Pick yours up
Pick up your cross and carry it – or you become one for everyone else
Heaven is a place of radical, unminimize truth
It’s hard for us to conceptualize heaven, but we do know from saints and scripture that it is a place of complete fulfilment. That there are no secrets and all live in light and truth that is god.
But think about that: there are no secrets. You live in truth.
We also know that what we have done here on earth affects our experience of heaven. Those that have proven faithful will shine like the stars. Some that are last will be first, and some first shall be last. There will be distinctions – based on how we lived.
But think deeper – this means that every single person in this world we have encountered may be there. That at the last judgement, the nations will be laid out before the lord and we will all confront everyone in our lives we dealt with. Those we loved, those we hurt, those we cheated, the hard words we said, the lies we told about others, or even those we might have killed. If we expect to enter into heaven – where they may be – everything must be resolved and put right.
Do you live a life of hidden habits and behaviors? Hidden words? Hidden actions? Hidden infidelity? Do you live today with perfect honesty with those you love? Are your business deals honest and fair? Is there anything you do or say during the day you wouldn’t want EVERYONE to know? What if everyone knew your finances? How you conduct your business deals? How you pay or treat your workers? All of this will be on display to everyone – especially those it affects most.
If any of that makes you uncomfortable, then it’s time to evaluate your life and those actions. Because they must all be set aright before you can enter heaven.
The Secret to Real Happiness
The struggle to a good Lent is not to do more, it’s to do less. As you free up space in your heart from the things you’re attached to, God and his love for you can get in and fill the voids you’re filling with everything else.
Have you gotten tired of fighting the world? Struggling to get that amazing job, that big promotion, the house, the fancy car, that perfect trip with Instagrams to make everyone jealous? Grown tired of news that has nothing but doom and outrage? The job/coworker/boss that gets you down? The family member or relationship that just doesn’t seem to be working or has gone sour? Yet it never seems enough. We know that just like the last big thing we got – we’ll soon be looking for the next thing. The slog just sort of…keeps going but we’re not any more happy.
I was in adoration and thinking about what I was going to do for Lent – and things I had done in past Lent times.
When I was very young, I did things because my parents told me too. I certainly didn’t see any value in giving something up or having to have fasting days. I did it out of obedience. It felt like dragging big buckets of water up a hill. It wasn’t fun and I didn’t think I learned much more out of it than sacrifice, like going to the gym, was hard work. It certainly wasn’t something I wanted to dedicate my life too. Those saints were masochists.
As I got older, I saw my religious practices very much like going to the gym. I knew I needed to do it to stay healthy and in shape, but it sure wasn’t fun. I was still dragging each bucket of water up the hill – huffing and puffing all the way. All trying to do it with my own strength and willpower. Like a lot of gym memberships in February, I wasn’t very successful some years.
After experiencing a great spiritual awakening during my opening years of adulthood, I embraced spiritual growth much more fervently. I had fallen in love with the Spirt and Jesus – but was pretty misguided at times. I spent large amounts of my energy doing lots of activities. Some of them, especially the ones where I connected with others, were very rewarding. Prayer was exceptionally rewarding – I discovered (as Teresa of Ávila said) I could just sit with Jesus wordlessly and experience his deep, abiding love. But I was still very focused on the ‘doing’ part of my faith life. It lead me to always questioning if I was doing what I should be doing and wasting a lot of time on things I thought I should be doing (volunteering for things, speaking out for things, getting involved in projects, etc). It’s not like these weren’t good things – they certainly were. But like before (and the gift of hindsight), many times I ended up pursuing my goals, my ideas, and again, doing them with my strength.
This Lent a visiting priest said something very powerful that finally opened a new door of insight. As I sat reflecting on it in adoration; a wisdom swept over my understanding. His statement was simply this:
The key to a happy marriage, happy priesthood, or whatever our vocation – is to always be making more and more room for Jesus so he can fill the gaps we open up with his kind of love, understanding, and way of life. That is what picking up our cross every day and following Jesus means.
Taking up your cross/Lenten penances are not willfully deciding that you’re going to do a bunch of good deeds that day, deny yourself everything but bread and water, or found a new religious order. That’s more dragging heavy buckets up the hill.
It’s flipped, reverse it. Instead of trying to lift heavy burdens and fighting a behavior, you must simply name that part inside yourself at each moment and invite Jesus, who can heal every disease, in to each area of your heart as you go through your day. You are not fighting against the injustice/disappointments/expectations out there in the world, you are quietly and constantly living with your friend Jesus in your heart more and more. Listening to his quiet voice in each encounter – walking with Jesus every moment of our day.
It’s astounding. It’s so obvious. Anyone who has tried will find they usually cannot change the world around us – all we can certainly change is ourselves. We don’t have to figure out how to beat our impatience – Jesus, who can cure every illness and heal any heart – already knows how with a word. We have the simple part. All we need to do is hold it out there and make it a moment of encounter with Jesus. This is why the man in the temple who simply said, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner” left justified, and the Pharisee who was doing it through his own willpower actually wasn’t connecting with God at all. He didn’t need God.
If you are impatient, it’s not about trying to make yourself be more patient. It’s about recognizing when it’s lacking and using that moment to step back, prayerfully connect to Jesus, and make it a moment the two of you can laugh together at the absurdity of our lives. It’s not a slog of fighting against the frustration of an old lady counting out each coin one at a time at the checkout, it’s inviting your deepest lover into that new corner of your heart. Until there is nothing left but intimate love that fills every part of you.
You can walk through the day and do this constantly. In this way, we walk through every moment of the day and each and every moment can be an encounter with our lover. This is why saints saw struggles as moments to be treasured. This is why they sought out great penances at times – because it helped them find the corners of their hearts that were still troubling them from being at peace.
In the 1500s St. Charles Borromeo was the Archbishop of Milan. He and couple of other priests were playing a game of billiards. While the game was going on, one of the priests said: “What should we do if we knew that the last judgment would take place in an hour?“
One said: “I would kneel down immediately and pray for the next hour, until the end of time came.“ The next one said: “I would go to one of you for confession and confess everything I did wrong in my entire life to have a clear conscience.”
They waited to see what the Archbishop would say… after a moment of silence he bent over and stuck the ball with his stick and said: “I should quietly continue to play the game, because I began it with the intention of honoring God.“
The archbishop was simply going about his day trying to bring Jesus love into that part of his heart. It’s in this way, when we’re walking through even the most mundane things, we can be always be making more space and making that space an encounter with Jesus. It’s not fighting things ‘out there’, it’s about inviting and loving ‘in here’. When we change ‘in here’ to be Jesus – we now live and love as Jesus did. We can get ourselves and our egos – the things always seeking more and are never satisfied – out of the way and simply live in the radiant love of Jesus more and more. We become Jesus for others. We find peace because we’re living in it – constantly.
This is real freedom and real happiness. It means we never even fear our own end – because we have been living each moment with Jesus. We simply move from imperfect vision to perfect vision. From being with our lover imperfectly – to being with Him perfectly. The only sadness is that we wouldn’t have more time to learn to love Jesus better and become an even greater saint in heaven.
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Equality as an absolute value
“Harrison Bergeron” is a satirical dystopian science-fiction short story written in 1961 by American author Kurt Vonnegut.
In the year 2081, the Constitution dictates that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, and her agents enforce the equality laws by forcing citizens to wear “handicaps” such as ugly masks for those who are too beautiful, earpiece radios that broadcast irritating noises meant to disrupt thoughts for the intelligent, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic. Examples include things like ballerinas wear grotesque masks and heavy weights to them to make them clumsy and unattractive.
A lot of modern policy is based on the notion of equality – but I think Vonnegut’s story presents a valid discussion point to what equality really means. Living in the extremely liberal town of Portland, I have heard people promote the very ideas in this story as a vision of equality. Does equality mean that all people must be the same?
Articles:
Getting more from Confession
Visitors guide to finding Noah’s Ark
Dr Irving Finkel the world famous philologist and Assyriologist of the British Museum, discussed in a recent video a Babylonian cuneiform tablet which he called “the oldest map in the world”.
What makes it so interesting is that it proports to show exactly where Noah’s ark can be found.
The translated text on the reverse of the tablet describes the steps in a traveler’s journey to discover the location of the Ark, describing “seven leagues,” which they must pass through to arrive at the remnants of the ‘parsiktu-vessel’. The map leads to ‘Urartu,’ which was named in an ancient Mesopotamian poem as the Ark’s landing place and is the Assyrian equivalent to “Ararat,”, the mountain location named in the Hebrew Old Testament as the resting place of Noah’s Ark. A location close to Ararat’s summit has long been the speculated location of the Ark’s resting place, as researched by Noah’s Ark Scans. In Finkle’s explanation of the tablet, he explained how ancient travelers taking the path to Urartu may have seen the remains of the mammoth vessel on their journey.
In the Babylonian version of this tale, it is a man named Utnapishtim who undertakes this task. Finkel explained that this tablet demonstrated that “the story was the same … that from the Babylonian point of view, this was a matter of fact thing … that if you did go on this journey you would see the remnants of this historic boat”.
A location close to Ararat’s summit has long been the speculated location of the Ark’s resting place, as researched by Noah’s Ark Scans and the biblical measurements given (“300 cubits, 50 cubits, by 30 cubits,” which is equal to around 515 feet long by 86 feet wide and 52 feet high) match up with the measurements of the site in modern-day Turkey.
This is just one more interesting bit of ancient evidence Finkel has uncovered showing multiple matching cultural references to a great flood event.
If you’re curious to read more, he is the author of the 2013 book The Ark Before Noah, which goes over the ancient artifacts about a flood event believed to have occurred around 5,000 years ago.
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Words of Wisdom
You’re not going to get everyone to agree on plans. When you need everyone to agree, the least agreeable person has all the power.
If you find yourself all through life managing other’s emotions, expectations, and making sure they are happy all the time – when is it your turn to be happy?
You are allowed to take up space. Don’t minimize yourself or what you want so much that you never get a say in what happens.
Procrastinator: “I do great in my group projects because I don’t want to let them down.” That’s good. Is it ok to let yourself down by not putting the same effort in for yourself?
Boundaries are for you, not for other people.
You can’t control others or tell them what to do. Instead of saying “You can’t do that” to tell others what they can/can’t do, you only control yourself so you say “If you do that, I will do X <leave/report you/etc>”
What would happen if you started treating yourself the way you would treat someone you love?
When real leadership is absent, the loudest complainer tends to get their way.
When someone in your life is trying to bully, change, or make your day a little more shitty, by asking emotionally loaded questions – put the emotional response requirement back on them. Manipulative question: “So, do you like have any friends?” Answer: “Does that worry you?”
Happiness is the persistent willingness to exert some level of effort, each day, toward helping yourself and others
If you don’t have these problems with any other person in your life, why do you think you’re the problematic person in this one relationship?
Your parents know how to push your buttons because they’re the ones who installed them. Your siblings fine tuned them.
Person X may well drink themselves into an early grave, and there’s not a single thing you can do about it.
The facts may not care about your feelings, but your feelings conversely don’t care about the facts.
“Your feelings are something you cannot change”. When I was drinking and drugging, I constantly was trying to find a way to change what I felt or keep what I felt going forever. If I was sad, I did drugs to change that. If I was happy, I did drugs to keep that feeling going. Now I feel things and I realize the easiest thing to do is accept that I feel that way, and try to gather information about why. Then I go change what I can/needs changing and let the rest go.
Just because you can’t control something doesn’t mean you have to carry the weight of it
Every emotion is not tied to your illness/condition, sometimes you are just sad
Task avoidance: “It’s either now, or not now”, insinuating that if its not now it will keep being “not now” until you make it be “now”. That helped me a lot with getting tasks done as I think of them rather than putting it off until I feel like doing it.
The reason why your mom is acting this way towards you is not because she thinks you’re incompetent or bad at everything you do: it’s because she is COMPETING with you.
Happiness is not a destination.
Compromise means meeting in the middle. If the other person doesn’t do their half of the work, stop doing that work for them.
Thoughts are just thoughts. You can welcome them in, and then show them the door. They’re not reality.
If you spoke to your friends the way you speak to yourself, would they stick around?
Love is given. When a relationship doesn’t work out it doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of being loved.
Keeping the peace on the outside should never be more important than keeping the peace in yourself
You don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of love and respect
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A reading appropriate for election season
Beloved:
Remind them to be under the control of magistrates and authorities,
to be obedient, to be open to every good enterprise.
They are to slander no one, to be peaceable, considerate,
exercising all graciousness toward everyone.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded,
slaves to various desires and pleasures,
living in malice and envy,
hateful ourselves and hating one another.But when the kindness and generous love
of God our savior appeared,
not because of any righteous deeds we had done
but because of his mercy,
he saved us through the bath of rebirth
and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
whom he richly poured out on us
through Jesus Christ our savior,
so that we might be justified by his grace
and become heirs in hope of eternal life.
Life is a journey of learning who God is and building a relationship with Him. One of the most difficult concepts Christians must wrap their minds around, and probably one of the least sought modern virtues, is how God loves obedience. Jesus, God himself, cast all of his powers aside to become a helpless child – and was obedient to his created mother and father.
The election, current public discourse and political climate have been contentious – putting it mildly. The early Christians were often living under political regimes that persecuted, arrested, and killed them. Yet, here we read that Christians were taught to be obedient to authority. Even Jesus, when being falsely tried, convicted, and killed – was still obedient to authority of the chief priests and Roman authorities. Even when He could have used the power of the crowds to have stopped it, walked away from Jerusalem, or talked his way out of a death sentence.
Instead, we are to act with peace and act graciously towards everyone and be open to every good enterprise. Even bad situations have opportunities for good – look for them! We too were (or are) just as full of evil and shackled by our passions so we do not to slander anyone – but speak always at peace and be considerate to all.
Obedience is a difficult thing – but I think it teaches us a lot of powerful lessons. For one, I think it shows God’s power to turn evil into good. It reminds us that it’s not our efforts that are important, but living in the presence of God in our actions that is most important. It’s when we do not seek to change things through our own actions that God can demonstrate His power through us. Even the seemingly pointless death of Jesus, killed like a common criminal, has turned into the means of salvation for the whole world.
So, step away from the toxic social media. Turn off the doom-filled TV and news feeds. Instead, be Christ in the world – and be the light of hope in the midst of the darkness.
Nothing is permanent, not even loss
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.
— St. Teresa of Avila
Criticism is the basis of science, not denial of it
Public policy and social policy do NOT speak scientifically nor for science. Policy should be BASED on science, but equating the two is wrong. Science and political/social policy fundamentally differ in what they are trying to do.
Sadly, the average person doesn’t usually understand the nuance that science and policy are different. I see all kinds of signs that say ‘Science is real’ and ‘We believe science’ here in Portland, while at the same time voting down fluoridating water – 5 times. It doesn’t help when politicians/activists saying they are the same. It’s beginning to undermine the notion of truth itself. This is why people are increasingly starting to say they don’t trust ‘science’ anymore. What they should say is they don’t (and shouldn’t) trust politicians and activists claiming to be scientists.
But there are currently growing problems in science itself. Sabine Hossenfelder is a widely spoken professor and scientist. I love her videos because she’s been revealing the seedy underbelly of how science has been getting done lately. She’s started to call BS on some widely held scientific trends that are (and have) turned out to be wrong. The news has also had some embarrassing scandals about grossly falsified data by famous and high-ranking university officials. The suspicion is that there is likely a lot more fraud yet to be uncovered based on a amount of blatantly obvious fraud already found. This isn’t new – the history of science is full of liars, cheats, and rivalries that would make a sailor blush.
Hossenfelder has been ruffling some big feathers. She claims her adherence to the standards of truth surrounding her calling foul on the failures of string theory (claims she was proven right about) cost her tenure. She also admits when she’s wrong. Honestly – I think she’s one of the few people really doing science by demanding high standards of proof.
More telling is the comment sections on her Youtube videos that are full of other scientists (and PHD’s) who are encountering the same things and sharing the same stories. Namely, that publishing results that align with current thinking is more important than truth (evidenced by major cases of data fraud being discovered in a shocking numbers of papers). She notes funding channels are controlled by just a few large figureheads in each field that determine what can be researched and often hold personal vendettas against anyone that questions their leadership or scientific direction. Science has become highly entrenched in ‘orthodox’ lines of thought and has their own inquisitions towards those that question the results. She describe how the funding mechanisms keeps perpetuating failed ideas even when decades of work shows no results – or even shows clear negative results.
As stated before public policy and social policy is NOT science. Policy should be BASED on science, but equating the two is wrong because they fundamentally differ in what they are trying to do. The other problem is that it appears we’re not actually DOING science by demanding high standards of repeatable proof.
Truth is being attacked on 2 fronts. Ironically by the very people claiming to be speaking for truth. It’s creating a crisis of faith in science as well as contributing to our increasingly divisive political climate that acts more like cults than democracy.