LOVING YOURSELF STARTS WITH ACCURATE SELF-PERCEPTION

 

I am confident enough these days to share some of my healed "wounds" in the hope that sharing them may help someone else heal their "wounds!" Here is one of my favorite "recovery stories" from my treasury of "stinkin' thinkin'!"

For many years, actually until just a few years ago, I could not even look at this photo of myself because I was convinced that I was too pitiful to look at! It was taken in September 1958 minutes before I was leaving my small country hometown of Rhodelia at age fourteen to go to St. Thomas Seminary. That seminary was a high-school boarding  school in the big city of Louisville, a place I had never seen before, to begin a twelve year training program for possible ordination to priesthood. Arriving there, I was battling serious negative reactions and predictions from my pastor, a few of my neighbors and some of my friends. I had to beg, cry and plead before I was given permission to be able to "give it a try." 

As I look at that old photo, I am shocked by what I see in reality today and what I was thinking was reality at that time. I realize today that I was not as ugly as I once thought! Today I see an innocent young boy too bashful to really look at the camera, with a forced smile, amazingly brave enough to trade what he knew growing up for a complete unknown and an uncertain future. To be honest, I did not realize at the time that I was probably more focused on getting away from something even more than going toward something. Somehow, I was mysteriously courageous enough to "make a run for it" anyway! Even then, none of the seminary staff ever asked about my childhood experiences, much less help me work through them, even though most of my attention was still focused on those childhood "wounds." Since there was no rescue party out looking for me, I was a teenager left to figure it out on my own! 

I have learned in adulthood, slowly but surely, that messages given during my childhood and minor seminary days are responsible for many of my inaccurate early self-perceptions. Instead of accepting all of those messages as true, I have finally learned to separate what is true from what were simply the projections of others onto me that I took in as believable in my twisted thinking. 

Some of the regular messages from childhood (1944-1958) were these: "you will never amount to a hill of beans," "you can't do anything right," "you are stupid and ugly," "you are a useless little "runt," "I can't wait till you're grown and out of here!" 

Some of the regular messages from minor seminary days (age 14-18) were these: "you are a hopeless case," "your ears and teeth are too big," "you are a hillbilly, a hick, a redneck" and "you have been a ball and chain around my leg for six years!"   

        

How Do Childhood Experiences Create Lasting Psychological Distortions in Adulthood?

The brain is most plastic, most responsive to experience, during childhood. That’s an advantage for learning. It’s also why early adversity leaves such deep marks.

Childhood maltreatment, abuse, neglect, chronic instability, produces measurable structural changes in the brain. Brain imaging research has documented reduced volume in the prefrontal cortex, which governs rational decision-making, and altered development of the amygdala and hippocampus, regions central to emotional regulation and memory. These aren’t metaphorical scars. They’re visible on scans.

The practical consequence is that children who grow up under sustained threat develop nervous systems tuned for danger. Threat-detection becomes hypersensitive; trust in others becomes difficult; memory distortion alters how past events are stored and recalled, sometimes making traumatic memories feel present-tense even when they’re not. These adaptations made sense in the original environment. They become distortions when the person carries them into adulthood and applies them to situations where the threat is no longer real.

Core beliefs, deeply held convictions about the self, others, and the world, often crystallize during this period: "I am ugly." “I am unlovable or a nuisance.” “The world is dangerous.” “Most people will hurt you.” "I am a burden." These beliefs then operate as lenses, filtering all subsequent experience to confirm what was learned early. A kind gesture gets explained away; an ambiguous comment gets read as rejection.

The distortion isn’t random, it’s organized around a theme established decades earlier.

REMEMBER THIS

You need not be a victim of other people's thoughts, views or words!

It may take a life-time, but you can change how you remember your past! 

You can be your own hero in self-rescue if you are determined enough! 

 

  

 

 

GOOD CHURCH LEADERS ARE BOTH GOOD AND GOOD AT IT

    

A dose of democracy is always good in a church, but no church hardly ever excels without a great leader. Being a great church leader means (1) putting the mission of the church ahead of one's own gain or needs and (2) knowing how to unleash the power of his or her community to carry out that mission. 

As Jesus put it in the Greek text in his teaching about the "good shepherd," he or she is both personally good (agathos), as well as "good at" (kalos) what he or she does! As that old seminary seal put it at the entrance to Saint Meinrad Seminary, a great church leader has both "personal holiness" (sanctitatae) and (scientia) "useful knowledge" or "know-how!"  As Jim Collins puts it in his book, Good to Great, a great leader is both "humble" and "competent." 

The two great sins of most failed church leaders, I have come to believe, are arrogance and incompetence, - clericalism and ineptitude! They often go together when clericalism becomes a failed attempt to disguise ineptitude. When that happens, isn't it usually a case of "fools rushing in where angels fear to tread?"  In that case, failed church leaders end up being neither "good" nor "good at it!"

CARRYING ON THE MINISTRY OF JESUS

Jesus said to them, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

John 20

 

I began my path to priesthood 68 years ago: 12 years as a seminarian and 56 years as a priest. In fact, I celebrated my first Mass on a Pentecost Sunday like today in 1970!  During the last 60 years, I have watched the stumbling of a once arrogant and over-confident church. Like an aging old movie star in denial, she seems to find herself embarrassed on a daily basis these days!  But, do you know what? I love her more now than I did way back then. Like an alcoholic approaching recovery, she is going through that inevitable break down that leads to a breakthrough. The only mistake Vatican Council II made was not warning us that we had to go through a break down to get to a breakthrough - like our ancestors had to go through a desert before getting to the "promised land" after leaving Egypt! It’s messy, but it’s real. I don’t despise her because of her sins, I love her for her courage to keep going, in spite of her sins. I stand by her. She can count me in, during these critical days of recovery even if I don’t live long enough to see her next “golden age!”

When I say “church,” I am not talking about the Pope and the Bishops, I mean us! We are the church and I believe that we are going to get well. I see signs of hope and encouragement, even in these hard times of parish closings and priest shortages.  I see and hear more people looking for God again today – especially among our young adults!

They are tired of the chaos and uncertainty! They are looking for stability! The problem is, there are more looking for solid spiritual food than there are places that can deliver it. People are grazing across parish boundaries, denominational lines and traditional sources, looking for something spiritually satisfying. I see and hear people sick to death of second-rate preaching and obsession with religious organizational trivialities. I see and hear people looking for God in growing numbers. This gives me great hope.

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 

Where is God today?   For a few years, the early church stood around watching the heavens, anticipating the future return of Jesus, as he had promised. Expecting it any day, they were content to sit and wait for his return.  This feast marks the beginning of their realization that his return could be a long way off and the realization that they had to roll up their sleeves and get to work. They transferred their gaze from the heavens to the world around them. Instead of looking up, they began to look around! Once they had received the power of the Holy Spirit, they were ready to carry on the work of Jesus to the ends of the earth until that time when he promised to return.

Where is God today?  People may be looking for God in growing numbers again, but unfortunately some people are looking backwards and romanticizing the past. They believe that God was alive in the “good old days” and if we could only return to the “good old days” then we would all find God again. Trying to go back there, these people are playing vicious politics in every denomination from Southern Baptists to Roman Catholics.

Then there are others who look for God in the extraordinary. Since they cannot find God in ordinary life, they run from one reported apparition and miracle rumor to another.

Still others are again trying to find God again in the future. They turn to Bible passages and claim to be able to de-code secret messages, obscure prophecies and interpret natural disasters as signs that the end of the world is immanent.  Rather than trying to clean up the world that God has given us, they would rather yearn for its destruction.

This feast does not deny that God has acted in the past or that he will act again in the future, but it reminds us that God is acting right now through us!  The angels in today’s gospel tell our earliest brothers and sisters in the church to quit looking up for God, to quit looking back for God, but to look around at each other to experience God acting through his followers!  

My friends, the reason people today are out looking for God is they are not finding him in us - the people who are supposed to be his ambassadors!  That’s why they are out looking in new and exotic places. It reminds me of that old bumper sticker from the 60s. “If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”  Instead of focusing our attention on becoming the best ambassadors of Christ we can be, we are arguing over church structures and pious practices and looking for perfect church leaders. The purpose of today’s feast is to focus our attention on the fact that we have power to do good because we have the Holy Spirit within us. Then when people see our goodness, they can actually see and experience the goodness of God flowing through us. Jesus taught us to let our lights shine, so that people can see our goodness, and then seeing our goodness, they can experience God working through us! 

The message today? Quit gawking around! Get to work! Unleash the power that the Holy Spirit has given you! Allow God to reveal himself through you! Today’s message is crystal clear!  We received power when the Holy Spirit came upon us! Just as the Father sent Jesus into our world to make God present, Jesus now sends us into the world to make him present and to carry on his ministry!

 

 

 

 

    

 

CHURCH CHAT #29

 

A PERFECT PRAYER FOR JUST ABOUT ANYBODY

 

"YES, I HAVE BEEN OUT LOOKING ALL OVER FOR YOU!"

The Lord takes delight in his people.

Psalm 149:4

If you were to die today and you stood before the gates of heaven and you were asked this one simple question test to see whether you got in or not, could you answer that one simple question? Here is that question. “Who does God love?” 

Well, if you are not sure, I am going to give you the correct answer. Pope Leo gave us the answer on the balcony when he was first presented to the world over a year ago. It is so simple, yet unbelievably astounding! Who does God love? ‘He loves everybody – everybody – and he loves us without condition!’ I have been preaching those words for most of my priesthood so I almost came out of my chair with delight when he said it! Yes, I was both shocked and relieved!  

One of the parables that most brings this point home to me is the parable of the vineyard workers. The parable of the “Vineyard Workers” is enough to make wine growers all over the world cringe! This parable is not an instruction on to operate a profitable vineyard. If you followed this example, you would be broke in no time! No, it’s a story about how God treats us, a story about God’s unbelievable generosity! For Jesus, the whole purpose of this parable is to shock in order to teach! This parable is insane, according to human thinking, but that’s the whole point of the parable.

Those who had “worked all day in the sun” were the religious authorities. Those “hour before quitting time” workers were the “tax collectors and sinners,” those who felt unworthy in God’s eyes, the simple people who followed Jesus!  You can imagine how both groups reacted when they heard the punch line, “Give them all a full day’s pay!”  “Give them all a full day’s pay!”

This message is very close to the message of another parable, the one we call the Parable of the Prodigal Son. In that story, the father loves both his sons, the one who stayed home and followed all the rules, as well as the one who strayed away and got down with the pigs! The message is simple: God loves all his children, not matter what they have done or failed to do!

The tax collectors, sinners and rejects were delirious with joy when they heard that message! The Scribes and Pharisees, who taught that God’s love depended on people’s behaviors, were outraged.

One of the worst things to happen to the church was when it started to “conditionalize” this “good news” and started teaching people that God loves you when you are good, quits loving you when you are bad and starts loving you again when you shape up!  It is not uncommon to hear some religious people tone down the “good news” because it is “too dangerous.” I was often criticized at the Cathedral by them when I welcomed home hundreds of fallen away Catholics by preaching this message. Their worst nightmare is that if people really believed the message of the parables and the church really taught it, all hell would break loose! People would start doing any damned thing they wanted! That’s the same thing that worried the Scribes and Pharisees. In reality, the opposite was true in Jesus’ day and the opposite is true in ours! People’s lives are transformed by that message! They are converted by this message! This message inspires them to love others the same way they have been loved by God – friends and enemies alike!  

What do you believe? Are you one of those people who still believes that God pays us with love depending how many hours we have loved him? Are you one of those people who still believes that God turns his love on and off depending what we do or fail to do?  If you are, really listen to the message of the parables. If it sounds too good to be true, then you have gotten the message! God’s incredible unconditional love does sound too good to be true, but the fact of the matter is, it is true! “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us!” He didn’t die for us as a reward for our shaping up! While we were still sinners, he died for us!