My Spiritual Autobiography - Part II

The question that Dan put to me - "Who do you say Jesus Christ is?" - was effective because it induced me to take a stand regarding my religion. I realized that this was something (incredibly) that I had never been asked to do before in my life. In hindsight, and after talking to a lot of my peers, my situation wasn't unusual. It seems that few, if any, of our generation, were really asked to commit to our religion. Rather, it was (seemingly) about going along with the status quo. In my case, the net effect of this "status quo approach" to religion was that I was practically non-religious. I don't mean irreligious. Regarding my relationship to God (what religion is supposed to be) it was something like the relationship you would have with a distant relative - a great aunt maybe. You know you are related, you go through the motions of family when they visit, but you really don't know them that well and their relevance into who you are is practically non-existent. So it was with me and God.

The reason, again, for this spiritual autobiography is to draw attention to the things that God has done for me in my life. The problem is, in order to really do this, it would require me to give a complete account of the spiritual state that my soul had drifted into by the time Dan posed his question. In prudence, this is something better not done on the internet. And it's probably another time to avoid hyperbole (e.g. "miserable", "wretched", etc.). Suffice it to say, as I matured into adulthood practically nonreligious, I was blown along by the cultural wind and there very little about me that would distinguish me from someone who had no religion whatsoever.

And let me emphasize that, in this condition, I was not at peace. Indulge me in a little backstory... I perceive that many people these days are blown by the cultural wind into various self-destructive behaviors - e.g. drugs, sex, alcohol, etc. For some reason, this isn't how I am wired. Rather, when I saw people doing those things, I felt out of place, and I perceived that this was because something was wrong with me. Thus, the net effect the culture had on me was that it induced me to believe that everything, and I do mean everything, was a giant competition and that I was going to win. In retrospect, this was somehow a safer position for me than feeling out of place. And that's where I hid. In time, I achieved most of the things I wanted to achieve in life, my self-confidence grew and I felt less out of place. I "plugged in" to the culture in college. But I never gave up the "competition" mindset - I didn't ever perceive that this was how I thought - something like the fact that fish don't know they are wet.

As I plugged into the culture, it plugged into me and I found myself more and more dependent on the vices I had acquired. As the time of achievement (High School, College, etc) in my life gave way to the time for relationships (marriage, kids, etc.) I found myself ill-prepared. "I can't compete" was my mindset. Vices that had been social and secondary in college became socially centralized in the years that followed. I had a sense that I was not in control of them. Many "New Year's Resolutions" to give up this or that failed. Too many. There were years of a dfferent status quo. Confusion and frustration appeared. I turned to vices to cope with these. It didn't work. I wondered where I was headed. I probably wasn't the only one wondering where Nate Clyde was headed.

This was the spiritual state of the man standing on the porch. In hindsight, the question "Who do you say that Jesus Christ is?" was somehow simultaneously the question "Who is Nate Clyde?". I realized I had never stopped and asked this question. After my experience of reading the New Testament and being struck by the gravity of Jesus Christ and his message the thought came how to me that I better not miss this pitch. I heard Jesus Christ speaking to me through my friend. Somewhere deep in my heart had been planted the idea that Jesus Christ was good, indeed Goodness itself, and that he was very important. I was unwilling to reject Him. He had never done anything bad to me. Never hurt me. If Jesus Christ was calling, and I believed he was, I wanted to answer the phone. I went back to Church. I paid attention, even shopped in the Church bookstore after mass. I got involved. I discovered that time spent in Church, time spent serving others was time off from confusion and frustration and relief from vices. This was the beginning of what I think of the as the "purgative" phase of my life.

Continued II...

My Spiritual Autobiography - Part I

One of the many things we are sent to do as Christians is to give witness to the things that God has done for us in our lives. I intend for this post to be the first (of a few) that attempts to do this.

As I write this, I am deliberately trying to avoid hyperbole (e.g. "wonderful", "marvelous", etc.) regarding the action of God in my life since I perceive that this tends to turn people off. To paraphrase Fox news, "I'll testify what God has done, you decide if it is wonderful or marvellous."

There isn't one moment of my spiritual life that is the clear place to start but there are two early events that stand out. The first happened in St. Anne's church in North Minneapolis. I was a graduate student, in Engineering Mechanics, at the University of Minnesota at the time and as I was sitting at Sunday mass one morning, I admitted to myself that I didn't really have a good reason to be in church and that I was only there because it would bother my Mom if she found out I wasn't going any more. Some time after that I conceived of an idea that I would read the entire bible cover to cover (something I had never done), write down all the reasons I didn't believe in it and then have this document available to hand to people when they tried to evangelize me. (As a side note, being a graduate student in engineering, I had pretty strong reading skills - the Old Testament is a tough read, but not compared to "Mathematical Theory of Elasticity"). So over a period of 18 months, I read through the Old and New Testament, in the order they are listed in the book. Most of the Old Testament seemed to me (at the time) to be like watching the movie "The Godfather" - everybody killing everybody else for seemingly any reason and then a few times where God shows up, and instead of answering any of life's big questions, He rather goes long on what kind of animals you can and can't eat and what to do with the "fatty tail" when offering an animal in sacrifice.

But something different happened when I got to the new Testament. I don't remember who I thought Jesus was going to be, but I do remember who I found him to be. I don't know if it was the process of working straight thru the bible that put me in the right mindset or not, but I remember being struck above all by the Power of Jesus Christ. This was a guy who didn't mince words and was playing for keeps. And reading him in the New Testament was engrossing.

The second "stand out" event of my early spiritual journey occurred on the porch of my best friend's house. I have always been blessed with good friends in my life - men with whom I have a relationship of such strength that we can hold each other accountable when one of us strays. On this occasion, my friend Dan was perceiving in me the disconnect between who I claimed to be and my actions; and he put the question to me. It was a difficult discussion and while I admitted he was right, I wanted to talk about something else. But he pressed me. I don't remember many specifics, but I do remember at one point we were both on our feet and he was driving his finger into my chest and asking me "Who do you say that Jesus Christ is?". I admitted to him that I didn't know how to answer this question. And that didn't sit well with me. I knew I had better get an answer to that question put together. And I set out to do just that.

Continued...

"At dusk weeping comes for the night..."

We are coming off of four consecutive nights of our littlest one (10 mos.) being up sick with a fever. I've spent each night on the couch holding him against my chest listening to him whimper (my wife has been doing the "day shift"). Needless to say, I am a little bit on the sleep deprived side of things. Even before my daughter Theresa's death and definitely since, I just hate it when the kids are sick. It really brings home to me again that as human beings, life isn't under our control. In the face of our (ultimate) helplessness to really do anything when our kids are sick or suffering, there is a temptation to feel alone, isolated, forgotten. In the dark wee hours of the night, there is even at times a temptation to despair. I've been wrestling with this the past few days. It's at times like these that the Christian understanding of "emmanuel" - God with us - pushes back. The question "You are with us. So what?" isn't just academic. It's like a tunnel that my troubled imagination bumps and stumbles its way through to morning. While it's not pleasant, the spiritual insights that come are mind-blowing. In the night, the Psalms aren't just the songs that come between the first and second readings at mass. Rather they ring with relevance:

"My God, I call by day, but you do not answer; by night but I have no relief" Psalm 22, v. 3

"How long, Lord? Will you utterly forget me?" Psalm 13, v. 2

"Be gracious to me, LORD, for I am in distress; with grief my eyes are wasted, my soul and body spent. My life is worn out by sorrow, my years by sighing. My strength fails in affliction; my bones are consumed." Psalm 31, v. 10-11.

This last night the baby's fever seems to have broken. I got a solid five hours of sleep. There is light at the end of the tunnel. I am writing this in the presence of my Lord in the adoration chapel. It is 5 AM. The sun is rising.

"Sing praise to the LORD, you faithful; give thanks to God's holy name.
For divine anger lasts but a moment; divine favor lasts a lifetime.
At dusk weeping comes for the night; but at dawn there is rejoicing."

May God be blessed in all things, by all, now and forever.

Off we go...

Well, I've been thinking about starting my own blog for some time now, and as fate (or rather providence) would have it, today is the day.

I have choosen the title "Indwelling Trinity" partly because I figured it might not be taken and partly because it draws attention to a spiritual reality that is front and center in my mind these days. And that's what I want to blog about - spirituality - because it seems (to me) to underlie all of the other issues that are relevant right now.

I'm still not sure how relevant these blogs are and what they really do. I'm hoping that this can at least be a means for people who know me, or have known me in the past, to have a small glimpse into what's on my mind.

I have no idea if that is intersting to people or not.

Thanks for checking in...

NOC