Jesus Hugs Me

I'd had two big beers and dinner and a bottle of champagne after and my eyes seemed destined to tear up as I typed. It had been a hard day.

You see, I have suffered from depression for most of my adult life and my kids...it breaks my heart sometimes to think about the example I have given them.

I listen to a man of God on the Internet. His father was an alcoholic. Alcoholism is not the root cause of alcoholism. You don't escape from yourself because you are an alcoholic. You escape from yourself because what you are hurts you. The alcohol just makes the pain go away for a little while. You become an alcoholic because you have a predisposition to it.

I don't. But I understand depression. My wife doesn't. I hope that my kids never do, either. But if they don't, they are going to have some difficult things to work out. And today, I understood the depth of some of those things. I hope they never understand, but I fear that they will.

Jesus stood next to me at the beer and wine department at Publix, a local supermarket chain. Cook's champagne was on sale and I was trying to figure out whether I wanted Brut or Extra Dry.

"What's up with you?" Jesus said.

"I want to get drunk."

"Why is that?"

"You're Jesus," I said. "You figure it out."

"You're kind of bitchy tonight."

I reached out and touched the champagne to make sure it was cold. Warm champagne sucks.

"Did it take your divine powers to figure that one out?" I asked him.

"No, that one was apparent to the person you yelled at for touching their brakes."

I chuckled in spite of myself.

"There was no reason to brake at that point," I said. "Though your point is well taken."

I smiled at Him. Not entirely happily. Sometimes I hate it when He is right.

"You have had a couple," He said.

"Yes I have, but I walked here."

"I know. It is good that you did."

He went though the checkout with me, talking to me. He made the cashier laugh, when he almost doubled over in laughter after she proofed me. I am almost twice the legal drinking age, though I don't mind people thinking I'm not.

Eventually, he wound up in my front room, which I have made my office, as I chatted on the Internet and drank what I brought home.

"Why are you so sad?" he asked.

"You're friggin God. You tell me."

He smiled and looked at the laptop where Game Six of the 1975 Series was playing. Bernie Carbo had just hit his game-tying home run on the second PC on my desk. I had the baseball package on the Internet and a laptop from work that I could use to stream things on while I did other things.

"Red Sox fans were in love with me after Fisk hit that home run," He said. "You should have heard them after Joe Morgan homered the next night...or Bucky Dent in '78. And if My Father were as mean as people think, half of New England would have been charred in '86."

I didn't chuckle or giggle that time. I outright laughed. As someone who had to deal with the slings and arrows of Mets fandom, I understood.

"You must have been popular last year," I said, referring to the Red Sox finally winning after 86 years.

"Yeah. Didn't have anything to do with the fact that they finally had a better team," He said.

"They had a better team in '78," I said.

"No they didn't."

I sucked down the last of my champagne.

"Is there a point you are trying to make?" I asked.

"I know why your soul hurts," he said, "and you ought to thank me for it."

"You're nuts."

He picked up the mostly empty champagne bottle, shook his head slightly, and put it down.

"Before you got laid off, would you say that you had substance?"

"Yeah, but not as much as I do now."

"And would you say that experience, and all the awful things you did during that experience helped you in the long run or hurt you?"

I picked up the glass and sipped.

"It helped me. A guy I know told me that I would be thankful for the experience when it was over and that I'd look at it as a good thing," I said. "And to answer the question you are about to ask, I do look at it as a good thing."

"Why?"

"Because I understand some things now that I didn't before and I can help people who go through those things."

He leaned back on the bed in my office and looked at me.

"Why are you drinking tonight?"

"I'm afraid of what I am doing to the kids," I said. "My son doesn't like me. He won't speak to me and when he does, it is often with contempt."

He laughed.

"You've been a parent for almost 12 years, with your daughter," He said. "You have to know by now that kids will do that. It isn't a reason to fall apart."

"He sees in me what I see...a man who...a bad example."

"In some things, you are right. But does he know you love him?"

"Yeah. I think so."

"And are you going to get loaded any more over this?"

"Maybe. Not any time soon though...new years resolution. I gotta cut out the drink and the junk food."

"How come?"

"Because it will eventually kill me if I don't."

He smiled at me. Broadly.

"Do you know what your son will learn from you tomorrow?"

"How to be a screw up?"

"No, he will learn that even when stuff hurts, you can go on and try harder and do the right thing. And that one bad day is not the sum of your existence," Jesus said.

"Pretty basic."

"Yeah, it is. It's also one of the things that people miss most often," He said. "Chris, I like you. I mean I like you. I enjoy spending time with you. I like these discussions because you don't run away from them when I bring up something difficult. In fact, you seem more determined then to understand it. I enjoy your company. Seriously."

I smiled at Him. His eyes were warm and seemed to soothe my anguish, but not take it away.

"It is not silly that you hurt over this," He said, once again answering something I thought. "It may be a little melodramatic how you play it out, but it's not silly."

I nodded.

"My father understands that pain. He understands what it's like when His child ignores Him and won't acknowledge His existence," Jesus said. "Hurts, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. I guess I will try to do it less often."

"You are going to be tired in the morning. Go to bed. We'll talk more another time."

Jesus, the Tsunami, and the Hawaiian Shirt

I ran into Jesus when I was buying another Hawaiian shirt the other day at Wal-Mart. I have several Hawaiian shirts, but they all need to be washed in cold water, so it's kind of a pain. So I figured I would buy one so I didn't have to do a cold wash as often. They're only ten bucks, unless I let myself get large enough to need a double-extra large, which I have avoided so far.

I was scoping out a black Hawaiian shirt with electric blue palm trees when Jesus came.

"You know," Jesus said, "those shirts are made in China."

"Last one I bought was made in Korea," I said. "And before you go off on the social justice tangent, if I don't buy it, someone else will. And also, if there aren't people buying these shirts, how are those people going to be able to afford to eat?"

He sighed and shook his head. He was wearing a U2 t-shirt and jeans and Reebok running shoes.

"We need to talk about those things," Jesus said.

"You gonna hit me over the head with the social justice mallet?" I said.

"No, I want you to think about what you are doing."

"That's fair," I said, as I considered a yellow and orange Hawaiian shirt. It was loud, which is pretty much the point with Hawaiian shirts, but it might have been too much. I work with accountants. And though the place in which I work is pretty open-minded about attire, I didn't think they were ready for shirts that came with optional sunglasses.

"I have a question for you," I said.

"Okay."

"Well, you're getting ready to get after me about buying stuff that enslaves poor people," I said. He bobbed his head a little to indicate that I wasn't quite right, but got the gist of it. "But what about that giant tidal wave?"

"What about it?"

I put the orange shirt back and mulled over the selection.

"Well, when someone flies an airplane into a building or feuding warlords cause a lot of people to starve to death because they don't let the food through, you can right it off to man's free agency. I mean, that's all free will. But the tsunami...there's no free will there. It's what the insurance companies call an Act of God.

"And though I'm not certain that God said, 'Hey, I know what will liven things up...I'll kill a quarter million people with a giant tidal wave,' He didn't do much to stop it, either. What's the story with that?"

Jesus said nothing. Instead he fiddled with the Bucs jersey on the stand next to mine.

"The Bucs are going to let Alstott go after this year," he said. "They have to, because of the salary cap."

"Probably," I said. I thought about pressing him for the answer, but decided instead to just see what he had to say. It was a technique that I'd read about from multiple people. Most people don't like silence and they will fill it, if only to hear their own voice. And they will answer questions they might not ordinarily answer, if you keep quiet.

There's only so much quiet in the middle of a Super Walmart, but the question was still out there, and it hadn't been answered. I almost told him that he was God and I wanted an answer.

"I'm not going to satisfy you with the answer," he said. "It's not going to make sense to you."

"Try me," I said. The defiance was more evident in my voice than I might have wanted. But the more I though about it, the more I thought the tone was proper. "What in the hell were you trying to accomplish with that?"

"How much have you given to help?" he asked.

"Some. Not everything."

"You are supposed to tithe. Hell, you're supposed to do more than that," Jesus said. "And you don't."

"No, I don't. Are you suggesting that if everyone were to tithe, this wouldn't happen?"

"No. It is what it is," he said. "God isn't Gepetto. He's not the Divine Puppetmaster, up there pulling all the strings so that Lassie always saves Timmy from the well. In real life, sometimes Timmy doesn't make it."

I nodded and slid the shirt back on the rack. I looked some more at the other shirts.

"You're being patronizing," I said. "I know that sometimes Timmy doesn't make it. I was unemployed for 19 months and I fight depression on a nearly continual basis. I know that God was speaking when Loretta Lynn said she didn't promise a rose garden."

Jesus looked up at me, almost with surprise.

"Wow," Jesus said, "you're old."

I thought about saying "bite me" but decided that wouldn't be appropriate. Just in case. Instead, I just kept looking at him. It was as if the people at Walmart didn't exist. It was like we had been transported to some minimalist stage someplace with three or four clothing racks, me, and Jesus.

And The Question.

Jesus sighed. And for the first time, He looked tired. As if the weight of a million broken hearts were baring down on him. For all I knew, it was. He looked old, and somewhat beaten down. And then the look passed. I made a mental note to ask about that sometime.

"There isn't enough time to tell you all the reasons that happened," he said. "One of the reasons is that if the earth doesn't periodically shift, it will eventually disintegrate. Earthquakes are necessary."

"In civil courts, they call that a design flaw," I said. "And companies often end up millions of dollars over it."

"You aren't being disrespectful," he said. His eyes were intense, but didn't bore through me like they had the previous day when we had dinner with Marty. "There are several hundred people who are in heaven now, who weren't before that happened."

"And there are several hundred thousand children without parents today," I said. "Is their pain really worth the joy of the people who are now in heaven?"

"Yes, it is."

I sighed. Pretty deeply. He was right. I didn't like the answer. I still don't.

"Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents would tell you not to do things, and how it would irritate you?"

"Father knows best?" I asked. "Please."

Jesus was really pissing me off.

"Not exactly. It's just that you don't understand. You can't see where it fits and that it really makes sense overall."

"So you are saying I just need to accept it as part of my faith? How can you say that when you bust my chops about the effect of buying a friggin' Hawaiian shirt?"

Suddenly, we weren't on a sparsely populated stage any more. We were back in Walmart and people were staring. Apparently, I had raised my voice more than I thought.

"I mean, if you want me to do my part to help poor people, how about not sending a wall of water over them and what little they have?" I asked. My volume was lower, but I believe that my tone was harsher.

"You're angry," he said.

"Don't try that passive listening crap on me," I said. "Man, that pisses me off."

I pulled the black Hawaiian shirt with the electric blue palm trees off the rack. I was going to buy it just to spite him.

Jesus smiled, in spite of Himself. His face was softer now, and felt warm and inviting. Which didn't make an awful lot of sense, considering the fact that I was yelling at him.

"It is good that you are angry about this," He said. "I like that you are angry about this. It is much more fitting than when you get angry at hitting five red lights in a row, or when someone does something you think is stupid at work."

I shrugged somewhat sheepishly.

"Bigger minds than yours have grappled with this question since the dawn of time. You can't expect to have full understanding in a few minutes at a Walmart when saintly people have spend a lifetime in prayer and contemplation and the answers have eluded them. All I can say is that eventually, you will know."

The answer shouldn't have satisfied me. It should have pissed me off. I should have been petulant and told him that I deserved an explanation. And I guess part of me felt that way. But a bigger part thought that maybe He was right. And though, as He had pointed out the day before, everything wasn't about me, this was.

I put the Hawaiian shirt back.

My New Years Resolution

My new year's resolution this year is to break all my new year's resolutions today by noon.

But if I break them all, then, by definition, I haven't broken them all. So by breaking all my resolutions, I haven't broken all my resolutions, which means that even if I do something, I will have accomplished nothing.

My head hurts now.

And I didn't even drink very much last night.

On writing about Jesus

On April 15, 1997, Bill Clinton was hobbling around on crutches at Shea Stadium to honor Jackie Robinson 50 years after he broke the color barrier. That was the night that baseball retired the number 42 for all major league teams. At the time, I didn't like that idea. I thought it was politically correct tripe. Now, I think it is a woefully inadequate way to honor a man whose life was cut short by the stress that came with carrying the burden he did.

It was a pleasant evening, a chance to see my Mets on TV, which didn't happen too often considering how bad they'd been for a few years.

Then President Clinton did something that irritated me greatly. He said, "I'm sure that if Jackie were alive today, he'd..." I don't remember how the sentence ended. But Bill Clinton didn't know Jackie Robinson. He had now idea what his thoughts were. He was just appropriating Robinson's name to make his own point.

I hate that.

But, as I write dialog and claim it to be from Jesus, I guess I am doing the same thing. After all, Jesus has been gone for the better part of 2000 years. And, of all the Christians I know, I am probably among the least appropriate to put words in Jesus' mouth.

Still, I think I'm okay with it because, in this case, Jesus is not agreeing with me. In fact, He is convicting me. One of the stories involves interplay between me, Jesus, and my friend Marty, who is a knockout who drives a BMW convertible and happens to be a lesbian. I don't have a friend named Marty who is a lesbian. But if I did, and if she was hot, I suspect I would react the same way as I did in the story. Especially if she drove me around in her BMW convertible.

I am reasonably familiar with the Bible, having read it cover to cover five or six different times. I have taken part in some pretty deep conversations about Jesus with people who are learned, have a deep relationship with Him or both. In short, unless I felt called to do this, I wouldn't do it.

Putting words in Jesus' mouth is a dangerous thing to do unless you know what you are doing. I think what I am doing is obeying. I hope the words that my fingers have Jesus saying are helpful and not hurtful.

Still, if you read them and find me to be full of crap, please let me know.

Jesus, Marty, and Me go to Dinner

Later, after another round and some more talk, Marty, Jesus, and I decided to stay and have dinner. Logan's has excellent steak and some of the best dinner rolls on God's green earth. So we got a booth for three. Marty sat next to Jesus, which disappointed me. In spite of what Jesus said, I really did like Marty, and it wasn't just so I could show how tolerant I was or because she looked hot in form-fitting clothes. I wanted her to sit next to me because she looked hot in form-fitting clothes. And also because I was afraid that I had damaged our friendship.

I excused myself for a minute, then went to the men's room. When I got back, Marty smiled at Jesus, then excused herself.

"It's not all about you," Jesus said.

"Huh?"

"Is it possible that the reason you are here with her isn't for you; it's for her?"

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"She has a lot of questions, Chris. I care about her deeply, as I know you do. She needs to work some things through."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that she's been hurt by a lot of Christians," he said.

"Look, I'm sorry," I said. I wasn't sure whether it was good practice to get irritated with Jesus in public, but given his ability to respond to what I was thinking, I didn't see the point in trying to hide it.

"Yes, including your attitude, which I am certain you will work on. But how do you think she feels when a church that touts how I died for their sin and how they are now loved denies her because of her sin?"

I said nothing, so Jesus continued.

"How would you feel if you were involved in a high school prank and someone turned you in and you were punished, but the guy who turned you in had previously vandalized the football field?"

Again, I said nothing.

"She doesn't believe in me."

"No offense, but I'm not sure that Jesus is going to return as the assistant manager of a multiplex, either."

"You know what I mean," Jesus said. "She is tough and she won't let people see it. But underneath, she knows that a lot of the people here would not let her be her if they knew the truth. Even though she doesn't make an issue of it, she knows she has to be careful of it."

I picked at my steak, which is uncommon for me. Usually, it is gone with a force that requires young children to be tethered to their tables, lest they get caught in the vacuum. I preferred the vacuum.

"What do you think of her lifesty...choic...whatever is the appropriate term?"

"Of her homosexuality?"

"Yeah."

Usually, I am articulate. Jesus had a way of making me unsure of my words, which is stupid, because he seemed to know what I was thinking.

"What do you think I think?" He asked. It was a typical non-answer answer, I was coming to find.

"I don't know," I said. "That's why I am asking you."

"That's a copout. You think that it's a sin, but that you are called to love each other," he said. "Which is a good enough answer."

"But I'm not asking what I think. I am asking what you think. And you are not answering the question."

"Not answering is an answer," Jesus said. "To be blunt about it, it's none of your business. It is for her to work out with My Father."

He chewed on a french fry.

"As I said, it isn't about you. Your job is to love her."

"My job is to love everyone," I said. I sipped at my beer. I had a slight buzz, which made me happy that Marty was driving me home.

"You make it sound like a death sentence," Jesus said.

"It isn't easy," I said. "A lot of Your people really hack me off."

"I can assure you that for some of them, the feeling is mutual."

He was smiling at me, this man who claimed to be Jesus. Jesus was supposed to have long hair and a moustache and beard and look like Dave Dennison, the guy I worked with in a small supermarket when I was in high school. He was supposed to wear sandals and a robe. And he wasn't supposed to drink draft beer at a steakhouse after work.

He looked at me and shook his head again, almost imperceptibly.

"You have to love them, that's true. You have to be happy for them when they succeed and sad for them when they hurt. You need to offer to help them and not take gratuitous shots at them," he said. "But you don't have to like them. If they caused you pain, you don't have to pretend that pain doesn't exist. That wouldn't be love from my Father, to expect that. You have real pain, just like Marty and everyone else. And you won't get better by pretending it isn't there."

He sliced a triangle off his steak and ate it.

"They have great steak here," He said. "Do you understand what I am saying?"

"I don't know, am I doing what you are saying?"

"No one does it perfectly, and you aren't among the league leaders, but you're a lot better than you were. Overall, I am not unhappy with your progress."

Just then, Marty came back. Jesus smiled at her and raised his hand, touching her back as she slid into the seat next to him.

"Stupid Bucs," she said. She shook her head and was visibly annoyed.

"Can't you make them win?" she asked Jesus.

"I could," he said. "But I wouldn't hold my breath about it."

She laughed and touched his arm. Jesus was right about her. There was always a reserve about her, as if she were holding something back. I hadn't noticed it until now, but it was always there. Only just for a second, when she touched his arm, it was gone. Her smile was physically the same as it was every other time I'd seen it--and she smiled a lot. But there was something about her body, a lightness, that had never been there before. As soon as it was there, though, it was gone, and for a few seconds, I thought it might be a mirage.

Then Jesus looked me directly in the eye with an intensity that almost made me look away. For an instant, I thought He was angry at me again. But somehow, I thought He was telling me to go likewise and do the same. But that He would give me the tools to do it.

My friend Marty and Jesus

My friend Marty drives a silver BMW convertible with a black convertible top. She bought it with a very large bonus she got for saving her company approximately $253,000 by consolidating vendors. It was used when she got it, but it was still a Beemer ragtop, which is something she'd been after since she'd been old enough to want a car.

Marty was short for Martina, which she'd dropped in junior high school because of the sexual proclivities of a certain famous namesake that had dominated women's professional tennis for about a million and a half years. It was ironic, because Marty's life changed the first time she kissed another girl. And it had never changed back. She was not currently with someone, but that was only because her previous relationship had ended poorly and she wasn't quite ready for the risk.

I took Marty to Logan's the other night to meet Jesus. I liked going places with Marty because she typically dressed in form-fitting clothes and had the body for it. She wasn't petite; in fact, she called herself full-bodied. But she wasn't even remotely fat. In fact, she is an absolute knock-out, a body made for something other than saving procurement money for a worldwide insurance company.

Tonight she wore form-fitting jeans and a tight, white t-shirt with an open neck. She looked great and every guy in the place knew it. And every guy in the place looked at me with appropriate reverence. They didn't know that I had as much shot at her as I had at, say, Ingrid Bergman.

Jesus was wearing jeans and a Mike Alstott t-shirt that featured a characture of him with the words "Pound the Rock" on its front. Alstott's arms were bigger than Barry Bonds'...by a lot. He was drinking Coors Lite out of a frosted mug.

"Chris," he said. "Come in. Sit down."

"Jesus," I said, haltingly. I wasn't sure that my Lord and Savior would actually call someone a rugrat, as he had done the day before. "This is my friend Marty."

He stuck his hand out and Marty extended hers, haltingly.

"Chris says that you are Jesus."

"That's my name, yes."

"Marty is a lesbian," I said.

"How nice for her," he said, "and for you."

She smiled at Jesus a little uncomfortably, then at me, with askance.

"Jesus told me He had a problem with my stance on gays."

"So that is why you brought me to meet him?"

"No, I did that...well...okay, I guess so. Yeah."

She glared at me.

"That is why I have a problem with him, you see," Jesus said. "He doesn't hate gays, and wouldn't even hate them if I gave him permission to."

"Well, that's not bad," I said.

"No," he said, "it's not. But how do you feel right now, Marty?"

"Well, I feel a little awkward, I guess."

"Un-huh," he said. "Chris, let me ask you a question. Do you find Marty to be...desireable?"

"Well, I mean, she's my friend and she's a lesbian and..."

"Just answer the question."

"Yeah, she's hot," I said. "I mean, look at her. She's a knockout."

"She is sitting here right now," Marty said. I glanced over at her. She looked irritated at me. And confused by Jesus.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Is that why you brought her here? To show me how tolerant you are?"

"Yeah," she said. "Is that why?"

I sort of shrugged a little and prayed that the bartender would come to ask us what we wanted. Jesus looked at me and shook his head almost inperceptibly.

"Uh, okay. I was an idiot. But I mean,...awww, dammit."

Jesus looked at Marty, then at me.

"Marty are you offended by the fact that he finds you attractive?"

"No. I am flattered by it."

"Does he hold your lesbianism against you?"

"Not at all."

"So why are you irritated with him?" Jesus said.

"Because I am Marty, his lesbian friend, not just Marty his friend," she said.

The bartender came and took our orders. She had Shiraz; I had a Michelob Lite. Jesus passed.

"I have to drive," he said.

She picked up her Shiraz and sipped it.

"Be nice if there was popcorn," she said.

"Jesus doesn't do popcorn," I said. I know; I'd asked the day before at the movies.

She smiled. I was married, but her smile could melt my heart on a regular basis. I realized who I was sitting next to, or thought I was sitting next to, and my melted heart sank. If it hadn't been unseemly, I would have plucked my eye out on the spot.

"Do you understand now why I had a problem?" Jesus asked.

"I think so," I said.

"It has nothing to do with plucking your eye out. Marty has a desirable body and you are wired to notice it. You also understand that you are married and that all you can do is look and you usually stop short of imagining."

Marty looked at me and I looked down. I was beginning to not enjoy Jesus' company.

"Marty, why do you like him?"

"Because he is a person with a soft heart and he tries to do the right thing."

"Why does he like you?"

"I think because he isn't a bigot if he does."

It hurt me when I said that. It hurt me because it hurt her. And it hurt me because it pointed out a place where I was a failure.

"Yeah," Jesus said in response to my unasked question. "That's how Peter felt."

The Yankees' Coming Nightmare

Assuming Randy Johnson and everyone else involved in his trade pass their physicals, in 2005, the New York Yankees will spend $64 million on their five starting pitchers. Rumor has it that they could also add Carlos Beltran to their lineup in the next few days. If that happens, their total payroll will likely be more than $220 million (all of which would, of course, be better used helping the victims of the tsunami).

The array of talent will be the greatest ever on a single ballclub and they could win 115 games next year. Or they could go through a nightmare scenario like none seen in New York since last October.

A pitching staff of Johnson, Mike Mussina, Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano, and Jaret Wright would have been unstoppable in 1997. It might be unstoppable now, too. But it might not be. It might be simply old. Randy Johnson will be 42 next year. He has pitched more than 200 innings every year but one since 1996. But two years ago, he pitched just 114 innings and won just six games.

Mussina just turned 36 and had arm troubles that limited him to 164 innings and a 4.59 ERA. Kevin Brown turns 40 in March. He pitched just 122 innings and had an ERA of more than 4. Pavano had a big year last year, but he's 29 and has won more than ten games in a year only twice. And Wright had a great season last year, winning 15 with the Braves, but he has a lifetime ERA of 5.09. If everything goes right with this rotation, it could win 80 games or more on its own. If not, it could win 35.

Mariano Rivera was human down the stretch. Middle relief is always iffy. The Yankees middle staff has been awesome, but middle relief is an iffy proposition at best.

As for the starting lineup, it is incredible, even without Beltran. But it was incredible last year, too, and the year before that. In fact, it has been since the mid 90s. And in no year since 2000 has it been good enough to win a World Series. The problem with the Yankees is that Steinbrenner's first rule is that anything less than a World Series win might as well be a total loss.

Last year, after the Yankees got Alex Rodriguez, they were supposed to be automatic World Series champions. This winter, it is the Red Sox who celebrate. Next winter, it might be the Yankees. But then again, it might not be.

My encounter with Jesus

Jesus returned yesterday. Actually, he's been here for quite some time, but he's just now starting his public ministry. He's been working as an assistant manager at the AMC theaters next to the Veteran's Expressway in Tampa. He's also known to hang out after work at Logan's Road House in front of the theater and enjoy two-for-one beers during happy hour with his friends Jaime, Johan, and Andrew.

Yesterday, after we took the kids to see Fat Albert, Jesus was taking his break and decided to speak with me.

"Chris," he said, "I need to speak with you."

"Who the hell are you?" I responded respectfully.

"I am Jesus, your personal Lord and savior and I have come again."

"I would have expected something different than a retail job," I said.

"But I am in management," he said. "And if this works out, I might be able to get the manager's job at the new Muvico theaters over in new Tampa."

"Good luck on that," I said.

"I appreciate that," he said, "but I am concerned and a little upset with you."

When my Lord and personal savior tells me he is upset with something I am doing, it merits attention.

"Can you get me a discount on popcorn and Cokes?" I asked. "I mean, after all, the markups on that stuff are as vile as the gouging that took place outside the temple. And you got pretty upset about that."

He sighed.

"Right, but the moneychangers were gouging people who were trying to worship my Father. Unless you count Mel Gibson's movie, that isn't the case here. Besides, didn't you see that study from the Center for Science in the Public Interest that said how bad popcorn was for you?"

"Yeah, but I figured after I ate all that crap, you could just heal me."

"Okay, now we have two things to talk about, but that will have to wait. I'm not going to heal you just so you can get away with gorging yourself on junkfood."

"Killjoy."

He sighed again. I didn't want to piss Jesus off, so I kept my mouth shut. On ocassion, I can now manage to do that.

"I want to talk to you about your politics," He said.

"Okay, what about them?"

"Well," he said, pausing dramatically, "they're just wrong. I mean, they aren't what a follower of mine should be. I think you need to rethink your positions."

"What do you mean?"

"Take homosexuality for instance. I'm not happy with your thoughts on that. Or the death penalty or tax policy or any of that stuff, really. When I shed my blood for you, it wasn't so that you could be stupid about your politics."

"But I thought your grace was a gift freely given to anyone who asked for it."

He sighed again. And glanced over at the ticket window. There was a line starting to form and there was only one person working the window. Apparently, being an assistant manager meant that you had to help out, even on your breaks.

"I don't have time to completely tell you where you are wrong, but trust me, you need to rethink what you think. And pretty soon, too."

"Why the hurry?"

He mulled that. I wouldn't have figured that the Son of Man would need to spend a lot of time thinking about something. I sort of figured he already knew it.

"Trust me on this, sooner is better than later. When you are here in Florida, you can go inside and turn on the air conditioner when it is hot. That isn't the case everywhere."

"Were you happy with who I voted for?" I asked.

"Have I said nothing to you? That guy is going straight to hell because of his political stances."

"But what if He truly believes that He is following you? I mean the catechism clearly says that we are to inform ourselves and then pray and make the decision on our own."

"Well, yeah, but only if you come to the right decision. You haven't. So, Me and My Dad have had a talk about you and you need to shape up. Now."

He glanced over again and saw that the line was continuing to build. Apparently someone had brought all the children in their neighborhood to the movie.

"Damn little rugrats," He said. "I have never seen destruction like they can do to a clean theater. Not even in Sodom and Gemorah. It's amazing."

He walked away from me.

"You think about what I said," He said. I said I would. What else could I say. It would be rude to lie to Jesus. "I would like to speak with you at some point about your position on the war in Iraq. There is only one appropriate position and you haven't taken it."

With that, he opened the door to the ticket booth and disappeared. I drank my Coke, which now tasted funny. I guess in concern about my health, he had turned my Coke into Diet Coke.

Bashing Bush over the Tsunami

The growing concensus is that George W. Bush doesn't care about the poor, dark-skinned peoples who were devastated by the tsumani. For one thing, he went on vacation. Second, even though we pledged more money than any other country and hundreds of times more than France, we are miserly with our wealth, which reflects the greed that Bush epitomizes. Third, Bush is spending $40 million on his inauguration (most of it from private sources). If he cared, he would chuck it all and get a bag of pork rinds and a six-pack of Coke and give all the money to relief efforts.

So basically, Bush would personally make the lives of the afflicted better by not taking a vacation. I suppose that if I cared, I should cancel my vacation as well. Then again, so should all the people who are home this week with nothing better to do than opine on this topic.

As far as the money goes, we will probably wind up sending around a billion dollars, not counting the private donations that we are already sending.

Finally, if Bush were to cancel the inauguration at this point, the very same people who are criticizing him for holding it would then criticize him for how he is ruining all the small businesses that will wind up without the work they thought they would have. Exposes would run discussing how Bush could have pumped $40 million into the DC economy, which is incidentally, dominated by African-Americans, but he chose not to, primarily so he could make a pittance of a donation. The donation would be little more than a publicity stunt anyway, especially when compared to the amount of money being spent on the war in Iraq.

Overall, this is little more than sour grapes from people for whom this is a giant chess game. No matter what Bush does, he should have done something different. Once senses disappointment that there's no way to blame him for the tsunamis themselves.

The only thing more absurd would be the lament that Pedro Martinez's salary should also go over there. After all, he shouldn't make $53 million and the people over there really need it...

Condemnation

It was a fresh meat in a pool of phiranas, a link to a story that indicated that a tsunami warning could have been issued to the areas hardest hit, but was cancelled in deference to the tourism industry.

The link was to an article in the Swedish online newspaper Expressen and did not appear in English. It was translated by someone named CLiss and referenced--but did not seem to link to--an article in the Bankok online newspaper The Nation (not to be confused with the American magazine of the same name). A brief search of The Nation's website did not indicated that a warning was cancelled.

That didn't stop a torrent of criticism at the greed involved in cancelling the warning. Everyone assumed it was true and assumed the worst. The fact that the message board was hard left wing didn't matter. I've seen (and participated in) the same reaction at far more moderate forums. In a lot of cases, I'm right. In some cases, information I find out later shows me that I was not only wrong, but needless caused pain for the object(s) of my scorn.

We live in a judgemental environment. Talk radio, columnists, muckraking authors, and others of the like all make money. After all, it's no fun listening to someone calling for cool heads until the facts roll in. It's more fun getting the adrenalin running and screaming and feeling that as bad as I might be, I am at least better than .

That's one thing when it is Jim Rome barking about Jets quarterback Chad Pennington, who has a running feud going with the New York media. No matter that Pennington is still in his 20s and many of the people criticizing him for his reaction would have similar reactions when they are criticized. Pennington gets paid a lot of money to play football and that's part of the reason why.

It is quite another thing when the object of scorn is someone thrust into the spotlight unexpectedly or worse yet, someone who has unpleasantly bumped up against us as we go through life.

Anne Coulter has a best-selling book called How to Talk to a Liberal (If you must). I will admit that I have not read the book, though I probably should. But the title puts me off. I believe that as a conservative, I must talk to liberals. Conservatives aren't always right. In fact, many of the liberals I know are far better people than I am. I learn from them.

But in the culture of instant condemnation, such learning opportunities are becoming less and less common. Instead, our existence turns into an echo chamber, making our own views more rigid and inflexible. And our appetite for condemning what we disagree with increases.

If someone completely understood the tsunami warning, and if that person cancelled it, and if the reason for the cancellation was the fact that it would have cost companies money, then that person deserves servere criticism. But that's a lot of ifs to deal with. And even if all of those ifs are true, that person deserves the same right to redemption.

There is a Biblical passage that says that the measure you use will be used against you. Many of those who are most vocal in condemnation will someday understand the cost of their actions. They will know first hand. I'm not sure that the price of such poetic justice is a thing I would wish on anyone.

A Personal Relationship with God Isn't Enough

Where to send donations for those hit by the tsunami.

I spend a lot of time working on my personal relationship with God. Which is good, because I am better when I am closer to Him than when I am not. But then, just as I think I have it figured out and am on the right track, something happens.

This time, what happened is that 44,000 people have died in a giant tsunami. The devastation is beyond imagining. And it proves how truly insignificant our little struggles and wars are. Here am I, employed, relatively safe and security, surrounded by a family that loves me and that I do a pretty good job of loving. I have friends and a lot of support. What right have I to be secure or to spend time watching the SciFi Channel and doing any of the other stupid, meaningless things I do on a daily basis?

This year here in Florida, we thought we knew devastation. Certainly, the four hurricanes we experienced are more than your typical bad day. But we have, for the most part, running water and places to go to escape the problems. Even those who couldn't get help from FEMA have options.

What of the people on the islands who were swamped by the wall of death the other day? They don't have FEMA or homeowners insurance. They don't have the luxury of worrying about work or whether so-and-so likes them. Hell has reached up and paid them a personal visit.

Given the level of material goods we have, how can we do less than at least send money? How can we do less than pray and care and add to that with something tangible?

That having been said, everyone can't give to every worthy cause. I could hop on a jet and spend the next six months helping them to rebuild, but then who would be a father to my family? Who would help lead my son's Cub Scout pack? Who would do whatever it is I am going to do for my daughter's swim team? These are not feel-good rationalizations; they are ministries that God has, at least for now, asked me to carry out.

But most people can give more radically than they do. I am sitting here listening to $90 worth of NFL Films music that I asked for for Christmas. As I do, I sort of wish that I hadn't asked for it for myself. There are more important things in the world. I pray that God continues to soften my heart that I might find them and do something better. I am His first, and I have faith that He will give me what I ask.

Lessons from the Minister of Defense

I had just gotten to the concession stand at the Bucs game yesterday when I heard the news: Reggie White had died unexpectedly at 43 at his home.

It was sad news, to say the least. White was dominant both on and off the field, casting a shadow that matched his huge body that seemed to be built to dominate offensive linemen. According to many, he is the greatest defensive lineman to have ever played in the NFL. Any serious fan would know the plateau you reach when you are considered better than Joe Greene, Deacon Jones, Bruce Smith, and a host of others.

He was also a giant off the field. When he signed with Green Bay, a black man playing football in rural Wisconsin, it was news. In his wake, the Packers have been able to attract many other black free agents they might not have otherwise had a shot at.

An ordained minister since 17, Reggie White was roundly praised yesterday on sports media, from people who knew him and played with him. However, the praise was not universal.

White's first retirement was short-lived. He had signed a contract with CBS Sports, which was voided when he made a series of comments about homosexuals in front of the Wisconsin state legislature. Some were about the Biblical injunctions against homosexuality, but some of his comments, along with others, could be easily construed as going beyond that.

This link from a hard-line left-wing message board lists a number of quotes, some of them rather troublesome, about homosexuality. This link indicates that Reggie White was in the process of taking a second look at many of the things he once thought.

For the record, I happen to think that homosexuality is a sin. If I were God, it might not be, but I'm not and the Bible is pretty clear on this matter. It is also clear that drinking too much is a sin, and so is gluttony, and so is not taking care of widows and orphans. So before I throw stones a gays, I must first throw them at myself.

God loves His children, regardless of who or what they are. His invitation knows no boundaries. And it is His grace that changes us, not our efforts. I am no more entitled to God's voice than a gay person. In some respects, a lot of gay people are probably more Christian than I am.

But that's another discussion for another time.

The thing I respect about Reggie White--a man I never met--is that he had the courage to challenge his core beliefs. And that his faith seems to have become deeper, richer, and more real as a result.

The freedom that God gives us allows us to challenge those base beliefs without worrying about whether God will be pleased. Odds are, He will be. It is only by challenging our own limited understanding of God that we can start to transcend our own understanding and move closer to Him.

Reggie White did that. And for that, assuming that the rest is as it is presented, I admire him greatly.

I didn't get everything I wanted, but I got enough

I didn't get everything I wanted for Christmas, but I got enough. My family, as usual, was in upstate New York and I was down here in Florida. My wife and kids and her parents were here and we are well into have our own holiday traditions and rhythm. But this year I missed everyone more than I usually do.

My aunt and uncle weren't able to be up there either. It's been a tough year for them, health-wise, and even before my uncle got the bug last week, he wasn't up for traveling. It was tough seeing him in October. He was always so robust, but it's all caught up with him and now he has become old.

Christmas is evolutionary most of the time. Each year, the kids get a little older and the wide-eyed overwhelming enthusiasm of toddlers gives way to the youthful greed of childhood, then to a realization that it's at least as important for them to see their teenaged friends as it is for them to be with family. Eventually, they wind up away for a Christmas. But these changes are gradual and you can typically see them coming. I still miss the wide-eyed enthusiasm, but I have two wonderful children and it is still a pleasure to dote on them.

Then you have the revolutionary changes. These can be good...a new family member, either through marriage or birth, or the return of someone who used to live far away. And they can be bad...a broken marriage or a death that leaves a gaping hole.

My grandmother used to be an enormous part of Christmas. Her last Christmas with us was 1998 and we chose that Christmas to be back in upstate New York. I suspect that my mom still has a hard time with certain parts of Christmas because her mother isn't there. Then again, I suspect she probably still misses her father, who has been dead now for almost 35 years.

We had no revolutionary changes this Christmas. In fact, it was the first "normal" Christmas we've had since 2000. In 2001, my family was down and we had more than 20 people in our house Christmas morning. In 2002, my wife had to work Christmas day, as I was laid off and her job got us health insurance. Last year, we were away from home. This year was just us and her parents and her sister.

Everyone was there and well and no one was experiencing life-threatening difficulty. It would have been nice to see my family, too. I didn't get everything I wanted, but I got enough.

The presents were nice, too.

CEOs

We call them CEOs. We aren't mad at them for wrecking Enron. And we don't envy them for their giant paycheck. We see them at Christmas and Easter only.

When I was young in my walk, I scorned them. I mean, if you are only going to come twice a year, why bother? If you aren't willing to put in the work and the time to walk with Jeeesusuh, why take up space that the regulars can use?

Now I am older and I can chuckle and blush at my earlier silliness. Sure there are people who are lazy and shallow and that's why they don't come. And there are people who would rather have bamboo shoots stuff under their nails, but they come because they should because the kids will notice.

If you come out of obligation, why bother? And if you think that your children are going to get their message from the two times that you come, rather than the 52 times you don't come, you are a knucklehead.

It's easy to be arrogant about those kinds of Christians when you have your place to sit each week and all your friends are at church. But God loves those kind of Christians, too.

And then there are those who come because they had a bad time, but they still want to believe...they still want the feeling they imagine comes when Jesus cames and they dare not have hope, but they dare not give up on it, either.

In some cases, their wounds are self-inflicted. And in some cases, they were caused by small, arrogant, and petty Christians. They were caused by Christians who worshipped their worship more than their God and who didn't understand that church isn't for good people, and even if it were, they wouldn't qualify.

Christmas is a Christian holiday (you can tell by looking at the first six letters and how they match). It may have heavily appropriated pagan symbolism, but it is a Christian holiday. And it isn't for the Christians who are there in the same pew every week.

It's for the people who come twice a year, and it is important that they feel welcomed. They came because God invited them.

If I had my way, it is all the regulars who would sit in the overflow seating. The regulars would spend the Mass or Service actively waiting on those who don't regularly attend, and telling them how glad they are that God asked them to come. And asking them to come back next week because they are loved and God misses them when they aren't there.

This year, we are going to Mass on Christmas day. CEOs tend to come on Christmas Eve. That's where the action is, because that's where Jesus is needed and sought after most. The regulars can sometimes take Him for granted.

Next year I want to go on Christmas Eve. I want to get their way early and save seats. And I want to wait until the last minute and then find some family in the overflow seating who hasn't been to church since Easter. And I want to welcome them and tell them that I am glad they are here and God is, too. And I want to tell them that He would be tickled if they would move closer to the front so that they could participate more.

And I want all my churchy friends to do the same thing.

Imagine that.

"We're doing the same as normal." "That bad, huh?"

Han was awake and recovering from being frozen in carbon. The hibernation sickness cost him his sight, at least for now.

"How are we doing?" he said.

"Same as normal," Luke said.

"That bad, huh?"

-----

When Jesus came, he came to a teenaged woman, a girl really. She had ridden all night on a donkey to a strange place. She was within days of giving birth and the ride was brutal and uncomfortable. It was sometimes hard to breath normally, sitting up on the donkey, and she had to pee too often, with the weight of the child on her bladder.

Joseph hadn't sent her away, in spite of the fact that the child she carried was not his. But there had been moments when she'd seen doubts in his eyes. Today, she hadn't seen doubts. He'd been kind and patient, mostly. But walking all that way and taking care of her hadn't been easy. He was tired, too.

When they'd arrived, all she wanted to do was to lie down. The days of travel had really done a number on her. But because of the stupid census, all the beds were taken and there was no place for them to sleep.

"Can't you find anyplace?" she demanded, though she knew Joseph couldn't. He looked at her with sadness and compassion and a some fair irritation.

"I'm looking."

They wound up in a barn. It was relatively warm, and if you got past the itchiness of the hay, it wasn't bad. Except for the fact that she was carrying around 25 extra pounds. And sleeping on the floor, and it took her about three and a half minutes to get down there and even longer to get up. And once she got there, she had to pee again.

Finally, she slept.

It wasn't fun being the mother of God. It was not smooth or scripted or easy. It was a page straight out of the Indiana Jones school of project management: "I don't know, I'm making it up as I go."

How much is that like every day life? If only this or that, things would be smoother and it wouldn't be so irritating. But that's the life that God chose to come down and be part of. He could have been born in a palace. He could have waited until now, so He could have heat and indoor plumbing and Pedialyte and ointments for diaper rash.

Instead, He chose then and came to a barn. And struggled. And when he was doing as well as normal, He could probably say "That bad, huh?"

There are as many messages in the Christmas story as there are people who have though about it. But maybe there is room for one more.

If you are struggling at a noble cause... If you wish that--just this once--it would be easy for just a little while... If finding the spit and bailing twine and duct tape required to keep things together one more day takes much energy as doing the work of the day... If you lie down at night exhausted and daunted at the prospect of another day of this tomorrow...

...then you have good company. And though you can't see it, your humble efforts to keep things together just one more day could have profound impact beyond your imagination. Imagine that teenager lying uncomfortably on the barn floor, having to struggle to her feet to pee--again. She couldn't have known.

She couldn't have known the extent to which the object of her discomfort would change the world.

Your efforts are not meaningless, either.

Releasing Righteous Anger

I am holding a fair amount of anger toward someone in my church. I have had run-ins with this person in the past. I doubt he remembers them, but I do. He is one of the leading voices in a movement, to the best of my ability to see, makes people feel inadequate coming before God.

Without going into detail--which might not be fair--I went through a period earlier this year where I felt like church was a performance appraisal and I wasn't measuring up. As one of the leading advocates of the primacy of the liturgy in all things related to the church, I got angry with him, and with a number of other people.

He was a part of Mass this past weekend and I was so angry at him that I could barely concentrate on the Mass. But the reasons we get angry at people tell us at least as much about us as the people at whom we are angry. And part of the reason I was angry at him was because it was relatively easy to make me feel like I wasn't measuring up and was maybe an embarrassment to my parish.

But as much as I am responsible, I don't operate in a vacuum. And I am not the only one who is put off by this. Getting put off by religion does not give you the right to go on a rampage against it. However, I believe that some of the things going on in my church are building walls between God and His people and are helping to keep hurting people from the relief they might find.

By being angry, though, I lose the ability to view this situation with the detachment required to do something about it.

And until I can view it that way, I am hampered by my anger.

The Bumper Sticker

We had just told two sets of parents that their babies, which we'd just baptised, were welcomed into the Church because God is love. We applauded them because they were there and were joining us.

As I drove out of God's house and into the real world. And I strained to read the bumper sticker back of the red SUV three cars up from me. You can't be Catholic and pro-choice, it said.

It was the fourth Sunday of Advent. We were getting ready for the coming of Jesus, the man whose death launched a new religion and a lot of thoughts, some of the accurate.

Jesus died, I am told, so that I could dare come before God and hope to emerge as more than a smoldering black spot on the ground. That means, according to the first reading we heard that day, that we have received grace so that we could have the obedience of faith (Romans 1:5).

Apparently, Paul forgot to mention the part about the abortion litmus test.

I need to figure out what other parts Paul might have forgotten about.

October 13,

Work is difficult right now. I am doing a job that I am clearly not qualified to do and I am doing it...well, about as well as you would expect. I'm not great at it. In fact, some days it seems as if I haven't got a clue what to do and everyone else knows better than I do what my job is.

Yesterday was particularly hard. I'm not good at being bad at something. I am particularly not good at disappointing the people I work for. I take it as a personal point of importance that I erase problems for the people I'm working for. Ironically, that's part of the reason I'm not good at my current job.

But who the hell am I working for? I'm certainly not working for the clamoring throngs who look to me to fix their problems for them on a daily basis. And I'm not working for the people who see, in me, an opportunity to get out of doing their own work. And I'm not working for the people who figure it's easier to have me tell them what to do over the phone than it is for them to look in the help file.

I work for Him.

And as I write this, I am listing to something called Key Life, in which today's message is to do what God told you to do and don't do what He didn't tell you to do. You can't do everything. And neither can I. It is, in fact, somewhat arrogant to assume that you can. And self-absorbed to concentrate on the inevitable failure. (That last part is mine, not theirs.)

So even if the people I work for are unhappy with the things I am doing on my job, it is not them that I work for. It is Him. Now, this is a risky proposition. Paul very clearly indicates that we are to follow what our leadership tells us to do. So it is not our place to regularly tell our leaders to go pound sand. There is a reason they are where they are, and sometimes it is because they are competent and you can learn from them.

So what has God told me to do? That is where things need to start. And it starts with the Bible and your leadership and discernment and the confidence that comes from knowing that you are in Him.

October 11, 41

I have 41 years of time to account for today. I hope I don't die today because I can't account for them. I want to be able to account for my time better when I die than I can now.

My time, like yours, is limited. It is expensive and finite. And if you screw it up here, you don't get a do-over.

I don't feel guilty about it. But I feel sad. And excited about what might be coming up. I want it to be good. I have the toold and the knowledge to make it good. But I still need to make the effort.

In doing so, I can't make it about my past failings...and they are legion. I have to make it about the good that I can do. And that's hard work. Right now, I need to push aside the fatigue that I feel and do the work the Lord gave me to do today, rather than concentrating on the break I will get when I really need it. And it will be hard.

But I am up for the hard work. The day will come when my work is done, and then I can rest. In the meantime, today is all that I or you or anyone else has.

A guy named Ken Caminiti died over the weekend. He was the National League's Most Valuable Player just six years ago. He was a popular player, but he took steroids and had some legal problems and those, unfortunately, will be his legacy among those who don't know him. He, like me, was 41.

I'm just starting to understand the truth. I don't want to leave now. I want to put that truth to work.

October 10, Right Now (It's that Magic Moment)

In my Saturday morning men's group, we are doing a book about the 12 apostles and discussing how, though they were common men, their calling was uncommon. I bought into the concept of the book until one of the other guys said that he didn't think their calling was all that uncommon...that we are all called by God to serve Him. In a sense, we are called to the same thing.

I blanche at that. I know my insufficiencies intimately. They are the harlot lover that I know is bad for me, but I still can't manage to keep away from. As much as I know I should avoid her, as much as I know she will reduce me, I just can't stay away. I steel my resolve against her and she opens her arms to me and my resolve melts and I give in. Again.

Sometimes I am tired and I figure I deserve a little break. Maybe I don't have to try so hard. Sometimes I don't think at all. I just give in, and then here we are, back in the old insecurities again. Back wallowing in the knowledge of my shortcomings.

And sometimes she speaks to me seductive lies. It's okay for you. It's hard and you have every right to be ordinary or less. Stop being so hard on yourself. Stop expecting so much. Just do what you want, even if it is nothing. Or less.

It's a cliche that you get out of life what you put into it. But it's a cliche for a reason. We get one shot at this. One time to play the game. There's no do-over if we screw it up. It's there and it's gone, a full lifetime spun away when just moments before it seemed infinite in its expanse.

Life is hard. It necessarily involves pain and mistakes and things that are absolutely wrong that we do anyway because that's how we are sometimes. When she whispers to me, she tells me that I can be less because of these things. The pain and mistakes and baggage make it okay for me to kick back.

Tomorrow, I won't be 40 any more. About half my lifetime, maybe more, is gone. It seems like just yesterday, it was 1978 or 1985 or 1994. The time ahead of me isn't infinite any more. It is time to get things done. If I want to be something uncommon, I need to start today. I need to push aside the attraction to being less than I could be.

In the second half of my life, I need to understand that it isn't about me. It is about my son, who is seven today. It is about my daughter, who is starting the uneven road through adolescence. It is about my wife, who is still with me despite my disappointing her more times than I can count. It's about people I know who could see in me something to make a difference, but don't because I have chosen not to display it. It's about people I don't know yet, or never will know, whose lives I could touch if I only chose to do so.

It's not about wallowing in my weaknesses and expecting perfecting and beating myself when I fall short. That is the harlot talking. It's about understanding that I am not perfect, but not expecting perfection. It's about making myself more than the sum of my failures and releasing myself from them so I might be able to be more.

It's taken 40 years of hard work for me to understand. I've tried and failed and not tried and tried a little and failed and been afraid and I am finally starting to understand. I have an obligation to live according to my understanding. Just as you have an obligation to live according to yours. And to take chances and to not be common.

It is bigger than me. And when it is gone, I will have to take my regrets with me. I prefer to travel light.

The only question is whether there is enough courage and faith to do so.

October 9. On Baseball and the Saux

The headless horseman galloped about on a mild autumn night, chasing Ichabod Crane like so many ghosts of his past, until what had once looked like sweet salvation became the end of everything.

Such is the life of a Boston Red Sox fan. Through the ages, the names echo with devastating clarity...Denny Galehouse, Johnny Pesky, Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, Aaron Boone. And last night, Saux fans were preparing to add a name to that list after the hometown team blew a five-run lead in the game that would have clinched the Saux a spot in the AL Championship series.

I've read stories of how, after two Mets reached base in the fleeting moments of October 25, 1986, Saux fans knew it was over. How they knew what Bucky Dent would do. So they can be forgiven if they were ready to add Chone Figgins or someone of like stature to the list.

But a strange thing happened...the curse was at least postponed. And the name of David Ortiz joined Dave Henderson and Carlton Fisk on a much sorter list of storied heroism. And the Saux will move on to face either the Yankees or Twins in the ALCS.

Something is different this year. The curse may be waiting or it may have departed New England only to settle someplace else. Chicago, maybe.

October 5, The Danger of this Message

One of the points I have made recently is that you can only achieve freedom in the absence of ego. It gave me pause to see the same concept here. I haven't done a ton of research into this establishment, but it doesn't look healthy. Its invitation to eliminate "SELF" is similar to what I have written, but not the same.

I still believe what I wrote, but I also believe it needs to be clarified, or it becomes an invitation for flogging yourself.

In my opinion, the ego must be diminished to make room for the freedom of God. God gives us freedom when we obey Him. But God also gave us a set of tools to help figure out what that means. We aren't to be told God's will and to follow it blindly. We were given tools to determine the will of God and we are to use those tools to find discernment.

One of the key concepts of the Catholic belief is the importance of conscience. Your conscience if formed by looking at the facts and applying your moral beliefs to those facts. It should feed your decision-making process.

Your community should also feed it. The Bible clearly indicates that we are to seek wise counsel. And the Word of God is pretty clear about a lot of things.

So while we are looking at obedience and the making less of self, we need to look at it in the context of conscience and wise advice and the Bible and prayer. Anything else is an invitation to domination.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We screw up, but we are here to help each other and guide each other to the finish line. Anything that doesn't feed that is clearly wrong.

October 4, Sometimes you just get tired

Maybe it is the lack of vacation. I've had a day here or there, but nothing in a row since Christmas. Anyway, I am tired. I need some days off.

Fact of the matter is, I am incredibly blessed to live in a time when days off are a possibility. For most of human life, days off have been rare, even unheard of. In fact, paid vacation is a luxury we in the westernized world take for granted. Then again, we aren't out trying to build a hut for shelter or hunting for or growing the food that will feed our children.

So right away, the key thing to do is to thank God for the gift that He has bestowed that allows me to have a day off where I don't have to work on things. Right away, that simple change of perspective sort of cuts down on the tired.

Still, I need some recharging. And I will get it. I'm supposed to take time off this week. But that could still fall through. Even so, I have some time off later in the month and Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming.

The point is, nothing is forever. And when the pile of garbage starts to get bigger than your ability to grapple with it, eventually, rebirth will come. You just have to be on the lookout for it and believe it is possible.

As soon as you don't believe, it won't happen.

October 3, The Prisons We Build Ourselves

If you believe, and if you ask for God's forgiveness, you will receive it. Period. After that, you are free. After that, the bottom line is that sin no longer holds you captive. You might fall from freedom from time to time; in fact, you almost definitely will fall. But your freedom is your heritage at that point if you claim it.

The prisons from that point forward are of our own making. We build them and we live in them, straining against the bars that keep us captive, all the while not realizing that the door is unlocked and we can leave.

I don't want my prisons any more. I want to walk out of them free so that I can do the things I know that I have the ability to do.

I don't want the prison of "I'm not good enough." I am through with the prison of "I am a bad person." And I will never live again in "Because of my sin, I am worthless to God."

A couple of years ago, God grabbed my hand in the darkness of my darkest moments. And He walked with me. Through all my crying and fighting and wailing, He walked with me, guiding me out of the dungeons I built. Easing me forward, sometimes so slowly that it seemed like I wasn't moving and that I would never move.

But over time, the changes became evident. The air became sweeter and the darkness eased. And the weight on my heart and soul melted. And I have come to realize that I am no longer there any more.

I am outside and it is pleasantly warm. The sun is cascading down upon me, caressing me with its warmth. There is a slight breeze and the colors are vivid, almost to the point of overwhelming me. The sky is so deep in its blueness, that it seems as if it should be dark. But it's not. The grass tickles slightly as I walk though the meadow.

The prisons are almost out of view now. And I can bask in the light and love of the Father who led me here and who will keep me from going back.

October 3, Of Humble Origins

My men's group is starting a study of the Apostles this week. It's a 13-week program, I believe, but we will probably be able to cover it in six months. We tend to really dig deep on things sometimes.

The major point of the study is that the Apostles were twelve ordinary people. None of them were scholars or visionaries or rich men or leaders of important movements. They were fishermen, a tax collector, various others whose life consisted of working hard and trying, for the most part, to do the right thing and obtain economic security to some degree.

And yet, nearly 2000 years after their deaths, we know their names. Most of us don't know the names of the people who were important in roles around them. The head of the local temple, the merchants who bought their fish, the people they had to tread lightly around or life would be difficult.

Yet, we know about these twelve. In worldly terms, they were nothing special. They were more or less like the people around them. Yet they were called and answered the call.

In a similar way, we have the ability to answer the call and be something special, too. It's just a matter of understanding who you are and, if you are inclined to think this way, whose you are. These guys weren't super heroes. And they weren't Godly and perfect, either. They screwed it up as often as not. And yet they made a difference.

Their humble origins, the fact that they often failed, and the fact that in the end, they made a difference anyway is significant. It means that for all our faults, for all the things that we believe make us unable to make a significant difference, we can. We just have to have the faith in our actions and the courage to take a chance. And if we do that, maybe it will make a difference.

October 2, On Haiti

Imagine having a storm come through your town. Imagine that it is so bad that you can't count the dead. Imagine that there are so many dead people that they load them into dump trucks and dump them in a hole and cover them over.

That's what's going on in Haiti right now.

Imagine that your adult child lives on the other side of town and you can't locate him or her and you spend weeks looking. And you figure more and more that the person whose fragile body you once cradled in your arms was tossed in a hole with a mess of other people. But you will never know.

This isn't taking place across the world. It's a few hundred miles off the coast of Florida, in a place where cruise ships pass by and stop.

Imagine that there is so much wrong that no matter what you do, it will not cause any major changes for the better. Imagine looking out on people and knowing that the food you have to give them will feed only a fraction.

Imagine standing in the mob that is waiting for food and knowing that you timed it wrong and got there late and that your kids are going to be hungry for the next several days as a result.

We live in a wonderful land. I can walk to any of three supermarkets and get food without waiting in line. And I can get food that I really like there, and just pass it up if I don't like it. I have never had to send my children to bed hungry because there was no food. I have never had to listen to them cry themselves to sleep because they don't know when they are going to eat again.

It seems to me that when we look at the problems of the world, this particular one should be more important than it is. But how do you fix it? What can you do about it? With a corrupt government, you can pour all the money in the world into the problem and it won't make a difference. Freedom--political freedom--is vital for people to prosper.

But we aren't talking about prospering. We're talking about mass starvation and pits in which piles of what used to be people are placed. I can't imagine the level of heartache there.

October 1, Freedom is Hard

I'm not much of a jumper. Never have been. I could jump respectably when we played volleyball on a gym floor in college, but never off sand. My flippant assessment of that was that the sand monster reached up and grabbed my legs. The truth was, even in college, I was a little overweight and could have been in better shape.

The same is true of freedom. There are things that reach up and grab me as I try to exercise my freedom. The things I've screwed up, my insecurities, that voice within me that takes small things that I have done and turns them huge. And they do their damnedest to make me nothing more than a sum of my shortcomings.

One of the hard things about freedom is being freed from these things while still taking responsibility for your actions. We have all fallen short. We have all screwed up. We all have more than enough things that make us cringe inside when we call them to mind.

Those things are real and they can never be undone. Even when we fix them, they still happened. And in some cases, they caused great harm. And that can sometimes be fixed, but it, too, can never be undone. And sometimes it will come back and bite us over and over again, exploiting that insecurity.

I believe that we have a foe and that foe knows and will exploit our weaknesses. He will heap guilt upon us for things for which we are forgiven. He will do the same for things that need no forgiveness. And he is skilled at disception and manipulation.

For me, the hardest part of freedom is standing firm in the face of that foe. He cannot take away your freedom, but he can convince you that it is not yours to have.

September 30, Freedom to See Your Flaws

Well, we made it. Another last day of existence has come and past and here we are.

Freedom includes the ability to be introspective. It includes the ability to honestly look at yourself and take the time to realistically assess who and what you are. Catholicism has a concept called "examination of conscience." Taken at its face value, it means that you review what you've done before you go to bed at night and ask forgiveness.

But it's really deeper than that. It involves a look within yourself on an ongoing basis to see who you are and figure out where that stands in relation to who you want to be. This is not to say that we have to perform to earn grace. But, as new knowledge is laid upon your heart, you must deal with that or you are living with less than you should. Inspection of conscience is part of the process of assimilating the new information.

But given the fact the you know that God loves you, you have the freedom to try to look at yourself objectively, perhaps as God sees you. I mean look at yourself in totallity. Don't concentrate on what you have messed up, or on what you excel at. But look at the whole package and figure out, in prayer, thought, and communion with others, and figure out where you want to go from there.

This is not a one-day project. I think that one flaw in many newer Christians is that they expect that their character flaws are going to evaporate. Things will get better and the worst things about you will vanish.

That's not how it goes. Following God involves a lot of waiting. It involves understanding that this is for the long haul. It is not going to instantly change and you are not likely to turn into Mother Theresa overnight.

If anything, the lessons might be harder to deal with, because now you don't have to protect yourself against them. You can really explore your screwups because you are covered by the blood of the Lamb and the love of your Father. And you can explore the parts of you that you don't like without being impaled on them and whipping yourself for them.

The proper role of conscience is as a guide to show you what you don't want, and to move from there. Once you are alerted to where you need to go and you do what you can to make right what you have screwed up, let it go.

You can't get better if you define yourself by your failures. And you can't guide other people to a salvation that you don't really believe in.

September 29

Today is supposed to be the end of the world.

According to some knuckleheads who appeared on Mark and Brian's morning radio show in LA a while back, there would be earthquakes and a giant volcano and an asteroid. Today.

And lo and behold, all of that is happening, to one degree or another. And today's readings reference apocalyptic stuff and talk of the wonderful signs that we will see. And then there is Florida, which has been the sparring partner for a succession of hurricanes. And Haiti, which has been a living hell for those who reside there.

So maybe today is the end of time. So what? If God is loving and you are His, what does it matter? Left Behind is a well-marketed take on Revelation. But it is also largely irrelevant.

What is more relevant is the pain that the people in Florida and Haiti are living through. What is more relevant is the harm that might come if Mount St. Helens explodes. And what is most important is our response to that.

September 28

Okay, so we are free. And we can celebrate that freedom.

And then life happens.

Right now, I am in above my head at work. I am lucky in that my boss understands that I am in above my head and allows me to make mistakes without the threat of summary execution. I have not always been so lucky.

But that having been said, when I get home in the evening, I feel as if I have run the gauntlet. My work life is from the Indiana Jones school of business survival. It is one of the things that happens in life and before you take this as complaining, we got through all the hurricanes so far and haven't lost life, roof, or electricity.

The point is that I am free and that God invites me to bask in and celebrate that freedom. But then the crap creeps in from around the edges and before long, I am so busy beating back the crap such that it becomes a consuming, full-time occupation. And before long, I have given up my freedom in exchange for the work of making it through the day.

So how does one avoid this fate?

Beats me. I wish I knew. But I think it starts through community. It starts by having people around you who can remind you of your freedom. Because freedom isn't free; it's hard. It's hard to maintain and it's hard to remember and you need people around you who will be with you and remind you. With them you don't have to worry about agendas or who's out to take credit for what you did or whether they want what you have.

The Bible counsels us to seek wise counsel. But it is equally important that you find wise counsel that will stand with you and listen to you when you are broken-hearted or just sit with you when you don't want to be alone.

I have a wife who is a better companion than I deserve. Companion almost sounds like an insult in the context of marriage and love. But it's not, really. At the end of it, that's the gift of marriage. God gives us to each other so that we can stand by each other and know that someone will be there no matter how bad the day has been. I've never though about this before, but in the bounds of marriage, we are to be God's hands to each other. When I have been beaten and tossed about during the day and I come home and my wife hugs me, she becomes God's hands to me. What a wonderful miracle.

I meet with a group of guys each Saturday morning. Until quite recently, I stayed away because of things happening at my church. When I went back two Saturdays ago, they were genuinely happy to see me and they accepted me even though I sat and said almost nothing. And they accepted me this past weekend when it was appropriate for me to say a great deal.

You can't be free alone. Freedom requires help. And that help is why a supportive community is so important in the context of Christian living.

September 27

Sometimes, in the midst of your freedom, stuff will reach up and grab you. Sometimes, because we aren't perfect, our imperfections will snake up out of the ground and ensnare you and capture you. It is another of our imperfections.

A lot of the stuff we look at and view as harmless, really isn't. In actuality, it's not that it's harmful, it's that it could lead to harm. And that has to be dealt with in the context of freedom. Because freedom isn't free and it isn't easy. And though it is our heritage and it was what God purchased for us at the cost of His Son's life, it can be hard to maintain.

I guess that it's time to bow and turn to Him and ask for His grace and His wisdom to guide you. And at the end, if we perservere and stand strong in Him, the reward will be worth the effort. I guess that's the part where faith kicks in. If you know that you will stand in His presence, then it makes it much easier to humbly take on what has been placed in front of you.

September 26

It has been a crazy week, and thus no posting. It was a week in which I was sick the first half of the week. The second half of the week featured requests then demands at work for things I don't have the authority or ability to do. By the end of the week, I was feeling pretty cranky and not at all Godly.

And I think that's okay.

One of the things that I tend to do to myself is to expect perfection. If I am able to do something, I should be able to do it each and every time. There is no excuse for anything else...

But that is not in keeping with the freedom that God has granted us. The bottom line is this:

• Do your best to love God and your neighbor
• Ask forgiveness when you screw it up
• Try again tomorrow

To some people, this represents a dangerous proposition. It means we are free to crap all over each other in the name of love your neighbor. After all, if I love you, then I will get you right with God using any means necessary. And I will do it with love. And, if somehow this force-feeding hurts you, I will just ask forgiveness and I have no responsibility.

That's not God's love; it's Marie Barone's.

God's love means that you have to do your best, then really examine your conscience. In many cases, the views we have of sin are almost child-like. I said something mean or I ate a second piece of cake. But those are only skin-deep. Real sin runs much deeper and sometimes takes a long time to sort out. Catholics have a concept called examination of conscience, which you are supposed to do before receiving the Eucharist and before confession.

But examination of conscience is an on-going process that can take months or even longer, as you continually change and mature in your relationship with God. And its purpose is to understand where you stand in relationship to where you belong to guide your relationship with God and how you play that relationship out in daily life. It's not an excuse to beat yourself up, but to take responsibility for what you have done, so you can bring it to God and be freed of it. Without this process, we would be defined as a collection of our worst mistakes, and that ignores the intrinsic value of each human being.

The examination of conscience is a key component of freedom because without it, you can misuse your freedom and do great harm to people.

Put another way, I have been freed from a great number of things. The last thing I want to do is to use my freedom to build prisons of guilt or insufficiency for others. And because I can ask forgiveness when I screw it up, and I know I will be granted that forgiveness, I am free to try again, but with the humility of someone who is escaping a storm of my own making through the grace and mercy of a loving Father who guides and protects.

2004 World Series Prediction

The Boston Red Sox will win the World Series this year.

September 19

Against all this context, the story of Job takes on a new meaning. I have always been afraid of the story of Job. Every possible thing that could go wrong happens to Job. I have had some tests in my adult life, but I have been blessed by a wife who believes in me more than I believe in myself.

Job doesn't have that luxury. Even his wife tells him to curse God and die.

But look at what happens to Job. Everything is not taken from him. He stands firm, and though his faith waivers, his soul remains untouched and he enters into a greater reward at the end of his travails.

Romans 8:28 says that "We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."

At first, I took that as a very comforting passage because it meant that God wasn't going to do anything that was bad for me as long as I loved Him. But then, I realized that the things that are good for me are sometimes not happy, lovely things. Sometimes they involve pain and difficulty. Sometimes they involve dealing with my sins and shortcomings in a very intimate and painful manner.

Suddenly, what had been a very comforting passage became very ominous. God would do what was good for me, even if it hurt. And it was not something that I can control.

Now, my view of this passage is a combination. God is going to make all things work for me if I love Him. And yes, those things may be very painful. I have to interject that I am not looking forward to the judgement day, because I know that I have done some things that I am not going to want to be tried over. But in the end, as long as I stand firm in the grace of God, my soul cannot be taken from me.

That means as long as I seek God first, though things may come up that hurt, they are transitory and will eventually melt away before the goodness of God. I can act in freedom and do not have to be bound to ego-laden self-protection.

September 18

So how does one become free, then?

I believe that's where the denial of self comes in. Denial of self is a very difficult teaching. It is far too easy to interpret self-denial as literally denying yourself fun and goodness and lightness of heart. It is equally easy to interpret it as self-flagellation, as sort of an ongoing fixation on our inability to stand before God.

As you look at the cross, it is easy to get stuck on the fact that you might as well have been the person holding the nails and swinging the hammer. And that is true. But it is also half of the story. The other half is Jesus publicly asking for our forgiveness because we don't know what we are doing.

In a similar way, brokeness before God is just half the picture. Yes, we are all worthy of condemnation. But we are also forgiven, brought back into our heritage as His by His love made concrete through the pleas of Jesus to forgive us. It is not enough to realize that we are guilty of putting Jesus on the cross. After that must come the realization that once put there, Jesus--my Lord and my God--asked for our forgiveness. And by the very action that causes our condemnation, we are give the keys to forgiveness.

Judging yourself is to some degree appropriate, but it is not enough. We have to understand that judgement to understand that we have screwed up and that we fall short. And then, we have to do something about it. And that something determines whether we are broken by the Rock of Salvation or elevated by it.

We have to understand that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.

Well, if God is with you, then what can you not withstand if you stay in His graces? Every single thing that you have can be stripped away, except for the love of a Father who went to extraordinary means to show us that love. And with that realization comes the understanding that nothing can hurt you.

And that is the beginning of freedom.

September 16

Today's Readings

Today's Gospel reading includes the story of the harlot who washes Jesus' feet with her tears and wipes them with her hair. In the story, Jesus says to the Pharisee who objects that she loves much because she has been forgiven much.

We all have our list of things that we have done that make us blush. These are the things that, if people were to find out, they would not tolerate you or even look at you. They are the things that you might figure would keep you from God the entire time.

It is how we deal with these things that is the key to the entire puzzle. We have all sinned. We have all screwed up. We have all fallen short. The rock upon which we can be broken or elevated is how we deal with that. The promise of Jesus is that we are more than the sum of our failures. We are more than the sum of the hurts we have caused.

Freedom and the ability to love others flows from our ability to let go of those things that keep us from God. We are forgiven. We can let go of that crap that bogs us down. That is not to say that we aren't responsible. It is not to say that the freedom is cheap. On the contrary, it is very expensive. In order to let go of it, you must first understand it. And take ownership of it.

Denial of self includes the denial of the things that we hold dear to us that disfigure us. It includes letting go of those things that we have done that have hurt others and that hurt us as we blanche inside before our God and the realization of how we have fallen short.

We cannot truly love others and show them freedom until we are free ourselves.

September 15

Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, love is not pompous,
it is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

This is what we are called to be. These are the characteristics we are called to have. Ironically, it is in these characteristics that we wind up having the most freedom.

September 14

How can we be free when we have built our own prisons?

I am faced, lately, with a prison made up of my own actions. The things I have done, some of them little and some of them not so little, have come together to show me my worst. I have made some awful mistakes. I have been selfish at times and let down the people who have counted on me.

We cannot have a society without responsibility. Yet we cannot have a society without redemption, either. It is a basic Christian concept that no one is worthy, not even one. And that's true. No matter how good you think you are, at some point, you will have realizations that cut you to the bone because you know it represents the worst of you and you know it is true.

But it is also a basic Christian concept that each person is fearfully and wonderfully made in the Creator's image. No matter how bad you think you are, at some point, you will have the realization that you have done something wonderful. Yet, how many time have you rejoiced over your accomplishments and triumphs?

Freedom lies in combination of responsibility and redemption. And redemption is ours, if we avail ourselves of it. It's all up to us, regardless of whether or not we are Christian. If you are Christian, then it is accepting the forgiveness of a loving God, no strings attached. No groveling. No crawling along the ground. No self-flagellation.

If you are not Christian, then it's a change of perspective. It's a change of the way you perceive yourself. Freedom is not attained by ignoring your infirmities. It is attained by understanding that you are not the sum of your failures. It is attained by starting to understand your power and your ability to do good things that will transcend yourself and transform others.

September 13

I'm rebranding this.

It's not just the daily readings, but other things as well. Mostly, though, I want to make this not self-involved, but other-involved.

I'm incredibly blessed and lucky. I have a wonderful wife, two great kids, a nice house, a steady job, and all kinds of other good things. There is nothing that is happening to me that someone else hasn't survived first.

So if I am not the key to the universe, what is, then? Well, all I have is my understanding, and a continuing quest to increase that understanding.

I think the key to the universe is other people. It's an area that people typically botch to one degree or another, and one of the major drawbacks of our being. We screw stuff up and never let go of the bad effects on others or ourselves.

You have to be responsible, but you also have to be free. Otherwise, we are too defined by our failures, but if we are fearfully and wonderfully made, aren't we more than those failures.

I own a crapload of failure. I have screwed up enough to build a really high mountain. But there is more to it than that. I also have a great ability to do good things, as well. I have been blessed with a remarkable amount of talent and, when I choose to use it, a really soft heart.

Redemption isn't just something that allows us to feel good and to dodge whatever our latest mess is, it is the key to learning and doing more than surviving. It is the key to a rich and vibrant life.