Tag Archives: christmas

December 14, 2011 · 07:25

All I want for Christmas is Christmas and Our Country Back not another Political Debate

I don’t know about you but apart from the bad political theater I wish that it was like December 2012 so I could celebrate Christmas in peace, except that if it were I would miss a full baseball season.  I mean really all of our politicians seem to come from the same shallow and insipid gene pool, it’s like political inbreeding on a grand scale, even the outsiders are insiders and the insiders are so out there that it makes one want do the Linda Blair 360 or be sent back to the Dilithium mines on Rura Penthe.  Regardless the show is about the quality of an atrocious reality TV show and I’m already tired of it. The sad thing is this reality TV cast is trying to become President of the the United States and they are sucking the life out of everyone listening and stomping all over the Christmas season.  But there are just over two months before Spring Training begins so I think I can outlast them.

I feel that the political campaign season is infringing on the the great capitalistic venture that we have made Christmas but I don’t feel very that holiday spirit this year.

Now please know it is not a matter of faith or lack thereof I just don’t feel very christmassy this year.  The sad thing is I really do like Christmas and not just the part about Jesus which thankfully I still treasure.  I feel like Charlie Brown this year only instead of just the commercialization of Christmas I feel that the politicians, pundits and preachers are doing their best to make it less merry. I mean the whole lot of them. Religious and secular Atheist and God Fearing alike they seem to have turned Christmas into a political battleground that even makes the commercialization of the holiday look positively benign.

Amid all the business and the incessant drone of the politicians, pundits and preachers who have managed by their ineptitude and unwillingness to work together for the nation I still hope to find something to celebrate.  I think I will but it won’t be from any of those that are killing the season.  Frankly I am offended that political hacks have pushed the opening primaries to nearly the first of the year turning a time that used to be somewhat reflective into a self destructive and bitter political season.  We have budget and tax impasses in Congress and a bitter primary campaign that is and will trample both Hanukah and Christmas and probably even ruin the Winter Solstice for the Pagans.  There is something unholy and vile about what is happening this year, there has been no pause for reflection by our leaders, no attempts at reconciliation and certainly no good will on Capitol Hill.

Frankly I find the whole political and social atmosphere this year to be repugnant and I have nothing against Pugs. People popping pepper spray on the faces of competing shoppers on the high Holy Day of Black Friday, people walking over a dying man to continue shopping in a Target.  That is bad enough but really we do have a choice about when we start our primary season. This year had not a tiny shred of common sense prevailed had a primary or Caucus on December 27th.  Instead the first are a mere three weeks from today.

I just wonder why the rush and why the political hacks and their backers have insisted on moving everything forward on the calendar.  But then I answer myself. The fact is that they cannot help it.  They have to be the center of attention for as long as possible. Dragging the primary campaign season forward means that the rest of us have to pay attention to them. They have created the perfect poisonous self licking ice creme cone.  Power and money feed the bold narcissism of everyone in the beast of the belly of the machine. They cannot get enough.

However our politicians pundits and woebegone preachers, that unholy trinity that afflicts our nation have forgotten that old adage that “familiarity breeds contempt.”  We have become so familiar with all of the Candidates to include the President that many people can no longer stand any of them.  All the polls say that, they may support a candidate but this is no love fest between any candidate and the voters.

What I would like to see the next two weeks is for the whole bunch of our leaders, pundits and preachers to chill out, go out to a dud ranch in Montana and have a two week holiday party, get drunk, smoke some dope have a few good natured bar fights, watch football games together, sing around the campfire.  Hell maybe they can sleep together and do all the things that they tell us that we shouldn’t do, put pictures of Pelosi in bed with Eric Cantor on Facebook and You Tube and get it all out of their systems.  No debates just joyous holiday debauchery and when they come back rested refreshed and with some much incriminating information on themselves that they will all have to be good in order not to create a total meltdown of their exalted position in life and maybe start working for the rest of us.  Some would say that they all should go pray together but they wouldn’t get past the issue of who gets to be in charge. Maybe a few hearty souls of faith will pray during that time for something other than their reelection.

But in the mean time all I want for Christmas this year is Christmas. The truly sad think is that Christmas meant more when I was in Iraq.  That I do miss,  celebrating the holy mysteries of the Eucharist on Christmas Eve, Day and night with tiny groups of Americans and even a few Iraqi Christian interpreters. For me and other Christians a time where we try to take a portion of the year to remember the Advent of Jesus, that tiny manger where in our tradition God became incarnate in a baby who was called Emanuel, God with us, the Prince of Peace, the Savior of the World.  The one who comes humbly not with the swagger or polish of our modern politicians, pundits and preachers who like to use him as a campaign prop  or show segment.

Yes my Christmas will have Jesus at the center but I do plan to have some of there less relies Christmas cheer. Time with Judy and our Dog Molly, friends in the area on contact with those that we have known for the years.  I will remember and celebrate the humbly first nativity, I will reflect on the Second Coming and the times that he comes to us in the little daily things of life. The things that happen because we live in what Bonhoeffer called “the uncomfortable middle.”

I am really offended by the political hacks that have driven us to this point.  But God loves them too so I reckon that I best pray for them and that as not sarcasm.  .

I feel better already.  Thanks be to God.

Peace

Padre Steve

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November 20, 2011 · 22:37

The Advent of Early Onset Holiday Commercialization Syndrome 2011

I hate to sound like a Grinch or Scrooge type of killjoy but here on November 20th I am bothered by an attack of Early Onset Holiday Commercialization Syndrome (EOHCS). EOHCS is not yet recognized as a Disorder in the DSM IV I have to wing it here but I think that the average person probably realizes that this condition is epidemic in our society.  Since I tend to avoid malls and the big retail outlets in general I can usually avoid attacks of EOHCS mostly by ignoring the incessant “Christmas” or holiday commercials of which car commercials seem to be the most offensive this year.  However I do  have to go out in public sometimes and on those occasions must do all that I can to stay sane as EOHCS seems to come earlier than it ever did.

I had to go get groceries this afternoon and went to a “Wal-Mart Super Center” in Morehead City because they carry a particular brand of pita bread that I cannot get at any of the grocery stores in my local area.  Now I expect that when I go to any retailer after Labor Day to find Christmas specials and an encroachment of Christmas paraphernalia and gifts with each passing week.  That is a given in our consumer driven society and whether I like it or not it is a fact of life and I am not going to change it.  However I just wanted groceries and not the full on Christmas press.  Now to be sure I only go to Wal-Mart when necessary because frankly the place sets off almost every alarm in my post PTSD mind and body.  When I go my goal is to get in and out as soon as possible and avoid any crowds, congested areas and noise.  Thus I will usually go late at night as if I were a stealth commando, but today I needed to go early to get it done.

Of course the store was littered with pre-Black Friday specials and had aisles of candies, cakes, toys, and trimmings. I felt like the Grinch walking through Whoville without the sweet ambiance of that cartoon town.  As I went made my foray into the store, knowing exactly what I needed and where to find it I was assaulted by and overwhelmed with the sound of Christmas music which was louder and more obnoxious than usual. I think the most annoying of the songs I heard today was “Rocking around the Christmas Tree” sung by Brenda Lee which seems to repeated about every 15 minutes during the holiday season.  I find her voice particularly grating and about as soothing as Pee Wee Herman scratching his nails scratching on a chalkboard when I am out shopping.  Now this song is simply annoying but when I hear songs that are meant for worship of the Lord being used as a means to condition us to buy things I get offended.  Thus when I hear “Silent Night” sandwiched between advertisements on November 20th in a store I want to scream, not that there is anything wrong with that; the screaming that is.

Now I like Christmas music, so long as it is actually somewhat close to Christmas even even the non-religious songs of which Grandma Got Run over By a Reindeer is my all time favorite, but I digress.  Since liturgically speaking it isn’t even Advent yet I find such a bombardment of secular and sacred Christmas songs while grocery shopping to be offensive to my somewhat liturgically correct sensibilities.  That may seem harsh but the musical assault at Wal-Mart only increased my desire to finish shopping and get the hell out of the store as fast as my cart would carry my food.  It did not induce me to hang around to see if I wanted to spend extra money on stuff that I probably don’t need.

And we wonder while there is little sense of the Holy in our society.  The fact is that somehow we have allowed our culture to devolve to the point that we utilize actions and holidays meant to point us in the direction of the Holy and use them to satisfy our most base desires. The Holy is subordinated to the profit margins of retailers who make their money satiating our desires for the newest and greatest stuff that we can get our hands on.

I am not against people getting nice things at all or giving gifts in abundance to their loved ones or even for themselves.  I like nice stuff too and I love the celebration of Christmas in its spiritual as well as cultural derivatives.  I like Christmas trees and decorations and the festiveness of Christmas especially with friends enjoying each other and a good glass of hot Gluhwein.

I guess I think that when we turn Christmas into a months long pursuit of profits and stuff that it really cheapens and degrades the holiday, even for people that are not Christians. Really, Black Friday is the real holy day in our consumer society and what gets more push back, a store being open briefly on Christmas or Black Friday sales encroaching on Thanksgiving?

Even allegedly “Christian” retailers take advantage of the holiday even selling trinkets that say “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” or “What Would Jesus Do?” at a healthy profit.  Again I am not against people making a profit from their labors people should be compensated well for work well done. But the fact that most Jesus junk like almost everything else is now made in China or Third World countries by workers that are all but slaves doesn’t seem to enter into the equation for jesus is the reason for the season“Christian” retailers and even ministries; just as it doesn’t for everyone else seeking to make a profit off the baby born in the manger.

How sad that as a culture we have reduced the celebration of God humbly entering into the human experience to a celebration of crass economic Darwinism much more in tune with Ayn Rand than Jesus.  Paul writes in Philippians “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness….” Somehow that concept seems lost in our culture.

Oh well, what can I say?  Maybe I am a Grinch after all or maybe I can get counseling for Early Onset Holiday Commercialization Syndrome.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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December 24, 2010 · 20:55

A Melancholy Christmas Eve 2010

Ever since I returned from Iraq in 2008 Christmas has become a much more melancholy season for me. I love the Advent and Christmas season where we celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation when God condescended to be born of a woman in the fullness of time.  For me I have always found Christmas to be the most important part of the liturgical year because as I see it you don’t get to the Resurrection of Christ at Easter unless you start with the Incarnation where God becomes vulnerable. The Triune God becomes vulnerable because he elects to become incarnate by sending Jesus who comes to us in the weakness of a baby born in a time of persecution to a young mother and father. For me it was always Christ’s coming that was the great mystery of faith.

No it still is but the observance for me has shifted in focus and not due to any doctrinal changes in my life, but because of war and the cumulative effect of seeing too many young men and women die at a young age.  The effect of seeing devastated cities and towns and maimed children.  The effect of images of wounded Marines at TQ Surgical, burned, bleeding and not knowing if they lived or died after they left us sometimes haunts my attempts to sleep.

Thursday we said goodbye to yet another young sailor who died far too young, a sailor who was loved and appreciated by his shipmates and who had accomplished much during his life. I had met the young man a couple of times since reporting on board in late October and from everything that I had heard and seen he was a man that lived life and accomplished much in his all too short life here on Earth.

War has made me much more reflective and a bit melancholy at Christmas.  Three years ago I was bouncing around the western deserts of Iraq visiting advisors in isolated places and celebrating Christmas with them even while going out with them on missions. I have to say that I miss that camaraderie. In the years after I struggled with faith itself becoming for all purposes an agnostic struggling desperately to discover God again.  This year I can say that faith has returned but at the same time my heart goes out to my friends and comrades that are deployed in harm’s way, those that near the scars of war and those that have paid the ultimate price. When I see the grieving mother of one of these men or women at a memorial service it reminds me of the price paid by so many.

This is also my first Christmas without my dad. I know that last year he was suffering with Alzheimer’s and did not recognize me in November of 2009 when I last saw him alive but when I addressed my mother’s Christmas Card his death was fresh again as for the first time I addressed a Christmas card to her alone.

Last night was difficult, I slept little. I am glad to be home with Judy. We opened our presents and watched in amusement as our little dog Molly went through her Christmas ritual of unwrapping her presents. In the morning we shall celebrate a Christmas Day Mass at home as we are both rather tired and we shall wait for the snow that the weather guessers say is coming.

Yes for me this Christmas is a bit melancholy but not without faith or hope. Someday the wars will be over and men shall beat their swords into plowshares and we will know the Prince of Peace.

Merry Christmas my friends and I pray that the coming year be filled with joy.

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

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December 21, 2010 · 00:12

Christian Grinch’s: How the Puritans nearly stole Christmas

There are a lot of people now days in the United States that believe that the Christmas Holiday is under attack and to some extent they are right. It seems that lawsuits are as abundant as public displays of Christian themed holiday observance and décor as various individuals and groups attempt to expunge such observances from public life, even some of those erected on “private” property.

Now I am not one to go out and all these people are evil or even anti-Christian as some do from the pulpit and the even more influential “pulpits” of radio talk show hosts. However there are times that I have to admit that it seems that there is Grinchlike element present in our society. The Grinch’s who come in various types are often well meaning and concerned that religious displays of any kind but mostly the Christian kind will either offend people or create an environment where religious and non-religious minorities might be discriminated against by the religious folks. Thus they believe that all religious displays need to go lest someone be offended or discriminated against.

 

Above all it seems that they really don’t like the displays with the kid in the crib surrounded by a temporarily indigent family, smelly animals, even smellier migrant worker type pre-Bedouins and undocumented aliens from realms of glory.  I find the whole notion that is somehow harmful to individuals or society be quite Grinchlike and wonder of these people had their sentimental and fun glands removed at birth or simply got too many lumps of coal in their stockings.

 

Despite this I do not fear for Christmas because the celebration of Christ’s Incarnation and Nativity has survived far worse even dare I say from those within the faith.  Yes my friends way back in the bad old days a group influential in our early development as a nation the Puritans were big into cancelling Christmas.  Despite the fact that they were Christians they were pretty Grinchlike and in some sense the philosophic predecessors of those that want to banish Christmas from public life today.

 

You see after the Protestant Reformation, the English, who despite the cultured accent that we hear on the BBC or CNN World were actually more like unruly football fans in matters of religious tolerance and loving their neighbors. English Protestants of the non-monarchical reformation type did their best to rid the Church of England of anything Catholic. Of course this often included people who were Catholic or even Anglo-Catholic.  The English of all denominations tended to lop off the heads of, burn at the stake or crush with heavy stones those that deviated from the beliefs whoever was in charge. Of course those that leaned Catholic reciprocated in kind whenever they had power which made the era something like the Premier League “lite.”

 

The English Grinch and Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell


However when the Puritans took power they didn’t just decide to lop, crush and burn but they also decided to outlaw the celebration of Christmas. Of course they did so for noble reasons such as ridding the country of anything that smelled Catholic or did not fit within their rather harsh and purist views of the faith. Thus when they took power they did their best to ensure that everyone was as miserable as them. This included banning the celebration of Christmas which they objected for a number of reasons.

 

So in 1647 the Puritan dominated Parliament backed up by the brute force of the Army and Police led by Oliver Cromwell simply abolished the feast and all that went with it.  Like the Grinch himself they tried to eliminate everything including the Roast Beast. Gone were such nasty pagan ideas as Christmas Trees, feasting, caroling, and decorations. And let’s not forget the favorite target of Grinch’s everywhere, Nativity scenes, which were banned as the worship of idols. Indeed, the Puritans even frowned on the use of the word Christmas because they believed that it was akin to taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Wassailing


Not content with inflicting their beliefs on the majority of the people who simply wanted some relief for the drudgery of daily life in 17th Century England they even banned the poor from the tradition of Wassailing.  Wassailing was a custom in which the rather pungent poor would go from house to house, begging for treats in exchange for drinking a toast to the family.  The drink called wassail, was a hot spiced wine and not a vintage Napa Valley or French wine but a equally pungent English wine, thus the need for spices and heat. The result of the wassailing sometimes was an out of control drunken revelry, much like current English Football match celebrations, which is why the Puritans objected so strenuously.
Be it known that the Puritans did have their sentimental and fun glands removed on conversion had no sense of fun, or what they viewed as harmful religious practices and wanted to remove them from public life altogether.  Well altogether now: “kill the fun and sentimentality! And if need be those that practice them!” Very good you are honorary Puritans for the day doesn’t that make you feel good? It does me, I just love reenacting history sometimes.
Well this lasted until 1660 when the Lord Protector and head of the Army and Police Oliver Cromwell kicked the bucket.  The anti-Christmas laws were overturned and the populace went back to simply lopping, burning and crushing and everyone, save those being lopped, crushed or burned was happy.
Not to be outdone the Puritan colonists in the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted similar laws which were on the books from 1659 through 1681 when a newly appointed Governor in the employee of the Crown Sir Edmund Andros.  However during the time that the laws were in force everyone had a grand time. Like others in places like Iran and Afghanistan the General Court banned the celebration of Christmas and other such holidays at the same time it banned gambling and other lawless behavior. Grouping all such behaviors together the court placed a fine of five shillings on anyone caught feasting or celebrating the holiday in another manner. The law read like this:
“For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county.”

That sounds lovely doesn’t it? Just kidding. At least they didn’t go lopping, burning or crushing with heavy stones unless you were proven to be a Christmas celebrating witch. Unlike England where the lifting of the ban was celebrated with the aplomb given to a World Cup championship the Colonists up in the Massachusetts Bay Colony frowned upon the celebration until the 1820s when enough Irish showed up in Boston to turn the place around and make it the fun town that it is now.   By the way the last “State Church” in the United States was the Congregational Church in Massachusetts back in 1833, seems that they didn’t appreciate that separation of Church and States stuff thought up by Tom Jefferson and Jim Madison very much.

 

So the next time you hear about those that want to impose their beliefs to quash Christmas realize that this isn’t a new thing at all. Christians have been doing it for centuries and some of the un-fun Fundamentalists that want to re-establish the faith in the way the Puritans had imagined or legislated it to be, would do it again if they ever took control of Congress.  But for now we have to suffer those fun and sentimentality deprived army of Grinch’s that without the religious flair attempt to crush the spirit of Christmas in the name of tolerance.

 

So Merry Christmas my friends,

 

Peace
Padre Steve+

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December 11, 2010 · 01:17

Let’s Celebrate the Reason for the Season: Materialistic Consumerism

I love Christmas and after a week of relatively serious writing I felt the need to celebrate the reason for the season. That’s right, materialistic consumerism the religion with the most followers of any in the United States. Just look around and you will see that even before Halloween that Christmas paraphernalia is already filling the store shelves and if you go to one of those craft stores you might even see a manger scene complete with Freddy Krueger and the Pilgrims kneeling at the crèche surrounded by the Wise Men, shepherds, vampires and turkeys. I tell you it is a miracle to behold disparate holidays blended together as only marketing professionals can do.

I just find the holiday spirit something to behold don’t you?  I just love the solemnity of Black Friday where countless consumers spend like drunken sailors and fight like them too when they find out that Wal-Mart has run out of everything that was in the Black Friday special advertisement.  It is inspiriting I tell you to excitement and mayhem of the season.  I just love the soothing sounds of non-stop advertisements on television with happy people spending money on lavish gifts to the tune of popular holiday music celebrating Santa the Savior who has come from the North Pole to bring joy to the people showering them with gifts paid for by those little plastic cards that everyone carries in their wallet. Yes my friends it is a wondrous season where for a month following Thanksgiving we exhaust ourselves and spend ourselves into oblivion as the miracle that began on 34th Street gives us all a wonderful life.

Now of course as you might guess, Padre Steve is a Christian and like all Christians he knows that Jesus is the “reason for the season” because all the Christian stores that sell Jesus junk tell him so. Meanwhile hundreds, no verily thousands of Churches endeavor to fill the pews with new and exciting versions of the Christmas story, complete with Angel choirs made up of heavy metal bands, hip hop artists and digitally enhanced manger scenes in Dolby Surround sound and 3-D graphics complete with interactive menus. It is amazing and wondrous to behold especially when the offering plate comes round, joy to the world and pray that the church breaks even, if not take a second offering after all it’s better to receive than go broke.

You see it seems that even in matters of faith rampant consumerism and materialism has distorted the very simple message of the Gospel that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” (Gal, 4:4-5)

It is in that fullness of time in a humble stable that most of us would shy away from because of the stench that Jesus was born, born of a virgin. In that humble stable away from their home in Galilee a young couple found themselves with child while obeying the edict of Caesar to register in a census. In the fullness of time a child was born in an era of oppressive paranoid local leaders such as Herod as well as the ever wary and security conscious Romans.   He was born in an era of religious fervor where ordinary people hoped and prayed for a deliverer but where many religious leaders were more interested in keeping their power than in welcoming a Messiah, where religious leaders made money on the gifts and offerings of devout people and where a profit could be made by selling off less than perfect animals for the offering while keeping the best for the religious leaders.

Yes my friends it was a time not very different from our own.  Somehow I think that Jesus would scratch his head in bewilderment in he were to walk the mall, watch a little television and visit a church or two and see just how he is marketed but allegedly Christian people. It’s funny how little things change in 2000 years.  I wonder if Jesus would get one of those WWJD bracelets or perhaps a few copies of The Prayer of Jabez? I wonder if he would turn over the tables in the Jesus junk stores and foyers of churches. I wonder if he would shed tears over the constant bombardment of advertisements telling people who are losing their homes to spend more money and of the rich passing the poor by on the streets.  I wonder if he would bless the practice of usury that undergirds our economy while impoverishing debtors that so many of his people support as being good for the economy.  I wonder about so much more including if Jesus would support the way that we celebrate him.  Somehow I think that he would be more upset about the way that his people treat him than those that are of other religious faiths or those that have left churches because of any number of abuses by both clergy and lay people.

Maybe I just wonder too much, but don’t you?

Padre Steve+

 

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December 2, 2010 · 01:11

Advent 2010: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Christmas Eve 2007 with Border Team and Bedouin family on Syrian Border

The Season of Advent and the celebration of the Incarnation of Jesus on Christmas and during the Christmas Octave is my favorite season of the Church year. I have always even as a child been mesmerized by the aspect of hope that is intrinsic to the celebration, the twofold emphasis on the time leading to the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary in the manger of Bethlehem and the personalities involved to the promise of the Second Coming which was considered the “Blessed Hope” by the early Church which believed that the event would occur during their time as has the Church in times ever since.

I think the most meaningful season of Advent and Christmas that I have known was my time in Iraq in 2007.  At the time I was travelling about the remote western regions of Al Anbar province with my trusty assistant RP2 Nelson Lebron.  We had been doing this kind of work at a steady pace travelling thousands of miles by air and ground to be with the Military Training Teams that were assigned to the 1st and 7th Iraqi Divisions and those of the Border Training Teams assigned to the 2nd Border Brigade as well as Army advisors assigned to the Iraqi Police and Marines working with the Iraqi Highway Patrol.  By the time we made our far west Christmas expedition which lasted almost two weeks.  The immediate days around Christmas were spent on the Syrian Border with the teams assigned to the 1st and 3rd Battalions, 3rd Brigade 7th Division and Border forces at COP South and COP North.

As we traveled the area with our teams, especially Captain Josh Chartier’s Military Training Team and Major Stan Horton’s Border team out of COP South I was taken in by the Bedouin camps that dotted the desert because in so many ways they lived a life so similar to the shepherds that received the angelic visitation recorded in the Gospel according to Saint Luke.  The Bedouin are nomads and travel where they can tend flocks or fields according to the season.  On December 23rd we traveled with Major Horton’s team visiting both the Bedouin in the area and the Iraqi Border Forces in a number of border forts along the Syrian border which at the time was a major conduit for money and arms being smuggled to Al Qaeda Iraq and indigenous Iraqi insurgents.  The Iraqi troops were most hospitable as were the Bedouin who hosted us in their tents or homes.  We delivered toys, candy and school supplies to the Bedouin kids and were treated to food and Ch’ai tea. Had it not been late and we had not had more sites to visit we would have taken the invitation of the head of one Bedouin family to have dinner with him.

That night we celebrated a Christmas Eve Eucharist a day early for the teams at COP South.  Since we were the only Religious Ministry team that spent any real time with the isolated teams like these it was a special occasion for all, one man in particular, one of the Iraqi interpreters, a Christian who had not been able to attend a Mass of any kind for over two years.  The next day we would travel 50 miles of often very rough roads and trails to the even more isolated COP North where we did the same for the members of those teams and had a wonderful Christmas day and eve with these Marines.

That was the most meaningful Advent and Christmas season I had ever seen. It was a season without all the bells and whistles, without all the commercialism and distractions to take away from the simplicity of the message that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children” (Galatians 4:4-5) the simple message of redemption and the grace and mercy of God that has been shown to all people and is the heart of the season.

After my return from Iraq I experienced a major spiritual and emotional collapse related to PTSD which changed me in fairly significant ways.  For nearly two years I struggled desperately to recover faith that was lost after I returned home.  I was overwhelmed with the turbulence of the country, a disastrous series of splits in my old church, feeling abandoned by the Navy and dealing with the long, slow and painful demise of my father due to the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. I am told that I am not alone in what I went through.  I begin this Advent having made the transition from my old church to the Apostolic Catholic Orthodox Church which is a North American expression of the Old Catholic faith and I am quite at peace with that move.

After nearly two years faith returned during Advent due to an event in the Medical Center that I worked in where I provided the last rights to an Anglican patient as he drew his last breathe in our ER. I call it my “Christmas miracle.”   https://padresteve.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/padre-steve%E2%80%99s-christmas-miracle/

It was ironic and fitting that my spiritual rebirth came in the midst administering the Sacrament of the Anointing of the sick.  Faith has returned and unlike last year when in the midst of my personal gloom and despair I rediscovered faith and the wonder of the season I look forward to the fullness of the season.

I don’t know how much I will write about the season this year, certainly some articles but I do look forward to the continued rediscovery of faith in the Incarnate God.

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

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December 24, 2009 · 18:26

Padre Steve’s Christmas Miracle

Merry Christmas!

I do not throw the word miracle around lightly.  In fact I generally get irritated when I hear people calling things miracles that are no such thing such as giving God credit for the screw ups or successes of people.  I heard of a case recently where someone’s loved one had a preliminary test that showed possible cancer. Of course the person was upset and asked people to pray.  A second confirmation test was done and it turned out that the first was a “false positive.”  False positive tests are a part of the whole medical package, people and machines make mistakes.  The person sent an e-mail out to announce that the test had been a false positive and then proceeded to say that it had to be God healing the relative in question, not a mistake.  I think that to makes such a claim actually cheapens the term “miracle” and does God a disservice.  God at least to my understanding does pretty well on his or her own.   It is like in baseball where an infielder commits an obvious error that is glaring and the official scorer scores the play as a hit.  Now I rejoice that this person’s loved one did not have cancer, but the fact was that they never had cancer to begin with and thus to call the event a miracle is rather silly.  The same is true when a medical team works their ass off to save someone from death, does everything right and makes the save only to have people give all the credit to God.  Once again I have no doubt that God can be involved but to simply write off the efforts of dedicated people is to do a disservice to God.  I think that God is okay with people that he or she created getting credit where credit is due.

Miracles are rare and not everything is a miracle.  So when I say that I am experiencing a miracle I am certainly not doing so just to make me look deserving or extra spiritual.  Anyone who knows me knows that such a claim would be fraudulent.   I think that miracles related to one’s spiritual and psychological condition are rare and since there is no lab test to prove that you are all better that they are difficult to quantify.  When I hear people talk about being completely “healed” in such matters I am a wait and see kind of person, as Ronald Reagan once said: “Trust but verify,” especially in regard to anything to do with me, simply because I don’t want to look like an ass or by my claims make God look stupid when they do not pan out.

The past couple of years have been the hardest of my life.  I have talked about the effects of PTSD, issues with my father’s Alzheimer’s disease, my own sense of alienation and isolation, anxiety, depression and the crisis of faith that I experienced quiet a few times so I will not rehash them in this essay.  The reality is that they are a reality that I have had to try to come to grips with.  For most of this time I have existed in a world where everything hurt and I struggled to believe.  Imagine having to pray for people when you are wondering if God even exists at times.  To put it mildly it sucks.   That has been my world, despite my expertise at what I do and the pent up knowledge that exists in the gray matter mounted in my bald brain housing group it has been a struggle to keep going.

While PTSD, anxiety and depression are major issues I think the thing that made them worse was how alone I felt and how it seemed that God had abandoned me.  I think that was actually more frightening than the nightmares, insomnia, fear and everything else associated with my experience in and return from Iraq.  I believe, at least from my experience that a crisis of faith and feeling alienated and abandoned by God is one of the most frightening and dehabilitating things that can happen to a Priest or any other minister.  In fact I am pretty sure that when you ask ministers who have left the ministry that somewhere in their experience is a crisis of faith. That might be hidden by other circumstances but I’m pretty sure that it is there.

Christmas in Iraq…The Last Time I Felt the Presence of God…until Now

The past 22 months since returning from Iraq have been a terrible ordeal in an emotional and spiritual sense, however something has begun to happen and I cannot place my finger on it but somehow I am beginning to feel touched buy the grace of God again.  It actually began quite unexpectedly.  I came home from a disastrous trip to visit my parents in November completely wiped out and depressed.  It seemed that I had crashed yet again and I expected that this Christmas would be no different than that of last year where I left Mass before it began and walked for an hour in the dark and cold wondering where God had gone.  So when things started to happen, beginning ironically with the experience of performing the last rites for a patient in our ER and experiencing a number of other situations where I again felt part of something bigger than me I was surprised.  Lo, even astonished at events that I couldn’t explain were happening as well as the fact that people care for me, all kinds of people, co-workers, friends from baseball, friends from Gordon Biersch and friends from church.  I think that is where I began to realize that God might just care and maybe that there was hope for me again that maybe what I did mattered.

Today was a busy day as I walked about the medical center.  I saw the work of my physician, nurse, corpsmen and technicians of various sorts as they fought to save the lives of people.  I spent time with our staff as they worked to stabilize a very sick child for transport to another hospital in a last ditch attempt to save the child’s life as the child’s mother looked on.  I watched our ER team assisted by one of our anesthesiologists from the ICU work to save the life of an elderly man and get him to the ICU.  I saw surgeons and neurologists evaluating and working with a fairly young man who is in dire straits.  For all of these folks Christmas Eve and Christmas day are days that they are “in the fight.” They are days where the miracle is real, but not evidenced to all.  I am amazed by the skill, dedication and care of all of these folks who are attempting to ensure that Christmas does not end badly for others, both the patients in their charge as well as their family members.

Mid afternoon I was walking down the hall and I experienced a wave of emotion flood over me, and unlike the majority of emotions that I have felt in the past couple of years this was different.  It was a feeling of grace and I guess the presence of God.  I went up and talked with Elmer the shrink about what I was feeling and the experience was awesome, I was in tears as I shared, not the tears of sadness, but of grace.  I am beginning to re-experience the grace of God, something that has been so long absent that I did not expect it, at least right now.  I didn’t do anything differently; I certainly was not working extra hard to pray more, get more spiritual or pack my brain full of Bible verses.  I was too far gone to do those things.  It was all I could do many mornings just to get out of bed and come to work.

Now I know that I still have some hurdles in regard to my PTSD and that I am still not a “full up round” spiritually, but I have hope again. I am not the same Christian or Priest that I was before Iraq.  I have changed in a lot of ways, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.  I know I have a long way to go, but for the first time in this see that I might actually get there.

I guess that is the miracle. Last year I dreaded the very thought of Christmas and this year I look forward to the Advent of Jesus, the Christ.  That in the middle of life and death, experiencing pain, alimentation and all that I have described that something has touched my life and I have hope again.  Tonight the Abbess is singing at her 5 PM Mass while I attend the 6 PM Mass over at Saint James Episcopal on my way home from work.  When we get home we will have dinner together, open presents, watch Molly open her presents and probably if I have my way watch funny Christmas movies and specials as we spend the night together.

I pray that you will experience some measure of grace this Christmas, or whatever you celebrate.  I do pray that God will protect us all and that we will be able to experience together the grace, mercy and peace of God.

Merry Christmas my friends, thank you for being there for me this year.

As Tiny Tim said at the end of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol: “May God bless us all.”

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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December 24, 2009 · 00:59

Padre Steve’s Meditation on the Nativity

“Actually, Lucy, my trouble is Christmas. I just don’t understand it. Instead of feeling happy, I feel sort of let down.” Charlie Brown in “A Charlie Brown Christmas”


When Christmas comes and you struggle with faith, see little hope and even despair of life, even the thought of Christmas coming can make the season even more difficult.  I know, I have gone through this since my return from Iraq.  Christmas 2008 was so frightful due to PTSD symptoms, insomnia, anxiety, depression and a crisis in faith that I could see little to hope in.  It was so difficult that before Mass began at the Abbess’s parish that I couldn’t stay.  I walked home in the cold and dark, not directly home but the long way looking up at the heavens and wondering if God was even there.  For the first time in my life I could really relate to Charlie Brown.  That as I have mentioned before was actually a terrifying thought.  Even in the darkest of times in seminary I never lost hope and always felt something special at Christmas.  In Iraq in 2007 I felt an incredible closeness to God as I traveled about to my advisers along the Iraqi-Syrian border having the chance to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Eucharist and spend time with our guys and distributing toys, school supplies and cold weather clothing to Bedouin families who invited us in for Ch’ai tea and food.  But in 2008 faith was dry and hope, well hope was something that I prayed for as I walked home that Christmas Eve.

This year has been one of ups and downs but I have noticed that I have been feeling better the past few weeks.  Yes I still have problems sleeping but I am actually trying to get to bed earlier but I still have my struggles with faith and God but unlike last year I am looking forward to the celebration of Christ’s Incarnation.  The message of “Emmanuel, God with Us” is something that I find resonating again.  Maybe it was in that moment a couple of weeks back where I was on call and ended up having the blessing of doing an anointing, or “last rites” of a retired Navy doctor who had done his internship at my hospital and having the experience of having him breathe his last as I completed the rites.  There was something miraculous about that man, his life and faith that allowed the Deity Herself to somehow let me be on call and respond with exactly what he desired in his final moments on this earth.  Maybe it was running into a lady who had spent two months in our ICU earlier in the year.  At numerous times her condition was so critical that it appeared that she would die. However she spotted me is I was filling my cup of water and ice in the hospital food court and pulled me aside.  She was doing great and thanked me for being there for her.  Then there were other times where I was able to get outside of my problems and be part of other people’s lives, many times those who are critically ill like Sadie Harrell who on her death bed took the time to bless those around her, give directions to her family and before asking for more pain medications telling me that it was time to pray.   I could give the accounts of numerous people, staff and patients at our hospital as well as people at church, friends that I have known for years and people that I have gotten to know through this website and Facebook as well as my friends at the Church of Baseball, Harbor Park Parish and Gordon Biersch.

Some of those have been through responses of people to what I write on this website.  A few days ago I heard from the son of my ROTC training NCO Master Sergeant Harry Zilkan who passed away a few years back.  I talked about Sergeant “Z” in my post “Remembering the Veterans in my Life.”  I was honored to hear from him and hear how much he appreciated what I said about his dad.  When I started this site back in February I saw it as an outlet for me, and that it has been, at the same time I find that there are people very much like me who have walked in similar shoes who have been blessed by what I write.  This is actually quite humbling.

Like I said this year has been different. I still have a hard time with prayer though extemporaneous prayer on the behalf of others is becoming relatively normal again even if I still have not been able to resume my regular prayers of the Daily Office which died during Lent because they had become rote and were more of a duty than a part of life.  I had never expected that, but I think I will use the Nativity to begin again.

This has been a year of transition as I have struggled with a crisis of faith, the seeming absence of God, PTSD, anger, depression and anxiety the condition of my father with his Alzheimer’s disease and problems dealing with my mother.  Likewise, I find that the feeling of being vulnerable, weak and the pain of having to deal with all of those emotions for the first time that I can remember is not where I want to be, but does give me empathy for those who have lived with these feelings for years.  In a sense I have began to be part of that community.  At the same time despite all of this that faith is returning and I can sense hope again.  Even the Scriptures for the season and the songs and carols are touching me again.  The sense of tradition in the liturgy at church has been good for me since beginning to attend Saint James Episcopal Church in Portsmouth.  I am finally beginning to hope again.

For me this comes in “the fullness of time” at least my time. The scripture from Galatians comes to mind. This is part of the Sunday liturgy for the Sunday after Christmas this year:

4But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. 6And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our* hearts, crying, ‘Abba!* Father!’ 7So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.* Galatians 4:4-7 NRSV

I once again feel the message of deliverance spoken of by the prophet Zephaniah:

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
15The Lord has taken away the judgments against you,
he has turned away your enemies.
The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
you shall fear disaster no more. Zephaniah 3:14-15

Tonight I will be at Saint James even as the Abbess sings at the 5 PM Mass at her parish.  I am looking forward to the Mass tonight.

I do pray that whatever you are doing tonight and regardless of whether you are a Christian or not that you will know joy, peace and the presence of God this season.  I think of the Jewish physicians at the Medical Center who are covering today and tomorrow to allow their Christian colleagues to attend services and be with their families.  God bless you guys, you’re the best!

As I said yesterday, Merry Christmas or whatever you do.

Peace and blessings,

Padre Steve+

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December 23, 2009 · 00:00

Merry Christmas or Whatever You Celebrate

“It’s Christmas Eve. It’s-it’s the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we-we-we smile a little easier, we-w-w-we-we-we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year we are the people that we always hoped we would be.” Bill Murray as Frank Cross in Scrooged


Well, not exactly Christmas Eve….but who’s counting?

Well just a couple of days left until Christmas Eve which if you are Catholic, Anglican or Orthodox actually counts the same as Christmas day for sacramental purposes.  The Parish that the Abbess attends is having its “Midnight Mass” at 9 PM but I should not criticize.  When I was out visiting the little camps of advisers on the Iraqi-Syrian border in 2007 I moved the Christmas Eve Vigil Mass to the 23rd for the Marines and other advisers at COP South.  I figured no one else was out doing Christmas with these guys so why not, after all it was already Christmas Eve somewhere.

Anyway, I want to take this time to thank my readers and wish them a Merry Christmas, unless of course they are Jewish, Happy Hanukah.  Of course I have other friends and readers who are of different faiths or non-faiths.  I wish all my Wiccan readers a belated Happy Winter Solstice, my Moslem readers a Happy Eid. To my Atheist readers have a happy day off. Finally to the Jehovah’s Witness readers, sorry you get no presents and not only that if you guys are right only about one half of one percent of you will get to do anything other than pick fruit and pet animals for eternity anyway so enjoy. Heck even Atheists can buy presents for people at Christmas without any guilt because it helps the economy and makes people feel good.

So since everyone has reason to celebrate let us do so.  Of course many still have some hurdles to get over before you can open whatever presents you get, buy for yourself or can’t have because you’re a Jehovah’s Witness.  Among those things are fighting crowded malls, post offices, bad traffic and people infected with the holiday spirit which I think might also be called “road rage.”  Anyway most of us will navigate these treacherous waters as we travel over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s second ex-husband’s girlfriend’s brother’s house for some holiday cheer.  Actually the Abbess and I will spend it together and with our friends Pat and Jim, but most people call him Jim for Christmas day.

Anyway all seriousness aside the holidays, whichever one you celebrate, or don’t celebrate can be fraught with dangers toils and snares; from some of which we have not already come.  Yes there are the “Ghosts of Christmas Past,” the Christmas’s or other holidays that went to hell and are forever embedded in the back of our pea brains just waiting to jump out in the middle of the night.  Of course there are the “Ghost’s of Christmas Present,” the “demons” that crowd our daily lives that show up when we don’t want them to and causing us stress, pain and undue anxiety.  Finally there are the “Ghost’s of Christmas Yet to Come” that inhabit our dreams and either causing us to give in to fatalism and despair or to make a change for the better, I believe that in the latter case Christians call this repentance, but regardless of what it is called it is the better option.  Christmas and I guess other folk’s holidays can do this to you.

I mentioned in a previous article on this site about my crisis of faith since my return from Iraq how difficult Christmas can be and how fragile faith can be.  For a lot of people the holidays bring up all the hurt, pain, failure and rejection they have ever experienced rolled into a big turd sandwich served cold with chips instead of fries and Pepsi instead of Coke. Having gone through this last year I can understand just how people can despair in a time that should be full of hope, grace and peace. One person I know told me that Charlie Brown couldn’t compete with them. I

In our house this can be a difficult time mainly due to the Ghosts of Christmas past that inhabit both of our lives and the “Ghosts of Christmas Yet to Come: which occasionally pay their visits.  However we work hard not to let that happen. Over the past few weeks the Abbess has been working on making decorations for our tree.  Now we have tons of decorations for the tree, many from Germany.  However she has decided that she decided she wanted to do something different this year.  She made what has to be hundreds of ornaments out of various beads, crystals, ribbons and bows.  Between that and a lot of other activities we are exhausted.  I ended up after she went to bed decoration the tree.  The ornaments look great. I went to bed and of course got up before her to go to work. I turned on the tree lights and turned the other lights off. The tree was beautiful and when she got up she got to see the fruit of her hard work.  It was cool and the tree is beautiful.

Today I was fortunate to get off a bit early.  I was able to get home and go with the Abbess to visit East Berlin to do some shopping.  This to locals is known as the base commissary although Wal-Mart is often very similar.  If you have read anything on this site regarding my dealings with the Ghost of PTSD know that crowds are not good for me unless they are in a ballpark. The commissary is a place that I do not like going but it was a necessary trip.  I survived though it did feel like my skin was crawling as I got stuck in the far corner of the store were the checkout line began, just like the stores in East Berlin before the Wall came down.  Having been to East Berlin and waited in long lines in crowded stores to attempt to buy what was not there I get flashbacks, especially when the line Nazi, or better put Line Stasi agent tells you which checkout stand to proceed to when you get to the front of the line.

Now I’m sure that many of you will visit your own version of East Berlin be it in a mall, a Wal-Mart or a base Exchange or commissary in the next couple of days, but be of good cheer in spite of everything you won’t have to brave this again until the 26th when you have to take stuff back and deal with people in worse moods and dispositions than those that were out before Christmas as well as those who are angling for bargains and willing to kill you to get them. I can understand why Frank Costanza created “a Festivus for the rest of us.”  Of course in my family we sometimes experienced the airing of grievances but not the feats of strength associated with that holiday.  Serenity now!

So until Christmas or whatever holiday that you might or might not celebrate let us “don we now our happy clothing” as we “deck the halls” while we drive our SUVs to Grandmother’s ex-second husband’s girlfriend’s house to watch football games in anticipation of baseball season as spring training begins in just under two  months.

So until then have a blessed Christmas or whatever holiday you do or don’t do this year.

Peace, Padre Steve+

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December 15, 2009 · 23:59

Padre Steve’s Favorite Christmas Movies and Shows

“Where do you think you’re going? Nobody’s leaving. Nobody’s walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We’re all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We’re gonna press on, and we’re gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny Kaye.”

This is the time of year that a lot of Christmas movies are shown on almost every television outlet known to humanity.  Of course there are many that are absolutely timeless such as “Miracle on 34th Street,” “White Christmas” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” There are also ones of various religious themes, usually involving the birth of Jesus, like no duh, it’s Christmas. Unfortunately most of these films as classic as they are bore me to tears.  Yes they have nice messages and tug at the heartstrings but without wanting to sound too much like Scrooge I get bored by them.  I guess part of this is a generational thing.  The ones set in the 1930s and 1940s are from a different era, an era that I know from history books and family members but not something that is a part of my life.  It’s like the film “The Bell’s of Saint Mary’s” is about the Roman Catholic Church of a half century ago, not the one that I know.  They are fictional and while touching are indelibly tied to their time.  The religious themed films tended often to be major productions and Hollywood Gospel.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that but I’m sorry Cecil B. De Mille did not write the 5th Gospel, or the 6th Book of Moses (You have to know your Luther Bible for that one.)

Frank Cross (Bill Murray) with the Ghost of Christmas Past

Instead every year there are several Christmas movies and television shows that I cannot live without seeing.  Of the television shows my all time favorite is “A Charlie Brown Christmas” followed by “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” As a kid I had a deep affinity for both Charlie Brown and Linus. The frustration of Charlie Brown with the commercialization of Christmas was something that resonated in me at a young age.  Likewise Linus’ reading of the Luke’s account of the Angel’s message to the shepherds always brings tears to my eyes.  As for the Grinch, and I mean the television Grinch where Boris Karloff voiced the part of the Grinch not the Jim Carey movie version it has always been a favorite of mine.  I find the plot of the Grinch to steal Christmas from the “Whos” of “Whoville” to be a masterful account of how the message of Christmas can touch even the smallest and coldest of hearts.  Of course I absolutely loved the Grinch’s dog “Max.”

As far as movies I have watched “Scrooged” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” almost religiously and am doing so tonight.  I relate to both of the main characters in both movies.  That’s not necessarily a compliment to me, but when I watch both there are times that I almost need to cover my eyes because of the resemblance, especially the scene in Christmas Vacation” where Clark Griswold, played by Chevy Chase starts kicking his decorative reindeer and sleigh across the lawn when he can’t get his house lights on and his rants about when his Christmas Tree goes up in flames and when his family tries to leave are scary close to the way that I can act under the stress of the holidays.  The Abbess says that this indeed is me and I agree.  Three other films that get me are “Home Alone” and “A Christmas Story” and though not really a Christmas story “Trading Places.” These are what I grew up with and which were the films about Christmas as it takes place in the United States that I became an adult in that typify my era, not that of my grandparents.  I think that is why they are my favorites and not the classics of a bygone time.  Of course there is the “Festivus” episode of “Seinfeld” that is almost scary in how things were in my house with my folks, I think at times we only lacked the “feats of strength” and the Festivus Pole to complete the picture.  Likewise when George makes up a fake charity called “The Human Fund: Money for People” to give to the folks at Kruger Industrial Smoothing it cracks me up because I know that there are people who give gifts in other people’s names to charity.

Finally I like the “X-Files” Christmas episode where Ed Asner and Lilly Tomlin played ghosts in a haunted house that Agents Scully and Mulder get trapped in while investigating a case.

Okay, so these are not the classics of a bygone era, but they are my classics and I will enjoy Charlie Brown, Linus, the Grinch, Clark Griswold, Frank Cross, the Costanzas and the rest of my warped favorites as I rediscover Christmas.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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