Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to a remarkable young woman! It is a privilege to be your stepmother!

What Am I Doing?

Do you ever stop to think, "what am I doing?" It could be that you are on a path that you might not want to be on, working at a job you dislike, not resolving or working on challenging relationship issues. It could be anything that causes you to consider what you are doing. 

For example, the photo in this post was taken as I was climbing Wayna Picchu, something I questioned every step of, yet was so grateful that I accomplished, once I actually did so!

And so often, when we are invited to do something - for an afternoon or for a life change - we say... "Just one minute, I have to finish this."

Not that finishing whatever your this or that is unimportant, but what if the invitation needs an immediacy of response that most of us can't handle?

This Sunday's Scriptures, for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time got me to thinking about this.

What is it to drop what you are doing and follow a call for your life? Now in my case, it was a call to my faith. The whole story is so unlikely for a girl like me... Just search the tag unlikely on this blog for evidence of that. In any case, following is not some easy thing, like following someone on Twitter is; in fact I think that kind of following lulls into a place that will not serve us, no matter what our call.

Elisha follows Elijah, because he is called to do so... and he does it! St. Paul, in the Galatians reading, reminds us to not be under the yoke of slavery. Now many of us do feel like we are under a yoke of slavery whether through our job or otherwise. We are also under a yoke of slavery in how we deal with one another as humans. St. Paul exhorts us to "serve one another through love," and to remind us of the commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself."

This part of Galatians really caught my eye:

"But if you go on biting and devouring one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another."

One need only think of the endless complaining we do about one another and of course, the recent incident with General Stanley McChrystal!

Ultimately our Gospel from Luke really drives the point home. If we are to follow Jesus, then immediacy and full commitment is necessary. We are clearly told this when Jesus says:

“Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”

Following means that we must give everything up; including a place to rest our head. Can we do this? I am never sure that I can even when I keep trying.  It is hard when we are also told in this Gospel that we can't even go back and say good-bye or to bury our dead. Now means now and we are called to this.

It constantly causes me to ask the question, "what am I doing?" - both when I am following (rarely) and when I am simply trying to do so, which is most of the time.

This week, I am going to give this some thought, hopefully followed by action. What will you do?

Friday Feel Good Video

I found this gem at Padre Mickey's Dance Party today...  Have some tissues ready. This is beautiful... really beautiful.

Evangelizing - What?!

Last night I was in attendance at a diocesan event called "The Evolving Local Church: Skills for Evangelizing Leaders." I will return for the second and full day part of our workshop.

Does the very word evangelism not confuse and sometimes frighten those of us who are Catholic? And it may also do the same to any of you who are not Catholic and who might think you about to be sold some bill of goods that you do not want.

It is a word that can be challenging and we talked about that last night.

So today, I opened my dog-eared copy of Radical Grace, by Richard Rohr, OFM and found today's reflection: Five Great Gifts: Evangelism.

"I suppose that many of us still of evangelism as a Protestant term. But it's a biblical term. The evangelist is the one who gives Good News. The evangelist has the specific charism of being able to welcome, to invite, to announce Jesus and the Kingdom with excitement. The evangelist is the door opener. Catholics have been, historically, very weak on this charism, since most Catholics were baptized as infants."

He goes on to say a few other things and ends up with this:

"Yet the Church desperately needs a new evangelism. And many of us need to be re-evangelized - or perhaps hear the Good News for the first time."

Roman Catholicism comes with such a long history and cultural context that I think that last sentence says it all.  While I have fond memories of the faith of my childhood, it took me an 18 year absence and a long, slow return of the past 20 years or so, to get where I am today. And in this second part of the journey, I feel I am only now truly hearing the Good News for the first time.

I don't know about you, but the word "evangelist" often brings to mind TV preachers and the like, with messages of either gloom and doom or guaranteed riches. I really don't like that. It makes me feel like I am forcing - or misrepresenting Good News, not sharing - or living -  Good News.  Or that it is being foisted upon me!

In addition, I am reminded - as we discussed last night - discomfort may be the most required step of real transformation. That is why I purposefully say it has been a long, slow return. It is long, slow and frequently uncomfortable, challenging. I mean- why else would we change? There has to be a reason and discomfort is a big motivator.

Transformation requires change. That pesky piece of information often makes what Fr. Pat says so true... It is so attractive to want to follow Jesus.

And so very hard to do so.

Looking forward to this day.

Father's Day

Father's Day is not a day that elicits a lot of feeling and emotion for me... Well that's a lie!  While I believe that I have reconciled myself and my feelings about my father and our life together, I still have a tremendous amount of ambivalence. Ambivalence may seem to indicate no feelings or emotion, I think it reveals a ton of feelings and emotion. Just the kind that is hard to own or enter into.

My father, Paul Rossi,  was both the person who made my whole world and the one who destroyed it. He was a blazing figure of a man. Physically he was short and stout, attributes that I have inherited from him. He had many physical ailments... high blood pressure, ulcers, heart problems. He died of a stroke at the age of 50 in 1970, two weeks before my 13th birthday. I have, seemingly, so far not inherited those problems, thanks be to God. And I am 52 now, so my fear of dying at 50 has passed. More thanks be to God!

It is from my father that I have my extroverted personality, my intense intellectual curiosity and - if I might add (more God thanks here) the intellect to go with it. In addition, although my father was born a Jew and raised as a Jew, he embraced a Roman Catholicism that would not allow a twice divorced man like himself to enter. He was the driving force behind our attendance at and involvement in our tiny and wonderful parish. Like my father, that parish no longer exists, but the fires of both blaze on in my own heart, albeit with a delayed start. My father had a tremendous interest in spirituality and religion - clearly that has been passed on as I have studied and continue to study all faiths.

My father was broken and sexually wounded I imagine, as a child. He directly passed that on to me. Strangely enough, when viewed through the current lens of healing and grace, that too - jagged edged and fetid stench of the past included - are also gifts. Go figure. And with even more gratitude I can say that the chain broke with me on the wounding of others.

My husband is the best father I know. When we re-met (for those of you newer to these pages, we dated in college) in 2004, I was touched by, although not at all surprised with, his devotion to his daughter, Erica.  She adores Mark and and it is a grace to be a part of this family. Early on in our relationship, some friends cautioned that a man so devoted to his daughter and vice-versa might make for a hard situation.

It is anything but... We are truly blessed around here, we three.

That is healing as well, because my own dad, in his extreme dysfunction and brokenness, divided my mother and me. He triangulated in a way to keep my mother and I off balance so that he would always be the focus of our attention... in ways that meant that we would never band against him.

It should not be a surprise that I learned and used this behavior myself, most often unconsciously, and had to unlearn it as I began to heal.

In this house, we balance three really well - in ways that point powerfully to grace and conscious practice.

I think of who my father might have become had he lived longer. Would he have been better or worse? Would he have healed? Would he have hurt more? We will never know. I do believe in redemption and forgiveness, radically so... As a result, I believe that my father is held tightly in the embrace of God. 

Happy Father's Day to one and all. It is a day that grows upon me as my life continues to blossom.

Conscience

I wrote this for my church blog, but I am presenting it here as well.

One of the Roman Catholic magazines that I try to read regularly, is America, the National Catholic Weekly, published by the Jesuits.  In my experience, there are always thought-provoking articles and essays, poetry, book and movie reviews; I highly recommend it.

This week one such essay really captivated me and that is this one from John F. Kavanaugh SJ, titled Uninformed Conscience.

We live in fractious moral times and Kavanaugh decides to tackle some of the implications of this in regard to our lives as Roman Catholics. Now this is hardly just a Roman Catholic issue, so I would urge anyone to read this piece.

Kavanaugh begins with the words of St. Thomas Aquinas on conscience:

"Conscience is a particular kind of judgment, a moral judgment, by which we apply our knowledge of good and evil to practical action."

I think that most of us have some clear ideas - well founded or not - what we think is "right," "good," and "evil." This is how we develop our conscience. However, conscience must be developed and that requires some actual work and challenge.

In the Roman Catholic Church, there are no shortage of opinions about all sorts of things and people claiming that they are "right" and that someone else is "evil" or "wrong." Sometimes these pronouncements are made from ordained, but more often perhaps from one Catholic taking down another.

This is so destructive to community and to be destructive to community. I have heard so many people defend their position because they feel like they have a moral imperative to do this... And I understand that. However, when does moral imperative collide with strong personal and possibly un or under informed convictions? I can think of about a zillion times I have judged another unfairly, can you?

The more I learn, the less likely I am to judge, however, I can't claim that I am free of this destructive behavior.  On the other hand, I suppose there must be some form of "correction" that has to come from somewhere.

I digress, but I wanted to bring forth the notion of how and why community matters and if we are attacking one another, we are dismembering the Body of Christ.

Kavanaugh goes on to deliver the line that I think has the most punch. It made me uncomfortable in a way that means I am invited to further examine it:

"As Aquinas would say, a conscience may be certain; but that does not mean it is correct. ."

Certain. But not correct.

This is an issue for us as Catholics and as American; it matters no matter what faith practice or nation we are from. It matters. I am focusing on this from a Catholic American perspective at this moment however.

We live in a time where ideas flow freely, and that is in general a good thing, but we must have some anchors, some place to put down, in our lives. An objective external standard is required... which is what I think Kavanaugh is referring to when he says:

Unfortunately, it is the resistance to evidence and information that marks so much of our present moral discourse. That is why the “marketplace” of ideas, or the “public square” has become so segmented and rigid.


We are so polarized... we say this all the time, but what does it mean? And what does talking about it do, if we can't find ways in which to repair the places where we are torn?  If this were a living conversation, this is where someone might  (and has!) said to me, "Well you or so-and-so needs to get in line with the Church on that one!"


However, do most of us actually know what the teachings are? And even if we do, do we follow and believe them? And if we are to learn them, are we not obligated to have tremendous intellectual freedom to explore widely so that we might understand the context of the teaching?


I will add a big paragraph from the essay here, as I think it matters:

"In the world of politics and media, we find an increasing segmentation not only of markets but of convictions as well. Information is edited and selected to conform to the conviction of the viewer or the voter. Thus, information no longer informs or challenges one’s moral judgement; it only confirms opinion, whether that opinion is warranted or not. Spend one evening comparing the programs offered by MSNBC and Fox News. Compare Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz with Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Whom do they ridicule? What is their presumed moral universe? What information do they never consider? If we listen to only one side of these polarities, we are not forming our judgment, we are propagandizing it.

We can't just listen to one side, we can't just learn one side. It doesn't matter who or what your source is... Fox, MSNBC, America, Commonweal, The Weekly Standard, Mother Jones... we must examine multiple sides of issues. It is frankly dangerous to do consider little. Here the piece goes on to say:

"As for those who aspire to form the consciences of Catholic believers, they too must do more than make pronouncements. They must engage the evidence and data offered by those who dissent from their opinion."

If there is one way in which I think we are called to heal, it is to come together in our Catholicity to find our communal conscience and our individual conscience. This really matters. In the world of cable news, blogs, Twitter and Facebook, how do we do this? It is not easy, but like any element of our faith practice, what is?

As Roman Catholic, our faith demands our obedience, which is based in listening. If we can't listen, we can't be obedient. In order to listen, we must open our hearts and our minds to really follow Jesus.

This is such hard work.

Friend of the blog, Fr. Austin at Concord Pastor has two excellent posts on this column. The first one posits that the Kavanaugh piece is one of the most important things that Fr. Austin has encountered in many years. The second one, here, is about how this impacts our youth. Philomena Ewing at Blue Eyed Ennis also writes about this, here. Please read them if you can. Claire at A Seat at the Table refers to it as well, here.

Pondering and Rambling

I had occasion to find myself in a disagreement with someone this week. It was, like so many disagreements, ill-founded.

And in fact, to even call it a disagreement is a misnomer.  Things went wrong, I got angry, phone calls were made.

*Deep sigh*

In any case, I said this to the other person after the dust was settling,  I had already said that I was very sorry for my behavior.  She said that she was sorry. OK, we were both sorry, but both still feeling poorly I think. I know that I was!

How can the Body of Christ have integrity at this point?

This is what I offered her - and what I offered myself. It comes not from me!

"That is what it is to be church together... we all bring our wounds to the party. It is what we do with them and each other that transforms us. We are ever being transformed. I am grateful to be church with you."

I am grateful to be church with so many people. That is the easy part. How do we actually live with each other, transform one another and ourselves?

On Tuesday I got into some conversations on Facebook and via email about a challenging topic.  One of those (email) conversations resulted in me saying:

I hear you, but as I see it, at some point we have to step out of our own willfulness and into willingness, even if the others do not. I have tried but I got clobbered. 

 

How do we find our way together on any number of things? Practical daily life as well as navigating the Big Issues?

Learning To See Otherwise

In general, I have forgiveness and redemption on my mind. What is life if not we are not redeemed? Christian or not, religious or not, I think that the theme of redemption figures prominently in many of our lives, whether we realize it or not. That is because redemption is so tied up with forgiveness. There is a whole other reconciliation piece, but that is really another topic.

Do you think about these things also? Or is it just me being my over-thinky-church-life-nerd-self? Don't answer that!

It is the 11th Week in Ordinary Time and we had some really good readings on this very topic. Go look at them if you wish, if not, stick around if you will. Maybe we can have a good conversation in the comments, because I am not going to do any big-time scriptural exegesis here today.

Of course I did want to, but I just couldn't find my mark with the texts, so I planned on saying nothing. I did hear a homily at mass, but it was not provocative enough for me to want to further explore. Or so I thought.

Today I was in my car listening to the radio. While I love WAMC Northeast Public Radio, I was growing weary of the fund drive. (Thank God it is over now.) So I had tuned into VPR for awhile. They carry WNYC's great program, On The Media, so I was happy to listen.

The segment that I tuned in on was about Wilbert Rideau, prison journalist, someone I had never heard of until today. He is a prison journalist, because he was in prison.

Yes. He was in prison for 44 years. In that time, he was transformed and that is what his new book, In The Place of Justice, is about. I do not buy new books any longer, or rarely do anyway. This is one I think I am going to try to fit into the budget; it sounds compelling. The NYTimes review is available here.

Rideau's life in prison is a story of transformation and redemption. While there is a discussion of what happened and how it happened, he robbed a bank and people did die. As a result, in 1961, Rideau was sentenced to death in Louisiana. I don't think I have to tell you that the court system in Louisiana in 1961 was not exactly fair or friendly to black criminals - especially if they had robbed a bank and people ended up dead.

So Rideau was sent to Louisiana State Prison, also known as Angola, often called the "bloodiest prison in the U.S."

What, you may ask, does this have to do with forgiveness and redemption? Please hang on, I am getting there.

During his time in Angola, Rideau did a lot of reading while he was in solitary confinement. This was the beginning of a great turning.  I got to thinking, as I heard his story on the radio, that sin is a prison. Now I am not saying that all our sinful acts are the problem... well they are, but the real problem is that sin is turning away from God. And to turn away from God is to turn away from God's people.

No community.

This perhaps why solitary is real punishment - worse than death in many ways.

In any case, this is what he says about the impact of solitary and his reading:

“Reading ultimately allowed me to feel empathy, to emerge from my cocoon of self-centeredness and appreciate the humanness of others. . . . It enabled me finally to appreciate the enormity of what I had done.” 

It enabled him to finally appreciate the enormity of what he had done. Through words, through books - because people were not available to him, he found empathy. Rideau went on to become a journalist while in prison and his story is astounding. He was the editor of the Angolite, a prisoner produced magazine. While I am taking this in another direction, I do urge you to go read about Wilbert Rideau's life and work.

Empathy is essential to life. Without it how do we relate to one another?  And if we are Christians (and I realize that some of you are not), how can we "do this in memory" of Jesus? How can we feed His sheep, if we do not do it with empathy?

Empathy opens our hearts to a path of connection, connection opens our hearts further to understanding, understanding - or something akin to it, deep within, leads us to forgiveness.

To forgive and to be forgiven - not two singular acts, but a dynamic - are essential to the very essence of Christian life. I would also posit that this is enormously important for all life.

Not unlike the woman in today's Gospel (thought I had left that behind, right?), Rideau is at the bottom, outcast. When you are out there, there is no place to come but back in. And many of us, myself included, are like Simon the Pharisee. We're in, we are the "good people," to do-ers and be-ers of the world. We get things done, we play by the rules, we know what to do and we do it. Yay us!

Maybe not so much.

Faith is not just the work of do-ers and be-ers. Oh - make no mistake, there must be some of that, but we simply have to revisit the story of Mary and Martha to reframe that little idea, not to mention the second reading from today, from St. Paul.(Let's not forget who Paul was before he was Paul, not exactly a follower of Jesus.)

And look at the first reading, about King David, from Samuel... David did awful, horrible things, yet he was a chosen one of God. We all do horrible things and yet, we are all chosen ones of God!

It is easy to cast aside the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears, it is easy to cast aside Wilbert Rideau, it is easy to cast aside pretty much anyone we deem unworthy.

Thankfully, God sees otherwise. Wilbert Rideau learned to see otherwise about what he did. King David learned to see otherwise about what he did. St. Paul learned to see otherwise about what he did.

Can we see otherwise about what we did? About what others do? Whether we are talking about a death row killer or we are talking about a friend or family member who has angered us, we must find our way to empathy and forgiveness in some fashion. This is no easy or automatic thing, that is certain. However, the desire to heal, to restore the tear in the fabric, must be present.

How do we do this?

I'm not sure that I have a clue, but I find that I am always moved by the thought of it.

Father Pat constantly reminds us that we must do the one thing we do - keep coming back to the table each week. Week in, week out. Together we must find some pathway back to that table. And as we do so, we must be find pathways to the tables in our own hearts and the hearts of others.

What are our choices otherwise?

(I heard this great Johnny Cash song today, and it really fit with this post, so enjoy.)

Fooling with the blog

I am playing with new templates. I don't love this color scheme but I am out of time to play with it. I overall prefer the new template however.

It is fun, a little like playing with crayons. Just the other day I was thinking of how I could change up the blog and here I am.

What do you think?

Ill, Baby, Ill

The other day I was talking to someone about the oil spill, which is a bit of an albatross for me, and perhaps for many of you as well. The person to whom I was speaking said, "Can't you stop talking about it? How can you keep looking at the pictures?" The pictures are a bit of a dark obsession for me. The person that I was speaking with thinks that we just have to "deal with it and move on," and that I would be well advised to "let it go."

Upon hearing of this, I was reminded of how we would like to look away from the Cross too, but that we are called to do otherwise if we are followers of Christ. I can imagine that in those days, some who were crushed by Jesus' death and who could not yet make sense of the resurrection and who could not some their wailing, might have been given the same advice.

Another obsession of mine is the understanding that the early church did not have the same understanding that we have today. We all have much to learn, as do the generations that will follow us. Yes - follow us, another reason the spill matters.

One day I was looking at Facebook and someone, maybe Dan? Maybe it was one of Dan's friends? Anyway, someone remarked that the Pelican was an ancient symbol of Christ, jogging my memory of this same piece of information. This really got me going, as you might imagine.

So I started at last to write this post and the googling began. I came across this rather thoughtful piece, even though (prejudice alert- mea culpa) I saw where it was coming from and almost did not look. (more reason to look at that at which we do not want to look.)  Oh wait, you need the link - here it is, it is called, The Cry of the Oil Soaked Pelican. 

The reality is that we can all wail and rail against this, but that we must also all own up to our own culpability in it. That is just a sad reality and one that I think of every time I turn the ignition key in my car. A Prius would be nice, but not in my budget today.  And the cars are just the tip of the iceberg; petroleum is our societal crack.

I don't want to sound all sanctimonious and of course I have. What can I say? I am as upset with myself as I am with the world. Being upset changes little, but it can propel us to action.

It is not just that we are all oil-addicts, it goes deeper. This touches on government and society, convenience and community, power and control. A deep and collective examination is called for, but that would entail staring at the Cross as well as staring at the pelicans and marshes. It would require staring into the eyes of the families who lost someone in the blast that set off the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

And all the blaming - BP, Halliburton, Barack Obama, the conservatives, the liberals, the good, the bad, the ugly. Enough. Our hands are all interlocked in this, one way or another.

Not unlike me finding my friend Dcap's video on Caminante's blog. We are all indeed connected. To those who do not know, Dcap is my real life friend; Caminante is a blog friend who has now been met more than once and is a very real life friend too. Dan, whom I referred to above, is from the same blogging circle in which I met Caminante. However, he has since met Dcap and Paul in person. Baya, referred to below, is from yet another circle. She and I have never met, but we know several very real people in common. I think you see my point about interconnection.

My friend Baya made a remark on Facebook yesterday, clearly someone had referred to this event as a natural disaster; I have heard the same. There is nothing natural about it - it is man-made, as she clearly stated, and should be viewed only through that lens. More staring at uncomfortable objects required.

That means staring at ourselves.

And who wants to do that? I don't know about you, but staring at the pelicans, the Cross and at myself, might make me feel ill baby, ill.

Check out Dcap's video if you will. What will we do?

There Will Be Eucharist

Community will grow if we let it be more natural and spontaneous, because the kingdom of heaven is like yeast. The yeast that comes to us most spontaneously is natural friendship. The grace of God is with us and we just need to let it work. But we are slow to believe this. Of course, sometimes it's quite hard to believe that grace is with us, because there seems to be something in the system that wants to cage up the Holy Spirit. -Thomas Merton, Springs of Contemplation, (from The Merton Institute)

Today is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ.  We are what we eat - think on that for awhile. I find it exceedingly difficult myself.

It seems that each time we come to the Table, we are giving up ourselves. Or at least we are asked to... I feel like I do it so infrequently.

That's why I like this quote; Merton makes something clear when he brings up yeast. It must be left to do its work.

I guess I keep wanting to fiddle with things, control things. Then I read Merton's words and I recall being at someone's home when they were making bread. It was the first time I had seen someone make bread and I was fascinated to see that it was left alone for quite some time in order to become what it is.

We become what we eat. That's yeast, that's grace. That is Eucharist.

Thanks be to God.

The Place of Dissent At The Table and The Challenge Of Unity

This weekend the Roman Catholic church celebrates the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, which is also known by the Latin, Corpus Christi.

One place my mind goes to as I ponder and pray about this essential feast is that the etymology of the word companion is literally, "bread fellow." Please note the name of this blog and read (or re-read) the Henri Nouwen quote under the header!

In 1 Corinthians 12 we are ever reminded that we are many parts, one body. This is the challenge of our Christian lives - to become that One Body. I am ever aware of the notion that it is not "my" way nor "your" way, but one way... The Way of Christ. Now the real fun begins as we all have many different ideas about that!

We must, I think, envision a table where all gather in peace, unity and into integrity, which is the figurative and literal "re-membering" of the Body of Christ.

However, it is simplistic and frankly, dangerous to imagine a table with no dissenters.

What is the place of the dissent at the table? This morning I am doing my housework, paying some bills, considering the religious and practical elements of our weekend and thinking about these things.

I am reminded that all dissenters are not prophets... However, it seems to me that in some way or another, all prophets are dissenters.

How do we know the difference? And do we know the difference in our own time? Consider the many prophets, Jesus chief among them, who were rejected heartily, even unto death, in their own time.

This is why I am more a questions than answers person. The questions are the pathway, the answers are the portals, the portals lead to other pathways. I hope to always walk these pathways with my companions; sometimes even in dissent.

As an aside, as I conclude, the study of theology, something close to my heart represents this. Theology means, faith seeking understanding.

It is always seeking, moving. That, in and of itself, seems like a form of dissent. Being Roman Catholic is very much about being counter cultural.

What dissent even means deserves our thought and discussion.

Two recommended posts for today, both of which relate to this topic:

• Fr. Austin Fleming, the Concord Pastor, reflects on the meaning of Eucharist here.
• Mirror of Justice has a post about a Loyola University Chicago School of Law panel, sponsored by Lumen Christi, about the role of Catholics in public life today. Among the panelists was Melinda Henneberger, journalist, author, editor and Roman Catholic, whom I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting in the past year. 

Don't feel like reading? Here is a song for you. Some people love it, others will find it abhorrent. I am in the former!

Good Question... Maybe (From my other blog...)

I have not had much time to post this week, so I am putting this up, which I published on my parish blog today.  This is not a post meant to stir controversy about human sexuality, conservatives versus liberals, etc but to focus on... what questions should we all be asking?

On Wednesday morning I read and prayed with the daily readings (ever aware of the irony that I work at a church, yet typically do not get to daily mass!) and I was really struck by the Gospel in particular. We should always be struck by the Gospel of course, but I think you know what I mean - certain passages just jump out to you at different times.

Today's Gospel is from Mark and is about the woman and her seven husbands.  First of all, I always like to remember the scriptural history involved. Mark was very likely the first Gospel, although this has not always been the understanding. As a result, we have to remember just whom it was written for... These are a group of people who were, by presence or timing, close to what was happening with Jesus. That matters... consider how you read and reflect on history from 20 years ago versus history from 200 or 2000 years ago. In any case, I don't want to digress farther, but this matters. The point is, all of this was still so fresh to the Markan community.

I guess what really struck me was the reminder of how the more things change, the more they stay the same:

Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection,

came to Jesus and put this question to him, saying,

“Teacher, Moses wrote for us,

If someone’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child,

his brother must take the wife

and raise up descendants for his brother.

This reminds me of so much of the current controversy (and everyone knows that I prefer to avoid controversy here, but to be a Christian means being controversial) in our Church at large. I guess sin and behavior are also on my mind as I am in the midst of a great course on moral theology.

The Sadducees were caught up into the specificity of these teachings, in a very literal way.  They want specific questions to specific answers - which is fair. Yet Jesus is about the revelation of God - God in human form and about the transformation of the world.

Jesus essentially is the answer.  And throughout time, we keep asking the the same - and perhaps not the best, questions.

I don't mean to go all obtuse on you, stay with me if you will please.

The other day, the New York Times had an article about some vocation processes. James Martin, SJ responded to it via his pages at the America magazine blog.

Reading all these things keeps sending me back to the questions that we choose to ask.

The questions that we ask, like the computer code that dominates most of our lives, are linear, transactional, binary. If this, then that, zero one, one zero. Yet the very answer we seek in Jesus is anything but linear, transactional or binary.

Jesus is completely dynamic and transformational. As a result, I think that asking the same linear questions might not be the best path. 

The language much change and along with it - our hearts.  What are the questions that we should be asking?

I can't say that I know what the right questions are, but I am not so sure that the Sadduccees or the seminarian questions are the right ones. Yes - they can be asked, but we might have to be willing to more fully consider asking other questions.

And if all that we are affirming are externalized behavior patterns, what might we miss? Jesus use of parables tended to address the subtle and dynamic things that He was trying to communicate.

I don't know - maybe it is my study of sin and conversion, as I said earlier, but this stuff is really on my mind.

Asking the wrong questions and rewarding the wrong behavior has implications. As I was trying to conclude this post and struggling with what to say, I came across this post from Paul Brian Campbell, SJ at his blog, People For Others. It included this fine little story that he heard Joan Chittister, OSB tell that day:

The police were concerned because people weren’t obeying the seat belt law and so, deciding that the carrot rather than the stick approach might work best, decided to reward someone who was following the law. A patrol car was sent out to identify a driver who was properly belted in. The cops spotted someone pretty quickly and pulled him over. “Sir,” said the officer, “Because you are wearing your seat belt as you are meant to do, we are going to reward you with this check for $5,000.”

The driver was both astonished and grateful. He said, “Well, thank you. Now I’m going to go out and get myself a driver’s license.” The woman in the seat beside him piped up, “Officer, pay no attention to him. He always says stupid things like that when he’s been drinking.” From the back seat a passenger whispered loudly to the driver and his companion, “I told you if we stole this car we’d be stopped.” At that moment a banging noise and a muffled voice could be heard from the trunk of the car, “Are we over the border yet?”

If you read Paul's blog you will see that Sister Joan's focus was about "...the necessity of concentrating on the vital questions rather than settling for (worn out) answers."

What say you? Should we be asking different questions? What should we do? Or not?