Tag: rules

A Million Possibilities and Infinite Desires

A Million Possibilities and Infinite Desires

A few days ago, I attended my sixth high school graduation as a teacher.  The following day, I attended the first funeral of a former student.

I had wondered before, briefly, at a few sporadic moments, what it would be like to go to the funeral of a former student.  Of course, I hoped that it would be several more years before I would find out.  At the graduation, I watched the students parade by, diplomas in hand, with an unknown future filled with a thousand moments they couldn’t expect.  As a whole, they were excited, ready to leave the halls of their high school and venture into a bigger, bolder world.  The next day, I stood before a woman who had crossed that same stage three years earlier, but, too quickly, now rested in a coffin.

My beautiful, wonderful, frustrating, and interesting students have a million possibilities in their lives.  Some will go on to achieve great things, things that will cause them to be well-known and highly esteemed.  Some will go on to achieve small things, things that will make them loved by a few and yet will impact the world in an authentic way.

And some won’t last very long at all.  They get caught up in addiction or depression or violence.  It was no secret at the funeral that we shouldn’t be there and that there should be a very different ending to the story that was before us.  It was also no secret that drugs were responsible.  As I watched her mother in a mournful embrace with her husband, I wanted a picture to show my students.  I wanted to tell them, “This is how drugs impact your family.  This is what you are doing to your parents.” Continue reading “A Million Possibilities and Infinite Desires” →

Honey, I love you, but being married to you is a burden

Honey, I love you, but being married to you is a burden

“Honey, I love you, really, I do.  But being married to you is a burden.”

My students were asked to imagine that a husband came home and said this to his wife.  Already, there was a bit of disdain in their eyes for the husband.

“Oh, I am?  How am I so burdensome?”
“Well, I love you, but sometimes I want to do things and I can’t because of you.”
“Like what?”
“There are a lot of attractive and smart women I run into at work and I can’t date any of them.  Sometimes I want to just catch a plane and fly to Florida for a week, but I would have to tell you first and you might want to come.  You are interesting and wonderful and I love you, but sometimes marriage is restrictive.”

Each time I told this to my students, it worked.  They did not think highly of the husband and were, rightfully so, annoyed with his list of burdens.

Wow, they gasp, he is the worst.

But aren’t these things true?  I asked my students.  He isn’t allowed to date other women, is he?

No, they reply.

Shouldn’t he talk to his wife about flying off to Florida for a week before he does it?

Yes, they say.

So what is wrong about what he is saying?  Why shouldn’t he say these things when they are true?

After very little discussion, because it seems so obvious, they tell me that he has the wrong perspective.  He isn’t focusing on his relationship with his wife, but simply all the things he cannot do because of his relationship with her.

Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI

You are correct, I tell them, the husband focuses only on the restrictions of this relationship instead of the love he has for her.

But isn’t this sometimes what we do with God? Continue reading “Honey, I love you, but being married to you is a burden” →

The Church Wants to be in Your Bedroom

The Church Wants to be in Your Bedroom

I’ve heard the complaint that people want the Church to stay out of their bedrooms.  The truth of human sexuality is not something people want to be bothered with when it comes face-to-face with their ordinary, everyday lives.  Contraception, IVF, sterilization, surrogacy,  and a host of other ethical problems are not what people want from the Church.  It is almost as if they were to say, “Just give us the church service and leave the rest of my life to me.”

In which case, I am compelled to ask, “What exactly did you think the Church was?”

Rather than overbearing, the Church desires to guide us in every aspect of our lives because God cares about every aspect of our lives.  Jesus is Lord over all, even the parts of our life we struggle to give to Him.  Especially those parts.

The “Catholic world” has a lot more to it than churches.  It’s also a world of libraries and bedrooms, mountains and the seaside, galleries and sports fields, concerts halls and monastic cells–places where we get glimpses and hints of the extraordinary that lies just on the far side of the ordinary…

(Letters to a Young Catholic, George Weigel)

The Church isn’t trying to artificially insert itself into the different facets of life.  As the Bride of Christ, she seeks to be where Christ wants to be, which is everywhere.  It could be easy to convince ourselves that Jesus doesn’t care much about business ethics or our literary choices or who shares our bed.  We can separate those from that hour on Sunday as if Jesus can only see what happens in “His house.”  Jesus, however, wants to be involved in our work, leisure, relationships, and daily habits because He wants to transform those areas into means of sanctification.

We want to give Jesus the areas of our life that are easy to surrender.  Jesus wants the areas of life that we struggle to admit aren’t flawless.  He wants them, flaws and all.  When He spoke about taking up our cross and following Him, it wasn’t simply the cross of getting up Sunday morning and making our way to Mass.  It was about allowing Him into every part of our lives–our thoughts, our dreams, our free time, our business practices, our interactions with other people, and, yes, our sexuality. Continue reading “The Church Wants to be in Your Bedroom” →

Justice

Justice

A friend once told me that I have an “excessive sense of justice.”  I’m not certain I would agree, but I think justice is incredibly important and I like to think that I pursue it.  A college professor gave me an incorrect final grade and I e-mailed him, visited him during office hours the following semester, and then sent a follow up e-mail, all in the attempt to get him to lower my grade to what it should be.  To me, it was natural and expected that I would go to such lengths to get a worse grade.  I didn’t deserve that grade and I wanted to get what I deserved.

While I will never claim to be perfect, for as long as I can remember I’ve had a very strong moral compass.  It doesn’t mean it is always right, but I think I have a keen sense of justice.  (Others who know me, though, may see more readily the areas where I am not just.)  It meant that I took note of how long my mom spent with my older sister when she was being home-schooled, and I insisted that she spend the exact same amount of time with me.   Continue reading “Justice” →

More Than Rules

More Than Rules

“Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”  (Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est)

Sometimes I struggle to make relevant connections for my students.  Other times, the perfect words come to mind and I am pleased that, despite myself, I was able to connect it to their lives.

I was reviewing the above quote from Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est.  Ethics, I told them, are a part of Christian living but they are not the reason we are Christian.  Intellectual Theology, while beautiful and true, is also not the primary focus of Christianity.  Instead, we are Christian because we have encountered the Living God.  I told them that if Christianity was merely a system of rules, then I could not do what I do.  I would never be able to remain passionate, day in and day out, if I simply presented an intricate system of rules.  It would not bring such joy to my life to belong to an institution situated around rules.

In a similar way, I told them that our relationship with God should in some ways mirror our relationships with friends.

“What are some of the ‘unwritten rules’ of friendship?” I asked them.
“Listen to the other person.”
“Don’t tell their secrets.”
“Be nice to them.” Continue reading “More Than Rules” →

Not Burdensome

Not Burdensome

During 8th period yesterday, I found myself embroiled in an unexpected debate on modesty.  It was interesting, albeit slightly frustrating, to hear the girls present the woes of being asked to dress modestly.  And, to a degree, I would agree with them that the rules of dress tend to be more strictly enforced for women.  They argued about short shorts and the horror of needing to cover their shoulders.  Even in their discussions, they admitted that modesty was enforced differently by different teachers and that one rule didn’t always work the same for everyone.  The true problem, however, is one of feeling burdened. Continue reading “Not Burdensome” →