Get up and make your bed

You just might change the world.

Is anyone else tickled by that line in the Bible? Acts 9:31ish

Peter's passing through regions when he comes across Aeneas who had been confined to bed for 8 years. So he tells him "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed."

I keep telling monkeyboy, Jesus wants him to make his bed!

Oh sweetie, what am I going to do with you?

Kids keep you humble and apparently I keep myself humble.  Two quick stories:

Monkeyboy saved up and bought himself an air soft gun (essentially a modified bb gun that shoots rubber pellets). The cashier needed my date of birth and so Monkey does the math and announces my age to the whole store (because he only has one volume - loud) with, "Mom, you're either 40 or 41." Yes. Yes I am. Thanks sweetie.

I slept in late on Sunday and as a result went to mass on my own since the kids served at the earlier mass. Apparently during 'my mass' they were having annointing of the sick. So I walk in behind a lady who I overhead being instructed, ' We're asking those who are being annointed to sit on the right side of the church.'

Well I wasn't getting annointed so off I go to the left hand side. I did notice the pews were marked off, every other pew was blocked. Strange. I found an empty pew and shoved myself to the middle - because I'm trying to be considerate to my fellow mass goers and no one likes sitting in the middle. Considerate me. A lady with a cross ( the special ones they are handing out to those who are being annointed) sits next to me. I think to myself - 'lady you're on the wrong side', eh but I'll mind my own business and do my little prayers. As mass starts I notice more and more little white cross wearing people are filling in around me. Hmmm. Remember, I'm in the middle of the pew! It dawns on me, I am on the wrong side of the church. So there I sat sheepishly as everyone around me got annointed. Oops.

Brownies NFL draft, what were you thinking?

The Cleveland Browns are perhaps a bit too honest and disingenious in places they need not be.

If you didn't hear, the Vikings took advantage of the Browns and they did it hard. They needed protection for their QB, badly. I mean Ponder was getting pounded last year. So they were in talks with many teams to trade their no 3 pick. Seriously, who picks a left tackle that early in the draft even if he's the best rated tackle with the proper pedigree?

The Browns told McCoy they would not pick a QB in the first round, indicating they were solid behind their QB. Honestly folks, lie to the enemy, tell the truth to your allies. If you can't tell the truth, don't lie. So instead of getting word out that they were solid behind McCoy, and interested in protecting him as he suffered a concussion last year with possibly Kalil, who is by far an excellent LT, they caved and sold the farm to move up 1 spot. Would the Vikings have taken the bluff? Everyone knew they were sweet on Kalil and that was the one need they had. Filling that spot is tough to do.

Whatever the case though, the Browns ended up taking a QB with their 2nd draft pick so either they were disingenuous to their QB or they really didn't think it through and plan it out. Ultimately the picks they got were good, but execution of the plan wasn't really that well thought out. My guess is they don't have a woman on the management team. Not that men can't think but my point is in management decisions, men typically "target" think. It's how they were created. Women integrate - it's how we were created. We complement each other and more organizations would benefit from incorporating women in the structure.

Hey, look at the church! We are canonizing 2 more American women as saints this year. They show us how to reach our ultimate goal, and they do it with style!

Our Lady of the Perpetual Shakedown

As promised, the stewardship update:

If I ever make it to heave, I promise it won't be because of any merit of my own or because of my blog titles, (more on that in the second update to this stewardship post). 

I had a conversation with a young teen who promised that all her problems would be solved and she would be who she was meant to be if only she had loads of cash. 

I've come to regard money with a bit of contempt. I really don't like it. Yes, it's nice the things it can buy, the comforting things it brings but I dread, really dread being responsible for it. It is a burden. I have to spend time making sure that I am doing what I am suppose to do with it. I have to balance being attached enough to manage it and detached enough to disperse it - not easy. 

Follow that with the temptation to purchase things for their own sake and then a further temptation to be drawn into the things it does buy and purchasing protection plans to protect our terribly important crap. 

The more $$ you have, the better you are able to drag yourself out of debt but also the greater the temptation to ponder it, to spend in contemplation of what to spend it on, how to appropriate it, to be attached to it, and to consider which charities to support and in what proportion. Money can buy and make good things happen, but it is not a good.

The truth is that the money I do have is not mine, it's been entrusted to me and as such I need to determine in what fashion I am suppose to allocate it and to be completely detached from it. "To whom much is given, much more will be demanded"

Every time I look at my local taxes on top of federal and state taxes of this great state in which I reside, I consider 2% "is a lot" but when I also examine the 10% to God that number looks excessively excessive. How many of us actually give 10%? Looking at the stats I'd say not that many of us even give a measly 2%. It hurts to give that much when bills, taxes, debt,  cost of living and children to care for are staring you in the face. It hurts even more when we are attached to it. 

There is a particular mindset I am trying to adopt. When I go on vacation I don't count the cost. I spend it like I have it because what's the sense of having a vacation when you're stressed about finances? Similarly when I give financially to the development of God's kingdom, I don't stress the cost. He has already allotted a certain amount of our finances for himself and it's my job to ensure it gets to where he needs it. That I think is the burdensome part, getting it to where he needs it. So many times many of us consider the burden to be giving in the first place. That's not the burden, that is the joyful part. 

The mass is useless?

"Mom, the mass is so useless."

My response with a smile was: "Yep, sweetie. It sure is!"

It is absolutely useless. Here I quite agree with my atheist friends. You see there are goods that are pleasurable and there are goods that are good in themselves. We consider things useless when we can't derive any pleasure from them but a thing is eminently useful because it takes us to something for its own sake. 

Now granted one might have a mystical experience at mass but most of the time those never or rarely happen. We may not derive a pleasure from the whole mass experience. If you do, that's great but it's not for the sake of pleasure that the mass exists. It exists for itself and it is a good all on it's own. 

"So sweetie, the mass is indeed useless (in the sense that we may not derive pleasure from it) and because it is useless it is profoundly useful because it points to nothing more than itself, a good. The mass points to God. "

Is there any US citizen truly excited about the Obama/Romney ticket?

Modified from AFP

I think I am an agnostic. I honestly believe that it is impossible to know whether there is a difference between these two candidates!


Is there anyone out there excited about this year's presidential candidates? Really? Truly? If there is I'd love to hear what on earth that might possibly be.

Let's be honest, even our President is taking ads out to boost his image, and Mr. Romney, really? Where to even begin? He was a non-candidate 4 years ago. I'm going back to my argument that Americans (I love you and this is the best country on the planet however, ) as a whole are not so bright. Honestly he was a loser 4 years ago. The only thing that has changed is that it's 4 years later. I really cannot drag myself anywhere near excitement. I think the best thing these 2 parties can hope for is that I will abstain from voting, which I know morally I cannot do but really? This one is painful.

Extraordinary ordinary moments

You've heard the statement: The more you give, the more you get.

If you've ever volunteered or given from the heart, you know it's a true statement. Everyone knows my inability and my ineptitude of giving of myself because I've spoken ad nauseam how I struggle just to tuck the kids into bed. Why? Let's be honest, I hate prying myself away from anything that I am doing, even if that is sitting and breathing- to give my attention to anyone not me. Selfish - absolutely. Appalling - yep. Shameful - mmmhhmmm. Embarassing - sure is. I confess it in the little box I never sit in to the guy who's so familiar to me he knows my sins before I confess them and for some reason he never gets quite as weary of hearing it as I get of confessing it. Grace I'm sure. He's dealing with me so grace, for sure.

Anyway funny things happen with seemingly perpetual faults that I keep confessing and praying for and keep trying to avoid but fail miserably at. I have to call this a miracle because I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The kids are going to bed - Are you going to tuck them in? Absolutely! So off I go to do the one thing I don't want to do and I sit with monkeyboy and we pray. We talk. I admire his room. I make him get back out of bed to brush his teeth. He's back in bed. I make him get back out of bed to floss. Then I notice Peach is not in her jammies so I ask her to get in jammies. Get the boy back in bed, we talk. What are you thankful for today buddy? - the usual, family and friends. I bless him and go to talk to the Peach who is still not in jammies. Ok, let's take care of that. Sweetie, did you brush your teeth? - ok off you go. I use the intermission to pick up her room a little. Finish the whole jammie experience and then we talk about her day, what went well, where were the epic fails, what do we want to ask Jesus for most today and such. After this dissertation we do a little prayer, a little kiss and a little hugging. Nothing special but everything extraordinary.

Later, when I asked Jesus where he was that day, I saw he was right there in my arms being kissed, hugged, learning how to pray, learning when to brush. He was in the ordinary and that is precisely what made it extraordinary. I didn't see it at the time. Why do we never notice the miracles when they happen? You see I didn't realize at the time how much joy there was in the  buttoning of the jammies, the folding of the clothes, the intimate time spent together with the kids. I didn't notice the inconvenience to my 'whatever it was that didn't matter that I was doing' beforehand. All I noticed was the joy and peacefulness (yes even in the protestations of teeth brushing) of those extraordinary ordinary moments.

Good Night Jesus. I love zzzzz

The beautiful thing about having kids... is having children. I can't imagine who I'd be without them because as selfish as I am, I'd be way worse without them. Last night Peachy told me, "Mama, I want to be just like you. You're a saint." To which I laughed and she then said "Well, if you're not, you will be."

Ha!

If there is anyone who could be a poster child of how not to be a saint (other than St. Augustine) it would be me. Oh hang on, he's now a saint. Bad analogy. Seriously though I look at my little girl and discover every day something new. Yesterday's lesson was on stewardship (more about that in a later blog if anyone's interested or can't sleep).

There is nothing quite like looking at the world through the eyes of a child. Better still is looking at the world through the heart of a child (at least a well formed child or a non-punky child).

"Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God" Mt 5:8
Pope Benedict XVI comments on the bottom of pg 93 in Jesus of Nazareth that the organ to see God is the heart. Fascinating. How does one acquire this purity of heart? In this day and age, good luck! You have to practice heroic virtue to be pure of just about anything these days, but I look at my little girl and here's what I see, a purity that just blows me away. I think, if she can love me, how much more must my creator love me? Am I right? Well children teach us many things daily. She teaches me how to pray:

I asked her as she went to bed to pray a decade since I mis-managed our night again. So when papa went to check on her he found her buried underneath her blankets hugging a picture of the Divine Mercy. So he picks up the picture because he figures Jesus doesn't want to be covered in little girl sweat ('cause at night, she is a sweatball) and placed it on her shelf. That's when he discovers her clutching a rosary in one hand and a scapular in the other.

Women religous, come on out of the closet!

With the conclusion of the assessment of women religious in the states (concluded a couple of years ago among an environment of hostility from some of the women religious), the Vatican has announced a much needed "renewal of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious" citing "serious doctrinal problems". Read it for yourself.


"The current doctrinal Assessment arises out of a sincere concern for the life of faith in some Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. It arises as well from a conviction that the work of any conference of major superiors of women Religious can and should be a fruitful means of addressing the contemporary situation and supporting religious life in its most “radical” sense—that is, in the faith in which it is rooted."



There is a sincere concern for the life and faith of the women religious. Sincere! Wow, Imagine that (dripping sarcasm here)! The Holy Father and the Church are sincerely concerned about the life and faith of women religious. It's taken a long time and no one should be surprised really. The Church rarely moves quickly but when she does move it is majestic.

What right does the Vatican have to call for women religious to be aligned with the UCCSB (which they currently have opposed at every step of the way from Obamacare to mandatory contraception)?
" According to Canon Law, conferences of major superiors are an expression of the collaboration between the Holy See, Superiors General, and the local Conferences of Bishops in support of consecrated life."

So what is the big deal with the Leadership conference of women religious anyway?
"Addresses given during LCWR annual Assemblies manifest problematic statements and serious theological, even doctrinal errors."

Oops.
I know I'm not the only one who's been waiting for a response from Mother Church on these dissident teachings and ways of life! For far too long they have gone unchecked. As uncomfortable as it is for our dissident brothers and sisters to hear this and their supporters (who feel like they have found a home within the Catholic Church for their erroneous belief structure), it is important to inform them that their belief structure is  what it is - heretical and not founded in truth. We're out of the closet! YIPPIE SKIPPIE!!!!
This does one major and important thing - it addresses the Big Huge Fat White Stinking Elephant in the room.

Note to reader: Not once in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's document do they attack people. They attack erroneous and faulty teaching. Love the person, hate the sin.

I hated it when Mother Church pointed out when I was trapped in dangerous and perilous heretical beliefs because I was so attached to those beliefs but if she hadn't, I would have never come out of the closet and into the marvelous light. So to all my sisters out there, come out of the closet and into the light.

Don't move beyond Jesus, move towards Him - anything beyond is away from Him and away from truth and goodness.

Monkeyboy's congenital condition: Mamitis

My son has a condition known as 'mamitis'.

When I was growing up mamitis usually referred to (a child) who was overly attached to his mother. Hmm, hmm my oldest brother had mamitis. My son has mamitis. I guess in english you'd say mama's boy - a boy who is excessively attached to his mother.

Is he excessively attached? Probably. 

When I work from home he hugs and kisses on me about every time he comes in my presence. Maybe he misses me when I am legitimately gone and he makes up for it by smooching but I'm getting the impression that he is overly attached to mama.

He complains when I am gone that I'm gone too much.

Ok, I do work long hours and volunteer quite a bit, at work, at church and I like my down time so I can take that complaint and try to do something about it. I can arrange to be home so I can be present more, but then I wonder if the problem isn't that I'm gone too much but that he doesn't spend a lot of time with friends. At some point the boy has to have friends and some that are not his mother.

It doesn't help that he thinks all his gymnast pals are twerps - which they are or maybe they are just normal twerpy 12 year olds. Granted he has a higher expectation from peers than they have for him so he ends up a bit disappointed and limited in his friend options. So what am I left to do about it?

As tough as it is for me, I think the best thing I can do is not try to be his best friend but to be his mother and help him find peers that he can interact with on a more regular basis than he does at the moment.

Receiving unsolicited temptations

is not nice. Not nice at all.

One of my colleagues has petitioned me to get an iPad. Just say no to colleagues!

For the sake of your sorrowful party

"Have mercy on us and on the.." Huh???

I was a little tired last night when it occurred to me that I hadn't prayed the Divine Mercy chaplet for the day and it being time for the Divine Mercy Novena, weariness or no weariness I decided to pray it. I guess I was also thinking of Peachy's birthday party today and all the things I needed to do yet, that I substituted 'Party' for 'Passion'.

An iPad for a kidney? Don't laugh. It happened.

I've been mulling over the purchase of an iPad for well over a year. Typically I agonize over any purchase. Do we need it? What are the benefits? What are the pitfalls? Will this purchase make me any better at my job, in my vocation? How will it benefit the family?

Even after I answer all these things I still hesitate in my purchase because of what that purchase  will convey to the kids? I want them to know that people are more important than things. People are meant to be loved and things are meant to be used. So often we get that backwards. We love things and use people. I was reminded as of that as I read the following story of a kid who sold his kidney for an iPad and iPhone.

What message do you convey with your purchases and how you use your purchases? What message do I send when I buy and use something? I hate it when I see people with their heads glued to screen, be that the tv, phone or electronic device and ignoring the people in their lives, primarily because I hate it when I see that in myself. I know I'm guilty of not wanting to roust myself from the couch to bid goodnight to the kids and that's a battle I constantly wage. I get caught up in what I'm doing on the laptop, on the phone, on the TV, but I hope they learn from me that people are meant to be loved and things are meant to be used. I love it when I see the discipline of someone who takes their attention off of whatever to pay attention to a person. Love it! It always reminds me to do the same.

Now it's not a bad thing to have an iThingy or any similar device. The point is that the more things we amass, the greater the temptation is to be attached to those things. We weren't meant to be attached to things.

Love People. Use Things. (in that order)

Easter Peep Humor

Letting go

I learn every day anew how to let go. It seems it becomes clearer to me just how much I need to let go and how so much is out of my control anyway so why not just release it?

Monkeyboy is so incredibly handsome. He looks out with his deep carmel eyes intently at me. What is he saying? I haven't a clue. I just get lost in those eyes thinking soon he'll be setting out on his own. He'll have his own directions, goals and mission. He's not mine. Just as Jesus didn't belong to Mary. Yes she was his mother and yes he loved her but he also turns to those telling him his mother is asking for him , and just about denies her any earthly filial devotion. He says 'Who is my mother? Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of the Father are my mother, sister and brothers' Filial bonds are formed in union with the will of the Father.

Letting go.

How Mary must have let go. What son today would have the nerve to say something like this in front of his mother or at least within hearing distance? Seriously. It almost sounds like Jesus has a severed relationship with his mother and perhaps he does but not like most protestants assume. Mary is reminded yet again that Jesus was meant for the world, not for her. God the Father demands complete detachment from Jesus and he gives it on the cross. He detaches himself from his comforts and adheres to the Father's will. Jesus demands complete detachment from his disciples. Is there any disciple more detached than Mary? Isn't she the model? She never denied her son his place on the cross. Her focus was ever on the Father's will.

When he was born, his birthday shower gifts from the magi were essentially funeral gifts. How happy would you be if you received embalming fluids for your baby's shower? What would you respond? Mary responds - 'He is for the world' in every act she makes as mother. Her attitude was 'He is not mine. He's been entrusted to me.'

As I age I find I have to let go of all sorts of things. My kids are one of those things but so is my fertility, the bouts of angry feelings, of changing metabolism, of slowing down. I could get hormone therapy, plastic surgery, botox, whatever. I could hang on as tight as I can to what I have here and now but is that all there is?
I have to remind myself that my place is not here. My home is somewhere else and to get there I have to be prepared to let go.

Totally Triduum

I can't recall when I have had a more comical Triduum. I think this might be a first:

HOLY THURSDAY:
Our little neighbor girl joined us for The mass of the Lord's Supper. She's Lutheran and Peachy's very good friend. Sometimes she joins us for prayer. Well we arrived early because I was suppose to serve but with the plethora of ordinary ministers, there was no need for extra-ordinary ones so I got to sit with the family. Peach turns to me and asks, "Mom is it ok if E-beth and I play Rock, Paper, Scissors before mass". The pious mom in me didn't quite see the holiness in it so I must have been giving the disapproving mom look. So she folds her hands together and does a quiet prayer and then says " Jesus says he doesn't mind. He said he welcomes the diversion."

GOOD FRIDAY:
Incedent #1
Basket Mayhem! We pass baskets 2 rows at a time. So baskets start out on Row 1 and 3 and should come back on rows 2 and 4. This repeats until all the rows are visited. Simple, yes? Apparently not. Somewhere along the way someone must have gotten confused or mixed things up because both baskets were coming back on row 4.

Incedent #2
We were processing up to venerate the cross and the procession was lagggggging. So as Peach and I neared the cross, I started prodding her to go ahead and go up to the cross. I was prodding her with the missellette and she turns around gesticulating like crazy. Her arms were flailing pointing but I couldn't hear her say anything. She just kept pointing, then she said "You're standing on my shoelace!" - Oops! I kissed the cross amid giggles and laughter. I think that was a first. How's that for a dose of humility.

Incedent #3
Dueling choirs! During the veneration of the cross the choir was singing "Behold the wood of the cross". Well on verse 2, 2 of the choir members were singing2 different verses. Not until about midway through did one of them give up and join the others. Then on verse 3, the very same thing happened. I have no idea if it was the same 2 choir people but it was confusing. Then as if that wasn't enough on verse 4, 3 different verses were being sung and NO ONE wanted to give up and join someone else. I nearly bust out laughing.

There is NO mass today!

- What time is mass?
- There is no mass today. Jesus died. There is no Holy sacrifice of the mass celebrated today.

The church was so empty. It wasn't an emptyness devoid of people because the place was full of people. Well not full but you get the idea. Seeing the empty tabernacle, the bare altar, the empty holy water fonts, the draped crucifix just struck me of emptiness.

In reality whatever suffering I have ever had to endure doesn't even begin to be what I've merited. God's been quite soft on me. I don't like going to the dentist because I know it's not going to go well for me. I get poked and proded and it's going to hurt but it's necessary so that I get better, so that the infection gets wiped away. My husband might hold my hand (for all the good that does) but it still hurts. That's what God the Father did in Jesus. He asked him to take on all our burdens of sin, all my failures and take them on himself so that I could get better. He stayed with him all throughout the crucifixion never once leaving him so that I could get better. So we're off to celebrate that blessed event because through his wounds, we are healed and that's why it's called Good Friday.

What the hell did we do before we had kids?

That was what I recall asking my husband after we had monkeyboy. I was reminiscing while having dinner with my nephew and his wife. Is appropriate to say niece? Well as young couples they talked about wanting to have time for themselves and as I recall this is what I wanted when I was in their shoes but I distinctly recall asking "What the hell did we used to do before we had monkeyboy?" to my husband sometime after having monkeyboy.

It seems to me and husband agreed, that whatever it was that we did, it was a complete waste of time. I don't feel like my life really started until after we had kids. We were a couple but we weren't a family until we had the newborn. There are so many things you just never do when you live for yourself. I guess I really didn't know happiness until I held this furry little guy in my arms (he was called monkeyboy back then because he was a hairy little creature)

Before we had kids:

- We chased happiness. I don't know that we ever found it. We had lots of stuff and took nice vacations though.

- We had quiet dinners. I don't really remember any of them. I do however remember every dinner date night I've had with my kids. We do date night once a week. We do something special with just me and each of them. Peach and I have gotten Chinese take out twice. Monkeyboy and I went to the pub. Those dinner dates are precious and I treasure them.

- We went on vacations. London, Dublin, Quebec, Cozumel, Seattle, Florida, Texas, the Boundary Waters, New York, North Dakota. I had fun at each time but never like it is when we've taken the kids. 

- We'd bath together and don't get me wrong as fun as that was and is, it just doesn't come close to the joy of bathing a child. The kids loved bubble baths. They love bubbles like they are this magical source of entertainment. They laugh. They smile and it's infectious. They say the camera adds 10 pounds, well taking a baby a bath takes off ten years. Then there's the scent of freshly bathed baby. There is nothing like it in the world. It's like opening a can of hope and it refreshes the entire world.

Kids just teach you how to play. How to really play. As adults we think we know how to play. We haven't a clue.

Everyday since having had kids, it's like happiness walked in the door and sat on my lap and begged for my attention. Happiness though walked in preceded by sacrifice. Sometimes that's all we see isn't it? We see the sacrifice and say "No, not for me. That's asking a little too much." I think if we'd see the happiness right behind that honking wall of sacrifice we'd say, 'Yeah so what."

Better the devil you know

than the devil you don't. So the question is, how well do you know the devil?

I used to be terrified of the devil. I grew up with this kind of fear of evil. Was it the horror movies my brother insisted on watching, the murder flicks, the late night news? Who knows. The thing is, I was really terrified as a kid of the power and evil that I thought the devil had. The more I've grown in intimacy with Christ, the more I realized that the devil is a chained piece of trash and should be treated as such.

Mind you, the devil is scary, wicked ugly, ruthless, very determined and motivated to hurt God. I don't suppose the devil gives a care about me in general only so much as his hatred for God turns his attention toward me. He can't touch God, can't hurt him but he can hurt those God loves. His chains prevent him from hurting me unless I'm silly enough to wander in his territory. Ordinarily someone isn't silly enough to wander into his territory but some silly fools do this willingly. In this case the devil doesn't need to expend so much energy because he's already got the silly fool. For others who are wise enough to steer clear of the chained beast, he uses temptation. The devil is incapable of creation because only God creates but he is crafty. The devil will take God's creation and warp it in such a way so as to tempt me closer.

He really hates it when his cover is blown and I just laugh and take cover in God's infinite mercy.

Between Heaven and Hell

I've been reading "My Brother the Pope" (I highly recommend it!) and there was a line in there that the author mentions that Joseph Ratzinger's birthplace was located literally between heaven and hell, halfway between the Marian Shrine and the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn where years earlier a man was born who loomed over the childhood of little Joseph and his brother Georg, Adolf Hitler.

I know when the press attacked the Pope and accused him falsely and tried to bring up anything they could against Pope Benedict of being a Nazi sympathizer, supporter, Hitler's go to guy, whatever - I mean I knew it was outright false. I just didn't know how outright false it was. Man, the UK press that started that whole smear campaign are idiots!

At the age of fourteen Joseph Ratzinger had a choice to make. He could attend a Hilter youth group meeting and  his family on fixed income could get a much needed tuition discount and be spared the full rate tuition for his and his brother's school (minor seminary). His teacher a Nazi supporter tried to get him just to go to one meeting so he could have the documents so he could get the tuition discount. Joseph Ratzinger at the tender age of 14 told him clearly that "No, I will not do that."

Wow, just wow! What kind of courage does it take to say no to something like that with such a tempting incentive? He could have followed the crowd, done what his contemporaries were doing, swim with the stream but he chose to swim against the stream and take the tougher stand. When people say "just go with the flow" - you must realize that those fish that go with the flow, um they are the dead ones. If you're going to have life, eternal life, you are going to find that you will always be swimming against the flow. Those are the fish that are alive. To be a Christian means to be counter-cultural.