Tag: God

The power of prayer: A blueprint for realizing faith’s potential

May 5, 2015May 6, 2015by Douglas Ernst14 Comments

It is incredibly tough to get those who do not believe in prayer to understand how it works. Even those who do believe in God often pray in strange ways and then get frustrated by the results. Since prayer recently helped me regain my work-related Twitter account after it was unjustly suspended, I will try to use that story to explain how it works.

First, a recap:

After I wrote a story on Iran for work, an apologist for the regime Tweeted “I will find you and kill you … death to America.”
Twitter said it “could not determine” if that violated its terms of service. When I publicly questioned that decision, my account was suspended. Countless appeals were ignored over the course of one month.
The company’s press account ignored my emails and the emails of my co-workers.
A Washington, D.C. spokesman for Twitter ignored an inquiry by my employer.
Public pressure from countless Twitter followers and a story by WND did nothing to forward the process along.
My attempts to get certain conservative media outlets and personalities to take up my cause fell on deaf ears.
Well-connected people said they were at a loss as to how to help me. They essentially said my cause was hopeless.

During this whole ordeal I had a conversation with a friend about well-known personalities who did nothing to help me. I told my friend that it didn’t bother me because if God ultimately wanted to use them to help me, then He would. I prayed for an entire month, and last night I prayed throughout most of the night when an idea came to me: I would email Twitter’s CEO. I would make the case that he needed to intervene on my behalf. Then the words came to mind. When work started I didn’t know his email, but I took a chance on what I thought it might be — and I was right. Within 30 minutes of emailing him, my suspension was lifted and I received an apology from Twitter. A friend of mine said that what I did was something straight out of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I must admit, I did feel like the “The Sausage King of Chicago: Abe Froman.”

I nearly broke down into tears, knowing that my prayers had been answered. For someone who writes news for a living, Twitter is indispensable. Six-years worth of contacts and personalized news lists were restored.

This is just one story of many that I can tell where prayer has worked miracles in my life. If you’re interested in understanding how I pray and prepare for prayer, then here is the general blueprint:

A man’s heart must first be open to the possibility that God exists and that He and His angels hear our prayers.
We all have a lot to be grateful for, no matter what situation we find ourselves in. Prayer should take place after acknowledging those blessings. I often try to think about all the things that I am grateful for — to the point where I almost become overwhelmed with emotion.
Pray for the ability to discern God’s will and strength carry it out. If you are doing God’s will, then success is guaranteed.
Realize that what you may perceive as setbacks or failures on God’s part are never such things. If a man with night-vision was guiding you through a dark path and you occasionally slipped, would it make sense to get angry at him? How foolish would you feel if the path was suddenly illuminated and you realized that without the man’s help you would have fallen into a giant crevasse? In my story with Twitter, what would have happened if I shook my fist in anger and gave up when at least 10 different so-called media allies turned down my requests for help? Answer: I would not have come to a point where I would successfully email an insanely-busy CEO with a net worth of roughly $450 million.
Believe that the crosses that you carry are the burdens you must bear. There are very good reasons why hardship exists. With each obstacle we overcome, there are lessons to be learned. You should find a way to be grateful — even for those things in your life that cause pain or, at a cursory level, seem unwanted. Pray for the ability to understand the lessons God is trying to teach you.
Work hard. Prepare. Know your God-given talents and then hone them to perfection. Take my situation with Twitter. Imagine that I prayed, “God, if it is your will, please assist me in regaining my Twitter account,” and then sat on my butt waiting for a miracle that seemed to be denied. Now imagine me asking God why he denied my prayer and His response: “I made you a talented writer, but instead of writing to Twitter’s CEO and trusting in me, you took that talent for granted and expected some sort of dazzling light show. That was kind of a weird move on your part, don’t you think?”

I can probably add to this list, but that is a good start. I’m confident that someone who takes this advice will see amazing results over time. It is a humbling experience to see just how prayers can be perfectly answered. Often I reflect on how seamlessly some of them have been answered and cannot help but well up. A passing glimpse at perfection — true perfection — is a thing of beauty, but at the same time it can be emotionally crippling. Perhaps others have had a different experience, but my own brief tastes of infinite knowledge and infinite love can only be dwelt in for mere moments. It is a paralyzing epiphany to realize that on many levels we are comically insignificant beings, yet infinitely loved by our Creator.

If you believe in God, then I hope my prayer blueprint can be of use to you. If you do not believe in God, then hopefully I have given you some worthwhile insight into a Catholic mind that’s been around since 1979. In either case, thanks for reading and know that there’s a good chance that on random nights I am praying for you, too.

Bono channels G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis to affirm his faith in Christ

April 3, 2015April 3, 2015by Douglas Ernst4 Comments

It’s not often that a giant rock star gives an interview where he unflinchingly affirms his belief in Christ. That is exactly what U2’s Bono did during a March 2014 interview that is making the rounds again just in time for Easter. However, what is perhaps most interesting is how Bono appears to be well-versed in the writings of G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis.

Here is what Bono said in his interview with RTE One’s Gay Byrne, which comes across at times like an FBI interrogation or a courtroom cross examination:

Bono: I think it’s a defining question for Christian. Who was Christ? I don’t think you’re let off easily by saying a great thinker or great philosopher because, actually, he went around saying he was the Messiah. That’s why he was crucified. He was crucified because he said he was the Son of God. So, he either, in my view, was the Son of God — or he was nuts. Forget rock-and-roll messianic complexes. This is, like, I mean Charlie Manson-type delirium. And I find it hard to accept that all the millions and millions of lives, half the Earth, for 2,000 years have been touched, have felt their lives touched and inspired by some nutter. I don’t believe it.

Byrne: So therefore it follows that you believe he was divine?

Bono: Yes.

Byrne: And therefore it follows that you believe that he rose physically from the dead?

Bono: Yes. I have no problem with miracles. I’m living around them. I am one.

Byrne: So when you pray, then you pray to Jesus?

Bono: Yes.

Byrne: The risen Jesus?

Bono: Yes.

Byrne: And you believe he made promises that will come true.

Bono: Yes. I do.

Friendly note to Bono: Your observation is actually more awe-inspiring than you originally thought because billions — not just millions — have been touched by the words of Christ. Regardless, here is what G.K. Chesterton said when “The Everlasting Man” was published in 1925:

“If Christ was simply a human character, he really was a highly complex and contradictory human character. For he combined exactly the two things that lie at the two extremes of human variation. He was exactly what the man with a delusion never is; he was wise; he was a good judge. What he said was always unexpected; but it was always unexpectedly magnanimous and often unexpectedly moderate.

Take a thing like the point of the parable of the tares and the wheat. It has the quality that united sanity and subtlety. It has not the simplicity of a madman. It has not even the simplicity of a fanatic. It might be uttered by a philosopher a hundred years old, at the end of a century of Utopias. Nothing could be less like this quality of seeing beyond and all round obvious things, than the condition of an egomaniac with the one sensitive spot in his brain. I really do not see how these two characters could be convincingly combined, except in the astonishing way in which the creed combines them.” — G.K. Chesterton.

Here is what C.S. Lewis said when “Mere Christianity” was published in 1952:

“Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is “humble and meek” and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level of a man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” — C.S. Lewis.

Chesterton and Lewis beautifully articulate the case before us: either Christ was who he said he was, or he was insane. But, as they both keenly observe, even his biggest detractors generally regard him as a profound thinker and a beacon of light whose example we should all follow.

Think of how many great men and women there were throughout all history, whose names are forgotten within weeks, months, or at most a few decades after they’ve passed away. Then consider Jesus, who for over 2,000 years has captivated the world and changed billions of lives — even those who don’t believe his claims. Like G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, a modern Irish rock star named Bono, and billions of other individuals throughout the course of history, I firmly believe he was exactly who he claimed to be.

Francis De Sales’ ‘Introduction to the Devout Life’: 1609’s must-read still amazing in 2015

March 29, 2015March 29, 2015by Douglas Ernst5 Comments

It is a rare occurrence to read a book and come to the conclusion that the writer’s initial inspiration was perfectly realized upon its completion. Saint Francis De Sales’ “Introduction to the Devout Life” may have been published in 1609, but its stunning insight into the human condition makes it a must-read in 2015. In another 400 years, it will still be leaving readers in awe.

While De Sales wrote for a Christian audience, the blueprint for a healthy civil society he presents is one that men and women of all faiths (or no faith) would be hard-pressed to criticize. The virtues he seeks to cultivate in his readers may be motivated by a desire to instill a love of God in as many hearts as possible, but at the end of the day he is still talking about honesty, humility, patience, charity, fortitude, prudence, etc.

Even more impressive is how De Sales addresses the reader (“Philothea”) directly, yet with a delivery that feels like a kind and gentle father imparting time-tested wisdom to a child. De Sales (who must have consulted countless men and women from all walks of life) has such an exquisite grasp of humanity’s trials and tribulations that it is hard not to feel as though he already knows everything about you — yet still offers unconditional love.

De Sale somehow manages to write for the YouTube-Instagram-Facebook culture of 2015 while living in 1609:

“We apply the term vainglory to whatever we assign to ourselves, whether something that is not actually in us or something in us but not of us, or something in us and of us but not such that we can glory in it. Noble ancestry, patronage of great men, and popular honor are things that are not in us but either in our ancestors or in the esteem of other men. Some men become proud and overbearing because they ride a fine horse, wear a feather in their hat, or are dressed in a splendid suit of clothes. Is anyone blind to the folly of all this? If there is any glory in such things it belongs to the horse, the bird, and the tailor. It is a mean heart that borrows honor from a horse, a bird, a feather, or some passing fashion.

Others value and pride themselves because of a fine mustache, well-trimmed beard, carefully curled hair, soft hands, ability to dance, play cards well, or sing. Such light-minded men seek to increase their reputation by frivolous things. Others would like to be honored and respected by men because of a little learning, as if everyone should go to school to them and take them as their teachers. They are called pedants for this reason.

Other men have handsome bodies and therefore strut about and think that everybody dotes on them. All this is extremely vain, objectionable, and foolish and the glory based on such weak foundations is called vain, foolish, and frivolous.

We recognize genuine goodness as we do genuine balm. If balm sinks down and stays at the bottom when dropped into water, it is rated the best and most valuable. So also in order to know whether a man is truly wise, learned, generous, and noble, we must observe whether his abilities tend to humility, modesty, and obedience for in that case they will be truly good. If they float on the surface and seek to show themselves, they are so much less genuine in so far as they are more showy. Pearls conceived and nourished by wind or thunder claps are mere crusts, devoid of substance. So also men’s virtues and fine qualities conceived and nurtured by pride, show, and vanity have the mere appearance of good, without juice, marrow, solidity.” Francis De Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life (New York: Image, 2014), 121–122

The depth and breadth of De Sales’ understanding of humanity is a marvel to behold. If for no other reason, “Introduction to the Devout Life” shines a giant spotlight on just how far we’ve fallen as a culture. The book was written for the likes of carpenters, soldiers, sailors, and tailors — not academics — and yet the man on the street in 2015 would likely have a hard time digesting much of De Sales’ intellectual discourse.

If you have ever sat alone in your bed at night and tried to plumb the depths of your soul to root out what is rotten and realize what is wholly good, then I cannot recommend Francis De Sales’ “Introduction to the Devout Life” enough. If it is read with an open mind and seriously meditated upon, then I have no doubt that it will truly change your life for the better.

Atheists mock science-loving Catholics from afar because ego massages feel better than ego checks

December 28, 2014December 31, 2014by Douglas Ernst78 Comments

The “Atheists 10 Commandments” recently made news with the release of “Atheist Heart, Humanist Mind,” by John Figdor and Lex Bayer. Yours truly pointed out how ridiculous it is to have nine “commandments” that are all superseded by “There is no one right way to live.” As a result, a slew of atheists deemed me a “fundie.” Two of my quotes generated rounds of ego-massaging among the congregants of “Fundies say the Darndest Things.”

Sadly, the majority of people over FSTDT seem to mistake sarcasm and personal attacks for intellect:

“While there is no one right way to live, there are certainly many wrong ways, such as being an adult with imaginary friends.”

“The self-loathing of the religious zealot is the same self-loathing that drives the heroin addict to the needle and the alcoholic to the bottle. It blunts the pain, but does nothing to resolve the underlying issues that cause that pain, the feelngs [sic] of worthlessness and despair, as revealed here.”

“Yet another person who’s good only because he’s scared of God. People like that scare me.”

It’s easier to laugh and joke about “being an adult with imaginary friends” than it is to have a mature conversation on the body, mind and spirit. It is also easier to mock science-loving Catholics from afar than it is to venture from the safe confines of the digital hive. The modern atheist seems to think that science strengthens the case against God, and avoiding discussions with guys like me allows them to continue such a delusion.

Author Eric Metaxas wrote for The Wall Street Journal Dec. 25:

Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing. …

There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.

Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Men of faith look at the mind-bending odds against the possibility of life — any kind of life — in the universe, we conclude that our existence is a miracle attributable to God, and the response by online atheists is to liken us to a “self-loathing … heroin addict.” Which group is acting like an adult and which group is acting like a petulant child who is lashing out at his father?

Men of faith readily admit they fear eternal separation from God, and online atheists make the strange leap in logic that we view Him as some sort of cosmic Communist police state overseer. Which group is acting like an adult and which group is acting like a recalcitrant child who is upset that he will one day be held accountable for his actions?

The online atheists’ inclination to view anyone who believes in God as a backwoods hick with a sixth-grade home-school education is bizarre — but I welcome it. Their decision to cloister themselves in little online echo chambers is to the man of faith’s advantage. Keep likening law-abiding, well-adjusted, and productive members of society to heroin addicts, my atheist friends — each outlandish caricature you create only makes open-minded individuals more likely to ignore your future overtures.

The Atheist 10 Commandments are here — even though ‘There is no one right way to live’

December 23, 2014December 28, 2014by Douglas Ernst211 Comments

A humanist chaplain at Stanford University and his co-writer on “Atheist Heart, Humanist Mind” have crowd-sourced the 10 Commandments — for atheists. The result is a philosophically-convoluted mess.

CNN reported Dec. 20 that John Figdor and Lex Bayer gleaned the Atheist 10 Commandments from 2,800 submissions from 18 countries and 27 U.S. states.

The “commandments” are:

1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
4. Every person has the right to control of their body.
5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
9. There is no one right way to live.
10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.

If “there is no one right way to live,” then why should anyone “be willing to alter” their beliefs? If there is “no one right way to live,” then why do we have “a responsibility to consider others”? If there is “no right way to live,” then why should a man consider the perspective of others? If there is “no right way to live,” then it can not be wrong if one man decides that his “right way to live” includes controlling the bodies of those around him.

This is the conundrum atheists face: if we are all just cosmic accidents and God does not exist, then no man has the moral authority to tell another man how to live. If we are all just sentient space dust with no soul, then there really are no objective truths — right and wrong are relative — and there is no valid argument against those whose sole existence is based on taking advantage of their fellow man.

Even the authors seem to realize this. They told CNN about the inspiration for writing their book:

“A lot of atheists’ books are about whether to believe in God or not,” he said. “We wanted to consider: OK, so you don’t believe in God, what’s next? And that’s actually a much harder question.”

“What’s next?” is a very hard question, indeed. Perhaps the reason why so many atheist books concentrate on “whether to believe in God or not” instead of “What’s next?” is because it leads to “There is no one right way to live.”

On another level, it is incredibly telling that with limited real estate, atheists would use one of their “ten commandments” to emphasize the importance of not believing in a non-existent god. Try as he might, the atheist can not escape God. Perhaps for their next book, Messrs. Figdor and Bayer could write “Atheist Heart, Humanist Mind: We Can’t Escape God No Matter How Hard We Try.”

Atheists attack easy targets to distract you from men like Hubert Van Zeller

November 16, 2014November 16, 2014by Douglas Ernst17 Comments

A recent YouTube video that went viral shows a woman who claims Monster Energy Drinks are the work of the devil. Atheists and their allies in the media ran with it. An atheist friend of mine even passed it along with the message, “One of your people.”

I love my friend on many levels, but like most atheists these days he tends to reflexively go after the low-hanging fruit while ignoring the works of serious Christians.

The reason why many websites are keen to find the Christian equivalent of 9/11 Truthers or the next Westboro Baptist Church is because the mind that can be convinced early on that men and women of faith are all intellectually bankrupt kooks is the mind that is much more likely to avoid picking up books by C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and Hubert Van Zeller.

To an atheist, men like Mr. Zeller are terrifying. Picking almost any random page out of Mr. Zeller’s “Suffering: The Cross of Christ and Its Meaning For You,” gives insight as to why Christians — particularly intelligent Christians — come across as frightening to unbelievers:

“A man is discouraged either because he looks back at the past and sees a sequence of misfortunes that has shaped for him a mold of failure, or because he looks into the the future and can see no security, happiness, or prospects of success. His experience of life has given him these findings, so he feels, understandably, that life is insupportable.

But if he knew more of Christ, he would know that he had misinterpreted his experience, and that life is not at all insupportable. He would neither shy away from the thought of the past, nor stand dismayed by the thought of the future. The immediate present would not daunt him either: he would know that it could be related, together with the failures that have been and the horrors that are in store, to the Passion.

That is not to say that deliverance from disillusion, discouragement, and despair can be effected by a mere trick of the mind — the knack of referring our desolations automatically to God — but that, in the gradual and painful conversion of the soul from self-centeredness to God-centeredness, there will be a growing tendency toward confidence. No longer brought low by the sight of so much evil in ourselves, in others, and in the world, we rise by the slow deepening of detachment to the sight of a possible good in ourselves, in others, and in the world. The vision extends to a probable good, and then to a certain good. Together with this widening horizon, which reveals the positive where before only the negative was expected, goes the knowledge that the only good is God’s good, and that it exists on earth — as those who receive the Word made flesh exist on earth — not of the will of man, but of God,” (57-58).

A man who believes in God is confident. He sees pain and suffering as a path to overcoming pain and suffering. There is nothing that the world can throw at him — nothing — that will deter him from steadily marching towards his objective. He finds strength in weakness. He is calm. He sees God everywhere and in everything — grace can come from even the most unexpected of places.

Put another way:

“The man of faith has reserves; he surrenders to nothing but the will of God. His desire is united to the desire that was in the mind of Christ when He fell on the road to Calvary. His failure is Christ’s failure; the waste of his talents is the waste of Christ’s. There is no question here of desperation, panic, self-pity, rebellion; no talk of accident or bad luck,” (25).

Put yourself in the shoes of an atheist Huffington Post editor, whose deepest desire is to have 400 million Americans dependent on an ever-expansive federal government. If you wanted the civilian population to dutifully bow to 535 bureaucratic overlords in Washington, D.C., would you want them watching Christian conspiracy theorists who see the devil in caffeinated beverages, or reading the works of men who believe “When I am weak, then I am strong”?

If you want to see just how powerful you really are, then I highly suggest reading “Suffering, The Cross of Christ and Its Meaning For You.” If you want to put yourself on a moral pedestal while denying the existence of God, then stick to The Huffington Post.

Americans need to read more Saint Augustine and listen to less Mike Huckabee

October 12, 2014August 27, 2016by Douglas Ernst16 Comments

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is once again threatening to leave the Republican Party if its leadership refuses to be outspoken critics of gay marriage. He made similar threats in March of 2013, which indicates he’s all bark and no bite. Regardless, every time I hear someone like Mr. Huckabee imply that the cultural decline of America begins and ends with a half-hearted rhetorical war with gay people, I cringe. Afterward, I think about how much better of a place America would be if those who believed in God spent less time listening to Mike Huckabee’s radio show and more time reading the works of Saint Augustine — “Confessions” in particular.

As hard is it might be for some Americans to believe, they could learn a lot from guys born over 1,600 years ago. Saint Augustine is one of them.

“Confessions” is a must-read for anyone who cares about preserving the intellectual brick and mortar of Western Civilization, but it’s also an amazing blueprint for Christians looking to share the faith. It may sound counter-intuitive, but in order to expand you must, on many levels, travel inward. Instead of pointing angry fingers at “You! And you! And you! And you! And you!” — we must take serious stock of our own spiritual shortcomings.

Take note of how Saint Augustine analyzes the time he sneaked into another man’s orchard to steal pears:

“Those pears were truly pleasant to the sight, but it was not for them that my miserable soul lusted, for I had an abundance of better pears. I stole those simply that I might steal, for having stolen them, I threw them away. My sole gratification in them was my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy; for, if any one of these pears entered my mouth, the only good flavor it had was my sin in eating it. …

Covetousness desires to possess much; but you are already the possessor of all things. Envy contends that its aim is for excellence; but what is so excellent as you? Anger seeks revenge; but who avenges more justly than you?

Thus the soul commits fornication when she is turned from you, and seeks apart from you what she cannot find pure and untainted until she returns to you. All things imitate you — but pervertedly — when they separate themselves far from you and raise themselves up against you. …

What was it then, that I loved in that theft? And how was I imitating my lord, even in a corrupted and perverted way? Did I wish, if only by gesture, to rebel against your law, even though I had no power to do so actually — so that, even as a captive, I might produce a sort of counterfeit liberty, by doing with impunity deeds that were forbidden, in a deluded sense of omnipotence? …

See, my god, the lively review of my soul’s career is laid bare before you. I would not have committed that theft alone. My pleasure in it was not what I stole but, rather, the act of stealing. Nor would I have enjoyed doing it alone — indeed I would not have done it! What an unfriendly friendship this is, and strange seduction of the soul, eager to make mischief from games and jokes, craving another’s loss without any desire for profit or revenge of mine — only so that, when they say, “Let’s go, let’s do it,” we are ashamed not to be shameless. …

I fell away from you, my god, and in my youth I wandered too far from you, my true support. And I became a wasteland to myself.”

How many more people would Mike Huckabee draw to his message if he talked about all the times he became a wasteland unto himself instead of lashing out at gay people? Would the path to God be more easily found by non-believers if the radio host spent more time talking about his gluttonous past and youthful indiscretions, or if he continued to imply that those who believe in gay marriage are the dregs of society? Has Mike Huckabee ever viewed pornography? If so, what kind? How much? And if so, how did it spiritually damage him? It seems as though Saint Augustine’s decision to bare his soul before God is a much more productive strategy for growing the flock than throwing political temper tantrums at ideological allies while spitting invective at non-believers.

The Catholic Saints were not perfect when they walked the earth. They toiled with the same temptations as you and me. They anguished over the same kind of inner demons that plague man today. They understood, however, that “the commander triumphs in victory, yet he could not have conquered if he had not fought; and the greater the peril of battle, the more the joy of the triumph.”

Saint Augustine writes: “I was so fallen and blinded that I could not discern the light of virtue and of beauty which must be embraced for its own sake, which the eye of flesh cannot see, and only the inner vision can see.”

If a man makes it his life’s mission to cast aspersions on those around him, then it is much less likely that he will see what “only the inner vision can see.” The cultural road ahead for America is dark and dangerous due to years of neglect, but the path will be lighted if we first look within.

‘The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics’: Pay a small price for the work of an intellectual giant

August 16, 2014August 16, 2014by Douglas Ernst6 Comments

For years I only knew C.S. Lewis as the guy who was good for some really witty quotes and the author of “The Chronicles of Narnia.” I knew he was a Christian, and I knew he was friends with J.R.R. Tolkien. When I started writing a book roughly a year ago I told myself that I should really read his work to augment my knowledge of the Christian faith, yet I still procrastinated. Finally, after his name came up in the comments section of this blog, I vowed to get up to speed on C.S. Lewis — and I’m glad I did. “The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics” may be $34.99, but it’s worth every penny.

Here is what readers get for their money: Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, A Grief Observed and The Abolition of Man. Another way of putting it: 730 pages of philosophical and creative works written by an intellectual giant. Even those who disagree with the man, if they are honest, will concede that he was powerhouse.

C.S. Lewis writes in “Miracles”:

“Let us suppose a race of people whose peculiar mental limitation compels them to regard a painting as something made up of little colored dots which have been put together like a mosaic. Studying the brushwork of a great painting, through their magnifying glasses, they discover more and more complicated relations between the dots, and sort these relations out, with great toil, into certain regularities. Their labor will not be in vain. These regularities will in fact ‘work’; they will cover most of the facts.

But if they go on to conclude that any departure from them would be unworthy of the painter, and an arbitrary breaking of his own rules, they will be far astray. For the regularities they have observed never were the rule the painter was following. What they painfully reconstruct from a million dots, arranged in an agonizing complexity, he really produced with a single lightening-quick turn of the wrist, his eye meanwhile taking in the canvas as a whole and his mind obeying laws of composition which the observers, counting their dots, have not yet come within sight of, and perhaps never will,” (Miracles, 387).

The beauty of Lewis’ work is that it’s smart, but it’s personable. A man without a high school education and a Rhodes Scholar can both appreciate the product. Lewis’ insights are sharp, but he never talks down to his audience. Just as the U.S. Declaration of Independence artfully articulates the rights given to all men by their Creator — in ways anyone can understand — Lewis makes the case for God in ways that individuals of varying degrees of mental acuity can comprehend.

“What can you ever really know of other people’s souls — of their of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him. You can not put Him off with speculations about your next door neighbors or memories of what you have read in books. What will all the chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anesthetic fog which we call ‘nature’ or ‘the real world’ fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, unavoidable?” (Mere Christianity, 170).

One of the most interesting aspects of Lewis’ life is the fact that for many years he was an atheist. In many ways, his early atheism actually benefited Christianity because it is obvious that he thought long and hard about the existence of God. Those doubts are revisited in his journal entries pertaining to the death of his wife; the result is thought-provoking and hauntingly beautiful. Lewis says of dealing with his wife’s passing due to cancer: “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.” He is correct. His faith comes out in tact, but the journal entries from “A Grief Observed” leaves readers shaken because the truth can be jarring.

I highly recommend “The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics” for agnostics, atheists, Christians and non-Christians everywhere.

Atheist believes in God after witnessing one man’s angelic act of kindness

November 17, 2013November 18, 2013by Douglas Ernst43 Comments

What would the world look like if more people realized that they were spiritual beings temporarily housed in human form — and then acted accordingly? To give you a clue, I present you with the story of “Thomas Coats,” as chronicled by Steve Hartman for CBS. Every year Mr. Hartman goes out with a businessman who poses as as “Secret Santa.” The anonymous good Samaritan gives out roughly $100,000 during the holiday season to people in bus stations and thrift stores. The effects are amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjzHZU2fCZw

Steve Hartman: You don’t really know what people are really going to do with this money. Do you care?

Secret Santa Businessman: No, because one of the things that I do is I do not judge.

It’s easy to look at a man and make all sorts of judgments about who he is and what he represents, but that is a dangerous game to play if those judgments fill us with pride while sapping our ability to empathize with those less fortunate. The Secret Santa Businessman does not fall victim to pride, and that is why the story gets better:

Thomas Coats: “I didn’t earn that.”

Secret Santa: “You did earn it, because I can tell you’re a good man.”

The Secret Santa Businessman says that Mr. Coats is a good man because he is. We all are. We all have the capacity for great good or great evil. Yin and Yang. The little devil on your shoulder vs. the little angel. However you describe it, that is the blessing and the curse of free will. We can be angels … or fallen angels, and those of us who realize that have an obligation to reach out a helping hand to those who have stumbled. It is our moral duty to remind others of the greatness inside them.

“When was the last time you heard that?” asks Steve Hartman to Thomas Coats. “Maybe … my mom?” he replies.

Steve Hartman: 30-year-old Thomas Coasts is a total deadbeat — at least by most accounts, including his own. Addicted to heroin, he recently hawked his own son’s toys for drug money. That’s how bad it is.

Thomas Coats: I haven’t worked in over a year. I’ve spent so much time in and out of treatment facilities.

Steve Hartman: Why his girlfriend hasn’t left him and taken their son is a mystery. Even to her. But she is now running out of patience, which is why the night before we met him, during another one of their many money fights, she suggested he try something radical.

Thomas Coats: “She said maybe you could shoot a prayer up to God real quick, you know? I know that you don’t really believe in Him, but maybe you could start.”

Steve Hartman: And so, he did pray — for the first time since childhood. Then, out of the blue this saint shows up, slipping hundreds into his hand. You could almost see the wheels turning. That kind of kindness from a total stranger the day after he prayed … it was too much of a coincidence for this atheist to bear.

Thomas Coats: It’s amazing. That to me was a miracle. That was God saying: “Have you had enough, now? I’m going to show you something.” So from here on out, it’s up to me.

Steve Hartman goes on to say that Thomas checked himself in to a treatment facility, although this time “he says this will be the first time with a higher power at the helm.”

The point of this story is not to say that this is definitive proof God exists. I’m not making that claim. What I am saying is that those of us who do believe in God have to think long and hard about how we go about reaching out to atheists, the poor and those who are just generally different than us.

One of my Catholic friends, who is just as annoyed with rumblings that Pope Francis isn’t “conservative” enough, put it to me this way:

This is why I support the Pope. By not being judgmental, “Secret Santa” found this guy. Maybe Thomas kicks addiction, maybe he doesn’t — but for the first time in years he has hope. Pope Francis has drawn criticism for not being “conservative.” That’s dumb. The guy is super conservative, but he’s not judgmental. He actually extends a “hand” to those different from him. Atheists, gays, juvenile delinquents … it’s amazing what a non judgmental hand can do. Catholic church attendance is even up around the globe.

We are told faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. In the story, it was the guy’s girlfriend that 1.) hasn’t left him, and 2.) told him to pray. That is faith. Kudos to her. I hope it works out for them.

This is why I think it is wrong to tell strangers they are going to hell. We (humans) don’t know that. It’s not our place to judge. I referenced St. Paul with that before. Second to Jesus, a huge chunk of the new testament is about/written by him. Before his conversion he made a living hunting down and killing Jews that converted to Christianity. He worked for the ruling priest class of Israel and possibly the Romans. Now, he’s a saint. He wrote of the tears when he felt Gods presence at his conversion, probably just like the “deadbeat” in the news story.

While I do not quite understand how individuals can walk through life and not realize that there are things at play beyond human comprehension, the fact remains: they’re here. As you move forward, try and figure out ways to reach out to those who are different from you politically, spiritually, and socially. Perhaps they’re just like Thomas, who went through his entire life with only his mother having told him he was a good man. Through your temperance, empathy, humility and random acts of kindness you too might become someone’s guardian angel — or the one who makes an atheist believe in God.

Mysterious ‘angel’ priest at car crash reminds us of our true nature

August 8, 2013March 15, 2015by Douglas Ernst10 Comments

Miracles happen every day. Angels exist. If you’re on the fence about either statement, look no further than New London, Missouri, where a mysterious priest has fire fighters and rescue workers scratching their heads:

Emergency workers and community members in eastern Missouri are not sure what to make of a mystery priest who showed up at a critical accident scene Sunday morning and whose prayer seemed to change life-threatening events for the positive.

Even odder, the black-garbed priest does not appear in any of the nearly 70 photos of the scene of the accident in which a 19-year-old girl almost died. No one knows the priest and he vanished without a word, said Raymond Reed, fire chief of New London, Mo. …

The scene unfolded Sunday morning. Katie Lentz, a sophomore at Tulane University, was driving from her parents’ home in Quincy, Ill., to Jefferson City, Mo., where she has a summer internship and planned to attend church with friends. The Mercedes she was driving collided with another vehicle on a highway near Center, Mo. The accident crushed Lentz’s vehicle into a ball of sheet metal that lay on the driver’s side, Reed said.

Reed’s team and emergency workers from several other jurisdictions tried for at least 45 minutes to remove the twisted metal from around Lentz. Various pieces of equipment broke and the team was running out of choices. A helicopter waited to carry Lentz to the nearest trauma center. Though Lentz appeared calm, talking about her church and her studies toward a dentistry degree, her vital signs were beginning to fail, Reed said.

“I was pulled off to the side by one of the members of the” helicopter evacuation team, Reed said. “He expressed to me that we were out of time. Her condition looked grim for her coming out of that vehicle alive. She was facing major problems.”

At that point, Reed’s team agreed to take the life-threatening chance of sitting the vehicle upright so that Lentz could be removed from it. This is dangerous because a sudden change in pressure to the body can be critical, he said.

That’s when Lentz asked if someone would pray with her and a voice said, “I will.”

The silver-haired priest in his 50s or 60s in black pants, black shirt and black collar with visible white insert stepped forward from nowhere. It struck Reed as odd because the street was blocked off 2 miles from the scene and no one from the nearby communities recognized him.

“We’re all local people from four different towns,” Reed said. “We’ve only got one Catholic church out of three towns and it wasn’t their priest.”

Mr. Reed continued in an on-air interview with the local news station:

“He came up an approached the patient and did offer a prayer. It was a Catholic priest. He had anointing oil with him. A sense of calmness came over her then, even more so than what she had been already — and it did us as well. I can’t be for certain who said or how it was said or where it came from but myself and one of the other firefighters who was beside me — we very plainly heard that we should remain calm, that our tools would now work, and that we would get her out of that vehicle. …

As a first responder, you don’t know what you’re going to run into. Everything is on a case by case basis. Everything that we come across. We have a lot of tools that allow us to do many things and we have extensive training. In this particular case it is my feeling that it was nothing more than sheer faith and nothing short of a miracle,” (Raymond Reed, fire chief, New London, Mo.).

Who was this mystery priest? Was he an angel in human form? Was it just a priest who happened to be wandering the corn fields of Missouri at the perfect time in the perfect place to come to the aid of a devote Catholic who asked for someone to pray out loud for her — just as her vital signs were failing? Did the fire chief of New London, Mo. and the local townspeople all decide in the moments after a gruesome car crash to put together an elaborate hoax? Interesting questions, indeed.

The fact of the matter is this: Whether Katie Lentz was saved by an angel or comforted by the wandering priest of the Missouri cornfields, a miracle happened. And in the end, this story reminds us that we are all spiritual beings. We all have a higher self. When we realize that, we too can act as earth’s angels. Are the emergency workers any less of an angel than the priest? In many ways, no. As humans, we are confined by our physical bodies but we are certainly not our physical bodies and we are not our thoughts. We are the animating force behind our thoughts. Once an individual realizes their true nature then nothing is impossible.

Matthew 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

The story of the mystery priest reminds me of the two Christian girls who pulled a 3,000 pound tractor of their father’s chest when they prayed for God to give them strength. When you believe in something with all your soul the physical world has no choice but to react. There are countless instances of this being the case, but to the non-believer such stories simply serve as more material for a round of jokes. And that is fine.

Teal Scott explains the predicament of the non-believer with stunning accuracy:

Even though every single person alive today has [the attention and devotion of angels], regardless of what you’re doing, you must ask for their active help in your life because of the law of free will. When you came into this physical dimension you chose to become two points of perspective. You are the perspective of your higher self; you are also the perspective of your individual physical existence. And as such, you have the free will of focus. You get to pay attention to whatever it is you want to pay attention to, and thus your subjective reality will become the exact match, the physical match, of that focus. And so, if you choose not to focus on the presence of angels they can not show up in your objective reality. And we can flip this and say: Unless you choose to consciously focus on and invite these angelic presences into your life they can’t be a part of your reality. If you choose to focus on angelic presences and invite them into your life, they must become a part of your subjective reality. They can not impose themselves on your reality.

We create our own reality. The difference between Katie Lentz and the person who makes jokes about the priest who appeared before her when she needed him is this: Katie invited God into her life with open arms. Ms. Lentz is smart enough to know that there’s a whole heck of a lot out there that is beyond human comprehension. Thankfully, she’ll be around for a lot longer to share her experience with others once her wounds heal.

I believe Ms. Lentz may very well have been visited by an angel. However, if I am wrong I hope the priest stays silent. I like it better that way.

Matthew 6:1-6

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

No matter how you slice it, a miracle was performed in Missouri. For that, we can all be thankful.

Update: The mysterious ‘angel’ has come forward. His name is Father Patrick Dowling of the Diocese of Jefferson City:

“I thank God and the amazingly competent rescue workers,” Mr. Dowling said Monday. “I thank them for making me welcome in such a highly charged situation and allowing me to minister as a priest.”

The Aug. 4 wreck near Center, Mo., involving Tulane University sophomore Katie Lentz made news nationwide after reports of a man dressed like a priest who supposedly cured her and disappeared without a trace.

Miss Lentz was trapped in a clump of twisted metal that used to be her Mercedes as her vital signs continued to fall. Rescuers spent almost an hour trying to remove her from the wreckage when she asked someone to pray for her.

“I will,” the priest said.

Some people have already used this revelation to mock the idea that an angel came to Katie’s aid. Indeed, a priest just so happened to be in the perfect location at the perfect time to come to the aid of a devout Catholic who asked for someone to pray out loud for her — just as her vital signs were failing. I still maintain a miracle was performed.

Also note this from Father Dowling:

“I was probably part of the answer to their prayers, I came by and Anointed and absolved, (but) I didn’t say another word … I did not say anything like the machinery would begin to work or they would succeed in getting her out of the car.”

Take it for what you will.