A Ramble About "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

I've been watching a certain news program at night on my iPod. It's by no means a conservative news program, but I appreciate the honesty, candor, and humor the host, Rachel Maddow, brings to the realm of politics, and the light she tries to shed on the otherwise intentionally muddied subject of politics. I don't always agree with her point of view, but I appreciate it and it has opened my own eyes to things I would have otherwise not been aware of had I stuck only to watching shows which purport to reflect views more closely associated with my own.



One of the topics she has covered recently are the debates and court rulings over the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. This is the policy of the United States military that, if you are a homosexual, practicing or otherwise, employed by the US military, officer or enlisted, you are obliged to neither reveal this information yourself, and they are obliged to not ask you outright. If somehow this information falls into the hands of the military then they will discharge you, honorably or dishonorably as the case may be.



Whatever other arguments may be held against it's repeal, there seems to be one overriding argument in favor of removing it. It violates the United States Constitution and the basic principle of equality and civil rights which is enshrined therein. There is no solid evidence that a person who is homosexual is any less capable of serving in the US military than a person who is heterosexual, and from my (admittedly limited) understanding, there is a great deal of evidence that persons who have been discharged under this law were extremely capable personnel, and the removal of them from service has been a terrible disservice to the operation of the US military.



So, why are so many people, especially professing Christian people, in the US government, and the US at large against having homosexual people serving openly in the US military? I believe the answer is that it is a result of misunderstanding and misteaching about the practice and application of the Christian faith and the teachings regarding not only homosexuality, but any sexual practice whether it is popularly considered deviant or not.



What is the ideal "sexual state" of the practicing Christian as found in both Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition?



Chastity.



Let me say this again. The ideal sexual relationship in Christian practice according to the writings of Holy Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers and Leaders for the last two thousand years is, and has always been, no sexual relationship at all. So if we were all to live according to the Biblical ideal, none of us who profess and practice Jesus Christ would be married or have children.



Why is chastity the ideal sexual relationship? Because the practice of Christianity is the denial of one's self, and the discipline and denial of one's own bodily appetites, bringing them under the control of Grace. It is the letting go of one's possessions, relationships (both friendships and family relationships), attachments, desires, and the emptying of one's entire being to pursue the one and only relationship which truly matters: one's relationship with God through and in Jesus Christ. He gave up His life for us, and so the practice of Christianity is to respond in kind. If something draws our attention away from Him it is to be cut off and let go of, otherwise it becomes a trap.



This was the teaching of both Jesus Christ and St. Paul:



Matthew 10:32-39 (WEB)

Everyone therefore who confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.Don’t think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn’t come to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at odds against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.A man’s foes will be those of his own household.He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me.He who doesn’t take his cross and follow after me, isn’t worthy of me.He who seeks his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.


Matthew 10:44-45 (WEB)

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls,who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.



Matthew 19:4-12(WEB)

He answered, "“Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall join to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?’So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.”"They asked him, “Why then did Moses command us to give her a bill of divorce, and divorce her?”He said to them, "“Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been so.I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.”"His disciples said to him, “If this is the case of the man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.”But he said to them, "“Not all men can receive this saying, but those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He who is able to receive it, let him receive it.”



1 Corinthians 7:1-8, 27-28, 32-35(WEB)

Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife. Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment. Yet I wish that all men were like me. However each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind. But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. But if they don’t have self-control, let them marry. For it’s better to marry than to burn. ... Are you bound to a wife? Don’t seek to be freed. Are you free from a wife? Don’t seek a wife. But if you marry, you have not sinned. If a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have oppression in the flesh, and I want to spare you. ... But I desire to have you to be free from cares. He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband. This I say for your own profit; not that I may ensnare you, but for that which is appropriate, and that you may attend to the Lord without distraction.



Philippians 3:7-14

However, what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death; if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if it is so that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.


The Sacrament of Marriage was given as a compromise or a concession for those of us who want to follow Jesus Christ, and devote ourselves to Him, but for whom also certain passions overwhelm us. Jesus Christ Himself was celibate by all trustworthy records. So was St. Paul. To my knowledge, many of His Apostles were not. Certainly not St. Peter of whom even Holy Scripture says He was married and mentions both his wife and his mother-in-law.



Within the Church, marriage is the only permissible actively sexual relationship because it was the only one sanctioned by Jesus Christ and His Apostles and their successors the Patriarchs, Bishops, and Fathers of the Church.



Now, how then do we respond to actively practicing homosexuals? According to Jesus Christ, with love, compassion, and understanding; the same way He responds to us. As He taught: "how can you see well enough to take the splinter out of your brother's eye when you have a log in your own eye?" And also "love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistrust you and abuse you." (See the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, and the Sermon on the Plains in Luke 6). In other words, we respond to homosexuals the same way we are taught and avowed to respond to everyone irregardless of who they are or what they do to us or anyone else. We are to care about them, love them, and help them in any way we can.



If it is a homosexual person who stands outside the Church, who are we, and what right do we have to judge them or look down on them? Weren't, and often aren't, we in the same position at one time or another? Blind and incapable of seeing our own Disorder and Malfunction for what it truly is? Didn't God have to break through our blindness with His light and doesn't He continuously still have to do so?



If it is a homosexual who stands inside the Church, who are we to beat up on our brother or sister who is struggling with desires and attachments? We are to love and care about them and when they reach out for help we are to gently guide them back to the path. We cannot abandon the Sacred Tradition and teaching of Holy Scripture just because it is the popular thing to do in any age whether it is in sanctioning practicing homosexual activity within the Church, or in bashing and persecuting practicing homosexuals. Both are forbidden. Ours is the path of Love Himself: The Path of Jesus Christ. And it is only in the practice of this path wherein any of us find our salvation in Him, and deviation from it is to step off into darkness and our own personal Gehenna from which it is very hard to recover in this life, and impossible in the next.



God desires that none, I repeat none, should perish but that all should come to repentance and know Him. It is our job to help people out of hell, not to gleefully condemn them to it, irregardless of what they've done, because we have the exact same Problem and would be there ourselves if someone had not intervened in our lives, and if God Himself did not constantly intervene.



Don't ask? Don't tell? It shouldn't matter if they do. Our response should always be the same no matter what. His is with us.

A Ramble about Confessions

As a part of my job as a residential care worker, I get to participate in various "groups" held by the residents. One of the kinds of groups is where the kids get together and then admit to things which they have done which are among one or more of nine problems on a list such as a problem with authority, for example. Sometimes these problems are called up because we, as staff, have given them paperwork to fill out because we see the problem being displayed. Sometimes they see the problem themselves and address it. Sometimes their peers do, and they either call it out or say that they'll "look into it".

I have sat through many of these groups now. And there are two things that strike me most about them. The first is how much like the sacrament of confession they are in intent. The second is, like many confessions, how phony many of these admittals are. The hypocrisy is overwhelming at times. The only reason why these kids usually call them out and admit them is because they're required to or else they lose the ability to do anything fun. Ideally, the kids that have been there longer are supposed to guide the newer kids in how to explore and call out their problems. In reality, they only show them how to give the mechanical responses everyone expects.

There's no sincerity. There's no real change of heart. It's so mechanical that the kids read through the list of problems at breakneck speed so that I usually can't understand what they're saying, and many don't even bother to actually read through the list. They just read off the number or letter of the point on the outline. They get extremely annoyed when I ask them to slow down their reading. After the groups are done, they will frequently behave in such a way so as to receive more paperwork for the very same things which they just admitted they recognized as a problem and the cycle will repeat itself.

I do a lot of listening to the kids, too. Often I let them talk about more then they are supposed to be allowed in order to determine where they're really at from day to day. From these conversations it's pretty easy to see that very little has changed even after the groups. The behavior of those kids who have been there longer may have changed to conform to the standards so that they don't get into as much trouble, but the beliefs and attitudes which caused the initial behavior seem just as prevalent. They fall into line just enough to merit discharge, but intend on falling back into the same thing which precipitated the need for them to be in the facility they're in.

I can't help but think when I am at work how much like the Church this is. How often do we go to confession (whether with a priest, at Mass, or in private) go through the routine and ask forgiveness with no real intent on changing the causes within our hearts which precipitated the need for confession to begin with? We only go through the motions in order to get out of any disciplinary action, and then like the kids I work with, we are mechanically told "good job for calling your problems" by our peers.

Do we really think we're fooling God into thinking we are actually repentant? If I, as a human staff member, am able to see through the false fronts, how much more does God see into our hearts knowing what our true intent is?

The purpose of the Sacrament is to reconcile us to God and each other, to recognize the change of mind and heart and to bring us back into communion with each other, including God, in the same way that the purpose of the groups is to bring the kids back into the normal practice of the program where I work. It is to acknowledge our failures but also to reach out for real help in moving past them. Simply saying what we did wrong and expecting an absolution so that you don't have to face discipline is a misuse and abuse of the program, and of the Sacrament and is a deep misunderstanding of both.

I can't say that I am any different either because I too am equally guilty of this. How many times have I gone to the Lord mechanically only because somewhere in the back of my mind I think I will somehow escape discipline or consequences for what I have thought, said, or done; all the while not letting go of the passions, fears, or desires which were the causes of what I have thought, said, or done.

God sees all of it, and we can hide nothing from Him. He sees more about us than we do. He also knows when we're faking it just to be perceived as advancing in the program.

A Ramble About Attachment Disorders

As part of my training for work, I am having to plow through a three inch thick binder of reading materials. Most of it is a repeat of materials, laws, and regulations which I have already read or with which I have already become acquainted. But recently I read through a pamphlet in the binder on attachment disorders which caught my attention and got me thinking. It isn't the first time I had encountered material on AD or RAD, but this time rusty gears started whirring.

In short, an attachment disorder occurs when a child fails, generally through either neglect or abuse, to form a healthy nurturing attachment to their parent. This in turn leads them to be unable to form healthy attachments to other people and can cause them to either cling to a person, or to completely reject and become abusive to the person, and in many cases to become abusive to themselves. The author of the article I had read stated that such children will often try to cause their foster parents (assuming a foster care situation) to abuse them to try to get them to treat them as their abusive birth parents did. The author also states that such children engage in pathological lying, invent stories of being abused, and refuse to take responsibility for their actions blaming others; such behavior continuing into adulthood.

I have often referred to "sin" as a disorder or malfunction of the human psyche (the very word in Greek, hamartia, meaning "error, malfunction, disorder, mistake", and used frequently in Greek literature to denote the "fatal flaw" which resides within every human being). I have also often referred to it as a kind of Spiritual Autism or Spiritual Asberger's Syndrome where the person initially is unable to communicate or socialize normally with God, or the spiritual world in general. I have also described the path of Jesus Christ as a kind of treatment plan for this disorder.

Now I would like to explore these elements, add one or two more, and then try to put a bigger picture together.

Another psychologist, Abraham Maslow, described what he called a hierarchy of needs, also referred to as Maslow's pyramid. In it he describes five levels of need, each level of which must be realized and satisfied before the person can progress upwards: 1)physiological, 2)safety and security, 3)love/belonging, 4)esteem, 5)self-actualization. This scheme is debated as to which level should go where, and that it doesn't always look the same in every individual, but the basic idea is sound. It is when a need is perceived as not being met that psychological aberrations begin to occur, and the person is often unable to progress to the next level.

Another piece of the puzzle I am attempting to put together lies in the descriptions given of experiences of deep prayer and meditation and even enlightenment among the various mystical traditions. To condense a great number of such witnesses, when one draws ever closer to God to the point where there is only the individual and God, and the lines begin to blur, the general consensus is the experience of overwhelming peace, joy, love, and fulfillment in knowing Him in an intimate way.

I would posit that the human being's "natural" state was to be in intimate constant relationship with God. Such a relationship would consistently and permanently meet all that person's needs for safety, love, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. It would not matter if everything collapsed and burned down around them(as has also been reported as being experienced), this constant relationship and awareness would continuously provide that those needs would be met. I should add here that in this kind of relationship it would be understood that the physical needs, while important, would likely be considered of secondary importance (also reported as being experienced).

The hamartia disorder (no, I don't like using the word "sin" because of it's frequent misuse and abuse) renders the human being unable to communicate or relate "normally" with God. Like a person with Asperger's or Autism, the person is often aware of God, or rather aware of the absence of "Something", but is unable to socialize normally or experience normal relationship. It is not that God is not present, but that the person in question is unable to recognize that presence without promptings from Him, and even often with promptings the person is unable to recognize and respond appropriately to Him.

The leads to the perception that somehow God, the Primary Parent, is not present or is somehow neglectful of the person whether or not that is the actual reality. This then precipitates a kind of Attachment Disorder with God, or more often because of the initial disorder, our perception of God which is all too often a misperception or a fantasy created in our mind of what we expect God to be because of our lack of direct experience or "observation". The mind creates an image which to which it then attaches the label "God" with God Himself being formless and imageless. We lie, we refuse to take responsibility, we become abusive to ourselves, to our perception of God, and to other people. We cling to our perceptions or fantasies about God, or we reject them outright hoping that He will love us while we tell Him how much we hate Him.

This also lends itself to the conclusion that it is this primary disorder, hamartia, which is the root cause of all other disorders. Without the uninterrupted relationship from birth of the psyche to God, the psyche then turns to the people around the person to fulfill those needs perceived as being unfulfilled. This then leads to a Russian roulette where the person's apparent psychological health is dependent largely on the circumstances of his birth, childhood and upraising, as well as his own choices which are highly influenced by these factors.

Even after a person is baptized, and is so joined to God through being grafted onto Christ, there is still the matter of integrating that new state. The person has developed a lifetime of behaviors which developed while unable to respond to the presence of God, and now they must integrate that new sense and ability into their pattern of behavior which takes both time and practice. Integration does not happen immediately, and it must progress and occur before the full benefits of such Treatment can be realized, at least in this life.

It stands to reason that we will relate to God in the same way that we will relate to other people. If we present a false front to other people, we will likely attempt to do so with God. If we are honest with other people and open, we are likely to do so with God. If we are capable of dysfunctional relationships with other people, then we are equally capable of it with God and are likely to treat Him thus.

In spite of all this, God is still present. He still loves us. He still wants desperately for us to work through this and to know Him, knowing the whole time the kind of fight and struggle it will be. He wants us to succeed in this and ultimately to experience deep, intimate, normal relationship with Him. The way things were supposed to be.

A Ramble About Burning the Qur'an

If you're a news junkie like me (yes, I have high speed news again!), and maybe if you're not, you've probably heard about the decision by a pastor down south to hold an "International Burn the Koran Day." From what I understand, in spite of repeated statements and requests by the US government, including General Petraeus who happens to be responsible for the lives of the men and women serving overseas in Afghanistan; in spite of these high level requests this church still intends to go ahead with this.

At first glance, I must admit that I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, no, I don't agree with Islam, and I don't agree with the Koran on most points, although I was surprised at how much we do agree on and what we agree on having read through part of it. That one of the feelings that comes into my mind.

But it's the other which comes into my mind more strongly. This is the feeling of, "How can you possibly call this a Christian act when it is direct contradiction to what Jesus taught?" And, by extension, "how can you call yourself a Christian?"

Jesus taught us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who persecute us, and to pray for those who abuse us. How is burning the most sacred book in the Islamic world loving them? How is performing an act of vengeance and petty spite doing good to them? In short, how does this action pass the acid test of what Jesus actually taught and lived when, as He was being nailed to a cross, prayed for the forgiveness of his tormentors? How does this give and display Jesus to the Muslim world?

Another teaching of Jesus comes into my mind, and that is "how can you see clearly enough to remove a splinter from another's eye when you have a log in your own?" And also, "don't judge so that you won't be judged; don't condemn, so that you won't be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven."

Burning the Koran is, in some ways, an illustration of pointing out the faults and errors of everyone else around you, while being completely blind to your own. The basic practice of the Christian faith is to look deeply at your own errors and admit them. To recognize that there is something wrong with you. The primary focus must be on one's own spiritual problem, not everyone else's. Burning someone else's Koran doesn't do anything to advance one's own spiritual growth and it only drives them further away from Truth, not closer to it. You have to let them do the burning when they're ready and prompted by Grace and the Holy Spirit, otherwise they will only draw farther away.

There was a scene in the recent remake of "The Karate Kid" where Mr. Han takes his student out of the professional Kung-Fu teacher's dojo and then declares adamantly that "That is not Kung-Fu! That is a bad man teaching very bad things!"

This Pastor who plans this... "That is not Christianity! That is a misguided and ignorant man teaching very bad things!" I hope the Muslim world understands that.