The Religious, Right? or HONESTLY! part three.

In, The Religious, Left, I said that we either live our lives in the same way we understand our faith or we don’t. This holds true for those that are called the Religious Right.

            There is, however, a political left and a political right and the further either way we trend, the further away from our spiritual center we live our lives. It seems that the further to the right a group becomes the more fundamental is their scriptural interpretation. This fundamentalism has the same counter-productive action that a click in a school might have. It becomes selective, restricted, and intolerant of anyone who does not believe in and represent their way of faith. I also stated in part two that I felt the increasingly progressive we live our lives the more secular we become as a people. This secularism also has the inclination of breeding its unique brand of intolerance. This holds true to the Right, albeit diametrically opposed, as we begin to live our lives in the fundamentalists’ point of view. Instead of living our lives in the secular we begin to live our lives in the secluded. We begin to see ourselves as special. We see ourselves as on the right, as right, and therefore all must follow us or be damned. And this is just so wrong!

Why is this so wrong? It is wrong because it puts us in the position to judge. It is not in our power to judge others in the Spirit, period. This type of judging is not the same as a court of law would be, and should not be confused with or combined with legal judging.

If a woman has made the choice of abortion, it is her choice to make, it is not in our power to stand outside a business and verbally chastise anyone or physically abuse or force anyone to change because you disagree with her. Respectful protests that are displayed within the law are usually accepted by most in the community. Pray for her, her family, the father of the child, and of course the child. It is good to show empathy, sympathy, to mourn for the loss of life, but do not judge, and not to take into your hands the free will of another.

            It is not an act of faith when the Holy Book of another’s faith is defiled simply because we don’t agree with it. It is it not okay to judge the many in a faith because of the few that take a radical stance in regards to their faith. It is not an act of faith to defile the Church, Temple, Synagogue, Mosque or any Holy Building because you feel you’re better than they are. To think that one group has the entire answer to the question of salvation is simply narcissistic in nature.

            It is not spreading of the Gospel to protest outside a burial ground those who have giving their lives to protect their home land. To harm a family that is in mourning for their loved one is not following edicts of any God, Spirit or Higher Power. Free speech is both a wonderful right and incredible responsibility. Free speech should never be taken lightly, and should always be articulated with great care.

            In scripture, particularly in Luke, we read a series of Jesus’ teachings that tell of the dangers of these kinds of actions. Beginning at Luke 6; 27, and continuing through Luke 6; 45, the titles given to these teachings are “Love of Enemies”, “Judging Others”, and “A Tree Known by Its Fruit”. These teaching can be described as teachings of humility, charity, forgiveness and tolerance. These teachings begin with the individual, starting within, and flows outward to all whose paths we cross.

            A personal bugaboo of mine is that many on the so called right do their works in the name of God. They hold up their Holy Books in the name of the God of love, and then by their actions, they bring impiety to the forefront. No one has the right to dominate another person because they interpret scripture as right, duty or as a command from God. If your actions are not expressed in the love that is God, then how would you describe them?

Allow me at this juncture to follow-up on the point that I made in regards to peer pressure in part two. This point is that peer pressure is not to be dismissed as incidental. There is no doubt that peer pressure is a strong influence most especially with the younger generation as they are still developing their core beliefs.

            Everyday we come across forks in the road. And every day we must make choices as to which way we are going on our journey. I choose the “forks in the road” analogy because many forks are not two prong in design but instead are three pronged. The forks on the outer edges represent the two paths moving away from our respected faiths, away from our spirituality. Regardless if we choose the progressive or the conservative route, we are not following the edicts of our chosen faith. The center prong is the path to a higher conscience, a closer relationship with our God, Spirit, or Higher Power. This is the narrow path of love through charity, acceptance of the good in humanity, the humility of our place in the physical world and our spiritual existence with the life we live in everyday reality. If all sins against humanity are sins against God then we as a people faith cannot stray from the teachings of that faith, most especially when we are dealing with the imperfection that is humanity.

            Challenge, tomorrow when you get up from bed, look at yourself in the mirror, directly in the eyes, and ask yourself this. What kind of God, Spirit, Higher Power, do I believe in. Then ask; what kind of person am I? Answer honestly with no excuses! Is there a gap? Why?

Now for the hard part, WRITE – IT – DOWN!

May the Graces of God, Spirit, and Higher Power be with you to guide you through your journey.

Scripture reference is based on the NABRE version.

by D.E.Gonzales

Grief, what’s so good about it?

            Grief, I am willing to bet that this is not your first choice in reading. But grief is something that each person, without exception, has to deal with. And no, it isn’t always the loss of a loved one. Death of a child or a loved one, I would say, is the most intense grief experience that a person may go through. The loss of a loved one, husband, wife, child, close friend, these are some of the more recognizable ones, but no one has to die for you to experience grief. Empty nesters experience grief as do pet owners, especially those that may not have had children. Divorce causes grief as well, the loss of a love that was thought to last forever, now gone. Grief is an experience; it is also a process that everyone will have to deal with sooner or later. It is the experience of loss and the process of grief that follows, that hurts us, that breaks our hearts. Every one reacts to a loss through their individual perception. Some react through their religious traditions while others react through their secular culture.

            Much of how a person grieves may depend on an individual’s understanding of their faith. If you truly believe that that “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain,” … (Rev. 21: 4a) If you believe that they are home, truly home, where the love they have now is more pure than anything we here on earth can ever experience. Than the grieving that these people endure, may very well be less than that of those who do not have this, or some similar understanding.

            Grieving has been described as a process. It helps to understand that there are steps or stages that a person must go through in order to ease the pain of grief. It also helps to understand that there is no “cure” for grief. I choose to use the term “phases” since not everyone will go through the same order of these steps or stages. There are different models on which grieving can be looked at. And I will list the one that I have found to be most helpful later. Being able to understand grieving will help many through the progression of grieving. This paper is meant to be an understanding of grief and as an encouragement for you to look deeper into this subject.

            Loss is that something or someone, that is no longer accessible to us in the physical sense. We may miss someone we love while they are on a trip, but we are pretty sure that they will return in good time. Now suddenly we may have to come to the acceptance that seeing them in good time means “when we meet again in heaven”. But even that does not help us in the here and now, their gone and I’m still here. I grieve because I can no longer have that which I have had for long. It is the familiar that we are missing.

            Our men and women in uniform also suffer from grief. Some of the grief they suffer is from the loss of their fellow soldiers; for others it may be a loss of innocence. A reality that only war or some kind of tragedy can bring about. They have lost something of themselves. They grieve for that loss, physical and/or emotional because they want it back, and it’s just not there anymore.

            We are all mortal. I know of no one that would dispute that fact. And yet it is more often than not that the talk of death is taboo. We do not prepare ourselves or our loved ones for death. We wish to not put together funeral arraignments for ourselves or even for our loved ones until after the death. We leave the chore to our children, friends or even our legal representatives. I am of the thought that the more open we are about death and dying, and what we believe about it, the less painful death will be. The more we understand death in the context of our faith the more we will be able to express ourselves with a positive sense of life after death. Both for those who have departed and for those of us that are here to bear the loss.

            Understanding how your faith views death, dying, and bereavement can help you along your journey through these most difficult times. This is true whether you are dealing with the death of loved one, friend or you are enduring the pain of rehabilitation, physical and/or emotional. By openly discussing this with someone knowledgeable in your faith, preferably someone who has been trained in chaplaincy, you can attain an additional approach of dealing with your particular concern.

            On the occasion I had patients tell me they were mad at God. They would say that they felt bad about these feelings, and they didn’t think it was right to have these feelings, since they believed that God is love. Yes, it is ok to be mad at God. Perhaps it would be better to say, mad with God. God has no desire to see us in pain. Be mad with God, express yourself verbally, let out the pain, and then let the wind take that pain away. Do not keep the pain inside, hidden. The longer you hide the pain the more the pain will fester into anger and anger into hate. And hate can only be self destructive.

            Yes, grief can be good, or more correctly stated, good for us. Going through the agony of grief can bring us to a degree of peace and understanding within us, as well as bringing us to a closer and improved understanding of our faith. Read, discuses, and pray for the understanding that God rejoices with us in our good times and most especially suffers with us in our greatest times of need.

May your times of need be softened by the Grace and love of God

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FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF

The following can be found at; http://www.ekrfoundation.org / The Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation

Also known as the ‘grief cycle’, it is important to bear in mind that Kübler-Ross did not intend this to be a rigid series of sequential or uniformly timed steps. It’s not a process as such, it’s a model or a framework. There is a subtle difference: a process implies something quite fixed and consistent; a model is less specific – more of a shape or guide. By way of example, people do not always experience all of the five ‘grief cycle’ stages. Some stages might be revisited. Some stages might not be experienced at all. Transition between stages can be more of an ebb and flow, rather than a progression. The five stages are not linear; neither are they equal in their experience. People’s grief, and other reactions to emotional trauma, are as individual as a fingerprint.

In this sense you might wonder what the purpose of the model is if it can vary so much from person to person. An answer is that the model acknowledges there to be an individual pattern of reactive emotional responses which people feel when coming to terms with death, bereavement, and great loss or trauma, etc. The model recognizes that people have to pass through their own individual journey of coming to terms with death and bereavement, etc., after which there is generally an acceptance of reality, which then enables the person to cope.

The model is perhaps a way of explaining how and why ‘time heals’, or how ‘life goes on’. And as with any aspect of our own or other people’s emotions, when we know more about what is happening, then dealing with it is usually made a little easier.

Again, while Kübler-Ross’ focus was on death and bereavement, the grief cycle model is a useful perspective for understanding our own and other people’s emotional reaction to personal trauma and change, irrespective of cause.

EKR stage	Interpretation
1 – Denial	Denial is a conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, reality, etc., relating to the situation concerned. It’s a defense mechanism and perfectly natural. Some people can become locked in this stage when dealing with a traumatic change that can be ignored. Death of course is not particularly easy to avoid or evade indefinitely.
2 – Anger	Anger can manifest in different ways. People dealing with emotional upset can be angry with themselves, and/or with others, especially those close to them. Knowing this helps keep detached and non-judgemental when experiencing the anger of someone who is very upset.
3 – Bargaining	Traditionally the bargaining stage for people facing death can involve attempting to bargain with whatever God the person believes in. People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek to negotiate a compromise. For example “Can we still be friends?..” when facing a break-up. Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially if it’s a matter of life or death.
4 – Depression	Also referred to as preparatory grieving. In a way it’s the dress rehearsal or the practice run for the ‘aftermath’ although this stage means different things depending on whom it involves. It’s a sort of acceptance with emotional attachment. It’s natural to feel sadness and regret, fear, uncertainty, etc. It shows that the person has at least begun to accept the reality.
5 – Acceptance	Again this stage definitely varies according to the person’s situation, although broadly it is an indication that there is some emotional detachment and objectivity. People dying can enter this stage a long time before the people they leave behind, who must necessarily pass through their own individual stages of dealing with the grief.

(Based on the Grief Cycle model first published in On Death & Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 1969. Interpretation by Alan Chapman 2006-2009..

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The following has been copied from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://wikipeda.org

Kübler-Ross originally applied these stages to people suffering from terminal illness. She later expanded this theoretical model to apply to any form of catastrophic personal loss (job, income, freedom). Such losses may also include significant life events such as the death of a loved one, major rejection, end of a relationship or divorce, drug addition, incarceration, the onset of a disease or chronic illness, an infertility, diagnosis, as well many tragedies and disasters. 

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The following prayer is from the Order of Christian Funerals: I found during my study and practice in the field of chaplaincy that this prayer would bring about a calm and peace to many of those in times of sorrow.

             Father of mercies and God of all consolation,

you peruse us with untiring love

and dispel the shadow of death

with the bright dawn of life. 

            Comfort your family in their loss and sorrow.

Be our refuge and our strength, O Lord,

and lift us from the depths of grief

into the peace and light of your presence. 

            Your son, our Lord Jesus Christ,

by dying has destroyed our death,

and by rising, restored our life.

Enable us therefore to press on toward him,

so that, after our earthly course is run,

he may reunite us with those we love,

when every tear will be wiped away. 

We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen

Scripture is from the NABRE 

By David E.Gonzales

The Religious, Left? or HONESTLY! Part Two

To be honest with you I do not believe that there is a Religious left. Nor do I believe there is a Religious right. I believe that we are either following the edicts of the faith we align ourselves with, or we are not. I do believe that the further to the political left/progressive we live our lives, the increasingly secular we become.

Why do so many publicly disclaim a dogmatic aspect of their faith? And why then, do we still go to service on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday and participate fully? I wonder if attending service helps us to wash away the life we live during the week. Our faith is in direct response to how we believe that God, Spirit, or Higher Power has been revealed to us. And yet somehow we also believe that the way our organized religions’ express that faith is not in accordance to that same revelation. It has been said that our faith, or the faith, is not here for our convenience. I would say that this is quite true. It is, however, also true that we follow this faith, freely. There is no coercion from this God, spirituality, or Higher Power. There is no government forcing us to follow the edicts of any particular faith. I think that it is true that we, as “the flesh is weak”, (Matt, 26; 41b) have that weakness to follow our faith to its fullest convenience. And in the process we push our spiritual lives to the side.

It is also true that we as a people of God, have the natural instinct to question almost everything. But questioning is very different than living our lives in direct conflict to our faith. Questioning can bring us closer to our faith. It causes us to study, to dig deeper into how these edicts were developed. Expressing our thoughts in writing is an especially fine way to reach an increased understanding of our faith.

I think that peer pressure also plays a role in how we live our faith. I would suppose that many a young man and woman have had their lives ruined because of the pressure they were not able to withstand from their peers. And of course this holds true to adults as well. If the truth be told, the more we accept a secular stance in our lives the further we distance ourselves from our God, Spirit, or Higher Power. And the further we get from God, our spiritual center, the more influenced we can become by the secular movement.

            How many of us present ourselves in our place of worship in the same manner that we do in our place of business or recreation? I will use two examples to illustrate my point. I am not writing this in judgment, but only as a contemplative tool. 1) To the best of my knowledge none of the major faiths or religions, supports the action of abortion. Depending on the poll you choose, the vast percentage of Americans state that they identify with one of these major Religions, Faiths, or Spirituality’s, and yet about half of the population supports pro-choice. Why? These two realities most definitely seem to be opposed to one and another. And it most certainly divides a faith between those that live their faith as fully as possible and those that live their lives inconsistent with their faith.

            2) When you are home with family or alone, do you say your prayers of thanks and praise before your meals? I would think that great a majority of the populace does. Now, how do you compare that to giving thanks and praise when you are at a restaurant? I know that when I go out I see very few groups of friends and/or family taking the time to give thanks in their faith tradition. Why? Is it because many of us feel uncomfortable or embarrassed to make a sign of the cross or hold hands in public? For me, I find that a quick, quiet prayer before meals goes unnoticed by the vast majority. And I can attest that I have never had anyone make a terse comment about my public yet quiet outward display of faith. I also must admit that I feel good about presenting myself and my faith in this manner.

Ask yourself this; where are you in your spiritual life? Do you live full time in your faith; are you a part-timer? Or are you a full time secular? What is the extent of your faith? Is it the hour or two you spend at service, while the rest of the week is “what feels good”?  I don’t have the answer for anyone except me, and you have the answer for you.

Scripture is from the NABRE

By David E.Gonzales

Gods Gender?

           I was reading an article a while ago by a prominent Christian Bishop, and I came across his reference to God as (s)he. As I read through the article I realized that there was no particular reason to make such a reference about God, at least as God is understood in the Christian faith. After I finished and took some time to contemplate the structure of God as portrayed in this article, I felt a pulling of the Holy Sprit to express my feelings and understanding of God on this subject of gender.

Are we as a people of faith still wrapped up in the trivial discussion of God’s gender? Are we still so arrogant as to believe that God is male or female, and therefore one of us is better, holier or more preferred by God? To say that God is male or female is to put a limit on God. We believe that God is limitless, thus making that statement false. It would also be incorrect to state that God is genderless. We are created by God both male and female. This is, in part, how God know us and love us and we know and love God. It would be increasingly correct to state that God is gender in its totality. I do not use a word of stated fact here simply because God is indeed a mystery. A mystery is that which the human mind cannot fully comprehend. And as a mystery, we can only apply what God has revealed to us through Sacred Scripture and Tradition.

            As we continue to strive in political correctness, some have so exaggerated this issue that we miss the point: that this adds up to but a speck in the question, what is God. Gods very being is Truth and Love. (¹CCC-231). God’s love is a love that gives life. A love that allows that life to make its own decisions, good, bad, right, wrong, creative, destructive. A love that gives us the freedom to choose our own path, even a path that does not include this same God.

The directive of how to live our lives is clear and simple. That is to love, love in charity, love one another as God has loved us. Let us live in the simplicity that is the commandment of love. (²Jn. 13:34) Let us live our lives in the love of God that was given to us through our Christ.

            I understand the need of some to create controversy by using gender as a tool. In this I mean, the need for some to use this tool as a means to demonstrate their position, their personal quest. But doesn’t that make us look trivial?  We, as a people, have a need to elevate ourselves, or our ideals, in doing so we inadvertently bring down that which is God. Would it not be better to live our lives in the love of God in order to bring about the same conditions of conscience? I offer a personal challenge, to see how long you can go without referring to God as either a “he” or a “she”. This will require a deliberate effort to reconstruct your thoughts without the use of gender. Have a little fun with this, after all God does have a sense of humor.

            Yes, Jesus said to call God our Father, but not in the sense of Gods gender. This is the God our Father as creator, teacher, guide, etc, and one who loves us as his children. But God is not male; God is not female, in and of itself. For we know that God is so very much more! Let us keep God in proper perspective, “…the one who is and who was and who is to come…” (²Rev. 1:8) that which is truth and love in totality. May Gods love be with you, male and female, always.

1.      CCC = Catechism of the Catholic Church

2.      Scripture is from the NABRE

By David E.Gonzales