Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, October 10, 2007


Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy,
and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that
he has to grow up...a lot of people don't have the courage to do it.

- Helen Hayes, artist and actress, born on this day, 1900


Grow up. Hmmmm. I have to agree with Helen. I have been a priest for 35 years, and “in ministry” for over 40. I have been committed to trying to help people - including myself - to grow up. Helen says that “a lot of people” don’t have the courage to grow up.

She is wrong, by my experience. Most people don’t have the courage or the desire to be adults. They resist change and transformation like the plague. Huge numbers of people just want to rest in the status quo. That’s why, among those who “go to church”, very very few ever go to events that will challenge their rote ideas, disturb their comfort zones. I’ve been a “preacher” for decades. One of the phenomena that has most astounded me is how people hear only what they “want” to hear - and it usually isn’t what I actually said! Because usually what I have to say challenges childish understandings of God and Life.

I am constantly amazed by the numbers of church-goers who hold on to a childish (not childlike, as Jesus defined childlike) ideas of God. No wonder they harbour unspoken doubts. They were taught as children that God would “make everything better”, give them what they asked for, arrange the Universe and Reality to their magical views. And what amazes me even more is that, when God does not do any of those things, they have the ability to live in profound Denial, often blaming their “bad behaviour” for God’s unresponsiveness. All that accomplishes is a huge community of people who remain stunted in their development as human beings created in the image of God.

The Gospel gives people the courage to Grow Up. Jesus was a Grown-up, who knew what was important, and could choose a path that had the integrity of His beliefs, even if it meant death on a cross. He loved the poor, the oppressed, those falsely maligned, the rejected, the feared, the different - as we shall hear in the Gospel about the healed lepers next Sunday.

It is a great human tragedy when we can’t grow up. It is people stunted in childhood who wage wars, build ghettos, enthrone false gods, ignore the dispossessed and the needy. Mature men and women see all people as their family, and do their best to nurture that family.

“Original sin” - the capability of evil - is everyone’s given. Grownups choose Compassion.

Brian+