Justice and Mercy

This one has been done before, hasn't it?

Consider this modern proverb: Patience is an attribute I loathe in the driver ahead of me, but cherish in the driver behind me.

I demand Justice! Well, to be clear, I demand justice for YOU! Cold, calculated justice because YOU need to learn a lesson!

Me? I desire mercy for myself. I assure you that I have learned my lesson. Never mind that a very short span of time from now, like a dog returning to his vomit, I will return to my sin.

I want to judge you. I want to measure you. I want to keep score. I want to point out your flaws and shortcomings. I want to list all the wrongs you have done. Oh yeah, I want to keep that list, too.

But me? Hey, I said I'm sorry. Let's move on.

You said you were sorry too, but I need to see that you mean it. I need you to prove it. But you can take me at my word. I deserve mercy.

You say "Be merciful, just as your Father in Heaven is merciful." I'm not God! I'm not a perfect man! I can't.

You say "forgive them 70 times 7 times when they say they are sorry." Well I assure you, this is the 71st times 7 and I've tried but there are limits.

You say "remove the log from my own eye before I worry about the spec in others' eyes." Come on. There's nothing wrong with my sight.

My heart is covered with the black mold-spores of sin. Everything is upside down and inside out. What I should apply to myself, I apply to you, and what I should give you, I want for myself. I should curb my own tongue, but instead, I want to cut yours out. I am not a perfect man, but I demand perfection from you. I should mortify myself with discipline and self control, but I really want to flog you for every misstep. I should speak firmly and honestly about my own wrongs and gently with humility about others, but I'm all meek about myself and shout with disgust about you.

And I LOVE it.

This is me. This is all of us.

Oh Lord, if You kept records of wrongs, as we do, who could stand? What is man that you are mindful of him?

Why, when Your commands are clear, when we smash them to bits every moment, when we try to push You off Your rightful throne and declare ourselves gods, why since we deserve swift and terrible punishment, do you not destroy us all?

Why, dear Jesus, did you come here? Why did You touch our shit-stained, stinking, filthy humanity and dirty yourself? WHY DID YOU TAKE MY PLACE? WHY DID YOU SUFFER WHAT I CAN'T EVEN COMPREHEND?

Why, Holy Spirit, do you come to me? Why do you continue to work so hard when at every turn I try to undo it?

Thank You, Dear God, that You do. Thank you for Your mercy to me. Please, make me merciful.

Platitudes and Reality

Recently sin, judging others, and dishonesty about our condition have gotten me down. Writing is theraputic, so I wrote. Now I post it. So sorry for you. If you decide to continue, you're not going to read something happy. Just so you know.

We talk about “missions” or outreach to the less fortunate, or preaching the Gospel to all nations. When was the last time a smelly, mentally unstable stranger wandered in to your church and sat down? Did you sit with them? Anybody help them find their way through the hymnal (if they could read)? When was the last time you made one of these a member of your congregation? It’s comfortable to sit in a suburban church somewhere and get high on this or that “mission” activity. Have you ever gotten the stink on you?

No, not everyone is called to go face to face with the dregs of society, and I don’t think everyone should. It just seems to me that you ought to leave alone the folks who do, as long as they are preaching the Law and the Gospel divided, and administering the Sacraments rightly.

We talk about “sin” from a distance. We all say “of course I am simultaneously saint and sinner.” it works as convenient lip service. It lets us admit a technicality. When was the last time you went face to face with the evil blackness of the heart of man? When did you realize “That is me. That is all of us.” I’m not talking about speeding or taking a pen from the office. I’m talking about bloody murder of people through anger, whoring our bodies through adultery, worshipping the god of our flesh and it’s filthy desires. Do you yell at your family? Do you call your brother a fool? In the sight of God you have murdered them. Blood is on your hands. Do you look with longing at attractive people. Do you maybe even look at porn in what you think is the private moments of your days? God sees your filthy harem and the disgusting acts you do with them. In these moments you have turned your back on God. You have said to Him and to yourself “I am the master of my destiny! I AM god!! I will do what I desire, regardless of what I know, what God has told me, what His commandments say.”

That is me. That is all of us. Sin, evil, rot, filth, murder, adultery. Every inclination of man’s heart is evil, true evil. We are not sin, but we are rotted through with the decay of it. Cancer takes the body and feeds on it. It causes pain and rot as it grows and it steals our loved ones away with suffering and death. This is sin. This is mine. This is all of ours.

Have you seen sin? This real sin? It is in me. It is in all of us. Have you ever needed to steel yourself to the idea that you may have to kill a person because of sin? That there may be a time when you find a madman in your midst, bent on death and destruction? Do you ever imagine that you may be the only thing between this madness and destruction of life? Many people could never imagine it. Columbine happened. Elsewhere thugs shout praises to their devil-god as they cut the heads off Nick Berg and Daniel Perl, their helpless kidnapped victims in a bloody sacrament. These things happen. This madness is present. Have you realized that you are not beyond the grasp of that same madness? It is in me. It is in all of us.

We are sick, all of us. We need to repent. We need to face the stench of our lives and our lusts and confess that they are evil. We need to stop hiding in a crowd, and face facts. We need to go individually to our pastor, our father-confessor and admit that we are dirty, rotten, drunken, murdering, sexually deviant, thieving madmen.

Think about that. Don’t think about it too long. It will drive you crazy. But don’t ignore it either. Regard your condition honestly. Maybe the realization of who we really are, and what God has done for us would spark renewed fear of God, and reverence and honor in our worship services. Maybe it would stop us from judging those who cross themselves, bow, genuflect, kneel or prostrate themselves as some kind of romanizing pietistic wierdos. Maybe it would help us get the log out of our eye and not worry so much about the spec in our brothers' eye. Maybe it would deepen our appreciation for the holy innocent bitter suffering and death of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and the forgiveness that is ours through that suffering and death. Jesus didn’t die because we merely make mistakes. He died because we are corrupt and evil. Thank God that He did.

I'm a Pro

A certified Pro that is. Specifically, a "Microsoft Certified Professional." It's sort of an interim title to use while pursuing higher levels of certification, and it means I've taken and passed a test in one of the server tracks, but not yet enough tests to be called a Systems Administrator or Engineer, etc.



These are kind of legacy certs for the server 2003 environment. MS is in the process of moving things to "Certified IT Professional:" with various specializations.

I passed 70-290, Managing and Maintaining a Server 2003 Environment on Tuesday with a score of 868. 700 is required to pass, 1000 is perfect.

American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper

I found this interesting.

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Back....Back...Back...

It's outta the park!

My score, that is. I got a score of 914 on my exam this morning, making me a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist.

Tee Hee!

Neglect

I have been neglecting my blog. Sorry about that. Here's a run-down of what I have been doing to keep myself busy and away from here.

If you didn't know, I'm enrolled in a Microsoft Academy. Two night a week , for four hours each night, I'm attending classes that will lead me to Microsoft Certification. When It's all said and done, I should have a few certs, including Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist; Vista Client, Microsoft Certified Professional, and Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator. This will finally validate my skillz with an objective industry standard. I had been hoping for my employer to send me for certification, but none of them have ever seen the need, so I'm doing it myself. It's kind of expensive to do it this way, but I thrive in the classroom environment. My first test (MCTS:Vista) is May 4th.

I'm supposed to spend 12 hours a week outside of class time studying and doing lab exercises and practice tests. There's a lot of info, obviously, and it's keeping me quite busy. I also have to write technical articles for a class blog, homeowrk assignments on line, and read and read and read. One book is 737 pages, the other is 420 pages. Lots of dry technical stuff. Good stuff, but dry.

On class days I'm out of the house for 15 hours, from 7AM to 10PM or so. I come home for lunch and dinner, but the rest of the time, I'm gone, so those are long, lonly days. The other days of the week are usually days that my lovely bride is working at her job, so we don't get to see each other very much these days. One day a week is about it. That's stinky, but it's not forever.

I'll graduate the program on August 20th, after six months of this routine. Once that is done, I'll be pouring more energy into my IT services business, Schreibnet Technology LLC.

I've also recently signed up on Facebook. I admit I kind of like it because it allows me to post brief updates and have small "conversations" with friends.

So that's what I'm up to. Thanks for reading.

Back to the books!

Post-Easter Let-Down

In the days after Easter, we find ourselves kind of depressed. After all, we've just come off three to five closely spaced services in God's house, hearing of His love for us in the Blessed Sacrament, death for our sins, and resurrection for our justification of Jesus Christ, His only Son. We have had a "foretaste of the Feast to come!" The services were all deeply moving. After all that, how can I return to a boring life and work?

I am particularly guilty of this, and so I write to myself here and hope that it might be of some help others.

In Church
First off, those subsequent church services are going to seem a little thin compared to all the splendor of Easter morning. That is why the Octave of Easter is often called "Low Sunday" (tho I prefer Quasi Modo Geniti, the name from the Introit). It is important to remember that our Holy Mother, the Church, is the Queen of Heaven. To borrow from other sources, it matters not how we men dress her, or how many of us are there with her, she is still the Queen, and it is good for us to remember that fact. Also, as we say in the liturgy, we are gathered with "angels and archangels, and all the company of Heaven." So while the folks you can see may have dwindled in number, the majority of the participants remain. The ceremony and substance, reverence, dignity, and good order of the Mass has not changed.

Now, when I speak of our Holy Mother Church, I don't mean a building. I mean the pure and spotless Bride of Christ. The "one holy catholic and apostolic Church" we confess in the Creed.

At Home
Secondly, it was nice to have all those services and all that singing, the Word of God spoken to us every day for nearly a week. Why should it stop? We have hymnals and prayer books brimming over with orders for the daily Office, from Matins to Compline, you could stop five or more times a day to pray the hours, if you had the time. Also included in the hymnals and prayer books is a lectionary with daily readings from the Scriptures, and at least a partial psalter for praying the psalms. These can both be inserted into your praying the Hours. And, as if that weren't enough, there are many very fine devotional books available expounding upon portions of Scripture. Lastly, there are resources on the Internet for devotional use. Concordia Catechetical Academy is a source of a couple of excellent resources. There is no shortage of material available to enrich the daily devotional life of our families.

Of course, we probably can't set aside five times each day when we can pray the Hours of the daily Prayer Office. That's OK. We didn't go to church 5 times a day during Holy Week either. One time, the same time, every day, in the evening is great. Find a time when the whole family can assemble together to pray and hear God's Word together. I like for my family to pray Compline together just before bed. Vespers right after dinner is also a good option. This way you have daily opportunity to sing hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs together, and to pray together, and hear God's Word. Jesus said "Wherever two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am, in the midst of them." Take Him at His word!

The head of the Household should lead these devotions, as that person has been given the authority and responsibility in the home for such things. That same head of household should be in contact with the family's pastor to get answers to questions that arise.

At Work
Lastly, no, we can't do it five times a day because we have jobs, chores, and other responsibilities. We have vocations to fulfill. God has given us these vocations and they are a holy calling. In our vocations, God serves our neighbor with His love. He uses us as a mask. For example, it is God who has created science and medicine, and it is God who gives us doctors to understand and implement that science and medicine as it pertains to the human body. The doctors then use the science and medicine to make our lives better, as they heal our illness, ease our pain, mend our broken bones, etc. The doctors, knowingly or not, are serving us with the love of God in administering the gifts God has given us.

So we should not be depressed about returning to the "boring" jobs we have, because through our jobs we are serving others in the place that God has put us for just such service. That goes for changing dirty diapers just as much as it goes for the world's premier brain surgeon. It goes for preparing supper as well as the proverbial rocket scientist.

Keeping these things in mind will keep our Lord in our mind, and it might even help us have a new appreciation for our families, jobs, and parish families, and all the gifts that God our Father showers upon us, most especially the forgiveness of all our sins for the sake of Jesus Christ.