So the fastest growing “religion” in Minnesota and the country is “Nones,” the Star Tribune reports. In reading this article, I was struck by the interviewees’ infantile understandings of religion and Faith. L.P. said that “[she] can’t imagine that only one religion has access to the pearly gates,” said Lisa Pool, explaining her church breakup after class ended. “I realized there are all kinds of different paths to being a good person.” [Let’s ignore L.P.’s probably snide reference to “the pearly gates” and analyze her thoughts. First, L.P. does not understand that the goal of life is not to “be a good person.” The goal of life is to glorify God and reach salvation. And if the goal of life was to be a Good Person™, L.P. must admit that either (i) there is no definition of “Good,” so each person (Hitler) is good if he acts in accordance with what he believes is good or (ii) there is an objective reality stemming from some universal truths indelibly written on the heart of each human. Second, L.P. alludes to the oft-cited complaint with religions that they each deny that other faiths provide a path to salvation. But L.P. is wrong: for example, the Catholic Catechism…Continue reading “Nones”
Category: Faith Life
Prayer on a (bonus) Father’s Day
I am writing this at 5 a.m. on the day before my first Father’s Day as a dad. My daughter is swaddled up, sleeping on my desk after her 4 a.m. bottle. It’s raining outside. I am not a birthday guy. Never have been. Growing up, I always felt an odd sense of guilt on my birthdays. I didn’t like the spotlight. I didn’t want the attention. Our time on earth is limited, and a birthday marks another year gone. Even as a child I felt an overwhelming sense that we have so little time on earth and there’s so much to do. Birthdays are a reminder or our mortality. I’ve always been a bit skeptical of people who actually cared about or, worse yet, celebrated their birthdays. And yet, I am proud to say it: I am so excited for Father’s Day tomorrow. Not for a gift or to play golf. No, but to actually be a father on Father’s Day. My dad once said that he felt, growing up, that he was born to be a father. He didn’t mean it in a boastful way. He saw fatherhood as a vocation, not a check-in-the-box. I felt and feel the same way.…Continue reading Prayer on a (bonus) Father’s Day
Skin in the game
My wife and I finally left the hospital with our baby after she spent 21 days in the special care unit. Twenty-one days of being poked and prodded. Twenty-one days of a feeding tube. Twenty-one days of being hooked up to loud, beeping machines. And 21 days not at home. Twenty-one days of tears leaving the hospital. Twenty-one days of uncertainty and fear. And then suddenly we got to take her home. And the 21 days doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Carrying our baby out of that hospital in a car seat was one of the best two or three moments of my life. I felt freer than I ever have in my life while also weighed down with the solemn burden of fatherhood. I know some people spend their whole life talking about the “good old days” and reminiscing about a time when they were younger, but not me. All I can think about is the here and now and the future! My little girl’s future. My daughter will, inshahallah, live until the year 2100. 2100. It’s only 2018. Eighty-two years ago it was 1936. World War II hadn’t even happened yet. Today’s day in age it can be tempting to…Continue reading Skin in the game
Contradiction
Hmmm… Russel Berger’s great sin against secularism? For posterity’s sake, the Left in 2018: They forgot the asterisk on that bottom tweet–*unless your ideas or beliefs are too diverse as we define it, in which case . . . you’re fired!”
A worthwhile read on America’s opium crisis
***I drafted this post and let it sit for a few weeks. In the interim, a family friend traveled off to funerals for two brothers, both dead of overdoses within two weeks of each other. The boys’ parents are now childless.*** I am very interested in the opium crisis in America. Particularly, I am interested in the crisis’s effects on the American Way–our institutions and communities–felt most acutely in our nation’s small towns and suburban areas. My wife and I have both been touched by the crisis in the past few years as we’ve each had a twenty-something family friend overdose on heroin. Both of these young men had good parents, upper class upbringings. and intelligence. These kids had all the chances and love in the world going their way and still could not overcome their addictions. This has kept me thinking that opiate addiction must be intensely powerful. For this reason, my wife refuses painkillers, and I’ve adopted that position as my own. In my thoughts about the opium crisis, I wonder if it could be that–instead of addiction causing many of society’s problem–opiate addiction is the effect of more widespread problems? I’ve been thinking it’s probably no surprise that…Continue reading A worthwhile read on America’s opium crisis
Lenten post-lift breakfast
It’s Ash Wednesday today, so Catholics fast from meat. Doesn’t mean I skimp on my post-workout protein. Here’s my break-fast today. Get it? Fast-break. Breakfast. Looks gross. That’s .75 cup oatmeal, two cans of tuna, and broccoli. The whole meal is just 405 calories and has 47.5 grams of protein, 40.5 grams of carbs, and 7 grams of fat.
Here we go…!
Well, there it is: my wife is just over 13 weeks pregnant. I’ve been wanting to shout it out to everyone I see all day, everyday! “Pregnant,” I want to shout. “With a baby!” “I’m going to be a dad!” “I’m going to be a dad!” It’s hard to express the happiness this news brings to one’s life. It’s a blessing from God. We received this great news less than a month after our wedding. Already looking back on it I am so glad we were open to pregnancy right away. I wouldn’t have it any other way. The perfect time for this baby isn’t next year. The perfect time for this baby isn’t when we are “set” in our career or “secure” money-wise. No. The perfect time for this baby is now. It’s amazing how this news puts life into perspective. Priorities formerly in flux have settled down and are now set in stone. This is our family This is us versus the world. I cannot wait to meet this baby. I cannot wait to see it grow up. My little brother had a good story: for years, he told us, he’s seen friends and acquaintances announce that they would be uncles or aunts…Continue reading Here we go…!
Walking outside in the winter: a recipe for a healthier you?
I love walking. Because I “retired” from running in 2012 I had to find a replacement. I tried walking and loved it. As Forrest Gump might say: from then on . . . I. was. walking. The mental and physical benefits I get from walking are second only to my weightlifting and require way less energy. My left knee and lower back don’t allow me to run for distance any longer. After I got out of the Marine Corps, the negatives outweighed the positives for running. It wasn’t worth it. And I hated it by the time I was done in the Marines. But I still need some sort of cardiovascular workout for heart health and weight control. So for a couple years I’ve walked. I try to make at least ten miles per week. Extrapolated over a whole year, that’d be over 500 miles. But I never walked in the winter. Once the weather dropped below freezing, I focused on weightlifting and saved walking for summer and—primarily—Minnesota’s best season; fall. This year, my life changed a lot. I gained not only a wife but also a husky. And huskies need exercise. So I committed to continuing my…Continue reading Walking outside in the winter: a recipe for a healthier you?
An Independence Day homily on simplicity and eternity
The longtime pastor at my church retired a few years ago. The new pastor is a wonderful man I’ve grown fond of and close to. The old pastor still occasionally says mass. Two weeks ago, his homily struck me with a force that rarely occurs to me. Short on deep theology but long on meaning, I asked him for a copy–which I’ve posted below. I think the homily was especially meaningful as I move through an increasingly stressful and busy season of life. I am obsessed with the idea of simplifying (in everything), but I nonetheless continue to overcomplicate life…as time marches on. Here’s the text of the homily: “Tis a Blessing to Be Simple” At about the time America was becoming a nation, a small religious movement, the Shakers, was coming to these shores. If you know about the Shakers, you may feel some of their ideas were odd. But they got one thing very right; they believed in being simple. They produced furniture that is still imitated today because of its elegant simplicity. So, too, with their poetry and their music; they had a genius for finding the beauty that dwells in simplicity. The hymn for which they…Continue reading An Independence Day homily on simplicity and eternity