Muted.

I've struggled with whether or not I should say anything about this. I am deeply uncomfortable criticizing priests or bishops without explicitly just reason (blatant heresy, or abuse of persons, for example), and even then, I hesitate. I have such a deep respect for the clergy, and the office they hold and the Person they make present in our midst. And that, ultimately, is why I feel this must be said. The more I think about the reasons I respect the clergy, the more it hurts.

I realize that priests are busy. I also realize that they are human -- and that humans forget. We are clumsy and wayward and all of us are just trying to feel our way through this dark world.

My world, and the world for so many others, was very dark on Sunday with the loss of nearly fifty lives, and the impact on countless more whose lives will never be the same, at the now well-known shooting in an Orlando gay bar. Tragedy drags my heart down often, regardless of who the victim or victims may be, but this one struck home. These were my brothers and sisters in the gay community -- targeted specifically because they were gay.

Writing this still now puts knots in my stomach. The youngest victim was 18, and had only recently graduated high school. Several of the deceased died with their partners, and one of the deceased was not herself gay -- she was the straight mother of a gay son, and she had beaten cancer twice and had ten other children (her son survived, by the way). Many were college students. Some were full fledged adults. All are loved by God.

Each of these people had a story -- one that was still being written, which was far from seeming over. Each was created in the image and likeness of God, and each was on Jesus' mind and in his heart as he hung on the cross. They loved and were loved. They had hopes, they had dreams, and they had plans for the next day.

This attack has been ceaselessly named the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. And yet, somehow, I have lost count of the LGBT people I know, in small towns and huge cities, who went to Mass or a non-Catholic church service on Sunday seeking solace from the fear and sadness only to hear no mention of the shooting -- let alone that the victims were targeted for being gay.

I know and understand that several Catholic and other Christian public figures have decried the massacre, and condemned violence. This is wonderful. And yet, it seems that I have heard very little from Christian circles -- be it clergy or laypeople -- specifically mentioning that this was a crime against gay people because they were gay.

Certain public figures -- whom I will not name -- insist on avoiding referring to the victims as gay or belonging to the LGBT community, opting instead to call them "Americans" and to state that they are mourning as Americans who have lost Americans.

This is all well and good. But why is this shooting unique from other shootings? What makes these victims Americans who need no other designation while victims of other mass shootings are referred to as students, black churchgoers, children?

Perhaps it is that people genuinely think they are doing the LGBT community some sort of service by not referring to their being members of the LGBT community. This is possible, especially in a Christian climate that fears the word "gay" and fears even more its implications.

But please -- please -- don't mute our existence. LGBT people -- my people -- were targeted by the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Not because we are American. Not because we are people. The victims in Orlando were targeted and killed because they were gay.

To say so is not politicizing. It is stating a fact. It isn't succumbing to liberal ideologies. It's recognizing the reality before us. Again:

The deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history targeted LGBT people because they were LGBT people.

It is more than okay to say so. God is not offended by the truth. Please, I beg you, say so. And once you've said so, condemn it. Condemn homophobia. Condemn violence against gay people . Condemn violence in the name of God and proclaim for all to hear that God loves gay people.

If you haven't, please do. Please don't be afraid to talk about it. Please don't be afraid to say the victims weren't "just gays" as a friend of mine was told by his grandfather. Please don't be afraid to confront this mess with the love of Jesus Christ and the compassion and mercy which the Gospel requires of us.

And lastly, if you have gay friends or family members, ask how they're doing. They'll more than likely be relieved to know you care.

I am useless

I tend to accidentally stumble into nihilism when it comes to my thinking, and accidentally into utilitarianism when it comes to my choices. I'm constantly exhausted and depressed from doing so many things for what feels like no reason.

At the root of this issue is the fact that I see myself as useless, and therefore, worthless. I feel inadequate and my internalized response is to be excessively adequate. And then I feel it doesn't matter, it serves no real purpose, and it is all in vain.

Last night, I was at my friends' house holding their new baby girl. She's pretty cute, and holding her was my chosen method of therapy after the horrible day I had.

Watching her mommy hold her, though, became a sort-of therapy in itself. This child does nothing practical, personally, for her parents. She has taken much from them and has only been able to return it to them in the form of dirty diapers. Her favorite things to do are sleep, eat, and stare into space. And she does all these things fairly well. Apart from that, she contributes nothing materially valuable. She doesn't work, she doesn't provide, and she certainly doesn't clean up after herself.

But her parents do not see her this way. My friend, pictured, is clearly (sorry) exhausted. She's getting used to an irregular sleep cycle centered wholly on the needs of a days-old infant who is entirely dependent on her for food, which she needs every couple of hours, at least. Still, her joy hasn't faded. In fact, I would say, it has only increased, a hundred fold, with each day that has passed since the day she learned that her child existed.

And that, y'all, is this sweet baby's claim to fame. Joy. By her very existence, she gives meaning and purpose to the actions her parents take and creates a whole new and exciting dimension in their lives. She offers them no material benefit. She costs them money, time, and energy.

But she is so worthy, so precious to them, simply because she exists, that her parents are willing to give all this and more for no greater purpose than for her own sake. She exists, and this is reason enough to love her.

Her parents don't need her to do anything for them -- because by simply existing, she is already enough. More than enough. She exists, in these moments, as a perfect image of what it is to simply "be loved."

Her existence itself is meaningful -- speaking such long-forgotten truths as "love creates" and "love ignites" and "love begets love." We call babies "adorable," and by it we mean "cute." But the adoration in her mother's eyes, and her father's eyes, since they first saw her sweet little face and perfect poofy cheeks, is real. It is more than finding her cute; she inspires a deep awe in them, not for any marvelous capacity she may eventually possess, or because of any usefulness (or lack of) she poses, but simply because she is.

How much more, then, can a God who is totally self-sustaining and never tired love us whom he loved into existence? We are the physical embodiment of his love, made in his own precious image, receiving from him at all times a longing, loving gaze. He adores us, even while we offer nothing of any use to him. He is in awe of us, simply because we are.

I exist -- and that is enough to bring joy to my Father's heart. By the simple fact that I am, his world is somehow enriched, though he was lacking nothing before me and gains nothing for himself from me. I add nothing to his existence, but he would not think to call me worthless. For all he has given me, all I can return to him are my sins and my failures and sorrows. And his love and his gaze remain the same. God loves me for my own sake -- and nothing I can or can't do has ever been able to change that.

To put all that in very few words -- I am utterly useless to God, and his heart is filled with joy simply because he brought me into existence. He did not create me to be "useful." He thought of me and willed me into being, to be and to be loved.

This is more than enough for him. When will it be enough for me?

Peter's Faith -- Alternatively Titled: The Future Of That Freak With Pink Hair

I dread being asked what I'm studying in college, because I know that as soon as I say "theology," I'll be met with a curious and pitying glance, followed quickly by, "Oh. What do you plan to do with that?"

And the honest-to-God truth is: I don't know. I have no idea.

For three years, off and on, I prayed about what I should do with my life. And this program at this school kept coming back to me. In 2014, I finally committed to it, and got started. I've enjoyed most of my classes so far, and my experience with the staff has been nothing short of delightful. And still, I'm tired.

I never planned to go to college growing up. It simply wasn't something I ever saw myself doing -- I hated school, and once I was out of high school, I relished in the freedom of work, having my own money, and free evenings.

And now, there's homework. Endless homework. Due to financial aid requirements based on my circumstances, I can't take a "break" without losing my aid. I finish one semester, and pick the next one up as soon as the following month begins. I don't get summer breaks. I don't get Christmas breaks. I don't get spring break. I don't have the option. I'll be following this pattern for the next four and a half years...at least.

So, when people ask, "Oh. What do you plan to do with that?" My response is dressed in a half-hearted smile, a shrug, and drenched in exhaustion: "Whatever God wants me to do, I guess."

It feels childish -- unbecoming of an adult, especially one so typically vested in planning and scheduling and organizing. It is unusual for me to hope, to dream, or to wonder (unless the wonder is the result of worry).

We hear sometimes that Peter's falling while attempting to walk on water to Jesus when He called was the direct result of his turning his gaze from the Christ and focusing instead on the waves. It seems like a clear-cut story: we look to Jesus, and we'll rise above; we look to the storm, and we'll sink.

But are those the only two possibilities? Faith and failure? Is it possible to look to Christ rather than focusing on the storm, and still feel the wind and the rain as they buffet against us, pressing us against our doubt and our clumsiness and the gravity which demands our submission?

Is it possible to keep your eyes on Christ and still feel so, so tired? Anxious? Drenched from the rain even if not swallowed up by the sea?

My answer is so typical of me: I don't know. Maybe I'm not supposed to know. Maybe it's not my job. Or maybe, Peter, being the coward he was that I so easily relate to, would not have even stepped out of the boat if he saw his denial of Christ, the responsibility he would have for the Church at its dawning, and his eventual execution under the sinister Emperor Nero.

Perhaps faith's only goal was not to keep Peter from looking around him; perhaps it was to keep him from looking too far ahead -- not only away from Christ, but beyond him, behind him. Even Christ, from a distance, appeared as a ghost, and the Apostles were afraid (Luke 24:37). Peter couldn't see into the distance -- not the distance of that stormy night, and not the distance of his life on earth.

What would Peter have said if asked what he planned to do when he made it to Jesus on the water? Maybe the same as me: "I don't know."

"What's out there?"

"I don't know."

"What's happening?"

"I don't know."

"What will you do if--"

"I don't know."

And yet, his Master beckoned. He calls to all of us the same. We don't always know what the future holds, or what we'll do if this, or if that. We can't always say what will happen if we step out and go to where Christ calls.

But, God-willing, we can echo Peter's sentiment toward his Master:

Where else would we go?

Hesitation

Two statements from Holy Thursday stir up an existential awe in my heart:

"You will never wash my feet," and "Do you realize what I have done for you?"

Like the Pharisees who saw Jesus dining with sinners and showing kindness to "wicked" women, and like the disciples who pushed back crowds and guarded Jesus from children, it is easy for those of us who hold God in high regard to be disturbed at the implication that he be made unclean or that he should associate with anything less than riches and honor and favor. We know in our humanity that sin and God are eternally in opposition to one another; to pursue the appetites and desires we have for one is to spit in the face of the other.

From the first moments of the unfolding of the fall, Adam and Eve felt ashamed. Their shame was in knowing -- not in having some sort of intellectual knowledge gained from academics or valuable experiences -- but in knowing, with a deep intimacy, the dividing factors between good and evil. They hid themselves with whatever they could retrieve from the world around them, dreading what they now knew was not merely nakedness, but vulnerability.

As soon as sin had taken root in our human nature, so did the anxious "knowing" that we are not good enough for God, that being searched by him or known by him or found by him might mean our ultimate end. Their anxieties in these moments were not too far off the mark -- we are told that no one can see the face of God and live (Exodus 33:20) and that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Hebrews 10:31)

We sense this distinctness between our nature and God's innately, and it gives us a certain a hesitancy toward the sacred. We don't want to make God dirty. We don't want to profane him. We don't want to offend him (though we often do). Imagine Peter's horror, then, as Jesus, taking a towel, wrapped it around his waist and proceeded to lower himself to wash Peter's feet.

But Jesus is unrestrained by our anxieties. He sees our needs and nothing in him is hindered by sin. The hesitancy we have toward God is not one he has toward us. We see a holy God and withhold ourselves, just as Peter did when he first took Jesus out in his boat. "Depart from me; I am a sinful man." But Jesus sees a hurting and fallen people, and withholds nothing of himself.

Jesus knows that if he withholds himself, it will only be to our peril. "Unless I wash you, you can have no part in me." Jesus has no fear of our feet that have trudged through the dirt and the mud of this dying world. Jesus gets down in the dirt himself, and with weary hands and dirty fingernails and sweat caked to his brow, he performs the work of a servant. The arms which will bear the weight of the world's sin first bear the sorrow and soreness we bear from holding ourselves up for so long.

Knowing who would betray him, who would deny him, and who would follow him to the death, Jesus does not partake in any sort of preferentialism. He tends to the tiredness and the wounds of the sinner and the saint.

Jesus gazes into the human condition, seeing our shame and our sense of unworthiness, searching the darkened corners of our hearts where we hide ourselves with whatever we've found in the world around us, and lovingly pleads with us: "Do you realize what I have done for you?"

The Saint of Darkness

The Vatican has officially announced that Mother Teresa will be canonized a Saint on September 4, later this year. This is incredibly joyous and meaningful news for me; the woman many see as a servant of the poor first and a powerful, albeit small, world changer second is for me an example of what it means to live the faith and love Jesus when all spiritual consolations and feelings of happiness are stripped from us in this life.

Several years after her death, Mother Teresa's private letters and writings became accessible to the public, and people were astonished at what they read. Where they expected to find reflections on loving Jesus and caring for him in the poorest of the poor -- which they did, of course, find -- they also found admissions of a dreadful and decades-long Dark Night of the Soul. It was revealed that Mother Teresa not only labored in love, but labored in the silence and darkness of a soul which felt torn from grace.

In a letter from 1961, the soon-to-be-Saint wrote: "Darkness is such that I really do not see—neither with my mind nor with my reason—the place of God in my soul is blank—There is no God in me—when the pain of longing is so great—I just long & long for God. … The torture and pain I can't explain."

Mother Teresa's crumbling joy and apparently constant wrestling with believing have dubbed her, for some, an atheist, but a closer reading of her letters, bearing in mind the struggles we all -- believers, that is -- so often face depicts a separate story. Where skeptics and agnostics find in her words the familiarity of doubt, believers who struggle with depression, with spiritual dryness, or other emotional, psychological, or spiritual calamities find the familiar face of anguish -- of longing for God and, in the absence of his felt presence and response, a certain bitterness, and not only a bitterness in attitude, but in taste and in feeling. It is a sour thing, we sense, for God to allow us to feel abandoned, and it is a sour thing for the soul to feel abandoned.

She once wrote of her experiences: "I did not know that love could make one suffer so much . . . of pain human but caused by the divine. The more I want him, the less I am wanted. I want to love him as he has not been loved, and yet there is that separation, that terrible emptiness, that feeling of absence of God. They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God . . . In my soul I feel just this terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing. That terrible longing keeps growing, and I feel as if something will break in me one day. Heaven from every side is closed. I feel like refusing God. Pray for me that I may not turn a Judas to Jesus in this painful darkness."

As Christians, we know that bad things happen, and bad people exist, in spite of God's goodness. It can often seem to us that God permits these things to spite his own goodness, and occasionally -- or, for some of us, frequently -- that these things happen not in spite of or to spite God's goodness, but as what tastes to our souls and our hearts like the spite of God himself.

Few people understand this feeling so well as Mother Teresa did. Every morning, she trudged into the streets of Calcutta, dampened by tears and darkened by death. She witnessed firsthand what longing looks like; she understood the poverties of the soul like a second language -- a language she translated to others from the poverty of the body she buried herself in for her whole life.

There are those who may die and meet God face-to-face and find their souls plunged, headfirst, into the hell they prefer to him and his glory. And there are those who may die and meet God face-to-face and feel the weight of glory press upon them with increasing joy, until their joy is completed, as promised by Jesus.

And then, there are souls like Mother Teresa, who have spent their earthly life struggling, sick, and dying on the sidewalks and in the alleyways of human suffering, longing for healing that never seems to come, until Someone comes along, bends down, and picks them up off the side of the road, carries them home, and binds their wounds with love.

Resurrection

"I thirst," he pleads, from the altar of the cross. He thirsts for love, for my love, for the devotion of my heart. Day in and day out, from the altar which brings the same Calvary forward again and again -- the death of God which happened once, yet happened for all. The sacrifice which happened once in history but is all the same present at every Mass upon the altar. Jesus, slain on the altar, begs our love in few words and many drops of precious blood. Blood poured out into a chalice, held high for all to see. "Take this, and drink."

The Word of God intended to go forth and accomplish the work of salvation overflows from the cross as Lamb and from the altar as bread. Broken Jesus, who thirsts for my soul, come into the tomb of my heart. Draw near to the heart which you cause to beat, moment by moment. This empty place, darkened by the shadows of doubt and dampened by the tears of worry; this tomb of my body, my fallen humanity. Come into the tomb of this humanity which was buried with you in baptism, swept up into your death as rain is swallowed up by the ocean. This grave where I am drowning in my brokenness and misery. Come and meet me here, and if I find my heart has died let it at least have died with you.

Come to live in me so that I can live in you. This bread which is you crucified is one and the same as you who has overcome. The same God slain on the altar is alive on the other side of my sin and my doubt and my frustration and limitedness. Resurrect this wasteland you've encountered; roll away the stones of doubt and show the light of your radiant dawning over the shadows it casts. Let this blood in my veins which keeps me alive be united to the blood from your side which moves me to live.

Bring your resurrection to me. Let my life be your life. Become the rhythm in this heart and breathe your Spirit into these lungs. Let this death worth dying mean that there is life worth living. Come to live in me.

The Real Jesus And The Greasy Pink Mop

A lot of people think I'm a model Catholic. A lot of people, on that note, think I'm a terrible Catholic. I'm too "conservative" for some, and too "liberal" for others. People like me, and that's okay. People hate me, and that's okay. I'm certainly not a good Catholic, and I'm not exactly a bad Catholic. I'm just a Catholic who needs all the help I can get.

I hesitate to write a lot for this blog. I started this blog at the incessant prompting of friends who insisted I have something important to say, that I'm a good writer, that people need to hear me. My writing, though, is often therapeutic. I write to get my thoughts out of my head and in front of me, so I can see them and put them together like the puzzle they are. I'm a Catholic struggling with mental illness who needs an outlet.

This past week, I've been near crippled by horrible thoughts. I won't divulge the details here, though. What I will say is that by Sunday morning, it was all I could do to get myself out of bed. Which was important -- I had plans to go to Mass with my godson and his mother. I woke up two hours early to get ready, and those two hours slowly devolved into watching YouTube and listening to a friend's testimony about alcoholism colliding with the joy of the Gospel. His story was amazing -- inspiring, and sobering (no pun intended). It was impossible not to think how much "better" a Catholic than I am he is, and how desperately I wanted a relationship with Jesus like he has. Jesus spoke to me, nonetheless, through his words and his story, and it was the first time I'd felt Jesus' love in weeks. I sent my friend a quick message of appreciation, grabbed some Cheerios to occupy my godson, and headed out for Mass.

Since the athletic shorts I slept in were undoubtedly inappropriate attire for Mass, I parked down the street and pulled some yoga pants out of a bag in the back of my car. I walked up the street with my tshirt and my yoga pants and just knew the sweet old man in the suit walking in was probably judging me. A bad Catholic, if she's a Catholic at all. Fear of what others would think quickly consumed my thoughts as I approached the steps to the great wooden door of this huge, old, beautiful church. I slid my black beanie off my head and revealed to God and the world the oily pink mess that waited underneath. Good Catholics dress up for Mass. Bad Catholics don't even go. And then there's my hot mess. #TheWorst.

Later that day a friend expressed grief over the fact that he struggles with his faith but is involved in a catechetical ministry. He spoke of needing to go "act like he had his shit together" and "pretending," and I wanted to tell him how much his honesty helps me. It is important to my faith to know that others are struggling, to know that others don't have it all together, to know that someone needs Jesus as much as I do. It's easy to see how Jesus is the God who commands and the God who demands and the God who heals and the God who approves for so many. It's almost a foreign language to me, though, sometimes. I need to know that Jesus is also a God who will get down in the dirt and pick me up and take me the way I am for -- if I dare to even dream -- the simple reality of who I am. Is Jesus a God who can love me like that?

Or is Jesus a God who looks out from the tabernacle and sees me somehow in one of the front rows of an architecturally magnificent building and scoffs at my yoga pants and slicked back pink mop, a toddler in one arm and a plastic bowl of Cheerios in the other?

Is Jesus a God who, from a distance, sees that I've once again opted to skip morning prayer to hide in bed because I want to hurt myself, but I can't because so many -- especially Jesus -- would be so disappointed?

Is Jesus a God who sees my heart screaming into the dark abyss of my human essence and hopes someone will pass on a devotional about the importance of interior silence in the Christian life?

There is this memory inside of me somewhere that Jesus is personable, intimately aware of my struggles and wants to love me through them. The same Jesus I'm often told is not "the real Jesus" because he isn't strict enough, stoic enough. He involves my feelings in my relationship with him, where "the real Jesus" has nothing to do with feelings. He offers gentle caresses when "the real Jesus" is harsh about mortal sins and dreadful habits. "The real Jesus" isn't kind like we think of kindness -- human kindness is different than that of "the real Jesus," whose kindness always involves reproach for sinners like me. "The real Jesus" is waiting for my thoughts and habits to change so he can be a part of my life again.

And still, this tiny, urgent memory of the Jesus I knew once comes to me. It brings peace and light and no ulterior motive besides to make sure I'm okay.  Like a song stuck in my head, or the ticking of the clock I can't shake from my OCD brain, I hear it repeatedly:

"Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them to feed them." Hosea 11:3-4

Jesus is a God who sees a need and wants to fill it. He is a God who is gentle and kind -- even resorting at times to "human kindness." He is a God who adores us as a mother adores her infant, pressing us to his face and laughing at our sloppy, Cheerios-scented kisses.

And, if I am permitted to think so, that extends to me. Me in my yoga pants with my greasy pink hair and my tired face and worried eyes and thoughts of hurting myself and thoughts that are worse. Jesus sees my desperation and hopelessness, and wants to fill it, not condemn it. Jesus sees my aching and my occasional desire to give up on him, to "go be happy," and he hopes I remember how miserable I was before him. Jesus sees me roll out of bed at 11:45AM and hopes I'll pray today just as he hopes I'll remember to take my anxiety medicine.

Jesus wants me to be okay. I am allowed to think that. Jesus wants me to be happy. I am allowed to think that.

And, since I'm feeling daring today ... Maybe the real Jesus doesn't care if I'm a good Catholic or a bad Catholic, as much as he cares that I know I'm a Catholic whose only eternal hope is in him, and whose hope today lies in hearing his invitation to let him love me.