Category Archives: authenticity

Mayor Rob Ford and the Knockout Game – signs of our times

16 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by in anthropology, authenticity, human person, Mayor Ron Ford

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Mayor Rob Ford

Two things have struck me this past week. 

The first is the train wreck occurring in Toronto around Mayor Rob Ford caught in the use of drugs and a new allegation regarding prostitutes.  The videos of the imploding mayor ranting during a city government meeting have gone viral on the web.  It is painful to watch as Mayor Ford is clearly a man out of control yet one who will not resign his office and someone who therefore, in effect, is holding an entire city and its government hostage.  Yet, what particularly struck me was a news commentator reporting on the situation who made the observation that regardless of whether one agrees with the mayor or not he is showing that he certainly has a “huge pair”.  First of all, I will say that I think that the commentator’s remark was unacceptable and unprofessional and secondly, I will leave it to the reader to surmise to what the commentator was referring.  

The second incident of the past week is a video news report I saw on the “game” called knockout.  This game involves a teenage male running up to an unsuspecting person, often from behind, and hitting the person in an attempt to prove that he is powerful enough to knock the person out.  It does not matter if the unsuspecting victim is male, female or an elderly person.  All are fair game.  There are videos of these random attacks that are very disturbing and people have died as a result of these violent outbursts.   
I would propose that both Rob Ford’s ranting and the knockout game demonstrate a crisis in anthropology and particularly masculinity in our society.  Both are a misuse of power and neither gives testament to true courage, strength and determination or having a “huge pair” as the news commentator erroneously remarked.  
Rob Ford boasts that he has done great things for Toronto as mayor and maybe he has but he (at least on the videos I have seen) seems utterly enable to recognize that sheer exercise of power alone does not make the mayor … or the man.  Yes, he is defiant but his defiance should not be lauded but condemned because it demonstrates a profound and dangerous ignorance.  The human person (and therefore human community) is not just will to power and damn all other considerations!  Life is not just about ambition, achievement and reaching the highest possible position with any means justifying the end or any side activity excused as long as it does not interfere with the final goal and the exercise of power.  Ford’s implicit claim that his drug use should be excused, overlooked and hand-slapped because of what he has achieved for Toronto demonstrates a truly stunted view of humanity and yet, sadly, a view that is not uncommon.  
Enter the young men participating in knockout.  The goal of the game is to prove that you are “strong enough” to knock someone out.  I am sure that there are numerous sociological, cultural and historical forces behind such an act of violence yet it cannot be denied that this game fundamentally equates manhood and masculinity with the ability to exercise power and achieve ones purpose – i.e. knocking another human person to the ground.  Nor also, should any of these sociological forces excuse this violent action.  It is wrong and cowardly to attack an unsuspecting person.  Yet, these young people seemingly fail to perceive this and that needs to be recognized for what it is – again, a truly stunted view of humanity and what it means to be a human person and a man. 
Rob Ford and these young men participating in knockout are one and the same. 
I have heard it said that the next great issue facing the Church to which we must bring the light of the Gospel is that of anthropology.  What does it mean to be a “human person” and a subset of that question is what does it mean to be a man?  Rob Ford and the young people participating in knockout demonstrate the fault line of this great issue.  We should not pass these incidents by as unrelated and tangential curiosities in the cultural landscape.  Together they witness a profound shift and loss in an understanding of the human person that has the potential to and already is shaking all levels of society and human understanding and to which no person or group is immune. 
As Christians we must address this loss and fault line running through our times but we need to be authentic in how we do so.   
A truly critical component of the New Evangelization is the proclamation of the Christian understanding of the human person as fully revealed in the person of Christ Jesus himself.  Our world stands in desperate need of this proclamation, yet it is not enough to rest on past laurels.  We can certainly draw inspiration and direction from our heritage in Christ and Christian thought but simply repeating old pat phrases will not do.  We need to proclaim to a new time and a new need what it means to be a human person in Christ and this means that we must, as they say, “have some skin in the game ourselves.”  In order for any proclamation of the dignity of the human person to be authentic, we must first of all encounter Christ in the totality of who we are and we must allow the light of the Gospel the process of penetrating and transforming every single aspect of our very selves.  This alone will enable us to avoid the double pitfalls of a stunted understanding of the human person and of an inauthentic and shallow proclamation that can easily be recognized by the lack of fruit it produces.  
Rob Ford and the young men participating in knockout demonstrate the profound fault line running through our understanding of the human person and, at the same time, the profound need for which so many are yearning – a true understanding of the human person and what it means to be a man.  They show what happens when this understanding is lost.  They are very sad characters.  Only an authentic answer can satisfy this need and that can only be found and gained through a continuing encounter with Christ. 
The New Evangelization cannot be faked.  The Gospel in every age always demands that we have some skin in the game and only this authenticity can answer the stunted view of humanity and the crisis of masculinity present in our time.             

The Assumption of Mary and authenticity

15 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by in Assumption of Mary, authenticity, discipleship, wholeness

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“King of the Hill” is a television cartoon series that tells the story of the Hill family.  It is a comedy but the episodes often make very good points to reflect upon.  There is one episode where Bobby (the Hill’s teenage son) happens to be at a skateboard park one day when he is introduced to a youth Christian evangelist.  This guy skateboards, he has tattoos and he plays in a Christian rock band.  He invites Bobby to his ministry and Bobby quickly gets immersed in it.  At first Hank and Peggy (Bobby’s parents) are thrilled.  Bobby is involved in church stuff!  But then they start to have concerns.  Bobby is staying out too late with this crowd but it is okay because “it is for the Lord”.  He begins to separate himself from his longtime friends.  He stops attending church on Sunday with his family because it is just too boring. 

Hank decides to talk to Bobby.  He goes to his room and notices Bobby’s toy box.  “What’s this?” asks Hank.  “Just a box of my old toys.” answers Bobby.  “Oh, yeah,” says Hank, “Here are the toy soldiers your mother and I bought you for your fifth birthday.  Here is that card game you got into in the sixth grade and here is your mitt from little league.”  Looking at all of this Hank then turns to his son and says, “Bobby, I know that you are caught up in the rush of this Christian group but I don’t want to see your faith become just another thing discarded and left behind in this box.” 
My dear friends; strive for the faith that endures!  Is there a place in the life of faith for energy?  Yes!  For enthusiasm?  Certainly!  Should we always strive to connect faith with where we are in life?  Definitely!  But faith is not a gimmick and a gimmicky faith really does not go very far.  It sputters out rather quickly often leaving one feeling abandoned and played.  Strive for the faith that endures!  Why is this important?  Because it is only the faith that endures that can lead one to authenticity. 
Mary, besides being the mother of Jesus and the Mother of God – a name which only she in all of human history can claim and also, besides being a disciple and someone in need of a savior – like each of us – was fully authentic.  Mary’s faith endured.  Mary’s faith endured the question of the Archangel Gabriel’s announcement.  Mary’s faith endured all those silent and probably extremely common silent years of Jesus’ life.  Mary’s faith endured the hurt of hearing her son ask, “Who is my mother?  … The one who does the will of my Father.”  Mary’s faith endured the pain of her son being mocked, whipped and put to death.  Mary’s faith endured the cross.  Mary strove for a faith that endured.  
Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, reminds us that Christ has been raised from the dead (body and soul) and that all of those who belong to Christ will also be raised from the dead – body and soul.  Mary already shares fully in this: body and soul … the fullness of who we are … the authenticity of who we are.  
In one form or another we are all cracked, in one form or another we are all broken, yet we all have deep within us a yearning for a wholeness that we cannot escape.  This is faith as the “remembrance of the future” (“memoria futuri”).  The yearning itself gives testimony to the truth that we are indeed meant for wholeness because why would we have a yearning for that which we could never possibly achieve?  The assumption of Mary reveals God’s answer to this yearning of the splintered human heart.  
In Christ, wholeness and authenticity is possible. 
We can begin to know it today.  We can begin to live it now.
Strive for the faith that endures!     

Teach us how to pray – Teach us how to love: 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

28 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in authenticity, freedom, love, love of God, love of neighbor, prayer

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In order to love one must be free.  Love can neither be forced nor contrived.  For love to be authentic it must be freely given and freely received.  This is love’s dynamic and yet, just as love depends on freedom love, itself, makes us freer.  In John’s first letter we are told that perfect love casts out all fear.  Love creates true freedom.  In this Sunday’s second reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians we are reminded of this salvific fact.  Christ, out of love, took on our sinfulness, “obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims, which was opposed to us, he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross.” 

In Christ we have been set free but this is not a freedom to do whatever we please.  This is not authentic freedom rather; it is a misuse of freedom.  The freedom we gain from the love of Christ is the freedom to enter more deeply into honest relationship with God and with one another.  This freedom begins in the very knowledge that in Christ we are loved beyond measure – each and every one of us.   

The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were many but at the heart of these sins was the abuse of relationship, particularly the abuse of the visitor, the stranger.  This sin is brought out all the more in contrast to the passage directly preceding that about Sodom and Gomorrah (last Sunday’s readings).  In last Sunday’s passage Abraham welcomes the three visitors, he honors his relationship with them and he treats it as a sacred reality to be respected.  The people of Sodom and Gomorrah, on the other hand, do not.  Their sin is great and grave.   

It is easy to judge Sodom and Gomorrah and hold ourselves superior but I wonder if one of the factors of their sinfulness is a factor also present in our own day and time – a life lived in distraction.  John Garvey, in an article he wrote entitled, “A Tree Full of Monkeys: Why the Soul Needs Silence” makes a good observation: 

It takes effort to be clear about the moment we are in.  It requires taking time … We need, through practice, to be made aware of what is wrong about ordinary waking circumstances; it takes effort to do this … it matters, especially in a time when distraction and ideological reinforcement matter more to the culture than sober clarity does.  This inattention disrupts our lives at every level – religious, political, aesthetic … Prayer (silence) can begin to make us feel what is directly underfoot, can help us begin to understand where we really are, in the presence of the sacred… 

A life of distraction, a life of inattention inhibits freedom and therefore hinders growth in true love and honest relationship and (if left unchecked both in lives of individuals and of society) can be a contributing factor in the abuse of others – those who are indeed our brothers and our sisters.  For this we will each have to give an accounting before the judgment seat of God.  To love, one must be free.  A distracted life is not a free life. 
 
It is worthy to note that in this Sunday’s gospel (Lk. 11:1-13), after our Lord gives us the Our Father, he goes on to further explain prayer by use of three images specifically based in relationship and attentiveness – the attention of one friend to another in need, the willingness to trust in relationship with God and therefore to ask, to seek, to knock and the attentive love of a father to the needs of a child.  Let us not fool ourselves.  Love can easily and sadly be compromised on all levels and in many ways.  The mind can easily become a “tree full of monkeys”.  The soul needs silence and prayer not just for sanity but also to safeguard freedom, honest relationship and attentiveness to the needs of the other. 

The disciples’ request, “teach us to pray” is another way of asking, “teach us how to love.”

The Good Shepherd, Practical Atheism and Authenticity

21 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by in authenticity, frienship with Christ, Practical Atheism, Relationship, The Good Shepherd

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Icon of Christ the Good Shepherd

Pope emeritus Benedict often remarked that he thought it was not so much atheists who damage the Christian faith as it is the “practical atheists” who do the real damage.  The “practical atheists” are those who profess themselves Christians but who then live as if God does not exist.  At the heart of this practical atheism which is very present in our day and also very easy to fall into is an in-authenticity of relationship.  We say one thing yet we do another and we convince ourselves that no one is the wiser; including God.

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday when we, as Church, reflect on the truth that the risen Lord is indeed the good and beautiful shepherd who came to seek out and save the lost.  But here is the rub: we cannot reflect and proclaim the Lord as Good Shepherd and ourselves remain in-authentic in relation to him.  To proclaim Christ as the Good Shepherd demands an authenticity of relationship on our part.  This authenticity of relationship is witnessed to us in today’s gospel (Jn. 10:27-30) – the relationship of us and the Lord and the relationship of the Son and the Father.

Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me…”  The movement of authentic relationship begins with our Lord.  When we were lost in the darkness of sin and death, God came to us.  God became incarnate and took on the full weakness and suffering of humanity.  God took on everything except sin.  “I know them…”, says the Lord.  Christ can authentically say this because it is true.

“My sheep hear my voice … and they follow me …”  There are two parts for authenticity of relationship on our part.  One, we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and two, we follow.  To say we hear the voice and then live as if the voice does not matter is not authentic.  To proclaim Christ as the Good Shepherd means we must continually “tune” our ears to the voice of the Good Shepherd, we must trust and we must follow.

This gospel passage also reveals the wonderful authenticity that makes up the relationship of the Father and the Son.  Christ (in reflecting on the deep and abiding security of the sheep entrusted to his care) says, No one can take them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can them out of the Father’s hand.  The Father and I are one.  Our Lord, as Son, is expressing his gratitude for what the Father has freely given him.  Authenticity of relationship finds its fullest expression in gratitude for what is freely given rather than in using the other for ones own need.  Here, I think, is found another subtle yet withering aspect of practical atheism and it is found more in those persons “in” church rather than those persons “outside” church.  God is used as a means for my personal satisfaction and this becomes the only reason that I turn to God.  There are tell-tale signs to this in-authenticity on our part: going to church is more about social status than conversion, worship is more about getting my emotional hit than it is about my coming before the living God and gratitude of heart gives way to demand and fear.

This brings us to the great gift gained through the authenticity of relationship with the Good Shepherd and it is a gift that cannot be pretended.  Either it is there or it is not.  When we live in relationship with the Good Shepherd we gain hope and we gain trust.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.  No one can take them out of my hand.  In-authenticity of relationship, practical atheism cannot give this, no matter how hard it pretends that it can.  As Scripture tells us; a tree is known by its fruits.

We must let these words sink into the soil of our hearts, break apart any hardness that remains there and till the earth that hope and trust may take root and grow!  These words are spoken by the one who has risen, the one who has conquered the tomb and the chains of death!  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.  No one can take them out of my hand.  

Facebook users are probably familiar with the “Go home, you’re drunk” memes.  In this meme there is a picture of someone saying or doing something stupid with the caption, “___________, go home.  You’re drunk.”  If there were a meme for this Good Shepherd Sunday I think it would be a practical atheist saying, “Oh, I am a Christian but I live as I wish.” and the response would be, “Practical Atheist, go home.  You’re drunk.”                         

Icon of St. Teresa of Avila, step 5

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in authenticity, humility, icon, St. Teresa of Avila

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In her reflection on the First Dwelling Places in The Interior Castle, St. Teresa offers this bit of sound spiritual advice: While we are on this earth nothing is more important to us than humility.  I have decided to make this the quote for the icon, although I had to shorten it as you can see above.

Humility has its roots in the word humble meaning “close to the ground”.  Humble is rooted in the Old French word umble coming from Latin humilis meaning “low, lowly”.  Further, humilis is a derivative of humus meaning “earth”.

“To be humiliated” means to be brought low by either another person or circumstance, brought back down to earth (this might be a good thing or not depending on the circumstance and ones viewpoint).  To strive for humility (as Teresa suggests throughout her writings) is to acknowledge the truth of who we are before one another and before God.  Humility leads to authenticity.

In iconography one of the three colors mixed to create the proplasma (which is the base color for flesh) is olive green.  When we look at a person’s face we can see tints of green.  I think this might be where the saying, “green with envy” has its start.  The awareness of the need for green to form the base of flesh in iconography is a visual teaching on our connection to earth (humus) and our need for humility in life. 

St. Teresa’s advice is sound for all persons, all circumstances and especially our day and age. 

Authenticity in who we are and in our relationships with one another and even with God can only be achieved when we cultivate humility in our lives.