Adam Thought He Was Safe

First, I want to say that I do not imply or intend to imply that either of these people (Frs Josiah Trenham and Patrick Henry Reardon) share my opinions on any issue discussed here or elsewhere on this blog.
I'm listening to two incredible podcasts.  First, Fr. Josiah Trenham speaks in a sermon influenced by the recent tragedy in Connecticut.

He touches at one point on the event of Adam in the Garden at the time of The Fall.  When confronted, Adam points to Eve.  "She did it, your honor, not me."  Is he wrong?  No, he isn't.  He lifted no hands in the actual act.  Eve is the one who physically disobeyed God.  She's the one who picked from the forbidden tree, analogies notwithstanding.  She's the one who ate 'the fruit.'  Adam did nothing and said nothing.  Therefore, he's blameless, right?  

Then why was Adam also cast out?

It is just as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said:  "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.  God will not hold us guiltless.  Not to speak is to speak.  Not to act is to act."

So Adam is standing there, throwing Eve under the bus.  "I didn't do it.  I didn't say a thing."

And God casting him out just as he cast out Eve is to say "And that's exactly why you are also and equally culpable."  

Bet Adam's still scratching his head over that one.

My 'dark night of the soul' is tied to this issue.  I don't want to get into divisiveness and derision--my denomination against all others.  That, like tic-tac-toe, is an un-win-able game.  But there are many newer denominations out there taking this CYOA approach.  As it was explained to me, this is "my part in the war."  That very same approach got Adam evicted from the Garden--silence and inaction.

This is what it looks like to stand back and 'let the monsters get us.'  These evils will consume others.  That is the evil of silence and inaction.  This is why silence and inaction render you equally culpable.  

So many churches are all but unwilling to speak out against any moral wrong except abortion.  This is folly.  Abortion is a symptom--and only one of many--of a far greater disease.  You have to treat the disease.  Catholics call abortion 'the culture of death.'  I beg to differ.  It is 'the culture of death' which is the disease, and abortion is just one of the symptoms.

I love this term, but believe that, as it is being applied, it is being defined far too narrowly to properly or accurately or fully identify it.  It's like saying the disease of leprosy can best be described as a rash.  Abortion is not the disease.  It is just one of the symptoms.  Symptoms do not appear until there is enough internal damage.  Read that again.  Symptoms do not appear until there is enough internal damage. 

I will post later on this subject alone--abortion and 'the culture of death'--so will not go into great detail on it here, but to address this issue alone to the neglect of all others, specifically all those other issues for which abortion is only one symptom, is to me nothing short of silence and inaction in the face of moral crisis and evil itself.



Next, the other podcast, Fr Patrick Henry Reardon is just nothing short of amazing.  Every single sermon, he says things with such poignancy, timeliness, and truth.  I am fast-becoming convinced he is incapable of anything but absolute brilliance.

(Here's an exceptionally good sermon on Virgin Mary)
Ever go through a site of quotations and just read through them, one by one, and experience that sensation when you read just one that hits so close to home?  "Yes, this is true."  "Yes, I see this, now, everywhere."  Fr Reardon's podcast is no different.

"Rationalizing an infidelity."  Aaron justifies giving in to people's wants as an excuse for enabling sin and disobedience.  The people wanted an idol to worship so he helped them do that.

Aaron "does not love the people enough to resist them."  (Obama just did that exact same thing --allowing what was nothing short of the overthrow of the federal government by Washington and Colorado.  We're not properly identifying evil.  Any evil that presents a face which does not match the face of evil as we decide it should be, will be an evil who easily gets in the door.  Then we wonder how it go there.  How did it get inside the perimeter?  How did it get under the wire and inside the security net?  This is another trigger issue for me, and I will dedicate a blog post to it later on.)

Fr. Reardon mentions the "tension between wisdom and the fool," and how this is a constant theme throughout the Bible.

And he notices that people who have (and have had) very rough lives tend to be compulsive.

There are many days where I allow hour after hour after hour, until the sun has gone down, to pass with that stupid television set off, and just these podcasts playing one after another.  It is to quiet my mind and my nerves, and try to get centered before the work week begins again.