My Sorrowful Mysteries :: Tales of a Spiritual Life After Death (Part 4)

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Read Part 2
Read Part 3

For all the true good confession and the other sacraments brought me, there was still one big problem: I was still covered in darkness where my relationship with God was concerned. He still felt remarkably absent. When I imagined Him with me, I saw Him sitting in a corner curled in on himself like a comma, holding his elbows, looking down. Present, but not engaged. Aware, but not acting. Hearing, but not answering.

This continued on for months and months: through my early days of grieving, through going back to work, through James coming to Florida three months ahead of me, through learning we were expecting our second child. So I kept praying; I continued to go to confession and I knew I could always find Him in the Eucharist. These weren't small things, I knew -- objectively, they provided me with the communion I knew I needed. But I still felt the loss of Him.

When James and I were separated by some 3,000 miles -- him beginning a brand new job in Florida, me wrapping up my eleven-year career in telecommunications and our life and home in Seattle -- people told us that a three months separation "wasn't that bad" and that it would "go by quickly." It was easy to say when they weren't the ones suffering the separation. Yes, I was still married. James was still my husband and I was still his wife. We Skyped, we talked on the phone, and took advantage of those means available to us to stay in communication. But we lacked the experience of intimacy that we had enjoyed through our entire marriage up until that point. I don't care how much we spoke on the phone or saw each other's faces via webcam: it was not the same thing -- not even close.

My relationship with God felt so much the same way during this period of silence: like we were a married couple separated by too many miles, but with no end in sight to the separation. I might still be God's child, and He might still be my Father, but I felt a million miles between us. I lacked the experience of intimacy we had once enjoyed. He never reached out and touched, He never offered His arms even when I begged for them. My feelings suffered. It was not the intimacy we once enjoyed -- it was not even close.

One night not all that long ago, it reached a boiling point. It had been over a year since this divine silence had started and I was talking to James about how all of this felt. The floodgates opened and I let loose all my pent up feelings without the least care to edit them. I'M SO SICK OF THIS!! WHERE THE F*** IS HE?? I screamed. My face was flushed and I clenched my fists against the side of my head, pulling at my hair. I kept swallowing back the same large painful and bitter lump. Searing hot tears sprung into my eyes. I MEAN, SERIOUSLY -- WHAT THE HELL DOES HE WANT FROM ME?! 

There were no answers waiting for me on the other side of that question -- not even difficult ones.

I had remembered that during another dark season of my life, I had turned to the book of Job. Though he is patient both with God in His silence and the friends who would have done better to remain silent in the ashes with him rather than postulate as to the many things for which God might be punishing him, Job reaches his breaking point, too. He's had enough and he wants an answer. And who can blame him? After losing all his property, possessions, and his entire family, God has remained completely silent. If he's not being punished and he hasn't cursed God, turning his back on Him like the devil had tempted him to do, then what gives? What's the point in God permitting Job's suffering to extend so far as it has?

It is about the point when we're all really getting tired of the friends insisting on Job's sin and with Job countering their claims in insisting on his rightness that Elihu shows up and (finally) injects some sanity and wisdom into the scene. His answers don't come neatly packaged, and while as answers they are true, they aren't terribly satisfying. What it really boils down to is that as good a guy as Job is (and he is!), he isn't perfect. And because God loves Job, He cares about sparing his life from what Elihu refers to as "the Pit."

Read Elihu's words:

"In a dream, in a vision of the night,
when deep sleep falls on mortals,
while they slumber on their beds,
then [God] opens their ears,
and terrifies them with warnings,
that he may turn them aside from their deeds,
and keep them from pride,
to spare their souls from the Pit,
their lives from traversing the River.
...
"God indeed does all these things,
twice, three times, with mortals.,
to bring back their souls from the Pit,
so that they may see the light of life."
(Job 33:15-18, 29, 30)

 And again ...

"He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous,
but with kings on the throne
he sets them forever, and they are exalted.
And if they are bound in fetters
and caught in the cords of affliction,
then he declares to them their work
and their transgressions, that they are behaving arrogantly.
He opens their ears to instruction, 
and commands that they return from iniquity.
If they listen, and serve him,
they complete their days in prosperity,
and their years in pleasantness.
But if they do not listen, they shall perish by the sword,
and die without knowledge.
The godless in heart cherish anger;
they do not cry for help when he binds them.
They die in their youth,
and their  life ends in shame.
He delivers the afflicted by their affliction,
and opens their ear by adversity.
(Job 36:7-15, emphasis mine)

It is God who, in the opening pages of the book of Job, affirms Job's righteousness (1:8, 2:3). Elihu here says that even the righteous have transgressions and sins -- that even they need instruction and to "turn from iniquity." So really, neither Job nor his friends were entirely right -- but they weren't entirely wrong, either. While Job wasn't without fault, it wasn't the case that God was punishing him. God was, in fact, doing the most loving thing in weeding out any further iniquity and pride in the man He affirmed to be "blameless and upright."

The phrase that hit me over the head like a mallet was "He delivers the afflicted by their affliction." Think of it: suffering is not the thing from which Job needs to be delivered. Rather, suffering is the means of deliverance: from sin, from the pit of hell. God wants Job to be truly holy, to keep him from going to the place to which unholiness leads.

God wants Job to be holy because He loves him.

Well, then. That was interesting. That was very interesting, indeed. It wasn't at all what I was looking for, but it was a point of much-needed light.


To Be Continued & Concluded in Part 5

My Sorrowful Mysteries :: Tales of a Spiritual Life After Death (Part 3)

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Read Part 2

Bitter. Hard and bitter and resentful and hurt. Anger. Fury. Resentment and bitterness and hardness. Bitter bitter bitter, hard. Self-righteous. Selfish. Hard bitter bitter bitter anger and fury.Violent. Hateful. Hate hate hate resentful bitterness.

This grief and its cousin, my spiritual darkness, were incredibly good at one thing: bringing up in me every remotely dark and evil thing that was then or ever had been in my soul. They burned under me like a fire, melting me to a molten liquid and making all the vile and dirt in me rise to the surface. It was horrid to look at and even worse to taste in my mouth. But like David, I could not ignore it: For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me (Psalm 51:3).

Ever before me. Ever. Before. Me. Swirling round me like gnats. Ever before me.

And it drove me to the confessional. Perhaps I didn't go as often as I should have, but every time I went it was a welcome relief to spew out the sin I had confessed to God a hundred times in private, but that somehow still left a foul film in my mouth. Perhaps it was because instead of being met with the hollow echo of my own words and His resounding silence, it was a chance to hear sound counsel and receive compassionate understanding instead. Most of the time, my confessors knew my circumstances and could put in perspective for themselves where this was all coming from. When this wasn't the case, I explained what had happened.

"My son, my firstborn, died of a heart defect recently. Everything went wrong. Everything. God made my baby with a heart too broken to sustain his life. How does a loving God do such a thing? And now God is gone and my friends are having perfectly healthy babies and I hear complaining about such entirely stupid and trivial things -- they didn't have to live in the NICU and just days after giving birth to their first child, wait up all night while blue-smocked surgeons with long faces kept coming to tell me my child might not make it. I did everything right and I know it doesn't matter, but damnit, I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT! I never got to take him home and dear God, I wish my worst problem was spit-up or a diaper blow-out or having him cry in the middle of the night, but he's dead and he won't be crying anymore. And it's not fair and now I feel so bitter and hard against people who have what is normal and I don't say anything to anybody about it -- I don't say anything to them because anything I do say to them about their experiences with their children will probably make them feel guilty and I'm not sure that even if I try my best to say something kind that instead it will come out full of the hard and bitter lump in my soul that is growing stronger and developing sharp teeth -- so I don't say anything. I don't say anything to them, but ..."

I struggled for words.

"It's corrosive, isn't it? Like an acid."

"Yes! Like an acid that is burning a hole in me, and ..."

This is how it went most of the time for me. It wasn't the contained and outwardly pious exercise so often portrayed in film -- I spewed out all the filth and ick that had been building up in me that I couldn't stand to carry with me anymore -- that, in fact, I feared would burn a hole through my soul that wouldn't ever close up again. I preferred my encounters face-to-face instead of from behind a screen, even with my face all puffy and red and wet, mascara streaking down my cheeks. It wasn't required of me, but it was part of me being honest, part of being utterly transparent. After so much time of feeling hidden and invisible, I needed to feel seen, even if it was like this -- especially if it was like this.

My confessors never excused the things they heard from me -- they never sugar-coated it or treated my sins as anything other than they were. They never told me that feeling hateful and bitter and resentful against God and my neighbor were okay because of what I had been through. But they did put it in perspective for me, encouraged me to continue speaking with transparent honestly to my God of the empty chair about how it all felt. I knew they were right.

I walked away each time feeling like what I imagine the woman caught in adultery and brought before Jesus felt -- her sin was publicly on display, her shame obvious. There was nothing and no one at all she could hide behind. But the one person who had a right to do it if anyone did didn't condemn her. He knew exactly what she had done and yet extended grace to her when she had cause to fear that she would be dragged to a bloody death in a pit of stones.

And it felt like a little bit of me came back each time I walked away from the confessional not only unscathed, but seen. I had not only escaped death, but was given a chance at an entirely new life.


To Be Continued

My Sorrowful Mysteries :: Tales of a Spiritual Life After Death (Part 2)

Read Part 1


I know it feels like He's gone. You feel alone, abandoned, ignored. You feel like you inhabit the blind spot that goes unchecked: that He doesn't see you and doesn't care to see you. You feel punished. But that's not what's real. It feels like He's gone, but He actually is here. I know you want to fall apart in the safety and boundary of His arms. I know that it feels like you are dissolving, falling to pieces without anything to catch the fragments as you are pulled apart. I know it feels nothing like it, but He actually is here. I know you're afraid, that you feel like you're falling and dying, but you are safe. 

Much of the time over this period of a year or more was spent with a relentless internal dialogue attempting to keep a lid on my emotional blender. Though I knew my feelings of abandonment and anger were valid enough and permitted those emotions to churn and stir as they may, I also kept reminding myself they weren't the final arbiters of reality. In other words, just because I felt like God had abandoned me to my sorrow did not mean that He had. And so I lived in that exquisite tension between the opposites of what I knew by faith and what I felt, reason and emotion each pulling against each other in a tug-of-war that had me at the middle, threatening to pull my limbs from their sockets, and send my mind well beyond the bounds of sanity. It was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting.

I knew there was only one place I could go. 

I turned to the One who all my feelings protested had left me behind -- an irony not lost on me. I felt a bit like Peter in John's gospel. Offended at His teaching that if they do not eat His flesh and drink His blood they have no life in them, a large contingent of Jesus' followers leave His side. Jesus asks Peter if he is going to leave as well, and Peter says, "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." There is a sense of resignation and acceptance in what he says; a sense of "I don't understand this eating Your flesh and drinking Your blood thing. Frankly, it sounds more than a little crazy. But I know too much now. I've seen too much now. I believe too much to leave now. I know who You are."

And so it was with me. This feeling of Christ being absent had heaped the pain of abandonment and neglect upon the still raw pain of my loss, but honestly -- where else could I go? He was the only one who had what I needed. 

So every day, I went to Him in the sorrowful mysteries. 

I had taken up the practice of the rosary shortly before becoming Catholic, having found there what many Catholic faithful had found before me: among other things, an experience of deepened intimacy and union with Christ. But in this season, time spent in the sorrowful mysteries did not mitigate the intense feelings of aloneness. They did not serve to lift the heavy fog in which I was mired, nor did they bring to me the God-hands that I hoped would keep me from separating like newsprint left in water too long. But I did find in them someone who knew what it was to feel abandoned and alone, someone who in a moment of intensest agony cried out loud, asking why God had forsaken Him -- and even in proclaiming that, did not sin. 

And so I prayed through those mysteries just as one might sit down and direct the most intimate concerns of her heart out loud to an unoccupied chair in an empty room. It always felt as though I was talking to no one, that my words boomeranged off the wall and came back to me, falling into a jumbled heap at my feet every time. I related to Jesus in His passion as you might relate to an historical figure in a textbook, finding commonalities in our feelings about what we suffered, but unable to forge a real relational connection.

No matter how many times I picked up my piles of words again, I never got a response from the One to whom they were directed. I heard only the words themselves and the sound they made as they echoed back at me from the emptiness of that room, clattering against each other and falling to the floor in front of me with a loud metallic clang. But continuing to offer them was all I could do. I found no comfort in offering them, but I did find what I presumed to be comfort's distant cousin: an allowance to grieve and a permission to feel abandoned -- and to say so. It was knowing that the Christ who felt so absent to me -- who seemed no more present to me than George Washington -- felt the same thing at one time, too.

I didn't like this reality at all, and often let my God of the empty chair know exactly what I thought of it. I expressed anger and frustration. I told Him I felt neglected and forgotten. And like a small child, I just as often said nothing at all, but stretched out my arms, expressing my desire to be held and comforted, to experience the promises of solace and healing that seemed to leap from the pages of Sacred Scripture. But just as with my grief, I didn't see what choice I had. I decided to lean into the reality I had rather than the one I wished for, knowing I could no more make God show up in the way I desired Him than I could will the earth to stop spinning or make the sun move around the earth. There were no secret magical incantations or prayers I could offer, no list of bullet points I could follow that would change any of it. He is not anyone's puppet. I knew it wasn't anything I had said or done that caused His seeming disappearance and in the same way, there was not anything I could say or do that would bring Him back to me.

But I still needed Him, and it still hurt.

And so I set up camp in the sorrowful mysteries. I was utterly alone and in the cold there, but it was the only place I seemed to belong. As I held each moment of His passion in my mind, I wept and prayed with Him, felt the rending and tearing of flesh from bone with Him, and felt with him the mockery of the gawkers. With Him, I carried my cross and cried out in agony as we both hung there, our arms pinned down wide, wondering out loud where was God now.



To Be Continued

My Sorrowful Mysteries :: Tales of a Spiritual Life After Death (Part 1)

Depending on when you asked me over the course of the year between Ewan's death and the first anniversary of it, I might have felt everything or nothing as I realized that important anniversary was approaching. It's hardly surprising that losing my son and nearing the first anniversary of the night he died in my arms would give rise to a wide range of emotions, each of them bubbling up from the depths of me and popping when they rose to the surface, meeting the free air. Perhaps even less surprising is the number of questions I had for God to which his death gave rise.

Though "why?" is a natural question and one that, in the throes of some black and turbulent nights, was asked frequently enough, it was never at the top of my list. I can't imagine that there's a single answer God could give me that would satisfy the empty arms that had been prepared to cradle my baby, or the aching breasts whose milk had dried up. If my son wasn't coming back to me healed and whole, then even the best answer God Himself could provide to the question of "why?" would be utterly unsatisfying.

It wasn't the actual loss that I questioned, or even why God tenderly knitted Ewan together inside me with a heart too broken to sustain his life so much as it was the question of where God was in the weeks and months that followed. I read any number of Psalms or other scriptures that spoke of His care for the brokenhearted, or how He captures every tear. I read of a God who provided His brokenhearted faithful with comfort and solace and protection. So why did I feel so utterly abandoned? Why did I feel like, after He attended to us in those final moments of Ewan's life, that I was anywhere but beneath the shadow of His wings?

I can't tell you how many nights I sat in the rocking chair in a dark and empty nursery, clutching the armrests with white knuckles, weeping hard enough to break the windows. I can't tell you how many times I fell to the floor in a heap and pounded my fists until I thought they might break through the floor, begging for some form -- any form -- of comfort and solace. I can't tell you how many times James held me in bed, my body curled up tightly in the fetal position, my spirit wracked with a pain deeper and more exquisite than I had ever known as I kicked and screamed and thrashed and wept and clawed and begged. I wondered when the grief might kill me -- it was not a question of "if." It was the loss of my son, yes. But it was also that I felt like Jesus was leaving my broken heart unattended in the aftermath. If I ever needed some divine arms around me, it was in those moments. But if they were there, I didn't feel them -- not in the slightest.

My God, My God -- why have you forsaken me?

This went on for several months, this knowing but feeling nothing of Him, but feeling all that weight of hell instead. It was like having a husband you love, but never seeing him. You might see evidences of his presence from time to time: a plate with food left on it that you know is not yours, or his shirt hung over the chair. Perhaps you hear his footsteps echoing in another room or detect his scent on the pillowcase next to yours. He might leave you a note saying, "I love you," but it's been ages since you heard him speak those words to you in person. You know he's there, but you never see him. You have forgotten the shape of his face under your hand, and how his fingers feel interlaced with yours.

That is how it felt with me and God -- like the relationship that was supposed to be the most intimate and important of all relationships had been all but abandoned. I was doing my part, and it seemed that He was failing to hold up His end of the bargain.

I had been walking with Christ long enough to know that just because I didn't feel Him didn't mean He wasn't present. I prayed, I continued to attend Mass regularly and participate in the sacraments. I continued to open the pages of Scripture to read and to study. I recognized and thanked Him for the things He provided. My faith and my devotion were not built on feelings, after all. I reasoned that perhaps I was feeling too many other things to feel Him. I thought that maybe the unending, infinite grief in our lives had crowded out my very finite ability to sense the supernatural. I thought that maybe when the raging sea died down to a calm, that I would perceive at least a shaft of sunlight and in it, the God whose presence I craved.

Frankly, I was surprised when I didn't. I grew increasingly frustrated with trying to make sense of what felt like His prolonged and unmistakable absence -- trying to take something that felt so horrible and painful and make it out to be good and loving somehow. Oftentimes, having no words for my prayer, I would take to Him an image of me holding out my heart in front of him: dripping, shredded beyond repair, throbbing limply and weakly with what little life remained. Nothing ever happened, though. He never came and held me, never took my heart in His hands to mend it. He left me there, holding it with cupped palms and outstretched arms that ached and burned with its weight. It didn't matter how much I begged. He never took it from me, and never stretched out His hand to heal it.

It started to feel like I was making excuses for Him. It was infuriating.

I gave myself pep talks about keeping up faith despite my feelings. I knew with certainty what was true -- though in different ways, I had experienced enough crucible moments prior to Ewan's death to doubt His love and care for us in this one. But my fury grew, and I was having an increasingly difficult time understanding how His seeming absence could be for my good, or how it could be loving to leave me alone in the middle of a wide sea, heart dying in my own hands, when He had the power to save me.

To Be Continued

For Lent

I've been away from this space for awhile, devoting most of my blogging time these days to Team Ewan. Being back at work means there's less time during the day in which I can let my fingers wander around on the keyboard, fumbling through thoughts and words that will translate somehow into English.

Ash Wednesday

Lent is officially upon us, and that means I've been setting aside the time to engage in some extra disciplines, as well as taking some time to consider ways I can better love and serve. I've given up my snooze button in favor of being able to devote a portion of my morning to prayer, and I've also been following along the readings for the daily Mass, a habit I always intended to form someday. I've found it incredibly helpful for guiding my thoughts and reflections throughout the day, and for orienting my heart toward the heart of God.

Even if you're not Catholic or don't normally engage in a liturgical style of worship, you too might find something like these helpful as we journey together through a season of penitence and service in preparation for Good Friday and Easter.

Yesterday's readings can be found here (I don't know when I've found Leviticus so incredibly moving). Check out this past Friday's as well if you get a chance (I love Isaiah).

How are you observing the season of Lent?

Mistaking Happiness for Blessing

But I get turned around
And I mistake some happiness for blessing ...

--from "Faith My Eyes" by Caedmon's Call


Stress has been on the rise here for me lately (more about that here), and it's been manifesting itself in my body. As we get closer to meeting Ewan and finding out how this whole grand story will play out, I find myself living in anywhere but the present. I find myself wondering about the future, imagining the worst. I don't want to dwell there, but I have a hard time shaking the thoughts of "What if?"

All the "what if" is taking its toll. I don't want to live there -- I know it's not good for any of us. But I'm not sure how to acknowledge it and not feel the effects of it.

James and I have been talking a lot lately about this pregnancy and how our appreciation for and experience of it has been heightened by what we know of Ewan's heart. Both knowing we wanted children, we remained intentionally open to the possibility from the earliest days of our marriage. After eight months, we began to wonder if we would be able to have a child of our own or not. Were it not for the positive pregnancy test that told us Ewan was on the way, we were going to start having some serious conversations about starting our family through adoption.

And then came those two little lines on that pregnancy test -- Ewan was coming.

After that period of time, I can't help but think of all the babies that could have been conceived, but God waited and gave us Ewan. There is something that seems very intentional to me on God's part about giving him to us -- knowing well before we did the story of his heart, and choosing him for us -- choosing us on purpose for this, knowing what we would face.

We have talked about a lot of things here and one of those things is the idea of "blessing" and what people mean when they say "God is good." Typically people say they are blessed or affirm God's goodness when things are going well: someone receives the job promotion, the cancer is cured, an unexpected windfall is received just at the right time. It is very true things would not be possible without the hand of God.

But when I read the gospels and epistles, when I look at the lives of those considered heroes of the faith, those of the great cloud of witnesses, I see people who suffered tremendously. I think of those places where it says God disciplines those He loves, all the promises Jesus makes about the trials and sufferings we will endure, and how these are meant to shape us, chip away at us, burn off the dross in which we are drenched until Christ is revealed in us -- burning brightly. I think of what God asked of His holy ones: asking Abraham to sacrifice the son promised to him in his old age, asking Job to endure the loss of his livelihood, his health, and his family, asking Mary to sacrifice her reputation and her whole heart in receiving Jesus as her son.

Were these people not also blessed? It seems that if we seek to avoid suffering, if we seek only to find a way out of it, we are asking for the loss of the greater blessing -- we deny an invitation to the crucible where the holy are formed, where Hebrews 11 tells us we have a choice in regards to what our suffering does to us: we have the option of being put out of joint, or healed by what we suffer. Healed (I expand on that thought here). In a time and place where the "gospel of prosperity" (the idea that if you follow Jesus, you will be blessed with health, wealth, and happiness) is so alluring and pervasive, it seems so extraordinarily backwards. Even now, I long for the healing that is to be found only on the other side of this, and I long for it to come to an end: to hear that nothing is wrong after all.

But it would be wrong to turn down the blessing that this is and continues to be, and that I know will be. There is no doubt in my mind that I have yet to grasp what any of this really means -- that I have so far to go in terms of my ability to remain in the present, to acknowledge the possibilities without dwelling on those things that haven't happened yet. To embrace my total and utter powerlessness not as a hindrance, but as freedom -- as an invitation to fling myself wholly on the God of mercy, to walk the path of ruthless trust as the ancients did. To say -- no matter the outcome -- that the Lord gives and Lord takes away: blessed be the name of the Lord! and to mean it.

Not to mistake happiness for blessing. Without question, this is far and away the most difficult life experience I've ever faced -- I've never had anything hurt this much for this long. I've never felt so helpless, so powerless, so spiraling out of control. I've never cried this hard for this long. I've never felt so stuck, so hemmed in. I've never been so entirely broken.

But make no mistake: We are blessed. And God is good. 

watch over me

watch over me by kirsten michelle (2010)

There aren't many words to my prayers these days. I find myself sending wordless thoughts and images, requests, petitions for which I cannot find the language, confident that the meaning of these things will not be lost in translation -- that they are better communicated as they are. No words. Just the pulses and surges of heart and soul.

So many unknowns looming in front of us: Ewan's heart. The lack of prospects (still -- after more than a year of looking) for James finding a job here. Given that, not knowing how soon after the birth I will need to return to work so we can make ends meet. These mysteries will break my heart if I let them.

Breathe. Trust. Pray.

Watch over me. Please, watch over me.

the wind and the waves

into the storm ahead by kirsten michelle (2010)

One thing that many Christians I know have done a lot of (and I can say this because I am one, because I have heard this a lot, and because I have been so ingenious as to do it myself -- repeatedly) is take real life historical accounts from Scripture out of context and turn them into something entirely metaphorical. The flesh and blood people who lived these stories become mere characters, and the events that take place in these vignettes of their lives are symbols for us to interpret and apply as broadly and as personally as we like.

The story to which I am about to refer is a classic example, and arguably the most common story where this takes place. Here's the synopsis: Jesus is in a boat with his disciples, and a terrible storm comes up that is tossing the boat. The disciples are afraid for their lives. And what is Jesus doing? He is asleep in the back of the boat. Asleep, mind you. While everyone else is afraid of drowning. It's not like the disciples were sissies about this kind of thing. No doubt they had seen a few storms in their day. But this was no small storm. It was not just a few white caps slapping against the sides of the boat here and there. The Gospel of Mark says that the boat was "nearly swamped." And Jesus is asleep (now that is some kind of tired!).

So the disciples wake Jesus up and ask Him what He's going to do about it. After rebuking the wind and the waves, He rebukes the disciples. "Do you still have no faith?" He asks, to which the disciples respond, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"

What I have heard people say about this passage (and what I have written in the margins of this passage in the Bible I used during my teen and college years) is this: Jesus is in control of the storms of my life.

This makes me cringe now. The gospel writers had a purpose for including the stories that they did; there was something each piece of their respective accounts was meant to communicate. And I'm willing to bet my next paycheck that what Mark wanted his audience to know was not that Jesus is in charge of the storms of life, but that He is God, who has sovereign command over nature. In fact, I think the disciples' statement at the end perfectly communicates the point of that story: Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!

The boat is not a symbol for my life, and the wind and the waves do not represent trial and tribulation. To put it simply, they are exactly what they say they are. The wind and the waves the disciples were afraid of were (get this) actual wind and waves. And they were real people in a real boat on a real lake, and they were really afraid of literally drowning in real water.

And in the midst of that, it is demonstrated: Jesus has the ability to command nature. Jesus is really God.

None of this is to say that it's not true that our lives can become rather turbulent and stormy. And it's certainly not to say that Jesus, as God, doesn't have command over those things too. But if I go straight for the symbolic meaning, I miss the real, the concrete, the nitty-gritty reality. I miss the truth that I can sink my fingers into -- and, in fact, the very truth Mark wanted to communicate.

It may be difficult to tell in the picture above, but I was facing a sky that was brewing up a terrific storm. On our last night in Kansas, I got to experience one of the fantastic Midwestern storms I had only ever heard about. Thunder ripped and bellowed across the entire landscape and made the earth reverberate under my feet. Lightning flashed not in the dramatic forks that make for prize-winning photographs, but in broad flashes that lit up the entire sky so that for a brief moment, it was bright as day. Wind blew, and thick and heavy drops of rain pelted the earth.

I was in awe. My God has supreme reign even over all of this. There was something so magnificent and powerful about that display, and even more magnificent was the knowledge that He held this storm under His thumb.

Incredible.

With such power as this, surely He must have reign over all of nature, including something so tiny and magnificent as a baby with a broken heart. And even if He appears to be for the moment (metaphorically speaking, of course) "asleep in the boat of my life" -- not making a sound -- then perhaps I should act as the disciples should have in that moment. Trust Him, and have the faith that He will see us safe to the other side of the lake.

kansas :: four

I almost missed this one.

We were going back through the shots of the birthday party after I had already pronounced myself finished processing them (it's just a reality that when you take nearly 500 pictures of an event, you have to be choosy as to which ones are given the special treatment). And I saw this one. I was drawn to the energy and the much-younger version of myself I saw in it.

jump like you mean it
photo by kirsten michelle (2010)

This is Dacia, our niece. She's the one on the diving board, arms thrown back, knees bent, poised to jump, daring the water. She's not scared of jumping in, she's not hesitating, and she's not being quiet about it.

Once upon a time, this could have been me. This picture spoke to me and made me wonder so many things: about what happens as we get older that makes us scared and hesitant and too practical for our own good, about how we start to be afraid of the water instead of daring the water to be afraid of us. Somewhere along the way, I stopped throwing my arms back and jumping in. Somewhere along the way, I became the type of person to dip my toes in first, to slide into the water gradually and let myself acclimate to the temperature instead of making a splash.

I became the type of person who cared if her hair got wet. What the heck?!

I'm not talking about becoming irresponsible, but living with passion and abandon and enthusiasm, of taking some calculated risks, of giving something your all -- of daring the water to be afraid of you. Because you're fierce. Because you are a force to be reckoned with. I know how the ability to live this way is lost; what I'm more concerned with is how I get it back.

I really want to know your thoughts on this:

Do you feel like this has happened to you at any point in your life (losing your ability to "jump right in")? What does this look like? Have you made changes in any area of your life that allow you to live this way? Any stories, anecdotes, experiences, or insights you have in this regard are welcome here.

looking up

There are a lot of things wrong with the world. On a much smaller level, there are many things about our life right now that I would change, had I the power to do it. James would have a job -- preferably one that brought in a decent income and didn't drive him nuts (ooh, and that has good benefits). The price of oil would be up and the wells in which we're invested would be top producers. My baby wouldn't have a heart defect.

As hopeful as I am about each of these things, as much blessing as I've experienced in the course of things being exactly as they are, I still have my moments where I just want to wave a magic "fix it" stick and have it all be better the way I want it.

I had a very honest moment with Jesus today in which I told Him just that. That sometimes I'm tired of it and just want a break. That as glad as I am that what we're going through means He's loving us and disciplining us toward holiness, sometimes I just wish it could all be the way I want it to be -- in truth, even though the reality of it completely disgusts me -- a little like a gospel of prosperity: if you love Jesus and obey Him, He will give you health and wealth and the American dream to boot!

I know it doesn't work that way. And on many levels, I'm deeply and profoundly thankful that it doesn't.

These thoughts got me to wondering: say things really did turn out the way I wanted. Say Ewan was miraculously healed (or, the doctors said, "Oops, sorry, we had the wrong baby!"), James had the perfect job, and everything was peachy. Say everything in my life had been this way: no challenge, no troubles, no resistance. What would I be like? Would I have any depth or strength or character? Would I care about the things I care about? Would I even be me?

I have a strong suspicion that without any kind of resistance in my life, without trials, hardships, whatever you will call them -- I would be vapid and shallow, disinterested and entirely uninteresting. I couldn't relate to anyone. I just might be the kind of person, who when she heard the poor had run out of bread to eat would say: "Then let them eat cake!" (which, by the way, Marie Antoinette didn't really say either).

What's true of our bodies is true of our spirits, our souls, our whole persons as well: strength is built when an opposing force is resisted. I've written about this before. Just like strength of body, strength of spirit doesn't "just happen" either. Someone who lounges on the sofa eating Doritos all day cannot expect to have a toned and muscled body, and neither can a spiritual couch potato expect to be a saint, or to achieve the holiness Christ desires for us. Previously, I wrote this:

Make no mistake: getting stronger hurts. It is a slow process. If we look at this from a physiological point of view again, getting stronger requires that we deliberately engage our muscles against the weight we are lifting. It requires that we repeat the motion of lifting or pressing, engaging our muscles repeatedly to the point of fatigue. In so doing, muscle fibers are broken down ... In the days of rest that follow, the fibers are built back up, stronger than they were before. And we do it again and again.

Ouch. Yeah. Good reminder to myself.

The funny thing about all this is is that when I write, I tend to put the stronger stuff out there: the things that I can reason and know, sometimes at the expense of what I actually feel. But the truth is, oftentimes they butt up against each other, like two boxers with gloves braced, and I wonder if one reality might punch the lights out of the other. And sometimes I get stuck between them, feeling the push and pull from both sides.

This is when I need to be reminded to look up: look up to our High Priest -- the one Who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, the one Who was tested just as we are. This is when I need to be reminded what it's all for. I need to remember that if I'm to run a good race, I will get tripped up if I spend too much time looking down at my feet, or veer off course if too much time is spent looking over my shoulder. I need to look up. And when I tire, wishing I could know what and how and when -- this is when I need to remember that I will never know what and how and when (maybe not even in retrospect), but I do know Who.

Jesus. One foot in front of the other, breathing His name with every step.

photo taken by james // processing by me

ruthless trust :: number two

Gratitude. At first blush, I didn't understand what the relationship between trust and gratitude could be. But that's precisely what Manning talks about in the second chapter of Ruthless Trust. I don't want to spoil the book for those of you who haven't read it and want to, but so much of this is too good not to share!

Manning explains, " ... the person with an abiding spirit of gratitude is the one who trusts God.

And he continues, "The foremost quality of a trusting disciple is gratefulness. Gratitude arises from the lived perception, evaluation, and acceptance of all of life as grace -- as an undeserved and unearned gift from the Father's hand. Such recognition is itself the work of grace, and acceptance of the gift is implicitly an acknowledgment of the Giver." (pp. 24-25)

I love how he doesn't waste any time, but goes straight for the jugular vein of your soul.

I considered this is relationship to our present circumstances. Over the last four or so weeks, I have experienced many moments of profound gratitude. I woke up early this past Saturday morning, just as the light was starting to creep through the blinds of our bedroom window. My husband was asleep beside me, and I put my hands on my belly and felt Ewan squirming around in there. I looked around the bedroom of our new apartment, a space for which we have a profound appreciation (if you had seen our first apartment, you'd understand) and considered the mountains rising up outside, veiled by the bedroom blinds, covered in evergreen trees. This place is so quiet, and feels so far away from the things that make people stressed, harried, and anxious. In that moment, I was deeply grateful for everything right around me: for a man who loves me more than I knew was possible, for this baby who is uniquely ours, for where we live, and for every painful and blissful experience that brought us to this place. All things considered, I knew in a deep, deep way how profoundly blessed we are.

And I was so grateful.

But honestly, I have had moments where I've done my share of grumbling, whether or not anyone has heard them out loud. I have had those moments where I lamented this was happening to us. I didn't want to be the exception. I didn't want people to pity us. I didn't want to give up the birthing experience I have hoped and planned for. I didn't want people to think, "Oh, poor Ewan!" Whine whine whine. Grumble grumble grumble.

I wasn't grateful for what was happening. I wasn't trusting the role this experience might play in something far greater, something that I do not have the foresight to see. I wasn't considering that blessings that will come and that, in truth, have already come as a result of what we have learned about Ewan's heart.

Manning quotes another favorite author of mine, the late Henri Nouwen from his work Bread for the Journey:

"To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives -- the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections -- that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God."
Henri Nouwen, qtd. in Manning (p. 31)

And so I am grateful -- for James, for Ewan, and for his broken heart. I am grateful for what this little one is teaching me already. I am grateful for every moment of this pregnancy, for every kick and nudge and roll, for learning to feel and know acutely just how very delicate life is. I'm grateful for the support and encouragement that has been poured out on us. I'm so grateful that so many others love my little bean before he's even born. I'm grateful for the space I live in, for a place to write, and for the grace to know -- to really, really know -- that whether in the midst of profound ecstasy or excruciating pain (or anywhere in between), God is good.

Now it's your turn. Yesterday you told me about those things and moments in your life in which you learned to trust. It was such a gift to me to hear your stories and to learn from you how you've been shaped by those crucible moments in your life. And now I want to know: What are you grateful for right now? What makes you rise up and say thank you?

ruthless trust :: number one

I'm reading the Brennan Manning classic again: Ruthless Trust. This book was my companion during a particularly extended time of difficulty in my life a few years ago. Thumbing through its pages again, I can see the underlines, the brackets, the stars in the margins, and the copious notes filling what was once white space. It is quite nearly a journal of that time. I am filling it again, having learned something about God and myself, and now walking a path where I'm being asked to go deeper, learning even more of the deep wisdom of trust.

The following quotes grabbed me firmly around the soul:

* * *

The basic premise of biblical trust is the conviction that God wants us to grow, to unfold, and to experience fullness of life. However, this kind of trust is acquired only gradually and most often through a series of crises and trials. Through the indescribable anguish on Mount Moriah with his son Isaac, Abraham learned that the God who had called him to hope against hope was eminently reliable and that the only thing expected of him was unconditional trust. The great old man models the essence of trust in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures: to be convinced of the reliability of God.
Page 9

The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise.
Pages 12-13

And that's only from the first chapter.

* * *

If you haven't had a chance yet, I'm now also sharing Ewan and pregnancy-related updates over at the Team Ewan blog, and just generally journaling about this whole process.

And now I'm wondering, dear community of bloggers: When and how have you learned trust? If you're willing to share, I'd love to hear your stories too.

* * *

The latest belly shot:
I would just embed it in the post, but Blogger is being funny about it. And by funny, I mean exceedingly aggravating. So you can view the latest belly shot here.

becoming catholic: part 5

Disclaimer: When it comes to matters of faith (and matters of Catholicism in particular), emotions run high. It is a topic on which many have strong bents, preferences, and biases and regarding which particular views are held strongly. In many circles, there is much in the way of fear, misinformation, and outright antagonism when the topic of Catholicism is broached. I do not claim to speak in any official terms about matters Catholic, I claim only to speak for my own experience and journey. That being said, things may be introduced or stated in this series of posts which directly impacted my decision to convert. The purpose of stating these things is not to exact judgment on anyone or to incite anger or division, but only to provide reasoned explanations for why I now freely and deliberately chose to become Catholic.

Read Part 1 here
Read Part 2 here
Read Part 3 here

Read Part 4 here
Note: You can also click on the "Becoming Catholic" icon above to see the entire series

* * * * *

A friend of mine from Hillcrest Church called me on the day before my Confirmation. "Is it true?", she asked. When I told her it was, she exclaimed, "O My God!" But I corrected her, "No, it's our God," and explained that I was still worshiping the same God whom I had worshiped together with her. Sadly, I was ostracized by many of my evangelical brothers and sisters. Some don't even speak to me anymore. Some canceled my speaking engagements. Some say I have "fallen;" others called it "a big mistake." But I know the big mistakes I have made in my life, and becoming Catholic was not one of them. I have no quarrels with anyone. Their view of me does not upset my peace of mind, although I am sad if they fail to realize that we do not have a "Methodist God" or a "Baptist God" or a "Catholic God." We have one God, who has revealed Himself in Christ and the Church, and who calls us all to the fullness of truth.

Norma McCorvey, in an interview regarding her journey toward becoming Catholic

* * * * *

Whew, it's been a long time since my last post!! I've been madly drafting both this installment and the next simultaneously, wanting to do all these things as much justice as I can muster. Given the level of activity that has taken place over the past week or two, and with carrying a baby that just doesn't seem to like anything I eat, I've been a bit delayed in getting this out there.

I hope my readers won't mind if just for this post, I deviate a bit from my explanations and understandings of the heftier theological issues and spend some time describing my subjective experience. I've included pieces of this along the way where appropriate, but I wanted this post to focus more on some of my personal experiences over the course of this journey.

It was easier me for to embrace Catholicism on an intellectual level prior to engaging it experientially. We talked about it a lot before we made any moves in that direction, so it was not as if I didn't know what was coming. But assenting to believe it intellectually and coming to bring myself to the Catholic church in actuality was a more difficult leap for me. James had attended a Friday morning mass at the church we now attend and talked to the priest, telling him our story. After that, there was no turning back. After acknowledging our belief, it would have been a serious sin for us not to behave accordingly.

My resistance to the change stemmed from the fact that my life had already seen some massive changes in a very short period of time: in the course of six months, I moved cities, changed jobs, went from a being satisfied single to becoming engaged, took a major international trip, and then got married. And then, just four months into our marriage, we were looking into becoming Catholic? How many major overhauls to my life could I take in such a short period of time?

Circumstances were slightly different for James. I had been raised in an Evangelical church, but he was raised Catholic. He was passionate in his Catholic faith, and once dreamed of being a writer for the Catholic church. He left the church when he was nineteen over some misunderstandings about what the church taught. To have left and then to be coming back about seventeen years later for him was humbling to say the least. Such a move would not have been made were there not tremendous conviction propelling us both in that direction.

If I could impress one point upon those who still object to our decision, or who regard it with skepticism, it would be that. More than a journey of the mind, or history, or of literature, this has been a journey or spirit, of faith, and obedience as well. We weren't seeking to separate ourselves from our Evangelical brethren. We weren't seeking to incite division or argument. Yes, we read and researched a lot. Yes, we discussed intense theological issues at length (and we still do). But how this really happened is that we had humbled ourselves before God repeatedly in prayer, asking for Him to lead us, asking for Him to open our hearts to Him so that we would be willing to go wherever He wanted us to be.

We asked Him for these things in good faith, trusting and believing that our Lord wants us ever nearer to Him, and abiding ever more closely in His will. The prayer was as simple as that. We weren't seeking another dramatic change, but God in His mercy led us to the place where we are now. And so in this process our consciences were formed, and our spirits transformed. St. Paul wrote in Romans regarding conscience that "whatever is not from faith is sin." And so it would have been sin not to follow our consciences and to disobey the faith given to us when the path was so clearly marked. After praying those prayers and God making the way clear, what are we going to say: Uh, sorry Jesus, I know I asked You to lead us, and that we would follow wherever You wanted us to go ... but, please not this! And thus, it has also been a journey marked by profound humility. We never in our wildest imaginings expected that these prayers would lead us into the Catholic church.

I remember the night before I attended my first mass at this particular parish. There was a lot on our minds, and I was a mess. The next day when I woke up, the mirror reflected the evidence. I looked like I had been beat up, my face pummeled repeatedly with merciless, unrelenting fists. The skin around my eyes was puffy and purple; I viewed the world through dark slits. My hair looked like I had been tearing at it, which for my state of mind the night before, I very well may have been.

I had been to a Catholic masses before, and so was not entirely unaccustomed to the standing and kneeling, the prayers and recitations, to the robes and the altar. I felt a bit awkward being in that environment again -- like being in a place where you understand the words, but aren't familiar with the customs -- but not uncomfortable or unwelcome.

There was a line in one of the hymns sung that day that grabbed us both; something about coming home. Unexpectedly, we both wept at the same time. Indeed, this was coming home for both of us in a way neither of us had foreseen or anticipated.

RCIA
I made the decision to begin the RCIA program at the church, as it was already underway. RCIA stands for Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, and is basically a catechesis, or religious instruction, for adults considering conversion. The class, more than 20 strong, had an amazing range of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, ages, and life experiences. There is much I could say about what I learned, what we discussed, and the phases of the 6-month process that is RCIA. Together we laughed, served the community, and delved deep into hot-button topics.

Suffice it to say, these experiences bonded us together in a way that I've never before experienced. Some were already baptized and some not; many had Evangelical/Protestant backgrounds like me, and some had little church background at all. We all had different stories of what brought us to the Church, and how we came to be there, but found commonality in the reality that we were all willing to turn life as we knew it upside-down for the sake of embracing what we believed to be true. We found Jesus there in a way we had never known Him before -- in a way we were not willing to give up.

I may write more about this experience since it was so formative and transformative for me and since I owe so much to those who journeyed with me. But for now, I wish to leave you with a handful of images from a day I anticipated and experienced with as much joy as my own wedding.

Easter Vigil
The culmination of our instruction together occurred at the Easter Vigil mass (the night before Easter) in which we were received into full communion with the Catholic Church. We watched, worshiped, and participated with joy in observing the baptism of those who had not yet been baptized. We all walked forward together with our sponsors to receive Confirmation (the strengthening of the gifts of the Holy Spirit), and finally to receive our first Eucharist. After months of coming forward with arms crossed to receive a blessing, it was with joy that I first received the body and blood of Christ.

Baptism

Confirmation

First Eucharist

With Fr. Bryan

I hardly know how to put into words the joy I've experienced in this, my homecoming. Like Norma McCorvey, I can affirm that I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. But becoming Catholic was not one of them.

becoming catholic: part 3

Disclaimer: When it comes to matters of faith (and matters of Catholicism in particular), emotions run high. It is a topic on which many have strong bents, preferences, and biases and regarding which particular views are held strongly. In many circles, there is much in the way of fear, misinformation, and outright antagonism when the topic of Catholicism is broached. I do not claim to speak in any official terms about matters Catholic, I claim only to speak for my own experience and journey. That being said, things may be introduced or stated in this series of posts which directly impacted my decision to convert. The purpose of stating these things is not to exact judgment on anyone or to incite anger or division, but only to provide reasoned explanations for why I now freely and deliberately chose to become Catholic.

Read Part 1 here
Read Part 2 here

Definitions & Context
In this post, I refer frequently to the university town of Wittenburg. Wittenburg is the town in Germany where Luther posted his 95 theses to the door and that was the starting place of the Protestant Reformation.

* * * * *

Well ... what about Orthodox? Or Anglican?

We had heard this question a lot when telling friends about the change upon which we had embarked. As if deciding to become Catholic was the worst or most ridiculous thing we could have done. I remember talking about it with one of the sponsors for the RCIA program in which I'm currently participating, a convert herself. Ah yes, she said. The ABC question: Anything But Catholic.

So this wasn't anything new. Though I appreciated the concern demonstrated toward us, I was also saddened to see people who know us well imply that we hadn't thought any of this through, or that if we hadn't checked out everything else first, we were doing ourselves a disservice. It's not as if we were in a buffet line of religions, trying to choose what was most palatable to our preferences. It wasn't just a liturgical service or the smell of burning incense we were after; we were seeking out faith in its fullness. Though I can't speak for the twenty or so others in my group who are taking these steps of conversion with me, I am becoming Catholic not simply because I find it the most palatable, but because I am deeply convicted that this is the Christian faith in its fullness. And that means that (as far as we're concerned) there is no other choice.

I know it sounds ridiculously bold to say that. And believe me, I know how it sounds to non-Catholic ears. And yes, I know plenty of people who have objections to that, who disagree vehemently, or those yet who paint in broad stokes of ecumenism that say this really doesn't work for me, but I'm so glad it works for you.

But it's only ridiculous if it's not true.

* * * * *

The question of Sola Scriptura, or Scripture alone
Before I launch into my personal study of and response to Sola Scriptura, it is important to define terms so that we're all on the same page with what I mean when I say it. The below definitions provide complementary and adequate description of what I mean when I refer to Sola Scriptura:

Sola scriptura is the teaching that the Bible is the only inspired and authoritative word of God, is the only source for Christian doctrine, and is accessible to all—that is, it is perspicuous and self-interpreting.
-- Wikipedia article on the Five Solas of the Reformation, emphasis mine

Sola Scriptura is the doctrine that the Bible is the only infallible and inerrant authority for Christian faith, and that it contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness
-- Wikipedia article on Sola Scriptura, emphasis mine

NOTE: I will also add that to treat this subject adequately, you would need at least a book or two. Maybe six. As such, this is going to be a super condensed treatment of sola scriptura. As always, you can refer to the links at the end of the post to start in on some deeper reading.


The Protestant case
Luther made a bold claim when he claimed the Church's leaders were without the authority to teach and interpret -- that the Bible was the only infallible source of faith and morals for the Christian. Some proclaimed this move a return to orthodox Christianity (where "orthodox" means: correct belief; conforming to the beliefs/creeds of the early Christian church), but it is misnamed "return" when this claim was a new one in the history of Christianity. The apostles didn't teach it, and the church fathers never espoused the concept.

I couldn't find any Scriptural support for the doctrine from Luther himself, but there are plenty of pastors and theologians today that are defending his claim. In many of the Protestant texts we read and debates we listened to, 2 Timothy 3:16 is often cited as a support for sola scriptura:

"All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work."

I have no argument with what this text is saying: all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for all the things listed. Amen! Some serious equivocation goes on, however, when "all" comes to mean "only" in the mind of the reader. It is rather simple to show that all and only mean very different things. Consider the following statements.

Only men are professional baseball players. All men are professional baseball players.
Only women give birth to babies. All women give birth to babies.

All and only are not the same thing. So where else might the support for this doctrine be? If Sola Scriptura is so fundamental and foundational to Christianity, if this really is an orthodox belief, and if this particular belief is to provide the foundation for every other belief, then there must be other texts in Scripture in support of it, right? Or else it does not meet its own standard.

In our study of this particular doctrine, we weren't really surprised to learn that there is nothing in Scripture -- not a single verse -- that teaches sola scriptura. Fortunately, this did not result in any cataclysmic or earth-shaking shocks for either of us. Neither James or I were particularly attached to this sola since we had yet to see any church truly live and worship in a manner befitting "the Bible alone." Even the strictest "Bible only" churches have traditions and practices not found in Scripture. Now don't think that not believing in "the Bible alone" means we take a low view of Scripture, or that we somehow think of it as less than the breath of God Himself. There is no doubt in my mind that Scripture is divinely inspired, authoritative, and instructive. It is a principal authority in the Christian life, but not the only one, as Luther claimed. There is not a single verse or passage in the Bible that teaches it.

In other words, sola scriptura fails to meets its own criteria.

This doesn't boil down to a mere difference of belief that we can just shake off and label something sweet and pithy like "diversity." Beliefs have real-life consequences. Shortly after Luther's death, while Wittenburg was still fresh in the throes of the Reformation, one public servant called Wittenburg "a stinking cesspool of the devil." Holding this view did have then (and continues to have) some very significant consequences. All manner of division and of morally questionable practice became justifiable. For example, Luther said that since Scripture did not expressly forbid it, polygamy was perfectly permissible.

"I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter."

De Wette II -- a translated collection of the letters of Martin Luther, 459, ibid., pp. 329-330

This went well beyond talk. Martin Luther did grant the Landgrave Philip of Hesse permission to take a second wife since while still married to his first wife, he was "constantly in a state of adultery and fornication." I cannot locate the reference (so take this with a grain of salt), but I did read in relation to this case that Luther considered polygamy a mercy to the first wife since her husband was so oversexed. With no Scripture explicitly forbidding it, plural marriage was, in the mind of Luther, absolutely permissible.

It doesn't end there. There are also popular Christian teachers today who say that masturbation is perfectly acceptable, since the Bible says nothing against it. And where does the Bible speak to human cloning, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research, and the like? Are we to presume that these things are acceptable because the Bible does not mention them? There are even Christian denominations saying there are circumstances which make abortion morally acceptable, because they are not expressly forbidden in the Bible. And this is the result of us all reading the same, "perspicuous and self-interpreting" Scripture?

Chaos and division result
It didn't take long for the effects of the Reformation and Luther's solas to have a profound effect. Even during his lifetime, Luther and others keenly felt the fallout of his new doctrines. "There are nowadays almost as many sects and creeds as there are heads," he once lamented. Though I doubt it was his intent (it seems for all intents and purposes, that he wanted just one Protestant church), people took Luther's teaching to the bank, claiming the Holy Spirit's authority and styling themselves to have new, competing, but authoritative doctrines. Every new self-styled Protestant leader that popped up anathematized the others for not holding to his own particular doctrine which was (you guessed it) based on Scripture. And since sola fide meant good works counted for nothing, morality became a real free-for-all. It was utter chaos.

"Nowadays we hear voices in all directions praising up the enemy" (i.e., the Catholics) "and justifying these eulogies on the ground that owing to the want of unity among our preachers, it is impossible to know what it is right to believe. This tendency is augmented by the cries of agitators bent on stirring up insurrection. The papists, at any rate, it is said, agree among themselves, and so do even the Turks. We Protestant Christians, on the contrary, are at ceaseless war together, fighting one another with frenzied, implacable hatred, while every breath of new opinion scatters us about like a whirlwind."

-- Matthew Blochinger (professor at Wittenburg, approx. 1560, quoted in Janssen, History of the German people at the close of the middle ages, Volume 7, p. 278)

"Of reverence for the aged, there is no trace left among the young; they treat them with the uttermost contempt. The world is at its last gasp; the day of judgment cannot be far off; all the energies of the Church and of society are dormant. In consequence of the interminable dissensions between theologians and preachers, the populace no longer knows on which side the real truth lies. The papists cast in our teeth the iniquity of separation from the Church. I know well how great this sin is, and that we cannot sufficiently grieve over it. But I know also that simple souls are so sorely perplexed and bewildered that they are in doubt as to where truth is to be found, and whether there is still a Church of God in existence which can be distinguished from the unbelieving multitudes around them."

-- Georg Major (Lutheran theologian of the Reformation, quoted in Janssen, History of the German people at the close of the middle ages, Volume 7, pp. 277-278)

"Our evangelical Church is so marred and disfigured throughout with terrible rents and blemishes, that its appearance altogether belies its vaunted character. If you look at the evangelical teachers you will see that some of them, either from ambition, or jealousy, or presumption, crush out and destroy the true doctrine and propagate and protect false teaching; others twist and bend religion to suit their own tastes or the requirements of their overlords or of the people; while yet others, who have really preached the truth, counteract all their teaching by the frivolity and profligacy of their lives. If you turn to the evangelical congregations, you will see lamentable abuse of religion and of Christian liberty; you will see contempt and want of veneration for Church worship, disgraceful contention, shameless squandering of Church goods, ingratitude towards the faithful ministers of the Word, decay of all morality, unbounded insubordination among the young, and a most abundant daily growth of every imaginable vice."

-- Paul Eber (professor at Wittenburg, 1560, quoted in Janssen, History of the German people at the close of the middle ages, Volume 7, pp 276-277)

I provide these quotes not to tell you how awful the Reformation was, because though misguided (in my opinion), I think the motives behind it were good. There were abuses and misapplications of doctrine taking place in the Catholic church, no doubt. But no matter how good the intentions were, there was some terrible fallout that was the result of new doctrines like sola scriptura and sola fide (or, "faith alone," which I will discuss when I get to the issue of justification). Before I researched this in any depth, I had never heard of this before. I had always heard the Reformation described in purely noble and heroic terms. But this is the other side to the story.

Even as a young child, the lack of unity in the church troubled me. I saw Baptist, Catholic, Unitarian, Assemblies of God, Nazarene, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and so on. Every one taught and worshiped differently, and every one believed the way they did it was the "right" way. Just a few hundred years we are not any better off; we have anywhere 9,000 -34,000 Christian denominations and counting (depending on which resource you consult), all teaching something different, but all claiming to preach and teach the "Bible alone." We easily have at least as much confusion and chaos in Protestant theology now as they did in the early years following the Reformation. Even then, and much more as this journey progressed in recent weeks and months, I was asking myself: Is this really the way it is supposed to be? Is this what Christ meant when He said, "I will build my church"?

If it's not Sola Scriptura, then what is it?
Oh, but this leads into another blog post entirely. It wasn't my original intent to leave this unresolved; I really wanted to combine the two, but it just got waaay to long. I'll be dealing with what I learned about the Catholic approach of Scripture + Tradition in the next post. And lest you think I've forgotten something important or am trying to claim the Catholic church is, was, and has always been perfect, I'm not quite done yet. I don't want to ignore or overlook the abuse of the system of indulgences toward which Martin Luther had valid objections, and which the Catholic church itself was seeking to reform. I'm getting there. Again, there just wasn't room here to treat it adequately.

In the next post, I will move beyond why Sola Scriptura doesn't work and explain how I've come to understand and appreciate the Catholic view of Scripture and Tradition and how it's actually a really good thing for the Church to have (and there is Scriptural support for it, to boot).

* * * * *

Got questions?
There is a method to my madness, I promise. I'm hitting the foundational "big stuff" first before I get into the questions people typically have like What about the pope? What about praying to the saints and Mary? What about purgatory?. But are you wondering about how I have come to understand a particular point? Though a bona fide Catholic nerd now, I'm no expert, but I will do my best to explain what I know (and try to find out what I don't know). Feel free to drop a question in the comments on this post, and I'll address it in an upcoming post in the near future.

Additional Reading/Resources:
Blog Post: Solo Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority by Bryan Cross
(Note on this article: Very nuanced, thorough, and academic. Excellent stuff!!)
Sola Scriptura: Is the Bible the sole rule of faith? Audio CD by Steve Wood
Reformation or Revolt? Audio CD by Steve Wood
Luther's own statements concerning his teaching and its results (available online through Google books)

A quick word about Steve Wood
Please just let me plug the above Steve Wood CDs listed above. Wood is a former Presbyterian minister who converted to Catholicism and really worked through all of these questions himself, so he understands both sides of this very well and is very sympathetic and respectful toward Protestant listeners. He is an absolute pleasure to listen to, has spent oodles of hours in study with the material he presents, and really has a gift for taking complicated concepts and making them understandable for the laity (i.e., us!!). If you're interested in finding out anything more about Sola Scriptura or the Reformation, I couldn't recommend these CDs more highly. I may even do a giveaway of his CDs ... who knows??

becoming catholic: part 2

Disclaimer: When it comes to matters of faith (and matters of Catholicism in particular), emotions run high. It is a topic on which many have strong bents, preferences, and biases and regarding which particular views are held strongly. In many circles, there is much in the way of fear, misinformation, and outright antagonism when the topic of Catholicism is broached. I do not claim to speak in any official terms about matters Catholic, I claim only to speak for my own experience and journey. That being said, things may be introduced or stated in this series of posts which directly impacted my decision to convert. The purpose of stating these things is not to exact judgment on anyone or to incite anger or division, but only to provide reasoned explanations for why I now freely and deliberately chose to become Catholic.

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Read Part 1 here

Definition of Terms Used in this Post:
Canon: The books of the Bible recognized by the Christian church as valid and inspired.
Reformation/Revolt: I use these terms interchangeably to describe the split of the Protestant church from the Catholic church (starting in 1517)
Deuterocanonical: Literally means, "alongside the canon". Describes the seven books of the Old Testament for which there were no original Hebrew texts. At least some of these were originally written in Greek and as such, were held in suspicion by Jewish religious leaders and later, by the Reformers as well. Some of these books have been found to have Hebrew originals in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The deuterocanonical books are: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (also called "Ecclesiasticus"), Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, as well as portions of Daniel and Esther. These books are also often referred to as the "apocrypha" by Protestant sources.
Septuagint: The Koine Greek translation of the Old Testament. The translation occurred between the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, and contain the 46 books of the OT, including the deuterocanonicals.

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It is a very dangerous thing when you becoming willing to ask: What if I am not as right about this as I think I am? What will happen when I honestly and openly examine another perspective on what I think I know? What if in finding what is true, I also find that what I once believed is lacking?

When such questions are raised, a person has two choices. You can bury your head, ignore the questions, and hope that with neglect, they will slowly die away and that life will continue on as it has before. Or, you can persist in finding the answers, no matter what they are.

Gulp.

We both knew what we had to do.

"Roman Catholic Bibles" place the books of Tobit and Judith between Nehemiah and Esther and 1 and 2 Maccabees after Esther. The books of Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon) and Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus) are similar to the Book of Proverbs and are placed after the Song of Songs. The book of Baruch follows Lamentations. Eastern Orthodox scripture includes these books, too, and some Orthodox Bibles contain still others such as the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, 1 Esdras, and 3 Maccabees (with 4 Maccabees as an appendix).

These books were not part of Hebrew scripture, but were included in all Christian Bibles until The 16th Century Reformation. The Reformers chose the shorter Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible (39 Books), thus paralleling the thought of Martin Luther who considered these other books "not equal to the Sacred Scriptures, but useful and good for reading."

-- From the ELCA website regarding their beliefs of Scripture, emphasis mine

The Canon of Scripture
Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. I had to read it more than once, as shocked as I was. The Reformers chose to omit seven books of the Bible that had been included since the days of the early church -- the very books of the Septuagint that Paul used in his travels when he won people to Christ -- because they deemed these books unequal to the other books of Scripture? These seven books weren't originally written in Hebrew, but did that fact make them somehow less inspired? We learned that not only did they omit these seven Old Testament books, but Martin Luther also seriously considered omitting New Testament texts such as Hebrews, James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation from the New Testament as well because he held such a low view of them. He termed James "an epistle of straw because it contains nothing evangelical" and of Revelation said, "I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it" and also added "to my mind it bears upon it no marks of an apostolic or prophetic character."

What?

It seemed awfully presumptuous to me, to remove seven books of the Bible that had been accepted for sixteen centuries. As someone who has long held a high view of God's word, this did more than raise an eyebrow -- this was appalling. If it was indeed true that the Reformers used their own subjective judgment to decide that these seven books weren't equal to Scripture, this gave rise to several questions for me: By what authority were these books rejected? Since Scripture itself doesn't account for the books that should be in it, how was the Canon of Scripture formed in the first place, and who had the authority to decide this? What are the implications for us if the seven books that the Reformers omitted from the Old Testament are in fact Scripture?

Learning to see things from a different angle
This is where I had to question what I had been taught and what I had believed about Scripture, willing to admit that just maybe, it had been wrong. This is where I had to suspend my Protestant biases.

We had always heard from Protestant sources that the Catholic church added these seven deuterocanonical books at the Council of Trent (which was held in the 16th century in response to the Protestant revolt), but what we found was quite the opposite, and we had the words of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America affirming this. These seven books were not added later, but had always been there and held as authoritative until the reformers had them removed. When the Canon of Scripture was formally defined in the 4th century by Pope Damasus I and was later confirmed by three official councils of the Church, these seven books were included.

So what kinds of material did Luther have removed? One of the books removed was the book of Sirach and in the days of the early church, had earned the nickname "Ecclesiasticus" (literally, "Church Book") since it was often used to catechize new believers. Maccabees contains ample additional detail of the martyrologies described in Hebrews 11, and also describes the establishment of the Feast of Dedication that we see in John 10. The early church and even the apostle Paul had relied upon these and the other books, and until Luther omitted them from his translations, the entire Church was using them.

As we looked into this even more, we were searching for any justifiable reason why the Reformers would have omitted so many texts. What evidence could they have that would lead them to believe that these works had not in fact been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? While I wanted desperately to believe in their best intentions, we found that Luther's own hand penned the reason. Luther explicitly decreed that his own will was sufficient for the removal of these texts, and for the addition of words not in the original text. He added the word "alone" to the text of Romans 3:28 so that it read: "For we hold that one is justified by faith [alone] apart from works of the law." The word alone is in none of the original manuscripts. Paul never put it there. When confronted on this matter, Luther's response was this:

... if your Papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word "alone" (sola), say this to him: "Dr. Martin Luther will have it so and he says that a papist and an ass are the same thing." Please do not give these asses any other answer to their useless braying about that word "sola" than simply "Luther will have it so, and he says that he is a doctor above all the papal doctors." Sic volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. (I will it, I command it; my will is reason enough).

Translated from Sendbrief von Dolmetschen, an open letter on translating by Dr. Martin Luther

In the meantime ...

Luther's own statements concerning his teaching and its results (available online through Google books)

Note about the video below:
This 10-minute video is very helpful in terms of gaining an overview about the formation of the Canon of Scripture, and the differences between the Catholic and Protestant canons. If your curiosity has been raised the least bit by what I've said here (or if you think I'm a heretic, or just completely off my rocker), I encourage you to watch it and to test for yourself the claims that are made. It is not meant to be an exhaustive resource, but does raise many good questions for those who are inclined to look deeper into the issues raised.