Rewriting the Bible: How to make God in our image

There is an interesting passage that one can find in the book of Genesis chapter 1 verse 27.  In the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible it reads as follows, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”  This is one of the most theologically and anthropologically  deep passages in all of Scripture, it is also one of the most debated. What does it mean for man (in this context it means mankind) to be created in the image of God?  Does it mean that God has a physical body with two legs and two arms, a head and a torso (many would say yes; what else could the word image mean)?  Does it mean that God has a soul just like ours or that God knows the difference between good and evil like we do? Maybe it means that God has freewill and is not governed merely by instinct like animals and plants (yes, I believe plants have instincts). 

Regardless of the actual meaning of this passage I think we would all be much better off if we edited it out of our Bibles and our lives. After all, if we are all created in the image of God and called to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (MT 5:48 may also need some editing) wouldn’t that just turn us all into a bunch of mindless I love Jesus zombies without any sort of personality or will of our own?  Does this idea of Catholicism, nay Christianity in general not rob us of our freedom?  As free men and women are we not obliged to demand a rewriting of scripture and say that we the people of the United States in order to demand a more perfect union with god and each other, establish relativism, and wipe away individual consciences, do hereby declare that god is actually created in the image of man? 

If we are successful then there can be as many images of man as there are people on the face of the planet. Such gods would never be displeased with us because they are our reflection and we are the ultimate reality.  We would never have to worry about going against our consciences again because we would be able to rewrite God to always be on our side.  We would eliminate all prejudices against sinful behavior because with god created in our image we know that we will be right, no matter what we choose. Those with the political clout can make new laws determining morality for everyone and be perfectly justified in doing so. After all, god is created in their image just as much as he is created in yours. The next leaders can do the same. Right and wrong, good and evil lose all meaning and become merely synonyms for legal and illegal.  Anyone who said anything different would be locked up or sent to a re-education camp. Religions who preached against being forced to violate their consciences and participate in actions that for over 2000 years they have held to be intrinsically evil would be ignored. If they persisted they would be fined huge sums of money and their leaders would be imprisoned. Sound Orwellian? Watch your back; the government is already knocking at our doors.

I recently read a poem titled The Hangman which I personally think sums up the whole situation with the new HHS mandate requiring the Catholic Church to provide contraception (including abortifacients), sterilizations, etc. The Catholic Church is the biggest dog on the block so to speak and if the government is able to push around and force us to violate our consciences there will be no one else to stop them.  If you haven't contacted your representatives yet you should so soon.

The Issue of Morality: Do laws really decide right and wrong?

Chesterton once wrote that “art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.” I would agree with him, but I would also say that that both art and morality are alike in another fashion. In order to be considered “good” we have to know precisely where to draw the line. I can give my 6 month old a pen and a piece of blank paper and he will draw some lines. This doesn’t make it good art (though it may still be refrigerator worthy). In the same way drawing a moral line wherever we like it doesn’t constitute “good” morality. Saying that rape and murder are the only offenses worthy of being banned by law and claiming that you are a moral person is the equivalent of comparing the drawing of my 6 month old to a Monet or a Picasso; it simply doesn’t work. 

Shawn cannot create good art, and to insist that he can is foolish. Yet with morality we spend enormous amounts of time and effort trying to convince each other that wrong is right and right is intolerant and therefore wrong. We do so not in a desire to live in an evil fashion, but rather to live happily. I think the problem lies in trying to understand just exactly what the true purpose of morality is. For many it has become merely a social construct that is shaped and molded by human laws and efforts. If the law says it is legal, than it must be morally acceptable. By changing laws and legislation we can change what is right and wrong. Unfortunately we know that in all reality this cannot actually be true. If slavery was legal it would still be morally unacceptable.  The same logic applies for murder, rape, stealing, etc. Merely legalizing an act has very little to do with its true moral value.

What, then, is morality? Ultimately, the task of human morality is to match our ideas of good and evil to those of God.  If we truly believe that God is completely good (which He is), then we can only be “good” when we are acting the way He wants us to act. It all goes back to the book of Genesis and being created in the image and likeness of God. If we think of our actions as a portrait that we are painting, and the person we are painting is God, then our morality is either good or bad depending on how closely it resembles God.  When we grapple with difficult moral decisions like abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality we must be careful not to try and paint a portrait of God that makes us feel good and then demand that He change to fit our picture. Morality, like art, is about expressing truth.  Absolute truth never changes, no matter what laws we pass.  We are only truly good when we live our lives the way that God (who is ultimate goodness) has asked us to.

Sitting in the silence

I love winter time, especially here in Wenatchee. I am a big fan of the snow and Wenatchee usually gets just enough to keep me wanting more rather than making me live in terror of needing to go to the store on icy roads. Last week when it snowed my son and I went out and gathered snow from a parking lot in order to improve our sledding hill. It was a lot of fun and he learned that sometimes you have to work hard for something, even a good sledding hill.  My favorite part of winter, however, is the silence.  I have always loved to sit outside when it is snowing and be immersed in the weather and the silence. It can only really happen in the winter. In the spring it is damp and rainy. The rain makes noise and soaks through your clothing in about 5 minutes. In the summer and fall the weather is so beautiful that everyone is outside enjoying it. Kids are running around playing and families are barbequing and picnicking. It is a great time to be outside, but it is rarely silent. In the winter, especially in the evenings everything is quiet and peaceful. The snow is cold as it falls around you, but with a good coat and maybe a sweatshirt underneath it really isn’t that big a deal. You can sit or stand outside and watch the snow fall in almost complete silence. In our modern culture of radio, television, hand held video games, and portable music players. We have become a culture that is in many ways afraid of silence. We have a desire to fill our ears and our minds with some sort of entertainment. While I don’t think it is bad to listen to music or watch TV (I do a fair amount myself) we also need to learn how to appreciate the silence. When God spoke to the prophet Elijah in the Old Testament in was in a still small voice, not over booming speakers or a rushing wind. As we examine our prayer lives and think about ways we can do better, I think silence is an important factor. Sitting in silence is an act of listening. It can be challenging to hear the voice of God in our lives if we never try to unplug from all the other noise that is around us. When I go outside and sit in the silent snowfall, it isn’t necessarily to pray the Rosary or any other kind of formalized prayer. It is usually just to sit outside  with a hot cup of coffee or tea and just appreciate all the wonderful things God has given me or done in my life. Sometimes it is good to just sit in the silence and take in the world that God has created for us. Even though it may seem like we are doing nothing, listening to God is the most productive thing we can do in our lives. Since it hasn’t snowed a whole lot yet this winter, it is my hope that there are still plenty of good afternoons and evenings out there to sit and meditate on the wonders of God in the silence.

Life lessons from the Tardis

“Wish I had never met you Doctor, I was much better off as a coward.” These words were spoken by Captain Jack as he went to face his death.  For those unfamiliar with what I am talking about, this scene occurred at the end of season 1 (of the new seasons) of a show called Dr. Who. The Doctor (that is his name) and his associate Rose travel through time and space encountering aliens and solving problems.  The above scene occurs as the Doctor’s mortal enemies, the Daleks are about conquer the earth and then go on to attempt to destroy the universe.  Jack dies trying to give the Doctor enough time to save everyone. The Doctor has a plan, but in order to destroy the Daleks, he would have to destroy every living thing on earth as well. The human race would still survive since there are human colonies on other planets, but billions of innocent lives would still be lost. Does he save the universe at the cost of a few billion lives? No. In the end he can’t do it.  The biggest reason is that the Doctor loves the human race (he isn’t human).  In spite of all the knuckle headed decisions we make, he still believes in us. He has seen all of human history with his time machine and knows that it will turn out good in the end. He believes in humanity’s ability to overcome any obstacle and bounce back.  In the end he would rather die than become a killer himself. It is not unlike God’s view of humanity.  I laugh at Jack’s parting line, because at times it has seemed so applicable in my life towards God. I can see myself saying “I wish I had never met you Lord, I was much better off as a coward.” I wouldn’t really mean it any more than Jack did. When Jack met the Doctor, he was a con artist. The Doctor ended up saving his life and invited Jack to join him on his journey through space and time. Jack turned from being a selfish con artist into a valuable member of the team due to the Doctor’s influence in his life. The Doctor has that effect on people throughout the series. When he shows up people change for the better.  Again, not unlike Christ. A constant story of salvation and change.  When we meet the Lord, and I mean really meet Him, our lives are changed forever. We can be like certain characters and try to pretend that nothing ever happened, but we can only lie to ourselves for so long. In the end we are forced to come to grips with the fact that we are no longer who we were before. If we choose to embrace what Christ offers we may one day wonder if we were, in fact, better off as cowards.  As we run forward to lay down our lives for a cause greater than ourselves we will know that that is not really true. To live a noble and virtuous life is not always easy, but it is always worth it. This Gaudete Sunday don’t forget to rejoice. Christ not only loves you, but He believes in you. He knows that each one of us has what it takes if we will only trust in Him. We are never alone, even in death.

To be a hero: From Hercules to John Wayne, can we measure up?

I have always been a huge fan of ancient mythology. From the Greeks and the Romans to the Norse, mythology is fascinating, fun, and sometimes deeply tragic. By its very nature it is filled with heroes, world changing battles and love stories.  I am especially fond of some of the heroes. Mythological heroes represent  the very best of man’s nature, played out on a grand scale and with universe altering consequences.  On a smaller scale it is similar to the heroes of American Mythology, the cowboys.  From Hercules to John Wayne, however, the question that was always on my mind growing up was, “how can I be a hero?”  I don’t think this is an unusual for people to ask of themselves, especially young men. Even more, I think it is an important question. I think it represents that part of each of us deep down that seeks something great. As St. Augustine once said, “my heart is restless oh Lord until it rests in you.”  But what does it mean for our hearts to rest in God and how does that relate to a desire for greatness?  For me St. Augustine’s words are a constant reminder that my heart cannot be truly satisfied with anything that I will encounter in this world. I have to go beyond my humanity and dive into the supernatural realm. This is exactly what Sacraments of the Catholic Church invite us to do in a very real way.  When we receive the Eucharist our very souls are purified of our venial sins and our bodies are nourished by receiving the flesh of God. Mere contact with the supernatural, however, is not what makes one a hero. In fact most super heroes rise up when they are needed to fight a super villain. As Uncle Ben told us in Spider Man, “with great power comes great responsibility” and everyone chooses to accept that responsibility. A hero needs more than super powers, he needs character.  A real hero needs to be someone who is truly good, or at least striving towards that end.  This last week we celebrated the Feast of All Saints, or All Saints Day.  If it were left to me (which it isn’t) I think I would rename it The Feast of Heroes.  A feast dedicated to those who truly lived out a life of heroic virtue and fought titanic supernatural battles within their own souls, and continue to fight them on behalf of us.  The Saints are both our role models and our fellow prayer warriors. As St. Therese of Lisieux (the Little Flower) taught us in her Little Way, all we need to do is little things, but do them with great love.    You don’t have to be famous to be a Saint or a hero. To be a true hero all we have to do is stand in the love of Christ and be who He calls us to be, Holy.  Holiness is not boring, it is heroic.

The Idea of Beauty

As I gaze out through my office window early in the morning I love to watch the leaves change; and if I can get outside even better. For me morning is the best time. The sun peeks up over the hills and shines across the mighty Columbia  river and I can smell a hint of wood smoke in the air as someone takes the chill off a morning that dipped below freezing sometime during the night. There is frost on the grass that adds a bluish white to the fall morning’s palate of reds, greens, yellows, oranges and browns. When I look out at such a world I can’t help pause in wonder at the beauty that God has wrought for us, his creation. Over a hot cup of tea or coffee it makes me ponder at just exactly what it means to be beautiful. Is true beauty (as the saying goes) in the eye of the beholder, or is it something greater? Is it merely a physical quality (a synonym for pretty) or does it bear some sort of transcendental quality that invites us to contemplate a higher reality?  If it does invite us to contemplate a higher reality, what does that even mean?  I do not think we can limit beauty to merely a synonym for pretty, for if that were the case it would sound ridiculous to say that listening to a symphony by Beethoven sounded “pretty”, or watching an amazing play in sports was a “pretty” moment?  You really can’t. Yet we can say that both of these, along with the sunrise on a frosty fall morning are beautiful.  True beauty is something that goes beyond merely physical good looks. When I think about the truly beautiful things in my life, the idea of beauty does not match up to words like “pretty.”  Instead the word beauty is, in many ways, more synonymous with words like mystical, magical, and supernatural. When I think of beauty I think of something that goes beyond the average and ordinary. It is something that pushes creation to a new limit and reveals some hidden characteristic of the divine architect. Something is truly beautiful only in as much as it draws us to a higher reality and more perfectly the divine. This is why some paintings, no matter how pretty they may be, cannot be truly beautiful. When an artist paints a picture (for example) that profanes the sacred, no matter how well it is painted it will never be truly beautiful because it is a lie. It takes the sacred, (which is beautiful because it reflects the beauty of the God) and presents it in a way that is intended to degrade it. This is why for hundreds of years the Catholic Church has been on the forefront of promoting art. Artists like Michelangelo had a deep faith, which is what helped them to create beautiful frescos and statues for the Church. So next time you see a beautiful sunrise, or look out over the valley from the top of a mountain and feel like it somehow reflects the majesty, beauty and goodness of God, it does.  More importantly it isn’t an accident.

The Lion King and human nature

For those of you who missed it, this past week marked the rerelease of the Lion King onto blu-ray and DVD. Since it was a piece of my childhood that I hold dear to my heart (even though most of you who are in high school weren’t even born when it was in theaters) I ran down and picked up a copy that included the original motion picture soundtrack so I could share all the joy with my sons.  When we got home and popped the disc into the blu-ray player, my first thought was wow, this looks beautiful in high definition. It was like stepping back into my family’s living room 17 years ago. Then I started to notice some things that I had never noticed before. The movie wasn’t just about the good lions and the bad lions, it was about order and disorder. While I had always known that Mufasa and Simba had represented good, I never made the connection to a natural order, at least beyond the whole Circle of Life song at the beginning.  It struck me that maybe there was something deeper that could be gleaned from this particular children’s movie beyond just a battle between good and evil. I think that in many ways the Lion King actually goes into what good and evil are really all about. On the side of good you don’t just have a bunch of happy feelings and people (or lions) just doing whatever they want. In fact, this irresponsible attitude is corrected by Mufasa, the king, several times. Leadership and power have responsibilities, and those responsibilities are rooted in nature itself, or natural law. When natural law is followed and protected society can thrive. When natural law is violated, society begins to unravel. Scar (the villain and King Mufasa’s younger brother) is set up as an almost idealistic example of someone who goes against natural law. He wants to be king, like his older brother, but without any of the responsibilities or the hard work. He also chooses to hang out with the hyenas, his natural enemies in the movies, and the enemies of natural law and order. In his quest for happiness he tries to be something that God never meant him to be. Scar murders his brother and then he and the hyenas take over, but take is all they do. They refuse to respect the natural order of the world, so their fertile chunk of Africa soon becomes a desolate waste devoid of food and life. What Scar thought would bring him happiness ultimately made him miserable and led to his downfall. Throughout the movie I could see the Catholic Church as the defender of the natural law and order in the created world and sin as our enemy. Sin works to corrupt nature and tries to destroy it from the inside out. When we adopt personal philosophies like hakuna matata (no worries) and turn our backs on our responsibilities as Catholics, our society will crumble. We can only truly be happy by embracing God’s plan for our lives and living for Him.  All in all I think I enjoyed watching the Lion King almost as much as an adult as I did as a kid. I certainly think I learned a lot more from it. It continues to show that we can learn a lot through movies if we actually take the time to look beyond flashy explosions and amazing CGI effects.