By John Rieping | Published 11 Sept 2014 in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved |
“There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.” -- Journalist and author G.K. Chesterton One of the peculiarities of polite conversations is they tend to begin with the deepest questions that often receive the shallowest of answers. Think back to the last time you ran into someone, whether vaguely familiar or a stranger, with whom talking was an expected courtesy. You exchanged revelations to satisfy the ignorance of the other, whether that lack of information was spoken or assumed. Who are you? What do you do? How are you? There are those who will gladly inform you about these topics like a dog happily fetching a ball, eager to run and skillful in performance. Some offer merely acceptable replies. Then there are the ones who have to think about the answer. Be wary. Those are the ones in danger of possibly taking your interest seriously. We may satisfy this oft-assumed curiosity with a name, a place of origin, a job, or a relationship that binds us — however weakly — with the one with whom we speak. Yet such questions are metaphysical puzzles wherein may lurk dragons fair or foul. In fair form, the dragon may be one of satisfaction and comfort in who and what we believe ourselves to be — a good daughter, son, spouse, student, worker, friend, lover, Christian, Muslim, atheist, athlete, thinker, etc. In venomous form, the dragon may be shame and doubt over who and what we believe ourselves to be — broken, dumb, fat, ugly, unlovable, old, addicted, useless, abandoned, etc. We find our value in our self image, regardless of how true it may be, and present it to others more than we realize. And these dragons can sink their poisonous teeth into more than ourselves. In late August, one such reptile showed itself at the Madera Unified School Board meeting in central California in which some parents expressed concerns about a man hired to work with at-risk students. He was a convicted, imprisoned, and released felon who in the past decade has worked professionally in gang and drug intervention. As one parent said, “A felon is a felon, is a felon.” Such thinking works well when speaking of inanimate objects. When I plug in my cell phone to charge it before I sleep at night, I would be a bit puzzled if I woke up and found it had transformed into a toaster. The only changes common to objects are that of decline: food goes bad, toys break, clothing wears out, and so on. With animals, including humans, such a mindset can mislead. A gentle household dog may meet up with other pet dogs at night and roam the area together brutally attacking livestock like a feral wolf pack. A once good student may become a poor one when strong emotion grips the heart, and the reverse is just as possible. And so on. We well know that change is possible and likely, but the dominant threads pulling on our heart — such as love of a child or spouse — make us foresee good or bad changes without cause, and distrust what does not fit our vision. On Wednesday, Pope Francis pondered the words of the Jewish rabbi Yeshua (Jesus) in the Gospels: “Be merciful, just as your father is” (Loukas/Luke 6:36). This command of Yeshua is easier or harder to follow depending on “who” is the person involved. What of jailed criminals, Francis asked on behalf of skeptical Christians, must we be merciful to them too? “Some will say, ‘This is dangerous. These are bad people.’ Listen carefully: any one of us is capable of doing what these men and women in prison have done. We all sin and make mistakes in life. They are not worse than you or me. Mercy overcomes any wall or barrier, and leads us always to seek the face of the human being. And it is mercy that changes hearts and lives, that is able to regenerate a person or enable him to be newly reintegrated in society.” Mercy disturbs our clear understanding of “who” and “what” we or others may be, and it may complicate our lives. But it liberates as well. Because mercy is a dragon slayer that reminds us where our value truly lies — in our shared humanity, made in the image of God (Beresheit/Genesis 1:27).
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By John Rieping | Published 4 Sept 2014 in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved |
“ ‘I wish life was not so short,’ he thought. ‘Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.’” — J.R.R. Tolkien Time travel can be lovely sometimes. I learned in April that my grandmother, Carmen Najar Lozano, had written a letter dated in the year 2000, eight years after her death in 1992. She had left it with my late aunt, missionary nun Sister Conception (nicknamed “Conchita”), to be shared after my grandmother’s death. It was discovered in the belongings of my aunt after her own passing in 2013. “Esteemed and dear children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” it began in Spanish, which I here poorly translate. “For all without exception a greeting from your mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, who always prays to God with the Virgin Mary for your protection. Now, a great wish that will make me very happy, is that you are always united in not doing less for any member of the family. “Help the brother who you encounter in need, aiding, that you may be rewarded [by God] a hundredfold and none of you will be lacking. My children, do not forget that I ask this of you, the same as I ask you do not forget your sister Conchita. All of you receive the blessing of your mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.” In a way, her letter could be considered her last will and testament, though it distributes blessings rather than property. She wanted her progeny to remain united in love, mercy, and prayer to God — and wisely saw those three as a source of divine blessings. She is not the only one to leave a spiritual testament of sorts. In August, the Islamic State executed freelance journalist James Foley, 40, in Syria after two years of captivity in an attempt to pressure the U.S. to halt its air strikes. His mother would write on Facebook, “We have never been prouder of our son Jim, he gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people.” Less than three years before, Foley’s alma mater — Marquette University — published an essay by Foley on his previous imprisonment for reporting in Libya. Foley, a Catholic Christian, shared how prayer sustained him at that time, convinced him he “wasn’t alone,” and delivered him. He concluded, “If nothing else, prayer was the glue that enabled my freedom, an inner freedom first and later the miracle of being released during a war in which the regime had no real incentive to free us. It didn’t make sense, but faith did.” His words echo beyond the grave to offer a glimpse into his heart, where surrender to God offered him the surest shelter amid storms of death. Not all records of our life evoke pride however. This week the world learned that hackers of Apple’s iCloud (a computer file storage service) had been finding, trading, and selling explicit and private photographs of more than 100 female celebrities for months before a collector known as “OriginalGuy,” and possibly a later copycat as well, posted many online. A third of the images were reportedly doctored and faked, according to Business Insider on Wednesday, and some of the others had already leaked to the public beforehand. But the lack of respect shown by the involuntary exposure caused shock and an FBI investigation. Less recently, private contractor Edward Snowden revealed how the U.S. government had already been infringing upon the privacy of users of communication technology. As we live, traces remain of how we lived and what we lived for. It has ever been so, but we can have short attention spans and quickly forget about it. Yet how do we want to be remembered? What words should we have shared? What deeds should we have done? Who do we want to be? Such questions rise most readily at the ends of roads we walk, whether the end of school, a job, or a life. Yet it is now, as we are in the middle of our unfinished living, when we can make the greatest difference with the answers. There is no time machine we can use to undo our past. May we turn not to government or celebrities but to God, and decide anew who we want to be, how we want to live, and what we want to live for. For it is only with God’s help that we will be able to do it well. By John Rieping | Published 19 July 2014 in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved |
“I grew up in church. As a child, going to church felt natural. But recently, Christianity has been a hard ‘thing’ to swallow, if that makes sense. I noticed that you're probably Catholic ... Have you always been very spiritual, or did you have ‘bumps in the road’? How did you come to believe?” — An online reader British author G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The supreme adventure is being born. There we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap... When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale.” Our very lives as young children rely on whether those who care for us are trustworthy, and whether they are or not we want them to be so. They may tell us God or Santa Claus exist and some of us accept this as truth initially, for we may not know either divinity or Santa personally but we know our parents. So we believe. But times come when our child-like faiths quake, because we have learned the imperfection of our parents, ourselves, others, or life itself. A contradiction or unsatisfied question births one doubt or many. If no remedy is sought or found, our trust in what or who we’ve believed wavers or dies. All who live beyond childhood must pass through this in some aspect of our beliefs. This is not because of lost innocence and ignorance, which are commonly blamed. Rather it is because children accept a world handed onto them by others and are not held responsible for what they’ve received. It is not so for adults. The world may exist before us no less than for kids, but our understanding and response has become something we pay the price for. There is always a cost for convictions, and a higher one for having none at all. As a child, was I interested in spiritual topics like angels, miracles, and so on? Yes, as well as equally fantastical ones like magic, unicorns, elves, dragons, and more — not to mention androids and alien life forms. Children tend to have a hunger for both clarity and possibilities. Did I ever question the existence of God? I did. Repeatedly as a young child I’d imagine God did not exist and linger dizzily on the edge of that cliff staring at the ramifications. Yet I never jumped off. Franciscan friar William of Ockham, England, proposed that, in the absence of certainty, a solution with the fewest assumptions should be favored. This “razor” of his remains popular with scientists to this day. And I have never leapt into atheism because I believed then and now that God is both the most rational and the simplest explanation for so much I have encountered and learned of existence. Whether hard to swallow or not is irrelevant. In my experience, it is the simplest truths that are the most difficult to embrace. We often create complications instead as a labor-saving device. My first major crisis of faith came around age 10 when I decided I didn’t want to join my family for Sunday morning Mass. I locked myself in the bathroom — the only lockable room. My mother and sister pled with me through the door to no avail. So my dad said to leave me be. John may not be going that day, he said, but that didn’t mean the family wouldn’t. He herded my family out the door and I could hear our automobile start up and go. At that moment, I reflected. I did not want to go to church. I had other activities I wished to persist in instead. But did I believe in God? I searched my depths and I did. Yet whether or not one believes in God, the consequence of that belief remains a choice. Thus came a point of decision: did I love God? I did, and realized then I wanted to worship God — not because of family but out of love. So I unlocked the door and ran into the street, chasing after my family. That would not be my only such rebellion, but resolving them has always involved a sincere search for answers, whether within or outside, and the choice to respond to what I uncovered. The word “crisis” comes from the Greek word for “decision” (krisis) or “decide” (krinein). A crisis is a healthy and normal opportunity to grow in one’s convictions. Fear not.
By John Rieping | Published 5 July 2014 in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved |
“I would possess a host of lovely things, / But I am poor and such joys may not be. / So God who lifts the poor and humbles kings / Sent loveliness itself to dwell with me.” — “Wealth,” by poet Joyce Kilmer, killed by a sniper while serving as a U.S. soldier in World War I Whether boisterous or somber, patriotic holidays invite us to return for a time to the freshness of childhood and see anew the gifts of our communities and nation. There may be homes beyond counting on this planet, but to toddlers theirs is the first to exist. Nearly seven billion humans live, but those in a babe’s family are to them the first. The morbid statistics of wars numb the mind and heart, but when someone you love as a child returns no more it is our first casualty. Each child puts the world on trial. First love, first kiss, etc. On and on a child explores the frontiers of existence until at last the world may seem tame or old, and the colors of our latest joy or grief sit upon or blend with layers of others on the painted canvas of our being, no longer innocent. So holidays whisper to the aged soul, “Look here,” or, “Forget not.” Those who ignore the invitation fail to sip from an imperfect fountain of youth, for it is not the world that grows old as we live. We do. In our daily lives, beauty smiles, truth speaks, and goodness gives. Let us not let darker encounters or the mere dullness of repetition blind us to such gifts. Be refreshed and thankful, at least on holidays. But how much better if we fought to hold onto the best of a childhood spirit even as our energies unavoidably weaken. “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged,” writes British author and journalist G.K. Chesterton. “They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.” Jews and Christians believe in a Creator God who performed the work of creation and then rested — not out of necessity but out of love. This same God, we believe, repeatedly looked at what existed in this infant universe and declared it good and very good (Bereishit/Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). Unlike us, I think God doesn’t tire of saying it either. “Perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony,” Chesterton mused. “It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” Therein lies a source of Christian hope, for we believe in a God who “makes all things new” (Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17; Revelation 21:5) — including us if we allow it. Though popular culture prefers to speak of being “wicked,” “bad boys,” or “naughty” as desirable, Christians recognize that innocence renewed means eyes reopened — to the goodness of the world and ourselves. Of the many joys of existence, one we may forget yet so deeply long for is the knowledge that someone loves us no matter how predictable we may be in hurting ourselves and others.
By John Rieping | Published 10 May 2014 in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved |
I hadn’t flown since 1998 nor taken a true vacation in 11 years. But love beckoned, and change followed — as so often happens. Curiosity about a minor detail of a photograph on an online dating website began a correspondence that ultimately led to my leaping into the sky between the aluminum wings of Alaska Air and Horizon Air passenger planes. The first hop carried me to Oregon and the second left me in Washington state. Both states were far more hydrated than my seemingly cloud-repellant home of California. Across the U.S.-Canadian border sat my destination of Vancouver, British Columbia. The following days reacquainted me with the tree-seasoned metropolis I had last visited as an older child. Little seemed to have changed compared to the few and incomplete memories I still had of the mostly familiar yet mildly peculiar land. Updated oddities included the emergence of plastic polymer Canadian currency in 2011 to replace the older paper bills that, as a child, had astonished me with their colorfulness. What draws me to our northern neighbor always seems to be a dear person in my life. This spring’s journey of mine sought time with a chaste lady friend of mine. My previous trip in September 1984 had been to see Pope John Paul II with my family, who drove there from Madera as part of group from St. Joachim Catholic Church. Back then the Hough family, strangers to us but devout fellow Christians, generously shared their home to my family and I for the week, fed us and led us to lovely places. We all belonged to a multi-religion movement known as Focolare (www.focolare.org), which focuses on living out the Christian gospels to build a unity born of love and truth. We saw the steam-powered clock in Vancouver’s Gastown, crossed a long and narrow rope suspension bridge in a grand park, gazed out like an eagle from the lofty Vancouver Lookout viewing deck, and more. I even randomly met a U.S. actress of the day, Erin Gray, then star of the TV sitcom “Silver Spoons.” I approached her to ask for an autograph, but turned around when faced with two serious and muscular men — presumably bodyguards — who flanked her. The trio’s expressions were unreadable behind sunglasses. She was not the star we came from afar following however. We met John Paul II, canonized this April by the Roman Catholic Church, at Abbotsford Airport. My father had an impressive camera with him for the occasion while I had my cheap toy equivalent. He and I waited for what seemed an eternity at the edge of our assigned seating area to try to capture the pontiff when he passed by before the open-air Mass. Yet, shortly before the anticipated moment, Polish mothers with their children in traditional ethnic clothing commandeered the barricades and routed many adults there, including my dad. As a child, though, I stayed and took the desired photograph in an unexpected reversal. I felt like such a hero, though fittingly the secret to my triumph was my littleness. The only words spoken that I recall from my youthful adventure in British Columbia were not by the pope however. They weren’t even significant. I had overheard the Hough’s daughter practicing her numbers in French, and became concerned she had her Spanish wrong. So I spoke with her parents to try to help. They patiently listened and explained it was not the language I mistook it for. Yet even there in that humbling moment was a message I still remember clearly: love. I saw it in my family, in the kind Houghs, in countless strangers, and even in the Polish mothers who perhaps wanted the bishop of Rome to see an echo of his homeland. In his Abbotsford sermon, John Paul noted: “During the whole of Jesus’ earthly life, this heart (of his) was the center in which was manifested, in a human way, the love of God.” Our own hearts were ever meant to do the same, Christians believe, for we humans are made in the image and likeness of a God who is love. Yet we can fail gravely in this. Is it any wonder then that some struggle with or despair in belief of God? It is only natural to find it difficult to believe in what is unseen or contradicted in our lives. But God was never meant to be invisible. Let us who claim to believe ask for divine help to show God to all through our love. By John Rieping | Published in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved |
In ancient times, today was known as Lazarus Saturday. The name refers to the organizer of a supper that Yeshua (Jesus) ate in the community of Bethany “six days before the Passover” (cf. John 12:1). That naturally wasn’t the first visit of Yeshua, but it would be his last. The Greco-Syrian physician Loukas (Luke) describes the first meeting (Luke 10:38-42). Yeshua had arrived in the village of Bethany, which sat a few miles east of the metropolis of Jerusalem, and a woman named Marta (Martha) welcomed the traveling rabbi into her home. While Marta busied herself with serving her famous guest, her sister Mirriam (Mary) sat at his feet and listened. This irked her sister, probably for multiple reasons. For one, Mirriam’s pose was customary of male students listening to a religious scholar. Jewish boys began their formal education around the ages of 5-7, either in the synagogue or at home. They would first be taught the Hebrew alphabet, the Aleph Bet, and then memorize and study verses from the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. Note that I said “boys.” Jewish women received little formal instruction, did not read from the Bible in the synagogue, were not taught Jewish law, could only observe religious ceremonies, and weren’t expected to attend on festivals and feast days. Mirriam’s adoption of this student role before a rabbi was scandalous. Moreover, Marta didn’t think it was fair that her sister was just sitting around while she was busy with the work of being a good host. So she complained: Rabbi, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me! Surely to Marta’s surprise, Yeshua not only didn’t scold Mirriam for her revolutionary behavior, he praised it: Marta, Marta, you are full of care and trouble about many things, but only one is necessary. Mirriam has chosen that good part, and it will not be taken from her. This wasn’t the only time Yeshua defied expectations in a radical way. Those unwilling to accept this struggled with his hard teachings. From there, it was only a step onward to reject the teacher too. The memoir of the “beloved disciple” says that when Eleazar (Lazarus) later died of illness, Yeshua wept, prayed, and called his friend forth from the cave in which his corpse had been entombed (John 11:1-44). Talk of this alleged miracle frightened Jewish religious leaders. It wasn’t the first time a self-proclaimed messiah had arisen. Decades before, a tall and handsome slave of King Herod gathered followers, declared himself king of the Jews, plundered and burned the royal palace at Jericho, and did the same elsewhere, according to Jewish historian Josephus Flavius. The commander of Herod’s infantry led Roman soldiers against this “messiah,” Simon of Peraea, and beheaded him. Likewise a shepherd named Athronges and his four brothers led a flock of rebels against Herod Archelaus. Less than a dozen years later, Judas of Galilee marshaled a violent fight against the Roman census. All of the lives of these so-called messiahs had ended amidst bloodshed, and Jewish leaders decided it would be better if only one died this time — Yeshua — instead of many. In this context, Yeshua ate in Bethany with his friends Eleazar, Marta, and Mirriam in the house of Simon the leper on the sabbath (Matthew 26:6-13; John 12:1-11). Unexpectedly, Mirriam washed and anointed his feet with costly scented ointment and wiped them dry with her long hair. This was another scandalous gesture by Mirriam, and yet once again her teacher praised it. Leave her be, he told his indignant apostle Yehuda of Keriot (Judas Iscariot), for it is for the day of my burial she kept this spikenard. It was the custom of the day to perfume the newly dead to soften the eventual stench of decay. The next day, which Christians call Palm Sunday, Yeshua rode a young donkey into nearby Jerusalem. There was symbolism in the choice of transportation, for a horse was the mount of war and the donkey a steed of peace. He was met with cries greeting him as the king of Israel and you can easily imagine the alarm of those fearful of another disastrous false messiah. So began the time that fourth-century Christians called the “Great Week” (now known as Holy Week). Spy Wednesday was the day Judas joined those plotting against Yeshua; Holy Thursday, his last supper; Good Friday, his death; Holy Saturday; and Easter Sunday, new life. By John Rieping | Published 8 March 2014 in The Madera Tribune | All rights reserved | Earlier this week, an Internet meme amused me. In its first of two panels, the image showed the faces of the characters of the classic movie "Star Wars" -- robot C-3PO, Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi, and young Luke Skywalker -- as they stared ahead. Below them was the film quote, "You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." The second panel showed the characters from behind, but the panorama before them was not Mos Eisley space port on the planet of Tatooine. Instead it showed the U.S. Congress in session. I shared it online with a friend, who commented she was coming to agree with its sentiments more and more. Dangerously, her words made me reflect, and I realized I could not embrace the meme's cynicism. Power may indeed tend to corrupt, as British historian Lord Acton proposed in 1887, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all politicians are dishonest and unjust. A long time ago in our very own galaxy, the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) considered political theory to be a branch of the philosophy of ethics. By ethics, humanity aspires to happiness by a life of virtue, he taught, and by politics we cultivate virtue in a people so it may be happy. Such thinking is not so distant from us. After all, some of our laws clearly exist to discourage and punish behavior our U.S. society views as bad, whether it be voyeurism or bribery. When our morality shifts, the laws of our democracy often belatedly follow, and sometimes the other way around. Late in February, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder reminded me anew of the connection between politics and ethics with his justification for President Barack Obama and himself refusing to uphold laws they consider wrong. Elsewhere, more than a handful of state attorneys general, fellow Democrats, have also abandoned their similar sworn duty. In the latter cases, the issue revolves around constitutional amendments or laws limiting the definition of marriage to one man and one woman. Attorneys general must resolve, Holder said, "not merely to use our legal system to settle disputes and punish those who have done wrong, but to answer the kinds of fundamental questions -- about fairness and equality -- that have always determined who we are and who we aspire to be, both as a nation and as a people." In short, Holder, Obama and others are following their consciences, like many brave souls in history have also done in the face of what they see as unfair laws. It is an unexpected stance from members of an administration that on Feb. 18, 2011, rescinded many existing conscience protections for medical workers, who previously were allowed to refuse to offer services that violated their morals or religious beliefs. No longer would federal law allow pharmacists to say no to prescriptions for abortifacient drugs, a doctor to decline to treat a lesbian for infertility, or an ambulance driver to reject taking a woman to an abortion. While the U.S. president and attorneys general follow their hearts, the unelected citizen has been told that the law trumps their convictions. The award-winning play and movie "A Man for All Seasons" dramatizes the true tale of Sir Thomas More, the high-ranking chancellor of England during the 16th-century reign of King Henry VIII. Ultimately More would be executed rather than deny his conscience and accept the king's claim to be the spiritual head of Christianity in England. In the drama, More's future son-in-law, Will Roper, urges him to detain a man openly willing to betray More for profit, but he will not: "Go he should if he were the Devil himself until he broke the law!" This outrages Roper, who thinks laws should be ignored when dealing with evil people. More replies with equal passion: "What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ... And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!" Whether in theater or history, More embodies the paradox of deep respect for both law and conscience. May God raise up more such politicians. |
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