Heat Lightning

I didn't grow up with luxuries like air conditioning, and certainly not anything like central air. Summers for us were hot, humid and still, and when the wind blew, like the old adage says...it didn't blow anyone any good. A rising wind in summer was just training for storms, and the heavy pit in my stomach always grew heavier when darkness fell and with it, the wind, for I knew what was coming.

I grew up in a gentler time where the elements had more force but less surprise. Although the setting was Illinois, it wasn't much different than Mississippi in terms of summer heat and humidity, and our version of Boo Radley was an old guy named "Frank" who had a sledding hill in place of a cool tree.

We could go on all day about our respective characters and their motivations, but I have to admit, even having moved north, one of the most disconcerting works of nature, one that is so seemingly harmless, is the very same as that which I watched as a child, certain I would be sick in any moment.

We used to sit at our big living-room window and watch what Mom called "heat -lightening" shuttering in the sky across the river and beyond. Even miles and miles away, it lit up the shapes in the clouds and highlighted the barn over the river yonder, with its silver roof and weathered gray boards holding it up. I can still hear the haunting screams of the tanker trucks rumbling along the highway that ran by the barn, echoing over the stillness of the river to yawn in our still and silent back yard, embracing us with both comfort and warning.

Mom tried to decrease my fear of the storm by showing me her enjoyment of the far-away lightning, a freak of nature and science, natures fireworks appearing without thunder, without rain, without wind. She described it as the sparks we saw when pulling fresh laundry out of the dryer; lightning produced by heat and friction, God having a good time with static electricity.

I think at one point she described it as Angels doing laundry.

Her timing was bad, though; my brother had taken it upon himself to ensure that any static electricity whatsoever made its way to me at his hands, whether through a snap of a hot towel or feet rubbed on the carpet. As such, for me, such "lightning" was never harmless, but another set of creative torture devised to terrify me anew.

No Such Thing as Harmless Lightning

Perhaps my childhood instincts were correct.

In our culture, we have been lulled into the non-scientific belief that "heat lightning" is harmless. Those faint flashes from far away do seem to be nothing, but sometimes they get a bit close, don't they?

The fact is this: there's no such thing as lightning without a storm. Where we see the flashes of light, someone is suffering the onslaught of thunder, rain, maybe hail and wind. We may not be the ones touched by that particular storm, but we cannot sit back and pollyanna happily about its harmlessness. Not while people are being swept away a county or so away from us.

In recent  years, the flashes of lightening have become more and more brilliant, nearly blinding us, and we seem to have turned down the volume to the thunder that accompanies it. That's not to say it isn't there, but rather, that we have chosen to be dulled to the sound, that we have given into happy childhood myths designed to comfort fearful children...not rational adults.

There are many myths floating around our world today most directly with regard to people of Faith: some say that Religion is meant to be seen on one's own time but not heard otherwise. Others say that any revelation of belief in God is merely a revelation of weakness in an individual who refuses to use his or her intellect. Yet the most common bit of cultural heat lightning is this:  that we as Christians have no right to "impose" our beliefs upon someone else or society at whole.

Raise your hand if you've heard this modern adage. Raise your OTHER hand if you've stated YOURSELF the following: "I believe X, but even though I am Catholic I have no right to impose my beliefs about X upon others."

Keep 'em up were we can see 'em!. You're busted and about to be convicted of being both illogical and anti-Christian, no matter what you profess to be. Way to be a sellout!

Our OBLIGATION as Christians by our Baptism and the promises that accompany it is that we WILL "impose" our beliefs and values upon the society in which we live. This is a matter of fairness and objectivity, for each and every religion and group does the same. 

What is so sociologically and culturally fascinating, and horrific, in our society is this: that the majority (Christians) refuses to carry this out. We have the right and OBLIGATION according to our own fundamental beliefs to impose what we know to be True upon the society in which we live, in order to influence it for the better and more importantly, to save souls.

Yet, the mantra of our age is to stand cowed to the moral minority repeating roboticly, "I really believe in marriage between one man and one woman, and I am personally opposed to abortion, and I know we should keep Sundays holy and not use it for profane things like shopping and unnecessary labor...but I can't impose my beliefs upon others...."

To this I answer:

Why the hell NOT? As long as we refuse to impose the Truth upon our society, we become the whipped dogs of the minority imposing THEIR beliefs upon US...and we don't even have the gumption to bare our teeth!

The fact is this: the stuff we thought was harmless "heat lightning" and lulled us into complacency has become an imminent EF-5, destroying the moral culture of our country with the same efficiency as the real one that laid waste to Joplin, MO only a month ago.

My friends, it is our moral OBLIGATION to impose our beliefs and values upon our culture, politically, personally, through policy, through law, through debate, through education, through any moral means.

Ironically, although we made the promise we will do this at our very Baptism, and sealed to do so at our Confirmation, do you know the ONLY group that refuses to "impose" in our modern world is also the ONLY group losing numbers to religious oblivion is....Christians.

No wonder "gay marriage" (what a misnomer) is on the plate before us; if we had imposed our beliefs with the same conviction the homosexual activists had imposed their beliefs upon us, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Food for thought...

Oh, and by the way...stop chewing your cud and start IMPOSING before it gets any worse! 

It's not just heat lightning, folks. Just because it's not striking YOU doesn't mean thousands haven't already been lost to the whims of static electricity from the sky and all the destruction that accompanies it.

Faith, Reason, and Happiness

I recently read Dennis Prager's book, Happiness is a Serious Problem.  While I enjoyed the book, I admit that I read it with a critical eye informed by my last three years of study, and in good conscience, I cannot recommend it as good reading material for the average Catholic.

Please, allow me to explain.

I like Dennis Prager and have read many of his articles. There is much that he says with which I agree and which coincides with Catholic Tradition and belief. Within his book on happiness there are many points that DID fully agree with Catholic teaching, and from THAT standpoint, I do recommend this book to knowledgeable Catholics.

Are you confused yet? I recommend it and yet I don't? 

In our present age, the vast majority of self-proclaimed Catholics are very uninformed. In fact, they haven't been formed at all, but only raised to engage in a particular behavior, that of "doing Catholic things".  To them, that means going to Mass on Sunday, getting Baptized as an infant, getting Confirmed, and this latter to enable one to eventually "get married in the Church."  To the vast majority of self-identifying Catholics, the rosary is a nice prayer but something old ladies carry and young gangsters wear in certain parts of the country.  Catholic homes have the trappings of Saint statues and pictures, especially those of Mary. Holy Communion has a vague connotation of a mere meal we call  "Eucharist" and, many think that after reception of this "blessed thing" one is free to leave church for the bumper-car ritual in the parking lot to see who can beat a retreat faster.  Many of those within this group show up only a few times per year, primarily of which are Christmas and Easter.

Yes. This is the vast majority of self-proclaimed Catholics. I'm sorry to say it, but it's true.This is also the same group that loves to "study" World Religions, pick and choose what beliefs to follow, and still call themselves "Catholic" out of a fundamental misunderstanding of what it IS to be Catholic, for, sadly, they have both never been taught, and as adults, have chosen never to actually study their own faith before either dismissing it entirely or calling it their own while actually embracing tenants and philosophies of other belief systems. 

It is not that I am against learning about other religions; rather, I am an advocate of it.  

I only offer this caveat;  before one goes rushing off to become "informed" in other religions, one must first know ones own, for without a foundation in ones own beliefs, one cannot accept or reject ANY tenants of ANY belief system with any kind of integrity.  This lesson has, at the hands of Dennis Prager, been brought home to me, and it is for this reason that I do not recommend his book, "Happiness is a Serious Problem" for the average Catholic.

A Little Relevant History

Several years ago, a friend gave me this book and although I paged through it, it didn't interest me much so I put it on my shelf, intending to read it "later". A week or so ago, someone on Twitter asked me if I knew of a particular book on "Happiness" written by some other popular author I had never heard of.  Upon reviewing the official web page of that obscure and overly-marketed segment of pop-culture, I knew it was neither something I would recommend or something I wanted to delve into myself; but the query DID remind me of Prager's book which was quite busy gathering dust on one of my many bookshelves. Clearly, it was time to read it.

I began it with great interest and found that although he didn't use the same terminology, he was speaking, initially, by grounding his book in the virtues. He was careful to write his book for the secular set; his definitions excluding, officially, those arising from the purely religious. However, as it went on, more and more it was clear that he wrote from his own religious understanding.  This, above all, was what made the book interesting to me, for, by knowing Prager's  general religious philosophy, I could better accept his position and therefore, better evaluate it critically in light of my own.

While reading I realized, quite deeply, why one must learn one's own religion before trying to delve into another. It is quite popular in our culture, even in the Catholic world, to study "world religions" even by bringing some "expert" claiming expertise in such into a Catholic parish even to teach children!  I have always been against this practice, not out of "intolerance", but rather, out of concern for academic and scientific integrity.  Those who know little about their own position are unlikely to be able to fully grasp the position of another, and the logic that should make up ones foundation, if absent, leads only to chaotic but ultimately meaningless "connections" when presented with a plethora of options.

In other words, it's like an intellectual religious stroke that actually paralyzes any real thought or growth.

New Age, anyone?

Faith and Reason, Together, are related to Happiness. 

In reading Prager's book, I received an insight into his own position, arising from his own Jewish Faith and found that it is at utter odds with what we believe as Catholics.

I'm grateful that he brought his interpretation of  the words of Genesis, "Let us make Man in our image" into a discussion of the "lower parts" of human nature, for it was here that I finally began to obtain an understanding of a fundamental difference between the philosophy of Jews and Christians.  When one follow's Prager's definition of human nature to a logical conclusion, that arising from his own faith,  that God meant "us" to be He and the animals he created, it stands to reason that Man's "animal nature" is by instinct. Therefore, following that, things such as men's desires for  multiple partners, use of pornography, and the moral neutrality of masturbation  stand to reason. They follow a logical flow arising from what he believes both about God's nature and Man's nature.

Understanding this kept me from being outright offended by Prager's assertion that my Christian perspective that pornography and masturbation are deadly sins are a "fringe" belief belonging to a person who is both maladjusted and has taken religion to an extreme.

I wanted to be offended, but when considering Prager's fundamental belief about human nature, I could not be; he is very consistent and logical in what he presents, and although he wrote the book with the secular set in mind, he was still  very clear in that he is informed by his Faith and finds a position of atheism and secularism to be completely illogical, and in fact, a position that inhibits happiness.

I am thrilled to agree with him here, and God bless him for pointing it out! This is one of those parallels with what we believe as Catholics. Gaudiem et spes, the Vatican II document on the Church in the Modern World comments on the causes of atheism and in reading Happiness is a Serious Problem, I was almost surprised that it wasn't a footnote in his own commentary on the subject. One would think that Prager and Pope John Paul II met and discussed this, for they both come to the same conclusion:  that nominal religion (nominal Christianity) has more to do with the growth of atheism than anything else. Prager asserts that the lack of religion in our society is also a detriment to the pursuit and attainment of happiness. His logic, and the logic of the Church, both coincide in this regard.

Christian Anthropology and the impact of Trinitarian philosophy on human nature.

Now, after this brief discussion about what Prager, and therefore, what the Jewish believe about human nature, how does that conflict with what we as Catholics believe?

Prager believes that we are both animal and divine; that when God said "Us" He meant He and the animals.

As Christians, we recognize God's use of the word "Us" to mean the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit:  the Trinity.

While Prager believes Man is created in the image of God and animal, we, as Christians believe we are created in the image of God Himself. We look to Him, and we look to Christ as our example as to how to live, how to sacrifice, how to walk the bloody road to Calvary. We look to Jesus to learn how to unite our sufferings to Him. We look to the Holy Spirit to give us the gifts we need to meet our final end; eternal beatitude in the Divine Processions.

We believe that pornography is a mortal sin because it undermines marriage as well as the dignity inherent in every human being. We recognize that because of that dignity, that any naked, airbrushed woman or man on a magazine page is being exploited and abused, for he or she is not being seen as who she is as a child of God, but by his or her physical attributes which objectify him/her and harm the one who looks upon him/her.  We recognize masturbation as a mortal sin for it takes that which is owed to God in a sacred act, with another person in an act of self-sacrificing love, and spends it in an act of self-love which cannot bear fruit of any kind.  We as Catholics understand that by cooperating with God to elevate what is lowest within us Glorifies Him, thus our quest for holiness by working to overcome the lowest points of our fallen nature is not "neurotic" but rather, a path to Heaven.

Why I Don't Recommend This Book

I don't recommend it (to the average Catholic) because Prager advances positions commonly held by unformed and un-informed "Catholics" who find the teachings of the Church regarding Mortal Sin to be inconvenient to the way they want to live their lives. Already we are inundated by people who at all levels of "expertise" in society who try to say that the moral teachings of the Catholic Church are "outdated" or "extreme" or the like. Those who agree with the popular flow would find even more here to weaken their faith and undermine their own moral fragility.

However...those Catholics who ARE informed and know the moral teachings of the Church as well as the Catholic/Christian belief of Human Nature might well benefit from Prager's book on happiness. There is much Truth within it, when one can recognize and dismiss the parts of his commentary that conflict with our beliefs. Further, it is of use to all of us to read and understand the differing moral positions of others, for it is there that we are able to confront our own doubts and strengthen our own positions.

Tolerance and Intolerance

Ah, the words of our age; they mean so much that they have been rendered to mean nothing at all.

I have a sense that if Dennis Prager was prowling blogs, he'd welcome my own particular post. Part of his book deals with growth in knowledge, the use of intellect as it relates to happiness, and I have to admit that he's right; I have been very happy as I've put my own education to use in recognizing fundamental philosophical conflicts between he and I.

There are those who would read this post and condemn me as "Intolerant" simply because I disagree with Prager. Do you see the irony in such a position, and how one who holds it is probably inhibiting their own pursuit of happiness?

True Tolerance recognizes differences, but doesn't necessarily agree with them or accept them. I accept SOME of Prager's premises, but others I utterly reject because I have a different understanding of God's nature and Man's nature.

I have to admit that although I don't recommend the book to the average "Catholic", I DO recommend it for those who know their Faith, understand their foundations, and can therefore engage fruitfully with the premises Prager establishes.  The more you know about what you DO believe and the more you are able to hold to it, the more you will understand and accept or refute what he (or anyone with an opposing position) has to say.

I must thank Dennis Prager for this book, for he has opened my eyes to some fundamental differences between Christians and Jews; philosophical differences I had not previously understood. Quite honestly, had I read this book when it was given to me, I would not have gotten out of it, both the good and the bad, what I have now that I have completed my most recent three years of formal doctrinal studies.

Actually, although this would never happen, I'd LOVE to sit down with him and discuss our differing beliefs in God and how that leads to respectively differing moral conclusions.

It would be a fascinating conversation.

Ahhh...that would be fun enough to make me happy. At least in that moment.  ;-)
*(Dennis Prager would understand)*