This will make sense down the road

But for now trust me, it's how my mind works.

The Rope

Dwight Longenecker comments on Hitchcock's The Rope.  I had never heard of it.  It was one a month or so ago and we caught the beginning of it.  My oldest then ordered it so we could watch the whole thing. My boys are Hitchcock fans all the way.  My oldest, who is kicking around the idea of journalism, likes to think his writing style is Hitchcock inspired.  The Rope was an interesting one set film about two men who decide to murder, more or less for the heck of it.  Rules don't apply.  It isn't hard to catch the parallels to Crime and Punishment.  Here is Fr. Longenecker unpacking it better than me.  Watch the film first, then read Fr. Longenecker's insightful take.  But only in that order.

FWIW, film buffs will recognize John Dall as Brandon Shaw.  Dall also is well known as the hapless Marcus Glabrus in Kubrick's Spartacus.

Gun nuts win

After following this thread for a couple days, I think I'll go buy a gun.  I don't own one, but I can see where the threats to liberty are.  And because of the tone and contempt and self-righteous scorn for gun owners, manipulation of facts, and general Jack Chick style approach to the issue, against most (not all, but most) of the gun owners who have tried to appeal to facts, call bad (even sinful) arguments for what they are, but also try to demonstrate why some solutions might not be good, I'll give it to the gun owners.  It's this style, increasingly popular in some quarters of the Catholic Blogosphere, that has me concerned.  For the record again, I don't own a gun.  But I don't think dropping inaccurate stats, followed by accusations that anyone disagreeing is a gun nut, stupid, doesn't care about dead innocents (especially if the innocents are dark skinned since they're likely racists, too), is the best way to represent the Catholic Faith.  If it is, then that says more about the Catholic Faith now than we might care to admit.

Obama hearts gays

Because only gay matters to culture, it's about the only thing Obama can turn to in order to deflect attention from his disastrous presidency.  Clearly one of the worst in our country's history, but you'd never know it, partly because of this embarrassing display, in which Obama gets into the NFL draft by heaping praise on the Rams for the most important thing anyone can focus on today.  There may be genocides, wars, poverty, starvation and disease in the world, but gay is all that matters.  And Obama knows it, and the propaganda ministry promotes it.  Sometimes I read about the Revolutionary War and I want to weep.  But then, like free will, freedom never guaranteed doing the right thing.  Or even not doing the dumb thing.

Chelsea Clinton is graduating from Oxford

Congrats to Chelsea.  This is brought to you by the Clinton Election Committee, otherwise known as the American Press.  Anyone who doubts that the press is fully committed to seeing Hilary elected is foolish or a liar.  Little things like consistency don't trouble the progressive world anyway, so overcoming the old is bad meme will be no problem.  Of course some would argue that it's common for politicians' children to get press coverage.  And you know what?  They're obviously right.  Oh, and lest you say 'those are comedians and they do it to everyone', find a similar page on 'Chelsea Clinton Jokes' and I'll readily concede the point.

Gay rights is about ending the First Amendment

Just thought I'd post a reminder of the bleeding obvious.  Of course some argue 'it's not the government, it's not censorship.'  Even though when I was in college I was told that it didn't have to be government to be censorship.  In fact, those old time liberal professors I had made a compelling case.  If you get society to accept crushing the rights of speech outside of the political sphere, then it's only a small step to make it official.  Once the government is doing it, you've already won the hearts and minds of the people to make it possible. So we have gay marriage, not about marriage equality at all (which is as much a B.S. phrase as I've ever heard), but really about training Americans to accept the idea that traditional religious (read: Christian) values should no longer have a place in our culture.  Given the polls, it looks like a growing number of Americans are warming up to the call.

UPDATE:  Just like that little gallimimus in Jurassic Park that frantically and hopelessly snarls back at the T-Rex about to devour it, some are trying to find ways to keep Gay Rights from becoming the tool with which the Progressive Left can finally and legally crush the Rights to not be Liberal.  As the article says, most initiatives have withered under the screams of a media-orchestrated outcry.  Who was it that said witch hunts and McCarthy and the Inquisition and Fascists were always warned against by our educational, media and cultural institutions, but not it's those very institutions behind the modern witch hunts?  Oh, that's be me.  But I'm afraid, too little, too late.

How not to discuss gun control on the Catholic blogosphere

Is demonstrated here.  Because you never know, when dealing in typical rhetoric involving gun loving nuts who don't care about murdered children especially if the children have dark skin, you might just run into a real life, real world example of why care and caution are needed, as in here.

You have to want abortion

I mean, really want it.  Celebrate it.  Enjoy it.  Have fun with it.  Make it one more spoke in the wheel of eternal entertainment that is the hub around which our lives rotate.  That's the latest strategy.  Abortion is no longer murder but a necessary evil.  Nope.  In our decaying culture, it's time to take the gloves off and learn to love the abortion.  Dr. Strangelove indeed.  Or how leftists learned to stop worrying and love the aborted baby.

The latest chapter in this sad march toward genocide?  An abortion counselor is all grins, smiles, giggles and laughs as she puts herself before the most important thing in our modern age: the camera.  As much yucking up as going to get a haircut, and probably not nearly as important to some.  I saw the story on a news ticker on TV.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  Then I remembered this is the world of the post-Christian secular Left.  What else did I expect?  Genocides in former ages were for national pride or ethnic cleansing or tribal allegiance or just plain acquisition of land and conquest.  The future genocides?  That would be for the only thing we value today, and that's our self.  Like I've told my boys a million times if I've told them once: I have no idea how horrifying the next global genocides will be, but I'm pretty damn sure while they will be.  Take heed America:

A small step for religious freedom

A very small step.  But given the tidal wave of support that ending religious rights and freedom of speech is achieving, even a small step is something.  If nothing else, a small spark that could ignite a flame?  Or maybe a small enough step that will drive those who should be alarmed back to apathy.  In any event, it's nice to see that banishing religious thought and other forms of non-progressive wrong think from the public forum is not a forgone conclusion. Well done 5 of 9 Supreme Court Justices.  

Doing dumb on the Catholic Blogosphere

Like so many things, the Catholic blogosphere ain't what it used to be; not what it was when I began my journey into the Church all those years ago.  In just ten years, the capacity for the Internet to engender amazing amounts of dumb is beyond imagining.  Combined with the gradual erosion of classical liberal education, we're a truly the most educated idiots in history.

And nowhere shows that more effectively than the Catholic blogosphere.  For the rich and deep philosophical traditions of Catholicism should allow the arguments and defenses, even by the most marginally educated Catholics, to rise head and shoulders above the din of the Internet market.

But alas.  Instead I've read some of the most egregious, stupid and unbelievable things in Catholic blogs over the recent years, so stupid that it can almost surpass the most ludicrous rants on a daytime talk show.  And since I like to expect the best from us followers of Christ (including myself), simply falling to the same level as everyone else is its own indictment.  Going lower is inexcusable.

And it's not just an occasional post here or comment there.  It is ongoing threads of thought, opinions which so many in the Catholic blogs seem to latch onto.  So for instance, we have the whole 'better to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert' motif.  Or in modern Catholic blog terms, 'why couldn't we go back to the glory days of monarchy instead of flirting with Democracy, which is the form of government that gives us Barabbas.'

Uh huh.  Because monarchies were always so wonderful, as opposed to mean and vicious and evil U.S.  Granted, it's not uncommon in Catholic circles to trash (beyond constructive Christian criticism) the U.S.  Ironically in more hardcore traditionalist circles you can really see this.  In liberal circles, as in liberalism in general, it's also popular.  And naturally a good monarchy is better than a bad democracy.  That goes without saying.  Anything good is better than anything bad.  Duh. 

But think of it.  Back to the glory days of monarchy?  And it isn't just your typical combox fare.  Years ago I remember a link to a Catholic Bishop saying how warfare in the glory days of monarchy was always better than now.   Why?  Because some convoluted reason about it not being about land.  WTH?   Monarchies.  There's a reason republicanism and representative democracies rose out of such governmental structures. 

Yep, the Catholic tradition is rich indeed, and I defy anyone to find a broader and more profound expression of the Christian heritage anywhere else.  But the Internet has allowed us to, as with everything else, find ways to ignore that depth and instead pop off some unbelievable, if not typical, levels of dumb.  

Gay marriage has served its purpose

Gene Robinson is getting a divorce.  A second one that is.  The first one was, of course,  a celebration of post-traditional values as he left his wife for his gay lover.  The two then made history by dragging the issue of gay rights and Christian values into the media circus.  From when it was actually believed you could oppose this and be a decent person, to now when the slight majority of Americans who just threw values out the window because of a lack of solid principles and intellectual foundations, we've seen a swing from one extreme to another.

Sixty years ago, if you stood up and said gays should be married, you'd be skinned.  Or at least laughed off the stage. Today, if you say gay marriage ain't natural and probably shouldn't be the basis for overthrowing one of the foundations of Western Civilization, it could be the end.  See my previous post for our growing love of witch hunts.

And more than any other issue, more than even race and racism, it's been gay rights and gay marriage that have been the main instruments used to turn back the clock on all this freedom and liberty stuff.  Despite the fact that a relatively few percentage of gays even bother to get married, and that gays in any culture seem to make up a relatively few number of people, it was an issue many felt justified a reexamination of what rights are important, and what rights can be qualified.

Now, the poster child of Christian gaydom is divorcing his gay husband.  And not just him.  There is a sudden growth in those few marriages ending in divorce.  Nothing unusual given the disaster that was no fault divorce (something that, itself, probably aided in redefining marriage to include any combination of carbon based lifeforms).  But the point is, we were already dealing with such a tiny number of people.  And now that number is seeing even its ranks compromised by those few leaving what most others in that demographic don't even want.

And for that, we've come to a point where a growing number of people think that freedom of speech, religion and conscience just have to go where other freedoms (like sex) are concerned.  Gay has served its purpose.  It was the weapon with which the post modern Left bludgeoned what were once believed to be the most important freedoms mankind had ever obtained.  Well done.  I enjoy a well played card.  And no card more demonstrated the judicious use of the joker card than the obvious use of gay sex to undo centuries of struggle for basic human rights.  

Post modern witch hunts

Yes, I'm afraid it's all the rage.  McCarthy is the patron saint and witch hunts all the rage as our decaying culture continues its apathetic and lazy denial of the inevitable.  I don't think persecution and decline are connected, since such things have happened in the dawn of, or at the peak of, various cultures and civilizations.  But in ours, it marks one of the characteristics of the country we're passing on to our posterity.  Thomas McDonald quotes Kareem Abdul-Jabber who tried to step in and inject a little sanity into our growing self-righteous rage based insanity.  He, and others who made the point, were ignored.

Remember that growing up, the Inquisition, witch hunts and McCarthy were roundly condemned by our educational, cultural and media institutions.  And it was those institutions that kept the knowledge alive as warnings and lessons so that such horrors would never be repeated. Today, however, it's precisely those institutions that are behind the phenomenon.  So who will ring the warning bell?

An apology

I didn't realize how many grammar and spelling errors were in my recent posts.  Still using a borrowed computer, and blogging is sparse right now.  Hopefully things will turn around when my wife begins working full time.  And just as hopefully no more shoes will drop.  In the meantime, I don't have that much time, and my posts are just off the cuff.  They always were, but I could sometimes take a little time to think things through.  Now it's just type first, think later (a dangerous habit I prefer to avoid).  Again, I'm hoping things settle soon.  Then I can get back to figuring where I want to go with things, and do so in a grammatically pleasing way.

Why anger at the Right can be justified

Conservatism is no Christ.  And sometimes those who walk under the banner of conservative can be wrong.  Dead wrong.  For instance, torture.  Torture is wrong.  Always has been.  It's what the bad guys do.  From Reginald Front de Bowuf to Major Toht, one of the character traits meant to drive home their evilness was the use of torture.  The Gestapo, the Vietcong, the KJB, the Spanish Inquisition, American Indians, you name it.  Their use of torture was a black mark on their ledgers. Torture and evil, they go hand in hand.

And waterboarding?  Torture.  I'm no expert, but it doesn't take more than an ant's brains to figure if we found our terrorists were waterboarding our troops we'd be screaming from coast to coast.  And rightly so.  It is torture in the classic sense of the word.  Before the world heard of waterboarding, variations of it were long understood as horrifying, cruel and evil.

And yet, for reasons that are beyond this brief post, modern conservatives have thrown their lot in with the torturers of the past, not just shamefully using the practice, but almost boasting of their willingness to do so.  Here is Sarah Palin, whose star showed brightly for a brief time, and has since fallen to earth for most thinking people, pining for more torture via waterboarding.  And and not just advocating it, but invoking religious imagery connected to Christian rites and sacraments, an act one thinks of when thinking of Jesus and John the Baptist, of babies sprinkled and families celebrating a milestone in one's faith walk.  Sigh.

When Francis Ford Coppola fused the assassination of the heads of the Five Families with the baptism of Michael Corleon's nephew in the classic The Godfather, the juxtaposition is clear.  The sacred versus the profane.  What is good occurring alongside that which is evil.  Birth and new life, death and murder.  And here's Palin, mixing the two to whip up her followers and appeal to the base.  An appeal that rests heavily on a growing trend in our post-modern age: that right and wrong don't apply to us, they only apply to them.  The Right isn't the only ones to do this of course.  But since the Right claims to stand on the best of the past, one would expect better.  Especially since we've seen where that attitude - the attitude that rules don't apply to us, just them - tends to lead.

It must be tough to be a conservative American Catholic

When the basic gist of your mission is to proclaim the news that American conservatives are stupid, evil, racists who are always wrong and everything that liberals say they are.  Meanwhile, liberalism is praised and adored and spoken of for its potential, while liberal pundits and activists are increasing celebrated and admired.  And except for the whole 'sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance' stuff, there's really no reason we can't agree to disagree.

I have no problem with a person who is a liberal or conservative.  Just be honest.  If to nobody else, at least yourself.  And as the comments show, stop using the excuse 'I have to trounce the Right because of the overwhelming number of right wing tribalists who insist on visiting my blog.'  The comments in this thread alone suggest otherwise.

Happy Easter

The Catholic Church and Me

So this Easter will mark the seventh anniversary of our entrance into the Catholic Church.  It was at the Easter Vigil, 2006.  That's the night before Easter for those who don't know.  It was pretty special.  I was working for a lay apostolate that focuses, at least ostensibly, on helping Protestant ministers enter the Catholic Church.  I just started a couple months before.  We had just come off a string of months consisting of one disaster after another.  We lost a hunk of our savings (a portent of things to come), mostly due to my wife's dismissal from a Christian school because of our decision to become Catholic.

A series of mishaps followed, including a bad car accident which, unfortunately, my wife caused.  Our only working car lost, her job lost, me just struggling to replace my own ministry vocation had caused us to be at the finical breaking point.  Or so it seemed.

Then, suddenly, I was offered a job with that apostolate, and my wife got a full time job with an educational publisher, McGraw-Hill.  The money was pretty good. Combined it was more than we ever made before - evangelical ministers not known for their hefty paychecks.  We sat there that Easter vigil night, I was feeling so good.  Already I was in a position to keep my ministry wheels turning, we were financially well off enough to pay our bills and actually replenish lost savings.  The services were beautiful.  Doors were opening.  The future seemed on the right path.  We were taking some gruff from family, friends and former colleagues, especially about becoming Catholic while the sex abuse scandal was still fresh in the news..  Our kids were a bit confused about the sudden upheaval in our lives. But for us, it was clearly God's will and I couldn't be happier.

Nevertheless, there was one tiny issue.  The fellow who started the apostolate I worked for, the one who is seen by many as the face of protestant minister converts, was strangely apathetic about me becoming Catholic.  He wasn't there that night, though one of the employees, the liaison to the actual ministers who contact the ministry, did attend.  The founder of the ministry was absent. And more than that, he made no real effort to celebrate.  In fact, the following week, I had to remind him I was now Catholic. He said congratulations, but that was all.  Not even a card.  You'd think a ministry centered around what I had just done, with one of its own going through the very purpose of its existence, would have been, you know, happy. Maybe even celebratory.  But nothing.  A couple employees said well done, but that was all. I should have known.  A mere bump in an overall fabulous road that would soon come to define that road.

Two years later I was let go.  Officially - "officially" - it was because of finances, but as likely as not, it's because I couldn't or wouldn't move to a different part of the state where the offices were located.  But it was more.  I was an evangelical.  He, the president and founder, brought a disdain for my tradition with him into the Church.  That was clear.  We never hit it off.  He was what I discovered was more common than not: a former minister who made much out of the fact that when it comes to partying, few Christian traditions match Catholicism.  Dirty jokes and bathroom humor, cussing, smoking, drinking and partying - that's the stuff that Catholicism is made of.  And though I enjoy a beer or glass of wine with the best of them, that sort of thing has never been my cup of tea.  Once when we were having lunch with his wife, and as they were throwing about the old poop-humor, she grimaced.  She then noted I wasn't partaking in the Eddie Murphy screes. Her husband said it was because of my Baptist ways.  I said no, it's how I was raised before I was a Christian.  I fear that things like that assured me of no real future.

It may have been because of that I was often short shifted.  He obligatorily let me appear on his radio show, and once on his TV show dedicated to telling about journeys into the Catholic Church.  But he never rehearsed.  Usually guests prep with him ahead of time to know what to expect.  I was given no such benefit.  Each time, I was just thrown in and expected to do my best with no idea what to expect from him.  In charge of publishing, it was my job to tell him he had no clue about how to publish books, and my brief time with McGraw-Hill taught me a few things.  That went nowhere, and when our first book - In the Fullness of Christ - was published, he gave me no credit, no congrats, no thanks, no nothing.  I knew then my days were numbered.

Once I was let go in the spring of 2008, things went downhill.  After years of trying to get my name out in the Church through various avenues, I was getting nowhere.  Despite doing some well received projects for local parishes, and receiving much appreciation for lessons and teaching I did for their RCIAs and parishes, I was getting nowhere.

Then my Dad's health failed.  My sister's family unraveled.  My wife's sister got a divorce.  Then my Dad died, my Mom moved in with us in our starter home we've never been able to leave, and in December of 2011, as if the rest wasn't bad enough, my Wife lost her job in a tribute to modern Darwinian Capitalism.  She and hundreds of her coworkers.  Merry Christmas.

Since then we've lost all retirement, almost all savings.  Our little starter home is crumbling from lack of funds to keep it in repair.  I've now been all but told flat out that there is no place for me in Catholic ministry.  Not as a priest, deacon, teacher, nothing.  The fact that I was a vocational ministers is received in one of two ways.  One, it's irrelevant. Or two, the fact that I was a former ministers is itself the problem, and nothing I ever do will erase that.

Wow.  Quite a difference in seven years.  My current job is nothing special, I'm underpaid.  My schedule is a wrecking ball in our family's life.  My wife is working part time in a woefully underpaying and under employing job.  Our oldest is soon to graduate, this being the last years of his time with us. Our two youngest have almost no memory of stable, secure times.

So what's it all mean?  What happened?  I have no clue.  How it went from 'God's will as He opens doors and leads us along our glorious pilgrimage' to 'hell no there's nothing for you, starve if you must (but make sure you give to the Bishop's annual appeal' is something I can't answer.  All I know is that it's made a life of happiness and joy in the Catholic Church a tough one.

So why stay?  Well, there's the rub.  Because I believe it's true.  Because I believe the historic Church, that Church that existed pre-Protestant, is the True Church, and the fullest expression of the Faith in  Jesus Christ.  At this point, if there is no historic faith, there's no faith in Christ.  So to paraphrase Peter, where else would I go?

That's not to say I'm all tingly about what's happened.  I'm not.  I just remember that the Church may be the Body of Christ, but it's also full of people.  And it's that last part that's given the Church some of its more dubious reputations over the years.  Sure, many Catholics I've met are fine people, and probably have little to no clue what's happened, why it's happened, or the extent of what we've gone through.  But in the Catholic Church, at the end of the day, they don't matter.  Which has been the issue for more than a few centuries.

So as we crawl and stumble toward Easter, seven years from that fateful night, all I can say is that we're hanging on by a gossamer thread.  But we're hanging.  How things will unfold, or what will happen, I can only guess.  Perhaps hope.  Maybe pray.  But right now, we are bending all we have to push past the rubble strewn ruins of our life, and keep our focus on the core of our faith, one that once so dominated every corner of our lives, now at times a far off glimmer in a long, dark passage.  Perhaps it will shine brightly soon.  We can only pray.  But that's the way it is this Holy Week, 2014.  Till next time, perhaps on a new or fixed computer, Happy Easter.

Happy Birthday Dad

Dad as I'll always try to remember him, c. 1981

Today would have been my Dad's 84th birthday.  Unfortunately, his life was cut short by Alzheimer's and a negligent nursing home.  We'll see about the nursing home.  Prayerfully they can find something to stop that dread disease from claiming others as it has so many.  Nonetheless, I do miss him.  I missed him during those years of decline when, in so many ways, he ceased being the man I knew. 

True, once he had his heart attack in 1988, he was never the same.  They say that changes a person.  He changed then.  In some ways, for the better.  He loosened up, became more affectionate, a little more silly.  But also more temperamental.  More stubborn.  It was tougher to reason with him (not that he was ever known for just giving in).  

By the late 90s, however, something was clearly wrong.  We would visit from Louisville.  While there, we would tell old stories.  You know, the same ones over and over that families tell.  Nothing new there.  Each visit would see us retelling the same stories.  But suddenly, Dad began retelling the ones we had already told during that same visit.  Soon, he was repeating stories from the same day.

Then he began to make mistakes, or forget things that were important.  Sadly, we still didn't put it together.  My Grandma on my Mom's side had similar problems, and we just attributed it to old age, and a stroke that she had.  By the early 00s, Dad's diabetes began playing havoc, and he had several low sugar attacks. Anyone who's ever seen that knows what I'm talking about.  

From that point, it went down from there.  Unfortunately, my sister, whose husband (who recently passed away from cancer) was financially well off, was hit with sudden economic ruin.  Her husband's business partner did what too many business partners have done throughout the ages.  And, in fairness, he made some pretty bad (read: stupid) financial decisions.  By 2009,  they were forced to sell everything.  My parents, who had always lived near my sister, had to move several different times.  Anyone familiar with Alzheimer's knows that sort of constant upheaval is bad. 

My Mom, Dad and Sister and her husband moved down to where we are.  But things just fell apart.  My Mom couldn't watch him anymore.  We had to put him in a nursing home.  At first things went well.  For the first couple weeks.  But he was too far gone to stay in the part of the nursing home for self sufficient patients.  They moved him back to the high level care ward.  And then, within a couple weeks, he was gone.  Neglect mostly.  Not that he wouldn't have died.  But when we saw him just before he did, in soiled clothes, weight loss, dehydration, we knew he was being neglected.  We immediately began preparation to move him, but too late.  I saw him on Wednesday and realized he had to be moved.  By Sunday morning, April 3, 2011, after being rushed to the hospital on Friday morning, he was gone.  

I sometimes feel like we let him down.  For all he did for us, we just weren't there for him.  Still, there isn't much without hindsight to do differently.  I hate it now.  I miss him, and hate that his end came the way it did.  Naturally, the nursing home is part of a major corporation and we can't do a thing.  So all we can do at this point is remember.  Try to remember happier times.  Times before his passing.  Times before that wicked disease had stripped away everything that defined who my Dad was.  I know the Church teaches that suffering is just one of those things.  That's easier said than done.  The non-human initiated suffering of people has long since been the one fly in the theological ointment.  For all the thousands of years of contemplating, all we can ultimately says is some philosophical or academic version of 'let go and let God.'  Ultimate faith I guess. 

As for the rest of my blogging?  That is still in the works.  Our computer is still down, and our current financial conditions are such that getting it fixed or replaced is right behind that new yacht we've been looking for.  But I wasn't going to let Dad's birthday go by.  I've missed several milestones, and quite frankly, blogging itself is starting to lose a certain luster, one because of the nature of the blogosphere (including, alas, the Catholic blogosphere), and two, because of the change in my life's fortune, and the pretty solid sound of that door of ministry opportunity shutting in our diocese.  So where I'll be?  Can't say.  But I can say I miss you Dad.  Through  it all, I'd give anything to have you here to have just a final hug, a final goodbye, to hear you say once more to 'take care of those boys.'  I hope I do.  I hope, in the end, I'll do half as good a job of that as you did taking care of me.  Rest in peace, and may God's angels hasten you to be in His presence forever. 

Our Catholic Conversion and where things stand

I've noticed a couple responses to my post below, and some have reached out to contact - dare I say console - me over the same post.  Still working on the borrowed computer, as funds just aren't there to get the main one fixed.  And that's cramping my time for blogging.

Blogging.  I started my blog several years ago  (2010 I think).  That was after about a year of suggestions.  They started in 2009, about three years after we entered the Church.  At that time, we were sort of bouncing about, trying to make ends meet, sure that something was going to come up in the not-too-distant that would get my minister back into high gear, albeit for a Catholic purpose.

I had worked with RCIA groups, and had done lecture series on the Bible and Church History.  I was advised to write a book.  Several who saw my series pushed my name to other parishes or other Catholic organizations to help me get my foot in the door.  Several who took part in my series advised me to get my thoughts together for writing and teaching and that grand ministry whose door was soon to open.

So with that, after kicking it around, I decided to start a blog.  One, just to get used to putting my thoughts into words.  It had been years since I was in school, and since I'm not a professional writer, the knack for writing my ideas down had gotten rusty.  Two, to engage others.  Hopefully people would come by and I could bounce off ideas and hear mine corrected. Three, I could sort of chisel out a focus - what was it that I was passionate about?

That was back in 2010.  Now, I've all but been told that there is no place for me in our diocese.  Having spent too long waiting, just trying to get by waiting for the grand door opening, and having encountered more than a few misfortunes during this time, we are no longer financially able to relocate to anywhere else.  Meaning that for all intents and purposes, there is no ministry opening for me.

With that realization, it's difficult to keep the ministry flames alive.  I have a library, but to what end?  I've seriously thought of just giving it away (most of it).  I'm not sure what it matters if I keep up with things or even comment on them.  If I'm destined to be a paper pusher in a vast corporation, what is it that I think this regarding the current Pope or that regarding the change in times?

The blog itself has changed over time.  When I first started, I got a hat tip from some other bloggers, and early on there were several who commented.  The comments, in blog-fashion, sometimes got nasty.  Eventually I put a stop to those.   At that time, the comments section went haywire and no comments were able to be made.  I didn't mind.  I liked the relative quite.  Yet I didn't like just throwing things out without comments.  It seemed cowardly, as I think it is, to throw out a stinging commentary without a change for rebuttal.  So I brought the comments back.  But by then, many had left or ceased to comment. The comments never caught up to where they were.  Even now, except for a small handful who occasionally comment, the comment sections remain largely empty.

And if blogging with no comments is cowardly, commenting with no comments can also be tiring.  What's the point?  Is anyone even reading?  And since my ministry days are, at this point with this diocese and this bishop, done, why bother?  So I'm just not sure.  Right now, I've time to think of it.  My wife has a job interview this week.  How her working will fit with home school we don't know.  But we know we need funds and need them now.  With funds, we can do things like fix computers, and then, who knows?  For now, I've time to think about the blog, my library, and a great many things.  I'll return when I can.  Thanks for the prayers, and if anyone knows Bishop who's seriously a fan of Protestant minister converts, just let me know.  If not, a filthy rich Catholic wanting to depart with some of his or her excess will do.

What happened

We were putting down our Christmas decorations this weekend.  In Catholic life, Christmas comes to an end rather late.  We tried to make the most of it, though endless problems, a death in the family, sickness and a polar vortex that challenged our ramshackle house took away many of the traditions we've enjoyed in years past.  That's tough, since this was our 18 year old's Senior year and we wanted it to be a special year.  Hopefully we had enough family time to offset the issues.

Which leads me to where I am.  As we were putting things away, I noticed a special ornament.  It was a commemorative ornament my wife and I received years ago.  I was just starting out in ministry.  Though I was a second year seminary student, I already had made a mark with my colleagues.  I was older than many, and my testimony (recent convert) got me speaking engagements beyond what my lack of experience would suggest.  By 1994, I was serving at one of flagship churches in Kentucky.  I had already spoken at large gatherings, youth rallies and other special occasions.

I was doing well in school. Professors and students recommended that I should continue on and get a PhD.  Perhaps be a professor myself.  Within years, I had visited governor's mansions, dined with the president of one of the country's leading seminaries, had lunch with a Secretary of State.  I had met religious leaders.  I had become a senior pastor.  I had gone back to school to pursue the doctoral degree that so many people recommended.

And that year, at the start of it all, my wife and I sat in the balcony, with the senior pastor, local business leaders, media personnel, professors and other leaders of the denomination.  We were watching the annual Christmas performance, a local event broadcast and promoted throughout the season.  And during intermission, the pastor presented select guests with a commemorative ornament.   My wife and I received one.  There was applause from the audience.  All seemed to be a horizon bright with a wonderful future.

Now, as I type this, I prepare to go to my job.  A mid-day schedule.  For four days a week, and one day in the weekend, I'm removed from my family.  I don't make enough to pay bills, and my wife can't find work.  Without what she gets from the government, we'd be bankrupt.  We've lost all savings, most retirement, and virtually everything we've had.

I've been told that there is nothing for me in our diocese.  That's it.  There isn't anything.  The reasons are varied, and I can't quite tell why.  I see others coming into the Church and doing well, though most to be honest had other vocations than just Protestant Clergy.  Most were professors.  Or they had some other vocation in life they could lean on.

Despite the stories told by certain lay apostolates, there really aren't many full time vocational clergy who become Catholic.  And I can't help but guess I'm why.  It's one thing to say sell everything you have for that pearl of great value.  It's another to do it.

The family has certainly suffered, especially the boys.  Those outside who know of our plight have increasingly begun to tell us to come home to the Protestant world.  Get a job. Serve the Church.  Be loved.  Be accepted.  Family and former colleagues who know what we've been through have been ratcheting up the invites.  But here's the problem.  I don't believe it.  Protestantism that is.  I believe in the historic faith as live out in the Catholic tradition.  As Peter said, where do I go?  When I believe something is true, what are my options?

I'm not sure if the Church would care, though I know some individual Catholics would.  Nonetheless, I can't leave what I believe to be true, even though I feel I would be cared for better if I did so.  I must trudge along. Still, I can't help wonder at times, just like now, what happened.  A life that seemed so full of promise, so full of encouragement, now this.  A diamond in the rough a former colleague called me.  Someone who had something to give.  That seems so long ago.  Now, I must get ready.  I'm a paper pusher underpaid and unable to support my family.  I've been told there is no future in the Church, at least not in these parts.  As it stands now, I must go on wondering.