Theosis…

November 16, 2012November 16, 2012 ~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 1 Comment

I said, “You are gods,

And all of you are children of the Most High.” (Psalm 82:6)

This is a verse that most Protestants do not underline in their Bibles. What on earth does it mean—“you are gods”? Doesn’t our faith teach that there is only one God, in three Persons? How can human beings be gods?

In the Orthodox Church, this concept is neither new nor startling. It even has a name: theosis. Theosis is the understanding that human beings can have real union with God, and so become like God to such a degree that we participate in the divine nature. Also referred to as deification, divinization, or illumination, it is a concept derived from the New Testament regarding the goal of our relationship with the Triune God. (Theosis and deification may be used interchangeably. We will avoid the term divinization, since it could be misread for divination, which is another thing altogether!)

Many Protestants, and even some Roman Catholics, might find the Orthodox concept of theosis unnerving. Especially when they read a quote such as this one from St. Athanasius: “God became man so that men might become gods,” they immediately fear an influence of Eastern mysticism from Hinduism or pantheism.

But such an influence could not be further from the Orthodox understanding. The human person does not merge with some sort of impersonal divine force, losing individual identity or consciousness. Intrinsic divinity is never ascribed to humankind or any part of the creation, and no created thing is confused with the being of God. Most certainly, humans are not accorded ontological equality with God, nor are they considered to merge or co-mingle with the being of God as He is in His essence.

In fact, to safeguard against any sort of misunderstanding of this kind, Orthodox theologians have been careful to distinguish between God’s essence and His energies. God is incomprehensible in His essence. But God, who is love, allows us to know Him through His divine energies, those actions whereby He reveals Himself to us in creation, providence, and redemption. It is through the divine energies, therefore, that we achieve union with God.

We become united with God by grace in the Person of Christ, who is God come in the flesh. The means of becoming “like God” is through perfection in holiness, the continuous process of acquiring the Holy Spirit by grace through ascetic devotion. Some Protestants might refer to this process as sanctification. Another term for it, perhaps more familiar to Western Christians, would be mortification—putting sin to death within ourselves.

In fact, deification is very akin to the Wesleyan understanding of holiness or perfection, with the added element of our mystical union with God in Christ as both the means and the motive for attaining perfection. Fr. David Hester, in his booklet, The Jesus Prayer, identifies theosis as “the gradual process by which a person is renewed and unified so completely with God that he becomes by grace what God is by nature.” Another way of stating it is “sharing in the divine nature through grace.”

St. Maximos the Confessor, as Fr. Hester notes, defined theosis as “total participation in Jesus Christ.” Careful to maintain the ontological safeguard noted above, St. Maximos further stated, “All that God is, except for an identity in being, one becomes when one is deified by grace.”

C. S. Lewis understood this concept and expressed it compellingly in Mere Christianity:

The command “Be ye perfect” is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to Him perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what he said. (Macmillan, 1952, p. 174)

With the Incarnation, God has assumed and glorified our flesh and has consecrated and sanctified our humanity. He has also given us the Holy Spirit. As we acquire more of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives, we become more like Christ, and we have the opportunity of being granted, in this life, illumination or glorification. When we speak of acquiring more of the Holy Spirit, it is in the sense of appropriating to a greater degree what has actually been given to us already by God. We acquire more of what we are more able to receive. God the Holy Spirit remains ever constant.

Theosis in the New Testament

Many passages in the New Testament speak to the Orthodox understanding of deification/theosis. First is 2 Peter 1:3–4, which states that God’s “divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” through the knowledge of God, who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these things, He has given us His great promises so that we “may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

This verse clearly and unequivocally states that we can become partakers of the divine nature. How so? Through God’s divine power at work in us, we gain life and godliness and are given His promises so that we can escape from corruption. There is God’s action in and upon us, and there is response and corresponding effort on our part.

This brings to mind Philippians 2:12–13, where St. Paul tells us to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling,” for it is God who is at work in us “both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Thus we get a clear picture here of the process by which we are renewed and unified so completely with God that we become by grace what God is by nature. God works in us, and we cooperate with His grace.

Another passage of note is John 10:34–36. In a dispute with the Pharisees, Jesus refers to the verse quoted above, Psalm 82:6, where human beings are referred to as “gods.” The Jewish leaders accuse Jesus of blasphemy and are ready to stone Him for equating Himself with the Father (vv. 22–33). Jesus replies, “ Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods” ’? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),” then why do they label as blasphemy Jesus calling Himself God’s Son? Jesus is truly God’s Son, and we are gods because we share in His sonship.

Consider Acts 17:28–29, where St. Paul approvingly quotes the Greek poets, who state that we are God’s “offspring.” Paul concludes that since we are “the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature” is like some lifeless object.

Throughout Paul’s epistles, we find many descriptive passages referring to the same concepts that we have been considering: union with God, sharing in the divine nature through grace, and total participation in Jesus Christ—the biblical concept of theosis/deification. In Ephesians 1, Paul states that we have been given “every spiritual blessing” (v. 3) so that we should be “holy and without blame” (v. 4); we are His “sons” (v. 5). He made “the riches of His grace . . . to abound toward us” (vv. 6–7). We are given wisdom and insight into the “mystery of His will” (v. 9), which is to “gather together in one all things in Christ” (v. 10).

Furthermore, we are “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (v. 13), the “guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (v. 14). We are recipients of “wisdom and revelation” (v. 17), having “the eyes of [our] understanding . . . enlightened” (v. 18); knowing the “exceeding greatness of His power toward us” (v. 19). We are the “body” of Him who is the head and “the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (v. 23).

These are descriptions of sonship, of human beings as children of God with full pedigree and inheritance rights. We are brought into God’s intimate inner circle to know the mystery of His will, being given wisdom and enlightenment. We have grace lavished upon us and are His body, His fullness. The whole purpose of God’s mystery is that all things will be united in Christ and that He will be all in all. Does this not describe partaking of the divine nature, becoming by grace what God is by nature?

Certainly there is much more being described here than “growing in faith and good works,” progressing in sanctification or mortifying sin. Those are indeed excellent enterprises, but not ends in themselves. They are means employed toward a greater end. St. Paul is outlining this compelling, inspiring description of our identity in Christ, indeed showing us what total participation in Christ actually is. Ephesians 1 is a description of theosis.

In other verses in Ephesians, St. Paul continues: we are to “be filled with all the fullness of God” (3:19) and to attain to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (4:13). We are to “grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (4:15). Again, this describes the process of being deified by grace, acquiring the fullness of Christ.

In Romans 6, Paul gives us a wonderful picture of deification. Through baptism we “walk in newness of life” (v. 4). We are not to let sin “reign in [our] mortal bod[ies]” (v. 12), but are to “present [ourselves] to God” (v. 13) so that sin will “not have dominion over” us (v. 14). Our members are to be yielded to “righteousness for holiness” (v. 19). Therefore we have “been set free from sin, and hav[e] become slaves of God” (v. 22). Our hope is to share in “the glory of God” (5:2). Even the very creation “eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (8:19).

Continuing in chapter 8, we are indeed called “sons of God” (v. 14) who have received a “Spirit of adoption,” crying (as Jesus did) “Abba, Father” (v. 15). The Spirit bears witness “with our spirit”—union—that we are “children of God” (v. 16). We are children, “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ . . . that we may also be glorified together” (v. 17). Verse 17 also stipulates, “if indeed we suffer with Him.” We will come back to that in relation to the experience of the saints who have attained deification.

In verse 29, St. Paul writes that we are destined to be “conformed to the image of His Son.” Furthermore, those He “justified, these He also glorified” (v. 30). Note that he did not say God will glorify them only after they die, at the final resurrection. This glorifying can be a present reality. Verse 32 says that God will “with Him also freely give us all things.”

Does this not get you just a little bit excited? Does it not describe something more than “being saved” or “going to heaven when I die”? Is your heart racing just a little? If so, you are starting to grasp theosis. It is an understanding of our purpose as believers that is not just Orthodox, it is thoroughly biblical.

Before we briefly note some other New Testament passages, let’s consider an additional way to understand deification from the Book of Genesis. There we learn that we are created in God’s image. Through sin, that image has been greatly broken and damaged, but through redemption in Christ it is renewed “according to the image of Him who created” it, as Paul notes in Colossians 3:10. Add all these other motifs—sonship, being fellow heirs, union, being made like Christ, partaking of the divine nature—and we see that these describe the divine image, broken and marred (but not altogether lost) through Adam’s fall, being remade in us through Christ’s redeeming work, so that we become like God. Thus in Genesis we are created in God’s image; through Christ we are given the opportunity to acquire God’s likeness. In Ephesians 4:23–24 this very idea is reinforced: “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” and “put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” And in 5:1 we are enjoined to be “imitators of God.”

A number of other New Testament passages describe theosis:

Romans 12:1–2: We are to present our bodies as a “living sacrifice,” doing so as part of our spiritual worship. And we are to “be transformed” by the renewing of our minds into the likeness of God.

1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:17: We are reminded that we are God’s “temple” and that “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him”—union with God.

Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

Philippians 1:21: “For me, to live is Christ.”

Colossians 3:3: We have “died” and our lives are “hidden with Christ in God”—total participation in Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:23: May God “sanctify you completely”—complete conformity to the image and likeness of God.

2 Thessalonians 2:14: We were called by God “for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 John 4:17: “Because as He is, so are we in this world”—the possibility of deification, total participation in Christ this side of eternity.

John 17:22: In His high priestly prayer, Jesus says that He has given us the glory that the Father gave Him.

Revelation 21:7: At the beginning of the eschaton, Christ says of each of us, “I will be his God and he shall be My son.”

1 John 3:2: “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

Philippians 3:21: Christ will “transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body.”

These passages promise to all Christians an ending “like Christ” at the consummation of history. Since that is our end—actually a new beginning, for which we were created and redeemed—we are urged throughout the New Testament to obtain more and more of that reality in this life, as a “dress rehearsal” for the life to come. In short, this is what theosis/deification is: the possibility that we can acquire in this life that state that we will have as resurrected, glorified persons in the presence of God in eternity.

Finally, we must consider our Lord’s transfiguration on Mt. Tabor (Matt. 17:1ff; Mark 9:2ff). One of the twelve major feasts of the Orthodox Church, it provides great insight for our understanding of theosis. Jesus went up the mountain with Peter, James, and John and was transformed before their eyes. He appeared to them in His glorified humanity and was illumined with the light of divinity. Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, appeared with Christ as He was enveloped by the glory cloud, the presence of the Holy Spirit. As at His baptism, the Father spoke, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” (Matthew 17:5).

Here we have the whole Bible summed up in this one event. The Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets, point to Christ, the eternal Son come in the flesh. He appears with the Holy Spirit and the Father—the Trinity. Through His Incarnation He is joined to our humanity and glorifies it in Himself, uniting us to God, fulfilling the purpose of our creation in Genesis. We are to listen to Him because He is God’s ultimate revelation of Himself to us (cf. Hebrews 1:1; John 1:14). Furthermore, this event occurred to prepare the disciples for Christ’s crucifixion, which would deliver our fallen humanity from sin and death and raise us up with Him in His resurrection.

Thus we may be glorified together with Him. We are joined to Christ in His glorified, deified humanity and so are united to God. Through this union we are made partakers of the divine nature. Through grace we can become what He is.

Theosis in the Writings of the Fathers

We began with a somewhat startling quote by St. Athanasius: “God became man so that men might become gods.” Keep in mind that this is the same Athanasius who championed the orthodox (in its common sense of correct) understanding of the full divinity of Christ in opposition to the Arian heresy. Numerous other early Church Fathers made similar statements.

Gregory of Nazianzus, another great champion of correct views about the Trinity and Christ’s divinity, stated: “Man has been ordered to become God.” His close friend, Basil the Great, said, “From the Holy Spirit is the likeness of God, and the highest thing to be desired, to become God.”

Origen noted that the spirit “is deified by that which it contemplates.” And Cyril of Alexandria commented that we are all called to take part in divinity, becoming the likeness of Christ and the image of the Father by “participation.” Irenaeus noted, “If the Word is made man, it is that man might become gods.” Finally, John of Damascus taught that Christ’s redemptive work enables the image of God to be restored in us so that we become “partakers of divinity.”

These are not just Eastern Church Fathers being quoted. Most, if not all, are recognized by East and West. Theosis is a truly catholic understanding of the goal of our relationship with God in Christ.

Theosis in the Lives of the Saints

Finally, countless saints throughout history have demonstrated the possibility of deification as a reality in their lives. They attained deification only after intense suffering. Their sufferings came through persecution and martyrdom, intense ascetic discipline and countless nightly prayer vigils wrestling with evil spirits to obtain victory in the spiritual life. Through suffering such blessed victory was won.

Two stories of two saints show the effects of theosis on the body. Some may wish to discount these accounts as “hero worship” or “mythology” or “hagiographic exaggeration.” I prefer to offer them as inspiration to strive toward theosis in each of our lives.

St. Seraphim of Sarov, a Russian monk of the nineteenth century, went into the forest with his disciple, Motovilov, during a snowstorm. While praying, St. Seraphim became iridescent in appearance, to the point of emitting what was for Motovilov an almost blinding light. Accompanying this glow was a warmth in the midst of the Russian winter snow, along with a beautiful fragrance and unspeakable joy and peace. St. Seraphim attributed this blessed state to his having acquired the Holy Spirit, or deification.

Abba Joseph, a desert father, was approached by Abba Lot, who informed him that he had kept his rule of prayer, fasted, purified his thoughts, and lived peaceably—what more could he do? Abba Joseph held out his hands toward heaven, fingers extended, and said, “You can become fire.” Each fingertip blazed like a candle. Abba Joseph’s point was that the younger monk could be set ablaze by the Holy Spirit.

May we all be set ablaze by the Spirit, the “Heavenly King, the Comforter . . . Treasury of blessings and Giver of life”—as the Orthodox prayer addresses Him. And through that same Holy Spirit, may we come into union with God and experience “total participation in Jesus Christ.” May our lives be “unified so completely with God” that we become “by grace what God is by nature,” so that we share in “the divine nature through grace.” So much so that we become not just Christ-like, but the likeness of Christ.

On the Morning After…

November 7, 2012 ~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

the winners will celebrate, the losers will evaluate, and the problems will remain the same. We’re in debt more than our entire economy can pay and spiritually living off the fumes of a morality we’ve decided to jettison. The bill collector is here and we’re stuck fumbling around our pockets trying to find something besides lint.

You’d think that someone would be seeing all of this and saying “This is nuts, we can’t live like this.” Yet the word on the street is still “There’s more of everything and less of whatever you feel might restrict your inhibitions.” Just one step farther, Just one more denial of reality. A little more bending of the natural order should do the trick. Walk towards the deep end and just hope that somehow, something, technology, the economy, a new discovery, will help us grow the legs we need to keep from drowning.

It won’t work, of course and it doesn’t make a difference who proposed what. Over the flow of human history the natural order of things cannot be denied any more than building cities along the ocean can prevent storms. Something will have to give and deep down inside we know its true even as we do our best to pretend its not really happening.

There is, however, a way but its not a political, economic, or social way out of all of this mess. We have to be transformed, each of us, from the inside out by something larger than ourselves because politics, economics, and social tinkering are just too small to do the job the way it needs to be done. There is simply no god less than God who can make this happen.

Of course this path, this way provides no money for people building the useless junk they say we need to be happy, It also provides few followers for the peddlers of utopian politics. So the larger world, so invested in its delusion will will fight back, hard. It’s difficult too because we’ve all been so bent out of shape by all of this that getting back even to some semblance of right will take much effort.

Yet it can be done. .

Come unto me all you who are burdened and heavy laden, Jesus says, and I will give you rest. That, according to Jesus, is where the real fix starts, the real change begins, and the substance of what you were looking for emerges.

Find this and you’ll leave the morning after for the morning that never ends.

Wisdom…

November 6, 2012 ~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

The one thing needful
(From the spiritual diary of St. John of Kronstadt, “My Life in Christ”)

What do I need? There is nothing on earth that I need, except that which is most essential. What do I need, what is most essential? I need the Lord, I need His grace, His kingdom within me. On earth, which is the place of my wanderings, my temporary being, there is nothing that is truly mine, everything belongs to God and is temporal, everything serves my needs temporarily. What do I need? I need true and active Christian love; I need a loving heart which takes compassion on its neighbors; I need joy over their prosperity and well-being, and sorrow over their sorrows and illnesses, their sins, failings, disorders, woes, poverty; I need warm and sincere compassion for all the circumstances of their lives, joy for those who are joyous and tears for those who are in tears. Enough of selfishness, egoism, living only for oneself and acquiring everything only for oneself: riches, pleasures, the glory of this world; enough of spiritual dying instead of living, grieving instead of rejoicing, and carrying within oneself the poison of selfishness, for selfishness is a poison that is continuously poured into our hearts by Satan. O, let me cry out with King David: Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart. Grant me, O Lord, true life, dispel the darkness of my passions, disperse their power with Thy strength, for with Thee all things are possible!

We Live in a Culture…

November 3, 2012 ~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

of anecdote, a life lived away from a larger narrative. Yet a larger narrative is a kind of stability that keeps us from faddishness, from having our lives jerked from one compelling but temporary story to another. It’s very hard to live a life of all exceptions and no rules, a life of individual moments without a larger explanation.

We live in a world of human drift because a story that feels good at a particular place in time might not have the wisdom, the strength, and the insight to last, leaving the one who lives it constantly on the move from one unsatisfying narrative to another. Left unchecked it can give birth to a world weary cynicism, a life where one believes nothing because everything else has failed to be enduring.

In this sad place there is, however, an invitation. Restless hearts can find a rest in God if they listen to their cynicism and emptiness and hear within it the call to a larger and more enduring story. Anecdotes come and go, truth remains, and Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Tonight…

October 29, 2012 ~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

we watch the TV while somewhere else the storm rages. It’s quiet here in this part of the country. No ocean, no hurricanes, no lights, camera, action. Minnesota is far away and safe from all of this, tucked at the top and the middle of everything.

Sometimes its good to live in fly over country. No, we don’t get the TV weather coverage they’ll get in New York. We can have two feet of snow and 60 mile per hour winds and the networks will give us 20 seconds tops. Yet there is a quiet here away from the coasts that pays us back for not being in the eye of whatever happens to be the current storm.

We’ll keep you in our prayers, all of you who are hunkered down in the face of the winds. We know lousy weather here in the upper Midwest and we sympathize more than you know. And when the time comes we’ll roll up our sleeves and help as we can because that’s what we do.

Yet if the bright lights and tall buildings are in New York City, and they are, there are times when its better not to be in the center of everything. Tonight is such a time. Storms come and go, but tonight everything is quiet in fly over land.

Psalm 16…

October 22, 2012 ~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Psalm 16

Keep me safe, O God,
for in you I take refuge.
I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing.”
As for the saints who are in the land,
they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight.
The sorrows of those will increase
who run after other gods.
I will not pour out their libations of blood
or take up their names on my lips.
Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,
because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Owner of a Broken Heart…

October 11, 2012 ~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 1 Comment

Back to the doctor’s office yesterday because my heart had been fluttering around for several days. EKG. Stethescopes. No emergency. Stress test next Wednesday. I think this will be the third.

Let this cup pass away from me… Yet it apparently is not to be. Genetics. Stress. Who knows but it seems my heart is from now on going to be at the center of my life. I listen to it, feel it, pray about it, and every so often I head into the doctor’s office to get in checked out. Never the less thy will be done…

The first time your heart starts whirring around your chest its terrifying. No one pays much attention to their heart. It’s just supposed to be there, silently ticking away, awake even when you sleep. Palpitations are a rude interuption to all of that. The bottom part of the heart is trying, in my case, to help out the top by pushing harder. That push means you’re alive, that the back up systems have kicked in. That’s good but it feels like the whole thing is going to explode.

Over time you get more used to it. You can just tell when everything is in sinus rhythm and when things are fluttering. The fluttering is not fatal, its just annoying, and its a sign that one day your heart, like everyone else’s, will eventually malfunction without the capacity for repair.

Obviously I don’t like that. Who would? I have a little thing inside my chest that tells me one day my systems will fail. I would like to live for years and years just out of curiousity for whatever comes next but those little bumps remind me this is not to be, for me, or for anyone else for that matter.

Perhaps God is His good grace will see fit to divinely heal that which has been broken by sin. Yet if that is not the case I have no intention of cursing God and dying in response to this setback. My life was, is, and always will be in His hands and I know that He loves me. If the worst were to happen, and I’m a long way from the worst, I hope it would be quick because I tend to ponder things too much. Yet where can I go where God’s love is not? Ultimately I will trust that God knows me in all my strengths and my brokenness and loves me.

And that’s the gift in all of this. In easy times the heart and mind can wander, drifting away from all that the important and good and from the One who is goodness Himself. We labor under the illusion of our own strength. We forget the larger and eternal things. Everything gets out of focus.

There’s nothing like being attached to a heart monitor to dramatically make everything real again, especially God. There’s no way for me to fake it, no sweet smile to make it all go away. I can see my heart beating, each flicker of light one more second of this life. I need God, not just an accessory but because I am afraid, can’t often see beyond my shoes, and I’m trying to make sense of it all. I need a place to rest that is beyond me, because”me” is the owner of a broken heart.

As the journey continues I will not give in to despair. There may be no answers to “Why me?” but I have a life wish, for this life and the next. I plan on grabbing hold of Jesus with a, pardon the pun, “death grip” and stay as close as I can until whatever breath is my last arrives. Whether I live to be old or discover that time is not on my side His life will be mine, not because I deserve it but because I have sense enough to take the Gift when it is offered.

Until that day when I am called Home I plan to live, and love, and enjoy, beacuse that, too, is God’s gift to me. After all, nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ. Let the future present itself. I am in good hands.

Dear Vikings Fans…

October 9, 2012 ~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

it’s a pretty good feeling to be sitting at 4-1 right now, especially after last season and the tough times we’ve had. Let’s enjoy it but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The NFL is designed for parity, that is a deliberate attempt to spread the wealth when it comes to wins. Not so good teams, like last year’s version of the Vikings, get easier schedules the next year. Good teams, like last year’s Packers, get harder ones. The idea, at least in theory, is that on any given Sunday or any given season the wins and losses MAY be spread around and people will keep on paying attention to a team because there is a probability of winning or staying in contention. Of course, it doesn’t always work this way, but it’s designed to have us believe that this year our team could win and that keeps the money flowing.

Yet we Vikings fans seem to run hot and cold. Win a few games and we’re off to the Super Bowl. Lose a few and we want everyone fired. I get it, we’ve come close but have never made it to the top. So we desperately want our team to win even as we brace ourselves for disappointment. There’s a better way.

Simply enjoy each game, one at a time, neither projecting success too far ahead or collapsing in despair. Have fun on Sunday, yell, be with friends, cheer the team, and have a good time. Each moment of success is a plus, and when a loss comes, and it will, don’t write off the team forever. It’s just football. If the whole thing gets out of hand why just take a good walk outside and get some fresh air.

That all being said, this season has been, so far, a nice ride and I hope it continues. There are some tough teams ahead in the schedule and the meat of the divisional play doesn’t come for a while so just hold on and enjoy the trip.

Skol, Vikings!

If I Were President…

October 4, 2012 ~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

I would give the following speech, perhaps as a resignation.

My Fellow Americans,

For years there has been an abiding and central myth in American culture and politics, the myth of unending prosperity. For decades we’ve talked about it, shouted it during every election, and used it to obtain the privileges of power we now hold. It has become our true religion, as it were, a creed for a life lived with accumulation as the marker for success and the promise that those who come after it will have even more.

Both the people in my party and the other have this in common. We may have different strategies and policies to realize this but essentially we agree that our job is to gain and hold political power on the promise that you and those after you will have more of whatever is dictated by the fashion of the time. It’s an arrangement that has served us well. We promise, you wait for the flow of godds to come your way, and if we fail the others are to blame.

And to date there have been some good things that have come of it. There is a good kind of progress that comes when diseases can be cured, the world made safer, and the common good is served. The drive to accumulate has its positive side affects. The desire for a better, which basically means more prosperous, future has broken the sound barrier, sent us to the farthest reaches of our solar system, and brought a kind of longevity to our lives that would be the marvel of centuries past.

Yet somehow in the euphoria of all of this we’ve forgotten a simple fact. There are limits. Advanced medicine can delay but not prevent death. Every source of energy has waste that we must deal with. We can’t keep spending money we don’t have and expect it not to affect our future. And finally we have to disabuse ourselves of the notion that we are entitled to never ending always ascending economic prosperity.

There are limits. As vast and rich as our planet is it is still a finite system. There is much but there are also many who need it. In the past the strong were able to survive because they took what they needed and left whatever they wished for others. This seemed to be based on the assumption that strength was as unlimited as the resources, that strength was a form of validation in and of itself.

Much of what we call the “American Dream” is rooted in this understanding. Accumulation is strength and strength is the validation of the accumulation. Yet there is a question in all of this that never seems to be asked, namely “To what end?”

Prosperity without generosity is meaningless. Accumulating for its own purpose is a kind of slavery. Accepting blessings without thought of charity is selfishness. Advancing while leaving others behind is the kettle in which war is brought to boil. We’ve missed this. We’ve missed how we’re linked together. We’ve missed how we are, in fact, our brother’s keeper. We’ve forgotten that the world is larger than our own little world.

And now to the hard part. Government can’t do a blessed thing about this because government in this country reflects the attitude of the governed. If you think government is selfish and stupid it’s because we’ve become, as a culture, selfish and stupid. If we who run for office promise you unending rewards with little cost it’s because we know that if we said something different you wouldn’t hear it. It’s like we’ve both ignored the elephant in the room and seem quite happy with the arrangement.

The change that needs to happen is actually inside each of us. We have to kick the consumer habit. We have to go cold turkey on the idea that the next big thing is what will solve our problems and make us happy. We have to forget the notion that government exists to ensure the myth of unending prosperity. We’ve got to rewrite the story on more realistic terms and wake up from the American dream.

It will be hard. We’ve lived this way for so long that its absurdity has become normal in the same way that a drug becomes the normal life of an addict. We’ll have to face hard realities. We’ll need to make choices beyond our self interest. And the government won’t be able to help you because it, too, has to wake up the the dream as well.

We’ll need a whole generation of people to say “I will live and work only so much as to provide for my reasonable comfort and commit myself to sharing the rest for the common good.” We’ll need a whole generation focused on that which is higher, brighter, enduring, and dare I say it, even eternal, over and against the needs of a moment. We’ll need a generation of people willing to remember the lessons of the past and understand that choices made now will affect a developing future. We’ll need a generation of people who see themselves as part of something larger than they are not as a result of some government mandate but because of a genuine concern for the other. We need a moral sea change.

And you, the people have to lead because we in the government simply don’t have that kind of vision at the present. We will, in time because when the people lead the leaders will follow, but right now this archaic and creaking house needs a fresh breath of wind through the windows, a new coat of paint on the fading exterior, and everything inside gutted and made new. That will take time.

Until then each of us can become the kind of person we’d like our culture to be. Each of us can choose the right even if the powers that be still struggle with it. Each of us can be the future we wish for our children. Each of us can take responsibility for ourselves and the common good.

It won’t be the American dream we’ve come to know. It’ll be better because it will be real.

Thank you and good night.

Wisdom…

September 27, 2012 ~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ 1 Comment

Category: Life