Jesus Asks If Peter Loves Him: A Scintillating Bromance Story

One of the tricks to having a good date is setting the right mood. As a smart guy, you probably want to take your girl to a nice place, with perfect lighting and music, and a serene atmosphere. The food has to be nice, and the drinks as well. And the chemistry has to be amped to the max. You gaze into her eyes; she gazes into yours, and sparks fly - which reminds me, there has to be a fire alarm close by as well. Just kidding. Anyway, atmosphere is what I'm talking about. It has to be right. Because when you remember your date, you want your memory of its venue to please; you want to recall with pleasure the setting for when you first said to your woman: "I love you tons." Who was it that said: "Location, location, location"? Believe me, bro; location is everything. The room with its ambiance sets the mood for the lovemaking ritual.

Jesus knew all this. In John 21:4, we are told that "just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach." Just think of that. Jesus chose the beautiful mellow lighting of the morning; not sunny, not dark. He also chose the cool, breezy beach; not cold, not warm. The setting was just right. Birds in the air were probably chirping melodiously; the waves were slurping on the shore; the flora and fauna were swaying seductively. And then Jesus called to his buddies. He asked them if they had caught anything. They said no. They'd been out all night, but had caught nothing. Jesus proposed that they try something else. They did, and so caught an enormous amount of fish, so much that they could hardly haul the catch in. It was then that the disciple Jesus loved exclaimed: "It is the Lord!" (John 21:7). And when Simon heard this, he dressed hurriedly and swam to shore to meet his best friend, Jesus. The Lord. 

Jesus knew all about creating the perfect setting. When Peter reached the shore, Jesus had started a charcoal fire. The flames enhanced the mellow lighting of the pervading morning; the crackle of burning wood complemented the chirping of the birds; the smell of smoke blended in with the scent of the flora about, and the warmth mixed neatly with the cool of the dawn. Jesus was indeed a hopeless romantic. He must have smiled at Peter when the brawny fisherman stepped ashore. Their eyes must have locked together. They must have tightly embraced, lingering to feel each other. Their hearts must have beat in unison, as Peter took it all in: his master; his lord; his handsome best friend. Jesus must have quickly remembered his manners and invited Peter to breakfast. He said, "Bring some of the fish you have just caught" (John 21:10). They then sat together, eating roasted fish and catching up on old times.

"When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon, son of John, do you love me?" (John 21:15). Peter must have wondered why the question. But he took it in stride; took it like a man. He smiled wanly and replied, "Of course, buddy; you know I love you." Jesus was not satisfied. Something about Peter's offhand nature worried him; or perhaps it was the way he seemed oh so nervous. Nah. Jesus had to ask again: "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" (Ibid.v16). Peter must have shifted a bit where he sat; looked into his lord's eyes and said thickly, "Come on, man; you must know I love you, surely?" But Jesus wasn't done yet. Peter's eyes were moist, but did not quite betray the feeling in his gut. So Jesus asked a third time: "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" (Ibid.v17). Now Jesus struck a chord, and Peter became upset that his own best friend would ask him this a third time. And, exasperated and overwhelmed, Peter tearfully croaked, with all the feeling in his gut, "Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you" (Ibid.). And at last, with that heartfelt confession of love, Peter and Jesus were once more on the same page.

But why was it important that they be on the same page again? You see, sometime before all this, Peter had hurt Jesus badly. It was right after the time that his enemies had captured Jesus and taken him to be judged and hanged. Peter had followed his best friend right up to the High Priest's courtyard to see what was going to happen. Jesus had already revealed that Peter would deny him three times. But Peter had protested. He had beat his chest like an orangutan and declared: "I am ready to go to prison and even to die with you!" (Luke 22:33). He had even shown bravado by slashing off a man's ear when Jesus was being arrested (v50). But there in that courtyard, his spirit failed him. Peter was sitting with some people around a charcoal fire (Ibid.v55) warming himself. It was night, and the atmosphere was cool and dusky. 

Suddenly, a maid recognized Peter by the light of the fire. "She looked intently at him and said, 'This man too was with Jesus'" (Luke 22:56). Peter must have stammered nervously, cast a furtive glance about and quipped, "No, I don't even know the man, I swear!" "A short while later someone else saw him and said, 'You too are one of Jesus' disciples'; but Peter replied, 'I am not'" (Ibid.v58). "About an hour later, still another insisted, 'Surely, this man too was with Jesus, for he also is a Galilean.' But Peter said, 'Listen fellow, I do not know what you are talking about.'" And just as Peter had finished denying Jesus, his lord and master, three times, Jesus turned around and looked at him, and Peter remembered how Jesus had told him that he would betray him three times (v61). Peter had wept very bitterly at the time. In fact, some people say that Peter wept so bitterly that his flowing tears formed ridges beneath his eyes. And neither he nor Jesus forgot the incident. 

And so Jesus wanted to make things right with his friend. And as they sat across from each other having breakfast that morning, Jesus must have observed Peter and noticed that the guilt was still there in the poor man's heart. He knew that Peter was sorry for having betrayed him back then. Every once in a while, Peter would have reached to grab a bit of fish and his fingers would have brushed against Jesus' and they would have exchanged a brief, nervous glance, and Peter would have withdrawn his eyes from his master's, because of the elephant in the room, the guilt of the past weighing precariously on his conscience. They would have eaten in relatively nervous communion until at last, Jesus had to dispel the subtle dour; chase the elephant from the room. And so sighing, Jesus looked at Peter and asked: "Hey man, do you love me?" "What?" "Say you love me, Peter." "But what would that prove?" "I just want to hear you say it. Tell me how much you love me." "I love you. I love you. Jesus, I am completely drowned in my love for you."

Good. Three times Peter denied him, and three times he had professed his love for his lord. Jesus had exacted his sweet revenge. Who was it that said, "All is fair in love and war"? This was love; a consuming love. And Jesus had taken into account every detail. Jesus remembered that when Peter denied him three times there was a charcoal fire lit, and he had done the same. He, with Peter and the other disciples, was sitting at a charcoal fire, just like Peter was with those fellows in the High Priest's courtyard back then. And if Peter had denied him three times seated at a charcoal fire, how fitting it was to make Peter confess his love three times similarly seated at a charcoal fire. "All is well that ends well," it would then seem, were that all. But it wasn't all. Jesus' love for Peter was all-consuming. He would have all of Peter; every bit of the man, and so he told Peter how the once ordinary fisherman would ultimately pay the price of his own life for his love for Jesus. Having confessed his love for Jesus and helplessly surrendered his soul to his handsome best friend, Jesus was effectively telling Peter: You will have to die for me to prove your love. And Jesus painted this picture: Peter weak and helpless with love, having fallen at the feet of the master who has placed his feet, his stamp of ownership, of authority over Peter, is bound like a willing dog with a girding rope and led off to be hanged because of love (v18-19). 

Peter's eyes must have misted. How could he not have guessed it. Somehow he had known at the corner of his mind that, when he left his wife and his business to follow this man, he would pay the ultimate price. This man would claim his soul, his mind and even waste his body in death by hanging. The tears misted his eyes even more, and he sniffed. And turning to John, the disciple Jesus loved, a disciple of whom he was jealous because it sometimes seemed Jesus loved him more, a disciple who lay on Jesus' chest at the last supper in that upper room, Peter asked: "And what about him?" (v21b). To which Jesus replied, "Don't worry about him. You, follow me." Peter sighed and muttered under his breath: "Even if I could, I would be powerless to resist following you." Jesus must then have eyed Peter carefully. Peter was his, in every way a man could be another's. And he had all of Peter. He completely owned the man.

The Deal With White People (Responding to an Earlier Post)

My post for August 30 was entitled, "What's the Deal With White People Anyway?" Awful post it was. I was upset when I wrote it. I was having a misunderstanding, and the person who occasioned the misunderstanding happened to be a White person. And like in the words of philosopher Hubbard who would say, "an unclear mind sees one misunderstanding occasioned by one person as representative of all potential experiences occasioned by all similar persons," I hastily generalized. The misunderstanding has long since been resolved, and in the resolution process I discovered in any case that all it was, was simply that: a misperception; a miscommunication. But I have been sufficiently disturbed by my blog post of the 30th to want to break my tradition of writing only a post a day, so as to write this rebuttal. My post of the 30th was very one-sided. It talked only about a negative view of White people, but did not speak of the many positive things they have accomplished, as well as the enormous good they are doing now, and still will do.

Granted, no one is perfect. But many people are holy and good. The White race has given to us countless saints, saints that I love and am devoted to, such as: Aquinas, Bonaventure, Francis of Assisi, my favorite human being of all time; Rita, Cecilia, Maria, and so forth. These people loved God ever so passionately that their virtue shone forth like the morning sun. The White race has also given us many scholars, some of whom I adore, like Rene Descartes, currently my favorite philosopher; as well as the usual favorites, like Socrates, Plato, Locke, Hume, Berkeley, and Kant. The White race has also given to us so many inventors, architects, painters - let me here quickly mention at least three: Michelangelo, Donatello, and Rembrandt - and so many craftsmen and artisans that have made life as we know it easier and prettier.

The list of accomplishments of the White race is inexhaustible. I'm probably not supposed to say this as a Black man, but I do think that the White race is the singular most accomplished race ever in human history. The fruits of their accomplishments are evident. But like I said in the previous post, they have not always lived up to the best of themselves. Well, what race by the way has? Again, Romans 3:23 says: "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Again, by way of rebuttal, I must say I spoke very hastily and definitely categorically when I said there was no White person I had met that was non-racist. This can't be true. What about my pastor back at St Joseph's Catholic Church, Lagos, himself a White man, and a missionary to Nigeria, who did so much good for our people that I would need a whole book to document his efforts on our behalf? What about missionaries like Dennis Slattery and Ambrose Windbacher, who both died and were buried in Nigeria, serving and pouring their souls out for Black people? What about Frs Chapuli, Huddlestone, McDermott, Murphy, Flatley, Burke, Birmingham, and countless other missionaries who have done amazing things to help Africa and Africans? Apart from priests, I have also met ordinary folk that have been very kind to me, such as my professors at Wichita State University, most notably Drs Armstrong and very especially Dooley. I have also befriended countless other White people in my sojourn from Wichita, through Chicago, and to DC.

The historical genocides which I said could be traced to the White race are accidental, even though sad. Because of the potential for great accomplishments the White race has, they have it in their power to cause landslide good and, sadly and accidentally, landslide ill. It's like the girl in the nursery rhyme who, when she was good was very, very good, but when she was bad was horrid. In any case, I was wrong to say that the genocide in Rwanda and in Cambodia could be traced to White people. I mean, just because someone comes to your country and begins to measure your physical features in order to create a class system does not mean that when they leave you should go ahead and start fighting your countrymen. You have minds, and you can use them to understand and forgive. I mean, no one actually took your hand and lifted it to strike your kin. You did that yourself. Or the fact that someone tries to sell you an ideology, as in Cambodia, does not mean that you should turn on your own country people, the ones among them that subscribe to the ideology. The ideology in any case is a good one, and works well in the places where it is applied, and so was sold to you in good faith. You have minds, and you can use them to understand and excuse, if you believe the ideology would not work similarly in your own national context. So, I was wrong to say that all major genocides can be traced to White people. Plus, of course Europe cannot be held responsible for Africa's current state of inchoate development: there's corruption, nepotism, mismanagement, witchcraft and dissipation as well to blame for it. And so, I was largely being very silly when I wrote my August 30 post. Which is understandable. The essence of keeping a blog anyway is to track the emotional progress of the writer, albeit in a public forum like the Internet. 

Plus, for every time there was colonization, or subjugation, or oppression, there was also evangelism, global integration, and trade. Also, not everyone participated in the oppressive or subjugating situations. During the Holocaust for example, some Germans did try to help the oppressed, by hiding Jews and others from the Nazis and helping with food and other necessities; some Germans dared to think differently. Many wanted to speak out against the Holocaust, but were too afraid and so fell into the what German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann would call the "spiral of silence." Many ordinary White people, be it in Africa or Europe, simply wanted to live their lives unburdened by racism. Some were even too poor to afford slaves or servants in South Africa or in the New World. Plus, for every time there was eventual liberation for the oppressed, White people always worked in tandem with their Black and "colored" siblings to bring this state of freedom about. This is why Mandela received the Nobel Prize together with Frederick De Klerk, and not by himself. For every Black, Indian or Colored story of success, there is a White hand raised in victory as well, be it in South and other Africa; Asia, Europe, and the New World. And so, it is true to say that we are all in this story of freedom together; hand in hand.

One last thing. I believe that God is still going to use the White race powerfully in the future to effectively and eternally unite the world. The Son of the Spirit, who will be born in 2160, and who will be White - British and Italian by ethnic heritage - will usher in the Blessed World Institution. This institution will so holistically change the world for the better that, in the light of its beauty, everything else will pale and fade into the background. The Spirit's Son, himself a White man, will be the greatest person after Christ to walk the face of the earth. He will be the eternal pride of his race. And the soul that currently bears the inchoate consciousness of this person; the one who is aware of the spirit of the Spirit's Son is himself Black, which should speak ontological volumes. 

It's all good. "All things work together for good for them that love God and are called to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). I do love White people. I respect them as the most accomplished of all races; and I believe that through one of their own the world will be eternally changed for the better. Amen. Let the Son of the Spirit come. And by the way, I love myself - this is the most important thing! For we can only love others "as we love ourselves" (Mark 12:31). And so, for me it cannot be a question of avoiding those who cannot love me. Such people do not exist. And there is no need to fabricate them. For me, what life means is continuing to reach out in love; seeing things for what they truly are, and believing in the inherent similarity and everlasting goodness of all peoples: Descartes, Francis of Assisi, and I myself included.

I Think I'm Falling in Love

I think I'm finally falling in love. With myself. It's been a long time coming, to be sure. There've been many, many twists and turns along the way, but I'm clearly getting there. I'm falling in love with myself. I'm 32 years old - I mean, I'm neither too old nor too young to begin falling in love with myself. When do people actually begin to do this, to fall in love with themselves? And surely, how hard can it be (laughs)? How does it happen? Do you just wake up one morning and hey presto, you're in love with yourself? I mean, what could you have seen in that mirror: a handsome, smiley face? Is that enough? How many very handsome people do we know that have absolutely hated themselves? Plenty, I dare say. So it has to be more than that.

There's this guy we're reading in class this semester. His name is Rene Descartes. And the more I read from Descartes, the more I love him. This is not the first semester I've gotten to read from Descartes. I read him last fall, when I took Philosophy of Human Nature. I read him again in Epistemology, when we dealt with rationalism as an epistemological school; and now, we're meeting Descartes once more - splendid fellow. Like me, he had a difficult childhood and youth. He lost his mom very early, and his father married again, and so he was raised by his old grandpa and grandma, and a nanny whom he valued greatly. 

Because of his difficult background, he was kind of a loner. He loved to be by himself and think, and read. The early death of his mom, and his distance from his father and his nuclear family made him crave a sense of stability within himself. He knew he could not rely completely on the support of even those closest to him, for they like his mom could be taken from him. Indeed, later in his life his own daughter - his only child - was taken from him at merely five or so years old. In his search for certainty from within himself therefore Descartes crafted a philosophy that restrained him from believing anything in this material world; anything imaginative; anything emotional. He started from complete doubt, also known as Cartesianism. He began by doubting everything he hitherto believed to be true. 

He doubted all the things he thought he knew about the universe, about himself and about God. He doubted all the experiences humans ordinarily gather when they perceive themselves to be awake, seeing these experiences as irretrievable from the ones humans get when asleep. He doubted even the goodness of God. Doubt, doubt, doubt, until he reached one point he could not doubt, and that was the fact that he was doubting. And if he was doubting, he was thinking, and if he was thinking, then he was. And so, "Dubito, ergo cogito. Cogito, ergo sum." Which means: I am doubting, therefore I am thinking; I am thinking, therefore I am. And so he was. But who was he? He was that thing that was thinking. He was the thinking thing. And the thinking thing is the mind. So he was his mind. Not his body; not the composite of mind and body, neither. Just mind. Only mind. He was very simply a res cogitans (a thinking thing).

I admire Descartes' philosophy. Descartes is in many ways like Socrates, Plato, and Augustine. Even though they use different words, they pretty much are saying the same thing. All these great philosophers believe in the dualism of mind and body, as opposed to the hylomorphism of Aristotle and the materialism of Locke. They deny that knowledge can be truly derived from sense perception. They do not subscribe to the abstraction principle of Aristotle that claims that nothing exists in the intellect without first existing in the mind. They believe that the mind alone is the instrument of knowledge. For Plato, through the alignment of the mind with the extramental world of forms, individuals may come to know; for Augustine, the inner teacher gives us true knowledge, and through contemplation and focusing within, we connect with this inner teacher. Recall his famous declaration: "And who is so foolish as to send his son to school to learn what the teacher thinks? When teachers have professed all they claim to know, then students properly see if what the teacher says corresponds with the truth sourced from within." Descartes in turn believes in the existence of innate ideas. And so, whether it be Plato's extramental world of forms, Augustine's inner teacher or Descartes' innate ideas, human beings do not get truth from the perceptions of everyday living, but only from immaterial reality that can be tapped into solely by means of the application of the mind. 

Descrates died too early to say how the mind and the body coordinate with one another, but he left us a cool way of thinking about ourselves: as thinking things. And so when I say I'm falling in love with myself, I don't mean I'm falling with the image I see when I look in the mirror. I'm not ugly - don't get me wrong. But what I think I'm falling in love with even more than my body is my mind. I'm falling in love with my mind. And why? Why am I falling in love with my mind? Because I'm thinking and learning and developing everyday. I did have a rough life growing up. I lost my dad when I was five years old. I lost my mom when I was 11. I quarreled with my uncles for a long time, and was frustrated about very many things. Like Descartes, I needed some certainty on which to build my life, realizing early enough that there was no entity in this world that could not be taken from me; that there was no entity I could absolutely rely on. I did not want to depend on any physical or material reality that could easily disappoint me. I did not want my happiness to depend on a love for a human being that could die like my parents, or could fall out of love, like many people do; or could simply go far away and desert me. I did not want my happiness to depend on an institution, or state of living, or society, or anything in this world. I wanted my happiness to depend on the inner teacher; my innate truths; the world of forms that were unchanging and everlasting; indestructible; perfect. I wanted to love my mind.

And so I sought after practical knowledge (epistemology), and I applied what I gathered to my daily life (ethics), and through sacrifices and the progressive mastery of the emotions of life (the river of the soul), I became happier and happier each day. And the happiness became a reward for my conduct of epistemology and ethics, inspiring me to do even more epistemology and ethics; inspiring me to maintain a philosophical or contemplative posture; inspiring me to be a man of virtue. And this is why I love myself. Because, even though I am not perfect by any means, through my conduct of epistemology and ethics, and through my consequently being happy, I find that I am indeed a man of virtue. And a man of virtue is loved by God. And since we live to ape God, I should similarly love myself when I know for sure that God loves me. Yes indeed. C'est vrai, as the French would say, and Descartes was French, and I love Descrates. But more importantly - please listen to this - I love myself. Glad I can at last say this.

Permit Me to Love You

Permit me to love you; yes, you over there. Your eyes are wary. You are shy and pretty nervous. You fidget, and your body language is misleading. You don't know me, and I don't know you either. Still, permit me to love you. Allow me to get close to you, to feel you, to understand you; to bridge the differential gap between us. Let us build a relationship with each other. And let the relationship be real. I don't want to be suspicious of you, and I don't want you to be suspicious of me either. I want us to be on the same page always. I want to trust you, and truly care about you. Do permit me to love you. 

We are children of the same God, which makes us siblings. Regardless of where you come from, what you look like, what you believe or what you think - we are the same. Our essence - humanity - is separate from our human body. Just ask Descartes and he'll tell you. He calls us thinking things. You must have heard him say after long study: Dubito ergo cogito. Cogito, ergo sum. We come therefore, after a long period of doubt, to embrace the reality of our unity. We come after a period of testing the waters to embrace the purity of Godly affection. We come after a period of strenuous waiting to drink at the fountain of happiness, consequent on our mutual acceptance and understanding; our mutual faith and consolation; our mutual hope and love in the greatness of tomorrow. Permit me to stay.

The world about us is kept alive by our father. Everything remains "alive in God." He is the one that starts everything, and everything will end in him. He is "the author and finisher of our faith" (Heb. 12:2). He is "the alpha and omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (Rev. 22:13). And if such a great and omnipotent deity can love us, then we can definitely "risk loving too." Let us not be insecure; let us love, and live in harmony with each other. Let us embrace this exciting prospect of mutual love. God the powerful father fills us with love, and with the desire to love. The air, the land, the seas; the trees, the animals, the people; the seasons, the currents, the eras - all bow to his all-powerful will. The universe is alert to his agility. Instructing them in grace, he makes all things endure in perfection. Permit me to believe.

With you, I will pay attention to the working of the spirit within. With you, I will reach out to the needy; with you I will look beyond my nose. With you I will be sensitive: I will notice the birds fly; I will notice the squirrel scurrying away and up the tree; I will notice the pupa become a moth. I will notice when you've got your hair done; I will notice the fragrance of your perfume; I will notice that you recently got promoted at work - how did you swing that, by the way! Good job, fellow! I will remember that your kids have a softball game on Saturday. I will notice that your dad is coming to stay the weekend as he prepares for his long trip overseas. I will notice that your mom is suffering from ovarian cancer, and needs all the prayers she can get. I will storm heaven on her behalf. Ah, your mother! Poor woman. I sigh; my heart reaches out to her. But don't worry, sibling. I will pray. I will really pray. Permit me to pray.

It will be well for us. Life will indeed be victorious. Do you worry? Do you fret? Come on, don't worry. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your path" (Prov. 3:5-6). God never forsakes his own. Don't you recall what he said in Isaiah? He said that even if a mother could forget the child at her breast, he the Lord would never forget us. And that includes you, sibling. You simply have to believe. You simply have to trust. You've got this. As you face the interviewers for your new loan, just remember that you have a powerful support in God. As you plan to change jobs so as to consolidate your earning potential, just rely on the eternal power that can never fail you. As you seek to expand your investment portfolio, just understand that God cares what you do, and will "bless the works of your fingers" (Deut. 28:12). Permit me to hope.

With you, I will sing for joy as your life begins to flourish. With you, I will rejoice as all your dreams definitely come true. With you, I will frisk about gleefully as your "cup runs over" (Psalm 23:5). With you, I will document the blessings. We will sit at your kitchen table and think about everything God has done for you and your family. We will celebrate all your victories and successes. We will thank God for all his manifold gifts, and anticipate even more. We will shake hands over glasses of sparkling wine. We will call the neighbors in and have a cookout. We will praise God for his kindness that "surpasses all we ever knew of him" (Phil. 4:7). We will tell the stories of joy that our lives will have become. It will not be long before the stories pile up so high that telling them becomes a chore. Our God is an awesome, benevolent, omnipotent, caring God. Permit me to declare it on your behalf. 

And permit me to sing. The birds supply a chorus. The song is upbeat and lively. It corresponds to the joyful staccato of my heart. It is a thunderous alleluia that reverberates loudly. Do you hear it? I'm sure you do. The joyful beat is occasioned by the bounty of the day; the arrival of the long-expected blessing from on high. We are still at your kitchen table. We are making out invitations to the neighbors to come celebrate. We want the feast to be well attended. There is much joy to share; much joy to spread about. We won't layer it on thinly; we won't be miserly with the excitement we experience. We will dance with gusto; we will play with frenzy. People will wonder at us. How come they're so happy? they will ask. And yes, how come we're so happy? How is it we have so much to celebrate? Permit me to wonder.  

Shall We Go by the River?

As a child, I used to sing with my friends:

We are going to cross a river

On which way shall we go?

We are going to cross a river

On which way shall we go?

Shall we go by the land?

Shall we go by the air?

Shall we go by the river?

On which way shall we go?

Meditating on this beautiful song, I come up with a powerful lesson about emotions and sacrifices. We all indeed are going to cross a river. It is a soulful river, the river of life. We all must cross; we cannot escape it. And we spend a great deal of our time and spiritual resources contemplating on which way we should go in crossing this spiritual river. Three obvious options are by the land, by the air, and by the river itself. I guess if a person wanted to cross a river by land, he or she could build a sturdy bridge across it and walk along the bridge from one end of the river to the other. Or, if the person were a powerful wizard and had the power to, he or she could command the water to divide and form walls of moisture on either side of a clear path through the water, like in the bible with Moses and the Israelites, when they were fleeing from Pharaoh and his army. All these concern crossing a river by land. Crossing a river by the air probably means flying over it, say in a plane or a helicopter; except of course like birds of the air a person could actually fly, and then he or she would simply glide across the body of water on wings. And the third option of course is to cross the river by the river. In such a case, someone could get a boat of some sort and sail across, or if a person were a powerful swimmer, could swim all the way from the start to the end of the river. All this is speaking physically. 

From a spiritual point of view, the river represents our emotions, our sensitivity to the hardship of life. The river flows through all the high and low points of our lives, its waves undulating and changing with the emotional tides of our existence. Charged with the responsibility of living virtues lives in spite of the existence of the river, we are obligated to cross it successfully, and please not drown in it. To drown in the river of our soul means that we become overwhelmed by our emotions; we succumb to depression or fear or anxiety or insecurity or loneliness, or any of the emotions we encounter in the course of our lives. But to swim powerfully across the river means that we do not allow any of the emotions we encounter in our daily lives to overwhelm, subdue or crush us. Living victorious, happy lives; living lives of wisdom and contemplation; of practical ethics and epistemology, means crossing the river of our life successfully. And there are at least three ways of doing so.

To begin with, crossing the river of life by the land means adopting strict rules and regulations to guide our lives. There are some people who are very legalistic in their daily approach to living. They guide themselves by developing strict rules and principles. I shall not do this; I shall not do that - they proffer as solution to all life's problems rules, rules, and more rules. In crossing the river of life, they always go by the land. The Pharisees in Jesus' time were like this. They had innumerable rules and regulations for everything: from the proper way to eat at meals to the way to wash the body, to the way to deal with corpses, and so forth. You probably have someone in your family or among your group of friends who is persnickety. Such a person needs everything to be done a certain way, and they get angry when they perceive that things aren't done the way they want; the "correct" way. Crossing the river by land has advantages: it allows for consequences for actions that go contrary to the rule. It also spells out what is acceptable behavior. Yet we all know that laws alone do not make a person happy. We also know that historically speaking some laws have been bad and have needed to be changed. Plus many of the legalistic people we know aren't necessarily happy. Keeping the law sometimes also means suppressing our feelings; keeping our emotions locked up and throwing the key away. We are not always completely free when overwhelmed with regulations.

In any case, we can cross the river of life by the air. What this means is that we can rationalize our emotions. We can handle the feelings we encounter daily by denying them and focusing on intellectual pursuits. Some people we've met seem to have an answer for everything. They intellectualize even the most ordinary of emotions. When you ask them how they feel, they promptly tell you how they think, or what they think. They read a lot of books (epistemology), and in those books they find intellectual, rational shortcuts to take in going about their daily lives. They think a lot, but do not always act virtuously (ethics); they seek escape rather than responsibility. They seek quick fix-its, rather than lasting solutions to the problems they face. They seek to avoid rather than tackle the everyday issues of life. They are the sorts of people who can throw themselves into their work to avoid dealing with issues at home; or busy themselves with trifles to avoid facing the enormity of truth. They pretty much explain life away. These people may look serene at times, or contemplative; but they are not necessarily happy. It's like smoking pot or doing crack to avoid confronting your problems. When the esoteric effect of the pot or the crack wears away, the problem still remains. We cannot be completely happy by denying our emotions. We cannot be completely happy if we go by the air in crossing the soul's river.

There's one more option. We can go by the river. We can proceed along our soul's journey by being in touch with our emotions. This is the path the Buddha recommends. When he desired Nirvana, all he did was sit still in his emotional river and soak it in. He really wanted to become conscious of his emotions, to realize they were there and why they were there. Becoming conscious of our emotions is the first step to happiness, according to Descartes. We have to "be still and know that God is God" (Psalm 46:10). We cannot seek to escape, not if we want to be happy. But we shouldn't let the water overwhelm us neither. We should not sink or drown; we should swim or sail across the river. Even though we become conscious of our emotions, we still should transition from merely feeling them to rationally processing them based on the truths we've acquired over a lifetime (practical epistemology), and responding rather than reacting in ways that are virtuous and prudent (ethics, phronensis). We should cross the river, by the river. In our quest for happiness, we must stay with our emotions long enough to become conscious of them; we should then reason with them, and choose our consequent behavior, making sure to always act ethically. Evaluating the quality and quantity of our emotions, we can choose ethical ways of acting owing to conscience and reason, and thus proceed along the road to happiness, victory and peace. 

One way to do this is through sacrifices. We do not take the river with us. We simply sail or swim across. We leave the river behind and come away free. What this means is that, even though we handle the emotions of life by staying in them and with them, we do not ultimately carry them along with us everywhere we go. When we have processed the emotions we are faced with in our lives, we come away feeling freer and safer and happier. When we have swam across the river successfully, we towel or sun ourselves dry. Naturally. We do not stay in the river, or even the boat for that matter, when we have sailed across adequately. We emerge, possibly with fish (the lessons we learn through our encounter with emotions in our daily lives), or simply with the satisfaction that we have crossed a life hurdle. We sigh with relief. We sometimes even laugh. We rejoice in the knowledge that we have overcome challenges in life and are stronger and happier for it. And all because of the sacrifices we made. We let go of the emotions after having processed them; we let go of our guilt, our worry, our insecurity, our pain, our anger, our hate, our biliousness - we let go of everything, having already come to terms with them and with what occasioned them in the first place, and proceed more freely along the life path God has marked out for us. 

And so, let us sing:

We are going to cross a river

On which way shall we go?

We are going to cross a river

On which way shall we go?

Shall we go by the land?

Shall we go by the air?

Shall we go by the river?

On which way shall we go?

Let's go by the river, people. 

Let Us Pray

The hunger to pray is old. His disciples thousands of years ago said to Jesus: "Teach us to pray" (Lk. 11:1). Even before then, people sought to communicate with the divine. Every religion is a concerted effort to pray, and religion is as old as humanity. Today, I want to pray. I want to pray for myself. I want God to remove insecurity from my heart. This is my biggest weakness: insecurity. I irrationally feel like the good things there are in my life aren't going to last. So very many bad things have happened to me in my life that when something good chances to happen, I subconsciously sneer at it. I subconsciously ask myself: Is it going to last? And so today I pray: Please, God, take the insecurity away from my heart. I know that many bad things have happened to me; but that does not mean that bad things will go on happening. Good things can and do in fact happen to people. Please, dear Lord, help me to realize this, and be open to the possibility of good things coming my way as they come the way of other people. Thank you, God.

Another thing I want to pray about is the sense of loss. I still feel sometimes that I have lost a lot: my dad, my mom; relationships I used to have, and the possibility of having a regular family life like most people do. Through the concept of sacrifices though I have been coming to terms with all of these, seeing these otherwise losses as sacrifices for a greater state. And so I pray today: Dear God, please help me to come to terms with all the things in my life I consider to be losses. Help me to realize that they are simply sacrifices I have made in order to follow you. You said that no one who has made sacrifices of wealth or relationships will be left unrewarded both in life and in eternity (Mark 10:29-30). God, see how I have sacrificed all these things for your sake, for the sake of the gift of vocation. Please, do not let me go empty handed. Fill me with your own divine consolation, so I may rejoice in you. Amen.

Still another thing I want to pray about is forgiveness. I sometimes feel hurt, betrayed, unwanted and unloved. I am a very sensitive person, and I suffer a lot emotionally. Today, I pray: Please God, I beg you to give me the grace to forgive anyone that might have hurt me. Help me to obey you who say, "If someone slaps you on the cheek, turn the other one that he might slap you there too" (Lk. 6:29). Please God, help me to "let go of the hope that what has already happened could be any different." Help me to always seek peace and reconciliation; to reach out and touch even if I might have been the one hurt; to approach the oppressor with an olive branch, and to speak words of love and conciliation. O God, do not let me carry grudges against anyone for any reason. Do not allow me to be hateful or resentful or angry with anyone at all. Help me to be positive in thought and word and deed, and seek peace among all peoples.

I also want to pray for my fears. I am afraid of the future. I do not know what will happen, and I worry. And so today I pray: Please God, help me to trust you. Help me not to worry. Teach me to relax in your divine providence; you who say: "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" (Matt. 6:26). Help me to realize that by worrying I "cannot add a single hour to my life" (Ibid.v27). Help me to realize that it is only in trusting in you, the omnipotent God, that I can be at peace with life. Thank you for showing me the way to do this. Thank you for reminding the person walking by the side of the sea that the single set of footprints he saw on the shore at the time when things were the roughest for him were yours and not his. Thank you for teaching us that even if father and mother forsake us you never will (Isa. 49:15). Thank you for etching us firmly in your thoughts. Thank you for the confidence you restore to us. Thank you because "you have not given us a spirit of fear, but only a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7).

I further want to pray for my success. Father, you have given me a vocation. Please God, help me to keep it. I want to be a priest for your people. I believe there are many people I can help: people of all dispositions. I can pray for and counsel with all of them in my calling as a minister. Please, help me O God to be successful in the seminary. Teach me wisdom and patience and understanding. Encourage me to seek you earnestly and to hang onto you when I have found you. Help me to follow the path you have marked out for me, not turning to either side, but keeping straight and focused on the narrow road to you. For indeed O God, "you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

In short O God, remove from my heart every iota of negativity. Help me to be positive and focused on you. Teach me to be resourceful, patient, wise and humble. Help me to forgive, and to love and to be a light in the dark for the many you have brought to the reach of my influence. Above all, help me to forgive myself. Remove from me every sense of guilt. Remove from me the trapping of self hatred. Remove from me the trapping of greed and ill will. Help me to love all people regardless of who or what they are. Let me never be envious or hateful. Let me never be proud or wayward. Teach me instead to look to you, who are the beginning and end of everything that is good, and always draw me to yourself, to the place where you live with your son and your holy spirit, in perpetual and everlasting unity. Amen.

The Quest for a Beautiful Soul

Some people work out all the time. They do so to keep healthy, but also to look sexy. Back in Chicago, I lived with a couple suite mates from Italy. One of them was a fitness fanatic, practically addicted to the gym. Cycling, aerobics, weights - he did it all. And he did look good because of it: six-pack abs; lean body; ripped torso - definitely eye candy for the ladies. And all because he worked out. Working out is good, I guess, but I think it takes discipline. It is not something easy to do. People are attracted to beautiful things and people. We love to be around them, because they add value to our lives. I know I love beautiful things and people; I loved being near my Italian fitness fanatic suite mate. And because we all appreciate beauty, we strive to acquire some for ourselves; we sometimes watch what we eat, and we make sure to exercise our bodies very frequently, so that we can look beautiful to other people.

But it's not the body that's most important. It's the soul, and the quest for a beautiful soul is by far greater than the quest for a beautiful body. And the way to acquire a beautiful soul is pretty much similar to that for acquiring a beautiful body. We need to feed it well with good spiritual food, and exercise it very regularly. The soul of course is immaterial, and so the food it absorbs is immaterial as well. The exercise for the soul is similarly immaterial. What are the food and the exercise of the soul? To begin with, the food of the soul is anything that inspires us. It is anything that gives us spiritual energy with which to do good in the world. For example, good teaching, the type that exhorts, inspires and challenges us to do good all the time. Also, good music, of the type that elevates our mood and makes us go, "Let's do this!" And jump out of bed in the morning ready to start the day. Also, good movies that teach us stuff, stuff that we can apply in our lives. Also, good relationships that console us, make us realize we are not alone in our human struggle. These and many other things are the food of the soul. 

In any case, there's good food and bad food. At the bodily level, there are foods that harm us, with their cholesterol, fat, acid and other content. They make us feel bloated and gassy, and increase our propensity to diabetes, high blood pressure and other diseases. These foods are not to be consumed often, if we want to feel healthy and strong physically. In the same way, there are good and bad foods for the soul. The communications and relationships that weaken our resolve to do good in the world, whether by biasing our minds against the potential of good; tempting us to love what is evil; urging us to despair and disillusionment; provoking feelings of anger and other negative emotions of the sort that paralyze the drive within us to do good; exposing us to bad behavior and seemingly asking us to imitate it, and so forth. In short, any spiritual food that ultimately inspires us to do evil rather than good in the world is bad for the soul. Good food for the soul would rather inspire us to do things that are wholesome and beneficial to society, and make us valued members of society in all we do.

Exercise for the soul goes hand in hand with spiritual food in the quest for a beautiful soul. Just like physical exercise helps the body to stay healthy and look sexy, spiritual exercise helps to keep the soul nimble and fine. Spiritual exercise refers to anything that keeps the soul alert and lean, and healthy. Let's look at those words one after another. An alert soul is sensitive. It is not asleep. It is conscious of what is going on in its environment. It notices things like injustice, insecurity; in short anything evil, and strives to overcome them with goodness. It reflects on its purpose in the world. It is not oblivious to opportunities for doing more and more good in the world. Jesus said concerning the alert soul: “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be alert, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions" (Lk. 12:35-40; 42-44).

But a soul that is not alert fares differently. Jesus says concerning these: "But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (Lk. 12:45-47). And so the soul must be alert. Notice one thing in this regard, in any case: ignorance of the will of God was not an excuse to not be alert; what this means is that we must feed on spiritual food, on the word of God, which will inform us of God's will, in addition to exercise.

The next benefit of spiritual exercise is to give us lean souls. Plato and Socrates talked a lot about the concept of a lean soul, especially in the Symposium and some of Plato's other dialogues. A lean soul is one that is trained in philosophy. It is one that is not overly interested in material things. Rather it is interested in spiritual and intellectual things. It is a contemplative soul. Remember the example of Cassius from a previous post? A lean or thoughtful soul is contemplative. And thirdly, a healthy soul is a good one: loving, compassionate, altruistic, noble, cheerful, blissful, happy, loyal, faithful, optimistic, positive, and joyful. A healthy soul is not beset with spiritual maladies, such as depression, anger, insecurity, dissipation, sadness, and so on. A healthy soul thrives in this difficult business of life, and maintains a positive attitude; always seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty, and always keeping faith in a victorious afterlife. 

To have an alert, a lean and a healthy soul, we must in addition to eating good spiritual food as we have said, engage in good spiritual exercises. Some of these exercise include: volunteering. In the previous post entitled "I'm Coming Out," I talked about volunteering at some length. I explained how volunteering helps people and gives us emotional satisfaction when we engage in it. Other spiritual exercises include yoga, meditation, organizing and participating in spiritual activities, and spiritual writing, just like I try to do everyday. By writing, I exercise my intellect. I talk with my soul and encourage a vigorous and productive self-reflection; a true intra-personal back-and-forth. This indeed is what spiritual writing does for me: It exercises my soul, more than any other spiritual exercise does. And how fortunate for me that I enjoy it and am good at it. It's like people who love the gym - how easy then it would be for them to exercise physically. We should try to find one physical exercise we love to do, be it volunteering; organizing and participating in spiritual events; yoga, meditation and so forth and, whenever we have eaten good spiritual food by exposing ourselves to wholesome spiritual communications and relationships, we can then exercise our souls well, all in the most-important quest for a beautiful soul.