Mr. Snuffleupagus and God

I am supposed to be getting ready for a 1/2 day hearing tomorrow, but am instead reading links I got from twitter posts over the last two days.  I was reading an article titled The Moral Dilemma of Agnosticism and was struck not only by the article and how it relates to my self-described agnostic wife, but by a comment to this article by someone going by the initials "smh" (posted on July 31, 2010 at 7:26 PM).  "smh" said:

I think that, while thoughtful agnostics hold their position in good faith (pun intended), the key weakness in their argument is the mistaken conflation of two different senses of "know" -- the factual and the personal. They are hardly entirely to blame for that, as far too many Christian apologetics make the same mistake, and treat God as an abstract logical point to be proved, or an empirical datum to be verified by observation and experimentation, rather than a person who encounters and is encountered.

This got me thinking about how agnostics in general, and my wife in particular, really see God as Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street.  As a kid¹, Mr. Snuffleupagus was a character on Sesame Street that Big Bird saw and no one else ever did.²  While I guess you can say I am fairly intelligent, I certainly am not on the level of deep thinkers as "smh" and the writer of the article.  However, I am constantly debating, for a lack of a better word, my wife about proof of the exisentence of God.  As with any good agnostic, she claims to want "proof" of the existence of God before she says she can believe.  Of course, much to my dismay, no matter what I try, I cannot "prove" God's existence in a physical sense.

In my discussions with my wife I have hit on the same concept as this article and "smh."  I ask her how she can believe that the Civil War happened because she can no more prove that it happened than I can prove God exists.  I can show you artifacts and writings of people who were around in the time of Jesus and His teachings, but I cannot make Jesus appear to her face.  In the same way she can only see artifacts and writings from the Civil War era, but cannot experience a battle for herself.  I have also tried to relate her lack of belief in other ways.  For instance, she hasn't the slightest clue as to how to make electricity or how it works (nor do I for that matter), yet she "believes" that every time she flips a light switch the light will turn on.

Those are my simpleton attempts at relaying, "the mistaken conflation of two different senses of "know" -- the factual and the personal."³  I will never be able to factually prove God exists, even to myself.  I can only know He exists because I have a personal relationship with Him.  It is through this personal relationship that I know He exists.  Oddly, my wife and I met on the internet and there was a period of time where she didn't know that I existed, at least with regard to what my physical characteristics were.  Yet she believed, I guess, what I told her and the images I sent her of me. 

Back to Mr. Snuffleupagus.  Only Big Bird "believed" he existed because only Big Bird had a personal relationship with him (her/it?).  The other residents of Sesame Street didn't have this relationship with Mr. Snuffleupagus and therefore didn't believe he (she/it?) existed.  It wasn't until Mr. Snuffleupagus appeared to other residents that they finally realized that Big Bird wasn't crazy this whole time. 

Too bad Big Bird didn't have the Communion of Saints and the Holy Spirit to aid him (her/it?) in convincing everyone of Mr. Sunffleupagus' existence.  I will simply have to pray that the Saints and Holy Spirit will guide me in my attempts to reach my wife and that God will open her heart to Him.  May God bless you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

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¹I remember listening to the Catholics Next Door a while back and they were talking about re-runs of Sesame Street from the 70's being put out on DVD.  "Sesame Street: Old School" DVD's have a disclaimer that says "Welcome to 'Sesame Street Nostalgia.' I am Bob, your host, and I want you to know that these early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grown-ups and may not meet the needs of today's pre-school child."

²I wonder if that fact in and of itself was intended as a comment on religion by the creators of Sesame Street??
³I am truly in awe of people who can think at such a high level to be able to say things like that.

Tough week

After a long and hectic week I am finally able to take (or finally making the time) to post again.  Seems that my state of mind is so much different than it was one week ago.  Last week I was typing myself into getting excited about going to confession, only to go out of town shopping and not make it back in time to go.  I went with my wife to go shopping in a town about 40-minutes away and we were having such a good time I decided that it would be better for me to spend time with her and go to confession this week.  That was only the start of my issues.

You would think that with a Mass time of 10:00 it would be no problem for me to get up in time to make it.  On Saturday mornings (and most mornings for that matter, but especially on the one morning I can sleep in) I am am normally awake by 7:00-7:30 and cannot go back to sleep.  On Sunday mornings, even though I set an alarm for 8:00 I my eyes always seem to want to stay asleep until around 9:30.  Magically, right around 9:30 I wake up and know that, unless I showered the night before, I will never make it to Mass on time.  This happens far too frequently.

Even though an argument could be made that when I oversleep I don't miss Mass with "deliberate consent," as an attorney I have to be very cautious of doing so and rationalizing away my indiscretions. I would dismiss such a notion because how hard is it to wake up by 9:00 or at least shower and shave the night before so I can quickly get ready on Sunday morning? 

As the week went on my struggles with developing a consistent prayer life kept a downward trajectory.  I have discovered that verbal prayer is not something I will easily develop.  I think I do a pretty good job of saying little prayers throughout the day.  I may ask God's blessing on someone in need, say a small prayer of thanks or even pray for Grace.  Sometimes I will ask for the Holy Spirit to guide me in something I am about to do.  It is the daily and/or nightly prayer that I struggle.  I had created a morning prayer for myself a few weeks ago that started with a Hail Mary and Our Father then went something like this:

Thank you Lord for all of the blessings you bestow upon me.  Thank most for the ability to call You, the Creator of all things, Father.  I am a sinner and unworthy of any of the Graces you give.  I pray that the Holy Spirit will bestow upon me the stillness of heart to hear Your voice, the wisdom to understand Your calling and the strength to do Your will.  I pray that I may keep my eyes fixed upon my Savior on the cross and live this day by His example. Amen.

Even this week I have lost sight up saying that simple morning prayer.  I have recently finished reading The Secret of The Rosary by Saint Louis De Montfort and intend to begin my attempt at joining the Confraternity of the Rosary tomorrow, August 1, 2010.  With my past struggles with saying a simple daily prayer, much less my struggles with a novena, I don't hold out a lot of hope for reaching my goal of saying a Rosary every day for a year, but I guess it is better that I try and fail than not try at all. 

Well, it is almost that time, almost time to get ready for confession and all the graces that flow from it.  I have so much going on in my head that it should be good and all over the place.  I guess I need to find a few pre-confession prayers and spend some time in reflection on my sins.  May God bless you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

One day down

My channeling Bono act worked last night . . . no, I didn't pray to the tune of "Where the Streets Have No Name," I used the "hopeless case" inspiration to have a very nice prayer time. As you may be able to tell by the name of this blog, I suffer from what I have diagnosed as Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (and yes I am a doctor, just one a medical one). I have never gone to an MD to have it officially diagnosed (although I am considering it), but I do horribly suffer from the inability to keep my mind on track. I say suffer because it is either pride or fear that prevents me from getting it treated and it causes great stress for me in my profession.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Maybe I do have a little mind but I doubt any statesmen, philosophers or divines will adore it. Then again, who knows, maybe I have my expectations for this blog set too low. :) Anyway, I have foolishly been consistent with trying to deal with this problem without the intervention of medication. I have tried ginkgo biloba and it seemed to offer some relief, but I was inconsistent in taking it. Now I am back on, so let’s see if it pays dividends. If not, who knows, maybe I will venture off and become a pill popper.

Back to the story the point, prayer. I would repeatedly utter the words, "reach me, I know I'm not a hopeless case" anytime my mind would wander last night during prayer and it worked marvelously. That reminds me of my 9th grade English teacher. She used to tell us, a class full of 14 year olds, that if we had writer's block to write the word "sex" over and over and over on our paper until we could think of something to write. Believe me, at 14 it didn't take long for me to come up with something to write about but it wasn't something that was appropriate for my parents to read. In small town Arkansas I guess they had to take what they could find!

Ok, back to prayer. So that little trick worked. I have always found that I have what I would call a two (2) track mind. I could concentrate on something if I had something going on in the background to keep what I would call my "other mind" busy. Some of my law school buddies would pop Adderall during finals while I would O-D on Hendrix or the Blues Brothers. That was always the key, it had to be something familiar, had to be something I knew without concentrating on.

So, maybe if the U2 chants lose effectiveness I can employ my IPOD . . . I wonder if God likes Ben Folds?????