Posts
I looked forward to a long Saturday
afternoon of mass, class, and a talk with (Father) Brent, so I took 30 mgs of
oxycodone and 900 mgs of Neurontin in the hope that I could quiet the pain
enough to sleep. The pain persisted, but hallucinations of blossoming bouquets, flowery kimonos, and pullulating
patterns of colors, provided a pleasant distraction. It is usually true that the more I want to sleep, the less
I am able to sleep.
During our talk, three needy men came in
separately. One asked Brent to jump-start his motorcycle battery, and the others
consulted briefly, but I didn’t listen to what they said. I had taken enough
food—for Brent and me—to feed several people, so I invited each of the men to eat
with us, and one did. Along with caring for his 200-300 person congregation,
Brent works with prisoners, Occupy Eugene, homeless campers, and maybe
others (I learn new things about him all the time). Our talk went as well as expected,
the following being some of the highlights in my own words and to the best of my
understanding.
Brent opened by saying that my passion
for religion is rare even among churchgoers, and that those who have it usually
go to seminary.
I said that I didn’t know what to do
with the questions that come up for me in catechism class because it seems
inappropriate to ask for answers that I know don’t exist, but I feel untrue to
myself if I remain silent. Besides, my feelings are sometimes too intense for
me to trust myself to share them appropriately. He said he has no “conclusive
answers,” about religion, and he made no suggestions about the class beyond
saying that he wants me in it.
Brent regards Christianity and other religions
as human attempts to comprehend the incomprehensible and express the
inexpressible. His idea of a good church is a place where people share
interests rather than answers.
He has never had what people refer to
as a “personal experience of God,” and intercessory prayer makes no sense to
him except as a morale builder, but after a few years in a Massachusetts’ monastery,
he came to believe that those who devote their lives to prayer make the world a
better place if only by virtue of the fact that other people are encouraged by
their devotion.
I said that one my biggest problems
with Christianity has always been that Jesus’ talk of loving your neighbor as
yourself sets too high a standard, that I come nowhere near that standard, and that
I have no plans to even attempt to come near it. Brent said that he hasn’t been
terribly successful in that regard either, but he holds to the thought that nothing
need be accomplished overnight.
By the time he went to seminary, Brent
had been an officer in the Marine Corps and worked in big business. He wasn’t even
a Christian when he experienced a desire to go to seminary, but he has
gradually become what he does. What he does
is to be a paid Christian, but he gives a lot more to the job than his salary
covers. Whether he’s talking to one person or 200 people, Brent’s passion for
the priesthood is evident.
He said that he wants to do everything
he can to make me feel welcome at Resurrection, and then it was time for class.
I participated circumspectly in a discussion of the creeds and the nature of
the Trinity, and then we went to high mass. I’ve seen the sanctuary go from
unpleasantly hot to unpleasingly cold during the months I’ve been at
Resurrection, but yesterday was the first time that Brent asked me to pass
inside the altar rail and read aloud from the Bible. I would
have laughed if the reading had contained the verse about the fool saying in his heart that there is no God, but it didn’t. I
loved being asked to read, though, and I loved everything else too.
