Tag Archives: Christianity

Missing the Big Picture

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Dear Folks,

When we try to have productive dialog, there are some principles that might be useful.

Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking Fast and Slow” he says there are two kinds of thinking. One is faster and easier, but “knows nothing of logic or statistics” and has a tendency to believe that what we see is the whole picture. The other kind of thinking is slower and more work, so very often people don’t do it. It takes effort to think things through, to examine and question ideas critically. When I’m talking to someone, what kind of thinking am I using? What kind of thinking is the other person using? Both kinds of thinking are useful in their place, but it is useful to be aware.

Recognize that God sees everything (the whole picture) with direct apprehension. We do not. We, through our senses, collect bits of experience and weave them into a narrative. There is absolute truth, but our grip on it is limited. Two people can have very different narratives about the same situation and both be acting in good faith.

There are many people working very hard to feed us their narratives about how things are, and some people will hear the narrative, find it compelling, then accept it uncritically and never look back.

If you read “Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps” by Jennifer Garvey Berger (I’m currently listening to her “Simple Habits for Complex Times” and it is interesting), she describes one mindtrap as “The Simple Story.” We hear a simple narrative that seems compelling and decide that it explains everything, and we can miss complexity. Another mindtrap is “Agreement”. If everyone in our group agrees with an idea we tend decide that it’s enough and not to seek further perspective. There is an opposite in which whatever a certain person or group believes, we automatically believe the opposite. I saw someone talking about a politician (whose opponents really hated him) and this person suggested, “He should issue a statement in favor of air and watch his enemies suffocate themselves.” Nobody is always right (except God) and nobody is always wrong.

There is a dark triad: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, people who don’t care how they hurt you as they seek to get what they want. You can imagine the temptation to be quick to decide that anyone we disagree with is one of those, but that is lazy and unproductive. We need some really solid reason to write someone off like that. We also need to recog-

nize that having fruitful dialogue with people of other perspectives is more work than we are used to thinking.

In Matthew 10:14 (also Mark 6:11 and Luke 9:5) Jesus teaches that sometimes people will not

hear us, and we must “shake the dust” from our feet and move on. Jesus couldn’t reach everyone, and we are not going to do better than Jesus. Once again, it is important to beware of the

temptation to put people in that basket too quickly. This work is hard, harder than we tend to think, and if we give up too soon, we will make no progress but become more and more alienated.

All of this means that having good dialogue with other people is going to be hard work, patient work, frustrating work. The question is: are we willing to do that for the sake of a better world?

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Harder Than We Think

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Dear Folks,

I once saw a bumper sticker that said, “No Farms No Food.” My first thought was that this person wants to abolish all the farms so we will all starve to death. What a mean person! Then

I thought this person wants us to appreciate farms because without them we wouldn’t have food. That was a much better thought.

Did you hear about the man who stared intently at the can of orange juice because it said, “Concentrate.” One man said, “My hair needs cutting really badly,” and I said, “I can cut it really badly.” Just because we understand the words doesn’t mean we really understand what the person is saying. In the seminary, one Bible scholar told us that to understand what is being said we must “listen with our hearts.” He said that if you go into a shop to buy blades for your razor and the woman behind the counter says, “Can I help you, honey?” The word “honey” really doesn’t mean anything. However, if a man is speaking to the love of his life, he might be pouring his whole soul into the word “honey.” If our hearts are filled with anger and hostility, we will naturally hear things in the worst possible way. Let’s be honest; when we really dislike someone, we want to hear bad things about him, just as when we really like someone, we like to hear good things about him. How can that not shade the way we listen?

When people put out some snippets of what someone supposedly said, and then claim they are terrible people, I don’t think that will be as persuasive as they think. In fact, a lot of what

people say is expressed in such a way that it guarantees no one is going to be persuaded unless they already agree.

People have talked about toning down the rhetoric. I don’t think that’s enough. I think we need to learn how to have more effective rhetoric. My ability to have dialog has improved a

great deal over the course of years, and though it doesn’t always produce good results (Jesus had the same problem, and I’m not going to do better than Jesus), I have had many more good

outcomes than I used to. Whatever else you believe about Charlie Kirk, he was very good at that kind of dialog, which is what made him so successful. What if we all learned more about

how to do that?

More effective rhetoric is an art. We must be aware of how we sound to others. The words we say sound more benign to us than similar words said back to us, so two people, speaking in

the same way, can each believe that the other person is being cruel while we are innocent. I suggest that listening well is harder than we think, and we have to get better at it. James 1:19

teaches us to be “quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” What If we, as a society, decided that if we thought some people were headed in the wrong direction, we trusted more in the

power of dialog than in name calling, shouting someone down, and violence?

What if we put more energy and effort into trying to understand and not being too quick to believe we understand enough? What if we focused less on who was a good person and who

was a bad person and focused more on how we can all be better people? Every day is a chance to learn something new, and every day is a chance to become a better person. Jesus said we must strive for perfection and cannot be content with less (Matthew 5:48).

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Peace I Give You

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Dear Folks,

If we want a more peaceful world, first and foremost, get to know Jesus better. Building a better world always starts with falling more deeply in love with Jesus. Knowing His teaching is, of course, wonderful, and we can all benefit from studying those more. However, getting to know Him personally, spending time with Him, and, in the words of Pope Benedict, “Let Him be your best friend” will make all the difference. Some will object and point to the evils done by church people. I would suggest that this happens when the church people imitate the world rather than trust the teaching of Jesus. When we trust worldly power over the power of the cross, bad things happen. In the words of William Bennet (in his book “America: the Last Best Hope”) “the problem was too little Catholicism, not too much.” Also, it is church people who often developed the ideas that would oppose evils that had not been questioned before. It has been said that Christians did not invent slavery but invented the notion that slavery was wrong. I’m not a historian, but I think a case could be made that is true of many of our best moral principles. I think the best bet is to trust Jesus. Jesus has turned many villains into saints.

This will lead to a different kind of combat. We have a natural desire to make a mark on the wo rld and when we feel helpless, it is like pressure building up in us that needs to get out. It is very tempting then to use violence because it seems like a quick way to get results. I had a rage-filled, adversarial relationship with the universe for many years, and I understand this deeply. If it is not channeled properly, it explodes, and we see the results.

Christians have different weapons for combating evil (Ephesians 6:10-17). I focus on telling the Gospel story, working together as community, worshipping God, and helping people in need. With these weapons, we can transform the world, not as quickly, but much more profoundly, and with longer lasting effects (eternal!!!). The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power greater than any imagined superpower (take that, Iron Man). If that is where we should channel our frustration and our energy, we will have a more peaceful world. Of course, we Christians know that we cannot become good people just by studying goodness and trying hard (though that is essential). The power of sin is too strong in our hearts. It is in our relationship with Jesus that by His power we are transformed, gradually made into what we were always meant to be. Many Christians throughout the centuries have demonstrated that they can receive mistreatment, persecution, and suffering of many kinds and respond with love. Only if we can respond to evil with love can the world ever become a better place.

And the better job we do of that, the more other people can see that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is worth exploring.

One thing that I think should be obvious: what we have been doing hasn’t been getting us there. What if each one of us considered seriously how we could up our game in this area. If we want a better world and more people loving Jesus, are we willing to try something new to make it happen?

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Peacemaking

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Dear folks,

Here are some continuing thoughts about how to make the world a more peaceful place.

Intellectual humility: Don’t be too quick to be too certain that we see the whole picture. What if there is more to the story? I learned this the hard way: experiences of feeling very certain and finding out I was very wrong. Things can seem obvious and still be wrong. This will make me more reluctant to go too far to get my agenda.

Humility of Agency: Not be so certain that we are the solution, such that we decide we can violate boundaries rather than fail. If we try honorably and fail, someone might launch a successful attempt from the ashes our failure. Remember that actions done with good intentions may have bad consequences. Sometimes we even cause the opposite of what we intend. This goes with Moral Humility: Not being so certain that we will always do the right thing, lest we trust ourselves with too much power (Think of why Gandalf refused to take the one ring: “I would intend to

use it for good…”). When boundaries, accountability, checks and balances on us get in the way of what we want to do it is frustrating, but not necessarily bad.

People like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Robespierre all apparently thought they were fixing things and would make a paradise on earth, and so they thought they could take some serious moral shortcuts to do so. They made hell on earth and brought

untold suffering. We must fight monsters without becoming monsters. (I found if you search for images of “Peacemaker” you get a comic book villain who seeks to bring peace by using extreme violence.) As Jesus said, we must be “clever as serpents and innocent as doves (Matt 10:16).” We must work toward a better world but always remember that we are not the savior (We have a Savior).

Seeing the big picture. I can be okay with losing today so that I could win tomorrow. If I think in terms of years, decades, or even centuries, I can be content to work bit by bit for a better world, and a temporary loss is not a catastrophe. This would give me less temptation to drastic, violent action.

Support Law enforcement. Of course, hold bad actors accountable, but when one is accused, that officer should get the same due process and presumption of innocence that we would want for ourselves if we were accused of a terrible crime.

Those who do their jobs deserve our support and gratitude for the tremendous sacrifices they make for our sake. Let us send clear, consistent messages that we value and admire obeying the law and respecting law enforcement officers, and believe in holding criminals accountable.

Fill ourselves with stories of people who solved problems and accomplished great things without resorting to violence. Sometimes physical force is necessary, especially in war, law enforcement, or self-defense, but let us emphasize our admiration for those who do great things through other means and let us aspire to imitate them.

Tim Scott just released the book “One Nation Always Under God” and it is full of such stories. If there were more people like those depicted in the book, and if we as a society aspired to be like them, perhaps that would help people focus their energies more peacefully (reading the lives of the saints doesn’t hurt either).

Next, the most important part.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Toward a More Peaceful World

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I do not think we can get there by passing laws or instituting government programs. I think there is better hope through building virtue and changing culture. Culture makes a big difference in how people behave, and we naturally pick up behaviors and attitudes from the people around us. Some cultures emphasize cleanliness, and others throw garbage in the streets. Some cultures embody great emotional expressiveness, while others are very reserved (when those people come together it can get awkward). I think the growth in violence in our society is not because guns have been suddenly introduced, but because the culture has shifted, and encourages attitudes and behaviors that feed a violent society.

I think a great deal of the problem is our culture does not do a good enough job nurturing peaceful people. If we build certain kinds of habits, and encourage each other in these habits, I think that can make a more profound difference, and there are things we can all do to help shift things. We can strive to grow in these virtues ourselves and encourage and support others in doing so as well. We can elevate celebrities that embody theses virtues and chose to give no attention to those who undermine them.

So what are these virtues? I think there needs to be a lot of conversations about that, but I have some initial offerings.

Boundaries, principles, and virtues: There is right and there is wrong, and it is bigger than we are. The goodness of our cause does not eliminate but increases our responsibility for staying in bounds. We need an objective sense of right and wrong and need the same standards to hold for ourselves and our opponents. We need to send clear, con- sistent messages that we value and admire growing in virtue more than following desire.

It is essential and more effective that we put more effort in holding ourselves accountable and calling out our allies more than calling out our opponents. I recommend C.S. Lewis’ “The Abolition of Man.” Eighty years ago he warned about a society in which “we laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. William Kilpatrick’s “Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong” talks about the importance of teaching clear right and wrong to children and explains the power of stories to shape our moral imaginations.

Connections: Family, friends, Church or civic organizations that encourage personal virtue and diversity of thought. How can we strengthen these precious institutions? I rec-

ommend David Brooks’ “How to Know a Person.” The more we see each other as con-

nected to us, the harder to decide to commit violence against them. This is connected to: Growing in empathy: Not allow our anger or disagreement to make us objectify others.

Working hard to see things from others’ point of view. The tendency of sinful humans is to see others as objects, focusing only on how they affect us. Pornography is intense training in objectifying other people. See Fightthenewdrug.org. It would help to keep smart phones out of children’s hands until they reach a certain age. I recommend Jona- than Haight’s book “The Anxious Generation.”

Support the vocation of family, the foundation of civilizing influences. Many have made a case that a case that the union of one man and one woman, joined for life, ordered toward generating and nurturing children is most effective, and a society that privileges and encourages such unions does better. Prioritize what makes the best environment for the children over what these two people want. I recommend “Getting the Marriage Conversation Right” by William B. May, “Defending Marriage” by Anthony Esolen, and “What is Marriage?” by Sherif Girgis et al. to reflect on what marriage is (a society that is not clear on what marriage is will be on shaky ground indeed). John G. Gottman’s “Making Marriage Work” brings scientific data around practices that help couples to succeed.

More on this later.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

HEY!!! “CAR

Holy Week and the Gift of Self

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Dear Folks,
Now, we begin Holy Week.
The essence of the Gospel is the gift of self. During Holy Week we recall two events of infinite power: the Last Supper and the Cross.
In the Last Supper Jesus gives Himself sacramentally, and on the Cross Jesus gives Himself in practice.
Consider a couple getting married. In the wedding celebration, they give themselves to each other sacramentally, and in their living out married life, they give themselves to each other in practice. In the sacramental celebration, the couple consecrates their future together, infusing it with God’s grace so that it will have sacred meaning. Without the sacrament, there is just a couple of people living together. Without the intention of living out their marriage in practice, the wedding is just a party.
When the bread and wine are presented, the priest places them on the altar saying, “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you, fruit of the earth and work of human hands. It will become for us the bread of life.” And “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the wine we offer you, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink.” This is a symbol of what we have done with what God has given us. When the basket is brought forward, it is a symbol of all that we give to God from what he has given to us, and includes the donations online, donations of time and talent, and anything else we give. (Diocesan best practices call for bringing forward an empty basket because occasionally people have gotten sticky fingers. It does not destroy the symbolic value). In doing this, we place ourselves on the altar to be consecrated along with the bread and wine. We become ever more the Body of Christ, a body offered forever to the Father, incorporated into the one sacrifice offered once for all but eternally effective.
On Palm Sunday, we read the passion from the Gospel of the year, this year being Luke. He emphasizes the mercy Jesus shows even in His agony. Holy Thursday we read the washing of the feet at the Last Supper. This emphasizes that Eucharist is bound to service. The authenticity of our praying the Mass is inextricable from our dedication to giving ourselves in service to others. On Good Friday, we read the passion from the Gospel of John. This Gospel emphasizes that Jesus gave Himself freely, every step of the way. He is in charge from beginning to end. When we hear how completely, lovingly, compassionately, and freely Jesus gave Himself, let us consider how He calls us to give ourselves as gift. That sets our course for the rest of the year.
Blessings,
Fr. Jim

Life Where There Was Only Death

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Dear Folks,
Today, the fifth Sunday of Lent, where there was once only death, there is now life.
Those reading the cycle C readings will hear the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 

😎

, and those reading the cycle A readings will hear the raising of Lazarus (John 11). Both are about bringing life where there is only death. Sin brings death, and Jesus brings eternal life. The woman caught in adultery was facing certain death as a result of her own sin. Jesus saves her and challenges her to “go and sin no more.” Jesus tells Martha He is the resurrection, and it is not just in the future.
We see in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” And in John 17:3 “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”
When we talk about knowing Jesus, we remember that in the Bible knowing is a more powerful thing than having a tidbit of knowledge. It is a matter of having a lifegiving relationship. Consider these texts:
Genesis 4:1 “Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived and bore a son Cain…”
Psalm 1:6 “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” Psalm 95:10 “For forty years I abhorred that generation, and I said, ‘Their heart goes astray; this people does not know my ways.’” Matthew 25:12 “But the master will say, ‘Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.’”
To understand “know” as “have a life-giving relationship with” these texts make sense.
To have a life-giving relationship with Jesus is to give ourselves in love as He gave Himself in love. John 15:13 “No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
To love is to live for someone beyond ourselves, that puts the focus outside of ourselves. The word “ecstasy” literally means “to stand outside.” The more focused we are on good beyond ourselves, the more we are living the love of God. Our lives are no longer about
us, but about Him. Whatever else happens, that is abundant life (John 10:10).
To live for our own desires is to close in on ourselves, to be dying. Our desires will not satisfy us permanently, and the fight against mortality is always lost if we live according to the wisdom of the world.
When we have a life-giving relationship with God and are living for eternity, we are already living eternal life. The joy that comes with our relationship with Jesus and being about something greater than the world is just the tiniest taste of the reality of heaven.
Blessings,
Fr. Jim

Weaving Together Our Picture of Reality

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Dear Folks,

We all take in bits of information and weave them into a story that makes sense to us. Sometimes we can take the same set of information and come up with different narratives, and that

can make all the difference. I notice Democrats and Republicans can look at the same event and come up with wildly different narratives about what happened. It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

At some of the Masses this Sunday, we are doing the cycle C readings, including the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15). Where we are doing scrutinies, we are using the cycle A readings with

the story of the man born blind (John 9). I suggest it would be a good exercise to look at those stories and ask, at each point what narrative is each character believing about what is happening?

Stepping back, there are different narratives about fundamental reality.

One is the atheist materialist view. The universe is self-existing, though it seems to be made entirely of contingent beings. The ultimate reality is impersonal, and personhood and consciousness are blips in the interplay of matter and energy. Love, in this view, is just a byproduct of the drive for chromosomes to replicate themselves. Moral right and wrong do not exist, and the only value is making me feel good. When I die, I will cease to exist, and it will not matter what I believed or what I did.

The Christian view is that the ultimate reality is love in the deepest sense. The Father is eternally giving Himself in love to the Son, who is eternally receiving and returning that love to the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the love that passes between them. God is not one contingent being among many, but Being Himself, the source of all being. Love is by nature fruitful, and so God, though not needing anyone or anything, created the universe out of pure love. We were made to receive and give ourselves in love, and hence are made in the image and likeness of God. There is goodness, which is what serves giving ourselves in love, and there is evil, which is counterfeiting giving ourselves in love or refusing the invite all together. The things of the world pass away, but that which is love lasts forever.

One might object that that many atheists do much good and many Christians are less than moral. This, I suggest, is because we do not always act consistently with our professed beliefs.

There is one more narrative that I find interesting, and that is the Boltzmann brain theory. Ludwig Boltzmann was a physicist, who proposed that if a universe produced a self-aware brain, it

was more likely to produce one brain that hallucinated experiences than produce many brains that have real experiences. That means I am the only one who really exists, and you are all a figment of my imagination. There was once a Dilbert comic strip about this. I reject this theory, fun though it is, because it makes life trivial, and goes against my deep sense that life, the universe and everything have deep meaning. I reject the atheist, materialist view for similar reasons. We have a deep sense that personhood, consciousness, and love mean more than blips in the motion of matter and energy as the mindless universe unfolds. That’s my story and I’m

sticking to it.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

To Comfort and Afflict

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Dear Folks,

For the next three weeks we have a particular challenge: One Mass with scrutinies will have the cycle A readings (which this week includes the story of the woman at the well in John 4), and the other Masses will have the cycle C readings (which this week includes Luke 13:1-9). It is worth comparing the two. The woman at the well was a Samaritan, and Jesus broke barriers just talking to her. He does not shy away from how her life is a mess, but He doesn’t berate her for it. He gives her respect and concern that she wasn’t used to getting, and that gave her space to change, and she would reconnect with the community that had previously shunned her. By contrast, the text in Luke shows Jesus warning some

fellow Israelites that if they don’t repent, they face destruction.

It has been said that a prophet has two tasks: to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. This is summed up in Luke with the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14). The two men were a study in contrast. The Pharisee was presented as having objectively better behavior, but he was convinced he was good enough. Other people needed to improve, but he was convinced he didn’t. The tax collector, by contrast, was not

so virtuous, but knew he needed work. That made all the difference. Until we see pearly gate posts passing our shoulders, we are a work in progress.

It’s okay to be where we are at; it’s not okay to stay where we are at.

During this Lent, what if we asked:

What does God want me to learn?

If God could get every response He wants from me, what would that look like?

What if being a member of the Church means more than I thought?

What if praying the Mass means more than I thought?

When someone talks about a crisis in the Church, how quick am I to say what someone else should be doing differently and how quick am I to ask what I should be doing differently?

If Lent is not working out the way I planned, might God have some different plans?

What might they be?

If God is calling me to change my life in some way, small or large, how ready am I to say “yes” to Him?

Can I accept that how I and people like me respond during Lent can make a difference in the kind of future that our Church will have?

For what it’s worth, I recently came to understand something that had been obvious, but I didn’t see it. Now I see things differently (don’t bother to ask; I won’t tell). I suggest that God is always working on teaching us something and leading us somewhere.

Blessed Lent,

Fr. Jim

Wake Up Call!

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Dear Folks,
There was an article in March 4, 2025 “Crisis” magazine, “Catholics are Rapidly Losing Ground.” (Scan QR code to read) It gives nasty, nasty statistics on how we are losing members, such as, “for every 100 people who join the Catholic Church, 840 leave. So when you rejoice seeing folks become Catholic at Easter (which you should), remember that more than 8 people have left by the back door for each one who’s come in the front. No other religion has nearly as bad of a join/leave ratio.”
If this is not a wakeup call, what would a wakeup call look like?
I suggest there is one basic cause: Catholics have believed that the Catholic faith is much less than what it is. For example, Brant Pitre’s book “The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ” tells of being in a Catholic college and being taught things about the Bible that undermined its credibility and almost cost him his faith. However, he still (thanks be to God) continued, and when he was studying for his doctorate, he learned that those theories lacked evidence and were just being passed around uncritically. He found there was more basis for trusting the Gospels than he had been led to believe. Our Catholic faith is greater than we think it is.
It will not help to complain about what someone else (the Pope, the bishops, etc.) should be doing or should have done. Correct or not, that won’t move us forward. During this Lent, I challenge everyone to ask God, “How are you calling me to respond to this moment in history?” and then pray for the grace to answer the call.
The early Church started with a tiny group of people, almost no resources, and surrounded by a fiercely hostile culture. They grew like a grease fire. The mightiest empire in the world was helpless to stop them. According to my reading of Acts of the Apostles (a great book), they basically did four things: They told the Gospel story. They worked together as community. They worshipped God. They helped people in need. Does anyone believe we have no room to grow in any of these areas? Can we each ask: How can I learn more about the Christian story? How can I learn better to articulate
it? There are so many resources, everyone can do something.
How can I help connect the faith community? How can I better invite and welcome strangers, and how can I better connect with my fellow parishioners? How can I be better at reconciling conflict in our midst (this alone, I suggest, would greatly enhance the strength of the faith community)?
How can I better worship God? How can I broaden my prayer life? How can I discover that the Mass is so much more than I was taught, and I can worship so much more deeply than I realized?
How can I better help those in need?
If we answer this moment (I think things will get worse before it gets better) the Church can get much better. We serve a mighty, mighty God, who calls us to greatness.
Blessed Lent,
Fr. Jim