No Enemy.

There is no enemy.

There are no sides.

Evil is a reaction to false doctrines.

False doctrines are made our of fear.

Mistakes made out of fear are forgiven.

God forgives everyone.

There is no enemy.

Sexual Abuse.

Of all the places for sexual abuse to take place why does it happen in the Church?

You would think that the high moral standards of the Church would protect it from such crimes.

But perhaps it is this very thing which causes the problem.

In the past sex was never mentioned in church.
Such things were left at home.
Consequently any sexual impulses were forced down into a little box which was never opened in church.
This was very unhealthy and resulted in perversions of the sexual impulse.
This is why we see child sex abuse in the Church and its institutions.

The reason for this comes from the writings of St. Paul and others.
Paul set up a conflict between body/sexuality and spirit.
The spirit was pure and good, the body was carnal and corrupt.
Later Augustine linked sex to original sin to complete the complex.

Fear of losing contact with God caused Christians to repress their strong natural urges.
This has resulted in the current sex abuse scandals.

And this is not new.  John Chrysostom reported sexual abuse among the bishops of Antioch in the 6th century.

There is a lot of fear surrounding sex in the Church.
Even more now that the abuse scandals have broken.

Fear is not the answer.

The Church will never outgrow sexual abuse until it develops a healthy attitude towards sex.

Sex is a natural part of God's good creation.

That is why I am calling for a new bar-mitzvah - a coming of age celebration - which would normalize sexual development in teenagers - both heterosexual and homosexual.

This would go along way to reducing the fear surrounding sex in the Church.

And it cannot come too soon.

Your Vote.

Have you noticed how the media plays up any threat to the community by feeding fear and panic?

This is done deliberately in order to create alarm.

It is done nationally in relation to crime and internationally in relation to terrorism or nuclear threat.

The reason for this is so that then they can present their candidate (the conservative candidate) for the election as the only one who is strong enough to control and defeat the threat.

This will be someone with a national policy of law and order and an international policy of military intervention.

This is the reason why the right-wing media romanticizes the military.
Quite apart from the fact that they believe that the military is there to protect their wealth like the police.

So be wary of any attempts to overplay the threat of crime or terrorism.
It is an attempt to control you and to win your vote.

The Afterlife.

If we accept that life is a process of learning - that we progress from darkness to light - then perhaps the afterlife; rather than being a place of reward or punishment for what we have done in life, or a place where punishment is paid off; is a place where we continue to learn and progress towards enlightenment.

Mediums who contact the dead would suggest that this is the case.
The people that have passed over are with their loved ones who are helping them.
I would suggest that this indicates a continued process of learning.

So, rather than fearing judgment or punishment after death, we should anticipate a continuation of the learning process that we experience in life.

Spiritual Development.

Spirituality does not mean that everything works out perfectly for me.

New Age gurus make the mistake of substituting personal happiness and success for spiritual development.

Spiritual development consists of the opening of the heart and the development of the caring and compassionate feelings which lead to actions on behalf of others.

This does not always mean that things work out for us.
It quite often means trouble or inconvenience.
It may make us feel uncomfortable.
Certainly it will challenge our comfort zone.

For Jesus it led to the cross.

So, rather than judging people by how well their lives are going, we should look to the development of the heart and its attendant compassionate actions.

This is enlightenment.

Prayer of the Sacred Heart.

Heavenly Father,

Open our eyes to see the suffering and injustice in our world.

Open our ears to hear their cries.

Open our hearts to feel compassion and love for those who are suffering.

Help us to love you, our Father, with our whole heart as we have been instructed.

Help us to love each other as Jesus taught us.

Open our mouths that we might testify to your Love.

Open our hands to help those around us who are in need.

Send us out into the world as agents of Love.

Amen.

Photo Credit: pikist.com

Answers.

Modernism is the period in which hope was inspired by scientific progress.

Universal education and universal faith in science led to the idea that science had all the answers - it was the answer to all our problems.

This, combined with economics, made us feel that inevitable progress was leading to a kind of Utopia.

Post-modernism is the period when this went sour.

The feeling that everything was controlled by impersonal laws of an indifferent Nature led to alienation and psychological problems associated with meaninglessness.

Depression and psychosis became widespread and led to escapism through drugs and alcohol.

Life had become so impersonal that it was unbearable.

We have now entered a dark night of materialism.
We worship success, fame, celebrity, and wealth.

Economics rules.
Men and women are expendable units in a profit making machine.
Life is  reduced to working and shopping.

But the answer is not in these things.

Happiness will only be found in people.
And then only in Love.

Love is the answer to human problems.
Not science, not economics, not success, or personal achievement.

How long will it take humanity to learn this truth.
Or will we go off on another tangent.

All roads lead home.
And home is in the human heart.