Michele Bachmann's Migraines

I was saddened to hear that Michele Bachmann suffers from migraine headaches and I pray that her health may improve. Migraine headaches can be debilitating. It is a testimony to Mrs. Bachmann's ability to persevere that she has coped with this medical condition and held a stressful position in government. That said, I need to ask the following questions: how much does her medication cost? How much does insurance cover?

Now imagine that you suffer from chronic migraines. Imagine you are a janitor working two jobs to pay your rent and support your family of 5 or 6. Imagine that like 35 million others you do not have health insurance. How can you work while you suffer from chronic migraines? How can you pay for medication?

This situation demonstrates why President Obama's health care law is not only necessary, but also, from the standpoint of Christian Social Ethics, morally correct.

Reverencing What Is Revealed in the Resurrection Narratives

As I mentioned in the previous essay, in an essay entitled “Ignatian Spirituality” (found in both An Ignatian Spirituality Reader and As Leaven in the World: Catholic Perspectives on Faith, Vocation, and the Intellectual Life), Howard Gray has explained that, in the Jesuit Constitutions, Ignatius provides a path for helping others pray and find God in all things. The method is explained as attentiveness leading to reverence which leads to devotion. Fr. Gray’s analysis sheds light on another revolutionary Ignatian method of prayer—Ignatian Contemplation which utilizes the imagination to enter into a scene from Scripture. Attentiveness within Ignatian Scriptural Contemplation allows the passage of scripture to be most radically itself as it engages your consciousness. Internalizing the scriptural event, I am “gently alert to what has been revealed” (An Ignatian Spirituality Reader, 64). In attentiveness, you let the scriptural passage in. In the next step, reverence, you embrace what you let in. “Reverence means what one has been attentive to must now be accepted as it is, in its own terms” (65). However, there are psychic and cultural obstacles to reverence. To understand and overcome the obstacles to reverence, it is helpful to study the mimetic theory of cultural anthropologist and theologian Rene Girard.

What do we find when we embrace what is revealed in the resurrection narratives? We may be overwhelmed with gratitude as we find that the risen Jesus is the fullness of love: Jesus, the loving son of the Father/Mother, returns to humanity after humanity has unjustly condemned him, tortured him, abandoned him, and killed him. We may recall moments in our lives when we pushed unconditional love away. We may get brief psychic glimpses of the risen Christ. We may be drawn to a particular character in a particular resurrection narrative and then gain insight into our own need for the glorified Lord. In short, the resurrection points to the truth that we can push unconditional (agapic) love away, but unconditional love will always return to us, drawing our hearts to him. This is the source of the joy that the disciples feel when they finally see the risen Lord. They have been completely accepted.

The problem is that the disciples do not see the risen Jesus right away. Why is that? Let’s consider John 20:11-18. Magdalene does not recognize Jesus at first. The whole possibility that the friend that she lost could return to her does not even occur to her. It lies beyond what Bernard Lonergan would call the horizon of her understanding. She recognizes Jesus when he calls her name. This same mind-blowing quality is found in Luke’s account of the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). The disciples do not recognize Jesus until the breaking of the bread and when they do recognize him, he disappears from their sight. Much of the time, unconditional love is far beyond our ability to imagine. Much of our consciousness is structured by fear of failure and what Robert Hamerton Kelly, a student of Rene Girard, has named the generative mimetic scapegoating mechanism (GMSM) of culture. What is the GMSM? It is the dynamic that gave birth to culture in the first place. For more details about the birth of culture please see the essay preceding this one.

Peter denied Jesus because he was aware of this scapegoat mechanism. He denied the Lord because he did not want to be the next one scapegoated. The gift to Peter was that the one who was scapegoated came back to rehabilitate him. This is symbolized in John 21:15-19. Peter had denied Jesus three times and in the Gospel of John he is rehabilitated three times. If we identify with Peter in this passage, we may feel genuine joy at the Lord’s forgiveness of us and his willingness to call us to feed his sheep, to be of service. We may feel gratitude for the fact that the Lord recognizes our apostolic value even though we make mistakes and sin.

In the same “Ignatian Spirituality” essay, Fr. Gray mentions that Ignatius also valued human experience. Reflecting on our experience gives us more insight into the resurrection. Reflecting on our experience, we find that we are so used to being involved in rivalry that we cannot see the risen Christ. We are so used to thinking that we are either winners or losers that the reality of the salvific, transforming loser who overcomes victimization explodes our reality as it exploded the reality of the entire early Church. We are then led to a choice: either give up the mimetic, rivalristic system of thinking and relish the risen Christ or continue the mimetic, rivalristic system and completely miss him. The mimetic, rivalristic system is the old wine skin that cannot hold the new wine of the resurrection. Time and time again, the disciples do not recognize the risen Christ. They keep sinking back into the old way, the old wine skins. We need to reflect upon our own experience and ask “what are the specific feelings that prevent my heart from seeing the risen Lord?”

In many ways, the resistance to Ignatian reverence flows from the internalized scapegoat mechanism. Fr. Gray comments that reverence is the “exclusion of exclusion” (65). The scapegoat mechanism is the internalization of exclusion. We are in rivalry with the other so we will not let the other (revelation) in. We refuse to give up the thinking that there are necessarily winners and losers so it is beyond our horizon to see the winning loser, the transforming excluded, the stone rejected which has become the cornerstone.

We literally need to ask the Lord, why am I caught up in rivalry, scapegoating and fear? When the answer is revealed through grace, we are led to embrace what we have let in as we attentively and reverently pray with scripture. We then say yes to the risen Lord in a most personal way. We become apostles—servants who spread the kingdom of agapic love. We become servants who have found the energy to serve from the overflowing grace of our forgiving Lord who leads us out of the thicket of mimetic rivalry, scapegoating, fear and delusion into the new humanity of unconditional love.

Attentiveness to the Passion and Resurrection

According to James Alision, for God, death is as if it were not. This is revealed in the resurrection of Jesus. Prior to the resurrection, all human understanding occurred through, and was structured by, a cultural system in which death was understood as inevitable and in which the death of a scapegoat provided the social glue which held the culture together. In the resurrection of Jesus, God has vindicated the man who lived his life befriending scapegoats and who allowed himself to become a scapegoat in order to overcome scapegoating. In the resurrection of Jesus, God has decreed that scapegoating is not a means for pleasing God; rather, it is the antithesis of the creative work of God’s spirit.

As a student of Rene Girard, Alison understands how culture first came into existence: mimetic rivalry between two pre-linguistic hominids was copied by others; violent conflict followed and was copied; an accusatory gesture was copied; the accused was then murdered by a mob; finally, the mob then notices the quiet social cohesion of the mob’s activity. This act of group murder was then ritualized into the act of human sacrifice. This sacrificial act provided social cohesion and a means for overcoming anarchy. When there was a crisis, it was deemed that the gods wanted blood. Upon performing the sacrificial act, social cohesion was restored and the people believed that the gods then blessed them with peace.

Some cultures maintained the ritual of human sacrifice. Others eventually substituted animal victims for human victims, but the dynamic of uniting people over against a human scapegoat was passed down in different forms. Hitler used the dynamic to unite people against the innocent Jewish populace. At prisons, people celebrate the execution of a condemned person. Presidents liberal and conservative are hated by their ideological opponents. Immigrants are unfairly deemed unclean and dangerous. Gay people are denied their rights. Misogyny still exists. People with brain disorders are portrayed as threats to the community. Human rights activists in many countries are imprisoned and deemed a threat to the state. It seems that humanity cannot kick this social habit. This is very sad for God kicked this habit long ago. Truth be told, God never wanted this habit to begin with. It came into existence because primitive human beings projected their own violence onto God.

During this Holy Week, we need to ask, “How are we continuing to project violence onto God? Who are our scapegoats and what does the gracious truth of the crucified and risen Christ say to us?” The answers to these questions can come from rational analysis. They also come to us through the process of prayer. To borrow from Howard Gray’s analysis of the Jesuit Constitutions, as we pray , we need to be attentive, reverent and devout. In being attentive, we allow the other to be most fully itself. We then move to reverence, in which we accept and esteem that good that we find in the other. Finally, in devotion, we then see in an authentic way how God is at work in our prayer.

I was blessed to experience this on a retreat. I had been wounded by another. I carried the resentment for months. Finally, I had the time to make an Ignatian retreat. During the retreat, I followed Jesus through his life. When we came to the meditation on the passion, the most amazing thing happened. As I prayed before the crucified Christ, I saw the face of the one I resented on the face of Christ. I then was drawn to the person of Peter as he denied Christ. In my mind’s eye, I could see Peter’s sandals as he ran from the cross. The strange thing was that my feet were in his sandals. In nurturing the resentment, I was crucifying this other and I was running from Christ. I wept and the resentment was lifted. After the retreat, I felt no resentment toward him. This did not mean that I spent a lot of time with him for he himself had not changed and continued to hurt others. To this day, I am always prudent when dealing with this person, but I no longer hate him.

So, once again, the question is: who are our scapegoats? Who do we encourage others to gang up on—whether physically or verbally? Can we be attentive and take the time to allow the Lord to lead us through his passion in a meaningful, life-changing way? If we have been scapegoated, have we joined in and scapegoated ourselves? Can we overcome this self-hatred by entering into the passion and resurrection? Where does the healing lie? Will we allow the Lord to lift our resentments? Will we allow the Lord to be the Lord and stop trying to be God ourselves? Finally, can we be attentive to the spiritual consolation of the resurrection and enter into an ecclesial order free from gossip, discrimination and group violence? Can we see how God is at work in our prayer lives?

A Gift to the World

The Lake Erie Olympics will be a gift to the world. We the hosts will give and we will expect nothing in return. That is the essence of hospitality and giving. Of course, the whole effort will provide jobs, will rehab Cleveland’s lakefront, and, with the building of the Cleveland Center for Intercultural Healing and Reconciliation, will transform Cleveland into a cultural capital. All of those benefits are also gifts, but one of the greatest gifts will be a new vision for the Olympics—seeing the Olympics as means to liberate the poor and to facilitate a cross-cultural conversation about the peace and development of the world.

If we see the Lake Erie Olympics only as a means of enriching ourselves and our friends, then our vision is clouded. We would then not be hosts. The USOC and IOC will sense that, and our bid will fail. We who are interested in hosting need to be trained in hospitality and I can think of no better mechanism for training than the spiritual exercises of each of our great traditions. Whatever your tradition, I am sure that each tradition shares the universal emphasis on charity, justice, and hospitality. We need to allow our traditions to train our hearts to beat with the sensitivity and grace of a host. Sensitivity is key. How many conflicts have started because someone was insensitive to the culture and perceptions of another? The various wars of religion among Catholics and Protestants in Europe were caused by the refusal of one culture to see the sanctity of the other culture. The evils of Communism were fueled by a totalitarian desire to see the world from one perspective.

Our movement will be different. It will celebrate diversity and live by the Teilhardian truth that unity differentiates. This is why I think that the Ignatian Innovation conferences that I thought would cross-fertilize the Lake Erie Olympic effort are still essential. We don’t have the time we once had to put all of this together this summer, but it still needs to happen. We can organize an Olympic bid first, and then put together the training programs to develop the sensitivity to foster intercultural healing and reconciliation. You cannot have one without the other-especially if we want to foster a conversation about how to host an Olympics in the Holy Land and in the Koreas.

We already have a foundation to build upon: our region hosts major sporting and cultural events. Whether it is for an Ohio State football game or the Cleveland and Akron symphony orchestras, we know how to host major events. We now just need to add intercultural sensitivity and the ability to listen to understand others. Kay Lindahl writes about the importance of listening to understand, rather than listening to agree or disagree. There is a major difference. In The Sacred Art of Listening, she writes that “the more we understand about one another, the less we fear. The less we fear, the more we trust. The more we trust, the more our hearts open to love one another.” In the same vein, Howard Gray, S.J. writes and speaks about the need to trust the experience of others. Denying another’s experience and what the other has learned from his/her experience cripples the relationship. Imagine what happens when members of warring communities are able to listen to each other’s experiences. There are already many movements who foster these kinds of dialogues. What the participants find is that they are similar, they share the same values, the feel the same pain, and they both really want peace. Imagine if we in northeastern Ohio learn to listen to the different traditions of the world so that we can host an event that will bring healing to the world. Imagine.

I am grateful for the time that you have spent reading this essay. Thank you for the gift you have given to me. Thank you for taking the time to read and to listen.

Our Transcendence Occurs In Time

Our transcendence occurs in time. What does this mean and why is it essential to human happiness? By transcendence I mean the fulfillment of the human search for meaning. In the terms of Christian theology, transcendence would mean our salvation—the total living surrender of the whole human person to the grace of God which is lived by the human person’s being totally loving. What is the relevance of love? Our transcendence is completed in love for in love we go beyond ourselves: we reach out and are grasped by divine love and are drawn into a fuller self. This occurs inside the world, inside of time. It is not an escape from a sinful world.

How is it that transcendence occurs in time? Doesn’t our salvation consist of the human soul escaping from a sinful world and going “to heaven”? In a word, no. If transcendence were to merely mean escaping from a sinful world and going to heaven, no Christian would ever feel in his or her heart the need to speak out against unjust human structures. Martin Luther King never would have led the civil rights movement. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops never would have published The Challenge of Peace which utilized the just war theory and concluded that use of a nuclear weapon can never be justified or Economic Justice For All which utilized Catholic social teaching to evaluate American policies concerning poverty and unemployment . Christians would never try to help pregnant women carry their babies to term. If transcendence were to merely mean escaping from a sinful world and going to heaven, our savior never would have taught us that whatsoever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters we do to him. There would be no call to service for service is lived in the graced, yet sinful, world. Moreover, there would be no spiritual movement for transforming unjust social systems. The People Power Revolution of the Philippines would have been devoid of the very heart that led it-- Catholic Christian social teaching. The Catholic Church never would have successfully helped to overthrow the communist tyrannies of Eastern Europe. The Arab revolutions that are underway this year would be irrelevant. Christian liberals and Christian conservatives would never debate any policies because these policies would just be passing features of this corrupt, temporary world.

Now that we have considered the political ramifications of misunderstanding transcendence, let’s consider a sacramental possibility: we would never marry. We would basically live the way the ancient Gnostics lived, eschewing the material world and the space-time continuum as inherently corrupt. We would not raise children—one of the material/incarnational/spiritual blessings of marriage. The sacrament of matrimony is lived in time, as we love, and the husband and wife are the ministers of the sacrament.

If our transcendence/salvation occurred outside of time, Christianity would not be a way of living; it would be an ahistorical mind trip. There would be no point to St. Paul telling us that love (agape) is patient and kind, that it bears all things (1 Cor 13). Love bears all things in time. This is why Jesus himself taught us that the “kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21).

Having repudiated a misunderstanding of transcendence, let us analyze the nature of transcendence so that we might live it more fully. I must first point out that all of the great religions provide teachings about human transcendence. The language is not the same and the path is not the same, but the goal is the same—the transcendence of the human person. At this point, we must ask what does it mean to transcend? I am borrowing much of this analysis from Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, the two greatest transcendental Thomists (both of whom owe a debt of gratitude to Pierre Rousselot, Joseph Marechal and a host of other philosophers and theologians). I will also add a dose of insight from Rene Girard.

To understand human transcendence, one must have some understanding of the human person. For Karl Rahner and his students, the human person reaches out into the world through acts of the will and acts of the intellect. What we learn from reaching out into the world are finite truths, time bound social constructions of math, science, finance, history, philosophy, theology, etc, but we are never satisfied with what we know or what we have. We always want more. That is because our longing, our reaching out, is infinite. We know this from experience. In the words of St. Augustine, “our hearts are restless until they rest in [God].”

People will doubt this, living from self will, thinking that reading more and more, or just having more and more will satisfy their hearts. As I understand it, this is the heart of addiction, filling our hearts with more and more stuff. Eventually, living this way, a person bottoms out, and what we know from recovery programs is that the person will continue to get drawn back into addiction, whatever kind of addiction it is, until that person undergoes some kind of conversion in which that person recognizes his or her need for God—for the infinite. That is, the person will continue to get drawn back into addiction, until that person realizes that his reaching out into the world is never satisfied by collecting more and more theorems or possessions or money or alcohol. Rather, through conversion, the person comes to realize that his reaching out never grasps the ultimate. His reaching out in fact is never fully satisfied. The person lets go of the powerful urge for addiction when he realizes that his desires are for the infinite mystery of love—that is, the infinite mystery of God. He or she may also come to realize that God can be known but never fully understood and that although he reaches out for God, he cannot grasp God. Rather, in prayer and meditation, he allows God to grasp him.

How do we know that we have been grasped by God? In the discernment following the prayer, we reflect on what has happened. We notice which images, thoughts and feelings freely moved us to insights, joy, charity, and justice. It is helpful to write them down. And then, by writing about our prayer experiences over a period of time, we can then review them and notice patterns—which recurring images, thoughts and feelings give us a sense of consolation (insights, joy, charity and a desire for justice). We can also think of consolation as positive energy for creative work. This process of prayer and discernment is expressed by the poetry of the great Buddhist Maha Ghosananda:

The thought manifests as the word.
The word manifests as the deed.
The deed develops into the habit.
The habit hardens into the character.
The character gives birth to the destiny.
So, watch your thoughts with care
And let them spring from love
Born out of respect for all beings.

Thoughts that spring from love are moments of transcendence. They are moments in which the infinite beyond—God—grasps us. Such moments are fundamentally ineffable. We do not exactly understand why they occur to us, but they lead us to freedom. Let’s be more specific: thoughts that spring from love may be the plans for the expansion of your business. Recognizing that you have a product that contributes to the well-being of your customers and of society, you hire new people, develop new delivery systems, improve the communication in your work places, and other relevant improvements. Praying over your work, these thoughts have bubbled up mysteriously in your heart. You have noticed certain patterns to your prayer and you authentically sense that there is a lot of positive energy around your plan to expand. The consolation of the thoughts gives you energy for other, more difficult aspects of your life. The expansion itself gives jobs to many people and delivers the product to more people who need it.

Thoughts that spring from love may be your desire to marry a particular person. You have dated for a while and have quietly considered marriage. Perhaps you have even asked your partner about his or her feelings about having children. In prayer, perhaps over scripture, there is a particular image that you associate with your love. Perhaps it is an image of your love. Whatever it may be, the thought of committing yourself to this person gives you authentic joy. You notice other thoughts: fears that the marriage might not work, worry about how your joint financial life is going to work in this difficult economy, fears about raising children. These fears are what St. Ignatius called desolation. They are real feelings, but they run contrary to the God given joy that flows from the consolation of loving your partner for the rest of your life. We transcend our current selves by following the consolation, by following, relishing and nurturing the thoughts that flow from love born out of respect for all beings. The wonder of it all is that our transcendence, our reaching out beyond ourselves, consists of our becoming joyful and we become joyful by surrendering to the feelings of true love, true compassion, true genius, and true justice. All of this can begin now, and it is lived in time. It consists of our very real decisions to pay attention to what we truly want, the authentic desires of our hearts. What we truly want gives us joy. What we truly want is delightful. What we truly want is infused into our hearts by our loving God, who creates us through these authentic desires. God creates us/saves us by moving us to authentic acts of transcendence which occur in time.

On the other hand, desolation flows from the evil spirit who wants to confuse us so that we give up on what we truly want. He attempts to lead us away from the joy that our authentic desires give us by telling us that our plans will never work, that we will get hurt, that there is no good, or that we don’t deserve what is good. There are many other ways that the dynamic of the dark attempts to lead us away from joy.
My point is that our transcendence, expressed in our concrete acts of surrender to what is good, occurs in time as we meditate upon the direction of our feelings. It is not superimposed upon us by a God who does not involve himself in our lives. Transcendence/creation/salvation happens when we act in response to God’s initiative in this world, in this space-time continuum.

Transcendence does not occur when we think we need to escape from this world. Nor does it occur when we think we can control what is good in our lives. Attempts to control our lives and those around us result in spiritual regression, not progression. Why? Ultimately, we cannot grasp what is good. We cannot grasp God—agapic Love--but, as I mentioned above, God can and does grasp us. And when God grasps us, we express it using the cultural categories and language that we have inherited from childhood. And then time passes, we live more, and once again we are grasped. Discernment then consists in finding in our consciousness the thoughts and feelings that flow from love. For example, when my four year old daughter tells me, “Daddy, be a big puppy” and I respond and she then laughs and laughs, I am grasped by love. When my eleven year old has been attending dance class for two straight hours and then asks me, “Daddy, can we stop for ice cream,” something inside me says “She wants some quality time now.” I tell her “Yes, let’s get some ice cream.” Those thoughts flow from love.

I recall another experience. My children love our dog. I like the dog but mostly tolerate him at times. He is part dachshund and part terrier. He is hyperactive. He barks a lot and I have some sensory sensitivities. Literally, at times, the dog gives me a headache. The thing is, the dog loves me. He won’t leave me alone. I try to meditate and he comes and lays on top of me. I try to read and he barks until I walk him. If I were to neglect the dog, I would be harming one of God’s creatures and my children would suffer. So, I notice how gentle the dog is when he snuggles my kids at night. I notice the smile on my wife’s face when he welcomes her home. At those moments I am grasped by the beyond, by infinity. I am momentarily filled with compassion for and joy for others. Then I let this “grasping” by joy motivate me to act.

Now please don’t think that I consider myself to be the master of discernment. I am far too ungrateful and nervous to be considered that way, and like many other human beings, I have followed some uncharitable thoughts into action. Nonetheless, I know from experience that authentic desires are experienced by allowing ourselves to be grasped by the Holy Mystery. Inauthentic desires flow from desolation which is concurrent with our reaching out and clinging to an object or course of action. In short, it is a very human tendency to hold onto an object, an idea, a fear because it is familiar, or just because the dynamic of the dark has told us all sorts of lies about what happens when we let go. Rene Girard and his students have written very persuasively about how the mimetic tendencies of desire foster attachments to ideas, resentments, objects, and a host of other non-realities, but it is beyond the scope of this essay to analyze Girard’s theory at length. Let me just state that our tendency to copy others can draw us into conflict and harden our clinging to an object. Mimesis literally clogs up our heart with attachment and blocks our view of the ultimate. Thankfully, grace weakens our mimetic attachments and frees us to allow ourselves to be grasped by the ultimate.

We are creatures of desire and we are creatures who are constantly being freed for transcendence. In the end, yes it is true, we “go to heaven,” but what does that mean? When we go to heaven, we transcend material life by entering into the mystery of death and by giving ourselves over to the mystery of God who is present in death. Of course, we fulfill our time in the space-time continuum by dying in time and entering into eternity. Eternity, as Karl Rahner noted, is not the opposite of time. Rather, it is the fulfillment of time. My entering into eternity is the fulfillment of my personal history, a fulfillment which is coterminous with my being lifted up into the incomprehensibility of divine love.

Why then, did I write this essay? I wrote this because I have heard some Christians write and speak about their life as if it did not matter. I also wrote it because many Christians doubt the relevance of political action for the spiritual life. I think it is very easy to simply ignore the problems of our age by saying that “this world” does not matter, when in reality, heaven is experienced in “this world,” and we enter into heaven by loving and acting for justice in this world. Acting for justice means laboring to liberate the poor and the wealthy from systems of oppression and exploitation. What does liberation mean? Well, once again theologians have found that grasping and hanging onto a system—Marxism--left the world unfulfilled. We have a task at hand and that is allowing God to draw us into non-violent, non-Marxist theologies of liberation. That eludes the purposes of this present essay. I will leave it up to the master theologians to tackle that one (although I might give it a try some day). Finally, I think that the most a spiritual writer can do at times is just to point to the basic structure of human living: we need to reach out and let ourselves be grasped by love. Love will then enlighten our minds so that we may find creative solutions to our political troubles, our economic troubles, our military troubles, and whatever other troubles we face. May our thoughts and feelings flow from love and through love be happily completed!

Excellent Opinion Piece on Adjunct Faculty and Collective Bargaining

The authors are brilliant. I should know. I'm married to one of them.

See the Cleveland Plain Dealer

Funding for the Lake Erie Olympic Organizing Committee

As we imagine a Lake Erie Olympics, we have to consider how to finance it. I think that the very nature of the Lake Erie Olympics itself will help fund it. I like to think of the whole enterprise as an exercise in socially responsible, creative capitalism. In this sense, it will be the most American and the most global of all the Olympics. We are going to be involved in an Olympic revision—a radical change in the way that we see the Olympics.

The Los Angeles Olympics of 1984 demonstrated that it was possible to finance the games using solely private financing. I believe that we will be able to count heavily on private financing from corporate sponsorship because the corporate world wants to support expanding the Olympic vision. Sponsors will acquire the right to advertise their sponsorship of the most global Olympics ever, the Olympics which will change how the Olympic Movement affects the world. Sponsors will thus attain a massive marketing advantage in developing markets. This does not reduce this progressive Olympics to merely turning a profit, although there is nothing wrong with turning a profit, especially when we plan to give a substantial percentage of our Olympic surplus to Haiti and Nicaragua.

We will need seed money. Some of it will come from the United States Olympic Committee, but most of it will come from creative fund-raising mechanisms. These fund raising mechanisms will supplement corporate sponsorship, television revenues, and ticket sales (all three of which will be significant).

Consider the following fund-raising possibilities. I am using the names of various stars, athletes, and corporations without their permission at this point. This is purely an exercise in imaginative creativity. I do not think any of the people or corporations named will object to my use of their names. I hope that most will want to be involved.

Imagine the following:

1. Auction or raffle: Tour the Rock Hall of Fame with Bruce Springsteen as your guide. Listen as the Boss explains to you who influenced his music. Listen as the Boss performs a few songs in the Rock Hall.
2. Auction or raffle: Take a Cadillac Limo ride with the following stars to their concerts. Enjoy backstage passes to the concert.
a. Bruce Springsteen
b. U2
c. Taylor Swift
d. Chrissie Hynde
e. Black Eyed Peas
f. Tim McGraw
g. Others
3. Auction/raffle: write a song with your favorite music star. Songs to be performed by the star and the winner at the Lake Erie Olympics (winner does not have to perform if winner does not want to). An excellent opportunity for up and coming musicians to get publicity. The following performers:
a. Brad Paisley
b. Kenny Chesney
c. Faith Hill
d. Others
4. NFL
a. Direct sponsorship for we will be introducing football as an Olympic sport.
b. Auction/raffle: Tour the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton with the following players, coaches and announcers as your guide. Dine with players, coaches and announcers. Auction and/or raffles held in various American cities. Some proceeds to local charities. Most proceeds to LEOOC. Winners will be flown to Akron/Canton regional airport and will have lodgings at a hotel in Canton.
i. Jim Brown
ii. Colt McCoy
iii. Eric Metcalf
iv. Mike Ditka
v. William the Refrigerator Perry
vi. Terry Bradshaw
vii. Lynn Swann
viii. Jerome Bettis
ix. Jimmy Johnson
x. Dan Hampton
xi. Mike Singletary
xii. Art Monk
xiii. Joe Buck
xiv. Troy Aikman
xv. John Madden
xvi. Tony Dungy
xvii. Many others.
c. Auction/raffle: play flag football with Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Game to be played at Fawcett Stadium at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Tour the Hall with Mr. Manning and Mr. Brady after the game. BBQ or dinner at a restaurant following the game. Tickets to watch the game to be sold nationally. Four friends and relatives will also be included in the package. All proceeds to LEOOC.
d. Auction/raffle: play flag football with Aaron Rodgers and Jay Cutler. Game to be played at Fawcett Stadium at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Tour the Hall with Mr.
Rodgers and Mr. Cutler after the game. BBQ or dinner at a restaurant following the game. Tickets to watch the game to be sold nationally. Four friends and relatives will also be included in the package. All proceeds to LEOOC.
e. Auction/raffle: play flag football with Drew Brees and Kurt Warner. Game to be played at Infocision stadium in Akron. Tour the Pro Football Hall of Fame with Mr. Brees and Mr. Warner after the game. BBQ or dinner with the University of Akron Football coach at a restaurant following the game. Tickets to watch the game to be sold nationally. Four friends and relatives will also be included in the package. All proceeds to LEOOC.
f. Auction/raffle: play flag football with Troy Smith and Vince Young. Game to be played at The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. BBQ or dinner with the Ohio State Football Coach at a restaurant following the game. Tickets to watch the game to be sold nationally. Four friends and relatives will also be included in the package. All proceeds to LEOOC
g. Auction/raffle: attend each year’s inductions at Pro Football Hall of Fame.
h. Auction/raffle: Tickets to Hall of Fame Game. Interview select players after the game. Keep the tape of the interview.

5. Auction/Raffle: Tour the College Football Hall of Fame with the following players and coaches as your guide. Dine with players and coaches. Auction and raffles held in various American cities. Some proceeds to local charities. Most proceeds to LEOOC. Winners will be flown to South Bend airport and will have lodgings at a hotel in South Bend.
a. Archie Griffin
b. Joe Theisman
c. The Ohio State Football Coach
d. Lou Holtz
e. Brian Kelly
f. Urban Meyer
g. Kirk Herbstreit
6. NASCAR race in Detroit with most or all proceeds to LEOOC.
7. Auction/raffle: engage in service work with former Olympic athletes. National and international. Sponsored by LEOOC sponsors.
8. Auction/raffle: work out with former Olympic athletes.
9. MLB:
a. Direct sponsorship for we will re-introduce baseball as an Olympic sport. The World Baseball Classic has demonstrated that baseball is a global sport, more global than curling and other Olympic sports. It is not just an American game.
b. Auction/Raffle: tour the Baseball Hall of Fame with your favorite players, managers, and announcers.
i. Ryne Sandberg
ii. Steve Stone
iii. Manny Ramirez
iv. Kerry Wood
v. Derek Jeter
vi. Tim McCarver
vii. Grady Sizemore
viii. Jim Thome
ix. Others
c. Auction/raffle: Your children will attend a baseball camp run by Lou Piniella, Derek Jeter, and others. Camp will take place in Florida in February/March.
d. Auction/raffle: take batting practice with your favorite pro team. After BP you will get the chance to sit in your team’s dugout as they warm up. Bring your camera! Takes place in each major league park.
10. NBA:
a. Direct Sponsorship because basketball is an Olympic sport.
b. Auction/raffle: play horse with your favorite NBA star. Players and former players include:
i. LeBron James
ii. Dwight Howard
iii. Michael Jordan
iv. Shaquille O’Neal
v. Kevin Garnett
vi. Kobe Bryant
vii. Others
11. Television contract.
12. Direct Corporate sponsorship. Sponsors acquire the right to advertise their sponsorship of the most Olympic, most global Olympics ever, the Olympics which will change how the Olympic Movement affects the world. Sponsors will thus attain a massive marketing advantage in developing markets.
13. Ticket sales.

A Translation of the Our Father for our Times

The Lord’s Prayer, a beautiful, liberating prayer Jesus himself gave us, is a foundational Christian prayer. All of the patristic theologians considered it to be the foundation of all Christian prayer. It is said in all Christian churches, at the close of the vast majority of twelve step meetings, and in the privacy of all Christian homes. With such standing, it influences both the conscious decision making of all Christians, but also the unconscious attitudes we have toward reality, God’s initiatives and the way we live our faith. The very words of the prayer are internalized by Christian children who then carry them with them throughout their whole life. We develop an understanding that God is a loving father, that his name is holy, that he exists in some kind of heavenly state, that there is a fundamental difference between earth and heaven, that God’s kingdom is breaking into our world, that we need to forgive and that we are forgiven, that God provides for us, that evil is real, and that God acts and that we need to act as well. All of these concepts and symbols act on our conscious awareness and in our unconscious values, attitudes and feelings.

Because this prayer is so very important, it is important to ask if we are translating it correctly. We live in the twenty-first century and are influenced by the insights of science, the wonder of space travel, the tremendous accomplishments of collective action on behalf of peace and justice, and the prophetic work of feminist theology. How then are we to translate this prayer in the twenty-first century? In this essay, I will examine each verse of the prayer and propose a re-translation.

“Our Father, who art in heaven.” We have come to realize that since all people and things flow from God, both femininity and masculinity are present in God. “Mother” could be substituted for “Father” (as Blessed Julian of Norwich did in the fourteenth century). The reality of God includes all that is good in both men and women. Moreover, Jesus did not just experience God as Father, but as Abba—Daddy—tender, loving parent. Why then did Jesus maintain masculine language? He did so for the same reason that he refers to God as living in the heavens. He was fully human. Although his wisdom (sapientia) was infinite, his knowledge (scientia) was limited by space and time (as it is for all human beings). He could not have known about feminist contributions to religious studies in the same way that he could not have known about space travel or Einstein’s theory of relativity.

We know from critical Biblical scholarship that the phrase “the heavens” is a symbol for God. We know from science that there is no heavenly firmament dividing the upper atmosphere from the abode of God and his angels. Jesus was a first century Jewish man so he knew first century Jewish cosmology. Some might argue that because Jesus was divine he knew everything, including twenty-first century astro-physics and modern/post-modern science. This claim is a form of monophysitism which claims that Jesus’ divinity swallowed up his humanity. The Church has correctly taught that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. As a fully human being, his knowledge of science would be limited to the science of his day (once again the difference between sapientia and scientia). Hence, the double decker universe of heaven above earth. We also know from our collective spiritual experience that God is everywhere (an experience heightened by the dynamics of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius). So, the first line of the prayer could read: “Our Father (Daddy), who is everywhere” or “who is in all situations and people.”

“Hallowed be thy name” stands as it is. In his commentary on the Gospel of Luke in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Robert Karris, O.F.M. interprets this verse as “may all the evils which defile your creation be removed, especially those in our hearts, so that the gracious love, witnessed to in your name, may be manifested.” I will also point out that it would be characteristic of a Jewish teacher such as Jesus to reverence the mysterious name of YHWH, the name revealed in the spiritual-political liberation of the Exodus. Since the name was revealed in the context of the Exodus--“I am YHWH, I will free you” (Exodus 6:6)—the name of God in and of itself is liberating and points to the reality of spiritual-political transformation of a sinful, oppressive situation (as Karris notes above).

“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done” was prophetic in the first century and remains prophetic now. Robert Karris notes that from Luke 4:14 to the Our Father (11:2) Jesus “has been narrating the nature of God’s kingdom, which breaks boundaries separating rich and poor, hale and halt, men and women, clean and unclean, saint and sinner.” God’s kingdom undoes the dynamic of primitive social bonding over against a scapegoat and ushers in the reality of inclusion.

“On earth as it is in heaven” should now be read as “now as it will be fully in the future.” As we noted above, heaven is not above our heads. Heaven is “the abode of God” and God is in all things, in all people, in all situations. Therefore, heaven is in all earthly situations. “Heaven” is a spatial symbol for the reality of God. Why was heaven chosen as a symbol of God’s reality (according to Aquinas it would be a symbol of reality itself since God is the being whose essence is existence)? One only needs to get away from the bright lights of the big city to see the awesomeness of the heavens at night. Using heaven as a symbol for God’s presence appeals to the sense of transcendence one experiences when one witnesses the grandeur of the sky. Rain also falls from the heavens, watering crops, making the land fertile, and God gives rain to sustain us, so it makes sense to think of the heavens having floodgates which God himself opens. The problem is that now, in the age of space travel, we know that there are no floodgates. Rain comes from the clouds, and an astronaut travelling through what was thought to be the heavenly firmament will not find a divine throne surrounded by angels, but will find the incredible expanse of outer space. Heaven is not the abode of God above the earth. Heaven is found in all situations when we allow God’s kingdom to break into our personal, ecological and social worlds. “Thy kingdom come” is an invitation to the person praying to allow the reality of triune God to move us to union with all of creation and history. “Thy will be done” is asking for the grace to let go of control so that, in the time we are living, in time, not above time, or outside of time, but in time, we might live from our deepest reality—the authentic thoughts and feelings that God is infusing into our hearts at every moment.

At this point, it is important to ask the following question: if we are to let go of the language of heaven and earth, will we lose our sense of the transcendence of God? Is God merely to be a material reality since there is no heaven above our physical earth? The Scriptures and our Tradition have always maintained both God’s immanence and God’s transcendence. It is very important to maintain God’s transcendence or we will fall into the errors of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. No one reality, no physical reality, can exhaust the mystery of God. To maintain God’s transcendence we need to move from a spatial symbol (earth and heaven) to a temporal understanding of God’s will and kingdom. Thus we use the expression “now as it will be fully in the future.” The future is transcendent. It is beyond us. But, some will maintain, “now” is easily controlled by human beings. Let us examine this. Try to live in the now and you will find your mind wandering in a variety of directions. When you finally have the mindfulness of living fully (or almost fully) in the now, you will experience a transcending peace. To live in the now is a grace and thus is also transcendent.

We have now changed the translation of this important verse of the Our Father to “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, now as it will be fully in the future.” Now is an important reality. As a matter of fact, it is the only reality. We are now praying to live in the present moment, experiencing the great “I AM.” “Thy will be done now” leads to the question—how is your will operating now, YHWH? It brings me into my present reality, into mindfulness which Buddhists and others have demonstrated is the precondition of peace. One also is reminded of DeCaussade’s The Sacrament of the Present Moment. To know God’s will now, I must empty my mind of regret about past mistakes, resentment about past injuries, and anxiety about the future. I allow myself to just be, to live in existence (once again, we are nurtured by Aquinas’ understanding of God as existence and by Rahner’s understanding of God as the mystery of existence).

At this point, we need to think about history. God acts in history, not outside of history. We know this from the Exodus. God acted in history to liberate an oppressed people. We can also think of the Filipino People Power Revolution in which the Filipino community, in prayer, acted in tremendous solidarity to remove an oppressive ruler from power using non-violent methods. There are many other examples—the Solidarity Movement in Poland, many of the actions of the United States to liberate oppressed peoples (although some, and I mean some, have not always been completely Godly. Here I think of Abu Ghraib and the anxiety that led us into the Iraq War).

What can we then say about how God acts in history? It would seem that, in prayer and in reflection, there are thoughts that “bubble up” from the mysterious, transcendent reality of God that tend toward justice and charity (and at times that includes charity for oneself, which is what motivated the Filipinos to oust Marcos). We are drawn toward the actions these thoughts propose to us. We are not compulsively, or reactively driven to these actions. We feel drawn to them in a powerful, gentle way. Margaret Silf gives an excellent analysis of this experience in her book Inner Compass. When we share these thoughts with others, it consoles them as we were consoled. We are then led into collective action by something consoling. Consolation comes from God. It is God’s will acting on us, moving us to labor for his kingdom. In his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Benedict Viviano, O.P. notes that “God’s will is for justice and peace (Rom 14:17). The [Our Father] presupposes that the kingdom is not yet here in its fullness and thus represents a future eschatology.” In commenting on the verse “on earth as it is in heaven” he notes that “the prayer expects an earthly, this-worldly realization of God’s will.” The translation of “now as it will be fully in the future” integrates these insights.

The remaining verses of the prayer do not present any difficulty for modern or post-modern worlds. “Give us this day our daily bread” reflects the need of people of all eras to rely on God. It also refers to the importance of Eucharist. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” remains as the motivation for individual and collective action for justice and peace. We love others out of our experience of being totally accepted by God. “Lead us not into temptation” refers to the trials that many Christians, first century and twenty-first century expect to undergo in this final phase of human history. “Deliver us from evil” refers to evil in all of its forms, but especially to the activity of the enemy of human nature.

After having examined each verse, our proposed translation of the Our Father reads as follows:

Our Father (or Mother depending on the context), who is in all things,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,
Now as it will be fully in the future,
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us,
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.

Now that we have analyzed the Our Father and updated its language so that it better reflects our post-modern understanding, we need to ask if the temporal translation should replace the traditional spatially symbolic translation? I would answer no. The traditional prayer is a classic. Tertullian thought that it summarized the entire Gospel. I think we should use both translations. Liturgically, to contemplate the mysteries of the heavens as they point to the mysteries of God is beautiful and uplifting, but when it comes to action, the temporal understanding is very helpful. God communicates with us through our imaginations which are the “psychic places” where our minds meet the future, the great temporal beyond (I use the phrase “psychic places” as a metaphor or analogy for the “places” in our minds are the dynamics of neural pathways). Our imaginations communicate with the whole of our beings, especially with reason and emotion, stirring us to particular actions. Frequently, our understanding of a situation is multi-faceted and God calls us through the polyvalent, multifaceted universe that communicates with our minds and within in our minds. In short, it is good for our minds to then have more than one version of this prayer. Praying different versions of the Our Father will help us understand that we are rooted in a liberating, active tradition which nurtures us through self-reflective liturgy and prayerful action on behalf of peace and justice.

Christmas, an Act of the Imagination

If 99% of modern and post-modern Biblical criticism is to be accepted (and I accept both), all of the Gospel texts dealing with the birth of Jesus are, more or less, acts of the imagination. None of the disciples knew Jesus in his childhood. Luke and Matthew’s accounts do not really complement each other. So that we don’t all panic over this, it is pretty clear that there is some history (interpreted history, but history) in the Gospels’ accounts of the public life of Jesus.

When I first began to study this, there was a part of me that was a little threatened by it. For this reason, I understand why some Christians are hesitant to accept this criticism. Nevertheless, once you let go of some of what Paul Ricoeur called the naiveté of a precritical Christian faith, you find that historical critical reads of the texts are liberating. They basically contend that the early Christian communities imagined what the birth of Jesus was like and that these communities read some very rich symbolism into this beautiful, awe-inspiring event.

In Christmas, we celebrate that God took the form of a human being, specifically that God trusted humanity so much that God took the form of a vulnerable child. That is worth imagining! Since the evangelists and their communities imagined what the birth of Jesus was like, we can do the same.

So, let us imagine: imagine Mary giving birth. What are her labor pains like? Did Joseph feel any fear about her labor? How did he cope with that fear? Did he ever worry that he could lose her and the child? Does it console us to know that Mary and Joseph understand what our fears our like? Does that give new meaning to our reverence for the Holy Family?

Imagine holding the Christ child. Feel his soft brow. Hold his cheek to your cheek. Smell his baby smell. Little miracle! Feel how fragile he is. You are holding the Messiah in your hands. You are holding God’s son. He needs you. He relies completely on you. What an act of trust! That God might let human beings, with all of our virtues and vices, hold his son. What does that say to you about how God feels about you? What does that say to you about finding God in all children?

Imagine Jesus growing up in Nazareth. Imagine Mary teaching him. Imagine Jesus imitating his earthly parents. This is how all children learn, which is why there is a very tender, very real truth to the idea that Mary was a great theologian. She and Joseph taught the Christ child right from wrong. They held him when he was frightened. He could not have carried out his mission if he had not been loved by his earthly parents.

Now return to your own life: where do you need the tenderness of the Christ child? Do you believe that God trusts you? Talk with the Lord about that. Consider Mary and Joseph’s wisdom in raising the Messiah. Do you have questions for them? Do you need their help? Talk with them. Let your prayer go where it will . . . . .

Merry Christmas!

Imagine Lake Erie Olympism

Imagine the possibilities of the Lake Erie region. Just imagine. Rather than focusing on what we have lost, imagine new possibilities. This is the path to a renewed economy, to a new vision, to a new attitude about our lives. Imagination, the psychic “place” where the mind meets the future. Ignatian imagination, the human openness in which and through which God draws us into a future wholeness.

Imagination. The imagination bears fruit as we contemplate the future, but it is true that we also need to learn from past mistakes. Otherwise, we will repeat them. Our imagination helps us as we learn from the past. For example, we could imagine that we might have followed a better path and we could imagine what it was that urged us to make the mistakes that we made. Nevertheless, we produce even more fruit when, after briefly reflecting on mistakes made in the past, we open ourselves to live in the present by imagining the virtues of a better future. What does this mean for the Lake Erie region which is home to the two poorest cities in America—Detroit and Cleveland? What does this mean for Northeast Ohio, where I currently reside, a region I have grown to care about, a region with some of the brightest and most talented people in the world that paradoxically continues to lose jobs and industries to global competition? What does this mean for our world, in which the gap between the wealthiest and poorest continues to grow?

All of these questions occurred to me as I read a little book called Olympism, a 1996 publication by the United States Olympic Committee. Yes, Olympism. What could possibly be the connection between Olympism and the economic plight of the Lake Erie region? Well, for one thing, athletics has always been an important cornerstone of the Lake Erie region, especially in Northeast Ohio, the cradle of football. A few years ago, I found myself asking myself the following question: why can’t we intelligently harness this love of sports and develop something new? At the same time, I had been reading about the martyrdom of four American Church women, two of whom worked with the Cleveland diocese, as they protested against an oppressive regime in El Salvador. Love of sports, local intelligence, and a commitment to social justice—the three came together in two blog essays I published in November 2009. In those two essays (one of which was the reproduction of a letter I sent to the International Olympic Committee) I considered the possibility of developing a progressive Olympics—one that would help liberate the poor.

How then did my reading of Olympism bring me back to that blog? As I read, I was drawn to a passage that reflected the importance of imagination in Olympic training:

"The Greeks’ recognition that the care of mind and spirit were integral to athletic performance was an important part of the Olympic tradition. However, only in recent years did sports psychology and mental training in imagination reintroduce the view that mental and psychological attitudes were an important aspect of physical performance . . . .And so we are no longer surprised by the statement that ‘the more man’s thought communes with the divine harmony, the more spiritual, powerful and healthy he becomes,’ made by modern Greek anthropologist Theodore Papadakis, reflecting once more the spirit of ancient Olympism." (2)

Pondering how mental training in imagination improved athletic performance, I was drawn to a related question: how can mental training in imagination improve the social performance of the Olympic Games? For years now, the organizers of the Games have been criticized for neglecting the needs of the poor in host cities. In a parallel way, the makers of sporting uniforms and shoes have been criticized for paying workers in developing countries unfair wages. It is time to train our imaginations so that the Olympic Games maximize their social performance. In doing so, our thought communes with what Papadakis calls “the divine harmony.” Why is this so? In teaching how to commune with the divine harmony, all of the great spiritual traditions of the world emphasize the need for their adherents to be compassionate and to care for the poor. In the Christian tradition, we have developed the specific teaching of “preferential option for the poor,” which means that when one imagines various social alternatives, one chooses the alternative that most aids those with the most need. If the Games are truly a global celebration, then they need to invite and include all, especially and preferentially the poor and the vulnerable. Christians will understand this as the Olympic movement caring for the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters (Matthew 25). In order to abide by preferential option, the Games cannot force evictions of the poor from their homes, and they cannot take funds away from social programs by leaving host cities with overwhelming budget deficits which pressure host cities to cut social spending. Abiding by preferential option, the International Olympic Committee needs to encourage wealthy Olympic countries to help fund the training of athletes from poor countries. The IOC needs to abide by preferential option when choosing among candidate cities. That is, when faced with the choice between two cities with the capacity to host the Games, the IOC should choose the city most in need of development which can also demonstrate that its Olympic effort will not cause evictions of the poor from their housing.

So, let’s use our imaginations. Imagine the Cleveland Olympic Park, built on what is now Burke Lakefront Airport. Its construction would not force one person into homelessness. Imagine the Olympic torch, sitting in the midst of a fountain in the Lake, lighting up a blue collar city, a symbol of Cleveland’s desire for renewal and Cleveland’s interdependence with the poor of the Western Hemisphere. Imagine the Cleveland Center for Intercultural Healing and Reconciliation, a place of peace, a place where athletes and spectators from the entire world can meet to plan and discuss actions on behalf of global peace and justice. Imagine this center built next to the Cleveland Olympic Park so that people can visit and meditate and tour the art while they wait for the next Olympic event. Imagine that some of the topics participants will meditate about and discuss include the planning of an Olympics in the Holy Land, one that would unite Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Saudi Arabians, Jordanians, Syrians, and the Lebanese. One of the goals of Olympism is the promotion of global peace. Imagine a global forum about peace in Cleveland, during the Games, attracting international attention. Imagine that at this forum we discuss the possibility of expanding and re-defining the Olympic truce by promising to award host city status to countries currently at odds with each other if they reconcile. Such an expansion might include North and South Korea co-hosting the games as a reward for unification and nuclear disarmament. Imagine bringing the Winter Games back to the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, helping the Bosnian people re-build and renew a beautiful Olympic city that has been scarred by war. There is so much more that we can imagine.

What can you imagine? Following the ancient Greek tradition of Olympism, we have successfully imagined paths to developing well-rounded individual athletes. Can we now imagine a path to a well-rounded global society? Share the fruit of your imagination: help plan the Lake Erie Olympics. Help renew the Olympic vision.

Christians, Our Doctrines Of Original Sin And Redemption Are Evolving

Only 30 percent of Americans consider evolution to be a scientific fact. Many of those who refuse to accept evolution do so on religious grounds. They consider the myths in the Book of Genesis to be factual accounts of creation. They are afraid to accept a non-literal interpretation because they fear that to do so would undermine the doctrines of original sin and redemption. As I understand it, their analysis goes something like this: Adam and Eve were the first human beings. They sinned and fell from paradise. This condition of being fallen has been passed on to their children and their children’s children all the way down to you and me. If we were to let go of the idea that Adam and Eve committed the “original sin,” we would have no need for a redeemer—Jesus. Jesus is the redeemer because through his suffering and death, he paid the price God demanded for Adam and Eve’s sin, thus opening the gates of heaven for all believers.

This particular understanding of original sin and redemption is problematic. It is very popular among Christians. It even found its way into C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Please recall that Aslan had to substitute himself for Edmund to “save” Edmund and that in doing so, he utilized the deeper magic that raised him from the dead and then overcame evil. Although this understanding is popular, it is very flawed. The Protestant theologian Dorothee Soelle has even called it a form of divine child abuse: an angry God demanding someone’s death for human sin whose anger is appeased by the torture and death of his own son. What kind of a God would be satisfied by that? The God of love wants no human being to suffer, especially not his own son.

A more loving and thus more Christian understanding of redemption would be as follows: Jesus empowers human beings to identify and act on their most authentic, most human desires and feelings. Our deepest desires are to be at peace with all of creation and, in the specific circumstances of our lives, to co-create with God through acts of charity. The resurrection of Jesus reveals that the divine power at work in and through Jesus has no limits: it can even transform the murder of an innocent into a life-giving event. Moreover, in his death and resurrection, Jesus enters into every aspect of humanity. In his suffering, Jesus is our companion in our suffering. In his resurrection, Jesus reveals our deepest reality: we are not beings defined by death. We are beings defined by and destined for eternal life. God does not demand the death of Jesus. Rather, God the Father allows Jesus to die, to reveal the depth of his compassion for us, and to set the stage for the historical, cultural, and personal transformation that is the resurrection.

Having offered a more humane and thus more divine understanding of redemption, I will now return to original sin. We are beings blessed with faith and reason. As a Catholic, I understand that there can never truly be any conflict between faith and reason. There may be temporary misunderstandings due to human fear and limitations, but in essence, since God is the author of faith and reason, faith and reason will support each other. We find this harmony in the writings of Rene Girard, James Alison and Gil Bailie. Girard, a literary scholar who noticed a certain pattern to desire in various writings, turned to cultural anthropology to further understand desire. He then developed an astounding theory concerning the development of culture and religion. What Girard uncovered about desire is that it is mimetic: it is unconsciously copied. There are countless examples of mimetic desire. In Violence Unveiled, Gil Bailie, one of Girard’s students, points out that we see the mimetic nature of desire in the nursery. Consider the following: one child sits in the middle of a nursery, inattentively holding a toy. He then leaves the toy and moves to a corner of the room. A second child enters the room and begins to play with the toy that the first child has abandoned. We all know what happens next: the first child suddenly wants what the second child has—the toy he had previously shown no interest in. He wants the toy simply because the other child has it. His desire for it is mimetic, imitative. The first child reaches for the toy. The second child pulls the toy away from the first child. A conflict ensues and if an adult does not intervene, the children will hit each other.

We see mimesis in pre-teen and teenage fashion. When I was in high school, one kid came to school with a polo shirt. Then a second kid did the same. Soon everyone, myself included, had to have polo shirts. A contemporary example would be the current fascination with silly bandz. My kids want them because everyone else has them. What a silly band actually does for a person I do not know, but kids want them and they want them because they are unconsciously copying their classmates. How dangerous mimesis amongst the young can be was demonstrated in the 80s and 90s when a few teenagers threatened to kill others because they mimetically desired their gym shoes.

As Girard explains, in the evolutionary process, before the founding of cultural institutions like chieftains, monarchies and judicial systems, hominids lived in a chaotic way. Their lives were ruled by mimesis. There was no language or cultural institution to resolve differences. We had evolved beyond the animal dominance-submission mechanism which maintains order in many mammalian systems (for non-human mammals, when a conflict arises, it is resolved in a forceful but basically non-violent way). How then did culture develop from this chaotic state? To answer this question, I propose the following story which is informed by Girard’s analysis: imagine one pre-linguistic hominid (a “nearly” human being, one of our immediate evolutionary ancestors). Let’s call him “Ug.” Ug has found something useful in a field. Let’s say that it is an animal tooth which he then starts to use as a tool. He walks around, fascinated by his find, until he happens to walk across the path of “Oog,” another pre-linguistic hominid. Because of the power of acquisitive mimesis, Oog immediately begins to imitate Ug. That is, he unconsciously imitates the gesture of holding the tooth, which means that he reaches out for the tooth that Ug is holding. Because Ug wants to continue using the tooth in his hands, when Oog reaches for it, Ug pulls it back toward himself. Oog then copies this gesture, like the child in the nursery. That is, he attempts to hold the tooth and pull it toward himself. Ug will not allow him to take the tooth from him so the two begin to wrestle. One eventually strikes the other. That act of hitting is then copied by the other and the two continue mimetically attacking each other like the three stooges mimetically slap each other.

This conflict continues and then spreads because the other pre-linguistic hominids who happen to be walking by begin to imitate the two fighting hominids. They are not interested in the tooth; they just unconsciously copy the fight the way young people walking by a snowball fight feel the urge to imitate and begin throwing snowballs themselves. We can also liken the antagonistic mimesis of this scene to a bar room brawl. One person insults another near him. The insulted man throws a punch. The two begin to fight. Suddenly someone on the other side of the bar, seeing the fight, inexplicably hits the man next to him. Soon the entire bar is chaos.

These contemporary examples prove the validity of Girard’s theory: if mimesis can generate conflict now, it certainly did so in the pre-historic past. However, the story does not end there. If evolution did not generate a mechanism for channeling the mimetic chaos into order, humanity would never have come into existence. The mechanism that channeled mimetic conflict into order was the first building block of culture, what eventually turned the pre-linguistic hominids into homo sapiens—what Rene Girard has called the “victimage mechanism.” The term victimage mechanism is a scientific term for scapegoating.

Let’s continue our story. Ug and Oog began to mimetically fight. The conflict spreads through mimesis. Now, in the midst of total chaos, one of the hominids is wounded and becomes extremely disgruntled about it. He or she then makes an extremely hysterical, grunting accusation at the one who has wounded him or her. It is so loud that it immediately grabs the attention of the other hominids. Because of their mimetic character, they copy the accusation toward the one who wounded the first grunting accuser. At this point, we now have 20 or so hominids violently screaming at one hominid. The rage spills over and all of their vehemence is vented on the one. Whether through stoning or beating, the crowd kills the accused. They now stand before the corpse of their victim, strangely awed by what they have just accomplished. They are simultaneously repelled by the consequence of their violent act and awed by what it has accomplished. They notice that there is no longer chaos. No one is pelting them with stones. There is a strange “peace” (though not a real peace). The act of collective murder has brought about a form of social solidarity, the first society. It is not a pretty truth, certainly not something to celebrate, but our primitive ancestors were awed by it because they had never experienced widespread social solidarity before. They had had some kind of solidarity with their mates and their offspring, but never had they been able to act in such unison. Because of all of the mimetic conflict that had preceded the unifying act, the unifying act stood out.

The crowd takes notice of the benefits of this act—social solidarity and the end to chaotic mimesis. From time to time, social order would break down again and the crowd would once again assemble to repeat the founding social act. The first form of religious sacrifice, human sacrifice, was born. Now, what evidence do we have to support this thesis? Well, first of all, we have plenty of evidence in our own society. Consider what happens at prisons where the death penalty is carried out: crowds of people gather to hurl accusations at the convicted and to cheer as he is murdered by the state. Consider what Hitler did to the Jewish community: he falsely accused them, united much of Germany against them, and murdered many of them. Consider international relations: one nation claims a piece of territory, another mimetically copies the act. Each nation forms social solidarity against the other then there is a mimetic escalation of the conflict. Finally, there is violence.

Second, we have evidence from archaeology and religious studies: the Canaanites and the Phoenicians performed human sacrifice. We have uncovered mass graves in northern Africa where the Phoenicians lived. We have evidence from the Bible: the prophets constantly remind the Hebrew people not to imitate the child sacrifices of the Canaanites. Abraham thinks he hears God telling him to kill his son and then at the last moment, God tells him to substitute a ram. The story of Abraham is prophetic for it reminds us of the existence of the victimage mechanism but it shows that the true God does not want it. Human beings had formed human society using mimesis and scapegoating, but God speaks to Abraham to reveal a new form of social order. The Hebrew people were the first people of the Near East to reject human sacrifice. Eventually, the prophets begin to condemn the religious formalism of the Temple animal sacrifices. As a Christian, I see the definitive form of Hebrew prophecy in the acts of Jesus who condemns animal sacrifices in the Temple and reveals a new sacramental understanding of human ritual. He also reveals the total path out of scapegoating—love of enemy.

Now, all of this analysis was to call attention to an evolving understanding of original sin and redemption. Given Girard’s analysis, we can better understand what “original” sin is. It is the sin of the origin: disordered mimesis leading to collective violence. Consider how the ten commandments operate: worship only the true God, not the gods of the nations who glorify collective violence. Worship only the God who creates peacefully, by his word. Do not kill. Do not commit adultery, which is the result of losing track of the authentic desire for your own spouse and copying the insubstantial desire of another. Do not steal which is the result of wanting something that another has. Pay special attention to the last two commandments: do not covet. Do not want what another has in such a way that you become obsessed by that desire. The obsession, what Buddhists know leads to suffering, is the product of disordered copying.

The whole doctrine of original sin is not found in the Bible. It evolved out of St. Augustine’s reflecting on his experience and the stories of the Bible. You will not find the words “original sin” in the Biblical text, but it is quite a liberating doctrine. Augustine knew that there was something about our psychological and social structure that tended toward attachment, mimesis, chaos and violence. What he was discussing in his time is what Girardians call “disordered mimesis”: envy, jealousy, greed, lust, pugnacity, and violence. The Good News of the Biblical tradition is that not all mimesis is disordered. We can and must imitate God in God’s creativity. We are called to love as Jesus loves. We can and must imitate God in God’s agapic and charitable love. If we truly want joy and fulfillment, we must, as Ignatius Loyola discovered, in our freedom, accept and surrender to the real desires that God mysteriously infuses into our hearts. As George Ganns notes in a footnote to the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, these authentic desires always tend toward charity and justice.

Now, why the extended analysis of desire, sin and redemption? Because it makes a critical difference in the way we act in the world. If we accept the substitutionary theory of redemption, in which Jesus is paying for our original sin to appease an angry God, then we will mimetically copy this image of an angry God. We will join in the chorus celebrating the murder of a prisoner on death row. We will unify with others over against our enemies and hurl angry accusations at them. We will make outlandish accusations at our political opponents, demonizing them, calling them depraved and hoping for their humiliation. We see all of this in our contemporary America. From time to time, we are seized by spasms of psychic and actual violence. We see others as infidels to be excluded, rather than as human brothers and sisters to be embraced. We will bond with our fellow scapegoaters (and I mean our—I sin as well), ignoring our own sins, focusing on the sins of others, and treating them mercilessly.

In our primitive understanding of original sin and redemption, we will fail in our great calling to imitate Jesus the Christ, who felt the creativity of the Father when he told the angry mob not to throw a stone at the adulterous person unless they were without sin. We will not discern as Christ discerned when he felt great love for, and made himself the friend of, sinners and outcasts. A non-evolutionary understanding of original sin and redemption interferes with that most important relationship a Christian has—our personal relationship with Jesus the Christ. Once we understand that original sin and all forms of sin flow from disordered imitation, we then understand why we must spend time with Jesus everyday. We must sit with Jesus as we pray over the Biblical text so that we might imitate him. The pulls and tugs that try to draw us away from Christ do so through disordered mimesis, what has been called concupiscence. As we feel driven to lust, to copy insubstantial desires, to envy and hate the one we envy, we feel a countervailing drawing (not a drivenness, but a gentle draw) to just be with Jesus. We feel the gentle invitation to use our imagination and enter into a scene from the Gospel. We watch Jesus and see how he reacts to others and how others react to him. We ask for the grace to feel the great freedom in the heart of Christ and ask him for the consoling grace to internalize that freedom and act on it ourselves. We walk with Jesus through our developing lives. We evolve. We grow in grace, stumble at times, ask for and accept forgiveness, try again, grow some more and accept Christ as the Lord of our personal history and of all evolving history.

Not only is it important for us personally to understand that the doctrine of original sin has evolved, it is important for us politically. An understanding of original sin as just the spiritual (biological?) stain that we inherit from Adam and Eve and that separates us from God leads to a particular politics. A substitutionary understanding of redemption does so as well. As I mentioned before, it leads to violent attitudes because we imitate the violent angry God who demands the death of his son.

The non-evolving, literal interpretation of Adam and Eve’s sin as original sin, coupled with a penal substitutionary theory of redemption, sees Christendom as the realm of God’s faithful and everything outside of Christendom as not being saved by the cleansing waters of Christian baptism. As such, it fails to see the gifts of all great religions. An understanding of original sin as the theological code phrase for disordered mimesis and an understanding of the redeemer as the one who empowers us to act on our most authentic, most human desires empowers Christians to see the wisdom of the great traditions as they liberate their adherents from disordered mimesis. Every great religious tradition—Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Jainism—has rituals, literature, and reflective activities which liberate their adherents from slavery to disordered mimesis. If the non-evolving interpretation of original sin and the substitutionary theory of redemption were true, then the Dalai Lama and Rabbi Heschel never would have been able to practice and teach about social justice as they have done. Moreover, the social scientific methods which led to Rene Girard’s breakthrough would never have taken place. If a literal understanding of the Biblical tradition is the only source of truth, then the helpful methods of psycho-therapy never would have developed.

A literal interpretation of Genesis 2-3 (the texts for the story of Adam and Eve) coupled with a substitutionary theory of redemption leads to an us versus them mentality. There are the saved and there are those who are not saved. The United States is “the Christian nation,” led at times by the saved, who must go it alone in order to conserve what is good in this world. Our acts of violence are different from others because we are the saved (now I am not denying that the Church has a just war tradition and that the US has engaged in just wars; I am just examining how an attitude about sin and redemption can even inform foreign policy).

Christian believers need not be threatened by evolution. As Rene Girard and others (including Teilhard) have demonstrated, evolution supports Christian doctrine and helps us understand it in a truly rational way. Specifically, evolutionary analysis within the social sciences has given us helpful understandings of original sin and redemption. It has given us tools for understanding how sin operates in our own personal and collective lives. It helps us understand why imitating Jesus counters the imitation of sinful structures in our world and reveals the path of freedom.
As I conclude this essay, I would like to draw attention to a recent essay written by President George W. Bush. He writes about our need to progress in our battle against the AIDS virus. Another word for progress is evolution. If even a conservative president can write about progress, then progress, though not inevitable, is extremely possible. To embrace the need for progress, we must have authentic understandings of redemption and original sin, understandings which flow from each person’s personal relationship with Jesus and which unite faith and reason. Rene Girard has given us a very rational and hopeful understanding of our social order, one informed by Christian faith.


In short, original sin and redemption are evolving doctrines, the real natures of which are totally in harmony with the scientific fact of evolution. Original sin, redemption and all Christian doctrines are in the process of evolving because they are living doctrines. They are living doctrines because their truths flow from the reality of our living Lord. We are not called to merely recite Christian doctrines. We are called to live them. Because our understandings of original sin and redemption are evolving, we can do just that. We can live them and give life to the world as we do so.

Gratitude for Our Veterans

On this Veterans' Day, I wish to thank all of the service men and women who have served and who continue to serve our country. You keep my family and my country safe, you fight to liberate others from oppression, and you risk the ultimate sacrifice on a daily basis.


My family and I pray for your safety and for the health and safety of your families.

Peace to all of you.

Gratitude and Hope for the American Way

As I was reading a column by Charles Krauthammer, a column which is very critical of the President I strongly support, it occurred to me just how fortunate I am to live in a country that respects freedom of press and all of the fundamental freedoms that are necessary for a free society to discuss and work for the common good. It also occurred to me that the existence of these freedoms and the commitment to let them structure our lives strengthens our nation.


At a time when Americans worry about the presence of terrorism, environmental threats like global warming, and the ascendancy of China—a nation with enormous potential to create wealth without enshrining fundamental human rights, it is important to reflect on our history. In the 1980s, some thought that communism was so strong that eventually the USA was going to find itself an island among a sea of authoritarian socialist countries. That did not happen. The reason that did not happen was that our freedoms strengthened us. Our openness to inquiry and our commitment to individual liberty allowed us to develop technological systems that the Soviets could not even dream of. Gorbachev himself has admitted that it was the technological superiority of the US that led him to seek openness and dialogue with the West. He knew the Soviets could not win. It might seem strange for a religious educator and spiritual writer like myself to use such language when discussing the cold war. The fact of the matter is that a fact is a fact whether you theologize about it or not.


Speaking of theologizing, the theological roots of freedom are profound. Thomas Jefferson, highly critical of much of the theology of his day, wrote that the roots of freedom are the self evident truths written by “nature’s God.” The theological roots of progress are also profound. Jefferson saw them written into human nature. He knew that each generation would seek to build upon the achievements of the past. He wrote in 1816:


I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.


As we approach November 2, I hope that I can let my mind rise above the din and appreciate the debate and mud-slinging as the fruit of freedom and progress. Democracy is a messy business because it flows from human freedom. Some people, even some Americans, prefer to let others think for them rather than think for themselves. Some are afraid of freedom. Some look at the behavior of Congress and lose faith and hope. They want a cleaner situation, one without human frailty. They want answers now, when in many cases, truth, goodness and justice are discovered throughout a rather messy process. Some just dream of a golden age and golden tradition that have never existed, but have been concocted by them to justify their groups clinging to power. I am grateful that the human mind is restless and that its restlessness requires living by our fundamental freedoms. In living by these freedoms, we triumph over authoritarians—Marxist, terrorist, and other wise. In living by these freedoms, we will slow and end global warming. Only in living by our freedoms will we progress.

Please Do Not Underfund Or Repeal The Obama Health Reform

Americans are angry. Unemployment hovers around 10% and it seems like the people in Washington are not doing anything about it. I also am unemployed, but I do not want to let anger dictate how I will vote. It is true that I am a Democrat and will probably die a Democrat, but any Republican that I have taught or had a conversation with will tell you that I listen to any good idea—liberal or conservative. For example, I think that there is a compelling post-modern argument for school vouchers: since we have become aware of the reality that we all know from within particular traditions, it makes sense to educate children in traditions. The rest of the school vouchers issue I will leave up to the conservatives to figure out.

There is something else conservatives need to figure out: why does the United States have a higher infant mortality rate than South Korea, which sixty years ago was involved in a devastating war and which up until 40 years ago was a poor country with a significant military budget? Why does the United States have an infant mortality rate that is double that of France, a country so many Americans have derided in the past decade? Why does the US have a higher infant mortality rate than Canada (ours is 6.22 per 1000 live births to Canada’s 5.04 per 1000 live births)? To put it bluntly, why do American babies die in infancy more frequently than babies in 44 other countries, including Cuba? The answer is that in most, if not all, of those countries health insurance is universal. Many of the countries have single payer socialist (gasp) health systems. This is one of the imbalances that the Obama reform sought to address.

Now, I am bipartisan and I hope that the Progressive Olympic Movement that I have been campaigning for attracts liberal and conservative support, but we really need to think here. Representative Boehner and other Republicans have publicly stated that they will repeal the Obama health reform if they can. Short of that, if they take control of the House, they will deny funding for the stipends that will enable the working (emphasize working) poor to finally buy health insurance. If that happens, the US will continue to have an abysmal infant mortality rate. If you doubt my statistics, take a look at the CIA World Fact Book (not an instrument of the liberal press).

The answer is simple: do not drive angry, do not make decisions in anger, and do not vote in anger. Middle class rage is about to condemn the working poor to more suffering. We are Americans. We are better than that. Let’s use reason, not invective. As for the rationality of making the Bush tax cuts permanent, listen to Ronald Reagan’s own advisor David Stockman. He calls the idea half-baked. If you want a corresponding liberal critique, read Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman.

I love this country. I value liberal and conservative thinkers. I respect our military. I revere our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence. I love what this country does for the world. We take risks for the suffering of Afghanistan and Iraq. Let’s think of the suffering here at home. Let’s do something sensible for the poor of this country: however we vote, let’s not repeal the Obama health plan. It’s the best news the working poor in this country have had in years.

Do Not Burn the Qu'ran

The world now knows that Terry Jones, a preacher in Florida, is planning on burning the Qu'ran on September 11. Many people have urged him not to do so. I will add my voice to the chorus of intelligent, charitable human beings who respect the religious experience of others. It is very simple. Reverend Jones just needs to apply the golden rule: do unto Muslims as you would have Muslims do unto you. How would you feel if a group of people organized an event to burn a Bible? As Christians revere the Christian Scriptures, Muslims revere the Qu'ran. My argument does not need to delve into highly abstract theology. I am simply stating that we just need to follow the teachings and example of Jesus. Please respect others.

Moreover, respect for others is part of the moral fabric of America. Burning the sacred scriptures of another person's faith runs contrary to the spirit of our diverse society, a society whose very constitution requires that we do not interfere with the religion of others.

Finally, General Petraeus has commented that burning the Qu'ran will put our military in danger.

For all of the above mentioned reasons, please do not burn the Qu'ran.

Ground Zero and the Sacred: A response to Charles Krauthammer

As a Catholic and as an American, I firmly believe that the Cordoba House Islamic Center should be built at the site that the Islamic community has chosen—two blocks from Ground Zero. Many people have opposed the building of this house of prayer and culture on the grounds that it is sacrilegious to build an Islamic Center near the site of the 9/11 attacks. To understand their argument we must examine their definition of the word sacred. According to Charles Krauthammer, “a place is made sacred by a widespread belief that it was visited by the miraculous or the transcendent (Lourdes, the Temple Mount), by the presence there once of great nobility and sacrifice (Gettysburg), or by the blood of martyrs and the indescribable suffering of the innocent (Auschwitz).”

Clearly, he is making the case that Ground Zero is sacred for the last two reasons—the nobility of the rescuers, the blood of the martyrs and the suffering of the innocent. I grant him his definition and will demonstrate that such an understanding of sacred should not exclude Muslims but should include Muslims.

It is common place for cultures to remember places of suffering and death as holy ground. In the case of Auschwitz, it has been remembered for the horrific, inhuman torture and murder that took place there as well as for the basic history lesson that such crimes did indeed take place and need to be remembered because anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism are disordered habits that world cultures continue to feed. We remember Auschwitz so we do not forget it. The activities of Holocaust deniers, including the President of Iran, remind us that we need to remember. The Imam who hopes to build Cordoba House is not a 9/11 denier. A vocal critic of the attacks, he hopes that the activities of Cordoba House will undo the logic of 9/11.

If liberals were as eloquent as Charles Krauthammer, there would be far more of them to support causes like Cordoba House. Nevertheless, eloquent language cannot mask flaws in analysis. An argument by means of analogy has its limitations. In his argument Krauthammer cites the actions of Pope John Paul II in closing a Carmelite convent next to Auschwitz and then argues that the Islamic community should follow suit with regard to Cordoba House. As a liberal Catholic, I grant the moral authority of John Paul II (and will note that I have a few questions about some of his theological writings—as a Catholic, I still am allowed that). I will then state what I consider to be obvious: that John Paul II, knowing Muslims well, would encourage New Yorkers to embrace the building of Cordoba House near Ground Zero as a transcendent action for peace. John Paul wrote eloquently about how religious freedom was a foundational right and about how reconciliation requires us to transcend our comfort zone to embrace those we consider to be enemies. If Americans cannot do this, who can?

Once again, it is helpful to read Rene Girard (another man who respected John Paul II). We need to understand that using the suffering of the innocent to justify the exclusion of a marginal group perpetuates religious violence and undermines peace and justice. It is also helpful to more closely examine the Auschwitz analogy. In the case of Auschwitz, a tiny Jewish community which had for 1700 or more years been murdered by a gigantic Catholic community (who’s very religious texts had fed pogroms and the Holocaust) politely asked the head of the Catholic community to allow them a little room to grieve. This is not the case with Cordoba House. Muslim Americans are a tiny minority and America is the world’s superpower. Finally, even if there are some parallels between Auschwitz and 9/11, I will understand them in relation to my earlier essay: if we live from a wound, we do not transcend and enter into the real sacred--God’s reality of justice and peace.

Now let us return to our wider definition of the word sacred: a place is considered sacred if it is visited by the miraculous or transcendent or by the presence of nobility. After all of the horrible suffering connected to 9/11, it would truly be miraculous and noble for Americans to embrace this Muslim house of prayer. We would then transcend the primitive sacred which has held us in its grasp. We would reach out and be grasped by God in our efforts to labor for peace and reconciliation. In short, Ground Zero is not sacred in the sense that we need to keep a group of infidels away from it. Ground Zero is being made more sacred because a group of God’s children want to pray near it.