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Another week, another reflection.

I do a lot of hiking and climbing. I’ve been fortunate enough to summit some of the tallest peaks here in the Pacific Northwest. As a member of Mazamas, I took the intensive 8 week Basic Climbing Education Program (BCEP) to learn how to climb and survive in very unforgiving situations. It occurs to me that much of the safety and survival training I got there applies equally to the lessons I learned during my seminary days.

One of the things you learn about in almost every hiking/climbing/nature course is what to do if you get lost or in trouble. How does this relate to the spiritual life? Well – in almost all ways as it turns out.

Stop:

The first thing a lost hiker/climber is told to do when they recognize they are lost is to stop moving. One of the biggest problems novice hikers get into when they get lost is to just keep forging ahead – becoming exhausted and, almost always, more lost in the process. Search parties start from your last known location and work outwards. So, unless you are moving exactly back into the direction you came from, you are actually moving away from your last known locations. Every step means you’re likely moving further away from rescue. Even worse, you may end up in an area where they already searched and now help almost certainly won’t find you. Unconsciously we are usually acting out of the growing fear we feel – which stops us from thinking and puts us into fight, flee, or flight mode.

Similarly in our daily lives, we are often overwhelmed by the cares of the day. We get so busy that days turn into weeks and we often lose track of ourselves and where we are going. For many, this becomes a chronic case until one day we wake up and realize we’ve lost our way or realize we’ve lost our connection with God. All too often we find ourselves on autopilot. Just like hikers, we often just forge ahead anyway. We are often tempted to just keep on going in the direction we have been going in life and ‘figure it out later/as we go along’. This almost never works. Sometimes we start frantically doing things in attempt to find connection – but most of this activity is just to cover up our growing sense of being more and more lost, alone, and disconnected.

Instead, we must stop. Stop moving and be still. God is everywhere so it is not that we are lost from him – but he has been lost by US. That is why searching around in the flotsam and madness of daily life for him is almost always fruitless. We must stop running from the search party thinking we know the way to go and let him find us. We do that when we enter into prayer – especially silent prayer. Every day. This isn’t always easy and sometimes it takes a long time before you reconnect with God – just like it might take a lot of time for a search party to find you. But you must stay put lest you almost certainly make the situation worse.

One great way to do this is to take a little time in prayer and review how our day went, usually before bedtime. In the Liturgy of the Hours, this is built into Night Prayer. Night prayer is the last prayer ‘hour’ of the day. We stop and reflect on our day. We give thanks for the graces and gifts of the day, and ask forgiveness for our failings of commission or omission. There we pray and are found and reconnect with God.

Think:

After the lost hiker finally stops, they must mentally acknowledge they are lost and size up our situation. It’s amazing how hard it is to admit we got lost. We often feel a lot of emotions such as fear, embarrassment, terror, the realization we might be sleeping outside tonight, or angry that we were so stupid/now going to have to be searched for and worried about by those that love us. We often will feel the pit of our stomach drop out. Trying to avoid those feelings is why many novices just keep moving in hopes of finding a way out. We stop the fight or flight response and re-engage our minds by asking: exactly how lost are we? Did we just misjudged some distance but are on the right path and just need to continue – or are we seriously not where we should be? How much daylight is left, is the weather changing, what resources do they have with them (maps, rain gear, sheltering gear, etc), how is our personal condition (tired, injured, upset, etc)? We stop acting on instinct that tells us to keep running/moving and engage our minds.

The same is true in the spiritual life. We have regular weekly mass to check in. But we should be checking in much more often. Daily, and even hourly. The reason that bells toll from many churches was to mark the hours of prayer. Morning, noon, evening, and night are each marked by a moment to stop and check in with God via prayer. It was to remind us where our true focus should lie. Not in the individual tasks, but on the greater work of the salvation of our souls. We should get into the regular practice of stopping, engaging our minds, and take stock. How is it going? Am I at peace and connected to God? Have I gotten distracted? How distracted – a little – maybe a lot? Have I become seriously lost and now in mortal danger? We must admit the situation to ourselves before we have any hope of making things better. The more we check in, the quicker we can discover if we are getting lost.

Observe:

With a lost hiker, after assessing our situation, we then look around us for help. Is there a mountain peak that I recognize? Is there a road or trail that I can see from where I stand? Does any of this match my map and help me figure out where I am? Do I have a whistle or cel phone that I could use to signal for help? Are there wild animals around that could harm me? Is there a clear spot for me to set up a camp if I must stay put? Am I in a dangerously exposed area and need to find a safer place? Is there water nearby? Can I safely make a fire to signal with? How much energy do I have left? Do I have anything in my pack to help me? We look around us for any and all aids to help us survive.

We can use the same techniques in our daily lives. We then look around at the interior/exterior place we find ourselves. Is there anything I recognize? Have I fallen to an old sin or way of life I have been before? Maybe God has been whispering some change to me but I’ve been ignoring it? Am I in a dark place, surrounded by/under the influence of bad people or bad things? Am I seriously in trouble? Am I suffering from chemical, pornographic, gambling, or other addictions? Are there friends/family that love and care for me that I can ask for assistance? What people/institutions are there that I can approach for help? We observe all the factors in our life from a third person point of view and take stock of our condition and what we have around us. Both what things will be helpful, and which things we need to get away from.

Plan:

The final step for a lost hiker is to make a plan and act on it. Perhaps they used the things they observed and figured out where they are. They may continue in a certain direction for so many minutes until they have confirmation. Perhaps they are too tired or seriously lost and must set up shelter and signals to be found. They make a cool assessment of the situation based on the actual data and then act on it. It might mean they have to weather a cold night, but staying put and setting up camp where they are would increase their likelihood of being found.

Again, no different from our spiritual life. Perhaps we just got distracted and we just need a little more time in daily prayer. Perhaps it’s more serious and we need to consult a trusted friend or priest. If it is gravely serious, we need professional/medical/legal help for our situation along with consultation with a trusted spiritual advisor. It is important to remember that you are not alone. There are countless resources from friends, priests, the local parish, spiritual groups, addiction groups, and countless others. Contacting your local priest/parish is a tremendous resource to get you started since they know most of the organizations in their diocese. Whatever the plan, we then must act on it. It might mean confronting very hard realities, but to not do so means we’ll almost certainly find ourselves in more dire trouble later.

Final thoughts:

The Catholic understanding of our lives is very much spirit and body together, and to find parallels in our physical reality that mirror those in the spiritual reality should not be a surprise. This is one element of why we are so Eucharistically focused. One aspect of being Eucharistically based is we learn we are not just spirit, but spirit and body together.

Christ could have brought salvation from heaven without the mucking about in our humanity. But instead came in human form to redeem us. God does not just do things in a good way, he does them in the PERFECT way. It was only through his physical death that we are saved – and tells us how intimately our bodies and souls are intertwined. At the resurrection, we will rise again – body and soul once more. Their separation in death was never meant to be, but was introduced as punishment because of the fall of Adam and Eve.

This inherent connection of body and spirit means physical ills such as addictions need just as much care/cared for at the same time as our spiritual needs. Without both, the injured soul often falls back into the same sins, or the dark paths our bodies become ensnared in drag our souls along with them. This is why the first hospitals were set up by religious so that in so curing the body, we may cure the soul. We also acknowledge that grave evils such as murder, fornication, and rape tear at the soul as well as the body. As a Eucharistic people, we are to care for the bodily and spiritual needs of our fellow men and women just as Christ came in human form to redeem our bodies and souls as well.

Humility isn’t about doing crazy acts of self-deprecation, self-abuse, having low self-esteem, or believing you are fundamentally bad/terrible/worthless. We often see this hyperbole in movies and TV that features an often unstable person consumed by ‘religion’.  Sometimes read that kind of language from the saints, but they did not believe their soul was actually worthless or they were valueless and unloved. Quite the contrary – they took refuge in knowing that God loved them infinitely. Instead, they meant that when we see ourselves clearly, we recognize just how broken we are. It’s like an athlete that realizes just how often they don’t train with their full effort, or a person on a diet that cheats all too often, or a spouse that realizes they’ve neglected their partner. Except for them and us, it’s the painful realization we so often do not love as we ought. Because of that lack of love, we are robbed of happiness and feel the pain they caused the God they loved so ardently. Some go further and recognized that besides the wrongs we know about, even our best efforts are often tainted with laziness/vanity of how we want others to see us/errors in judgment. In that way, they really just state the basic brokenness that we so often do things we know we shouldn’t. It’s original sin – the state of this broken world that each of us is born into. But none of this is humility.

Humility is about stopping thinking it’s all about us. It’s really about truly being free. In our modern world, we believe freedom is the ability to do whatever thing we want. This idea isn’t true freedom. Instead, when we become free of thinking everything is related/about us and our desires, we become free to have other motives for our actions. This is why many saints lived very ascetic lives. These practices helped them strip away the desires for comfort and ease that make us weak to our desires. This is absolutely no different that Olympic athletes that deny themselves all kinds of things and train 7 days a week/8+ hours a day for years. Many ambitious professionals forgo bar nights, sleeping in, friendships, fun activities, travel, marriage, or many other pleasurable things to reach their professional goals. But just like athletes, we need to look at our ascetic practices carefully. It’s easy to put on great shackles of self-denial – but if they are not producing good fruits – then they are worthless or perhaps even just injure us. As the exercises of a marathoner are tracked to see if they produce better times, our ascetic practices should be tracked/reflected on to see if they are producing greater compassion, forgiveness, love, and the ability to deny our unhelpful desires.

So humility is really a path to freedom. As we grow in the ability to look beyond our desires, it means we can abandon ourselves more and more to do the things that are good. For Christians, it allows us to quietly reflect on and do the will of God – putting ourselves at the service of him and others. Our faith teaches us that by doing this, we learn what true love is. This is what is meant when one says we live the cross. By the painful nails of turning away from our desires, our selfishness and lack of humility are stripped away until we become free of ourselves. We are able to embrace childlike, self-giving love that empties itself for others and make us Christ for the world. Or as St Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) notes when reflecting about the centurion that regarded himself as unworthy to receive the Lord into his house: “Humility was the door through which the Lord entered to take full possession of one whom he already possessed.”

I haven’t written up any reflections for some time – I’m going to try and schedule time each week to do so. Let’s see how it goes.

The idea of faith gets a bad rap. Most movies/tv shows love the tired, hackneyed portrayal that faith is blind obedience. While there is an element of ‘blind’ belief, it should be more like our belief in scientific truths. For example, we might not have personally done all the actual experiments to discover the Ideal Gas Law and the material science behind tire rubber, but we rely on its principles every day when filling our tires with air. Since you haven’t done all the experimentation yourself, you must say you have put your faith that the experiments to prove the principles are sound and tested enough to trust your life on friction-heated, whirring, air-filled rubber balloons propelling you down the road.

This is true of religious faith too. Besides the promises of Christ himself, there is evidence that following his teachings will lead to a better life and society as a whole. We have the examples of many people over the ages. But without having tried it completely, especially at the early parts of our faith life, there is almost certainly an element of blind belief that these teachings are trustworthy and can be relied on. There is also the great ‘stumbling block’ of Christ that the ‘better’ life he promises is one that confounds our normal ideas of what makes a good life. So the reality is that our whole faith lives, each step along the way, involves taking steps in faith. As each step proves itself out we take another and another. This is why the gift of faith is so important. Without it, we cannot move forward.

Just like our tires, faith in the teachings of Christ/religion means you’re willing to put your trust in and actions behind them. If you believe and have faith that your tires are able to withstand 35psi, you fill your tires to this level without hesitation and shoot off down the road.  So too must we with the teachings of Christ if we claim to believe them. I have heard many say they believe in God – but you would never know that based on how they live their lives or that they do so in some vague abstract concept of a ‘God’. Instead, to really believe means we put these teachings into action in our lives and live them. This is what the Gospel of James (James 2:14-26) eludes to when he says faith without works is dead. Faith and belief have an essential element of action. Just like your tires, you ‘bet’ your life on them by putting your trust in them into action. If you truly believe the teachings of Christ are the words of God, then you must put them into action in the same way. Christ teaches us that these matters determine the ultimate eternal fate of our soul, so to not follow them demonstrates you do not believe that to be true.

So what about ‘blind’ faith? Most of us remember the first scary attempts at driving. Faith does not mean we might not have questions or hesitations. It doesn’t mean that we might not have doubts or wish things were otherwise. Christ himself felt these same things as he faced his own death on the cross – yet he went in faith and became the gateway of salvation for all. How do we work through those fears, doubts, and concerns? A big aid to us is becoming educated academically about the teachings of Christ – just as we might learn the mechanics of how cars work to assuage questions and fears. Learning the history and context of his world (such as how Jewish laws worked, social contexts of feasts, roles of Scribes and Pharisees in society, etc) helps us understand his words and relate them to ourselves today. The writings of the saints and the church help clarify and understand nuances too. The more you learn, the fewer obvious and easily overcome stumbling blocks there are. You move more quickly.

But the journey of faith is more than just a list of shoulds/should-nots. Christ makes it clear that when we get to heaven, there is an element of whether he ‘knows’ us (Luke 13:22-30 and Matthew 7:21-23).  He tells us to strive to enter by the narrow door. For many will try and not be able to, and when they ask the door be opened, Christ will tell them he ‘does not know where we come from’. Even to some of those that did great deeds in his name. This implies a relationship. Christ recognizes his own. He speaks many times of his followers being members of his flock. He knows them and they know him. They know his voice. So how do we ‘know’ Christ and have him ‘know’ us?

I would say there are 2 kinds of ways we follow Christ. There are those moments of following Christ and believe in his words without having had an explosive, eye-openeing moment of ‘personal’ encounter. This is common in children just starting out but for many adults too. We believe what we read and do our best without the need of big, explosive moments of conversion. God’s grace slowly and quietly guides us along the way. The second are those that have had very powerful and personal conversion/encounters with God. They feel his presence very powerfully in their lives – often changing their internal life dramatically in a single event. Most often, each believer experiences BOTH kinds of encounter as time goes on. Either way, as they learn about the words Christ spoke and the way he asks us to live, we learn about Christ himself. You cannot read a book about, or written by, someone without starting to grasp something about the person. So in following the teachings of Christ, which are often very contradictory to what the world teaches (the greatest must become the least servant of all), we learn about God and the kingdom each time we listen and follow.  We also have a profound encounter at mass when Christ is made physically present in the Eucharist. We bring all the work and struggles of holiness we had along with all the works of the community of faith together and offer them with the sacrifice of Christ to the Father. It’s a profound moment of connection with each other, the Holy Spirit, Christ, and the Father. After which, grace and blessing flow outward and we are fed by Christ himself and filled with his gifts to take out into the world anew.

This all speaks not to a list of rules, but to a relationship. We learn and take steps in that relationship. We encounter God in each step – sometimes powerfully – sometimes quietly. In reality, what we are really doing is building a relationship. But in our frail condition, it’s a relationship of steps. Some forwards, some backward, and many that seem sideways. Yet in each one, the relationship of Christ is there so that each step happens with him – if we are open to it and pray to be united with it. Many religious and priests start with a prayer of uniting their efforts with Christ and ask to be a channel of his love before each person they meet.

So today, faith is having the courage to believe and follow what the gospels tell us and what the Church teaches us. That just like truths we believe were proven with science, we believe the truths taught by Christ come from a trustworthy source. Ah – but believe in the teachings of the Church as well? We believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church (which are never contradictory with scripture) because Christ himself said that the apostles and their successors were given the ‘keys to the kingdom’ and the authority to hold bound and make loosed (Matthew 16:13-20). In our current climate, especially in the west, we have the notion of a ‘cafeteria Christians’ who pick and choose what they want to believe in. This is not what Christ intended since he prayed that we all might be one (John 12:21) as he and the Father are one. To pick and choose as is ‘popular’ makes God a liar because you are literally saying that the other parts are lies, wrong, or false. Things we may have to stand before the throne for and explain.

But for the Catholic Church, Christ make the Church his bride, and will honor his promise of holding bound and loose of its rulings. It takes courage. It takes an element of belief. It takes faith to trust in those challenging parts – especially in teachings about marriage, sexuality, money, and so forth. As someone that has traveled on the road of faith for many years, I can say that I have struggled with many of the teachings, but never have I regretted each time I’ve followed a teaching in faith. Even when it was challenging and I personally did not agree, it has always taught me some powerful truth. Sometimes they mean a lot more work for me, but it often showed me an aspect of living justly and fairly with everyone that I didn’t see before.

One of the big lessons I have learned is that the reward of living a holy life – life in accordance with the teachings of Christ and the Church – is peace. Often it is an internal peace – since peace with others/the world is almost never possible. This is a big stumbling block – because peace is often very unsexy. It sometimes means we take the less attractive road/career path/relationship. We want the big, nice things in life. We want the perfect family/spouse/house/image. Sometimes doing what is right makes us lose friends, turn down career paths that might have paid big money at the cost of our souls, or choosing to live more frugally so that others might simply live. It usually means to stop following our own agendas. It ultimately means this life isn’t about me – but how following the teachings of Christ in self-sacrificial love for others is how to find true happiness. This is not something that is easy or done overnight.

There is a joke about a woman that prays for patience. After she does so, she goes out to find her car won’t start and must spend tons of time getting to a shop, calling friends for a ride, and re-arranging her day. After she gets to work, she finds that a critical delivery has failed and they must spend all day working on a new strategy. Arriving home exhausted, she finds her son in need of assistance with his homework. This prevents her from getting a few other chores around the house done. When her head finally hits the pillow – she then realizes that she spent the whole day learning about patience. Just in all the ways she never expected. The answers to our prayers are often found, and delivered, in their opposites.

So, if I could encourage you to an act of faith today, I would say this: Look at the teachings of Christ or the Catholic Church and pick one you do not agree with. Try living as if it were true. Take a step of faith – and pray for the gift to do so. If you are in a relationship having sex outside of marriage – stop having sex and see how it changes the relationship. If you do not tithe, try giving away 10% of your income. If you are in a marriage and using contraception – stop and use an approved method. If you believe in abortion – how would you act differently if it is as wrong as we teach it? See what it teaches you. Do not be so arrogant as to assume you know better than the countless centuries of wisdom and writings of very holy people or the words of Christ himself. I bet, as I have, you will be richly rewarded by trying this. Pray for the gift of faith to try.

“Gratitude is what transforms what we have to enough.”

Great article on the something they are calling ‘Scientism’.

Pythagorean would often invoke the great master Aristotle in order to end a debate. Today we call this logical fallacy the “appeal to authority,” yet we continue to indulge it. Only now, our master is science or, more often, what appears to be science.

The rise of modern science in the seventeenth century was driven by testing and rejecting such appeals to authority. Whether scripture, tradition, or Aristotle, authority could not be allowed to substitute for logic and evidence.  Yet the provisional conclusions of research frequently are announced as definitive before the scientific community has adequately vetted them. But the prestige of science and its scholarly institutions can often obscure just how tentative the claims of much research are. The anti-vaccination movement is an example of the dangers caused by bad or fraudulent scientific research.

Read more here.

Article here

Despite all our efforts, each of us experiences difficult and tragic moments in life. We will all experience the death of loved ones or life altering illnesses or accidents to ourselves or others. Modern society has relegated death largely to hospitals (instead of the home where 90% of deaths occurred even as recently as 100 years ago) and the dissolution of nuclear family support systems have left many of us poorly equipped to emotionally deal with these events. Yet, I think most of us know of a relative, friend, religious leader who seems to know what to say and is a gentle pillar in our times of need. They make the journey through these dark valleys much easier in a way that seems almost natural. The truth is that this isn’t something that comes naturally to most. Instead, it is sometimes called learning how to ‘holding space’ or ‘holding sacred space’ for someone.

Holding space means that we are willing to walk with another person in whatever journey they’re on without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them, or trying to impact the outcome. When we hold space for other people, we open our hearts, offer unconditional support, and let go of judgement and control. It creates an environment where people can feel what they need to feel with someone they trust and in doing so, learn how to listen to and trust themselves and their abilities to do the right things. This space allows them to acknowledge and process the often dramatic, illogical, and out of control feelings and thoughts that are common during these moments instead of burying or having them judged and discounted. In my experience, it’s how we become conduits of Christ for others.

Anyway, here’s the 8 points that this article covers about how to hold space for others. I recommend it as a read.

1. Give people permission to trust their own intuition and wisdom.

2. Give people only as much information as they can handle.

3. Don’t take their power away.

4. Keep your own ego out of it.

5. Make them feel safe enough to fail.

6. Give guidance and help with humility and thoughtfulness.

7. Create a container for complex emotions, fear, trauma, etc.

8. Allow them to make different decisions and to have different experiences than you would.