My Struggle with Jesus

Thursday night was a movie night with our Jesuit Spiritual liaison Fr. Jimbo-slice. We went into Valentine to see the new movie Son of God. Now this isn't a review of the movie but rather the thoughts and struggles that came out of the movie. I will say this much though, I think the movie is worth at least one watch as it actually isn't half bad for a Hollywood rendition of the life of Jesus.

Now, onto the purpose of this post.

Basically, I have a problem/struggle with Jesus. Don't get me wrong, I think Jesus is a badass, sincerely, I do. Minus the fact he's God (or at least that's what I and other Christians believe) he was a friggen social revolutionary turning the Jewish tradition and social norms of His time on their heads and then got killed because of it (minus the whole salvation bit...which is more than a bit...but still). Jesus was a person who reached out to the poor and the outcast and gave us the ultimate idea of what being charitable and loving and heck even being human looks like. So you could say I like Jesus and not in a floofy way.

So what's the problem?

I don't really have much of a relationship with him even though people say I do or should. Now this isn't because I don't want to have a relationship with Jesus (I mean heck I think he's badass...why wouldn't I want a relationship with him?) but more of an issue of I just have trouble...having one. One important fact about me regarding this struggle is that I'm a very physical person...and this trait/characteristic has many manifestations and expressions. For one I don't do very well with abstract thought. I can do it...but my mind isn't wired for that. Consequently, I'm very much a hands on/visual learner. For those who don't know, I love cars and motorcycles. Love them, I think they are wicked bangin'. However, despite being told for years how engines worked, it never really clicked until I saw this visual (which is wicked cool) that allowed me to concretely see how the engine worked. Same thing while reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (fantastic book, highly recommend it), when the author is talking about quality and reality I was kinda getting it and then there was a little flowchart. Thank God for flowcharts. Or even when learning about myself and the way I think I don't always get it until there is visual like a diagram or something in front of me. Then it clicks.

However, perhaps even more applicable to my Jesus relationship problem (and really hammering this whole physical point home) is my love language. In a tie for my primary love language there is quality time and physical touch (the others being gift-giving, acts of service, and words of affirmation). My love languages, the way I best receive and understand someones affection, care and love for me are very much physically based. Physical touch (hugs for example) is pretty self-explanatory and quality time at its pinnacle is physical presence with immediate engagement. While my lesser love languages being much less physical (although still appreciated and valued). I think we can all see where this is going.

I've never met Jesus. I've never had a conversation with him like I would with my community members Mike or Jessica (physical human presence with immediate interaction). I've never had a high-five or a hug from him. We've never gone out on a motorcycle ride around the Quabbin Reservoir and stopped at the gas station in Orange, Ma to top of our tanks and take a break to talk about life, faith, justice, and well..him. The only physical presence Jesus has is in others (but this is vague in the sense that there is nothing unique to Jesus that isn't in the person I'm experiencing him through and thus doesn't really help other than seeing Jesus work in the world) and in the sacraments (but those aren't human interactions...they're more like gifts - see love languages).

This is a problem and a struggle.

This leaves me with a VERY abstract notion and experience of Jesus. And well like I've already talked about me and abstract stuff. Consequently, Jesus becomes for lack of a better term, a unicorn. My experience when I pray to Jesus is like praying to a name, an abstract concept. But Jesus is a real person, I mean the disciples had human interactions with him. Jesus probably had quirks, he was a knowable person in the sense that he was human and people built relationships with him like we build relationships with the people around us. But the notion of Jesus nowadays is like some stoic mystic who had some really good things to say and then died for the salvation of human kind (out of love, of course). How do you have a personal relationship with someone like that? I'm an emotional person and that comes through with relationships in a variety of ways. With Jesus there are almost no emotions..except for fear (we'll get to that in a moment...and in regards to love - that's a conscious choice and much less an emotion..remember lack of relationship?). It's a real problem. Yeah there is scripture and all the things Jesus says about loving us. That's great. Really, it's awesome, otherwise our knowledge about Jesus' actions and teachings would be significantly less. But in terms of building a relationship...scripture is kinda like words of affirmation...not as effective as the whole physical thing for me (worth noting at this point - it's not that I can't see love in these other love languages [nor are they this straight forward and simple when it comes to human relations] as much but rather by themselves they don't say as much whereas in combination [not necessarily at the exact same time but rather that they are expressed in a relationship] they are amplified by the physically based one - I guess basically the physical ones are like a foundation and then the rest sprout up from there).

The consequence is actually pretty drastic. Logically, if I don't have much of a relationship with Jesus because of how much of a physical person I am who struggles with abstract stuff (keeping in mind Jesus is supposed to be the accessible human person of God) then how am I supposed to trust him? That has been a struggle for a very long time, trusting God. During my whole priesthood vs marriage discernment process in college I felt it was me vs the abstract unicorn concept called God whose will is directly opposed to mine. Granted we've worked through that discernment process...but that was thanks to facts about the concept God (God wouldn't force someone into a vocation that would make them miserable) rather than building up trust in him. I find it hard to put trust in an abstract concept or name (although Jesus is actually more than that - but that is a purely intellectual/fact-based understanding and not an understanding in my heart or experience [remember Jesus and I haven't had a talk at that gas station yet...but if he ever want's to I'm totally down]). So now there is this issue where I still have a lot of trouble trusting in God. So much so I was told to stop praying to God and focus on Jesus. But...that hasn't worked terribly well seeing I'm blogging about this.

So full circle. Watching Son of God while alright did help me understand this part of my spiritual struggle and my problem with Jesus. Honestly, I wish this could be solved by just having a human relationship with Jesus, that'd be awesome. But that isn't the reality and so on the journey goes trying to grasp at some divine abstract unicorn. Jesus is great, he's a badass. I just don't really have a relationship with him and that's a problem. I think this might resonate with a lot of people and to me it makes me think that perhaps in general there isn't much thought about the human aspect of Jesus because the divine receives so much attention. I think that's a mistake because it's the human aspect of Jesus that made him so special and made God so accessible. If being human wasn't a good thing the Word wouldn't have become flesh, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father" (John 1: 14). So lets take a look at the human aspect of Jesus more, especially in Church. It'd only amplify the divine nature of Jesus and hey we might learn something about Jesus and ourselves that enhances and furthers our relationship with him. That would be nice.

Our Father, who art in heaven...what do You expect from us?

It's Wednesday and I don't know when this post will be done. But the fact that it is Wednesday has it's own set of implications...primarily the fact that it is on Wednesdays and only Wednesdays I teach sixth, seventh, and eighth graders (with Mike), and that opened up the doors for a discussion (if you could call it that) that was entirely spontaneous and took me by surprise.

Last week in class we talked about the "Our Father" and the Gospel story in Matthew that goes along with that. Our lesson plan was to unpack what we mean when we recite the Lord's Prayer which hopefully would first help the kids know what they were praying for and then, consequently, give the prayer more meaning (hopefully allowing them to mold it to the needs and experiences of their personal lives). However, as our experience of teaching on the Rez goes the class was...not quite what we (Mike and I) had hoped (although not bad).

Fast-forward a week, April 2nd, a very already an out of place day. Communion at the 20-Plex went longer than usual and there I had a unique encounter with one of the elders I frequently visit and give communion to (the topic of a later potential post). Then I receive a text from one of the people (who is wicked awesome) who works at the Mission that they needed to get in touch with me regarding a request made by the organizers of an Autism Awareness Presentation at the local college SGU (Sinte Gleska University). When I went over to the Admin building to talk with said mission worker, I heard from the receptionist at the front desk was that recently (I actually don't know when) there was a seventeen year old shot in Mission (a town 30 minutes from St. Francis were we live) who was involved in robbing a house. He had succumbed to his wounds. This had become the latest fatality of this kind in recent months. Absolutely tragic.

Fast forward to class.

Three kids show up to class since the rest are testing. One asks about the shooting and I confirm that I've heard the same thing. The review worksheet we have is handed out and we give them time to work on it. It comes to my attention that they aren't really engaged with it and rapidly class is becoming anything but...class. Leading class at this point I spontaneously decide to scrap the lesson plan (somewhat common depending on how the class is) and discuss the shooting...in the context of the Lord's Prayer. At that time the rest of the class enters and they sit down a little rowdy so we sit in quite and prepare for discussion.

I won't give a recap of the discussion per say but rather the major points we tried to convey to these (wicked smaht) kids. First, the Lord's Prayer is more than a prayer, for what good is it to pray for those in need and then...do nothing? The Lord's Prayer is a call to action and if we pray it then we better damn well do something because saying the prayer is the first half, the second half of the prayer, is going out and bringing about the Kingdom of God through actions in the world (Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven). It's like the prayer of St. Francis, where we pray to God asking for Him to make us "...a channel of [God's] peace." Yes God does good in the world but there is an expectation that we are a part of the process, as one of my favorite St. Augustine quotes goes, "Pray so though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you."

So while we're trying to get these middle-school kids to take on the responsibility of being role-models and the like, especially considering the tragic event that sparked this conversation...there's a recognition that the evils of the world are big...very big. Too big for one person, too big for one middle school student. The Lord's Prayer talks about that too (Give us this day our daily bread). Asking God to give us the grace to deal with the challenges and injustices of the world that are in front of us right here and right now. Granted if everyone did that the world would be such a better place...however, being a bit of a realist that world doesn't exist (heck we say Thy Kingdom come - meaning it isn't here yet...but we have to bring it about!). That should be a source of confidence as the prayer tells us to focus on today for as Jesus says, "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day" (Matt. 6: 34).

Then one student makes a excellent comment; she observes that the people involved made poor decisions and then the consequences (tragically) followed. Yes, totally right. People make mistakes since we are all imperfect and screw-up every now and again. Totally valid. Lord's Prayer has got something to say about that too (Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us). I personally never realized the weight of this line until this year and that line is probably one of the heftiest and tallest orders in the whole thing. Break it down grammatically. We are asking God to forgive our sins in the same manner and likeness that we forgive those who sin/hurt/etc against us. Well hold up, if I ask God to forgive me the way I forgive others...then crap I'm in trouble (hey I ain't perfect but I'm working on getting better). To me that line is more of a standard than a reality in that God is pretty merciful and forgiving (or at least that is what my Faith/faith informs me) and that we're called to be like that. Okay not terribly surprising. We're all called to be Christ-like.

So looking at this prayer which is recited by so many people around the world everyday...and looking at the evils and injustices that go on in the world...are we (the collective of people who recite the prayer) living up to the expectation that the Lord's Prayer lays out? I'm not saying that everyone is a selfish slacker or something...far from that. But I just wonder since Pope Francis' call to go out to those on the fringes of society cause such a commotion (in a good way)...is there an awareness of the work to be done...or a lack of perspective of what is important...or of the privileges (or lack there of) that people have? Can the Lord's Prayer be recited (a prayer whose foundation is in living a life of nondiscriminatory love for the bringing about of God's Kingdom) with the expectation that God will work in the world and make things better...while maybe there is more love to given, more work to be done that isn't being addressed, investigated, made aware of? Can we ask God to do something about the evils in the world and ask God to bring about peace and other lovely things while maybe we (again collectively) who pray can perhaps do more? I say this not to discredit those who do work hard for these things, nor criticize or judge those who perhaps don't (for I myself am far from perfect and definitely could do more...and yet here I am, somewhat hypocritically). But if that is what the Lord's Prayer talks about and so many people recite it...it does beg the question...at least in my mind. And then add in the fact that perhaps this is somewhat (or totally) idealized thinking and mix in a heavy dose of reality and this only becomes more complicated...

So talking about this kind of stuff with the kids in class was obviously heavy. But, while the lesson was going on I saw some of them more zoned in then I have ever seen them all year. So maybe they got something (at least I hope). All I know is, and we (Mike and I) made this clear, that we, all sitting down talking and thinking about this, were in this journey of questions and struggles together. Perhaps the life struggles were different but we, the teachers, didn't have the answers. So for maybe twenty minutes, the labels of teacher and student, educator and learner, were removed and everyone was just human. Trying to understand the role God calls us to play...and thus were God is working...in this crazy, hectic, and unjust...yet calm, peaceful, and loving world we live in together.

Spiritual Questions: What does being Christ-like look like?

As the title suggests a question that has been tossed around in my mind is, "What does being Christ-like look like?" Well immediately one thought is, "Go look at the Gospels!" which is an excellent starting place. But that alone does not answer the questions of what does it look like concretely for me; someone who is definitely not fully divine and struggles with a lot of imperfections and commits sins (sinnah' status) and what not.

There are many scripture passages that point to Christ-like behavior (I mean hey just look at what Jesus does and says and his admonishing the disciples and others and also affirming others in their faith). But there gets to a point when one (like this guy, right here, yup that's a thing) tries to put that into action and then...human imperfection happens... Certain questions need to be asked: What are my intentions? Are the self-centered or other-centered? Did I put my full effort into this act? Did I cop-out of doing my best under the guise of "taking care of myself?" Or did I really do all that I could while maintaining healthy self-care? Did I act with love or with disdain? Was I present or was I absent? Did I truly have the best interest of others in mind or was I just looking out for myself and my self-image? If Jesus would have done this would he feel the same feelings?

The questions go on but what concerns me is that being Christ-like is only half actions. For if we look at what Jesus' comments on the Jewish law he takes them to an entirely new level. The Jewish law was action based. If you followed the law you were good. But Jesus goes and says, "Hey that isn't enough!" In a biblically accurate quotation Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery'; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt 5: 27-8). And just a little bit later, "You have heard it said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain to the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5: 43-8).

Jesus is dropping some real heavy stuff here. Doing the minimum just isn't enough. Following the law isn't enough. He's telling people to take those laws and engrave them on their hearts. Intentions are equally important (hence the adultery passage). But then intentions isn't the end game either. You've got to love. Not that warm fuzzy feeling (as great as that is, it's fleeting by itself as it is emotion...and that feeling probably doesn't come up with every person you meet) but that conscious decision. Now this may seem pretty straight forward...but at least for me, every time I try to put his into practice...stuff gets messy really quick (remember all of those questions I rattled off above?). It seems to me that I am always falling short of being Christ-like (and I'm not even referring to the whole verse about being perfect like your heavenly Father). I'm not even necessarily making it a goal to accomplish as much as just trying to grow. 

Granted the call to discipleship isn't perfect (otherwise the original disciples failed at that) considering that the Greek word for disciple is translated as "a learner." And if I had to define discipleship I'd have to say it isn't a static state as much as its the progress of a process, in which failure occurs in order to learn. But even then I'd also say that discipleship is summed up well by St. Paul (in one of my favorite passages), "Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends..." (1 Corinthians 13: 3-8). So all things that I would say I regularly fail at and I say that not out of a unrealistic expectation to be perfect but out of a realistic expectation that I'm imperfect. Thus the challenge is to figure out the balance which seemingly can be summed up as, "Just do your best!" However, at this point, that doesn't satisfy the deeper question of how to cement these pursuits in daily life. How to really engage with the call of discipleship in grow through my mistakes, which I don't always do because...I'm imperfect...but at the same time that can't be a cop-out to growth. Also the question of being Christ-like and what does that love look like? How can it be sustained and given to everyone that is encountered? Especially those with whom it does not come easily? Which is so important because as Soren Kierkegaard said, "Christ did not appoint professors, but followers. If Christianity...is not reduplicated in the life of the person expounding it, then he does not expound Christianity, for Christianity is a message about living and can only be expounded by being realized in men's lives." And that matters. I signed up for this, I commited myself to this. This thing called Christianity...and now I have to figure out how to do it...how to live it...selflessly and authentically...and that's the greatest challenge.

He Is Enough

Have faith in God, for He is good.
Nothing troubles nor frighten those
who seek God, they lack nothing.
For God alone is enough.

Seemingly so extreme
that God alone is enough.
Nothing else required.
Nothing else to be desired.

But alas how else are we to seek?
Unless we use the gifts in the world
that God has given us so that
we may come to know Him better.

To know Him? To know? Him?
How can one even comprehend
when life itself is filled
with the complex rhythms of God?

Ah and that is when we are called
to have faith in what we know not.
It is through that lens that we
the temporal, come to know the eternal.

It is in the very DNA of creation
the very mystique of interaction
the shining immortal diamond
buried in the core of who we are.

It is there God reveals Himself.
It is there God reaches out to us.
For God's language is love
and He speaks in the dialect of experience.

Thus we must not mistakenly place are faith
in the gifts God has given us, but in Him.
That is the challenge, tragedy, and beauty
of our human lives.

To struggle and to wrestle trusting in
an awesome God beyond our imagination.
To have faith in Him who we struggle to know
and yet, consequently, lack nothing.

For God alone is enough.

Killing Time

Some call me insensitive.
Others shout and say,
Look, a murder!
Look, a killer!

And they speak the truth.
For I am insensitive to,
a murder and killer of
Time.

Oh how I am insensitive to it!
I meander so long in the past.
I wander so far into the future.
I fail to be present to it now.

I look at what I cannot control
and try to wrestle it from the hands of God.
Rather than look at what is already in my hands
and do what I can at the present moment.

And Time passes on to the grave.
It makes its temporality known.
As it drags the present through my hands like sand
as I look off towards a distant horizon.

I am too impatient to wait and see what unfolds
to trust in the slow work of God.
I am too focused on what has happened
to be aware of God's tender touch now.

Yet Jesus did not kill Time but rather,
he brought it to life, with his own life.
Then what am I to do but struggle to be Christ-like
and bring Time alive by being present to it with my own life?

Then I must take my gaze off the horizon
and be aware of what is present in my hands.
But giving Time the life it deserves
requires attempting one of the hardest tasks of all.

Trusting God.

The Discernment of Goods...and Honestly It Sucks

As I sit in our common space, the only one awake in our house, since that's when I blog the most, I'm finding myself in quite the conundrum...and...I have to blame Re-O (Re-Orientation - a halfway orientation/retreat for JVs). While Re-O really rocked me and I rode the struggle bus for a while for a number of reasons, it was still wicked awesome and I really enjoyed going and being challenged, learning, and of course seeing tons of people and spending time with them. However, that learning/being challenged part...messed with me pretty hard and now discernment is something I'm wading through again...except this time it isn't priesthood vs married life...

So we learned about the pastoral cycle which starts with experience which is then looked at through the lens of social analysis which reveals various structures that cause injustices and what not and that is followed by theological reflection in which one's faith (both religious and personal) is applied as an additional lens. This is then followed up with discernment which is trying to figure out what we are supposed to do in regards to that theological reflection which finally leads to action which I think is pretty self-explanatory. 

So in the discernment piece we had to talk about vocations (for those who know my vocational struggles in college...no I'm not reconsidering the priesthood/joining the Edmundites...although they are awesome and recommend anyone feeling called to priesthood/religious life to check 'em out) and were given a couple of excellent definitions which I wish I came across earlier,

"God's dream for your life developing in your imagination."

and

"God calls you to the place where your deep gladness and the world's hunger meet"

~Fredrich Buechner

So those make sense and so far so good. And then as I was talking with a friend of mine about thoughts we had at that point in the retreat and I realized something...something that never occurred to me before in the context of social justice and this pastoral cycle. My brother is a part of a population, a community of people, who are not only oppressed and experience injustice but are considered total outcasts in society...all because that community (and they truly are a community, united in hardship) struggles with Autism. That felt like a sucker punch in the gut. I had left home, traveled almost 2000 miles to put my faith into action when I could have been (SHOULD have been) doing that in my fucking backyard. Immediately, I felt guilt and rightfully so. Granted I had grown up with my brother for almost my entire life considering we are only a year and a half a part in age. Consequently, living in the presence of Autism was all I knew, that was normal and as a result didn't even think twice of all the difficulties my family experienced with that both socially and structurally (in education, services, government, health, etc). In the words of the band Rehab in their song Guilty, 

"...If being dirty is a crime

I am filthy, I am guilty

Of everything I've ever said or done

I am filthy, I am guilty

And I am guilty."

I'm guilty of being shaped, formed, and transformed by my brother and those with Autism in such a positive way and I've hardly given back. I've shared the insight and compassion they've given me on retreats in college, with others I've encountered, but I've hardly given back to the Autism community...and that's because I didn't want to acknowledge that part of my life and all of the struggles that are associated with it that I can't even begin to explain...but at Re-O this realization occurred...I've read a number of excellent books of people working with people they are passionate about, who they truly love and want to help. In Tattoos on the Heart, Gregory Boyle works with gang members and those who've faced the American Incarceration system. In Irresistible Revolution the author works with a variety of people in his community in Philadelphia, and in Mitch Albom's have a little faith: a true story a pastor with a past, Henry Covington works with the homeless in Detroit. All of these people of God, just everyday people stepping up to the call of Christ and emulating Christ in such a beautiful way. Not saying I'm Christ-like or anything even remotely close to that (cause I'm definitely not...far from actually) but the people I am passionate about, those whose hurt I understand in a very real way...is the Autism Community. 

And now I'm stuck in a hard but good place. Ever since I was student rector on the Emmaus Retreat my senior year of college I wanted to be a Campus Minister. I had such a passion for helping my peers find God in their lives...and now...at the same time...I want to work with the Autism Community. And their is a feather-weights difference between the two...and my scales are not tuned enough to detect the difference. So I'm having trouble discerning between two goods so to some degree there is no "bad" choice which is nice. But that doesn't change the fact that the discernment is difficult and I'd love to do both but I don't see how I can perform both options to their full potential at the same time. But hey no one ever said discernment was easy...so I guess this is the beginning of Discernment Part II where I try to find my deep gladness and use it to feed the world's hunger.

Anger. Courage. Hope.

Open your eyes and leave your slumber,

And rest your gaze upon the weight that is reality.

Don't you see it sinking, weighing down,

Crushing whatever falls beneath it?

Glance upwards and stop looking at your feet,

Watch the rain that is life fall and pour down.

Don't you see it polluted, diluted,

Pureness and innocence corrupted by filth?

Look straight ahead and stop averting your eyes,

And look at the tree of society standing there.

Don't you see its leaves shriveling and branches cracking,

Families and Communities suffering from disease?

How does one have hope at such a sight?

Where does one feel relief?

Where does one see clarity?

Where does one see healing?

Take a moment and be still,

Gaze inward and become aware.

Don't you feel that shaking and the clenching,

Anger at what your eyes see and ears hear?

Slow down and reflect,

Find what truly matters in this life.

Don't you feel that burning and the swelling,

Courage to do what must be done?

Look! For it is here!

Where Anger arises at the injustices seen in the world.

Where Courage stands up to address the weight, filth, and disease.

Oh, how these two work together!

For Anger calls out to his sister and Courage calls out to her brother.

They are siblings who grow and work together.

And they are both children, children of Hope.

Children of the Mother we have all been looking for.

So understand your Anger and befriend your Courage!

Find Hope and grasp the rope she has cast out,

And with your new siblings pull hard and bring about a future of change.

So we can see justice, dignity, and love preside once again.