Skeptical Faith

Google Image Interesting, isn’t it, how things can be going smoothly in your life, then all of a sudden, they’re not? Those things may be relatively insignificant, like getting cut off in traffic, misplacing a credit card, or spilling a quart of milk. Or they may be big things, like the illness of a spouse, the death of a family member, the loss of a job. So, there’s this trait called endurance, which Dictionary.com defines as “ the ability or strength to continue or last, especially despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions .” Some people just don’t have it. Others do. Some have it in spades. Harder As You Age? Endurance gets harder as you age – deserting you when you need it most. I’d like to think that I have an above average amount of endurance, that I can maintain that “bring it on” attitude in the face of the vagaries of old age. But I may be kidding myself. As I’ve mentioned before, when things go my way, I’m a saint. When they’re not, well….” I can’t resist a...

Google Image Before moving to Colorado, my wife, Amparo, and I used to drive from Des Moines to Denver to see our daughter, Maureen, who lives in the city’s southern suburbs. Because of the homilies and the wonderful diversity of the parish, we used to make the long drive to Denver’s City Park neighborhood to attend Mass at St. Ignatius Loyola Church. The pastor, Dirk Dunfee, S.J., authored and delivered most of the homilies. He has moved on but now writes a blog that has been forwarded to me. Like his homilies, his blogs are cogent, to the point, easy to read, and sometimes funny. In the blog-writing department, I know when I’ve met my match. This recent blog is based on a gospel reading of the day about a notion that is not easy for contemporary people to grasp, the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. Jesus uses the terms hundreds of times, but Americans, at least, have little direct experience with kingdoms so the idea may be lost on many of us. Fr. Dirk has his usual ins...

Google Image I often sit and read on the small stoop outside our house in the evenings, sometimes with “an adult beverage.” It’s usually cool and always calming. The calming effect is partially due to the two beautiful trees in our tiny front yard. One is a 25-foot Ponderosa Pine. With its gnarly limbs and long, slim needles, it appears to be much older than it is. The other tree is, according to the plant ID app on my phone, a type of fruitless crabapple. It’s not a particularly elegant tree, but at about ¾ the height of the Ponderosa and with its deciduous leaves, it provides more than its share of shade. And both trees attract a variety of birds, many who sing their hearts out. I usually sit there late in the afternoon when there’s almost always a cool breeze, reminding me of one of my favorite passages from the book of Genesis, which provides an image of God that is so human, it makes it a bit easier to relate to the divine: “The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God...

Google Image As it says on its website, this blog is written mainly for “those who have given up on God  and/or religion ,” and in a broader sense, for all of us who are searching for God (including me; writing it allows me to carefully consider the quality of my own faith). Giving up on religion, of course, is not the same as giving up on God. I’m sure everyone who identifies as "spiritual but not religious“  would agree, as well as those of us who consider themselves spiritual as well as religious. But sometimes I wonder whether people who have given up on God or religion are, as the old idiom goes, "cutting off their nose to despite their face."  They may have old doubts that could possibly be resolved; old quarrels with clergy that don’t warrant cutting God off; have the idea that religion, or belief in God, is outdated and irrelevant; the notion that all religious people are hypocritical. Or just see God and religion as boring. Warrant Slamming the Door on Go...

Google Image For 10 years at a regional newspaper, I wrote about medicine and health, despite having a rather weak background in science. The newspaper’s editor-in-chief believed I would well represent the majority of readers on that score and better be able to explain scientific topics to the average reader. I don’t know if I accomplished that, but I tried. I wrote my articles with my dad in mind, an avid reader of the newspaper. He was a smart guy but had only a 10 th grade education. The job was a tremendous educational experience, so much so that I often thought – but never mentioned it to my bosses, of course – that I should be paying the newspaper instead of the other way around. Everyday Exposure During that time, I took some college courses on scientific subjects, but it was the everyday exposure to science and scientists that was most valuable. I wrote about medical breakthroughs; watched innovative surgeries; covered statewide, and sometimes nationwide, controversies abo...

A bonfire with an effigy of migrants in a boat before it was set on fire this month in Northern Ireland. Google Image A story in last week’s news was about a beautiful town in Northern Ireland called Ballymena. I happen to have visited there years ago with my long-time, dear friend, Fr. Gerald Waris, whose maternal grandfather was from the town. Ballymena evidently has long been a hot bed of religious strife. I vividly recall that one of Gerald’s relatives, who was Catholic, told us that a committee of men had to spend nights in the parish church to keep anti-Catholics from defacing it. Now comes another type of strife – one to which Americans can better relate: anti-immigrant bigotry. Rioters and masked thugs have burned buildings, including immigrant homes, in and around Ballymena. A huge effigy of a boatload of immigrants was also set afire. Millions of Irish Emigrants The irony here is that Ireland, including Northern Ireland whence Gerald, and my ancestors hailed, was amon...