No more

We held our Remembrance Day service at school yesterday.  It's always well prepared and carried out by our students, staff, and dignitaries, under strong and good leadership (thanks Andrea).  This year though, it seemed a little different to me.  I think it's because each year Remembrance Day gets a little more politicized.  This year we had a politician speak about how everything had changed on Oct. 22, and that now they were remembering our soldiers currently in conflict and those, like Cpl. Nathan Cirillo who have been killed recently in the line of duty.  I'm not so sure everything has changed, but it certainly did get me thinking about Canada's role in the world right now.

It was thinking about this role that struck me.  Every year the cadets at our school serve in uniform at the Remembrance Day service, something I think is pretty common.  I love seeing them because the sorts of kids who are cadets aren't always the ones who do the best in school, or have the strongest social skills, or best academic skills.  I love to see the kids who struggle the most in this role because the instant they put on their uniforms they universally act sharp, disciplined, solemn, and with incredible dignity.  The rest of the school looks to them as both leaders and honored servants in those moments.  When you talk to them about their cadet service, they will again, almost universally, talk about about the service of freedom and protecting those in Canada and the vulnerable abroad.  So what really struck me, and has stuck with me this year, is that some of those cadets will most likely go on to full time service when they graduate.  They will join the Canadian Armed Forces, and quite possibly go abroad to places like the Middle East and fight.  They may die in that service, and there is a very good chance that if they go, and come home, they will come home broken down by PTSD and physical injury.  These children before me, full of dignity and promise, proud and sharp in their uniforms.  That future.

If we follow Christian history back far enough, there was a time when the Roman Empire actually faced a bit of an existential threat, because because soldiers were converting to Christianity, and for the first few hundred years of the existence of the Church, the zeal of many followers was so strong that they wouldn't harm another.  They wouldn't work to separate the weeds (parable of the weeds, Mt. 13) lest they uproot the wheat.  Now we live in a world where 'collateral damage' (largely a legacy of civilian bombing in WWII) means a Christian serving may use a drone or manned airstrike to attack a village, kill a couple of bad guys, and hopefully not too many women and children.

So as I think about the future of the proud students in uniform, I can't help but wonder, how do you love your enemy when you are looking at them through the scope of a rifle, or on an IR camera from the sky.  Can we pray for our enemies faster than the bullets and bombs fly towards them?  Can the little children come to Christ when they are starved, crippled, and displaced by wars, or when guns are put in their hands?

In the end I don't know enough of the truth to know if Canada should be at war now, but I do know enough to know what Remembrance Day is for.  We remember the sacrifice of our soldiers in the past, with the hope and goal that we don't have to sacrifice any more in the future.  We remember the horrific price paid:  Over 100,000 Canadians dead in conflicts around the world, 30,000,000 soldiers and 55,000,000 civilians in WWII (that's right, even without the Holocaust, almost twice as many civilians were killed as soldiers), uncountable people displaced, injured, and traumatized by both past and modern wars.  We remember because we don't want to re-make past mistakes.  We remember because the generals of WWII were so traumatized by WWI that they were willing to make decisions to burn down entire cities in the hopes it might shorten the war by a few days or weeks.

We Remember because it would be better if the Highway of Heroes didn't have to be lined by heartbroken citizens mourning the loss of another young life ever again.

I guess full on Pacifism is a bit simplistic and naive for the complex world we live in, where there are people who would do us and the innocent harm, but I also know that in Christ there is peace, and I pray that we don't have to add any more names to the roll call on remembrance day.

I pray I never have to remember one of the children I served as a teacher, because they died in the hope that they were serving all of us as a soldier.



1 hand made, ceramic poppy for every British soldier who died in WWI, 880,000 of them.


1 white poppy as a prayer that we don't have to add more red ones to the field.

Why?

So of course there's been tonnes of media buzz on Pope Francis' latest public comments and of course there was a frenzy after the documents came out from the Synod on the family.  I've chosen to stay out of it a little bit, because there are so many opinions and interpretations flying around.  I've read everything from accusations that the Pope is watering down our faith and celebrations that the conservatives won the day in the end, all the way over to pieces pining hopefully that this is a first step in completely redefining everything the church teaches about marriage and family.  It seems like in the end a lot of people are willing to make Pope Francis into whomever they want him to be.  If someone has an ax to grind and longs for the good old days then the Pope is their target.  If someone wants change then the Pope is their poster child.  It actually really amazes me how much people can read in to and interpret some relatively simple teachings like be loving and merciful.

Of course through all of this I thought a lot about my own opinion on all of it, and decided not to share it here, for the simple reason that I am not an expert of theology on the level of the folks who are debating this issue, and anything I give will be a) simply my opinion and b) at risk of me theologizing it.  I'm not staying out of that side of things out of fear that someone won't like it/me because of it, because truthfully, the nature of opinion is that there is always someone who disagrees, and in our polarized world, there will be people who judge/hate you because of it.

To be honest, I'm really tired of all the commentary.  I spend a little too much time in forums discussing news, and it amazes me how much how many people have to say, with so little knowledge of the church.  Not that these don't present worthy debates, but after a while the truth seems to get shrouded in complicated philosophies, theology, and arguments.  We justify why we believe what we do through academic apologetics and theology.  There's nothing wrong with this, it's an important part of our faith, but it can also act as a bit of a mental road block to the simpler truth that exists.

That simple truth is why I'm Catholic (and proud of it Fr. Christino!)  Recently Pope Francis has cautioned against 'lukewarm' faith, and being a wishy washy, worldly Christian.  I totally get that because in the worldly realm of defending opinions and debating history and philosophy, we can get ourselves into a place where our faith comes solely from our intellect.  Again, I'm not saying the intellect isn't a huge and important part of it, it's a gift we have for a reason and the moment we stop thinking critically about what we believe we start down a road of self-assured complacency.  When we go too far down that road we get to a point where we try to mold the church to fit our worldview, rather than letting it form us (much like the rampant media speculation and opinion sharing around Pope Francis and the Synod).  What I am saying is that it isn't the centre of the picture.  It's not the core of our faith.  It's not the why of believing what we do.

So it all comes down to one thing for me.  Why am I Catholic?  Why do I trust the Synod?  Why is my worldview and opinion not what I want to share today?  Why can I go toe to toe with a Catholic I totally disagree with, and still offer peace?  Because when Christ handed the keys to Heaven to Peter, and founded the Church, he promised to be with us always.  In Matthew 16 Christ tells Peter that he is the rock on which the Church is built, and that evil will not prevail against it, and after the resurrection in Matthew 28 he tells the apostles to go out and spread the Good News, and promises to be with them (the Church) always.  I'm Catholic because I believe that promise.  I trust the Synod because I believe that promise.  I'm not overly concerned with media interpretations of Pope Francis because I believe that promise.

It's that simple to me.  I still value debate and the academic side of the faith, and I still think we need to watch and guard the church, to be honest when we sin, and to openly correct when we make mistakes.  But above all that, I trust that the Church is guided by God, and no matter if or how we stray, there is always guidance back.  I believe that in a day in age when there are no right answers to some of the questions we face, and when our law and our call to share God's infinite mercy seem at odds with each other, that the Church will be guided, however long the process, to answers and actions that are right, and blessed with saints who have to the courage to challenge the humanity of it to turn back when we are astray.

Love is patient, even if the media isn't

I usually try to wait a little for a commotion to die down before jumping in and writing about it, if for no other reason than to let my own though processes go through their own natural critical cycle, but in the last couple of days a topic has exploded in the media and it's one I've already got some pretty solidly formed thoughts on.  Of course I'm speaking about the wide range of media coverage on the apparent revelation that the Catholic Church is cool with science, and specifically with theories governing the origins of the universe, and of life itself.  I say apparent because it's not really a revelation.  That's been official church teaching for decades, and aside from a couple of notable hiccups that have more to do with politics than science, the Church has more or less always been a driving force in the generation of knowledge, both scientific and philosophical.

But  that's not the point of this post, just the context.  Yeah, the media freaked out about something they've ignored for ages, and yeah, it just goes to show that pop media has a weird obsession with Pope Francis, and yeah, it's one of those things that gets annoying for those of us who've been saying the same thing for ages whenever we get lumped in with young Earth creationists.  And it's us Catholics' reaction to it all that's the point of my post.  It was inspired by a little meme that popped up today, relatively innocuous, but it points at the issue I'm slowly and verbosely getting to.

Source:  Catholic Memes

Now, I'm a science teacher, in a Catholic system, who used to be a youth minister, so I get it... like, I really get it.  I've had to justify teaching evolution more often than your average Catholic.  I get how we can get to a point where we feel like the mood this particular meme sets up (snarky, smarter than though, sarcastic, exasperated).  I think though, we need to step back and look at how we are with people outside the faith.  For a non-Catholic, if someone of the Church converses from the stance highlighted in the meme here, how do you think that's going to go?  Is it going to soften their heart?  Is it going to make them think, 'hey, that Catholic a'int so bad'?  Is it going to build a stronger relationship with them?  I doubt it.  It's likely going to make them think 'wow, that person is annoying and self-righteous'.  

Not that I'm not like that my fair share (and a few others' fair shares) of the time.  In fact, what got me thinking about our response to the media's butchering of Church teachings was an argument I was having in an online forum where I was taking too much pride in how smart I was about it all.

What we miss when we end up participating in a conversation the way our Slowpoke friend above is, is an open door, and to be frank, we need those a lot these days.  When someone we know posts something about how much they love that Francis guy, or how they are a lapsed Catholic but gee whiz, that new Pope gives them hope, there is an invitation there.  There is a direct invitation to talk about our faith.  As much as St. Francis has been (falsely by the way) quoted as saying something along the lines of 'preach the Gospel always, use words when necessary', words are necessary much of the time, and it's pretty rare we get such an amazing invitation to use them without instantly closing a door.  It's one of the few times people outside the Church aren't starting from a defensive position.  So if we jump into a snarky, sarcastic corner, we are slamming that door shut, and re-affirming what a critic already thinks about the Church and her members.  

Again, I understand, the only media people seem to see on Christianity most of the time around here has to do with creationists protesting the teaching of science, and stuff like that, and we get really sick of being lumped into that, and having a debate that's about as productive and two sided as a climate change debate, where we vehemently defend our position to a world who's not listening to us anyway.  But for this brief, glorious moment, the world is actually listening to what the Church has to say.  It doesn't matter that we've been saying it for years.  What matters is that we have an opportunity to not only be ourselves, loving and patient, but to be seen for who we really are.  Let us be the sort of Catholics who are happy to patiently share what we know about the issue, and honest about what we don't know about it too.  I'm going to repeat that last part for emphasis.  We have an opportunity to be seen by a world that is often hostile to us, to be seen for who we really are, at least in this one facet of our faith.  

It would be a shame if what they saw was a sarcastic know it all, rather than a loving, patient, knowledgeable brother or sister.  

Stop liking what I don't like: The theologized opinion

If you can handle a bit of profanity, try Googling "Opinions are like" and let the auto suggest fill in the rest.  It's actually pretty funny because the most famous quote by Harry Callahan (I won't repeat it, you all know it) isn't the one that pops up for me, but lots of folks seem to have adapted it to fit their favourite body part!

In any case, this post is a bit of a rant about something that has bugged me for a long time, but only recent I've seemed to explicitly notice.  That's what I call the theologized opinion.  You've probably experienced it.  It's when someone forms an opinion about something, it might be important or it might be trivial, and then adapts, invents, and shoehorns a theology around it for the sake of arguing that any other opinion is wrong, and thus anyone else who holds a different opinion is wrong.  As a long time music minister I'm well familiar with the theologized opinion, as pretty much everyone in existence has an opinion about music, and when you are called to lead music at Mass, they'll be sure to tell you! 

 In my experience theologized opinions are most frequently encountered on matters that are somewhat external to the most important things, but somehow tied to them.  For example, whether guitars should be allowed at church (I've heard long winded theological arguments that a nylon string guitar should be allowed, but a steel string not allowed), the merits of syncopation and 6/8 timing (seriously, I've heard serious theological arguments that syncopation has no place in church and that 6/8 time can only be used for the closing hymn... sorry Steve Angrisano, I guess you'll have to re-write all of your music!), and the exact rules about what can and can't be worn in Church (usually following a statement along the lines of "I'm not saying we should judge anyone who is different than this ideal, but..."  Lance over at Pious Posers just wrote a good piece on this topic, check it out).  Of course, I've heard them about much more serious issues as well, the media on all sides is displaying no shortage of them in the wake of the documents that have come out since the beginning of the Synod on the Family.  I won't comment on those lest I fall into the same territory.

My favourite recent example comes from Michio Kaku's book 'Hyperspace'.  Did you know that at one point in history there was a very specific theological reason that sacred art was fully 2D and flat (those scenes where everyone looks fully two dimensional and there is no perspective in the image)?  It was because it was conveying the message that God is above all.  That in and of itself is kind of a neat idea, but there were people who theologized that version of art to the point that if they saw something like DaVinci's last supper they'd be horribly offended that it was painted with a 3D perspective that puts the viewer into the painting rather than looking upon it from a holier perspective!

Now I'm not saying that opinions and theology are mutually exclusive (sorry, math/logic term, I'm teaching probability right now).  We have theological guidelines about things like how to prepare ourselves for Mass, liturgical music, and of course on the most serious issues like the Family.  What I'm getting at is that us religious folks have a temptation to be right about everything, and we use our religion as a blunt tool to make it so.  Here's how I see the relationship.  An opinion formed from theology has it in the centre.  The opinion radiates out from it.  It's almost less of an opinion and more of a universally logical conclusion.  The theologized opinion is where the opinion came first, and is wrapped up in the theology.  In other words, we try to mold the teachings of our faith to fit our agenda.  It's something we all do... I certainly do and have.  I like to be right and I like to win arguments.  It's prideful, and it lacks humility.  

Here's why it bothers me.  It waters down the important stuff, and it invalidates our theology.  If my opinion on something (like say what music should be at Mass) can supersede the truths we seek or profess, then the truth is taking a backseat.  It becomes a reason why someone else can just negate the theology along with the opinion because they disagree.  The second reason is I've never seen a theologized opinion used for anything but a personal agenda.  If I can find a theology for why contemporary music of any sort has no place at Mass, and I have a position with a bit of power, I can make sure that any Mass I attend has music I prefer.  Ultimately, I don't like it because it's dishonest.  It's being a pharisee.  It's using our religion as a weapon rather than an instrument of love and mercy, and in my opinion, no theology offered, using religion as a weapon doesn't lead us down roads that take us closer to God.

P.S. - Shout out to Colm Leyne...  You might be a Jerk for Jesus if all your opinions are theologized and you're all to happy to 'share' them with anyone who will (or won't) listen!

Overwhelming Welcome

Karen and I had the pleasure of going to a Ukrainian Catholic Divine Liturgy at St. Stephen Protomartyr in Calgary today.  I've been to Byzantine Rite liturgies in the past, but it was Karen's first time, so I was a bit nervous for the experience (I had very high hope she'd love it as much as I do!).  We met our friend Sharon and her sons in the parking lot.

By the time we made it to the pew we had several new friends!

Sharon went to chat with the Fr. Bo, who was celebrating the liturgy.  He wanted to meet us and so we met him in the offices.  We couldn't help but smile at how joyful and sincerely happy to see us he was.  The greeters came over to us and started a conversation, as they recognized we were outsiders in the community.  On the way to our seats, right at the front, others greeted us.

The beauty of the building itself was also very welcoming.  It was an amazing blend of the simple and inviting, warm wood tones and unobtrusive stained glass, and the beautiful, with about 6 large, and awe inspiring icons in symmetry across the sanctuary.

Children were super welcome.  Fr. Bo made it absolutely known in every action, the way he talked, and the homily he gave that the kids were fully part of the community, and they returned the welcome with sincere and bold interaction with him when he'd ask questions during his homily.

After the Divine Liturgy we were waiting around for a little bit to meet someone, and we ended up meeting a lot of folks we weren't looking for.  A highlight was when a young parishioner made eye contact from across the room as though she recognized us (she did, but as visitors).  When she came over to our likely confused glances she was visibly happy to make our acquaintance.  We stayed for coffee and met some more parishioners (if you know me, you know I'm not good at that sort of thing... I felt totally comfortable there).

One of the biggest things I noticed is that no one ever treated us as guests or visitors, so much as new members of the family.  In fact when introduced by one of the greeters to other folks (the greeter knew we were Roman Catholic, from out of town, and really just on a field trip to a different rite of the Divine Liturgy) he simply said that we were new there.  Not just in town for the day, not visiting, just new.  We were already as fully welcome as everyone who call the parish their home.

In the end there's not a lot of point to this post except to say that I wish everyone of faith, myself included, could be that welcoming to the stranger, and have arms that open to the other.  I'm certainly not the most welcoming person far too much of the time, and I'm definitely shy, not bold, in the way I approach people.  Sometimes we as a Church get caught up in being right, correct, proper, moral, etc., and we forget that none of that matters if we don't have welcoming relationships.  If I'm an unpleasant, judgmental, or rudely blunt in the name of being right, then how can I show someone that my faith is a deep source of joy, or that all are welcome, or that God is Love.  Why would they listen to me?  Even if they did, would they believe my faith is about love and joy when my face, my words, and my actions aren't a reflection of those things?  God forgive us all for the times we deny someone their rightful place at the table, and inspire us all to be joyful and welcoming.

catholic Education and the Flaw of -isms

No, I didn't forget to capitalize the c in catholic in the title, and that's because I'm not referring to Catholic (as in the religion), but rather catholicism as the concept of being universal.  Feel free to substitute katholikos if it makes it easier for you to separate them.

This post is thanks to Lance from Pious Posers, who posted a couple comments on education today and inspired me to write about something that's been on my mind for a while.

It's no secret education is a bit of an ideological battleground, and that makes it troublesome for those of us who practice it.

It's troublesome for a new teacher who has been indoctrinated into the idea that a teacher shouldn't be a 'sage on the stage' but rather a 'guide on the side' (Freireism and constructivism) but struggles to figure out exactly how to get kids to learn enough material, fast enough to cover curriculum, and how to asses that kind of work.

It's troublesome when education is discussed in public and the focus seems to centre around education existing for the purpose of our economic growth and preparing students for the workforce (Neo-Liberalism).

It's troublesome when an administrator has to deal with the fact that every child has a right to be in a regular classroom all the time, but they may not have the resources to take proper care of that child's learning needs (inclusivism)

It's troublesome when parents or grandparents reminisce about the good old days, and how drills and memorization worked just fine for them and today's kids aren't learning because we don't do enough rote practice (Taylorism), or that kids just need more consequences (like 0's) and that punishing negative behaviours more strictly will fix the problems with today's generation (Skinnerism or behaviourism).

It's troublesome when an education professor teachers their students that the only meaningful way to learn is in the natural context the knowledge is a part of (ecopedagogism... seriously, that's the name for that!).

It's troublesome when we have various pieces of conflicting evidence from functional MRIs indicating how children 'really learn'.  (Cognitive developmentism)

I could go on.

The problem with this battleground of 'isms' is that none of them addresses every need.  Inclusivism addresses the dignity of the individual over the finite resources of a modern school.  Constructivism looks at the natural curiosity of a student over the life experience and knowledge of a teacher, or the standardized curriculum they teach in.  Behaviourism focuses in on simple cause and effect relationships, where the effects may not actually exist that way.

My proposal here is that we adopt a more catholic approach to the way we educate.  The reality of education is that it is heavily dependent on context.  Who are the students?  Who is the teacher?  What system are they in?  What actually works?  I have some students I can threaten with 0s and they will perform, others respond to real world connections, others still to story telling and direct teaching.  If we get caught up too much in an ideology we lose sight of the fact that students are truly universal.  To use a bit of Vulcan philosophy (sorry) education must deal with the IDIC (infinite diversity in infinite combination) on a daily basis, and so in light of that, the only 'ism' that can really be effective in teaching is catholicism, because it's the only approach that can draw on the tools of every way of educating as they are needed.  As the old adage goes, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem starts to look like a nail.

So directly for you Lance, don't kill off your 'sage on the stage', he's a wise person with a lot to offer his students, and you'll figure out when being the guide is effective as you gain experience!

My Response to my Ice Bucket Nomination

My awesome wife Karen nominated me for the ALS ice bucket challenge.  This blog post is going to serve as one third of my response (I will of course douse myself in ice water, but being a nerd, I feel as though I need to add a little sciencey pizazz to it and it may take a short period of time to prepare!)

I'm responding via blog because of two others' words.  The first widely read criticism of the challenge written by Scott Gilmore for Maclean's Magazine.  I'm responding to Scott because of his three considerations when donating to charity.  Scott says that we must consider the following:

1)  Where is the greatest need?
2)  Where will my dollars have the greatest influence?
3)  What is the most urgent problem?

Aside from the fact that 1 and 3 are basically the same question, I think Scott misses a point.  Not that the considerations aren't important, but they are purely from a pragmatic and statistical point of view.  Here's the problem...  charity is a human system.  Human systems can't be isolated into one or two variables.  It doesn't work that way.  For example, how do you define greatest need?  For a family struggling to make sense of ALS as it slowly takes away a loved one, there is likely no greater need.  If my friend or loved one is suffering from a rare disease should I not support their cause with my whole heart simply because it's not the greatest need?  Last I checked we weren't Vulcans.

To illustrate my point in a different way without rambling too much, I'm going to highlight a charity that by Scott's limited analyses, would not serve any need.  My wife used to be a wish granter for the Make a Wish Foundation.  By all medical and scientific accounts, they are a useless charity.  There is no link between wishes granted and kids getting better, they don't cure diseases, they don't extend lives.  They simply give a bit of joy to a child and a family who is having more than anyone should ever experience in terms of heartache and challenges.  I had the honor of attending a celebration put on by the Hyatt hotel chain for a wish recipient that they were sending to a special village that Disney built just for such kids and their families.  What I witnessed was a community coming together to support, uplift, and bring joy to others for no other reason than to share joy with them.  The witness of that event and the work Karen did opened my heart to them as well and we used our wedding as a venue to raise a donation to them, which by Mr. Gilmore's criteria, didn't do anything that was necessary.

The problem with taking a human system like charity and trying to reduce it so much is that it dehumanizes it.  Not that looking at massive epidemics like HIV/AIDS, or working on diseases like cancer or heart disease which claim so many lives, isn't necessary.  Not even that things like that shouldn't be our focus.  What the armchair social critics are missing though, is that we give more when we have a human connection.  Charity is about human connections.  That's why we give to causes that harm us more closely, or that our firends are connected to.

Mr. Gilmore also used the terms narcissism and slacktivism.  Quite frankly he's looking at the whole viral movement and missing the best part of it.  The acts of charity that our friends, loved ones etc. are challenging us to by getting us to pay attention to them for 30 seconds while we get to revel in their momentary discomfort are inspiring our own acts of charity.  In his own blog, Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame points out that 50% - 70% of the money that goes into something like this is typically money that would have already been donated to another cause.  But hold on... that means that up to 50% of the $94 million (reported 11 hours ago by the Boston Globe) is new charity money.  That's going to be in the neighbourhood of $50 million charity dollars generated by this so called narcissistic slacktivism.  We witnessed the same at our wedding.  One guest making a show of a large donation in return for forcing us to kiss (we did that instead of clinking glasses) inspired others among our family and friends, and some of the money that would have been spent at the bar went to bring a child a little piece of a wish that brought them joy amidst their suffering.  If 50 million new charity dollars is what a few small acts inspiring a few other small acts cascading around the world can do over a couple of weeks in the age of social media, imagine what would happen if we looked at every act of charity, whether it fits our personal connections and charitable inklings or not, and let it inspire us to our own act of charity, and let it inspire others too.  I don't care how cynical or critical you are (and I'm right up there with the best of them) that's an amazing thought.

To show what this can look like, I'm inspired by my life long friend Jennifer, who posted a much more succinct message on Facebook highlighting the need for regular, planned giving, to a charity that is personal to her in response to her ALS challenge.  Jenn, your message inspired me.  I will be earmarking a portion of my budget that would normally go to non-charitable things like shiny pieces for my motorcycle, and donating it to charities monthly for the next year.  My first in the spirit of medical research which is what started all of this, will be to the JPII Medical Research Institute, which is a secular organization dedicated to ethical and cost effective research for treatments and cures of various diseases.   That's the second third of my response to the challenge (The third will be when I figure out how to science up dumping ice water on my head)

My three nominations for the challenge are

1)  Writer Scott Gilmore to find some charitable cause that he cares about and meets his criteria, and donate something to them that he otherwise would not have spent on charity

2)  Col. Chris Hadfiled because he's awesome and I want to see him doused in cold water

3)  Anyone who has responded in any way to the challenge, positively or negatively, to find an extra act of charity, a gift of time, talent, or treasure, that will take any accusations of slacktivism and kick them out the window, and inspire more generosity.

Short post, dorky topic

So, I was on the way home from Mass last Sunday, talking to Karen about Lent coming up.  It's been a bit of a topic of conversation because I'm doing a modification of the beer fast that some Benedictines used to do, so I actually had to start preparing about 2 months ago to get the beer ready (Dopplebock based on the Part Time Monk's recipe.  Look him up... he did a full beer fast for all of Lent, and wrote some interesting stuff about it.  I can't quite go that far... I don't think beer for breakfast or lunch would go over so well when you combine it with teaching.

In any case, the conversation was about preparing for the season where we prepare for Easter, and that was kind of funny.  It turned in the direction of Mardi Gras, and then Shrove Tuesday.  I'm a bit of an etymology geek, so I wondered out loud what 'shrove' meant.  I just assumed it was an old word for some form of fat or fatty food.

The conversation with Google Now to find out was kind of funny.

'OK Google:  What is the definition of shrove'
'Drove, the past tense of drive'
'No Google, what is the definition of SHHHROVE'
'Shrove, the past tense of shrive'
'Thanks for nothing Google'

Turns out to be 'shriven' is to receive absolution.  Shrive would be to hear confession and give absolution.  A little more research and we found out that tradition was to go to confession before Lent started, so the prayer and fasting could happen with a clean slate to work with.  Shrove Tuesday was the end of the season of Shrovetide (I'm not making this up... ask Wikipedia!).  You'd go to confession, then have a celebration before the fasting begins.

Turns out my preparing for the season of preparation wasn't so crazy.

There's no other point to this post, I'm just a bit of a geek about things like this.  Now I'm done nerding out.  Bon Mardi Gras tout le monde!

Also, for some Ash Wednesday fun (is that a thing?) head on over and sign up for Back That Ash Up!

The ages of Popes, get with the times (part I)

No, I don't mean how old they are... actually, I kind of do.  The title is in reference to the Rolling Stone article comparing Pope Benedict to Pope Francis.  I'm not going to comment directly on it, but it spurred me to want to write about something I've been thinking about for a while.

When I look back at how different Popes were covered by the media and perceived by the public, I notice a trend.  When JPII was young, he was described using terms like 'strapping'.  He received a lot of attention for being a globetrotter who visited his people where they lived, for celebrating youth culture and inviting it into the church, and for being kind of a rockstar Pope.  Now, fastforward to the point where JPII's health is fading.  If you look at what he did in his older years, it's pretty astonishing in a lot of ways.  Despite his physical difficulties, he still travelled far and often to see Catholics around the world, he still celebrated youth culture, and he lived with tremendous courage and dignity to the natural end of his life.  Of course, the media attention at that point was more likely to mock his appearance and comment on how old he was, questioning his worth.

Now look at the media coverage Pope Benedict XVI got, and is still getting.  He was portrayed more or less from day one as a Nazi, compared through various memes to an evil Star wars villain, and mocked for wearing red shoes (which weren't Prada for anyone with half a brain, they were made by an Italian cobbler who has been providing shoes for people in the Vatican for a long time... besides the fact that red shoes look odd if you ignore the symbolic meaning of the colour, which is what Benedict wore them for, there was nothing remarkable about them). 

Of course I don't need to summarize the media attention for Pope Benedict, you'd have to be blind to have missed it, but I do wonder, if he looked different, a little older, a little physically frail, a little too academic, would he be getting the same attention, or would the media be presenting him as a scary, dour, cranky old man, like they did Benedict.  I think what the media has proven more than anything isn't a bias towards any end of the political spectrum, but rather that it is unashamedly prejudiced.  All three Popes have been openly judged (both in subtext and openly) for their physical appearance, their dress (most notably Pope Benedict who favoured a more traditional style of dress), and for their value based on their age.  If you took comments people made about the three of them, and applied them to just any random group, it would be disgusting.  Look, here is this nice looking guy, he must be way better a person than that old grandpa who has less of a round face, and yeah sure, buddy over there was amazing in his youth, but he has Parkinsons and arthritis now, so he must be worthless... he's better off dead, even though he's so passionate he's trying to talk to us even though they just cut a hole in his windpipe so he can breath.  It's disgusting and offensive to judge anyone like that, and all the media has done is perpetuate and facilitate this culture of ageism. 

I pray that we as Christians, and all people, come to see the dignity inherent in the human person, regardless of age, ability, or appearance much sooner than later, but as long as yellow journalists like the ones at Rolling Stone are around, we have an uphill battle. 

You're shining that right in my eyes you jerk!

Last year, Pope Francis created a pretty huge buzz by telling the world that Catholics had become too obsessed with various issues, and that the Church needed to be a home for all.  Lots of the media ran with it in one direction, speculating on the Pope being a liberal reformer, lots of other folks ran the other direction with posts, articles, etc. outlining 'what the Pope really meant'.  This won't be either, because I don't think the Pope has any plans to change the foundation of the Church, nor do I think he said anything except what he actually meant, and I'm nowhere near qualified to speak for him.  This post is just a little idea that came to me today in a PD session about evangelization in the Church.

At the beginning of Fr. Baron's series on the New Evangelization, there is a little bit about Christ being the light unto the nations, and the Church being the carrier of that light... a torchbearer if you will.  We also explored a little bit of evangelization being about sharing our own light with the world as a way of inviting and building bridges, spreading joy through our faith. To paraphrase, we are called to share our light to guide others along the path to Christ. 

My little idea was this:  As Catholics, in a world that doesn't see eye to eye on a lot of issues, and where there are a lot of things we disagree with and fight against as evil, we want to shine our light directly onto that darkness.  I think the idea is to illuminate it and try to fix it.  I'm going to compare that to getting obsessed with issues.  In good conscience, with the compassionate goal of protecting the innocent, speaking for the voiceless, etc, we focus a beam into a dark corner.  The problem that Pope Francis is pointing out, is that anyone in that corner is gonna be kind of cranky because someone is shining a light in their eyes.  It's annoying, and probably not helpful most of the time.  You know the feeling, it's not a good one.  I worked in an underground mine on a contract, and knew a foreman who got so ticked at a worker constantly shining his lamp in people's eyes, that the foreman smashed it with a wrench while it was still on the guy's head.  It's that obnoxious.

What Pope Francis is asking Catholics to do is take the light out of the dark corner for a little bit, shine it on the road that leads to Christ.  In the real world this looks like building relationships with people and being contagiously joyful.   As a very wise nun told me once, if we are happy about being Catholic, we need to tell it to our faces and smile a lot more about it.  Without shining our lights on joy, love, and how awesome our faith is, then all we are doing is blinding the people looking at us from the other end of the beam, so they can't see the awesome stuff we have to share.

Pope Francis wasn't telling us to ignore the things we disagree with, he was telling us to turn our light around and point it at the love of God and the joy of faith, so everyone can actually see.

In joyful waiting

Okay, week three of Advent - the time of year when all the priests man up and wear pink!

So, the spot in the garage is clean and empty, I'm making sure it stays that way, the sale is advertised, it's Wednesday, and Canadian Tire opens Thursday at nine.  I have to work, so I can't go until lunch.  I'm excited to finally fill this space in the garage with the most manly of toys... er, I mean tools, it's almost here... I can smell the oil of the compressor pump, and hear it roar when I plug it.  The sale is almost here.  I feel like... well like a kid on Christmas morning, who knows he's getting a Nintendo (Christmas, 1989).  That's the joy of Advent... Christmas is almost here, and we are about to celebrate the greatest gift, the amazing moment, and the incredible sacrifices.  Even if we aren't believers, we are celebrating love, which is the greatest thing we have, and most of us take the time to show it through charity, which is so much an expression of love the two are practically synonyms.  The joy of waiting is so awesome it makes you wanna dance around like you have to pee.

That feeling is Gaudete Sunday.

*NB - the brevity of today's post is in response to my friend Aibert, who as far as I know may be the only reader, and mentioned that he wished there was a summary of my posts so he had time to read them.  Here ya go Aib!  Thanks for the feedback.

Advent week 2

Alright, so last week I committed myself to an awkward (embrace the awkward!) comparison of advent to the purchase of the manliest of garage tools, an air compressor.  So, here we are, week 2, and it's time to continue milking this one for all it's worth.

Last week I wrote about needing to do a little purge of the junk in the garage to make room for the compressor, and compared it to purging our conscience through reconciliation at the beginning of advent (I'm not gonna lie, I kept the pickaxe... WHO WOULDN'T!).  Now I have this beautiful space in my workshop, ready for the compressor to come in and fill it.  Here's the problem, empty space gets filled fast.  I'll give you an example.  I cleaned off the workbench to be able to tune some skis.  It was so nice and clean, and empty.  Within 20 minutes, I swear it was messier than before.  Tools, clothes, food, an old sink I found in the alley, some empty brass from my rifle... you name it, it was on the bench, cluttering my formerly, and gloriously clean space.

I can't speak for everyone, but that is kind of a theme for my life, space is never left empty.  Free time?  New hobby.  Clean shelf?  New toy.  Clean space in the garage?  New clutter!  I think it's common enough that we fill our empty space.

This is a bit of a problem, but an even bigger opportunity after receiving the sacrament of reconciliation.  After we purge all the garbage from our hearts, we have an empty space.  The challenge is that there is no shortage of stuff that we can fill it with.  The opportunity is that we can fill it with something awesome.  It's not good enough to just clear that space out, we need to make sure it stays that way, as best we can.  We need to fill the space with something that will hold it open for us, to allow God's grace to fully occupy it, and prevent the clutter of sin.  I know for me, that thing is prayer.  Advent is a time for increased prayer, to invite God into our lives.  It's something I'm admittedly bad at doing regularly.  My relationship with prayer is a lot like my relationship with the gym.  I want to go, I want the benefits, I have good intentions, I feel good when I do it, but for some reason I don't make it as often as I should.  Advent has a nice reminder built in though.  The advent wreath is a daily reminder of the season, and a call to fill that empty space with prayer, in preparation for the celebration of Christmas.

So, what are you filling your nice, clean, empty space with?

The advent compressor

Okay, it seems kind of wrong to have a Catholic blog, and not have some advent postings.  The trouble is, what else does someone say?  Colm has a good one up:
http://projectym.com/blog/dinosaurs-tinkerbell-jesus/

Swords of truth has a Homily on the First week of advent:

http://swordsoftruth.com/2013/11/30/joy-in-everyday-apocalypses-homily-by-fr-nathan/

Let's face it, most blogs will cover it, and it's hard to say things that aren't already said.  I mean, Advent, get ready for Christmas, go to confession, prepare your heart, be charitable... check, check, check, and check.

So, in that light, I am making what has to be one of the most contrived literary stretches in modern history:  How advent is like buying an air compressor.

I recently bought an air compressor.  I don't know why, it was on sale and I got a great deal... there is something about an air compressor that makes every guy with a garage want one, maybe it's the tools that make that cool sound, maybe it's goofing around with it, maybe it's the satisfaction of using it to blow the dust off the work bench, maybe it's feeling like a badass with a nail gun.  Who knows.

Now, in this analogy, the arrival of the compressor will represent the coming of Christ.  No seriously, stop laughing.  See the thing is, I have no room in the garage for one (it's an 8 gallon puppy, so it takes up some space).  Between motorcycle jacks (I don't have a motorcycle anymore), old boat hulls, a bag of almost kind of dirt you can imagine (they make a lot of kinds of dirt) flower pots, a sink I found in the alley, and a lot of other strange and wonderful things, there just isn't room.

Our lives are like that, we pick up 'junk' (I swear honey, it's not junk, I use that stuff all the time!), and fill the empty spaces in our lives with it.  If we don't prepare for an important arrival, there isn't a place for it to fit.  So for the first week of advent, it's time to 'purge' the garage.  In getting ready to buy the compressor (okay, so I got it and it was living in the back of the car), I had to do some purging.  It involved going through all the 'junk', and finding the things I didn't use, didn't need, had too much of, or were plain old garbage.  It's an amazingly refreshing experience sorting through old stuff, and purging the crap.  It really does feel great.  I get to look at old hardware store purchases and leftover packaging, feel embarrassed that I spent money on something totally unnecessary (At the time the pickaxe seemed really useful), then get rid of it either by throwing away/recycling the garbage, or passing it on to someone who can actually use it.

For the first week of advent we need to do a personal purge.  I'm stoked that our diocese is offering reconciliation every Wednesday for advent.  An examination of conscience and good confession, as tough as they are, are so refreshing and liberating... they make new room within us to fill with more important things. 

There you go, week one nicely wrapped up.  Stay tuned for week 2, and dealing with the empty space!

The Digital Catholic

I've had a post sitting in the draft box for a while on memes, in particular snarky ones.  I've been sitting on it because I'm not super happy with it, and I don't want this to turn into a laundry list of complaints about things I see on the internet (fighting snarky with critical doesn't seem to work so good).  However, Colm Leyne (one of the links over on the right), posted a couple of great thoughts that got my gears turning on it again:

http://colmscommonplace.tumblr.com/post/67189313915/futurechurch

And

http://projectym.com/blog/catholic-jerks-are-just-jerks/

Read them both!  They are nice, simple, and awesome.

I still can't get my other post to work for me, but the idea of not being a jerk in our faith, or in general, is one that I hold dearly, and if I were to sum up my thoughts on things like Catholic memes, it's don't be a jerk online.  That got me thinking more about digital citizenship (something I studied a bit on over the summer at school) and Catholicism.  So, without wasting more words, I present the Gruntled Catholic's guide to Catholic Digital Citizenship

1)  When you evangelize online, do it the same way you would in real life. 

I'm not cool, I don't pretend or try to be, so I'm not going to try and build a cool online persona.  I'm not going to 'take it to the streets' (see, not cool) with my Facebook profile.  I don't go door to door asking people if they've found Christ, so I'm not going to spam Facebook with nonstop posts in the hopes my non-Catholic friends read them and suddenly see the light.

I do tend to straddle a handful of different worlds and am often in fairly in depth conversations with people I'm close to, so I'm going to do that online where I have the opportunity to, and try to raise the level of online discourse.  I'm a decent writer, at least from an academic point of view, a strong systemic thinker, and in general, a big picture guy, so I'm writing a blog where I can do that.  I'm a musician, so I'm going to share music and thoughts on music.  Most of all, I want my faith to be about joy in the real world, so I'm going to try and be joyful online whenever I can (I didn't say I'm good at it, just that it's important to me).  Find the way to take your own self, and build that online so you are true to yourself

2)  You only have one self.  Make sure it's the same person online and offline

I like wandering in comment forums, and there's a phenomenon out there called being a keyboard commando.  People tend to feel power when they write from behind a username, or profile.  They can get preachy, definite, aggressive, and black and white about everything.  I can count the number of people I know in real life who are like that on two hands, but online they are everywhere (myself included sometimes).  If it's not okay to be snarky, condescending, judgmental, or insulting in person, why do we think it's okay online, especially with our faith (see articles re: don't be a jerk).  When we disagree in person, we can do it respectfully, and without resorting to ad hominem attacks or using sarcastic humour to try and humiliate the ones we disagree with, so why do we think it's okay to fire personal attacks or post sarcastic memes about people and ideas when we disagree online?  Ask yourself this:  If I were to do/say this in real life, to someone I loved, would I be confessing it later?  If the answer is yes, then why would you do it online?

3)  You can't leverage relationships you don't have

It's easy to burn bridges online.  It's easy to confuse a Facebook 'friend' with a real one, and cross lines we wouldn't in real life.  I've alienated people online by treating them poorly, in a way only a close friend would usually forgive.  It's powerfully easy to wreck a distant relationship online with a few wrong words.  However, because of the vast amount of things we share online, it's also a tremendously powerful relationship building too.  Before social networking was even a thing, I built a very strong connection to a friend in Texas I'd never actually met in person (linked through a common friend in Calgary).  The conversations we had via email brought us close, and we leaned on each other through some tough times.  With social media, the ability to do that has increased tenfold.  We know how important it is to build relationships when we want to share the Love of Christ, so we owe it ourselves and our faith to be careful, active, and faithful to building strong relationships in the online world.

4)  Be a truth seeker

This one might be a pet peeve of mine, but I have trouble seeing how we can be seen as people who possess the Truth when we can't get our facts straight.  I cringe every time I see a Catholic friend post something that is anti-science, or ignorant of science, spread an internet rumor, or even share a 'Costco is going to give you $450' post on Facebook without fact checking first.   I decided to stop being the fact police online a while ago, because it wasn't exactly uplifting or productive, but seriously, if we are the people who constantly evangelize for a super-vitamin or new diet that will cure everything, posts links to debunked studies that are anti-vaccination, tie ideas we don't agree with or understand to left wing (or right wing, although I don't see that as much) political conspiracies, or share everything that looks like a chain letter, then it's hard to give much weight to anything else we say.  Catholics have a responsibility to be critical thinkers, to use things like the scientific method to expand our knowledge, to know the spirit and letter of the laws of our faith, to trust true expertise, and to seek out dissenting voices to our own thoughts, so that we can reflect on them, grow our faith and wisdom, and the faith and wisdom of others.  Otherwise, if we are 'those people' online (as described above), we are violating the first three things, and not really accomplishing much more than increasing division.

5)  Be a creative generator

The internet is a true marvel of technology.  When you stop to think that we literally have almost the entirety of human knowledge and creativity at our fingertips, on demand, for almost free, it's mind blowing.  There is so much amazing stuff on the internet, like this, or this (or anything else by ZeFrank, sad dog diary will make you laugh out loud!), or this!

So much of the internet is amazing and amusing (every above could probably take you on a multi-hour journey to some branch of the internet you haven't climbed yet) that it's easy to be a consumer.  But we are all so gifted by God, and we are called to share and grow our talents.  The internet has so much awesome culture, and somewhere between 1/6 and 1/7 of the world is Catholic.  We should be contributing a massive amount of awesome to the internet, whether it's academic and wordy (yay me!), artistic and creative, critical and constructive, or just plain fun and funny.  Life is too precious, and your gifts are too awesome to waste too much time and wall space on platitudes and sharing what other people have done (some is good, don't get me wrong).  Share your work on your wall, share your gifts with the internet.

6)  If your faith makes you joyful, tell it to your digital face

I met a nun once who gave me that quip about vocations.  She was addressing the seemingly dour or angry image that a lot of religious have, but I think it's true about our faith all the time.  I don't mean falsely cheerful, I mean genuinely joyful.  Watch this or this and tell me it doesn't make you smile even a little.  We want to be around joyful people, and with the reach of the internet there is so much opportunity to share joy.  Hillaire Belloc said "Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,there’s always laughter and good red wine.  At least I’ve always found it so.  Benedicamus Domino!"  I know I would rather be part of the Church that Belloc describes, than one who's members favor snarky memes over dancing monks!

Remember them all

This week celebrity dragon, Brett Wilson, got the online news world all excited by being critical of the white poppy movement.  Actually, let me rephrase that, he got a bunch of followers excited by calling anyone who disagreed with him a moronic a**hole, and justified his 'argument' by saying that the white poppy is co-opting a symbol of remembrance for political purposes, and that we can support peace while still honouring veterans.  Of course, if you look a little deeper, really Brett Wilson is just so addicted to attention that he was willing to use today as a way to draw attention to himself, but I'm not sure we should expect more from our culture of celebrity.  I would like to thank him though, because before this week, I didn't know about the white poppy, and I did a little homework on it because I wanted to know what it actually meant.  

The white poppy was created as a symbol back in the 1930's (thus is not a symbol co-opted by modern pacifists), by a women's co-op after WW I.  Many of the women were war widows, or lost their sons in the first world war.  Many of them were angry, because they were promised their loved ones were fighting a war to end all wars, and were left with broken homes and families.  They saw the drive towards more war, and wanted to make a statement.  The white poppy was born as a call to peace.  Over the years the white poppy also evolved to be a symbol of the sacrifices civilians made, including those who lost their lives either in service to the wars, or as innocent casualties.  The white poppy honours the women who sacrificed their health, and sometimes their lives, working in dangerous factories building munitions (read about the 'canary girls' if you want to know what it was like for these women).  It honours the children who grew up in homes with no father, or with the fear and trauma that come from the mental and emotional toll the war took on the men who returned home.  The white poppy honours the 1.5 million children killed in WWII.  It honours the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killed in atomic bomb blasts, and those cursed to live with the aftermath of those attacks.  The white poppy honours the scientists who gave their health and their lives developing them, sincerely believing they could save millions of lives in their actions, and then having to live with the consequences.  

It's hard to find statistics on how many men and women were killed in the wars in non-military roles.  The best I could dig up were that there were about 7 million civilians killed in world war I, and 55 million killed in world war II (that's actually double the number of military deaths).  Equally disturbing, it is estimated that up to 12 million women were raped by soldiers during world war II, with as many as a million children being born as a result, the mothers being branded whores by the enemy, and often their own country as well.

This remembrance day, I was struck by a line in a video at a service I attended, where a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan proclaimed he was serving, so his children wouldn't have to.  That's why the millions in world war I, and then II volunteered too.  I pray that in another generation, I don't see a video of his son or daughter saying the same thing.

So make room for both poppies.  The red remembers the veterans who served (that's the official meaning by the Canadian Legion), and the white remembers everyone else.  Both are a call to end war, because that's really the only way we can fully honour the sacrifice of all the soldiers and civilians who fought, worked, suffered, and died for peace.  

To quote the political and Christian rocker, Larry Norman:

"Do we really think the only way to bring about the peace is to sacrifice our children and kill all our enemies?"

I remember, and I believe in peace.  Bring all the soldiers home...  everywhere... forever.

I'm so not a science person

No, the title isn't accurate for me...  my poor students if that were true!  However, it's something I hear pretty often.  When people ask what I teach, or when the conversation rolls around to something involving math or science, it's virtually inevitable that someone well actively, and obviously check out, usually exclaiming 'I'm not a math person', or 'I'm not a science person'.  Usually it is said with pride, often with nods of approval from other 'not science people'.

I have a problem with this.

Now, I don't expect everyone to be a mathematician, or a scientist or engineer.  I don't expect everyone to love these topics, follow them in their free time, and laugh at geeky pi jokes.  I get that it's not everyone's cup of tea (or slice of pi, haha!).  However, we live in a world where numeracy is vital, and where virtually everything we use or do relies on some pretty advanced science.  We live in a world where charlatans peddle fear and profit of the scientific ignorance of others, and lack of ability to read and understand some pretty basic science leads to things like children dying because their parents are afraid of vaccines, and rubber bands with a sticker on them sell for $40 because they are 'ionic power' bracelets.  You can live in this world as 'not a science person', but your experience is going to be less than full at best, and you will be vulnerable in your ignorance.

Okay, so who cares... what is the point of this post?  I've been a science geek my whole life, and will continue to be long after geek chic is a thing, long after people think that posting pictures from I ******* love science makes them a science person... truthfully it's not that big a deal to me if this area of interest is popular.  Actually, I'm just using it all as a long winded analogy that begins with a bit of a confession:

I'm not a huge Adoration person (it's a Roman Catholic thing for anyone reading this who isn't Catholic).  It's not that I disagree with it, or that I don't 'get' it.  I understand the reasoning behind it, I see it as a really high form of prayer, and truth be told I'm a little envious when I talk to someone with a huge connection to it.  I've been to it many times, I've purposefully gone from time to time, I've spent time in that form of prayer... I've just never had the draw or experience other people do.  I believe with my whole heart in the Eucharist, and have had powerful experiences at Mass.  The times I've fallen away it is never long before I miss it and feel strongly pulled to go back.  It's not that I'm somehow opposed to the tradition either.  I find meaning in the Rosary, love a chanted litany, and St. Patrick's Breastplate is one of my favourite prayers.

This is the challenge of our faith.  We are Catholic, which means universal.  One of the things I believe that means is that we are universal in the ways God speaks to us.  I am rarely more deeply in prayer than when I am on a journey up a mountain, deep in a rarely explored river canyon, or facing a challenging and adventurous set of rapids ahead.  Much of that experience and the reflection after is meditative and contemplative for me.  I know others meet with God in very different ways, through adoration, through traditional prayers, through charismatic prayer, through service, through contemplative prayer, through lectio divina or visio divina, through intellectual study, etc.  In other words, just as our world is a complex interweaving of math and science, literature, art, social interaction etc., our faith is a complex interweaving of sacraments, spiritual disciplines, traditions, knowledge, emotion, and too many kinds of prayer to count.  To limit ourselves to be the spiritual equivalent of 'not a science person' is to put ourselves in the dark, ignorant of a rich world and vulnerable in our ignorance.

The challenge here is twofold.  The first is to be open to God's presence in others.  This is hard, because when someone's spiritual practice is much different than our own (if you ever want to witness an example of this observe how much I stand out at a charismatic renewal service!), it can be hard to accept that as them communicating with God (with the caveat that we are talking about purposeful, active communication, not an excuse for passivity or laziness).  The second, and I see it as much more important, is to work hard to become more and more universal ourselves.  Every form of prayer, every discipline and activity, is an opportunity.  I firmly believe it is an important job of Catholics to be open to all the kinds in the Church.  For someone like me, that means going to adoration anyway, and not letting myself not be an adoration person.  I don't know if/when that time will reveal something to me, or when the opportunity to pray that way will be important.  It prevents fickleness robbing us from opportunities to build community and spend time in our faith and time in prayer, and it helps us be in community.  I haven't seen adoration in the way that many others do, but when I try to look at it through their eyes, it brings be closer to them and to God.

The year of faith is almost done, and there is an opportunity in this last month of it.  Spend some time becoming the spiritual equivalent of 'a science person'.  In other words, take an opportunity to purposefully stretch yourself into some area of your faith that is dusty or undeveloped.  Become more of a 'science person' in faith by delving into the prayer that has always seemed distant or remote to you.  To put it more succinctly, I'll help you haul yourself up a frozen mountain if you take me to adoration.

Boy he's a popular guy

I have a confession to make... I like to frequent news aggregate sites and read/post in comment sections.  I say confession because I can't imagine a more spectacular waste of time than arguing religion, politics, and other issues, on the internet.  I make this confession for context.  There is a lot of anti-Catholic/anti-religious sentiment whenever a news article comes up about the Church, good or bad.  Now some of it is rational criticism of Church teachings (although usually built on a misunderstanding of Church teaching), but for the most part, it's a lot of anger, opinion, and flat out hate.  I point it out because I've noticed a pretty big shift in tone since Pope Francis has been elected.  I'm seeing more and more posts that say things like 'I'm an atheist, but I like this guy', or 'I'll never say anything good about the Church, but if I were going to like a Church leader, it would be this guy'.  High praise coming from forums known for militant anti-theism.  (please don't take any of this as an attack on atheists, it is merely a juxtaposition of different tones in posts and comments).

All of this is to say Pope Francis seems to be pretty darn popular among the general population, both Catholic and not.

So the question I want to post is whether that's a good thing.  Don't worry, this isn't a reactionary post where I go on to clarify what the Pope actually means or anything like that.  It's a reflection on power.  Jesus actually gave us a really good model for how to challenge power, and how to know if we are popular with the right people (and by corollary, how to know if you are pissing off the right people).

Popularity is a bit of a difficult metric to work with.  Popular doesn't necessarily mean good or bad, but with a close enough analysis it can be meaningful.  Here's a though experiment, if Christ was successful with the pharisees would we consider his ministry successful?  What about with the Romans?  Many, both within and outside the church measure the value of Christ's teachings by the fact he was popular with the disenfranchised.  He was perfectly capable of seeing the injustice in the power structures of the day, and then giving some of the power and voice of those people to the everyday person, and even more so, to the people who are the farthest from it.

By that metric, who is the most disenfranchised in the Church?  It depends one the lens we use, but through the lens of doctrine, it's probably the people who either struggle with a rule, or are breaking it.  That's not to say the doctrine is bad, or that we need to change it to be more inclusive.  Christ never said that, and neither has Pope Francis.  The way Christ gave sinners at the time a voice was by building a relationship with them.  He didn't stand on a street corner threatening them with hell if they didn't change.  He showed them love, got to know them, and then challenged them to be better.  They loved him for it.  The ones with the power to exclude them, judge them because they had broken the rules, and threaten them with hell were the ones who were pissed off, because by bringing the sinners from the outside to the inside, the pharisees lost their power.  But to be sure, Christ didn't alter a single stroke of a single letter of the law when he did what he did. 

In the end it's hard to judge if Pope Francis' popularity is meaningful.  I'd say the media's love for him is some nice positive attention, but that's about it.  His popularity with the disenfranchised groups... the sinners?  That means the world.  So the challenge for us already in the circles of power, the ones with privilege (and by that I include any of us who have had the benefit of lots of formation and teaching, a deep understanding of the faith and the church, and relationships which afford us a position where we can confidently call ourselves 'real' Catholics), is whether we hold that power and long for days when we can dominate the message with moral rules, or whether we take up the yoke and do the hard work of building relationships, lending our voice to the disenfranchised.  What Pope Francis is calling us to is to use our doctrine as an instrument of healing... as a shared meal, a salve for those in pain, and a voice for the voiceless, not a sword for building armies and cutting down the ones we consider bad.

Is Pope Francis' popularity good and meaningful?  It will be if us, his congregation, listen to his whole message with an open heart.

On the eve of greatness

Well, I'm back from holidays, which of course means school is starting up again.  Something really amazing is going to happen tomorrow.  A community of people is going to gather for the first time since the flood.  We won't all be back, not all of our kids will be in the building tomorrow, because we don't actually have the building ready yet, but a group of kids will be with us for some core classes.  All last week, in preparing for the year, I've been in awe of the community.  First of all, in awe of the families supporting us, and coming back to our school despite the hardships.  Equally as much, in awe of the staff and admin.  After what has to be a tremendously difficult summer, we are blessed to come back to joyful, patient, and loving leaders.  At the same time, our support staff are going full steam to do everything they can to make the teachers' jobs possible.  Finally the teachers at the school are such an inspiring group to be around.  I honestly don't feel worthy to be in such tremendous company.  The compassion, joy, and dedication to make this year amazing for the students is incredible.

Shortly after the flood, a friend of ours, Greg Thompson, sent us a message of encouragement and prayer, and offered his wisdom.  Something he said has stuck with me all summer.  In his words, this is why we are in High River.  I pray I will be able to make a contribution to this year, but if nothing else I feel blessed that I will be able to witness it.

I don't believe God sent the flood to send some sort of message or teach some sort of less, or to test us.  I believe things like disasters happen because they do... it's just part of nature.  I can't answer questions about why bad things happen to good people, except to say that if we have free will, there have to be good times and bad for it to have meaning.  A rollercoaster with no dips and hills isn't much of a ride.  Honestly, that's a huge question, and I don't want to get side tracked trying to answer it right now, or to pretend my answer is right.  I don't want that side track because I know where God is in all of this.  God is in the hearts of our community.  God is in the teachers, staff, admin, students, and families of our school.  God is there blessing the hard work and sacrifice of everyone who is going to make this year one our school will never forget.  God is there in the greatness His children are going to make happen tomorrow, and every day as our school journeys through such a huge challenge.

Our school isn't a building, it's a family.  The reunion starts tomorrow and it's gonna be amazing. 

A change would do you good.

I'm an educator, and one of the things we often say/hear in education when a new model or method or technology rolls around is:
"That's just change for change's sake".

It's meant as a defensive statement.  What it really means is"
"I'm going to passive aggressively ignore that until something else comes along, and then I'll ignore that and keep going the way I have been for years".

I doubt it's unique to education, we don't like change in general.  I'm fascinated by it.  It stresses me out a bit, and it's rarely comfortable, but I actually love change sometimes.  It's exciting, it's a bit frightening, it's an adventure.  I've studied change and change management quite a bit.  It's a broad topic, and a tremendously deep one.

So here's my question... what's wrong with change for change's sake.  That statement implies that change is bad unless it has some extrinsic value, while denying the intrinsic value of change.  To see that we have to look at what the opposite of change is.  The opposite of change is routine, it's sameness.  Now, sameness, routine, tradition, these aren't bad.  They have lots of value.  They let us be efficient.  They let us be comfortable.  They let us think about things besides the mechanics of what we're doing, and dig in deeper to other things.  But they aren't all good either.  Comfort is probably one of the biggest temptations we face, without ever really seeing it.  So much of our lives is centred around comfort it's scary.  People spend a lot of time and money on comfort.  Comfort is leading us to destruction of the planet.  Comfort allows us to ignore someone in need.  Comfort prevents us from taking risks.  Comfort focusses our vision on why not instead of why.

As Catholics change is a tricky subject.  We have both the support and the weight of 2000 years of tradition and theology with us.  Very many people find very great comfort in the way we do things, and have for a long time.  It's why even small changes to something like the Mass can cause so much disturbance.  At the same time, some folks feel stagnant.  They don't have an emotional connection to some traditions, and so they feel the desire for change.  Of course this leads to great tension.  To change means to mourn the loss of a way or pattern, in a process that is psychologically very much like mourning a death.  To not change means, for some, to slowly die of stagnation, or worse for others, to become grumpy in our faith because we can't deal with the small changes that happen around us.

So what do we do?  The leaders of the Church tackle the issue on an institutional level, but how do we manage this on a personal level?  This is where I propose change for change's sake on a pretty regular basis.  I suffer spiritual stagnation on a pretty periodic basis.  Guaranteed over the course of a year I'll slip in to going through the motions a couple of times, and need to be refreshed.  But how does a Catholic change?  I mean, if I'm feeling stagnant, I can't just change the Mass, or the teachings of the Church, or who I am.  What can we change.  This is where the beauty of the Universal Church lies.  There is so much we can explore within the realm of the faith that no one could ever cover it all in a single lifetime.  To become complacent in one form of prayer or action is a call to find another that challenges us, that we are uncomfortable with.  When I am so comfortable as a musician in the Church that I don't even think about it, that the spiritual side stagnates, then I need to find another ministry or direction that makes me uncomfortable.  When my prayer life is routine enough that I feel bored, I need to find a new way to pray that is uncomfortable for me.  Personally I can pray very easily outside, and I draw joy from creation, but I struggle with connecting to some of the traditional prayers of the Church.  So when I find myself paddling a river or climbing a mountain and I don't even notice the call to pray and recognize God, it's time for me to pull out my rosary, or spend some time in adoration, or read something by a saint.  It's time to change my approach to God.

So my suggestion is go find something in the way you approach God to change, just for the sake of change.  For no other reason than it will challenge you, make you uncomfortable, and get you to take a step outside whatever part of you is getting too routine.  Find something about the Church that scares you or makes you grumpy and jump right in to it.  To quote John Ortberg, if you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat.

So now he's a liberal?

So I saw this gem posted on Facebook today:

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/pat-archbold/10-quotes-that-prove-the-pope-is-a-liberal

I'm not sure which I laughed more at, the leaps in logic and judgements of the article, or some of the quotes at the bottom.

There's been a lot of spin about Pope Francis' words and actions so far.  The traditionalists jumping in with a 'but' at the end of every sentance about how what he really means is [fill in the blank], and the main stream media in a frenzy that he is changing the church and making it more progressive, and radically altering what it means to be Catholic.

I'm going to refer to the crass wisdom of Christopher Titus on this one.

That's just Coke and Pepsi, same crap, different can...
Here's the thing: If you're so far left you actually believe that somebody owes you a job, citizenship and a heart transplant, you're mentally ill. If you're so far right that you actually believe that somebody who doesn't have a job and is not a citizen deserves to have their heart cut out and sold on eBay, and you get to keep 80 percent of the profit ` you're mentally ill.

I firmly believe that there is no room for political 'isms' in the Church, and I don't think there are any in Church teachings.  We don't judge our beliefs on the standards of political parties, who hunger only for power, or by the whim of the main stream media.  The pope isn't 'a liberal'... he's the Pope. 

The problem is that we are so polarized now to believe that if you are compassionate, concerned with the minorities and voiceless, or work to improve the environment you are far to the left.  If you like tradition, want to take change at a managed or thoughtful pace, and believe in building responsibility, you are far to the right.  The truth is Church teaching can't fit into either side, because neither side is the truth.  When Pope Francis washes the feet of incarcerated teenagers, and tells Catholics to be just and compassionate to all, especially the marginalized, he isn't being a liberal.  He is being the Pope and living the teachings of Christ.  Liberal political parties just tend to agree with him on that one.  When he celebrates Mass, and refuses to budge on the teachings of marriage and priesthood, held with deep theological reasons by the Church, he isn't being conservative.  A conservative political party might just happen to agree (although likely for entirely different reasons).

One of the things I love the most about Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is that they break the media fuelled polarization.  Together they represent the same Church, the same teachings, but have very different personalities and focusses.  They show that the Church isn't left or right, it isn't represented by the Republicans or Democrats, PCs or Liberals, or any other 'ism' or political movement.  The yin and yang of the Church are that we have traditions and laws, built up over millennia, but we are called to be focussed in compassion and love on all of our brothers and sisters, not just the ones who agree with us, make sense to us, or know the laws the best.

Our faith can't be contained by the left or the right because it is too big.  Our Church is too universal.  Pope Francis isn't a Liberal, he's a Catholic, and one who is challenging all of us to live our faith in a much more compassionate and loving way.