Category: Beauty

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Image Bearers

I finally finished reading Pope Leo’s encyclical letter, Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”). He signed it on the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum (“New Concerns”). Back in 1891, the previous Pope Leo began a longstanding trend: Catholic popes reflecting on how we can best apply the age-old principles of Christianity to new social challenges. Back then, it was the new challenges opened up by the Industrial Revolution, including dehumanizing working conditions and polarizing economic ideologies. Today, there are new forms of dehumanization opened up by the revolution of artificial intelligence. Back then, popes wrote encyclical letters to their brother bishops. Today, people from rather diverse backgrounds are curious to hear what the pope has to say.

Leo XIV does not condemn artificial intelligence any more than Leo XIII condemned the industrialization of labor. Both popes relentlessly invite us to reflect on what it means to be human. I look forward to sharing several of Leo XIV’s insights in the weeks ahead.

I find the majority of Americans, Catholic included, to be unfamiliar with the last thirteen decades of Catholic social teaching. Leo offers a masterful summary (nn. 28-45). Then he provides his own synthesis of the truths that repeatedly emerge in each age. Even though new and complex situations require dialogue and debate about the best path forward, there are certain foundational truths and first principles that do not change, because of who God is and who we are as human beings.

At the foundational level, Leo identifies three truths: (1) the human person created in the image of the Trinity; (2) the equal dignity of each human being; and (3) the supreme value of human rights.  He then articulates five principles of Catholic social teaching that build upon that bedrock foundation.

Today we are considering that first foundational truth – that every human person bears the Imago Dei, the image of God. As Leo puts it, “At the heart of the Christian understanding of the human person lies the great biblical affirmation that men and women are created in the image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26-27) of the Triune God” (n. 50).

God is love. That is to say, God is a communion of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is not an isolated individual. God is inherently relational. We see in God a mutual sharing of love. He didn’t have to create a universe. He didn’t have to create human beings. He would have been just as good and just as great without us. In the Trinity, we find a mutual love that is already infinitely perfect. But God did choose to create us, and he eagerly desires to share his love with us.

We humans, as male and female, bear the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27). Philosophers and theologians have often reflected on the ways we resemble God – such as our intellect or our free will. Drawing from the wisdom of John Paul II, Leo especially emphasizes our human capacity to receive love and to share love. We discover our truest and deepest identity when we make a free and wholehearted gift of ourselves. It is then that we are living icons of the Trinity.

If we want to learn what human love looks like, we turn to Jesus, the new Adam. “His humanity is completely free, open to others, capable of building healthy and beautiful relationships and committed to the total gift of self” (n. 49). As John Paul II would put it, when we love more and more like Jesus, we become who we are.

Notice that neither pope teaches that we gain more human dignity by living holy lives. Even when we sin, even when we live in dehumanizing or degrading ways, we never lose our inherent worth. We remain bearers of the divine image. In the words of Pope Leo, “Human dignity does not depend on a person’s abilities, wealth or position in life, nor on the right or wrong choices made; instead, it is a gift that precedes and transcends each person, endowed by God as an expression of his unfailing love” (n. 50).

In the West, some of us Christians have fixated on the concept of “original sin,” a phrase that originates with Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in response to the heresy of the British monk Pelagius. Yes, it is important to remember that salvation is always God’s work – from beginning to middle to end. We find ourselves in a human condition that is weighed down by sin. But sin is a condition. It is never our identity.

Eight years ago, I reflected on the Parable of the Lost Coin. Has it really been eight years since I began this blog? Wow, time flies. Anyway, Gregory of Nyssa (335-394) reflects on a gold coin, stamped with the image of the king. It retains its value no matter much it becomes coated with filth. Once cleansed, it shows itself to be what it always was.

Gregory was from Caesarea in Cappadocia (which today is in central Turkey). He was unaware aware of the teaching of the faraway Pelagius (even though their lives overlapped). Gregory’s focus was on the abiding love of the Trinity, and on our amazing human capacity to share in God’s glory.

Every human person has an inestimable dignity, because every human person bears the image of God. John Paul II would add that every human person is a unique and unrepeatable mystery. Each of us bears God’s glory in a way that no one else ever will.

In my more mature moments, I’ve come to appreciate this core truth of Magnifica Humanitas: every human person is the bearer of magnificent beauty.  Whenever I remember that the person in front of me bears the image of God, when I become curious about this person’s story, I am never disappointed. Sometimes there are forcefields around barriers around shielded gates that are manned with a platoon of armed guards. The fiercer the self-protection, the more precious and tender the child of God on the inside. I’ve learned not to push past people’s defenses, rooted as they often are in an intense fear of being unlovable in their deep-down desire to be loved. God always respects our freedom, and so will I. God always delights in the way his glory is uniquely reflected in us, just as a mom or dad marvels at the baby they’re holding in their arms.

Unfortunately, we live in an age of intensifying contempt. The seduction to dehumanize our fellow humans is intensifying to historic levels. If we pay attention, we may realize that we humans are being steadily manipulated by AI into even greater contempt for ourselves and others.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll consider the alternative path Pope Leo offers us. For now, I invite each of you to pause and reflect on how you truly bear God’s image, as do “those people” whom you may find it harder to love. We were all created to share in the amazing capacity to receive and give love. By God’s eternal design, we bear a dignity that cannot be taken away.

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From Dust to Glory

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

So we are reminded every Ash Wednesday. So Adam was reminded as he left the Garden of Eden, following his failed attempt to become like God by means of his own grasping and striving (Genesis 3:19).

God had created Adam from the dust of the earth, breathing life into him (Genesis 2:7). God had invited Adam and Eve to depend upon him for life and every other blessing. That dependence allowed a level of intimacy and joyful connectedness that the devil simply could not stand. From his envy and malice he viciously attacked, by means of subtle seduction. He pretended to offer what God had already planned and desired to give – to share ever more fully in His Glory.

Remember.

Remember who you are. You are dust. You came from the soil of the earth and will return to it. This world and all its desires are passing away (1 John 2:17).

Remember also that you are destined for Glory. Lent leads us to the rescue and deliverance experienced in the Passover of Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection.

We ache for so much more. Every human heart knows the longing, even if it is buried beneath layers of busyness, rugged survival, or mindless distractions. The desires of this world may be passing away, but we remain image bearers with an insatiable desire to return to our true home.

If you’re looking for an early Lenten read, the first chapter of Erik Varden’s The Shattering of Loneliness is breathtaking. You will be in good company, because Pope Leo has invited Varden to offer a Lenten retreat to him and the other workers in the Vatican from February 22 to 27. I was thrilled when I learned that. During these modern centuries in which many in the Church have forgotten what it means to be human, Varden is a voice crying out in the desert, inviting us to remember who we are.

Drawing from the desert fathers, he describes the painful nostalgia we experience, if we are bold enough to let ourselves feel it: “homesick for a land I recall, but have not seen.”

I remember how I began to experience that nostalgic ache with intensity after I had allowed myself to seek help and healing, beginning nine years ago. I stumbled onto the Welsh word hiraeth, and immediately resonated. There are parallel words in many languages, in which homesick humans attempt to describe this wistful longing within: saudade in French, Sehnsucht in German, banzo in Portuguese, Yūgen in Japanese, and many more.

This fall, I visited the cemetery in my former parish. I tend to weep there as I remember so many beautiful people whom I personally entrusted to the dust of the earth. The grave from one such man, who passed five years ago, bears the inscription, “There is no greater Sorrow than to Remember happy times.”

It is especially in our encounters with beauty that our longing for more is awakened. Even amidst the delight, there can be undercurrents of sadness. It is then that we perceive the enormity of the gap between where we have come from and where we are going.

“I am dust with a nostalgia for glory.” This is the fuller truth of Ash Wednesday, as named by Erik Varden.

We prefer to ignore both sides of this human paradox. We turn instead to our shallow survival strategies, whether we cover our nakedness with feeble fig leaves (Genesis 3:7) or mighty monuments of folly (Genesis 11:4). We pretend that we are not really dust. We create a manageable version of “glory” that we can control. Sooner or later, it all comes tumbling down.

Humility is the answer. The word “humility” comes from humus – the earth or soil or dust from which we are created. Humility grounds us. It allows us to accept both our bodiliness and our profound ache for more.

Humility opens up space for Hope, which is how we abide in the tension. We may be from the soil of the earth, but God has planted a divine seed within us. We would so much rather rid ourselves of the tension!

This urge to escape tension is a potential pitfall amidst the sudden widespread interest in healing. I have met many in healing work who are uncomfortable being present to the pain of others in the messy in-between. They feel an urge to fix or figure out, or to rescue. We can harm others when we do so, leaving them feeling more shame and abandonment in their pain.

As Jake Khym and Bob Schuchts pointed out in a recent podcast episode, healing is not about getting rid of pain (even if it sometimes happens). If that is our goal, we are turning God into a vending machine. Rather, healing is an ongoing encounter with God’s love and truth that brings us to wholeness and communion. Unfortunately, most Christian communities, even in healing ministry, are still more comfortable with spiritual bypassing.

Most of us are familiar with the notion that people turn to perfectionistic striving or to numbing addictions to medicate pain. More particularly, however, it is the vulnerable desire for Glory that we are fleeing. Desire is the most dangerous place in the human heart, often fiercely guarded by shame and contempt. I’m not talking about fleeting earthly desires, but the homesick longing for more. If I let myself feel that longing, I am no longer in control. And what if everyone rejects or abandons me then? It seems far better not to go there – except that this self-protection becomes increasingly exhausting and lonely.

“The Shattering of Loneliness” – what a title for a book! We each experience a desperate loneliness because our trust in God and self and each other has been shattered through betrayal. Through his Passion and Resurrection, Jesus now shatters our loneliness. In our survival outside of Eden, we have been striving to manage and control or to hide and escape. It is once again possible to connect and receive – if we are also willing to wait in Hope.

God so honors us as image bearers that he desires us to grow into His Glory, at our own pace and with our full consent. We need healthy community to do so. Ash Wednesday is a marvelous shared witness to these truths. It’s a truly communal experience. As a priest, I can offer a private Mass, but it would be absurd for me to impose ashes on myself in my private chapel on Ash Wednesday. We witness with each other in God’s presence what it truly means to be called from dust to Glory. We recommit to our shared sojourn through the shadowlands. We rekindle our ache for home.

In the witnessing and connectedness of healthy community, and in being reconnected to the love of our Father, our loneliness is shattered. It’s not that every longing has been totally met. We might actually suffer more in our longing once it’s witnessed – just as poets often feel agonizing desire in the presence of beauty. Some of the holiest disciples I know suffer the most when they feel intensely connected to God. They desire more, and are painfully aware of the gap between human dust and God’s Glory. They are holy because they keep daring to desire, to be known in their desire, and to be stretched in the tension of waiting.

As we receive our ashes this Lent, may we encourage each other in remembering who we are: dust that is called to Glory.

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Embracing Paradox

I’ve been appreciating Brené Brown’s newest book (Strong Ground). She names some of the paradoxes that wise and courageous leaders learn to embrace.

I immediately resonated with the chapter on the importance of “negative capability.” It’s a concept she found in a letter from the poet John Keats (1795-1821). Keats praises this capacity that he perceives in great men like Shakespeare – “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

There are moments when abiding in love and truth is particularly painful. These are the moments of the in-between, when we have only partial insights or unsatisfactory options. We feel the pressure to make something happen and get away from the tension as soon as possible. It becomes almost unbearable to abide and wait for fuller truth and goodness and beauty to emerge.

To be human in a fallen world is to live in this tension. We are stretched by two seemingly incompatible truths. On one side is the harsh reality of impermanence. As much as we attempt to deny it, our earthly existence is fleeting. Nothing gold can stay. On the other side is the nonstop human tendency for meaning-making. We insatiably interpret what is happening and why – a task that our brains engage both consciously and unconsciously, even while we sleep! We don’t like waiting to receive the fuller truth. We both desire and need to belong securely and trustingly to something solid.

To put the paradox differently, our human hearts were not created for endings, and everything good in this world comes to an end. What can we do?

As Brené Brown puts it, “Negative capability is a difficult muscle to build.  We’re wired to resolve tension and seek certainty.  This capability requires the ability to reach inward toward stillness rather than out toward counterfeit facts and reason.”

“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

Even in turning to God, we are likely – in our urge to escape the pain of this paradox – to engage in yet another form of irritable grasping or controlling in the face of eternal mysteries that are never for sale, and will repel any attempts as seizing or sieging.

I’ve been reading the comments of a few thousand participants in the listening sessions I facilitated for my diocese this fall. You can feel attempts at grasping among many of our longtime parishioners who (in a world where everything has changed so much and so rapidly) expect their parish church to be the one place where nothing changes – only it already has, many times over. You can feel the grasping in the comments of hundreds of others who expect everyone else to adopt their political or liturgical ideology. If only we all thought this way, or all did things this way, our pain and suffering would go away. They forget the flaming sword that will not permit us to return to Eden (Genesis 3:24).

I empathize with their fear and restlessness because I know those movements in my own heart! I have my own versions of grasping or striving or hiding when the tension feels unbearable.

The real invitation is go deeper into the paradox without trying to escape it, nor to escape the tension found therein. This is exactly what Jesus and Mary do on Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

Jesus, true God and true man, does not erase or eliminate the dreadful consequences of our human freedom. Rather, he brings eternal love into the depths of our humanity, loves us to the end, and invites us back into relationship – with his Father and with each other.

His mother Mary does not do what so many churchgoers do when feeling the powerlessness of this paradox. She offers no fixing, no advice, no comparisons with others who have it worse, no backing away from his Cross. She stands with and witnesses.

Her with-ness and witness continue on Holy Saturday, a day of Sabbath – a day of stillness and rest. “Be still, and know that I am God” – these words sound so pleasant and peaceful in other settings. Not so much on a day of Sabbath rest in which your Son is buried in the tomb, and you are utterly powerless. Even then, rather than grasping or escaping, Mary embraces the promises of Jesus and waits in Hope amidst the paradox, not knowing how he will fulfill these promises until it actually happens.

Even after the Resurrection and Ascension, when so many questions remain unanswered, when the disciples are still downcast and doubtful, she abides with them and prays with them for nine days (Acts 1:10-14). They learn from her the capacity for passion and compassion that she exhibited so beautifully at each earlier moment of her discipleship, a capacity which grew and deepened as each mystery unfolded.

Yes, prayer and liturgy and Church are all part of our human response to this painful paradox – not so much being the answer itself, but the context in which The Answer can be encountered, again and again, stretching our capacity to receive – which also means stretching our capacity to suffer! The suffering of the Saints does not diminish as they grow closer to God. The greater their longing, the greater the gap feels between them and the living God. The greater their willingness to stay connected to others, the greater their capacity to suffer with. Show me even a few such saints, and I’ll show you a church community that is thriving on mission!

I find Brené Brown’s words both comforting and emboldening: “Resist the urge to reach for certainty where it does not exist. The longer we can hold that paradox, the greater our capacity to see and honor one another in our fullness AND in our contradictions.”

Faith and Christian community are essential, not as an escape from the tension of this world, but as a shared receptivity of the eternal, and of the mystery of each human person. It is in abiding relationship and receptivity that we can glimpse and taste the goodness of the Kingdom of God, and can persevere in our sojourning until this world definitively passes away, when Jesus comes again with full righteousness, wiping every tear away and abolishing death forever.

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A Mood Change

What is life like when we change our mood from “imperative” or “subjunctive” and learn to live in the indicative?

If that question makes no sense to you, don’t worry – I’ll explain along the way.

I love language. I love learning new languages. I love the experience of connection with someone else’s insights, beautifully expressed – all the more so when the words bridge a gap of time and culture. In another life, I could have been a philologist, like Tolkien or Lewis.

I even love grammar. I’m grateful to my high school teachers, who placed such great emphasis upon it. It served me well later in life when I was wrestling with Latin or Greek or German. With my own writing, being grounded in grammar is not unlike the months of training that Daniel underwent with Mr. Miyagi in Karate Kid. Good grammar doesn’t make good writing, but it lays a sturdy foundation, without which creative expression will stagger and stumble.

During my many years of study, I had nine semesters of Latin and five of Greek. I answered hundreds of questions about declension and case, gender and number, tense and mood. My Latin Composition class in 1998 was at times a torture. Dr. Petruccione relentlessly and manically drove us through Bradley’s Arnold, always sporting a bowtie. Twice every week, we submitted our elaborate sentences, translated from English into Latin. If you missed one time, you dropped a letter grade. If you missed a single class, you dropped a letter grade. Late every Friday afternoon, I would wistfully watch my friends go to goof off, while I plodded off to class. The professor could tell that my mind was wandering, but could never catch me!

“And what mood is that, Mister Sakowski?” At the sound of my name, my distracted brain jolted to attention, frantically poring over the last 10 seconds. Somehow, I always come up with the answer. “Subjunctive!” He screwed up his face with a look of “I’ll get you next time!!” But he never did. What can I say? My body pays attention even when it’s not paying attention. I guess hypervigilance has its advantages.

What kind of overachieving college student enrolls in a challenging elective class on late Friday afternoons? The same kind, I suppose, as the high school student who spends four weeks of her high school summer vacation learning Latin, along with seven of her peers. In 1999 and 2000, home for the summer, I taught Latin upon the request of students at my alma mater. We had a blast.

Most of the students were highly competitive overachievers, but one struggled significantly. Honestly, he only passed because I found creative ways to give him points on his tests. It wasn’t hard, because he made up for his lack of Latin prowess with a wicked sense of humor. One section asked them to parse different words. I had to give him bonus points as I howled at his answers:

  Person?  Magister   [“Teacher” – the name the students called me]

  Tense? Very

  Voice? Sometimes mumbles

  Mood? Depends on the day…

As some of you know, verbs can have different “moods” – indicative, imperative, subjunctive, etc. The indicative mood describes or asks about matters of truth (what actually is, was, or will be the case). The imperative mood gives commands. The subjunctive mood expresses the “woulds” and “coulds” and “shoulds.”

When it comes to discipleship and morality, moods also matter! I’ve come to appreciate living in the indicative mood, rather than the imperative or the subjunctive. Eagerly pursuing the good is much more possible when we can tell the truth with kindness, when we can name particularly what actually is without judging it or pressuring it to be a different way. I wrote recently about this calm noticing and accepting of what is as a prerequisite for virtue.

I remember my early years as a pastor. I was overwhelmed and putting all kinds of pressure on myself. I had just returned from Rome, where I had been researching and learning in seven different languages in the writing of my doctoral thesis. Now I was shared as a pastor of two previously separate parishes, and ministering to the Latino community in the region. I had 5-6 Masses each weekend and felt impossibly pulled in three directions. I lived daily with a fear of failure and a felt trapped in powerlessness. No matter how many “shoulds” I checked of my list, it was never good enough – not for many of the people I was trying to serve and not for my harsh inner critic.

Those first several years, I wrote out my Spanish homilies. One memory that is clearer amidst the blur is my struggle to find effective ways in Spanish to translate “should.” That should say something about the content of my preaching at the time – both to others and to myself!

It was only a matter of time before present pressures and past unhealed wounds converged in an unbearable torrent. When I finally reached out for help, I found myself swept away on a journey of transformation that continues nine years later.

I definitely experienced a “mood change” along the way. I’ve been learning and re-learning the joy of living and relating in the indicative mood – accepting what is and engaging it with curiosity and kindness. Then deciding what to do.

Advice is overrated. It is exceedingly rare for me to tell people what to do. I’ve learned to be with, to notice, to point things out, or to pursue by asking curious questions – all in the indicative mood. When I show up that way, the others can tell that there is no judgment, no pressuring them to be a different way than they are now. They feel my genuine curiosity, wanting to get to know them, and delighting in them as they are now.

To those driven by moral imperatives or living in a “should” fortress, this approach seems madness. In their view, you have to get people to do the right thing, or you’re not being a good Christian. Can you feel the fear there?

How  can we discern what is truly good if we don’t slow down, be with, and perceive what truly is? And how can we see what truly is when shame and fear are in the driver’s seat? They literally and figuratively narrow our field of vision.

I’ve learned to pay attention to what shame is up to. Where there’s contempt, there’s shame. When I notice self-contempt or other-contempt coming up, I get curious. I acknowledge the shame (if I don’t, the shame will power up even more!). But I ask if it’s ok to look at what actually is, setting aside judgment for the moment. Can I just be with you in what’s coming up now?

One would think that all the shaming and pressuring to do what you “should” would be a place of greater truth-telling, but it actually isn’t. When shame is talking, we utter strong-sounding and vague statements like “totally messed up” or “wacko” or “off the rails.” We speak in language of always or never, all or nothing, good guys and bad guys, us versus them. If we calm down and slow down, we can look more honestly at what is really happening – often surprised in the discoveries we make! Pretending like certain emotions aren’t there (or wishing they weren’t there) is not truth telling. Pretending like we can live reaction-less lives is not truth-telling. It’s dehumanizing.

Calming down and slowing down, wondering about what really is (even if it seems unglamourous or “bad”), also allows room for desire to breathe and grow.

Desire can take us places that shame never will. Some of you have seen Monsters, Inc. – the Pixar film about monsters fueling their power plant by capturing the fear of children. Then they make a revolutionary discovery – that laughter is far more powerful than fear. Similarly, desire for goodness is far more powerful than any amount of fear-mongering or “shoulding.” When Christians feel threatened, it seems like only fear and shame will get results. It is much messier to get down in the dirt and look up at what’s really going on. But that’s exactly what humility does.

When we humbly, calmly, curiously, kindly, and truthfully look at what is, we begin to see a much more truthful narrative. We start to see the ways in which deeper desire has been shamed, silenced, belittled, dismissed, or hemmed in. I find that shame is the loudest when desire feels vulnerable and exposed. Rather than allow desire (yet again) to be abandoned, betrayed, dismissed, or disappointed, shame will take over the controls. Setting down shame feels risky! But only then can desire be untethered to seek and find the good, and in finding it to desire it all the more.

What mood are you in today? Do you put pressure on yourself to be a certain way. Is your life one of “I should…” / “I just have to…”/ “I really need to…”? What would it cost you to dial down that pressure for a while, to be with a safe person, and to look at what is? You just might discover your deeper desires, and how your good Father is inviting you to soar.

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There is a River

I am from the river.

When I was one, my family moved back to Wisconsin and purchased a little house along the Wisconsin River.

I could see the river from my bedroom window, pulled open on sweaty summer nights, or through the ice that clung to the curtains in January. The river beckoned, beautiful and dangerous: frozen yet fragile in the winter, rising and rushing in the spring, serene in the summer, reflecting bright bursts of color in the fall.

I spent thousands of hours, endlessly exploring in our backyard, between the deck and the dock I had helped my stepdad build. There, near the river, I would catch toads or turtles or grasshoppers. I would dig up worms for fishing, or get grass stains in my pants as I touched and tasted the flowers (the violets were by far the best!). More than once I wistfully watched as a ball plunged into the waters and floated away, eluding the reach of branch or cane pole.

As Heraclitus once suggested, you cannot step into the same river twice. Visiting home elicits a mixture of emotions. It’s the same basic house and yard, but remodeled, refurnished, and rearranged a few times over. The town has the same streets and many of the same buildings, yet feels noticeably different. For many decades, it was a booming paper mill town. Then they witnessed the loss of hundreds of jobs in the early 2000’s, followed by a total shutdown in 2020. What a change from my childhood and teen years, when Consolidated Papers was a Fortune 500 company and invested $400 million to build the state’s largest paper machine.

This fall, I am facilitating a few dozen listening sessions throughout my diocese, inviting our 156 parishes to pivot from maintenance to mission. For many parishes that are struggling, the invitation is felt as an immediate threat. Are we going to close?? What are we going to lose?

The Lord has often surprised me in this process, especially when I feel overwhelmed, fear failure, or put pressure on myself. It happened again a few weeks ago.

My friend showed me a brand new book by Robert Enright, Forgiving as Unity with Christ. I quickly realized – “O, this is going to be one of those books.” It’s going to take me at least six months to meander through the journaling and meditation prompts, which have already tapped deep places in my heart.

So there I was, working on wounds of resentment and unforgiveness (which include my avoidance of feelings of anger). The exercise invited me to remember a time when I received unconditional love from another human, and to enter vividly into that moment. Memories of 1999 cascaded into my imagination. At that time, I received remarkable compassion and kindness from a few friends, especially Peter. It was healing to recall the lovely ways that they attuned to me, drew near to me, held space for my raw pain, and showed empathy.

My gratitude and consolation were interrupted by the memory of how awful it was to lose Peter that November. He was only five months ordained when he unexpectedly and inexplicably died in his sleep.

Out of nowhere I found myself recalling Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” It opened some of my deepest wells of grief, and I sobbed, not for the first time, and probably not for the last. I was not only feeling that sudden loss of a friend, who indeed glittered like gold. I was connecting with the universal human experience expressed in Frost’s poem. In this post-Eden world, the most amazing and beautiful moments never linger. It is agonizing. We were not meant for endings.

How painful it is to be like the poets or prophets – to have huge imagination and perceive beauty and goodness where many do not. It’s thrilling and delightful. You are eager to share the goodness with others. It’s awful because, often and even inevitably, the delight evaporates. Or it gets crushed, ripped away, or (perhaps worst of all) dismissed or spurned by others, who could have delighted in it. I think here of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37). He imagines and desires so much more goodness for them – but they don’t want it. Or, if they want it, they are unwilling to repent and receive it.

As I continued to pray, I realized the connection between my own intense feelings in the moment and what Jesus is inviting all of us into in the Rebuild My Church Initiative in my diocese. I often feel unsettled and fearful in the face of future unknowns. I keep catching myself trying to manage or control the process, fearing failure. The Lord keeps reminding me that the people of the diocese doesn’t need a project manager; they need my heart. My own experiences are a microcosm of what I’m inviting everyone else into. I have all my familiar survival strategies that feel so much more appealing than trusting and following the voice of the Good Shepherd into more abundant life.

When people first hear about “reimagining the structure of their parishes” or “pivoting from maintenance to mission,” their reaction is often one of fear, suspicion, and self-preservation. I am listening to them in their fears, while inviting consideration that we need not live our lives out of fear.

But the Good Shepherd has been prompting more in my heart. It’s not only the unknowns or the potential losses of the future that are unsettling; it’s what has already changed and changed again, but remains ungrieved. When hurts are unhealed and losses are ungrieved, our human tendency is to fight to hold on to what is already lost, perhaps even finding a scapegoat to blame for the struggles.

Case in point – the loss of Christendom. Fifty years ago, Fulton Sheen prophetically proclaimed, “We are living at the end of Christendom – not the end of Christianity.” Yet so many Christians and churches want to fight culture wars and save Christendom. Rather than weeping over the ruins and rejoicing that new growth is sprouting up, we are fantasizing that we can still stop the collapse – not unlike the Japanese soldiers on Pacific islands who had not yet heard that the war was over.

I’ve been inviting the participants at these listening sessions to reflect upon changes and losses in their families, communities, and churches that have already happened, but are hard to accept. If we don’t mourn those, we will be less capable of heeding the voice of the Good Shepherd, being surprised with resurrected life, and following him into green pastures and new experiences of more abundant life.

In addition to Robert Frost’s poem, my prayer prompted a recall of the 1990’s movie A River Runs Through It. I remembered my curious discovery in Mexico twenty-five years ago. I spotted the movie in a storefront, only the title in Spanish was Nada Es Para Siempre (“Nothing Lasts Forever”). You can’t step into the same river twice. Nothing gold can stay.

Interestingly, in Spain, the same movie bears the Spanish title of El Rio de la Vida (“The River of Life”). There is a river that gladdens the City of God (Psalm 46), running through the heavenly city of Jerusalem. That river brings healing and life and new fruitfulness (Revelation 22).

Whenever I imagine receiving from those saving streams, I sometimes sob. I feel the parched places in my heart soak in the superabundant goodness. It is wonderfully consoling and intensely painful at the same time. My desires awaken, allowing me to drink in divine life. Then, in receiving more, I ache for still more – and know that I still have to wait, mostly because of God’s kindness allowing me to go at my own pace.

In these listening sessions, the hardest questions for people to reflect on have been questions about Hope. Many of our parish communities, not to mention many of our priests, feel listless or lost! They watch their numbers diminish and fear for their very existence, feeling powerless to change. A few of them, I find, have lost all imagination for more. The felt fear is so intense, and the grip on self-preservation so tight, that there is no longer an imagination for what abundance could look like. It feels too painful and too risky to dream of a feast when you are unsure whether you will eat today or where your next meal will come from. Survival mode and scarcity tend to cling to each other.

When I am tempted to feel frustrated or judgy about this narrow-mindedness, the Lord gently reminds me of how patient and kind he has been with me in the very same attitudes. It is truly sad when I or others don’t desire the goodness or abundance that is right in front of us. Or, more accurately, we bury that desire beneath a hardened façade.

It is very much like the story told in the Pixar film Encanto. As with the Madrigal family there, it can be terrifying when the cracks of our façade begin to show, and the “identity” we had falsely propped gets exposed and collapses. But it’s always an opportunity to access the living God anew and remember who we really are. We get to go to the Cross and drink from the life-given stream that flow from the pierced heart of Jesus. He is the Good Shepherd who promises to lead us into more abundant life.

Yes, there is a river that flows through the Heavenly City. That river, too, is beautiful and dangerous. I ache for it and avoid it. That river runs through my divided heart, much like the river that divides my home town.

I am from the river.

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Emotions and Moral Virtue

What is virtue?

When I ask that question among Christians, the conversation typically turns to shoulds and have to’s. Virtuous people do the things they are supposed to do. The job of parents and Church leaders is to make sure we do the things we are supposed to do. What is most needed in this view is moral clarity about the rules. The world is full of unvirtuous people because parents and the Church haven’t been teaching clearly enough. If only we have more clear and distinct ideas about morality, all will be well (can you hear the influence of Descartes here?).

When I ask similar questions about emotions as they relate to virtue, at best emotions are named as “neutral.” More often, they’re viewed as a threat or obstacle. We can’t trust our emotions. Morality requires us to subjugate and control them.

“Love is a choice, not a feeling,” I’ll hear Christians say. Or they will even misquote Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) as teaching that “love is willing the good of another.”

Thomas does say something like that (Summa Theologiae I-II q. 26, a. 4). But he’s actually talking in that passage about love as a desire or an emotion, not yet love as a theological virtue.  He says that when we experience love as a desire, we want good for someone – whether ourselves or another. That desire for good may be rightly ordered or disordered. It is quite possible to want good things for others while trying to manage or control them (just look at the helicopter or Zamboni parents of my generation!).

Thomas actually sees these core human appetites as fundamentally good, and needing the direction and guidance of faith and reason. We desire pleasure and goodness; we are zealous for difficult goods. Often enough, that desire for pleasure is disordered, with a willingness to use or consume or manipulate. Often enough, our anger becomes a weapon used to harm ourselves or others.

I was blown away during my silent retreat last month. I spent much of the time praying with Matthew’s Gospel. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches about anger and lust (Matthew 5:21-30). Occasionally, I glanced at the original Greek as well as the Latin Vulgate translation that was familiar to Thomas Aquinas. In the Vulgate, Jesus speaks of one who is angry (irascitur) or one who views another with lustful desire (ad concupiscendum). It was one of those “aha!” moments for me – this is where Thomas Aquinas gets his seemingly technical names for the “irascible appetite” and the “concupiscible appetite.” All humans have these two core appetites: a passionate zeal for righteousness and an eager desire for pleasure and delight. Fundamentally, these two inner drives of the human heart are VERY GOOD, even though, as Jesus teaches, they are in need of integration and re-ordering toward the Kingdom of God.

Thomas Aquinas uses the word “passions” to describe what we would call emotions. The word “passion” literally means something that happens to us. We passively experience it. The word “emotion” suggests an interior movement in our body as a reaction to what we are experiencing. Every emotion, in his view, is an expression of one or both of these core human appetites. True, these desires and emotions are often disordered because of the Fall – but so is our will!

Oh, how interesting it would be if Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas were alive today. They curiously and keenly observed human nature, without the benefit of contemporary neurological research. Today, I am convinced, they would be fascinated by our insights into the brain’s limbic system and prefrontal cortex. Thomas observed that humans have a “common sense” – a part of our brain that blends all of our sensory input into one unified impression. This is how neuroscientists today understand the thalamus (with the exception of the sense of smell). Thomas observed how humans can behave like hunted deer, who have an embodied memory causing them to flee at the sight of a human form. This is how neuroscientists today understand the amygdala. It’s our brain’s security system. Before any sensory input reaches our rational brain, it runs through the amygdala, which sometimes launches us into a fight, flight, or freeze response. These reactions happen automatically, within ¼ of a second. They are pre-rational.

I recall a decade ago, driving home from a Friday night football game. I suddenly sensed a large spider rappelling down an inch in front of my face. Somehow, I found my car pulled over to the curb and myself seated in the passenger seat in less than three seconds. Only then did my rational brain register the situation, with no small amount of astonishment at what I had just achieved. Imagine if it had been a bat! 

I find that so very many Christians (myself included) attempt to grow in “virtue” by no longer having emotional reactions. That approach is dishonoring of the inherent goodness of our bodies. It’s also impossible! First comes the reaction of our limbic brain. Only a few seconds later does it register in our prefrontal cortex – unless our reaction is so intense that we stay stuck in a trauma response. With time and training, our reactions can be received and redirected. But they still happen. Developmentally, this type of training takes years. It’s what is “supposed to” happen in childhood.

Virtue is not a matter of eliminating emotion, nor of subjugating or controlling it. The virtuous person habitually, calmly, and skillfully gives rational guidance and direction to emotions. That is where the prefrontal cortex comes in – the highest and most developed part of our brain. It allows us a calm noticing, which in turn allows what today is called “affect regulation.” Our emotions settle down when they feel the acceptance and calm rational presence of the prefrontal cortex. They are then willing to accept direction – just like a child who truly trusts her caregivers.

Classically, this is exactly what moral virtue is – giving calm rational guidance to our emotions so that they can be ordered toward the good. Our emotions will not authentically accept rational guidance if they are not first received with curiosity and kindness.

Here is where emotionally intelligent parenting comes in. Rather than shaming children for feeling how they feel, mature parents are able to receive the big emotions of their children. They show a curiosity and compassion for what is happening in the bodies and hearts of their children. They help them make sense of it all. Every time that happens, neural pathways are formed and reinforced.

At least 70% of the information in our nervous system flows from the bottom up – as sensory input coming from our body to our brain. When that information is received without judgment, then calm and consistent direction can be given.

Many of us literally lack the neural circuitry for virtue to happen. Sure, we can suppress or subjugate our emotional reactions. We can flog them with “shoulds.” We can exile them or lock them up. But that is not virtue. That is external compliance (perhaps even 90-95% of the time). It leaves us feeling unfree, or even living a double life.

Many people come to priests asking, “Why do I keep doing that???” I gently invite them to notice the tone of voice in their question. We can ask the same question with intense self-contempt or with childlike curiosity (or somewhere in between). Only when there is curiosity and kindness does virtue begin to be possible.

What does this mean? I would suggest that most of us Christians today are not yet in the realm of moral virtue. We have a lot of pre-moral work to do, kindly accepting and patiently integrating our emotions – all the things we needed to happen earlier in life, but did not (and probably have not for multiple generations in most of our families). When you are in survival mode, there is less space for curiosity and kindness.

That is why, when people ask me, “Where did you grow up?” I am barely joking when I respond, “Oh, I’m still growing up!” I am still coming to accept that daily reactions will happen inside of me – frequently and sometimes rather intensely. I am coming to appreciate that it is precisely my capacity to be impacted by others, to receive them vulnerably, and to be moved by their uniqueness and their beauty, that allows me to love them with honor and delight.

May we all become again like little children, allowing ourselves to be moved anew by goodness and beauty in the world around us, and especially in other humans. May we all receive the patient nurture and care that we always needed. Then it becomes possible to become truly mature and wholehearted in virtuous living.