A Note About How to Listen during Prayer in Daily Life

In section 22 of the Spiritual Exercises (the “presupposition”), St. Ignatius writes the following: “in order that the one giving the Exercises and the one receiving them, may help and benefit themselves, let it be presupposed that every good [spiritual person] is to be more ready to justify than to condemn what another says or writes. If he cannot justify it, he should inquire how he means it; and if he means it badly, then let him correct him with charity. If that is not enough, let him seek all the suitable means to understand the statement in the best possible sense.”

This paragraph helps us to focus on the positive during the prayer period and to avoid theological and political debate. Theological and political debate are fine outside of the context of the Exercises, but it disrupts the necessary trust between director and exercitant and among the fellowship groups making the retreat together. In the case of a group of people journeying through our Prayer in Daily Life together without a “director,” as you are sharing your prayer experience with each other, be more willing to justify than to condemn what each person says. The same is true for pairs of trusted friends who are making the retreat.

I find it helpful to consider the advice of Kay Lindahl in her book The Sacred Art of Listening. She writes that

Listening is a creative force. Something quite wonderful occurs when we are listened to fully. We expand, ideas come to life and grow, we remember who we are. Some speak of this force as a creative fountain within us that springs forth; others call it the inner spirit, intelligence, true self. Whatever this force is called, it shrivels up when we are not listened to and it thrives when we are.

The way we listen can actually allow the other person to bring forth what is true and alive to them. . . .

Listening well takes time, skill, and a readiness to slow down, to let go of expectations, judgments, boredom, self-assertiveness, defensiveness. I’ve noticed that when people experience the depth of being listened to like this, they also begin to listen to others in the same way. (11-12)

Later in the book, Lindahl suggests that we learn to listen to understand, rather than to listen to agree or disagree. When you are involved in some kind of political debate, you are listening to find a flaw in the other’s argument or you are listening to find “common ground.” In the context of the Exercises, you are not listening to agree or disagree with another. You are listening to understand the other, hoping to help the other hear herself or himself so that we might better understand how the Spirit of God is at work in our thoughts and feelings. According to Lindahl, “one important guideline of dialogue is listening to understand, not to agree with or believe. I do not have to agree with or believe what another person is saying in order to come to a new understanding of their experience” (50).

An Olympic Prayer Exercise For Akron: Phase One, Week One, Experience 1

Akron is the birthplace of AA, one of the most important spiritual movements in the world, and yet Akron, like any other city, has room for growth. If Akron is going to help host the Olympic games, Akron needs to grow in humility, generosity, freedom, and hospitality. Many people who are from Akron may claim that there is no need for growth. They claim that everything is fine as it is. It is true that there is a lot of good here, but are we really full of the Olympic spirit? Are we truly as creative as we could be? Or do we cling to our comfort zone?
The upper classes in Akron may feel that Akron cannot be improved, but they’re not the ones who are hurting. Economic stagnation hurts the working class and the poor more than anyone else. We need a new spirit of entrepreneurship, of risk-taking, and, in light of our goal to host the Olympics, a spirit of openness to the gifts of the divine.
We come from many different spiritual traditions. I write as a Catholic Christian, but I do not expect everyone to use my tradition to pray. Rather, I propose that we adapt the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius so that they nurture prayer and meditation in all of our great traditions. Let’s ask for the Spirit of God to guide us to be more open to God’s gifts, more courageous, more open to positive change, more critical of abusive power structures and our complicity with them, and more full of faith, hope and compassion.
What I am proposing is called Annotation 18. All of the great Ignatian spiritual directors have adapted the Exercises to people in diverse situations. That is just what we are going to do.
I propose that we begin our prayer in daily life experience next week, starting on Sunday, November 6. If Sunday is too busy, then pray on another day. Just find a quiet place to pray for 30 to 60 minutes. It also helps to talk about your prayer experience. If you can, find a spiritual director. If not, then try to meet with a trusted friend or group of friends. Discuss what happened when you prayed.

Phase One, Week One, Prayer experience 1: An invitation to prayer.

A. Use the following passage from Isaiah 55 to pray. Slowly read through the passage once. Then ask for the grace that God might give you a spirit of generosity over the coming weeks. In the words of the Isaiah ask that you might come to the water.
If you are not Christian or Jewish, then read the passage the way you would read good poetry. Pray if you feel moved to pray.

Isaiah 55
All you who are thirsty,*
come to the water!
You who have no money,
come, buy grain and eat;
Come, buy grain without money,
wine and milk without cost!a
2Why spend your money for what is not bread;
your wages for what does not satisfy?
Only listen to me, and you shall eat well,
you shall delight in rich fare.
3Pay attention and come to me;
listen, that you may have life.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
the steadfast loyalty promised to David.b
4As I made him a witness to peoples,
a leader and commander of peoples,
5So shall you summon a nation you knew not,
and a nation* that knew you not shall run to you,
Because of the LORD, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, who has glorified you.c
6* Seek the LORD while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near.
7Let the wicked forsake their way,
and sinners their thoughts;
Let them turn to the LORD to find mercy;
to our God, who is generous in forgiving.
8For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the LORD.
9For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
10* Yet just as from the heavens
the rain and snow come down
And do not return there
till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful,
Giving seed to the one who sows
and bread to the one who eats,
11So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me empty,
but shall do what pleases me,
achieving the end for which I sent it.
12Yes, in joy you shall go forth,
in peace you shall be brought home;
Mountains and hills shall break out in song before you,
all trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13In place of the thornbush, the cypress shall grow,
instead of nettles,* the myrtle.
This shall be to the LORD’s renown,
as an everlasting sign that shall not fail.


* [55:1–3] The prophet invites all to return, under the figure of a banquet; cf. the covenant banquet in Ex 24:9–11 and wisdom’s banquet in Prv 9:1–6. The Lord’s covenant with David (2 Sm 7) is now to be extended beyond his dynasty.
* [55:5] The “nation” is Persia under Cyrus, but the perspective is worldwide.
* [55:6–9] The invitation to seek the Lord is motivated by the mercy of a God whose “ways” are completely mysterious.
* [55:10–11] The efficacy of the word of God recalls 40:5, 8.
* [55:13] Thornbush…nettles: suggestive of the desert and therefore symbolic of suffering and hardship; cypress…myrtle: suggestive of fertile land and therefore symbolic of joy and strength. To the LORD’s renown: lit., “to the name of the Lord.”
a. [55:1] Jn 4:10–15; 6:35; 7:37–39; Rev 21:6; 22:17.
b. [55:3] 2 Sm 7:12–16.
c. [55:5] Acts 13:34.

B. Read the passage again. This time stop when your mind has an image from the passage. Perhaps you stop at water. In your mind and heart, you can imagine running water. It is water your soul longs for. It nourishes your heart. Perhaps another image occurs to you.
C. Read the passage one more time. Maybe this time, you read it aloud. Then just sit back and let your mind wander. What happens in your mind and heart? Ask yourself: what is my heart’s most authentic desire?
D. Now take a notebook and write down what happened. Use your notes to talk with your spiritual director, your friend or to your fellowship group.
E. Once again ask God for a spirit of generosity. Then, choose a favorite prayer of yours to close the prayer period. It could be the Our Father or any other prayer. Choose a prayer from your tradition that has a lot o f meaning for you.
F. Meet with your spiritual director, fellowship group, or trusted friend.

May God’s peace be yours! I am praying for all of you. Please pray for me. This is the healthiest way to begin our Olympic effort.

The Essential Quality of Moral Self-evidence in our Labor for Progress

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all (people) are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

For nearly two centuries these words conveyed a summary of the social ethics of nearly all Americans. As Americans we knew that God had given humanity rights that no government should violate and we professed that any rational person could know this truth. Any rational person could know these truths because they are self-evident: their truth flows from the rational nature of human existence itself, regardless of the culture, religion, or station in life of particular individuals. Unfortunately, the idea of self-evident moral truths has fallen on hard times. For decades, a creeping moral and cultural relativism has undermined rational attempts to pass down a few irrefutable moral principles. In an effort to expose western minds to the voices of those previously oppressed by western minds (and the oppression was real), some have argued that all of morality is socially constructed and that all moral positions are equal. Furthermore, some have claimed that to argue that one ethics is superior to another is a form of cultural imperialism. Although I sympathize with oppressed minorities whose civilizations and personhood have been mocked and objectified, I find cultural relativism to be irrational. My argument may seem conservative, but I consider it to be very progressive. I will explain this later.

Multi-culturalism claims that all marginalized groups need to be heard. In order for the voices of the marginalized to be heard they need to be alive. It then seems that it is self-evident that human beings have the right to life. A culturally relative denial of this right is self-contradictory. It would amount to saying that non-western, female, and homosexual people have the right to freedom of expression but they do not have the right to life. You have no political freedom if you are dead.

That is not to claim that all moral principles are absolute or that western ethics are better than Buddhist ethics or other eastern ethical systems. Nevertheless, reason leads us to the conclusion that not all systems of thought contribute to progress. Communism's slaughter of nearly 100 million and Nazism's slaughter of 6 million proves this. Both Communism and Nazism denied the possibility of moral self-evidence. Both claimed that they were bringing about a brave new world that would leave the moral wisdom of the past behind.

Systems of thought that contribute to individual and collective progress abide by the self-evident moral principles articulated by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and by the principles derived from these fundamental principles.

I would contend that the following moral principles are self-evident, absolute and universal:

Right to life
Right to free expression--includes right to critique government and other institutions
Right to freedom from cultural imperialism.
Right to religious freedom.
Right to family life (this includes rights for gays and lesbians)
The right to privacy.
Freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.
The right to elect government representatives in a pluralistic, democratic system.
The right to freedom of assembly.


All moral systems can be called to grow according to these absolute principles.

To claim that there are absolute principles is not the same as claiming that there are a priori absolute answers to all moral situations. In living the good life we muddle through at times and make the best approximation. Nonethless the fundamental, self-evident moral principles are absolute.


We need to recognize that all moral systems can grow, but they cease to grow and actually regress when they ignore respect for life and human freedom. The American moral system grew when it recognized that women had the right to vote (I did not write that it gave women the right to vote because women have always had that right. We just used the law to deny that natural right). All moral and governmental systems need to be open to growth. As Karl Rahner has written, we are always systematizing but we never have a system.

The absolute principle of free expression leads westerners to critique non-western systems. To claim that non-western voices should be free of critique because of past victimization is to patronize non-western voices. It is to deny their intelligence. To claim that a westerner cannot critique a non-western system is to deny the humanity of both the westerner and the easterner.

The Arab Spring has brought us face to face with a living critique of Arab culture which westerners and easterners must encourage. It has also demonstrated that all human beings long for political arrangements that respect human life and human freedom. The Arab Spring has demonstrated that democracy is still superior to tyranny and oligarchy. The Arab Spring has proven that the founding principles of our nation--including moral self-evidence-- are universal.

This leads us to our next question: how do we respond to the claim that a good part of reality is socially constructed? We accept it and ask how do we know this. We know because, using reason, psychologists, sociologists, and other thinkers have proven this to be the case. Nevertheless, fundamental reason is not socially constructed. Under God's guidance, it evolved as a capacity of homo sapiens (the idea of divine guidance is not self-evident, but the rational evidence for the evolution of reason is irrefutable). Fundamental faith, hope and love are not constructed. They are gifts given by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not socially constructed. Images of the Spirit are socially constructed, but the Spirit herself is now, always has been, and always will be.

Other religions can also claim that although their images and words about God are socially constructed, God always has been. At this point, our study of comparative religiosity must stop for it goes beyond the focus of this specific essay. Our analysis concerns reason and moral self-evidence which apply to all moral systems regardless of religion.

In summary, we have proven that there are self-evident moral principles and that these principles are absolute. These principles can be known by reason. There are moral principles that are not self-evident. These are known through religious revelation and meditation. However, as Thomas Jefferson knew, the principle "Respect human life" and many other principles are universal, absolute, and self-evident.

Now this seems to be such a conservative argument coming from a progressive writer. I will respond that progress conserves and builds upon the moral successes of the past. The Declaration of Independence is a success! Moral self-evidence is a success, not some barnacle to be removed from the wisdom of humanity. Moreover, the principle "respect human life" supports many progressive arguments: to respect human life we have enacted OSHA regulations, we have sought to abolish the death penalty, we have sought to make health insurance universal, we spend money on aid to developing countries, especially those suffering from famine and starvation, and we have negotiated arms control agreements. The list could go on.

We are a good nation. When we build upon our self-evident moral principles, we are great.

Looking Forward To The Cleveland Center For Intercultural Healing And Reconciliation

In past blogs, I have written about reforming the Olympic movement so that the Olympic movement furthers its goal of being a vehicle for peace and development. In short, I have advocated for a progressive Olympics. An important criterion for a progressive Olympics concerns the utility of the Olympic facilities after the Olympic Games. An Olympics that is socially just will not build a park that will not be used after the Olympics have ended.

The 2020 Lake Erie Olympics will guarantee that the Cleveland Olympic Park and the neighboring Cleveland Center For Intercultural Healing And Reconciliation will be used after the Lake Erie Olympics has ended. The Cleveland Olympic Park will host concerts and rallies, including LiveAid concerts for the developing world. Because it will have a retractable roof it will host events all year long (except perhaps during the month of February which is terribly cold).

The Cleveland Center for Intercultural Healing And Reconciliation will host a number of events. There will be student trips from New York, DC, Chicago and other cities. Other events include field trips from all over Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Summer programs in non-violent conflict resolution will attract national and global attention.

We will give scholarship money to bring together Palestinian and Israeli teenagers. They will discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, engage in team building exercises, go to concerts together (music global teens like as well as the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra and the Akron Symphony Orchestra), go to the ballet together, go to a U Akron soccer game together, play soccer together, and work together in other friendship building exercises. They will also learn how to listen attentively to others. Finally, if the religious leaders can design an appropriate prayer exercise, they will pray for and pray with each other.

We will give scholarship money to bring together North and South Koreans, Catholics and Protestants from Northern Ireland, Pakistanis and Indians, and people from other parts of the world. Each of these groups will engage in exercises similar to the Israelis and Palestinians.

The closing ceremony of each intercultural conference will be held in the Olympic Park. There will be a few celebrities present. There will be music. The Governor of Ohio, a representative of the US President, representatives from the governments of the participating countries, Ohio senators, representatives, and the mayors of Cleveland and Akron will attend. It will become a custom for Buckeyes from all over Ohio to congratulate those who have attended these conferences by attending the closing ceremony for free (or for minimal cost of $2-$3). People may come to see the celebrities and to hear the music, but the real reason they will attend will be to become instruments of peace. Even if they attend just to see the celebrities who will attend, they will be so engaged by the ceremonies that they will want to advocate peaceful methods for resolving conflicts. They will feel a bond with the people who have attended the conference and will foster that bond by continuing to learn about those countries. People will come for the celebrity and ceremony and will leave ambassadors of peace.

The Gift Of Israel, The Gift of Palestine

Islam, Judaism, and Christianity-- all three great Abrahamic faiths--nurture gratitude for God's gifts. It is amazing how much God loves each of us! What gifts God has given us!

Jewish Israelis claim that God gave them a beautiful gift by giving them the land that is called Israel. Palestinians claim that God gave the same land to them and they call the land Palestine. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians are right. The land is a gift from God. Neither side earned it. It is a gift and gifts are given freely, without thought of who deserves it. But here is the crucial question: What does God want us to do with a gift he gives us? He wants us to share it. Therefore, God wants the Israelis and Palestinians to share the land. Not to kill each other over it, but to share it.

If we think of the land as a gift to be shared, the war will end. If we think of the land as something somebody earned, the war will continue. There is an absolute link between being open to God's gifts and knowing how to live in peace.

Ex-Marine Awarded Medal of Honor

An extraordinary story about a courageous soldier who correctly mentions that there are many other American soldiers who deserve the award but who go unrecognized. The New York Times reports.

Knowing Reality As It Really Is

One of the goals of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius is to know reality as it really is. Our understanding of what is real is affected by the condition of our subjectivity. Our subjectivity includes our feelings, memories, thoughts, mental habits, emotional habits, spiritual experiences, our trust or lack of trust in the Holy Mystery, our sense of hope or despair, our understanding of love, how we interpret our feelings, thoughts, mental habits, emotional habits, the method we use to discipline our subjectivity, consolation, desolation, and how we act in response to consolation and desolation. It is possible to grow in knowledge of what is real and what is valuable through the conversion of our own personal subjectivity.


According to section 21 of the Spiritual Exercises, the goal of the Exercises is to enable a person to make decisions free of disordered attachments. In order to see an attachment as disordered, we need to know reality as it really is. Our attachment functions as a psychic blinder to what is and as a psychic tumor draining us of the energy needed to want to know what is real. Whatever the attachment, it siphons psychic energy away from life-giving pursuits. For example, I may feel attached to resentment because of a past injury. I may feel the urge to nurse the resentment and rehearse the anger. In doing so, I am feeding what Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hahn calls the habit energy of anger. In other cases, I may nurse the resentment out of fear of being hurt again. I avoid the person who hurt me and I avoid situations and people who remind me of the pain. Finally, the injury may remind me of an earlier, more traumatic injury, perhaps something from my childhood. In all three cases, it is understandable that I react with resentment, but if I don't eventually let go of the resentment, it will become a spiritual and psychic tumor, coloring much of my life.


The Exercises are designed to help me with the attachment in a variety of ways. First, in contemplating the forgiving Christ, I may be moved to imitate him, letting go of the resentment that is poisoning my mind and heart. Second, in the meditation on the Two Standards, I may be drawn to how Jesus attracts us to spiritual freedom and repelled by the manner in which the enemy of human nature seeks to enslave me in my resentment by way of a sense of wounded honor and pride. Third, in the meditation on three kinds of humility, I may ask for the grace to follow Jesus even in the face of poverty and contempt, not wallowing in the contempt of others, but just peacefully accepting it.


As I let go of the resentment, I actually grow to a fuller understanding of the world. Dr. Joseph Komonchak writes about this experience in an essay about the theological method of Bernard Lonergan, SJ (“Conversion and Objectivity”, Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 14, Number 1, Spring 1996, p 99). To better understand Lonergan's Method, he uses the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). In the parable, the father and older son have different understandings of reality. The father’s reality is charged with forgiving love. The older son’s reality is held together by the desire to please the father by observing religious rules for the sake of the rules themselves. In order for the older son to live in the reality of the father, he must undergo metanoia-a change of heart and mind. He must let go of the social reality constructed by the social and mental habit (ethic) of keeping religious score of one's personal holiness. He must accept the social reality of the awesome, excessively prodigal, unconditional love of the father.


Komonchak uses this parable to explain the Ignatian insight that objectivity (reality) is the fruit of authentic subjectivity. That is, how you understand reality is affected by the condition of your subjectivity. For Lonergan and Komonchak, there is an error in assuming that knowing is just like looking. Lonergan gives the example of an x-ray. When I look at a faint line on the x-ray of a rib cage, I see nothing more than a line, but a doctor whose subjectivity has been tutored through years of medical school, will see a fracture. She will see a particular kind of fracture and she will know how long it will take to heal. Knowing what kind of fracture it is requires more than just looking. It requires looking with a tutored and authentic subjectivity.


If I approach a social problem like health care without an understanding of God's unconditional valuing of each person, my understanding of the situation will be less accurate than if I had, through experience, knowledge of how God unconditionally values me and others. What occurs during this experience? Metanoia or as we say in English--conversion. What exactly is a conversion? It is the change and expansion of one's horizon of knowing, feeling, valuing, and acting. What is a person's horizon? It is the difference between what one knows and does not know. Consider the comparison with one's visual horizon. What is beyond my visual horizon cannot be seen by me so it cannot be known by me. What is beyond my intellectual horizon cannot be known by me until my horizon shifts. What is beyond my moral horizon cannot be valued by me until my horizon expands. How does such an expansion of horizon occur? In The Desires of the Human Heart: An Introduction to the Theology of Bernard Lonergan, Walter Conn comments: “... Conversion to a new horizon must be a non-logical leap, effected not principally by logic but by symbols which tunnel under the logical defenses to reach our horizon's imaginative and affective center, our hearts” (52).


This is just what happens when Jesus tells a parable: using the symbols and narrative of the parable, Jesus draws us into our hearts. Ignatius builds on the method of Christ by encouraging us to use our imagination when we pray with Scripture. We enter into the scene and imagine the concrete sensory details. In the case of the parable of the prodigal son, we may be able to imagine the joy on the father’s face when he sees his son returning home. This expression of joy evokes an affective response on our own part. We recall moments when we gratefully forgave another and felt joy. We imagine the expression of the older son and can feel the contempt he has in his heart. We can also feel the tension he lives with thinking that he must constantly please his father. We then recall moments in our own lives when we held a grudge and feel the destructive tension in our hearts. In the end, we imagine the father’s invitation to join in the banquet: do we accept the invitation and share in the father’s joy or do we refuse and stew in our own resentment? Conn continues: “While moral conversion is a matter of discovery and decision, then, it is also a matter of desire: of feeling in the demand to respond to the call to responsible freedom a joy over the prospect of growth toward more authentic life” (p 52).
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In conclusion, we have found that knowing reality is dynamic because reality-love- is dynamic. Knowing reality requires constant metanoia and constant reaching out. It is the fruit of a subjectivity tutored through effective spiritual exercise.

GOP Confusion Regarding Health Care Reform

In the Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn points out that the Republicans are avoiding real debate about health care. He also points out that thanks to Governor Perry's policies, Texas is dead last when it comes to insuring people. He goes on to note that Governor Romney's policies (that informed Obamacare) have made Massachusetts the best state when it comes to health coverage. Finally, he notes that the individual health insurance mandate was originally a Republican idea supported by Newt Gingrich.

On a different but related note, it seems to me that in an age of bio-terrorism, universal health coverage is not only morally right, it is also a national security matter. If someone who is uninsured were to show up at an Emergency room with strange symptoms caused by a contagious biological agent, would we turn them away because they do not have insurance? If we do, then we spread the bio-terror contagion. If we do not turn the uninsured away, then the hospital does not get paid by the uninsured.

Some might say that, in the event of some kind of bio-terror, the federal government would be able to quickly infuse capital into hospitals to innoculate people or to stop the spread of the agent, but we know that it would take some time for the money to get to the hospitals. The better national security policy is to have universal health insurance (or near universal health insurance) in place. Ever since 9/11, our hospitals have been on the front lines.

In conclusion, as Romneycare worked in Massachusetts, Obamacare will work for the entire nation. It is good health policy and good national security policy!

The Gospel Truth By Thomas Friedman

This piece is a must read. Friedman lets us know how real recovery will begin with the truth. It also gives us perspective regarding the situation President Obama has been trying to deal with.

Governnor Perry And Religious Pluralism

I respect my brother Governor Rick Perry. I respect his commitment to Christ and I pray for God's continuous blessing upon him. I also respect his love for our country. I am grateful that he and other conservatives continuously challenge me. I am grateful for the dialogue.


Because I respect Governor Perry, I have some more questions for him. In no way do I seek to demean his Evangelical Christianity. I have tremendous respect for evangelicals. I just think that we need to clarify a few things:


Governor Perry, as an Evangelical Christian, do you think that all non-evangelicals are going to hell? Specifically, do you think that all Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians are going to hell? Some might suggest that I have no business asking a presidential candidate these questions. After all, many think we should not mix religion and politics. The reality is that Governor Perry and other politicians want religion to play a stronger role in the public square. I would also like all of the great religions to play a stronger role. The Lake Erie Olympics I have lobbied for includes the essential component of inter-religious dialogue in The Cleveland Center For Intercultural Healing and Reconciliation which will border the Cleveland Olympic Park. I am opposed to the privatization of religion for I think public discussion of faith is essential to our democracy.


Having established the necessity of discussing religion in the public square, we need to ask what does my specific question have to do with politics? Well, it is simple. If a president thinks that all non-Christians are going to hell, then it seems to me that he probably thinks that their specific traditions are void of all virtue, that these traditions have no wisdom. It seems to me then that this president will probably never appoint a Jew, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist to the Supreme Court where he or she would have to interpret the First Amendment.


After all, if Governor Perry believes that Christianity is the only path to salvation, he is probably going to want appoint justices who will interpret the First Amendment in such a way that others have a better chance of encountering an evangelical church. He may not appoint justices who will establish Christianity, but he will appoint justices who will promote Christianity over against traditions that he thinks are void of salvific significance.

So, Governor Perry, do you think that all non-Christians are going to hell?

Show Me The Errors Of Appropriate Keynesian Spending

Considering the way he threatened Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Governor Perry obviously considers himself some sort of economics expert, and considering his opposition to any kind of Keynesian deficit spending to get the unemployed back to work, he must have some iron clad grip on American history. Unlike Governor Perry, I am not an economics expert. I am just an average American, born in the Midwest (Illinois), raised in the Midwest (Wisconsin), currently residing in the Midwest (Ohio). In many ways, I am just the common man, facing these difficult times and trying to raise a family. Then again, there's part of my experience that is a little different from your average Midwesterner (and that Governor Perry seems to dislike): like many others who wanted to expand their horizons, I attended supposedly elitist Eastern universities. I found that by leaving what was familiar to me and conversing with people of a thousand different backgrounds, I learned. Now that doesn't make me better than people who stayed in Wisconsin or Texas (I have dear cousins and friends who are from Texas), but I did learn.

Two of the things that I learned at Georgetown University and The Catholic University of America were to pay attention to previous experience and to ask intelligent questions. "Be attentive" is an imperative roughly equivalent to "show me," the motto of Missouri, one of my previous states of residence.

What then should we pay attention to? The experience we need to pay attention to is the experience of the Great Depression, the first great constriction, and other economic downturns. Doing so will help us understand the current economic constriction that plagues us. The questions we need to ask are:

1. If Keynesian economics is so flawed, then why did Keynesian spending via the New Deal and military spending for World War II end the great depression? In 1932 the unemployment rate was 23.6 percent. By 1936, thanks to the New Deal spending of the Federal Government, the rate had fallen to 16.9 percent. That was a 6.7 percent drop completely connected to the generous social spending of the Federal Government. It was not caused by a later phase of Keynesian stimulus which occurred 5 years later when we entered World War II.

2. Why has the US economy, stimulated by Keynesian policies for 80 years produced more wealth than any other country in history?

These questions must be answered before we abandon an economic model that works. So, Governor Perry "show me." Show me what Franklin Roosevelt did wrong. Show me what Ronald Reagan did wrong when he stimulated the economy through defense spending. Show me what the US government did wrong when it took the internet it had created and gave it to the global private sector for economic growth.

Show me.

Let's Use Intelligence As We Deliberate About Economic Policy

As we consider our fiscal priorities over the next few years, it is wise to recall John Rawls' book A Theory Of Justice. In this text, Rawls argues successfully that the economic policies that are best for the poor are the most rational and thus the best policies.

His argument proceeds as follows: imagine that you do not know your status in society. All you know is that you are rational and self interested. You are asked to choose the economic policies that will guide your country. Which economic policies would you choose?

Rawls argues that we all would choose the policies that are best for the poor because when we are placed back into society we could be poor. We would not choose policies that would make the poor suffer because we could end up being the suffering poor. Therefore, the most rational policies are the policies that most help the poor and vulnerable.

Will the US Congress act to lower the rate of poverty and to protect the health care reform law that extended insurance to 20 million uninsured Americans?

Only if they behave rationally.

About The Deficit And Debt Debate

First things first. Everyone, including conservatives, needs to acknowledge the following: one of the major reasons we have deficits is that key policies of the Democratic party--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, OSHA regulations-- have all been successful. That's right, successful. Our seniors do not die as early as they used to. All of these Democratic policies have prolonged peoples' life spans. This is a good thing.

Before conservatives mock everything liberal they need to acknowledge that these policies are successes.

Now one of the consequences is that when people live longer they then need more social security checks and more health care. But this is not something to disdain or regret. It first needs to be celebrated, yes celebrated, and then prudently responded to. It does not mean that government programs necesarily fail.

Truth, Compassion, And Christian Dialogue With Other Religions

A friend of mine asked me a question:

"In heaven, do you think Jesus and Buddha are quarreling over doctrinal issues?"

I responded first by pointing out that Buddhists do not believe in heaven. She responded by asking me if, as a Christian, I thought that the Buddha would be in heaven. I agreed that he would be.

"So answer the question."

I gave it some thought and answered: " Of course not. They have the deepest compassion for each other."

She replied, "In the same way, we must have compassion for each other, even if we have serious differences."

I asked, "Does compassion for others mean that we find truth in different religions?"

She answered, "How can we have compassion for others, really feel with and feel for others, if we reject the ways that lead them to freedom?"

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.

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