Monthly Archives: February 2010

February 17, 2010 · 16:19

Ash Wednesday…Padre Steve’s Lenten Survival Tips to Make this a Happy Lent

“God, deliver me from gloomy saints.” – – Saint Teresa of Avila

 We’ll it is here, my least favorite season of the liturgical year.  As I have mentioned before I do not do well, at the same time it is something that I need to commit myself to observing for the sake of actually wanting a better spiritual life that is not simply a way to make me feel better about life but help me more fully to love and serve God my neighbor with an attitude of thanksgiving and joy.

 Those who know me know that such is not an easy task and that for me no matter how hard I have tried Lent has always been painful.  By the end of Lent I am thankful for Easter not simply because of the resurrection and the promise of redemption, but frankly because I was glad that Lent was over.  In my early days as a Priest I tried to out do others on Lent doing not just Friday but Wednesday as meatless. I have even tried doing opposite of what I was doing and hope that it would work. Last year in the midst of my spiritual crisis I tried to go extra-lean on Lent and that didn’t help either.  Perhaps that was due to my overall poor emotional, physical and spiritual condition as I was trying to climb out of the abyss of PTSD but still, Lent was not very productive for me no matter what I did.

 So this year I’m going to be a good Anglican and find the via media where I actually gain some spiritual benefit, give up something that I can actually succeed at giving up for Lent and add or increase some spiritual discipline that I can succeed at doing not just for Lent but in real life too.  I realize that I can’t overdo it or I will simply give up when something keeps me from doing it and the same time I need to do something not too difficult but not so easy as to be meaningless.  The goal is to have a meaningful Lent that actually does me some spiritual good while not becoming any more of a pain in the ass to the people around me that have to endure me. 

 Today was Ash Wednesday and I had the responsibility for conducting the Protestant service which for me comes straight out of the Book of Common Prayer.  The Gospel lesson from Matthew chapter 6 was Jesus telling folks how to fast not be idiots about it, in other words to “Steveicize” the language Jesus wants his followers to be able to and pray without drawing attention to ourselves and actually look happy about it.  I figure and I assume that Jesus figured out that there were too many gloomy religious people around and that the disciples needed to get a life before he sent them out into the world; of course just like me and maybe you too made plenty of mistakes and at times made a mess of things in their time with Jesus and even after.  The disciples who with the exception of Judas who got hung up on the details all became Apostles still all finished well and most got schwacked by the Romans or others displeased with their message. 

So with this in mind here are a few hints on how to get through Lent, not that I have been successful at doing this but figure that through my failures I might have a few insights in how to navigate the often treacherous season of Lent. 

First there are the spiritual disciplines, like starting simple, go to church, pray every day, even if it is something short and sweet.  If you are a superstar Christian you can go onward and upward using spiritual steroids to improve your performance but I’m not there yet, I just use spiritual steroids to help my soul heal faster.   As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said:

 “Wherever…thou shalt be, pray secretly within thyself. If thou shalt be far from a house of prayer, give not thyself trouble to seek for one, for thou thyself art a sanctuary designed for prayer. If thou shalt be in bed, or in any other place, pray there; thy temple is there.”

 Now to what to give up:  Most of the time for Americans this involved food, particularly meat on Friday’s and sometimes other things.  I’ve heard of people giving up chocolate or certain delicacies but most of the time it is meatless Fridays and sometimes Wednesdays and there have been some that I have met who have gone on 40 days fasts during Lent.  I can get the meatless Fridays and I am going to give up something that I love that I don’t eat much of normally, like maybe once a week after successful weigh-ins, but really enjoy…I mean really enjoy, the Gordon Biersch Cheeseburger cooked medium rare with everything on it and Garlic Fries on the side. Since there is not a lot else for me to give up being on the Fat Boy program, that once a week treat will be a sacrifice. 

 Now since I tend not too eat most things that swim in their own toilet such as fish the whole deal of fish on Friday is something that I don’t observe…now I still go meatless but find alternative ways to do it. In the past I have done bean burritos, meatless salads, meatless pasta usually with a Marinara sauce, pizza with tomatoes, garlic, olives and mushrooms, or something simple like red or black beans and rice, vegetable soup, pea soup, black bean soup and other things like that.  This makes meatless doable.  One year though I had to suffer for Jesus on the USS Hue City as Friday was “surf and turf.” Since the turf was definitely out for Lent I had to make due with Alaskan King Crab or lobster tails.  That was difficult but I did survive.

 I think one of the things that I missed during previous Lenten seasons was the grace of God, somehow in trying to jump through all the Lenten hoops I became so fixated on the actions that I forgot to experience the love of God and the joy that comes with that.  This year will be all about that process and discovering the joy in life that has been coming back to me after my “Christmas miracle.”

 Martin Luther the German reformer wrote something very appropriate about how to approach Lent,a s well as the rest of the Christian life which I think is pretty profound as Lutehr sees the process of the Christian life:

 “‘Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom. 12:2).’ In this way the Apostle describes (Christian) progress; for he addresses those who already are Christians. The Christian life does not mean to stand still, but to move from that which is good to that which is better. St. Bernard (of Clairvaux) rightly says: ‘As soon as you do not desire to become better, then you have ceased to be good.’ It does not help a tree to have green leaves and flowers if it does not bear fruit beside its flowers. For this reason – (for not bearing fruit) – many (nominal Christians) perish in their flowering. Man (the Christian) is always in the condition of nakedness, always in the state of becoming, always in the state of potentiality, always in the condition of activity. He is always a sinner, but also always repentant and so always righteous. We are in part sinners, and in part righteous, and so nothing else than penitents. No one is so good as that he could not become better; no one is so evil, as that he could not become worse.'” (Commentary on Romans, by Martin Luther, Translated by J. T. Mueller, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapid MI 49501, reprinted 1976, page 167-168.)

 On a side note one cool thing about this Lent is that it is happening about as early in the year as it can, thus it will not affect the baseball season as opening day at Harbor Park is the week following Easter.  So anyway with all of this in mind I bid you a blessed Lent and hope and pray that you will come to experience the love of God in a special way this year that impacts you and those around you. Pray for me a sinner.

Peace, Padre Steve+

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February 17, 2010 · 00:00

Giving Up Ideology for the Cross…Entering Into Lent

“If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and for many it will be as any other day.  For others it will be a religious event that is done because we have always done it and it is a part of the liturgical life of the Church.  For others it will be a time of commitment to a cause, a belief or in some cases ideology to base their lives upon.

Lent is a penitential time, a time to take stock of our lives and in the Christian faith in which it has a important place a time where over a period of seven weeks we seek to again renew our faith in Christ, examine our lives in light of the Gospel and learn again how to experience the grace love and mercy of God in the simple words of Jesus to the woman at the well “Your sins have been forgiven, go and sin no more.”

While this is the crux of Lent for some it will be a time of misplaced activity, not activity centered on prayer, good works and renewing faith in the Crucified One but rather in transitory political, social and ideological agendas that often have little to do with the Gospel, but are rather activities where well meaning people have been seduced into the false promises of ideologues of various persuasions who have no real interest in the Gospel but political or economic power be they conservative or liberal, capitalist or socialist.  The seductiveness of these ideologies appeals to the passion and emotion of people who regardless of their political or religious persuasions become enamored with the ideology and then reinterpret life, faith and relationships to fit the ideology.  When this happens to Christians this can lead to twisting Scripture and Tradition to fit the ideology much as did the theologians, pastors and lay people in German churches in the late 1920s and 1930s.

When two powerful ideologies collide as did Communism and National Socialism in Germany, Socialism and Gaullism is France or contemporary Liberalism and Conservatism in the United States the conflict will spill out and over into Churches and other religious institutions.  Well meaning people will sublimate their faith beneath the ideology and political ethos that they most agree with.  The ideology overrides faith even as the religious institutions and individuals within them conform their faith not to Christ crucified but to ideologies which may have merit and benefit but ultimately, despite the protestations of tier loudest purveyors have little actually to do with the faith and which embraced in their totality are the antithesis of the faith and the enemies of Christ.  It matters not if the ideology is “liberal” or “conservative” because ultimately these ideologies even when defended by pastors, theologians and “baptized” with Scripture, and despite some qualities which may be complimentary to the Gospel are often set against the Gospel and seek to use the Church, Christians and others simply as pawns to sacrifice in their quest for total unadulterated political, social or economic power.

In our contemporary American culture the loudest and most prominent voices and those which have more influence on churches and individual Christians are the political ideologues of the right and the left who inhabit talk radio and the various cable television news networks.  It seems too often that well meaning Christians and others assume everything being spoken from media personalities and entertainers that they like and agree with is compatible with the faith.  However just because Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews or any other commentator on the airwaves says, nor because our political party leaders and Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates echo our passions and feed our fears about the other party does not mean that what they say is Christian or compatible with the Christian faith and tradition even when those individuals claim the mantle of a “Christian” leader.  The adoption and blessing of the often perverted theological ideas of media personalities, talking heads and politicians by individual Christians, Church leaders and denominations can only result in their enslavement by the individuals and organizations to whit they give their blessing.  When this happens the ideologues will readily support social or policy goals of the religious groups but only to gain their vote.  This is proven by history and experience.  One only has to look at how German Christians of various traditions were seduced by the promises of Hitler and the Nazis during a time since November 1918 their society had been ripped apart by military defeat, economic humiliation, internal revolution and societal change which threatened the values that they held dear and in reactions to the Nazi promises sold themselves and their country to the devil. This type of thing has happened in other countries but is most glaringly seen in the transition from the Weimar Republic to the Nazi era.

Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth, a leader of the Confessing Church was an outspoken opponent of the Nazis lectured about how ideology can become its own idol and the purveyors of ideology can themselves make it an idol from which they cannot separate themselves and to which they become mouthpieces for as they bend their deeply held belief’s to the ideology.  The ideology itself becomes an absolute from which no deviation is allowed.  As Barth so poignantly stated:

“[Ideology] comes about as [one] thinks he can and should ascribe to the presuppositions and sketches he has achieved by his remarkable ability, not just a provisional and transitory but a permanent normativity, not just one that is relative but one that is absolute, not just one that is human but one that is quasi-divine.  His hypotheses become for him theses behind which he no longer ventures to go back with seeking, questioning, and researching.  He thinks that they can be thought and formulated definitively as thoughts that are not merely useful but instrinsically true and therefore binding.  His ideal becomes an idol.  He thinks that he knows only unshakable principles and among them a basic principle in relation to which he must coordinate and develop them as a whole, combining them all, and with them his perceptions and concepts, into a system, making of his ideas an ideology.  Here again the reins slip out of his hands.  This creature of his, the ideology, seems to be so wonderfully glorious and exerts on him such a fascination that he thinks he should move and think and act more and more within its framework and under its direction, since salvation can be achieved only through the works of its law.  This ideology becomes the object of his reflection, the backbone and norm of his disposition, the guiding star of his action.  All his calculations, exertions, and efforts are now predestined by it.  They roll towards its further confirmation and triumph like balls on a steep slope.  Man’s whole loyalty is loyalty to the line demanded by it.  He thinks that he possesses it, but in truth it already possesses him.  In relation to it he is no longer the free man who thought he had found it in its glory and should help to put it on the throne.  He now ventures to ask and answer only within its schema.  He must now orient himself to it.  He must represent it as its more or less authentic witness and go to work as its great or small priest and prophet. At root he no longer has anything of his own to say.  He can only mouth the piece dictated to him as intelligibly as he can, and perhaps like a mere parrot.  His own face threatens already to disappear behind the mask that he must wear as its representative.  He already measures and evaluates others only from the standpoint of whether they are supporters of this ideology, or whether they might become such, or whether they might at least be useful to it even without their consent, or whether they must be fought as its enemies. Its glory has already become for him the solution not only to the personal problem of his own life but to each and all of the problems of the world.” ~ Karl Barth, The Christian Life: Church Dogmatics IV/4, Lecture Fragments, 225.

Barth’s words which are the result of seeing good people surrender their faith to ideology should not be taken lightly as we enter into the Lenten season.  The season of Lent is a time to acknowledge our need for the grace and mercy of God and find forgiveness for ourselves while extending the same grace, love and mercy shown to us to our neighbor, even the neighbor who does not agree with the ideologues that we prefer.

Our challenge in a time of turmoil and conflict is not to be seduced by the shameless appeals of ideologues of all stripes but to return to faith in the God who comes to us, suffers for and with us and in himself provides the promise of redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

For me this Lent will involve a more premeditated effort to encounter Christ in all that I meet and rebuilt spiritual disciplines that suffered when I went through the crisis of faith that dominated my life for nearly two years.  I do pray that for those who elect to observe this season that it will not be a time of legalistic obedience under which we chafe but rather a time of returning to our first love and forsaking the idols of ideology that can so poison our life and relationships with those that we live and interact with on a daily basis.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 15, 2010 · 23:59

Padre Steve’s World…Musings of a Passionate Moderate at One Year…

When I started Padre Steve’s World…Musings of a Passionate Moderate one year ago it was pretty much an place for me to deal with what was going on with me after coming back from Iraq in February 2008. When I started the site I was still pretty much a mess.  Initially the site began as a place to deal with what was going on in me and as I began to write I began to realize that there was a lot more going on in me than I had imagined. As I began to hit the keyboard and fill cyber trees with my musings it was at times cathartic and even painful.  I cannot recount the number of times that I would start writing and end up in tears trying to get hold of myself.  This was especially true when writing about Iraq, PTSD and the spiritual crisis which enveloped my life over the past two years.  There are still times when I will read some of those posts and feel the emotions well of from the depths of my soul and nearly overwhelm me.  Since I am by nature a thinker who is much more comfortable in the realm of logic, fact and exploring concepts and not someone who is really wired well for these ugly things called emotions this was unsettling to say the least. It was like LCDR Data in Star Trek the Next Generation getting the emotion chip….very unsettling. As a result as a logical kind of person I had to find a way to make sense of my world and all the changes that I was experiencing.

As I did this the number of subjects that I wrote about began to multiply not just PTSD and Iraq and my struggles with life, faith and where I fit on the theological and political spectrum but branched out into baseball which I guarantee that you will see a lot more of, history, military history and military theory; theological, philosophical and ethical issues and matters of social and political controversy.  As I wrote I began to live in the moment and in real time take on things that hit me where I was.

With My Dad in May 2009

Enmeshed in the all that I was going through were my real life and current struggles with my father’s Alzheimer’s disease, struggles with my mother and my relentless push into the issues of life and death in the Intensive Care Unit and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in the medical center where I serve and a multitude of other duties.  Eventually I hit the wall and my boss rearranged my duties in order to give me the chance to begin to heal emotionally, physically and spiritually.  I still remained engaged but he smartly limited me so that I would have a chance to recover.  Thankfully, despite my initial reluctance to do this it was the right move.  In December I had what can only be called a Christmas miracle where after nearly two years I began to feel reconnected to my faith and revitalized in life and ministry.  Thankfully that continues even now.

With Judy and Stein Club Friends at Gordon Biersch Virginia Beach

While writing on this site I have encountered a lot of very kind people from all walks of life who have served to encourage me and by some stroke of luck on their part found that things that I wrote helped them or touched them in some way.  I have also encountered some people who to be kind are idiots, but who in their own way also helped me along the path to doing better spiritually and emotionally and to better formulate the theological, philosophical and existential foundations of whom I am as a Priest, Chaplain and Naval Officer.

My Time in Iraq has Changed Me

So without getting deeper into that right now what has been the result of this site?  Personally it has allowed me to integrate my experience in Iraq with the rest of my life and to become much more settled and happy with the person that I am. The site itself and the subjects that I have written about have become much more diverse than I could have expected.  From PTSD, spirituality, ethics and philosophy, history and military theory as well as baseball the site has dealt with issues such as gay rights, abortion, right and left wing ideologues, heath care, freedom of speech, the civil rights movement, the rights of minority groups such as Moslems, the nature of the American republic, national security counterinsurgency history and theory, local issues, music, television, relationships, football, the Olympics, veterans issues, relationships, the death of shipmates and friends, love and a ton of writing on various military history subjects as well as things much less serious and just simply humorous.  There is a series of articles on my deployment to Iraq which is incomplete and that I need to finish, a number of series about Navy ships and even a alternative history about the Battle of Kursk.

Jackie Robinson in His Kansas City Monarchs Uniform

It has also brought me back in contact with people in my life that helped me at various times or the relatives of those friends who have since passed away.  I have had comments from people in Europe, Australia, other locations around the world and many of the 50 States.

More Military History is Certainly on the Horizon

The site has surprisingly to me had a bit over 851.000 visitors and had articles on military history and theory translated into other languages including Russian.  The most traffic that I had in a 24 hour period was on November 5th 2009 when 6,713 visitors showed up, good thing it was cyber space or I would have never had enough beer or food. The most hits in a month were also in November with 112,672 while my average number of hits per day was 2251 in 2009 and 2878 in 2010. I have had articles linked to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Slate.com, the Huffington Post, Jay Mariotti’s ESPN blog and a bunch of other places that I never expected it to attract attention.  In the coming year I hope that it will be even more successful.

The Most Popular Seach Term…Star Trek

People tend to find this site through a wide variety of search terms the most popular of which are: Star Trek, Kirsten Dunst, Checkpoint Charlie, Hitler, Martin Luther, Tom Brady, Joan Jett, Satchel Paige, Caen and Einsatzgruppe.

The top ten posts over the first year are:

Star Trek, God and Me 1966 to 2009 (May 29th 2009)

Halloween Book Burning Update: Bring the Marshmallows Please! (October 25th 2009)

The Ideological War: How Hitler’s Racial Theories Influenced German Operations in Poland and Russia (September 14th 2009)

I Miss the Music of the 70’s and 80’s (January 9th 2010)

D-Day Courage Sacrifice and Luck (June 6th 2009)

The Forgotten Cold Warriors (July 26th 2009)

Operation “Dachs” My First Foray into the Genre “Alternative History” (August 9th 2009)

Cowboys Stadium meets Seinfeld: A Scoreboard and a Nose that You Can’t Miss (August 30th 2009)

Turning Points: The Battle of Midway, Randy Johnson Gets his 300th Win and Chief Branum Gets Her Star (June 4th 2009)

Reformation Day: How Martin Luther and Hans Kung Brought Me to an Anglo-Catholic Perspective, a Book and Bible Burning Reaches Ludicrous Speed and Yankees take Game Three 8-5 (October 31st 2009)

I Miss the Music of the 1970s and 1980s Gained More Hits in a Shorter Amount of Time than Any other Post

Now some articles that have not attracted as many hits but I think are worthy of mention are listed below. Some are more specialized in their emphasis but certainly worthwhile.

Lessons for the Afghan War: The Effects of Counterinsurgency Warfare on the French Army in Indo-China and Algeria and the United States Military in Vietnam (October 26th 2009)

Brothers to the End…the Bond between those Who Serve Together in Unpopular Wars (July 10th 2009)

Remembering the Veteran’s of My Life has Been a Big Part of my Journey

Remembering the Veterans in My Life…Memorial Day 2009 (May 21st 2009)

How Padre Steve Got His Driver’s License, Passed Geometry, Escaped Advanced Algebra and Selects Mood Music for a Book Burning (October 25th 2009)

This is Nuts…The “Conservative Bible Project” (October 4th 2009)

The Manhattan Transfer: Why I Cannot Sign the Manhattan Declaration (December 2nd 2009)

Learning to Apply the Principles of Counterinsurgency Part One: Introduction to the Soviet-Afghan War (January 7th 2010)

Revisting the Demons of PTSD: Returning to Iraq in Virginia a Year and a Half Later (July 21st 2009)

Baseball in Between Life and Death in the ICU (May 7th 2009)

Can Anybody Spare a DIME: A Short Primer on Early Axis Success and How the Allies Won the Second World War (November 28th 2009)

Padre Steve’s Christmas Miracle (December 24th 2009)

Vindictive Angry Christians: When Faith is subordinated to a Political Agenda Redemption Dies (February 6th 2010)

Jackie Robinson and Dr. Martin Luther King they Changed America (January 18th 2010)

Mark McGuire, Tony LaRussa and the Dirty Secret of the Steroid Era (January 12th 2010)

Padre Steve’s World Series Prediction and Book and Bible Burning Update (October 27th 2009)

My Life and Baseball: How Padre Steve Makes Some Sense of the World (October 15th 2009)

For the Love of the Game and the Love of Life; Finding Meaning Life and Love in the Perfect Game (October 13th 2009)

You Win a Few, You Lose a Few. Some Get Rained Out. But You Got to Dress for All of Them (June 12th 2009)

So what is next?  Some of the things I want to do are to finish the Going to War series and continue to write military and naval history and theory.  I also want to do more with baseball and begin to write more about the Negro Leagues as I have an idea for a book that I want to pursue this year. I figure that there will be planned and unplanned ventures in theology, philosophy, ethics and social issues.

Above all I hope to remain a moderate in all and try to always remain objective and not be captivated by any ideology.  I will be writing an essay in the next few days about ideologues and the various idols that they fashion of their ideology, but that is not for tonight.  I’m sure that those on the extremes of the right and left will not find that a comfortable subject but certainly something that needs for the sake of truth to be addressed.

I am hoping to be published in some professional journals in the coming year and as baseball season takes off I will definitely keep you informed of my view of that most wonderful of sports from my place in Section 102, Row B Seats 1 and 2 at the Church of Baseball, Harbor Park Parish.

So I thank all of my readers who have through their reading and comments helped me through this past year and I pray God’s blessings on you all in the coming year.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 15, 2010 · 19:10

God in the Empty Places…Padre Steve Remembers the Beginnings of Padre Steve’s World

The 16th will be the first anniversary of Padre Steve’s World…Musings of a Passionate Moderate. When I began the site it was about a year after I returned from Iraq.  When I began the site I was running pretty ragged from my PTSD, the deteriorating condition of my father who has end-stage Alzheimer’s disease and from throwing myself so intensely into work in the ICU and PICU at the Medical Center that I was operating on fumes.  This is one of my earliest posts and reflects to a large degree where I was in my life at the time.  It is a reflection on life, ministry and military history and identity.  For me the return from Iraq and the continued wars that we are engaged in bring to mind the experience of the French military in Indo-China and Algeria and as I note here it is my view that the current generation of American Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen have more in common with the career soldiers of the Foreign Legion, Paratroops and Colonials (Marines) who served in Indo-China and Algeria than we do with the men and women of the “Greatest Generation.”  Unlike those veterans who by and large were draftees and were able to fight a conventional war against nation state actors which they vanquished, the current generation serves against shadowy forces in counterinsurgency campaigns in wars that show no sign of ending soon. I came back feeling isolated and alienated from people who had not served in Iraq, Afghanistan or our predecessors in Vietnam. This is my reflection on that at the beginning of this website a year ago I have added pictures as well as some video links about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu but have not altered the post.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Foreign Legion Troops in Indochina

I have been doing a lot of reflecting on ministry and history over the past few months. While both have been part of my life for many years, they have taken on a new dimension after serving in Iraq. I can’t really explain it; I guess I am trying to integrate my theological and academic disciplines with my military, life and faith experience since my return.

The Chaplain ministry is unlike civilian ministry in many ways. As Chaplains we never lose the calling of being priests, and as priests in uniform, we are also professional officers and go where our nations send us to serve our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen. There is always a tension, especially when the wars that we are sent to are unpopular at home and seem to drag on without the benefit of a nice clear victory such as VE or VJ Day in World War II or the homecoming after Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

VJ Day…It will never happen again

It is my belief that when things go well and we have easy victories that it is easy for us to give the credit to the Lord and equally easy for others to give the credit to superior strategy, weaponry or tactics to the point of denying the possibility that God might have been involved. Such is the case in almost every war and Americans since World War Two have loved the technology of war seeing it as a way to easy and “bloodless” victory. In such an environment ministry can take on an almost “cheer-leading” dimension. It is hard to get around it, because it is a heady experience to be on a winning Army in a popular cause. The challenge here is to keep our ministry of reconciliation in focus, by caring for the least, the lost and the lonely, and in our case, to never forget the victims of war, especially the innocent among the vanquished, as well as our own wounded, killed and their families.

But there are other wars, many like the current conflict less popular and not easily finished. The task of chaplains in the current war, and similar wars fought by other nations is different. In these wars, sometimes called counter-insurgency operations, guerilla wars or peace keeping operations, there is no easily discernable victory. These types of wars can drag on and on, sometimes with no end in sight. Since they are fought by volunteers and professionals, much of the population acts as if there is no war since it does often not affect them, while others oppose the war.

Marines at Hue City

Likewise, there are supporters of war who seem more interested in political points of victory for their particular political party than for the welfare of those that are sent to fight the wars. This has been the case in about every war fought by the US since World War II. It is not a new phenomenon. Only the cast members have changed.

Foreign Legion in Algeria, the ancestral home of the Legion

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YSsetJU-tU&feature=related

This is not only the case with the United States. I think that we can find parallels in other military organizations. I think particularly of the French professional soldiers, the paratroops and Foreign Legion who bore the brunt of the fighting in Indo-China, placed in a difficult situation by their government and alienated from their own people. In particular I think of the Chaplains, all Catholic priests save one Protestant, at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the epic defeat of the French forces that sealed the end of their rule in Vietnam. The Chaplains there went in with the Legion and Paras. They endured all that their soldiers went through while ministering the Sacraments and helping to alleviate the suffering of the wounded and dying. Their service is mentioned in nearly every account of the battle. During the campaign which lasted 6 months from November 1953 to May 1954 these men observed most of the major feasts from Advent through the first few weeks of Easter with their soldiers in what one author called “Hell in a Very Small Place.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=th7tImvzutc

Another author describes Easter 1954: “In all Christendom, in Hanoi Cathedral as in the churches of Europe the first hallelujahs were being sung. At Dienbeinphu, where the men went to confession and communion in little groups, Chaplain Trinquant, who was celebrating Mass in a shelter near the hospital, uttered that cry of liturgical joy with a heart steeped in sadness; it was not victory that was approaching but death.” A battalion commander went to another priest and told him “we are heading toward disaster.” (The Battle of Dienbeinphu, Jules Roy, Carroll and Graf Publishers, New York, 1984 p.239)

Of course one can find examples in American military history such as Bataan, Corregidor, and certain battles of the Korean War to understand that our ministry can bear fruit even in tragic defeat. At Khe Sahn in our Vietnam War we almost experienced a defeat on the order of Dien Bien Phu. It was the tenacity of the Marines and tremendous air-support that kept our forces from being overrun.

Terrorism and the Battle of Algiers

You probably wonder where I am going with this. I wonder a little bit too. But here is where I think I am going. It is the most difficult of times; especially when units we are with take casualties and our troops’ sacrifice is not fully appreciated by a nation absorbed with its own issues.

French Chaplain and Soldiers Indochina 1950

For the French the events and sacrifices of their soldiers during Easter 1954 was page five news in a nation that was more focused on the coming summer. This is very similar to our circumstances today because it often seems that own people are more concerned about economic considerations and the latest in entertainment news than what is going on in Iraq or Afghanistan. The French soldiers in Indo-china were professionals and volunteers, much like our own troops today. Their institutional culture and experience of war was not truly appreciated by their own people, or by their government which sent them into a war against an opponent that would sacrifice anything and take as many years as needed to secure their aim, while their own countrymen were unwilling to make the sacrifice and in fact had already given up their cause as lost. Their sacrifice would be lost on their own people and their experience ignored by the United States when we sent major combat formations to Vietnam in the 1960s. In a way the French professional soldiers of that era have as well as British colonial troops before them have more in common with our force than the citizen soldier heroes of the “Greatest Generation.” Most of them were citizen soldiers who did their service in an epic war and then went home to build a better country as civilians. We are now a professional military and that makes our service a bit different than those who went before us.

Yet it is in this very world that we minister, a world of volunteers who serve with the highest ideals. We go where we are sent, even when it is unpopular. It is here that we make our mark; it is here that we serve our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen. Our duty is to bring God’s grace, mercy and reconciliation to men and women, and their families who may not see it anywhere else. Likewise we are always to be a prophetic voice within the ranks.

Marine Advisers and Afghan Soldiers

When my dad was serving in Vietnam in 1972 I had a Sunday school teacher tell me that he was a “Baby Killer.” It was a Catholic Priest and Navy Chaplain who showed me and my family the love of God when others didn’t. In the current election year anticipate that people from all parts of the political spectrum will offer criticism or support to our troops. Our duty is to be there as priests, not be discouraged in caring for our men and women and their families because most churches, even those supportive of our people really don’t understand the nature of our service or the culture that we represent. We live in a culture where the military professional is in a distinct minority group upholding values of honor, courage, sacrifice and duty which are foreign to most Americans. We are called to that ministry in victory and if it happens someday, defeat. In such circumstances we must always remain faithful.

French Commanders at Dien Bien Phu

For those interested in the French campaign in Indo-China it has much to teach us. Good books on the subject include The Last Valley by Martin Windrow, Hell in a Very Small Place by Bernard Fall; The Battle of Dienbeinphu by Jules Roy; and The Battle of Dien Bien Phu- The Battle America Forgot by Howard Simpson. For a history of the whole campaign, read Street Without Joy by Bernard Fall. I always find Fall’s work poignant, he served as a member of the French Resistance in the Second World War and soldier later and then became a journalist covering the Nurnberg Trials and both the French and American wars in Vietnam and was killed by what was then known as a “booby-trap” while covering a platoon of U.S. Marines.

There is a picture that has become quite meaningful to me called the Madonna of Stalingrad. It was drawn by a German chaplain-physician named Kurt Reuber at Stalingrad at Christmas 1942 during that siege. He drew it for the wounded in his field aid station, for most of whom it would be their last Christmas. The priest would die in Soviet captivity and the picture was given to one of the last officers to be evacuated from the doomed garrison. It was drawn on the back of a Soviet map and now hangs in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin where it is displayed with the Cross of Nails from Coventry Cathedral as a symbol of reconciliation. I have had it with me since before I went to Iraq. The words around it say: “Christmas in the Cauldron 1942, Fortress Stalingrad, Light, Life, Love.” I am always touched by it, and it is symbolic of God’s care even in the midst of the worst of war’s suffering and tragedy.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 14, 2010 · 15:19

Padre Steve’s Favorite Love Songs…Happy Valentine’s Day!

Since today is Valentine’s Day I have decided to reminisce about the love songs as well as songs about love lost that I grew up with in the 1970s and 1980s.  There was something about the music of the time that made these songs pretty much timeless.  They were written about love, with feeling and soul. Some were hauntingly powerful in the emotions and images that they could engender.  Since back in the day technology is not what it is now most of us grew up with these songs on Top 40 type AM radio stations, listening to them on our 8 Track players, cassettes, LPs or 45 RPM records.

I’m sure that if you were like me back in those days there were days that you would sit on your couch, bed or front seat of your car with your significant other, snuggle and look dreamily into one another’s eyes as the songs that touched you played.  There were also times after break-ups, arguments or misunderstandings that you thought were going to kill the relationship that some of the sad songs were there to share your misery with.

Back in those days when for the most part you could still understand the words of the songs regardless of the musical style without every third word being the “F-bomb,” something about killing someone or deeming women in some ungodly fashion, the songs still inspired hope, even when as Elton John sang “when every little bit of hope is gone, sad songs say so much.”

Of course these are my favorites and I know that for those of my generation you will have your own while some of the younger folks may never have heard any of these unless their parents of my generation like me won’t stop playing them.

Of the singers of the 1970s and 1980s Barry Manilow probably wrote and performed more top 10 love songs than about anyone.  He was a heartthrob for a lot of the girls that I went to school with who many wore Barry Manilow T-shirts. My favorite of his love songs is Somewhere in the Night and this video is from back in 1978. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj8eqkRGJIo Of course Manilow had tons of others including Ready to take a Chance Again which was featured in the classic comedy with Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn Foul Play and Daybreak which are in this concert medley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KjmJnEV8ck

Olivia Newton-John who many of guys had the “hots” for had a hot called I honestly Love You http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zGLSnZGZts She would go from “sweet to hot” in the 80s with Physical which dealt with some of the more steamy aspects of love and lust and yes this song was voted the “hottest and sexiest song” this year.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow1gS3m1ckM


The Carpenter’s whose songs were so beautiful and haunting had a lot of love songs and some really sad songs like Goodbye to Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nooeMrCws-A Of course Karen would die tragically from complications due to her struggle with anorexia and seemed always to have a sadness about her during her life.

Lionel Richie was another artist who churned out hit after hit love songs.  The one that I will always remember is Still and Lady. These are songs that Judy and I listen to a lot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZBSruHC-1c


Dionne Warwick made a comeback singing songs written by Lionel Richie including I’ll Never Love this Way Again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mI89NGdf5M


Another artist who made a mint off of love songs was Anne Murray a country crossover to the pop charts with the hit You Needed Me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-tJBsOsboM

while Kenny Rogers hit the charts with a duet with Sheena Easton called We’ve got Tonight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogWcJeV7r4Y&feature=related


Neil Diamond had a lot of love songs, the one that strikes me the most is September Morn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cPSts6KMbs

while John Denver hit the charts with Annie’s Song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkGS263lGsQ and Follow Me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6GAa8_5nRA


Abba had many love songs with Chiquitita http://video.libero.it/app/play?id=5689d25ebf91922e45a5d14a69fd4833 The Winner Takes it All http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92cwKCU8Z5c and Knowing Me Knowing You http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUrzicaiRLU&feature=channel telling stories of love and loss.

And finally for me there was Blondie whose up tempo Dreaming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIjxGKLTADE is still one of my favorites.

For those who are sad this Valentine’s Day here is Elton John and Sad Songs Say so Much http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH276U5PiGQ and I Guess that’s Why they Call it the Blues http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH276U5PiGQ


I could go on but will stop here. Feel free to link any of your favorites in the comments. Have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 14, 2010 · 00:00

Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Heck and Helven…Choices for Eternity

I was reading the comics yesterday when I found this great Dilbert.  I have loved the strip for years and some of the funniest strips for me have been those dealing with religion and spirituality.  Be it Saint Dogbert and his “Out out Demons of Stupidity” or Phil the Prince of Insufficient Light who rules over “Heck” with his pitch-spoon where people are “darned to Heck for minor infractions,” I have always gotten a chuckle or even a belly laugh out of them.

Of course many people and religions have different conceptions of the afterlife for both the saved, sometimes known as the elect or the unsaved that are sometimes referred to as the damned.  Without getting into anyone’s knickers I want to just have some fun with what can be a subject of speculation and even controversy.

Of course heaven is the place of the elect and is usually characterized by streets of gold, angels, pearly gates and lots of time around whichever Deity that the religion in question believes in.  Heaven is a good place and probably where you want to be going if you have to spend the rest of eternity, which I am assured sports fans is a very long time.  Now there are variations on heaven. Some religions have different concepts about it and others have looser or tighter rules as to who gets in, everything from the “All dogs go to heaven” of universalists to the 144,000 of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to the real strict fundamentalists of various religions (fundamentalists of all religions tend to be peas in a pod) who are even more select that the JWs.

Some even have different levels of heaven.  To go back to the JWs they have “real heaven” where the 144,000 go and then a perfect earth where the rest of the JWs go to pick fruit and pet animals for eternity.  If you ask me that kind of sucks because it is a works system based around how many people you convert to be JWs.  The thing that would suck is like you thought you had gotten the last of the 144,000 available spaces and someone that you converted knocked you out of the competition.  If you are not a JW forget it, you just get annihilated, not even the eternal punishment of hell to look forward to.  The Latter Day Saints have a cool belief that if you are a super cool Mormon man you get to be God of your own planet while everyone else gets regular heaven and only the really bad people go to hell. Of course some Moslems believe that if you are martyred for your faith you get to have 72 virgins in heaven to have eternal sex with, no mention of what happens to female martyrs but I wonder if their virgins would be the ones with pimples and wearing rape control glasses, Moslem nerds so to speak.  The Hindus have a number of different beliefs but the prevailing trend is that heaven and hell are things to help get you perspective in between periods of reincarnation.  Since the soul is immortal and you keep getting reincarnated this sounds like summer school.  Have you ever noticed that a lot of people who believe in reincarnation believe that they were someone famous in a previous life?  I think that Kevin Costner playing “Crash” Davis in Bull Durham asked the same question to Susan Sarandon but regardless why don’t you hear people say that they were a flea on Napoleon’s horse at Waterloo? In Buddhism the endless quest is to attain Nirvana whose lead singer Kurt Cobain off’d himself.  Actually it is to attain Nirvana but that has nothing to do with Curt Cobain.  Nirvana is a state of nothingness which in my mind is kind of boring if you worked really hard to get things right for a multitude of lifetimes.  I guess that I’m too western and wonder what the payback is for working hard only to end up as nothing.  I am also uncomfortable that there will be no more “me” if I am successful, I like me.  The folks who are Jewish have a number of ideas about heaven and hell that are not too much different than those of Christians except the little fact of who gets in. Now this will vary between the three major groups of Jews from the pretty open minded Reformed Jews, to the Conservative and then to the Orthodox Jews who come in various strains of strictness.  The Reformed folks are pretty open-minded and the more extreme versions or Orthodox don’t think that anyone apart from them will get in.

Now as far as Christians we have a wide number of interpretations of both heaven and hell and to whom might be qualified to be admitted to either location. The Calvinists that are really serious believe in something called double predestination which basically means that people were either saved or damned before the creation of the world.  Not much room for choice in that theology.  There is a subgroup of these folks who sometimes are called Antinomians who believe that since they are saved that they can do anything that they want, any sin, no matter how big and still be saved. Personally I think that is really pretty presumptuous and downright scary.  Then those who are more Wesleyan or Armenian weigh in on the side of choice even including that one can “lose their salvation” after they were saved this is often found in Wesleyan and Pentecostal groups.  A similar stream is found in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, where though not technically losing salvation keeps you on edge wondering if you made it or not until you die.  In Roman Catholicism this might mean that you end up in heaven, hell or purgatory.  There are a wide number of interpretations within the Christian faith other than these but these are probably the most common views and interpretations.

So since I have in a nutshell (you are what you eat) in a manner of speaking have presented what different religions think of heaven and hell I shall move on to some of the interpretations of what this means.

As I said heaven, regardless of the religion is “good” unless of course that your religion does not have one in which case it is what it is.  Of course the opposite is true as well, if you don’t have a hell that can’t be too bad, unless of course you guess wrong which would really suck.  It would be almost as bad as when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson missed the Rapture.

Moving on the Roman Catholic Church has a doctrine that is called Purgatory.  Now Purgatory much to the disappointment of some is now “junior hell.”  It is a place for the elect, or the saved to go to clean up their act and learn to love Jesus better before getting admitted into heaven proper.  It is a place like being elected to the baseball Hall of Fame you may get elected to the Hall but there is a period of time that you get to wait before the plaque goes up at Cooperstown. Likewise there must be a “Purgatory” because the state of West Virginia is described as “Almost Heaven” which would mean that it is in reality Purgatory. Since that is where my family originally comes from and from where my current driver’s license is issued that I too am headed there?

Map of Hell

Now Hell, with the exception of Hinduism is pretty much universally a place that you don’t want to go, kind of like Detroit.  There are many images of Hell including the best which come out of Dante’s Inferno which should not be confused with Disco Inferno even if you despised Disco.

I like the image of Hell as the “Lake of Fire.”  This conveys to me the image of a lake in the deep south which is painfully hot, overwhelmingly humid and swarming with flies, mosquitoes and other vermin.  I cannot imagine anywhere worse.  Rowan Atkinson has a great skit called Welcome to Hell where he plays the Devil welcoming a fresh group of the damned to the infernal regions. I’ve linked that here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFGrQMD6Uqc

Now I have already mentioned “Heck” which is ruled by Phil the Prince of Insufficient Light who “darns you to Heck for minor infractions and Helvin the place that souls are outsourced to due to the unionization of the Angels and Demons.   It seems to me that heck is not a particularly bad place however Helvin may not be too great of place to be.  I really don’t want to know how they would give my harp to me.

So anyway, I guess I shall invoke Saint Dogbert to banish the Demons of Stupidity as I go to sleep dreaming of the real heaven where the baseball diamond is the lushest green field with foul lines that extend to eternity.  In this heaven the game never ends and you never get tired.  Not much longer until the earthly baseball season begins again.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 12, 2010 · 23:41

The 1976 Winter Olympics, Dorothy Hamill, Padre Steve and Judy

Dorothy Hamill Gold Medal Performance Innsbruck 1976

Well the 2010 Winter Olympics are upon us.  I have always liked the Winter Games better than Summer Games. Back in 1976 when I was a sophomore in High School Dorothy Hamill won the Women’s Figure Skating Gold Medal in Innsbruck Austria.  I was in love, or more likely in lust. However, despite the fact that I never have even been near Dorothy Hamill she influenced my life in ways unimagined to this very day.

Dorothy Hamill and Gold Medal

Guys are pretty simple. We are first attracted to those that we are attracted to usually by physical attributes.  This may be hard for some to admit but it is a fact. Personality is important however for most guys we don’t get to the personality part until the person that we are attracted to passes the physical attraction test.  For each guy this is different. For some it might be the legs or breasts, for others the face or general body shape, and others like me a combination of face, general body shape and hairstyle.  For me that was the short brown hair of Dorothy Hamill.  This will sound very shallow but with the exception of one date that had short blond hair like 1972 Olympic Figure Skating Medalist Bronze Janet Lynn every girlfriend or date that I went on hard short brown hair like Dorothy Hamill.  Judy, aka the Abbess had short brown hair when I met her.

Janet Lynn

This may sound incredibly shallow but it is a fact, many guys will not want to admit that we are first and foremost attracted to our girl, or in the case gay men their guy based purely physical attributes.  Girls especially find this kind of shallow but somehow put up with us realizing that as Judy says that the “male hormone causes brain damage.” Guys are very simple to attract simply figure out what kind of guy that you want, decipher what he is physically attracted to and make it work. If he is true to himself he will bite like a shark in chum filled waters.

Katerina Witt

So anyway, when I was young I played hockey.  I love the Winter Olympics, I do not think that for speed, danger, beauty and grace that there is little that can compare to them in sports.  When not watching hockey I would always make sure that I watched women’s figure skating. This began in 1968 with the Olympics in Grenoble France where American Figure Skater Peggy Fleming won the Gold Medal and continued for me in 1972 when Janet Lynn won the Bronze in Sapporo Japan. Of course for me this culminated in the 1976 Winter Games where Dorothy Hamill won the Gold.  I was in love/lust. In the fall of 1978 when I met Judy, who had short brown hair I was dating a girl with short brown hair who ended dropping me a few weeks into the relationship. Being that I was a fairly base guy this was devastating, and Judy who was a friend and by the way had a bit of a crush on me and when the other girl dropped me Judy was there for me, smart girl.  She thought that I was pretty melodramatic when I got dropped, which was likely the case but it ended up for the good.  She had short brown hair, was cute and physically attractive and by some odd quirk of fate was attracted to me.

Me and Judy 1980

Now I have never lost my infatuation with Judy or for that matter with Dorothy Hamill, however it is Judy who has captured my heart.

I still love the Winter Games and especially women’s figure skating. In 1980 it was Linda Fratianne who won the Silver but did not capture me like Dorothy Hamill, in 1984 and 1988 it was East German skater Katerina Witt who despite her being from the Commie side of the world captured me and 1992 there was Kristi Yamaguchi who took the gold amid the controversy of Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding.  The grace and athleticism of women’s figure skating still captivates me.  However I have to give credit to Dorothy Hamill who for whatever reason was the catalyst behind my courtship of Judy who remains the love of my life.  Thanks so much Dorothy Hamill for helping this happen, even if you never realized that I existed.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 11, 2010 · 23:59

Padre Steve muses about Lenten Traditions and Spirituality…as Usual a Bit Differently than Others

Looks Like a Lot of Salad ahead for Padre Steve

As we know Lent is a time of penitence and fasting.  My little goof ball brain has wrestled with this ever since coming into a Catholic tradition back in the mid-1990s.  As someone who grew up pretty ecumenical and culturally Protestant it was a hard transition.  Getting to an Anglican and then more Anglo-Catholic theological viewpoint in seminary and the years following was easy.  “Head stuff” theology, Church History and other academic disciplines come very easy to me.  I live in that world and I love that world, even as a Chaplain in a major teaching medical center I find that I am deeply involved in academics, in this case health care ethics and the role of religion and spirituality in health care.

Developing spiritual disciplines have always been harder for me; however I have developed some over the years especially since I entered the Anglo-Catholic tradition.  I value the Daily Office and my spirituality centers around the Eucharist.  That being said I have struggled with the more aesthetic aspects of the spiritual life. I think that a major part of this is due to my early life in the Evangelical Protestant tradition.  These disciplines are not deeply imbedded in the evangelical tradition.  It is not that fasting is not found among Evangelicals, but it plays a different role and for most it is not a routine part of spiritual life for most.  In the churches I grew up in fasting or abstinence were both voluntary and for most not a part of church life.  There are exceptions to this. Some churches take on 40 days of fasting programs, but these are usually just another part of the churches program for a particular time and usually not continued on a regular basis.  So for me this did not come naturally and as a result I struggled with Lent and never looked forward to it.  I discussed this some in my previous essay.

Yet, fasting and abstinence can be very beneficial in developing spiritual disciplines, even for people like me.  I always try to ensure that I observe meatless Fridays and sometimes Wednesdays.  When I was deployed on USS Hue City during Operation Enduring Freedom I had to deal with Lent. Every Friday evening the ship typically served “Surf and Turf.”  Since the “turf” was off the menu for me I had to deal with the “surf.”  To be sure I am not a big fan of fish or seafood in general.  However in the evening the “surf” was either Alaskan king crab or lobster.  So for that Lenten observance I had to suffer for Jesus as I made due with these awful delicacies.

Now I have struggled and still struggle at Lent, especially when I focus or become obsessed about what I am giving up, versus trying to use this time as a means to develop and my own spiritual disciplines.  When I get focused on the “what’s” of Lent and not the purpose for it I fail miserably.  Lent is often for me like spiritual New Year’s resolutions. To be honest I’m still working on these disciplines, I figure I will be doing so the rest of my life as old habits die hard.

My own journey in learning to “survive” Lent is to let go.  If things impede and frustrate me then I need to let go of them and focus on what will actually build me up spiritually.  Last year I decided to reduce the amount of time I spent watching all the talking heads on TV news and listening to the incessant drumbeat of talk radio.  When I did this I noticed a radical shift, I was not long spun up about all the apocalyptic invective on both the right and the left.  I began to be able to relax and actually let God’s grace begin to work in me, especially because of what I went through coming back from Iraq.  It worked so well that I never went back. Now I watch religious programming like Sports Center, Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption and listen to Mike and Mike in the Morning and The Tony Mercurio Show on my local ESPN station FM 94.1.  Another thing that helped me was reading Andrew Greeley’s “Bishop Blackie Ryan” mystery novels which I started doing in Iraq.  They are so full of the grace of God and numerous times have touched my very soul. It is now easier, for the most part for me to see people of all religious and political viewpoints as people who God loves and not enemies of me or the unnamed political party to which I may or may not belong.

This year Lent should be better than last when I was still battling the demons of PTSD and was trying to climb out of that hole.  That did not happen during Lent last year but began to happen during Advent and Christmas.  This year I expect to celebrate Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday when I will conduct the “Protestant” Ash Wednesday service at the Medical Center where I work and also celebrate the season with the good people of Saint James Episcopal Church who during Lent of last year embraced me and helped me reconnect with Christian community.

Of course on Fat Tuesday I will celebrate with my friends in the Stein Club at Gordon Biersch.  I will have to bring donuts for everyone that night to have with our beer.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 10, 2010 · 23:32

One Week Warning: Lent Begins Next Wednesday

Contemplating Lent

I have never ever done the season of Lent well.  From Ash Wednesday through Good Friday I pray for it to end.  First I don’t look good in the liturgical color of the season, purple.  I actually prefer the green of Ordinary time or the Red of Pentecost.  However I do have a really cool “cope” (which is liturgical jargon for cape) and stole (liturgical scarf) in purple that I picked up at little religious goods store in Poland back in 1996. I thought it was a chasuble (liturgical poncho) but it is still pretty cool.  Unfortunately I have never had the occasion to wear it in a service despite the color which would not do me well.

However aesthetics aside Lent is my least favorite season of the Church year.  Now I am not adverse to it on principle as I do think that we all need to take stock of our relationship with God and humanity as well as the things that we mess up on a daily basis.  As someone whose spiritual life stays about at the Mendoza line I know that I have a lot that I need to improve in my life.  That is a given.  I would love to be a .300 spiritual hitter than a .215 spiritual hitter.  However I do work at trying to get better.  Lent is a season that reminds me of what a screw up I am, thus like anyone who doesn’t like to be reminded of their shortcomings for 40 days I find Lent a painful reminder of my imperfections.

So with that in mind and knowing that I am not the only person who is in my boat I have to provide some survival tips but those will wait.  Since many readers have little idea what Lent is about let me do some “splainin” as Ricky Ricardo would have said.

Lent is the season of spiritual preparation that leads up to Holy Week and Easter. It is a “penitential season” meaning a season where we examine our lives in relationship to God and the folks that we hang with, sometimes referred to as humanity and seek to receive God’s grace to make amends and to find ways to do better.  One of the ways that Christians have done is to give up certain foods or activities during the season. Others seek to add spiritual disciplines to their lives.

Lent begins on the Wednesday following “Fat Tuesday” which is called Ash Wednesday. On Ash Wednesday Christians have themselves marked with a cross from ashes on their forehead as a sign of the reality of their mortality and promise to use the season to return to God, make changes in their lives that will deepen their spiritual lives and their relationship with their neighbor. It’s the whole “which are the greatest commandments?” “Love God and love your neighbor” on steroids.  Unfortunately the whole relationship thing sometimes gets lost as folks get caught in the legalism and minutia or trying to figure out what to “give up” for Lent, which often is like a New Year’s resolution which almost invariably goes bad.  Lent then continues for 7 weeks but only 40 days are actually Lenten Lent as all the Sundays are “feast days” which mean that you can eat all the stuff that you don’t get to eat on Fridays or Wednesdays if your Church or Diocese is a bit stricter than others.  There are also three major Feast Days, Saint Matthias (Apostle), Saint Joseph and the Annunciation. There is also Saint Patrick’s Day which though not a major feast day is often locally observed and of it falls on a Wednesday or Friday is sometimes is allowed by the local Bishop to supersede the fast day.  Speaking of “Fast Days” these are days where the Christian gives up most food except for a couple of very small and simple meatless meals, though some are stricter in their observance of “Fast Days” and actually fast throughout the day, not that there is anything wrong with that.  Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are “Fast Days.” There are also days known as days of abstinence where the individual gives up certain foods or activities. Traditionally meat is given up on Fridays and depending on how strict your diocese is Wednesdays as well. Most people do fish on these days.  I will write more about this later in the week.

I have struggled with Lent for most of my life even as a Priest.  When I made my first confession I asked the Priest who heard it “if they deserved it was it still as sin?” Though that was not during Lent you get my drift.  I admit that I struggle with Lent but over the past few months I have had a rather remarkable spiritual and emotional start to recovering from my case of PTSD.  So as with most things I am not in dread of Lent this year. I will pick reasonable spiritual goals as well as things to abstain from during the season.

So with the warning given enjoy the next week.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 9, 2010 · 22:27

PTSD in the Danger Zone and Blue Lights in the Rear View Mirror…Caught in the HOV damn!

Today I was able to have a pleasant chat with one of Virginia’s finest State Troopers.  The man was doing his duty and found me in violation of using the HOV-2 lane on I-264 West as I headed into work this morning. I didn’t get upset and was polite to this officer and did not make excuses to him to try to weasel out of the ticket even though I could have.  However I know that such excuse hold no weight with the officer writing the ticket, unless you are a good looking girl which I am not and I can say from past experiences that lady cops don’t take BS stories from guys they just glare at us and write the ticket, but I digress….

Any long term reader of this site knows that I am an Iraq veteran and have dealt with a pretty serious case of PTSD since my return from deployment in February of 2008, a condition that got a lot worse before it started getting better.  If you are curious my journey since that time please click the “PTSD” button on the subject list.  It has affected a considerable amount of my life, emotional, physical and spiritual and I am only really beginning to emerge from the nightmare.  However it still has an effect on me in crowded or unfamiliar places, airports and in bad traffic where I feel boxed in and vulnerable. My problems with nightmares, flashbacks and sleep problems are not as bad as they were and my life is on the uptick again, however bad traffic is a trigger.

I got started a bit late to work this morning, not real late to be late for work late, but late in the sense that the traffic was heavier than I normally deal with on my commute.  As I got on the highway the first thing that happened was that I got cut off and almost runoff the road by some idiot and once I got out into traffic things did not get better as people cut me off and boxed me in.  Anyone who has been on a lot of convoys in Iraq or Afghanistan can understand, congested areas are dangerous and for me and a good number of other veterans that I know when we get in a congested area it triggers the same hyper vigilance and need to get to a safe place or defend ourselves as similar situations in the combat zone. There are times on the road here if I had a turret gunner I would have him put a couple of rounds from the .50 cal or M240 series machine through the offending vehicle’s engine.  My hyper vigilance is keen on the road, it is among the places that I never relax and I can almost sense when someone is going to do something dangerous.

This morning was one of those kings of mornings, I had barely gone a mile down the road and I was looking for safety in an open space where I can get out of danger.  I found this today in the HOV lane and just as I thought I had gotten out of the danger zone I noticed a blue unmarked police car to my right. I immediate slowed down and moved back into the regular traffic lanes and moved toward the right anticipating that he would come and get me.  Once again I was right, he slowed down and worked his way behind me and just before the I-264 and I-64 interchange the pretty blue lights mounted in the pretty blue unmarked Chevy Impala came on and I pulled over.  The trooper asked if I knew why he had pulled me over and I acknowledged that I was in the HOV lane.  He took my license, registration and insurance paperwork as well as my military ID and about 7-8 minutes later came back with a ticket which is more like a sheet of paper and gave me the pink carbon copy.  He explained that signing was not an admission of guilt and informed me of a court date as well as how I could pay the fine early.

Was I guilty of driving in the HOV-2 without another passenger in the car?  Yes.  So by the letter of the law I am guilty.  However I do believe that I had mitigating circumstances so I will go to court not to claim that I was not where I was but to explain the danger that I felt that I was in and how I needed to get out of the danger zone.  I thought that the “Danger Stay Back” convoy sign sticker, the Multi-National Corps Iraq and “IRQ-I Served” bumper stickers would adequately identify me as someone who might be vulnerable but alas this was not the case.  The trooper was professional, polite and businesslike.  I could not find fault in anything that he did. I felt stupid that I had let myself get into the situation but at the same time knew that I was basically acting on instinct from my time in Iraq.

I will go to court to explain the mitigating circumstances and if I need to either bring a letter from or drag along Elmer the Shrink to explain this.  Who knows maybe the judge will have mercy on me, if not I pay the fine and until the state legislature passes an exemption for military personnel to use the HOV, which they are debating I will have to get blow up doll to inflate if I feel like I am in a danger zone and have to jump into the HOV.  On the way home I was able to hold it together.

So there it is, guilty as charged but with mitigating circumstances.  I know that I am not alone. I have heard countless stories of Iraq and Afghanistan vets doing the same thing in traffic.  It is no fun to feel danger.  I am an excellent driver, have driven thousands of miles on the German Autobahnen and in crazy traffic in a lot of countries as well as some of the worst traffic areas in this country, but that was before Iraq and PTSD.  I’m glad that I’m getting better but days like today show me that I still show the wear and tear from my time in Iraq and PTSD.  At least I did not have an emotional crash or anger rage that well could have happened just a few months ago.  The grace of God is good.

If you know any veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan or even those from Vietnam who suffer from stuff like this feel free to share this with them.

Pray for me a sinner,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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