Light Overcomes Darkness

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

John 1:5

Light is a powerful thing. I am truly convinced that light, even just a little bit of light, cannot be defeated by even the deepest of darkness. As part of that conviction, I was able to write about light and darkness for the organization To Write Love on Her Arms. TWLOHA is an organization dedicated to bringing hope, raising awareness, and helping find treatment for people who struggle with depression, self-injury, addiction, and suicide. You can read more about their organization on their Vision Page, but know that it was an honor for me to work with them on this. Although they are not a Christian organization, per se, this is a Non-Profit movement whose goals are tied so closely to the Gospel it's almost silly. If you're looking to bring hope and to help those who are suffering, you are doing what Christ asked Christians to do, no matter what motivation you use to decide to do so. 

Anyways, check out my blog post over there on light shining into darkness, and the way that one person's story helped me see that light always wins: Light into Darkness

Celebrities and Being a Human

Richard Sherman got really excited in a postgame interview, and we all freaked out.

Justin Bieber got arrested and smiled in his mug shot, and we’re all freaking out.

Now, that second one being a little bit (that was whatever is the opposite of hyperbole) more of an extreme action aside, there is something for us to see here. Aside, also, from the idea that we are far too interested in the actions of people who don’t know at all, right up to the point of freaking out over everything they say or do (including week-long Sportscenter specials and multiple trending hashtags), there is a picture of our society that we should take a step back and see.

We’re obsessed with celebrities, and most of all we’re obsessed with seeing what they do wrong, freaking out about it and ridiculing them to the point of the unconscionable; may I ask why? Enough has been said about Richard Sherman; more than enough has been said (and will still be said) about Bieber. One of them got excited and expressed what he was feeling, the other made a mistake. Either way, though, shouldn’t our responses be different than what they have been? At what point, one might ask, did we come to the point that it became our right to look at something another does, throw compassion out the window, and simply judge them as if they were on a reality TV show and it was our job to decide if their actions are up to our standards?

Don’t get me wrong; I do truly think certain things are right, and others are wrong. What I don’t think, though, is that I am allowed to throw all compassion out the window when I see someone do something that I don’t understand, or that I think is wrong. With Christ as the example, ought I not jump to mercy, to compassion, to attempting to understand, and leave the ridicule behind?

Justin Bieber did something wrong, and our first response is to immediately make GIFs which show how him and Miley Cyrus are very similar looking. Please, for the love of God (I don’t say that as a figure of speech – I’m imploring that this be done out of a literal love for the God who loves Justin and Miley more than we all ever could combined), let’s start reacting to situations with compassion and empathy, imagining that we were in that person’s position, rather than attacking them for the position that they’re in. Let’s start with the person, not the action, letting Justin and whoever might be next make their mistakes, and respond by praying that they might figure out what was wrong and that things might get better for them. Instead of attacking, let us remember our own brokenness, knowing that we ourselves make mistakes, and not forsake human compassion for righteous judgment or some cheap laughs.

Regardless, the beat will go on. Celebrities and normal, commonfolk alike will continue to make mistakes. Some will be publicized; others will be in dark, hidden places. Our best response must be to respond with empathy and compassion, not harsh and cruel judgment and mocking. We must let our humanity feel with the humanity of the other, and move from there. 

Revolutionary Authenticity

This is something I've sat down to write many times, and every time deleted. Maybe this time I'll figure out what I want to say. 

What I'm thinking about and deciding I want to write down here might be a bit cliche. It might sound like another classic Christian blog about the Christian life and how we're not doing it well, and somehow need to be better. Maybe in my attempt to be new I'll just be the same. And yet, I don't think I can not write this. 

The world today is a giant mix of a whole bunch of different ideas and all kinds of different people, and it seems in many ways that the Christian ideal gets lost in the tide. You can have a whole bunch of different explanations of why this is, and many of those might hold weight in conversation. Whatever the reasoning, the message of the Gospel is not coming off today as an attractive ideal that draws hearts and minds into the beauty of creation and its Creator, but for many people feels much more like a restriction placed on joy and a set of rules to follow. 

"Better catechesis," you might say. "That is the answer. People just don't get it."

Well, yes. People don't get it. Yet I think that in our times anyone who has ever tried to teach a class or lead a youth group or explain the Truth to a random stranger and hoped to help people young or old see the Truth of the Gospel knows that catechesis alone will often fall on deaf ears. In a world where a person can pull out an iPhone (or Droid, if that's more your style) and within moments have an argument for any worldview, any belief, any set of thoughts that might for just a moment sound more convincing than yours, it is difficult to come up with a catechesis alone that will be heard. And so, as Christians, we can catechize all we want, we can quote Scripture with the eloquence of the greatest teachers, and we can prepare our apologetics as well as possible, and it still might fall on a deaf ear (note: we should do all of those things listed above). 

In his Book of Basketball, sports writer Bill Simmons presents an idea for what makes a great Basketball team: "The Secret," he calls it. For basketball, this secret is a bunch of players who buy into a team, a system, and an idea that winning is the most important thing. 

In Christianity, like Basketball, there is a Secret. Maybe it's not really a Secret, but I think the Secret is this: Authenticity. Don't stop reading here, you've made it this far; stick with me a little longer. 

One of the reasons that I think Christianity doesn't appeal to young people or simply those outside of the Church is a lack of authenticity from those inside the Church. When I say authenticity, I'm not simply talking about living as a Christian all the time; I am, but there's more to it. Authenticity, I would say, means living with passion, joy, and a fervor for life. An authentically Christian life doesn't mean dropping the world, but living in the world with Passion, looking to what is to come.

In Basketball, the Secret is buying into the team. In Christianity, than, the Secret, Authenticity, means buying into the ideal of the Gospel message with my whole heart, mind, and soul, and letting that show in the passion with which I live. 

I'm not an artist of any sort, but I want to talk about art as the example of this. Some of you might be scared that I'm now devolving into the classic blog decrying the Christian music world without doing anything about it, but I hope not to. Just stick with me. Real art, art that moves hearts and changes perspectives, is art that comes from a person who cares passionately about what they do. Art, an expression of beauty, is a transcendent thing which points to a reality bigger than me, it points my heart and my mind out of the simple and mundane and into the Beauty which comes from Him who is Beauty and longs to enter my reality.  

So yeah, if Christians made art from the heart, I think it would be passionate, inviting, and overwhelmingly beautiful. But I think it's much more than our art that's the problem. What Christians need is not just better music (because there is already some very good Christian music out there), what Christians need is to live with a passion and zeal for life that can only come out of a love for the One who gives life. This, I would argue, is what an authentically Christian life looks like and it, simply put, is what made the saints attractive.

Image from taylormarshall.com

People didn't go to Padre Pio for confession simply because he could read their souls; in fact, that was sort of scary, I'm sure. Yet people came from around the world to go to Confession and receive the Eucharist from Padre Pio because his passion and love for Christ had taken him to the point that his life showed a love for the Lord that clearly transcended this world and pointed to something greater than this life. 

Rather than first trying to educate people about why Christianity is right, why Catholicism has the fullness of Truth, we in the Church should start with encountering people and living in such a way that people who meet us know that we truly believe. Then, from there, Truth will come. In us, the Truth who transcends all time and space will break into our world and be a Voice not drowned out by the noise of the world but present in all of it.

If we as Christians live truly authentic lives, we will be able to reach more people and help the world see Truth. More importantly, though, an authentically Christian life will allow us to become the best version of ourselves, to become who were were made to become, and to give God glory through our very lives.

Instead of being scared of the culture and the time in which we live, I want to encounter it and let the Lord speak truth through the way I authentically walk with Christ and become who He made me to be know. I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. 

Humans of New York [Guest Post]

Sometimes, when I write down my major life revelations, I feel really dumb.

This is one of those times.

"If you could give one piece of advice
to a large group of people, what
would it be?
--Have a relationship with God.
--When do you find it most difficult
to have a relationship with God?
--When He's not on time."

One of my favorite blogs on all of the internet is Human’s of New York. Its concept: take pictures of humans in New York, talk to them, and put it on the internet. This is a pretty easy idea, but the results are mesmerizing. What I love is that there are pictures of all types of people, from the homeless to high-powered-Wall-Street-guys.

The thing is, I live in one of those places on earth that is populated; I see people - like everyday, all the time. The thing is, most people are strangers; I know nothing about them, and they mean next to nothing to me - I pass them by, they pass me by. Raised in the South, I think it’s polite to at least look at them when I pass, and cap it off with a nod, but if I could ignore most people I probably would. Like cars passing on the highway.

"I didn't sleep much last
night. I've been feeling a
little blue.
-Why's that?
-Oh, you know.
The holidays.
Memories, memories..."

The thing about Humans of New York (or HONY to those in the know) is this: when I started following the blog, I was paying attention to the photograph and to the dress of the photo’s subject. Soon, though, something about the captions - all the captions - started to grab me, the story these people are telling started to grab me. The thing is, all of them have something to say - from profound to funny - some uplifting, some heartbreaking.

The thing that I forget the most is that the human person in front of me is not just “in my way,” or simply there to help me get to where I am going. Aristotle wrote about friendships of utility, friendships which are about what a person brings to the table for me. Really, how many of those do we have, and is friendship even the right word? More fitting would be “human of use.”

What Humans of New York is to me is a daily reminder that everyone is on a journey, everyone has a story to tell. We’re not just getting in each others’ way.  Yeah, there are people on there with struggles who I bet if we ever met we wouldn't get along; we would maybe disagree or just plain dislike each other. That’s fine, I can live like that. What I can’t do is view people as shells. I have to recognize that the incredible capacities for thought, will, faith, hope, love and everything that makes a human being a person is inside of each of them.  

"I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person's life. God is in everyone's life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else - God is in this person's life. You can - you must - try to seek God in every human life.”

- Pope Francis

You can find the website "Humans of New York" here.

You can find the Tumblr for "Humans of New York" here.

**Note-The pictures and captions on this blog are not mine, they all belong to Humans of New York and their photographer Brandon Stanton. Head over to their website to see more.**

"I need to get to Vegas. That's the place to be!
-What would you do in Vegas?
-Don't know. Never been." 

This blog is a guest post from my good friend William Goggins. Check him out on Twitter @wgoggins33

The Light of Faith

Lumen Fidei

"The Light of Faith"

By Pope Francis (and Pope Benedict XVI)

Foreword by Scott Hahn

This print from Image Books

Encyclical Released on 29 June 2013

This isn't really a book, and isn't really something that I have any sort of qualifications to review or even really comment on, and yet this is the next book that I am reviewing and so here we are. Instead of a traditional review where I tell you what I liked and didn't like, I thought I'd do a brief wrap-up of the format and how this all came together, and try to pull and important point or two from the encyclical. 

An encyclical is a letter which is a very high form of Papal Document, and this one is an encyclical letter addressed to pretty much everyone (Bishops, Priests and Deacons, Consecrated Persons, and Lay Faithful). An encyclical is a way for the Pope to teach in a binding and authoritative way, a way that calls for our attention. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI gave three encyclicals during his Papacy, two of which were on the virtue of Charity (Deus Caritas Est - God is Love (2005) and Caritas en Veritate - Charity in Truth (2009)) and one of which was on the virtue of Hope (Spe Salvi - Saved by Hope (2007)). In order to complete his explanation of the Theological Virtues, which are Faith, Hope, and Charity (love), he had begun and basically finished an encyclical Letter on Faith. When Pope Francis came in as Pope, then, he took what Pope Benedict XVI had started and added some finishing touches, giving it to us as "the work of four hands." 

In his very good introduction found with this hard copy of the encyclical, Scott Hahn explains the beauty of the two Popes working together on this encyclical: "It is not merely two Holy Fathers who speak in these pages. It is the long succession, the unbroken tradition. It is the voice of Christ himself, who entrusted the office to his vicars." Two Popes, two very different men, and yet very much one Light of Faith that they present. For this reason alone, it is worth reading, as you hear the voice of the Church's traditional explanation of the virtue of Faith applied to our daily life in these pages.

If I had to find one quote that I thought was a good explanation of what this encyclical says, I would take it from Paragraph 55: "If it [faith] possesses a creative light for each new moment of history, it is because it sets every event in relationship to the origin and destiny of all things in the Father." For me, that is the crux of the virtue of faith being presented in this encyclical: faith is a light because it shows us who we are in relationship to the Father, allowing us all to see what it means to be a son or daughter as well as a brother or sister. Faith is not something which makes the difficulties pass - in fact, many times suffering will be a large part of our faith journey - but it is something which gives light in the darkness and which will never leave us abandoned. 

In walking through the experience of faith of God's people, and then applying that faith to today, these four hands of these two Popes help us in this encyclical to see that faith reveals to us the Son in order to help us understand what it means to live as a Christian, what it means to be a part of a Church, and ultimately what it means to love. Faith is something which leads to and is tied to love because faith, as they say over and over again in this encyclical, is something we receive, and so it must be received and lived with others, not as an individual experience. Faith, then, necessitates love and community, therefore strengthening the Church and the world with it. 

You probably are aware that you don't need to buy hard copies of encyclicals; all of them are available for free offline. You can find this one on the Vatican website by clicking this link: Lumen Fidei; you could also go there and find it in a whole bunch of other languages. If you're like me, though, and like a hard copy to write on, or if you want the version with a very nice introduction from Scott Hahn, you can find that through Image Books by going here: Lumen Fidei. 

Whatever you do, please read this encyclical and allow it to open your heart and mind to the light of faith a little bit more in this new year.




 "I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review."

On Getting Engaged Young

I'm not normally the sort of person who responds to other articles I see flying around the internet, but I'm making an exception. I'm not sure if it's because I got mad when I first read the article, because it's my lunch break and there weren't enough new TV shows from the last 2 weeks to occupy my time this hour, or just because I felt that this particular article deserve more words than I'm sure it's already gotten, but here we go.

The article I want to talk about a little bit is an article called "23 Things to do Instead of Getting Engaged Before You're 23." This particular blog, on a woman named Vanessa's blog titled "Wander Onwards," can be read here: 23 Things to Do..., but be warned there is a little bit of profanity and such. Most of the response that I've seen to this article has been one of two things: Number 1="Yes! She totally gets it. I just want to have fun." Number 2="She doesn't understand anything. I got engaged/know lots of people who got engaged super early and it's working out way better than could have been imagined."

For those of you who didn't go read that post, I think it can be summed up pretty accurately as a blog about how life is something that you should live on your own, finding yourself through alcohol, traveling, doing whatever you want, and experiencing lots of new things. Note: what I just said as a summary was way over-simplified, and it would probably be worth your time to read the opinion she presents before moving forward.

What I want to say about this article is that, while I think she is wrong, I don't blame her for being wrong. To understand what I mean, look at number 7 on her list of things to do: "Get a tattoo. It's more permanent than a marriage."

You see, when I read this blog, I hear a girl who has seen the brokenness of marriages around her and gotten fed up by everyone's desire to follow suit. My guess is that this girl saw brokenness in marriage - I don't know her, so I don't know where she saw it, but it is very present in the world - and started to question why anybody would want to enter into a marriage, nonetheless at the young age of 22 or 23.

And you know what? In a lot of ways, she's right. If marriage is what we see in our world - a sort of contract and not much more than some feelings and two signatures - then you can see why she'd get fed up. What is the point of giving your life to another person, really, if life is just all about me being happy and being myself?

Before I make some of you mad, I should point out that I do think she misunderstands a few things. I think she's wrong in her whole part about how people are getting married younger, considering it's unprecedented in the history of the world for people to wait as long as Western Civilization does now for marriage. I think that almost everything on that list (excluding some things totally not worth doing anyway) would be more enjoyable with a person whom you love to share them with. I think that the best way to figure out who you are is by giving of yourself to another and facing challenges which require sacrifice head on with the person that you love. I think getting married is not about trying to look like the Kardashians (and that she's actually totally right that they're ruining the sanctity of marriage (and I hope nobody actually watches that show and says "I want my family to act like that")).

And yet, I still don't really blame her. I don't think she's some rambling idiot who just wrote the worst thing I've ever read. I think she's a product of a generation which has a hard time understanding marriage and what it's supposed to be. I think that very few people I know have a grasp on what it really means to be married, and I am certainly including myself in that. I think that in a society where the thing to be sought after is fun and pleasure and sacrifice is something you only do if it promises you please shortly after, it's easy to see why she says the things she does.

Just because I see why she says it, though, doesn't mean I think she's right. In fact, I think she's dead wrong.

Maybe I'm biased, because I did get engaged at 23 and in 7 months, at the age of 24, I will marry a girl who will have just turned 23. Even if I am biased, though, I think the truth is that she's wrong because her understanding of marriage is a flawed one, just like most of today's world. If marriage is about a good feeling and a fairy tale ending, you would understand why a realist would say no thank you. That's not what marriage is though, is it? Rather, marriage is about sacrifice and giving of one's self because loving another person is totally worth sacrificing my pleasure and what I want in the hear and now for something greater, in this case the selfless love of another person.

And so, I'm going to "settle down" when I'm still sort of young. Somehow, though, I think I'll be able to travel, to find myself, to have a good time, and get a few more tattoos. I'm quite certain my future wife will have me doing Pinterest projects, adopting pets, and doing a whole bunch of things that are more exciting than eating Nutella (it tastes bad (go ahead, fight me)) and watching bad television shows. I'm also certain that, in deciding at the age of 23 that I want to spend the next 70 years of my life choosing to love someone else before myself, I haven't chosen a boring life that is going to feel like settling down, but one that is going to feel like what I was made for, and is going to bring me to life.

I hope that Vanessa (who I'm sure is a sweet girl, and certainly don't want to attack her) and those who agree with what she wrote may one day see that marriage isn't about settling down to a boring, sad existence. No, it's a lifelong journey of joy and love meant to bring the best out of the person who is married. After marriage a person might not be able to "wander" through life, but they will certainly be able to live a great adventure.

Just as a side note before I finish, I want to add that I don't think that being single means your life hasn't started yet, or that you're doing something wrong. I certainly don't think that marriage is the only way for a person's life to be fulfilled. If you're single, I think it's wonderful to enjoy that time and make the most of it, but not to feel like you have to finish this list (or any list) before you find your ultimate vocation.