Obama: Affirmation of Faith

     "I am a Christian by choice," Obama began, standing beneath a blazing son, when asked why he was a Christian.                                 "I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead," Obama said.  "Being my brothers' and sisters' keeper.  Treating others as they would treat me.  And I think also understanding that, you know, that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility that we all have to have as human beings."           Humans are "sinful" and "flawed" beings that make mistakes and "achieve salvation through the grace of God,"  the president continued, adding that we also can "see God in other people and do our best to help them find their, you know, their own grace."              "So that's what I strive to do," Obama said.  "That's what I pray to do everyday.  I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith."                                                               At the same time, Obama emphasized his belief that freedom of religion is "part of the bedrock strength" of the United States.            "This is a country that is still predominantly Christian, but we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists" and others, he said, adding that "their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own, and that is part of what makes this the country what it is."

President Barack Obama      http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/28/obama.tough.question/index.html?hpt=T1

StarTribune: Letter Re Metro Transit Strike

Metro transit

Spend a carless week before voting to strike  

Every transit worker and every Metropolitan Council member who is involved in labor negotiations must spend one week without the use of a car to get to work, to medical appointments and to the grocery store. Then, and only then, can they truly understand that another bus strike simply cannot happen ("Metro Transit workers reject 'last and best' contract offer," Sept. 21).

Regarding health insurance premiums: all transit workers who have voted down the most recent contract should calculate the financial cost that they would incur if they were to become sick or unable to work and had no insurance. Then they can tell me that they're going on strike.
I have endured two transit strikes, and they were paralyzing.
I do not drive. Health insurance is vital to meeting my ongoing medical needs -- anticonvulsants, and appointments related to preexisting conditions. I may not renegotiate for a better deal. I make the most of what I have been given. I find what is of value in my life, which is beyond measure.
I am not personally involved in the contract negotiations. But I will not stand by silently while another unconscionable strike takes place.
A bus strike is nothing short of taking people hostage. Return to your senses and to the bargaining table. Transit workers and the Metropolitan Council, listen and act.

PATTY THORSEN, ST. PAUL      http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/103751894.html?page=2&c=y

Suffering--Accepted Sorrow

One has to accept sorrow for it to be of any healing power
                              The Abbess of Andalusia: Flannery O'Connor's Spiritual Journey                                                                                      by Lorraine V. Murray         p. xiv
     Suffering need not be a static, negative experience.  There is a huge difference between suffering and seeking suffering.  I do not subscribe to Julian of Norwich's appeal to God to be given a bodily illness to draw her closer to Christ--closer to God.
     Yet, I do not run from my own suffering--literally or figuratively.  A younger person might say, "Cure me of this debilitating state of being."  I am old enough to know that the entirety of my cerebral palsy may not be cured by the stroke of a magic wand--by the artful manipulation of surgical implements.  I have and I will submit myself to surgery to mediate the effects of my cerebral palsy.  
     If I do not believe that I may be cured by any means, what then?  Does my conviction give me license to give up?  Does my conviction give me entree to fill the position of victim to make my living?    
     I think not.
     To speak of our lives as God's gift to us is understood often to be arrogant.      
     I disagree.    
     Life experience with my cerebral palsy has led me to view walking as a gift.  Yet, as often as I utter the words, "Walking is a gift," the words sound alien--contrived--to my ear.    
     Yet, to my heart, "Walking is a gift," is an intimate companion.  How does my ear--how does my mind--befriend, "Walking is a gift?"
    Suffering--accepted sorrow--is the vehicle that transforms, "Walking is a given," to "Walking is a gift."

Good Citizens

[Hester] feared that Catholicism would limit her intellectual horizons and require her to shut down her reason...."I doubt if your interests get less intellectual as you become more deeply involved in the Church, but...the intellect will take its place in a larger context and will cease to be tyrannical, if it has been."  In her opinion, a "tyrannical intellect was a danger; instead the mind serves best "when its anchored in the word of God."  
     The Abbess of Andalusia: Flannery O'Connor's Spiritual Journey by Lorraine V. Murray
     Raised to believe that all truth was confined to reason, I read this passage with great interest.  A younger Patty struggled to understand this seeming dichotomy between intellect and faith in God.  
     Today I read of the "tyrannical intellect," the mind, and, "being anchored in the word of God," and I find myself understanding faithfully that this is true.  Yet, I am perplexed as to how to convey its truth.  It may be that it is not the words of the mind that are the conveyors of O'Connor's words.  Presenting an offering of words is far easier.  But, the true conveyor of O'Connor's words is the offering of our life's example--the example of our daily living.  
      Many years ago, I was counseled, "Don't leave your mind outside the door of the church."  That advice was rooted in experiencing religion practiced by rote recitation.  I understand, treasure, and strive to live by that advice--by not leaving my mind outside the door of the church.  I seek out people, whose lives exemplify that mental engagement.                                                      Yet, as much as I treasure that advice, more is called for to live with spiritual engagement.  What is that?  I know it when I experience it in people I meet, know, and love.
     If we are to not leave our minds outside the door of the church, then what?  What are we called to convey from our inner sanctum?  How may we transform the Spirit of our inner sanctum outside the door of the church?  

Good citizens are engaged in their geographical community.   

Are we willing to be good citizens of our Faith?   

Fleeting Gratitude

     This morning I came to church conflicted as to how to express myself.  My sense is that I am not alone.  I felt extremely grateful to everyone for their tremendous support--their prayers--as I find solutions to my physical problems walking.  Expressing gratitude is usually quite natural for me to do.  I hate being needy--at least expressing my needs has been something I hated to do.
   This morning, a reversal of those two inclinations presented itself to me.  I knew that I felt grateful  that I have courses of treatment I can pursue--surgery, and a motor scooter.  Yet, I was not ready to relinquish expressing my needs for support.  I feared that if I expressed too much gratitude that I would lose the right to express my needs for strength and support in the future--or that my gratitude might drown out my appeals for support.                
   I fear I may be experiencing fleeting gratitude.  I wanted what seemed unattainable--a diagnosis for my problems walking.  I could have wanted anything.  The point is, once I got what I wanted--a diagnosis, and a course of treatment--my appreciation for that diagnosis was a distant memory.
   I have three questions.  Do you ever experience fleeting gratitude?  Is fleeting gratitude a side effect of the pace that we live our lives?  Is fleeting gratitude a sign of disproportionate expectations we have for our lives?

How--By What Spirit--Will I Walk?

I will walk in the presence of God, in the light of the living.

http://www.usccb.org/nab/091810.shtml#reading1 

All of the lessons for today remind us that there is something quite different from the natural body and the spiritual realms of our being.  But because we are so firmly locked into our natural bodies, we often let that realm of our experience dominate our realities.  And despite the problems associated with our natural bodies, we like to hold on to them and would even like to have them back in the same form again when we are resurrected.  We are really quite fond of our earthly selves.  Paul tries to help us to get past that hang up and to think of our futures in terms of the spiritual.   He tells us that we are not going to be resurrected in our earthly forms, but something a lot better.  I am old enough to be pretty glad about that.  My body has all sorts of aches and pains.  Focusing more on the spiritual is getting a lot more appealing for me now that it is quite clear that my natural body is pretty fallible.   

                                                                             Barbara Dilly, Creighton University

      http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/091810.html

    I meet this morning's readings as I confront the reality that this 50-year-old body of mine, altered at birth by cerebral palsy, is at the point of diminishing stamina, and in need of today's technology--a motorized scooter.  My head and my heart are yet to be in unison in embracing this reality.  Yet, my heart knows what is coming--what will be.

    Physical balance has been an issue throughout my life.  A different balance presents itself to me now.  In question?

    What is the difference between accommodating to the needs of a physical body, who is aging, and submitting to the physical body's changing needs?  Better stated, what is the difference between being accommodating to, and being submissive to my changing body?  

   I have lived 50 years by confronting life head on, without knowing that that was what I was doing.  If someone said, "I don't think you can do it," my response has been, "Do you wanna make a bet!"

     Before I was able to be defiant intentionally or habitually, I found a way to perform the two-handed exercises the physical therapists designed to get me to use both hands by using only my fully-functioning left hand.  Before I knew what I was doing, I accommodated to my physically-impaired right hand.

     I am less defiant than I was then.  I recognize the need--the wisdom-- to be so.  

     Today's psalm says, "I will walk in the presence of God, in the light of the living."

     "How will I walk?"  The means is clear.  My question is, "How do I bring the spirit by which I lived--walked--49 of my 50 years into harmony with the Spirit by whom I am called to  live--to create?" 

By the Grace of God, I Am What I Am

     Each time I read the same words--the same biblical passage designated in one of three liturgical cycles--I hear different messages, I understand different nuances of the same words.  Different passages within the same set of liturgical readings speak to me with each reading.  I come to the readings a different person from my last reading.  I leave a changed--a transformed--being.
     This morning, By the Grace of God, I Am What I Am stood out--I Am not i am.
     "We are loved into existence.  From tears of joy, our goodness can flow."  Jeanne Schuler from Creighton University used these words to describe this morning's passages.  As I read her reflection, I heard, "...our goodness can flow."  
     Taking the biblical passage, along with Schuler's reflection, the immediate question that comes to me is, "Do I capitalize on what I Am?  Do I view myself as someone, who has a Gift to offer--a Need to fill?  Or, do I simply go along about my day being what i am without any appreciation of and for what I have been given.
Schuler says, "We are loved into existence."
     She is speaking of God.  Yet, we can take her reflection one step further. Who, in our lives, love us, such that we may offer what we have been given to other people?  
     It is easy to think that, as a Minnesotan, all I should give, if I am to give anything, is to give the nice--the Minnesota nice--parts of my life.  Yet, the Minnesota Nice parts of my life do not contain the treasures--the pearls--of my life that are encrusted in my life challenges.  
     The treasures--the pearls--others have given me have not come from the Minnesota Nice parts of their lives.  The treasures--the pearls--others have blessed me with have deeply rooted in their challenges--in the living of their challenges.
     I love to write.  Sometimes, I am frustrated that my clearest writing emerges from my darkest moments--my deepest challenges.
     I want to write with the same clarity that flows at those moments of despair.  Yet, that is not to be. That is not to say that I should aspire to deep challenge, and despair, in order to write with clarity.  I love to write, but, I am not a masochist.  Rather, if I Am to be loved into existence, I Am compelled to cry Tears of Joy, so that my Goodness can Flow.
     The problem?  The obstacle?  Happy does not equal Joy.  Happy is momentary.  Happy is fleeting.  Joy is enduring.  Joy is deeply rooted.
     I shudder think of what my life would have been--what it would be--if I believed that, i am what i am.
I do believe in living with a sense of purpose.  That does not mean I am better--that my purpose is better--than anyone else's is.  
     My purpose is my compelling reason to breathe deeply each day.
     I shudder to think what my life would be, if I thought that my challenges were excuses to use not to live to the fullest of my potential.
     By the Grace of God, I Am What I Am.  May each of us be loved into existence--may each of us cry Tears of Joy, so that Goodness may Flow.