To Confuse Children With Angels

I usually don't update more than once per day, so unless I find some sort of song or video I feel like sharing (after all, "I've got to cross over to see my Lord"), there's really no need for any of you to check my blog multiple times per day.

However, today I will do two posts, just because.

We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us...

The Unravelling

When Fr. Corapi was first suspended, I didn't want to say anything. At the time I was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt; he's had crazy accusers before, and some information indicated this woman was mentally unstable. And, I'll admit, being on guard against my own schadenfreude. My own agenda regarding the sort of neoconservative authoritarian clericalism that he represents (and which characterizes so much of the institutional church these days) had me smelling blood with Corapi, who would be another high profile scandal like Euteneuer or Cutié, and I didn't want to unjustly jump to conclusions based on my own biases and hastiness like that.

However, things have taken a bizarre turn now in a way where it no longer really matters whether Corapi is guilty of this particular crime or not. He's release a bizarre video that Mark Shea himself is calling a "world record" for "most passive-aggressive manipulative self-aggrandizement ever squeezed into 8 and a half minutes." He's leaving the priesthood, calling the whole system unfair, and expecting his followers to continue financially supporting him as something called "The Black SheepDog." This going rogue is possibly the strangest and most pathetic thing I've ever heard and, trust me, I've dealt a lot with strange and pathetic attempts at self-justification over the past year.

We should pray for him and some of his almost cultish followers, of course, and maybe he's had a mental breakdown or something under the weight of false accusations or the investigation dragging on and on. But the way he paints himself as the victim (the church was still supporting him, for crying out loud, he just wasn't being allowed to preach publicly for a few months) and is abandoning everything so quickly is very strange.

There was stuff going on behind the scenes, of course, some of which might emerge, others of which we might never know. Corapi did seem to be something of a lone wolf, and I could imagine him having a tense relationship with peers and superiors (for all his talk of humility and obedience...) Still, combined with the way he's still pushing himself as a figure to "follow" and to buy his products...well, either the accusation was sticking, or he's some sort of megalomaniac. Or both. All very sad.

And all more evidence that these sorts of clerical cults of personality and the whole authority fetish are really quite the sham. There is something profoundly sickly about the Catholic clergy and hierarchy right now, and this is just another high profile case, albeit one of the biggest fish so far, I'd think. The crazy trads are likely to say it's because he wasn't a trad, the neocons are likely to blame it on Satan attacking him so hard because of all the good he was doing. Neither are likely to see it as more evidence for the need to drastically change the psycho-sociological make-up and structure of the clergy. Their status quo preservationism is, I think, far too deeply engrained for that.

Preliminary Show of Hands: Chicago Meet-Up

This is still quite a ways off, but I've been talking with several friends and allies about a Renegade Trads meet-up in Chicago this summer, similar to what a few of us did a few weeks ago in Toronto. Because my college friends and I are from the area, we already have a sizable group probable.

It would probably be the last or second-to-last Sunday in July, but that's still up in the air depending on a few people's travel schedules whom I've talked to from out of town. Whether you think you could come to that or not, I'd love to hear from readers in the Chicagoland area. And anyone in the wider Midwest (or the whole world!) who might be willing or able to come over to Chicago for the weekend, feel free to reach out to me too: renegadetrad@gmail.com

I'll probably put up a reminder about this every couple weeks until it happens and as details solidify. Right now we're thinking it would probably be rather informal. High Mass at St. John Cantius (reluctantly, but it really is the more accessible venue) on Sunday with lunch after as the centerpiece, general carousing down the Magnificent Mile that afternoon, perhaps a commute down to (my preferred trad church) the Shrine of Christ the King for Vespers that evening (quite a trip by public transit, but just walking as a group and talking can be fun), and then dinner and drinking back downtown afterward.

People could come for any or all of these activities. It's just always important for any growing Movement to network (join the facebook page!) and I've been meeting a lot of great people this way. If anyone has any other ideas or proposals or wanted to suggest some sort of more formal or official-feeling "conference" type activity that could be done after Mass or lunch (though I doubt we'd be presenting papers or anything like that, lol...) feel free to chime in. It might also be neat to make some sort of official souvenir or s.w.a.g. for the meet-up, like buttons or something affordable like that. Otherwise, I think people just meeting and getting to know each other and building friendships is a great thing.

You Can Only Save Yourself

Sometimes you've got to hand it to the Jews; there is always something very comforting about wisdom from a Rabbi. If only our priests had such pastoral wisdom!

I found this article today; the Rabbi was obviously inspired to write it based on the topic of suicide, but I think what it says about messiah complexes is very true in a broader sense, one all the more poignant perhaps for we Christians who do have a Messiah already (I do find it funny that this Rabbi calls the Messiah a "her").

I never knew there are so many people who are survivors of suicide or are close to someone who attempted suicide. If there is a blessing in my father’s tragedy it is this: I have become a vehicle for others to share their experiences and in turn, have the opportunity to disseminate all of their painfully accumulated wisdom to help others grappling with this issue and all things related to suffering.

Perhaps one of the most common experiences shared among these individuals, myself notwithstanding, is what I call “the mashiakh (messiah) complex.” When it comes to watching someone suffer, particularly a loved one, there is an inclination in many people to not only try to help, but that it is somehow up to us to save them. Although this feeling may originate from an altruistic place, it is not healthy, it is not helpful and it is not possible to do. Whether we are talking about a father who killed himself, a friend who is trying or an acquaintance who is depressed– we simply can not save them.

In this week’s Torah portion, Moses is called to the task of leading the Israelites out of Egypt, slavery and degradation to the Promised Land. This famous story is usually portrayed as a battle between good and evil, light and darkness, and Moses and Pharaoh. And though it is certainly all of this, there are clearly other battles taking place simultaneously, battles which are less stark, and frankly, more relevant to our day to day lives than simply another tale between hero and villain.

The truth is that Moses is not Charlton Heston, assured, articulate and successful at the task at hand. He is reluctant to do the job yet finally steps up and does as God asks. Moses presents himself to the people, makes his claim, offers his leadership and God’s promise of salvation and is met with less than fan fare and a flock of followers.

And Moses spoke so to the people of Israel; but they did not listen to Moses because of their kotzer ruakh (anguished spirit), and because of the cruel slavery. (Shemot 6:7)

Most of the Israelites, though living in miserable persecution, had succumb to their reality as victims so often do. They were literally confined in an inner Mitzrayim (Mitzrayim, Egypt also means a kind of “suffocating constraint”), unable to see past their pathetic, now accepted plight in life. So, when the mighty Moses comes strolling in with a lofty message of hope, a vision of a better life and a plan to get them out of there, his words fall on deaf ears. Regardless of who he was and regardless of his credentials from on high– most of the Israelites weren’t budging.

Contrary to our popular understanding of this story, the sad reality is Moses didn’t leave with every man, woman and child in tow. The Midrash tells us that, in fact, most of the Israelites preferred to remain in Egypt rather than make the journey. And that is just what they did. Though some did overcome their anguished spirits and arrive in the Promised Land, most died in their inner and outer prisons in Egypt – this is not a fairy tale ending; this is real life.

Anyone who has experienced emotional mitzrayim: deep, dark, internal suffering; depression, addiction or the like, knows what it means to be kotzer ruakh “of anguished spirit.” Literally, this term means your spirit is chopped in half, cut off, you can’t breathe. The inner darkness and turmoil of kotzer ruakh, though possible to overcome, is a condition by which only those who are in it and who are suffering can choose to move beyond. After all, in the Exodus narrative, God doesn’t respond to the Israelites until they call out to Him. In other words, the journey out of Egypt can only begin when the victim chooses to leave. Parents, friends, sponsors, therapists, though not worthless, are not the defining factor in making the journey from slavery to redemption. This is always a journey, and only a journey which the neshama (the soul) of the individual needing to be redeemed must initiate and desire to make.

Over the past few months, not a day has gone by when I haven’t wondered, “what if?” What if I had moved to where my father was living outside of Detroit (where I was considering a job a mere six months ago)? What if, as a rabbi, I would have spent more time guiding and counseling my father? What if I would have, at the very least, seen the signs and intervened? Would he still be alive today?

And then I think about Moses, who with clarity of purpose and with authority from God still had absolute and utter dismal results. Moses couldn’t save the Israelites; I couldn’t save my father and you can’t save anyone either.

The “mashiakh complex” is a noble but misguided tendency in anyone who wants to help another human being. The beautiful side of it is that it calls upon us to do all that we can for another human being, particularly one who is suffering. Not enough people heed this call, reach out or are willing to move past themselves to help others. If only more people would, we wouldn’t need the Messiah – we’d have done her work and put her out of a job.

But as important as it is to intervene in another’s suffering, it is equally important to know when enough is enough. Too often, the shadow side of this desire to help sucks us in, pulls us down and deludes us into thinking we can be a source of salvation for another. At first we begin to think and obsess over the idea that if we work a little harder, sacrifice a little more, we can fix someone’s problem, end someone’s suffering, and save someone’s soul. And when we can’t save them from depression, addiction, suicide or the like, we begin to internalize it as somehow our fault.

As this week’s Torah portion reminds us, when another person is in a place of kotzer ruakh, anguished spirit, it is incumbent upon us to do all that we can to ease their pain and help them find their way out. We must step up, speak out and give completely of ourselves, our resources and our ruakh, our spirit. And yet, when all is said and done, we have accomplished nothing if, in the process, we have sacrificed our own ruakh, our own spirit trying to save theirs.

Ultimately the greatest gift we can ever give someone whose spirit is fragmented is to live as a complete spirit ourselves. Sometimes, all we can do is lead by example. At some point, we must embody the possibilities of redemption by living it and that may mean turning our back and just walking the path to the Promised Land. It just may be that those we leave behind will choose not to follow and languish in the suffocating depths of Mitzrayim, perhaps they will even choose to die– that is their choice. However, maybe, just maybe, when the time is right they will follow. Perhaps it won’t be right away but at least they will have our footsteps in the sand of life to follow. This is a painful gift in the moment, one that takes courage and an act of humility and faith, but in the end, when we have done all we can, in truth it is the only thing we can do.

You can’t save anyone else in this lifetime but you can save yourself and in the process you just might inspire others to do the same.

Shabbat Shalom,

Baruch HaLevi (Baruch ben Shimon z”l)

Sometimes, at the end of the day, all the Monicas of the world can do for the errant and obdurate Augustines is to fast and pray. After that, it's up to God. But that shouldn't make us fear; on the contrary, it should make us very confident indeed.

Laughter

I've been a bit blue recently, but today I was walking along and just broke down laughing. It's something that's started happening in roughly the past year that I really can't explain, but if it's a defensive mechanism of some sort, it's certainly an enjoyable and apparently highly functional one. I think I'm laughing at myself, really. And the universe, which is essentially comic rather than tragic (if dark comedy sometimes). I have a tendency to take things so seriously and then I look at a tree that, say, looks like an ugly person and I think, "Oh, of course: everything's gonna be okay! Duh."

And it is, as long as I've got God. Which is just it, I think; it's always when I've been to confession recently enough and am in a state of grace. You know, sometimes I speak of sin as involving denying meaning in the universe or making it absurd, but really...I think that's actually sort of what grace does. By limiting our hopes to this world, sin casts a horrible gravity on everything in the here and now, it all matters so much because time is running out and we have to put our last end in something finite even though nothing is really totally satisfying. That's what Hell is really about, I guess.

But with grace, suddenly, you have all the time in eternity, hope of infinite satisfaction for the price of, at most, very finite suffering, and no moment is truly wasted. And nothing can be terribly grave or important compared to God or heaven. Suddenly all our worldly concerns and desires and fears just seem petty and, yes, almost meaningless compared to the meaning of the whole in which the justified man finds his actual Good. And then I really understand the meaning of "What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?"

So then I can come home and dance alone and do karaoke to embarrassing music in an empty house and not worry about all these little things. And if someday there's some disaster and I get killed in some grizzly manner, well, there's nothing I haven't been able to handle yet. What I really usually fear is that I would not be able to willingly submit to such things, that I'd lack the fortitude. But it's on days like this that I realize, looking back on life and deep into the core of my character, that I could voluntarily undergo any torture nonchalantly if I had to. And if that's the case, it's really all these other naysaying and doubting voices which are absurd. Life and suffering are funny that way.

Chuck E. Cheese's

Someone left this comment (which I've seen left on other blogs too) on my post about Bishop Finn and I thought it was hilarious and deserved reposting on the main blog. Thanks, PatO!

Bishop Finn should go to JAIL for reckless child endangerment.

Imagine if this happened at a Chucky Cheese Restaurant. An employee had child porn pictures that he took of children inside Chucky Cheese. Management knew about it, but hid the pictures and allowed the employee further access to small children.

Customers would boycott Chucky Cheese and have every manager thrown in jail, all the way up to the CEO.

We can't expect the Catholic church to rise to the standards of Chucky Cheese, but they should at least have to follow the basic laws of humanity and the laws of the land.

And I think that pretty much sums up the depressing way I feel about much of the institutional church nowadays, both relative to the sex abuse crisis, but in most other areas as well: it would be ludicrous to expect them to rise to the impossibly high standards of an ancient and powerful organization like Chuck E. Cheese's, but couldn't they at least reach some bare minimum of decency and competence?

Sad

I got my first visit from Greenland today. I've long been waiting for that big chunk of white land to turn green on Google Analytics. I finally started getting a few hits from Red China a couple months ago, and now at last Greenland! I'm still waiting for those visits from Mongolia and Kazakhstan:

I had always assumed that an eventual visit from Greenland would come through my post on Christianity in Greenland. Nope, according to Stat Counter, apparently not:

Wouldn't be the first time people had found my blog through bizarre and disturbing channels. Still. Sad.

I probably won't be doing a separate post for it this time (seems rather vain, in retrospect) but it looks like very soon we'll be having our 30,000th visit, 10,000th unique visitor, 600th blog-post, and (fingers crossed) our 100th country, though getting three new countries may take longer than the other two milestones...

Reckless Abandon

Sometimes in our lives, God provides a grace so appealing that we are willing to take that metaphorical leap off a cliff to pursue it. At other times, we are pursued by such a terrifying reality that we are willing to make the same leap to avoid it. In both cases (and very often they're two sides of the same coin) God is asking us to trust Him with reckless abandon. To ask for, nay to expect a miracle. But will it come? Well, if not, wouldn't you rather jump off the cliff anyway? You get to a point where you realize: what sort of world would be worth anything without it? So we jump. Sometimes we are in free-fall for a very long time. But I, at least, have never seen proof that anyone who has made that leap has fallen to his death. On the other hand, we know of many cases of people who have languished at the edge of the cliff. So, here's to jumping, here's expecting miracles! God does not fail, so we have nothing to fear.

Yes, That May Take Long...

The beach scene from Becket suggested itself to me today. I don't know if I feel more St. Thomas or more King Henry at this time. Probably a bit of both. Oh, the honor of God!



I feel cold too, now...

[Sorry for the advertisements, I couldn't change it.]

Fresh Starts

All quiet on the Western front...