I was deeply saddened today to read in the news about a shooting this morning in a Kansas church. Although the shooting victim, Dr. George Tiller, was an abortion provider and therefore someone whose medical practices not all might be in agreement with, nevertheless, no matter what our feelings on this or any issue, it strikes me that violence is not the answer.
In fact, if those who were responsible for this attack were really trying to promote the sanctity of life, how can they justify the taking of another life in the process? As opponents of the death penalty have put it before: how does it make sense to kill someone in order to show that killing someone is wrong?
It strikes me that above all, on the issues of abortion, the death penalty, and so many others, what we need more than anything else is a strategy of non-violence, no matter what our individual convictions or feelings on each issue. We need to recommit ourselves to listening to our own consciences but also to not dehumanizing those we might differ with and above all not resorting to violence in the service of our convictions.
As we each continue to follow the voice of our consciences, may God's Spirit guide us to find common ground and recognition of our mutual humanity as we strive to make our world a more humane, just, and peace-filled place for all.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
We Won't Back Down
Yesterday in California we experienced the sadness of learning that the State Supreme Court has decided to uphold Proposition 8 and its language of fear and ignorance toward same-sex couples. Some day those individuals and institutions who supported this misguided initiative will look back with regret and sorrow at their inability to open their minds and hearts and the harm and destruction they continue to leave in their wake.
Nevertheless, in the meantime, as long as these attitudes persist, those of us who have the ability to know and see the truth of the matter have the responsibility to keep fighting and keep making our stories known. As Dr. Mel White, founder of Soulforce has said, if it takes years, if it takes decades, if it takes a hundred years or more, we will not give up until we help our all our sisters and brothers know that it's okay for all of God's beloved children to be who they are and to love and be loved in a committed relationship that serves the good of both families and society. Until that time we will keep fighting nonviolently each and every day, letting God's goodness touch our hearts and transform us more and more into witnesses of love, peace, and hope for our churches and places of worship, our communities, our society, and our world.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Proud to Be Catholic
In today's and some forthcoming posts I'd like to begin reflecting a little on what it means to be part of "the Church." Although this is of course a complex theological topic that we could spend many weeks on and still not cover fully, I would like to think about it a little in this space in the next few posts.
For those of us who are Christian believers, our spiritual ancestry can be traced all the way back to the first Christians and the original disciples and apostles who first followed Jesus and proclaimed their faith in him as Christ. From the beginning, there has always been a place for pastoral leadership in this community of disciples, including authoritative meetings of those charged with discerning together important doctrinal and moral issues such as the nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, among many others. This leadership plays an important role in helping individuals and communities to follow Christ in ways that both honor the teachings of Christ and adapt them to the needs of each successive age.
Nevertheless, the history of the community of believers has also been marked by some division among leaders and also between leaders and communities or individuals. At times these disputes have centered around doctrinal issues and at times they've also represented more personal disputes that have less to do with teachings or beliefs. What's clear, however, is that there have been times in the history of this community of those who follow Christ when some of the community's leaders have needed to be challenged or even openly defied when their refusal to open their hearts to the work of the Spirit endangers the spiritual good of those placed in their care.
Many examples of this phenomenon are available from history and I'll be referring to a few in coming posts. However, what I'd like to emphasize today are two words often associated with the community of believers and its leaders: "Catholic" and "Church." Although we often refer in contemporary usage to the "Catholic Church" and mean the Roman Catholic Church, what these two words actually refer to is the universality of the church or community of believers - those now living and those who have gone before us. Therefore, when we refer to belief in the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" in statements of Christian belief, we refer most essentially to the universal community of believers, not so much to any one ecclesiastical body.
Now of course ideally the entire community of believers or church would be fully, visibly united under one set of leaders. This is one of the central claims of the Roman Catholic Church - that all believers should submit fully to its spiritual, moral, and doctrinal guidance since it is the successor of the authority of St. Peter, the first among the apostles. And, while understandable and even perhaps ideal in some senses, history has shown that not all believers in Christ are able in conscience to fully submit to the authority of Rome due to issues of conscience that arise from time to time. For these individuals and communities, until and unless Rome and the successors of Peter prove willing to listen and enter into constructive dialogue over a number of significant concerns, it is not possible to submit fully to their authority.
For that reason, for myself and others who consider themselves Catholic, it is not necessary to submit fully to the authority of Rome as Rome conceives it. Rather, it is possible to remain Catholic and participate in either a Roman Catholic or other local church community without necessarily needing to submit to everything that the Roman Catholic Church teaches. In other words, it's possible to be both Catholic (universal) and participate in the Church (the body of Christian believers dating back to Christ) without necessarily having to submit fully to teachings (such as those on women's ordination or same-sex partnerships, among others) that in conscience one knows to be misguided and spiritually harmful.
Once again, I've probably written too much but I did want to at least present this topic in an introductory way. I will continue to offer some further considerations in forthcoming posts and look forward to hearing from anyone who might have questions, concerns, disagreements, commendations or any other considerations.
Peace and blessings,
Padre Chuck
For those of us who are Christian believers, our spiritual ancestry can be traced all the way back to the first Christians and the original disciples and apostles who first followed Jesus and proclaimed their faith in him as Christ. From the beginning, there has always been a place for pastoral leadership in this community of disciples, including authoritative meetings of those charged with discerning together important doctrinal and moral issues such as the nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, among many others. This leadership plays an important role in helping individuals and communities to follow Christ in ways that both honor the teachings of Christ and adapt them to the needs of each successive age.
Nevertheless, the history of the community of believers has also been marked by some division among leaders and also between leaders and communities or individuals. At times these disputes have centered around doctrinal issues and at times they've also represented more personal disputes that have less to do with teachings or beliefs. What's clear, however, is that there have been times in the history of this community of those who follow Christ when some of the community's leaders have needed to be challenged or even openly defied when their refusal to open their hearts to the work of the Spirit endangers the spiritual good of those placed in their care.
Many examples of this phenomenon are available from history and I'll be referring to a few in coming posts. However, what I'd like to emphasize today are two words often associated with the community of believers and its leaders: "Catholic" and "Church." Although we often refer in contemporary usage to the "Catholic Church" and mean the Roman Catholic Church, what these two words actually refer to is the universality of the church or community of believers - those now living and those who have gone before us. Therefore, when we refer to belief in the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" in statements of Christian belief, we refer most essentially to the universal community of believers, not so much to any one ecclesiastical body.
Now of course ideally the entire community of believers or church would be fully, visibly united under one set of leaders. This is one of the central claims of the Roman Catholic Church - that all believers should submit fully to its spiritual, moral, and doctrinal guidance since it is the successor of the authority of St. Peter, the first among the apostles. And, while understandable and even perhaps ideal in some senses, history has shown that not all believers in Christ are able in conscience to fully submit to the authority of Rome due to issues of conscience that arise from time to time. For these individuals and communities, until and unless Rome and the successors of Peter prove willing to listen and enter into constructive dialogue over a number of significant concerns, it is not possible to submit fully to their authority.
For that reason, for myself and others who consider themselves Catholic, it is not necessary to submit fully to the authority of Rome as Rome conceives it. Rather, it is possible to remain Catholic and participate in either a Roman Catholic or other local church community without necessarily needing to submit to everything that the Roman Catholic Church teaches. In other words, it's possible to be both Catholic (universal) and participate in the Church (the body of Christian believers dating back to Christ) without necessarily having to submit fully to teachings (such as those on women's ordination or same-sex partnerships, among others) that in conscience one knows to be misguided and spiritually harmful.
Once again, I've probably written too much but I did want to at least present this topic in an introductory way. I will continue to offer some further considerations in forthcoming posts and look forward to hearing from anyone who might have questions, concerns, disagreements, commendations or any other considerations.
Peace and blessings,
Padre Chuck
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Grateful to Be Here
In my postings from yesterday I wanted to share a little more about how I understand my journey these past few years. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect and, in trying to live up to what I thought was the ideal of religious perfection, I actually ended up doing harm to myself and disappointing some people in my life who thought of me within the terms I'd set up for myself.
However, what I also want to make clear is that despite the regret I feel for not coming out to myself earlier and being more honest with both myself and others about who I really am nevertheless I am grateful to have been ordained and called to serve. In the mystery of God's providence I believe that God did indeed call me to serve in ordained ministry and still does. It certainly hasn't worked out the way I or most others I'm sure would have expected but nonetheless I'm confident, both from my own personal conviction and through some of the ways that others continue to express support for my ministry, that I'm still called to serve. I'm still discerning how that will look eventually but for now I'm happy to be where I'm at - studying, serving in ministry in different ways in the local community and of course as well through the vocation to marriage that I know I have also received.
As always, I thank any readers who are still with me for your patience and support and look forward in forthcoming posts to thinking a little more about the specific topic of ministry and the church.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
However, what I also want to make clear is that despite the regret I feel for not coming out to myself earlier and being more honest with both myself and others about who I really am nevertheless I am grateful to have been ordained and called to serve. In the mystery of God's providence I believe that God did indeed call me to serve in ordained ministry and still does. It certainly hasn't worked out the way I or most others I'm sure would have expected but nonetheless I'm confident, both from my own personal conviction and through some of the ways that others continue to express support for my ministry, that I'm still called to serve. I'm still discerning how that will look eventually but for now I'm happy to be where I'm at - studying, serving in ministry in different ways in the local community and of course as well through the vocation to marriage that I know I have also received.
As always, I thank any readers who are still with me for your patience and support and look forward in forthcoming posts to thinking a little more about the specific topic of ministry and the church.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Monday, May 18, 2009
Willing to Make Mistakes
Continuing with the thread of my previous entry, I'd like to acknowledge here again for myself and others that I am not perfect. I once thought I could achieve perfection and aspired to just that - attempting to please and remain in total harmony with everyone.
However, the problem with that mindset was ultimately that it did a great deal of violence to myself. Attempting to be "perfect," I wasn't able to acknowledge the truth about myself - that I am gay and that that's true whether anyone else likes it or not and whether or not the church is able to overcome its fears and acknowledge that nether Scripture nor Tradition have anything to say against loving, comitted same-sex relationships.
In any case, what I'd most like to acknowledge in this posting is that my misguided pursuit of "perfection" not only did violence to myself but also, ironically, in the end wound up helping many people in my life to realize quite clearly that I am far from perfect. Thus, as I hear from time to time about friends and family members who feel hurt by or in disagreement with some of the choices I've made over the past few years all I can say is that I feel both regret for any pain I may have caused but also assurance that I have made the right decisions.
Ironically, given my past criteria, it seems to me now that life isn't so much about pleasing everyone as it is about doing what each of us sincerely in our conscience has concluded is right to do. For that reason, I wanted to use this posting to express my regret to anyone who feels hurt by my decisions - not to apologize for them in any way but rather to acknowledge that it was my misguided pursuit of "perfection" for so many years that set up situations in which people might feel hurt once I finally started making decisions based on who I really am.
To close, I'd like to share a brief meditation from the Buddhist tradition that's been helpful to me in wrapping my mind around some of these tensions and giving myself permission finally to be who I really am - with all my flaws and imperfections but also with my gifts, abilities and basic goodness that all of us share as human beings created in the image and likeness of God.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
"WILLING TO MAKE MISTAKES"
From "Outrageousness," a talk by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche taken from works published by Shambhala Publications, the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.
Given to the Directors of Shambhala Training, July 1978.
"The notion of being willing to make mistakes is just the general sense that you are no longer hopeful, that you are no longer hoping to achieve complete perfection. You are confronted with all kinds of factors -- poverty, biasedness, aggression, passion, and trying to measure yourself -- and all those situations are the opposite of being willing to make mistakes. You don't want to make mistakes; therefore you want to stick with you biasedness; you want to stick with your poverty. You want to make sure that everything goes right. ...You don't want to make mistakes; you are hoping for something good. Whereas if you abandon hope, you have no idea what you are going to get in your life. Still, whatever comes is within the context of warriorship in any case."
However, the problem with that mindset was ultimately that it did a great deal of violence to myself. Attempting to be "perfect," I wasn't able to acknowledge the truth about myself - that I am gay and that that's true whether anyone else likes it or not and whether or not the church is able to overcome its fears and acknowledge that nether Scripture nor Tradition have anything to say against loving, comitted same-sex relationships.
In any case, what I'd most like to acknowledge in this posting is that my misguided pursuit of "perfection" not only did violence to myself but also, ironically, in the end wound up helping many people in my life to realize quite clearly that I am far from perfect. Thus, as I hear from time to time about friends and family members who feel hurt by or in disagreement with some of the choices I've made over the past few years all I can say is that I feel both regret for any pain I may have caused but also assurance that I have made the right decisions.
Ironically, given my past criteria, it seems to me now that life isn't so much about pleasing everyone as it is about doing what each of us sincerely in our conscience has concluded is right to do. For that reason, I wanted to use this posting to express my regret to anyone who feels hurt by my decisions - not to apologize for them in any way but rather to acknowledge that it was my misguided pursuit of "perfection" for so many years that set up situations in which people might feel hurt once I finally started making decisions based on who I really am.
To close, I'd like to share a brief meditation from the Buddhist tradition that's been helpful to me in wrapping my mind around some of these tensions and giving myself permission finally to be who I really am - with all my flaws and imperfections but also with my gifts, abilities and basic goodness that all of us share as human beings created in the image and likeness of God.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
"WILLING TO MAKE MISTAKES"
From "Outrageousness," a talk by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche taken from works published by Shambhala Publications, the Archive of his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.
Given to the Directors of Shambhala Training, July 1978.
"The notion of being willing to make mistakes is just the general sense that you are no longer hopeful, that you are no longer hoping to achieve complete perfection. You are confronted with all kinds of factors -- poverty, biasedness, aggression, passion, and trying to measure yourself -- and all those situations are the opposite of being willing to make mistakes. You don't want to make mistakes; therefore you want to stick with you biasedness; you want to stick with your poverty. You want to make sure that everything goes right. ...You don't want to make mistakes; you are hoping for something good. Whereas if you abandon hope, you have no idea what you are going to get in your life. Still, whatever comes is within the context of warriorship in any case."
Mercifully Imperfect
Growing in my faith as a young person and wanting to serve God and others, one passage from Scripture that often stayed with me is the following excerpt from the Gospel of Matthew: "So be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48; International Standard Version). Sincere in my desire to try to live up to the demands of the Gospel, I took this passage to mean that I literally had to be perfect - that I had to train, discipline and control myself to the extent that no one could ever find any fault in me. Most especially, I felt this meant that I would need to root out of myself what the church taught me were "disordered" feelings of attractions toward people of the same sex.
And so for many years I tried to do just that. I attempted to be perfect, serving God and others, hoping to please everyone to the greatest extent possible and trying to pretend that I was "normal" in my sexual attractions. However, about three years ago now I came to a point of rupture (grace is probably more accurate), when I simply could no longer uphold the illusion anymore. I was emotionally, spiritually, and even physically exhausted from the energy it was taking to try and be "perfect" and as I actually became physically ill I knew I could no longer sustain the effort. Something would have to give but I just wasn't sure what that could be.
Thanks be to God, it was at that point that I met several compassionate people who were able to help me realize that it's okay to be who I am. Being reminded that as a child of God I am created in God's image and likeness, I then realized that if that's really true and it is also true that my sexuality touches who I am to the very core of my being, it then follows logically that who I am at the core of my being (ie, someone for whom attraction toward intimacy of spirit, body, and soul with another man is a channel of creativity, vitality, and life-giving energy) is a reflection of God's image and therefore is good.
I think I understood this point logically and theoretically once I was reminded of it, but it took watching a movie (often for me a fruitful means of reflection) to finally understand it in a deeper way. The film is called Latter Days and just happened to be a movie some friends had rented and were watching when they invited me to join them. The film is the story of a Mormon missionary who also has a great deal of difficulty accepting himself until he finally awakens to the possibility of finding a love, both divine and human, that would accept him as he really is. Here is the film's trailer:
Sitting there, watching this film I felt a great deal of sympathy for the main characters and in a way knew that this too was my story being portrayed. Here was a story of others who, like me and in the words of one of the main characters, thought it would be better to be dead than to be gay but who in the end discover new life, hope, and purpose in finally accepting themselves.
In the end, I think the lesson I learned in my process of coming out to myself and finally accepting who I really am is that the perfection I was seeking was not at all what Jesus was talking about. As he says in a parallel passage from Luke's Gospel, "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36; International Standard Version). In other words, to aspire as human beings to be "perfect" is to miss the point entirely. God doesn't want us to be "perfect" in the sense of having no flaws or conforming without question to every rule and expectation leveled at us. Rather, God wants us to discover mercy in our lives - to wake up to the fact that life, love, humanity, and perhaps even God in God's self are not "perfect" or static or inert but rather beautifully mysterious, ineffable and beyond our ability to fully comprehend or grasp.
I am convinced that it's only when we realize this essential truth that we've begun to really know how amazing God actually is. In truth, it's only when we realize that God transcends the narrow strictures we sometimes try to place around reality that we are set free to begin on the path of authentic perfection - that is, on the journey of forgiving ourselves for not being perfect, sharing that same grace with others and then transforming our world little by little through the same mercy-filled perfection that is the gift Jesus calls us to receive in the Gospel.
Peace and blessings,
Padre Chuck
And so for many years I tried to do just that. I attempted to be perfect, serving God and others, hoping to please everyone to the greatest extent possible and trying to pretend that I was "normal" in my sexual attractions. However, about three years ago now I came to a point of rupture (grace is probably more accurate), when I simply could no longer uphold the illusion anymore. I was emotionally, spiritually, and even physically exhausted from the energy it was taking to try and be "perfect" and as I actually became physically ill I knew I could no longer sustain the effort. Something would have to give but I just wasn't sure what that could be.
Thanks be to God, it was at that point that I met several compassionate people who were able to help me realize that it's okay to be who I am. Being reminded that as a child of God I am created in God's image and likeness, I then realized that if that's really true and it is also true that my sexuality touches who I am to the very core of my being, it then follows logically that who I am at the core of my being (ie, someone for whom attraction toward intimacy of spirit, body, and soul with another man is a channel of creativity, vitality, and life-giving energy) is a reflection of God's image and therefore is good.
I think I understood this point logically and theoretically once I was reminded of it, but it took watching a movie (often for me a fruitful means of reflection) to finally understand it in a deeper way. The film is called Latter Days and just happened to be a movie some friends had rented and were watching when they invited me to join them. The film is the story of a Mormon missionary who also has a great deal of difficulty accepting himself until he finally awakens to the possibility of finding a love, both divine and human, that would accept him as he really is. Here is the film's trailer:
Sitting there, watching this film I felt a great deal of sympathy for the main characters and in a way knew that this too was my story being portrayed. Here was a story of others who, like me and in the words of one of the main characters, thought it would be better to be dead than to be gay but who in the end discover new life, hope, and purpose in finally accepting themselves.
In the end, I think the lesson I learned in my process of coming out to myself and finally accepting who I really am is that the perfection I was seeking was not at all what Jesus was talking about. As he says in a parallel passage from Luke's Gospel, "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36; International Standard Version). In other words, to aspire as human beings to be "perfect" is to miss the point entirely. God doesn't want us to be "perfect" in the sense of having no flaws or conforming without question to every rule and expectation leveled at us. Rather, God wants us to discover mercy in our lives - to wake up to the fact that life, love, humanity, and perhaps even God in God's self are not "perfect" or static or inert but rather beautifully mysterious, ineffable and beyond our ability to fully comprehend or grasp.
I am convinced that it's only when we realize this essential truth that we've begun to really know how amazing God actually is. In truth, it's only when we realize that God transcends the narrow strictures we sometimes try to place around reality that we are set free to begin on the path of authentic perfection - that is, on the journey of forgiving ourselves for not being perfect, sharing that same grace with others and then transforming our world little by little through the same mercy-filled perfection that is the gift Jesus calls us to receive in the Gospel.
Peace and blessings,
Padre Chuck
A New Day
Today is the first chance I've had to blog since a major event in my life last week. As I've shared in this space previously, I've been preparing since last year for my doctoral qualifying exams and finally came to the big day last Tuesday, May 12th. I'm very grateful to report that everything went well and I passed my exam! Of course there's still a long road of research and writing ahead but it does feel great to have made it past this phase of the process.
Today also represents a new beginning in that I am hoping to return to writing in this space more frequently, returning to some of the topics I've covered before and also sharing more personal reflections. As always, I look forward to sharing my thoughts, knowing that they represent my perspective - one that's perhaps at times in need of qualification or adjustment in dialogue with other view points but which is nonetheless also the fruit of a great deal of sincere prayer, thoughtfulness, and consideration on my part.
Many thanks to all who have followed my blog in the past and I look forward to continuing the dialogue together.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Today also represents a new beginning in that I am hoping to return to writing in this space more frequently, returning to some of the topics I've covered before and also sharing more personal reflections. As always, I look forward to sharing my thoughts, knowing that they represent my perspective - one that's perhaps at times in need of qualification or adjustment in dialogue with other view points but which is nonetheless also the fruit of a great deal of sincere prayer, thoughtfulness, and consideration on my part.
Many thanks to all who have followed my blog in the past and I look forward to continuing the dialogue together.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Friday, May 8, 2009
Another Beautiful Family
Today's video is a short clip about one of many couples married here in California last year whose civil rights were subsequently revoked through Proposition 8. As we await word from California's Supreme Court within the next few weeks my prayer is that no matter what the outcome more and more hearts might awaken to the truth that love is far more powerful a force than fear.
May God's Spirit free all those still living in fear of LGBT people and help them to see that all of us are created in the image of a God who wants us to love and be loved and to find happiness and peace in giving of ourselves for our families and friends.
Peace,
Padre Chuck
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Save Me
Not much time to blog in these weeks with my upcoming exam but I did want to make a recommendation of an excellent film I saw recently. It's called Save Me and is the story of a young man battling both drug addiction and the homophobia that's also condemned him.
Although his initial step out of addiction comes through the help of a so-called "change ministry" (one of a number of religious groups that misguidedly attempt to alter individuals' sexual orientation), eventually he learns that healing, spirituality and self-acceptance need not be mutually exclusive categories in his life.
Among its many strengths, I think this film does a particularly good job of illustrating some of the complexities of the question of how to reconcile faith and one's personal identity. This is often not an easy task but, as the film shows, it is also one that rewards those who undertake it with sincerity, openness, honesty, and integrity.
Blessings,
Padre Chuck
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