"What's That Sh*t on Your Head?"

Rich writes:

A few years ago, I started my morning like most other mornings. Except that morning was Ash Wednesday, so I made sure to get to Mass before heading into work. After Mass, I pulled up to the nearby Starbucks and saw that the drive-thru line was insanely long, so I decided to quickly run inside instead. As I approached the counter to order my usual grande americano with an extra shot, I noticed a group of teenagers in the corner looking in my direction and laughing amongst themselves. When I realized there was nobody else behind me, I suddenly recalled the ashes on my forehead. I stood there waiting for my americano as the group got up, still laughing. As they passed me by, one of them said, "What's that shit on your head? A cross?" My mind raced in a million different directions as I tried to come up with the right thing to say. I simply stuttered, "Yes, yes it is," and that was it. That was the encounter.

I remember getting back into my car and feeling totally ashamed - not because of the ashes themselves but because of my knee-jerk reaction and embarrassment of the cross. This experience has never left me. In fact, it has forever changed my view of Ash Wednesday and the posture I now embrace when branded with the sign of our faith, the cross.

Do I really know what this sign means? 

More than a symbol or a custom, it signifies the start of an important journey. It says to the entire world around me that I am making a commitment - that I am undertaking Lent, a season of prayer and penitence. It shouts that I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I am a Christian. I bear the sign of the cross.

It also describes my human condition. It says that I am broken in need of repair, a sinner in need of redemption. As painful as it is to face, it reminds me of the brutal reality that I am a hypocrite - we all are to more or less degrees. I know what the Lord expects of me and I am also aware that these expectations are hard. It's so much easier to pretend to be a disciple, reaping the benefits of appearance, rather than to sacrifice all the surface-level glory in order to actually be one. 

The reality of who I am, what I have become, what I have done and what I have failed to do is all so necessary to face. Without such a reckoning, I would remain in the dark place of denial, and in that dark place, I would languish in misery. But this reckoning is meant to bring me out of the darkness, not deeper into it.

Today, as I accept the mark of ashes on my forehead, I will distinguish myself publicly as a sinner. What I know privately about myself in the closed chambers of my heart, I now reveal to the world. 

During this cold time of year, when the ground is frozen and the trees still bare, I openly acknowledge the reality of my human condition. I acknowledge my mortality. I wear it on my forehead. It says that I am dust. It says that in these freezing temperatures, these last days of winter, I intend to make myself ready for that springtime moment of rebirth, the resurrection. It says that I intend to make myself right with God and with my neighbor, by renewing my commitment to the faith and renewing my commitment to the cross.

The cross is my calling card. It proclaims what I believe, and the one I choose to represent. The punk in Starbucks read the mark correctly. But what about tomorrow, Rich? When the ash is washed away, will people know? Will anyone be able to tell that you are marked with the cross and that you have been claimed for Christ? Will they sense it by how you live, what you do, the sacrifices you make, the quiet acts of penance you perform? Will the invisible tracing left at your baptism, and reinforced this day, be clear to those you meet? 

I strive not to make this a one-time, passing event. In the days to come, I hope to remember what happened today and how my Lenten journey began. And when I take one last look in the mirror tonight before washing my face, I will not be ashamed of the mark I bear. I will not be ashamed of the cross.

Chained No More

Rich writes:

"Forgiveness is a beautiful idea - until you have something to forgive." -C.S. Lewis

Throughout the last 9 of my 32 years of life, I had a particular trial placed in front of me. Never before has my Christian faith been so tested. A severe injustice was done. Hearts were obliterated. Lives were shattered. Broken, enraged, numb - these are some words that come to mind.

I don't want to get into what happened; this is not the place. What is important, however, is that I was brought to the very end of myself where I had nothing left; I hit rock-bottom. Struggling to pray, struggling to forgive, and struggling to love myself or anybody for that matter, I trained myself to live life on the surface. I never allowed myself to go there; in denial, I refused to even think about it. Ritualistically inflicting physical pain on myself in the gym each morning, pretending it was some kind of "disciplined virtue," I did all I could to self-medicate and just avoid the wound that was inflicted. And I let it fester - for years.

It doesn't take scholarly analysis to recognize that forgiveness is one of the most challenging aspects of the Christian life. It is undoubtedly a central element in Jesus' teaching. As with every other facet of the faith, he shows us the way - amidst the betrayal of a close friend, abandonment by the ones he loved, and an excruciating execution on the cross, Jesus forgives. 

I vividly remember reading those haunting words that made it all click for me one day. Making my way through the collected writings of Dorothy Day, her words jumped right off the page and like a handful of salt thrown right into my open sore, they caused me to realize the fracture of unforgiveness in my soul: 

"I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least."

Immediately my eyes welled up with tears, knowing there was a certain somebody out there who I didn't love at all. In fact at the time, on that breezy fall afternoon as I sat squeamishly on my brown leather sofa, it was safe to say that I absolutely hated the man. I called myself a Christian, with a tarnished crucifix dangling from my neck and a broken-in Bible in my hands, but suddenly I was at a complete loss. Dorothy's words left me speechless.

The Holy Spirit began to gently reveal how unforgiveness had been paralyzing me. Over the years, I had let righteous anger slowly harden into bitterness and resentment which eventually became a thirst for revenge. I still tremble as I type, knowing the former condition of my heart and the captivity in which I lived. Adding evil to evil is the devil's work. To bring good out of evil is God's work, and I was faced with a choice. In whose work did I want to take part?

Peter Kreeft declares that, "The best fruit, the most beautiful flower of suffering is forgiveness, the plant that blossoms only when watered with tears." And there is no alternative to forgiveness except hell, according to Jesus' parables. So in making this crucial choice whether or not to forgive, I sought to better understand the implications of unforgiveness.

Jesus is very clear in the prayer he gave us. We ask the Father to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. If we forgive others their trespasses, our heavenly Father will also forgive us. And if we don't forgive others their trespasses, neither will our Father forgive us. So that's it. You have to forgive if you want to be forgiven.

At the heart of forgiveness is the truth that the violator owes you a debt and you choose to release him. It is to say, "I know full well what you did to me, and I recognize the injustice or injury that you inflicted, but I now choose to free you from it; I release you." Forgiveness is not treating someone as if they never sinned. That would require us to let go of reason as well as righteous anger. And the church is very clear on this notion.

In his encyclical Dives in Misericordia, Pope St. John Paul II notes that, "the requirement of forgiveness does not cancel out the objective requirements of justice... In no passage of the gospel message does forgiveness, or mercy as its source, mean indulgence toward evil, toward scandals, toward injury or insult. In any case, reparation for evil and scandal, compensation for injury, and satisfaction for insult are conditions for forgiveness" (DM, 14).

Forgiveness doesn't preclude justice. Pope St. John Paul II forgave the gunman who attempted to assassinate him. But that gunman remained in prison. Justice and forgiveness don't counteract each other. Rather, they go hand-in-hand. This simple understanding has been so helpful for me personally. It's also been helpful to take a good hard look at my own heart. Jesus came to forgive me. How could I not do the same? Found on countless prayer cards throughout the world: he came to pay a debt he didn't owe, because we owed a debt we couldn't pay. My goodness, Jesus came:

"He came. He entered space and time and suffering. He came, like a lover. Love seeks above all intimacy, presence, togetherness. Not happiness. 'Better unhappy with her than happy without her' - that is the word of a lover. He came. That is the salient fact, the towering truth, that alone keeps us from putting a bullet through our heads. He came. Job is satisfied even though the God who came gave him absolutely no answers at all to his thousand tortured questions. He did the most important thing and he gave the most important gift: himself. It's a lover's gift. Out of our tears, our waiting, our darkness, our agonized aloneness, out of our weeping and wondering, out of our cry, 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' he came, all the way, right into that cry" (Peter Kreeft, Making Sense Out of Suffering, 133).

In the midst of excruciating pain and trauma, I turned to Jesus crucified. To run from the cross, to run from suffering, is to run from love. I try to look at a crucifix often. St. Bernard of Clairvaux said that whenever he did, Jesus' five wounds would appear to him as lips, speaking the words, "I love you."

In choosing to forgive the man who caused such unfathomable tragedy in my life and particularly that of my beautiful wife, I am released from bondage. I am released from the cycle of interior violence and hatred inside my own soul. I still hurt, I still remember the injury, believe me I will never forget; but in choosing to forgive, I myself am finally free.

Diapers and Disciples Episode 24

Rachel writes:

It was such a gift to be a guest on Amber O'Hearn's podcast Diapers and Disciples where she chats with a different lady each week about living out the Great Commission as a mom. What a beautiful ministry! Click here to check out Episode 24!

In this episode, I was able to share a little bit about my experience of healing and restoration from past abuse and the breakthrough that took place when I believed I was too broken to be used by Christ. He whispered tenderly that he wanted to use me because of my brokenness, not despite it. Amber and I were able to chat about a variety of things, and the Holy Spirit graced us with his beautiful presence. Perhaps he will speak tenderly to your heart through this episode. Enjoy!

The Rich Also Cry

Rachel writes:

I will warn you, just in case "thank you God for health, wealth and happiness" is as deep as you're prepared to go this holiday season. I'll admit, I want to go deeper. The way I see it, the holidays are all about joy. We so often become enslaved, especially on days like Black Friday, by the things we think will bring us joy and then it all turns out to be so counterfeit. I do not want counterfeit joy.

The other day, I came across something in my private notes and ended up fleshing out the memory for at least an hour or two: during the nine hour drive from Arua to Kampala, Uganda, I sank into the backseat as I surrendered myself to a place of real solitude. For hours, I stared emptily out the window, my eyes glazing motionlessly over savannah grasslands and villages engulfed in matoke trees. As the vehicle jostled violently through the red dirt, I was engrossed in thoughts about poverty. After all, we were withdrawing from one of the most devastating situations on the face of the planet. Rich noticed my silent tears as they came rushing out of nowhere; he's good about catching every teardrop. When you're processing things like these, it can become like a hurricane on the inside. As the crying subsided, the abolitionist in me raged invisibly against the slavery of starvation. I wrestled hard with American wealth; I still do. Believe me, I always will. However, just as my heart was beginning to move beyond the place of righteous anger and toward the ugly place of hardness, a Ugandan drove past us with a bumper sticker across his rearview window. It read, "The Rich Also Cry." Oh how I needed the reminder.

Believe it or not, this post isn't about global poverty or the current blind spot of American Christianity. I could, and likely will, write a thousand other posts in order to advocate for the poor of South Sudan. I actually just wanted to be real with you about my own poverty of spirit in hopes to provoke a sense of gratitude in you for yours. The rich also cry.

"I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten" -Joel 2:25

I hope you all had a beautiful Thanksgiving. It's a deeply personal holiday for me. Maybe it's because I met my husband in Rome eight years ago on Thanksgiving night, in the line to get turkey. Maybe it's because my Aunt Barb's teenage heart broke for three families back in 1970, inspiring her to prepare a few extra turkey dinners in my Nana's kitchen. Maybe it's because her heartbreak blossomed into a community-wide movement of compassion, Thanksgiving Meals on Wheels, which just yesterday delivered 20,000 turkey dinners to needy families throughout the Twin Cities. Or maybe it's as simple as this: my dad told me as a kid that the key to everything was "gratitude."

I've been meditating a lot on the vulnerability of Jesus. He is the definition of vulnerability. To simply behold a crucifix, and look at it awhile, is to enroll in a class on love. The very posture of Jesus, with his arms wide open and his heart exposed, teaches us what love looks like. He bled. Can you think of anything in all the world more vulnerable than the slain Lamb of God? I long to be vulnerable like that for the sake of love. This Thanksgiving, I am most grateful for my deepest wounds. The rich also cry, and I've done more than cry. I've bled. I've bled hard. But that's not the end of my story. Jesus heals and gratitude has changed my wounds into scars. With invisible scars on my hands and a fresh heart piercing, I now set out to heal others.

I now know well that the Eucharist literally has the power to transform everything. As every theology student knows, the word itself stems from the Greek word "eucharistia" which simply means "thanksgiving." I'm now beginning to understand, not just inside my head but with the whole of my life, what my dad meant when he said this was the key. Saint Ignatius of Antioch said, "I am God's wheat, and I shall be ground by the teeth of beasts that I may become the pure bread of Christ." Jesus crucified has mysteriously taken everything I used to profusely hate and turned it all into my pot of gold.

In the words of Fulton Sheen, "Must not the seed falling to the ground die before it can spring forth into new life? Must not grapes be crushed that there may be wine to drink, and wheat ground that there may be bread to eat? Why then cannot pain be made redemption? Why under the alchemy of Divine Love cannot crosses be turned into crucifixes? Why cannot we use a cross to become God-like? We cannot become like him in his power; we cannot become like him in his knowledge. There is only one way we can become like him, and that is in the way he bore his sorrows and his cross. And that way was with love. It is love that makes pain bearable."

As I take a good hard look at the situation among the South Sudanese, I see the epitome of poverty. I see the epitome of human suffering. I personally see the bloodiest of humanity's wounds. While I will never quite know what it's like to be one of them, I understand in some capacity a number of their deep wounds because of my own experience of loss and injustice. Real service involves real solidarity and vulnerability that hurts. I'm ready to give that. As I seek to follow the way of love, the way of Jesus who poured himself out, I am now more grateful than ever to have my pot of gold.

No Fear on the Nile

Rich writes:

It's actually a pretty funny story. Rachel and I were with the bishop of northern Uganda and his security guards as we waited to board a boat that would take us for a ride down the Nile River. The bishop organized the boat ride as a thank you gift for us right before our return to the states. We were sitting on decrepit picnic benches eating lunch beside the Nile and since we had been in Uganda for about three weeks, I was used to eating with my fingers. I was carefully picking through the fish, so as not to swallow any bones, when I suddenly realized a large black object quickly approaching in my peripheral. Within seconds, a tremendous baboon came running at me, swiping his long arms and reaching out for my lunch. I immediately jumped off of the bench as the baboon, looking like Lebron James dishing a layup, managed to steal my lunch and knock the majority of leftovers onto the dirt ground.

"Richard!" the bishop shouted as the baboon was quickly gathering the remaining food scraps out of the dirt. "Take courage! You take fear!" His words hit me hard, and they still resonate. "Richard," he continued, "I saw the baboon running at you. I was coming to swat it away, but you did not stand your ground and face him! You ran away in fear, and now you have nothing to eat. Why did you do that?" I had no real response. For the entire boat ride, I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened. Until then, the bishop had never raised his voice. Although he was being slightly facetious, I could tell that he was truly upset. In an area of the world where a famine had been declared, a meal was just wasted. Whether he intended to admonish me or not, I was cut to the heart. I heard the voice of Jesus, "Richard, take courage. You take fear."

Since that afternoon on the Nile, I've been meditating a lot about courage. Naturally, it has brought me to the fourteenth chapter of Matthew where Jesus calls Peter to get out of the boat and walk towards him on the water. Jesus' words to Peter are almost identical to the bishop's words to me: "Take heart, it is I; have no fear... Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?" Getting out of the boat and walking on water is more than an act of faith. It is also an act of obedience. It's just doing it. It's stepping into the squat rack and just getting under the bar. Real obedience requires real courage, not the kind you muster up all on your own. The kind you muster up all on your own isn't bad, but it won't move mountains. The key to courageous obedience in facing the impossible is locking eyes with the Master. Peter defied the laws of gravity and walked upon the waves of the lake with his eyes trustfully locked on Jesus. We all know what happened when his eyes became unglued.

If I'm being transparent with myself, I need to grow radically in the virtue of courage as Jesus asks me to get out of the boat, so to speak, and lead my family to northern Uganda. Classic moral philosophers define courage as doing what is right and good despite external threats. I would rather avoid all external threats and cling to what is safe and predictable. I would rather remain in the comfort of the boat or, in other words, the comfort of America. For the disciple, however, obedience isn't optional. He's either "Lord" or he isn't. I cannot deny that he is calling me to "come" and in my heart of hearts, I know that there is no safer place than outside the boat and inside the loving gaze of Jesus. Gazing on him, gazing on me, in the middle of raging waters - that's absolute safety.

Smarties and Peace in South Sudan

Rachel writes:

The Sweet Martha's jar in my Nana's kitchen was always full of smarties. The jar never moved. It stayed right to the left of the stove, and we all scooped smarties with sneaky hands and smirks on our faces. I think we thought we were smarter than Nana, but now I know that's impossible. There wasn't a safer place than Nana's kitchen nor a more familiar thing in all the world than that little glass jar. None of us grandchildren even liked smarties all that much, but we'd scoop them out by the handfuls. All of our little hands just kept scooping. I think Nana knew it had to do with something more than just smarties. I think she knew it was peace we were scooping by the handfuls whenever we were in her kitchen.

The exuberant cries of children echoed throughout the refugee settlement as Rich passed out hundreds and hundreds of smarties. Amidst the cries of joy, the world around me grew dim as I encountered this one particular child. The malnourished and traumatized little boy stared at the smarty in his frail hands, unsure of what to do with it. Tears fall from my chin and form puddles as I try to write about it. The real life encounter was impossible for me to process emotionally. It wasn't until I was back in the states showing iPhone photos to my brother in Houston that the ton of bricks finally hit. And it's still hitting. I encountered all of the sorrow of South Sudan right inside of this little boy.

The children in South Sudan long for peace. It's that simple. Then again, it always is, isn't it? Violence has forced nearly one million South Sudanese children from their homes. Violence has kept nearly two million of them out of school. More than a third of them are malnourished. All of this could be reversed by peace. And don't they deserve to scoop up peace in handfuls and thrive in it, just like I did in Nana's kitchen? Just like we all did?

Perhaps the peace that flooded Nana's kitchen was born of her silence and her prayer. After all, she would pray a rosary in that kitchen each and every morning before the break of dawn. In sheer silence, she'd end with a whisper as she begged God "for world peace." She may not have solved global problems, but the peace inside her kitchen solved problems in me. The peace inside her kitchen solved problems in all who gathered around her table. In the words of Mother Teresa, "The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith. The fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service. The fruit of service is peace." As we prepare to give our lives in evangelization and service to the South Sudanese, we invite you to join us in the place where it all begins. In the silence of your own heart, and perhaps even your own kitchen, please join us in praying for peace in South Sudan.