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.