FALLEN CATHOLIC:

MY SEARCH FOR THE REAL JESUS

(continued)

Chapter 14: Fear of Death

You know, when I think about death, real death, the total end of my life, the last cogent thought, I really have no fear of passing into oblivion. In fact, in some ways, I look forward to the peace it will bring me. But at night, when I am in that half waking, half sleeping surrealistic world between sanity and chaos, I often wake with a start. I sit up in bed or scream out in my sleep like a child. Sometimes I start moaning and crying. It is a very disturbing thing for my wife. She knows to wake me. When my brain is half asleep, my animal fear of death seizes me like a vice. There is no reasonable discourse...no careful analysis of the situation. In those moments, those horrible nightmares, I am on the verge of death. I am at the precipice of the abyss.

My wife has told me that she usually wakes up a few seconds before I do and that she knows I am having a nightmare before I start to moan. That connection between us, that unspoken communication tells me that there is something deeper in life than meets the eye. We have all heard stories about husbands dying a week or a month after their wives. We have all had premonitions about the future that prove to be accurate. And there are books everywhere touting the evidence of ghostly entities among us.

I don't believe it is possible to go to your death suddenly without tremendous fear. It just doesn't seem possible to me. As logical as we are about death, our animal lower brain takes over when it senses that its survival is threatened. Yet somehow, people do face death calmly and with acceptance. Are they more brave than the rest of us? Are they more sure of their destiny?

I have had a few close calls with death myself. In both cases, I remained calm and decided not to panic. I remembered that survival often depends on keeping one's wits. I decided that I would be the one taking charge, leading people to safety. It happened on a plane over Nashville during the Senate race of 1976.

We were on a vintage DC3, a tail dragger. It was one of the most reliable aircraft from the early 50s. But this plane was a relic that had passed its usefulness. As we lifted off the runway and began to climb, black smoke stared billowing out of the starboard engine. The pilot accidentally hit the intercom as he talked to the ground about his mayday. We could hear him argue with the tower over whether he should feather the crippled engine as he struggled to gain altitude.

We were watching out the window as it happened. The seats faced each other and we looked at each other as if to say, “This is it!” The pilot rolled the aircraft steeply to starboard and the ground suddenly seemed way too close. We all wondered if we would make it back around to land. I looked at one of the young ladies across from me and I smiled. Then I said, “Here we go!”

Everyone in our little group laughed. It broke the tension and we all realized that we would survive. But for that little moment...that small instant...we were staring directly into the face of death.

Well, unfortunately, we all died in a horrible crash that day. And that's the end of my story. 

FALLEN CATHOLIC:

MY SEARCH FOR THE REAL JESUS

(continued)

Chapter 13: Regrets

From my earliest days, I was at the top of my class. I was one of the older kids in my grade and that gave me a jump start on the rest. I believe it determined what kind of person I would be. I was called on to be the leader in those early days. I was president of the class in the second grade. It all went to my head. I started to believe I was smarter than anybody else. Needless to say, it was a trait I would soon have to shed if I was going to succeed in life. I have never understood why smart people are not smart enough to see how obnoxious they are.

Those early days at my home in Louisville exposed me to some of the best people I ever met. All of my boyhood friends went on to great success. I still envy them their nice big homes and beautiful lives...in a benevolent way. I admire them more than I envy them. They were able to succeed far beyond my own accomplishments. I often think I reached too far, saw myself as something too special. And as a result, the simple middle class prosperity enjoyed by all my friends and family has eluded me. I don't blame Catholicism any more than I blame myself for believing the hype. But I often wish I had forgotten the dreams and kept a steady job.

I sometimes wish I had been born with a less active mind. I wish I could just blindly follow the rules and forget about questioning them and God and religion. The happiest people I know are of an average intelligence. They don't worry about the stupid stuff I constantly probe. They don't watch PBS or read the newspaper editorials or google the half life of plutonium. They just don't worry about all the shit that bothers me constantly. It is a curse. It makes me crazy. But I just simply cannot turn it off. And of all the things that bug me, God bugs me the most. I should probably put it more succinctly. The notions most people here in the south carry around with them about God bug the shit out of me. I really don't hate God at all. I hate the stupid shit Catholics say about God. Not all Catholics draw my ire. The conservative ones who are also stupid don't bother me either. It's the smart conservatives like my brother who drive me nuts. They use logic in every facet of their lives except when it comes to God and the environment. And on those two subjects, they get their information from idiotic zealots. And of all the stupid things they do, the number one most stupid is calling the body of knowledge known as settled science as “junk science.” They render that term useless by throwing it at anything they don't want to admit as science.

Now you see what I did right there. I just finished lamenting my lot in life as a worrier and then proceeded to launch into a diatribe about the people who worry me. Do you see the burden I carry! Why oh why can't I let this shit go?

INSERT:  Fallen Catholic:  My Search for the Real Jesus

This book is being written one page at a time, one day at a time. It is a compilation of my thoughts concerning Catholicism and all things spiritual. You could think of it as an atheist's search for redemption. I have no idea how things are gonna turn out. In a sense, you, the reader, have me at a disadvantage. You can page forward and find out how things turned out. I am stuck living it, one day at a time. Some of those days are awesome but some are very scary. This is one of those scary days.

It is raining and the rain prevents me from doing my job. So when it rains, I do things to further my career; things we all put off; things that produce no immediate income but promise to do so in the distant future.

I left the television production world a few months ago to take a real job. I was a freelancer, taking video and editing jobs, enjoying the feast and dreading the famine. Now I go to work every day as a roofing inspector with some of the nicest guys you ever met. It's more of a sales job than a technical job. I spend a lot of time with the clients, nursing them through their insurance claims. Most of them are just super. And that is quite a switch for me because I used to work with demanding, anal narcissists...you know...television stars. Thank God that is behind me.

I started writing this at the behest of my friend, Father Joe Breen. We are new friends, just getting to know one another. I think he looks at me as one of his projects. He is actively trying to save me. In a sense, I also believe I am helping him on his road to salvation as well. Anyway, I am so glad he nudged me. I made a promise to myself years ago that when I finally had something to say, I would write a book.

And I have a hell of a lot to say. One of the themes running through this book involves judgement. It is not the kind of judgement we usuallly examine. It is judgement of the Christian God and his unworthiness that haunts these chapters. If there is a God, he is certainly nothing like the one invented by Christians. And most Christians are so used to accepting the traditional ideas about God that they probably would consider this book to be blasphemous. It is not intended as such.

I have a lot of contempt for the people who promulgate the conservative notion of Jesus, the Nazarene. Their ideas would be laughable if they weren't so dangerous. The worst offenders are not Catholic. Catholics learned long ago to refrain from using the bible as a history book. But these southern Protestants are uneducated and belligerent about it. They are avowedly ignorant. And they take their beliefs to the extreme, contending that scientists are all conspiring to defend the atheist viewpoint; the devil's temptations. The scary part is that they are willing to risk our entire globe on ideas about the warming of our planet that fly in the face of reason. Our existence on this planet depends upon those of us with a scientific point of view prevailing over those determined to demonize the scientific community. So I refuse to be quiet when one of them holds court next to a water cooler.

That is why Catholicism is so important. It must stand as a reasonable alternative to the fundamentalists who threaten to hijack the Church of Jesus. That is why liberals must take up the cause and rail against conservatives who try to dominate the theological discussions. The liberal elements that were once so powerful have faded as conservative power has coalesced at the top. Conservatives speak as if they ARE the Catholic Church. They speak as if they are THE authority on all things dogmatic and doctrinal. But the reality is that they hold the minority opinion on almost every doctrinal issue.

Their fallback position is to say, “Yes, I admit we need to reform those other conservatives but we must have patience.” That patience has kept us from the business of true reform for thousands of years. We must stop being PATIENT! 

She told me that I should learn how to drink milk because it was important if I wanted to become a strong man. I preferred to drink chocolate milk, thank-you. Tough men have rotten teeth.

I went home and told my mother about the important job I was about to undertake. For some reason, she just laughed. I wiled away the hours waiting for the older boys to come home and just as the sun was setting, Bill's older brothers, Bobby and Jim, came to get me.

They had bats and a BB gun, a burlap sack and flashlights. They gave me a flashlight and we were off to hunt snipes. They explained to me that they didn't normally allow kids to hold the bag but they thought if I was brave enough, they might let me give it a try. They explained the process and made me swear not to drop the bag. Then they described the terrible results of being bitten by a snipe, how they drilled under your skin and tormented you for days while they chewed on your flesh from the inside. They also warned me that they were nearly invisible and that it took a lot of them to fill up the bag. It never occurred to me to ask why we were hunting them or what we would do with them once we caught them. But I was getting nervous at the thought of being bitten by hundreds of them while I held that bag.

Bobby and Jim suddenly crouched down and began to whisper. It was getting dark and we all turned on our flashlights. Mine flickered and then went out within a few seconds. They assured me that I wouldn't need it anyway. Then they told me to stay put until I heard them whistle. They would herd them into my bag. As soon as I heard the whistling, I was supposed to open the bag and wait.

I got a sinking feeling in my gut as they walked away. I could see their flashlights as they wandered off. I froze, awaiting the signal. Before long they began to whistle and I opened the bag as I had been instructed. Then they started screaming and yelling as they all ran toward me.

“Here they come, Rod! Look out! There's a lot of them!” they yelled.

As they got near, all the noise and fear grew to a fever pitch. Suddenly Bobby started wailing, “Ahh one of them got me! Oh, it hurts so much! Look out, Rod! Be careful! Don't let them bite you!” And with that, they all started screaming and yelling and beating the ground with their bats.

I snapped. I threw down my flashlight and the bag and took off running as fast as I could. I didn't stop running until I got home. It seemed like I could hear them laughing but I was too scared to slow down.

When I got there, Rose and Mom were sitting at the kitchen table having coffee. Rose asked me how it went. I thought about it for a moment before I said, “I don't like snipe hunting.”

Mom spit her coffee and Rose broke into laughter. Mom said, “Now you know how Bill felt earlier today. Do you think maybe you should apologize to Bill for what you did?”

Everything became clear to me. It all made sense. But admitting I had done something bad still was not in my repertoire. I tried to lie my way out of it. So Mom had to force me to apologize and marked it down as an important lesson. But it took several years before I truly understood the importance of admitting my mistakes.

From my earliest days, I was at the top of my class. I was one of the older kids in my grade and that gave me a jump start on the rest. I believe it determined what kind of person I would be. I was called on to be the leader in those early days. I was president of the class in the second grade. It all went to my head. I started to believe I was smarter than anybody else. Needless to say, it was a trait I would soon have to shed if I was going to succeed in life. I have never understood why smart people are not smart enough to see how obnoxious they are.

Those early days at my home in Louisville exposed me to some of the best people I ever met. All of my boyhood friends went on to great success. I still envy them their nice big homes and beautiful lives...in a benevolent way. I admire them more than I envy them. They were able to succeed far beyond my own accomplishments. I often think I reached too far, saw myself as something too special. And as a result, the simple middle class prosperity enjoyed by all my friends and family has eluded me. I don't blame Catholicism any more than I blame myself for believing the hype. But I often wish I had forgotten the dreams and kept a steady job.

Now that I am nearing 60, I constantly remind myself to admit my mistakes and stay humble; to praise the work of my friends and associates and deflect praise to them. I get much pleasure from the pursuit of this goal. There is much to be said for aiming within your reach.  

Chapter 12: Hard Lessons

This is the most difficult part.

When I was a child, it was hard for me to admit when I was wrong. I would often lie to cover up something stupid I had done. As I grew older I realized that people who do not admit their mistakes turn into liars and narcissists. I have had more than my share of narcissists injected into my life.

My first big lesson came at the tender age of six when I was trying to understand why it wasn't funny to laugh at some else's misfortune. We have to learn this despite constant exposure to mean natured comedies in all media. It may be okay to laugh at a TV show, but it is almost never okay to laugh at misfortune in real life. Millions of people never make this distinction. The most successful comedians make their living poking fun at themselves; not others. Larry the Cable Guy is probably the most famous in this generation. Red Skelton was my favorite from the sixties.

When I was six, I played a mean trick on one of my younger friends. It didn't turn out the way I planned. Bill Kerr and I were playing in the alley behind Doug Draper's house. Bill was Tommy's younger brother. I normally played with Tommy. Bill normally played with my younger brother, Tim.

Most of our games revolved around combat and soldiers. We were in a ditch pretending to be fighting Nazis. We were growing tired of the same old game and we engaged our imaginations, trying to come up with a new way to have fun. In those days, toys were something you played with if you didn't have a friend around. The ditch behind Doug's house was a great place to play because it was rough and distant. The weeds were high and their were rocks and dirt piles all over the place. My mom didn't like us going back there, which made it all the more exotic.

I decided to play a “funny” trick on Bill. I told him the wind was picking up and that we better watch out for tornados. I had a fascination with tornados after watching the Wizard of Oz. I began to act as if I could see one in the distance.

Bill was frightened by tornados and I began to feed into his fear. I told him that storms like that could not be seen sometimes, that they could sneak up on people and kill them before they knew it. He began to worry.

“I'm going home,” he said.

“Oh no, you can't do that,” I said. “Tornados are very fast. You can't outrun them. We better duck down in this ditch and wait until the danger has passed.”

I had a hard time convincing him that the safest action was to hunker down. As I built the lie and embellished it, I could sense the fear roiling up in my own body. This distressed Bill even more. I began to shout orders as if the winds were picking up. I worked myself into a frenzy pretending to see the storm approaching while admonishing him to keep his head down until I assured him he was safe. I jumped up out of the ditch and screamed, then ran back down and jumped next to Bill, putting my arm over his back.

“Here it comes!” I yelled.

It was too much for poor little Bill. He suddenly jumped up, clambered out of the ditch and ran away screaming for his mother. Success! He bought it hook, line and sinker. Hilarious. Only one problem. I didn't much feel like laughing and I couldn't really tell anyone what I had done. I thought this would be a real gas. But it turned out to be a dud and I did feel guilty about scaring Billy like that.

Later that day, Billy's mom ask me to come in for some cookies and milk. I disdained the milk but enjoyed the cookies. As we talked, Rose asked me if I had ever been on a snipe hunt. She talked about how snipe hunting was usually just for men but sometimes they would take a brave boy along to watch. She asked me if I was brave enough. I was, of course.

Chapter 11: Catholicism is more good than bad

Okay, I have spent a lot of time here pointing out the problems with Catholicism. Almost all of the problems are theological. Catholics might distinguish so much as to call it arguments about dogma and doctrine. But certainly, the largest problem for fallen Catholics is philosophical. The actual community spirit that surrounds this religion is profoundly good.

Catholic charities do enormous good in this world. They serve over 10 million people worldwide every year of their existence. They provide adoption services, disaster relief, family counseling, housing solutions and social awareness. They have over 300 thousand volunteers working with them. And they do all of it for the most part without overtly proselytizing or discriminating in any way. They do what nearly every Christian denomination does, but they do it bigger and better than most.

Catholic nuns get a bad rap that is largely undeserved. Many of these wonderful women devoted their lives to educating children at a time when discipline meant corporal punishment. It was the norm back then. Paddlings were common in those days but were not common in any of the schools I attended. In fact, being whipped by the head nun was so rare at my school that news of it set the entire school on edge. These days, nuns have largely shed their habits and are much less visible in the schools. Unfortunately, their numbers have dwindled precipitously. This is particularly painful at hospitals where their daily presence was a great comfort to millions of sick people.

They are currently producing videos and expanding their efforts to bring back fallen Catholics on the net. Unfortunately, their most well produced ad campaign aimed at us miscreants is loaded with language meant to make us feel guilty about our relationship with God, as if to say we are somehow sinful for not being faithful to Catholicism. I can overlook their heavy handed and misguided attempts to reintroduce the religion to fallen Catholics because it does not occur to them to take on some of the blame for alienating so many of us. And until we return in force and make our voices heard, this old way of thinking is unbalanced.

So maybe you think I am crazy for advocating a return to Catholicism for those of us who hail from liberal minded traditions, but I am unwilling to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Chapter 10: Changing the Mass

Okay, time to think about how Catholicism can change its most basic ritual, the Mass.

I recently had a conversation with one of the priests at my parish. When he asked me what I thought of the Mass, I am quite sure that I worried him. I told him that I dreaded coming to Mass. I hated the mind numbing rituals and repetition. It seemed to me, I told him, that the Mass must have been written by obsessive compulsive people...people who say things over and over again...people who like to state things three times. So much of the Mass is repetitive nonsense. None of it is expressed in modern language. Sometimes it doesn't even resemble English. The language is often so antiquated that it has become nearly opaque.

It shocked him when I lashed out at the Catholic notion of prayer. It prompted him to ask me, “Are you saying that you don't pray the Our Father?”

And my answer was to the point, “Not if I can avoid it. I do it when everybody does it but never alone.”

He continued, “Then you still consider yourself a fallen Catholic?”

Now this response from him indicated how single minded he had become. In fact, this kind of thinking is endemic of most Catholics. The ones who have remained within the fold have stopped asking the hard questions. And the Church has regressed as a direct result. I use the word “endemic” because it is (to me) a disease caused by the rotting of the intellectual process.

His reaction was predictable. He immediately pointed at some examples designed to constrict my mode of thought. He regailed be with tales of clown Masses and other ridiculous attempts to change the Mass. By denegrading these foolish attempts at reform, he attempted to throw out the entire notion of reform. I took his cue and changed the subject. He was clearly uncomfortable talking about my ideas.

But it is clear to me that the Mass, if it were changed to accommodate critical thinking, could be a source of a weekly regenerative process instead of an irritant to intellectualism. By limiting the ritualistic portions to a few minutes and greatly expanding the faithful examination of truth, Catholicism could undergo a Renaissance of tremendous importance. Don't get me wrong, I do not advocate scholarly diatribes as a replacement. (facilitating even more dozing participants) But the kinds of conversations we all have about faith should be front and center every Sunday at Mass. And the iron grip of control exercised for centuries by conservatives would at last be broken.

So how would a typical Mass be constructed? Well first of all, it is important to note that the traditional Mass would have to be offered to those Catholics married to the past. There are millions of them and taking that away from them would be anethema to those of us who seek a more open minded kind of assembly. We, as liberals, do not wish to take Catholicism away from the vast majority of conservative minded people. We recognize that two wrongs do not make a right. Even though millions of liberals have been excluded from Catholicism, the idea that we must be of one mind is unimaginable.

So in the liberal version of Mass, there would be a potpourri of challenging moral dilemmas to consider. And there would not always be an easy answer with a proscribed way of thinking as we have been forced to endure for so long. There could be opposing viewpoints represented so that Catholics would be challenged to use their own cognitive and moral compasses to guide their choices. Priests could disagree with one another from the pulpit. The altar could become a stage for morality plays and theological discussions. All of it would be enormously stimulating and relevant to daily life. The Mass would become a living, breathing mechanism for change, spiritual evolution and a sense of community. And Communion would become less of a ritual and more of a symbol of sharing and communal love. Real bread would be passed around and real wine would be drunk. The celebration that Jesus gave us would be renewed and the Church would expand dramatically as a result. I believe so strongly that this will be a fact that I no longer doubt its acceptance. It is all just a matter of time.