Try to Understand Before You Complain

So, about the fact that I haven't blogged in forever....  yeah.  I can't believe I let a whole quarter of blogging opportunities slip away from me!  There are a few reasons for my absence from the "blog-o-sphere":


1.  I'm not bursting after my classes with random thoughts/theological crises this quarter - Hebrew Bible is normally straight forward (though I have had a couple qualms with it which I might write about one day); musicianship, while stressful in the way that it basically equals having another piano class, doesn't give me much to ponder; and I have my friend Alley in Church who I can complain to/with immediately after class.  :)

2.  I have more reading and more homework, including weekly writing assignments, so writing extra wasn't as appealing...

3.  I've been in a funk of some kind for a few months now - my creativity, whether for blog posts or writing music or what have you, just hasn't been flowing that much until recently.

4.  My class on Church (ecclesiology, but the title truly is just "Church"), which has had some topics I might want to dig into one day, is soooo frustrating that I often forget the interesting blog topics and end up wanting to strangle the majority of my classmates by the end (honestly, I don't understand why many of them are Catholic - not that I don't want them to be, but they come off quite heretical a lot of the time without minding it, which is a shame to say the least)


It's kind of this last point that I'm going to expand on, because it does lend itself to my ever-increasing knowledge and ever-deepening awe of the Catholic Church.  In the book that we're reading right now for Church, Sense of the Faithful:  How American Catholics Live Their Faith by Jerome P. Baggett, 2 American Catholic cultures are identified:  Culture One ("[those] who strongly identify with the Church as a hierarchical institution to which they look for authoritative teaching, with which they then attempt to comply"), and Culture Two ("[those] who often still consider themselves serious Catholics, emphasize personal autonomy and accordingly are less willing to obey or even remained attuned to institutional directives") (quotes from p. 104).  After reading this, I immediately thought of my class!  I relate pretty much with Culture One - I don't blindly follow the Church's teachings, but I do try to understand and comply with them to the best of my abilities.  After all, the Church does have some faults - it IS a human institution* - but I fully respect it and always see the Spirit moving in it and through it.  The majority of my class, however, falls under Culture Two - they know what the Church teaches on the surface level, but they don't like it and have their own opinions (on every single teaching, I swear - from birth control to celibate priests to the virgin Mary to finance councils to the laity to the universal format of the liturgy - they disagree with everything other than Jesus having Resurrected and His real presence in the Eucharist!).  And you know, having your own opinions and really following the fact that your conscience comes first, that you can't go against it and do something you can't justify, isn't wrong...  BUT, as a Catholic, as someone actively living out their faith in a religious tradition, you should: (a) respect what the religion teaches, and (b) try your best to understand why it teaches that.  Complaining about it and disagreeing when you don't even know the reasoning for it is not a good plan - and it's completely unacceptable for someone who is a minister, as all of the people in my pastoral ministry program are.  Sometimes, they really seem to focus all on the idea of being pastoral and being open to everyone, meeting them where they are in their search for Truth, but they forget the other half of that, the ministry part.  I'm totally not saying you have to fully accept every view of the Church the second it's published to be a good Catholic - but when you have a problem with one (or many) of them, don't just think you're right and that the Church isn't with the times and doesn't understand your situation.  Find out why the Church says that, think about it at a world level, not just an American level (including everywhere from Latin America to Kenya to France), and pray about it!  Don't get stuck as a disobedient Culture Two Catholic - but don't blindly follow the Vatican either and conform just for the sake of conforming!  You can't possibly help someone else on their faith journey as a Catholic if you are purposefully not deepening your faith within the Church.  Being spiritual is great, but when you're within a tradition that's as rich as the Catholic tradition, figure out why that tradition matters to you - otherwise, we're just a random community that gathers to eat some stale bread and do some nice social justice events, which is just not as meaningful.  Being Catholic is great - and as ministers, if we can't be passionate as Catholics and uphold its teachings to the best of our abilities, how are we supposed to expect those to whom we're ministering to be Catholics who are on fire for their faith and live it out?

*see Paula's comment below for clarification