Last week's Gospel reading at Roman Catholic Masses was the passage from Luke that hits all of the behavioral biggies: love your enemies, turn the other cheek, the Golden Rule, and, hey, don't judge people.
No one can ever accuse Jesus of vague, tepid messaging.
Even non-Christians are aware of all that Jesus was imparting to his followers in that sermon. It always seems to sound fresh to me whenever I hear it, mostly because I am forever in need of work on what I need to do to be in compliance with all of the above. I'm going to a different parish for Mass now. It's a mile from my house, so I walk there and back to kick off my step count in grand fashion on Sundays. The Lord had definitely given me a lot to ponder on my way home.
I thought about these politically acrimonious times that we live in and the fact that I have to spend my days in the thick of politics if I want to do weird things like pay my bills and eat. I also thought about how awful the Democrats have become and my day-to-day reactions to them. Put mildly, I'm not on the fast track to sainthood.
It's true that I have developed a rather Zen-like approach to being in the political game, but the Biden Dems started to wear me down a little. If they had kept the White House I'm sure that I would be in full rage against the machine mode now. That isn't the way God wants me to be, but a man's gotta know his limitations.
I've had discussions with the Lord for years about how to use whatever talents I have. Mostly, these prayerful dialogues have been about stand-up. I'm not exactly a family-friendly cruise ship kind of comic, you see, and on the surface that doesn't seem to dovetail with my faith. My "Get Out of Purgatory Free" card when considering all of this has always been, "Well, God gave me this sense of humor."
Yeah, I'm not sure that's going to work as a defense on the other side either. I do feel that there's a lot to it, however.
My political writing style probably has me straying from the sermon in Luke's Gospel more than anything I've ever said on stage though. Sure, I'll toss out a really filthy joke several times during a long set, but that's over quickly. Writing goes on for hours every day. My brand as a political opinion writer is that I'm occasionally caustic to my political opposites. When I write, anyway. I'm using a very loose interpretation of "occasionally" here, one that pretty much means, "always."
In short, I'm not paid to be warm and fuzzy. I think that most of my regular readers would barf up a little lunch if I suddenly became Shiny Happy Kruiser. Also, the dark humor and barbed commentary are very cathartic for me, which means that my less-than-perfect path may be keeping me away from a much worse one. Again, as defenses go, probably not one that will wow St. Peter.
The modern day Democrats are no doubt one giant test, both for my Christian behavioral skills and this nation. At this point in my life, they're almost every roadblock on my personal highway to Heaven. I've spent some time reflecting about the challenge that they pose and Jesus's challenge for how I should respond.
For now, I will try to be a little less prickly, and I remain eternally grateful that the Lord is patient and forgiving.
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