Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Thoughts on Prayer — Part 2

Last week we discussed prayer, and the reality that quite often it seems God does not answer our prayers. The fact is, we live in a fallen world. We all experience a lot of pain and heartache going through this thing we call life. When sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden, it corrupted everything. We can take comfort in knowing that God understands our sorrow and desires to bless us. 

Even though we wish God would answer all our prayers immediately and take away our pain, we can be confident that He loves us because of two important things He did. First, He sent His one and only Son to pay the price for sin and make it possible for us to be reconciled with Him. Second, He created a place called Heaven, where all of our pain and heartache will cease for all eternity.

This week I’d like to address a couple of other important aspects of prayer. Many people get discouraged and claim that God does not answer prayer. Well, we can look at it this way: God answers all of our prayers. Sometimes He answers, “Yes.” Sometimes He answers, “No.” And sometimes He says, “Wait.”
If we look back on our lives, we surely can remember times when we prayed for a certain outcome, maybe regarding a relationship or a job. That prayer seemingly was not answered, and we were very disappointed at the time. But soon after, something much more wonderful occurred, for example, a new and better relationship or a new and better job.

Speaking personally, if every plea I sent up to God was answered right away, in the exact way I asked (or more accurately, demanded), my life would’ve been a total mess. I probably would’ve died decades ago.

I think I have a pretty good idea of what I need, but in reality my list is more what I want. God, in His infinite wisdom, knows exactly what I truly need. Many times what I truly need does not match my often selfish list of what I want at all. So, it’s a good thing God answers many of my prayers with, “No,” or, “Wait.”

When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, Jesus gave them what we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” Within that prayer is this petition we should say to God: “Thy will be done.” 

However, if we’re really honest, most of the time when our mouths are saying, “Thy will be done,” our hearts are thinking, “My will be done.”
Regarding “thy will” vs. “my will,” I’m reminded of a scene in the movie “Shadowlands,” a biography of the famous Christian author C.S. Lewis, starring Anthony Hopkins. During a crisis in his life, when his wife was dying of cancer, Lewis explained to a friend why he was praying so fervently. He said (and I paraphrase because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the film), “I don’t pray so God will want to do my will; I pray so I will want to do His.” In the Bible, Jesus clearly instructs us to bring our petitions to our Heavenly Father. We should not be shy about asking God in prayer for what we need, and even for what we want. But sometimes the most perfect prayer is not when we plead, “Heal my loved one who has cancer, O Lord!” It instead is when we sincerely pray, “Give me the grace and strength to deal with whatever happens, O Lord!” 

It’s not that God is unable to heal every sickness immediately. He certainly has that power. But in His infinite wisdom, He has decided to let the awful results of sin — pain and heartache and death — to play out in our world during this era of history. 

When God so chooses, He does answer prayer with a miraculous healing. But more often than not, he answers our prayer by giving us the grace and strength to handle the heartaches of life. It may not be what we want at the moment, but it’s exactly what we need.
And when we get to Heaven, we’ll look back and realize that God’s wisdom is perfect, and that He did in fact give us exactly what we needed. 

Friday, March 8, 2024

Hey friends, WATCH this!

I have a confession to make: I buy things I really don’t need. (What a shocking admission! This stunning revelation means that I am no different than 98% of all Americans.)

For me, what I buy that I really don’t need are inexpensive watches. Right now I own enough watches to outfit nine people. In other words, I have nine watches, since no one ever needs more than one watch. 

Nine is actually on the low side at this moment in time. In the past, there have been times when I owned upwards of 15 different watches at once. Since the watches I purchase are inexpensive, after a while the batteries die, the bands break, or the hour hands detach and lay there loose under the crystal. Having a “minutes only” watch is not very useful. “Hey Bill, what time is it?” “It’s a quarter after.” “Quarter after what?” “Um, I dunno.”
With inexpensive watches, having a new battery installed or replacing the band is usually more costly than the watch itself. So, most of the time I just throw the old one away. 

A couple of months ago, I bought myself a post-Christmas present: a new scuba diver’s watch. Now, I need a scuba diver’s watch about as much as I need a Timex “Ironman Triathlon” watch (of which I own two). Just hearing the word “triathlon” makes me feel weak, and if I pause to think about what triathletes actually do in a single day — swim 2.4 miles, then ride a bicycle 112 miles, and then run a 26.2 mile marathon — I have to lie down for a while and rest. So, I absolutely do not need an “Ironman Triathlon” wristwatch. And yet, I own a couple. Why? Because they possess the features I like: they tell time accurately, they have a stopwatch, a timer, multiple alarms, a glow in the dark button, they’re waterproof, and most importantly, they cost less than 40 bucks, so if I break it or lose it, I don’t care.
I know a guy who owns a $10,000 Rolex. If I owned a watch that expensive, I’d have to put it in a safety deposit box at the bank. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, fearful that it would be lost or stolen. However, with my collection of less-than-$50-each beauties, I sleep like a baby. (Actually, at my age now, I do sleep like a baby: wake up every three hours.)

Right after Christmas, concluding that new socks and underwear were not the most exciting gifts Santa Claus could’ve given to me, I made an impulse buy on Amazon: a really spiffy Casio scuba diver’s watch. It’s large and heavy and has a dial that spins around — so I know exactly how much air is left in my scuba tank, which comes in very handy, um, never. From a distance, my new watch looks just like a Rolex. (Although the best distance for this to be true is around 100 feet away.)

The price of the watch was exactly $49, with free shipping because of my Amazon Prime membership. (I don’t know about you, but does it seem that paying the monthly Prime membership fee to get free shipping compels a person to make more impulse purchases? Nah, Amazon would never manipulate customers like that, would they?)
Anyway, that’s my confession for this week: I own many more inexpensive watches than really makes sense. At least my little emotional quirk does not involve purchasing an over-abundance of Lamborghinis, right?

Next week, maybe I’ll discuss my collection of inexpensive pens. I’m not sure how many I have, since I can’t count that high. 

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Keys to a Great Vacation: Napping and No Pickleball

My wife and I recently went to Florida for a week, and our vacation was wonderful. Was it wonderful because it was 85 degrees in February? Nope. Was it wonderful because we went to many fabulous restaurants (to the point where I contemplated buying some stretch pants)? Nope. Was it wonderful because I used membership points from my credit card company (points I didn’t even know I had until late last year) to pay for the airfare and rental car? Nope. 

The reason our vacation was wonderful is very simple: we napped. That’s right, on multiple days while in Florida we laid down on the bed during the middle of the afternoon and just zonked out for 20 minutes. It was delightful.
I rarely get an opportunity to nap these days since my schedule is so hectic. So, when I finally had a chance to do it multiple days in a row, it was terrific. I never used to need to nap or want to nap, but now that I’m an official geezer, I realize the countries around the world that have the “siesta culture” are really doing it right. 

Speaking of being a geezer, every time I’ve gone to Florida in the past, I felt like a young pup. After all, they don’t call the state “God’s Waiting Room” for nothing. In some places, the average age seems to be approaching triple digits. But on this visit to the Sunshine State, the first time I’ve gone since before Covid, I fit right in. Everyone assumed I was a retired “snow bird,” just enjoying the weather until April, at which time I would travel back north like everyone else. More than a few times I had to say, “No no, despite this gray hair, I’m still working full time back in New England.”

Another thing I said more than a few times while in Florida was, “No thanks. I’d rather not.” Each time I said this, the other person stared in confusion, then finally muttered, “But, but I don’t understand. You mean you DON’T want to play pickleball? Everybody plays pickleball!”
Yeah, well, maybe everybody plays pickleball, but not this guy. You see, I made a promise to a couple of close friends that I would never engage in any activity that would put them in mortal jeopardy. My two friends are my Left Achilles tendon and my Right Achilles tendon.  

In recent years I’ve known of several friends and acquaintances — some my age, others quite younger — who were playing low-key games such as beer league softball or doubles tennis, and then suddenly they dropped like a rock, with one of their heel bones no longer attached to the appropriate calf muscle. The subsequent surgery and recovery from the ruptured Achilles tendon was painful and lengthy. 

I had a long talk with my two friends, Lefty and Righty. We came to an agreement that if I engaged only in physical exercise that does not require fast stopping and starting with my legs — such as swimming, walking, or sitting at the Black Jack tables at Foxwoods — then they would keep my calf muscles and heels connected. In my mind, it’s a very sensible agreement. 
When we returned home to Connecticut, It was nice that I did not have to exit the plane using crutches. Once I got off the plane, I did have to hustle to the men’s room, you know, being a geezer and all. As I hustled, Lefty and Righty reminded me, “No need to jog, pal. Just walk briskly and we’ll get you there on time.”

All in all, even though I had to disappoint many people with my “no pickleball” rule, our time in Florida was wonderful. 

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Thoughts on Prayer

A young woman in her 30s, the mother of two small children, is diagnosed with cancer. Her family and friends pray fervently to God for her healing. But after a year of grueling surgery and treatments, the cancer spreads and she passes away. This is a heart-breaking situation, and most people know of someone who has gone through a similar ordeal. 

When something like this happens, people ask the obvious question: why didn’t God answer our prayers?
This is one of the frustrating aspects of religious faith. We pray for certain things to happen, such as a physical healing. Sometimes our prayers are answered and the person is healed, and other times the person gets even sicker and eventually dies. It seems God completely ignored our prayers.

The Bible and the Church teach us that God hears our prayers and that He takes delight in answering them. If that is the case, then why are there so many examples of sincere, desperate prayers NOT being answered?

There is an age-old question, which was the title of a popular book many years ago: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” That question is one of the primary reasons some folks lose their faith. It’s fair to ask how a good God can sit back and let so many terrible tragedies happen to innocent people.

I wish I had a simple answer to that question, but I don’t. There are, however, a couple of things we should keep in mind when pondering this issue.

First, from God’s point of view, our entire time on earth, even if we live to be 95 years old, is like a fraction of a second compared to eternity in Heaven. Yes, when a young person succumbs to a fatal disease, it is tragic — from our early point of view. But the Bible tells us that Heaven is a place where tears are wiped from our eyes forever. When the soul of the person who died young enters Heaven, I suspect he or she laughs with joy and says, “Wow, being sick and dying young is no big deal, now that I’m here!”
Of course, if there is no God and no eternal life, then all the tragedies of life are just that: tragedies. But entering into eternal life in God’s heavenly kingdom is how all the tragedies of earth can be made right. Instead of a drama with a sad, tragic ending, our lives become a grand saga with a happy ending — although since we’re talking about Eternity, the happiness actually never ends.

Another thing to consider: Scripture teaches us that the pain and suffering of this world are the result of sin. When our original ancestors, Adam and Eve, rebelled against the divine Creator, it caused paradise to become a fallen world. Pain and heartache and death were the unfortunate result of sin.

God proved that he truly loves us when He sent His one and only Son to suffer and die, which paid the price for sin. This stunning act of sacrificial love made it possible for us to be reconciled back to our Creator and enter into eternal heavenly joy. 

Does a grieving young man, standing next to his wife’s coffin with his two children by his side, want to hear that our time on earth is a fraction of a second compared to Heaven, and that Jesus paid the price for our sin? Not really. What he needs at that moment is for someone to silently weep with him. Why? Because the pain and heartache of death are real, and the only thing worse than grieving the death of a loved one is doing it alone.
Why doesn’t God answer all our prayers the way we want Him to? I wish I knew. It’s a divine mystery. But God went to so much trouble to make it possible for us to enter into Heaven for all eternity, it’s obvious He loves us more than we can comprehend.

When we grieve and weep over the tragedies of life, we can be sure that God weeps with us. That may not be very comforting when we’re in the throes of sorrow, but later on it can bring great comfort. In the meantime, keep praying. And when necessary, silently weep with those who are grieving. 

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Country Bumpkin Visits the Big City

I freely admit that I’m a suburbanite/country bumpkin kind of guy. So, if I spend any time in a big city, it’s a major adventure. Chicago is an amazing city. In January, Chicago is an amazingly cold city. I was there six weeks ago for a tradeshow, and overall my trip was great.

However, I stayed in a very fancy hotel, and the country bumpkin in me was rather baffled by some of the high falutin’ amenities. For example, my room had an ultra modern coffee machine. It operated similarly to a Keurig coffee maker, except with nine extra levels of complexity. 

My coffee maker simply would not work. I hesitate to claim it was broken, because maybe I was doing something incorrectly. The machine had a sticker that listed the 11-step process required to brew a single cup, so maybe I did one of these steps out of sequence. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe a person needs a Doctorate in mechanical engineering to get a cup of coffee in a downtown Chicago hotel. 

The coffee maker situation was not insurmountable, since I could go down to the hotel lobby and get a Starbucks coffee for $8.50. (I suspect the Starbucks baristas were a bit shocked that I was in my underwear with a towel draped over my shoulder. But hey, that’s my standard attire whenever I have a cup of coffee in a hotel room.) 

The other thing that puzzled me about my ultra-fancy hotel room was the shower. As a country bumpkin kind of guy, I’ve always thought a bathtub with a shower curtain was more than adequate. But nowadays all the classy hotels — no doubt inspired by trend-setting cities such as Paris, London, and Naugatuck — have replaced the good ol’ tub and shower curtain setup with The Glass Box.
In the Chicago hotel, The Glass Box was a narrow rectangle with the glass entry door on the far left side and the plumbing fixtures on the far right side. The shower head itself was about the size of a dinner plate and was suspended from the ceiling, about 18 inches in from the wall. In order to reach the handle to turn on the water and set the temperature, you had to stand directly under the shower head. The Glass Box was too narrow to stand off to the side.

Now, at this point, if you are a celebrated architect or interior designer, you see no problem with this scenario, since The Glass Box is so beautiful. But if you are a lowly suburbanite/country bumpkin, you already understand that when you rotate the handle to turn the shower on, all the water that’s been sitting in the pipes overnight — which is no longer anything resembling “warm” — comes gushing down right onto your head.

The first morning that happened to me, I thought, “Whoa, I must’ve done it wrong. Just like the coffee maker, there’s gotta be a correct way to do this that I haven’t figured out yet.”
Well, even though I had two more mornings to try and figure it out, it seemed the only way to keep from getting a blast of cold water on my head was to track down a maintenance guy, borrow a broom, and use it to turn the shower handle from a distance. But based on the baristas’ reaction earlier, I decided not to wander around the lobby in my underwear looking for a maintenance guy. 

All in all, it was a fine trip to the Windy City. But in the future, if any hotel wants to offer a “Country Bumpkin” travel package, with a simple coffee maker and a tub with a shower curtain, they’ve got my business.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Does God Help Those Who Help Themselves?

Do you know people who are really needy and dependent? You know the type: they’re always getting into trouble and they expect other people to bail them out time after time. I certainly know a bunch of folks who are like that. What these irresponsible slackers really need is for someone to remind them of that famous Bible verse: “God helps those who help themselves.”

Oh wait. You know something? That saying is not in the Bible at all. And it doesn’t fit in with the Gospel message either. The main message of the Bible is this: God helps those who CAN’T help themselves.
Please don’t forget the overarching theme of salvation history, as chronicled in the Bible: God created Mankind to be in a loving relationship with Him, but we messed up big-time. We chose to go our own way, ignoring God’s love and instead sought fulfillment on our own. This decision led to a boatload of pain and heartache — which is the inevitable result of being separated from our divine Creator.

So, even though we deserve our sad fate because of selfish and foolish thoughts, words, and deeds, God loves us so much He did not want to see us lost for all eternity. That’s where the glorious Gospel message begins. The Almighty and Eternal Creator of the Universe sent a piece of Himself — His one and only Son — to take on human flesh. This stunning event provided a way for us to be reconciled with the Lord.

The entire history of the Old Testament tells the remarkable story of God’s Chosen People, the Jews, and their sincere attempts to be righteous and to follow the Law of God. But no matter how hard they tried to do the right thing and measure up to God’s high standard, they always fell short. (And just in case you aren’t sure: if any other group of people in world history were chosen by God instead of the Jews, they would’ve fallen short, too.)

Human beings are not capable of being morally perfect in this fallen world. We cannot earn our way into Heaven. That Old Testament lesson — learned at the School of Hard Knocks — set the stage for the Messiah, the One who could save us with forgiveness and mercy rather than legalism and our own meager efforts.

When you look at the big picture of salvation history, the undeniable message is this: God helps those who CAN’T help themselves. This is the exact opposite of that familiar saying so many people think comes from the Bible.
Now, this is not to say that all we need to do is sit back passively while God pays all our bills and refills our snack bowls as we gaze at TV all day. We have to cooperate with God and do our share, using the skills and talents He gave us. 

It’s obviously better for people to be more self-reliant, if they are able. It certainly boosts folks’ self-esteem to take responsibility for various aspects of their lives rather than be dependent on someone else for everything. But an awful lot of people nowadays are hurting, both physically and emotionally. Some people simply are not able to be self-reliant at this time for a multitude of reasons.

Our job as Christians is not to harshly tell people to “Get a job!” or “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” or that old favorite, “God helps those who help themselves.” Those comments don’t do anything except make them feel worse than they already do. 

If someone is capable of being more self-reliant, our duty as believers in Christ is to lovingly encourage them and mentor them to reach their full potential. All during this process we should never lose sight of the fact that God helped us when we couldn’t help ourselves, so who are we to suddenly turn into a cold-hearted drill sergeant? 

The message that God helps those who CAN’T help themselves — rather than the well-known statement that is NOT from the Bible — is the key. God showed us abundant love and mercy and patience back when we were struggling. Now it’s what He wants us to show towards others who are presently having a hard time. 

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

The Creed Has a Notable Omission

At Mass each Sunday, the entire congregation stands and recites the Creed. The word creed comes from the Latin credo, which means, “I believe.”

The Creed is a summary of doctrines and fundamental Christian beliefs. Most of the time we recite the Nicene Creed, which is short for its full name: the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. If we were required to refer to that creed by its full name, I suspect we would always recite the Apostles Creed instead, just to avoid that tongue-twisting phrase.
(The Apostles Creed, by the way, was developed earlier, and is acceptable to recite during Mass once in a while, especially during Lent and Easter time.)

Anyway, after reciting the Nicene Creed thousands of times during my life  while actually paying attention to the words about 5% of the time  I recently noticed something interesting about the Creed. As we are listing all the truths about who God is and what He’s done, we say this about Jesus, God’s one and only Son: “...he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became Man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate…”

Without skipping a beat, we go from Jesus being a newborn baby to Him being crucified by the Romans. The Creed completely skips 33 years of Jesus’ life, including His three-year public ministry. Doesn’t that seem kind of odd?

(The Apostles’ Creed makes a similar jump, using a mere comma instead of a new sentence: “...who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried…”)
I get it that the Nicene Creed was written to summarize the key aspects of our faith, which was very important in the early centuries of Christian history. (Come to think of it, it might be even more important nowadays.) The Creed declares: God is the Creator of all; Jesus is His only Son, who became Man; Jesus was crucified to pay the price for our sins; He rose from the dead, according to the Scriptures; He ascended into Heaven; He will come again to judge the living and the dead; the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and is also adored and glorified; there is one, holy, catholic (universal), and apostolic Church; there will be a resurrection of the dead; and there will be life in the world to come.

All those statements of faith are very important. They define what it means to be a believing Christian. But don’t you think they could’ve squeezed in a line or two about Jesus’ ministry years, rather than going directly from “baby in a manger” to “man dying on a cross”?

After all, if you read the gospels in the Bible (and you should), there are 12 chapters that focus on Jesus’ birth and crucifixion. That means there are 57 other chapters devoted to His earthly mission, which is almost 83-percent of the gospel writings. Now, I’m not saying that 83% of the Creed should be devoted to Jesus’ ministry years, but it would’ve been nice if they included a couple of brief items, such as, “For three years He taught people about God’s kingdom and did many miracles to prove He was divine.” 
Before you get the wrong idea, I’m not claiming I know better than the early Church Fathers who wrote the Creed. I’m just saying it probably would not have hurt for the Creed to acknowledge some of the amazing things Jesus did.

We should look at it this way: we are very lucky to have the Creed to remind us of the core doctrines of the faith. Plus, we have the Bible, where we can read about all the remarkable things Jesus did during His public ministry. 

Here are two important goals: first, let’s really pay attention to the words when we recite the Creed at Mass; and second, let’s read the gospels in our Bibles on a regular basis. After all, that’s how we’ll really get to know the Lord who loves us and saves us.