Doing things differently

I have been pretty down in the dumps the past week or so.  I have prayed and contemplated the causes of this feeling and have it boiled down to two things:  1) a lack of a prayer life; and 2) unhealthy meal choices.  I also think those two are somewhat interrelated.  I overeat often times out of boredom.  Its really not so much out of boredom as it is out of needing to fill something in me, well, that and food is good.  I made the mistake weekend before last of getting vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup at the store.  Only my fear of my wife's comments has kept me from eating some on a nightly basis.  Anyway, back to the point, I know in my heart that that hole I am trying to fill with food can only truly be filled by a more complete relationship with God.  And (all together now) the only way to have a more complete relationship with God is through??? Prayer!!

The figuring out the problem was the easy part.  (Honestly, I have known these are the problems for most of my adult life.)  The part that is obviously difficult-to-impossible for me to figure out is how to solve these problems.  As for the eating, I have been doing better the last year or so on portion sizes.  This has helped, but hasn't stopped the snacking between meals.  The snacking that I know will only make me feel worse, but that feels so good for the short period of time the food is in my mouth.  It is in that moment that I need to find a way to find the grace and strength to overcome my mortal weakness.  That is something I hope to find through prayer.

In the past when in a funk like this I would have no problem with running to God, begging for his grace and promising to continue praying after he grants relief.  I think we all know how this story goes, God grants me his grace to overcome my difficulties and I continue with the prayers for a while.  But soon, I allow pride, life and the world to get in the way and the prayer falls to the wayside.  This time has to be different.  This time I have to find a way to make a better path. 

The good news is that I have made a new exercise plan that includes prayer.  I had been trying to run, but my body is telling me that it is just too much to continue at this weight.  I am being careful not to pray for a quick fix and make promises.  I am praying for the wisdom and grace to be able to offer my suffering for God's glory.  In fact, my prayer this time around will be two fold: 1) to be able to find a way to glorify God in everything I do; and 2) as perfectly state by Greg on The Catholics Next Door this morning, to feel God's love comforting me.  Sounds like a good start on a different path.

Decisions, decisions

In contemplating this blog and its role in my life, I am trying to decide whether to spend any money on it, i.e. registering a domain name, etc. and its focus. The title is "A Catholic View," but I have found another blog with this same title. I should have known that someone would have already chosen such an uncreative title. That blog is older and honestly much better. So, I guess I need to change the name. The next question is "what name to change it to?" For that I must look at the description I have for the blog. How I currently describe it, in short, is that it is a blog about me growing up Catholic in protestant Arkansas. I did that in an attempt to sort of separate myself from the thousands of other bloggers out there who are Catholics who blog. Yet, not a single post has been about that subject, and honestly, I don't know how much I have to say on that subject.

The reality is that this blog is not about much more than my current life. I guess that is ok, but I don’t know how that plays into my inspiration for this site. It started as a politically oriented blog, but in growing more in my faith I came to the realization that the Lord was calling me in another direction. Since that time, I cannot decide if this is a tool for growth in my own faith or one used to help others. Honestly, I don’t know that it matters because it has helped me. How it helps others is in God’s hands.

So, now the issue becomes do I change the name and if so, what to? Do I keep the current "theme" in the caption, if so, how much do I need to write about that theme (certainly more than zero as I have done up till now). If I change the "theme," what would the new "theme" be? Do the "theme" and the title have to match? How much input does the availability of a domain name play into the title? All these are questions that must be answered, so how do I do that.

In the process of writing this post I have been inspired to the new name, Growing Catholic. That name is available as a .com domain name and I cannot find a blog by that name already. So, that is it, the official new name of my blog. Now, its lunch time and then off to figure out what to do for the rest of the day.

Feeling Dirty

Unlike Chamillionaire, I am not "ridin' dirty," but I certainly feel dirty tonight; even after having a nice jog and shower.  As an attorney for the state doing juvenile dependency/neglect cases I am greatly blessed to have a job I like that also enables me to respond to God's call in my life.  However, today, for the first time, I don't feel like I did something good.  I had a case where a young man had made accusations of inappropriate touching by his father.  After interviewing the child I firmly believed that he was making up these accusations in an attempt to be able to stay in a home where he could continue a relationship with someone his father didn't approve of.

I put forward the case my client wanted and called the young man to testify. He testified to what he said had happened and the father, without an attorney, didn't cross examine him to punch holes in his testimony.  So, the only witness that the court heard was the young man, and there was nothing done to attempt to challenge his testimony.

The father, who is surely was not a perfect parent, didn't do the things he was accused of doing - at least in my opinion.  However, the father fell into that large crack in American society that he made too much to be afforded a court appointed attorney, but didn't make enough to actually be able to afford to hire one to represent him.  Despite my best efforts to persuade the father to ask for a continuance and hire an attorney, he didn't.  Like so often when people try to navigate the legal system alone, he got run over.  I feel horrible about this and feel a great injustice was done.

As G.K. Chesterton talked about in Heretics, Christians are called on to work for more then justice; we are called on to give charity.  Chesterton defines justice as giving to those what they are entitled to, or deserve.  He defines charity as giving those same things to those who don't deserve them.  I feel a large sense of failure as a Christian tonight because my ethical responsibilities over-rode my moral ones.  Not only was this man run ruff-shot over today, so was my soul.  I know that I can go to God and lay this at his feet and pray that His will be done.  I pray that this child's father knows the same.

The ever continuing brilliance of U2

I have to admit that most of the songs I have heard off of U2's most recent offering No Line On The Horizon (ok, so this really came out over a year ago) doesn't really do anything for me -- I say this as someone who has seen U2 live three times as many times as I have any other artist.  I really found this last album to be a big disappointment.  Then, I watched a re-play of a show they did for the BBC on a building top about the time the album came out and heard Breathe.  I have read where Bono said that is the best song on the album -- I agree, that guitar line grabs you by the spine and won't let you go.  As is often the case with so many U2 songs, Bono seems to hide little uplifting, very spiritual lines in songs. In doing more digging on this song I have discovered several different versions they do in live performances:




I also looked up the lyrics on several "lyric pages" that have the lyrics all wrong.  Anyway, this version has these lines that will give me a great deal to reflect on as I drive across south Arkansas at 7:00 tomorrow morning:


Every day I, die again and again I'm reborn
Every day I, have to find the courage
to walk out into the street with arms out
people we meet are not knocked down  (another version has:  not knowing defeat, neither down or out)
there's nothing you have that I need,
I can breath
Breathe now

I find it so powerful to think about how true that is, how we have to find the courage each day to get up and face a world that grows in hatred for Christians each day.  Each day we have to find the courage to walk out with arms out to the people we meet.  It is Christ that I find that courage.  It is in knowing that Christ died on the cross for my sins and finding rebirth in the love of the Holy Ghost each day.

I also think the line "there's nothing you have that I need" is a direct statement to the world, and should be one we as Christians make at every opportunity.  The world has nothing to offer us.  The world is sin, the world is devil's playground and we should reject its siren song.  It is only through God's grace that rejecting sin is possible.  It is, as Bono sings later in this song, "I've found grace that's all I've found, now I can breathe."

Monday, Tuesday, happy day

While it is not completely happy because my wife is ill, I find myself being more content and less worried as I make a conscious effort to focus on being a better person and living my life the way God would want --  I assume this is a good thing.  Tomorrow should be a big test, as I have to drive all over south Arkansas, have a hearing in the morning and prep a 17-year old for his court testimony in the afternoon.  If I am able to keep my patience through that it will be a successful day.

I'm back

Not that there is anyone reading this to know, but as I was working in the yard today I saw birds flying from tree to tree and began to think about the beauty their song.  At that moment I realized that birds don't sing for the enjoyment of others, they sing because that is what God made them to do.  For all of my life I have struggled with how to pray.  I do great with little short prayers throughout the day, but sitting (or kneeling) down at a certain time of day to focus on God and my relationship with God has always been a struggle for me.  I made a focused and conscious daily attempt to pray a part of my Lenten activities (for lack of a better word) this year.  I did well for most of Lent at putting in the time, even if it was sometimes awkward.  But, as most Lenten resolutions (again, cannot really find the right word for it), I have struggled post-Easter. There always seems to be some excuse I have made at the end of the day, always something else that seems more important in the moment than prayer.

As with a great many things in my life, I struggle with making the right decision in the moment. I assume most people do, and that is how we get into trouble, i.e., commit sin. I struggle with that with food and with prayer.  So, there I am, struggling to make my back yard presentable, thinking about the birds and I realize, just like the birds sing because that is what God has made them to do, so has God made us, and more specifically me, to worship Him, to praise Him.  I thought, if I cannot do in a "normal" way by kneeling each night and reflecting in prayer I will do it on here, since no one reads this anyway. This will be my own little journal of prayer.  So, if you have somehow stumbled upon this blog, I hope God has worked through me in some way to reach you.

Rosary

I am starting a 54 day Rosary novena for a very special cause.  I hope I can have the strength to complete it. 

Their Suffering

I see their suffering, I know how their hearts break. It is this pain and trauma that they endure that causes my spirit to wither. Is my in-unison suffering a cross I must bear? Must I be further burdened by the knowledge that my suffering does nothing to ease theirs? What else can I do to make their load lighter? How else may I end their suffering, replace it with innocence and make it the suffering the sinful person I am surely deserves? How do I endure these things I seek with a smile on my face and joy in my heart? How do I not not turn the blessing that is this cross into sin?

Wondering

Sitting in court listening to the judge rule on a termination of parental rights case on a 17 year old mother who hasn't seen her child except for a few weeks after the child's birth. Sad case, just one of many I have had to litigate today. There was one bright spot. Lets hope God will grace these children and their families with the strenght to work through their problems and be able to reunite them.

A New Calling

After taking some time off from my blog for various reasons, I am changing the focus of my blog and attempting to respond to what I feel is a calling from God to share my struggle to view everything from a Catholic perspective.

I will get more into my fall from being a practicing Catholic as we go along, but the defining moment for my return to being a practicing Catholic was when I realized that I could not consider myself to be Catholic while viewing world events and my relationships in non-Catholic way. Since that time, I have started attending Mass regularly again and have gone back to confession for the first time in many years.

That being said, I have still struggled with viewing the world from a Catholic perspective. The best I can define "a Catholic perspective" is viewing the world, issues of importance and how I interact with people in a way that reflects the Christ's call to love as he loved us.

It is this struggle that I feel that I am called to share on this blog with anyone who is led to these pages.