Sex, Drugs, Money, Those Nasty Little Desires...They Catch Up To Everyone

If you clicked this headline looking for a story about someone's recently exposed behavior, look elsewhere (and shame on you).  In an age where we're becoming more and more immune to the drinking, drugging, cheating, stealing, philandering, backstabbing, partying, and the ever-increasing shamelessness of the general population, I think we all need a bit of a reality check.

Catholics especially need to check themselves, and stop themselves from participating in the spreading of dirt and the smearing of our brothers and sisters who are suffering and need prayer. To quote our Lord, "you who is without sin cast the first stone."

Some time ago, my husband and I were hit by a series of tragedies brought on by the horror that is addiction. Finding a book titled Addiction and Grace by the late Dr. Gerald May was a true Godsend for us, and a real eye-opener. I recommend it highly. Dr. May defined addiction as "any compulsive, habitual behavior that limits the freedom of human desire". According to Dr. May, no human being is above being addicted, everyone is addicted to something, and no one addiction or addict is any better or worse than another. Every human being struggles with compulsions, aversions, dependencies of all kinds, and every one blocks us to the grace of God.

I have a gazillion addictions, compulsions and aversions that interfere with my life of grace every minute of every day. Thank God that no one finds me important enough to smear me based on them, either, because I could very easily be portrayed as a hot mess. Mine may not be drugs or alcohol, but I have to fight them as hard as any drug addict or alcoholic must fight theirs.

Sometimes we all lose our fights, don't we?

In his book, Dr. May listed five fundamental characteristics of all forms and types of addiction:

• Tolerance: wanting or needing more to feel satisfied.
• Withdrawal symptoms: physical or emotional effects when addictive substance is removed.
• Self-deception: denial and rationalization, invented to counter attempts to control the addiction.
• Loss of willpower: an inability to conquer the addiction despite the illusion of control.
• Distortion of attention: a preoccupation with the addiction that usurps our concern for the true priorities of life, especially God. For this reason, addiction can be viewed as idolatry.

St. Paul writes in Galatians Chapter 6: “even if a person is caught in some transgression, you who are spiritual should correct that one in a gentle spirit, looking to yourself, so that you also may not be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal 6:1-2) Just as He carried the cross to His death for our salvation, we in imitation of Him can carry the guilt of addiction for these addicts, because in their illness they cannot carry it themselves.

Over the next several days I will be posting a special Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary that I wrote for my friend who lost her son to heroin addiction. I hope you will all join me in prayer for everyone who suffers as a result of their addictions.

Flattery: Red Flag?

Last Wednesday I forgot to bring my Magnificat to work with me, so I instead went to my backup daily prayer site, Universalis.

Morning prayer began with Psalm 35 (36 depending on your translation):

"O God, in your light we shall see true light.
Evil whispers to the sinner in the depths of his heart:
     the fear of God does not stand before his eyes.

Evil’s flattering light disguises his wickedness,
     so that he does not hate it."

Evil's flattering light disguises his wickedness.

As Christians, how often do we see ourselves against the backdrop of the world, thinking our souls are in far better shape than they really are?

*     *     *

Speaking of flattery...

Over the years, I've been acquainted with countless "friends" who use flattery as a means to gain something--a sense of belonging, career advancement, social acceptance, or a boost to the self-image (as compared with the world, of course). I still have a few of these kinds of people in my life, and boy do they lay it on thick. I feel sorry for them, because they truly don't understand giving of the self. Every favor has a condition. Every promise is forgotten. Every gift is nominal and often accompanied by saccharin. Their friendships don't last through the years, and wonder why they never seem to get anywhere in life.

Sign after sign is erected before them, and they deliberately shut their eyes, telling themselves that it's never them, never their inability to see themselves in the light of God. They prefer the flattering light of evil, because then they don't have to change.

Of course I would be guilty of lying if I said that I never did anything like this in my life. Sure, I've done things to ingratiate myself to others, especially when I looked at myself against that backdrop of the world, where nothing I do is nearly as bad as what others do.  I even have told my friends to not beat themselves up over things, because what they've done isn't nearly as bad as what others have done, and to not worry about it. 

The more I try to understand myself, though, and the true nature of sin as it works within me, I realize that this is a terrible attitude, and is just as bad as that overt flattery I described.  Lately I'm realizing that when my friends say to me, "compared to others...", I know they're trying to make me feel better, but it's not the response I need from them. Others aren't going to be judging me the day I die. God will, and He doesn't measure according to what others do. If I stop examining my conscience objectively against GOD's rule, I might easily turn into one of those poor souls blinded by evil's flattering light. 

What we all need during these times is not flattery, but prayer:

"Let us not be crushed under the heels of the proud,
     nor dispossessed by the hands of sinners.
The doers of evil have fallen where they stood,
     they are cast down and cannot rise. "

Falling

Every joint in my body stiffened as I crawled out of bed this morning. Especially my shoulders. I never realized how much I take my shoulders for granted. Not today, though. They intensely punished me as I raised my arms to tie my hair up, to dress, to open and close the doors, to drive, and now, even after taking a couple of Advil, to type. The pain was so bad I nearly called off work today; but I knew that if I stayed home I would be in pain AND feel sorry for myself. So here I am, sitting at my desk, getting work done and not letting my body defeat me.

My terrible pain and stiffness is the repercussion of an embarrassing fall I took off the back steps Saturday afternoon. The pain gets worse after a couple of days before it gets better. I fortunately didn’t break any bones or suffer a more serious injury. I was still agile enough to turn a little bit to my left so I wouldn’t fall on my face. I’m not exactly sure how I lost my balance and fell, but I suspect it was a combination of the heat, the paint fumes (we were painting our garage) my general klutziness, and, most importantly, my being in a big hurry to get back outside after wasting about 20 minutes on a couple of Facebook applications.

Considering how much damage I could have done to myself, I decided that I need to not race down steps anywhere from now on. I've been thinking about how I landed--on my left hand, arm and side. As a guitarist, I depend on my arms and hands. Had I broken any bone in either one of my hands or arms, what would that have done to my music? My hands and arms are far to valuable to be lost to my carelessness.

As I look more deeply into my graceless swan dive into concrete, I realize that at the time, I could have just blamed something else. My back steps don’t have a hand rail; the steps have a slight lean; plus the back door sticks a little. And my husband hasn't put up a hand rail, leveled the back steps or fixed the back door. These thoughts never once crossed my mind, though, because I would have been laying the blame for my fall right on my husband. It's not his fault I'm a terrible klutz. Plus, making him my fall-fallguy doesn't change what happened, and would only hurt his feelings, or possibly tick him off.

I did, however, consider blaming the dog (don’t laugh, she was tied up right there in the back yard and lying beside the back steps). Would my husband have thought twice about the fact that Roxy, my rambunctious pit bull/lab mix, got underfoot and took me out? It was a definite probability, as she's up our butts every second of the day, and Roxy has clotheslined me several times with her runner leash. She loves to race across the yard to keep up with me wherever I happen to be walking. But as fast as the thought jumped into my mind, that’s how fast I dismissed it.

Blaming someone or something else doesn't erase the fact that I fell; it only causes more pain, more grief, more injury. Plus I would feel worse about myself, because I've now done something to hurt someone else (even the dog).

Isn’t this how it is with sin? We’re doing something that we shouldn’t be doing, and we fall. At first the damage is either not visible at all, or appears to be minor. It’s only when time passes that we really experience the damage caused by our sins. It's why when we go to confession, we pray an "act of contrition", where we resolve to make a conscious effort to avoid sin in the future.

But more importantly, I think, is how we react when we realize we have sinned. We have two choices. We can claim full responsibility, or we can find someone or something else to share the blame. Sure, we can try to convince ourselves that we aren't entirely at fault, if at all, and that by finding this other person/thing to blame, we're really acting out of a sense of justice. Ultimately, we're just rationalizing--saving face and feeding our pride at the expense of someone else. As time goes on, what would the constant shirking of responsibility do to our sense of self? Not to mention the fact that through unrepentent sinning we're killing our souls.

I suggest instead a complete examination of conscience. Periodical examinations of our attitudes and our behavior help us to pinpoint where we are most in danger of committing sin, thereby causing serious injury to our souls, which puts our souls at the risk of an eternity apart from God. That's what sin ultimately is, after all, an injury to our soul. There are several examinations available online (here is one to get you started). I know, it seems like a lot of work, almost as horrifying as that long put-off trip to the dentist; but I think union with God is worth the effort.