Luminous Times

Those were luminous days.
	Glowing smiles and shining rings,
		Six yellow-clad girls wandering down a long aisle.
	A tiny kitchen bathed in morning light,
		Breakfasts at a table only big enough for two.
	A living room just large enough to turn round in,
		A tub too small even for that.
	Bookshelves full of books all mixed together,
		A crib full of a smiling little turtle.
Those were luminous days.
Those were luminous weeks.
	Mine measured by classes, and projects,
		and long days away; a college rhythm.
	Your forty (again! surprise!) measured by drives
		to Algonac, with stops at McDonald's.
	Two whole bedrooms, and a living room!
		With a front window overlooking a parking lot.
	A contraband Christmas tree festooned with lights,
		A hobbit in the doorway and another fuzzy head to love.
Those were luminous weeks.
Those were luminous months.
	A house of our own and a blue station wagon,
		Summer sun streaming across the front lawn.
	My first real job, long early commutes,
		So many adopted aunts to share our home.
	Drives to Richmond, classes beneath the grain elevators,
		A walk to the corner in a blizzard.
	Peepers, and Bulldogs, and Squiggys,
		And one you wouldn't mind if he was the last.
Those were luminous months.
Those were luminous years.
	Flashing past, season by season,
		Almost too quickly to track.
	A giant van with a funny name,
		And great passenger miles per gallon.
	Halftime shows and quiz bowl meets and dance recitals,
		Lean years and rich years and “Cago-Mento” years.
	Star fields in the front window and
		A peppermint from the ceiling.
Those were luminous years.
Those were luminous decades.
	A familiar white house, living now only in memory,
		An upstairs hall lit by summer sunsets.
	A deck in the morning breeze,
		Counting down months to a midwinter retreat.
	Nestlings making nests of their own,
		A homestead under the shadow of loss.
	A surprise find; grapes among the bushes,
		An Advent sacrificed and a house remade.
Those were luminous decades.
Yes, there were shadows.
	The ones we never got to hold,
		The family lost and friends who followed.
	The encroaching fear, the misunderstandings and conflicts,
		Some days heavier than lead.
	But looking back at the clouds and brightness,
		A Glorious Face emerges,
	And the shadows are enveloped
		By the light.
Indeed, there were shadows.
Now we live.
	In a house full of light,
		Rich, warm wood and fresh-painted walls.
	Bush surrounded, bird beset,
		The kind of place your dad would have chosen.
	Filled with quiet and calm,
		and peace, except when
	It is filled with laughter and clutter
		and peace.
Now we live.
These are luminous times.
	30 years, 360 months, 1565 weeks,
		10957 days.
	Illuminated by Radiance
		Not of this world.
	If what is to come is half as blessed
		As what has been.
	Then the time shall pass joyfully at your side,
		And the days will be light.
These are luminous times.

On August 15th of this year, I will celebrate 30 years of marriage with my wonderful bride Ellen. This is for her.

A Mother's Day tribute

My poor wife hasn't had a proper Mother's Day in decades.

You know, one where dad & kids get up early, make breakfast to bring to her in bed with a little vase on the tray and cards tucked under the plate.  One where she didn't have to lift a finger to cook or clean all day because her appreciative family took care of all that for her.  She can't remember the last time she had one of those, if she ever has.

It wasn't that the kids and I didn't love her and want her to have a good Mother's Day.  The main reason was that our local right to life chapter offered roses at local parishes on Mother's Day as a fundraiser.  This meant setting up on Saturday afternoon, staffing the tables for the vigil Mass and all the morning Masses, and then packing up, bringing the remnants home, and packing them away.  Typically we wouldn't all be done until 2:30 or 3:00, at which point all of us wanted to do nothing more than rest.  Thus for years my dedicated wife sacrificed her Mother's Days to the pro-life cause.

This year was supposed to be different.  I was rallying a few KofC members to help with the tables, and our youngest son was home from college.  She was going to be singing at two Masses anyway, but she wasn't planning on staffing tables, at least.  She might not get the breakfast in bed, but she wouldn't have to shoulder much of the burden of the fundraiser.

Then the phone rang last Thursday.  Our eldest daughter, who is well along with twins, was having hard, regular contractions at 33 weeks - not a catastrophe, but worrisome enough.  She was being admitted for observation, and Ellen was needed to watch the little ones and run the house while daughter and husband were at the hospital.  This wasn't completely unexpected, so Ellen packed up and headed down.  Fortunately, things didn't go so far as premature delivery: rest and a few appropriate medications slowed the contractions down to the point that my daughter was sent home from the hospital today with a prescription for strict bed rest. 

For Ellen, that means what we expected it would mean when this pregnancy got near this stage: she's managing our daughter's home for the remainder of the pregnancy (which will probably be no more than a couple of weeks at best.) She'll tend to dinners and kiddos and laundry and diapers and all the other things that will need tending while my daughter is restricted to bed for the sake of the babies she bears.  Ellen will have the help of sisters who live in the area, and Arwen's helpful husband (when he's not at work), but the brunt of the household management will fall on her.

Just in time for Mother's Day.

Which means, once again, my longsuffering wife is giving up her Mother's Day for the sake of unborn children.  This time it happens to be her own grandchildren, who she'll be able to hold before very long, but it's still a sacrifice.  In years past I've assured her that the Lord will make up to her all these Mother's Days she gave up for the sake of others.  And, given what He's asked her to do over the decades, I'm sure it'll be quite a reward.

It can't come a moment too soon.

Happy Mother's Day, precious wife.

Trusting Rightly

I've been meditating quite a bit recently on placing trust – specifically, in what or whom I place my trust. What piqued my interest was an account I read of Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower. She recounted how some sister in her convent had misunderstood something she'd said or done. Rather than attempting to correct the sister's understanding, or to “clear her name”, St. Thérèse let the matter pass, reasoning that on Judgement Day, when all things would be made known, the true account of the incident would come out.

This impressed me greatly. Such an attitude reflected a deep faith and a long vision. Even if this outlook had not come easily to St. Thérèse, and even if she did not execute it perfectly on every occasion, it still displayed powerful trust and profound insight. It is certainly leagues beyond my attitude. I'm so preoccupied with what others think of me that even the possibility that someone is misunderstanding me keeps me awake at night. I want everyone to understand how upright and reasonable my motives are, and am willing to expend tremendous effort explaining myself so that I am perfectly understood. Unlike the Little Flower, I don't trust God to vindicate me eventually – I want to submit evidence of my innocence immediately, to be judged by whoever I fear is misunderstanding me. I want them to judge in my favor.

Simply put, I'm placing my trust in others. I crave the good opinion of men, to the point that I get nearly frantic if I think that good opinion is endangered. I'll scurry and fret and draft letters and rehearse explanations and arrange meetings, all out of dread. Oh, I'll rationalize my efforts as an attempt to insure “the truth” is known, but I know my heart. It is only about 3% concerned with “the truth”, and 97% concerned with retaining the good opinions of others.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with others having a good opinion of you. I'm sure many had good opinions of St. Thérèse even while she lived. But she did not center her importance on those opinions. Neither did she disdain them out of pride (“Who cares what she thinks?”) She kept her focus in the right place – on the hands of her all-knowing and all-just Father – and the judgements of men fall where they may. She trusted that the day would come when all circumstances and motives would be laid bare, and her actions would be vindicated – or condemned – according to the criteria that mattered to Him.

All of which brings me to Psalm 118. It seems to me that this psalm stretches over all Holy Week. The cries of the crowd on Palm Sunday - “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” - were drawn from Psalm 118. Jesus quoted it to the Pharisees after the damning parable of the wicked tenants (Matt 20:9-18). It is the last portion of the Great Hallel, the hymn sung by Jesus and the apostles just before they left for Gethsemane (Mk 14:26). And eventually St. Peter quotes it when proclaiming Jesus' Resurrection before the very Council that condemned Him. (Acts 4:11)

And what is the theme of this psalm? Trusting in God rather than in men. Looking to the Lord with complete abandon (v.6), not trusting in men (v. 8 & 9), and leaving the final outcome in God's hands (v. 7 & 22). Surely Jesus demonstrated what this kind of trust looked like in practice. When accused before the Sanhedrin, He did not start explaining Himself, “Look, guys, you've got it all wrong. The Kingdom I'm founding isn't a political entity – it won't threaten your rule of Jerusalem in the least.” Even before Pilate, when He easily could have laid bare the machinations of the chief priests and secured His freedom, He did not. His attitude was, “My Father will know the right of it” - even if that vindication lay on the far side of being tortured to death. (That's trust!)

Jesus was not worried about being misunderstood. What others thought about Him, said about Him, and ultimately did to Him did not matter as much as obeying His Father, and trusting in His final vindication. From this example, saints and martyrs down through history have been able to follow, fixing their eyes upon Him, trusting Him to vindicate them regardless of what men did. Even the little trials offered by St. Thérèse's sisters in the convent afforded an opportunity to trust and surrender.

This is the challenge to me this Holy Week and beyond. I've never been reviled, slandered, and verbally attacked. I've certainly never been physically abused. But considering how agitated I get when I'm merely misunderstood, I've got a long way to go before I even meet the standards set by the Little Flower, much less Christ Himself. But the first step is to recognize where I'm failing, and it is here: at the point of my trust. May I grow in this trust during this Holy Week, this Easter Season, and through the rest of my life.

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.' When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.

1 Pet 2:21-23

A Losing Battle

Catholic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is divorced, and making no secret about living with his (also divorced) girlfriend Sandra Lee. Though the people of New York don't consider this an impediment to his serving as governor, the Canon Law of the Catholic Church considers this an impediment to receiving Holy Communion (Canon 915). But it seems that Cuomo's bishop, Howard Hubbard, didn't get the memo, and served both Governor Cuomo and Ms. Lee communion at Mass recently. (Full details can be found in this CNS News article.)

When Canon Lawyer Edward Peters publicly stated the simple fact that under Catholic sacramental law, Governor Cuomo should not have been given communion, there was a great public outcry - against Dr. Peters. Everybody and his brother felt the need to reply, including the Bishop, Governor Cuomo, and then cast of the View. These responses were predictable, from the "this is a delicate pastoral situation blah, blah, blah" issued by the Bishop to the blatant Catholic-bashing of the usual suspects like Whoopi Goldberg. The tenor in the public square, reinforced by the Bishop's limp-spined response, was that Dr. Peters was being the extremist, and Governor Cuomo the persecuted party.

In my parish, our pastor is gravely concerned about how few people attend Confession. "I must have a parish full of saints!" he exclaims at Mass. "Hardly anyone lining up for Confession, yet every Sunday, everyone coming up for Communion!" He and many of us are equally concerned about vast numbers of fallen away Catholics, some of whom have gone to other churches but most of whom just stay at home, figuring they're doing well enough without the grace of the Sacraments. We're brainstorming about how to reach these people, get them to understand that the stakes are as high as they can get, and help them back into communion with God.

But as long as stuff like this Cuomo business goes on, we're fighting a losing battle.

Look at it: nobody is more responsible for the souls in his care than a bishop. Governor Cuomo makes no bones about the fact that he is living in public concubinage with a woman, which is a mortal sin, which means that according to the Scriptures and Church teaching he "eats and drinks judgement on himself" (1 Cor 11:29) every time he takes Communion. Simply put, he's damning himself further every time he does it. Yet his Bishop just stands there and enables it.

Furthermore, everyone sees this happening. So let's say my pastor is counselling a man who is living in public concubinage about returning to the Church and resuming Communion. My pastor would explain that the man needed to cease sexual union with his girlfriend, go to Confession, and begin moving toward sacramental marriage before he could come up for Communion. Unfortunately, all the man would have to do is point to Governor Cuomo and his Bishop. How could my pastor respond? Or what if a divorced man wants to get remarried and continue going to Communion? Why bother with the time and fuss of an annulment? Governor Cuomo sets the example: just move in together. Not only can you keep going to Communion, you might get a bishop to serve you!

Sadly, we had a similar situation in our Archdiocese some years ago. Our state's governor was Catholic, but was also fiercely pro-abortion. She vetoed every pro-life bill that crossed her desk, and worked to stymie pro-life efforts in the legislature. Yet at the same time, she faithfully attended her parish church, even serving as a Eucharistic Minister from time to time. The past Archbishop never made any kind of comment about this, and though our new Archbishop is much more publicly pro-life, he hasn't done anything about this public scandal, either.

The Catholic Church in America desperately needs renewal. Yet as long as public accommodation of sin by the powerful and well-known persists, we will not see it. We might see small progress here and there, but there will be no serious renewal until Church leaders have the courage to stand for holiness, no matter how upset Whoopi Goldberg or the Detroit Free Press gets about it. The Scriptures speak scornfully of those who wouldn't stand up for Jesus because they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. So long as that is the hallmark of the leadership of the Catholic Church in America, we will continue to lose ground in the war for the souls of our nation's citizens – including our own children.

The price of the gods

One of the lesser noticed aspects of ancient myths and legends is the price that gods, demigods, and spirits sometimes demanded for providing goods or services to humans: their children. This can still be seen in folk tales such as Rumpelstiltskin, and such a legend is alluded to in Kristin Lavaransdatter, where Odin assists a woman in brewing then demands for payment “what was between her and the vat” - i.e. the child she carried in her womb¹.

This harsh levy is downplayed in most modern renditions of the legends, but students who study the original tales know that a consistent theme throughout them is the hunger lesser gods and spirits have for human children. This is harsh to modern ears, for we value our children so highly that we shudder at the very thought of turning them over to some god in return for a service provided.

Or do we?

The “gods” of our culture provide many things for us, one of the more prominent being copious entertainment. Thanks to radio, television, movies, and now the nearly-ubiquitous Internet, very few in Western culture lack for something to amuse or distract them. America is renowned world-wide for our movies and programs, and the happenings on popular shows can actually be reported on news programs. Televisions are so common that a home without one is so unusual as to be freakish.

But what price do these cultural gods demand for this service of nonstop entertainment of nearly infinite variety? I thought of that this past week, as the furor over the new MTV series Skins erupted across the news media. Especially telling was this commentary by a secular commentator on a secular station. He argued compellingly that once this kind of content is broadcast and known about, it doesn't matter what controls parents might attempt to impose on their children: they will be able to access the program some way or another.

Suddenly, ubiquitous access to all forms of entertainment doesn't look so inviting. The problem is, the horse has left the barn. Parents who have opened their homes to the cultural gods in order to be entertained have usually accomplished a few things. One is setting an example that if something is appealing, it should be watched. The other is letting time they could have spent parenting be displaced by something else. Every hour they spent being passively entertained was one less hour spent interacting with their children and forming their characters. Another common occurrence in modern homes, where televisions are found scattered around the house including in bedrooms, is that of total individual choice. If someone doesn't like what's playing in the family room, they can go in the den or their room and watch something else. These factors converge when children get to an age when shows like Skins attract them – and suddenly parents find they have no way of controlling what their children watch.

The gods of the culture have provided their service of nonstop, enthralling entertainment. Their price: the children.

Our entertainment culture doesn't walk in the door announcing its intent. Like the gods in the old stories, it offer the allure first – the help with the difficult task, or acquiring the desired item, or providing the enticing entertainment. Only afterwards is the terrible price revealed, but at that point it's too late to deny the god his price. The deed is done, and the price must be paid. I wonder how many parents lapped up the entertainment services of the gods of our culture, only to realize to their dismay that one consequence of this was the loss of their children to values they never taught – but the children learned regardless?

I wish I could say that Ellen and I were prescient enough to see this coming when we decided not to have a television in our home while raising our children. We weren't. All we knew was that we wanted to have tight control over what formed their thoughts and imaginations. We wanted it to be good books, Christian teaching, and our family values. It's only looking back over the results of our decision, and watching the anguish of parents who find their children slipping away, that it's become clear what has happened.

The ancient legends contain a subtle lesson: beware who you speak to casually, and which dells or glens you wander into. Above all, watch out who you let into your house, no matter what kind of aid or service they offer. You may get something you really desire, but at a price too terrible to consider.

The lessons are just as valid these days, they just need to be applied a little differently.
____________________________________

1The Bridal Wreath, Part 3, Chapter 7

Geographic gods

Long ago, people entertained the oddest notions about gods. They thought of gods in terms of geographic regions, as if they were tied to or centered around a physical location. The god's power was greatest in his “home” territory, and diminished beyond his boundaries. Physical place, even actual earth, was deemed important to the worship of a god. This explains Naaman's desire to take home with him a couple mule-loads of Israelite dirt (2 Kings 5:17): he wanted to worship Israel's God on Israel's soil, even if that soil had to be taken to the “land” of another god.

It is true that the Israelites also thought this way – after all, God promised them a land of their own, and even set aside a special place within that land, Mount Zion, as the center for His worship. He probably had many reasons for this, one of them being accommodating the preconceived notions of His people, but another thing became more clear as time went by: the God of Israel was truly god of the whole earth, not just the land occupied by Israel. Furthermore, He was no respecter of places when it came to being obeyed. When the Israelites didn't obey His laws, He did not hesitate to deport them from the land, starting with the nation of Israel in the north and ending with Judah in the south. He even gave hints through His prophets that He could be worshiped anywhere on earth, because all lands (and, ultimately, all people) were His.

These days we consider such notions as geographic gods to be quaint and simplistic. As if God had a jurisdiction, like a secular authority, that you could get on a plane and escape! As if the authority and power of God Almighty could be delimited by something as arbitrary as geographic boundaries! We might smile knowingly when we read accounts like Naaman's, thankful that we're sophisticated enough to have moved beyond such elementary views of God's nature.

Or have we?

The older I get, the more I wonder if maybe we post-moderns don't have our own twist on the regional god mentality. Though we may not think in terms of “the god of Oakland County” (or whatever), we nonetheless tend to partition our outlook on the world into “regions”, and behave as if different “gods” reigned over these conceptual regions. For instance, I know businessmen who are Catholic, but whose business practices are indistinguishable from those of their totally worldly colleagues. If you were to ask one of them whether his workplace attitudes conformed to the teachings of his faith, you'd draw a blank look. Teachings of the faith? Those were for Sunday at Mass times – what did they have to do with closing out this month's sales?

See what I mean? Virtual regions – mental areas where people assume other gods have sway. Oh, someone with such an attitude might acknowledge in the abstract that the One True God has authority over everything, but at the day-to-day level, he would behave as if the workplace was controlled by different gods than the one he thought about at Mass on Sunday. He wouldn't call them gods – he'd call them marketing principles, or business precepts, or whatever – but he would certainly consider them to be more influential in his work environment than God Himself. It isn't that he'd think God impotent, it's that he'd consider Him irrelevant.

Here's another one: entertainment. If you were to ask the average person what God thought of what they did to entertain themselves, you'd probably get another blank stare. Why would God care what television shows I watch? Outside of glaring extremes such as pornography (which is increasingly being seen as a matter of taste, not morals,) most people would wonder why you'd mention God and entertainment in the same context. God has no relevance to their entertainment choices – another “region” where other gods hold sway.

You could find plenty more examples: investment, childrearing, education, health and fitness, and so forth. We Westerners tend to have very compartmentalized lives, whether we profess a religious affiliation or not, and over time we tend to see these compartments as being influenced by different forces. This is simply the idea of regional gods in different guise.

This is one thing I think most Evangelicals do better than most Catholics, at least in this day and age: make a conscious, deliberate effort to make Jesus the Lord of every aspect of their lives. This is often presented as a caricature – e.g. the coworker who punctuates every conversation with “Hallelujah!” and “Praise the Lord!” – but the reality is an important one. Certainly we behave differently in the workplace than we do in worship, and differently again at the ball game, but God Almighty is our Lord wherever we are and whatever we're doing. Sure, He's interested in how we comport ourselves at worship, but He's also interested in what influences us as we draw up that contract or make that repair, albeit in different ways. God doesn't recognize any regions over which He has no control, no matter what we think. He will be Lord over every aspect of our lives. We can cooperate with that or not, but there's one thing we can't do: run anywhere, geographically or in our minds, where He is not Lord.

There is no such place.

The Hidden Pharisee

These days, if you really want to insult someone, call him a Pharisee. That term seems to be a universal negative, carrying all manner of unpleasant connotations: narrow-mindedness, judgementalism, rigidity of thought, hypocrisy. Nearly every vice most condemned by modern culture is encapsulated in that single term. Someone might be willing to recognize many personal failings and shortcomings, but it would be a person of rare honesty and courage who would acknowledge himself a Pharisee. That would be beyond the pale.

And yet... there was one attribute of the Pharisees that is more common than many would recognize: they didn't like to hear that they were sinners. Of course, nobody likes to hear that he is a sinner, but some people have the self-awareness to recognize that truth about themselves.You see this in the 7th Chapter of Luke's Gospel, where Jesus is speaking about John the Baptist. John's ministry was a simple as it was disturbing: to the people of Israel he announced that their long-awaited Messiah was near, even at the door - but first they needed to purify themselves. The baptism of John drew its roots from the ritual washings of the Mosaic law, which was the final step in resolving ritual uncleanness. John offered his baptism to people who recognized their uncleanness, their unworthiness to receive a Messiah, and to those who accepted it and made the life changes that repentance implied (see Luke 3:8), the promise of cleanliness.

The most surprising people took John up on this offer. As we see in Luke 7:29, folk such as the hated Quisling collaborator tax collectors welcomed John's message and received his baptism. But it's interesting to note who didn't: the Pharisees and experts in the law (7:30). They didn't want to acknowledge that they were sinners who needed cleansing. They thought their behaviour above reproach, in fact, even commendable by God (Luke 18:10-14). Though any one of them might be willing to acknowledge his sins in the generic ("Well, of course, nobody's perfect"), when push came to shove, they didn't want to hear that they were sinners.

Does this remind you of anyone else? Like, perhaps, our entire society? Nobody wants to hear of their own sins. Most people would describe themselves with the phrase, "I'm a good person." Even the lightest hint of accusation of a specific sin typically unleashes a torrent of denial and self-justification. Even the suggestion of things like penitential seasons, or self-accusation, causes all kinds of concern about "being negative" and driving people away with a "Gospel of Gloom".

In this regard we're very Pharisaical. They didn't want to hear they were sinners; neither do we. They broke their arms patting themselves on the back about how assiduously they followed Torah; we spend a lot of time telling each other that we're basically Good People who have nothing to worry about. The Pharisees not only didn't want to hear that they had sins they needed to repent of, they were gravely offended by anyone who suggested any such thing. From what I can see, we suffer from the same problem.

So, perhaps, we're a lot closer to being Pharisees than we wish to believe. After all, if we can harbor one such significant attribute of Phariseeism, what else might mark our lives?

The pilgrimage of Advent

Celebrating Advent makes no sense to the modern Western mind. With Christmas approaching, with all the arrangements to be made and things to be done, it seems the last thing that one should do is take time to be quiet, to retire, to be still and wait. How unproductive is that? It makes no sense to our mechanistic mentality, with its focus on the bottom line and the return on investment. What's the tangible benefit of this squandering of resources, of this apparent idleness, when there's so much that could be done? Is this the most productive use of our time?

In a few days the film production of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will hit the theaters. This is a film of one of my favorite stories from the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis' classic set of tales for children of all ages. In Dawn Treader, the young King Caspian sets forth from Narnia on a voyage through the Eastern sea. His stated goal is to learn what happened to seven Narnian lords, partisans of his father's, who had been sent on a voyage by his usurping uncle Miraz to get them out of the way. But one of his crew, the valiant talking mouse Reepicheep, hopes for even more. It is his dream to travel as far east as possible, even coming to Aslan's Country beyond the edge of the world (one can do this sort of thing in Narnia.)

The voyage of the Dawn Treader is a classic pilgrimage - a journey of struggle and difficulty toward an altruistic or spiritual goal. Pilgrimages have fallen greatly out of favor these days, primarily due to their low return on investment. Pilgrims carry no cargo, nor do they do business along the way. The usefulness of pilgrimages is opaque to the economic thinker because the reason for pilgrimage is that the pilgrim be changed by the journey. To the economic thinker, the participant is always the subject, the economic agent; that upon which he acts is the object of production. The pilgrim understands himself as the object, to be changed by what he encounters along the way. While the economic agent seeks to do profitable work, the pilgrim seeks to be worked upon.

And so it proves for the voyagers aboard the Dawn Treader: they encounter many things, some of them beautiful and some quite difficult. They learn things about themselves and each other, and grow in the process. The further they travel, the more they see the hidden hand of Aslan behind their travels, and have to submit to His sometimes painful ministrations as they go. It is not a journey of conquest, or exploration for economic advantage, but of discovery for discovery's sake - which in turn implies trusting Someone greater than themselves. Terrible and tragic things could (and almost do) happen to them, yet they continue onward, trusting that they will be rewarded. And their trust proves firm, for the One in whom they trust is faithful. They end their voyage as different people than they were.

Advent can be a pilgrimage, for even if we don't travel anywhere, we can surrender our time to Him, and "travel" in prayer and solitude toward Bethlehem. We can be downright profligate with our precious time, and squander our attention and our effort, to bring ourselves to the side of the Manger. We can be still, and give the Infant permission to change us to be like Him in humility and trust. We have to be ready to accept that change, to permit ourselves to be made into different people.

For in the end, Advent is about trust. We humans with our economic outlook geared toward optimizing the use of scarce resources have to entrust ourselves to Someone whose resources are infinite. We have to give our time to Him, to sacrifice our urgings to Do Something while we wait for Him to do what He will in us. We probably won't see the resources He brings to bear. We aren't comfortable the idea that He's as likely to do something to us as through us, for while we may acknowledge at the intellectual level our need to change, we don't like those great Hands descending to reshape us. It hurts our pride at least, and probably much more. We resist being changed. If there is reinventing to be done, we want to be the ones do to it to ourselves - with all angles examined and all ramifications considered. But with the most critical changes we need, we have no more power to change ourselves than we have to lift ourselves by our own hair - or the boy Eustace had to remove his own dragon skin in Dawn Treader.

For those familiar with the story, that is an excellent image for Advent. We need to be un-dragoned, to have our sinful dragonish nature ripped off us by Aslan's claws. We may try a few times on our own, but the result will always be futility. We may be able to scrape off a few externals, but we'll still be dragons beneath. We can't rip ourselves as deeply as we need for the surgery to succeed. We need to stop trying, lie down, and let Him do what He wishes.

The question is: will we have the courage to do that? Or will we find something else to distract us? After all, Christmas is coming...

The Light of the World

We moderns routinely hear Biblical metaphors like “Light of the World” and “True Light of every man”. While we might appreciate their poetic value, I think much of their meaning is lost to us because in our day, light is cheap. The introduction of widespread artificial lighting through the 20^th century marked a significant change in human civilization. Certainly there have always been some forms of artificial light, but they were cumbersome, relatively expensive, and nowhere near as efficient as electrical light. Thanks to electricity, we weren't bound by darkness any more – with the flick of a switch, we could have all the light we needed. This in turn “freed” us from the natural timetable of the days and seasons, and even nature herself. No longer were our working hours set by light from the sun. Even our architecture has come to reflect this independence from natural – and hence dependence upon artificial – lighting.

Because we take light for granted, admonitions like St. Peter's in 2 Peter 1:19 (“and you will be right to pay attention to [the message] as to a lamp for lighting a way through the dark, until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your minds”) lose some of their impact. A people who have never walked in great darkness cannot appreciate the importance of a great light. We might apprehend it intellectually, and perhaps appreciate it poetically. But the instinctive import, the gut-level impact, will not reach a people who have all the light they wish literally at their fingertips.

But even artificial light has value in this framework. As the natural light is a metaphor for the truth of God's Revelation shedding light into the darkness of our sin and rebellion, artificial light could be understood as man trying to self-illuminate our condition by our own wisdom and efforts. For what have the last several centuries of Western civilization been but our attempts to determine our own destinies by theories and principles that we invented according to our own wisdom? We would turn from the natural moral “light” of Revelation so we can have “light” of our own making.

Why do this? Well, one reason might be something that man-made morality shares with man-made light: it functions at our discretion. Artificial light burns when, where, and to the degree we wish. If there's something we don't wish to look upon, we don't illuminate it; if there's something we wish to accentuate, we illuminate it more. In like manner, the morality of man can be very selective. We might decry treatment of a preferred minority, such as the residents of Darfur or AIDS victims, but inconvenient minorities such as the unborn or severely handicapped are tucked away in a dark corner.

Sunlight is indiscriminate – it illuminates everything, the pleasant and unpleasant alike. “Nothing is hidden from its burning heat” (Ps 19:6) There's no ignoring things illuminated by sunlight. I got a little lesson in this just today. I'm currently alone in the house, and since tidying up after the Thanksgiving weekend, the place seems fairly clean – or so it appeared just this morning by light of all the lamps. But when the morning sunlight shone through the east window, it starkly illuminated the dust and dirt on what had seemed to be a clean floor. What by artificial light had seemed acceptable, even laudable, was shown by natural light to be woefully inadequate.

Darkness is one of the themes of Advent. We need to be reminded of our selfishness and pride. While the world would have us raising toasts and celebrating bonhomie and good will, the Church urges us to confront the darkness of sin in the world and in our hearts. Let's dwell here a while. Let's resist the urge to turn on the “artificial light” of self-reassurance and self-consolation. Let's acknowledge what is wrong with us, that we too often allow darkness in our lives by only illuminating that which we wish to see. Let's face this darkness squarely, that we might will to accept the Light when He comes.

“In the tender compassion of our God, the Dawn from on High shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness, and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78,79)

A Greater Economy

One of my daughters lives in an upscale suburb of Washington, D.C. She enjoys a spacious home in a lovely neighbourhood, gets a carpool ride in to work most days and on the days her fellow rider is away, she often gets to drive the car herself. She's very well situated, given her entry-level clerical position that is only intended to last a year or two before she heads off to graduate school – especially compared to the cramped apartment in a seedy neighbourhood that she thought she thought would be her lot when she accepted the job.

The best part about this arrangement is that it costs her nothing. Her lodging, transport, and even board is free. She is able to put away most of her meagre salary against grad school expenses, because her hosts will accept no payment for having her.

By now, you're probably beginning to wonder how on earth she rates such a plush arrangement. What has she done to earn such rich benefits, when so many others are scraping to even get by, especially as young college graduates?

Well, she's done nothing to earn it. It's all gift. She's living with a family who are dear friends with my eldest daughter. The husband works for a D.C. law firm and the wife was once legal counsel to a prominent U.S. senator until she resigned for the nobler and more demanding calling of motherhood. They have a toddler who is a handful, as toddlers tend to be. When they heard my daughter had gotten a summer internship in D.C., they insisted she live with them, and when she got a job at the end of the internship, they insisted she stay on.

I call these kind of arrangements “mutual high-leverage” – i.e. one where a relatively small contribution by one party provides tremendous benefit for the other. The family already has the home with plenty of room, so one more occupant is little strain. He's already driving in to work and her office is just a few blocks away. The family is actually saving money on food because my daughter's help with cooking, or tending the toddler so mom can cook, means they don't eat out as much.

In return for what is for them a very small sacrifice, they get experienced and enthusiastic help around the house – something every couple with a young child can use. My daughter is also delightful company for the couple. But probably most important is her loving presence for their little son. This is no strain – for her, loving children just “comes natural” – but it's an immeasurable benefit for the family.

This wonderful and mutually beneficial arrangement got me thinking along economic terms. Many have thought and said much about the market value of things, even to the point of contending that the only value of a thing is the price it can command on the open market. Some even hold that unfettered market transactions are the summum bonum of human existence, and that all human efforts not only can but should be valued this way.

But a market transaction – payment for goods and services – is at the root an expression of simple justice. Insuring someone gets proper recompense for their labor is only fair. To offer less is to descend into slavery and exploitation. But we need to remember that justice is a minimum standard. We dare not give less than justice, but there are greater things. One of these is charity – agapé love, to use the Scriptural term. There is no buying charity, no talk of its market value. It is pure gift or it is nothing.

If we think about it, it is the most valuable things in life that lie in this realm. I write this on Veteran's Day, when we remember those who sacrificed their freedom to preserve ours. Oh, sure, they got paid, but nothing approaching the value of what they willingly offered when they raised their right hand and took that oath. What they risked and sacrificed was pure gift to the rest of us. Another example is marriage. The mutual gift of self that should lie at the heart of the marriage covenant is of such high value that it seems repulsive to even consider market transactions in the same context (this is one reason why prostitution is always wrong – it takes a human interaction that should be pure gift of charity and reduces it to a market transaction.)

Gifts of charity are always greater things than market transactions. When my daughter moved in with this family, she offered to pay what rent she could for the benefit of living there. The husband literally laughed. He assured her that every penny of her salary could barely make a dent in the mortgage payment for the house, and while that was true, I'm sure that was mostly a façade. They wanted to give her the gift of caring for her, helping her get on her feet. In like manner, were they to offer her payment for the help around the house or child care, she'd laugh right back at them. It's all gift.

Their relationship lies above the realm of market transactions. The charity the family is extending to my daughter is making a huge difference in her present and future life. And the love she is pouring into their young son's life could not be purchased on any market at any price. She's like an aunt to him, and her influence will help him all his life.

It's all gift. That's the kind of life the Lord wants us to live. That's the Kingdom we're supposed to be bringing to earth while we wait our King's return. Would that we had the courage to live it more fully, more often – to give and receive the gift we should be to one another.