Understanding the Enemy: What's the Big Deal With Negative Emotions Anyway?

We've been talking a lot about fighting negative emotions, but we've not spent time talking about negative emotions themselves. How come they're so important? Let me get a bit metaphysical. I'm taking Metaphysics this semester, and it happens to be my favorite class. So, I think I know a bit of what I'm talking about. You see, there are three grades of reality: physical, mathematical and metaphysical. Now, let's to a little matchup. Do you recall how Plato divided reality? He said there were: appetitive, animated and intellectual realities. He also said there were: ignorance, opinion, and knowledge. And the modern philosophers give us: sensation, imagination and thought; as well as: spirit, soul and body. Okay, let's matchup these five classification models. In the highest category we'll have: metaphysics, with intellect, with knowledge, with thought, with spirit. In the next category, we'll have mathematics, with animation, with opinion, with imagination, with soul. And in the third category, we'll have physics, with appetite, with ignorance, with sensation, with body. Let me add a sixth classification model, a la Samuel (smiles): (evil) spirit, (negative) emotion, and (evil) behavior. This model, I hope, will help us to understand why negative emotions are such an enemy.

 

Now, evil spirits exist at the highest level of reality. Recall that St Paul has called them principalities in the high places (Eph. 6:12). Their realm is often above our direct grasp. Most humans operate at the level of soul, of animation; of imagination; of opinion, and of mathematics. Recall what we said when we dealt with Rhonda Byrne's The Secret. We said that our thoughts produce our reality, and so we need to watch our thoughts. But we also said that our thoughts are so many, and the frequencies they set in motion are so great, that we cannot keep track of them. We said there was an easier way to keep track of our thoughts, and we said it was through keeping track of our emotions. We said we can know that we are thinking positive thoughts if we genuinely feel good. And we can know that we are thinking negative thoughts if we feel bad. And so, we need not bother keeping extraordinary tab on our thoughts, but we can simply gauge our emotions at each step along the way. Similarly, rather than focus on evil spirits, even though they are the sources of all negative emotions, we can simply guard against the negative emotions we are tempted with feeling. If we can vanquish negative emotions and replace them with positive ones, we will in effect be ridding ourselves of the evil spirits that cause them. The principle is: without any effect, there is no cause.

 

Now, how do we know that emotions are on the level of math, opinion, soul, animation and imagination? Think for a minute. When you do something bad, don't you sometimes say: "Ah, I did not think that one through." The direct cause of our behavior is emotion, not thought. Even when we think something through, we still need to believe the inference and feel its weight in our emotions, and then we act. And so, there is a middle way, a segue way, between intellection (highest class) and behavior (lowest class). That segue way is emotion. Now, emotions are a step higher than behavior. Animals are at the level of spontaneous action. They don't think or feel - they just act based on instinct. They are at the level of appetite, physics, ignorance, body, sensation and behavior. Even the smartest of animals - when it appears for example that they show love or loyalty to their human companions; dogs for example - they are simply acting out of habit. They are not feeling a sense of duty or charity in the same way that humans do. It's like storing a software program on your computer that makes it do say, XYZ. It will always do XYZ; not because it understands the sentimental value to you of doing XYZ, but because that was what it was programmed to do. In the same way, because of the ontological disposition borne out of the habitual response to affirmative (what Pavlov would called conditioned) behavior, an animal, say a dog, would always wag its tail when its master arrived. Not because it loves its master in the same way that humans show charity, but because it has been conditioned to do so by way of habit built over time through classical conditioning. Realize how analogical the foregoing is to the distinction between syntax and semantics; lexes and logoi, and so forth.

 

Emotions, which are proper to human beings, are at the level of math, opinion, soul, animation and imagination. And the wiser a human is, the more precise his or her emotions will be. Emotion is what happens when the intellect is impacted by physical reality. Something happens, and we interpret it a certain way, and so feel a certain way. All this is pre-thought. When spirit interacts with body, the product is soul. Let me be more explanatory. Think of math. It is a step higher than the physical sciences (such as physics, chemistry and biology) because it can be transcendent of material reality, and you don't need to rely on the senses to do math. Yet it is not purely intellectual. It can sometimes bear no resemblance to reality, to actuality, but can simply go off on its own. Erratic. It makes me recall a certain joke. A young man was learning theoretical math in class one day, and he said to his professor: "Sir, how on earth are surds ever going to help me to live a happily married life!" Emotions can be like that. Sometimes - indeed, many times - they bear no resemblance to actuality. Rather than help us in our chosen vocations, they can - when they are negative - ruin us. Or take statistics for example (math). If one is not careful to explain statistics, they can end up deceiving rather than clarifying. Statistics can be used to tell harmful, destructive lies, when not used ethically.

 

It is similar with opinion. Many times, opinions are not truth. Take the classic case of the Moor that thought his wife was cheating on him, and he killed her; only to find out later that she hadn't been cheating on him. Remember as well in the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness (sic), when the young boy had the opinion - before his father disabused him of it - that his mother left because of him. If his father hadn't disabused him of it, he might have allowed himself to get depressed. Think of the many times we have believed something to be true, only for us to realize that it wasn't. That is the nature of opinion. It is also the nature of emotions. They are often not founded in fact, in reality, in actuality. Emotions are often unscientific; unintellectual; inappropriate. Also take imagination. We all know that they are often not real. We can imagine say, a unicorn, when we know it does not exist. We can imagine that we were a rich and powerful superstar, when we knew we weren't. We can imagine that the sun is a small ball in the sky because it looks that way to the naked eyes, when in fact it is many times the size of the earth. We can imagine we see a pond in the street when it is simply a mirage. And soul is like that. Unlike spirit, it is not the perfection or completion of God's act, but is in fact in many cases inchoate. So we see that emotions are on the level of math, of imagination, of opinion, of animation - because they move us to act sometimes without fully thinking things through - and of soul. Emotions are not perfect reality, and acting out of emotions does not guarantee ethical actions. Acting out of emotions does not guarantee perfection.

 

Imagine if all you ever did was borne out of pure and crystal thought. You would be a saint. Socrates did say that an unreflected life was not worth living. Imagine if all you did was done from the position of thought, of spirit, of intellection, of true knowledge, and of metaphysics (reality). Then, you would be free from each negative emotion. God has no matter. His reality is not a matter-form composite as ours is, and so for him there is no incidence of spirit on matter - and so he has no emotions. All his actions are based in pure thought. All the passages in the bible where he is said to be angry, or showing this or that emotion, refer to anthropomorphic representations of God. God is pure thought. Aristotle sees him as the Thought which is thinking thought. He is the One of Plotinus, and the Intellect of Aquinas, to whom everything is perfectly adequated, and compared to whom all humans are arranged in a hierarchy of increasing adequation, proportional to the increasing acuity of rational faculty. The more thoughtful we are, the better behaved we become.

 

We must not even contemplate acting on instinct. We must not even become like animals who have no reason, but live at the level of body, appetite, sensation, ignorance and irrational behavior. As humans, we are held to a higher standard than they are. We are supposed to be ethical, to "be perfect as our heavenly father is" (Matt. 5:48). We should also strive to transcend the level of emotion, of soul, of math, of imagination, of animation and of negative emotion. We should ultimately strive for perfection, to be at the level of intellection, spirit, knowledge, and metaphysics. How? We shall talk about this tomorrow. But what have we learned so far today? We have learned that the more direct enemy to our human capacity are negative emotions. Evil spirits are often beyond our capacity. Most of us will do fine if we simply vanquish the effects of evil spirits (negative emotions), and so get rid of the causes thereof, which are the evil spirits themselves. In this way, we understand what the proximate enemy is: negative emotions. If we got rid of them, we would always feel good. We would always have only positive emotions. Because nature abhors a vacuum, getting rid of negative emotions means filling up with positive ones. And always having positive emotions is the meaning of happiness.

The Walls of Jericho Fall Down, as the Army of the Lord Praises the Lord

One of the most eventful battles in the Old Testament was when the Israelites took on Jericho. An account of it is found in the Book of Joshua, Chapter 6. It begins thus: "Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in" (Josh. 6:1). The battle seemed impossible at first. The Army of the Lord was up against an impregnable wall. But then "the Lord said to Joshua, 'See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in'" (Josh. 6:2-5).

"So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, 'Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.' And he ordered the army, 'Advance! March around the city, with an armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord.' When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant followed them. The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding. But Joshua had commanded the army, 'Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!' So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the army returned to camp and spent the night there" (Josh. 6:6-11).

There are some emotional situations that are so difficult that they demand our patience and our fortitude, and extraordinary sense of prayer. Once when Jesus' disciples asked him why they could not cast out an evil spirit they had encountered while on mission, he told them that some kinds of evil spirits were so strong that they could only be cast out through prayer and fasting (Mark 9:29). There are some kinds of negative emotions in our lives that are so ingrained, and so very serious, that the war against them cannot be anything other than formidable. Yet we cannot give up. We have to try. "Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets kept sounding. So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days. On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city!'

'The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.' When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it - men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys" (Josh. 6:12-21).

 

So it was that, after seven days of fasting and prayer - a great deal of patience and extraordinary prayer - the Army of the Lord God took Jericho by storm and vanquished it. They completely sacrificed the city and everything in it, keeping nothing. Similarly, when we encounter very great negative emotions, we can vanquish them with patience and extraordinary prayer; negative emotions such as: chronic depression, melancholia, addiction and mania, and other kinds of neuroses - we can sacrifice and do away completely with them. Believe me, all the diagnoses that psychiatrists make every day about people - all of them can be dealt with via patient, extraordinary prayer. We will talk about this in subsequent posts. One more thing, before we wrap up this post: Rahab. We've mentioned her in passing in a previous post. She was a prostitute of Jericho that helped two Israelites that came to spy on the land before the battle itself, the one we've just seen. She knew the land was going to be destroyed, and she did not want to be destroyed along with it, and so she sheltered the spies and let them down the walls to escape. And the Israelites remembered her. They did not destroy her along with the city of Jericho. She eventually became an Israelite, and an ancestor of Jesus. Matthew's genealogy references her. Also recall, we have talked about the significance of her being an ancestor of Jesus' in a previous post. Recall as well in this regard what we said about the value of help and encouragement in our fight against negative emotions.

In sum, we have learned today that there are some deep, chronic emotional problems, such as depression, mania, anger, and other neuroses that are difficult to overcome. These ones can be overcome by patient insistence, and extraordinary prayer.

Gideon Leads the Lord's Army off to War Against Midian

How many of you have seen the movie, 300? Spectacular, ain't it? Breathless. Amazing. Superb. I probably need a thesaurus to exhaust the adjectives usable in praise of the movie. In that movie, we saw the bravery and valor of only 300 men against the millions of soldiers they fought. They were unrelenting, indomitable, indefatigable - where is that thesaurus! Anyway. The point I am trying to make is that, with only three hundred men, the Spartan King wrestled against the forces of an entire empire, one that stretched from Asia to North Africa, and held his own for days. Simply incredible. Similarly, in the Book of Judges, Chapter 7, we encounter Gideon. The Lord chose him to wage war against an enemy of Israel at the time, Midian. At first, Gideon was afraid. He did not think he had it in him to fight the Midianites. But God urged him on, and so Gideon gathered very many soldiers and prepared to march against the enemy.

 

However, the Lord had a complaint. He told Gideon that the warrior had too many men. He let Gideon know that, if he went into battle with thousands of men, people would assume that Gideon and his men won because they were many. Rather, the Lord wanted everyone to know that, if Gideon and his men won, it would be only because the Lord helped them. And so, the Lord instructed Gideon to reduce the number of his men to exactly 300. Neat, ain't it? And that is precisely what Gideon did. He limited the number of his soldiers to a mere 300, and they marched off to fight the Midianites. The bible describes the number of soldiers in the camp of Midian as too many to be counted. Just like in the case with the Persian army, the one the Spartan King with only 300 men stood up against in the movie we talked about earlier. But Gideon trusted in the Lord. Gideon relied on the power of God and, encouraged by divine providence, he eventually triumphed over the Midianites. He won the battle! And Gideon glorified the Lord, his God.

 

We have devoted the last few posts to talking about our war with negative emotions. We are also going to devote the next few ones to talking about the same issue. Our war with negative emotions is more important than you can ever imagine. And there is much more to talk about in this regard. Today, in any case, we will focus on the fact that it is God that fights for us. Jesus Christ, the Lord, says in this regard: "apart from me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5b). Also, Paul says: "I can do all things, but only through Christ that gives me the strength" (Phil. 4:13). In our battle against negative emotions, we rely on the power of God, who alone can give us the victory. We cannot do it on our own. Do you recall the case in the bible of the sons of Sceva that tried to cast out evil spirits, relying on their own power? They said to the evil spirits, "I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims," not whom we proclaim. They did not acknowledge the faith Paul had. To them, casting out evil spirits was some form of science experiment, a mere intellectual exercise. The evil spirits replied to them, "Jesus I know, Paul I know, but who are you?" And the evil spirits disgraced them on that day. The evil spirits so overpowered them that the sons of Sceva ran home naked and wounded.

 

The evil spirits, the bearers of negative emotions, are not cartoon characters - they are real, and they are serious. In fighting against them, we need to be covered from head to foot with the power of Jesus. Paul says in this regard: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to endure. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people" (Eph. 6:10-18).

 

Paul recognized that our battle against negative emotions is a serious battle, and so he recommended putting on a full armor, complete with sword and belt and helmet and everything. But what did he say toward the end? He exhorted us to shield ourselves with faith, with reliance on God. We cannot fight the negative emotions that plague us without faith. No senor! Remember when Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt and Pharaoh's army were chasing them all the way to the brink of the Red Sea? Do you recall what happened that day? The Lord commanded Moses to divide the sea in two and, when he had done this, the Lord commanded him to make the Israelites walk on the dry ground going right through the center of the ocean. And - wait for it; this is actually my favorite two verses in all the book of Exodus - "Moses answered the people, 'Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still'" (Ex. 14:13-14).

 

Just think about that: "The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again" (Ibid.v13b). Now you see, now you don't - just like magic. Wow! Impressive, incredible, awesome - hello, thesaurus! The Egyptians you see today - all the pesky emotions that worry you: anger, hate, greed, envy, gluttony, lust, licentiousness, biliousness - all those pesky emotions - you will never see again. Alleluia! Just like that. Instantly. Zuptalo! God is good. God will help us in the battle against negative emotions, and we shall vanquish them all with his help. He will inspire our application of the concept of sacrifices. He will inspire our application of Descartes' method, and he will inspire our prayers; and we will succeed against negative emotions, by his help and his power. Amen, somebody! Indeed the Lord is good, and all the time! The Egyptians you see today! (Ibid.) Those pesky emotions, the enemies of God; the enemies of Heaven; the enemies of our peace and happiness - all the negative emotions that make us uncomfortable and steal away our peace and joy. By the power of God, we will never ever see them, or have to deal with them ever again. Amen.

The Lord's Army Goes off to War Against Amalek

Exodus 17:8-13 tells the story of the Israelites at war against Amalek. The passage begins thus: "At Rephidim, Amalek came and waged war against Israel" (Ex. 17:8). In the same way, the negative emotions we are beset with sometimes come upon us aggressively and without warning. Something unexpected suddenly happens, and we are beset with a deluge of negative emotions. The passage continues: "Moses, therefore, said to Joshua, 'Pick out certain men, and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle. I will be standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand" (Ibid.v9). For us, the first step in the war against negative emotions, Descartes' first of three steps in dealing with them, is consciousness. We have to be vigilant and circumspect. Again, the word, circumspect, is cool to understand by way of etymology. It is from the Latin circumspectare. It means clearly seeing all the things that stand around us (that compass us about like bees and blaze like thorn fires - ring a bell? I thought it might). "So Joshua did as Moses told him: he engaged Amalek in battle after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur" (Ibid.v10).

"As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight" (Ex. 17:11). In our own lives, as long as we stay vigilant and circumspect with regard to the negative emotions that beset us, we will be able to challenge and subdue them. When our vigilance and circumspection wane, however, the negative emotions creep up further on us and attempt to destroy us. In this regard, the Bible tells us: "Be always vigilant, because your enemy [the evil spirits] are always on patrol, searching like ravenous lions for whom to destroy completely" (1 Pet. 5:8). And these are the evil spirits that carry negative emotions with them. The passage from Exodus proceeds thus: "Moses' hands however grew tired; so they put a rock in place for him to sit on. Meanwhile, Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset" (Ex. 17:12). In the same way, we cannot fight the war against negative emotions all by ourselves. We need one another. Even though we are armed with Descartes' three-step method and our concept of sacrifices, and prayers, we need the support of a faith community as well.

Let us take Moses' raised left hand to represent Descartes' three-step method, and Moses' raised right hand to represent our concept of sacrifices, and his vigilance over the battle itself as prayer. We see that, in spite of all this, Moses needed the help of Aaron and Hur to hold up his hands and keep him able to remain vigilant (by sitting him down on the rock to conserve his strength) and so keep up the fight. Similarly, we derive encouragement from friends, family, and a praying community in our battle against negative emotions. Our family, friends and the praying community, like Aaron and Hur, will help us to keep our hands raised in battle against negative emotions. When the circumstances in our lives become overwhelming and it seems like not even prayer and our intellectual arsenal can hold us up, the help and encouragement of the people in our lives will serve to keep us going. It is after all a communal battle. Hebrews 10:25 says in this regard: "Do not forsake the assembly of one another together, as the manner of some is; but exhort one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." 

Seek out a believing community. Join support groups, and benefit from the support and encouragement of like minds. An army is not made up of an individual soldier. The passage from Exodus continued: "And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword" (Ex. 17:13). In the same way, helped by the encouraging prayers of the believing community and our own efforts, we can master and vanquish the negative emotions that life throws our way courtesy of evil spirits. This victory in any case comes about through vigilance, intellectual dexterity and sacrifices. And of course with the help of a believing community to support and encourage us in our battle against pesky emotions. Let us bless the Lord, and praise him all our days. Amen.

Enlisting in the Lord's Army

In Mel Gibson's Brave Heart, we encounter a man who wants to live the life of a peasant. He wants to have a farm somewhere in the country. He wants to raise crops and domestic animals. He wants to marry the woman he loves and have children to run about in the fields. He wants to relax and enjoy life. But all this is asking too much. The English are lording it over his native Scotland. They have imposed a dreadful law called prima nocte. This law gives the right to an English Lord to sleep with any newly-wed woman even before her lawful husband has sex with her. This awful law leads to the death of the man's wife, when she refuses to give in to the English Lord that ultimately tries to rape her in the name of an obnoxious law. This unfortunate incident leads the man, who ordinarily would have been content to lead a simple farm life, to take up arms and go to war against England and liberate his country from oppression.

 

It is the same with us. We all want to lead simple, unperturbed lives. We want to wake up in the morning, go about our daily activities in tranquility, and return to bed at night refreshed and placid. We don't want to feel agitated or upset. We want to love and be loved. We want to share simple joys with our friends and family. We want to be understood and appreciated. We want to enjoy life. But we all know that life is far from being placid. We all realize that life is sometimes messy and scary and sad. Sometimes, life is so painful that we fear to go on living. Life so overwhelms us that we are tempted to retreat and run, throw in the towel and bury our heads in the sand. Our dream of living a peaceful life is often shattered.

 

The fantasy of living an undisturbed life usually comes to us in moments of relative calm or good fortune. The songwriter declares: "I said to myself in my good fortune, 'Nothing will ever disturb me'" (Psalm 30:7a). Maybe we've just got a job and our prospects seem a little brighter. Maybe we've just received an inheritance and we feel a little snug. In moments of relative prosperity we begin to make all these plans, and dream all these dreams. We hope that "nothing will ever disturb us," but the psalmist says: "and then you hid your face and I was put to confusion" (Ibid.v7b). Every so often, life happens to upset our good fortune, to upset our plans. Like in the case of the Rich Fool. After he had made glorious plans for prosperity, God said to him, "You fool! Tonight your soul will be demanded of you, and all these riches - whose will they be?" (Luke 12:20). [The bible said the story of the rich fool was to teach us about the comeuppance reserved for those who are rich in the things of this world but not in the things of God.]

 

Life is hard. All of you probably recall what I once told my younger brother, Chima. I said to him: If you wake up one morning and life seems all fine and dandy, please go back to bed and sleep. If on the other hand you wake up and things seem difficult and sad and absurd and overwhelming, then get up and begin your day. Jesus Christ himself knew this and so said: "In this world, you will definitely have trouble" (John 16:33b). We all will have trouble. Life will never be that idyllic fantasy. Recall the movie, the Pursuit of Happyness (sic), the scene at Glide Memorial, where the inmates were singing, "Lord, don't move this mountain; give me faith to climb it." You see, those inmates knew that life was a mountain, the climbing of which was so difficult that faith was needed to succeed at such climb. And since they knew that life was inevitably difficult - could be no other way - they did not waste time praying  for God to move the mountain - change life - but only for God to give them the zeal to continue to live it anyway.

 

Life is hard. It tries us; it hassles us; it challenges us. The circumstances and people that compose it; the seasons and geographical parameters; the workings of political machines - all of these harangue and try us. The deeds of people, most of which are less than ideal, affect us: a person out of greed decides to sell a leg of lamb for five more dollars than it is worth. A woman's budget cannot afford it because of the increase in price, and so she buys veal instead. She has some relatives over, and one of them has a weird allergy whenever he eats veal. He thinks it's lamb, though, because that's what his sister says it is. She lies to save face, because she has promised her guests lamb. The relative eats the veal and falls ill. He dies, and his children become orphans. One grows up bitter and resorts to drugs. He gets in trouble with the police, and eventually ends up in jail. His younger brother is upset about his brother's fate and goes on rampage - the story goes on and on and on. "Lord don't move this mountain; give [us] faith to climb it!"

 

Life is hard. How many times have we just sighed - just like that! You're sitting on a chair or a stool or something - or maybe you're lying in bed - and you just contemplate life for a brief while, and you sigh. You take a deep breath and feel your chest rise with the intake of air; and then you let it drop slowly with the exhale. Stunning. This thing called life. Life is "that hard thing that must be lived anyway." It is hard, and challenging and absurd. And it can be no other way. But - and here's the kicker - we must live it anyway. But how? A good way is to enlist in the Lord's Army. Like the protagonist of Mel Gibson's Brave Heart, having observed how absurd and difficult life is, we should go ahead and give up our fantasy of living an idyllic existence, where "nothing will ever disturb us." Even Jesus was not spared the difficulty of life. He too, like the psalmist, felt that God "hid his face," and he too, also like the psalmist, was thrown into such confusion that he squealed on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you left me all by myself!" (Matt. 27:46b). He felt the pain of life so deeply that he imagined his father, who loved him so much, had left him to suffer alone. Life can do that. Sometimes it can become so hard that it overwhelms. This thing called life!

 

What to do? Enlist in the Lord's Army. Let's get conscripted. The battle against negative emotions rages. It's the largest occasion for peace time draft ever! And the draft is for all people, young and old, male and female - every single person. There's no medical evaluation; there's no boot camp - it's straight to the warfront. Go, go, go! The call is shrill. We must begin at once to enlist. In the fight against negative emotions, we are mustered and ready. We need first to arm ourselves, though: We have to go with Descartes' three-step method of warding off negative emotions. We need this ammunition. Next, we need our concept of sacrifices. Very important. Then we need prayer. Lots, and lots of it. And so, armed with Descartes' method, our concept of sacrifices, and lots of prayer, we march off into the battle against negative emotions. Remember in any case that it is emotions, not human beings, which we fight against. Descartes, eminent dualist, always insists on separating the spirit from the physical individual. We wrestle, recall, against "principalities and powers, and not against flesh and blood" (Eph. 6:12). Let us begin to march.

 

We choose to be happy. The psalmist said: "I trusted even when I said I am sorely afflicted, and when I said in my alarm that no one can be trusted" (Psalm 116:10). Even in the most difficult and seemingly emotionally overwhelming periods of our lives, we keep faith; we trust on; we choose to be happy. Yes indeed, happiness is in fact something we can choose. We can choose it even when the situation we live in is less than ideal. You see, when the Scots were fighting against their English overlords for freedom in Mel Gibson's Brave Heart, they said they felt freedom in the heart, even if the physical reality of their situation was oppression. We may not always choose the physical reality we live in, but we can choose our emotional response to it. By applying Descartes' method in the face of emotionally-challenging situations; by sacrificing with regard to such challenging circumstances, and by praying vigorously about them - especially since "the vigorous prayer of a passionate person avails much" (Jas. 5:16b) - we can remain happy even when everything about us is falling apart. [By the way, isn't the word, circumstances, just so cool! By way of etymology, it is circumstare, or "that which stands around." It refers to everything that "compasses us about (like bees, and blaze like thorn fires)." And what do we do about things that compass us about like bees and blaze like thorn fires? We hack them down!]

 

By enlisting in the Lord's Army. You know, sometimes, I imagine the range of emotions that the slaves from Africa struggled with as they rowed along the seas from the Motherland to the New World. I contemplate the emotions the prisoners in the death camps of Auschwitz and Cambodia wrestled with as they lay tied, crammed like sardines into small, enclosed spaces. What emotions did the victims of the Rwandan Genocide wrestle with as they witnessed the merciless carnage? Or what did the people who were burned at stake feel as the flames destroyed their bodies slowly - just imagine the pain, people! We have yet to feel a small fraction of what they did, and yet we complain. St Charles Lwanga and his twenty-five companions, the Martyrs of Uganda, were said to have been smiling as they were slowly barbequed over the fires. It was the same with Joan of Arc. All the slaves that made it alive from Africa to the New World, after months in the holds of rowing ships, with the filth and the sorrow and the sickness; all the survivors of concentration camps eventually freed by Allied Forces at the end of World War II - Elie Weisel, for example - how did they survive?

Psychologists tell us that there are at least four stages to the mastery of a difficult situation: denial, which is when you try to imagine it is not happening. As a young boy when my mother died, for example, I at first told myself it wasn't happening. I told myself she was going to come back. The second stage is anger. When my mom did not come back. I was upset. I recall I developed a temper and used to yell at people randomly. The third stage is depression. This is when we feel the loss acutely. Many people never recover from this stage. They go from here to despair, and everything is downhill from there. For the strong ones though, they go on from a period of depression to acceptance; they come to terms eventually with the circumstance. But all this is elementary. With sacrifice, there is only one step: simply sacrifice the circumstance. Period. And in that one fell swoop, you choose happiness instead of a whole range of negative emotions. Zuptalo! You choose to be happy in spite of whatever is going on. This is why Jesus could ask us to immediately turn the other cheek when we were slapped on one. Sacrifice is instant. This is why Jesus, even while bearing the excruciating pain of the cross, could say to the penitent thief, "This day you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). Spirituality is quicker and cheaper and more effective than psychology, I tell you.

So folks, enlist. Join the Lord's Army. Let's go fight those negative emotions. Let's choose to be happy in spite of our circumstances. Let's be free in our hearts even when our physical situations oppress. Let us be brave. Armed with Descartes' method, our concept of sacrifices, and prayer, let us march against the enemy forces that threaten to steal our happiness. Let us put up a brave fight. Let us not falter. And all will be well with us. Amen.

When You Go Home, Tell My People I Don't Care

In high school - I attended a military high school, by the way - we used to sing a song sometimes when we went jogging in the morning. The song was part of a story. The story was of a young man that left home to join the military. His folks and other relatives had not seen him for a long while. And when someone was traveling back to his hometown and would very likely run into the soldier's relatives, the young man asked him to tell his people that he didn't care about a thing.

 

When you go home, tell my people I don't care (2ce)

Anything can happen-o; I don't care

Whether good or bad-o; I don't care

If a fight, we will fight it-o; I don't care

If a death, we will die it-o; I don't care

When you go home, tell my people-o; I don't care!

 

Yesterday, we talked about what it means to be in the Lord's Army. Today, we shall continue that discussion by talking about a crucial quality that members of the Lord's Army should have: courage. If you've seen Mel Gibson's Brave Heart, you probably have an idea of what courage is. It is moving forward in the face of otherwise scary obstacles, frightful challenges. It is moving forward when everything seems to indicate you should be moving backwards instead. As soldiers in the Lord's Army, life is challenging. Persecutions abound. Temptations to abandon our faith abound. But we must not retreat. We cannot desert the platoon; we really cannot afford to be deserters! Jesus said: "No one that puts his hand to the plough and looks back is worthy of the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). Cowardice is not a quality to be found in a member of the Lord's Army. Bravery alone is acceptable.

 

Looking back, doubting our resolve, forsaking the mission - these are definite no-no's. We have to stay the course. When the naysayers quibble and quip, we simply should retort: "I don't care." Nothing should move us. Psalm 125 says that those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion that cannot be moved. Again, concerning a soldier of the Lord, Jeremiah says: "Just like a tree planted by the river, he shall not be moved" (Jer. 17:8). And the reason we shall not be moved is because we don't care. We are not bothered by all the bad news and events. We are like the house built on solid rock that stayed standing even when the storms buffeted it left, right and center. "The Lord remains for us a refuge and strength, a shelter close at hand in time of distress, so we shall not fear though the earth should rock, though the mountains fall into the depths of the sea" (Psalm 42:1-3). The Psalm further describes the resolve of the soldier of the Lord "even though the sea rages and foams; even though the mountains be shaken by its waves, because the Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our stronghold" (Ibid.v4). This resolve keeps "through nations being in tumult and kingdoms shaking, especially since the voice of the Lord calms every upheaval" (Ibid.v7). Indeed, "the Lord of Hosts is always with us; our citadel remains the God of Jacob" (Psalm 46:8).

 

"Come consider the works of the Lord, the redoubtable deeds he has done on the earth. He puts an end to wars over all the earth; the bow he breaks, the spear he snaps; he burns the shields with fire. He says, 'Be still and know that I am God; supreme among the nations, supreme on the earth'" (Psalm 46:9-11). And indeed it is because of this unsurpassable power of God that we stay grounded in faith, grounded in the raging mission. God supports us; God keeps us going. Even when no one seems to join us; even when material support appears to be collapsing. God says: "Fear not; I will uphold you with my victorious right hand" (Isa. 41:10). This right hand of God is the one that "holds us fast" (Psalm 63:9b). This is why we don't care. This is why we are unperturbed by the trials and temptations that we see all around us.

 

Concerning the trials he faced on his missionary journey, St Paul says: "Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys; in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; in toil and hardship, and through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fasting, and through cold and exposure. And apart from these things, there is pressure upon me because of my anxiety for the welfare of the churches" (2 Cor. 11:25-28). St Paul was facing serious trials and temptations and persecutions, but he did not care, not for his own comfort or security. All he was concerned about was the welfare of the churches; the mission; the work of soldering on in the Lord's Army. He was secure in his mission and in his passion for the work of Christ.

 

The young man who left home to join the military and sent a person going back to his hometown with a message of nonchalance for his own comfort and security is a model for us soldiers of the Lord. We are positioned for service in the Lord's Army, and so we truly are unconcerned about our material comfort. Indeed, if we are concerned about anything at all, it is the mission, the work of the Lord. We are not bothered about material stuff. Once when Jesus sent his disciples on mission, he said: Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts; no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff" (Matt. 10:9-10). They were not to care about anything, "whether good or bad." The young man sending a message home about his nonchalance said he was going to fight the good fight of God's soldiers; a fight we talked about yesterday, a fight against the negative emotions occasioned by evil spirits. He was prepared to suffer, to die to sin, and to reap the reward of righteousness, for "gold is tested by fire" (1 Pet. 1:7).

 

But what if his parents would take the news badly - would the nonchalant soldier care? Hardly. He was interested only in the righteous mission of fighting negative emotions. Jesus said: "I have come to set a fire on the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already. There is a baptism with which I must be baptized and I long for its coming. Do you think I have come to establish peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law" (Luke 12:49-53). And when Jesus was once told that his mother and siblings were looking for him, he replied that only those that did the will of God were his family (Matt. 12:50). And so the nonchalant young soldier would not care whether his parents liked the message he was sending home or not.

 

The lesson here is this: Stay the course, no matter what. Keep your head in the game, your eye on the ball. Remain vigilant in the fight against the negative emotions occasioned by evil spirits. Never let up. Never buckle under pressure. Keep up the fight. Do not look back. No, no, no! 

The Lord's Army

As a child growing up in Festac, we used to sing this song:

Are you in the Lord's Army? Yes, sir. (2ce)

I will never steal from my momma's pot

Beat up my younger ones

Lie to my daddy

I will never upset the neighborhood

'Cos I'm in the Lord's Army. Yes, sir.

As a grown man, I wish the gamut of my problems found restrictive definition in the above list: stealing from my momma's pot; beating up my younger ones; lying to my daddy, and upsetting the neighborhood. I mean, I don't even have a mother, let alone a mother's pot from which to steal. And don't even get me started on the possibility of lying to "my daddy." Hello! And upsetting the neighborhood? Come on, people! 

But you can understand a child's simplicity and naivete. Except for maybe the children forced into concentration camps at Auschwitz and Cambodia, and the gutters of Kigali, most children pretty much busy themselves with such trivial stuff as the song contains. Grown ups like us - we know better. Being in the Lord's Army for us means much more. It means struggling to survive in spite of difficulties that are so great that they simply squelch the weak. Life is a struggle. And in this struggle called life, only the bravest succeed. Everyone knows that. There is no room for weakness; there is no room for mistakes. We've got to keep moving, hacking down the obstacles along the way. The songwriter says: "They compassed me about like bees; they blazed like a fire among thorns, but in the Lord's name I hacked them down" (Psalm 118:12).

Who are "they," though? Who or what compassed us about like bees and blazed like a thorn fire? Who did, or should, we continually hack down? The enemies of the Lord. That's what soldiers in the army do - any army. They hack down the enemies of the master. Especially when the enemies compass them about like bees and blaze like thorn fires. The enemies of the Lord in any case are not physical, not actual persons. So no, sorry to burst your bubble - this is not a post about going out there to upset people. I mean, even children know never to "upset the neighborhood," when in the Lord's Army. St Paul says in this regard: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the high places" (Eph. 6:12). Our enemies are the evil spirits that tempt us with every negative emotion there is: insecurity, depression, loneliness, boredom, dissipation, anger, envy, greed, licentiousness, biliousness, hate - every negative emotion. These are the enemies that compass us about like bees and blaze like a fire among thorns; these are the principalities and powers in the high places. These evil spirits, and the negative emotions they occasion - these are the enemies of the Lord. But how do we know this? You see, the Lord says: "I know the plans I have in mind for you; they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope." The evil spirits and the negative emotions they bring, in any case, want us to have sorrow, and disaster, and despair - the exact opposite of the things that God wants for us. And so they are inimical to the will of God. Ergo, they are the enemies of the Lord. And as members of the Lord's Army, we have to fight them. 

Human beings are never the enemy. Even when it seems that someone is upsetting you, it is actually the evil spirit operating in the person that is doing the upsetting. You must learn to separate the evil spirit operating in the person from the actual person. Fight the evil spirit. Fight the good fight. But how? You have to apply Descartes' three-step method for dealing with negative emotions. Oh, how I dream of someday giving a three-hour workshop on this method. I long to demonstrate in person to people attending a one-on-one event like a workshop how to effectively apply the method. Anyway. Another thing to do is sacrifice. This is another powerful method for getting rid of negative emotions, especially loss. I promise myself this: If God keeps me alive and makes me a priest, I will write a comprehensive book - probably 450 pages long - on sacrifice. I hope I will get a publisher. I will also write a workshop to go with it, and then take the book on the road in order to give the workshop to people. We all need to be people of sacrifice. The bible says in this regard: "You have made us (O God) a population of priests" (Rev. 5:10). And what do priests do? They sacrifice. The technique of sacrifice will help you to get rid of those pesky negative emotions. Please pray for me so that I can become a priest and start my spiritual writing and workshop ministry. Ask yourself: If you heard I was giving a spiritual workshop on sacrifice in say, Toronto - would you attend? If your answer was yes, then pray each day for God to make me succeed in the seminary. I long to begin to help people with the spiritual techniques I hold within myself, techniques that  have helped me to cope with a relatively difficult life.

So, to wrap up, what have we discussed today? We have said that we all are in the Lord's Army. It is an army of people that are poised to wrestle against evil spirits and the negative emotions they bring. These negative emotions can be overcome by applying Descartes' three-step method, and by sacrificing. And that reminds me - and by prayer too. Don't forget prayer. MC Hammer says: "We need to pray just to make it today." I couldn't have said it better myself. God bless MC Hammer.

Zaccheus Climbs Up a Sycamore Tree in Order to See Jesus

When I said I wish I were smaller in size, I probably did not mean like Zaccheus. Zaccheus was midgety. He was also a tax collector. And tax collectors were hated in Jewish society back then. Zaccheus was wealthy, and corrupt. His wealth was not attained through honest means. He was ostracized and shunned by the majority of his country people. He probably was seen as a traitor, because of his fiscal link with the Romans, who were lording it over the Jews at the time. Zaccheus probably could not go to the public places and sit down with his peers. He must have been very lonely. Sometimes in our lives, we have money and position, but not the relationships to enjoy the money with. Like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. We go to work very early in the morning, slave away all day, and return home late at night. We probably take a shower, put on pajamas and sit in front of the television till we fall asleep. No friends, no family. Loneliness is becoming more and more an issue in our society. Yesterday, we heard of the case of a man who lived by himself, somewhere in Florida. He had no family, and he didn't have friends who came to visit from time to time. After awhile, his neighbors noticed that his daily papers were piling up higher and higher at the doorstep; his car stayed parked in the driveway; nobody entered or left the house - the door was never seen open - for say, two and a half weeks. And so the police were called and, when they arrived and forced the door open after knocking repeatedly, they found the man's corpse. He had been dead for about sixteen days! And no one knew. This in any case is not a strange story. There are many similar examples of individual isolation.

 

Zaccheus heard about Jesus. Maybe when people came by his office to pay their taxes, or when he went to their houses if they refused to come by; or probably while he made his rounds at the marketplace - he must have heard people speak famously of this prophet that could heal and teach and console. And so, "Zaccheus wanted to see Jesus" (Luke 19:3a). I can just imagine the anxiety that plagued Zaccheus, the desperate longing that possessed him to meet this special man, this famous Jesus. Many of us live like we're waiting for something. We're waiting for that special person, that special thing, that special event that will console us, fill the hole in our hearts. It's like we keep an eye perennially open, even while asleep, longing, hoping, waiting, expecting. We all, like Zaccheus, want to see Jesus. Luke 19:3b says however, concerning Zaccheus: "but he was short, and could not see because of the crowd." For us as well, our shortcomings: insecurity, fear, hesitation, self-reproach, laziness, indiscipline - everything we feel is wrong with us - prevent us from reaching out and grasping salvation. We are hamstrung, and cannot get ahead. Everyone else seems to be moving on, as it were leaving us behind.

 

We get stuck in the routine. We refuse to make the first move. We forget that "Heaven helps those that help themselves." We sit still in front of the television, with that guilty pleasure: a bag of chips; a bowl of popcorn; caramel apples; fried chicken wings and drumsticks - our gym room stays deserted; phone calls are left unreturned; voicemails are promptly deleted: we're angry with our folks; with our friends; with this or that person - who gave them the right to treat us that way, by the way! We'll never forgive them. We sniff, wipe away a tear forming in our eyes. No way José. We must be strong. It's us against the world. We stay in our isolation. We stay in our loneliness. And we perpetuate the case. Get up, I tell you! Do what Zaccheus did when he was too short and could not see because of the crowd. Zaccheus ran ahead of everybody else and climbed a sycamore tree, so as to see Jesus, who was passing that way. We need to get up from before the television. We need to pick up the phone and return that call. We need to say, "Hey mom, I got your call. Sorry I couldn't call back earlier. I've been kinda upset with you for so, so, so and so. But I'm not upset anymore. I'll be by for Thanksgiving." And when Thanksgiving does come around, we need to actually go.

 

We need to go sometime to volunteer at a soup kitchen. We need to volunteer at a shelter. We need to visit with colleagues and friends. Allow them to invite you over for dinner sometime, and you invite them as well. Stop sometime to say hi to a passing stranger. That fellow begging for a buck at the street corner - just give him a dollar already. Don't begin to question why he or she doesn't go to the institutions of charity. Don't be an Ebenezer Scrooge. Give; share; help. Open the door of your heart to others. And love. Find your soul mate. Be romantic. Marry. Have sex - lots of it, and with vigorous foreplay as well. Enjoy life. You deserve it. Luke 19:5-6a tells us that, when Jesus reached to the spot where Zaccheus was up a tree, he asked him to come down, and insisted on being invited to dine with Zaccheus at the tax collector's house. Wow! I can just imagine how happy Zaccheus must have been. Luke 19:6b said, "He came down at once and welcomed Jesus gladly." His efforts to see Jesus had paid off. In our own lives as well, we will find that the acts of reaching out pay off. When we return those missed calls; when we volunteer to help the less fortunate; when we invite and get invited back; when we fall in love and act romantic; when we fellowship with others, we reap a harvest of joy. Just Like Zaccheus did when Jesus told him he was going to dine with him in his house.

 

"But when the crowds saw this, they began to mutter, 'He has gone to dine in the home of a sinner'" (Luke 19:7). There will always be obstacles. Sometimes, people may refuse to attend the events we invite them to. They may come up with several excuses why they cannot hang out with us. We may also not get invited. We may find it near impossible to find a soul mate, someone to share our life with. The people murmured against Zaccheus. "But Zaccheus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount'" (Luke 19:8). Impressive. Zaccheus stood up for himself. He was not going to allow the naysayers have a field day. He was willing to go overboard with love for Jesus. And Jesus appreciated the gesture. "Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost'" (Luke 19:9-10). So it is with us. When we face obstacles in our effort at forming positive interpersonal relationships with others, we should put in more effort. We should go over and above, like Zaccheus did, in our love for others, and in working on our interpersonal relationships. And we will be rewarded. We cannot afford to buckle under the pressure of obstacles. We must be strong, and we must persist.

 

Zaccheus was a lonely little man. He needed comfort in his life. He heard of Jesus, a special man that loved and comforted everyone. He desired greatly to meet this Jesus. But because he was short and could not see Jesus because of the crowd, he ran ahead of everyone else and climbed a sycamore tree. When Jesus passed by, he called Zaccheus down from the tree and dined with him at table. And when the people murmured, Zaccheus went over and above in his generosity, and love for Jesus. In our own lives too, we should reach out and form positive relationships with others, including the less fortunate. We should not be snug in our own material bubble, but connect in friendship to as many people as life throws our way. We shall then be happy and full of divine blessings and rewards.

"Your Right Hand Holds Me Fast": A Reflection on Miraculous Moments in My Life So Far

The songwriter tells God in Psalm 63: "Your right hand holds me fast." How can he confidently say that? Indeed, how can anyone know for sure that God's right hand holds him or her fast? It is only by reflecting on the past and noticing extraordinary moments when God came through for us. By marveling at the periods in our lives when only God could have made things right, we are able to say definitively to the divine providence: "Your right hand holds me fast." I have seen such amazing moments in my own life. And in this post, I will share with you a few of them, so that you can praise God with me, for indeed God's right hand does hold me fast. And you too can, inspired by my example, investigate your own life to observe that God's right hand holds you fast as well. Let us bless the Lord, and praise him all our days.

The first miracle I recall took place when I was in elementary school. In the school I attended back then, all children in Elementary Four had to take a test. It was called Slip Test. It was very difficult. Of about 240 children that took it every year, only about 40 could pass. The pupils that passed the test would be awarded double promotion. They would go all the way from Elementary Four to Elementary Six, skipping by the fifth grade. In other words, they would "slip" by the fifth class and enter the sixth and last class of primary school. When I was in Elementary Four and the day for the slip test arrived, I was sick and at home in bed with typhus. And while I lay in bed, my classmates wrote the prestigious test. The next day, partially recovered, I returned to school to learn that the glorious test had been taken. I was very sad. You see, I was a very good student and I knew I deserved to pass the test. However, I had missed it, and I probably would not get the double promotion I knew I deserved. I cried softly to myself. After a while, our teacher called me to her desk. She said, "Onyenachi, how come you of all people missed the test?" I told her I had been sick with typhus. She said not to worry. A couple hours later, our Superintendent walked into the assembly hall to read the results. Of the 42 names called that day, one was Onyenachi Nze. I had passed. I had passed an examination I hadn't even taken! It was a miracle. I have never forgotten it, even to this day. It is the first and only time I passed an exam I never took. God came through for me.

The second miracle I recall took place when I was in high school. Every morning, we students were all expected to report early for Assembly. I was early that fateful morning, and was making my way to the field like other students, when a wicked senior student stopped me. He made me do extra work that kept me late. I knew I was in trouble. The Vice Principal came to the dorms to "catch" late students. He saw me and a few other students in the dorms. Holding out a fat and thick cane, he shouted at us to form a line in front of him. He was going to whip us thoroughly with the cane. Promptly, we lined up in front of him. My heart was beating furiously. I was very afraid. I saw him raise the cane high up in the air and bring it down with such vehemence on each of the students in front of me on the line that the sound the action produced was quite impressive: "Whack!" I shuddered each time I heard it. I prayed to God. I told the Lord of earth, sea and sky to help me. I reminded him that I would not be late, were it not for that pesky senior that delayed me. I begged God to free me, somehow, from the pain of the whipping. For I had seen the students writhe in great distress after having endured the whipping. When my turn came to receive the lash, I stretched out my hand as usual and I saw him raise the cane as usual. I closed my eyes and, in a couple of seconds or so, I heard the word, "Next." Apparently, my turn was over. Had he whipped me? I could not say for sure. I felt no pain. I did see him raise his hand, though, and I heard the word, "Next," which means he had done with me. But I felt no pain. Had God miraculously prevented me from feeling the pain of the whip? Till this day I do not know. But I know that God came through for me.

The third miracle I recall took place when I was in college. As an orphan then, I could not continue to afford my tuition. The way things were going then, I probably would have been forced to drop out of school. I prayed to God. I asked him to help me. One day, after I had prayed thus, I was walking by the Departmental Office when I saw a poster. It was an advert for a nationwide scholarship program. The best students in all of Nigeria were to enter an academic contest, and only 325 out of the tens of thousands - a million maybe? - of students would be awarded the prestigious Chevron Nigeria Scholarship. I wrote an application and sent it in - at least just to try. A few weeks later, I was walking by the newsstands and I saw some people reading newspapers. I usually didn't read the papers, but something spoke to me that day and asked me to. And so I grabbed one of the national dailies and flipped open to a page and there it was: I had been shortlisted with about a thousand other students to take the test. Of the tens or hundreds of thousands of students, only a little over one thousand had been selected to take the test, and I knew that, of the over one thousand that eventually took the test, only 325 would be awarded the scholarship. I prayed hard. And on the day of the test I went to sit with the smartest students in all the country. There were medical students, engineering students, pharmacy students, law students - smart students indeed. And I was simply studying communication. Anyway. I sat and wrote the test. There were two subjects: Quantitative Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning. In the time allotted, I could finish only the Verbal section, and I probably did only half of the Quantitative section. I turned to a student seated directly behind me. I asked him if he was able to complete the Quant section. He proudly said yes. I sighed. I thought I had failed. But God be praised, when the results did come out about three months later, I was named sixth in all of Nigeria, and the boy who said he had done pretty much all the sums, the one seated directly behind me at the exam, was named 125th. God had come through for me again. Believe me, it was that scholarship money that saw me through college.

On the day I was traveling from Owerri to Port Harcourt to take the Chevron Scholarship Test, I boarded a bus that was faulty. It kept stopping and stopping all along the way so that a journey that would ordinarily have taken six or so hours, took the entire day. We arrived late at night. I knew for sure it was the devil. The devil did not want me to take the test the following morning. You see, I had decided to go a day earlier and spend the night with an uncle and then leave from his house to the venue in the morning, because the test was scheduled for 8 a.m. I had obtained this uncle's address from a cousin, and I had taken care to write it down. However, when we reached the last bus stop in Port Harcourt, I could not find the paper on which I had written the address. It had been in my pocket, but it was not there any longer! Weird. I was lost. I began to walk all around the city, asking questions. I was describing my uncle to people: his job, his name, his physical appearance - did anyone know him! It seemed no one did. I sighed. And then I asked for the nearest church in the vicinity. Someone pointed it out to me. My plan was to go to the church and sleep on a pew there. I reasoned that I would be safe inside a church. And so, I made my way to the church building that someone had been kind enough to point out to me. But as I was going there, a voice spoke to me. It said, "Turn left and take the path to the left of the church." I stopped for a moment, and then I obeyed the voice. I turned left and began to walk along the path to the left of the church building. Soon enough I came across three old women chatting together. I greeted them and asked if they knew my uncle. They said they did not. They asked if I did not know his address. I said I did not. I said I realized it was weird to ask for directions to a place without the address of the place. I explained that I had misplaced the address. They said they were sorry they could not help me. I sighed. Then why had the voice told me to make a left turn? As I was about to retrace my steps toward the church, a little boy - he was probably seven years old - suddenly showed up from nowhere. He said, "Follow me. I know the place." I laughed. Of course he did not know the place. A little boy that had not even heard me describe my uncle. But some force made me follow the boy. And we walked and walked and walked until we came to a house. The six-or-seven-year-old boy pointed at it and said, "That is the house. Go in." I laughed. But the same force made me knock and enter the house. As soon as I did, I came face to face with my uncle. He looked at me in surprise and said, "Onyenachi!" I smiled. I had found the house I was looking for. God had come through for me again.

A fifth miracle I remember was also while I was still in college. I was riding in a taxi on my way to classes one morning when our driver began to lose control of the car. Just as this was happening, a huge fuel tanker was coming right behind us. Something told me the fuel tanker was going to hit us. I said to Jesus, "Is this it? Am I going to die today?" I was very afraid. Immediately, I began to say the rosary. "Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus." I prayed and prayed and then, I heard the sound of impact. The fuel tanker hit and threw our car with force off the main road, over the curb, and into the dust on the side of the road. But everyone in the car lived. A couple days later, I offered thanksgiving in church to commemorate the event. A sixth miracle, also concerning surviving accidents, happened to me after college: a speeding motorcycle hit me hard as I was crossing a busy street, but rather than I to fall down, the motorcycle went reeling at least six meters down the road and crashed to the ground. As if I was some sort of strong wall. A seventh miracle still concerning accidents occurred when I went biking on the mountains of Colorado in the summer of 2010. It was my first time. I and my friends drove 3500 feet up the mountains, and then hopped on our bikes and began to ride down. The brakes on my bike were faulty, or maybe I just didn't know how to use them well. And as I was descending at top speed from the peak of the mountain, without brakes, I lost control of the bike and it went speeding down all by itself, bearing me on it, until it swerved right past a stream of vehicles and over the curb to the right and crashed in the dust at the other end of a busy mountain street. I was unhurt. Immediately, paramedics and other folks rushed to me and began to fuss. "How many fingers am I holding up? What day is it? Are you hurt?" And on and on and on. And then one of them said something I will never forget. He said, "Thank your God, mister. If your bike had crashed to the left rather than to the right, you would have kept falling down and down and down 3500 feet and, not only would you have definitely died, your body would have been cut up into small pieces by the jagged trees and mountain edges. No one would have found what to bury of you." Phew! It was a miracle. A bicycle, going all by itself, had crashed me on the right side of the mountain. I was unhurt. Completely unhurt, when I could have been cut into little pieces. God had come through for me again.

An eight miracle I recall happened when I was in college. It was before I won the Chevron Scholarship. I was finding it hard to find accommodation, a suitable dorm to live in. A friend of mine offered me a dorm room for free. Just like that - which by the way was a miracle in itself, a free dorm room - but little did I know that it was a problem dorm. It was rumored that all the students that lived in that dorm were notorious. And when I did move in, I found out that the rumors were true. The inmates of that dorm were bad people: smoking, having sex, doing drugs - they engaged in every filth possible. I was terrified. And I avoided them as much as possible. I pretty much minded my own business. I went to school and church and, when I did return to the dorms, I shut my door and bolted it from within. After awhile though, the complaints about the dorm became too much for the police to stomach and so, one morning, about seven or eight policemen came to raid the dorm. Because I was a loner in the dorm, no one told me about the raid. A few of the guys knew about it and fled. Only about two, and I, were left. That morning, say about 3 a.m. or so, I heard a fist banging on my door. I woke up sleepily and opened the door. Immediately, I saw a flashlight in my face. I looked and saw two policemen. They were holding handcuffs. I saw the two other inmates already cuffed and being led away. The policemen said, "You are under arrest. Get dressed and come with us." I was very frightened. I have never had any dealings with the police ever. I began to get dressed. They said, "What is your name?" I said "Samuel Nze." By my college days I had pretty much outgrown using my Ibo name, Onyenachi, which I had used in elementary and high schools. They said, "Samuel Nze? Are you not the notorious Samuel Nze we've been looking for?" I said, "Oh no, I'm just a simple boy." The said, "Shut up!" I said, "Please, I'm another Samuel Nze, not the one you're looking for." As soon as I said that, a voice shouted from outside, "Samuel Nze? Leave Samuel Nze alone-o!" I pushed past the two police officers in front of my door and went to see who it was in the courtyard that knew me simply by hearing my name. Apparently, it was someone I had met seven years ago. Back then, we had briefly befriended each other. He had told me he wanted to train to be a police officer someday. Apparently then, in the seven years since I last saw him, he had in fact trained and become a police officer, and was in charge of the raid that morning. I slumped to the ground, overwhelmed. It was a clear miracle. The police officers said, "Should we take him?" He said, "No. He's a good boy; an orphan too - don't worry, I'll tell you his story later. Take these other two, and let us go." And so they put the two other guys in the Black Maria vehicle and drove them away. I was later told that each of them paid two hundred thousand naira each (=N=200,000) before they could be released, and it took at least three weeks for them to raise the bail money. And that period was final exams period. Each of them missed all their exams. In my case, I would have languished there, because I had no money to pay such a bail, and I would have missed all my exams and not graduate - I was in sophomore year then. God had come through for me again.

A ninth miracle I recall took place also when I was in college. I was chosen to represent my university, Imo State University, at the Third Annual African Film Festival, in Abuja, Nigeria's capital. I was to produce a documentary film to show at the event. All universities attending were to do the same, and the best university presentation would win a huge cash prize. There are many universities in Nigeria. Could we win? I selected a team of bright students from my department, Communication; as well as from Theater Arts, Sociology, and English, and we got to work. I wanted our documentary to focus on a social problem on campus, and I wanted it to be very good. We wrote a script, and filmed what I felt was a good documentary. But then, the real problem arose. How were we going to pay for about 30 students to travel from Owerri to Abuja; lodge and feed them, and bring them back after three days? I prayed. I asked God to grant me favor. A voice then spoke to me, telling me to go to one of the most popular bus companies in the country. I went to their office. Just me, a young and poor student. When I got to the bus company, I said to the receptionist: "My name is Samuel. I am the leader of Imo State University's delegation to the Third African Film Festival at Abuja. I need your company to sponsor the whole thing." I expected the receptionist would throw me out immediately. Surprisingly, she said, "Have a seat." I was pleasantly surprised. I sat. After she had made a call, she asked me to go into an office to my right. I stood up and walked into the office she pointed out. The man in that office said, "You say you're from Imo State U?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "And you want our company to sponsor you guys?" I hesitated and said, "If you please, sir." "Who are you, by the way?" I said I was really no one important, just an ordinary student. The man in the office looked me up and down, and then said, "Come back tomorrow." I was sad. I thought he was just stringing me along. I left the company downcast. The next day I returned and went to the man's office. He had 32 return tickets in his hand, and complete accommodation and feeding tickets at the company's guest house in Abuja, all of which would take care of our travel to and from the event, as well as our accommodation and feeding for three days. Unbelievable. The man smiled at me and handed all these tickets - lots of tickets, I tell you - to me. I held in my hand the transport, feeding and accommodation of 32 people. God had come through for me again.

A tenth miracle that happened to me was when I got my visa to come to this land. Anyone would tell you that to get a visa from Nigeria to God's own country is one of the hardest things ever. I had recently been admitted to Wichita State University and had all my documents in hand: Admission letter; I-20, and GTA letter. But there are people who have all their documents and still get denied visa. I know someone that had all his documents, but was denied visa three times before he eventually got it. In my case, this was the very first time I was applying for visa to go to anywhere. I had never left Nigeria, ever. And I was very nervous. As I drew near the Embassy counter, I saw someone denied visa. The woman directly in front of me saw it happen too. She became frightened and, even though it was her turn, she said to me, "You go." I said, "But it's your turn." She refused to go. And so, in order not to make a scene, I went for the first time in my life to ask someone to allow me to leave Nigeria for the first time ever. As soon as I approached the man at the counter, I smiled and greeted him good morning. He smiled back and returned the greeting. He asked me to tender all my documents. I did. He looked at my documents and looked at me; at the documents and at me; asked me a few questions, and then sighed. I knew he was not going to give me a visa. I too sighed. And then he gave me the visa. God had come through for me again.

An eleventh miracle I recall was the night before I was to begin my journey for God's own country from Nigeria. I had been telling all my friends that I was so lucky to have got my visa, and I would be leaving them. Perhaps it was one of such friends that sent - were they assassins? - to my apartment, which I shared with two roommates. One of the roommates had traveled. It was a two-bedroom apartment. I used to always sleep in the inner room, while my other roommate - the one that didn't travel - slept in the outer room. But earlier that night, for some reason, we had switched rooms. He went and slept in the inner room, and I slept in the outer one. And in the dead of night, they came - about four men in masks. They broke the door - literally hacked it down - and entered. When they entered the apartment, they went straight to the inner room, without even acknowledging the existence of the outer room, where I was, and began asking the roommate: "Where is the money?" I heard the poor lad ask, "Which money?" Perhaps they were asking him for the money I was to use to travel to God's own country. He told them truthfully that he had no money. They beat him on and on and on and on. And they nearly killed him. I need to say that again. They beat him till he was 90% dead. They probably thought he was dead when they left him. And they left. They barely even acknowledged my presence, although they saw me as they were leaving, because I deliberately left my door open. When they left, I rushed to my roommate. You need to see the amount of blood! Some of his teeth were scattered all about the room. Oh, my God. I shudder to recall it. But I realized that that should have been me. The person who sent the masked men probably told them I always slept in the inner room. But God had made it such that I slept that night in the outer room, even though I had not known assassins were coming. The very next morning, I packed my bags and began my journey to this land. My roommate got medical help and is still alive today. God had come through for me again.

Phew! This post is getting too long. There are still very many miracles - I think I will write a comprehensive autobiographical prose at some point in my life; say when I retire as an old man - but let me just share one more miracle. It is the miracle of how I came to live in the seminary, in my religious community. The fuller rendition is contained in the post, If You Don't Know What to Praise the Lord for, Praise the Lord for Me. You might want to read it again. A summary version goes thus: After having searched for a religious community to join, so that my deepest desire of serving God as a priest - the one thing I want most in this life - might be realized, I could find nothing. Until when all options seemed exhausted, I reconnected with a priest friend I had originally met in Nigeria. In the years between when I last saw him in Nigeria and the time I reconnected with him in 2012 in Baltimore, he had become - and currently is - the Superior of my religious community. He took me by the hand - his right hand held me fast - and brought me to the seminary. The day was August 10, 2012. It is a day I will never forget. It was the day I was given a last chance to pursue my priestly vocation, which is the biggest miracle of my life. My Superior is like God to me, and I remain ever grateful for how his right hand held me fast and brought me to the seminary. I think about this man each day, and each day I pray for him. I love him.

So there you have it: 12 miracles, out of many, many more. I just thought to spend today in gratitude, recollecting all the wonderful things God has done for me. I encourage you to do the same. Sometimes, when things get tough, remember who it is that guides, protects and provides for you. Remember all the wonderful things God has done in your life and praise him. It is well. It will always be well, because "all things work together for the good of those that love God and are called to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). Amen.

The Beatitudes: The Rewards for a Life of Coping

There is reward for moving forward. There is reward for continuing to put one foot in front of another. When we begin by forgiving ourselves, understanding God's purpose for our lives, ethically following through with such purpose and trusting God to make our dreams come true - in short, when we cope - there is reward. We shall be compensated. The Beatitudes contained in Matthew 5:1-12 will be our lot. Let us dedicate this post to understanding the beatitudes. The passage (Matt. 5:1-12) starts by saying that Jesus went up to the mountainside and sat down, and his disciples came up to him. Coping is a journey uphill, up along the mountainside. The word mountainside reminds one of another closely related word, mountaintop. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was famous for his use of the word, mountaintop. It is from the mountaintop that we appreciate the vision of freedom; the vision of equality; the vision of progress, of emancipation, and of joy. Jesus is the epitome of our vision, and he is seated on the mountaintop. Alleluia!

And when his disciples had gathered around him, Jesus began to say: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted; blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy; blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad for your reward will be great in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you" (Matt. 5:3-12).

This material world is not the eternal home or resting place of the soul. We who are struggling to put one foot in front of another need to understand that we should hope. We should hope in the afterlife, the coming of our salvation. That salvation will bring the beatitudes; countless, immeasurable benefits for our reward. When we are poor in spirit; in other words, when we detach ourselves from material pursuits and focus through sacrifice on the immaterial, the spiritual; when we mourn by being perennially pensive, perennially burdened with the search for truth; when we are meek, and ethically positioned in service of God and one anther; when we seek to make peace wherever we go; when we are humble and pure in heart, and when people find it too difficult to understand us and rather treat us very badly - we should rejoice because all of this will pass away and we shall receive an eternal reward. We shall not be in this sorry situation forever.

There is a Spiritual that goes thus: "Soon and very soon, we are going to see the Lord; alleluia, alleluia - we are going to see the Lord!" The song further tells us that there will be "no more crying there; no more dying there; no more wailing there - alleluia, we are going to see the Lord!" What blissful realization. We indeed are going to see the Lord. After all the suffering in this world: the rejections, the misfortunes, the catastrophes - we are going to finally see the Lord. Alleluia! Do you recall how painful it was for Jesus to drag his cross along the road to Calvary while the soldiers beat and mocked him? Yet, when he reached the site of the crucifixion, he was glorified. When he breathed his last and all the wonderful earthly signs showed, the centurion said: "Truly, this was the Son of God" (Matt. 27:54). And after he had died and been buried, he rose again on the third day. This was even more glorious. Jesus said that those who sacrifice earthly wealth for the Kingdom will be rewarded hundredfold in this life and receive everlasting life in addition (Mark 10:30).

We have to persevere. We cannot give up. There is light at the end of the tunnel. There is reward for all our sacrifices. We have to keep moving. We have to keep going up the mountain, keeping our eyes fixed on that mountaintop. We cannot stop. We cannot retreat; we cannot surrender. God is with us. He will guide us. He will show us the way. And we will be blessed, if we keep coping.

A Foot in Front of Another: A Simple Spirituality of Coping

Now that we've all forgiven ourselves, and potentially all love ourselves, let's go on coping. Let's carry on. To proceed along life's journey, we need to keep putting one foot in front of another. Right foot, left foot; right foot, left foot. On and on and on. We cannot be stagnant. We have to keep making progress. In living this life of ours, the only one we've got, we have to keep moving forward. Forward ever, backward never, as they say. This post will explore a simple spirituality of coping, a simple blueprint for moving forward.

 

The first step in moving forward, in coping, like we all know, and like we've said several times, is forgiveness of the self. We all need to forgive ourselves. We need to accept that the formative, background, circumstances that made us who we are have happened in time, and there is no time machine to allow us travel back chronologically and change them, and so we need to "let go of the hope that what has happened (our formative experiences) could be any different." We need to accept the "so-what" of our life and proceed with the now-what. We've talked about this is a previous post.

 

Once we've forgiven ourselves, the next thing is to understand through sacrifice what God's will (destiny, roadmap) for us is. This comes through reflection and introspection. The reason it is important to figure out what God's will is for us is so that we know where we are going. If you're going on a journey, you need to know the destination. You need to know where you're headed, so that you don't keep driving around aimlessly and wasting fuel. You need to consult with a spiritual director, or engage in epistemology, or trial and error, or research, or meditation, to center your life on God and find a purpose for it.

 

Once you have hitched on a practical epistemology, the next thing is to keep faith with the life map. Concerning David, the bible tells us that once he knew what was the will of God for his life, he deviated neither to the left nor to the right of it. We need to engage in practical ethics after epistemology. This is a sure way to happiness. Again, we've talked about this in a previous post. The fruits of our contemplation are not for naught. They are for acting upon. We should act on what we know to be true. Once we know something to be true, we should deviate "neither to the left nor to the right of it," but keep steadily at it, in spite of difficulties.

 

As we proceed ethically along our epistemological path, we should dream. Think in this regard of a technician. As he works with his tools, he progressively imagines new, creative ways, of doing his work better and easier, and he adopts these new ways. Similarly, we need to dream for ourselves. And we need to dream big. BIG is an acronym in this regard that refers to: B, believable. Our dreams should be credible and believable. I, implementable. They should be practical enough to be implemented. They should not for example be dreams of finding two unicorns in the woods, or discovering the lost city of Atlantis. Those kinds of things only happen in Phineas and Ferb, or other fantastic programs on television. Understanding your purpose in life and ethically pursuing it should allow you to dream only teleologically. These dreams should be practical and credible.

 

For example, I dream of making it through my seminary formation and becoming a priest. I dream of becoming a good pastor to the congregation I minister to. I dream of becoming a spiritual writer of human development books and workshops that help people; of being a good counselor and spiritual director and confessor. I dream of grooming young minds, and of helping my religious community to grow. These dreams to my mind are teleological and will help me attain humility by pouring my life out in service of others. Dreams in any case, no matter how practical and believable, are contingent.  They depend for their realization on the mercy of God. This brings us to G, God. And so we need to pray and trust in God, who alone has the power to make our dreams come true.

 

Above all, we should fix our sights on the afterlife. Everything we do to cope in this life positions us more and more for the afterlife. The love that bears faith in good works leads us to hope in the eschatology of the divine life. We look beyond the physical, the current, the temporal, the ephemeral, the mundane, and on to the supernatural, the everlasting; the divine. God. This way, we realize that all we do and all we feel and all we say are in the context of the divine will. And so we keep putting one foot in front of another, having forgiven ourselves; understood the purpose of our life through epistemology; endeavoring to ethically follow through with such purpose, and dreaming big everyday; praying to God perennially for favor; God who alone can make our dreams come true, especially when they are teleologically ordered toward his divine will.

Coping: The Bridge Between Self-Hatred and Self-Love

I hate myself. I already said that in a previous post. So, what to do? What does a person that hates himself or herself do about it? COPE. An online dictionary defines cope as "deal effectively with something difficult; manage, subsist; carry on." A person that hates himself or herself should, in the words of the online dictionary, CARRY ON. Such a neat way of putting in. We all should carry on. Does any of this remind you of Job? The bible tells us that, when he was stricken with grave infirmity, his wife walked up to him and said: "Are you still carrying on? Curse God and die!" And Job rebuked her. We all need to carry on. Whether we like it or not. Descartes in his third meditation put it ever so beautifully. He said that the reason he knows that God exists is that God is perfect and infinite, while he (Descartes) is imperfect and finite. And the proof of his imperfection and finitude is that he cannot give himself the perfections he lacks. In other words, Descartes realizes that if he were the maker or creator of himself, he would give to himself all the coolness, greatness - everything - that he knows he lacks. If I were God, I would give myself a father and a mother that both live for gazillion years; I would give myself a sexy soul mate and a thin body to have awesome sex with. If I were God, I'd pretty much make myself the coolest person ever.

Hello! Wake up, Samuel. You're not God. Got it? Okay, then. Moving on. The fact that we are imperfect and finite, the fact that we possibly hate ourselves, proves that we are not the source of our lives. God is. We are in a sort of contract with God. He is like the owner of a record label, and we have signed a contract to be singers for his firm, and the contract was designed expertly, and we cannot get out of it, and so we are stuck. Existentialists put it beautifully. Concerning suicide, they have this to say: It is the only real problem in philosophy; it is the paramount absurdity. To kill oneself is the singular WORST THING EVER. Let me repeat that. Each bad thing a person can do is better than suicide. Let me just say that one more time, in a different way. There is nothing a person can do that is worse than suicide.  Moving on. Suicide is like telling God: Look, whether you like it or not, I'm getting out of this contract and I don't care what you think about that. Go fuck yourself.

My father killed himself. He committed suicide, and his act constitutes the greatest loss I have ever faced. Sometimes I think of how my life could have been if my dad had not killed himself. I might have been married by now. I might have been upper middle class or rich, who knows. I might have traveled the world, and married a hot babe; I might have done stuff; seen stuff; known stuff. But the good news is that I turned out alright. I still got to travel. I still got a good education. I still moved on. I carried on. And I did so because I forgave him. I forgave my dad. Concerning him and what he did, I let go of the fact that it could have been any different. I sacrificed him. I mentally went back to the day and the venue of his suicide and chose the event. In so doing, I replaced a whole set of negative emotions with positive ones. Now, I believe that my dad died so I could have my priestly vocation. It is a worthy sacrifice for my missionary calling. I removed him from my life so that I might be a missionary on God's altar, leading precious souls to Christ; being a spiritual father to the congregation of the Lord.

But enough about my dad. This post is about me. Although I know for sure that I will never kill myself - by the way, now that I think about it, I think I need to dedicate one post to suicide - I know that there are subtler ways of shooting oneself in the foot. Some behaviors are virtual suicide. And they begin by self hatred. So, for example, a person hates himself, and so goes about mutilating the self, such as in self cutting, drug addiction, sex slavery, self degradation, self endangerment, or worse hurting others. There was this case of a man that had HIV/AIDS. He knew he had the disease, but he went about having unprotected sex with countless women, so they could all have the disease as well. Mass murders as well are just as bad as suicide, and they proceed from self hatred. Listen carefully to what I am about to say. Spiritualists tell us - and they are right - that whatever we do out of self hatred, which is not forgiveness and coping and sacrifice (in the sense I have used it in repeated posts), only makes our hatred of self worse. If a person for example commits suicide, the spirit that the person's body releases at such death will be re-embodied in a worse body, who very likely will live a worse life than previously, and so on, devolving on and on to non being; to nothingness.

Why? Because of despair. Despair is a sin against the Spirit (and actually, this much is Catholic teaching). And sins against the spirit can neither be forgiven in this world or the next (Matt 12:32). It always feels cool when I'm thinking vigorously and, at the same time, trying to organize my thoughts in an easy-to-read fashion and, while I'm doing that, I realize that Mother Church actually has said some of what I'm saying and I'm like Bingo! That proves that what I'm saying is true. It's always a good feeling. Sweet. Anyway. You see, when a soul is full of self hatred and sadness to the extent that the soul decides to kill himself or herself, what the soul essentially is saying is that he or she cannot live in this world again; that whatever situation he or she is facing is so hard, so bitter, so difficult that he or she is incapable, powerless, to survive. This is despair. It is a soul telling the spirit that operates its body that it is inadequate. It is powerless; it is unworthy; it is unsupportable; it is un-embodiable. That spirit is literally forced out of the body by the soul's own act. Now, the soul that forced its spirit out of its body goes to purgatory to watch and see if the spirit will find another body to accomplish all it could. However, the soul does not believe that such can happen. And the thoughts of such a soul make it so that the spirit does not succeed. (Recall Rhonda Byrne), and so the spirit "chooses" in utter weakness, a "deserving" weak body, and the resulting soul is even worse off than the earlier one, and on and on, and on.

If a suicide-committing soul can ever go to heaven; the force that could make that possible - my! That would have to be a huge, huge force indeed. Think for example of a woman who has suffered heartbreak and has learnt to distrust men; even if a good man is right under her nose, because she has despaired of finding the right guy, she will so second-guess herself that she likely will pass him up. All these things are commonsense. When life sucks, when the self sucks, wisdom should make us realize that it could be worse. We should, in spite of how difficult it is, cope. We should carry on. We should realize that, if we hold our own bravely in this life, the next will be better. Our purgatory will be shorter; we will go at death to purgatory and watch the spirit we let go inhabit a better body, and accomplish God's plan quicker, and soon enough we can be free from purgatory and go at last to heaven to meet God. And all because we kept faith and hope alive. All because we loved God. We held on. We did not do what Job's wife suggested when things became tough. We persisted. We did not give up. We carried on. We coped. We survived. We kept putting one foot in front of another.

"O God you are my God, for you I long. For you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you, like a dry, weary land without water. So I gaze on you in the sanctuary, to see your strength and your glory. For your love is better than life; my lips will speak your praise. So I will bless you all my life; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul shall be filled as with a banquet. My mouth shall praise you with joy. On my bed I remember you; on you I muse through the night. For you have been my help. In the shadow of your wings I rejoice. My soul clings to you. Your right hand holds me fast" (Psalm 63:1-8). This is probably the best coping song EVER. Please, when you are feeling down, sing it; read it; chant it. I promise you will feel better. It is a psalm we pray often on Sunday mornings, Week One, from the breviary. It is a classic consoler. Let's analyze it a bit. It starts out by saying how the psalmist longs and pines for God. The only way we can cope in spite of self hatred; in spite of difficulty, is to think about the afterlife; about tomorrow; about God.

Next, it shows how God's love is better than life and how that love of God moves the soul to cope in spite of difficulty and, in spite of pain, to be "filled as with a banquet, and joyful praise." You see, not everyone you meet in church that is singing and praying and praising God has everything going well for them. They are simply coping. Remember what Paul and Silas did while in prison facing possible execution? The bible says they prayed, and they sang and they praised God (Acts 16:25). It was while they were praising God that the Holy Spirit came and set them free. I know some people; they are poor, overwhelmed with difficulty and miserable. But you need to see them in church! They are the ones praying and praising God. They do so because - I mean, come on; what else could they do! They are looking up to God for help (Psalm 121). "The Lord is near to all those that call upon him in truth" (Psalm 145:18). We should trust in the Lord. Always. The psalmist goes further to say that he remembers God on his bed, and muses on him through the night. At night, when the hurly burly is done, this is the time when we are most alone with ourselves. I confess I don't always muse through the night on God. This is when I crave food to dull the emotional ache. But what if I mused on God instead? Then I wouldn't perpetuate one of the things I hate about myself: size, through emotional eating. (Quickly recall here what spiritualists tell us, that anything we do in self loathing that is not forgiveness or sacrifice perpetuates the case). And what does the psalmist muse about? How God has been his help; how he rests in the shadow of God's wings; how his soul clings to God, whose right hand holds the psalmist fast. Powerful stuff. God indeed helps us whether we realize it or not. He kept our bad situation from being worse. He kept us from despair. God indeed is our stronghold (Psalm 46). We need to read the psalms. They are full of powerful stuff. Especially 63. When you are feeling blue, please read Psalm 63. O God, you are my God, for you I long. Powerful, powerful stuff.

Cope. The bridge between self-hatred and self-forgiveness is coping. Let us cope with the help of God. Let us carry on, knowing that, even though it could have been worse, it could get better from here on out depending on how we live the life we've got. Trusting in the power of God, we can carry on with our difficult lives. We can know that God is with us. We can so be sure that all is well. And it is because of faith in God that I can say: I really don't hate myself. I forgive myself. Indeed, I love myself.