Oddwalk Ministries

Category: reflection

catholicism, Facebook, friends, Jesus, JesusJusticeJoy, reflection

Don’t Feed the Bears

Several times in the last few days, perusing facebook, I (Orin) have found myself thinking, “Don’t feed the bears!” And I did in fact type that once in a thread, one revolving around the horrendous treatment of a person by, nominally, people of faith, all in the name of preserving that same faith’s morals and doctrine. (I won’t go into that situation here, but anyone who is connected to me on Facebook has either already seen it or can easily find it.)

“Don’t feed the bears.”

It’s a sign that one might see at a zoo or a national park. Why is it there? Well, a couple obvious answers: 1) someone probably already has tried to feed the bears, and 2) that turned out to be a bad idea. Perhaps it was a bad idea for the safety of the person who thought it was a good idea. Or perhaps it’s one way or another bad for the bears, like, bad for their health for instance.

When I have been thinking (or typing) “don’t feed the bears” lately, the bears in this instance have been the previously mentioned nominally-Christian folks who post things online which defend doctrine and morals of the faith but at the expense of attacking the dignity of another human. Some of these bears are websites and/or facebook pages, and some of these bears are the people who “buy in” to what is posted by these sites, and use that rhetoric to fuel their supposedly righteous anger in a way that, to them, allows the ends to justify the means, apparently.

Our faith is a treasury of teachings which must be studied, learned, and applied to our daily living all the time. One of those first teachings, scripturally, is how all humanity was (and is) created in the image and likeness of God. We hold a dignity because of that, yet there are some who would attack it and deny that dignity in the name of nearly anything else, and sometimes in the name of very little.

It is these bears who need not be fed: it is dangerous to those who feed them, because the bear might someday, at any point, choose to attack the feeder. And it’s dangerous for the rest of us, because who needs a larger and stronger bear wreaking havoc in the neighborhood? Most of all, it’s dangerous to the bear itself, who has lost track of the core of Christ’s teachings: love, mercy, and relationship.

If one disagrees with a person’s stance on an issue, or their way of living their lives, the answer is never to devalue that person – that’s what is sometimes called an ad hominem attack, attacking the person rather than their argument. Our creation and our savior have elevated us to more than that, to be better than that.

Don’t feed the bears. It’s not good for anyone.

announcements, bible, catholicism, family, Jesus, JesusJusticeJoy, Judaism, liturgy, ministry, music, oddwalkia, prayer, reflection, saints, scripture, shrine

Guard Your Lions

Apologies for the unannounced four week hiatus from our Jesus-Justice-Joy posts here at the Oddwalk central. On the other hand, no one has been banging on our houses’ front doors demanding their return— Yet, today they do return.

But first, a brief word of explanation. Shortly after our most recent post of September 11, significant events occurred in the lives of Orin and Shannon. Orin’s dad, Orville “Doc” Johnson, passed away on September 17 – more on that in a moment. On the Cerneka side of things, Shannon’s wife Erin lost her job at very nearly the same time. On top of and in-between those occurrences have been other things, like a couple Oddwalk engagements, and, of course, all the personal and professional things that some call “real life.” While generally speaking all are doing “okay,” to pick a most vague and not-especially-descriptive term, please do keep us in prayer.

Last Friday night, in St. Louis, some local to STL friends and family of Orin gathered in a service of remembrance for his parents, Orville and Eva (Eva died in 2008). For this week’s return to JJJ posts, we share here the Gospel passage read at that service and Orin’s preaching on it.

Orville and Eva, at Orin & Erin’s Wedding in 2004

Luke 12:35-40
Jesus told his disciples: “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks: Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

PDF of Orin’s Preaching: “Guard Your Lions”

catholicism, family, JesusJusticeJoy, Justice, ministry, prayer, reflection, scripture, technology

Out of Order

This one time, at work, there was this one photocopier. It worked great! It collated, stapled, scanned, everything I (Orin) needed it to do.

One day I arrived at work, at there was an “out of order” sign hung on it. Asking around, I learned that one of the “feet”, on one corner of the bottom of the copier, has broken, and without it, the whole copier leaned just a little bit in that direction.

“What does that matter?” I asked.

Well, I found out that if the copier wasn’t very close to level, it would put strain on the motor which ran the light across the glass, it would have trouble feeding the paper out of the drawers, the toner might settle in the cartridge, and probably a few other things which have since left my memory.

That is, if the copier’s “foot” was broken, the whole copier fell into disarray and couldn’t function, even if the only issue was that it leaned over an inch or so.

Consider this passage now from Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 12:20b-26)

There are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I do not need you.” Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it,so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another.

If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.

Take some time to reflect today: which part of the body of Christ is suffering today? How de we all suffer because of their suffering? How do we ease that suffering? Hint: it’s not as easy as fixing a broken foot on a photocopier. Where are the issues, and how do we address them? Take it to prayer, and then turn prayer into action.

catholicism, Jesus, JesusJusticeJoy, Joy, Justice, prayer, reflection

Woeful are we; blessed are we.

Woeful are we;
blessed are we.

Woeful are we who value power over relationship;
blessed are we who recognize and value the dignity of the human person.

Woeful are we who strive for human successes in human ways;
blessed are we whose only glory is in the cross.

Woeful are we who project our own angers and insecurities;
blessed are we who are working to remove the plank in our own eyes.

Woeful are we who speak of others as “they” and them;”
blessed are we who speak only of “us.”

Woeful are we who assert without facts;
blessed are we who research, then post.

Woeful are we who rely solely on facts;
blessed are we who faith is founded on belief.

Woeful are we who declare that truth isn’t truth;
blessed are we who know the way, truth, and life.

Woeful are we who distort the truth for dishonorable ends;
blessed are we who recognize even truth sometimes has subtle nuances.

Woeful are we who declare the world is black and white;
blessed are those who realize this is not always so.

Woeful are we with only simple solutions to complex problems;
blessed are we who realize “love” is often far more complicated than it sounds.

Woeful are we;
blessed are we.

       
Orin Johnson, ©2018

catholicism, ministry, oddwalkia, reflection

A Time for Renewal

In my first year at St. Peter in Fulton, I led a prayer service with middle schoolers that involved the use of taper candles.  We sat on the floor in the front of church, right where folks receive communion. Since the Church had been recently renovated, we were sitting on brand-new carpet. (Perhaps you can see where this is going.) As I should have expected, some of the wax spilled onto the carpet. There were two spill spots, actually! Once the teens left, I grabbed a clothes iron and some newspaper, headed back up to the scenes of the crime, and tried not to panic. While I had never gotten wax out of carpet myself, I had seen it done before and felt as though I understood the process. I plugged in the iron, laid the newspaper down over the first spot, and gently laid the iron on top of the newspaper. As it was supposed to do, the wax came right up! Unfortunately, I had no such luck with the second spot. When I lifted up the newspaper, the wax was gone, and in its place was a lovely iron-shaped burn mark in the carpet, the one you see pictured here. Perhaps I left the iron on the newspaper too long.

I was thinking about that spot this morning, as I stood just a few feet from it, leading music at the Mass for the Solemnity of the Assumption. While my thoughts should have been on our Blessed Mother, I couldn’t help but think about that spot in light of the awful news that came out of Pennsylvania yesterday. A grand jury report revealed that several bishops/dioceses in that state had covered up the sexual abuse of over 1,000 children by more than 300 priests. If you combine that news with the recent revelations about former-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, these recent discoveries have put the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and indeed the Church itself, under rightly-deserved and intense scrutiny. This scrutiny, of course, is nothing compared with the pain and suffering that the abuse victims and their families must be feeling. My prayers continue for them.

Much will be said and written about all of this in the coming weeks and months. It’s important for my fellow Catholics to realize, though, that the effects of this scandal will never go away. We are a different Church that we were a few weeks ago. We have to be. We cannot and should not view our clergy and prelates the same way ever again. There must be oversight. There must be accountability. The health and livelihood of millions of children in our care will be determined by how strongly we demand that our Church leadership submit to regular and transparent reviews of how they handle allegations of abuse. We have to be able to distinguish between the collective teaching authority of the Magisterium and the potential for grave human error, present in all of us, even clergy.

Just like my church has that iron-shaped burn spot, our Catholic Church has its own permanent blemish. Of course, forgiveness can happen. Certainly, time will pass. But, this scandal will always be a part of who we are as a Church. We need to learn from it, so the safety of our children can be assured, and we can get back to the great work of helping God’s people grow in holiness.

-Shannon