Lin Wilder's Blog, page 21

Most of Us Are Settling for Bette Midler’s God.

Bette MidlerMost of us are settling for Bette Midler’s God.

“I think most of us are settling for Bette Midler’s God.”

It was a terrific headline. Hardly what anyone expects a priest to say when starting his homily on a Bible passage. Fr. Chris Kanowitz, smiled at the cognitive dissonance apparent in the expressions of each of us seated in front of him at that Thursday’s daily Mass.

A newly ordained priest, he’d gotten the reaction he wanted: we woke up.

Although it’s been close to five years since Fr. Chris grabbed and held the attention of everyone of us, I’ve thought about that sermon again. This past Sunday’s reading was the same one as that Thursday morning in 2017.

Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro,  
          the priest of Midian. 
Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, 
          the mountain of God. 
There an angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in fire 
          flaming out of a bush. 
As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, 
          though on fire, was not consumed. 
So Moses decided, 
          “I must go over to look at this remarkable sight, 
          and see why the bush is not burned.” 
  
When the LORD saw him coming over to look at it more closely,  
          God called out to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!” 
He answered, “Here I am.” 
God said, “Come no nearer! 
Remove the sandals from your feet,  
          for the place where you stand is holy ground. 
I am the God of your fathers, ” he continued,  
          “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” 
Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God…

When I go to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?” God replied, “I am who am.” Then he added, “This is what you shall tell the children of Israel: I AM sent me to you.”

God spoke further to Moses, Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

“This is my name forever; this is my title for all generations...

Remember Bette Midler’s song From a Distance?

From a distance the world looks blue and green
And the snow capped mountains white
From a distance the ocean meets the stream
And the eagle takes to flight…

God is watching us
God is watching us
God is watching us from a distance

Back in the nineties, working full-time and pursuing a doctorate more than consumed my life. But when Midler’s song played on the radio, I’d stop and listen. And I’d think how nice it would be if what she was singing were true. Maybe like some of you reading this piece.

Bishop Barron stomps on all notion of the uninterested deist God that Midler sang about.

“This text in Exodus is the most important text in the Bible, bar none.”

Why does he make that claim?

Because here is where God gives himself a name.

Because if we really ponder what is happening here, we glimpse the deeply personal, particular and intimate relationship God has with Moses.

With each one of us.

Listening to this brief, magnificent talk, Who Is God?, immerses us into awe, mystery and wonder at this trinune God who called you and me into being. He whom I met at a Benedictine Monastery many years ago.

Both closer to us than we are ourselves, yet Holy, Holy Holy…the Hebrew whispered word Bishop Barron explains that means, Other, Other, Other.

 “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt 
          and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers,  
          so I know well what they are suffering. 
Therefore I have come down to rescue them 
          from the hands of the Egyptians 
          and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land,  
          a land flowing with milk and honey.” 
  
Moses said to God, “But when I go to the Israelites 
          and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ 
          if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?” 
God replied, “I am who am.” 
Then he added, “This is what you shall tell the Israelites:  
          I AM sent me to you.” 
  

He asks only that we turn to Him…

This is the God who emptied Himself of His divinity to become just like you and me. Experienced our humanity so that He could show us who we are meant to be.

He who heard the plea of the crucified thief on his right, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom,” and said, “This day you will be with me in paradise.”

And waits for us to turn to him.

Surrender our will to Him.

Trust Him.

Of old, prayer was able to rescue from fire and beasts and hunger, even before it received its perfection from Christ. How much greater then is the power of Christian prayer. No longer does prayer bring an angel of comfort to the heart of a fiery furnace, or close up the mouths of lions, or transport to the hungry food from the fields…Now, however, the prayer of the just turns aside the whole anger of God, keeps vigil for its enemies, pleads for persecutors. Is it any wonder that it can call down water from heaven when it could obtain fire from heaven as well? Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil, and has given it all power over good…

The Spiritual Offering of Prayer

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

The post Most of Us Are Settling for Bette Midler’s God. appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Our Citizenship is in Heaven

Passport cover. Leather cover of passport citizen. Template of biometric international document with chip. Golden globe on red and blue background. Icon for travel, citizenship and immigration. VectorOur Citizenship is in Heaven

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.

“Think on these things folks as we slog through Lent. Our citizenship is in heaven, ” said Bishop Barron in last week’s splendid homily on the Transfiguration of Christ, “Awaiting Resurrection.”

It’s curious, isn’t it that the Church places the Transfiguration of Christ immediately after the temptations of Christ?

But this year, I’m extraordinarily grateful because it really does feel as if I am “slogging through Lent.” And need reminders of the goal of our lives: Awaiting Resurrection. Not just because of the relentless devastation being wrought on Ukraine and President’s Zelensky’s heart-breaking pleas for a no-fly zone and more weapons, but way closer to home, huge aliquots of chaos in my own life. All good, but still turmoil with its partners, uncertainty. More on that in a week or two.

We wonder why, with so many billions of us storming Heaven with prayer for Ukraine, there seems to be no mitigation of the relentless horror. Robert Royal in The Catholic Thing writes, “A reader asked the other day, how is it that with the millions of prayers offered daily for Ukraine (actually billions around the world) that God allows the ongoing death and destruction? It’s a good question. A hard one.

It’s been asked for thousands of years in times of war, as well as during plagues, floods, fires, earthquakes, drought, famine that – pace the environmentalists – are part of the natural history of the human race. Anyone who reads the psalms in the Bible or daily prays the Liturgy of the Hours, knows that it’s been a central lament even in Scripture. Lord, we trust in you, but are you really there for us when we need you most?”

Ever since this terrifying war began and I began to pay attention to Ukraine, its history and its president, the Book of Job echoes in my head: ” Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” As does my character, young Saul of Tarsus, playing Satan from the Book of Job..

Crouching down, I pretended to whisper something into Simeon’s ear, then jumped straight up as if on springs. “I am the Lord’s Adversary. Ever since my success in the Garden, I delight in making just men blaspheme; in tricking upright men into believing that following God’s Law is foolhardy and that He has no concern for them or their wholly unimportant nation of Israel. Chosen people, indeed! Why do you think the ten tribes were scattered? Why do you think Judah’s men refused to listen to him and left for Egypt, only to be SOLD INTO SLAVERY?!”

Last Sunday the time changed,

and I arrived at the mass I’d planned to attend just as it ended because everyone’s clock but mine had lost an hour. I got to St. Patrick’s just in time to hear Pastor Fr. Beto joking about all the folks who, like me, totally missed the start of daylight savings.

When he began his homily, the priest’s first words were, “Our citizenship is in Heaven! No need for visas or passports or immigration lines!” While pointing to the crucified Christ hanging behind him on the altar, Fr. Beto declared that the three-pronged paths to Heaven are “Suffering, sacrifice and obedience to the Ten Commandments.” These mercy-saturated days are packed with His invitation to come closer. To embrace our sacrifice, suffering and consider examine the ways in which we are not following His commandments. To repent-rethink our ways.

Our Lord invites Saints Peter, James and John to the mountain to pray just days before he would descend into Jerusalem to be judged, mocked, and crucified by the creatures He had called into being. Knowing that His apostles, His friends, could not understand what they experienced, still He had them see Him in His glory.

…While he was praying his face changed in appearance
and his clothing became dazzling white.
And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah,
who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus
that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem…

…a cloud came and cast a shadow over them,
and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.
Then from the cloud came a voice that said,
“This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”
After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.
They fell silent and did not at that time
tell anyone what they had seen.

During those times that all we feel is nausea

at the situation we find ourselves in. Or that of our loved ones. Times when we cry out, “I don’t know what to do!” Or when we ponder the persecuted peoples all over the world, all we can do is bow our head and slog through. [Bishop Barron’s phrasing is, at times, irresistible.]

Surely those eleven men and handful of women could do nothing more.

Or less.

Because this faith, these graces, these precious sacraments and devotions of the Church, what are they except weapons to fight a war that by now we know is not with men?

“For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”

Think of it: we planted that dead trunk in a hole in the
ground atop Golgotha, intending bitterness, and instead we
get the wine of life and the water of salvation, coming from
the riven side of the Lord. Therefore we sing out with the
choirs, after the Reproaches are done:
We adore thy cross, O Lord, and we praise and glorify
thy holy Resurrection: for behold, by wood has come…

joy unto all the world. May God have mercy on us,
and bless us, and make his face to shine upon us,
and have mercy on us. We adore thy cross, O Lord,
and we praise and glorify thy holy Resurrection: for
behold, by wood has come joy unto all the world…

We may sin, but he is faithful, and the cross
is the tree whose leaves will be for the healing of the nations, fresh and green for all eternity. Let us gather in its
shade—and its light.

Anthony Esolen The Terrible Irony of Sin

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Best Way to Disempower Evil: Look at it, See It

Best way to disempower evil: Look at it

Bishop Robert Barron’s sermon for the first Sunday of Lent- Three Levels of Temptation– is on St. Luke’s account of the temptations of Christ in the desert. Within the first few minutes of his homily, he says, “The best way to disempower evil: to look at it, to see it.”

The declaration is a simple one. We could even say it’s self-evident. And yet, the baldness of those six words sears, pierces, plunges. Hence impelling this piece because the corollary is also evident: we empower evil by refusing to look at it. Refusing to see it.

Ours is a culture, more accurately, a world, that not only refuses to look and see evil, but we also deafen ourselves to it by renaming it. The reality of the thing is obscured through use of mild, vague and indirect labels-euphemisms. These are only a few examples, for the list is endless:

Consensual sex between unmarried adults is defined as fornication. And yet, almost half of us cohabite. Whether between the same sex or both sex is immaterial, living together has become the norm. The vice of fornication is on no one’s lips, even our clergy.St. Paul’s definition of the body as a temple of the holy spirit is considered outmoded, even unhealthy. How to pleasure ourselves sexually is now being taught to midde-schoolers.Phrases like “women’s health” and “personal choice” cloak the sin of abortion. The words are critical because the change deceitfully attracts and confuses the minds and hearts of our youth. And empowers evil.Pleasure morphs into business, the business of sin. Routinely, we break the third commandment, taking the holy name of God in vain in our speech, conversation and writing.

I imagine, therefore, that I’m not the only one for whom this Lent “feels different.”

Thorns Grow with Song

It’s time to rend our hearts and look inside

The chambered will, into the voices in

The vein: thorns grow with song.  A hope applied

With mercy calls the tuner of the tidal

Pull of the soul, brings rest, denying sin

It’s time. To rend our hearts and look inside

Reveals a bramble, canes of prickly pride

That strangle sacrifice, and so, within,

The vain thorns grow. With song, a hope applied

Again, small notes of spring erupt and chide

The choking vine. They scourge the ego’s skin.

It’s time to rend our hearts and look. Inside

We need to file the points where barbs collide,

To cauterize, to stem the blood and pin

The vein. Thorns grow.  With song, a hope. Applied

Again, confessed again, relief supplied

In more small notes, repentances begin.

It’s time to rend our hearts and look inside

The vein: thorns grow with song, a hope applied.

We’ve reached the second Sunday of Lent.

And these mercy-saturated days seem to be flying by and my fear that I’m not fasting or praying or giving enough deepens. Afraid that these forty days will pass without my changing the habits of my sins.

Maura Harrison’s poem above expresses the hopes and longings of our Lenten hearts and minds. We leave confession full of contrition and determination to stop these repeated sins. None of us leaves thinking that we’ll fall again into the same sins of gossip, impatience, thoughtlessness, anger…

Yes, we need to rend our hearts, to enter the desert with the Lord. Bishop Barron reminds that we need the desert to quiet the distractions, to “look inside the chambered will” and look and see the thorns to assure that nothing will obscure God’s plan for us.

But the reality is that all too often, I am back in the confessional, filled with self-disgust…”Again I am here, confessing the same sins…”

Not long ago, I prayed Christine Watkins’ Mary’s Mantle Consecration: A Spiritual Retreat for Heaven’s Help. Forty days filled with fasting, prayer and excellent videos. And I was filled with delight when it ended on The Assumption of Mary.

But on the late afternoon of that fortieth day, I was presented with unexpected interruptions to my plans and fell into anger, frustration and resentment. And was back at confession, “I didn’t even make it past the end of this retreat!”

Why?

I had not considered the “habits of my sins.” The phrase is one I’ve learned from Fr. Casey Cole in his excellent video: Overcoming Vices and Adopting Virtues. Listening to the young friar decide to stay away from confession for nine months because he was so intent on fixing his sins is both funny and familiar because I do it all the time.

What are the “habits” of sin?

My sins-vices- are the opposite of my gifts. As well, of course, as the attitudes and practices of a lifetime.

My ability to focus, concentrate and persist to the point of losing myself in what I am studying is both blessing and curse. It means that writing stuff like this-articles and books hopefully useful for others- gives me joy. While researching and writing, I get to clarify-challenge- what I think, believe. And with each article, each book, I learn.

But it also means that interruptions are unwelcome- especially when on a deadline. Actually not just unwelcome but disliked.

I mostly love deadlines…

Like that afternoon when I was interrupted from chasing my deadline. Resulting in my throwing a snit- behaving exactly the opposite of how I want to: unloving, rude, thoughtless, spiteful.

Furthermore, since my routine is awakening very early-three or four in the morning, by late afternoon, I’m tired. And when tired, irritable, I’m vulnerable to the enemy who knows, far better than I, my weaknesses.

Last Sunday’s Gospel tells us that the devil did not show until after Jesus had fasted from food and water for forty days. Only then did he try the three levels of temptations when He was weakened. ” And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”

The topography is crucial, those three levels of temptation highly instuctive for us as we root through our hearts to On the desert floor lies the tempation of physical satisfation-turn the stones into bread. Higher up, power.

And the highest? Honor and glory. ” “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    to guard you,’

It’s time to…

…To rend our hearts and look inside

Reveals a bramble, canes of prickly pride

That strangle sacrifice, and so, within,

The vain thorns grow. With song, a hope applied

Again, small notes of spring erupt and chide

The choking vine. They scourge the ego’s skin.

It’s time to rend our hearts and look. Inside

We need to file the points where barbs collide,

To cauterize, to stem the blood and pin

The vein. Thorns grow.  With song, a hope. Applied

Again, confessed again, relief supplied

In more small notes, repentances begin.

It’s time to learn the habits of our sins. And develop the habit of begging for the grace to do change them.

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Sacrifice: Brought to the Citizens of the World in Real Time

Sacrifice: Brought to the Citizens of the World in Real Time

For the ten days, President Vlodomyr Zalensky has acted as David to the Goliath Russian President Putin. But this is not theatre. No, this is sacrifice: brought to the citizens of the world in real time. I must confess that prior to this week, I considered the seemingly endless conflict in the Ukraine just another of the tribal skirmishes we see all over the world: Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Nigeria, Chinese Christians, and here as well, if we bother to reduce the arguments to the fundamentals.

And President Zalensky?

I knew nothing about him. And precious little about his country and its long history of suffering.

Until Wednesday of last week when all hell broke loose on the Ukraine. In just eleven days, the president of Ukraine has placed himself and his country in my cold and stony heart and those of our world and its leaders. Zelensky’s response to the invasion and Putin’s public threat to assassinate him and his family, is to refuse to leave his capital and nation. But to stay and fight. Making him the subject of countless accolades. Like this piece from last Monday:

The camera moves, but only a little. The man in the foreground, filming, wears a jacket of olive green. The men around him do too. Their expressions are grave. They stand close, arranged in the scrunched togetherness of the group selfie. If you happened to encounter their video as one of many across a feed—a group of guys, a bit blurry in thumbnail form, poorly lit against the night—you’d probably not realize what you were witnessing: a president and his cabinet, outmatched but outspoken, declaring their defiance in the face of an invasion. You’d probably not realize the deep significance of the refrain Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeats throughout the 32-second video that doubles as a state-of-the-union address: Тут—tут—tут. Here—here—here.

Now, after ten days of fighting for his life and country,

Zelensky looks ten years older than his age of forty-four. He’s a man who a mere ten years ago was an actor, a comedian. The Jewish husband of former Ukranian model Olena and father of their two teen-aged children, Zalensky won 73% of the vote after playing president of the country in a TV series called Servant of the People. In the art-imitating-life series, Zelensky plays a history teacher whose anti-corruption rant goes viral and wins him the presidency.

Since his election in 2019, Zalensky’s hold on the electorate was increasingly shaky because of the rival factions within Ukrainian politics. But then Russia showed up.

After declaring martial law and releasing prisoners with combat experience to fight, teaching citiizens how to make molotov cocktails and Zelnsy’s brilliant use of social media, the Ukranians repelled the initial attempt at a Russian takeover of Kyiv. The world followed suit.

Germany ended the Nord stream pipeline, shipped weapons to Ukraine and committed a 100 billion in defense immediately. “Hungary, thought to be the weakest link in the Western chain, has supported without question moves by the European Union and NATO to punish Moscow. Turkey, arguably the most Russia-friendly NATO country, having bought missile defense systems from Moscow, has invoked its responsibilities in the 1936 Montreux Convention and closed the Bosporus strait to Russian warships. NATO deployed its rapid-reaction force for the first time, and allies are rushing to send troops to reinforce frontline states. A cascade of places have closed their airspace to Russian craft. The United States has orchestrated action and gracefully let others have the stage, strengthening allies and institutions both.”

Following last week’s near total destruction of Ukrainian satellite service, Elon Musk delivered and activated his Starlink software so that communication could be maintained in the ravaged country.

An unintended eulogy to Ukraine?

Those of us already living in free societies owe Ukrainians a great debt of gratitude. Their courage has reminded us of the nobility of sacrifice for just causes. As Ronald Reagan memorably said, “There is a profound difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.” What Ukrainians have done is inspire Americans and others to shake ourselves out of our torpor and create policies of assistance to them, in the hopes that we might one day prove worthy of becoming their ally.

Putin Accidentally Revitalized The West’s

The tribute is profoundly moving, but it may turn out to be a euology for the once free and independent nation of Ukraine. Despite massive Russian causualties of up to 6000, at least three failed assassination plots against Zalensky, Goliath’s juggernaut is relentless. President Zalensky recalls Azazel-scapegoat for the evil that cloaks his land and much of this world.

Over and over Zalensky pleads for no-fly zones over his devasated country. Declaring his gratitude for global support he fears it came too late.

And yet President Zalensky recalls Isaiah in Thursday’s electifyng address:

“No bunker can shelter you from God’s response…You have come to destroy our cities. Destroy our people. Take away from us everything that is dear to us. You cut off electricity, water and heating to civilians in Ukraine. You leave people without food and medicine. You are shelling routes of possible evacuation. There is no weapon that you would not use against us, against the free citizens of Ukraine. And now you are telling your propagandists that you are going to send so-called humanitarian columns to Ukraine… Remember, godless men: when millions of people curse you, you have nothing to save yourself..They wanted us to be silent. But the whole world heard us…”

What can we do?

This past Wednesday-Ash Wednesday,when Fr. Jabob made the sign of the cross in ashes on my forehead and intoned, “Repent and believe in the Gospel,” I heard the words differently. And now feel exceedingly grateful for what our Byzantine and Ukrainian friends call The Great Fast-Lent. It’s a time to rend our hearts and minds and fast. The whole church revels in

Ponder the meaning of that noun: repent , its fundamental meaning: yes it means regret and sorrow. But more than that it means rethink. The French word pense-to think…about my sins, the habits preceding sin.In this context, it’s feeling this horror while at the same time believing, trusting that the millions of us praying, often through tears, matter, will, in some mysterous way, be used.Trust and believe that St. Paul’s declaration of greater grace abounding where there is sin. None can deny the evil reigning down on the world, especially in Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen and China. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”Know that He foresaw all this evil. In the garden. Took it into His very being and and nailed it to the cross.Trust that these demons will be exorcized through our prayers, fasting and almsgiving.Pray for Putin’s conversion.

“And today we ask, – said the Head of the Church, – this wisdom of God, which has always been the basis of life of our Church and our people, became the basis, the strength of our stability, that God’s wisdom reigns over human madness, so the God of peace we rely on, gives us the opportunity to defend this world, hoping that we will not stumble. Before dawn, says the psalm, the Lord will bless us and help us.”

Kyiv Turns Into Spirtual Capital of the World

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No Man Can Tame the Tongue

Fire flames on black background backgroundNo man can tame the tongue

I should probably title this one “Part Two” because it’s inadvertently a continuation of the article that posted last Sunday on the epistle of James. The daily reading for Saturday February 19th’s Christian liturgy was again, St. James. The phrase, “No man can tame the tongue” shouted at me. And impelled this second article on the gospel book Fr. Alphonse calls the most readable and practical of all the books in the New Testament.

…In the same way the tongue is a small member
and yet has great pretensions.

Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze.
The tongue is also a fire.
It exists among our members as a world of malice,
defiling the whole body
and setting the entire course of our lives on fire,
itself set on fire by Gehenna.
For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature,
can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species

Is it possible to read these words of St James without cringing in shame at times when we’ve given reign to anger, hurt feelings or simply wanting to be the first to reveal a friend’s secret confidence?

Can anyone alive completely supress the memories of friends or enemies whom we’ve burned with our words, even unintentionally?

Here’s the entire reading for last Saturday:

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters,
for you realize that we will be judged more strictly,
for we all fall short in many respects.
If anyone does not fall short in speech, he is a perfect man,
able to bridle the whole body also.
If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us,
we also guide their whole bodies.
It is the same with ships:
even though they are so large and driven by fierce winds,
they are steered by a very small rudder
wherever the pilot’s inclination wishes.
In the same way the tongue is a small member
and yet has great pretensions.

Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze.
The tongue is also a fire.
It exists among our members as a world of malice,
defiling the whole body
and setting the entire course of our lives on fire,
itself set on fire by Gehenna.
For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature,
can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species,
but no man can tame the tongue.
It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
With it we bless the Lord and Father,
and with it we curse men
who are made in the likeness of God.
From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.
My brothers and sisters, this need not be so. 

Does the first sentence jolt?

“Not many of you should become teachers…for we realize that we will fall short in many respects…”

All too well, I recall the seventies and the emergence of women in management, when I and many colleagues worked to think and act like men…and teach everyone else to do so as well. Even when their natures were gentle, passive and submissive.

His is a fierce reminder to pray for all educators trapped in the morass of dogma who use their influence to corrupt young minds. With St. John Paul the Great, to ask-even beg- that all educators and universities embrace one goal and only one: “gaudium de veritate, so precious to Saint Augustine, which is that joy of searching for, discovering and communicating truth(2) in every field of knowledge…”

Fr. Alphonse added one more caveat during his Saturday morning homily. Elucidating St. James’s words, ‘from the same mouth come blessing and cursing,’ we’re reminded that it is on our tongue that we receive His Body and Blood…the very tongue that criticizes, complains or gossips.

All of which brings us to the vast opportunities coming during these next forty hold days: With practice, we can fit the saint’s description of perfection:

… If anyone does not fall short in speech, he is a perfect man,
able to bridle the whole body also.

Eucharist, sacrament of communion backgroundSharing in the Blessedness of Christ

Holiness demands a constant effort, but it is possible
for everyone because, rather than a human effort, it is
first and foremost a gift of God, thrice holy. The Apostle
John remarks: See what love the Father has given us,
that we should be called children of God; and so we
are. It is God, therefore, who loved us first and made
us his adoptive sons in Jesus. Everything in our lives
is a gift of his love: how can we be indifferent before
such a great mystery? How can we not respond to the
heavenly Father’s love by living as grateful children?
In Christ, he gave us the gift of his entire self and calls
us to a personal and profound relationship with him.
Consequently, the more we imitate Jesus and remain
united to him the more we enter into the mystery of
his divine holiness. We discover that he loves us infi-
nitely, and this prompts us in turn to love our brethren.
Loving always entails an act of self-denial, “losing our
selves,” and it is precisely this that makes us happy…

To the extent that we accept his proposal and set out to
follow him—each one in his own circumstances—we
too can participate in his blessedness. With him, the
impossible becomes possible and even a camel can
pass through the eye of a needle; with his help, only
with his help, can we become perfect as the heavenly
Father is perfect.

A Pre-Lenten meditation from Spirtual Direction.

Opening Collect:  Lord Jesus Christ, who by word and example in the garden has taught us how to pray so as to overcome the dangers of temptations: mercifully grant that, ever bent on prayer, we may deserve to reap its plentiful fruit… 

At the base of the Mount of Olives in the city of Jerusalem, one can find the Basilica of the Agony – Church of All Nations. This church was built over the Garden of Gethsemane where the passion of Jesus began. In front of the main altar of the Church lays the stone upon which Jesus sweated blood in his agony and where the beginning of the prayer of his Passion would occur. Here at this spot, Jesus was desolate and was tempted. He experienced the depths of the mystery spoken of in the Introit of this mass – Ps. 55 (54): 5-6: My heart is troubled within me, and the fear of death has fallen upon me. Fear and trembling have come upon me.  

In the mystery of his Agony, Jesus’ human nature was revolting from the idea of his own suffering and from seeing how profound and oppressive it would be.

READ MORE

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The Business of Sin

Business Man holding handcuffs after releasing over sunset background. Freedom and Burden-free conceptThe business of sin

Until I listened to Fr. Alphonse’s homily at daily mass, I’d never thought of sin as a business. But the moment I heard his phrase, “the business of sin,” I knew the truth of the statement. As did the three others I commented to following the mass.

His remarks followed the reading from St. James for the Christian liturgy of Tuesday, February 15th:

Blessed is he who perseveres in temptation,
for when he has been proven he will receive the crown of life 
that he promised to those who love him.
No one experiencing temptation should say,
“I am being tempted by God”;
for God is not subject to temptation to evil,
and he himself tempts no one.
Rather, each person is tempted when lured and enticed by his desire.
Then desire conceives and brings forth sin,
and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers and sisters:
all good giving and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.
He willed to give us birth by the word of truth
that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Since I was lector,

I read St. James’s words…proclaimed them, an act which is very different from merely reading. Since the saint”s words seemed to penetrate deeply into psyche and marrow, I recalled the days when I had no belief, no faith. In anything. The days when, quite truly, I spoke a different language.

In a book I wrote about becoming Catholic, I wrote this.

“The feeling I had about Catholicism was not something I could easily explain in words, to others or to myself then or now. And it made no sense because I knew nothing about this religion, it was never among the list of faiths I had tried on for size. I had never read any books or articles about the Catholic religion nor had I spoken with John in any detail about being Catholic. About why he was Catholic. Or even what he believed. I had accepted at face value his offer of the Abbey as the sacred place I was seeking. And once I got there, found not only a holy place but so much more. Crazily, I felt as if I had come home, after a long and exhausting journey. But- there’s often a but when we achieve something momentous- I found myself second guessing myself…

Thinking back to those few months of study at the Abbey, I recall the pleasure with which I learned my introduction to this faith and the enjoyment of my discussions with Brother Andrew. My ignorance of all things religious was vast. Hence, the request to be treated as if I were a blank slate was hardly an overstatement. By necessity, what follows is an abbreviated list of the vocabulary, books, and principles that after almost twenty years still influence me.

Take sin for example. I had spent years living as a woman who did not believe such a thing existed. The ten commandments, like the Bible itself, was an anachronism. But once the defenses and rationalizations are put aside, the truth takes up residence and the relief of admitting the enormity of all the error is freeing. Paradox. Strangely, the longer I practice this faith, the more my ideas of sin deepen or maybe broaden. Initially, it’s all about the rules, the ones I flouted, as I said in an earlier chapter. With time, prayer and study our conception of sin changes, sometimes radically.”

Finding the Narrow Path

But until this week, I’d not considered

the business of sin. At least not in those words. But it takes no time at all to grasp the vast amounts of money brought in by pornography dressed up as entertainment, the ennoblement of depravity, and the renaming of mortal sin as virtuous. Even health has become a battle for money.

Of course, once we strip away the rhetoric, it’s always about money, no matter how many euphemisms we use to obscure the reality.

And yet our trust-worthy friend St Paul has words of consolation.

Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,

Letter to the Romans

We are not left defenseless against sin!

We are not mere victims of our own and others’ evil.

No, we choose to give in: “lured and enticed by his desire.
Then desire conceives and brings forth sin.”

During those early days of learning this brand new vocabulary of faith, I learned new concepts. Like chastity, a word I formerly considered as 19th century. Belonging to Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy. But once introduced to St Thomas Aquinas, I found that his dense but gripping writing on the virtues fascinated, even excited me. And, after reading McIntyre’s After Virtue, I began to glimpse the effects of the “enlightenment” on humanity.

But my study wasn’t just philosphical but personal, even intimate. Here’s what I mean.

“…And then there is the soul, my soul, yours and each human person. That I had one had not entered my mind in decades, if ever. I used the word, of course, in referring to people with whom I felt a deep connection as ‘old souls’ …But the soul in this context was entirely different from those expressions. And the consequences of an entity like this staggered me. There was a time, and there were cultures, I suppose, when discussions about matters of faith were second nature for average people and used in daily conversation. When these issues were believed to be a grave matter to be taught, explored and accepted or rejected. From the view of the twenty-first century, they seem medieval, born of myth and superstition.”

Chapter four of the Rule of St. Benedict lists the Tools of the Spritual Life. The saint begins by exhorting,

First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:37-39; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27). Then the following: You are not to kill, not to commit adultery; you are not to steal not covet (Rom 13:9); you are not to bear false witness (Matt 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20). You must honor everyone (1 Peter 2:17), and never do to another what you do not want done to yourself (Tob 4:16; Matt 7:12; Luke 6:31).

Renounce yourself in order to follow Christ (Matt 16:24; Luke 9:23); discipline your body (1 Cor 9:27); do not pamper yourself, but love fasting. You must relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick (Matt 25:36), and bury the dead. Go to help the troubled and console the sorrowing…

It’s a very long list and one worth reading over and over.

But it’s his last sentence that astonishes each time I read it.

These, then, are the tools of the spiritual craft.

When we have used them without ceasing day and night and have returned them [italics mine] on judgment day, our wages will be the reward the Lord has promised: What the eye has not seen nor the ear heard, God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9).

I think about this statement, but not often enough.

I’ll end this piece on a not just hopeful, but to me, miraculous note: Virtues will be taught in public schools in New York City! A crystal-clear affirmation of what St. Paul tells us: “Where sin abounded, grace abounds even more.”

“Ian Rowe believes in teaching students four cardinal virtues: courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. These qualities make up the core curriculum at his forthcoming International Baccalaureate public charter high schools in the Bronx, set to open in 2022.

A product of New York City’s public school system himself, Rowe is determined to give parents an option that promotes classic ideas about equality that many still believe can work.”

In the book of Proverbs Solomon tells us: If you cry out for wisdom and raise your
voice for understanding, if you look for it as for silver and search for it as
for treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord.

We must begin by crying out for wisdom. We must hand over to our intellect the
duty of making every decision. We must look for wisdom and search for it. Then
we must understand the fear of the Lord.

For us the fear of God consists wholly in love, and perfect love of God brings our
fear of him to its perfection. Our love for God is entrusted with its own
responsibility: to observe his counsels, to obey his laws, to trust his
promises.

We must ask for these many ways, we must travel along these many ways, to find the
one that is good. That is, we shall find the one way of eternal life through
the guidance of many teachers. These ways are found in the law, in the
prophets, in the gospels, in the writings of the apostles, in the different
good works by which we fulfil the commandments. Blessed are those who walk
these ways in the fear of the Lord.

Saint Hilary of Poitiers

This entry was posted in Spiritual Practices, Spiritual Reflections on February 17, 2022 by monks4christ

The post The Business of Sin appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Sin Doesn’t Come First-We Get it Backwards!

Graphic conceptual illustration of iconic butterfly casting a shadow of the Christian cross of Jesus against a painted textured backgroundSin doesn’t come first- we get it backwards!

This past Sunday’s Gospel was St. Luke’s account of Simon’s-he who would become Peter- first encounter with Christ. St. Luke provides many details. So many in fact, that it’s easy to place ourselves there. And because of that, to write about witnessing Peter’s catch.

But there’s even more here! With his customary precision and clarity, Bishop Baron makes plain what I’d missed before: sin doesn’t come first-we get it backwards.

Axiomatic to the spiritual life- to each of our spiritual lives- is “Invasion of Grace.” A wholly splendid phrase to decsribe that first encounter with Him, is it not?

Here’s Luke’s Gospel account:

While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God,
he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.
He saw two boats there alongside the lake;
the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets.
Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon,
he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore.
Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,
“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”
Simon said in reply,
“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,
but at your command I will lower the nets.”
When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish
and their nets were tearing.
They signaled to their partners in the other boat
to come to help them. 
They came and filled both boats
so that the boats were in danger of sinking.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him
and all those with him,
and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
who were partners of Simon.
Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid;
from now on you will be catching men.”
When they brought their boats to the shore,
they left everything and followed him.

Remember?

That moment when Jesus “got into your boat?”

Consider what happens here. Peter and his partners had just come in from a night of fishing. And catching nothing. Then this strange man gets into Pater’s boat and starts barking orders.

Bishop Barron remarks that an ancient Israeli man’s boat was his prized possession- his entire livelihood. No one would dare to climb into another man’s boat and then tell him to back out into deep water. After being out there all night!

But Jesus did.

And that is precisely how the spiritual life starts, isn’t it?

We are invaded by Grace, are we not?

I can remember the exact place and time that Jesus climbed into my boat. I’ll bet you can too.

And the concept of sin comes later…

Much later.

Sin doesn’t come first-we get it backwards.

But St. Paul doesn’t get it backwards-he never did. Not once Jesus not only climbed into his boat but capsized it out from underneath him, that is.

Although I spent just about a year of my life studying and writing about St Paul, I know that even if I were to all my remaining days doing so, I’d not plumb the depths of St. Paul’s words, his theology:

Before faith came, we were under the constraint of the Law, locked in until the faith that was coming would be

revealed. In other words, the Law was our monitor until Christ came to bring about our justification through faith. But

now that faith is here, we are no longer in the monitor’s charge. Each one of you is a child of God because of your faith

in Christ Jesus. All of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. In Christ there is no

Jew or Greek, slave or citizen, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus. Furthermore, if you belong to Christ, you are

the offspring of Abraham, which means you inherit all that was promised.

Galations

Only after Peter, most likely not even knowing why he does it, obeys Christ, only then does he appreciate his true nature: a sinner.

Depart from me Lord for I am a sinner.

How often have I mixed it up in my own mind- worse when replying to an unbeliever’s question or comment? Sin does not come first-we get it backwards!

How else can we reply after oh so tentatively and hestitantly putting out into deep water and been drowned in grace? “Depart from me Lord…”

He could have made John the rock on which He founded His Church.

But He didn’t.

No, it was Peter.

Not John who stayed at the foot of the Cross. Not John the beloved of his heart to whom He entrusted His Mother.

But Peter: braggard, impetuous, passionate, unthinking Peter.

Perhaps like you, I think-and therefore write, about Peter.

This man who mirrors my cowardice and thoughtlessness.

A man who seemed wholly oblivious to the depth of his flaws and limitations.

Though our situation may have been somewhat unique, the temptation [to
give up] was not. It is the same temptations faced by everyone who has
followed a call and found that the realities of life were nothing like the
expectations he had in the first flush of his vision and his enthusiasm…

You must forgive me, God, but I want to go back. You cannot hold me to a
promise made in ignorance; you cannot expect me to keep a covenant based on
faith without any previous knowledge of the true facts of life. It is not fair…

And then one day, together, it dawned on Father Nestrov and me. God granted
us the grace to see the solution from his viewpoint rather than from ours. It was
the grace not to judge our efforts by human standards, or by what we ourselves
wanted or expected to happen, but rather according to God’s design, with the
real world ordained by God and governed ultimately by his will…. Not the will of
God as we might wish it, or as we might have envisioned it, or as we thought in
our poor human wisdom it ought to be. But rather the will of God as God
envisioned it and revealed it to us each day in the created situations with which
he presented us. His will for us was the twenty-four hours of each day: the
people, the places, the circumstances he set before us in that time…

Put Out Into Deep Water

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Leave Room for the Wrath: Hold Fast to Patience

Leave room for the wrath

Bless those who persecute
[you], bless and do not
curse them. If possible, on your part, live at peace with
all. Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for
the wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will
repay, says the Lord.” Rather, “if your enemy is hungry,
feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his
head.” Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil
with good.

The words are St. Paul’s from his Letter to the Roman Christian church. One that he did not found. Scholars believe the letter to be written somewhere around 57 AD from Corinth. And this letter is considered to be “one of the most difficult books in scripture.” But for this particular piece, I write just of this paragraph.

These compelling words have most likely seen countless times before but overlooked

“Leave room for the wrath” reads as if it should be the banner pledge for these fervid days of the second decade in the twenty-first century. Quoting our Lord, St. Paul admonishes the Roman Christians to “bless those who persecute…bless and do not curse….if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if thirsty, give him something to drink….”

His last statement is explanation: Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.

All of which takes me back to the year I spent studying and then writing about St. Paul, the Apostle.

One of my favorite characters (of those in my novels, that is)

is Aurelius in . Since the novel is written in the first person, I knew I needed a second lens through which to view St. Paul, the protagonist in the book.

And Aurelius showed up. Betrayed by everything he lived, fought and almost died for, Aurelius works perfectly as Paul’s archenemy.

A Roman centurion transferred back to his natve Rome after years in battle, Aurelius swims in ignominy. Disgusted by this crazy Christian he guards, Emperor Nero’s total devastation of his once beautiful city and the immigrants swarming to Rome for its free food and circus entertainment, Aurelius delights in torturing his captive.

Until Paul speaks.

After nine days of all but starvation and intense thirst, Paul spoke his first words to me— in calm, flawless Latin. “I wonder why such a fine-looking specimen of a man has come to detest himself to such a degree that he causes himself such agony?”

“How can you ask such a thing? You, in chains, me, your captor?

“Why does the look in your eyes make me want to drop to my knees and sob like a child of three years?

“Why don’t you hate me?”

The strange light that emanated from his eyes had not diminished despite his emaciation and parched, cracked, and bleeding lips. In fact, the fire had intensified. And there was a quality about him that defied description … a stillness having nothing to do with his chains. The man had an inner serenity that no execrable words or deeds of mine could disturb.

When I finally looked into his eyes for the first time, instead of a mirror of my own rage and hatred, I saw what I could only interpret as love. For me.

How can this man look at me with the tenderness of a mother gazing upon her infant?

My jaw dropped open. I could not hide my amazement.

“Who are you?” I asked him. “Why don’t you detest me, as I do you?”

“You do not detest me,” he replied in a whisper— the most substantial voice he could manage to propel through his ravaged lips.

I leaned down to hear him and found myself irresistibly drawn to this scarred shell of a man. “You hate yourself… what you have become,” he continued, not without difficulty.

My Name is Saul

Paul understands the awful cost of vengeance.

My fictional soldier, Aurelius, has met Love and is incapable of resisting its power. Just like Saul on his way to Damascus all those years before. This Love that Paul descibes is God:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”

When he writes to the Corinthians, Paul is admonishing his followers, instructing them in God’s Law of Love that we must imitate.

Breathtaking, isn’t it?

From whichever pulpit we stand in, the rivers of ceaseless gossip dressed up as news invites, provokes, whispers, seduces. Almost begs us to criticize, judge. The headlines are occasionally difficult to ignore, gauged as they are to incite. But I know I must resist. And feel intensely sorrowful when I give in to read the latest salacious tidbit about another; whether a politician promoting pure evil or merely one with a different opinion from mine.

Jesus’ words about how we must treat our enemies are not suggestions. They are commands.

Why?

Because hatred of our brothers and sisters is indeed self-hatred. Regardless of what he or she has done, said or not done, when we look into their faces, we see ourselves, the selves we desperately want to bury.

All that invective, harsh words or thoughts do nothing to the person being written about but untold damage to me…to the peace without which I cannot hear Him…

Hold fast to patience

Chapter 7 in the Rule of Benedict contain’s his brilliant treatment on humility. The reading for Tuesday, February first is this one:

The fourth degree of humility
is that he hold fast to patience with a silent mind
when in this obedience he meets with difficulties
and contradictions
and even any kind of injustice,
enduring all without growing weary or running away.
For the Scripture says,
“The one who perseveres to the end,
is the one who shall be saved” (Matt. 10:22);
and again
“Let your heart take courage, and wait for the Lord” (Ps. 26:14)!…

It’s such a deceptively simple word-patience. And best defined in Madelleine Debrel’s poem, The Passion of Patience:
The patiences, these little pieces of passion, whose job is to kill us slowly for your glory, to kill us without our glory…

St. Benedict’s admonition bears repeating: “…hold fast to patience with a silent mind…even contradictions and even every kind of injustice…”

From the treatise on Spiritual Perfection by Diadochus of Photice, bishop

The mind has a spiritual sense which teaches us to distinguish between good and evil
The light of true knowledge makes it possible to discern without error the difference between good and evil. Then the path of justice, which leads to the Sun of Justice, brings the mind into the limitless light of knowledge, since it never fails to seek the love of God with all confidence.
Therefore, we must maintain great stillness of mind, even in the midst of our struggles. We shall then be able to distinguish between the different types of thoughts that come to us: those that are good, those sent by God, we will treasure in our memory; those that are evil and inspired by the devil we will reject. A comparison with the sea may help us. A tranquil sea allows the fisherman to gaze right to its depths. No fish can hide there and escape his sight. The stormy sea, however, becomes murky when it is agitated by the winds. The very depths that it revealed in its placidness, the sea now hides. The skills of the fisherman are useless.

Only the Holy Spirit can purify the mind: unless the strong man enters and robs the thief, the booty will not be recovered. So by every means, but especially by peace of soul, we must try to provide the Holy Spirit with a resting place. Then we shall have the light of knowledge shining within us at all times, and it will show up for what they are all the dark and hateful temptations that come from demons, and not only will it show them up: exposure to this holy and glorious light will also greatly diminish their power.

This is why the Apostle says: Do not stifle the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of goodness: do not grieve him by your evil actions and thoughts, and so deprive yourself of the defense his light affords you. In his own being, which is eternal and life-giving, he is not stifled, but when he is grieved he turns away and leaves the mind in darkness, deprived of the light of knowledge.

The mind is capable of tasting and distinguishing accurately whatever is presented to it. Just as when our health is good we can tell the difference between good and bad food by our bodily sense of taste and reach for what is wholesome, so when our mind is strong and free from all anxiety, it is able to taste the riches of divine consolation and to preserve, through love, the memory of this taste. This teaches us what is best with absolute certainty. 

From the treatise of Spiritual Perfection

Snowy mountain reflected in clear water of glacial lake. Beautiful sunny landscape with glacier reflection in water surface of mountain lake under clear sky. Snow on rock reflected in mountain lake.

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Depression and The New Science of Spirituality

Colorized MRI Image Of Head Showing BrainDepression and the new science of sprituality

“I don’t believe depression exists- instead, it’s a loss of energy. If you’re depressed but hear a fire alarm, just like anyone else, your sympathetic system will kick in. You’ll find plenty of energy to run.”

After twenty-five years of counseling ex-combat vets John had plenty of experience with PTSD and its oft associated partner, depression. Because of both personal and professional experiences, his observation rang radically true for me.

Not long afterward, John introduced me to his clinical supervisor, Dr. Weiner, a staff psychologist at Clark University in Worcester Massachusetts. John had told me enough about the psychologist that I was eager to meet him. Dr. Weiner did not belive in diagnosis. He thought diagnoses were labels which could cause far more harm than can be imagined. YES! The wise psychologist expressed my precise sentiments about the power of a diagnosis.

This is true for a number of reasons. Primarily these:

The devastating effects of two “ordinary” diagnoses on my motherThe dependence implicit in the doctor/patient relationshipLack of understanding of the power of a diagnosis. A long ago friendship with an oncologic surgeon.

Dr. Stewart considered my mother a fairly healthy if overweight woman of sixty-one. He explained her smoking and excess weight contributed to her hypertension and atherscerosis. Those two words rang as a death knell- she was dying, nothing anyone said could persuade her otherwise. The subsequent sixteen years of her life were spent as a cardiac cripple despite the absence of any organic damage in her heart. My mother lived in what her cardioligist defined as “morbid anxiety.”

Quintessential Texan that he was, Dr. Lester Hoaglin was also suffused with wisdom. During a conversation on truthtelling and the “rights of the patient to know” at the Institutional Ethics Committee meeting which I then chaired, he drawled, “I no longer tell my patients how long they have left. I learned the hard way that too many would obey my wild-assed guess of six months. To the day, they would be dead.”

The points made in this article, depression and the new science of spirituality by necessity, take complex subjects and provide little more than a sound byte. But it’s another lens through which to think about depression- and all diagnoses.

Perhaps even decide to take back our responsibility for our own health or help others to do so.

Roll the clock forward to The Awakened Brain

Dr. Lisa Miller is the psychologist author of The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life. Her website gushes that ” It’s not just a book; it’s a movement. The awakened decision is the better decision. With an awakened perception, we are more creative, collaborative, ethical, and innovative. The awakened brain is the healthier brain.”

Using lead researcher “Myrna Weissman’s multigenerational” study of depression, Dr. Miller added a question: How important is religion or spirituality to you? The author explains. ” We wanted to see how spirituality is associated with brain structure and how spirtuality correlated with risk for depression.”

The findings shocked Miller and her team. Brain scans of those who reported that spirtuality was “of high personal interest” revealed, “a healthier and more robust brain. And was thicker and stronger in exactly the same areas that weaken and wither in depressed brains.” Huge swaths of red showed in the healthy brain scans.

Brain scan scans to demonstrate the healing effects of prayer is indeed new. However the research and data demonstrating the stunning effects of non-medical treatments have been available for decades if we care to look. Herbert Benson showed powerful effects of healing through prayer in his 1975 book The Relaxation Response.

Norman Cousins defied a fatal diagnosis in his 1968 book Anatomy of an Illness through his practice of eustress- good stress. Fifteen years later, Cousins described his esperience with “the widow maker”-total occlusion of the left coronary artery resulting in cardiogenic shock. In the Healing Heart, the author relates his attempts to persuade his cardiologist that returning to his tennis game would be “good stress-eustress.” But the “monitored treadmill tests” were Finally Cousins fired the UCLA physician and selected one with whom he could “partner.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine. Decades of research with cancer patients at UMass Medical Center reveals beneficial, even curative- effects of mindfulness techniques.

There are more. Many more.

Why aren’t they publicized?

Why don’t we know about these programs?

It’s complicated- of course.

A diagnosis is merely a label for a collection of symptoms. But when DRG’s were instituted, the diagnosis became the determinent of how doctors and hospitals get paid. DRG’s or diagnostic related groupings were universally applied in 1983 as the method for hospital payment from Medicare. All other payors followed suit.

The major source of hospital revenue is from invasive procedures: surgeries, cardiac caths and the like. These invasive procedure support the inpatient cost for caring for everyone else. Billing is cumbersome, confounding and contradictory and resides in the province of medical record specialists. But without a diagnosis, no one gets paid.

Signs of depression include lack of energy, sleeplessness, insomnia, weight gain or loss, lack of interest and/or absence of feelings of joy, feelings of worthlessness and thoughts of self-harm. For a quick self-test, click here.

Those who went before us viewed these symptoms as a spiritual disorder or evidence of demonic possession. But many millions now live under the power of the diagnosis of depression, taking addictive pyschoactive drugs to treat it.

Indeed, the DSM lV’s array of pyschiatric diagnoses keeps expanding. “The new diagnosis of somatic symptom disorder seems to confirm that psychiatry will stick a diagnostic label on anything that appears in any way deviant.”

But also it’s about our willingness-even eagerness-

to hand over the responsibilty for our well-being to strangers. Relying on their credentials and figuring that the doctor knows better than we. Certianly there are cases where medical intervention is essential- as in trauma or other acute situations. But the reality is that over eighty percent of common illnesses will resolve in a week to ten days with or without medical intervention. Furthermore, medical intervention can worsen the problem. In fact, economist Victor Fuchs has modeled the point at which continued medical intervention diminishes quality of care. And last, despite spending far more on medical care than other western countries, Americans keep getting sicker.

“The rise of reason did not take power into account.”

Paul Starr’s seminal work on The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry begins with that sentence. At the time he published the book, Starr was on faculty at the Harvard Medical School. Despite winning the Nobel Prize for his book, he was denied tenure at Harvard. Starr shows how in just a hundred years, an entire society was transformed from independent citizens who lived their lives wholly independent of medicine to what we see now.

We can hope that Deeprak Chopra’s praise of Lisa Miller’s work does indeed spark a revolution.

“Dr. Miller’s cutting-edge research heralds a new revolution of health and well-being. The Awakened Brain is an investigation of the choice we each have in confronting challenges and limitations—and it’s a testament to, and celebration of, the power within.”

Is it easy to adopt such practices?

When each time we look at television or social media we are assaulted by all the reasons we should race to our doctor? Or the latest transformation of Covid? Or the worst snowstorm of the century about to descend?

No.

Like every worthwhile endeavor, it takes work.

We have a great, habitual fear inside ourselves. We’re afraid of many things — of our own death, of losing our loved ones, of change, of being alone. The practice of mindfulness helps us to touch nonfear. It’s only here and now that we can experience total relief, total happiness… In the practice of Buddhism, we see that all mental formations — including compassion, love, fear, sorrow, and despair — are organic in nature. We don’t need to be afraid of any of them, because transformation is always possible.” Thich Nhat Hanh

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Do We See What is There or What We expect to See?

Optician eyeglasses being cleaned by tiny figurine symbolizing clear visionDo we see what is there or what we expect to see?

All too frequently, our ‘vision’ is clouded-even blinded by our biases, predudices and preconceptions of what is before us. In other words, we see what we expect to see. That fact is one of the primary causes of human error- whether medical error and negligence, pilot error or wrongful conviction. True because we unconsciously form causal connections based upon single events. And our senses dull as we view the familiar and ordinary. At times, so completely that we are blinded to the extraordinary.

Our perception of the world around us is the primary ground from which we make decisions. About our world, our lives and ourselves. Like many of us raised in the last century, I accepted the axiom that we are logical thinkers. Until I began to put together my experience with my doctoral research.

It’s natural to assume we are logical creatures because we’ve been schooled in Aristotle’s defintion of man as a “rational animal” and Descarte’s Cogito Ergo Sum- I think therefore I am. The same Descartes who performed autopsies on live dogs, the euphemism “vivisection” sounds far more rational, doesn’t it? He claimed that their screams were merely neurological responses by non-rational organisms who could feel no pain.

Remarkable, isn’t it? The power we cede others to shape our view of reality and our world? Don’t be too hard on Renee, after all, he lived during the phase of human development called the Enlightenment. The dawn of man’s self-deification. Descartes would be stunned to learn the truth about the animals he tortured, if he were capable of accepting the breadth of his ignorance and cruelty.

Just as we will be when we finally grasp the vast barbarism of abortion and accept our complicity in denying billions of precious tiny humans even anesthesia as we dismember them. Done, of course, under sterile condtions by physicians whose oath once pledged, Do No Harm, as their first axiom.

Forgive that segue please- the parallel is irresistible.

Decision making theory has been fascinating to me ever since I knew it existed.

True for many reasons but primarily because my early years were spent in critical care nursing. And then later, administration. Both are fields where decisions can be matters of life or death. For over three decades, I worked with physicians. These men and women are ostensibly the at the top of the heap of human rationality and considered to be the quintessence of reason. But the truth is that doctors are no more, and at times, are far less, “rational” than non-physicians. Frequently, their medical decisions are based on emotion-ego- rather than data-or even facts.

Just like the rest of us.

While working on my doctorate, I discovered the Nobel Prize winning Garbage Can Model of Decision-Making developed by Cohen, March and Olsen. The researchers confirmed my experience of chaotic and frequently irrational decision-making by the top health-care adminstrators. The researchers mathematical model defined academic organizations this way:

“In the garbage-can theory (Cohen, March, and Olsen 1972) an organization “is a collection of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they might be the answer, and decision makers looking for work”. Problems, solutions, participants, and choice opportunities flow in and out of a garbage can, and which problems get attached to solutions is largely due to chance.

Maybe you wonder if things have gotten better in the 21st century? After all, we swim in a surfeit of information, surely all that information mitigates bias. And contributes to more logical decsionmaking?

The short answer is no-not now or ever.

Decision theorist Daniel Kahnemann explains.

…the concept of rationality is a technical, mathematical concept. It’s a logic. And it is actually completely not possible for a finite human mind to be rational or to obey the axioms of rationality. You’d have to know too much. The difficulty of being consistent in all your beliefs is impossible. And if you are not consistent in all your beliefs, you can be trapped in an inconsistency, and then you’re not rational. So the concept of rationality, the technical concept of rationality, is psychologically nonsense…

…Our beliefs do not come from where we think they came. And let me elaborate on that sentence. When I ask you about something that you believe in — whether you believe or don’t believe in climate change, or whether you believe in some political position or other — as soon as I raise the question why, you have answers. Reasons come to your mind. But the way that I would see this is that the reasons may have very little to do with the real causes of your beliefs.

So the real cause of your belief in a political position, whether conservative or radical left, the real causes are rooted in your personal history. They’re rooted in who are the people that you trusted and what they seemed to believe in, and it has very little to do with the reasons that come to your mind, why your position is correct and the position of the other side is nonsensical. And we take the reasons that people give for their actions and beliefs, and our own reasons for our actions and beliefs, much too seriously.

Why we contradict ourselves and confound one another

If that isn’t sufficiently persuasive,

consider Amy Herman’s concept of visual intelligence. Amy’s book, Visual Intelliegence, a NY Times best seller.

This expert on “looking,” doesn’t use my phrase, “we see what we expect to see.” Instead, when asked, “What is it you wish more people knew?”

Amy replies, “I wish more people knew that what they see, isn’t always what’s really there.”

The art historian and attorney uses her knowledge of art to train professionals like doctors, detectives, and CEO’s through her course, The Art of Perception. Amy’s website explains: “Visual intelligence is the concept that we see more than we can process and it’s the idea of thinking about what we see, taking in the information and [asking] what do we really need to live our lives more purposefully and do our jobs more effectively? I work across the professional spectrum. So I work with police officers and intelligence analysts and doctors and nurses and librarians, but what’s interesting for me is that the four A’s are applicable to all of that. And what they are is any new situation, any new problem, any new client, any new transaction, any new environment that you’re in you practice the four A’s.” Read more

Daniel Kahnemann’s statement,

So the real cause of your belief in a political position, whether conservative or radical left, the real causes are rooted in your personal history. They’re rooted in who are the people that you trusted and what they seemed to believe in, and it has very little to do with the reasons that come to your mind, why your position is correct and the position of the other side is nonsensical. And we take the reasons that people give for their actions and beliefs, and our own reasons for our actions and beliefs, much too seriously

bears repeating again and again.

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