Unpopular Professional Thoughts

One of the things that I've found the most vexatious in my career as a parish priest is when parents stop coming to church with their children after the kids have received Confirmation.  Many times, of course, the parents stop coming, too.  It's as if some holy ticket has now been punched and that there are no more reasons to join in corporate worship, Gospel-centered community activity, or even the exploration and deepening of one's character and relationships.  There are no more reasons to be a Christian, apparently, which negates to gibberish all of the vows they promised at their Confirmation.

In other words, by having your child stand before the congregation and make sacred promises, and then enabling them never to have to live the vows, you've made them into a liar.  What will they do the next time they stand in public and make promises?  You know, like at their induction ceremony or wedding?  Will those vows be lies, too?

Understand, this is not about professional frustration on my part.  Rather, it's about a colossal sense of pity and, I freely confess, borderline contempt for parents who so badly manage the most important years of their kids' lives.  The parents actively choose to remove themselves and their children from any community of faith and self-excommunicate from the sacrament.  They give them a taste of religion during their childhood and then, just as their questions and their wonder begin to ripen, jerk it away from them.

Parents, you allow your children to become neutered Christians just when they're about to become interesting.

Now, I know the excuses:
1.  They have sports on Sunday mornings.
2.  We're very busy.
3.  It's hard to get them going on Sundays; I'm tired of fighting with them.
4.  There isn't much for their age group at church.

In response:
1.  Well, whose fault is that?  Speaking as a former coach, recreation commissioner, and parent of sporty kids, it's the parents who ultimately determine the parameters of any sports program.  If you let some coach or league official dictate a Sabbath-free life for your offspring, many times because the coach needs to feel a surge of self-importance and control, you've made the coward's choice.

Also, I dislike mentioning this, but the odds are 99.999% that your kid will never be more than ordinary at a sport, so put away those dreams of a luxury box for players' families in Foxboro or wherever.  When he or she is an adult and facing adult issues, that smelly jersey or those disreputable sneakers will not address them.  A foundation in faith will.

2.  I know you and, I hate to break it to you, but you're not busy.  You're not even half as busy as my wife and I were when we were raising more children than you.  Raising them in a household of two clergy, I might add, when both of us could not take the day off nor be late for church.  You're not as busy as were my parents, my dad with three jobs and my mom with two; you are not as busy as grandparents were, running both a farm and a furniture-making business.

Also, what's your kid doing?  Reading Moby Dick?  If your kid can name at least two Kardashians, you aren't busy and neither are they.

3.  They learn that from you, so own it.  You can fix it, but I think it's more your problem than it is theirs.

4.  That's because they don't come to church.  If they did, they would be able to, like young adults anywhere on the planet,  organize with other young adults and actually do mature and appropriate things.  Sleeping late or playing with a smart phone just turns your offspring into a puzzlewit.

I Will Not Make Any Deals With You

It Just Became January 1st in Sydney

Not too many weeks ago, this was the view from my residence.

Hogmanay

How is New Year’s Eve celebrated in Scotland?

It's Not Like Middle-Eastern Christians are Being Invited to the United States

Christians laud freedom of worship in Israel

Whereas Christian communities throughout the Middle East are declining, in Israel they are growing and now number 120,000.

One Character in Search of WiFi

I'm moving this week and have yet to set up WiFi or cable/satellite or anything else at the new location, so posting will be intermittent.  Just for fun, I will be pre-posting a collection of songs about moving.  Really, that's the only fun I'll have this week as, like too many Americans, I've got too much stuff and it takes forever to put it all in boxes.

Moving Music

Since I Haven't A Church Right Now, I Get To Do This on New Year's Day

How to survive a polar bear plunge (and why you shouldn't do one)

Ridiculous.  One should do dangerous, potentially mortal things from time to time.  If you survive, you are reminded of the joy of life.  If you die, well, you're going to, anyway.

The Rediscovery of Merton

Fetters & Freedom: On Thomas Merton’s vision of transcendence through faith.

I've had my own appreciation for some time.

Swell

David Allegretti and his mate Sean conducted a little experiment, and they were shocked by the results. They bought a few hi-vis vests and then they put them to the tests. They used the vests to enter restricted areas, and they quickly discovered that no one questions people when they’re wearing one of these vests.

Considering they cost less than ten bucks each, this is a little worrying from a security angle.

In 2002, at the first St. Patrick's Day parade in NYC after September 11th, when everyone was still cagey after the atrocities, I was amazed at how easily I was permitted through security barriers without having to show I.D., just because I was wearing a fire department chaplain's uniform.  Considering those uniforms run about $200 [back then, anyway] and can be purchased online, that seemed to be a considerable hole in the otherwise elaborate security screen.

Sounds Like Someone's Office Phone was Melting

Murphy Blasts U.N. On Israel Vote, Criticizes Obama 

It appears our junior senator has been reminded of how many Israel-supporting Democrats there are in Connecticut. 

What a World

From Churchgoers to Military: ISIS 'Kill Lists' Explained

I'm Used to Ignorance, but I Don't Care Much for Disregard

The Atlantic: Democrats Have a Religion Problem 

I don't care much for hostility towards my faith, either.  Certainly, it's not a wise attitude to take when you're trying to gain my vote.

Dig this:

Some of his colleagues also didn’t understand his work, he writes. He once drafted a faith-outreach fact sheet describing Obama’s views on poverty, titling it “Economic Fairness and the Least of These,” a reference to a famous teaching from Jesus in the Bible. Another staffer repeatedly deleted “the least of these,” commenting, “Is this a typo? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Who/what are ‘these’?”

He Did What Had Been Impossible

I appreciate that celebrity deaths tend to claim our consciousness, especially this time of year, but Henderson did something that no one had ever done before or since:  He wiped out one of the world's, and history's, major diseases.

D.A. Henderson, ‘disease detective’ who eradicated smallpox, dies at 87 

History Majors in the U.S. No Longer Have to Study U.S. History

History majors no longer have to take foreign language classes or classes on European, North American and U.S. history and can choose to specialize in a topic or region. The changes allow students to tailor their academic plans to better reflect a globalizing world and its impact on the study of history, faculty said.

I might add that this is at a university in Washington D.C. that is named for the first president of the United States.  The annual cost to attend George Washington University is $68,275.

Of course, more people would be attracted to the history department if it, like at many other universities, hadn't been permitted to devolve into a sour hunt for historical grievances. 

Guess the State

Stopped motorist handed 5-year-old son sippy cup with wine, police say

I'm Glad I'm Not the Only One to Notice How Redundant Joseph Seems to Be These Days

The Gospel of Luke is what most people seem to associate with the Nativity and Christmas. But the Gospel of Matthew has an important point in it – Joseph “being a good man” didn’t plan to make Mary’s pregnancy public and ask for her to be punished. And he stayed with her, believing the angel in his dreams, and accepting the child as if it were his. Mary was not “just like” modern single mothers.

But that seems to be an unfortunate trend in pop theology and therapeutic Christianity. There’s nothing wrong with being a single mom, or by implication, with the actions required to get in that condition. Or worse, you have the guest editorial writer in the Washington Post who claimed that the Christian Church’s making Mary an example of the importance of bodily purity is hurtful to rape victims and that no human should be expected to be celibate until marriage, and that to recommend such is triggering and cruel. Which, even though I’m not Catholic, is not anywhere in the teachings about Mary that I’ve read or come across.

And it still leaves out Joseph, and that he supported Mary, and cared for her, and as best the Gospels suggest, raised Jesus as his own son, taught him a trade and saw that he grew up properly.

Cholly Isn't the Sharpest Knife in the Royal Drawer

In a message recorded December 19 at St. James's Palace, Britain's Prince Charles admonished his subjects to consider the millions of people around the world suffering from religious persecution. He also said that at a time of year when people normally think of Jesus, they should spend time remembering Muhammad.

[For those wondering, "Cholly" is how "Charlie" is often spelled in English slang.  That's English English, as opposed to American English.]

Thalassotherapy

Why swimming in the sea is good for you

A Stray Thought

What I like about the post-Christmas Day part of the Christmas season is that all of the secularists and functional atheists now forget about Christmas and no longer need to explain its true meaning to us proles.  That means, especially, that the politicians and journalists are done telling us that Jesus, Joseph, and Mary were homeless and/or refugees.  That has to be one of the most mullet-headed interpretations of scripture that I've come across, and I collect them.  They say it every year, hijacking my religion to satisfy whatever political program they want to enable to shovel tax money to their cronies and gain more control over folks like us.

What's the difference between a politician who deliberately misuses The Holy Bible to justify a political action and an Islamist who misuses the Koran to justify...well, a political action?

Since I'm on a tear tonight, as I am in-between parishes and filling my days with chores related to our move that leave me with aching muscles and the sense, as I look around the house, that all my actions are Sisyphean, I'm also glad to be past the day highlighted by those who "worship" Christmas with a tree and presents and liquor and sugary foods, yet don't actually attend to prayer and song in the midst of a community of faith united in the Body of Christ. 

They do not attend church services and sit around on the Feast of the Incarnation giving one another well-wrapped krep and call it "Christmas".  Please.

That's why I enjoy the other twelve days.  These are the days that are truly Christmas and are there for the true believers.  Each day has its own collect [daily prayer], its own lections [scriptural readings], and its own theme.  Following the twelve days of Christmas as a complete experience gives one the real sense of this brief, delightful season.  It's also the perfect antidote to whatever the muggles try to make of our time of celebration.