(Editor’s note: The following is a submission to The Recorder’s weekly column titled “Faith Matters.” Each Saturday, a different faith leader in Franklin County offers a personal religious perspective in this space. For information on becoming part of this series, email religion@recorder.com or call 413-772-0261, ext. 265.)
There are many paths to walk in this Life. Some are ours to inherit. Some are clear and open, filled with love. Others are dark and scary. Some we fill with anger, judgment and loss. Each situation we are faced with provides us with the opportunity to choose a: Path with Love and Heart. Or we choose our own form of darkness. We choose and no one else, for truly: “No One Makes Us Feel Anything”. And, so if we choose: to Judge or Condemn, to Marginalize, to try to Force another to think, feel or act the way we want, we step off that Path with Love and Heart, the path that truly is the only thing that can bring us inner happiness.
At the moment of conception. Darwinian theory posits that a new life is formed. It is filled with the genes of both mother and father. There are set abilities, aptitudes and even dispositions pre-formed through those genes.
Regardless of the Faith, any religion expands upon that principle saying: in that moment of conception God (Dao, Yahweh, Brahman, Allah, Aten etc.) breaths spirit “Grace” into the simple animal creation of biological nature. It is this melding that gives each being sufficient “Grace” to be returned to God with the awareness of its existence.
At this beginning, regardless of Religion: Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, or Muslim etc. every being can meet on the Path with Heart. All else is personal preference or religion at birth. Born a Catholic: usually means believe as Catholic. Born a Protestant: usually means raised as a Protestant etc. All have a Path with Love and Heart whose Practice is Love. The differences, we throw back and forth at each other, are basic institutional scaffolding which can drag us away from Love of each other and lead us, one to the other and church to church, into anger, hate and separation of each other. And that my dear friends is definitely not the Path with Love and Heart.
St. Patrick’s Mission is to explore and unfold first: individually, then in the family, followed by the church community, the interfaith community, the local town and finally growth to embrace all existence with a “Path with Love and Heart”. Our Mission is no less than: Love God with all our Hearts, all our Minds and all our Souls and love our neighbor as ourselves.
We do this in many ways: formal Catholic ritual services, prayer groups, homiletic series and High feast days. We take our call to Love our neighbor as ourselves seriously; in youth group outreach, monthly community wide dinners, support of the food pantry and major drives to support Loaves and Fishes which is a tri-church outreach to anyone in need in our local area.
My faith journey at St. Patricks has unfolded over the last eight years. My Mission crystalized over the last four and a half to five years. I see my time on this earth as: 1. My life from conception until five years ago 2. Followed by life from five years ago until this moment and every moment to come.
Five years ago I was diagnosed with an illness and underwent surgery that went horribly wrong. While on the operating table, crashing, I had an experience which I can only say was otherworldly, Devine, without equal to any other experience I have had in my life. My surgeon and medical team described my next ten days as being as close to being dead as you can be without being six feet in the ground. Outside of brief moments of consciousness I basically came to thirty-six days later in a rehab facility barely able to breath, unable to talk in sentences greater than three or four words, unable to walk or roll over without assistance. What followed was two and a half months of excruciating rehab. From the first surgery until the present day I have undergone some 20 procedures. Eight of them being major surgeries with at least one more to come.
I would describe my journey as nothing more that miraculous, filled with Grace and healing. Call me crazy but it was the best possible thing that could have happened to me. Though I would not recommend you try this at home. In the rehab I would ask God each morning: Lord what is your will for me today. Even if all I could do was smile at my medical team, it was enough.
Over the following years of gradual recuperation, I took the opportunity to study and Practice in addition to my native Catholicism: Zen, Daoism and Mahayana Buddhism. With I.F.S. (internal family systems) Therapy studies and theses spiritual practices and out of my own illness and God’s grace developed a spirituality for individuals of any religion, faith or creed who find themselves in a terminal or chronic illness. This is a spiritual path that can provide help, healing, meaning and intense beauty moment by moment regardless of individual pain, fear and hopelessness. I have now worked with people from many walks of life and religions. It is possible to live with joy, hope and love in any personal situation.
Through Gods love I share with my community and anyone who looks for a path: “The Heart of Love”
God is Love.
It is in this Love, that we find Love, that has no bounds.
This becomes a Way We Live our Lives.
One In and with the Other.
This is the Vision of our Community.
Imagine it. Live it. Bring it to others