Category: Religion

I Gotta Have Faith

Published on by Sharron Burnett1 Comment

3437383987_3ab93e21d0_bIt is seemingly becoming less and less popular to adhere to religious beliefs. We live in a world of great scientific knowledge that offers the possibility of precluding something as abstract as blind faith in a supreme being. To some the idea of God is primitive and silly, a concept that belongs to another era. Faith is intangible and never easy to explain. It requires a leap of trust that is both frightening and exciting. For those of us who are true believers it is impossible to consider a life without God, but for those who question His very existence those who depend on Him are foolish.

I recently had an extended conversation with a young woman who is not quite an atheist but who is tending in that direction. She finds it downright silly to think that there is some spiritual element watching over us. She posed the usual arguments about the hypocrisy and downright hatefulness of some religious sects as well as the observation that people suffer. She asked how a loving and generous God would be capable of simply watching as we humans struggle.

I have to admit that in spite of twelve years of Catholic education and a stint as a Director of Religious Education I was not particularly effective in counteracting her arguments. Saying that God gives us free will and does not interfere in our choices carried little weight with her. Nor did she accept the idea that we humans often impose our own thinking onto our religious institutions rather than adhering to the teachings of God.

I have long believed that as people we sometimes become a bit too enamored with religious rules rather than simply accepting the new covenant of Jesus that states that our focus should be on loving one another. I also think it more than likely that God has revealed himself to humanity in different forms to different cultures. Therefore it would be presumptuous of us to decide that one religious group is better than another.

We also forget the difference between faith and religion, too often equating the two. It is my faith in God that sustains me. My religion provides me with a vehicle for praising Him and reminding myself of His presence in my life. I cannot prove that He is real but I fully trust that He is constantly with me. I feel Him in my very soul, and I know for certain that His spirit has guided me for all of my life.

I seriously do not know how anyone who does not have faith in God is able to navigate the rocky roads of living. There have been so many times that I have felt as though the very ground beneath me was melting away and that I was in free fall. Being human is like that. Rarely does an individual have a lifetime without pain or suffering or loss. Without faith in God I would never have made it this far. Just when I sense that I am about to explode with negative emotion I sense His presence. He may not take away the challenges that I am facing, but He provides me with the strength that I need to face whatever is happening. I truly feel his arms embracing me, His fingers locking with mine. He is and always has been a best friend, a counselor and a consoler. I don’t have to see Him to know He is there.

Just a little more than a week ago my husband had a stroke. It was a terrifying time. Had my children and their families not been with me in that moment I am not sure how well I would have done. In retrospect I believe with all of my heart that it was God who provided me with the love and support that I needed. Call me foolish if you will, but I am convinced that this was His way of helping me. He continues with His merciful goodness even as we visit doctors and learn of the dramatic changes that this event will make in our lives.

I have never believed that God gives us everything that we want just because we wish it. We all have to face the realities of living in an imperfect world. His promise to us is not that we will never have to endure hardship, but rather that He will help us to do whatever we have to do at any given moment. If we do our best in this world, the perfection for which we all wish will one day be ours. 

There are indeed religious sects that appear to have perverted the very word of God. They engage in self righteous behaviors and pretend to know who is beloved by the Lord. They inflict hateful and sometimes even violent dictates on their fellowmen. I pity them because I sense that they have misinterpreted the intent of God. I do not however presume to judge them because I will never really know what is in their hearts, or why they behave the way they do. It is not up to me as a fellow human being to inflict my own thoughts on others.

This is what I believe. In my own feeble way I attempt to model my faith from day to day. I don’t always succeed in being as good as I wish to be. I backslide, become jealous, say and do ugly things. I have to continuously ask for forgiveness both from people and from God. It is the way of things so I try not to be too hard on myself. Luckily my faith in God is so strong that I know without a scintilla of doubt that He never betrays or abandons me.

I see God everywhere. He is in the colors of the sky and my backyard. He is on the faces of the people that I encounter. He is in the remarkable human intellect that finds ways to heal and teach and feed and create and love. Our power as people does not come only from ourselves. It is from the spirit of God that lives within us. He always believes in us even when we do not believe in Him.   

Churches

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

19510606_1819990221352292_3124586995295021826_nI write my blogs in the early morning hours when the world is a fairly quiet place. I look out on the little world of my backyard as I gather my thoughts and seek inspiration for a topic. Sometimes the ideas seem to pop out of nowhere like a distant call inside my head. It is as though I am being gently compelled to speak of a certain idea, event or individual. This day lead me to a rather strange place.

It began as I pondered my recent trip to Mexico and a visit to San Sebastian Church in an old colonial town dating back to the fifteen hundreds. Our tour bus stopped just long enough for a quick peek inside the old structure where daily mass was being celebrated in spite of all of the gawking tourists. The sounds of the ritual prayers were so soothing to me, and their familiarity in spite of being uttered in a somewhat foreign language helped me to fully understand just how the word “catholic” means universal. I remembered my religion teachers telling us back when I was still a child that we might go anywhere on earth and find the same mass with the same prayers. Here I was thousands of miles away from home and I knew exactly what was going on inside that historical church just as I suspect its earliest parishioners would have also known. It was a joyful moment for me as the people raised their voices in song and praise because I felt a deep connection to them that came from being part of a Church that transcends local geography.

Of course I also thought about the tragedy of missionary work in Mexico that had so ignorantly trampled the culture and traditions of the Mayan people who were indigenous to the area. In the misguided belief that the natives and their own religious ideas were somehow less advanced, the Franciscans built San Sebastian and other churches throughout Mexico hoping to save them. We now see the practice as questionable, but back then it was viewed as a matter of doing God’s work. Thus it often is with religious fervor. There is a very thin line between actually helping people by spreading the love of Christ and being presumptuously and wrongly judgmental. Sadly the history of missionary work in the colonies of the European nations intent on founding new worlds were sometimes far too dismissive of the local morays.

Such backward thinking is present in radical and fundamental religious sects even in today’s more enlightened world. In particular the members of Westboro Baptist Church are an example of demonstrating the most obnoxious and invasive forms of overreach. In a blind belief that they somehow have all of the eternal answers they time and again force their presence and their tainted ideas about God on people who would rather not have to deal with them. This past weekend was no exception as noted by a longtime and dear friend of mine whose children were shocked when they encountered a demonstration being held by the group in front of a Lutheran church in Pasadena, Texas. The zealots were holding signs that read, “God Hates Gays!” a particularly repulsive statement to my friend because she is in fact a lesbian woman.

I firmly believe as my friend does that God doesn’t hate anyone. To say so is to contradict all of the preachings of Jesus whose one and only commandment was that we love one another. I often wonder how we manage to take His clear and powerful message and distort it to conform to twisted interpretations. I have little doubt that if Jesus were to walk among us once again He would emphatically reiterate that His is a religion of peace and kindness devoid of judging and other such nonsense. I can almost envision Him tearing up signs that indicate that any form of hate is a product of God. To me such pronouncements are nothing short of blasphemy, a perversion of His words.

Ironically as I was experiencing the sting of anger over the hurt that I knew my friend was feeling because of the rabid Westboro folk, I encountered a grainy old black and white photo of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church being built back in the early nineteen fifties. The church opened its doors for the first mass in the same month in which I turned four years old. Two years later I was a parishioner there along with my parents. I would spend the remainder of my school years learning about my Catholic faith in that parish built near Hobby Airport back when southeast Houston was little more than empty fields waiting to be developed in the post World War II boom. It was a wonderful experience in every sense mostly because it was where I was taught about a God who is all about love.

In the same spirit as Pope Francis today the nuns and priests and laypeople who were my teachers and mentors unveiled a love filled religion to me and my classmates. They taught us to honor our fellow humans and to see ourselves as citizens of a beautiful world in which we are all cherished by God. Ours were lessons in understanding and inclusion. We were told to empathize rather than indict, and so I struggle to understand how some fanatical Christians or those of other over zealous sects can be so self righteous as to presume that they are speaking and acting for God.

Of course religion or lack of it is a very personal thing. I would be loathe to foist my own faith on someone else. Still I would be remiss to simply leave my friend and others who are abused and misjudged to endure the taunts of groups like Westboro Baptist Church without defense from those of us who disagree with hateful preaching. Sometimes we have to speak up when the actions of others are so egregious.

Yes, it is a free country. Yes, the folks from Westboro Baptist Church have a right to their freedoms of religion and speech. I will not ever deny them those things. What I will do is shout from the rooftops that God is not about any form of hate and never will be. I will embrace my friend who is in fact a good and godly woman. I am certain that she is loved by our Lord, and I want her to know that those of us who have been lucky enough to join her in our collective journey through this life will always be by her side.

It’s All Good

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Newsslett_COP2If ever there was someone who had every right to complain about the cards that life dealt her it would have been my mom. At thirty she was a happily married woman with three children who were the center of her universe. Overnight her entire world changed. She woke up to a shocking phone call informing her that her husband of eleven years had died in a car accident. She had little money in the bank, no car, no job and was so consumed with grief that she struggled just to wake up and face each day. From somewhere deep inside her soul she found the grit that she needed to move forward, coping with the challenging lifestyle of a single parent with so much aplomb that she managed to earn a college degree and become a highly respected figure in the community.

It would have been fine if her story had ended on such a high note but it was not to be her destiny to lead an uncomplicated life. Instead she was eventually afflicted with the debilitating symptoms of bipolar disorder and that illness would stalk her for the remainder of her life. She would struggle to keep her health and to balance her checkbook. From the outside looking in, hers appeared to be a dreary battle just to stay afloat in a sea of health and financial troubles. The cycle of debilitating challenges might have defeated most ordinary people, but my mom was not so inclined. In fact, I can’t think of a single time when she became so low that she was willing to just give up. In fact, even in her darkest states of depression she cried not for herself but for the pain that she saw others enduring. In regard to her own situation she remained ever optimistic, convinced that she was a special child of God and that He would provide for her.

I was often angry that my mother seemed to be the target of the fates. It bothered me that her very existence was so difficult. I raged over the facts of her life and its unfairness. Oddly she would smile and console me, assuring me that she was quite content. She would recount her blessings, which seemed so meager to me, as though she had been the recipient of great wealth. It took so little to make her happy, and everyone who ever knew her was infected by her laughter and almost childlike generosity. I never quite understood how she was able to maintain such a positive outlook on life given the relentless pounding that she received. Her faith that all was exactly as it was supposed to be was unending.

I was watching a bit of Joel Osteen’s weekly sermon at Lakewood Church a few weekends ago entitled, “It’s All Good.” He spoke of the premise that it is only when we are able to see the totality of our lives that we begin to realize that there is a beautiful plan for each of us that makes perfect sense. When we are focused only on a particular moment we may be unable to understand the reasons for the events that have happened. We instead harbor anger about those instances when the trajectory of our existence appears to be rushing downward. We forget the good times and somehow feel as though we will never again be able to see the light of our lives. We become discouraged, sometimes even shouting at God about our discontent. We don’t notice what we have, only what we lack. He argued that if we were able to step back just a bit we might see that in truth “it’s all good.”

I find the idea of every situation being part of an “all good’ totality to be a somewhat simplistic idea that I personally struggle to embrace, but I know for a fact that it defines the way my mother chose to live. She did not believe it was up to her to question the events that conspired to bring her down. Instead she always accepted her realities and then dealt with them as best she could, confident that her God was always right behind her, ready to catch her if she started to fall. Again and again she rallied against forces that might have defeated most of us. I can’t help but believe that her willingness to trust in God without reservation was the main reason that hers was ultimately an extraordinary life. She had somehow taken to heart the idea that “it’s all good.”

I am not as faithful in my religious fervor as she was. I am as doubting as Thomas the apostle. I see the pain of the world and seriously wonder why a higher power would allow it to even exist. It seems a bit ludicrous to suggest that we should all strive to find the good even in our darkest moments, and yet I have seen the power of such willingness to surrender in the saintly glow of my mother’s eyes as she was drawing her last breaths. It is a vision that haunts my thoughts because it tells me that she somehow found the very secret of how to live well that we all seek.

It doesn’t stop with my mother. I saw it in my mother-in-law as well. I have found it in some of my former students like Danny, Jezael, Shaun and Martin. Such people possess an intangible aura of positivity that literally radiates from their very beings. They approach the world not with worries about themselves but continual concern for others. They have found the golden ring that allows them to seize each day with a sense that when all is said and done “it’s all good.”

I have to admit that I would so love to become like them. Most of us really do fight battles with ourselves that cannot be won. We lose sight of the endgame and get caught up in the babble and strife of daily living. We forget to be truly thankful for whatever we have, even if it is only the fact that we woke up for one more day.

Perhaps those who face the greatest challenges life are better able to appreciate the small moments of beauty. My mother-in-law had a heart condition that was supposed to shorten her life by decades. She felt an imperative to pack as much into every single minute as possible, and so she did. She did not have time to become mired in the pettiness that so often distracts us. Like my mother she saw her troubles as a gift that allowed her to see her destiny and purpose more clearly. She drew every single breath with profound appreciation.

Life is filled with both wonder and ugliness. How we choose to deal with each aspect is up to us. Perhaps we can learn from those who emerge again and again from the ashes with unwavering hope. I suspect that they have somehow learned that when all is said and done “it’s all good.”

Our Unique Selves

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

the-danger-of-uniqueness-1058x426People are fascinating to me, and I don’t just mean the rich, the famous or the accomplished. I am interested in the common everyday person like myself. I long to hear people’s stories. When I go to Walmart I’m not looking for crazies so that I might laugh. Instead I find myself wondering how each person got to this moment in time and what his/her past and future may be. I understand that some of the most compelling histories are found in the lives of the most ordinary people and that it is virtually impossible to judge a book by its cover.

I knew a woman who cleaned houses for a living. She rarely wore anything other than torn jeans and stained t-shirts. Her hair was long and stringy. She appeared to be little more than a good ole Pasadena gal, but upon further research I learned that she had an MBA from Harvard and a very successful business caring for homes in River Oaks.

I once had a student who appeared to be little more than an arrogant bad boy who drove his teachers to the brink of insanity. He befriended me and ultimately told me stories that made me cry when I was alone in my home. He had a single mom who struggled to keep the family from being homeless and wandering the streets. Life was as tough as it gets, and yet this young man found the time to attend church with a friend. The services provided him with solace in a world that was mostly cruel to him. He had been born again and wanted more than anything to be a good and Christlike person. He confessed to me about something that was bearing down on his conscience and desperately wanted to know what to do.

He and his mom and sister had been on the verge of being evicted. There was no food in the house. Things looked quite grim. They walked to a nearby Walmart to see what groceries they might afford with the few dollars that his mother had left. While they were perusing the aisles the boy’s mom noticed a cart with an expensive purse sitting in the child seat. The woman who owned the handbag was far away with her back turned as she searched for a particular product. Her bulging wallet was visible and just begging to be taken. My student’s parent grabbed the billfold and whispered for her children to follow her quickly away from the scene. When the coast was clear she opened the wallet to find over five hundred dollars inside. She immediately cried tears of joy and told her children that they would be able to keep their apartment and eat well on that day.

My student, her son, was conflicted. He knew his mother to be a good and honest woman but she was desperate. He also realized from his recent religious conversion that what his mom was doing was very wrong, and yet he remained guiltily silent. The theft bore down on his mind and he was not sure what he should do. His dilemma easily explained his surly behavior and the fact that he was unable to focus on his school work. It would have been easy to simply write him off, but in hearing his story I understood the depth of his morality and the pain that worrying about his mom had wrought.

People are always so much more than they seem, but we don’t often hear their entire stories. That is where my most passionate interest lies. I truly enjoy discovering the essence of the people that I meet and I suppose that I have always been that way. My mother used to chide me for staring at strangers. I certainly meant nothing by doing that. I simply wanted to know them better. I liked to read faces and body language. I desired to know why someone was angry for no apparent reason. I realized that we are who we are because of a totality of experiences.

I think that it would be quite wonderful just to sit across from someone and say, “Tell me all about your life. I want to know what it has been like for you.” I suspect that if I were to do so I would find out that almost everyone begins with similar hopes and dreams, but the serpentine nature of reality often sends him/her along routes that challenge and sometimes even defeat. Those people who seem ridiculously strange are more often than not just victims of situations over which they have lost control.

Fighting one’s way out of poverty or abusive situations is much more difficult than it may appear. The sad truth is that we are not all equal in terms of intelligence. I have encountered so many individuals with major learning disabilities who struggle mightily to learn. Others are afflicted with mental illnesses that stalk them so often that they are unable to create routines for working and achieving success. Then there are those with major health problems. The list of reasons why some people remain in a state of economic or psychological distress are quite real and often not of the individual’s making. As a society it is up to those of us fortunate enough to lead relatively stable lives to help those who are less able but we don’t always do that. We instead look the other way or poke fun at those who are different.

I’ve also known people who are far more remarkable than they are willing to let on. They tend to be quite humble individuals who rarely toot their own horns. Sometimes it is only when they have died that we really begin to know them through the eyes of the people whose lives they impacted. As stories of their generosity, contributions and talents are shared we realize that a saint or a rock star was hiding in plain site, but we had no idea because they would never have sought recognition for their incredible deeds. My cousin who passed away just before Thanksgiving was one of those souls. All of us were stunned to hear of the innumerable kindnesses to one person after another that he displayed all very quietly. We knew he was a good man, but never quite realized the extent of his largess.

Most people have a hobby of some sort, but mine is learning about others. I would love nothing better than to make appointments everyday to just listen to the folks with whom I have been acquainted and those that I have yet to meet. I can only imagine how many wonderful things I would learn. This world really turns from day to day not so much from the movers and shakers but from the millions of nameless individuals who rise with the sun and do their best to make the most of the cards that have been dealt them. It is in their stories that we find profound truth and maybe even inspiration. We need to hear from them because each person is a beautiful and unique gift to our world who deserves to be celebrated and understood.

This Day

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

_80896621_159150619We’ve all played the parlor games that go something like this,”What if you were able to go back in time? Where would you go? Whom would you want to see?” Aside from the fact that at least for now it’s impossible to travel back into history, it’s fun to imagine sitting across from a host of interesting characters. It’s often difficult to narrow down the possible choices and to decide what to say when you get there. Do you just take in the times as they were, or do you warn individuals of events that are yet to come? Would it be proper to tell Abraham Lincoln not to go the theater on the night of his assassination? Of course even the smallest hint about the future would have the potential of changing everything, so there would be a certain danger in revealing all that we know. Still, the possibilities are so tempting, making it even more difficult to choose where to go and whom to visit.

On a personal level there is a temptation to go find a favorite loved one or some long lost and mysterious relatives, but then the very idea of being present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence or hearing Jesus give the sermon on the mount is breathtaking. Being an eye witness to history has a dramatic appeal as does actually speaking with heroes from the past. It’s a challenge to choose just one time, place or individual.

I saw a program on PBS in which Stephen Hawking explained that theoretically it might be possible to go back in time, but the real problem lies in getting back home. He explained that the laws of physics appear to preclude advancing into the future, so anyone who went backward in time would find themselves stuck in a cosmic wrinkle. I can’t pretend that I understood a word that he said in describing this phenomenon, but it tells me that we probably won’t have too many takers even if we ever do find a way to travel into the past. Who would be willing to be stuck in a foreign environment until death?

I used to have a very strange theory that Jesus came from an advanced civilization far in the future that is so nearly perfect that it is akin to heaven. Knowing what we would do to ourselves as humans He agreed to go back in time to teach us how we should live. Of course He had no way of returning from whence He had come, so He had to stay here on earth being ultimately tortured and put to death. My theory falls apart upon His death because He rose from leaving an empty tomb. Maybe somebody had finally found a way to get back home by the time of His existence in a world far away in time and place. (My apologies to those who might find my curious thoughts to be a form of blasphemy. I just like to dabble in unusual thinking from time to time. I actually do believe in God but I have always felt that we have never completely figured Him out. Thus I propose strange ideas now and again.)

We humans are so fascinated by the past, but I truly wonder how many of us would be able to survive in days gone by. We tend to fantasize about what things were like, forgetting how difficult daily living was little more than a hundred years ago and all the way back to the beginning of time. Walking with Jesus would be hot and dusty and devoid of any of the conveniences that we take for granted. The dangers that our Founding Fathers faced from being tried and found guilty of treason might overwhelm us. Our romantic visions of ancient Greece would become dashed with the realities of lives quite different and far more brutal from those of our imaginations. I suspect that the truth is that there is no turning back once we have moved forward. I doubt that most of us would even want to retreat to a time as recently as the nineteen fifties.

Our longing for the good old days is most often misplaced. Our advances since bygone days are so spectacular that we would be misfits even in a culture that many of us actually experienced. In the fifties, for example, we’d be looking for our cell phones and wondering why our televisions only had three channels, all in black and white. We would be stunned by overt racism and segregation. We would witness people dying from illnesses for which there are now cures. All in all I suspect that we would be more than ready to return to the present.

I don’t suppose that time travel will ever become a reality and I’m rather certain that it wouldn’t be a good thing even if we somehow found the capability. As humans we slowly but surely evolve and progress. Nothing ever stays exactly the same and that is a good thing. We sometimes feel the rush of change happening too quickly for our taste and the sting of regret creates a desire for second changes, but all in all we are better off looking to the future than clinging to the past. It’s a beautiful thing to know that on the whole we have a tendency to get better and better as time goes by. 

We can learn from our history but there is little need to relive it. Instead our goal should be to make the most of our here and now. It is in how we handle today that our tomorrows may be brighter. Carpe diem is one of the best piece of wisdom by which we may lead our lives. The past may be fascinating but this day is where we become whatever we were meant to be.