Conforming to “The Real World”

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My friend, Ted Wolgamot, a retired psychologist, also writes a weekly essay on religious matters and last week included this anecdote.

A priest received a phone call from an irate father who said he held the priest responsible for his newly graduated daughter’s decision to “throw it all away” to do mission work.

“’She has a master’s degree and she’s going off to dig ditches in Haiti!” said the father. “I hold you personally responsible for this,” adding, “You filled her mind with all this religious stuff.”

Didn't You Have Her Baptized?

“Weren’t you the one who had her baptized?” the priest asked. “Well, yes,’” said the father, “but what does that have to do with anything?”

“And didn’t you send her to our parish school when she was a little girl?”

“Well, yes,” said the father.

“And didn’t you allow your daughter to go on those trips to Appalachia when she was in high school?” asked the priest.

“Well, yes,” said the father. “I thought it would look good on her resume. Again, what does that have to do with anything?”

Then the priest said, “You’re the reason she’s throwing it all away. You introduced her to Jesus, not me.”

“But” protested the father, “all we wanted was for her to be raised Catholic.”

Contrary to her father’s intentions, it seems, the young woman became not only a Catholic but a disciple of Jesus.

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One of the favorite tactics of people engaging in disputes about religion is to tell their religious opponents to get in “the real world.” It’s OK to profess belief and to attend religious services, they imply, but you have to act differently in “the real world.” There, there is no room for the niceties of religion. It’s a dog-eat-dog world and you have to conform.

And that’s a problem for believers because “real” means different things to believers and non-believers. Of course, those categories themselves are ambivalent because there are a varieties and levels of belief and non-belief. But in general, believers take a wider view of what’s “real.” For us – believers and people searching for God - the “real world” is infused with God’s presence and the goal is becoming “God-like.” 

Placing your faith in the “real world” may be the greatest stumbling block to faith in God, writes Sisters Carol Dempsey and Mary McGlone in “Scripture for Life” in the National Catholic Reporter.

“It’s fairly easy to say, ‘I believe in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting,’ largely because we don’t really know what that means, and the belief requires nothing of us. But before we proclaim that God is now reigning among us, we want some evidence – and our perception of the ‘real world’ may leave us blind to the evidence we seek.

Set the Universe in Motion

“…From the moment of creation, God set a universe (and more) in motion, endowing us with the freedom to develop as we would. According to Jesus, God’s hope has always been that we would choose to enhance our natural union with one another and with God. God created us with the potential to do so, but not everyone (more or less 10 percent?) believes in or wants to take up God’s offer.”

Jesus grew up poor, in a backwater town where neither his family nor his neighbors had any political or social power. He was an observant - though very independent-thinking - Jew and undoubtedly heard many comments similar to those made today that he and his followers should conform to “the real world.”    

But he told his listeners in Matthew’s gospel that the entrance to the kingdom of God is through a “narrow gate,” and that not everyone who says to him “Lord, Lord” – that is, people who profess belief but don’t practice it – “will enter the kingdom of heaven.”