Slander, Justice, and Freedom

This morning as I was talking with the Lord I was reading Mark 7, where He is interacting with Pharisees. Verse 2 sets up where the difficulties start: "they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands defiled..." You can feel how this observation quickly turned into a judgment of Jesus, as in verse 5 they ask him, "why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with hands defiled?"

Jesus had inconsistency in his camp. Some washed, some didn't. Maybe the some who did were mindful of the tradition; maybe it was culturally engrained. Maybe those who didn't were unschooled in the ceremonial practices, or maybe they omitted it intentionally. We don't get any of that commentary. What, to the Pharisees, reflects back on Jesus is that He did not spend enough time enforcing the traditions, or He was not a careful enough rabbi to eliminate from his midst those who weren't doing it right, or simply this slipshod performance did not trouble Him. Clearly, He was either a lousy rabbi or a rebel. This is clear because they were their own standard of righteousness.

Jesus then proceeds to rip into them. From the text, I observe a few things.

First, He quotes Scripture against them (v. 6-7) to point out their hearts are far away, their worship is empty, and they teach human ideas. 

Second, the text is suggesting this was an ongoing exchange, not simply one conversation. Verse 9 says, "And he said to them," and again in verse 14 "And he called the people to him again and said to them." It sounds to me like Jesus often circled back to this theme when he talked with Pharisees and Mark is condensing Jesus' response in this account. I'm no scholar. But what I see in the paragraph begun by verse 9 ("you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God..." -- reminds me of Daniel 13 when Daniel is interviewing the two lying letchers who were accusing Susanna, "your fine lie has cost you your head") is that Jesus here is recounting for the Pharisees a detailed example of how they teach human ideas as doctrines of God. To me, this reveals He has spent time meditating on this, interceding with the Father for these wayward men. He is intimately familiar with their hearts, their words, and their deeds. This intimate familiarity is diametrically opposed to tribalism, where separatism rules.

As Jesus teaches his disciples about this exchange, he tries to help them arrive at the understanding which he says the Pharisees lack. And what caught my heart was in verse 22, where Jesus is listing the things which defile, and among these he includes slander. 

My Gen X heart stopped and did a little sideways glance around. Slander? As in, saying something publicly about someone else's behavior that makes them look bad? Ok, Lord. I just got done reading you ripping into the Pharisees and giving that group pretty much a bad name for the last 2,000 years, but I know that that wasn't slander, and that you are actually differentiating slander as a different thing.

This hits a real sore spot in my soul, one that I know needs healing and strengthening. My head knows that slander involves saying something that isn't true. Let's do some dictionary and catechsim definitions here.

slan·der

/ˈslandər/

noun

Law

1. the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.

CCC2477: Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likelyl to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty:

--    of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;

--    of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another's faults and failings to person who did not know them;

--    of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.

1. Another good Catechism quote is paragraph 2479: "Detraction and calumny destroy the reputation and honor of one's neighbor. Honor is the social witness given to human dignity, and everyone enjoys a natural right to the honor of his name and reputation and to respect."

I'll be honest. I have always struggled with saying anything about another person to a third party, even when there is no real question of slander involved. I am certain this came from some confusing childhood circumstances which followed me into adulthood, both when I simply couldn't understand what was going on, and when my attempts to speak or ask questions were met with explicit or implicit demands of secrecy and "we don't talk about this." Or, I simply knew that exposing the truth of my pain would really rattle others in my life, which led me to keep silent about what was happening in me, to make it easier for someone else.

This was deeply formative for me, and not in a good way. I took in that revealing truth was in fact slander and it dishonored people I should honor. My deformation never stopped me from mentally creating a class of people* I felt didn't deserve my honor, and whom I could scapegoat to make me feel better. And of course nothing reminds me of that as much as our political atmosphere in an election year.

Nothing could be further from what Jesus was doing with the Pharisees and his disciples. Jesus was in fact confronting the intimate places in his personal culture that people had skirted away from out of fear: the hypocritical power of religious leaders. I'm sure there were folks who thought it was much wiser to just go along and get along. But Jesus spoke right into the heart of dysfunction with the hopes of change and of pulling people out from under the wreckage that already existed. We do too talk about this might have been his exact attitude. And this is not slander. It is justice. No longer will those who do harm find protection, and those who are wise will gain instruction. 

To me, this shows the difference between learning to pattern my life on Jesus Christ, and learning to be nice. Learning how to show honor starts in a heart where identity and truth are clearly understood.

Oh Lord, conform and transform my heart unto Thine. With St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, make me into a supplemental humanity for You through whom You may live again in this world.

*Generally, this class of people consisted of anyone who did not remind me enough of myself.

Football, Fasting, and the Love of God

I am agitated.

I opened Facebook yesterday and found that everyone was all upset, again. This time everyone was upset by athletes who did not present themselves for the National Anthem.

The athletes did this because they were upset at words used about them by their President in response to a political or moral position taken by some, which clearly the President objected to.

I read that many of my friends were going to give up watching their beloved Steelers because they felt the players were immature in how they communicated their views and disrespectful to the USA by not standing for the anthem.

My agitation:

• I welcome the fast from football, and encourage those who are giving it up to gather and pray for revival instead.
• I am honestly shocked, because I know how deep the love for football goes in the hearts of many. 
• I'm not interested in football.
• I am surprised that I haven't heard one single, solitary person object to the President of the United States calling citizens an objectionable name which I would reprimand my teenage son from using, even if he were justly upset with someone. And yet there is much concern expressed for proper respect being shown. I'm tired of Christians giving the President a pass on immature and immoral behavior.
• Standing for the National Anthem is a respectful ritual which I support. 
• If someone is making a protest that strikes at the heart of a respectful ritual, I immediate want to ask "why?", and I mean that literally. I want to know their reasons, not jump to judgments. It's a small, but symbolic gesture. Tell me why it is chosen. I will listen.
• I suggest that one way to honor American military veterans is to make sure that none are homeless, unemployed, or left with an inadequate Veterans health care system. Symbolic acts warm the heart and then pass. Real honor gives care.

• Most importantly, as my friend Cookie put it, for Christians who believe there is a hell, why is such fiery energy expended and acts of mortification taken over THIS, but not over the consideration that souls may die today without Christ? Do we just yawn and say, "Yeah, whatever...." Why do football and national symbols stir people where the gospel can't? Where is our love?

Division, hatred, wrath, and anger are not of God, and neither are sloth, complacency, or pride. The love of God is a consuming fire, and when the immensity of God's love comes in contact with sin, the result is pain in the heart of the one who loves. I believe the heart of God is pained over how Americans treat each other in general, and over how little love is returned to Him by His own children.

• If we do not feel pain over souls who live without Christ, how can we say the love of God lives in us? 
• If we do not feel the putridness of idolatry, may God have mercy on us and draw us clear from love of the works of death.
• If we are not willing to listen to the pain of another human being, and instead shout him down and ridicule him, how can we demonstrate to them the love of Christ? Do we even want to be at square one of evangelizing?

I want to be part of the solution. I'm deeply sick of the problem. Division is the devil's game. When Jesus prayed for unity in John 17, primarily he was speaking about a unity of love; that human beings who have met the Father in Jesus Christ would, by the power of the Holy Spirit, receive and give the very love of God, so that the world would know Jesus and know they too are loved.

I don't care if you think it sounds trite and silly that I care about God's love. If you do, I assure you, you don't know the reality of it.

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29

But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Colossians 3:8

and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. Ephesians 5:4

and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. 1 Peter 3:16

For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances; 2 Corinthians 12:20

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. Romans 1:28-32

Buy Gold

For you say, ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,’ and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments to put on so that your shameful nakedness may not be exposed, and buy ointment to smear on your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent.

This word from the book of Revelation chapter 3 has been echoing inside me all morning. Every bit of commenting I read about the presumptive Republican nominee sends it echoing again.

But our need in this country is for something much greater than a statesman or a decent politician. I'm going to look the professing Christians in the eye and issue this challenge, the same one that Jesus gave the Laodiceans: Buy Gold.

And what does it mean? How do you do it? For that's the first thing: if Christians don't even know what makes the Christian life distinctive from human attempts at being morally upright, it is no wonder that we are spiritually bankrupt.

Jesus has the gold. We buy it from Him by picking up the cross that is ours and following Him. As we do this, we give ourselves over to conformity to Him by the Holy Spirit. (Fear not, little freedom lover, conformity is not a dirty word when you are conforming to the infinite God.) As we follow Him, taking His concerns as ours, He takes our concerns as His. They are transformed. We are changed. And He compensates us with gold.

Then we exchange that gold for the transformation of souls and the world around us through love, grace and peace.

If we don't follow, we don't gain gold. Without gold, we are left deeply poor, too poor to even cover ourselves. If we don't grasp the futility of human work to accomplish divine things, we are blind fools. The only thing that we can offer to God for the transformation of souls is the good He has given us through our personal share in His cross.

d

Natural Law, Marriage, and the Normality of Ignorance

I almost interjected myself into a homily yesterday.

It wasn't actually in response to the homily itself, but in response to the reaction of the congregation.

Let me start the story at the beginning.

It was the 4th of July, and I was attending Mass at Once-In-a-Blue-Moon parish. The deacon there preached along the lines of the closing of the Fortnight for Freedom. His basic theme was on understanding and addressing well the cultural times in which we live.

He told a story of speaking with a 30-something woman about sexual morality. She dismissed his rejection of sex outside of marriage as being merely a product of his toeing the Catholic line. He explained that one could passionately hold this position based purely on reason, with no reference to faith or religion. And then he detailed how:

When a man and woman engage in sex, he explained, it often happens that a child is conceived. It is justice for this child to be born and raised into a stable, peaceful environment. The biggest part of that stability comes through a relationship with its parents which remains constant and reliable throughout the childhood and further, throughout life. The best way to accomplish that is for these parents to be already committed to each other for life before the child comes on the scene.

Then the deacon went on to say that this woman with whom he was talking responded with: "That's a compelling argument. I've never heard anyone explain it like that to me before."

And at that point, I heard audible gasps from people seated behind me.

In the next breath, the deacon made reference to how this woman's rejection of Catholic teaching had come from her ignorance. Then I heard, on the other side of me, audible chuckling, as if to say "Boy howdy, that's right. Ignorant."

That was when I fought the urge to stand up and turn this into a round table discussion. (As you can see, I opted for a blog post.)

Much of what I'm going to say has to do with a generational divide, as the people I was surrounded with were a few decades my senior.

First, to respond to the gaspers. Normally I feel like the most naive person in any group, but I just cannot wrap my head around someone being shocked that the natural law view on marriage is entirely absent from the landscape of the mind. I am on the older end of Gen-X, but it seems that anyone of my generation or younger has had this common sense view of marriage either blotted out or made murky by either personal or sympathetic experience, and by consistent cultural messaging.

Sex equals babies? Says who. Since when. Certainly not since the 60s! In April, 1967, seven months before I was born, the first law was passed in the US to legalize abortion in some cases. And three decades before that contraception went from illegal to holding a prominent place in medical training.

And what about a two-parent family being an aspect of justice to children? Divorce rates shot through the roof in the late 60s as well. How many 30-somethings can you even find who were born and have lived their whole lives with their parents married to each other? When you have entire generations riddled through with divorced or separated parents, with many of these offspring able to reason that their lives were better off that way, how do you expect the same people to have any concept of the justice that was actually due them? Are not people more likely to assure themselves that they turned out OK, despite their parents' problems?

You can only possess what you experience. When you grow up in an environment where parents did not self-sacrificially lay down their lives for one another and give themselves to provide stability for their own vulnerable offspring, how the hell do kids learn that this is even how life should work?

They don't.

The only hope is if they see it happening that way for other people. That's called the witness of Christian family. (In reality, it takes more than tacit witness. The witness needs to be wedded to words of testimony of encountering Christ and an explicit call to likewise follow Him in conversion.)

I can remember as a late teen meeting the family of a Lutheran pastor I knew. My friend and I knew his son, and one day we had lunch with them after church on Sunday. I wanted to stay there all day and suck in their life. It was so wonderful. Two parents, kids, a dining room table, a meal together, everyone talked and joked. The poor pastor had to actually hand me a map with driving directions back home as a hint to get me to leave. I didn't even know, really, what I was hungry for, but I saw that these folks had it.

From my childhood into my adult years, I misunderstood marriage as not a means for partnering with a man to give life to the vulnerable among us, but as finally finding someone who loved me. As a kid I met a friend of my grandmother's who told me she had been married at age 15. I thought that was perfect. I also wanted to have 12 kids. Then, surely, I would finally be loved. Oh, I didn't think about it explicitly that way, but I realize now that's what it meant to me. The older I got (more and more frantic that I was "old" and single), the Lord had to reveal to me that my desire for "marriage" was actually at cross purposes with my following Him. I was a very hard sell when it came to believing that His love was the love I needed. Somehow I thought that meant no human being would ever love me. I had no idea that I couldn't give love to anyone unless I let His love flood me first. You can only possess what you experience, and you can only give what you possess.

All human beings are essentially walking, gaping needs-for-love. But perhaps my generation (and younger) experiences this more starkly than the folks who were raised in a time and place when natural law values and basic decency and love were more common.

Now to address that chuckler: Yes, the woman the deacon spoke of is ignorant. But this sort of ignorance of heart should make us double over in pain and weep. On a broad scale, we no longer understand what it means to be human, in the image and likeness of God. Marriage is thought of now as a source of pleasure for people, in whatever way and for whatever duration they agree to. This ignorance is deeply rooted in the family experience of most young people. This was my ignorance, too, but I was able to abide in a moral straitjacket that kept me from debauchery, even though I didn't understand God's loving purpose in natural law restrictions. God was gracious and merciful to me, but I can tell you that straitjackets are not comfortable. As the ignorance of the culture becomes deeper, I doubt that many would endure them for long.

We who call ourselves Christians have a dire responsibility to live dripping with God's love. That means we need to seriously turn our hearts to God on a daily basis and expand our relationship with Him to the extent that His love and His way, His disciplines, fill our hearts and lives. Forget brownie points. God wants YOU. Then, we have a responsibility to live the nitty gritty of our relationships with the determined action to do good. That's what love is. Open your heart and put it into the way you serve your family, your friends, the people in your life. We also need to repent of how we have been selfish, self-centered, unwilling to work, unwilling to give ourselves to others, unwilling to follow disciplines of prayer and spiritual growth.

We are the signs of God's reality to our culture. Let us be wise, courageous, and clear about who we are.

Dear Trial: Take me Somewhere

I haven't been able to get myself to write much, of late. It's not that I haven't had thoughts along the line of which I would normally blog. It just hasn't happened.

So for the moment, I just want to gather up the major themes upon which I've been ruminating, and post a little sketch, which I may or may not enlarge at some other point.

First, everywhere I look in Scripture, the theme of God's covenant people has been standing out as if in giant bold print. Especially this theme of the anawim as I've mentioned in recent posts. God's people are in distress, they call out to Him in their helplessness, and God saves them, though not without their trial leaving a definite mark. How this is striking me is that this process stands in contrast to the ubiquitous human desire to "do something" about one's struggles. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of passively staring at one's problems and simply wishing they would go away. But the desire to "do something" about the sort of distress that cuts into our covenant relationship with God betrays our lack of understanding of the brokenness of our nature, and what it really takes to fix it. It is more than we have within our capacity to "do." It must be a movement of God's grace, and therefore waiting on God's initiative is absolutely necessary. The wait is the birthplace of humility, a crucible of purification, and a test and testimony of our faith in God, our hope in God, and our love for God.

Second, I have been asking the Lord frequently, as much like Mary and as little like Zachariah as I am able, why exactly He allows me to go through these cycles of forming attachments to people, only for Him to ask for them back again. (I mean of course that Mary and Zachariah both asked the angel "How can this be?" only the former asked with faith while the latter asked in doubt.) My daughter happened to read to me from her Fr. Lovasik saint book tonight the entry on St. John of the Cross, where he was quoted as saying, "Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing." Now, that struck me as a balm tonight. Just a few short years ago, I was influenced by a spirituality that was quite different from this that emphasized the encounter with Christ in the Church (i.e. other people) as the only authentic way of encountering Christ. I don't think these two thoughts contradict each other in the least, but they certainly lead me in two different directions. That was then, this is now. St. John of the Cross was a Carmelite, and so he knew what it meant to belong to a specific community of believers, and how essential this was (and what terrible, awful suffering it was, too!). One cannot authentically encounter Christ all by oneself, shut up with one's Bible. And yet, within the Church, some are called to a deeper interior solitude. I keep thinking of this particular passage from St. Claude de la Colombiere that spoke to me so profoundly on Holy Saturday of 2011, when the Lord called me to place this friend of mine in His hand. I should post the text, I guess. It was such a strong call that I have taken the text as something of a promise from God. The gist of it was St. Claude's prayer that in handing over his friendships, Christ would take the place in his heart that these friends had had, and that likewise in the friends' hearts, Christ would take the place that St. Claude had in theirs. He speaks of it as a most painful sacrifice. I did this immediately when the Lord called me to, though I saw no fruit of this prayer for over a year. Now the fruit is clear to me. And the Lord is beginning to fulfill this word on my end. It is becoming my greatest prayer that he would fulfill it on the other end where my friend is concerned as well.

Then, there was that election. I wasn't terribly surprised Obama won re-election. I certainly was not happy with it, but neither was I dejected. Nor did I find it an occasion for panic. What I did find in my heart was a sure sense that I have been through a trial in the last several months that is preparing me for something else. Something that is moving me to a different spiritual place. Something that is necessary for where we stand in history. I don't know how to say it, but the sense is clear.

All I long for, really, is to do and to become what God wants of me. It is humbles me to admit it, but lately I realize that this friendship that I coveted so strongly can and could never really give me the sort of happiness I long for, even if it were miraculously restored today. Only God can fill my heart. I also know through and through that what made me so adamant about clinging to this friendship in the past was that I did experience amazing graces -- God Himself -- through it. I think of the Psalm verse that says "This is what causes my sorrow: that the ways of the Most High have changed." I was like Peter, wanting to build a booth on Mount Tabor, to stay right there with that glory forever. But what God wanted me to see, which I could describe months ago, but only experientially know now, is the immense gulf between Him, His grace and the instrument He chose to deliver that grace. It's that old God and goodies of God thing. Our relationship is with Him as a person, not with ways He chooses or particular paths down which He leads us for a time. I see that He will never (if we are determined to follow Him always) let us get stuck on His blessings so that we lose Him. Oh, of course it is possible to stop being determined to follow Him and take a deadly detour. I see now how deeply tempting it is. But the heart is never satisfied (for long) with less than God. If we want to stay satisfied, we have to keep moving, with Him. I know that He never, ever prunes us back without purpose. We can never give to Him without Him returning to us in greater measure. Oh, we can do lots of futile "something" to make ourselves feel productive and fluff our wounded pride. We don't get a return on futility and pride. But I think we always get a return when we are focused on living in the covenant, in faith, obedience, trust, and humility.

It's just that those things are so foreign to our way of life, that it seems absurd and even immoral sometimes to embrace them.

Citizen of a Political No-Man's Land

The more involved I am in the political scene, the less I identify with partisan politics.

So it was a strange feeling today when I ran into a friend who was giddy-excited over the results of yesterday's elections. She gushed her sense of relief that nearly all of "her" candidates won, and the key candidate we had mutually hoped to lose actually did. I wasn't quite sure how to emotionally process what was coming across to me. I wasn't sad about the election results. But I couldn't get that excited over them, either. I suppose it is because elections don't change the direction of the country. Oh, elections have consequences, I do know that old saying is true. But the truth is, we won't know what those consequences are until those who have been elected start acting in office. Will my new Congressman respond personally to my letters? Will we see him in the district more than the outgoing one? Will he introduce legislation that I want to see introduced? Toward whom will he gravitate? Will he turn out to be power hungry and forget that his role is to represent, not engineer?

I don't know. I'll have to wait and see.

A few days ago I read a blog post by DownsizeDC.org that I appreciated quite a bit, entitled What Will The Election Change? It included this gem:

We don't like talking about political personalities. They pretty much all stink.
And we think partisan politics is even worse. Parties are palliative to thought. They're toxic to discourse. They provide social proof that cognitive dissonance is just dandy, while logic and consistency are dangerously radical.

I'll admit that until just before the election, I was getting ready to throw in the towel on my "public" political involvement, to the extent that I lead a local Tea Party offshoot group. But DownsizeDC once again has re-encouraged me to consider that the important part of the political process is not who gets elected, but moving enough citizens to exert enough pressure on those who are elected -- whoever they are-- to consider the issues, to put forth the legislation, to open the dialogue and debate, so that laws can be passed that change the way things happen in Washington. Simple, common sense measures that would drastically change the way politics works, like the One Subject at a Time Act (where bills about health care can't change the statutes covering education loans) and the Read the Bills Act (so we don't have to pass bills to find out what is in them).


So, keep your excitement over the Republicans taking over. I would like common sense to take over. When I see that happening, I'll throw a party.

Integrity and Liberty

Once again today I heard a homily that was particularly striking. I wish I knew the priest's name to credit him properly; if anyone who reads happens to have been at the Noon Mass at Franciscan University, perhaps you could clue me in.

There were actually two separate points that he made that struck me. One pertained to the matter of integrity. He talked about a testimony given in his parish where this man spoke of how he was given an urgent desire to break out of a prayer life that amounted to empty, meaningless ritual. That really piqued my curiosity, because oddly enough it was that very desire that ignited my search that ultimately led me out of the charismatic fellowship to which I belonged, into the Catholic Church. That desire was a key catalyst, even though it seems ironic, because "empty, meaningless ritual" was something I, at that time, strongly associated with Catholic worship, not the "free, spontaneous" style I was experiencing. But why then did it begin to seem so "same," so empty? It hadn't, always. What did it mean?

This priest went on to explain exactly how one breaks out of empty, meaningless prayer. (And I would add that I think "prayer" can be used in a very broad sense here, to encompass just about anything in life that is an expression of one's soul.) He said we break of it when every part of our lives is connected with every other part of our lives, and all of it is drawing its life from Christ. This is integrity. So how I pray, what I eat, how I treat my husband and children, how I think about political questions, how I manage money and my time -- none of these things gets a separate compartment that is yanked out from the rest, and all draws its life from Christ. That's the aim of integrity.

Though what he said sounded great, at first the connection between vital prayer and personal integrity was not blatantly obvious to me. But as I swished it around some more, I saw the wisdom in what he said. If prayer, or my duties, or my job, or my parenting, or my whatever starts to feel like a dry chore, could it be that there is some area in which I am either not conscious of drawing my life from Christ, or I simply am not doing it, apart from subjective awareness? So the need is either for obedience, that is for adherence to Christ, or for awakening of my consciousness to see Christ's presence. The need is for integrity. The need is for all of me to get on the same page as the Lord. In my case in the past moment I referenced, my need was to seek out what page the Lord was actually on before I could obey Him there. And what a surprise that was.

The second point that struck me was nearly an aside in the homily, though it fits with this notion of integrity as I'm thinking about it now. He commented that when people's hearts are far from God, they need lots of laws. Perhaps "need" here is two-edged: there is both the objective need for behavior to be reigned in for safety of self and others, and "need" is also a felt need. People feel lost and so they feel the need for more and more laws and rules to give them a sense of security, identity and direction.

I see this reality playing out in both parenting and politics in ways that I think are more similar than dissimilar. Because all of life is about the human desire for God expressed, wrestled with, nurtured, denied, and/or celebrated, laws of the State or rules of the family have everything to do with our relationship with God. I don't think it is accurate to say that a 3-year-old's heart is far from God, but her intellect has not matured to the point where she can freely access and choose from all the options of the world what is best for her. She needs someone to provide the goods, and then offer her toast or fruit, pink pants or orange skirt. She needs to learn to freely choose from options, and this in turn nurtures her ability to freely respond to all the choices in her life. The grace of Christ can make its gentle presence felt in this process, and virtue can develop.

But what if the tutor of freedom is overpowered by the taskmaster of laws? You must do this, you must do that, you have no choice, and don't bother to understand why you are doing it. One possible response to this taskmaster is rebellion: I will have my way; I don't care what you say. Another possibility is compliance: Ok, I'm not allowed. Just keep telling me what to do. I was very sad when I overheard a grown woman (a mother of a newborn) tell someone recently "I was told I wasn't allowed to have kids." A heart dominated by rebellion or compliance provides fertile ground for the development of slavery, not freedom and virtue.

Government (and the parent) does have a proper role to play in protecting the goods of life, property, defending from fraud, that sort of thing. But I believe there is a degree to which government (and parents) can deaden the conscience's yearning for God by the imposition of too many restrictions and rules that have nothing to do with justice. We have enough of a propensity for feeling lost due to our sin; I don't believe we need it compounded by accepting a cultural load that chants in a hopeless, constant drone "Our hearts are far from God... our hearts are far from God..." We human beings desperately need mentors; we need to see love in the faces of others in our lives who are showing us how to live. Parents generally know this, even if we don't always practice it. Rules and laws are a poor substitute for a person who teaches us how to live, or how to succeed in our trade or business.

I think because I personally have been far more influenced by the tendency to comply with any silly thing that is demanded of me, I see the liberty movement as one necessary wheel on a bicycle. (Maybe it is my bicycle, and yours operates differently. I can dig that.) I want others with this need to awaken to the reality that excessive rules, regulations, taxations, punishment schedules and centralized control in government and society can lead to a demeaning and erosion of human dignity. But this can become nothing more than I will have my way; I don't care what you say if the other wheel is not also in place: our hearts are only truly free when we are drawing our life from Christ. The liberty movement is like an alert, waking people up to remember the dignity for which they were created, which is the ability to choose the good freely. But no political system or thought can give that ability. It comes from Christ alone. We cannot buy goods of society with human dignity as the price, and we must protest when that bargain is proposed. But the only way to keep a culture or a nation from devolving into totalitarianism is to evangelize, bringing Christ to the hearts of all.

He alone brings healing, integrity, wholeness, meaning, vitality, and freedom.

Marshall Fritz, pray for us

For the better part of this year as I pray each morning I have included among those whose intercession I ask, this man, Marshall Fritz, who passed away one year ago today.

Marshall Fritz 1943-2008

I never met Marshall, but I know his daughter Annie from our mutual membership in a Catholic email forum. When Marshall was nearing the end of his life and Annie was asking for our prayers, I was moved by the deep affection she expressed for her father, whom she mentioned had been active in political efforts surrounding homeschooling. Some time later, after his death, I was reading through the various House floor addresses of Congressman Ron Paul, and saw that he had paid tribute to Marshall Fritz as a champion of the liberty movement. Suddenly it clicked in my mind that the man Ron Paul was praising and my friend's father were one and the same person. And I realized how modest Annie was being when speaking of him.

Marshall was the author of the famous World's Smallest Political Quiz. He was the founder of Advocates for Self-Government and the Alliance for the Separation of School and State. But beyond these accomplishments, what has moved me to ask for his intercession daily is the testimony of his daughter, and of another friend of his whom I have met, Jim Babka.

In late March of this year when I found myself scrambling to put together the Steubenville Tax Day Tea Party, I called everyone I could think of who might be able to suggest a speaker for me, including Annie. We spoke about her father, and I was struck with how the paschal mystery of Christ was evident in his life. That alone motivated me to seek the intercession of someone who, it seemed, certainly understood the challenges I was facing.

The speaker I did secure was Jim Babka. While we ate dinner after the Tea Party, I mentioned that I knew Marshall Fritz' daughter, and she thought maybe she knew of Jim. When I mentioned Marshall's name, a visible change came over Jim's face, as if he were in the presence of the Sacred. He told me the stories of his encounters with Marshall, which I have serendipitously found he also blogged, almost verbatim as he told them to me. Here is an except, but please go read the whole thing:

I’d first met Marshall in person back in 1999, but it was only in passing at a mutual friend’s house. We were re-introduced in 2004 when he was looking for someone to do some writing and other consulting for him. One thing led to another, and I was on a project that required me to meet him at a conference of 16,000 people in Indianapolis. We arrived at the convention knowing what we wanted to accomplish, but unsure just how we would do it, starting with how to get into all the events. Marshall paused as we passed the press room.

He had an idea.

Marshall pulled out his organization’s newsletter, which hadn’t been published in months, and like the boy who shouts, “Eureka!” he declared, “We’ll get press passes. I’m a member of the media. I’m a newsletter editor. And now you’re my reporter.”

“Marshall,” I protested, “I’m not a reporter. And that newsletter doesn’t make you a member of the media.”

“Sure, you can be a reporter. Aren’t you planning on writing a report for my donors describing why I brought you here and what we accomplished?”

“Well, yeah,” I replied uncertainly, while realizing there was some logic to his point.

“And as far as whether or not this newsletter makes me a member of the media, shouldn’t we let them decide that? After all, it can’t hurt to ask.” With Marshall, it never hurt to ask. In fact, it might hurt if he hadn’t asked.

I followed him into that media room, but stayed a few paces back, perhaps somewhat out of embarrassment, as he approached the attractive secretary at the desk. She greeted him. He greeted her. Now Marshall was always interested in where you came from. He told me that it helped him remember people better. And so he found out where this young lady was from. But then he struck pay dirt.

He found out that she used to work in Fresno — and that was where Marshall was from. And he knew someone from Fresno that he thought she might know — a man named Phil. It turned out she did know Phil, though it had been a few years since she’d seen him. Marshall whipped out his phone, ran down his speed dial, told Phil who he had sitting in front of him, and the secretary caught up with Phil for five minutes right there on Marshall’s phone.

Then Marshall asked her if she knew a particular clergyman. It turned out that he had been her pastor. Marshall opened his phone again, slid down the speed dial, and told the Pastor who was sitting in front of him. Just like before, she caught up with an old acquaintance.

And it was only then that Marshall told her he needed her help. She was thrilled to be of assistance. We got those press passes, along with access to the press lounge which had free books, adequate space to sit and write on your laptop, Internet connectivity, and free beverages (donuts at times too).

What was striking in Jim's telling of this story was not so much that Marshall was able to procure what they needed, but that his attitude towards life was one of being a connector of people. And that's putting it blandly. He and Annie both emphasized that there simply was no one like Marshall. Like this: "No, you don't see what I mean. I mean literally -- you have NEVER met anyone anything like him."

I have heard it claimed that Libertarianism is inconsistent with Catholicism because it lacks a component of solidarity. I think that for anyone knowing Marshall, who was an ardent Catholic and to many, the face of the Libertarian movement, one could not even think that. It seemed he was solidarity personified, and he inspired it in others. (One could just as easily dismiss Catholicism as nothing but a bunch of legalistic rules and practices -- certainly one would think that if one had only met Catholics who lived that way. All mere ideologies fail; truths are for being lived.)

Marshall had a website which celebrated his impending death. It states: "I'm terminal. So are you. We need to sort out what's important and get it done."

I ask for Marshall's prayers because I desire to be a truly free person who is invested in others, not bound by societal dictates and petty fears, but by truth. As Annie's email signature line says:

Seek the truth. Conform your life to it. -- Marshall Fritz.

Random Political Thoughts: Views

So in my last post in this series I rambled on about my personal history as it pertains to the formation of my political thought. Now I'm going to try to wade into how things have evolved for me in the last year or so, leading me to certain current positions and working views.

Where I've been in the last year is in reading a lot about economics and the role of the Constitution in the vision of America's founders. I've been in the midst of the Tea Party movement and the Campaign for Liberty movement, both of which pull in people from a variety of backgrounds, politically and otherwise. I've been talking with strangers while collecting signatures and holding meetings and attending events. I've been following what my Congressional Reps are doing, reading lots of websites and processing different views on the many issues that have rushed on this nation. Most of the time I feel like it is all swirling in my head.

This political learning has grown up in me at the very same time as a sort of new awakening or conversion in my life as pertains to my interactions with other people and reality in general. (I can't possibly recap all that here, but just read through a bunch of posts in the last year and you'll get a sense of what I mean, if you are outside the realm of the two or three people who devotedly hang on my every blogged word). For me personally, although I do not enjoy politics as a "sport" and there is much about the discussion of it that I have a strong aversion to, I feel that if I try to avoid the political reality in which we live, it is a serious breech of charity towards the world at large. Oh, there is no person called "the world at large," but I cannot lose the sense that at some point, specific details of the lives of individuals become impacted by political trends and decisions. To only express concern at the point when an individual need arises in front of me is like when a person crosses the threshold from seriously overweight to obese. The time for concern and action is long before that moment, and the concern has to focus on far more than trimming back that decisive pound. I am being convicted and convinced that political awareness is an integral part of charity, just like health awareness in my example is an integral part of self-care.

I have a driving need to pursue the root causes of things. My brain works by seeing the broad picture and making connections, and not so much by making black and white judgments about rightness and wrongness. So I am not particularly interested in taking up sides, condemning bad policy or bad politicians, or in championing individuals or a party with whom I agree. These attributes of mine also make the supposed "impracticality" of political approaches of little concern to me. Some political views are judged "too idealistic" to work in the real world. Some candidates are judged to have "low electability" as well, and so party hacks gravitate towards popular people with whom they don't entirely agree. This is not my style. My goal is not to fix humanity's problems with politics, because this is impossible. My goal is to understand humanity's problems, because somehow for me understanding is a necessary precursor to charity.

I was really encouraged to come across this from Pope Benedict recently: "...normally those who determine the future are the creative minority." He spoke this in the context of visiting the Czech Republic, where Catholics are clearly a minority, and he was calling them to live their faith in such a way as to become leaven in society.

Ok, so here are some random thoughts:

• I feel many who are concerned with social justice often look to the government to be the catalyst, moderator, and governor of said social justice. True social justice, however, is a work of grace, and the government is not a means of grace, the Church is. Without grace, "social justice" quickly devolves into power and domination games. What the world cries out for cannot be contained in a government program. The truth is, though, that the local churches are far too anemic to do the job they are commissioned by the Lord to do. So perhaps the first political responsibility of the Christian is to repent of how we treat others.
  

• Totalitarianism is to me the most sinister political enemy. However I feel we in the United States have come to accept and even welcome it. I believe that many act out the false belief that rights are derived by citizens from the State, rather than the belief that rights are given by God to the individual, and the individual entrusts some of these to governing structures which exist only at the behest and service of the citizenry. You never see Totalitarianism 101 taught anywhere, but I do believe that our culture has been formed by government schooling with the belief that we exist not for God but for the state, or for some power that is extraneous to us.
  

• This is something I never thought I'd see myself write, but I think Christians have been taken advantage of by primarily the Republican party and the right to life movement. Anyone who knows me knows I am absolutely opposed to abortion, abortion funding, euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, infanticide, cloning, and all of the other direct affronts to human life. But I'm sure I am not the only one who closed my eyes to everything else ever done by a pro-life candidate, as long as we were in agreement on that ideological position. And in the meantime, how often haven't I felt "ah, ok, a good guy won... now we'll all be safe and I don't have to pay attention or worry about those other details". Christians need to be wiser voters. And I'm talking to myself first. We need to wake up en masse and demand a real difference between the totalitarianism lite candidate, who wears a cross pin in the lapel, and the totalitarianism full-flavored candidate, with a UN flag in the lapel.
  

• I am quite persuaded that a sound money policy is very important at this juncture in our history, and that if we had such a policy in effect we would be forced to curtail some of our most dangerous spending. Stated another way, if the government couldn't create all the money it wanted (thereby causing inflation and loss of currency value), it wouldn't be able to spend like the proverbial drunken sailor on war and waste. Government would be bound by the reality that there is only so much money, and once it is gone, it is gone. Like I try to tell my 8-year-old son.

• Health care: Europe has something over the United States, and it isn't socialism. The European first line of defense tends to be a natural, herbal, homeopathic, or "alternative" approach. These approaches are not regulated off to the side-lines or ridiculed by the medical establishment (that I am aware of). We Americans have tremendous innovation in life-saving medicine and surgical procedures, but we also have huge problems that derive largely from how we feed ourselves and use our bodies, and medical management of these problems is very ineffective. Well, no, that's not true. The management is effective, if you don't mind staying on drugs for a lifetime. The paradigm of curing illness has all but vanished from American medicine. Root cause? Who cares, if the pill changes the symptom. The history of the war between the American Medical Association and other approaches such as homeopathics, chiropractic, etc., is very intriguing to me. Until we change our view of how we care for ourselves, and throw the FDA and their good friends the drug companies back to the back of the bus instead of having them lead the whole show, talk about reform of how we will pay for all of this drug peddling is seriously missing the mark.

Well, that certainly doesn't exhaust every thought I could articulate, but it is a start.

Random Political Thoughts: History

In the last year or so I have come to be known among my local friends and acquaintances as interested in and active in politics. Of course this stems largely from my organizing the Tax Day Tea Party in my town, an endeavor that almost seems surreal to me as I look back on it.

And now recently I've been in a couple of internet conversations where the Catholicity of my political views has been more or less called into question. But I think this primarily has stemmed from the fact that I've not really stated my views, but rather I've been reflecting on my views while commenting on the ideas and actions of others.

So I've entitled this post "Random Political Thoughts" because I want to try to formulate where my mind is right now, and it seems that the only way I can really do this is to think out loud at you.

History: I come from a family that is more or less Democrat, and because my mother has been an election judge since I was very small, I imbibed a strong sense of the importance of voting from that time. My brother has also had political jobs and has run for state office. For that matter, one of my jobs fresh out of college was a four-year stint at a state Right to Life office. While before having that job I held the view that I voted for whomever was pro-life, there wasn't really much that I understood about the mechanics of politics and bills and elections and all that. I learned a lot during those years about legislation, politics, pro-life issues, media, and about the passions that fuel political endeavors.

When I met my husband I realized he was really into politics. He didn't like football, but he did get very excited once an election cycle came around. I learned to cringe and wait until it was over. I was still pretty much of the mind that I voted for whomever was pro-life, and if I had the choice, whomever between pro-lifers was strongest on conservative issues like banning pornography, being for prayer in schools, and whoever was "most Christian." I wasn't interested in economic issues nor did I have any understanding of them, and I simply trusted that those who were pro-life were also going to have all the right ideas about the rest of it, whatever that blather was that didn't matter as much anyway.

September 11, 2001 came around, and with the rest of the world I was shocked. I had liked what George Bush said during the debates about staying out of the business of the rest of the world, but then again I did feel very safe when I listened to his speeches in the days following 9/11. I figured he was trustworthy because he was pro-life, and he invoked God, and I felt better trusting him. When he said it was patriotic for us to go out and spend money, we went out and spent money.

When the invasion of Iraq was brewing, I felt really uneasy. I didn't like this idea, and I knew the Pope didn't like this idea either. I told my husband I was willing to trust Bush on this, and I hoped he wasn't making a mistake. I also had trusted that the Patriot Act was necessary to keep us safe, and that those who were complaining about our liberties being curtailed weren't being responsible. I bought the line that we needed to give up freedom to get security, that it was all about the common good.

The Bush/Kerry election was a cake-walk to me: pro-lifer vs. pro-abortion Catholic. No-brainer.

In 2007 a yard sign caught my eye, and I began reading things about Ron Paul. He had my attention with his stand in favor of increased role for natural, or non-allopathic health care and for a sharp curtailment in federal involvement in education (Bush's No Child Left Behind had been a complete boo-hiss in my book from the first time I heard his discuss it in the 2000 debates.) Paul's pro-life commitment was sterling and articulated differently from other candidates. I didn't quite know what to make of his thing about ending the "war on drugs", but as I read I saw what he was saying as at least tenable. And the more I read in general, the more I felt like I was hearing from a person I could actually support.

When I first told my husband that I'd found someone I could support, he said derisively "oh that nut job?" I think my husband's primary cause for dismissal of Ron Paul is that he was against the war in Iraq. And being against the war in Iraq was not something conservatives did.

Ok, so that's where I've come from.

And I can see that I will need to continue in another post on another day, so, please stay tuned.

The Philosophy of Liberty

I've watched this video several times recently. It fascinates me on many levels. In the political realm, it sums up my inclinations quite well. But it equally well sums up my parenting inclinations and my educational inclinations. It always seems to me that having a concisely articulated summary of key points allows me to focus and live truth in a way that frees me from getting clogged up by conflicting emotions and rationalizations.

However, while this video addresses justice in human interrelations, it does not make anything explicit about where our lives come from. And for some, I suppose, this question may not loom hugely obvious in the mind: Did I make myself? My answer to this is an obvious No, of course I did not make myself. The life I have as mine is a gift, just as the life each other person has is a gift. So, this video can say that the first principle of Liberty is that I own my life, and it is true. However, it is also true that my life is a gift, given by my Creator. To me, the lack of this connection being made explicit is not a difficulty. In fact, to me, it makes the fact more plain because it actually causes me to think of the question.

So, this is a very useful tool for me to meditate on how to live in justice, and in charity, (for can you separate them?) with other people. And that's just something I need to spend a lot of time meditating on these days.

Why?

This morning after Mass, my pastor told me he'd seen me on TV the day before. Remembering the clip (which you can see here), I reflexively responded to him, "How terribly embarrassing!" To which my pastor simply but pointedly responded, "Why?" There was a lot of hubbub going on around us at the time, and it was stated somewhat rhetorically. But that question, and that little exchange has hung in my mind today. Why, indeed.

Maybe it was the sign I was holding. Someone handed it to me. Because I was supposed to be in the meeting that got canceled, not standing outside with protesters, I didn't have a sign of my own making. The sign said "I am not your ATM machine." And yes, it is true that I believe government should not impose oppressive, and especially unconstitutional, taxes. Truth be told, though, I am not at all good at standing up and saying "What is happening to me is unjust." I don't think this is a virtue, but I am more inclined to accept injustice to myself than protest it. So, perhaps it was the sign that expressed personal indignation at injustice that seemed embarrassing.

Or maybe it is just that I still have this reflex about sharing something out of my heart in public.

Why am I always spilling my guts in my blog then? TV is just a different form of media... Ok, never said this was a logical feeling.

Relationships

Relationships are funny things. They require a lot of energy from me. But even though I am pretty darn introverted, I am a human being, so relationships are vital to who I am.

At Mass this morning I was reviewing the landscape of my relationships right now, and I found all sorts of odd and conflicting feelings arising as I reviewed. Because the Steubenville for Liberty meeting is coming up tomorrow night I am once again very aware of the crowd of strangers that I have recently welcomed into my life. This is a political education and activism group that I am facilitating as an offshoot of the local Tea Party I organized in the spring. Just one of the many ways that this endeavor is striking to me is that in the past I tended to think that I was only comfortable interacting with people who thought like I do. This gave me a pretty good excuse to eschew or reject a lot of people on the suspicion that, in fact, they were not me. This group of folks throws me in with lots of people that I know for certain are not me. But through them I've learned that I have changed, and that I can respect and have affection for people with whom I have all sorts of different ideas and motivations. It's funny to discover this in a group that is sort of based on the premise of like-minded people coming together.

Politics is weird, too. I am motivated by going to the root of issues with people and judging how to live, how to be, how to think in light of what is there. I am not so motivated by trying to push and shove for power in society. I am allergic to paranoia and fear-mongering. I do, however, believe that many aspects of our government are actually far worse than most people suspect. But at heart, I know that what empowers us to live in the face of these realities is the encounter with Christ. And as completely "daisy on a field of tanks" as it feels, I realize I am called to bring the presence of Christ to this crowd of strangers, and witness to His presence that I find there. So, it's about relationships, even though I feel weak and vulnerable both in myself and against the political landscape. That's one weird set of feelings I encountered this morning.

Then, I think about the relationships that just make me happy. I was struck with the realization that whether I try to frantically grasp these close to me out of insecurity or whether I sort of neglect them and take them for granted or just lack gratitude for them, these relationships are gifts that I did not create or give myself. Yes, I know that for a relationship to be so I need to take a part. I have a lot of experience at not picking up the receiver on friendships. But I did not give myself my husband, my children, my parish, my friends, those who call me to cling to Christ. The antidote to the strange mixture of anxieties I felt this morning is simple: gratitude. It all comes from God's hand. I'm guessing because I'm having trouble embracing with gratitude feeling like a daisy on a field of tanks, I'm also having trouble living in gratitude (and not anxiety) about my other relationships.

Time to pray:

You have no need of our praise, but our desire to thank you is itself your gift. Our thanks adds nothing to your greatness, but helps us grow in your grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. Help me, Lord, to grow in your grace by the gift of gratitude.

Happy 4th of July!

Molly graciously blogged on today's Wintersville parade in which Steubenville for Liberty took part.

It's All Right Now (in fact, it's a gas!)

This evening I attended a very nice Tea Party in the next county. I was asked to give a short speech about the education/activist group that has formed from the April 15 Steubenville Tea Party, Steubenville for Liberty. So I did. I wrote out my thoughts last night at adoration, and went to give the speech with just my notebook which I looked over for a few minutes before I spoke, but had never actually practiced. This is so unlike my experience of organizing an event in April, where I was anxious for weeks beforehand, feeling the weight of what I had taken on myself. I enjoyed that in a very different way... sort of in the way one "enjoys" a fruitful Lent. I really had fun today. My speech felt a little heavy-handed, because I talked about Corrie Ten Boom and Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein and their experiences of living in concentration camps and still caring for the people around them, drawing them together in unity and inspiring them to hope and charity. But hey, you ask a Theology Masters student for a political talk, and this is what you get! Interestingly enough, the first speaker, who was immediately before me, was a man from Austria who had grown up under communism in East Germany. It was kind of a nice dove-tail for me to tell people "you are free people; you are human beings! Let's live that way!" This is my vision of grass roots political effort: we need to remind each other that we are free, and we need to live our loyalty to the people right around us, instead of fearing what government can do to us and feeling ourselves pawns in the hand of some nameless, faceless system. Am I an idealist? I don't know. I told people in April I don't like politics, and I wasn't lying. But I do value freedom. Very highly.

Right after I finished, a woman came over and said "Thank you! I'm thinking of becoming a Libertarian." I wondered, do I ooze Libertarianism or something? Or is it just the organization name: Steubenville for Liberty? If people are savvy they probably realize the name "rhymes" with the name of Ron Paul's group Campaign for Liberty.

Several people thanked me for my words. Several more people thanked me "for all that I'm doing." People's graciousness and appreciation catches me off guard. I never expect it so I'm always really touched by it. People in this Ohio Valley really seem to me more gracious than your average folk.

It was also really nice to see Jim Babka of DownsizeDC.org and his wife again. I admire his willingness to tell people not to get caught up in supporting political parties, but to stick instead to true principles.

Best of all, my husband drove the extra 25 miles from work and got there just as I started speaking. He and I both helped Jim Babka hand out registration forms for DownsizeDC (with Jim admiring how Erol was going after people on the far side of the crowd after everything was finished to get them to sign up!) Erol and I don't exactly see every political detail the same, but having his support for my endeavors is priceless. He's the political one of us, after all! I'm just out there singing this song.

Really, I felt like doing cartwheels tonight. I have secretly always wanted to do public speaking, but I never dreamed it would be this sort of thing. And it is so much more fun without the stress of organizing.

Harrison County Tea Party, July 2

I've been asked to speak at the July 2 Tea Party to be held in Cadiz, Ohio. Jim Babka of Downsize DC is also going to speak, which is kind of exciting. He was my main speaker for the Steubenville Tax Day Tea Party in April.

What I suggested for the theme of my talk is the paradigm shift that is necessary so that we do not see ourselves as controlled and determined by our government, but as free people, able to be the protagonists of change rooted in our lived realities.

THIS IS NOT THE WAY!

Notorious abortion provider shot dead.

This is really dreadful. I'm just speechless.

Lord, have mercy on us all.

Defending Values and the Encounter with Christ

Last weekend I attended the Spiritual Exercises of Communion and Liberation. I was about as open and ready to receive something as I get, because I was feeling many aspects of my life at loose ends. It's hard to describe succinctly, but I knew that pulling off that Tax Day Tea Party had left my life sort of like newly plowed dirt. All turned over, not like it was before. At the same time I wasn't quite sure what came next.

I write that ("wasn't quite sure") like I'm all sure now or something. I'm not. But I heard something, experienced something, over the weekend that makes it possible for me to move forward, knowing that my life is all of a piece and that I belong to the One who makes me.

A tiny fraction of the time of the Exercises was given to discussing the role of Christians defending values in modern culture. But it was everything that had come before which made that tiny fraction so rich. Fr. Carron, who was giving the Exercises (they are recorded in Italy and then dubbed and distributed via DVD around the world) spoke regarding a situation the Italians had just experienced that was much like the 2005 Terri Schiavo case with which Americans are familiar. Because I can't quote exactly what he said (the text will be published in English soon, though) I'll paraphrase based on how his comments hit me.

Many people defend the right to life, other authentic values, and participate fruitfully in political debate who do not share Christian faith. If we, as Christians, just get in the fray and call people "idiots" who don't agree with our objectively correct principles, and get depressed when things are not going our way (and etc.) then how are we different from anyone else? How are we bringing the newness of Christ into our world? We need to start from recognizing WHY we uphold the sanctity of life, WHY we uphold (fill in the blank: personal liberties, free market economics, limited government, Constitutionalism, what have you). The why is the same why, the only why, that gives any coherence to our lives at all: an encounter with Christ through which I have heard Him say "Come, follow me" and I have followed. We get into trouble if we wish to defend Christian values, like fruit that grows on the tree, without being one with the root which bears that fruit, namely Christ.

Immediately this recalled for me what I wrote in this post about repeatedly sensing people's anger in speaking about political issues, and a sense of their confusion when I was not getting angry along with them. Why? Because if I get angry with people for their political views (one, let's say, which is clearly opposed to Christian teaching, like abortion) I do not have in view the fact that what they stand in need of primarily is either a) an encounter with Christ which transforms their lives or b) further encounter with Christ to help connecting their Christianity with the reality in which they live. The impetus then is for compassion, connection, education, evangelization and a heart for their screaming, unmet needs. (My CL brothers and sisters show me this need not be done in a syrupy, limp-wristed manner either. Ripping into bad reasoning has its place, but -- always -- ripping in friendship, of course!)

So, what about this Tea Party? I am now leading an offshoot group of political activists! Isn't God hilarious?! I spoke at the first meeting of how liberty is far more than a political principle, but it is a human need and a cry of the human heart. (All that has to do with the other 98% of what I experienced on the Exercises, which may or may not appear in subsequent posts.) But now I understand better that it is not enough to point even to really good fruit, or to admire politicians (Ron Paul!) who insist politics has limited value in solving human problems, and who point instead to endeavors of faith and personal charitable activity. Those two are certainly better than swallowing whatever swill we are handed or sitting on our hands either hopelessly or indifferently, pretending that nothing political is bad unless I am on the immediate receiving end of hurt. But we have to be connected back to the encounter with Christ. Jesus has this way about Him: He operates in reality. As we give ourselves to follow Him, He leads us through our realities and we have real opportunity to impact our corner of the world.

And how does He do that? Well, you'll have to wait a few weeks for the text, then come to School of Community and we'll talk about it.

What She Said

Frogs in pots of water can be boiled to death, and citizens in the type of society this article describes can willingly hand over their freedom to despots.

Here's a snippet:

Along with this increased authoritarianism come the deeper cultural changes that have every bit as real an impact on the quality of our lives. For the costs brought by the loss of freedom cannot be fully accounted for simply by pointing to incidents of abuse or tallying up the economic damage. The deterioration in the quality of our relationships to each other is also a cost.

Talking Politics

Something very strange is happening in my life right now. It is strange in the sense that two months ago I could not have completely imagined it, and two years ago it was nowhere even near my radar screen, let alone on it.

It's sort of like a plant that you discover growing in your garden, and you give it space and care for it, but you aren't quite sure just yet what it is.

So, I did the Tea Party thing, where I stood up and confessed to the crowd of hundreds that I don't even like politics. And it is true.

Now, with the help of Catherine from the local once-was-Ron-Paul-meetup, I am pulling together a group called Steubenville for Liberty, to discuss and become educated about issues of liberty and constitutional government.

And I've spent a few hours over the last few days talking to complete strangers about the "Audit the Fed" bill and collecting signatures. I'm learning there are lots of people out there who really want to talk about things that are on their minds. Tomorrow I'm off to our Congressman's local office to deliver petitions.

It's all very interesting. While I'm processing this and some new reading I've been undertaking, I'm thinking some new thoughts:

• For many, many people, politics is about anger, or at least some tempered version of "righteous indignation." As people perceive me as "being interested in politics" they seem to share with me things that anger them, and then look at me a bit tentatively when I don't get angry with them. It's not that I don't know how to get angry. I haven't quite figured out this dynamic yet, but it happens repeatedly and keeps striking me as odd.
• For me, my interest in liberty is completely born of a passion for human dignity. I believe it is really born of my own passion for my own human dignity, something which has left me theologically fumbling over the years, but which Fr. Giussani has more recently helped me to grasp more fearlessly and with more clarity.
• I am realizing that there is an intense link between unschooling and my deep affinity for liberty as a "political" persuasion. I guess I mean that for me, personally, not for unschoolers as a whole or liberty-tarians as a group. But perhaps what I mean to say is that the truths by which I seek to parent I am seeing as applicable truths by which to govern nations. Truths are the same; the scale is just grossly different.
• Speaking of liberty-tarians, I have been puttering at reading Libertarian thought. It is a problem that as a party, the Libertarian platform is pro-choice. However, the most well-reasoned political defense I have read for the right to life of the unborn also comes from the pro-life Libertarian camp. (This dichotomy goes to extend my dislike of partisan politics.)
• A book I am currently listening to on tape, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, is fascinating listening (even if the narrator has the irritating tendency to end too many sentences with a raised inflection). It brings a completely different face of Republican politics and policy to light than most pro-life voters are used to thinking about (hint: it is not positive).

Ok, so that's a pretty random list of thoughts. No dramatic conclusions to share.