Transition

It is easily the biggest change I have made in my life. It bears no resemblance to anything I have done before. I may as well be trading in everything that is known of me. And yet, life goes on, the old empire stands and functions, rocked to persistent slumber by the daily routine. Habit has no knowledge of revolution.

Where have they gone--
so many,
so beloved--
gone to keep council
with the lonelier planets--
and all their secrets
kept henceforth silent--
I will not hear so much as a whisper
again--
My heart is the loneliest
planet of all,
colder yet for my distant sun,
for flicker sharp
yet never warm--
a word devoid of once said love

Where have you gone
whose love was forever—
where have you spent your life
after all?
And what did you mean
by using words
reserved for better things
than lies?
Yet even now but speak
one time
let one last lie be comfort
And for the sake
of promised things
restore the truth
to lost illusion

My Ongoing Slow Motion Conversion to Catholicism

Well, I seem to have entirely lost the thread here. Which is not surprising. Things just don't cohere anymore. Any effort at extended concentration is a defeat from the outset. Compounding the aforementioned complications is the fact that I tend to change my mind about things pretty much day to day.

So I'll just start again.

There has long been a serious view expressed among Catholic historians that Martin Luther made a big mistake in encouraging a separation from the Catholic church, rather than taking up his objections with the authorities and working toward reforming the church from within.

To me, this seems rather callow. Either that, or intentionally obtuse. Given the corruption at the heart of the Catholic church at the time, and the love of money at the heart of the corruption, it hardly seems likely that the powers that existed would have been amenable to a friendly tea and exchange of ideas with Luther. More likely they would have boiled him in tea.

As the Catholics see it, the sins of separation are apparent, now more than ever, as manifest in the resulting confusion of Protestant denominations, the fragmenting of the one faith, the divergence of doctrine and practice.

And I agree.

Protestants, having left the mother church, then proceeded to fracture within their own faith, dividing again and again, becoming this and that and the other subset, each possessing, of course, the truth.

Is has been said often enough that this was the devils plan for the overthrow of Christ's church on earth.

Is that right?

I wonder why, then, the devil was not happy with the shambles that had already existed in the form of the Catholic church before Luther? Herein, as it seems to me, was a pretty thorough corruption of the body that had been intended by Christ--a magnificent vessel of greed, robbery, violence, war, persecution, intolerance, and deceit masquerading as the house of God--certainly not an accident, no, but a careful calculation of the powerful corrupt.

This, therefore, is the sin of the Catholic church--that it caused the very rebellion that it came to bemoan.

Why the devil? And how can the devil work other than through men? We do not possess what is holy, but rather are possessed, and the Spirit will ever seek his own.

My Ongoing Slow Motion Conversion to Catholicism

Where was I now?

I suppose there was some component of rebellion in my initial interest in Catholicism (something better suited, in a historical sense, to Protestants). It was a rebellion against what I had found to be an empty noisiness in the Charismatic churches; or rather, there seemed to be a lot of generally pleasing noise in the form of praise songs (complete with guitars, drums, bongos, saxophones, trumpets, symbols and whatever else would clatter or blare), and then nothing. Or worse than nothing sometimes.

I had the feeling that some of these people, especially those in leadership positions, were flaunting ignorance, of history, of philosophy, even of Jesus himself (though of course they knew it not), as if it were some sort of badge of merit. How could they tell us to burn JD Salinger? The Catcher in the Rye? Had they ever read it? What was their big issue about the kinds of movies we might watch? Was the peace and purity of Mary Poppins really superior an honest approach toward comprehending the world, however fallen, the heart, however broken?

Yes, I wanted more and more to know Jesus, to see him in action, and yet I was getting farther away rather than nearer. My wife was also getting farther away--from me, that is. She began to talk about the Lord coming in the clouds any time now, she began to talk about flying up to heaven, she began to listen to Christian radio broadcasts predicted the immanent advent of this same Hope of Glory. Next week, in fact. And somehow there were to be aliens involved. And angels. A the sounding of a trumpet that would be heard worldwide.

Living yet in my mind, being yet dead in the spirit, this was way too much for me to swallow, let alone digest. I decided to quit the whole thing. And then I happened to read something else that made sense. A little book on Catholicism.

And I said, Hmm ... hold on a sec ....

My Ongoing Slow Motion Conversion to Catholicism

I have always had a soft spot for the Catholic Church.

Well, not always, but anyway ever since I became interested in Christian things. My first serious interest is Christian things of any kind arose from a desire to refute my second wife's new found convictions (which I did not like at the time because they did not seem very much fun). As it happened, however, the harder I tried at this, the more I failed.

It seemed, in short, ridiculously enough, that she was right--not about everything, of course, but at least about Christ. I could not refute him. Moreover, far from being refuted, or even chipped, or even dinged, Christ took hold of me--and he had no intention (though I did not know it then) of ever letting go.

It was my mind then, my thought processes that had suddenly been commandeered by the truth, but not my spirit, which yet lay dead, quite immune to the musings in my head. My wife would drag me along--me and my thoughts--to various Charismatic churches, and I found quite instantly that the better part of my brain would need to be checked at the door in order for the remainder of my person to endure service within the sanctuary.

It's all about worship, she would say, we are here to worship the Lord.

But didn't you hear? He just now said to burn my copy of Catcher in the Rye!

Catcher in the who?

And here comes the collection plate again? How many times has it come around now? Three? Four? I've lost count.

May the Lord forgive your greediness.

And so on.

It was the strangest sort of feeling. I came to feel by and by that the church was the loneliest place in the world. He who had so captured my attention was somehow absent from these proceedings which declared his name.

What did this mean? Why did I care.

I missed him.

(to be continued)

The End

This is the end just barely begun This is where we come to surrender Full of shame Full of sorrow to face the glint in the enemy's eye to acquiesce to his pitiless terms This is the end This is the end where the flags of hope are folded and buried Here is where we come to fail and eat the enemy's pompous communion to drink the wine of wasted blood Our hearts have been the fountain Our bones make up the bread Here is the end that would never come as final now as the Biblical flood The end of life the end of love This is the end of every work of every word of every kiss where love's embrace is swallowed in the maw of hatred's last hurrah And laughter peels like bells ding-dong and summons the beak of the bitter crow (comment on this)