Skeptical Faith

Google Image A few years ago, Eilene Zimmerman decided she wanted to help her estranged husband who obviously needed it. But she was shocked when she went to his home and found him dead on his bathroom floor. The cause: A hidden intravenous drug addiction. “It was, without question, the most traumatic event of my life,” Zimmerman wrote in a recent article in the New York Times. “I had two teenage children at the time,” and she had taken them with her. “It turns out that awful time in my life was good training for a pandemic, for political and social upheaval, for economic and financial uncertainty. The experience taught me that I never really know what’s going to happen next. I plan as best I can, but now I’m far more able to pivot my thinking. I have the capacity to cope with more of life’s unexpected slings and arrows, to accept the difficulties I face and keep going, even though it can be hard.” A Difficult Quality How we manage crises, traumatic events or unexpected hard time...

Mother and Daughter in Tamanique, El Salvador Padre Blas Escobar is the parish priest in the town of Tamanique in El Salvador. I began communicating with him only a few months ago because though the church I attend has a long-time relationship with that community – providing scholarships, mostly for high school students through a collaborative organization - we haven’t had a strong relationship with our sister parish there. We recently learned, however, that besides the disaster of the pandemic, many Tamanique residents were hit with the effects of a strong Pacific Ocean hurricane and needed extra help. We sent money, both to the organization we work with and to Padre Blas, who responded with photos of the people who he helped with our funds and the essentials they bought with them. We now have a personal relationship with someone we know will make sure that whatever funds we provide go to people who really need help. Actually, There Are Many Problems Most of us understand the ne...

St. Kateri Tekakwitha Google Image A monk at Conception Abbey in Missouri told this well-known story in a homily at a Mass I viewed online. In a rite of passage, a native-American father takes his son into the forest and blindfolds him. He requires the boy to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. If he survives the night, he is a man.   But he can’t cry out for help, and he can’t tell other boys of his experience because each lad must come into manhood on his own.   The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some human might do him harm. The wind blows the grass and earth, and shakes his stump, but stoically, he never removes the blindfold.   Finally, after a horrific night, the sun appears and he removes his blindfold. He discovers his father sitting on the stump next to him, apparently there throughout ...

Google Image The gospels present people searching for God with seemingly impossible goals. Among the most daunting is this quote from Jesus: “You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.” Yikes! This seems impossible, at least in my case, and I don’t think I’m alone. In fact, such goals prescribed by religion are, I suspect, among barriers to belief for many. “We’re only human,” we might say. And that, I believe, is the key to understanding what Jesus was saying. We ARE only human. We can’t strive to be perfect in the way God is perfect. We’re in a different category, knowing God only by analogy. No, God is perfect in a God-like way; we must be perfect in a human way. And that includes recognizing God as father/mother and loving him/her and other humans as best we can.   Obstacles for Many Before going any further, I want to pass along a quote from Father Dominic Assim, the pastor of the church Amparo and I attend. He went to his home country of Ghana...

Google Image Judge Frank Caprio is the principle on the syndicated show, “Caught in Providence” that shows up on Facebook's Watchlist. He sits in judgment on minor infractions, usually traffic cases, and treats defendants with extraordinary respect, compassion and humor. According to the show’s web site, the cases and defendants are real. I’m sure critics would say Caprio is a “soft touch,” or that he isn’t firm enough with defendants. But some religious people would use the term “mercy” to describe many of his decisions and would say he’s an expert at tempering justice with mercy. Mercy is one of those “churchy” words that is seldom used in everyday language. Except as a joke, employees don’t say to their bosses, “Do I have to do that? Have mercy!” Or seldom does a husband say to his wife, “You want to talk about that again? How about a little mercy?” Helps Us Understand God But the word and its meaning have found new life, and with reason. It helps us understand God and t...