“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” C. S. Lewis

In all my writings I allude to the fact that I am a Christian but I never go beyond that as I do when I speak of the other facets that make up my character.  There are several reasons for that I suppose and actually none of them are very good when examined and I have been examining them a lot of late.  It is a simple thing to state that I am a Christian and leave it at that and that is what I have done.  I have been wondering why I am comfortable with discussing my libertarian leanings, my beliefs in all the other transient aspects but not the base or core from which all the other things are dependent.  My awareness of my hesitance and why I was that way has been a slow awakening with many prods along the way ( which I typically ignored) that includes the election of Trump which proves that the Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.

Just a little background to give some understanding as to my awakening,  gradual as it may be.  Born into an Irish Catholic family in Philadelphia I shared the same life as hundred of thousands of kids.  My siblings and I attended Catholic school, St. Leo’s located in the Tacony section of Philadelphia.  My brothers were altar boys and I was looking forward to my turn at being a server.  I remember that I used to set up a small altar in my bedroom and went through the motions of having a Mass.  At the time I envisioned myself becoming a Priest.  Many of you who know me are probably choking at this point, but I did have that desire though I never mentioned it to anyone.  I was always a quiet kid and never really communicated too well – and my wife still has that complaint.  On my way to becoming the Pope I discovered girls so even Parish Priest was then out of the question.

My parents were never strict Catholics, at least with me and my two younger siblings.  In a sense we were two families with the age differences and the discipline that my three older sibs experienced was far heavier than the second three and we did get away with some things that they could not; for instance there were several times when my younger brother and I were each given twenty-five cents to give in the collection and then sent to Mass.  Several times we would stop at a donut shop on the way and spend the quarter that was in each of our envelopes on the betterment of the local economy rather than the Church.  At the time I was not aware but I have since come to realize that unlike many of my ilk I was not traumatized by my Roman Catholic experience to the degree that I used it to turn my back on God and deny the validity of the basic teachings.  It is easy to dismiss and mock another’s faith when you don’t agree with it or you have a bad experience with your faith.  You will find that like ex-smokers, ex-Catholics are outspoken about the Church and are unforgiving for past wrongs real or imagined.  Focusing on the wrongs it is easy to not see the lessons that were taught.  I know this because I often walk around blind.

I was attending Indiana State University in the early to mid 1970’s and at that time there was a “Jesus” revival.  A combination of coming out of the Vietnam nightmare; a thing called “Watergate”; uncertain economic times and hippies who saw through the fog that their lifestyle brought about led the nation through a reawakening that it has been known to experience throughout our short history.  The effect that it had on me was subtle and slow growing.  I was not “born again” as so many professed nor did I become a “Jesus freak”, but it made me think. And read.  While I was still a “practicing” Catholic as my knowledge expanded the less I felt like a Roman Catholic.  We sent our four sons through the Catholic school system not out of a solely religious  belief though it did have a role.  My anti government education belief played a bigger part than a belief in the infallibility of the Pope in the education of my sons and the Parochial school system provided a financially affordable and sound education.  I mention all that just to give a little background on where I came from in terms of religious faith.  I am sure there are millions who have very similar “Catholic” upbringings and can relate.

My true education in Christianity has come during the last twenty to twenty-five years.  As owner/operator of an ill fated Hatboro café I met and befriended a couple of customers, Mike and Louise who in turn later introduced me to Herman and Janice and then Anthony.  It wasn’t until a year or two after I closed the café that Mike asked if I were interested in going to a Bible study at his house along with Herman.  I agreed but was very uncomfortable.  For me, one’s religious faith is a very personal thing and as such I keep things like that very close to my vest. Part is fearing my own ignorance and part is just not wanting to feel like I am imposing on someone else.  Outside of those Bible studies I rarely heard anyone discussing the Bible or religion unless of course it is a derogatory comment.  Our society today is anti Christian much as it was in the early days so it is a familiar place to be.  Studying the Bible with my friends if just for two hours a week has helped me see things about me clearly.  I am far, far from perfect (as my wife will attest), I get angry and cuss (I try not to take the Lord’s name in vain but at times I do), my patience with idiots and pretenders only extends so far.  Hell, like most people I have broken most of the Ten Commandments (I don’t think I have murdered anyone – yet) but I have learned how important forgiveness is and I have seen that there is a purpose for everything that happens.  I forgive others very easily but that is not to say that I forget though, that is foolish notion.  There is only one person I find impossible to forgive and that is myself.

The Bible is not only a great Spiritual book but it is a great history book.  The many different cultures and peoples from ancient times were not all that different from us.  Our society likes to strut about believing how advanced we are as a civilization; we are but a drop in the bucket and not a very big drop either. We are committing the same errors that so many have made before us and it is generally started in our lack of humility and separating ourselves from our Creator.  We do the same things and expect different outcomes and we know what that is a definition of…

More and more of our society reject the existence of God and possibly even more detrimental is the denial of the existence of Satan.  Our world is the devils playground and you would think that by now he would be bored with us.  It is the evil one who separates us.  He takes simple human emotions which are not bad in themselves but Satan exaggerates them to toxic levels.  For instance, envy is an emotion that an individual can use as a motivation to improve the quality of life for them and their family.  Too often Satan turns envy into covetousness which is destructive to everybody and it is easy to see how societies have destroyed themselves with this simple corruption of a legitimate emotion.  Recent history shows several examples of this; the French Revolution that was inspired by our own American Revolution turned into a Satanic bloodbath that corrupted everything that was good and if you trace the effects you could see that it laid the groundwork for even greater evil.  The Russian Revolution was the French experience on steroids.   Satan and evil is corruption. Corruption of the human spirit leads to the acceptance of evil in every form.  Even those institutions that are established to “lead” us to God are corrupted.  The Roman Catholic Church for all the good is has done in this world has balanced that aspect with evil.  The most recent being the sexual abuse scandal.  Because the Church has been so corrupted the leaders were more concerned about how the Church appeared (as if they were/are the Church!) and covered up the abuse and allowed the evil to continue by transferring “the problem” elsewhere.  Their words condemned the evil but their actions promulgated the true doctrine.  And let’s be clear; it isn’t only the Church of Rome that is corrupted.  Many of the Protestant churches have experienced similar occurrences of sexual abuse and improprieties.  Mankind is comprised of sinners.  Even the saints amongst us have a sinful nature which the evil one uses at every opportunity to blacken the eye of The Word.  The problem arises when the institutions that are created to protect are corrupted to the point when, in the case of the Church the followers lose their faith.  They stop attending Services and stop hearing the Word.  Yes, the institutions are comprised of humans and therefore by nature corrupted but when instituted as a body, our institutions both religious and secular, have established guidelines and laws of governance meant to protect the individual.  It seems that the larger the institution grows the further it grows away from their original purpose.  And that is the beauty of the Bible.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  So begins the Gospel of John.  It is that simple.  All you need to do is to pick it up and read.  I find that for myself, I learn more in an informal setting of a small group where a discussion can take place rather than a lecture.  This is how Christianity grew and how it will be saved.  It is easy to sit back and fret about the state of our society and the obvious direction it is going but there is a lot of good still out there.  One of the more inspiring occurrences along the road has been attending a Saturday morning meeting of a group of men who have various faiths.  It was predominantly Waspish but there were Roman Catholics and even a Jewish Rabbi.  Age and race varied also, it is a good group of men who study the Word and discuss the application to todays world.  I have not attended in awhile but the times I spent there shored up my faith in God and man.

I heard an explanation of the categorical makeup of “Christians” which helped me a great deal.  It starts with believers in Jesus who as they grow in faith become followers or disciples of Jesus.  The main ingredient required for growth is courage.  Courage to stand apart from society, to separate from the worlds influence.  But it also takes tremendous courage to face yourself.  To see yourself in an honest way can be perhaps the most difficult challenge you can face and one that many can not hurdle.  The basic tenet of Christianity is a belief that Jesus is God manifested in human form and that Jesus died for our sins.  His teachings go beyond that but without belief in that which all else is built on one can not be a Christian.  I am a Christian.  I struggle to move from the believer category but alas my courage is lacking or the roots are too deeply entrenched in this world but that does not mean I have given up.

One last note.  In the beginning of this piece I mentioned Trumps election as being a prod to me, well I have a confession to make to you.  I only wrote that to exasperate the Trump haters.  Sometimes I can’t help myself.