Coming Clean

The toughest decision for someone raised in a very Protestant family in a very Protestant part of the world is not abandoning the faith but to consider conversion to Catholicism.

To illustrate, consider the following – the first conversation I had with my dad about Catholicism:
“Dad, what if I were to tell you I was thinking about converting to Catholicism?”
…silence…
And then he said, “I would tell you I raised you better than that.”

And that’s about as deep as I’ve ever had an opportunity to really dialogue with my family about it.

Friends weren’t much better. Some just stopped talking to me. Others just don’t like talking about it and so don’t. Which is a pity because if I ever needed a friend to help show me “the error of my ways,” it would have been then. But no friends were to be found.

Except those that were Catholic. Those that were excited, inspired, and encouraged by my conversion. To tell you the truth, I really didn’t need their sympathies/empathies – though they did lighten the burden some. What I needed most were the folks I was leaving behind, but they never came.

Of course, by that time, too, I had burned a lot of my Protestant bridges and many of my friends knew it. I had essentially renounced sola fide (as Protestants understand it anyways). My research into and conversion to the Eucharist pretty much had killed off any sense of sola scriptura. So perhaps by that time, people had already given me up as a lost cause. I hope not, but I really don’t know either way due to the silence.

My family did make the biggest noise about it all… not so much on theological grounds – how could they, they don’t know and don’t want to know anything of substance about Catholicism – but on familial grounds. And it’s still a very bitter pill to this day. For example, I had to tell them that as part of my conversion I should no longer accept communion in a Protestant church, and my family should not accept communion in the Catholic Church. The reasoning is simple: why partake in something you don’t believe. I think I can make an argument by familial bonds in the case of me taking in the Protestant church, but the reverse does not hold for my family.

So I was only left with my conscience, and I got on the road to conversion with my conscience made confident by faith in Jesus. A journey of 3 years it took me to beat a path to the Emmaus that is Rome: half a year of researching the patristics, Catholicism, and Protestantism individually, and two and a half years of religious formation in the catechumenate and continued research.

I entered the Church on Easter Vigil night 2001. I have attended no other celebration that rivals the Catholic Easter Vigil. It is glorious in every sense of the word. On my night, I was Baptized (because I had never received Baptism) and Confirmed and at long last I partook in the real Flesh and the real Blood of Jesus the Christ in my first Communion.

I got to thinking today about how everything we do is driven by a kind of hunger. We may call it different things: desire, drive, ambition, sympathy, motivation… I don’t care what you call it, but that impetus to “do” is hunger – an animal-like impulse that needs to be fed.

Our animal needs are the most obvious of these hungers: eating, drinking, and even bowel movements! We are moved to do something to satisfy the hungers. The thought that the desire for bowel movements are hunger amuses me greatly.

Anyways… as a person, my biggest hunger is to solve problems. I love it. Put a problem in front of me, and I’ll tinker with it until (1)I’m certain I cannot solve it given who I am or (2)I solve it. It’s what makes me a good software engineer. It’s what makes me a decent, albeit amateur, theologian.

When we consider the religions of the world, all the problems they recognize stem from hunger. The hungry poor, the homeless, the sick, the ignorant – they’re people whose very existence are identified with hungers that need feeding. In the Bible, Adam’s sin was a hunger for the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but that he had a hunger at all suggests to me that he had other hungers, too – healthy ones that he healthily partook. But Jesus had a craving only to be obedient to God – a hunger that we know but, thanks to Adam, do not understand and so doomed corruption.

And the point of all this? Heaven. Where all our sorrows and needs will be wiped away – where hunger is only that thing which is getting fed and no longer something I move to feed. I don’t get that. We are by design hungry. Adam was created to hunger, to feed, and for a time be satisfied until hunger returned again. Jesus, too, hungered. He exhibited all the same animal hungers we have, and I imagine He had hungers of curiosities of His own. So why do I get the impression that most people think that when we get to heaven, we’re not going to experience hunger in some manner? The simplest and most common picture of heaven we get from the Christian-on-the-street is a mass of people sitting around the Camp-Fire that is God singing Kum-bay-ya – no cares, no worries, just a big party around God with nothing else on our minds let alone hungers.

If that’s the way it’s going to be, I suppose I’ll find that it feeds me… but it seems so antithetical to everything else so far – antithetical even to Adam prior to the Fall. I think that’s why I like Tolkien and Lewis so much: there are other Creations waiting to happen. Perhaps another war to be waged. Perhaps something even better than or just different from us!! I don’t know… but when I listen to the common Christian talk about heaven, I tend to get depressed. They talk about being somewhere else, apart from the good things we see and know here. It makes me lonely for here.

But I’ve never met a person who did not get wholly excited and awe-struck by the worlds and heavens of the likenesses in the minds and writings of Lewis and Tolkien. That’s the kind of place I think I’d like heaven to be. I’m sure whatever God has in mind will be great… but until I see it, I’ll just be left to wondering… secretly hoping for the Next Thing with More To Follow instead of The End… and getting depressed when I talk to the common Christian about heaven.

I am a thief, I am a murderer
Walking up this lonely hill
What have I done? I don’t remember
No one knows just how I feel
and I know that my time is coming soon.
It’s been so long. Oh, such a long time
Since I’ve lived with peace and rest
Now I am here, my destination
guess things work for the best
and I know that my time is coming soon
Who is this man? This man beside me
They call the King of the Jews
They don’t believe that He’s the Messiah
But, somehow I know it’s true.
And they laugh at Him in mockery,
and beat Him till he bleeds
They nail Him to the rugged cross,
and raise Him, they raise Him up next to me
My time has come, I’m slowly fading
I deserve what I receive
Jesus when You are in Your kingdom
Could You please remember me
and He looks at me still holding on
the tears fall from His eyes
He says I tell the truth
Today, you will live with Me in paradise
and I know that my time is coming soon
and I know paradise is coming soon.
by Third Day

Man… it has been one busy Holy Week… and it’s almost over and I feel like I haven’t put in or got out what I need. :sigh:

I’ve been trying so hard to get the time to do the next TRIT post: Crossroads. But… yeah… time… anyone got any spare time I can eat up when I’m out of work and have the kids put to bed?

But I’m being selfish – wanting more for me on top of everything else I have.

So today is Holy Thursday – the celebration of the institution of the Eucharist. The Masses held by the Orthodox/Catholic are particularly jubilant and solemn: jubilant in that it is the birthday of the greatest gift that the believer and Church community actively partkes; solemn in that this is the day before Jesus offers Himself up as our final sacrifice.

So solemn is this occasion that enough Eucharist is consecrated to be served the next two days because Eucharist is not consecrated on those days: a reflection upon the time in which the world did not know Jesus and thought Him dead forever. The service, which so vibrantly celebrates the washing of the feet and the Eucharist, ends in darkness, with the alter and sanctuary stripped, the baptismal fonts empty, and a silent exit by the faithful.

On Good Friday, a communion service is held. The Eucharist that is served is extra that had been consecrated the day before and hidden away. The passion is read. Typically there is a veneration of the cross. And, even with songs, it is still so quiet and sad. Overall, perhaps the most solemn services ever held.

But on late Saturday evening, the best celebration the world knows is held. And that one, I’ll save for later… but I wanted to relate a little bit of what is going on in churches around the world and the stuff I’m thinking about.

When I was a child, not too much older than my oldest son is now, I would play in the backyard. Seeing it today, it does not look half the size it was to me then. It’s perhaps 20 yards deep and 30 yards wide, surrounded by a chain link fence. There was a lone clothes-line pole that I would play on for hours: climbing it, circling around it, and – best of all – after a good rain, jiggling it and listening to the mud.

It was here that I have ever truly been haunted. I remember it vividly.

It was the summer time, and the plants were all in bloom. It was during that part of evening where the sun has passed below the tree line, making the trees silhouettes, and lighting the sky gold. I was standing in the back-left corner, next to Dad’s garden, eating the honeysuckles that grew up along the fence. I can remember the aroma of green garden plants and especially honey-suckle surrounding and embracing me. I can remember the warmth of the evening around me like the warmth of a morning’s bed.

And then I heard someone speak my name: “Spencer”.

It was a woman’s voice: one I did not know: rich and golden like the evening, and she spoke it as though to say hello to a dear friend or her own child.

I turned around looking for her, but I was alone in the backyard.

And, again, she greeted me: “Spencer”.

My heart began to race, and I turned back to the setting horizon, peering through the honeysuckles, looking for she who knew my name.

A third time she spoke my name: “Spencer”.

Fright overcame me for I did not understand what was transpiring, and I ran back to the house and inside.

Later, I related to my father what had happened with a bit of a guilty heart, and he chuckled saying it was not unheard of to hear someone call you in the silence of solitude – that it was nothing but in your head.

I have sought the silence of solitude many times since then, never to have her call me again.
And I am disappointed: I have ever since wanted to answer and see what happens next.

Roger replied to a comment I made on his blog yesterday that (1) people looking for cowards are looking to beat someone up and (2) mean people suck.

It’s true. My very experience testifies to it.

At the time, when I created this moniker (originally AnonymousCowared but now AnotherCoward), I thought it was just kinda funny in a geeky, not-so-clever kind of way. Yet, every now and then, it gets thrown back in my face. As though, I really am a coward.

Well, to be fair, there is a certain element of truth to it… I have yet to be wholly honest about myself, but I think I’m making good strides to do so. But, truth be told, those who make the point to call me out as coward are exactly those who I’m trying to hide from: those who don’t care one way or the other about who I am – they’re just looking for my label. Coward fits for them right now because they know there is something else I’m hiding.

And so, the label coward becomes more goading than anything else. “Be honest so I can REALLY be horrendous to you.” That’s pretty much when I decide to leave the conversation if direction doesn’t change shortly thereafter. It’s not worth it to carry on. Their opinions aren’t worth it. What they’re trying to be is little fact machines that spill all the points out in front of you, overwhelm your ability to address the issues, and, especially, keep from personal dialogue. I know. This use to be me.

That is the very definition of meanness – lack of personal relationship, dehumanizing. They don’t want to know you. They just want to know to what extent you conform to the label they approve of. It’s the kind of crap we tried to kill after the Civil War, the World Wars, in former Yugoslavia, and in Africa. People are people. People don’t conform to labels. Oh, sure, they may be able to talk like a label… but I mean, I can talk like a label. Labels are crap when having a relationship and dialoguing with people. Sure, there are ideas that we capture about people – but those ideas, those labels, are many, particular, and hardly over-broad as we got to know someone.

So, what’s the point of talking if you’re not going to bother getting to know someone? Meanness. What’s the point in holding stuff back from people – lack of trust and probably more cowardice than I care to admit. But I don’t like being a coward. It’s why I’ve got this blog. But mean people… they like being mean. I did anyways.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen…
– St. Paul, Letter to the Romans, Chapter 9, verse 3

I think in order to make this statement, you would need to have a real zeal and love for your people; a deep devotion that compares to what most people experience only in family. I doubt Paul says anything lightly, and so I think this is perhaps a keen insight into the loving man that is Paul. Not a devotion to theology, but a devotion to his people and his God.

I am deeply committed to my family — not just the one I rear and provide for, but also for the family that reared and provided for me. Their mere being provides for me; their fellowship fills me up; their love inspires me. I am driven to demonstrate how great my family is in what I do – not to earn my place, for that has already been provided, but out of faithfulness, obedience, and love.

And in this way, I find myself before God – my Father through Jesus. How can I be faithful with idle hands – or worse hands that know no obedience? Just as with love, faithfulness is not idle – it is active. And so, my works – my obedience – are needed for my faith. Not to earn my place before God – that has been provided to me by faith – but to demonstrate that I have a place before God, that my faith is real. We know God is faithful to His people by the great things He does for us. Why would the reverse not be true?

I could be wrong, but I think Paul feels the same way.

There is a concept floated within Protestant-dom that the Bible speaks for itself. That the Bible presupposes things for us.

I disagree.

The Bible does not speak for itself. Nor does it presuppose for me.

What it does is speak of the body of believers that came before me. It speaks of the presupposition of the body of believers that came before.

Now, you may think that’s splitting hairs… but this is very big hair.

The problem with the Bible being the end-all be-all for Christian faith is that it does not properly and wholly communicate the faith of those who brought it to you. God has chosen to bring salvation to His people through His people – not through the Bible. (don’t rail against this point, read on)

The Scriptures are a product of that. God revealing His Truth to His people, and some of them recording some of that for the posterity of the faith.

Can we be certain then that Scripture communicates the fullness of that faith? By mere misunderstanding of scriptural context, I daresay no… but I also think there is more to the faith than just misunderstanding context. Regardless, that there is something “extra-Biblical”, whether it be history or philosophy or sociology or whatever, that exists for the purpose of explaining Scripture suggests that the Bible is not the ultimate authority but rather a treasure trove that is dependent on maintaining the fullness of faith. This is known as the dreaded T-word. Though Protestant scholars do not use the term, that is exactly what they do in researching and understanding Scripture – it is what their students are doing right now. Studying Tradition to further understand Scripture.

Being that as it is, I cannot believe in an interpretation akin to Reformed Theology because it exists deliberately and purposefully to not accept wholly the Tradition of faith. It picks and chooses among the forefathers to recognize, and among those, it picks and chooses among their beliefs what it wants to believe. And all of that to serve its presuppositions.

So… lets bring this home now. It was asked of me if I believe in the true, inerrant nature of the Bible. No. I believe in the true, inerrant nature of the fullness of faith – of Tradition. The Bible is a part of that – the most prominent part for the past centuries. But it cannot be understood in a vacuum. And, so, I look to understand it in the fullness of faith. And in that, Reformed Theology dies a quick death and blossoms into something better.

This post is a reflection on the seeming fork in the Road at Emmaus:
One road leads down a path where the Eucharist is merely a sign, though very significant, of Jesus’s Sacrifice and a remembrance of Him.
The other road leads down a path where partaking in the Eucharist is partaking in the very Body of Jesus Himself.

So these were the quotes that pretty much broke me. Never mind everyone else who came after them affirming this position as well. These guys were forming the early church, and there is no question of their faith in Jesus physically present in the Eucharist. All the Protestant arguments about the Eucharist being just “a symbol” could not convince me otherwise: the early fathers say so… how could they get this wrong? To get it wrong is to perpetuate the worst form of idolatry known to mankind let alone Christianity. So, I cannot believe that this teaching is just a simple (or even grevious) error in understanding or judgement by our forefathers: they believed it deliberately, as they were taught, and professed it in faith. Just as I was receiving this teaching from them, they had received it from the Apostles (Ignatius particularly studied under John according to his own letters).

To really get at the heart of the matter, you have to start asking: what, then, is the purpose of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist? What about this tradition makes it so important that I, a Protestant, cannot partake of it? Why would my Protestant forefathers reject it?

Well, the best that I could ever establish to the last question was that the Real Presence just makes no sense: it violates human sense and human reason. Why would God put such a stumbling block up? To that I can only say this: if reason is what keeps you from believing, then are your objections truly grounded in faith and belief? Or is it not that you are objecting to something that deliberately transcends reason and sense and thus requires a true, unreasonable, yet harmless belief?

The last part of that question leads into the purpose and role of the Real Presence in the Eucharist: what is the point? To paraphrase any number of Protestant friends I know on their take on this: sure, believe in the Eucharist and all that other fantastic fancy-shmancy stuff. It’s not like it does you any good even if it were true.

But doesn’t it?!?! I mean, c’mon people, we’re talking about JESUS. This same Lord – that is our means and hopes for Salvation – has, is, and ever will be made present every day around the world in the Eucharist. Is it wise of us to dismiss out of hand this belief as being of no benefit? I cannot see how!!

And so, we’re left to consider of what benefit is the Eucharist: is it more than some highfalutin idea that makes us feel good about our Savior being among us?

And I daresay, yes, even from my own casual meditation on the Eucharist before I began really studying what it is that it means. These are some of the things I have found to be of benefit:

• The Cool Factor: C’mon, it’s just cool. You want a relationship with Christ? You’ve got one. One that you can see. One that you can touch. One that you can devour. One that very personally partakes in the sacrifice that Jesus made for us back in the day, today. In short, it draws us closer to Christ and, in some sense, makes our relationship closer and more personal.
• The Body of Christ: In partaking in the Eucharist, we become what we eat, not just individually but also corporately. There has always been a mystery in my mind what the universal Church is: how it is revealed by the Church to the Church for the Church. It is in this, the partaking of Christ’s own Body that we all have that very real and visible uniting bond. The reality of the One Body in Christ we all wonder about time to time, the Eucharist makes real and serves also as a symbol of that reality.
• The Passover Meal: The Jews in the Passover Meal partake in the flesh and blood of their most perfect lamb. God’s wrath passes over them because this mark of faithfulness is upon them. The Eucharist not only symbolizes this same event to us today, it makes it real for us today and perfects the covenant and the sign of that covenant that God instituted with God’s people then in Egypt.

And from there we return to what the Early Father’s taught. My above sentiments are pretty much in line with them. Augustine especially was all into how the Eucharist brings the Church together into the Mystical Body. It unites us with the poor considering that Jesus, at the time of His Sacrifice, was the poorest among men (John Chrysostom). In drawing us closer to Christ, it helps prepare us with our struggle against sin.

Looking back over this post, I’ve probably done more to reflect on what I stuck with than with the real struggle I went through… but the struggle wasn’t so much in the learning and the debate. I mean, really, there is no debate in light of history: the early Church wins hands down every time. The struggle was with overcoming my preconceptions of what the Eucharist is, faithfully learning the faith of the early Church, and trying to reconcile myself with my faith being at odds with the early Church. In the end, I did not have to so much abandon my faith as much as I had to add to it… but there are some core things that, flowing out of studying the early Church, I had to change.

And the Eucharist is where it all started, and I don’t find that insignificant. It makes sense that all that I believe would change, not over bread and wine, but over Jesus: really, truly present in substance in the Eucharist.

“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16)

“Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor. 11:27, 29)

Yeah, so, I really want to post these things in my head, but I’m too tired to even start at the moment… even with the “easy” stuff. So I’m not going to even try because I’ll just screw it up… but keep an eye out… it’ll being coming along soon.

As a brief update, I spoke with my grandmother tonight about the events of late. I’ve always thought of her as someone with all the answers and the plan of action… but, really, it’s just that she knows what’s what and how we should be behaving. So, it kind of turned into her schooling me on teachings I already hold. The one nice thing to come out of it is that she has agreed to attend church when we can make all the necessary arrangements for care of my grandfather. So that’s very good in my opinion. I just hope that it will encourage others to follow suit.

So here are the planned post titles:
Food for the Road – a reflective TRIT post that considers the seeming fork in the road at Emmaus.
Morality, Part 2 – a consideration of people who act immorally in good conscience.
Morality, Part 3 – a still forming post that’s a consideration of pre-Fall Adam’s behavior, morality, and the effects of the Fall as well as the role of satisfaction and lack thereof.

Any other requests?