Category Archives: Catholicism

A future full of hope

By Taylor Arthur | 26 January, 2013 - 8:10 am | ,
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“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13

I have been sitting on this post for a while. I tend to be very hesitant to talk about politics in any arena other than my immediate family and close circle of friends. The problem is, morality and spirituality are a lot more subjective than they used to be! Catholics are split on everything from gay marriage to the priority of social justice issues. Many now prioritize the right to life behind the right to racial equality and the right to marriage. To stand up in a room full of Catholics and identify myself as a social and fiscal conservative is no small thing. As strongly as I stand upon my beliefs, there are 100 parishioners that stand opposed to me in the name of Jesus, and in the name of Mercy. We sit in the same pews and listen to the same scriptures and homilies. And yet, we are diametrically opposed on so many fronts. What frightens me the most about this is that the Church will split even more if I speak up: that I will cause others to feel uncomfortable, or that the resulting conflicts may fracture our body even further.

However, I sincerely believe that we Christians need to discuss issues in the public spectrum calmly, kindly, and with as much wisdom as we can pray God can give us. For me, being conservative and being a Christian are so closely linked because one begets the other! What I try desperately to practice as a Christian every day determines how I cast my vote, spend my money, and direct my energy. I take to heart and practice (to the best to my ability, and I could always do much better!) loving my neighbor as myself. I believe in mercy, in second chances, in shouldering the burdens of the oppressed, the widowed, and the orphans. But I also concur with Beth Moore that “mercy morphs into depression when we take God’s responsibility instead of our possibility” (Moore, Beth. James: Mercy Triumphs (Nashville, Tennessee: Life Way Press, 2012), 127.

I think we conservatives have been operating from the assumption that there were more people out there than we knew of, sharing the same values and living the same lives. But, I am starting to come to terms with the fact that that may not be the case any more. And, to me, that is sad. And, it’s lonely . . . even at Church, because I never know what I can say and what I can’t say without “offending” someone. But I think that’s part of the problem, and I am holding myself accountable right here and now. Maybe we conservatives need to make a better case for our side, and stop being so politically correct.

Maybe we need to start talking about all of those babies (up to 24 weeks in Washington state, even though you are required to make arrangements for burial or cremation after 20 weeks if they are stillborn!) who never get a chance to vote. Maybe it’s time we need to talk about who is paying to keep the lights on and the pews warm in our churches (tithers, maybe?). Maybe it’s time we talk about the charities we run and support, the private Christian and Catholic schools we teach in and believe in and volunteer in. Maybe it’s time to talk about what we’re teaching our children at our dinner tables: that they are responsible for not only themselves, but also those around them, that it is THEIR responsibility to look for the give, to find the slack, and give from their OWN plates. Maybe we need to make sure our children know that no government can provide what a Church can, no matter how enticing the handouts may be. Maybe we need to set our sights on raising people who will affect change in the world, instead of waiting in line to be spoon-fed. Either way, we must raise tough human beings with God in their hearts. I think, then, we may be able to survive and thrive in minority status. The Bible contains multiple examples (with instructions!) of people who did just that.

I had not read Jeremiah 29 in a while (if you get a chance, read the verses 1-14). Of course, verses 11-13 are some of my most favorite. But, I had forgotten that they are a part of a larger letter Jeremiah sent to the Israelite captives in Babylon. In this letter, the Lord urges the captives to settle into their new homes, marry, increase in numbers. I found it interesting in verse 7: “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” God is instructing his people to flourish in captivity! This is definitely a different approach than trying to find a new country to emigrate to (where would we go, anyways?!).

How these Jews must have felt when they heard this message! No sackcloth and ashes, no protesting? God wants us to flourish in captivity? I couldn’t help but reflect upon the movie “Defiance,” about three brothers who flee after the Germans killed their parents and two brothers in the Nowogrodek ghetto in December 1941. They didn’t just survive to protect their immediate family members. They made it a rule to help all Jews–women, children, and the elderly–who could be helped. They increased in numbers from an original group of 30 to saving nearly 1200. They not only survived, but planted crops, organized a laundromat, synagogue, court/jail, and school. The descendants of those helped now number in the tens of thousands. For more information on their remarkable story, you can visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum online at:

When we feel as though we live in a foreign land, one in which the values we have been taught to hold dear are slipping through our fingers, we will panic. I have wondered what my children’s adulthood will look like. Will they have the same options, will they have the same freedoms I have enjoyed? Will they see a future that is full of possibilities? I don’t know. But I do know that I can raise them to flourish, whether they are in captivity or hiding in the wilderness. I can raise them to believe that their hope is not in the things of this world, but in the God that carries us into captivity and then delivers us from it.

Being a Christian in the United States 2013 is hardly what our Jewish friends have endured. We are not captives in a foreign land, neither are we hiding in the wilderness to save our very lives. But, as we Christian conservatives hold our values even more tightly in the days and years ahead, let us not forget that we are responsible to maintain an identity in our communities. If we are living our values, and honestly vocalizing them in a kind and courageous manner, we can effect change for ourselves and those to come. We can call on Him and come and pray to Him, and He will hear us. He will appear when we seek Him with all of our hearts.

Full of hope,

Taylor

Longing at Advent (Christmas 2008)

By Taylor Arthur | 14 December, 2012 - 9:45 am | , , , ,
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Please read this after today’s post! This post is from four years ago . . .

I have always been mystified by Advent. The four weeks prior to Christ’s birth has stirred within me a sense of wonder and longing. The emptiness of the manger until Christmas morning always awakens the empty spaces within my own heart. I have asked God to expose my mangers, and fill them with a new birthing of the Christ within me.

Still, this Christmas, there is something more rising, hollowing me out. This Christmas is the first Christmas I feel an emptiness for more reason than the deviance in my own heart. This is the first Christmas I have felt the reality of an empty manger, left only for Christ’s love to fill.

When I opened myself to motherhood two years ago, I experienced a conversion of heart unlike anything else I had ever known before. As a child and young adult, my love for God was as real to me as my love for my parents. I couldn’t put a date or a time stamp on it; still, it was my identity.

However, being a “Christian,” a “Catholic” did not necessarily mean that I was walking with Christ, giving up all that I had known before. I was, indeed, in love with the idea of being in love with Jesus. Still, the true cost did not display itself until I had something to sacrifice.

That something was myself. My entire life, I had fashioned a future. I did the right thing, staved off sin, emerged from the ashes of despair and gave the glory to God. I was a Saul. I deserved fair treatment, deserved for my life to go a certain way. I deserved to judge, to lord above others.

And then, something happened to me: God broke through. It was a horrible experience: a tearing down and a breaking that did not seem to end. I was tested in every way. I was hurricaned within, strung up and beaten by the winds of change.

No one could tell, really. I looked the same, and my life was going well. But inside I was a torrent. Inside, I was dying to myself.

One day, it happened: I started to pray Mary’s prayer. “Let it be done unto me according to your word.” There were no if’s involved, nothing about what I would do or accomplish. It was not really about me anymore. Instead, this prayer began to fashion within me (dare I say it?) a submission to my destiny, a destiny I no longer controlled.

I was in the church with my rosary, starting to pray it. I realized that throughout all of my schooling, I still had not memorized the prayers. How will I be a good mother if I cannot even remember this? I realized this pink string of beads in my hands was useless without my prayers. I lowered my head in embarrassment, only to hear the voices of several older women in the front of the church beginning to pray: Glory be to the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit . . . Something said to me, I will teach you how to be a mother .
My head was empty that morning; I left the church with a full heart and a knowledge that the more empty-handed I was, the more malleable the clay of my soul became.

I became pregnant several months later. While I was full of joy, a cloud hung above me during my pregnancy with Caleb. I felt continually in a darkened world, with only brief interludes of peace. I struggled to maintain equilibrium, often finding no will to perform daily tasks, even the basic preparation for my child’s arrival. I was afraid of everything: not having enough, not being prepared, of leaving him alone in this world. I experienced fits of sorrow that would overtake me while I was driving in my car alone, forced to pull over because I couldn’t see through my own tears. I loved him, as if he had been my child for a hundred years. We talked daily, hourly, through the night. I felt that I had known him from some other place and time. I felt that I had been pregnant with him my entire life.

And then, he died. At my thirty-six week appointment, they could no longer find his heartbeat. I screamed and kicked; my precious Caleb was gone. I sat up from the ultrasound table in shock, and said to the doctor, “I’ve been a chaplain. Now I’m the patient”.

I laid in my parents’ bed in what I can only describe as a posture of submission. The people coming in the room to talk to me were like buzzing flies around my head. I held the phone, counting the minutes until my husband’s plane would land and he would be home with me.

I laid in bed the next night and day, laboring in silence and without physical pain, as my soul shook. I could barely string a thought, save one: Hail Mary, Full of grace! The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, be with us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen.

She was there with me, a slight hand upon my back. She ushered me into her scene of agony, and there we stood, mother and daughter, beholding the crucified Christ.

What it is to be a mother! Christ’s words “This is my body, broken for you” parallels the travails of labor and birth. I prayed in the hospital bed, this is my body, broken for you , no longer angry or entitled but privileged to be a woman, to give such a sacrifice, to love past temporality. All that I am is offered up in this prayer: let it be done. Let me break, crack, swell, and moan if it is your will. I am nothing but for your grace indwelled. I cannot even reach for you without your offering of strength .

It has been a hard road since that holy night my son was born, silently and sweetly. We held him in our arms, knowing the nursery at home would never welcome him. My arms that had ached so long to hold him could not squeeze or feel enough to sustain me after I finally let him go.

I wondered at Mary’s arms, aching for Jesus as he lay dying on the cross. I wondered, even still, at the empty hollow He left within her as He ascended into heaven.

My empty manger this Christmas is not one I have to fashion for show. It is a real, hollowed room that is waiting, waiting . . .

The child growing within me will fill that room someday. But, there will always be an empty manger in my heart: a brokenness that cannot be filled but by the birthing of Christ’s eternal promise. I must ask for His renewal constantly; His power graces me with the will to ask.

Longing assumes new form when one stares at a manger and realizes that it is the picture of one’s own heart.