SpiritMatters Monthly October 2009

The term “monger” is a wonderful word that has largely fallen out of regular use in modern American English. It means “one who peddles or sells something.” The words “fishmonger” or “cheesemonger” may be somewhat familiar as they are used occasionally to refer to someone who either sells fish or cheese. Then there are terms like “warmonger” which is someone who sells the idea of war. What all mongers have in common is that they have something to sell. Mongers do not exist for the good of society, they exist to profit from selling their goods. This is not always a bad thing, as in the case of fishmongers and cheesemongers and others who sell us the necessities of daily life, but even with such tangible items there has always been the warning of “buyer beware.” Things are not always as they seem. In the middle ages, mongers or peddlers were generally regarded with a great deal of suspicion because they were known to mask the defects in their products in order to make them sell. Even to this day salespeople do not have the best reputation for being trustworthy, but of all the mongers out there selling questionable goods the most prevalent by far these days seems to be the fear monger.

Fear mongering is a very lucrative profession, since it takes very little investment of one’s own resources in order to profit from the fears of others. Fear mongers, like all other mongers, are in business for profit. But unlike other mongers, fear mongers profit by making things look worse than they really are. Preachers and politicians have long had the reputation of selling fear, but they certainly aren’t the only ones. Do this and all your worst fears will come true, or don’t do this and all your worst fears will come true; either way the fear monger uses fear to get what he or she wants. We have had a heavy dose of fear mongering in our country lately; some of it has been around the issue of healthcare reform; some of it has been around the issue of racism. The dynamics are much the same: convince people that they should be afraid of something or someone and you can get them to do almost anything. People who use fear to get what they want live in a perpetual Halloween: always trying to make things that aren’t all that scary, look terrifying.

What separates Halloween revelry from fear mongering though, is that we know Halloween is a joke. Fear mongers would have us believe that the creatures in our homes and streets on October the 31st are actually ghouls and goblins; they would have us see the mask and not the child beneath it. Fear mongers are there to sell us the idea that the boogey man is real and lurking around the corner. These peddlers of paranoia want us to believe that they are the only ones who can keep us safe and therefore we should entrust all our faith (not to mention our resources) to them.

The simplest way to fight fear mongers is to remember that they, like all mongers, are there to sell us something. They operate on the same principle of supply and demand as any other vendor. How do you put someone out of business? Don’t buy their goods. Ideas, like any other product, deserve a good inspection before they are purchased outright. Check to see if this fear is a legitimate concern, or just a mask on an innocent child. Invest your faith and your resources in something greater than fear and hope that maybe, just maybe, if we stop buying fear then the mongers will stop selling it.

Blessings,

Fr. Kevin+

SpiritMatters Monthly September 2009

Ba De Ya - Dancing in September...

September has never been my favorite month. As a child September always meant an end to summer vacation and a return to school work. Growing up in Florida, the most exciting thing about this time of the year was that it was the height of hurricane season, and that at least, offered the potential for some excitement. Perhaps it is no coincidence that September begins with Labor Day, because this month more than any other, seems to be about work. On Labor Day, we celebrate people who work. Students begin their fall courses working towards getting their diplomas or degrees, so that they may eventually get a job and work in their chosen field. Others return from their summer vacations, prepared to work through another fall, winter and spring.

September falls in the middle of what the Church calls “ordinary time,” which is to say that it is not one of the special seasons like Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent or Easter. Ordinary time is, well, ordinary. Most of our lives are spent in ordinary time, just as most of our lives are spent doing work, so unless we want our lives to be boring and our work to be drudgery, then we had best learn how to make the routine and daily necessities of our existence meaningful.

One of the most popular movies of this summer has been the film “Julie and Julia,” about two women whose lives are enriched and made more meaningful by the most mundane daily activity: cooking. At a time when the media was trying to convince people that cooking was a chore to be avoided, Julia Child entered the scene to show how much pleasure could be had in this necessary daily activity. What for so many people had been just meaningless work, became for Julia a life-giving vocation, and through her a vocation for many others.

How do you view the ordinary time in your life? Is it about dull, meaningless work or is it about a life-giving vocation? What Julia taught so many is that finding joy in everyday activities is less about what you do, and more about how you do it. Life is meant to be meaningful everyday, not just on special occasions.

For many people Labor Day will be a day of barbecues and parties and outings to celebrate a long weekend and the symbolic end of summer, but may we also remember that this holiday was founded to celebrate people who work and the work that they do. September might not be as exciting as some of the other months of the year, but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful; perhaps being a bit more routine should make September more meaningful than other months. After all, which relationships generally mean more to us: the ones that come and go in a flash or the ones that are there day in and day out? May we see the ordinary times in our lives not as dull and boring, but as life-giving. And may our work be like our food: a necessity that gives us strength and pleasure at the same time.

Bon Appétit,

Fr. Kevin +

SpiritMatters Monthly August 2009

Tell me your story...

I am willing to bet that most people at some point in their lives have had a “religious” experience. Whether it was a very strange coincidence, a vision, a revelation, a premonition or some other mysterious occurrence, most of us can identify an event or experience that has defied rational explanation. What is truly fascinating to me is not that people have these experiences, but how reluctant they usually are to talk about them. Even the clergy and religious, those whom we might expect to be the most open and understanding of mystical experiences, often prove to be very tight-lipped about experiences that do not fit or may challenge the prevailing religious attitudes at the time. We all want to be considered reasonable, rational people, so when we have experiences that challenge our view of the world, we are likely to suppress them or keep them to ourselves, rather than talk about them and risk being labeled an eccentric or a fanatic.

We often define religious communities as groups of people that share a common belief. Long before the term “catholic” was used to describe Christians of a particular denomination, it was used to refer to those Christians which upheld the general or universal beliefs of the entire church. What the church, and other religious communities, often forget though, is that those things which are now considered universal beliefs, often began as someone’s individual experience. A good example of this phenomenon is the Feast of the Transfiguration, celebrated by Christians in the catholic tradition on August 6th. The story is told that Peter, James, and John followed Jesus to the top of a mountain, where his image was mysteriously transformed and Moses and Elijah suddenly appeared at his side. Since 1456, the Transfiguration has been celebrated as a major feast of the church; parishes have been named after this event and it has been depicted in countless works of art. The story has been retold so often that it has become a part of the common belief of many Christians. But what we often forget is that this story which is now a part of the common belief of many, actually began as the private experience of a very few. Only three individuals actually experienced the Transfiguration, and yet now it is a celebrated feast of the entire catholic tradition.

The Transfiguration is just one of the many examples I could give of the experiences of a few becoming the beliefs of the many. I don’t think that this phenomenon is peculiar to the Christian religion, but rather a tendency of most religions although we may frequently overlook it. How might our lives change if we lived constantly aware that we owe our most cherished beliefs to the experiences of others? How might we value our own experiences if we realized how meaningful they might be to someone else? What would happen if we combed through our religions and got rid of every story or every belief that wasn’t accepted by everyone else? What would we be left with? Not much I would venture to say. Our lives and our faiths are made richer by the stories of others. The Transfiguration is a pretty weird story, but if I am honest, probably not that much weirder than some things I have experienced in my life. Part of why I love my job is that it affords me the opportunity to listen to the religious stories of others and that has enriched my life immeasurably. What’s your story?

SpiritMatters Monthly July 2009

No one can hurt you now
Because you know what’s true
Yes I believe in me
So you believe in you

It’s funny how rumors get started. Sometimes they are the result of innocent mistakes; sometimes they are the result of nosey speculation; sometimes they are out and out sinister and meant to do harm. Rumors are always the result of us trying to know more than what we have been told. Rumors could in fact be labeled “things we don’t know.” If you have ever had one told about you then you might realize just how damaging they can be and the damage can be almost impossible to repair, even if the rumors are eventually proved to be untrue. The recent death of Michael Jackson has drawn much public attention to the effect that rumors and rumor telling can have on one’s life and career. The more famous a person is, or the more eccentric they are, the more likely we are to believe just about anything someone says about them, especially if the person saying it claims to speak from a position of authority (e.g., a reporter, a religious leader, or a “personal acquaintance”). This isn’t a new phenomenon at all, but is actually as old as humanity. Much has been written in recent years about the Church’s so-called suppression of the Gnostic Gospels (several different collections of sayings or stories attributed to Jesus of Nazareth that were shared by certain communities after his death), but what the early church leaders were trying to do by developing a list of accepted scriptures and creating a creed of basic beliefs, was to limit what was being said about Jesus to those things which they felt they could reasonably assert to be true. In essence, what the early church tried to do was exert a bit of rumor control, albeit in an imperfect and sometimes heavy-handed manner. Humans are curious creatures though, and we love to speculate about things we don’t know and religious leaders have proved to be no exception to this rule.

Sometime in the late 4th century, Pope Gregory I gave a sermon in which he linked two female characters from scripture: Mary Magdalene, and another woman typically described as a “sinner” or an “adulteress.” It didn’t matter that there was no link in the scriptures between these two characters, nor did it matter that the Pope was only presenting this as an opinion of his own and not a tenent of the faith; the die was cast, the rumor had begun, and for over 1400 years Mary Magdalene would be thought of in the Western Church as a prostitute. But even
those that have fought to vindicate Mary from the rumor of being a prostitute, haven’t stopped from spreading equally, if not more spurious, rumors about her themselves: everything from being a wealthy patroness, a priest, or even the romantic consort or wife of Jesus. Mary Magdalene has been the subject of so many recently published books, that among the saints she has achieved pop star status herself, and yet so much of what has been written about her is based purely on speculation or rumor. In our age of mass media, where every aspect of everyone’s life seems to be open to public scrutiny, it can become increasingly hard to reconcile ourselves to the fact that some things we will never know. When people’s private lives are treated like public property, we are prone to forget that some things are indeed none of our business. We aren’t meant to know everything about everyone. I am convinced that life is better that way.
It was remarkable for me to watch the response to Michael Jackson’s death. It seems that for a couple of days people were able to push aside all the rumors about his eccentricities and just focus on that which he truly offered us: his music, his dancing and his creativity. What if we did the same for Mary Magdalene? What if we ignored all the salacious rumors and conspiracy theories and focused only on what she gave to us: the first proclamation of the Resurrection. Wouldn’t it be great if instead of making up stories about other people, we could just focus on how other people have contributed to our own story? How wonderful would it be not to be burdened by all the drama in other’s lives, but to feel truly free to live and experience our own lives? Humans, according to the Judeo-Christian Tradition, are made in the image of God. If God still remains a mystery to us, then it should come as no surprise that humans reflect a bit of that mystery as well.

May we all learn to embrace our own mystery.


Blessings,

Fr. Kevin

The sea is his and he made it...

Perched as we are atop Bergen Hill, Christ Hospital has one of the most tremendous views of any hospital in the country. On a clear day we can see almost everything from the Verrazano Bridge up to Midtown Manhattan and beyond. Before our eyes stands one major human accomplishment after another: the Empire State Building, the Holland Tunnel, the Brooklyn Bridge; all of them major engineering triumphs in their day and all of them testaments to our power to overcome obstacles. And yet, just beyond the Verrazano Bridge lies the immense Atlantic Ocean, perhaps as a reminder that no matter what we accomplish as humans, we will always be surrounded by a force much greater than us.

If you ride the Ferris wheel in Coney Island you can look in one direction and see the busy, teeming life of our vast metropolis; in the other direction you see what appears to be a vast nothingness of endless water. The city appears as a beacon of energy and light standing in opposition to the darkness of the great ocean; but of course, we know that this is just how it appears. The truth is that the ocean contains far more energy and life than our city could ever imagine. It’s not a vast nothingness at all, but a vital, life-giving force, without which our lives, as well as all our accomplishments, would be impossible. I think that our relationship with the ocean is perfectly symbolic of our relationship with God: that which on the surface appears to be empty and lifeless, is actually the very source of our lives. And while the ocean can be a source of great joy, especially now that summer is upon us, we also know that it has to be respected. Just as the sea is far more powerful and complex than we could ever imagine, so too is God.

There is an ancient story told about Saint Augustine of Hippo: as Augustine was walking along the beach one day trying to understand the Holy Trinity he saw a little boy running back and forth up and down the beach. The boy was dipping water from the ocean in a seashell and running up the beach to pour it into a hole that he had dug. Augustine asked the little boy what he was doing and he replied: “I am going to pour the whole ocean into this whole!” Augustine laughed and said: “Son, you will never be able to get the entire ocean into that little hole.” Undaunted, the little boy replied: “I have a better chance of getting the ocean into this hole than you do of understanding the Holy Trinity and God” and went right back to filling his hole. Trying to understand God can be a lot like trying to pour the ocean into a little hole: it is an impossible task, but with both God and the ocean, just because we can’t move it or fully comprehend it, doesn’t mean that we can’t appreciate its beauty or respect its power. May you be able to spend some time this summer contemplating the force that creates and sustains your life; it is that creative force which gives us the power to make creations of our own.

Blessings,

Fr. Kevin

SpiritMatters Monthly May 2009

There is a wonderful episode of The Simpsons in which Lisa spies on her older brother Bart praying to get out of a test and states: “Prayer: The last refuge of a scoundrel.” Lisa, who was misquoting Samuel Johnson, still makes the point that many people only turn to prayer as a last resort after every device of their own has been exhausted. Bart wanted his desires granted, and if forced to he would even pray for them. Now we may not all be scoundrels, but I do think that there is a strong tendency for us to misplace the role of prayer in our lives. Rather than praying daily for continued health and vitality, we wait until we become gravely ill and then pray for a miracle; rather than praying for God to meet our needs, we decide first what our needs are and then become frustrated when God doesn’t give us what we want; or even worse, God does give us what we want, only for us to discover that it’s not actually what we needed.

When it comes to prayer many of us have a strong tendency to treat God like a genie in a bottle: there more for granting wishes than for granting wisdom. In ancient Greek plays there is a plot device called a deus ex machina, in which a character playing a god is dropped onto the stage from out of nowhere and solves all of the characters’ problems. Perhaps it is human nature, but I think we often expect God to be like that Greek character: coming around only to fix the unfixable and leaving the rest to us.

Despite all of the apocalyptic things we read and see on television, there has been a strong tendency in the Judeo-Christian traditions, and in many pagan traditions as well, to push against this idea of God only being concerned with the beginning and end of life and nothing in between. The Psalms are beautiful examples of mankind petitioning God to be present, not just to our needs, but also to our joys and sorrows. Many of the stories of the patriarchs and prophets from the Hebrew Scriptures are meant to show that God is not just a puller-of-strings, but a vibrant life-force in the midst of a faithful people. According to tradition, King David, the poet to whom many of the psalms are ascribed, was born and died on the feast of Shavuot, a festival that celebrates the harvest and the Torah (or God’s provision of material and spiritual blessings). It was on this feast of Shavuot that the early followers of Jesus Christ experienced God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, also known as the Paraclete, or the helper. This gift, which is celebrated today as the Christian feast of Pentecost, was a clear demonstration to this community of faithful people that God wished to be a dynamic life and wisdom giving force in their lives and not just a detached observer and judge. The idea that God is present to us and is our helper in everyday life has guided the Church in its understanding and use of prayer. Asking God to provide for our needs was seen as such an important practice that the Church designated a few days in the year to be specific Rogation Days (in Latin the word rogare means: to ask). These days often involved parishes processing around their community and their fields with their clergy asking for God’s protection and provision for the needs of the community. To many modern Christians processions (with the possible exception of funeral processions), may seem like a quaint relic of a bygone age, but they do make an important statement: God is not hiding in our churches and chapels, aloof and uninterested in our daily lives and needs. No, processions make the statement that God is alive and in the world and in our streets and hallways. Processions claim that God is present to everyone that has needs, not just to the regular church-goer. While of course we should always pray whenever and wherever the need arises, there is something to be said for having special moments when we recognize the value and importance of regular prayer. The psalms, like Rogation Day processions, remind us that God hears the cries of those in distress, but they also show us by example that first and foremost prayer ought to be an act of devotion, not desperation.

May it be so.

Blessings,
Fr. Kevin

SpiritMatters Monthly April 2009

Out of death, into life...

T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland” begins with the, now, famous line:

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

April can be a month of strong contrasts: the cold of winter gives way to the warmth of spring; the austerity of Lent is transformed into the joy of Easter. The Earth, which in our part of the world has appeared barren or dead for months, now seems to spring to life again, or at least it tries to, but if you have spent much time in the Northeast, then undoubtedly you have seen snow fall on or around Easter. April can be a tease that way: offering us the promise of a warm and sunny spring, and then immediately taking it back again. Perhaps that is why Eliot saw April as the cruelest month: because it offers us the hope of a beautiful new world, but doesn’t allow us to live in it completely, at least not yet. Human nature frequently makes us want to skip over many of the less pleasant aspects of life, which is perhaps why many of our religious traditions force us to look at life’s more painful moments: so that we may know the true cost of joy, and the true value of it. The Jewish festival of Passover and the Christian observances of Holy Week both encourage their participants to remember a painful and traumatic time in the history of their people (for Jews being slaves in Egypt, for Christians witnessing the execution of Jesus), so that they may view their present joys in the light of those traumatic events: to understand freedom, we must know slavery; to understand life, we must know death. Ritual and tradition are how one generation communicates this understanding with the next.

On April 21st thousands of young people will gather together in Poland to make a very special journey. This special event, called “The March of the Living,” is a silent walk between the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau which takes place on Yom Ha’Shoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. For over twenty years young Jews have gathered together to take this walk, which for many of their relatives and ancestors would have been a march to their deaths. Participants must take a close look at one of the most horrific moments in human history in order to truly appreciate what it means to walk away from that place alive and free. It is no accident that Yom Ha’Shoah occurs shortly before Israeli Independence Day: again to understand freedom, we must first understand slavery. “The March of the Living” is not just a solemn remembrance though; it is a call to awareness. While the march may be symbolic of one people’s victory over a force bent on destroying them, it is also a warning that the battle is not completely over yet. Anti-Semitism, intolerance and prejudices of various kinds still exist and still must be fought, not just in other people, but also in ourselves. Christians likewise witness Christ on the cross year after year saying “It is finished,” and yet somehow they realize that the story is far from over. We live in that perennial April, where, like Moses, we have been allowed to see the Promised Land, but not live in it. April is very much about the journey from where we have been to where we hope to be. Perhaps that is why another English Poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, saw April as the month that inspired his pilgrims to begin their sacred journey to Canterbury:

When in April the sweet showers fall
That pierce March's drought to the root and all
And bathed every vein in liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has with his sweet breath,
Filled again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and leaves, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)
Then folk do long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in distant lands.
And specially from every shire's end
Of England they to Canterbury went,
The holy blessed martyr there to seek
Who helped them when they lay so ill and weak


Blessings,

Fr. Kevin