Author: itoccurstocp

I have long been enamored with the story of he unfairly labeled “Doubting Thomas” in popular culture.  John 20:24-29  You are out of the house for some reason and return to find your other friends reporting that a dead friend who died a horrible death of the cross a few days ago has just appeared to them in flesh and blood – and you have the audacity to doubt them.  Give me a break!  I received more ammunition in Thomas’ defense yesterday when our homilist noted that not even Jesus is upset with Thomas for his doubt.  No, Thomas famously notes to his friends that he will believe their story he gets to see/feel Jesus’ nail marks and side wound.  This “I’ll believe it when I see it” statement seems infinitely believable to me given the unique circumstances.  On his return, Jesus simply invites Thomas to do so.  There is no rebuke, only an invitation to Thomas to do what he needs to do to believe.  Some 2,000 years later we all get that same invitation, not to see/feel the nail marks, but to do what we need to do to believe.  Heck, if you want to throw the label “Doubting” around, stick it on me, on all of us.

Hello, my name is Doubting ___.

Photo taken in the downtown/Strand area of Galveston – a mural painted on a shuttered building.  Someone else created the art, I added the words.

“Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.”  St. Augustine

Providence is defined in my on-line dictionary  as “the foreseeing care and guidance of God or nature over the creatures of the earth.”  There are, I suppose, many reasons that would cause one to not trust in Providence – God knows I dwell on those often enough.  But today I celebrate a reason to trust “the foreseeing care and guidance of God” – my 25^th anniversary of being married to my beautiful wife.  I suppose I could attempt to put all of that in written word, but I know it would be insufficient.  It is, it occurs to me, sufficient for to acknowledge, particularly on this day, that God is good, and that trusting in Providence is a good thing.

“Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.”  St. Augustine

Okay, this one seems like the “gimme” in the group – “obey the laws.”  Short of driving the speed limit and pulling those tags off of mattresses (okay, the list may be longer), I and most others generally “obey the laws.)  But then it occurs to me that there are various lawbreakers we owe a debt of gratitude to.  On occasion in history it was time to not “obey the laws” as then written – Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. come to mind.  Which of course leads us logically to the last of the rules.

“Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.”  St. Augustine

Reading this again this morning I decided to look up “Christian” in Wikipedia – where else right? I got a chuckle out of this comment: “While there are diverse interpretations of Christianity which sometimes conflict, they are united in believing that Jesus has a unique significance.”  I love that understatement – there are diverse interpretations of Christianity which sometimes conflict.”  But I can’t let that cause me to lose sight of the reality that there are similarities also – the “believing that Jesus has a unique significance.”  (I can only assume the author of the Wikipedia section took an understatement pill that day.)

While it is true that spending time in a garage won’t make me a car, walking into a library tends to make me quieter.  I do think that spending time with other Christians, particularly when that somehow (the Holy Spirit?) inherently causes us to focus on and reflect the teachings of Jesus and his “unique significance,” helps.  St. Augustine may be on to something.

Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.”  St. Augustine

Well, to look at this one I had to look up “charity” and refresh myself as to its meaning.  Per my on-line dictionary:

Charity: “the voluntary giving of help, typically in the form of money, to those in need.

It is easy for me to focus on the “typically in the form of money” part of charity, but it occurs to me that the form charity takes is less significant than the “voluntary giving of help” part.  As I contemplate “live in charity” further, what jumps out is not the “charity” part but the “live in” part.  I am not just supposed to “live in charity,” I am supposed to “LIVE in charity,” as a fish lives in water.  Charity is not a place to visit when convenient, comfortable, or when I need the tax deduction, it is not just a place to visit, it is where I am supposed to LIVE.  I hear it is a really good neighborhood.

“Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.”  St. Augustine

“Reduce your wants.”  Now there’s a rule to live by.  I can only think, however, that it needs a bit of a reminder beside it, like – “Reduce your wants; recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate your haves.”

“Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.”  St. Augustine

Who doesn’t love a good set of rules to live by, even a set of rules that is some 1,600 years old.  (I guess “time-tested” would be preferable to “old.”)

“Order your soul” seems like a tough one to start with.  First I have to identify my soul, then the contents, then put them in the proper order.  My on-line dictionary defines the “soul” as the spiritual or non-material part of a human being.  With that in mind, as I read “order your soul,” what comes to mind is the more colloquial “get your s$#t together,” “s$#t” being not so much “tangible stuff” as the intangibles.  In this (here I go mixing saints) what comes to mind is the concept of “disordered affections” of which St. Ignatius wrote.  “Disordered affections” are, as one commentator wrote, not generally when we choose bad things, but when we put the good things in the wrong order.  Or, as he wrote, when “we make good things god things.”  There is nothing wrong with liking a sports team, alcohol, work, fishing, etc., but if I set those up ahead of God, if they start to control my life, then I engage in idolatry, so to speak, and I have a problem – a disordered affection.

How is my soul ordered?

Too often I think of God as a vending machine – put something in, get something out.  Heck, I suppose sometimes I don’t even put anything in, but as I walk by I look to see if by chance something has come out of the machine for me to take.  Yet it occurs to me that merely possessing the object that comes out of the “machine” is not the point.  Having a quality, a blessing, a skill is of little use unless and until it is exercised.  I could be a great painter, but have to pick up the brush and paint.  I have to do something with what I have, with what God gives me, otherwise the gift is of no real value and the chain ends there.

All that to say that merely having is only part of the story.  What I do with what I have is the rest.

Listening to Don Williams (along with Willie, perhaps the last of the living country singers worthy of only one name) recently I came across these lyrics from The Answer, a song of his I had not heard before.  I can’t determine who wrote the song:

The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know.  But I’m close to understanding just how far I have to go.  We give our hearts.  We take our chances.  And know the fool ain’t the one with all the questions.  To tell the truth, its someone who believes they have the answers.

It occurs to me that I am about there also, “there” being “close to understanding just how far I have to go.”