Paul and Barnabas- Why Not Be "As Gods?"

Today, I was the lector for daily Mass and I read something that really made me think and reflect. Today's scripture was about when Paul and Barnabas fled Iconium because they were almost stoned; they healed a man in Lystra; were lauded as gods and then they turned down the honor. (Acts 14: 5-18)

What stopped them from accepting the crowd's willingness to treat them as gods? Did they just stop and remember that they weren't supposed to, because of the ten commandments? Did they berate themselves for pride and find that turning down the honor was a difficult temptation?

No. They "tore their garments." I believe Paul and Barnabas loved Jesus very much. I believe they loved Him so much that to even consider accepting any credit for His glorious actions pained them deeply. 

I thought about so many modern "teachers" or "gurus" who teach people to love themselves above all else, some of which may not encourage but do allow people to worship them as "enlightened ones," like gods. What if Paul and Barnabas had reduced themselves to that level?

They could have. Why didn't they? Paul and Barnabas lived devoted to our Creator, the "living God." It was the love for Him that fueled their passion. To accept any credit was unthinkable. Their joy was to spread the message of God's ever-living, ever-loving power, everlasting power- A love so great that our Creator took on flesh and then sacrificed that flesh for us. 

What if Jesus had not risen? Would He even have been remembered as a teacher and prophet? Or would he have been remembered as a failure, a weakling and a fraud? 

A great truth emerges from the Resurrection- The strong and firm foundation on the living God is the only true enlightenment, the only firm rock we can trust, the only freedom and power worth giving our lives for. 

To consider any credit for anything our Creator gives us is pure blasphemy. I have nothing and am nothing unless my Creator allows me to have it. 

By spending time with God- in prayer, in service, in the sacraments, or in any act of worship, we come to love Jesus more and more. We come to love Him so much that receiving credit for anything becomes absolutely unthinkable.

Daily Readings:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/050415.cfm

Divine Mercy- What Does It Even Mean?

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday. "Mercy" is a difficult concept for me to wrap my head around. I imagine others have some of the same issues I do with the word, "mercy." It's just feels unfamiliar and odd to even say. 

I spent several years following a philosophy that people should not feel guilt or fear. In order to have "personal power," you would fight these feelings and the beliefs that produce them as the enemy. Any form of judgment of self or others was to be avoided, and guilt and fear feelings were usually considered to be the feelings of a victim. An empowered person would avoid those experiences at all costs. So, if there was no need for guilt or fear, there could be no need for mercy. Pleading for mercy would even seem to many as evidence that religion was harmful.

I think at the time I followed this spiritual path, it felt like what I needed. I needed to fight self-criticism. I needed to fight self hatred. You see, I grew up with a mother who honestly did not love me. She wanted to. But, for whatever reason, she couldn't. Even as a baby, she avoided caring for me when she could, leaving that to my father and a nanny. My earliest memories were of her pushing me away, shutting doors so she could be alone, and of her telling me I was a bother. 

As I grew older, her criticism was intense and harsh, but being rejected by your own mother to begin with is enough to wound, even if she doesn't speak to you at all. So, of course I would do anything to flee from that pain, including following a spiritual path that insisted that people never do anything wrong, and that to criticize or judge them at all goes against unconditional love. I had to have a break from the constant psychological onslaught in my head. It remained a constant battle, despite six years of making fighting it my main focus.

In other words, all of that effort did no good. It was, as the expression goes, a "band-aid for a bullet wound." I learned how to ignore self-criticism through the spiritual path I was following, but all of the energy I drew from ignoring it went into the service of myself. That's what "personal empowerment" is. I did very well. A book I wrote and self-published sold over 20,000 copies. I bought a new Audi. I looked and felt successful, and I credited it to my teachers. Crediting them was helpful to their careers because that helped them gain more students and thus more income. 

At one point, the bottom fell out of all that. The teacher I had thought was the next thing to God and who I had sworn to follow to eternity said he couldn't be my teacher any longer. And so, I became lost. Before then, I had created an altar to myself, focused on myself as a goddess and did incantations to produce "prosperity and abundance" in my life. That worked. I had spent hours staring in a mirror trying to "love myself perfectly" because that is what he told me to do. But, towards the end, without his support, I saw a demon in myself in the mirror. I began to dream of demons and eventually, I had the crushing realization that I had betrayed the God I knew so well as a child.

Of course, I'd known it all along, but I pushed those thoughts aside. I believed that they were parasitic, sucking the "personal power" I was trying to attain. There's no real excuse for what I did, wounded or not. I knew deep down that to try to be God (or a goddess) was the opposite of my Christian faith. It took ending that relationship with my teacher to wake up and face the decision I made and when I did, I could not forgive myself for it.

Following that time in 2006, I ceased to care about anything. I was diagnosed as agoraphobic. I did not want to leave my home. I found out I had some neurological problems and shouldn't be driving. I was also diagnosed as autistic for the first time. I kept myself occupied with computer games to shut out the pain. I believe for six or seven years, I also blamed myself for "failure" in life because of that very reason- that I didn't care about myself or my life, so I had ceased to accomplish anything, like building my career or having a family. I wasn't suicidal at that time, but I also didn't do more than just "exist." I went on disability. I was flat and felt nothing, day in and day out, for years. Often, I actually thought of myself as being like the "walking dead." And truthfully, I was. Once I stopped fighting guilt, it swallowed me whole, only worse than before. 

Three years ago, I started an RCIA program and two years ago, I became Catholic. I started to put God first more and more. I swore to consecrate my life and every breath and every heartbeat of it to Him and I have not wavered in my dedication to that aim. I know I'm doing the right thing, with absolutely no doubt, even though I am doing the opposite of what I was taught for years through my previous "spiritual path." In the process, I've been rebuilding a better life, based on Christ as the foundation. The "real me" has started to emerge, a new creation in Him. I am a person I never knew before and I am living in increasing peace and joy.

Learning who I am now leads back to the concept of "mercy." What does it mean to me? At first, I thought it was thinking God was a harshly and unfairly judgmental person and so you had to plead for mercy so He didn't crush you like a bug. But, that is not what mercy is. That would just be how I felt as a child. So, then I thought maybe mercy was realizing that because we're sick and wounded, we can't help but do the things we do, so we shouldn't judge or criticize ourselves for it at all. But, that's not what mercy is. That's what my past spiritual teachers thought, but it was not that.

So, what is mercy if it is neither of these two things? I prayed for it for the past two years with absolutely no clue what I was praying for, honestly. But, it's actually something in the middle, between these two extremes. God's mercy is about admitting when we sin against God but also accepting His compassion for us in our human condition. It has taken me a long time to reach this place of "balance" within myself. During Lent, it all started to "click" more and more.

The Divine Mercy Chaplet is important because I think most people in the world today don't know they need mercy, or they have been taught to fight those desires, or they don't believe deep down that God is merciful and loving. It's not just me who struggles with these issues, although I did have "all the above." And so each year, including the year I became Catholic, I've prayed the Divine Mercy novena. There is medicine in repentance but the healing of our soul is not complete without acceptance of His mercy. Only through praying for mercy for others did I begin to realize what it means for myself.

For more information:

http://thedivinemercy.org/news/story.php?NID=2985

Why Religious People Are Healthier Than "Spiritual" Ones

Almost everyone I know these days is "spiritual, not religious." I spent over forty years of my life that way. I thought it was the only "sane" way to be. Yet, I just read about a recent study that showed those who identify as "spiritual, not religious" are more prone to mental illness and drug abuse.

For most of my life, I've heard about how religion is bad for our mental health. I believed nearly everything I heard, too.

Here are just a few of the reasons why people say that religion is not good for psychological health:

(1) Religion is "fear-based."

 Rebuttal: The reasoning behind the accusation that religion is "fear based" is that people do not want to be "bullied" into believing things. People want to make up their own minds and not be threatened with hellfire for questioning religion. Well, that is certainly fair and surely God understands and wants us to think through things for ourselves. After all, He gave us free will, and it is so important to him for us to have free will that he allows evil to happen. God doesn't want to force us to do anything because then people would be robots or puppets and not people who choose to love Him, on our own volition. So, why do churches say things that scare people sometimes? I think it's out of protectiveness and caring. There are too many things to count out in the world today that can erode and destroy our souls. If we work to turn off "fear," so we can be "free," then how free might we be when we end up enslaved to addictions, harmful relationships, deception and exploitation? I think some types of fear are actually pretty healthy, for that reason.

(2) Religion produces unnecessary guilt.

Rebuttal: Religion is the best way to learn to live a life that produces less guilt. When we're focused on being loving and giving, we're more prone to feel good about ourselves. Sure, it's a drag to be told over-indulgence in pleasure is a sin. Truly, it will wreck your fun. But, life is more meaningful when we learn to give more than we take.  By working hard to turn off "guilt" because we believe it is toxic, we often end up shutting down our conscience, also. Instead of repressing guilt, it is a good idea to express those feelings and work through them in a way that leads to more loving and productive action.

(3) Religion causes sexual repression, which in turn creates a whole host of psychological problems.

Rebuttal:  Both Christianity and Buddhism are spiritual paths that require self-renunciation and self-denial. The most seriously religious of both faiths willingly submit to chastity as a discipline. When people are more in control of themselves and their instincts, they are not only far less likely to have unplanned pregnancy but they are also less likely to over-indulge in alcohol and drugs, to exploit other people or to have moody or violent outbursts. In other words, people who have greater self-control are more mentally healthy. Since the "sexual revolution," each generation has a higher rate of mental illness than the one before. I'm not so sure it's working out for us! 

Sexual repression might be unhealthy, but Catholic practice has been to sublimate sexual instincts rather than repress them. Saints often "fall in love" with God for that reason. When saints do that, the world tends to be a better, healthier place, don't you think?

Here are some ways religion can HELP mental health:

(1) Religion helps us understand how to cope with suffering.
(2) Religion helps us learn to comfort ourselves during hard times.
(3) Religion helps us think beyond ourselves about others and the community as a whole, which can pull us out of self-pity, which can lead to depression.

Maybe being "spiritual" also helps many people do these things, but I've been feeling much healthier since I embraced religion. I think there are many good reasons why that is true.

Here's a link to the study:
http://www.pewforum.org/Press-Room/Pew-Forum-in-the-News/The-spiritual-but-not-religious-likely-to-face-mental-health-issues-drug-use-study-says.aspx