Coming Clean

My week

…has been long…

Without going into a whole lot of details about ALL that has happened, I’ll hit my highlights.

I traveled to Fort Worth on Wednesday and returned Friday night.

While there, I watched a HBO (or some such cable channel) documentary on the Beslan school hostage situation in Russia. The only people that talk are the children that survived. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’ll mess you up. As I watched it, there was a rage inside me against those who would cause such things as well as a desperate desire to reach through and wipe away those children’s tears, those awful memories and give them comfort, if I could.

I also had the opportunity to share my Catholic faith twice. It was interesting on both counts because I really wasn’t looking to do so … yet an opportunity was given in each to see how open I was willing to be about who I am, what I believe. In other words, I really didn’t instigate these conversations, they just happened. I don’t know if (and actually probably doubt that) what I said made much of a difference.

The first time was funny though because I was just wanting to talk with this guy to pass the time as it was only the two of us waiting to get where we were going on a bus. He turned it to religion. He turned it to my faith. He asked me how I reconciled with the Catholic Church’s works based salvation. Each time, I did try to trump him slightly from going where I figured he didn’t want to go (usually by using big words (Arminian/Reformed) and evoking the Patristics and councils (teachings concerning Eucharist, Hippo, Trent, and Vatican 2 (though that one not by name))), but he pushed back each time. I spent most of the time talking about my faith; he just asked questions.

When he left, he says, “Here’s my card for work and my church. I’m a pastor at a Reformed Baptist church.”

Figures. Here I just spent the last 10 minutes talking about Reformed theology vs Catholic theology as I see it and a lack of consistency on the part of the Reformed and the integrity, even in admitting and owning mistakes, by the Catholic Church (remember, the conversation – as he steered it – was about why I chose Catholicism … and in light of the “problems” that he perceived). If I had to guess, I would guess that whole experience did not go anywhere close to how he planned. Hopefully he learned something. Hopefully I did right. Otherwise, I don’t know what to take away from that experience.

On the way home, a bunch a fire fighters destined for Louisiana and Mississippi sat behind me. God bless them, keep them safe, grant them strength, and bring them home.