Another good analogy

I heard someone make a great point on Relevant Radio the other day. The show's host made a comment about the Church's rules, and the guest (can't remember his name) pointed out that what the Church offers should be thought of more as a prescription than a set of rules.

When I heard this it was one of those "ah-hah!" moments. This has been my experience with Church teaching. Sure, I can ignore its ideas on how to live life; I can do my own thing on the grounds that I'm a free thinker who refuses to be told what to do. But the Church tells us how to live life in the same sense that our doctors tell us how to take our medicine. If you follow your doctor's orders for the medicine he prescribed, you will experience healing and health; if you do your own thing and wildly disregard the prescription you might cause yourself great harm -- maybe even death.

Based on the results I've seen in my life since discovering Church teaching, it is truly like a prescription for healing from a great Doctor. The more closely I follow the guidelines, the better I feel.

Also, if you see it as a prescription instead of a set of rules, it makes dissent seem a lot less glamorous.

MAKES YOU SOUND LIKE A REBEL: "The law says that I can't jaywalk but I do anyway! I refuse to be confined by the State's rules!"

MAKES YOU SOUND LIKE A FOOL: "My prescription tells me to take 7.5 mg of Coumadin but I take 30 mg! I refuse to be confined by my doctor's rules!"

Just a thought. :)

An update on bad moods

An update to my post from Thursday about my terrible mood:

Being in the bad mood that I was, I had convinced myself that the tone of the comments was going to be, "Gee, I can't really relate to that. I mean, how could you not feel grateful for all your many blessings, even for a moment? I've never experienced that so I can't offer any helpful advice."

So when the first few comments rolled in with people saying that they go through the same thing sometimes, I felt a lot better almost immediately. And then of course the advice was helpful too.

It got me thinking about how often I'm miffed at other people. It's rare that I'm as low as I felt last week, but on a near hourly basis someone does something to annoy me. So I've decided that from now on, when I catch myself feeling annoyed at someone and start that inner dialogue of, "How could he/she do something so stupid/annoying/thoughtless..." I must first pause and name something that I do that others might find irritating. Today is Day 1 of this new policy and it's been surprisingly humbling.

Also, here is the Abandonment Prayer I mentioned in that post. Our RCIA director has asked us to memorize it. He said it was a great help to him when he was making the difficult transition from being a drug addict and dealer living on the streets to a devout Catholic.

Father,

I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures --
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.

It is hard to say this and mean it. (At the part about "I am ready for all, I accept all," I instinctively through in a few caveats.) But when I can force myself to shut up long enough to say it, it helps.

Three great quotes

"There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read."

~G.K. Chesterton

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

"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."

~G.K. Chesterton

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

"There's a lot of grumbling among Catholics about the liturgy. Some folks complain that the homily is bad and the hymns are lousy. Others say they don't get anything out of Mass, because it's rote ritual. I don't have any patience for any of this talk. all I can ever say is that I am the biggest liturgical abuse I find in every Mass I attend. I'm the only empty I thing I find in every Mass. It's me who comes to Mass far less than fully prepared to meet my Maker. It's my mind that rambles while the priest is up there praying on my behalf. Is it the priest who's just going through the motions -- or is it me?

"Everybody expects the Mass to deliver the goods. But we forget that love is an exchange of gifts, and that in every Mass, God expects us to deliver ourselves to him, too -- totally, completely."

~ David Scott

(via Happy Catholic)

Turning it over to God

So I'm in a horrible mood today. We're spending the weekend at my mother-in-law's house and I'm worn out from traveling with two little kids and just grouchy in general. It's one of those days where I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. A couple little things irritated me this morning and put me in an even worse mood and I've been sitting here stewing about all that is wrong with the world ever since.

I actually have a moment alone since the kids are out with my husband and his mother, so I took the opportunity to reflect and see how I can push through this funk. I tried praying, but it came out more as whining in God's general direction ("Lord, did you see what So-and-so did to me?! That was so rude! Aren't they just awful?! Look at what a bad person they are!")

I realized that I was not going to pull myself out of this downward spiral of negativity, and I thought of the advice I recently heard that you can not do this sort of thing alone. We must have God's help in order to be the people we need to be. So I pulled out the Abandonment Prayer that our RCIA director gave us and said that. As I read the part about abandoning myself to God's will I thought, "Yes, this is what I need to do! I really mean that!...But how on earth do you do that?"

Once again, I am hung up on technicalities. I have no idea how one goes about abandoning oneself to God. Should I fall to my knees and pray continuously until the kids get back? Should I pray a rosary? Should I ask myself what Jesus would do in this situation and do only that? (I am going to re-name this site The Stupid Questions blog).

I don't have much more time to write since everyone is about to get back, but I throw this out to you guys: what do you do when you're in a horrible mood, feeling easily irritated by everyone and everything and grateful for almost nothing, and simply cannot pull out of it on your own?

Suicide, Mercy, and Redemption

Go read AdoroTeDevote's latest post. Truly inspiring.

Great quote from Dinesh D'Souza

"It is not religion but atheism that requires a Darwinian explanation. It seems perplexing why nature would breed a group of people who see no purpose to life or the universe, indeed whose only moral drive seems to be sneering at their fellow human beings who do have a sense of purpose." ~Dinesh D'Souza

(via Insight Scoop)

Burden of proof

I've become involved in yet another email debate with an atheist friend. I forwarded our latest back and forth to my husband and he had these thoughts which, as usual, brought a lot of clarity to the discussion. (You can tell he's a lawyer.) He writes:

I think there are two things this discussion is missing: (1) laboratory proof vs. court room proof, and (2) where does the burden of proof lie.

Burden of Proof
I didn't create myself, and I definitely didn't create the universe. Since it exists, I'm going to assume it got here somehow. I guess it *could* be just random chance, but it sure does seem a little too complex for that.

So, I think the first question one has to ask is, "Do I need to prove God's existence or do I need to disprove it?" What is my first assumption? That some sort of higher power brought all this into existence, or that all of this brought itself into existence randomly somehow? Every good scientific enquiry begins with a definition of assumptions and parameters.

Lab Proof vs. Courtroom Proof
Very few things in life including lots of scientific stuff like meteorology, economics, some astronomy (such as, what is inside the Sun) can be proven in the lab using the scientific method (which, by the way, means nothing more than "have a control, repeat the experiment multiple times varying only one element of the experiment at a time.") Yet we have learned much from all of these areas of learning.

Philosophy and psychology and sociology also have taught us much about ourselves, yet only a few things in these areas of learning can really be reduced to a repeatable experiment.

All kinds of very important things have to be determined (think of criminal trials) based on incomplete evidence. In those cases we don't try to create a repeatable experiment that "proves" or "disproves" it. And we don't throw up our hands when it becomes clear that an experiment is not going to answer the question with 100% certainty. Instead, we assemble the evidence and weigh it.

And that is the only kind of inquiry that we can do regarding God's existence. At the end of the day, we have to ask, "Given all that I know, does it seem more likely that there is some sort of higher power out there, or is this all just randomness?"


If you put the burden of proof on God, and if you wait for a perfect experiment to come along, then you have already pre-determined the outcome. If you approach it that way, what would it take for God to prove his own existence? Would he have to come down to Earth and do a bunch of miracles?

Finding the box top

One of the best analogies for Christianity that I've ever heard is from the flawed but good book I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek. In it Geisler and Turek use the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle, pointing out that it's almost impossible to put one together if you don't have the box top to show you the picture you're trying to complete. They propose that life is like a mass of jigsaw puzzle pieces, and that Christianity offers the box top that makes it all come together.

I refer to this analogy over and over again when thinking about why I'm a Catholic Christian. When I was an atheist I believed that there was no box top. I was simply sitting in front of a pile of random puzzle pieces. I did find it odd that certain pieces did fit together rather nicely, and that it looked like all these disparate pieces were somehow meant to go together, but I wrote it off as wishful thinking. Then I briefly held up some potential box tops like Buddhism or new age spirituality but there were too many pieces that didn't match up to anything pictured on the box. Things weren't coming together.

And then, against my better judgment, I glanced at the box top that the Catholic Church offers. Hmmm, well, that piece looks like part of their picture. OK, these three pieces clearly fit together. And this one. And that one...and so on. The puzzle rapidly started coming together.

In this life I'll never have time to complete the puzzle. There are too many pieces and my intellect is too limited. But I do know this: I have yet to find a puzzle piece from life that does not match something on the Catholic box top. Every time I hold one up I recognize it in the big picture and am able to pick out complementary pieces and fit them all together neatly.

If this Church, this box top, isn't "it," the answer to all of life's questions, it is at least very close. But it would appear from my experience so far that it is indeed "it." This is the box top. This is the big picture that makes all the pieces of the puzzle come together as one, beautiful whole.

Two wolves

More from the inbox. I don't like most email forwards, but I recently had this one sent to me and thought it was great:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two 'wolves' inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

"The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

From the inbox

My husband mentioned in passing in an email exchange with an old friend this morning that we're in the process of becoming Catholic. His response:

You're joining the Catholic church!!??!?!?!?!

We get that a lot. :)

Great books for Catholics

I read each and every response to my post about recommended reading for RCIA, looked up each suggestion on Amazon, and have finally put together a list of books for people in our RCIA class who would like to do further reading on the topics we discuss. Each book I have either read myself and know is fantastic, and/or multiple people recommended it on this site, and/or it got a ton of 5-star reviews on Amazon. I included a description of each book (usually either from the back cover or from a review) since I figured that a list of titles alone wouldn't be very compelling.

This turned out to be a larger endeavor than I thought and took up a lot of my time today, but I think it's worth it. Thanks (once again) to the great tips from my great readers I think I've been able to put together a list of books that will help new converts and cradle Catholics alike grow in their faith. (I hit "Add to Wish List" many times during the process of compiling this list.)

Here's a PDF version. If you have any trouble viewing it or want the Word version, email me and I'll send it to you.

Our adult education director was excited about this and I think he's actually going to pass it out to the class, which makes me nervous. I hope this is a good selection of books that will help people grow in their faith.

Answered prayers?

As I may have mentioned, my mother was raised Catholic but has since fallen away from the faith. She still has a vague affection for the Church but is not religious at all. She never goes to Mass or prays. I doubt she even believes in God. I have been trying to re-ignite her interest in the Church and to get her to see the beauty and power of this religion that she has forgotten, and have been praying that God leads her home.

She just told me that through an odd set of circumstances she has received a completely free, all-expense-paid trip to Rome that includes a private tour of the Vatican.

Weird.

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

UPDATE: Tonight I suggested that perhaps my mom should consider going to confession so that she could attend Mass and take communion in the Vatican. She thought about it and said, "Wow, that'd be really neat. I just might do that." It would be the first time she's received the Eucharist in more than 30 years.

Chesterton quote generator for email signatures

I found myself with some unexpected free time tonight so I came over to my desk with the intention of doing some filing and paying bills. What did I actually do? Set up a random Chesterton quote generator for my email signature. Behold Jennifer, Queen of Procrastinators.

Since it was actually somewhat tricky and labor-intensive to format all the Chesterton quotes correctly I thought I'd put them out there for others to use as well. (Read: I'm trying to make myself feel better about the time I wasted on this tonight.)

So...if anyone wants to have a random quote from G.K. Chesterton as their email signature...

• Download this free, small program called Quotes.
• When it asks you which type of quotes you want choose only "wisdom".
• Right-click on the program icon on your desktop tray, go to Edit Quotes Data File, select "wisdom.txt" and replace it with the contents of this text file I created (or just email me and I'll send it to you).

OK, I'm going to bed now. Seriously. Not... going... to.... think... about... adding... C.S. Lewis... quotes...

Recommended reading for RCIA?

The other night in RCIA class I was in a small group and we were talking about why we were converting to Catholicism. I mentioned that it was a largely intellectual decision for me, and that the books I'd read over the past year were critical influences on my decision. Almost all the people in my group were very eager to know which books I found most helpful to my faith and my decision to become Catholic. Unfortunately I ran out of time to give them details and only managed to throw out a couple.

As a reading fanatic I was excited to see others so interested in this topic. After class I approached the Adult Education Director and asked him if he had a recommended reading list for people in RCIA. He said that he unfortunately does not, he's simply been too busy to tackle that. I offered to take a first stab at such a list based on the books that had the most profound impact on me, and he was very enthusiastic. I was surprised at how grateful and excited he seemed. And my first thought was, "OK, gotta get my blog readers in on this." Since he might end up actually using this list I put together I want to make sure it's good.

Most of the people in the class are converting from other Christian denominations. A few are cradle Catholics who just need First Communion, and there are actually a couple of people like me who previously had no faith whatsoever. The vibe I get from most people is that they're pretty committed to converting, but still a bit skeptical about certain aspects of Catholicism.

Below are the books that I've found most helpful:

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

* = I have not yet read this myself but hear it's excellent

On the Catholic Church

• The Good News About Sex and Marriage by Christopher West
• Catholicism for Dummies by Rev. John Trigilio and Rev. Kenneth Brighenti
• By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition by Mark Shea
• Making Sense Out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did by Mark Shea
• How the Reformation Happened by Hillaire Belloc
• Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
• * The Lamb's Supper by Scott Hahn
• * Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn
  

On Prayer and Faith

• * Fire Within by Thomas Dubay
• * The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux
  

On God and Jesus

• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
• The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
  

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

Thoughts? What am I missing? Anything I should add to/remove from the list? I'm sure there are some other good books out there about prayer and strengthening your faith.

Keep in mind that most of the audience is pretty unfamiliar with the Church, so something like Thomas Howard's On Being Catholic is going to be too "heavy" for this list.

Outwitted by a toddler

You guys did it again! Great advice to the last post. I'm so down in the weeds here that I often can't see the big picture, which in this case is the fact that I can get my two-year-old's yelling under control. Since he's my first child and I don't know much about kids I tend to lag behind in terms of my expectations for his behavior. Last time I checked he was only eighteen months old, this whole thing about him being two sort of snuck up on me. :)

Although my current system for discipline is going to need some fine tuning.

A few months ago I introduced the dreaded "naughty mat". I watch Super Nanny so I had this all figured out. I picked out an old red placemat and kept it handy, just waiting for the right opportunity to use it. A couple days later when DB was overtired and had a molar coming in he was really cranky and I was presented with a great opportunity to use it about fifteen minutes into our day.

DB started throwing a fit about the shirt I'd chosen for him to wear, so I took him to the naughty mat. I explained what it was, and calmly told him that while he was screaming he had to sit on the naughty mat and would not get what he wanted. I thought I'd heard somewhere that you need to wait to start the "time out" time until the child is sitting there of his own free will. So...45 MINUTES LATER...I was still holding him there while he screamed.

At that point it was past time to feed the baby and my stamina was wearing out, so I decided to jump on the first opportunity to pronounce his punishment fulfilled. He took a long breath in between screams and I commended his calmness, counted to ten as fast as I could and told him he could now get up.

As soon as I picked up the placemat to put it away he started throwing a fit again...because he wanted to sit on the naughty mat some more.

Touche, DB. Touche.

Parenting is such a humbling experience.

Advice on going from one to two kids?

My son just had his second birthday and my baby is now 14 weeks old. This is supposed to be hard, right?

I feel like the pressure of going from one to two kids is just now hitting me. It was easier when the baby was a newborn, but now that she's a bit older and isn't a sleepy little infant anymore I really have my hands full. About once a day I find myself *extremely* stressed, frustrated, at my wit's end, topped off with a lot of guilt that I feel that way. I am so blessed it's absurd. I have the best husband in the world, I live with my mother who is very helpful when she can spare the time, I even have a freaking babysitter who comes sometimes to help with my son. On top of that there's the fact that I have two healthy children and live in the kind of luxury that 99% of people who have ever lived cannot imagine (i.e. I live a typical middle-class American life).

Here's an example of the sort of thing that makes me so upset most days: I was trying to put the baby down for a nap but my son wanted to read a book. I told him I'd be happy to as soon as I put the baby down. He got really loud and rowdy, startled the baby, and she started screaming. She was crying so hard that it was hard to tell if she was just overtired or in pain. I determined that she was in pain (in retrospect I think she was just tired) so I walked up and down the hall with her to get her to settle down. Meanwhile, my poor son started crying and clinging to my leg because he wanted my attention, thus upsetting the baby even more. The noise level was so loud it physically hurt my ears, my two children whom I love so much, both screaming and screaming and screaming.

Does this happen to everyone else or am I doing something wrong here?

I feel like I am sucking at my vocation. It's partially for the reasons mentioned in this post (although I have more help than most people). Another big issue (maybe *the* issue) is that I can count on my hands the number of times I've gotten a good night's sleep in the past two years. My son didn't sleep through the night until a few weeks before the baby was born, and the pain of the DVT kept me up at night during that time. I fully understand now why sleep deprivation is a form of torture outlawed in the Geneva Convention. It's brutal.

So anyway. You brilliant commentors have given me such wonderful advice for pretty much every issue of faith I've ever thrown out, so I'll put this one out there as well: anyone have any advice? For those of you who have multiple children, was this a tough period for you as well? It's hard to tell if I'm in a phase of life that's tough for everyone or if maybe there's something I'm totally screwing up here that makes it harder for me than for other people.

Insignificant

Every few weeks I get a forward from someone with a link to NASA's Picture of the Day (or some other astronomy photo) with the comment "Doesn't this make you feel insignificant?!?!"

Well, it makes me feel small. And it used to make me feel insignificant. But now that I understand the concept of God and who he is and what he's done it makes me feel very significant. I'm made in the image of the Being that did that!

As usual, Chesterton says it best (via Steve G.):

[Herbert Spencer] popularized this contemptible notion that the size of the solar system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogma of man. Why should a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to a whale?

If mere size proves that man is not the image of God, then a whale may be the image of God; a somewhat formless image; what one might call an impressionist portrait. It is quite futile to argue that man is small compared to the cosmos; for man was always small compared to the nearest tree.

When I sent one of these forwards to my husband he echoed Chesterton, albeit with a little less eloquence. This has henceforth been known in our family as "stars suck" apologetics.

It's just odd to me. I don't see the connection. Even if there a gazillion stars out there, they can't think, so I win. I just don't get it.

Picture me versus a star (any star) on Jeopardy. I'd just win every question. Even the ones I didn't know would just go unanswered. The star wouldn't get a single point. Stars suck.

An atheist moves to a Muslim country. Hilarity ensues.

As much as I miss my dad, I have to say it's hilarious to hear of his exploits from living in the United Arab Emirates. There's a loudspeaker for the calls to prayer outside his window, and it's LOUD. The first prayer every day is an hour and a half before sunrise (amazingly, he says most people do observe this). He says he wants to start a movement to get Islam back to its roots when people just shouted the prayers from the mosque. Anyhoo...

I had to snicker at his latest email about suffering through Ramadan when he can't eat or drink in public all day. He says that when he comes home for the holidays he's going to live on wine and ham sandwiches with a side of bacon.

--------Original Message--------
From: Dad
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 5:04 AM
To: Jennifer
Subject: Ramadan

OK, Ramadan was interesting, it was quaint cultural experience, but I'm over it. Stores and restaurants are closed at the time I want them open. The malls stay open until 2:00 AM and some restaurants until 4:00 AM. So what.

We get two days off to celebrate Eid, or the end of Ramadan, but the Imams won't announce when it is until they see the crescent moon the day before. I may call the main mosque and ask how can I make a tee time for golf if I don't know when we have off. I'll give them the web site for the US Naval Observatory and they can find out TODAY when the crescent moon will be seen. If they can be modern and chant the daily prayers by loudspeaker right outside my bedroom window, they can go online and figure out the new moon!

I bet Christianity is starting to look a lot more appealing to him now. :)

Lord, what's my action item?

[I've wanted to post this for a few months now but keep holding off since it belies how truly thick-headed I am with these concepts. But my purpose here is to be completely honest in my journey from atheism to faith, and this is a pretty key point of confusion for me, so here it is, my fourth grade level question about Jesus and salvation...]

A couple weeks ago my husband and I went to the cathedral downtown for a Red Mass for local attorneys. It was a beautiful, sensuous experience. I'd never been to a church service in a cathedral and had never heard a choir of that caliber. In fact, when the sound of "God, Whose Purpose Is To Kindle" burst through the room I thought it must be a CD.

As the mass proceeded I stared at the crucifix hanging behind the bishop. Powerful feelings stirred within me but couldn't quite bubble to the surface: I realized that there is a key thing I don't understand that hamstrings my faith. As I sat there pondering the image of Christ on the cross I was overwhelmed with gratitude for his death, yet didn't understand exactly what I'm supposed to do with that. Perhaps it was because I was in business attire, but I was reminded of a really annoying but apropos phrase that we used to use a lot at one of my companies when we got a lot of info at a meeting but didn't know what to do with it: "What's my action item?" I.e., What specifically do you want me to do with the data you just gave me?

To backtrack for a moment, I think I finally understand why Christ had to die for our sins (thanks in large part to this comment from January). Lemme see if I have this right: God's kingdom is perfect goodness. If he were to just freely let flawed and sinful people be a part it it wouldn't be good anymore. So there is this natural separation between us sinful humans and perfect God. In order to get close to him we would have to show true, sincere remorse for our sins and make some sort of sacrifice to make up for it. But because he is so purely good there's nothing we could do that would make up for how bad we are compared to him. I could pour out my finest bottle of wine, sacrifice an unblemished animal, etc. and it wouldn't even scratch the surface. The only sacrifice weighty enough is the Son of God himself.

Do I have this right so far?

Assuming that I do, or that I'm at least close, I'll get to my big question...

Here's what I don't get (and here is where I astound you all with my ignorance): I don't understand how Jesus' death on the cross affects me. I understand how sacrificing some material possession could theoretically make up for sin -- by giving this object to God I am making a choice that causes me some pain since I'll no longer have it for myself. The pain I feel there is kind of "payment" for sins. But Jesus' death wasn't my choice, I wasn't there, I didn't know him. Sinful 'ol Jennifer F. didn't sacrifice anything that day Jesus died.

These were my thoughts as I stared at the cross in the cathedral. With great frustration at my inability to get this through my head, I thought, "Lord, what is my action item here? I understand that you were the perfect sacrifice, but it wasn't mine to give. What is it that I'm supposed to be doing to make your sacrifice mine?"

Four pages a day

Last Monday in RCIA we read a few passages from the Bible and I was reminded of how very little I know about the New Testament. I've done enough research on Jesus that I know the basics about his life and know a decent amount about the historical, mostly non-Biblical evidence that supports Christian claims, but I know very few of the New Testament stories that most people know.

I got a wild idea that night in RCIA that I'm going to read the New Testament cover to cover over the next few months. I turn 30 early next year and would love to sneak in one last accomplishment before that milestone. I feel like this is important for me. I was so sheltered from Christian teaching growing up that I have almost no familiarity with scripture. Obviously I don't think I need to read it so that I can come up with my own take on what God wants of us, I think the Church has that covered, but I'd just like to know what the thing says.

I put together an Excel spreadsheet to keep myself on track (few events in my life escape quantification in Excel) and realized that at four pages per day I could actually finish on Christmas Day, an appropriate milestone that also gives me leeway before my birthday in case I fall behind.

For some reason it's really important to me to do this, maybe to make up for all those hours that everyone else has spent in Vacation Bible School and Sunday School. :) Wish me luck.

Great advice on faith and feeling

First of all, a belated THANK YOU to everyone who gave their thoughts on my post about having an underwhelming experience in Adoration. I always find the comments to my posts to be helpful, but these went above and beyond. I feel like a took a leap forward in my faith after hearing these thoughts.

Because I know that there are people who read this site who are also struggling with their faith, and not everyone has time to read every comment to every post, I've put together an edited summary of the thoughts that particularly impacted me. Literally every single comment was helpful, but the ones below really hit home and made me aware of some big spiritual blind spots I had. I hope that others find this as interesting and helpful as I did.

================

I try to remember that feelings/emotions are great and are a part of our faith, but they are not the whole of it. Part of faith is "feeling," but so is "doing." If I wait and wait until I *feel* like praying, I'll never do it--so it's OK to start out by just going through the motions if that's the best I can do.
- Joanne


...A HIGHLY recommended book ... "No Wonder They Call It the Real Presence: Lives Changed by Christ In Eucharistic Adoration by David Pearson." That book really helped me with the entire concept of losing expectations over what sitting with Jesus would do for me and set me free for being open to what God would send, which has been powerful on occasion and also felt like nothing upon occasion. As a previous comment has said it was when I dropped my expectations that I was surprised by Jesus with His presence.
- Julie D.


We can often be distracted or misled by emotion, or lack of it. The measure of our emotional response is not equal to the measure of our allotment of faith. In fact, keeping the faith in spite of lack of feeling is more laudable because we are more prone to doubt lacking this internal reward. Ask yourself if you more greatly desire the reward of emotion or the reward of Grace? Persevere.
- Bekah


Faith is not an emotion--it is a conscious act of the will, but it is also a gift from God...You have faith--it's all over your post. So what if you don't' have "feeling"?

[God] gives us what we need, not necessarily what we want. The most intimate and powerful work the Lord does in our souls is often not accompanied by any sort of recognizable feeling on our part.
- Adoro Te Devote


It helps to remember that adoration is other-centered as opposed to me-centered. I tend to go astray when I'm more worried about what I get out of prayer than about what I'm giving to it.

Think about having a conversation with a person. If you aren't listening to what they say, but only worried about what you will say next, it's not much of a conversation, is it?
- Melanie B.


Do you always *feel* crazy in love with your husband? Do you still do things that tell him that you love him, even when you don't get that crazy in love feeling? Is the feeling or the fact of the love that matters most?
- Patty in WA


I rarely have any feelings when I go to Adoration...The thing that I DO notice, however, is the increased sanctity in my life since I started regularly Adoring the Lord. I walk in an aura of peace these days that I didn't have before.
- Tim


Your faith is probably deeper than you think...you are pressing forward even when you feel spiritually dry or feel far from God.
- Christine


So often when we pray we are trying to figure out what to say, how to approach God, what to do. When in reality if we'd but be silent and open our hearts, maybe we'd find that it is us who should be listening, and allowing God to approach us. It is after all we who are in need of transformation during prayer, not the other way round.
- Steve G.


I also tend to find prayer a private thing. If I were doing it before a group of people that would make me nervous and overly aware of self. [Emphasis mine -JF]
- Amy Caroline


I heard that God loves our worship especially at those times when we are distracted or are not getting anything out of it, because we are doing it completely for Him, not for whatever positive feedback we might get.
- Tony


Sometimes my husband and I will sit in the same room and each read our own book or newspaper. We don't necessarily say much but we are keenly aware of each others' presence and enjoying it. When he is out of town I may sit in my same chair and read my book, but it is not the same because he is not there.

Time spent in Adoration does not have to be spent kneeling and staring at the monstrance. It is an excellent time to take some spiritual reading and study in His presence...Just as sometimes I am prompted by my husband's mere presence to close my book and go give him a hug, you may occasionally be prompted by the realization of Christ's Real Presence to look at Him and pray from the heart. At other times it may be enough to just be with Him and read.
- Catholic Mom

================

Because just putting together a post now and then takes up 100% of my free time for web surfing, I rarely have time to respond to the comments that are left on this site. But just know that I read every one, and they are helpful, appreciated, and sometimes life-changing.

The Church and Galileo

It's funny how two people can read the same book and get totally different insights. When I read Galileo's Daughter I found it inspiring that both he and his brilliant daughter (a Poor Clare nun) were devout Catholics who had deep faith in God and the Church. I found it interesting that his goal with his scientific work was to defend the Italian Catholics' reputation against infidels and Protestants. At the time I wasn't even considering becoming Catholic, but reading this book definitely piqued my interest in the Church.

My dad, an atheist, is reading it now and had this to say:

I have resumed my reading of Galileo's Daughter and last night came to the part where the Vatican issued an opinion on the Copernican writings that the sun was the center of the universe. Galileo had been speaking out for this theory also. The pope convened a committee to review it and the committee was chaired by Cardinal Bellarani who was the Inquisitor at the trial of Giordano Bruno, who was, of course, burned at the stake for his astronomical observations. Amazingly the committee voted unanimously that Copernicus’s ideas were heretical.

A priest in Florence had written a book saying that Copernican theories actually complemented the Bible. The printer of that book was arrested and the priest died suddenly at age 36 (probably didn’t eat well and exercise).

Cardinal Bellarani had soldiers pick up Galileo and bring him to the Vatican and told him he really shouldn't be saying Copernicus was right. That there was no hard evidence to prove it. Galileo said that maybe his calculations had been a little off and maybe Copernicus was wrong. What a wimp. He should have told Bellarani to stick it in his ear and he would say whatever he wanted. That's what I would have done!!! [In case it's not obvious, he's being facetious in these last couple sentences. -JF]

I'd like to respond to this but am not sure what to say. The facts he states above are true. My take on it is:

(1) Yes, the Church burned people at the stake and censored certain scientific thought. I don't think they should have done it. But it's not like that indicates that there's something inherently evil about the Church or religion in general. People have fared far worse in atheistic societies (see: Stalinist Russia).

(2) It seems totally outrageous to us to execute people for questioning religious authorities. And I do think that this is wrong, but I can see how it didn't seem like an outrageous idea back then. Today God is irrelevant to our luxurious lives. Food, shelter and medicine are abundant. It's easy to be blase about God and the soul and the afterlife when everything is going so well here on earth. But in pretty much every other time and place people were all too close to the concept of suffering and death.

I sometimes look at my children and remember that if I'd lived a couple hundred years ago it would not be unlikely that at some point in my life I'd bury a young child. I realize then why people took matters of religion so seriously back then. If one of my children were to fall seriously ill the question of God and what he wants us to do to be with him in the afterlife would be the absolute #1 priority in my life. I wouldn't want to screw it up. I can see how people back then, who faced the death of infants and children and loved-ones all the time, would take it very seriously when they perceived that someone was trying to lead people away from God. Death was not a distant, theoretical concept for them, so matters of faith were of the utmost importance.

(3) This one is a stretch and I won't mention it in my reply but, for what it's worth, I sometimes wonder if God was not using the Church to advance science in the whole Galileo affair. Galileo was on the wrong path with his ideas about astronomy. He thought comets were reflections of the sun inside the earth's atmosphere and ridiculed astronomers who suggested they were celestial bodies. He thought the tides were caused by the motion of the earth. Given the path he was on, I don't think much more would have come of his investigation into astronomy.

It was only when his beloved Church told him to stop studying the orbits of the planets that he moved on to study motion and mathematical proportions. And those studies revolutionized science. Albert Einstein said that his work in this area makes him "the father of modern physics -- indeed the father of modern science altogether."

It's interesting what you see when you give the Church and God the benefit of the doubt.

---

Anyway, those are my thoughts off the top of my head. Anyone have any suggestions for additional points I could make in my reply?

Little lies

A couple weeks ago in our RCIA class our instructor was telling us a funny story about his family. At one point in the story he mentioned that he wanted a snack at McDonalds but knew his wife wouldn't approve since she was cooking dinner. At the prospect of just getting a small order of fries and telling her he forgot she was cooking he said, "Obviously I couldn't lie like that," and continued on with his story.

Outwardly I nodded in agreement, but the thought popped into my head, "Well, 'lie' is an awfully strong word. It wouldn't be THAT big of a deal, especially if you still ate dinner. Those sorts of things are just little 'lies'. Nothing worth getting hung up on."

I tried to get back into listening to his highly entertaining story but I kept getting distracted by the issue of whether or not that fries situation would really be a 'lie'. I was so irritated with myself, I didn't even want to be thinking about this stupid issue. It's no big deal to just, you know, be like 99.5% honest about little things that don't matter. Now what was he saying about that hilarious vacation to New Mexico...?

But it didn't work. I tried to move on but I kept coming back to this issue. Finally, the next day, I decided that I might as well really think through it since something was obviously nagging at me. Though it still seemed like our instructor was being a bit uptight I realized that he was technically right to not tell lies, even if it's about little things. I also realized that this is a clear requirement of being Christ-like. As the perfect being Jesus Christ would not have lied about anything, ever, so if you're going to imitate him you must speak the truth in all matters, big and little.

So last week I decided that from now on I will attempt to be 100% honest in all my dealings. No problem, I thought. I'm a really honest person. I'd never lie about anything even remotely important. I guess I might tell little half-truths here and there since I do have a tendency to keep the peace by telling people what they want to hear (e.g. saying I think something will take five minutes when I know it will take at least fifteen) but I hardly even do that. This is going to be a non-event, I thought. I was wrong.

I have learned more about myself in the past week than I had in the past few years.

I have been shocked at how often the statements I make are not completely true, and what I see when I insist on speaking only the truth. In particular, I've found that I tell many little lies to myself, and the truth in those instances is most revealing of all. Some examples:

-- It is my husband's job to clean up the kitchen after dinner. A couple nights ago he got busy with something and I found myself with unexpected free time after dinner. I surveyed the kitchen in all its mess and said to myself, "I'd clean it up for him but I'm just too tired." As I was heading over to the couch to read I asked myself if that was really true. Though I hadn't slept much the night before I really wasn't feeling tired at that moment. I just didn't want to do it.

-- My husband and I were chatting about our days after work last week and I made the statement that I'd wanted to deal with some important health insurance stuff but I just didn't have time. It sounds plausible: I have an infant and a toddler, I'm super busy. But it wasn't true. In fact, it was a double lie: I didn't want to do it at all, and I didn't have time only because I'd spent the kids' nap time reading blogs.

-- We've been making a big effort lately to save money, in particular on little things. My husband and I have both committed to making every effort to save even ten cents here and a dollar there at lunches, the grocery store, etc. since that sort of thing really adds up. I was at Target yesterday and made a purchase that I knew I could've saved at least three dollars on but I "didn't have time" to evaluate all the alternatives, so I threw the expensive brand I was most familiar with in the cart. Of course I had the few extra minutes it would have taken to make an informed purchase. I just didn't feel like it.

I could go on and on. The examples are myriad. It's not to say that my behavior isn't ever justifiable in these situations (e.g. I did really crave some time to myself after dinner; I had been dying to catch up on blog reading all week; and I was worried at Target that my son was about to have a meltdown) but by insisting on complete honesty, even with statements said only to myself, it forces me to deal with life in a much more direct way.

If I don't want to clean up the kitchen because I really want time to myself, that might be fine. Maybe I need to restructure my weeks to include more "me" time. But it doesn't do anyone any good to gloss over the issue with the 'ol "I'm too tired" line.

But, more often, the truth ultimately boils down to sloth on my part. "I didn't have time" is usually "I procrastinated until I ran out of time," "I was too tired" is often "I just didn't feel like it".

It's funny how uncomfortable it is to be totally honest with myself. It's no fun to say, "Man, the living room is a total mess. I'd clean it up but I don't have...err, I don't feel like it." That's a lot less satisfying than the old way! It makes me sound like a person I don't want to be.

And I've found that, now that I'm being totally honest with myself, I've started to act a lot more like the person I do want to be. Since I can't pass off laziness with lack of time, whitewash greed with supposed genuine need, etc. I've been inspired to go the extra mile in my daily life.

This whole endeavor has brought me back, once again, to the genius of Christian teaching. If there is no God, then the people who invented this belief system were brilliant. As so many other converts report, living a Catholic Christian life, even when I don't feel close to God, has been deeply transformative on a level I could have never imagined. I'm a better wife, a better mother, a better person. If I were to decide tomorrow that there is no God I would continue to live as if there were. It's a challenging, wonderful way to live.

Priest appreciation

Every now and then when I listen to our priest's (absolutely amazing) homilies I see signs of frustration. He occasionally makes spontaneous, passing comments about people being incredibly inconsiderate of his time or how often people come to him expecting many services while doing nothing to support the parish in return. Considering what a patient, loving, faithful man he seems to be, I had a hunch that he must feel an incredible amount of pressure to even let those sorts of borderline bitter comments sneak into his sermons.

So when I made the dinners for him and the other priest last month I included a simple card for each of them letting them know how much our family appreciates them. When I mentioned the cards to the Meal Ministry coordinator she gushed that they were going to just love the cards. I was surprised, figuring that they must be bombarded with people telling them how wonderful they are every day. But she told me that this is not the case, that in fact Fr. J just told her the other day the he receives far more complaints than compliments.

Then, last week, I had the great honor of meeting our bishop at a reception. I told him how overjoyed I was to be in the process of joining the Catholic Church and thanked him for all the good things going on in the diocese. When I made some comment assuming that he hears that a lot, he laughed, "Oh, I pretty much deal with complaints all day long. It's what I do."

As a convert, this is absolutely shocking to me. Coming from my background of hedonism and atheism, the concept of someone devoting their entire life to God and obedience and service is mind-boggling. It seems like fellow believers, especially fellow Catholics, would fall all over them every day, thanking them for profusely for devoting their lives to doing God's work. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that every time I see a priest I almost get teary-eyed and want to run up to him and say "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

I know I'm being naive, that the Catholic Church is like any other large institution and therefore it's inevitable that the people who run it are going to have a lot of drudge work to deal with; that even faithful, devout parishioners need to let their priest or bishop know if there's something wrong. But, for what it's worth, the perspective from this wide-eyed, brand new Catholic is that our priests are amazing. Sure, there are a few bad apples in there (as with any organization consisting of humans), but all the priests I've met seem to be extraordinarily humble, faithful, caring men. They are rare examples of selflessness and sanity in our decadent, selfish culture.

My two-sentence conversion story

I've been struggling with putting together a conversion story. I get asked so often how I got from there to here, from atheism to Catholicism, that I'd like to put together a story of my journey to share with others. The problem is how to condense it. It's been such a wild ride, influenced by so many factors, that it's hard to make it a brief story.

In particular, I've been trying to come up with a very quick version to share in social settings. Just this week two people have asked me to explain how I ended up converting to Catholicism, and both times I ended up hemming and hawing, sharing a couple of the things that were big influences, but ultimately just saying "it's a long story."

And then a few minutes ago I saw the quote below on a blog, and I knew I had my short answer.

I did a brief stint as a Catholic while I was growing up, but the whole sin/sinner thing didn't appeal to me. Far too much guilt. The way I live; I'd spend my life in the confessional.

I know this mentality well. Once I got to the point of believing that some sort of higher power/spiritual realm existed, I got into create-a-God mode, looking for t