core convictions

I was recently asked what my core convictions are. This is what I wrote:

"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty." Douglas Adams

Truth is just as often found in comedy as in drama. Douglas Adams was a humor/science-fiction writer whose words were surprisingly perceptive. Doubt and uncertainty are theological experiences which the modern church and our American society do not value. Yet doubt is what pushes theologians to write, scientists to explore, artists to create. Doubt is a part of everything we do and are. Edward Norton's character Father Brian Finn in the movie Keeping the Faith is a Catholic priest who begins to doubt his call to celibacy. He talks with an older priest mentor Father Havel about his feeling that the call to priesthood should be clearer and more exciting. Father Havel tells Brian that the overblown language of call in seminary is there to help seminarians get through, but real call is about choosing to live a different kind of life each day. It's hard and it's every day.

Doubt and uncertainty are not the end of the story. We are a people of incarnation and resurrection. I once heard the following which strikes me as one of the messages Jesus was trying to get across to us: "everything will be okay in the end--if it's not okay, it's not the end."

from Exotic Florida

Greetings, readers! (I realize, there may be fewer than the hundreds or thousands of readers that I once hoped. Are there, perhaps, dozens?)

I'm writing from sunny Oveido, Florida, home of man-eating alligators and mosquitoes that could take your arm off. Really, it's happened already this week.

This is a great conference--we're doing a lot of in-depth conversation about physical health (including stress and priorities), spiritual health (including Sabbath), and financial health (how do you spend your money, what the heck are all those retirement options?). Are you asleep yet? It's actually really cool. What makes it cool, I think, is that I am surrounded by 30 other priests under 40. That doesn't mean we're all the same--far from it. But we have a similar perspective on things. We're going bowling tonight, which is not hugely popular among our set as we all want to go dancing or to Gatorland, but we'll take it. It's good to get away from the scripts I feel like I have to follow at home. Thank you for letting me go.

On the road again

Leaving for CREDO tomorrow morning. Don't know my flight information. I know I had it here somewhere...