Time to follow my own advice

Blast from the past

•·°

On May 19th, I made a post about my faith, and its direction. I entitled it "He must increase, I must decrease." For a while I felt like I was living that verse. Then recently, due to the fact that I have been striking out in the job search, and with a still yet uncertain future in terms of where we will be living and working in a month, I have foolishly grabbed the "reins" back from God, and started focusing on how I can figure this situation out. How I can do more "stuff" to help secure my direction, and find my path. What I can do to find a job, create opportunities, and determine my future. What I haven't done is listen to my own advice.

One follows from the other

•·°

I thought that if I just increased the God part in my life, that I wouldn't really have to do the whole decrease thing. I figured that I could tag-team the piloting of my life with God, that way, I could grab the controls incase He let go. Foolish. 

What I didn't realize until tonight is that opportunities can only come when nothing is blocking their path. A friend of mine has been searching for his "career" path since graduation. This person is way more qualified for jobs than I am, and he has been waiting faithfully for a year. He has filled his time and efforts with smaller projects here and there, just to survive, and here I am panicking because I haven't secured anything in the few months since I have been actively looking.

We know how this ends 

•·°

Saints, true followers of the above-mentioned Bible verse, end up in positions they wouldn't have picked for themselves... but their lives, and deaths, are vital to the advancement of the Heavenly Kingdom and the strength of the Ecclesia Militans. Their courage, their acceptance of God's will, their Marian fiat of: "Yes" gives them strength over death... and despair. They acceptance of earthly defeat is simultaneously they acceptance of victory:

Leaders and being led...

Someone recently told me something... and I don't know if it is true or not, but my over analytical brain can't get off of this comment.

They said that when a leader starts something, or is leading a group of people, that whether or not the "movement" will exist beyond the tenure of the leader has less to do with the leader, and more about the group. He said that sometimes, a group will follow someone just because of who they are and what they stand for - and as soon as they are gone that group, falls apart.

Sometimes, though, a spark is lit, and the group continues on without the leader.

I wonder if it really does have anything to do with the leader? I wonder if it is any sort of statement to actually how affective they are?

I wonder if this is why some parishes, dioceses, and movements within the Church march on for long periods of time, while others are a quick bright flash, only to leave as quickly as they came. Again, I wonder if this has to do more with the leaders or the led?

'Flip the tables over' or 'turn the other cheek?'

One of my favorite "spiritual treat" blogs: Adoro Te Devote has an interesting post, that really got me thinking. The basic premise of the post, at least what I took from it, is that 'we should all be charitable when we blog' and that we cannot 'make a living' off of tearing others down and further our goals and ideas at the expense of others.

She explains that our blogs cannot exist for the purpose of making ourselves seem as if we are "good Catholics." For example she argues:

We CANNOT, as bloggers, base our blogs on tearing down others in order to make ourselves look good in the eyes of other sinners like us who will be fueled to add their own gripes, their own judgments, and their own form of superiority at the expense of sinners who apparently aren't like us.

I think she is on to something here. She is essentially arguing that if we make ourselves look good at the expense of others, we really aren't making any positive strides. She does recognize a need at times to bring truth forward and shine light on evil, but seems to think that this should be the exception and not the rule. She it explains it as such:

I can't speak for other bloggers, nor do I judge their souls, but I do judge their actions and this, in particular. Do we need to shine a light on what is wrong at times? Certainly! The Church Fathers were not adverse to such things! The modern question is this, though: Is it really necessary to focus our lives on ripping on thy neighbor in order to proclaim the Truth?

Now for much of her post I agree with her. I know that there are some blogs, sometimes unintentionally that solely focus on 'tearing others down.' This is how they exist. But is it really necessary? Many would argue that this DOES go beyond the limits of what is charitable and just.

Where is the line though? What is the demarcation? Is charity the same regardless of the issue? Must we always refrain from pointing out scandal, heresy and illicit teachings? At what point do we choose to 'flip over the tables' instead of 'turning the other cheek?' This is a very difficult question I think.

Sure, we could take advantage of every little scandal and blog about it. The thing is, 50 other blogs will be doing the same thing... so what are we REALLY accomplishing at the end of the day. I think this is a key point, that might go unstated in Adoro Te Devote's Post. She explains that personal gain through complaining or 'tearing down' really isn't a gain for God. So how then do we accomplish gain for God and at the same time deny and destroy the falsity that is perpetrated by many in the name of Catholicism? Must we do one without the other?

I ask you the reader... how do we make this difficult decision? I wonder if the answer lies in the intent of the post. I don't offer consequentialism as an answer to anything. I mean intent in terms of the virtue and ethic of the core meaning in the post. Is that where our line of demarcation sits? What say you, readers and writers of the Cathologosphere?