Guided Drift and the Paradox of Faith

"I am glad that I've been able to do what I've done and not been sidetracked along the way. A teacher of mine calls it guided drift. Isn't that wonderful? You're drifting, and yet you've got a rudder."

As Mr. Rogers so satisfyingly puts it in the quote above, life becomes a positive pleasure when we know where we're going and allow this knowledge of our course to give us peace. In order to live effective lives we need to have a purpose, a continuous thread that unites our individual days into a coherent work. That is why Mr. Rogers talks about having a rudder. We need to guide ourselves, and we need to rely on something to give us that guidance.

For a long time I looked at life believing that we all have some inspired moments, and we also have a great many uninspired moments. We must live (so I thought) on those inspirations to get us through the uninspired periods of life, which are far more common. There is a grain of truth in this. We do have peak experiences of happiness, hope, promise, joy, and love—followed by the proverbial descent back to planet Earth, in which we remember our troubles (and perhaps feel a little gloomy that we aren't so inspired anymore).

That said, I now realize that it is not enough merely to live on the inspired moments, like rations on a trip through the desert. No, I believe that God calls us to something greater than that. You see, people living solely on previous inspirations—and waiting for future ones—are not focusing on the day-to-day business of life. They are attaching themselves to that song that used to empower them so much, or they are voraciously rereading that one quote that used to give them such confidence, or talking to that one friend who always cheers them up...the list goes on and on. The point is, they are chasing that feeling rather than living it out. They could be cheering someone else up. Instead, they're focusing on how much they themselves need cheering up.

One of the greatest pieces of advice my Mom has ever given me is: "The best solution for depression is to do something for someone else—to get out of yourself." It is so true, and will doubtless lead to better spirits if we are feeling depressed.

But what about all the moments inbetween the highs and lows? What about the average days, when we drift through our daily grind with no sense of inspiration or mission? We need some thread of constancy to call us back to living our best.

The answer, as is often the case, lies in a common word with a life-changing meaning:

FAITH.

Faith is the answer. Now when I say "faith," I don't just mean "religious belief." I am talking about a lifestyle—a worldview that we can call up with an act of the will, and should work to maintain in every waking (and sleeping) moment. If we can manage to make it part of our modus operandi, it will change our lives—I'll place a 100% guarantee on that.

This worldview has two big components.

The first is the consciousness of God and His plan. The person of faith believes, deep inside, that there is a God Who loves us all and Who has a plan for every individual—a plan that, if followed, will bring them to the self-fulfillment of their highest dreams and deepest longings. I say "self-fulfillment" because we play a role in this plan. We create our own reality, at least in terms of how we respond to the outside world.

But the person of faith can take all of this in stride and proceed peacefully because he knows that if he follows God's commands, then things will go rightly for him. Life will be good. Unexpected events may happen (look at the story of Job!), but God has a plan. We can move forward in peace and happiness, because it all turns out okay in the end. It's pretty amazing, actually. Imagine being able to walk through life in perfect peace. In theory, we can do just that—because God has told us that He loves us and wants the best for us.

That's one part of faith. The other is prayer. God loves us, and wants the best for us. He also wants us to grow closer to Him. One way of describing Heaven, in fact, is a perfect relationship with God. Nothing gets in the way. We remain ourselves, but we are united with Him in some unimaginable and infinitely wonderful way.

But that comes later. Right now, stuff gets in the way. Lots of stuff. Problems, people, things, emotions, sins...the list once again goes on and on! But God has given us ways around these impediments. One of the foremost of these—one of the most foundational practices for a Christian—is prayer. Praying is communing with the Creator. It's a way of accepting His constant, daily calls and saying, "I love you too, God. Now what do you want to tell me today?"

For years, I have vastly underestimated the transformative potential of prayer in the individual life. But now I see that prayer is that thread of constancy. It is what keeps us close to God, even in the midst of struggles. Saying the Rosary or part of the Rosary (a decade or two) every day is such a great way to do this. It will have a lovely effect on your life. Fulton J. Sheen once described saying the Rosary as "saying 'I love You' to our Father." I believe he was right. If you've never prayed the Rosary before, feel free to check out this link for all the instructions and prayers: http://www.rosary-center.org/howto.htm.

Now, I know what you're thinking (if indeed there is anyone out there to be thinking anything): "Great. You've pontificated on faith, but you haven't answered the question of how we stop the roller coaster ride of ecstatic highs, gloomy lows, and wishy-washy times inbetween. I don't think that talking about faith means I'll never feel down again."

Ah, but therein lies the paradox of faith! Faith is not about inspiration or emotion. Faith is believing that your spiritual life is significant, that what you pray makes a difference. Faith is believing that when you pray—whether you feel inspired or not—you are doing something of unfathomable significance. Faith is a lifeline that carries us through whether we are experiencing a high, a low, or a "sideways." It does not guarantee us a life of constant inspiration, but it allows us to avoid that need altogether—because it gives us a higher perspective on life. When we lift our concerns up to God, He lifts us up too.

It's all about that guided drift Mr. Rogers talked about. Faith is our rudder, our guide, but it also gives enough peace to let us drift.

Here's to an hour, day, week, month, year, and life of guided drift,

Joezilla

The Coward, or the Tiger?

I stepped into the darkened room, and I knew something wasn’t right. “The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end,” as they say. Nothing in the room had changed, as far as I could tell in the nearly pitch-black, split-second survey I’d given it as I entered. That was not the problem.

There was someone else in there. Someone tall, well-hidden, and very close. Hiding next to the doorway! I instinctively tried to dash forward, out of his grasp, but it was too late—I felt an iron grip fasten itself around my neck.

Actually, I didn’t. Yeah, now that I think about it, nothing actually happened. There was no one in there. Come on—it was my bedroom! The worst thing that could be in there is one of my brothers trying to startle me—and, thank God, that hasn’t happened since 1996.

Yep, it was my imagination. And, so that you don’t take me for a delusion-prone lunatic, let me point out that I didn’t actually experience this as vividly as I described. It was more a little thought that popped into my head before I turned the light on: “Hey, what if there was somebody in here waiting for me, who wanted to kill me? Whew! Creepy! OK, turn on the light now.” An odd hypothetical question, to be sure. I’ll grant you that. But I wasn’t on the floor convulsing in a schizophrenic frenzy. Just to make that clear. Now where the heck was I?

Oh yeah. This little thought that popped into my head, it got me thinking. It got me thinking about how important a mindset can be. What if there was a hitman waiting for me inside my bedroom? In the mindset I had at that moment, I would have been scared to death—and guess where that would’ve led me? I’ll give you a hint: it’s what I was scared to.

There are different kinds of fear. I fear a nuclear war. I fear the results of our culture’s immorality. I fear several things in that way. But that fear is more of a thought process, more of a conclusion based on our principles. But there’s another type of fear, a visceral, instinctive one, like what I described in the opening paragraphs, that can be our downfall in perilous situations.

Put yourself in the hitman-bedroom scenario. Now replace yourself with a tiger. How would the hitman feel about grabbing a tiger by the neck? Not so eager, you see. Why is that? Well, the tiger would respond in a, shall we say, resentful way. The hitman has no right to grab that tiger by the neck, and the tiger has claws and teeth that will put forth that contention in quite a convincing fashion.

Here’s the fact, Jack: we all can choose to be the instinctive coward, or the tiger. There’s one of each inside all of us. Perhaps we’re not all tigers inside. Some of us might be gigantic Kodiak bears, or poisonous coral snakes. Heck, some of us are probably more like rabid chimps, or charging llamas. But the point is, we all have the potential inside of us—the sleeping beast, so to speak—who’s completely capable of unloading a potential can of Whoop-*** on anyone who threatens us.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be enough. The hitman might be able to choke the tiger, or shoot it. And another disclaimer—I’m not saying “never run—always fight! Hulk smash! Aargh!” No. I’m merely talking about that rare set of situations in which there is nothing to do but fight—and most of us haven’t ever been, and perchance won’t ever be, in those kinds of spots. But if we are, we need to be ready. Because destiny is decided in the instants, not the aeons. It’s the split-second decisions that make the most difference; they truly are the building blocks of life.

All I’m saying has been paraphrased by two great thinkers of yore, and they shall close this humble treatise:

I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.

—Hamlet, from Shakespeare’s play, Act V, Scene 1

Don't hit at all if you can help it; don't hit a man if you can possibly avoid it; but if you do hit him, put him to sleep.
—Theodore Roosevelt (yep, that's him in the picture!)

Jeremiah 23:32

Jeremiah 23:32

Yes, I am against the prophets who prophesy lying dreams, says the LORD, and who lead my people astray by recounting their lies and by their empty boasting. From me they have no mission or command, and they do this people no good at all, says the LORD.

God has no kind words for the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day. Instead of role modeling for the people with genuine lives and honest proclamations, they lived according to their own inclinations and provided sugarcoated prophecies to the people. It may have made everyone feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it was, in fact, the worst of times to pull such a shenanigan.

In fact, “the worst of times,” if we may borrow from Charles Dickens, would be a great way to describe the situation of Jerusalem at the time. Babylon’s growing power threatened to wipe Jerusalem off the map; the 590s B.C. would see a siege of the city, as well as the humiliating deportation of its king, at the forceful hands of Nebuchadnezzar II. It seemed as if things just couldn’t get any worse.

This problem could have been avoided. Jeremiah’s messages from God reveal that all of this misfortune was the direct result of the people’s infidelity to the covenant with God. Had they remained faithful in the power of Yahweh to deliver them from the evil nations that threatened them (instead of resorting to treaties with other evil nations for extra security), had they retained the purity and devotion of their religious life (instead of copying the disgusting practices of child sacrifice and ritual prostitution practiced by other nations), had they broken out of selfish mindsets and lived according to a rigid moral compass (instead of bending to their own self-interest and oppressing the lowliest of their people), God would have delivered them.

The historical facts may make us scratch our heads and wonder if this deliverance could really have happened, even if the Israelites had been faithful to the max—but stop scratching your head for a moment and consider that this is the exact feeling that the Israelites had at the time. A lack of faith. This lack of faith is what led to Jerusalem’s destruction at the hands of Babylon.

Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.

So this is the situation of Jerusalem around the time that God (through Jeremiah) rails against the false prophets. Right when the people need to straighten up and fly right, the poser prophets have to come in and pat them on the back for doing a nice job. Hence, we can understand His position. But this is not merely an outburst of almighty frustration; God is telling us something that resonates truly in any age, in any place, and for any person.

Look at what Jeremiah says about the false prophets:

From me they have no mission or command, and they do this people no good at all, says the LORD.

Have you ever felt a keen sense of mission? Perhaps you’ve been working on a project or leading a seminar or retreat. Perhaps your work was more long-term, like starting an organization or raising a child. Whatever the case, you have felt it—a sort of pull from the future, a vision of success that calls to you and gives you the inspiration to keep working, as hard as you can, to achieve your goal. Without a mission, we could accomplish nothing. D-Day was a success because level-headed officers and soldiers, in the midst of unspeakable chaos, were able to look past it all and figure out a way to achieve their mission objectives.

God gives each of us a mission, too, but we can only discern this mission—feel it, resonating in our bones like a song—when we are doing His will. If we drift away from the covenant that Jesus made with mankind when he shed his blood for us, we forget our mission; we go off-road; we may even crash and burn, like the Israelites of yore.

What is your mission? Have you listened for it lately? Have you felt it lately? Renew your commitment to God; purify your mind and heart, and you will be able to hear your mission.

God always makes it clear that He wants to work with us. Jeremiah tells us today that when we remain faithful to God, He gives our lives mission, meaning, purpose. It is up to us to choose to accept it.

Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like. (James 1:22-24)

Christianity and Islam: Not the Same God

I’ve grown pretty tired of hearing a certain adage that has unfortunately become par for the course in any discussion about Islam and Christianity. I refer to the idea that “Christians and Muslims worship the same God.” Or, in its more stylish (though technically more confusing) form, “God and Allah are the same.” This notion is corrosive to an honest and critical understanding of religious differences, leading to a false sense of interreligious agreement, which usually requires one or both faiths to deny their true identity. And that is the biggest problem with the “Allah = God” idea—it denies important aspects of both religions.

Now before getting into this, let’s take care of the obvious objections. Yes, Allah means “God” in Arabic. And yes, Arab Christians use the term Allah to signify the God of Christianity. And yes once more, many or most Muslims are happy to translate the word Allah as “God.” But to hook onto mere names and words is to misjudge the depth of the argument here. We are examining not the name that each faith gives to God, but the words, actions, and attributes of God in each faith. In Islam and Christianity, these are quite different, even if they are both called “God.”

REVELATION: THE WAY TO UNDERSTANDING

How do we, as faithful people, learn about God? The answer, of course, is revelation. Revelation, in the traditional sense, is the transmission of God’s Truth into the world through various means. In Christian and Muslim contexts, revelation was memorized, transmitted orally, and later written down, or written down from the start. Revelation is important because it is our foundation for any claims about God; without it, the tools of reason and practical experience can only help us speculate about God. Add revelation to the mix, though, and the human mind and memory have something to work with. This phenomenon could be expressed as a simple equation:

Revelation + Reason + Experience = Knowledge of God

But the important fact to remember is that revelation is the most important component of the equation above. If the Qur’an states about God that “He created all things and He is All Knowing of all things” (6.101), then we don’t need to do much logical reasoning to understand this. It’s a pretty clear statement about God. And we certainly could not employ reason or experience to contest a claim of revelation. The point is, revelation is the first and foremost factor in understanding God from a Christian or Muslim perspective, and so we must give it higher priority than anything else when comparing the two religions.

So let’s do that, and see if Christians and Muslims really worship the same God.

“THE GOSPEL TRUTH”

In the 4th Sura (the Qur’anic equivalent of a chapter in the Bible), it is written:

O People of the Book! Do not commit excesses in your religion: Nor say anything except the truth about God. Messiah Isa (Christ Jesus), the son of Maryam (Mary) was a messenger of God, and His Word, which He sent down to Maryam, and a Spirit created by Him: So believe in God and His messengers. Do not say “Trinity”: Stop: It will be better for you: Because God is One God: Glory be to Him…. (4.171)

This passage is an answer to the Christian claim that Jesus, as the second person of the Holy Trinity, is the Son of God. For the sake of historical context, note that the Christian claim about Jesus predates the Muslim one by about 550 years! But I digress. The point here is simply that the Qur’an clearly speaks against the idea of a Triune God, divesting Jesus of his divinity and emphasizing the oneness of God.

Christians, on the other hand, beg to differ about Jesus, and consequently about God. As Jesus testifies in the Gospel of John,

The Father and I are one. (10:30)

And lest anyone point out that John’s Gospel pushes the divinity of Jesus harder than the other Gospels, let’s throw in the final verses of Matthew’s Gospel, for both good measure and a solid demonstration of the Trinitarian formula:

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age. (28:19-20)

The point here, plain and simple, is that Muslims worship a God of total, inviolable unity. This principle of God’s oneness is in fact the first part of the shahadah, the concise profession of faith that one must make in order to become a Muslim. This principle is, by any Muslim’s admission, the core of Islamic belief about God.

Contrast this image of God with that of Christianity. God is one unity expressed in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Christians accept the admittedly confusing mystery of the Trinity as essential to their faith because it was handed down to them from revelation and through tradition, but they do not see themselves as worshipping more than one God.

But is this one God the same as the one God worshipped by the Muslims? Unless Muslims consider Jesus to be God (they don’t), or Christians consider God to be a Unity rather than a Trinity (they don’t), we are dealing with two very different images of God here.

CONCLUSION

When Christians say that they worship “the same God” as their Muslim brothers and sisters, they are allying themselves with a God who denies the divinity of Jesus. Do Christians really want to make such a claim? The same is true for Muslims. When they identify their own God as “the same” as the God of Christianity, they are adopting God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit as objects of their veneration. If they do not agree to do this, then they are not worshipping the God of Christianity.

We are entering an age in which religious understanding will become perhaps more important than ever before; as such, religious self-understanding takes on an even more breathtaking urgency. It will not help to claim erroneous similarities between religions in the hopes of breaking down barriers, when those barriers are foundational and essential assertions of each faith. There are differences; we must learn and embrace these differences if we want our faith to retain its astounding power in the world, the blazing power of Truth, unadulterated. If all faith was actually the same, there would be only one faith.

Pearls Before Swine

Gay marriage is a hot political issue today. This means that across the country (and the world), conversations are happening between Catholics and non-Catholics, and among Catholics themselves, regarding this issue. If you consider yourself an orthodox Christian, you must face the fact that you will likely be given the opportunity to speak about this issue with someone who disagrees, Catholic or otherwise.

How will you respond when that time comes? Will you murmur an assent and nod slowly? Will you wishy-washily answer "I don't know..." and trail off in mock-indecision? Or perhaps you will respond with that time-honored tagline of truth-skirting talk—"Hmm."

The question you have to ask yourself is this: are you willing to sacrifice an institution in order to avoid an awkward conversation? The fact is, society is changed from the ground up. No matter what the media says, no matter what TV and radio pump into our ears, the unassailable fact remains that "We the People" decide society's direction, and word of mouth is still the strongest form of media there is. If we remain silent while ideas we disagree with are assumed and accepted, while ramps to Hell are exalted as stairways to Heaven, then we will be spectators to the continued downward trudge of society—with only our timidity to blame.

It is our challenge to never remain silent in the face of what is wrong. And free speech will be the freedom that delivers us from moral turmoil, if only we are willing to use it. Speak up, everybody! Don't budge!

Face to Face With Life

Face to face with life. That's what it said. Face to face with life. Just a little advertising motto written on the travel agency's pen. But those words carried a lot of power in that moment.

Face to face with life. What does that mean? What is it like to be face to face with life? I'll tell you--it's to look at things squarely. It's to experience life directly and vividly, the way we were designed to experience it. How many days have you finished and wondered--wow, did I really just let this day pass me by? How many days have you been too out-of-it to even ask the question?

It's also to be honest with yourself about what's going on in your world, and what other people are doing and feeling, too. We see enough to understand all we need to understand. Other people's words and actions, on the whole, reflect what they are feeling. But we often don't go deep enough when we're thinking about other people; we often jump to one conclusion and cling to it like a rubber band. When you're face to face with life, you realize that you don't know a whole lot. You can't accurately diagnose why people are acting or feeling the way they are--but if you are attentive to them, you are aware of what they're feeling. And if you're committed to becoming the best person you can be, what does this awareness make you want to do?

That is what is most amazing, what I discovered when I made the commitment; then and there seeing that wonderful pen, I realized that getting face to face with life causes compassion.

Suppose this: someday, someone is acting lukewarm toward you, and it makes you wonder if you've done something to anger or offend them. This is the ego coming in (the ego always comes in when problems arise), because you actually have no grounds to assume this.

But oftentimes we do assume things like this, and it leads to so much unnecessary strife. Think about that person a little more. Something is certainly bothering them, that much is clear. But look at life squarely! You don't know the real answer--and instead of wondering how you might have caused his low spirits, why don't you try to make him feel better? A kind word, if it's real and from the heart, goes a long, long way. Think about it.

Face to face with life! How cool is that? Think deeply, then act deeply. Face to face with life. You know, I've never been one to have a motto, but this simple yet startling phrase is sorely tempting me to adopt it as one.

The Solution

Sometimes it's the most obvious advice that we need to hear most often and most repeatedly. So let's sustain that custom with today's brief post.

No matter what problems you are facing, prayer is solace, solution, and the way forward. Whatever is not right in your life, whether you know what that is or not, begins to be solved when you sit in silence and set yourself to commune with your Creator. All will be well. As Boyd Bailey says, "Be still, listen, and let Him love you and revive you."

It is no wonder that prayer is one of the most common characteristics of the saints. Prayer is an immediate way of getting closer to God. We are called as Christians to live our lives so as to bring ourselves closer to God. So why do we waste so much time thinking about the grass of the field, which is thrown into the oven tomorrow, when God is right there waiting for us?

It is quite literally true to assert that God has all the time in the world; He can wait.

But can we?