Missing the Message

Philip Burns recently sent a shout out to everyone at the monastery site, "Some people miss the message because they are too busy checking the spelling."  My first blush comment back to Philip was, "Many people checking the spelling have no real clue what they're looking for and go straight to Spellcheck like a sinner to a priest."  I think we do this, by and large, because we're much too lazy to do the research ourselves, we feel the priest can truly give us some absolution, we feel the priest is closer to God, or some other such sad, pathetic reasoning for not accepting ownership for our own duty to ourselves and God.

Think about the analogy, Spellcheck and a priest.  How many times have you used spellcheck to discover the document now contains correctly spelled words... that are wrong?  How many times has a priest been married, an addict, arrested for theft, or committed rape, etc.?  Okay, I'll give you that a many of them actually do, but, for the most part, the priest might check the spelling, but does the priest even know really know what they're looking at?  Do they even recognize a tree in their own search for the forest?  Yet, many of us feel comfortable transferring responsibility for our eternal souls to them, without knowing anything about them other than they are priests, ministers, "men of the cloth."  Many of them have committed, and are committing, sin.  Many are gay, child abusers, alcoholics, addicts, and such.  Hell, the head of the Christian Church, Pope Francis, has even admitted to pilfering a small cross from a corpse, proof that none of us is without sin.  

If you have a trusted friend with a doctorate in aeronautics, yet has never flown a plane, would you let him fly your family?  All the higher education in the world is no substitute for the lowly "school of hard knocks."  There is nothing like the voice of experience, especially when it comes to one's soul, and who better to relate to your experiences than... you?   I feel your pain. No, you don't.  It is my pain.  I've been where you are.  No, you haven't, because if you have, why in God's name would I be listening to your dumb ass?  There are only two that can truly state understanding; one is you, although you may have to work on acknowledging it.  The other is God almighty.  Everyone else is just too busy flapping their lips to see they've stepped right in front of the speeding ego bus.  They missed the message.

All of the education, intellect, and pharmaceuticals in the world cannot help you unless you want to help yourself.  We keep going to others to do our own work for us.  You go to a medical doctor to tell you you're sick, a psychiatrist to tell you you're mad, a priest to tell you you're lost, and a hooker to tell you... well, what you want to hear, and sometime what you don't.  Not that I would know.  But, when was the last time you went to God, and just said, "Hi, how ya doin?  Read your biography.  You might want to choose different writers next time.  Yeah, well, I'm no critic, but it seems they took an awful long time to give us one page of meaningful information.  I mean, a lot of people missed the message for all the extraneous bullshit.  And then there was the Qur'an.  Really?  Twice?  Just saying..."

God loves to entrust the Word to morons.  I think this shows much of God's faith that man might, some day, get it right.  How about we stop listening to man's interpretation of God's word, and just listen to God.  We can all hear, we just need to listen.  The message was never meant to be difficult, I mean, look at what God was working with.  

Editor's Note 

(re: disclaimer cum "get out of jail free" card) 

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion. It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other. An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion and debate in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth. After over twenty years as a military intelligence analyst, planner, and briefer, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human. God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.

Frank Anthony Villari (aka, Pastor Tony)

Pastor Tony is founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance and author/editor of the Congregation's official blog site, "The Path."