Safe Haven

Jason Loves The Pope, Reason #4, 233 . If they made a movie about this, it'd be called, "The Empire Strikes Back." Only this time, Luke is a total tool that everyone with good sense hates. [You have likened the Catholic Church to the Borg Collective, and now the Empire, and you think you're helping?--ed.] Who knows? I know some people who seem completely enamored with the idea with suffering horribly under persecution here in the US. And we might. Sooner or later, we have to choose. God, give me strength for that day. But so long as the sun of freedom shines upon us, let's labor to do the good we can. And there is no reason whatever to be dour about it. Jesus is risen! Alleluia!!! I'm gonna watch some TV for a spell; see what time the opening ceremonies are.

The Olympic Games start today. I'm pumped. It's great TV, every time. I say that Bob Costas should be The Anchor For Anything Important in sports. Munich in 1972 is on my mind today, as is my school-boy crush on Nastia Liukin. No man, she was totally an adult at the last Games; I am shame-free. [How can you say something meaningful and something crass in the same sentence?--ed.] I don't know. I read one of those articles about how the Olympic Village always turns into a giant sex party, and after the initial wave of "that'd be nice," I must confess some disappointment. No one goes to church? Or actually listens to their pastor/believes the Bible? Or maybe they do, and somehow missed the memo about fornication. Fine, I'm an old fuddy-duddy. 32. I believe sex is about love. Real love. Anyway, I'll be watching gymnastics, boxing, swimming, tennis, basketball, and track with especially keen interest.

My bathroom always stinks. And not for the usual reasons. There must be a leak someplace. There has to be some pool of water or the effects of it somewhere. I need stronger air freshener. Frankly, I need a wife. Women make things smell better just by being present, it seems. I'm chaste. More than this, I'm not even remotely frustrated, in that sense. It's just that a man hits a wall in friendship with women--a woman--where sexual intimacy is seemingly the only way to express the love that he wants to share. And so it is. It's probably not even the biggest part of marriage. Not that I'd know. But it comes right along with the friendship. For a man to deny this part of himself, or try to deny that his body has a role in a true expression of his love, is stupid. You can be married and not have sex, even. Hopefully it's a good reason. But if people decide within marriage to do what married people (typically) do, they do a good thing. I've never heard Mother Ch...

First things first. If I ever said that Celine Dion sucked, I was wrong. I'm sorry. I made a list for my oddball friend who doesn't listen to pop. I was just trying to be thorough; I can't very well leave out Celine in a survey of pop from the last 30 years, I reasoned. Well, I made it so well, I can't stop listening to it! Which leads me to my next thought, I think. I should have joined the glee club in high school. No one enjoys pop music or singing without provocation to random strangers more than me. Yes, I'm a total diva. I'm OK with that. [Wow. Just wow.--ed.] Shut up, all right? And because I'm too lazy to go back to the combox, I'm going to answer right here. It might be permissible to desire open communion with brothers in Christ, assuming to do it would not be a sin, BUT THE WHOLE POINT of Protestant conviction on that score is to say that Catholic piety is a sin. You ought not desire the Catholic Eucharist in such a case, a blindingly obv...

5 Rude Thoughts For Today 5. I'm sorry, how does me saying "You don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about" inspire you to offer a book on social psychology that says I'm crazy? 4. If atheism is so great, (reasonable) why can you only argue for it with snarky comics on the internet? 3. With due respect, I don't care what the New York Times says about anything. We don't say, "All the News That's Fit to Ignore" for no reason. 2. Muddle-headed and stubborn. Nice combination. 1. I'm honest. I never said I was balanced.

Well-struck, sir. I think this grudging tone may ease a bit, but I certainly understand it. I didn't want to be Catholic. I liked being Reformed. I liked the idea of being a pastor. I loved preaching. Preaching is where faith and love meet people, and I like a lot of all three. I should say Protestant preaching. I don't know who or what is training these priests and deacons, but something is wrong. I've heard really good homilies--a few. And thankfully, the fullness of faith reflected in the liturgy has kept me from dissecting every single one. But I do know one thing: your ability to move someone to do or believe something is directly proportionate to how much you yourself do and believe. That is, holiness is the engine of good preaching. And holiness comes by prayer and repentance. Or, if you happen to like a more Catholic turn of phrase, conversion . I'm not here to say that Catholic preaching should be like Protestant preaching, especially not in doctrinal conte...

Alright, I can't stop myself. I am officially jazzed about the new changes on American Idol. It does lead me to fear that the ratings are slipping. The fame of the celebrity judges is increasing. Why would you do that unless you had to? I know that Tim likes The Voice, and I like elements of it. But Christina Aguilera reminds me why a pretty face (and body) is not enough. She's so annoying. She must know that her career has been something of a disappointment. A voice like that should put her in "The Conversation" (best female singer in my lifetime) with Whitney, Mariah, and Celine. But she isn't. Maybe it's how she started (child star). And she hasn't really had a signature hit, or a series of them, to make us think anything other than, "Really hot, in a shameful, guilt-inducing sort of way" or, "Used to be a Mouseketeer." [Karen Carpenter was briefly alive in your lifetime.--ed.] Yeah, but she did most of her work in the two decades...

I remember this one song we used to sing toward the end of the service where I used to attend church. It was called "We Are The Body Of Christ." I can't decide if I think the melody and lyrics are truly hideous, or if it just sounded like we were trying to convince ourselves of a lie. There is a direct and irreconcilable conflict between believing the Church is fundamentally invisible, and yet that these convictions, this faith, is that which Christ died to give. Something has to give. Barth gave his answer: "Now, if believers can pray together, they should also be able to take Communion together. For then doctrinal differences can be only of a secondary nature." (Prayer, 5) Whatever one thinks of the Catholic denial of the Eucharist to non-Catholics, we can see that the Catholic Church does not regard those differences as ones of a secondary nature. In fact, I wasn't offended by this denial; I felt respected. If eating this Eucharist means that I accept ...

Well, the scratchy throat has become something worse. Color me unshocked, but still annoyed. I wonder if there is something else I should do. I took some Children's Tylenol because that's what I had. Didn't help. Medicine shouldn't be used until you really need it, though. Everything tastes funny, and you can almost feel the stuff damaging your liver or other vital organs. I am going to go and shave. I let it go two extra days. But there's no reason to look like a wild animal, even though you feel like one. I never did watch the Star Trek movie the other night; I went to bed fairly quickly. My Final Thought: Never leave the things you need to say unsaid. Even if it makes for a harder road. P.S. Happy Belated Birthday, 'Lucy.'

Being a Christian is about Jesus Christ; we ask and discover who he is in order to discover what he'd like us to do, in general and in the particular. As I have said many times, the two most important questions you will ever ask--to yourself or anyone else--are, "Who is Jesus Christ?" and, "What is the Church?" Once you realize that whatever answer you give to the second question is awfully ad hoc and presumptuous, that question becomes, " Where is the Church?" It seems rather obvious to me now, to realize that the denomination I had been a part of had no connection whatsoever of a necessary kind to that insvisible notion of "Church" we held so dear. That is, to separate from that body was no grave crime, and it may well not have been a crime at all. To play the trump card all Protestants have but never acknowledge using is one of the more dangerous and liberating things a person can do. My church, my denomination, could be wrong. To say ...