December 2024

 

Remembering Nancy

Over our years, we inevitably compare the past with the present and recall good times and good people we have known. True, our memories include a measure of nostalgia and loss. Even then, we remember - ofttimes belatedly - the goodness of many people.

As years fly by, we should begin to recognize - with maturing, humbled heart - how truly blessed is our gift of life, how we are surrounded by an abundance of love. This abundance should remind us of how enriched we are by the good people in our lives … those precious people who bring smiles to our memories and gratitude to our soul and hope to our spirit.

And if, at last, we attain a level of wisdom and empathy - and common sense - we will ask ourselves: “In what ways do I bring goodness, kindness and love into the lives of others?”

I often entertain such smiling memories of my Beloved Nancy, my departed wife, whose birthday we commemorate this month. Her memory enlightens my heart, reminds me daily of goodness and reveals to me, again and again, life’s fundamental lessons, especially our responsibilities (1) to learn to love others with maturity and constancy even when it is difficult, and (2) to become worthy of the trust of others.

Let me share some of the lessons I learned with my Beloved in the decades we shared together.

Love And Maturity

For starters, I learned that the authentic meaning of “love” is often misunderstood and, in fact, badly distorted in our culture, which often misplaces attraction for affection and feelings for facts. In countless ways, ours is an immature culture which celebrates love’s abuses, proposes that violence and exploitation are admirable, retaliation is acceptable and moral relativism’s disregard for truth is OK. Even our young people find pornography and life-altering decisions readily accessible - with adult approval.

I learned that mature love is not a mere “feeling” nor changeable state which undergoes seasonal fixations. True love is not equated with sexual gratification, nor does it thrive in hearts heavy with unforgiving memories or vindictive intent or aging self-pity.

Mature love is a commitment to give oneself for others and for the Common Good, even at personal cost. Giving of oneself for the good for others takes courage and character and self-restraint, qualities contrary to the avalanche of specious “rights” which erode our nations laws and tarnish our Judeo-Christian traditions.

I learned that mature love rests on generosity of heart and goodness of soul, enlivened by an altruistic spirit. Mature love is

1. giving more than we are expected to give,
2. taking less than we are allowed to take, and
3. not seeking adulation or applause.

Without applause or credit, selfless love is tough to practice; our egos ache for recognition. But mature love - giving of oneself - is not intended to bolster superiority or self-aggrandizement. It requires discipline and self-restraint, which contradict the self-righteous impulses which haunt us all.

Clearly, the difficult part in all this is letting go of our ego’s entrenched defenses, habits and resentments – and this can take years. After all, we’ve honed our defenses for a long time and can mount many excuses. Without our defenses, we feel vulnerable - but the key questions are:

1. To whom are we truly vulnerable, and
2. about what issues are we vulnerable?

More Lessons

I learned that marriage is rightly intended to be a sharing - a total sharing - of body and mind, of heart and soul in mutual trust and commitment. That’s a big order, because maturity in marriage inevitably requires us to become mature persons, and

• to stop playing egocentric games,
• to make serious personal changes in attitude and behavior,
• to open ourselves to a life-long relationship and candidly reveal who we are down deep,
• to share ourselves and to communicate beyond the cliches.

None of this is easy. Most of us are tempted to share only what makes us look good, but no more. We resist too much honesty and self-disclosure. For some people, candid communication is too great a challenge, a threat to be avoided for a lifetime. So, here are several more lessons:

• Communication beyond superficialities is absolutely essential in marriage and family life if trust is ever to grow.
• Trust is also crucial if love is ever to grow. Why?
• Because we cannot love anyone whom we do not trust.

Especially in marriage and family, candid communication and self-revelation are essential. Avoidance triggers unsettling suspicions and sends disturbing messages. In the family context, this sort of ambiguity creates painful suspicion and distance. Avoidance of candor leads to exasperation, frustration, conflict (however muted that conflict may be) and estrangement.

So, when avoidance looms and candor is compromised, benign confrontation is often appropriate, and may be the only path to truth and reconciliation … but not without risk.

However, even if overt anger and defensiveness result from confrontation, these reactions are specific and immediate and, thus, can be identified, pursued and, with good will, resolved.

Although difficult for many people to accept, the truth is that forgiveness and reconciliation are often the most emotionally costly - but the most effective - avenues to hard-earned trust.

The principle is unchanging: Candid communication - and, often, forgiveness - is essential if trust is to grow in marriage and family life … and if love is then to blossom.

Contradictions Or Truths ?

Stable marriage and family are more than arenas for an ongoing stand-off or mutual avoidance or tolerated distance.

Marriage is a life’s vocation in which we are called as individuals to become our best selves, to lay aside selfish instincts, to see beyond our conceits, to find within ourselves a source of mature Hope and Goodness, Patience and Forgiveness and all the Virtues which mature loving always entails.

When we retreat from our needless defenses and restrain our selfish desires, we thereby (1) strengthen our commitment to our Beloved, and (2) inspire loving behavior and altruism as our habitual norms. We solidify attitudes and actions which we might otherwise never express.

As marriage and family relationships grow, irresponsible behavior from the past becomes evident - sometimes with embarrassing clarity. But as trust grows, mutual communication and acceptance enliven relationships; temptations to avoidance and denial diminish. Together, we mutually accept the responsibilities of loving and being loved.

Gradually we recognize what love is truly all about.

Finally . . .

Though she is gone these years, My Beloved remains the person closest to me. I have admired her for decades, for her tenacity and her resilience, for her fidelity and her gumption, for her readiness to face her past faults with remarkable candor, for her unfailing love.

I still admire her courage in adversity, her kindness to a host of folks, some of whom did not recognize - or ignored - the rare gift of herself which she so regularly extended, often with no acknowledgement.

In her final years, my Beloved carried her medical ills with calm smiles and nary a complaint … and with a growing Faith which was an inspiration. Her forbearance reminded me that the path to personal insight, to deeper Faith, to stronger Hope, to God's own Wisdom often includes the gifts of suffering and deprivation which peel away our hubris, expose our need for humility and reveal the folly of disbelief.

That insight, that Hope, that reality of her love given so selflessly leads me each day to Christ, the Giver of all Love.

Nancy imparts these blessed memories to me every day. And for the gift of these memories, I am ever grateful to my Beloved, and to the Father of us all, upon Whom all life depends.

15 Nov 2024

 

As The Years Roll By

“Age has its prerogatives” (or so says the adage), one of which is that we Elders (not “Old Folks,” please) have a storehouse of Wisdom accumulated over our length of years. I say “our years” because my age surely qualifies me as an Elder. My “four-score-and-ten-plus years” is a quasi-Lincolnesque way of laying claim to the assumed Wisdom rummaging about my brain. So, herewith, I share a few lessons learned over decades.

For Starters …

I learned long ago that we all have quirks, fits of temperament and defects of character - our share of vices as well as Virtues. Every person has instincts, impulses and behavior patterns which necessitate (1) self-control and moral discipline, (2) awareness of our responsibilities to one another, (3) a heart-beyond-pettiness to inspire us to seek Goodness, and (4) a sense of accountability which honors conscience over convenience and conceit.

Our vices and failings are usually obvious to others, but we are often blind to them … or deny they exist. Vanity looms large, haughtiness o’ershadows truth, and some people like it that way.

We may possess good will and a decent heart, but errant pride can still delude us for years, to the point that we become touchy and defensive even in family, resistant to well-meant comments, loathe to face our foibles lest we seem weak or be laughed at, entrenched in denial. But denial sets a trap for soul and psyche.

Still, many persist in denial. Admitting error takes a lot of courage and humility. Vices are painful to acknowledge, costly to the ego. Some people take years to see that it is better to admit truth than hide from it. As Thomas Paine observed in 1776, “Time makes more converts than reason.”

It Gets Personal

Our quirks and vices may seem unimportant to us, but they can become much more than minor bumps along life’s path. If we persist in denial and shove our wayward pride into a dark corner of our psyche, it still lingers and does not just go away.

In fact, some quirks eventually cycle into discomforting conditions of mind and heart. They bring considerable disruption, anxiety and distrust into our lives, and taint our relationships even with those who love us. Sadly, it is difficult to sustain love for someone whom we cannot trust.

However, on the upbeat side, our vices (large or small) can be of immense value … if they inspire us to ask ourselves:

• what worthy ideals (or lack thereof) do I hold,


• how can I improve my various relationships,


• how do I treat others,


• what messages do I send by my attitudes and behavior.

Our vices may also move us to face life’s ultimate questions:

• what moral beliefs serve as my guiding First Principles,


• how am I choosing to live each day, and


• what do I truly believe about life, others and myself.

Elie Wiesel wrote that “each of us must make the choice between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and offering him the solidarity and hope he deserves.”

Science Is Not Enough

We search for answers in myriad ways. As a psychologist, I learned diagnostic categories and treatment strategies for a variety of troublesome vices, intrusive quirks and psychic tics (often the stuff of stubborn neuroses). However, decades of experience have also taught me that our quirks and vices are not merely clinical categories befitting the psychologist’s trade.

The many vices, weaknesses and temptations to which we humans are heir are also conditions of soul. Accordingly, we must consider issue of character, conscience, principles of right and wrong behavior … and the moral vision underlying both.

As conditions of soul, our vices and weaknesses also indicate our inherent need for a stable and practical code of thought and action. We need a worldview by which, as Wiesel says, we can “distinguish the path to Good from the one leading to evil.”

In addition, we should not forget nor deny that behavior and human affairs are intrinsically moral. This means we influence others, as they influence us. Our mutual impact may be for better or worse, subtle or fleeting … but it may also last a lifetime.

Given our universal weaknesses and inclinations to selfishness, it is obvious that we require a code of moral behavior which clearly identifies Good from evil for all of us, not just for a few.

It follows that we cannot settle for a subjective, strictly personal code of morality. We require a universal moral order which can guide us in our daily lives and in all human affairs. We need a set of moral First Principles to guide us all … First Principles by which we gauge our character, our conscience and our behavior as individuals, as families and as nations.

What Does “Moral” Really Mean ?

The word “moral” always refers to our behavior as virtuous or evil from God’s point of view – not ours. We exist in a moral universe (even if some people deny it). In the moral context, Virtue and the Soul, character and conscience, sin and grace, good and evil, right and wrong all make sense - not because I say so, but because God says so, time after time throughout History.

The determination of good and evil is not a subjective, personal decision. Knowledge of good and evil does not originate in human beings. Good and evil are not to be decided by each person for him/herself. Moral relativism and subjective morality are paths to destruction for self and society, as History constantly reveals.

Nonetheless, at the simple mention of God, some people turn away, unwilling to admit their status as created beings, quick to disdain God’s code of morality. Nevertheless, the determination of moral good and moral evil is, first and last, in God’s Hands, not ours. And there are abundant sources which spell out the terms of God’s wishes.

God ? Yes, God …

So, attention to our moral responsibilities begins with our Faith in God. For those who deny Faith, life is an up-for-grabs existence; everyone is out for himself. Nothing is sacred. No one matters except that individual, who has no obligation to anyone except himself. But his denial of God proves futile, especially given the gravity of the issues and (to borrow a phrase from Joseph Ellis), “the self-evident character of the principals at stake.”

Nevertheless, some people behave as if morality is solely up to them. Their guiding principles of right-and-wrong are their own sense of entitlement. Their idea of morality is rooted in their feelings, unbounded urges, self-righteous judgments … and their pride run amok. They have no use for the Ten Commandments or for Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance. Their resist any rein on their “rights,” even the rights of others (abortion is a prime example).

When we rely solely on our own sense of morality, chaos ensues. History is witness to the folly of moral personalism which is, of course, an irresponsible path to moral and social chaos.

History repeatedly insists that human activity must be guided by objective standards of morality, not subjective, he-said-she-said accommodations to fads which change with the seasons. Sacrifice is often involved; so what? Sacrifice is central to peace of soul and goodness of heart. A life which is lived without giving to others - and to God - is an empty life.

What Works ?

After decades of experience, I have also learned that the Christian worldview of morality is superior to all other systems (some of which encourage hatred and justify revenge). The Christian worldview stands alone. Here’s what I mean.

The objective order of Christian morality is established by God, not by us. It is revealed to us through our own human nature as well as through Scripture, Gospels and Parables, centuries of Tradition, prayer and the Virtues of the Christian worldview – all to bolster self-restraint and promote our Faith in the Giver of Life.

The Christian model provides moral precepts and behavioral paths which clarify the three major aspects of our lives:

1. How we relate to one another and to the society we create with one another in marriage, family, community, nation;


2. how we relate to ourselves and what we do with our own lives, i.e., the kind of person we choose to become; and


3. how we develop and sustain our relationship with God, Who is, without doubt, our Creator.

Finally …

The Christian worldview is guided by the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity (i.e., Love for God and one another, rightly understood), and the Moral Virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance. The light of Wisdom (God’s version of common sense) is found in these Virtues. Here’s a brief example:

In the context of Faith, the psychological technique of “attentive listening” also involves the Virtues of Charity (giving your close attention), Prudence (good timing) and Temperance (self-restraint, not haranguing the other with only your thoughts).

In the Christian worldview, every moment and every encounter are opportunities to express Virtue and, thus, to live a life of generous giving, of prayer and goodness inspired by Faith.

With Faith, nothing is insignificant when it is done with the intention of responding to the Love of God. Small acts become deeds of worship, gratitude and humility … deeds of heart-felt Hope. Done with that intention, nothing in life is irrelevant.

Faith tells us that, despite set-backs of every kind, we are Beloved of God. Faith brings the Love of God alive in our lives and moves us to love others in proper ways – even without acknowledgement or praise. Hope and Charity become realities which change heart and minds.

Even reading a blog like this one, if done with gratitude to God, is just such a moment.

But enough … you get the idea.

25 October 2024

 

Seeing Is Believing - Or Is It ?

The older I get, the more I appreciate the simpler miracles of life; nothing flashy, you understand … just the everyday “normal” miracles we take for granted.

For example, I feed hummingbirds on my back porch. Recently, I watched several of them sipping hungrily, and was again moved to wonderment as they hovered noiselessly, fluttering their wings up to 80 times per second. Amazing little creatures…

When winter comes, hummingbirds migrate – non-stop – over hundreds of miles of open water. They are of lengthy heritage: their species is 30 million years old, with a variety of types and sizes. Extraordinary … yet they are part of the daily panoply of extraordinary events we behold.

As I watch these miraculous little birds hover at my feeder, I am again reminded that we live in a world of constant marvels. It is indeed a miraculous world we inhabit. Despite our distractions and bouts of indifference, we are participants in endless miracles of Creation. This inescapable reality always gives me pause.

A Different Perception

I mentioned my delight at watching the hummingbirds to a gruffly inclined neighbor. He did not share my wonder: “Hummers are dirty little rotters,” he countered. “They leave messy droppings (not his word) all over my front porch… dirty little rotters.”

My neighbor’s reaction illustrates some fundamentals about the human condition, namely:

• We always have choices about how we shall perceive (i.e., “see”) and then interpret events and people in our lives.


• This is true even when we face problematic situations which evoke fear or anger.


• We cannot control all events, but we can learn to control our thoughts and feelings, pleasant or threatening.

When we are young and immature, we learn to perceive and judge events and people from the example of others. We mimic their emotional responses and are easily influenced by comments and actions especially of our family members. They make a deep impression on our perceptions, judgments and feelings, which soon become instinctual, embedded in our unconscious minds.

In our youth, we depend on others for sustenance and guidance. This is life’s normal path. We do not challenge ourselves … until the pull of Maturity urges us to do so.

• Maturity teaches us that our goal in life is not prolonged dependence but moral and intellectual independence.


• Maturity insists that we must (1) re-learn new perceptions, and (2) change the emotional content they carry.

Maturity proclaims that, as we grow in age and (hopefully) Wisdom, we have choices about (1) how we “see” and judge people and events, and (2) how we shall then react.

Paradox

Life presents a series of challenges, often paradoxical ones (Chesterton calls life a “romantic paradox”) … but we are not robots. We possess freedom of choice, which central to our growth in awareness, responsibility and accountability.

So, as we grow up, we must learn to think clearly and make our own judgments based on principles and facts, not rumor and feelings. We must exercise our own free choices, illuminated by truth and disciplined learning. As we grow, our informed perceptions determine (or should) our feelings and behavior.

In time, we learn to think, judge and act independently. We strive to “see” – i.e., to perceive – events and people in terms of reality and moral principle, not prejudice or ignorance. This is Maturity.

Wisdom’s Necessity

As we pursue Maturity, Christian Wisdom is crucial because no other standards rival (1) the idealistic principles and (2) the practical tools of the Christian worldview to achieve peace and fidelity, even when we face prolonged pain, temptation to despair, deliberate deception or ignorance.

Christian Wisdom insists that no matter what we face, we have choices about (1) how we perceive events and (2) how we shall then react - not impulsively or thoughtlessly, but with Prudence and Perseverance which Wisdom and Maturity confer.

Wisdom enlightens us about the nuances of Maturity. Examples:

1. we always have a choice about what interpretation and feelings we assign to events;


2. we have choices about what messages we choose to receive from these events;


3. we have choices about the emotional weight we give to these events;


4. This is not to deny that some events are painful, as when we suffer loss or harbor grudges;


5. This is not to deny that certain psychiatric problems exist;


6. This is not to deny that all human beings are subject to a range of challenges which can erode our resilience and test our Faith in the will of God and in our own resolve;


7. This is not to deny that our freedom of action may be brutally curtailed by violent forces.

Even when we face prolonged adversity, our power to choose still exists. E.g., read WWII concentration camp survivors, such as Viktor Frankl or Elie Weisel.

The Cost Of Choosing

Wisdom insists upon adult responsibility and accountability for what we say and do. But some people do not want to hear the fact that we are responsible for our attitudes, beliefs and behavior, and that we are accountable to others for what we say and do.

Even though everyone goes through stages of immaturity, emotional instability and youthful impulsivity, there comes a time when youthful exuberance or “freedom” no longer excuse denial, immaturity, irresponsibility and lack of accountability.

• There comes a time when we cannot deny we have choices.


• There comes a time when we are responsible for how we respond to the events and people in our lives.


• There comes a time when we are accountable for our words and actions and cannot blame outside sources.

Events may be grave or fleeting, joyous or debilitating, titillating or redemptive. People may be loving or grudging, cheery or hostile, kind or indifferent; no matter. Wisdom and Maturity call us to be responsible and accountable persons. We always have choices.

The Happiness Myth

Wisdom reveals that Happiness and Maturity are found not in technical knowledge or power or wealth or revenge. We also learn that Happiness is not always pleasant (as Aristotle’s study of “eudaemonia” points out). Happiness is often misleading … but peace of mind, heart and soul are found in Wisdom and Maturity.

So, Happiness may be fleeting, but Wisdom unsnarls the mental and emotional traps we set for ourselves when our thoughts and feelings are shaken, and life does not proceed in an orderly manner. In fact, life’s paradoxical events often present us with frustration and ambiguity, even when we are “successful.”

When we are challenged, even in minor ways, Wisdom and Maturity tell us that our task is to manage ourselves and face ambiguity with Faith not simply in “self” … but in God.

To repeat the point: We cannot control every event, but we can control how we react to events.

How Much Is Too Much ?

To some people, all this is ridiculous, foolish nonsense. Skeptics say everyone is out for himself. Cynics say kindness is for losers, forgiveness is weakness and patience invites abuse. Nihilists add that life has no meaning, that “God” is escapist folly.

These views are in stark contrast with the abundant evidence in the Christian worldview which holds that – no matter what we face – we are loved by our Creator.

Certainly, a degree of unpredictability is always predictable in every life, and God often has odd ways of showing His Love for us – until we examine the evidence from the Christian worldview, as Wisdom insists and Maturity reaffirms.

The Christian worldview teaches that we are children of a Loving God, even when this is tough to believe. In the Christian worldview, Wisdom teaches us to perceive reality - to “see” - with the eyes of Faith, even amid pain and confusion. Reliance on logic and rationality are simply not enough. Faith is essential.

In the Christian worldview we are given the gift of life. Then, we are invited to develop our relationship with our Creator, Who sent His Son to reassure us that - no matter what - God is with us.

This reassuring Truth is not merely an intellectual exercise. It is Reality which underlies Creation. God is Our Father. He sent His Son to offer us a relationship here and hereafter. This relationship rests on the unshakable truth that we are beloved of God, no matter what. In good times and bad times, we are beloved of God. This is the first tenet of Faith; no way around it. Mystery reveals God’s Love; it does not conceal it, as some critics mistakenly say.

Suffering

Suffering included? Indeed so. In fact, even Christ went through profound agony to prove the point of God’s fidelity. The night before He was crucified, Jesus prayed not to go through the terrible pain ahead. He asked His Father to let Him out of it. But He finally said, "Not My Will, but Your will be done."

The Christian worldview believes that our lives are enfolded in the Mystery of the Will of God. Christ went willingly, if reluctantly, to His death; consequently, we cannot possibly comprehend the salvific value of Faith simply from a human point of view.

The fact that God’s plan does not accord with our sense of fairness or self-interest upsets some dissenters, who get disgruntled when God’s Mystery is asserted. But, clearly, the Christian worldview does not rest on self-aggrandizement or egocentrism. It rests on our humbled trust in our Creator’s plan, as revealed and emphasized in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. This, too, is a fundamental fact of Faith.

Given our dependence on God’s will, Wisdom recognizes our need for Humility as we learn to accept the events of life with steady Faith. We persevere because we believe that even painful events have a purpose greater than our ability to explain or comprehend them. This is the Christian worldview which Wisdom and Maturity propose. This is a further fact of our Faith.

There’s More

Wisdom’s insights transcend human categories. For some reason, this rankles folks who demand logical explanations for everything. But, (as Augustine says) logic never satisfies the yearning of the heart or the hunger in the soul. Faith is essential.

Developing Faith in God requires commitment, fidelity, obedience to God’s will, prayerful insight, trust and gratitude … never forgetting that we are given life only by God’s kindness to us.

It’s hard work - but we can grow in Wisdom and Maturity, Patience and Perseverance, Fortitude and Prudence, Humility and Love, Self-restraint over vanity, Empathy and Kindness … even to those who scoff or who ridicule their own need to believe and to be loved.

And through it all, we are more and more caught up in the Reality of God's Love, the ultimate and overriding Truth which every Christian - indeed, every human being - pursues.

  Our lives are providentially enlightened by the Wisdom and Maturity of the Christian worldview. Eventually, we ”see” the point of Psalm 136, which tell us to “…give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; His faithful love endures forever ….”

Indeed so….

13 October 2024

 

In Praise Of Pets

My cat Gypsy wakes me each day as the sun shares its first slivers of light. Gypsy taps me on the nose with her paw ever so gently, meows quietly until I stir, nestles down for a few scratches behind her ears, then dashes into the kitchen, stands in front of her bowl, and looks at me expectantly.

Gypsy and I have followed this routine since I found her at an animal rescue location four years ago. Until her rescue, Gypsy had been abused, housed for months in a cage the size of a small suitcase, finally abandoned. Since I brought her home, I gladly admit to spoiling her with good food and lots of gentle patience.

The Goodness Of Animals

My dear wife and I had cats as our companions for decades, so I understand the healthy role our pets (indeed, all animals) play in our lives, in our families and in Creation. I believe:

• Pets are gifts of God; they contribute to our emotional and spiritual well-being.


• With remarkable gentleness and spontaneity, they free us - even temporarily - from the lingering shadows of rejection and indifference which some people inflict.


• Our pets possess a form of intelligence which is simple and natural, often insightful and sometimes uncannily empathic.


• Pets are unpretentious in their affection for us, loyally attentive and ever so responsive.


• In their uncomplicated simplicity, they often get emotionally closer to many of us than other humans ever do.


• Their emotional responses are unfeigned, unpretentious, credible, uncluttered by manipulative urges and haughty games which some people relish.

Our animals impart much to us, ask little from us and serve as constant reminders of the better, more loving side of our nature. They are generous, giving presences, gifts to our souls in a world which seems so often merely to take. They touch a deep and vital strain in us and, in marvelous manner, melt the hardness of heart and indifference to innocence to which some people are heir. We are better persons for their presence in our lives.

Respect

Our pets rely upon us for their welfare. In return, they give us so much, yet ask nothing of us except kindness, affection, loyalty and respect … always respect, for it is an abomination to abuse or neglect them, wild or tame. By honoring our pets, we are ever so much better as persons.

Sometimes, we instinctively express our hidden selves to them, reveal our silly selves, expose our weary selves or voice our sad and lonely selves. And some people express their feelings of affection which they may not express, unguardedly, with any other creature.

We do all this with our pets without apprehension; indeed, we feel safe (who are they gonna tell?). It does not matter to them which side of our secret selves we reveal, as long as we are kind to them, gentle and generous (and feed them on time).

There is an eminently precious quality about pets - indeed, all animals who adorn our created Earth, even those who are wild, untamed or aggressive. They merit our awe and respect and, when necessary, our determined care for their best interests. How we treat them reveals much about our own character, our readiness to honor the miracles of Creation and the measure of gratitude to our Creator which rests in our own soul.

Buster And Dudley

Long ago, my dear wife and I were privileged to have as our pets a pair of cats named Buster and Dudley. They were as different as possible but, over time, they became great companions.

Buster, a British shorthair, was regal in bearing and attitude. He ate food only from smallish cans; nothing of the cat-masses suited him. He had a well-shaped head, was princely in bearing and somewhat suave in demeanor, with a slight Oxfordian tinge to his meows; a sophisticated feline, to be sure.

Dudley, on the other hand, was of less distinguished strain. He came to us out the nearby woods one rainy evening, drenched by the downpour, muddied, a sad little fellow, lost and bewildered.

Here’s what happened: one night, as I was standing on our covered porch, watching the unrelenting rains, Dudley came running out of the darkness and leaped into my arms, weighed down with mud and water and sadness. He immediately nestled his face beneath my armpit and meowed pathetically. I was instantly moved by his plight … and by the sheer courage of this little animal. I took him indoors, dried him off, fed him and made a bed of warm towels. He slept until daylight. When he woke, he nestled in my lap once more with, what seemed to me, enormous gratitude … and from that moment, Dudley and I were never separated.

Missing The Point

For some people, pets such as Buster and Dudley are merely “there,” irrelevant, pesty beasts. These people do not understand the actual blessings of affectionate self-expression and insight which our pets afford. Nor do they comprehend the humane influence on one’s heart and soul which pets offer. Some even scoff at the idea that pets are more than convenient appendages to one’s ego. Happily, however, some people do recognize that pets add something quite significant and extraordinarily captivating to our lives. It is indeed a grace when we have the good sense and richness of spirit to value these animals.

• We are, I believe, fortunate that we respect and honor both our pets and what they do for us.


• We are, I believe, fortunate to acknowledge this special blessing in our lives.


• We are, I believe, fortunate to honor the loyalty and affection of these grand creatures.


• They do, I believe, make our lives so much better merely by their simple presence which unleashes our oft-hidden tenderness and exposes us to our own needs in ways we might otherwise stifle.

One caution --- Certainly, appreciation of pets can be taken to extremes, as when some lonely soul dresses their pet in children’s guise or treats their pet in bizarre, excessive ways, as if their pet were a human companion.

Distorted, disproportionate affection for pets can become an irrational indulgence … for some, a sad and dreary substitute for absent or lost human relationships.

Finally . . .

As I reflect on the contributions I’ve received from my pets over my lifetime, I recognize that many of my past relationships with people have – at one time or another – been muddled and guarded, lacking transparency and trust, bereft of security and emotional safety, tainted by mistrust. But over these many years, I’ve had none of this with my pets, who have elicited in me only kindness and delight … and a very real sense of loss when they died.

I imagine God does truly love these wonderous creatures of His. My musings also remind me that perhaps the deepest and most lingering pain in our lives is when our love is not allowed to be given or expressed … when our love remains stymied and stifled within us, when our affections remain unspoken, our love unshared, our hearts held hostage to indifference or conceit … and we die a little because of the unnatural silence in which we remain, in the painful arena of love ungiven.

I also imagine that God gives us our pets as a reminder of …

• how profoundly good our ability to love truly is;


• how we should be grateful (despite our pain) for the graces which are all around us – especially one another;


• how essential it is for us to one day express our love and affection - in appropriate ways;


• how generous and giving we truly can be when we are allowed;


• the fact that wisdom and perseverance, not bitterness, are the best companions for learning how to love properly and reasonably.

Pets afford us these insights.

Pets are grand, innocent sources of gratitude and grace, of simplicity and, in God’s good time, sources of Faith in Him and in ourselves, for we are, by our Nature, truly capable of generous Love. We are also capable of paying the price to learn that Loving is a gift of God and Nature. And we are wise to realize that our pets are one of God’s ways of revealing His Love to us … if we will only listen.

4 October 2024

 

What Are We To Believe ?

Decades ago, when I was ever-so-much younger, our world echoed with the moral certainties of a sturdy, faith-centered society. People unashamedly shared mutual values and public Virtues. The mention of God was commonplace even by Presidents and military leaders. Church-going was the norm.

How our nation has changed.

Now, skeptics often outnumber believers. Distrust of tradition immobilizes objective morality. Courtesy and civility are often absent. Mention of religion is rare, as many people abandon faith for the allure of self-defined deities and freedom from moral traditions. Flurries of angry dogmas fuel self-righteous disregard for the hard lessons of history … and common sense.

Today, rootless individualism and the relentless erosion of historic priorities are feted as civic Virtues, replacing respect for our nation’s best traditions and canceling rationality. Bitter, accusatory rhetoric ignores human dignity, stifles personal accountability and celebrates killing of infants as a “right” enshrined in law.

The Errors We Face

We are experiencing a profound disconnect from our moral institutions and community standards which unified people for the Common Good. Even effective business standards now fade as corporate managers bow to groundless threats of law suits. Fear replaces ethical principles which heretofore established stable environments in many corporations.

Even the fundamental unit of every society – the traditional family – is now rejected as too limiting, too demanding, too outdated for today’s unrestrained individualism. Biologic limits of male and female are too restrictive and narrow, and government officials refer to common sense restrictions of childhood trans-gender treatments as “intolerance. “

Call it “woke” ideology or identity politics, critical theory or neo-atheism, updated Marxism or moral relativism, chic naivete or mob psychology. No matter what title we append, society has been greatly weakened by deifying the morally-unrestrained Self, by our dismissal of the abiding lessons of history, by our disregard for self-restraint and by our disdain for the Common Good.

The Cost

These destructive ideologies have also infiltrated the minds of our children and school leaders, endangering parental authority. The God-given rights and responsibilities of parenthood establish parents as their child’s primary educators. The role of schools and teachers is to assist – not replace or undermine – parental authority. Yet many schools today deliberately exclude parents from crucial, life-changing decisions facing their children.

Let us be clear: Healthy parenting and healthy personality development go together and reinforce one another.

Mental health means we’re healthy morally and psychologically, in soul and psyche, in thought and choice. Moral and intellectual development overlap and are not distinct. They are two sides of the same person, summed up in the word “character.”

A psychologically healthy person is a morally mature person whose character is based on principle, not on feelings; a person of empathy untainted by foppish sentiment; a person of virtuous self-discipline, not hollow excuses for self-indulgence.

A mentally healthy person seeks objective truths and is capable of courageous introspection and confrontation, even when it hurts. Mentally healthy people possess Prudence and Patience, honed by other Virtues which promote self-restraint in attitude and behavior, while avoiding the excesses of the wayward ego.

A growing body of research strongly indicates that denial of objective truths accounts for much mental illness in young Americans. Studies also reveal that many young adults trust their “feelings” more than facts, see no inherent value to life and reject the existence of our Creator. In one study, seven out of ten individuals under 40 said their lives lack clear purpose, while four out of five who reject God report frequent fear and anxiety.

The evidence reports that many Americans are intent on:

• dissolving our relationship with our Creator;
• stifling the voices of conscience and common sense;
• canceling the laws and limits of Nature;
• disregarding the call to responsible Virtue;
• replacing history with “feelings”;
• denying objective truth in favor of opinion;
• denying accountability which defines the Common Good.

The Big Questions

Given the evidence, we must surely ask: To what sources do we turn for clarity and guidance about what is true and what is false in this life? What are we to believe?

Clarity begins when we look beyond ourselves into the infinite Universe and realize that Creation overwhelmingly demonstrates the need for a Creator. Creation does allow seemingly random chaos … but a constant Creative Force unites the Universe in inexplicable ways. Call it what you will - Gravity, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Quantum Physics - this Force sustains order and unity in the Created Universe and testifies to the infinite symmetry and power in Creation … and in our Creator.

Nevertheless, some people remain skeptical and argue that the Universe just kinda happened … sort of. But when they need examples of the Mystery and the extraordinary order in our Universe, these people have only to study websites such as Earthsky.org or esawebb.org or LiveScience to see the extraordinary array of Mystery in Creation.

Mystery (Reason and Logic, too) attests to the necessity of our Creator. Reason and Logic also cry out for (1) belief in objective truths, and (2) the necessity of Virtue in human affairs.

The fact is that Mystery exists all around us in the created Universe - in birds and flowers and leaves and clouds and seasons, in light and in darkness, in the created body we inhabit and in the soul which gives us life. Mystery is everywhere.

We study Creation’s wondrous realities through science and philosophy and theology and in countless daily observations to which we are privileged - but we do not create the realities of Creation which we observe.

Thus, Mystery abounds … and we possess conscious awareness of the Mystery we behold. In fact, our particular role in God’s Mystery includes our responsibility (1) to think and (2) to choose Goodness and Virtue over denial and indifference, over sin and selfishness, over arrogance and conceit.

To think and then to choose the path of Virtue -- this is our intended point and purpose as human beings.

The Next Step: Understanding

Our search for clarity and guidance receives direction from our innate sense of Wonder, our inborn need to know. Wonder is a gift from our Creator, a gift given through no merit of our own. This gift of Wonder (different from curiosity) is intended to prompt us to Humility and Gratitude, not to arrogant self-esteem nor cynical rejection of the Mysteries of Creation and our Creator.

Our gift of Wonder reveals to us that we are needy, fallen people. But some people also find this fact too difficult to accept. They dislike admitting mistakes, so they huffily dismiss any "religious" talk about Creation and God. For them, God is a grudge-laden nag, arbitrary and vengeful. They are offended by talk of right and wrong, guilt and sin, vice and Virtue.

With such pessimistic, distorted views, it’s easy to blame God and religion for life’s sufferings and woes. To these people, guilt is neurotic and Virtues are pietistic nonsense. Morality intrudes upon their “freedom” to do as they please, when they please.

People who thus dismiss God and snort at the Virtues miss a fundamental point about being human. Why? Because the Virtues are effective guidelines for individual behavior and for the Common Good. The Virtues contradict the selfish individualism, arrogance and smug satisfaction which inspire exploitation and manipulative chicanery, and lead to the abuse of other persons.

Think About It

Our lives are (if we choose) made unaccountably better by our willing embrace of the moral Virtues revealed especially in the Christian tradition: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance, enlivened by Wisdom in the practical order, adjusted to the particulars of each situation.

• Wisdom helps us organize our best response to the circumstances of our lives.


• Wisdom tells us that our good deeds should be performed with humility, rather than to impress others.


• Wisdom warns us not to harbor envy and selfish ambition in our hearts, not to seek revenge nor boast (especially with feigned modesty) about our good deeds.


• Wisdom does not fudge the truth, nor erect facades to escape responsibility, nor play the games which cynics play.


• Wisdom is pure in its motives, peace-loving and considerate of others, merciful to error, true to its word, and ever kind.


• Wisdom is aware of our tendency to selfishness, so it seeks altruism and empathy for the needs of others.


• Wisdom honors the dignity of giving and the privilege of abnegation.


• Wisdom guides us as we look inward and realize that our soul’s capacity for Goodness is an arena of Hope and Virtue, known to God, whose wise insights we gradually share.


• Wisdom awakens us to the fact that no matter how we stray or err in our lives, the path of Goodness and Virtue are still there, still before us, still open to our heart’s deepest needs.


• Wisdom reminds us that even when we are not appreciated for what we do, our obligation to Virtue is not thereby removed, because if we are to be human, then we are born to seek and, hopefully, to find Goodness.

The Challenge

Another hurdle for many people is that the Virtues are not only counter-cultural, they’re also demanding and costly to the individual’s ego. That’s because the Virtues ask us to rise above instinctive urges and conceited righteousness.

Living virtuously demands attention to details, and this is often tiresome, without fanfare or acknowledgement of any kind; it’s done for its own sake alone … and that’s no fun.

True, the Virtues seek to overcome selfish whims and greedy compulsions to which we are drawn. But some people use the excuse that “… Everyone else is out for himself, so why shouldn’t I get what I want? After all, competition is normal… and nobody likes losers…”

Like any habit, living virtuously takes repetition and attention as we try to gradually banish vanity and rise above haughty egotism. But some people see it as nit-picking. They object and say, “…Ye gads, who has that kind of attention span? You’d go crazy, cuz too much thinking makes anyone paranoid …”

There are many ways to circumvent our call to Virtue, to ignore the Goodness in our lives. Nonetheless, we are called to pursue this path … to patiently and tenaciously listen and accept the divine whisper which God addresses to each of us.

Siempre Adelante

In addition, we are given the charism (i.e., the gift) of free choice. The freedom to choose is a gift freely given to us, so that we may willingly embrace the life of Virtue. Our freedom to choose is enlightened by our unique ability to think and to reason and to learn from the past (including from our mistakes and sins).

We are freely given these gifts of (1) reasoning and (2) choosing so that we may accept hard truths in our present life and, with a willing heart and a trusting soul, embrace Virtue as our way to believe in and accept God’s own Goodness.

For these reasons we were given the gift of life. It follows, then, that when we ask, “What are we to believe,” we are wise to believe that these gifts - freely given by our Creator - are proof of the Love and Mercy of God, Whose children we truly are … and shall always be.

1 Sept 2024

 

To Love And Be Loved

Loveable as they are, children are by Nature quite selfish – if understandably so. Nonetheless, the formation of character and moral values must begin very early in every child’s life. It is the primary responsibility of every parent to stem childhood’s inherent selfishness with love and discipline.

If a child is to overcome the primitive urges of immaturity and become a mentally, emotionally and morally stable adult, then parents must influence the child’s learning … and soon, since learning starts immediately, and never ceases.

Immature impulsivity rules childhood; self-restraint is alien. Thus, every child must be taught effective principles of self-control … practical principles found in the moral Virtues.

• Every child must be taught to choose what is morally right, not merely what is socially preferable or crowd-pleasing.


• Therefore, every child must be taught to choose Goodness over evil, honesty over deceit, self-control over violence, truth over deception, humility over duplicity.


• In practice, this means every child must learn to choose the Virtues (moral and civic) which guide civilized behavior and form mature, responsible adults.

Maturity

Age is no guarantee of maturity. These days, the need to overcome impulsive behavior and to act like an adult applies to many grown-ups as well as children. Many folks old enough to know better still employ selfish wiles of childhood. They, too, must learn how to think, choose and behave like adults. Their lack of self-discipline and avoidance of due diligence result in the moral and social chaos we now behold. For specifics, see: BREAKDOWN IN SOCIAL ORDER PREDICTABLE – Catholic League

So … what does it mean to be a stable, thoughtful adult? What are the attributes and characteristics of such a person?

The hallmark of adult behavior is the choice of Goodness. An adult lives by moral principles, even when the cost is high. And the crowning Virtue is Love in varied forms.

Let’s expand these ideas, starting with our choices in life.

Our Choices

Our choices about what matters in life may be subtle and seemingly minor but, cumulatively, over years, they coalesce, and we thereby become the person we are: i.e., an adult who honors Virtue and adheres to moral principles, or an adult who plateaus at a level of immaturity and denial.

We may impress others with our achievements – for a while. But we are not defined by our material possessions but by the Virtues we reveal in attitude and behavior. We are truly judged by our character and our moral witness – or our lack thereof.

In truth, the person we become is a result of our choices. We always have choices.

1. Some persons choose to look inward and discover that their capacities for Goodness and caring, generosity and courage are unlimited. They see each of us is an uncharted universe, with potential for Goodness unknown even to ourselves. They realize we eventually become (A) a person dedicated to selfish fluff, or (B) a person dedicated to Virtue and Moral Character, dedicated to giving more and taking less for the right reasons.


2. Contrarily, others see life only as an opportunity for self-aggrandizement and pragmatic advantage, even in small matters. They disdain moral limits as archaic and confining. Self-knowledge is fearsome and risky.

Why risky? Because self-knowledge, honestly sought, demands self-restraint and self-improvement. Self-knowledge poses hard questions: “What character faults do I deny? What moral issues do I avoid? How can I give more of myself and take less for myself? What am I doing with my life?”

What Have You Done With Your Life

In his moving Nobel Peace Prize speech, Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel recalls his childhood when wretched tribulation was inflicted on Jewish people. He expresses his childhood horror at the Nazi ghetto, mass deportations, sealed cattle cars, murder of millions. Then, speaking as his child-self, he asks his deceased father: "Can this be true? Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?"

Weisel continues: “And now the boy is turning to me. ‘Tell me,’ he asks, ‘what have you done with my future, what have you done with your life?’ And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices. And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent…”

T’is a stinging question: What have you done with your life? But, like it or not, it is a question which confronts every person:

• After decades of choices, what sort of person have I become?


• Where do my priorities now rest?


• What Virtues do I practice - or do I scoff at the question?

The determining factor for an adult is not - is not - how we are loved or how we gratify ourselves, but how we, as mature adults, have learned:

• to give more of ourselves and to take less,


• to forgive the foibles of others,


• to honor Goodness, altruism and empathy,


• to love family and strangers and the multitude of other human beings … and,


• to love and respect ourselves in proper (not selfish) ways.

Our First Need: To Be Loved

One choice we always have is to love this badly tattered world by acts of kindness. Easy to say but, in practice, this means loving the people we daily encounter, even the unlovable and indifferent. It matters not whom we encounter: it is a universal truth: everyone is born to be loved.

Note well: I did not say we are born to love others. Loving others is learned. To become a loving person is a difficult choice, but it is also goal of a lifetime, the fulness of maturity.

Note well: So, we learn to love others, but we are born to be loved. From infancy, we need sustenance, security and the unquestioned acceptance (some call it “unconditional love”) of another person. We need to be loved and to know we are loved.

If we are blessed with caring parents, the love we naturally crave is immediately forthcoming: we know we are wanted by those who gave us life. This awareness of being loved reveals to us, for the first time, the crowning Virtue of Love.

However, if we are deprived of the love we crave, history reports the endless substitutes to which unloving human nature is drawn. Some are ruinous to whole nations. For example, consider the callous absurdity of celebrating abortion which - like the Holocaust - deliberately eradicates “unwanted” innocent, unloved children, and calls abortion a human “right.” The Exultant Nature of Today’s Abortion Advocacy | Carl R. Trueman | First Things

Practical Aspects Of Loving Others

So, what’s involved in being a mature, loving adult? What are some of the practical criteria?

Let’s begin with Generosity of Heart and Strength of Soul. In this context, being a loving person means (1) giving more of one’s self than asked or expected, and (2) taking less for oneself than one is allowed to take.

Giving more of one’s self means giving more than possessions or things. It also refers to our motives and intentions. For example, some needy people relish the spotlight, so they try to impress others. It’s their way of assuaging their ego’s needs. However, years of attending to their ego may hide the truth, so they may object: “What’s wrong with impressing folks, basking in the spotlight and taking credit?”

Here’s the point: A needy ego is, by definition, driven by a measure of immaturity. The more we cater to needy ego’s promptings, the less able we are rise to the demands which define mature adults who neither need nor seek applause.

Taming one’s ego to become a loving person is a strength, not a weakness. A loving adult doesn’t seek shallow approval. In fact, a loving adult is often called to act with determination and courage in defense of the principles he embraces. He is not ruled by needy ego, but by moral principles.

Principles

The most effective, practical principles which history proclaims are stated in the Christian Virtues, especially the Virtue of Charity, which defines many facets of Love, both Divine and human.

Let us be clear: Christian Charity means love of God, love of one’s self and love for other persons. This Virtue of Charity - of Love - is essential for human development. That’s why Love has many ways to express itself to God, self and neighbor.

What does all this mean in the real, day-to-day world? Here are practical examples of the Virtue of Love in action:

• Love urges us to do what is morally correct, not merely what is socially acceptable, politically pragmatic or ego-centric;


• Love expresses Gratitude for life, even when times are difficult and temptations nag;


• Love does not deprecate or humiliate anyone, especially to assert our “superiority;”


• When appropriate, Love listens attentively to others with eyes as well as ears, and does not give in to distractions;


• Love listens to others with the heart, realizing that others have their own needs and hopes;


• Love does not manipulate others so we look good, nor exploit others for gain (no lying, cheating or stealing);


• Love gives of one’s self as well as one’s possessions, aware of the privilege of sharing time and life with another person;


• Love expresses gratitude for the truth, even when the truth is painful, for Love does not thrive in an aura of untruth;


• Love is never rude nor self-seeking nor hateful in speech;


• Love is not prone to anger or haughty pretense;


• Love does not brood over injury nor ponder vengeance;


• Love does not delight in the pain of others;


• Love submerges selfish desires for the good of others;


• Love accepts accountability for one’s behavior and takes responsibility for what one says and does;


• Love offers support where none was found before;


• Love is patient and always kind … always kind;


• Love admits wrongdoing and is quick to ask pardon when offense is given;


• Love is not jealous nor snobbish nor given to envy;


• Love is not quick to take insult nor to defend oneself, because listening may be more beneficial than protecting oneself from hard truths …

Siempre Adelante

To be a loving adult asks lot of anyone. But it is surely the way God intends us to be, and we trust God knows what He is doing.

The path of Virtue is always before us, and our choice is now, not later. Our imperfections may cloud our belief that God awaits our choice, but the path of Virtue still beckons, whether we choose it or not. We are, of course, wise to choose Virtue, for the alternative is denial, avoidance and darkness.

So, we go ever forward in Faith and in Hope, trusting God’s Love to sustain us as we persevere, despite travail. We know our world will pass away, but Faith, Hope and Love shall endure. And, above all else, the greatest of these is Love, to which we are called.

20 August 2024

 

What Shall We Believe

Years ago, when Soviet Communism was in full bloom, I visited Poland for some weeks. Poland was then behind the Iron Curtain, a Socialist wasteland in the world of Marxist atheism. While there, I spent several days at Auschwitz, the infamous World War II Nazi death camp in Southern Poland.

Auschwitz was dedicated to killing vast numbers of the innocent, especially Jewish persons, even children. Auschwitz is testament to the brutality which human beings so often inflict upon one another. Today, a museum in Washington, D. C. reminds us that evil does indeed exist. Here is the link: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (ushmm.org).

During my visit, I witnessed many heart-wrenching sights and sounds, including dungeons where prisoners were tortured. Doors of these dungeons were of wood three inches thick. On the inside of these doors, deep striations are gouged into the wood, made by prisoners’ finger nails as they clawed hopelessly for relief. It was difficult not to weep for these people, so hated for no other reason other than that they were alive.

An Extraordinary Witness

Among these dungeons was the cell of Fr. Maximillian Kolbe, a Catholic priest who voluntarily died in place of a married man. Here is what happened:

In July 1941, a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz. As retaliation, the Nazis picked ten men to starve to death. One of these men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, was married with children. When selected to die, he exclaimed: "My wife! My children!" Fr. Kolbe heard his anguished voice and immediately volunteered to take his place (Franciszek died in 1995; he was 93).

These ten condemned men were deprived of food and water for two weeks, when four men, including Fr. Kolbe, remained alive. Guards reported that, even then, Fr. Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. To hasten death, Nazi guards injected them with carbolic acid. They died August 14, 1941. That date is now honored by the Catholic Church as the Feast of Saint Maximilliam Kolbe, who is designated “a martyr to charity.”

Kolbe’s choice to accept death raises profound questions: Why did he volunteer? Why is he remembered to this day? Surely uncounted millions died under the godless rule of National Socialism (Naziism) and Communism. Why is Kolbe celebrated? Did his Catholic Faith and his trust in the Christian message of Love and Redemption influence his decision?

Denying The Obvious

Auschwitz stands as an indictment of evil and sin. Today, however, some morally befuddled people say it is uncivil even to mention sin or say that evil behavior has grave consequences for communities and nations. Many people now shelve concern about evil and, perversely, even reward evildoers.

It seems incredible that many people ignore evil, linger in self-imposed ignorance, “feel” that making solid judgments is offensive, even about people who seek our annihilation. And as we dally with morality and stifle Truth, crises loom. Here is only one: Iran's Mullahs and Their Deadly Serious Plan: The Total Annihilation of Israel and the US :: Gatestone Institute

But history is clear: when people ignore evil, they normalize sin and cooperate (however remotely) in the propagation of evil. They choose not to know, then hide behind their ignorance. Some muster specious claims to justify their lack of due diligence.

But history is clear: passivity in the face of evil is not neutral; avoidance of hard facts has dire consequences. Avoidance (deliberate or otherwise) blinds people to evil and promotes our nation’s demise.

History is inescapably clear about this. Self-delusion has serious consequences.

We are born to act with responsibility and accountability; born to develop our educated conscience and act with self-restraint if we are to preserve and foster freedom as individuals and as nations.

Our Responsibility As Persons

Our educated conscience knows that we are accountable first to God, our Creator, then to each other. Right thinking people see no ambiguity about God’s primacy in human affairs. Furthermore, there is no ambiguity about the universal value of Truth and Kindness, Empathy and Altruism, Humility and Justice, Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Prudence and Temperance which should govern our behavior as persons and as nations.

Thus, the gift of life and our membership in the human community bestow on us our responsibility to ourselves and to one another. To be human is to honor our relationship with other members of the human family. Even strangers a world away are our kin.

Our powers of Reason (another gift) tell us over our lifetimes what is expected of us, what changes we should make, how we should choose, what it means for us to act with mature conscience and conduct ourselves as human beings and as humane nations.

There’s no ambiguity about the laws and limits of relationships with other people. These rules are made clear, rightly defined by various Christian Virtues which should guide human behavior.

What is initially ambiguous are the ways we may relate to God, our Creator, Whose ways are oft-beclouded in Mystery.
But we have ways to relate to God and diminish ambiguity. These ways begin with our acts of Faith and Fidelity … but they do not end there. Why? Because we always have a choice … always.

Faith And Mystery

Given the reality of Mystery all around us and our initial state of unknowing, it is obvious that ambiguity about many things is our natural condition. From birth, we seek answers to life’s Mystery.

In fact, everything - everything - in Creation is Mystery; not just Faith. The Mystery of the Universe (with billions of galaxies stretching to infinity) attests to overwhelming Mystery in life. So, it is entirely natural that ambiguity is present in our attempts to comprehend some of the Mystery of God. It’s also natural that ambiguity is the doorway to Faith, not a reason to deny Faith.

Mystery is everywhere. Even our notion of “certitude” is fleeting: what we think we know inevitably leads to further unknowing. And “certitude” always relates to what we are given in Creation. Our notion of “time” is also an arbitrary invention, meant to encapsulate experience and muzzle the fact that we live in an Eternal Now, on a tiny planet in a precarious Universe so vast that we cannot comprehend the Mystery to which our awareness is witness.

So, without Mystery, Faith means nothing … and life would be awfully dull. And, once we realize that bafflement is normal, we might credit God with a kindly sense of cosmic humor and a Divine chuckle at our musings.

Wisely, the Christian message also includes our need for moral authority in our lives, starting with our parents and moving into maturity, which grants us the Faith to accept the authority of God as our final, benign Authority … Whose Love ever await us.

Behavior Follows Belief

Thus, Faith responds to our deepest needs: (1) our need to make sense of life, and (2) our need for competent authority to lead us with benign concern. But critics of Faith say:

• There are no positive truths in religion or in life.


• Supernatural reality - God - doesn’t exist.


• There are no Objective Truths, only urges of the self.


• Everything is tolerated because morality is merely opinion.


• Religion, including Scripture and the Parables, has no moral truths, just sentimental fairy dust.


• It’s every man and woman for him/herself.


• Christian morality stunts my “freedom” to do as I please.


• Sex gives pleasure; what’s wrong with that?


• Religious doctrines intrude on “individual freedom.”

History reveals the depravity which these ideas engender. But, history also reveals that some religious believers are at fault for evil abuse, even though authentic religious belief never excuses evil behavior.

In fact, the inescapable responsibility of Christians is to heed the restraints and admonitions of their Faith. Authentic Faith never distorts Divine Authority nor knowingly exceeds moral boundaries.

So, Christian morality condemns evil behavior … but Christian morality also extends forgiveness (thank God) to those of us who express true repentance (whew … good to know!!).

Let Us Be Clear

Some critics dismiss Christian morality and our religious needs as excessive fervor, as the fevered ramblings of extremists. The evidence of Creation says otherwise. In addition, history, human experience, Reason and Common Sense again attest to our need (1) for credible leaders, and (2) a moral framework for human behavior, both of which are found in Christian Faith.

The Christian life involves practical (yet demanding and noble) beliefs and self-discipline. To a nihilist, the Christian message is aggravating, but the nihilist misses the point.

Why? Because the Christian message comes to us, sturdy and consistent, through centuries of Revelation, disciplined learning and intellectual rigor, aided by the Authority of the Holy Spirit, Who inspires our struggle for Faith over self-deception.

Faith is eminently reasonable to souls who recognize the need for moral goodness in human affairs; who understand true freedom always has limits; who honor an educated conscience; who can discern that we humans are spiritual by nature; who realize we are born to seek God and are aided in our search with gifts of body, mind, heart and soul – gifts freely given.

Faith And Simplicity

Christian Faith is an acknowledgement of reality. Faith sees the world as a constant epiphany, a panoply of Revelation and a comforting Mystery in which (as Bernanos says) God's grace is everywhere.

Everywhere we may behold the work of God … if we do not disdain the gift of our own Creation and stifle the quiet beauty of simple Truth all around.

The Christian message insists we are loved by an Authority far more ennobling than we shall ever be, invited to share God’s better way, enlightened by the Life, Death and Resurrection of Christ Who did it for us.

Life’s meaning is found in these Truths. To be sure, it is not because of our strength that we are saved, but because of our weakness, our wonderment, our doubts, our awe as we behold Mystery - and accept God’s Hand. Then Faith invites our acquiescence and our fidelity … bolstered by our reliance on the grace of God to sustain us.

Faith reaffirms the fact that our value to God and the depth of His Love for us are far, far beyond our comprehension. We naturally wonder: “Why me, Lord?” And yet, despite our ambiguity and wonderment, our task in life is to surrender to the Mystery of the Love of God which is, ever and always, awaiting.

It is this awareness of Faith’s ultimate promise which inspired Fr. Kolbe … and inspires us to acts of Goodness which make sense of the Loving Mystery of God Who enfolds us all.

 

7 August 2024

 

To Live And Breathe A Lie

How many times have we “stretched” the truth (just a little) in our favor? It seems insignificant to make ourselves seem a tad more spiffy than Truth would allow. We tell ourselves that “… it’s only a ‘white’ lie. No one is hurt, so what’s the big deal?”

Many people scoff at the fact that even a minor “exaggeration” is still a lie. It’s hard to admit, but we deceive others (and ourselves) by allowing false pride to make us look good and (though we may deny it) to pump up our needy egos.

I’m not talking about humorous exaggerations, comedy routines, celebrity “roasts” or expressions of empathy. I refer to deliberate abuses of language and violations of trust, when others are knowingly deceived; e.g., in public discourse and conversations in which pride, power or profit are involved.

Many good people may think this observation is nit-picking. I think not. When Truth is compromised, long-term outcomes are deleterious not only for individuals but for the entire culture.

The alternative? To seek The Good Life, which necessitates our struggle for Virtue – even in small things. Let me explain.

Our Nation’s Loss

Virtue is not a subjective reality, defined by whim. It originates from legitimate moral authority (human and/or Divine). Like it or not, we have a moral obligation to honor authority’s admonitions.

Virtue exists for the individual and for The Common Good, so human law and Divine Law often overlap. For example, protecting human life is a legal and a moral obligation binding all persons, even if many people completely disregard the unborn.

Since the Common Good is involved, adherence to Law, Virtue and Truth are essential for trust and stability in our families and our communities. Indeed, Virtue is the foundation of morality, and morality is the foundation of civilized society.

Sounds logical … so why do so many people disregard the need to honor Law, Virtue and Truth? Why do so many disregard the authority (both Divine and human) which inspires them? And why do so many people ignore the fact that human behavior is, first and foremost, a moral reality with serious consequences?

The Trouble With Virtue

Skeptics wince at the mention of Virtue. “Virtue? Virtue? You gotta be kiddin’. The only time we hear about Virtue is when some televangelist gets riled.” Many people embrace false “freedoms,” specious “rights” and a life without the mandates of Virtue. And scoffers reject Virtue as judgmental, boringly religious, outdated, tediously moralistic, irrelevant.

The outcomes?

• Prudence and Self-restraint are eclipsed by false pride’s need to “be a winner at any cost.”


• Self-discipline and moral character, crucial in educational institutions, become archaic.


• Psychotherapeutic culture pursues secular “freedom” without the “objective standards” which Virtue proclaims.


• Prudence, Justice, Courage and Temperance are replaced by victimhood and self-pity.


• Dismissing Virtue also dismisses God. This is the atheist’s primary belief. But when God is dismissed, what’s left?

History’s lessons are unmistakable: Without Virtue and belief in God to guide us, physical and psychological violence will be ever-present in human affairs.

Violence As Normative

Indeed, physical violence occurs regularly. Examples: assaults on Jewish students; more than 400 attacks on Catholic churches in the last few years, with few arrests; extensive breakdown of law.

Physical violence is common … BUT an even more corrosive violence infects America. Psychological and moral violence exists in the mean-spirited distortions which weaken America and sicken the minds, hearts and souls of our citizens, including our children.

We are immersed in a culture of deliberate lies on a vast scale. Much of our media and many elected officials lie to us. We are lied to by educators and medical professionals who promote transgender horrors to youth and who kill enwombed babies.

These deliberate lies do incalculable psychological and moral violence to our culture and our children – to us all.

The Denial Of Reason

Psychological and moral violence are seductive and persuasive because they’re presented as righteous causes for “individual rights” or crusades for “freedom from restraint.” But the outcomes are abhorrent to The Common Good. Examples:

• Catholics are accused by some opponents (including several Senators) of imposing traditional Christian values to make America “a white, patriarchal, Christian-dominated nation.”


• Facts say abortion kills a living human being. Thus, so-called abortion “rights” abet extreme violence which destroys an innocent person (not to mention losses to humanity).


• So-called “abortion rights” create indifference to, and celebration of, violently killing about 2800 victims daily.


• Human dignity is violated by harvesting aborted fetal organs.


• If a child survives an abortion, some still say let that child die without care. This is infanticide.


• Other forms of violence (burning our flag, flying the Hamas flag, defacing monuments) debase our government and dishonor America’s finest moral traditions.


• Opponents of same-sex “marriage” and those who defend traditional family are labeled “haters.”


• Some schools impart gay and transgender propaganda without parental knowledge. Parental rights are thus trampled by schools which are protected by law from revealing a child’s transgender choice.


• Males claiming to be females compete against real women (e.g., the Olympics) and use women’s quarters.


• In some places, Catholic institutions (adoption agencies, hospitals, religious orders such as the Little Sisters of the Poor) must perform abortions, mutilate the young and violate their doctrines or face criminal penalty.

Truth Be Gone

Wide-spread moral distortions of our religious and Constitutional principles have several labels: DEI, Progressivism, Neo-Marxism, radical secularism, materialism, Neo-liberalism, the Woke Culture. Common elements exist:

• Belief in God is repressive and religion is passe.’


• No Truth exists outside the individual.


• One set of beliefs is as good as any another.


• Every lifestyle is OK.


• Judeo-Christian morality is a tool of oppressive elites.


• Right and wrong are determined by each person; what’s true for you is your “truth.”


• We are accountable only to our feelings and tendencies.


• Objective standards are taboo.


• Anything is allowed; morality is totally subjective.

Choosing The Good Life

So, what do we do? Here are some working principles:

1. History repeatedly says we are born to seek The Good Life.


2. The Good Life involves body, mind and soul … yes, soul … even if secular Modernists find “soul” repellant.


3. The Good Life is determined not by vacillating human standards which vary from person to person.


4. The Good Life is found in the objective moral standards promulgated by the Judeo-Christian heritage.


5. These moral standards are specified in the Virtues which are central to the Judeo-Christian heritage.


6. The central Virtues of the Judeo-Christian heritage are:


• Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance which guide human action.


• Faith, Hope and Charity (Love of God and man) which direct us to God.


7. These Virtues guide our behavior and our relationships with God and one another.


8. The Virtues work best when we accept correction, admit our errors, drop false pride, seek support from God and others.

Free Choice Is Essential

We must willingly choose Virtue. It is never forced upon us. Virtue is always a choice to be freely made … and so is false pride.

Our decision to choose Virtue and seek The Good Life may be costly - but life is costly. Choosing Virtue over false pride is precisely why we are born. It is what life is all about.

Skeptics may snort and cynics may scoff, but if greater purpose to human existence exists, I am open to hear it…

But what about self-doubt?

We all experience periods of doubt, darkness and indifference. But these experiences are invitations to Virtue, invitations to attend to our needs and not nurture false pride. Mother Teresa experienced “darkness” for forty years, including doubts about God’s love for her, yet she persevered … as we must.

Many people spend decades luxuriating in false pride. Such years may heighten the dignity of surrender to God’s Truth. Remember the Parable of the Prodigal Son: the patient Father explains in one sentence that His child has returned. The loving Father rejoices.

Wisdom insists that we not be upset if we do not "feel" pious or do not "feel" consoling emotions. Such “feelings” can sometimes be helpful (maybe), but they can also be distracting and misleading. So, it’s unwise to rely on “feelings” for this, or any, decision.

Embracing Truth is sometimes a hard choice. But it is an act of our will, even when we have doubt and pain and periods of estrangement. Think about it: Wisdom urges us to trust the Word of God, not our fragile feelings.

Finding The Good Life

Finally, The Good Life is found in the facts of Christ's Life, Death and Resurrection; found also in His Parables, which assure us of our intrinsic value and the sustaining love of God for us.

Nevertheless, some scoffers still equate the Life of Christ and God’s love with fairy tales. “Where’s the evidence?” they ask. In reply, we may point to the billions-upon-billions of galaxies in the Universe, or “dark matter” or “dark energy,” or to the miracles of Lourdes, or to countless sources of God’s astonishing Truth, including life itself. Even then, some doubters still will not believe.

Nonetheless, God awaits - especially in those periods of doubt and need when we are compelled to admit that we are, after all, human … merely human. And it is our human needs which define us as Beloved of God, not our sophistication nor possessions, nor our IQ, nor our false pride. Indeed, every Saint is first a sinner who finally chooses Virtue – even if it takes a lifetime.

Admittedly, The Good Life (indeed, all of life) is a demanding mystery, so God’s silence can be aggravating - until we listen again to His promises in Scripture and are reassured that Truth and Virtue are our unfailing guides to The Good Life with God.

The arrogant discount these facts … but History is clear: we shall not find the Good Life without God. The answers to life’s mysteries are found in Faith, Hope, Charity and the other Virtues.

The Virtues (Kindness, Forgiveness, Patience, Humility, Altruism and all the rest) spell out the myriad ways we are invited to relate to Christ and, through Him, to one another in this needy world of ours; others who, like us, seek the reassuring Truth of what it’s all about.

 

18 July 2024

 

The Right To Abortion

With wonderment, I note that several Federal agencies (e.g., U.S. Army Presentation Lists Pro-Life Organizations as Terrorist Groups - LifeNews.com) have labeled pro-lifers as “terrorists.” One wonders what logic sustains such a conclusion?

I also note that the government has jailed persons for their activity on behalf of unborn children. More troubling is the recent decision by political leaders to weaken pro-life values to secure votes. One wonders what moral reasoning justifies using the life of an enwombed child as a political pawn?

Let us be clear about certain crucial truths:

• Abortion is, first and foremost, a moral issue, an issue of life-and-death;


• Unfortunately for millions of unborn children, abortion is vastly politicized but, above all else, it is a moral issue.


• Because it has been so politicized, the moral foundations of abortion have been - and continue to be - deliberately and profoundly obscured.


• Pro-choice advocates deny the humanity of the enwombed child and, thus, stand against the laws of God and Nature;


• No matter how it is portrayed by its defenders, abortion directly and intentionally kills an innocent human being.


• These … for starters…

Let’s face facts:

• Science tells us every enwombed child (“fetus” in pro-choice terms) is an independent living human being from the instant of his/her conception.


• At conception, each child is instantly endowed with a unique life force of DNA (as you and I were).


• With proper nourishment (which we all require) the enwombed child can live an independent life on his/her own outside mother’s womb.


• Let me repeat: Human biology and genetics reveal that each enwombed child (not “fetus”) is an independent individual, able to grow and thrive outside the womb of her/his mother.


• Therefore, Truth demands that the pro-choice slogan "My Body, My Choice" should be, "My Baby's Body, So My Baby Shall Live!"

The pro-choice slogan is scientifically wrong and fatally flawed. The child in his/her mother’s womb is a living, growing human being, an innocent, dependent person who should never be subject to arbitrary death.

The “Right” To Choose What ?

When pro-choice advocates claim women have a "right" to be rid of their own child, what are they choosing? What are the consequences of such choice? It is not a neutral choice. The child’s life – the life of a human being - is at stake.

The Guttmacher Institute recently revealed that 63% of abortions in America during 2023 were “medication abortions,” a sanitized way of saying these abortions were a result of the drug Mifepristone. But facts compel us to realize that no matter how -or when - an abortion is achieved (by surgical or chemical means), the intent and the outcome is to destroy a living, defenseless human being.

Pro-choice rhetoric has the selective ring of Macha-nobility, of courageous women achieving freedom from oppressive religious zealotry. But the truth (harsh as it may sound to some) is that women who choose abortion choose life for themselves and death for their babies. And, most often, aborting a child is done for the convenience of the mother.

Pro-choice people militantly contend that abortion is a “human right” (as if humanity controls Creation) or that abortion is necessary for the health of the mother (an egregious distortion). Read these comments for examples: “Critical Abortion Theory” - Breakpoint

Pro-choice arguments dismiss God’s power over life and death, and celebrate the brutal death of a human being. They call this a “right?” One wonders where this grim “right” originates?

Choice Involves Accountability

The scientific evidence presents unavoidable corollaries:

• Most women have a choice; conception is most often not forced upon them. It results from their own behavior, and behavior has (as we know) consequences.


• Consequences of human behavior come with responsibility and accountability. That’s what makes it human.


• To avoid accountability, pro-choice arguments employ the hygienic, pseudo-heroic patois of women’s liberation, framed as a hard-won “right” which courageous women wrestled from the control of Christian white males.


• In fact, pro-choice arguments are benignly-phrased evasions of the fact that a woman chooses to kill her innocent child who depends on her in every way imaginable.


• The enwombed baby is a person entrusted to his/her mother by God and Nature.


• Nothing in Creation rivals the dependency, intimacy and nurturance between the enwombed baby and his/her mother.

It is undeniable: The enwombed child is a unique individual with every right to live. The slogan, “My Body, My Choice” is an inhumane shibboleth.

Feelings Eclipse Facts

Objections arise. Some stem from vincible ignorance, others from deliberate rejection of Truth.

One recurring objection asks: “What about rape? Why should a child of rape be allowed to see the light of day? The woman did not consent. The child is merely a dreadful reminder of a horrible experience.”

Rape is a reprehensible outrage. But an innocent life is involved, so one must ask if the enwombed child should also become a victim? Should this child die because of another’s cruelty? What’s the point? What does abortion prove?

A further objection says that giving birth may be difficult for a woman who is emotionally unready to be a mother, or for a student or, perhaps, for a career woman unwilling to face the sacrifices of motherhood.

But tell me: who is ever truly prepared to face challenges we are called upon to face, even challenges we create for ourselves? Is fear of one’s inadequacy or fear of the unknown sufficient reason to destroy an innocent life? More to the point, how can we possibly justify taking innocent life to relieve ourselves of our burdens, to avoid responsibilities - or be less inconvenienced?

The Challenge Of Hard Truth

What is missing in these discussions is acknowledgment that a "fetus" is, in fact, a real human being, a real person, a maturing child of God. Pro-choice advocates deny the personhood of the enwombed child by de-personalizing the words and images they use. For example, they define the “fetus” as an invasive, parasitical blob of cells to be discarded for the “health of the mother.” An enwombed child becomes a danger to the “health of the mother,” as if pregnancy were a disease.

The truth, once again, is that each “fetus” is instantly endowed at conception with his/her own unique DNA, i.e., the genetic code of a lifetime. That child is a human being to be loved and cherished; a distinct person, entitled to be born and to live his/her life.

Is sacrifice involved? Of course! The birth of every child creates an immediate need for personal sacrifice by her/his father and mother. Is it not obvious that life always involves sacrifice, which is the crux of family life and the font of all morality.

Is challenge involved? Of course! Ongoing challenges to fathers and mothers are constant: to raise and educate and love that child; to give that child examples of goodness and moral stability which define every mature adult; to impart to that child a desire for life-long learning and common sense.

But abortion proceeds with widespread approval, so … what can one say about a nation which tolerates - even celebrates - killing its children as a “human right”?

Abortion elicits sadness in those who have (with wonder and gratitude) gladly paid the price of giving life; those who sustain the child through years of development; those who gladly accept the oft-harrowing challenges; those who, at last, see the child blossom beyond all fears and doubts to which we humans are heir; those who ask God to bless every woman and protect every child to whom she lovingly and courageously gives life.

10 July 2024

 

DEI: The Progressive Agenda

By now, we have all experienced various forms of DEI and encountered various inanities of its ineptly-named Woke adherents. “But” you may ask, what is DEI?” So, let me clarify.

DEI stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. DEI is a school of “Progressive” thought which condemns America as an oppressive, sexist, systemically racist, enslaving nation of abusive, white, male elitist capitalists. DEI is an organized program intended to destroy America and the ideals which have, until recent years, guided us (even with our historic flaws) toward becoming a truly moral society, as our Founders envisioned.

DEI contends that Americans elites maintain power through manipulative strategies which State, Church and Capitalism have devised since our Founding. DEI’s Woke/Progressive adherents have tasked themselves to identify our nation’s errant sensibilities and eradicate American life – even if violence is necessary. Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter are examples of DEI’s deceptive militancy.

DEI’s rhetoric sounds idealistic and humane … on the surface. But when we examine DEI’s claims and the behavior it inspires, we recognize (or should) that DEI promotes a form of atheistic humanism. It assaults (1) our Judeo-Christian, Constitutionally defined, Commandments-based nation and (2) has contempt for those who defend our American heritage and who honor the mandates of responsible democracy.

The DEI Agenda

DEI seizes upon America’s faults, while ignoring our nation’s historic attempts to remedy the universal mistakes to which human nature itself is prone. Even the civic virtue of true patriotism (not extremist nationalism) and the Bill of Rights are anathema to DEI.

DEI’s destructive agenda is extensive:

• DEI denies the existence of objective moral truths and the mandates of self-restraint which belief in God affirms;


• DEI denies that only two sexes exist. Male and female are replaced by diverse, self-declared “gender(s);”


• DEI promulgates a plethora of genderized pronouns. Even Shakespeare (in his own Globe Theatre) is assaulted; A Woke Globe ~ The Imaginative Conservative


• Traditional laws are racist, guilty of minority abuse;


• The traditional two-parent family is obsolete;


• Marriage between males and females is obsolete;


• Parental rights about raising children are obsolete;


• Transgenderism is a “right” youngsters possess; schools and teachers should not inform parents;


• Sciences (biology, genetics, medicine, et alii) serve only DEI’s fact-fracturing agendas;


• Our national borders vanish with the influx millions of illegal aliens seeking Inclusion, including criminals and terrorists;


• Even the lives of babies born and unborn are not sacred.


• On and on it goes.

Frightening Realities

DEI says we can ignore Nature’s limits (Self-Creation Only Dehumanizes Us | Joel Looper | First Things). Accountability and self-restraint are tools of elitist oppression.

DEI celebrates God-less individualism which eclipses the Common Good. It protects lawbreakers rather than victims. It distorts history, corrupts science, medicine, biology, psychology, education, genetics, education at all levels. It taints some religions.

DEI eschews centuries of cultural tradition, learning and religious experience, history, legislation and Common Sense – replaced by radical, unrestrained individualism. Rash, reckless individual urges become the norms of behavior.

DEI nurtures grandiose naivete and self-assured arrogance even in the face of contradictory evidence and long-established customs. For example, it invokes non-existent “rights” which allows naked men to use women’s locker rooms. It destroys moral traditions such as marriage and family, the crucial role of parents in the lives of children, and the place of religious belief in American life.

DEI has devastating effect on Federal and State governance The new White House Associate Communications Director is an antisemitic sexual fetishist - American Thinker. Furthermore, Woke doctrines in our Armed Forces polarize, rather than unify, military readiness. DEI also corrodes some large corporations (at costs estimated to be over $8 billion annually).

DEI even allows schools to support our youngest children who seek transgendered identity without notifying parents. Schools become enablers in childhood folly. Not surprisingly, California leads the way: Parent Secrecy Bill Passes CA Assembly Amid Heated Debate - California Family Council

DEI And “Gender Affirming Care”

“Gender affirming care” is a deeply disturbing example of the moral malaise and massive irrationality of transgenderism which now grips much of America, including the medical profession. Various medical resources agree: Doctors Protecting Children

What is “gender affirming care?” Here are examples of the horrors which “gender affirming care” propagates.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) envisions itself as the authority on “gender medicine” which seeks to assist men becoming women, women becoming men and other perverse oddities. WPATH promotes “standards of care” for doctors whose patients (ofttimes impressionable children) are troubled by “gender dysphoria.” BUT … critics recently exposed WPATH’s “standards” of “gender affirming care” as unscientific and unethical.

WPATH’S “standards” encourage “harmful, experimental, unnecessary, and often-irreversible medical interventions on confused children and adults.” In fact, “gender affirming care” exerts medical and moral carnage throughout America.

Evidence reveals that WPATH’s “standards” are strewn with scientific and moral deficiencies (e.g., mutilation of children). Nonetheless, the organization persists in advocating life-altering procedures even for vulnerable pre-teens and gullible parents (yes, parents - who should be every child’s first protector).

Dr. Stephen Levine resigned WPATH with the “regretful conclusion that WPATH and its recommendations had become dominated by politics and ideology, rather than by scientific process...”

In addition, hundreds of scientists and mental health professionals have published statements indicting WPATH and the “gender” movement: Beyond WPATH | WPATH has discredited itself - Read and Sign the WPATH Declaration

Leaked Files Reveal Ethical Concerns, Pseudoscience in WPATH Standards of Care

Mark Alexander: Gender Disorientation — A Faithful Response to the 'LGBT?' Agenda | The Patriot Post

First, Do No Harm . . .

Despite the evidence, “gender affirming care” is far more prevalent among medical personnel than we would think. Read this essay: The Murky Business of Transgender Medicine | City Journal (city-journal.org)

Numerous studies (especially this one: Psychologist Dr. James Cantor Details Harms of ‘Transitioning’ Kids | Alliance Defending Freedom (adflegal.org) emphasize that children and adolescents who are referred to “gender” clinics have high rates of other pre-existing psychological conditions (e.g., depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, autism, dissociative identity disorder, etc.).

Dr. James O. Breen (Untitled - Crisis Magazine) writes about the unprofessional way many medical personnel have accepted “gender-affirming care” for minors with “gender dysphoria.” He asks, “…how the medical establishment allowed gender ideology to transition them from trusted Hippocratic professionals to self-interested political activists.”

Dr. Breen is one of many, including the Catholic Medical Association who urge care for these children and adolescents based on existing medical and scientific inquiry, not ideology.

Dr. Breen states that “…the editors of prominent journals—including JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine—stifle viewpoints that deviate from the “gender-affirming” positions they espouse in their pages…”

Irreversible

Dr. Breen indicts the use of “…social transitioning, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender reassignment surgery—based on poor-quality observational studies and expert opinion.” And he adds that these procedures are dangerously contradictory to the high degree of scientific rigor commonly sought before any medical treatment guidelines are promulgated.

“Gender affirming care” (especially for children) risks life-long, irreversible surgical and hormonal outcomes. Evidence indicates that “gender dysphoria” is not based on science but on political ideology within the medical profession. Dr. Breen says, “Nakedly partisan activist organizations have commandeered the leadership of leading professional medical associations to further a political and social agenda, making for awkward and unsavory bedfellows.”

How such duplicity can be furthered by educated adults remains a mystery. We know -- from Scripture, true science, history, moral standards, Common Sense and obvious facts of life -- that boys do not become girls nor vice versa. But “gender” advocates discard the notion of “boys” and “girls” for limitless sexual self-identities. Such belief is truly indefensible. 

Inescapable Moral Considerations

Dr. Breen further points out that gender ideologues’ denial of age-old moral truths emphasizes the fact that physicians function within a moral framework as well as a scientific one. Physicians are always in the position of deciding what is in the best interest of the patient and are, therefore, always in a moral context. 

This divinely-mandated responsibility for the well-being of patients endows the medical establishment with grave moral accountability for how it treats other human beings.

BUT . . . whose sense of morality prevails? Despite the evidence, some “gender affirming” physicians still believe children are well-served by lifelong medication, need for endless “hormones, laboratory surveillance, cosmetic surgeries (mutilation), and wardrobe accoutrements to maintain the façade of gender fluidity.”

Dr. Breen nails it when he says:

“In their urgency to promote radical and irreversible interventions on afflicted children and adolescents, gender experts have asserted ex facto that their compassionate motives override the need for conclusive scientific evidence to support their assertions. By prioritizing the sympathetic affirmation of transgender activists over the lack of a scientific basis for their position, the AAP, AMA, and others have effectively declared their moral imperative is of greater import than empiric evidence.”

As a result, we are compelled to ask:

• When does compassion override truth?


• Does ideology validate rejection of scientific facts?


• Do caring motives justify betrayal of trust?


• Are sufferers of “gender dysphoria” better served by physicians who are more concerned about “helping” than about the lifetime cost to the patient?


• Is irreversible medical treatment appropriate for “gender” issues which (in most cases) are psychological and transitory in nature, better suited to counseling than surgery?


• Can the objective moral order be subordinate to a physician’s subjective opinion which is contradicted by facts?

Good Motives, Bad Judgment

Finally, Dr. Breen makes a powerful statement when he wonders how our society and our medical professionals have “…become so poisonous that it allowed for the implantation of a rampant, self-destructive impulse into our youth.” This is especially concerning when we realize that additional evidence strongly indicates that:

1. Psychological-emotional problems most often pre-exist before “gender dysphoria” becomes an issue, and


2. Most cases of “gender dysphoria” resolve themselves with the passage of time. In many (if not most) cases, kids seeking their “transgendered self” are going through another growing phase.

So, given abundant evidence and the gift of Common Sense, one cannot but realize:

1. How dangerously vulnerable human nature is to a variety of miscues over our lifetimes;


2. How stubbornly resistant we can be to truths and facts which do not fit our personal worldview or our ego’s need for approval;


3. How easily we slip into arrogant denial;


4. How our self-righteousness harms others;


5. How “feelings” must always be evaluated by true morality and solid history;


6. How essential are the Virtues of Humility, Responsibility and Accountability in everyday life;


7. How precious are Christian Truth and Virtue which our nation has always revered.


8. These facts…. for starters…

3 June 2024

 

Le’chayim, To Life

In a recent visit to my church, I was gratified to find our parish kindergarten children rehearsing their upcoming graduation ceremony. The Little People (several dozen, attired in our school’s red and blue uniforms) were supervised by no-nonsense teachers who assured that everything occurred in timely fashion.

Among activities the children rehearsed was a “Thank You” song (with thrown kisses) dedicated to their parents. T’was a grand moment watching these Little People … and I was moved to gratitude for the fact that these children were so fully alive.

My reaction – gratitude for these children’s lives – may seem strange, until we recall that we live in a nation in which killing unborn children is a policy of our government. Many adults believe that destroying the life of an unborn-but-living person is a “human right.”

Personhood

As I watched these Little Persons rehearse their graduation moves, I was again reminded that their development as individual human beings - distinct persons - begins at conception and is a life-long process. Their development involves (especially at their age) constant change, growth and aging (as we elders attest).

I was also reminded that our dignity and rights as persons are given to us at the moment of our conception. In that instant of miraculous unity, the mystery of life begins and our personhood is activated. At conception, our dignity as persons is established; we are endowed with powers of thinking and choosing – our powers of reason and free will which unfold for our lifetimes.

From conception onward, this developmental process takes us through many stages of change in ways which are physical, psychological, moral, intellectual. Beginning with the instant of conception, we strive for measures of maturity in myriad ways.

This process of growth and change is universal; we all go through it … but the specific timing is unique to each person. Each of us is utterly unique. Our development is mysterious and complex, miraculous in detail … and solely ours.

Thus, the gift of our personhood is an extraordinary fact. There is no other person like you or me. We are - all of us - individual persons. We did not make it so. It is the Will of God.

Moral Values

Our personhood is a gift from God. It is right and just, therefore, that, when we use this gift, we accept the responsibilities to God and to one another which come with it. These responsibilities comprise the moral code which spells out (1) God’s universal expectations, and (2) the restraints which God puts on personhood. Chief among these expectations is respect for the dignity of other persons, beginning with their right to life.

Sounds fine … but many people don’t see it that way. Instead, they prefer radical individualism which disdains universal moral standards, disregards the Common Good and seeks only personal gain - even at the cost of the lives of others.

The impact of radical individualism is evident in much research. For example, the Barna Group recently published a disturbing study which says: “… a majority of adults accept abortion, along with lying, consensual intercourse between unmarried adults, gay marriage and the rejection of absolute moral truth... Less than half of all adults embrace the Bible as their primary guide to morality. A large minority of adults accept the notion that as long as you do no harm, you may do whatever you wish…”

Abortion

More than any issue, abortion spotlights the depth of selfishness which radical individualism promotes. It’s mantra “My body, my choice” exemplifies moral indifference about the dreadful price another person pays for counterfeit freedom.

As America celebrates abortion, the sacred nature of life (born and unborn) is obliterated as the fragile dignity of childhood is assaulted. Abortion leads to moral oblivion in which human life is readily dispatched. Abortion uses the gifts of knowledge and choice to destroy the most innocent persons amongst us.

Radical individualism stands in stark contrast to our nation’s religious traditions which attest to the necessity of objective (i.e., universally applicable, not individualistically determined) moral norms binding all persons. For discussion, see this essay: Christian ethics and moral symmetry | WORLD (wng.org)

Radical individualism acquiesces to individual wants which are deeply hostile to objective moral standards. Whatever the individual wants is allowed: doctor-assisted suicide, transgenderism through surgery and noisome chemicals, same-sex marriage … God knows what else.

Radical individualism nullifies personal responsibility for the impact of our choices on families, education, society and future generations. It erases standards of good and evil and stifles moral accountability. Civil and criminal laws are rendered useless, even detrimental, to the individual’s disordered pursuit of self-centered “freedom” over tradition, morality, social ethics, religious virtues and the Common Good.

Major Overreach

The Supreme Court (Planned Parenthood v Casey, 1992) emboldened abortion proponents when it declared: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

The Court’s approval of abortion as a “right” highlights the corrosive impact of radical individualism on our nation’s moral heritage, on our religious traditions, on history’s lessons, on our Constitutional integrity … and more:

• Americans now turn away from religious affiliations and the moral insights which our religious heritage provided.


• We lose the true meaning of “personhood” as created by God and defined by Nature, not by Woke spokespersons who despoil Creation and distort science.


• We choose lies over Truth, false “freedoms” over self-restraint, counterfeit “rights” over virtue.


• America’s struggle for decency and justice is derailed by fatuous racist accusations.


• Some physicians do incalculable harm as they support transgender delusions (even among pre-teens) while ignoring harmful, lifelong effects of hormones and surgeries never meant for humans - especially children. 

For discussion of these points, see this link: Our Pagan Society | Auguste Meyrat | First Things

So, let us say again: Abortion is a moral evil which renders the lives of countless children worthless. For discussion: Pro-Life Politics After Dobbs by Various | Articles | First Things

Yes, But …

Dissenters deny that the enwombed child is a “real” person who deserves recognition and protection. They say that the “imagined child” is merely a clump of parasitic cells, an unwanted intruder, to be readily discarded because of women’s autonomy.

Pro-abortion folks often accuse pro-lifers of religious extremism to villainize those who uphold moral tradition, self-restraint and human dignity. Pro-lifers who honor moral tradition, virtue and truth are subject to being “canceled” or sent to prison.

Abortion is so widely accepted in some States that they declare themselves abortion “sanctuaries.” They spend millions of taxpayer dollars to expand access to abortion, including travel and other expenses for out-of-state abortion seekers. California has also enacted protective laws for those who commit abortions, insulating them from legal action by pro-life states.

More Yes, Buts …

Some people say that their “pro-abortion” position is really a “pro-choice” position. This distinction creates obscurity rather than clarity. Why? Because this distinction does not, in any way, alter abortion’s grisly methodologies or fatal outcome.

  So, given 1) the moral gravity of a child's' life and, 2) the less-than-candid rhetoric of politicians who celebrate abortion and declare it a “right,” the message is clear: pro-abortion adherents protect, defend, and subsidize abortion around the world. The result? Uncounted millions of dead children. And this, they insist, is a woman’s right!

No matter what degree of murky misdirection the abortion movement employs, facts are obvious. Beyond the words, the facts about the grim surgical procedures and fatal outcomes are unavoidable. Facts speak.

When anyone says "I am pro-choice" to becloud their support for abortion, their verbal ambiguity creates a rhetorical façade to conceal their support for aborting unborn children. Pro-abortion proponents may “re-phrase” their words, but no leap of logic obscures the facts about abortion’s deadly results on babies.

The Child Has Rights From God

  God has not given us our ability to reason clearly and choose freely so that we may perpetuate moral ambiguity or pretend that moral evil does not exist. We are not meant to twist the truth, to deny our responsibilities especially to defenseless children or to side-step our accountability to God and, in truth, to ourselves. We have serious obligations to one another – starting with our children, born and unborn. As sanity attests, the age of another person does not determine that person’s rights and dignity.

Each and every one of us is a statement in favor of life. Yet, these days, we hear some people (even religious leaders and Christian congregations) contend that abortion can be an act of mercy which protects the unborn child from future pangs of poverty or from wages of criminality in later life (or maybe a parking ticket or a bad hair day?).

In the authentic Catholic context, the rights and dignity of each person (a child of God) informs our pro-life values and behavior … our whole way of living and believing.

  The commitment of the Catholic Church is irrevocably pro-life (despite the contradictory behavior of some politicians who claim to be Catholic). No Catholic may, in any way, support the abortion of an unborn child.

To some dissenters, this may seem “unfeeling.” It may cause suffering for an unmarried mother and her family members, so let us destroy the child (embarrassment and inconvenience are most often cited as reasons for the majority of abortions). But a pro-life person believes that bringing forth and educating a child into adulthood is the greatest privilege we receive in the sight of God, Nature and mankind. And it should be noted that the Catholic Church does indeed make provision for authentic medical necessity … a fact usually hidden from public view.

The Blessing Of Our Twins

Nature dictates that our lives begin in our mother’s womb where we are created as individual persons, uniquely programmed for our lifetimes. Pro-abortion folk say otherwise, but beneath all the argumentative rhetoric, the heart knows the truth … and rejoices at ultrasound evidence of new life … rejoices at the sight of a child in utero who is just beginning life’s blessed journey.

I well remember the days when my Beloved and I were made aware that our grandchildren (our grand twins) had arrived. It was the privilege of a lifetime to watch the twins week by week, as they followed Nature’s directions. After their birth, it was a delight to babysit them, to feed them and laugh with them and take them to the park, and watch them slip into that deep and precious slumber of utter innocence, as only a child can do.

Now, two decades later, our twins approach adulthood as they enter their Junior Year in college. Both are intelligent and healthy, taller than I am, busied with routines of youth, beginning to contemplate their futures between sorties with friends and breezy visits to us waiting elders - those of us who love them so.

With wonder and delight, we watch them grow and change, as they grab their lives with confidence and courage. And, once again, I am (as I was in church) moved to gratitude that these children - my grandchildren - are so alive and so well loved.

It is, I believe, devoutly to be wished that countless other children would be so cherished and so welcomed into life. Do you not agree?

17 May 2024

 

Go Figure . . .

An eagerly skeptical acquaintance recently confronted me with the predictable litany of miseries to which we are heir. Finally, after tedious recitation of humanity’s collective misfortunes, he triumphantly concluded: “You cannot deny the violence and unfairness in the world, so where is your God in all this?"

His furrowed brow and frenetic delivery advised caution, so I did not mention the many blessings we receive each day nor the ubiquitous miracles of Creation (which we take for granted). But I did point out that life’s confounding mysteries do not follow rules of logic, nor does unaided Reason provide comfortable resolution to Creation’s oft-perplexing events.

Demanding tidy "answers" to Creation’s mysteries doesn’t bring satisfaction. So, I suggested, let us seek insights which enhance, rather than stymie, our limited cognitive abilities -- insights enlightened by goodly doses of Wisdom, Humility and, beyond that, Gratitude … lots of Gratitude.

Let me explain …

Mysteries Galore

Our culture values independent thinking and mastery of various skills which keep untidy ambiguity at bay. We normally resolve problems in a logical, straight-forward manner which accords with our need for order and control.

Much of the time, this approach works … but it also creates a problem: We think - erroneously - that Wisdom equates with calculated shrewdness, adroit pragmatism or canny achievement. We mistake financial savvy or the arcane know-how of tycoons for true Wisdom. The problem is that we lose sight of hope-filled mysteries which Creation proposes. We miss abundant cues to Wisdom’s insights – insights exceeding our fragile wonderment.

When Creation’s fundamental mysteries are obscured, we are distracted from life’s basic messages, deprived of respect for our limits, alienated from our Creator … and from ourselves.

We canonize “winners,” but eventually stifle our soul’s attention to life’s mysteries and to the understanding which Wisdom brings; understanding which human Reason - by itself - cannot achieve without the aid of God’s Revelation. Excessive stress on individual achievement breeds arrogance instead of Gratitude, celebrates “Self” instead of God, and estranges us from sources of transcendence within ourselves.

Mysteries ? What Mysteries ?

Look around you … We are surrounded by miraculous mysteries with origins unseen; miracles which are strikingly real (e.g., inexplicable healings at Lourdes … or each day’s sunrise).

Despite abundant evidence, many people live as if Creation’s mysteries (and our Creator) do not exist; as if there are no limits to every “right;” as if the only reality is what we control. Even the violation of sacred Traditions, annihilation of facts, betrayal of our young and the corruption of science and medicine do not deter many of us.

Many people call this “progress” … but we pay a colossal price.

Power

Safety and security are our first priorities, so we strive to control what happens to us. However, we can’t control our neighbors and we certainly do not control Nature or God. On a good day, we control only some of our own thoughts, habits, attitudes, choices and behaviors (and, sometimes, not even these). Variability is the norm, as delusion becomes reality. The inconstant is constant.

Sooner or later, despite our efforts to re-design Creation, we realize Creation is not under our control. We acknowledge (perhaps grudgingly) that God’s Power controls the mysteries of the Universe … and us, as well.

But we can adapt. We have choices. We can:

1. live in denial, nurse our impotence, devise our own moral codes, pursue false “freedoms” and non-existent “rights,” ignore God, disregard the virtues Wisdom brings; or, we can
2. manage ourselves wisely, learn to discipline our reactions and humbly admit that God, not us, has power in the Universe. We can honor Nature’s limits, develop insights which enlighten God’s mysteries. and exercise self-restraint for our own good and for the Common Good.

We can, in other words, develop the talents and insights of the gift of Wisdom.

Again, let me explain.

Talents ? What Talents ?

We have many abilities – talents – at our disposal, including:

• our intellectual abilities which lead to those “aha” insights,


• our memory, imagination and intuition,


• our spiritual and religious sensibilities,


• our conscience and our knowledge of good and evil,


• our free will and our ability to make moral judgments,


• the range and power of our emotions which act as fuel for heart and soul, for our intentions and goal-oriented behavior,


• our desire to know and learn, fed by our curiosity, monitored by our educated conscience, nurtured by Wisdom’s transcendent virtues,


• and more…

Our talents are to be used according to the limits God reveals to us through Creation’s countless sources. In fact, God continually reveals abundant information about His purposes and our responsibilities. He does this through Creation’s miracles and mysteries … not to baffle or confuse us, but to befriend us by appealing to our many sources of knowing and learning, of understanding and growing in Wisdom.

Our entire existence is naturally attuned to information which complements and expands upon what we learn with our many, freely-given talents.

The Point Of It All

For this are we born: To learn from God, about God. All else is secondary to the point and purpose of our lives.

Nevertheless, many people dismiss these ideals in favor of ego’s delusionary supremacy. But the gift of Wisdom (which is a Godly grace, i.e., a gift freely given) builds upon Nature rather than circumventing Nature or squashing its potential or making us subservient to indifferent karma.

Grace and Nature work together … if, that is, we cooperate!

The gift of Wisdom exerts moral influence in our lives. Wisdom is the divine voice of moral probity which, ideally, defines our two-way relationship with our Creator.

Wisdom speaks to our spiritual selves in the language of the soul rather than in the self-serving rumblings of an over-active ego. Wisdom perceives moral Truths which reside in the practical outcomes of our choices:

• Truths which some folks try to avoid for a lifetime;


• Truths revealing the unseemly impact of wayward pride;


• Truths which expose the selfish gratification in our motives and behavior;


• Truths which serve as our mature guide for moral decisions about the impact of our behavior on others;


• Truths which inform us about the best course action for our children and young people.

At our best, Wisdom serves as the voice of divine guidance for the human condition. Wisdom is radically different from shrewd “street smarts” or deceptive social and ruinous political pressures. In fact, without Wisdom’s moral clarity, gullible people are prey to exploitation by a host of “human rights” hustlers, moral quacks and purveyors of pernicious ideologies which threaten our nation.

The Role Of Humility

Wisdom presents us with the Truth, then asks us to think and act accordingly. It is reasonable and logical – and wise – for us to rely on a Divine Source greater than ourselves. But submitting to Truth is not an easy task, even for those who are willing … and that’s where Humility plays a definitive role.

Humility is badly misunderstood, so let’s be clear about Humility’s authentic traits:

• Humility is not thinking or acting like an inferior person.


• Humility is realistically facing the Truth about one’s strength and weakness without becoming defensive when others speak Truth to us.


• If confrontation with Truth hurts, Humility still listens without denying or deflecting Truth or trying to get even.


• Humility requires strength and courage, not self-abasement.

Practical Side Of Wisdom

In our day-to-day routines, what does Wisdom look like? Here is a brief overview (reminiscent of the comments of St. James):

  These, for starters.

Benefit Beyond Doubt

Evidence from Creation and Scripture, centuries of Tradition and the witness of history insist that God is ever with us, and that Wisdom calls for virtue in public affairs and private life, come what may.

In fact, a nation of virtuous citizens was of concern to the Founders of our Republic, who spoke of the need for virtue in governance and the electorate. They knew (as should we) that when we banish God from public life (as many Americans are doing), we banish accountability; leadership falters and decency crumbles. They understood that Wisdom works for the Common Good because Wisdom respects Truth and eschews deception and exploitation.

Nevertheless, some people remain antagonistic, rigid in their doubts, committed only to themselves. But such skepticism is incompatible with the insights which Wisdom offers; insights which augment unaided intellect and diminish unbelief … in favor of trust in God and in the “aha” messages of God’s Creation.

Wisdom deepens our two-way relationship with God, after the example of Christ. Christ taught us that, even in travail, God remains our Personal God, no matter what painful events occur, no matter how illogical these events seem.

Humanity is not angelic; perfection eludes us, and logic stumbles, but we are born to strive for a life of virtue. Wisdom and its allies (Humility, Truth, Perseverance, Faith, Kindness, Hope - to name a few) supply us with insights which clarify the point and purpose of Creation’s mysteries - the point and purpose of our lives - as we seek to govern our nation … and ourselves.

27 April 2024

 

The Privilege Of Friendship

May 1st is the anniversary of the death of Nancy, my Beloved Spouse. Her memory, fresh each day, underscores the blessings bestowed upon us both and the privilege of her friendship which she gave to me in our marriage.

Indeed, many grand thoughts come to mind as I reflect on our years together. Let me share a few …

Let Your Love Be Genuine

Each person is born with the ability to communicate, but words and gestures do have consequences. For example, we create problems when we use words carelessly and pay no heed to their authentic meaning, or to the context.

With misuse, words become flaccid cliches. An example is misuse of the word “love” (“I love ice cream and my dog and walks in warm rain and, oh yeah, my wife, too). Some people even use words to distort Truth, to manipulate emotions, to destroy others, to assert unseemly power.

Our effective use of words is an art we can develop with learning and practice, correction and self-discipline.

Friendship’s Nature

Another misused word is “friend.” We may have a slew of acquaintances whom we refer to as “friends,” people who share our likes and dislikes. But, truth be told, social compatibility is not a solid foundation for true - true - friendship.

Why not?

Because true friends are always influences for moral good, even at the expense of their comfort (theirs or ours). As Anthony Esolen points out, even Cicero believed true friendship is founded only in virtue. Thus, true friends are not blind to moral and social faults (theirs or ours). They are not tolerant of, nor silent about, sins and omissions (again, theirs or ours). They do not avoid difficult issues nor rest behind a veneer of jovial camaraderie. If necessary, they will confront us (with benign concern, of course) about misguided behaviors we do not want to face.

Mind Your Own Business

Some people believe “friends” should not mention each other’s misdeeds, that confrontation about sensitive issues should be strictly avoided. They do not want to be accountable to anyone. Such a view carries little validity and, at times, is indefensible.

Why?

Because sometimes we all need to be reminded that we are accountable to God and other persons; reminded that our behavior has consequences; reminded that we are responsible for our words and actions.

Sometimes we all need benign confrontation. We need to hear the Truth about ourselves from someone who is motivated not by self-righteous superiority, but by heartfelt concern which true friends possess.

It takes Wisdom and Courage for a true friend to speak to us forthrightly, with candor and prudent restraint. It also takes Humility on our part to seriously consider Truths about ourselves which true friends dare to mention (rather than their talking about us behind our back).

It takes a true friend to risk our wrath or rejection and speak Truth to us about our closely-guarded foibles. We may resent their candor but, by telling us the Truth, they confirm the fact that true friends always honor virtues such as Goodness and Fidelity.

Options

Thus, we are fortunate to have the true friendship of a handful of authentic friends who love us unselfishly; who care for our betterment and are motivated by fidelity to Truth and mutual Trust.

Trust is crucial. We cannot love someone we do not trust. True friends Trust one another because the binding force in true friendship is an abiding form of Love. This Love remains unspoken in some friendships (especially among men), but it is, nonetheless, unique, powerful and life-affirming.

For those who scoff at these ideas, opposing choices such as denial, avoidance and isolation are available. If we choose, we can dismiss friendship, especially if we find the price of Truth too steep, the idea of trusting someone too intimidating, the giving and receiving of Love too demanding.

The Ideal

In the Christian context, true friendship is a sacred communion. It begins as the unifying bond in Christian marriage, and serves as the foundation of family life which is inspired by the example of Love and Virtue of the marriage bond.

In the Christian context, true friendship begets a sustaining Love in marriage and family … Love which lasts beyond the limits of time, since time itself is really our way of coping with the mystery of the Eternal Now.

The Christian ideal of true friendship is particularly attuned to the transformative words of Christ at His Last Supper, when He calls His Apostles His “friends.” His words emphasize the Virtues of Trust and Love which inform true friendship.

These are crucial insights for an anti-religious culture which has lost much of its transcendent sense of mystery and pushed religious Faith away, stripping life of meaning for many people.

Marriage As Friendship

Thus, faithful union in true friendship is the point and purpose of Christian marriage, a spiritual and sacramental sharing of souls like no other.

Christian marriage is also a human union of shared laughter and pain, of secrets and doubts, as true friends pursue together (always together) the Divine mysteries of daily living.

Christian marriage is a God-given gift to wife and husband, who willingly become avenues for the presence of God to each other.

BUT … this ideal is not easily attained because we all possess human weakness and are subject to ego’s errant demands.

Human nature imposes much work for us to do, Truths to learn, virtuous choices to make, so that our marriage’s sacred potential may be realized and our recalcitrant urges curtailed.

The Privilege Of Her Friendship

I was privileged to have just such a friend: my Beloved Spouse, Nancy, who died at home six years ago May 1st, family by her bedside.

When we married, we promised fidelity in our hearts and our behavior. We promised to protect and honor one another’s trust and to pursue mutual goodness together. We promised always to stay close, to be sensitive to one another’s needs, to share our doubts even amid travail, to be the truest friend we both had ever had in this world.

As we aged together, we came to know the irreplaceable value of intimacy … authentic intimacy which leads to Trust and fidelity in word and deed, thought and memory; intimacy in which we are loved not despite who we are, but because of who we choose to become with our Beloved.

I was privileged to witness Nancy’s emerging Spirit and her artistic sensibilities (she was an artist: her art may be viewed at nancyparke.us) which, in our decades together, blossomed in ways which still inspire.

I was privileged to experience her warmth and partake in her delight when an idea for a painting struck her.

I was privileged to be blessed by her unquenchable love of family, privileged to be embraced by her tenacious loyalty, to enjoy with her the wonders of life and, at times, to endure its heavy price.

Learning Together

As our years passed, we both moved beyond the awkward, nagging mistakes of our pasts, and learned to see life together as a New Beginning, granted us by God in Hope and Promise. And I was further privileged to witness the Goodness in her soul emerge as our friendship grew and Wisdom gradually added a measure of maturity and deepened our Faith.

In our early days, she made demands which rightly shattered my selfish facades; demands which pierced the hardened veil of my pretenses and gave my needless defenses no ground upon which to stand, except to acknowledge my selfish state of mind.

In time, the wounds from the Truths she uttered were assuaged, then healed, by her tenacious Goodness which was revealed by the confrontative look in her eye, the slight tilt of her head, her tenderness in the morning’s cold light, her laughter which inevitably thawed my defenses … and our trust grew…

Together, we learned the universal principle that true friendship encourages us to give our love and to allow ourselves to be truly loved, to revere Truth and then not to fear our weaknesses and faults.

Humility’s Courageous Nature

In our search together, we learned hard lessons, such as the nature of Humility. In today’s culture of rage, Humility is seen as weakness and fearful timidity. The Humble person is portrayed as hat-in-hand and eyes downcast in a posture of inferiority.

Not so.

Humility means courageously adhering to Truth, not hiding behind denial or pretense or the trappings of superiority. Humility means facing reality. It demands courageous confrontation with Truth in the mirror of one’s educated conscience, and Truth from the mouths of others.

To be Humble is to be responsible to God and to others, to accept one’s accountability to others, to give more than expected and to take less than allowed.

So, in our search, we learned that Humility obliges everyone to hear Truth and to speak Truth, to listen intently and to change when required, thereby honoring true friendship in marriage.

Finally . . .

Many years ago, My Beloved Nancy sustained a serious injury as we walked on the rocks near our home on the Oregon Coast. She required weeks of rehabilitation, learning to use crutches, then how to walk again.

It was a slow, painful process for her as she re-learned what we take for granted: how to stand, how to put her weight on one foot, then the other, then cautiously step forth. Occasionally, she would teeter precariously in uncertainty, then recover and, standing straight again, ready for the next step.

She took tiny steps at first, putting one foot before the other, teetering riskily all the while. The threat of falling was constant, yet she persevered, putting one foot forward, then the next, learning all over again the simple act of walking.

I saw her struggle as metaphor for marriage, indeed, for life itself – as we put one foot forward and, despite the risks, we do it again and betake ourselves into the hopeful unknown. Despite our doubts and uncertainties, we do go forward into life’s mysteries again and again, courageous in our Hope, at times hesitant, yet pushing life ahead of us, ofttimes with teetering, uncertain steps, each of which means life to us. And we go forward seeking Truth … to love and to live and to learn, as Nancy did with delight each day.

Although My Beloved has gone to a land of Greater Truth, I am most fortunate to still have the privilege of her friendship; still fortunate to have her Love lighten my way … as she does with delight each day.

7 April 2024

 

An Elder’s View Of Our Journey

Life has, as we know, its bright side and its dark side. On the dark side, much transpires in work and family, politics and governance, education and church which is difficult to comprehend, often unsavory and, at times, reprehensible. Logic and common sense are befuddled by inexplicable decisions our leaders sometimes foist upon us with stumbling illogic. The head and the heart are often assailed by contradictions; good will seems useless.

When I am frustrated, I tell myself that if I were a saint (or at least an angel) I would not have a problem with all this. I would have the celestial vision to see above and beyond forgivable errors, manipulative tactics and rank indifference. But sainthood eludes me, and I am not (as far as I know) temperamentally suited for the life of a cherub.

So, I keep rummaging around in that zone between my hopeful ideals of resurrected spirituality and the mundane habits of daily life. Thus, I gratefully deal with the human side of life while I also attend to the divine elements in Creation – i.e., aspects of life which are mysterious and yet familiar to us all, because they’re revealed to us constantly in those mundane habits of daily living and in the world around us which we so often take for granted.

Happily, life also has an up-side, including the benefits of aging. In fact, elderhood reveals to me the abundant consolations life affords us all. Of course, I still cope with my vulnerabilities and temptations, but my Faith and my Hope reassure me that this - here and now - is the path upon which I belong.

Let me elaborate…

The Bright Side

So, while life is all-too-human, we often forget that, at the same instant, life is also a Divine reality which is cloaked in God’s own sense of mystery and Creation’s obedient ways … from the shimmering leaves on every tree to the colossal events which Creation involves.

Everybody’s life is, at some time, tinged with uncertainty and devoid of solace and clarity. The reasons are rarely evident, because mystery is (if we take an honest look) everywhere around us and within us.

Despite life’s mystery - with its bouts of ambiguity and times of disappointment - we are often blessed by people who brighten the dark corners and bring smiles to our soul merely by their presence; persons whose simplicity or silliness or attentive greeting or sheer goodness is refreshing beyond expectation.

Of course, some people do not see life this way. For example, some people (young and old) seem wedded to a stream of complaints. They gripe on cue about their ailments and aching appendages, as they regularly beweep “their outcast state and trouble deaf heaven with their bootless cries” (as Shakespeare puts it).

But … if we were to peer behind their façade of crotchety self-pity, we might recognize their discontent as a covert way of seeking some sign of human concern, even from strangers who might – however briefly and without distraction – extend to them the gift of attentive listening.

Without doubt, attentive listening is a precious gift which people can bestow upon one another; a gift of immeasurable value, even amid the day’s humdrum chores.

Listening attentively to another person is a gift, freely given, which soothes the pangs of isolation and, in that moment, eases the darker side of life’s mystery. Why? Because the gift of attentive listening says, “I am here; I am with you.” It is a gift from the upside of life which we can offer one another.

The Grace Of Being Human

Why is attentive listening so valuable?

Because one of the abiding truths about our shared human nature is that we are all born with a profound need for inclusion and acceptance, for concern and intimacy, for genuine affection. We all possess the need to be loved and, somehow, told so … that “moment eternal,” as Browning calls it.

Even jaded people who bask indulgently in the elegance of their spiffy possessions still have that yen to demonstrate their achievement and flaunt their stuff, as if to say, “Look at me, World, I’m a winner!! Here I am, worthy of your admiration …”

So, no matter what facades we construct or what distractions we hone, the most valued indication of true concern for one another is that we 1) listen, and 2) are listened to with eyes as well as ears, with a patient heart as well as a calculating head.

Let me be clear: I am NOT referring to the destructive fad of DEI, i.e., Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. For an expose of the dehumanizing effects of the DEI craze, see this essay: https://www.catholicleague.org/blowing-up-the-dei-agenda.

Attentive listening imparts the gifts of acknowledgement, respect and reverence, of concern and recognition from one person to the other. It is a grace - a gift, freely given - which we bestow upon one another simply by choosing to do so … unless we dismiss the fact that we can indeed confer grace upon one another … or we are numb to our shared human condition … or we disregard our inherent dignity which the mystery of Creation bestows.

Problems may arise when some people seek attention inappropriately. Maybe they’re too awkward or too demonstrable, too loud or too demanding, too serious or too flippant. And some people are deliberately cold, uncivil and mean. Clearly, we may dislike the way these people behave. However, despite the disdainful few, we are still wise to keep in mind that the search for understanding and the need for kindness propels most people.

An Experienced Guide

Through my years, the principles of the Catholic Church have been (and are) my guides for making sense of Creation’s demands; for seeing beyond churlish encounters which chafe my ego and intrude on my serenity; for recognizing that Creation’s rewards enlighten its mystery and assuage its wonderment.

The Church makes sense to me, even when it does not make sense, even when a few of its ministers act shamefully. It makes sense when my Hope is tested, when contradictions abound, when ungrateful others nettle my soul and test my patience.

The truth (a difficult truth for many to handle) is that the Church does not miraculously remove our foolish foibles or cure our harmful self-indulgences, nor shield us from calculated effrontery. But Catholicism’s message is clear and insistent: Believe in the love of God, then share God’s love as best you can, in whatever ways you can. Stay on this path; stay the course….

Faith and Hope lead to a revelatory moment - perhaps decades in the making - when ambiguity becomes sufficient and we finally experience a disposition of openness which paves the way for our reconciliation with mystery and affords us a dram of practical wisdom … gifts which exceed what we may ever achieve on purely human terms.

These gifts impart a calming clarity. Little by little, we are granted a clearer sense of Faith’s practical necessity. To quote an old cliché, “Less is more.” Less clarity on human terms becomes far more filling to the soul than unaided human nature can supply. The upside of life reveals the reality of the divine all around us, as the sacred becomes evident.

The Hidden Benefit Of Suffering

Of course, clarity does not eliminate suffering. Suffering is an inevitable and universal human experience which brings not merely loss and anguish but (if we choose to see it) opportunity and promise – even when the innocent are involved.

If we accept personal suffering with a disposition of gratitude rather than angry resentment, suffering then becomes a credible path to growth in mind and spirit, character and virtue.

With the proper disposition, suffering peels away our hubris, reveals to us the folly of denial and casual amorality and, most of all, imposes upon us the unguarded simplicity which befits God’s children. We are wise to accept suffering as a gift, not as a curse.

Suffering is, therefore, of immense value -- if we choose to see it so.

Through suffering, we are made humbly aware that everything we have in this life - including life itself - is a gift we are freely given. This insight can elevate and inspire our human experience … IF (and it is a Big IF) we do not indulge anger and resentment which often accompany pain and loss.

Finally …

When I read the Psalms, I read not merely the words but the context and meaning embedded in the poetics. The Psalmist’s themes of awe and gratitude for God’s fidelity are reassuring themes which recur time after time.

Of course, some psalms speak in images unfamiliar to us. But beneath-and-within the words, the themes of awe and gratitude reassure us that God’s concern is our constant reality throughout human history, not merely a figment of distorted need.

This theme of divine fidelity is lovingly expressed, for example, in Psalm 91 which speaks of God as our refuge and our stronghold. The Psalm emphasizes the care of God, Who protects us from dangers which beset us.

Despite our fears, God is our shield. God bestows His care and concern upon us in these words: “Since you cling to me in love, I will free you and protect you, for you know my name.” And when we call out to God, He says, “I shall answer you and say, “I am with you.”

God’s promise is unforgettable, for we are assured of His love when He says to us all: “I am with you.”

“I am with you.”

I do believe Him.

23 March 2024

 

Getting It

Years ago, a colleague lost his Beloved in a dreadful accident. One evening shortly thereafter, he spoke with me at length from his saddened, suffering heart. After a while, blessed fatigue finally drained him. As we parted, he voiced that inevitable question we all ask at some time in our lives: “Why must we lose our loved ones? Why must we bear such suffering and grief? What is it really all about?”

We all wonder about the point and purpose of life, its occasional joys and sorrows, its moments of rapture and remorse. Indeed, we are all stymied by the mystery and wonder of Creation and our place in it.

Surely, then, it is fitting that we ask: “What’s it all about?” It is fitting that we seek to understand the persistent mystery of it all.

--------------------------------

I visit my parish church each day. I rest in the small side chapel and reflect on the benefits of my life. I often give thanks for my endless blessings - as I was taught so long ago by the nuns, whose lessons and example have lasted a lifetime. My moments of serenity afford me a sense of balance and perspective on the mystery of life, as my elder’s years mount with insistent regularity.

My reverie also helps me reconcile myself to the often-awkward adjustments which age imposes, for the aging process, I have learned, is an inevitable ingredient of life’s mysteries.

So, as my years accumulate, my visits reassure me that there is a point and purpose to my life … and, truth be told, to all life…

A Visitation

Let me offer a small example. During one of my recent visits, a young woman entered the small chapel where I sat. She was pushing a baby carriage from which a newborn infant’s tiny, stockinged feet protruded. The baby gurgled infant-sounds, and the Mother looked at me as if to apologize for intruding. We exchanged brief smiles as the baby peered over the edge of his carriage and stared at me with curious intensity.

I smiled at this little infant while his Mother knelt in prayer. Then, of a sudden, the overwhelming beauty and dignity of the image before me … this Loving Mother in prayer and her Innocent Child … became quite vivid to me, and the image remains.

And the realization struck me that simply to behold - with reverence and gratitude - this exquisite scene of Mother and Child was the point and purpose of my life at that moment.

The Reality Of Mystery

We see such heartening scenes every day, many times each day: fleeting scenes of utter simplicity, inhabited by persons we may not know; persons who - in their own fashion - are exemplars of goodness, givers of generous affection in proper fashion. (It is worth remembering that we, too, may be seen as just such a person by others, even though they do not tell us so).

In everyday living, we rarely look at one another as sources of goodness and caring and virtue. Perhaps we are too often distracted by our busied agendas to attend to everyday sources of nourishing hope and benign mystery which are all around us. Perhaps we are reluctant to speak of virtue and kindness, given the culture of conflict which harangues the soul and distresses our unsettled nation. Or, perhaps, we just don’t believe that goodness exists at all.

The truth is that goodness is everywhere to behold. Perhaps it comes in doses so small, so routinely commonplace, that we miss its graceful presence and, thus, we may discount goodness and ignore virtue. In this unsettling way, we diminish our Faith and miss the point and purpose of what we see as merely ordinary events of daily living. And, in the process, we become estranged from the transcendent clarity of mystery in which we constantly live and breathe and have our being.

Don’t misunderstand. I do not deny the abundance of evil and deception to which our race is drawn by our unruly instincts. Evil is readily apparent, so it is well for us also to recognize that the mystery of goodness is all around us, from the incomprehensibly vast Universe to each fluttering leaf on the nearest tree. Mystery is everywhere and, beneath it, there is goodness. To miss this truth is to miss the point and purpose of Creation … and all it holds out to us.

We do not need to plumb the depths of some dreary theosophy to see the point and purpose in the mystery of Creation and, thus, to recognize the point and purpose of our Creator, Who is the final point and ultimate purpose of our lives and our search for meaning.

Making The Simple Complex

At the same time, our shared humanity has limits. So, it is certainly a challenge to mind and heart to maintain our awareness of the transcendent values in life … and the brevity of our days.

It is certainly a challenge for us to keep the point and purpose of our Creation (i.e., the reasons for our own lives) in proper focus. It is certainly a challenge to remember that the insignificant in life is indeed significant.

So, we are wise to remember several truths which enlighten Creation’s mystery and add gratitude to our sense of wonder:

• the mundane and humdrum are the stuff of living;


• we are blessed with the gifts of intelligence and reason, and the grace to persevere despite difficulties;


• we are ever-so fortunate to live in this nation, where so many of our basic needs are met;


• we do not face hunger or homelessness;


• and so many other gifts we take for granted.

Given these gifts we have freely received, it is clear (despite our grumbles) that we are most fortunate persons. The simple lesson is that gratitude should be our first response to the mystery and wondrous reality of Creation.

However, some people find gratitude an alien, even undesirable, emotion. For these people, self-indulgence and habitual self-deception are more appetible than kindness or civility or, for that matter, truth. Even family fidelity, the foundation of our lives and our societies, is compromised by such people when they disparage the fact that goodness resides amongst us, and that we are beholden to our Creator, Who is Goodness itself.

Despite obstacles of temperament or fatigue, despite our self-defeating habits, despite our wearying routines, despite our oft-myopic vision and our selfish agendas, the mystery of goodness is still to be found in many lives, in many people.

Like it or not, goodness is all around us ...

Admitting The Obvious

The simple truth (often forgotten, sometimes ignored) is that we live in two distinct but interweaving worlds:

1. the “here-and-now” physical world, which includes our material selves, our concerns with technical details of economic survival and our daily struggle for “happiness” in our time-limited sojourn upon this Earth; and,


2. the world of divine reality in which we struggle to acknowledge the mystery of the supernatural and the transcendence of our Creator, while we dutifully observe the moral limits imposed upon created human nature.

We are wise to remember that American patriotism, history and culture are historically founded upon Judeo-Christian beliefs. For example, in his Farewell Address in 1796, George Washington summed up the essential need for Americans to honor religious belief and morality:

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them… And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

In keeping with his vision, Washington, D. C., the historic center of American governance, abounds in architecture based in Judeo-Christian realities. For an extensive list, see this summary: CAN’T ERASE OUR JUDEO-CHRISTIAN PAST – Catholic League

Our Transcendent Duality

Thus, at the heart of Creation’s mystery, we find revelations of God and examples of goodness which abound. It is, therefore, disturbing that many citizens (including so many of our church leaders and educators) too often treat truth goodness and virtue as arbitrary or irrelevant ingredients to our nation’s stability. Even the once-unifying bond of patriotism and the pride and responsibilities of American citizenship are disdained by many sources.

Over my lengthy lifetime I have witnessed the ascendence of radically secular trends which now threaten America with moral oblivion. It is now evident that many people (including some in governance) no longer value moral ideals such as goodness, truth and virtue.

Obedience to the laws of God and society are increasingly demeaned. Self-restraint is replaced by distorted notions of freedom. Patriotism is dismissed. The individual is seen as a disposable commodity, whose God-given value is lost in the morass of hard-core, self-serving individualism. Deceptive slogans replace critical reflection. Innocence is eradicated. Yet the truth abides that we have one foot in Creation and one foot in Divinity. Our point and purpose are (for starters) threefold:

1. to discipline our wants and honor the moral limits of Creation, including the dignity of all life, especially the unborn;


2. to be faithful to God’s directives, which come to us through Revelation and tradition; in other words, obedience, even when the cost is high and we are asked to give rather than take;


3. to persevere in fulfilling the virtues of Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance, by which we introduce divine influence into human experience.

Finally . . .

Everything in life - including Nature’s astonishing variety - is a Revelation of God, our Creator. The problem for many of us is that God’s motives are unclear to us, especially when pain and loss are thrust upon us. We get angry when God does not do it our way. We forget that His ways (not ours) are the core of the mystery of living and of Creation. Thus, it is unwise to expect God to behave as we would dictate.

So, let us be clear: Unraveling the mystery of life and understanding our point and purpose requires that we do NOT live in egocentric denial about the fact that God created us … not the reverse. Certain axioms follow:

• We are wise to listen to God's loving messages in our heart-of-hearts, in our soul, with gratitude – and to listen on God’s terms, not ours.


• We are wise when we express our gratitude, not our arrogance, as our response to the mystery of God’s Creation.


• We are indeed wise when we strive to bring goodness and virtue into our world through the blessing of own lives.

And we are wise to recognize that it is the seemingly insignificant moments in life which are truly significant.

How do we introduce goodness and virtue into our world? It starts by our treating others as we wish to be treated - with courtesy and civility, with empathy and kindness, ever kindness. This is surely the way we bring goodness and virtue into our world.

And, finally, we must then ask: Is there a greater point and purpose to my life than my perseverance in goodness and virtue?

7 February 2024

 

A Few Lessons Learned

We are told that “age has its prerogatives,” one of which (true or not) is that we Elders (not “Old Folks,” please) are worth listening to. The assumption is that we Elders have accumulated a measure of Wisdom over our years.

Happily, I qualify as an Elder. My “four-score-and-ten years” is a pleasantly Lincolnesque way to acknowledge my length of days and lay claim to the assumed Wisdom knocking about in my head.

So, for what it may be worth, I here summarize several of my hard-won life-lessons. Some folks will surely disagree with me. Nonetheless, I rely on the patience of my readers … as I herewith express some insights I’ve absorbed during my fleeting decades.

For Starters

I learned long ago that there are unpleasant aspects to everyone’s personality and behavior. We all have personal quirks and foibles, fits of temperament and defects of character to which we are sometimes blind, often by choice.

Everyone knows about them … and maybe we do, too, but we don’t want to admit it. They’re painful to acknowledge, and we get sensitive about our foibles, so we protect ourselves from the truth, often for a lifetime.

Why? Because our egos do not wish to admit faults. In fact, our egos are attuned to defend us against threats, both real and imagined. Nature equips us to protect ourselves from perceived (note: perceived) dangers, hostile slights, barbed insults and ill-meant ridicule, as well as dangers to limb and life.

Perception is crucial. Our values, our beliefs and our personalities are formed by our perceptions. When we perceive a threat (real or imagined), this automatically ignites our stress response and triggers in us a variety of “fight-or-flight” reactions, both physical and psychological. We do not think about it – it just happens because our perceptions (right or wrong) are so deeply ingrained.

Perception Is The Key

Our instinct to protect ourselves from threat is innate, instilled by Nature. It’s healthy, beneficial, intended for our survival. BUT the ways we perceive, define and evaluate people and events can either be 1) healthy and appropriate, or 2) unreasonable and unhealthy, even toxic to mind and body.

As we get older, the range of our perceptions widens. We learn (emphasis on learn) to perceive an array of threats, but some of our learned perceptions distort reality and can be harmful. Thus, our mis-perception of what is – and what is not – a threat becomes problematic, even dangerous, when we “perceive” threats which exist only in our mind, not in reality.

Too often we see what isn’t there or we mis-read reality and mis-interpret people and events. We make rash judgments and trigger a response which is entirely inappropriate to the situation, costly to us and/or hurtful to others.

Our distorted perceptions can even spark violent episodes in which we harm ourselves and others.

• Racial prejudice is an example of distorted mis-reading about our shared human condition.
• Anorexia is another example of a distorted perception which infects about three million Americans annually, not to count loving family members wounded by another’s needless suffering.

Another Lesson

Something else I’ve realized is that we are, by nature, learners. We start learning very early as our mind evaluates the events in our lives and the behavior of others.

We learn from parents, brothers and sisters, neighbors, teachers and others we don’t know, including Nature’s endless wonders. Everyone has something to offer; as my Sainted Mother used to say: “Even the worst of us can serve as a horrible example.”

Some of what we learn is factually true, based on objective reality. But some of what we learn is false and fanciful, based on mis-reading reality or mere wishes or fleeting feelings or outsized egos which thrive on distortions and stubborn denial.

The Contagion Effect

On a wider scale, some gullible people are lured into groups which stifle criticism, deliberately distort reality, strangle independent thought and reward irrational thinking.

This is a populist form of group psychosis wherein passive people are persuaded to accept toxic ideas. The distortion of reality becomes a norm which group pressures reinforce.

This “mob-mentality” thrives on denigration of outsiders, eschews contradictory logic, bolsters fragile, defensive egos and affords members an excuse for dismissive judgmentalism, baseless accusations, even violence.

Another Lesson

Given what we know of this mob-mentality and its ruthless application throughout history, it is obvious, yet unpleasant to say, that "mental illness" is not isolated to clinical cases or mental wards. It is also obvious that human nature is fundamentally flawed and, so often, psychologically precarious.

It is also unpleasant, even distasteful, to admit that this flaw in human nature, when slyly exploited, prompts people to eschew common sense and rationality and, worst of all, to abandon their moral sensibilities.

When this happens, social rules and cultural heritage are jettisoned in favor of unstable opinions and reckless emotions. Facts, truth, civil and criminal laws are ignored. The cautionary admonitions and prudent deliberations of moral sanity are lost. Propaganda eclipses common sense. Religion is eventually persecuted.

All of this is often subtle at first, incredulous to many people who find it difficult to believe that manipulative evil is truly at work.

This is why we need the Objective Moral Order, established by God, our Creator, and revealed to us in human nature as well as through Scripture and ongoing Revelation.

The Moral Order

At its core, the Moral Order specifies behavior which is good or bad, virtuous or corrupt, according to standards set NOT by humans, but by our Creator.

The Moral Order applies to three aspects of our lives:

1. Our relationship with God and the respect we display to His Creation;
2. What we choose to do with our own lives, the kind of person we choose to become; and,
3. How we treat one another and the nature of the relationships we thereby create, even with strangers.

Why does an Objective Order make sense? Because human beings are innately moral creatures. Morality is the foundation of who we are as a race.

Being human means 1) we have a conscience, and 2) we have choices. We can choose to honor the God-given limits of our freedom and accept our responsibilities to God and one another, or we can choose to reject our moral obligations and satisfy only our distorted perceptions, self-serving feelings, urges and impulses.

Clearly, we are most human when we honor the Objective Moral Order, exercise self-restraint and heed the mandates of our Creator, reveled to us, first of all, through our own human nature.

Morality Is Fundamental

I have also learned that every human action and every human institution exist within the framework of morality - of good or evil. Certainly, gradations are often involved, to be sure. But morality overshadows all else, including politics, education, marriage and family.

The greatest personal struggle we face is the tug-of-war between our self-centered egos and our conscience, as we strive to sustain our moral character.

Some people do become indifferent to morality and live in a state of fickle neutrality, in which the overriding consideration is to be “nice.” This involves not offending anyone, not ruffling feathers nor sounding “holier than thou” -- and certainly not being so gauche as to mention archaic notions such as “good” and “bad” or “sin” and “virtue.”

So … we can stifle conscience’s natural yearning for goodness and choose the lesser path until moral ambiguity ensues, and nihilism becomes our life’s option. And, when moral ambiguity does become the norm, common language banishes words and ideas which offend, such as the fact that evil does exist.

But the fact remains that choosing goodness over evil is not a matter of social niceties or the right mood or benign feelings. It is an act of submission to God, our Creator, a deliberate choice and, often, a costly one.

• We do indeed have the power to make conscious and deliberate choices for goodness and virtue, in accord with our educated conscience.
• Evil and sin are also deliberate choices of words and deeds which harm others, and which violate God’s laws and the common good.

The Gift Of Wisdom

There are many ways to honor the Objective Moral Order. The most practical guidelines are the Theological and Moral Virtues:

• The Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity (Love for God and neighbor), and
• The Moral Virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance.

What’s the point of these virtues as guidelines for our behavior?

The point is the attainment of Wisdom. Wisdom is the practical outcome of these Virtues.

• Wisdom bestows consistent moral insight shorn of self-serving delusions.
• Wisdom sees life as a gift from God, our Creator, but a gift which may come at a great price.
• Wisdom awakens us to the Divine Presence in everything around us – water we drink, the stars we behold, leaves on trees, even pain we are asked to endure.
• Wisdom enlightens us to the fact that every moment and every encounter with another person is an opportunity to express these Virtues.
• Wisdom allows us to see life gratefully, not fearfully. Why?
• Because Wisdom assures us that we are Beloved of God, that God is our Friend, an eternal Friend who says to us: “Be not afraid; I am with you.”

Wisdom also imparts clarity and determination, as it reveals to us that:

• It takes humility (e.g., regard for truth, openness to others) to admit we are wrong.
• It takes fortitude to maintain altruism and empathy even when we are treated poorly.
• It takes courage to apologize when we offend another.
• It takes great patience to give others the gift of listening intently, even when they do not respond.
• It takes maturity to realize that psychological and spiritual health are achieved only by acknowledging truth and coping with our own humanity as God’s children.
• It takes Faith and Hope to recognize the unifying power of life when lived in obedience to God’s loving expectations.

Wisdom bestows the clear and certain realization that the greatest gift we receive is the Virtue of Charity. Charity is not be confused with feelings of affection nor the expectation of consolation (as Mother Teresa discovered). Charity is, once again, a choice to be loved, then to trust God and love others as we are loved. It is a choice to forgive rather than to harbor revenge and hatred, to express our concern for others either directly or in silent prayer … even for those who treat us with disdain, those we call “enemies.”

Finally . . .

Clearly, then, our distorted perceptions of God, of life, of one another … and of ourselves … may serve us quite badly or exceedingly well. And even if people insult or snub us, so what? Maybe they are simply thoughtless or have coarse manners … or maybe their comments are true and hit too close to home?

I learned these lessons long ago, so I’d like to think I’m less ignorant than when I was only sixty - but my ego keeps butting in. Consequently, even in my elderhood, I’m learning there’s always room for improvement.

And, as my Sainted Mother also used to say, “No one’s perfect … yet.”