The Assault on Families

Last Sunday was the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  Jesus and Mary were without sin, but this isn’t what made their family holy.  Despite their purity of heart and soul, the holy family lived in poverty and was forced to flee for their lives from the murderous Herod.  Mary and Joseph were distraught with fear and anxiety when they lost the twelve year old Jesus on a trip to Jerusalem, and they suffered the anguish of Joseph’s death sometime before Jesus began His public ministry.  Jesus was no doubt taunted for not having married by the age of 30, and He was castigated by religious leaders of the very people He came to save, and Mary suffered the sight of her son’s brutal torture and death.   Being holy was no panacea from the struggles and trials of life.

What constituted the holiness of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph was their mutual belief and trust in God.  Mary trusted God, knowing that she would face recrimination.  Joseph trusted his dream-visits by an angel, and of course Jesus trusted God the Father, even though it meant His torture and death.  The fact that all three placed their trust in God is what made them a “holy family.”  We might think that holiness is reserved for a sainted few, or that it is only attainable by people who are able to avoid temptation and sin, but this is not the gospel message.  Paradoxically, sinners can be holy and establish a holy family of their own, simply by trusting in God and His mercy. 

To paraphrase Aristotle, the best of friends are those who share a common belief or love in some third entity.  Think about it, aren’t the friends you enjoy most, the ones who share your opinions and beliefs?  Sharing belief in God with your parents, spouse, and children is what makes a family holy.  And by holy, I don’t mean pious or scrupulous.  The very word holy derives its meaning from the same word as whole.  To be whole or wholesome is to be complete.  There is no greater sense of completeness than to find your soulmate and share life with them in all its fullness.  In the Genesis account of creation, God says “It is not good for man to be alone,” and so He created woman because alone, man was incomplete.  It is well-understood that women have distinctly positive impact on men in every regard.  The love of a woman reorders a man’s life and priorities, to a higher order, a more meaningful existence, one that can be life-giving and more fulfilling.  God had a purpose in creating us as men and women, complementary in every regard: biologically, emotionally, and perhaps even spiritually.  He also created men and women for a permanent, monogamous relationship, one in which children would be born into a loving, stable, and wholesome environment.  This is the very meaning and purpose of marriage, to create a family and a safe, secure atmosphere for the rearing and education of children by both father and mother.

[This has been universally understood and encouraged for millennia, until the last century and a half.  The nineteenth century saw the rise of atheism which posited that since there is no God and no afterlife, the greatest good in life is to attain the most happiness possible.  Atheist philosophers claimed that humans are essentially just highly evolved animals with the ability to reason, and there is no absolute good or evil, only happiness and unhappiness.  Therefore, if happiness is the greatest good, and there are no eternal consequences for our actions, we should pursue happiness at any cost.  The likes of Rousseau,(who abandoned all five of his sons to orphanages) and Nietzsche (who declared himself the anti-Christ before going insane), advanced this idea, which was taken up by Marx who politicized the greatest happiness could be achieved by creating a government in which everyone was equal.  To achieve this, Marx insisted that government should own all property and dictate rules to ensure equality among the working population.  This led to Lenin overthrowing the Czar and establishing the first Communist State in which religion was outlawed, and workers were shot for neglecting to follow rules, or simply for failing to show up for work, on holidays for instance. 

The twentieth century bought forward Darwin’s notion that humanity could be improved, just like livestock, through eugenics.  His second book, The Descent of Man, was all about how humanity was in decline because it allowed the weak and the poor to hang on.  Hitler carried this forth in the belief that the greatest good to mankind was to eliminate the weak, the feeble-minded, and those who were a drag on society, and we know where he went with that.  Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, another well-known racist, lobbied successfully for promoting eugenics, even getting it included in high school text books.  (This is what the infamous Scopes trial was really about, not the Hollywood version which demeaned Christianity).  In the meanwhile, Freud pronounced that every human was sexually repressed, an idea that was taken seriously by Margaret Mead who decried the plight of housewives, and advocated open marriages and the elimination of traditional Christian sexual morality.  Betty Friedan, the cofounder of both NARAL and NOW, wrote The Feminine Mystique,  insisting that women have the right to abortions and freedom from family responsibilities in order to pursue their fulfillment in the workplace.  Her greatest success was Roe v. Wade.   To round out this effort at redefining the role of the sex as the key to all happiness, Alfred Kinsey published his pseudo-scientific report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, claiming that nearly half of all men were homosexuals, based on his interviews of men serving time for sex crimes, and biased samples taken mostly from the underground gay community.  He concluded that any and all perversions of sex, including incest and pedophilia should be embraced in the interest of human happiness. ]

All of this may sound extreme, but is has blossomed into our twenty-first century notions of “gender-equality,” “marriage equality,” and most recently, “income equality.”  The defining purpose of marriage (establishing a family) has been set aside in favor of adult happiness, even if it means depriving children of one of their biological parents.  Not only is this the commonly accepted mantra of the media and progressives, it is being codified into administrative law.  Freedom to exercise our religious belief about the sanctity of marriage, and the intrinsic evil of abortion, is now considered “intolerant” or a “civil rights violation,” subject to fine and imprisonment.  Pro-life groups have been indicted on racketeering charges, florists and bakers have been fined for refusal to participate in gay weddings, and employers face immense fines if they refuse to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.  Our culture has bought into the lies and deceits of the atheist mindset and their anti-marriage, anti-family agenda.

In the midst of all this, Christian families are struggling to carry on.  The single most important thing any couple and family can do is share their faith with one another, and mutually put their trust in God.  The best example we have for this is Jesus, Mary and Joseph aka The Holy Family.  Faith gives us strength and courage to be counter-cultural in the face of a full-on assault against the family.  Couples who share a deep and abiding faith are far more likely to remain married, and to raise children who succeed in life because they have good role models from both parents.  Each of us is called to be holy, that is, faithful to the truth as revealed by God, not as defined by our eroding culture.  It is high time we speak out about our faith and insist that we be allowed to live it out in our daily lives, as prescribed in the U.S. Constitution.  Holiness is not confined to our worship service or our private beliefs, as our president insists when he speaks about “freedom to worship,” it is meant to be lived out in our everyday lives as witnesses to the Truth, and especially the Truth about marriage and families.

The Annunciation, Chaos Theory, and The Beatles

In this final Sunday before Christmas, we read and celebrate the Annunciation, and Mary’s acceptance of her role in salvation history.  Unlike Eve who disobeyed God and sought to assert her own will, Mary humbly accepts the will of God with complete confidence in His plan for her life.  She did this without hesitation, knowing full well that she would face reproach from her family, neighbors, and husband-to-be.  Despite all this, she had the utmost faith and hope in the word of God.  Her reply to the angel Gabriel was, “Let it be done to me according to your word.”  (Luke 1:37)

When I taught adults entering the Catholic Church (RCIA), I always looked forward to the lesson on Mary, and I ended the session by playing Paul McCartney’s “Let it Be.”  For me, the lyrics speak to the great wisdom of Mary.  “When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, “Let it be… Let it be…”    Not only are these three words repeated over and over like a mantra, the album itself was titled “Let it be.”  Have a listen: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsQsOjaVUuA 

Mary lived in a time of oppression by pagan Rome and her people were exploited even by their Jewish overlord Herod, whose obsession with power was tyrannical.  In the midst of all this, Mary welcomed the Word of God into her heart, and her body became the vessel of the Incarnation.  Being human, Mary must have been terrified, not only by the appearance of the angel, but at prospect of her future as an unwed mother.  When Gabriel appeared to her, his first words were, “Hail, full of grace!  The Lord is with you,” (the words we repeat when we pray the Hail Mary).   Then he said, “Do not be afraid, for the Lord has found favor with you.”  Mary was FULL of grace, with no trace of sin, as witnessed by Gabriel.  This is the basis of our belief in her Immaculate Conception, born free of the scourge of Original Sin, brought on by Adam and Eve’s disobedience.  Free of sin, Mary was the perfect receptacle to receive God Himself upon His entry into the world, hence one of the titles given to her is “Ark of the New Covenant.”  She is also referred to as the “New Eve” in that she is the mother of Christ who makes us all a new creation.  There are many titles accorded to Mary over two millennia of Catholic history.  One of my favorites is “Queen of Peace.”  She is indeed our queen because she is the mother of our King, and she stands as the example of how we can experience peace, in the midst of a broken world, simply by accepting Christ into our hearts and even into our bodies, in the form of the Eucharist.

This past week I’ve been thinking about chaos theory.  In a nutshell, this is a multidisciplinary field of study, grounded in applied mathematics.  You may have heard of the butterfly effect, which is just one offshoot of chaos theory.  Scientists in biology, astronomy, economics, and sociology have come to realize that as things constantly change, there are distinct patterns that emerge, called fractals by the mathematicians.  However, outcomes are not predictable because when any kind of system becomes stressed to the point of self-destruction, something new and unexpected almost always emerges.  This has been found to be true in the case of meteorology, economics, and human history when societies cave in on themselves.  Evolutionary biologists know for example that when a species is about to go extinct, there is often an unexpected spurt of evolution that results in a new species.  This is quite different from Darwin’s belief in a slow, gradual evolutionary process.  One way to summarize chaos theory is that “necessity is the mother of invention.”  Just when it seems things couldn’t get any worse and a system is about to implode, something new and better emerges. 

We’ve seen this recur repeatedly in civilizational history, as recently as the 20^th century when Communism in Russia imploded and the USSR split up, bringing an end to the cold war.  In fact last month was the 25^th anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin Wall, on almost the exact same date as the 50^th anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council.   You might think this a mere coincidence, but it was the Vatican Council that produced a call to faith in action.  The principle document of the Council was Lumen Gentium which defined the Church as the People of God, born with God-given rights and freedom.  When St. John Paul II visited Communist Poland early in his pontificate, he emboldened Polish Catholics by the millions to cast off the oppression of Communism and in doing so, set in motion the beginning of the end of the Iron Curtain.   

I interpret this as an example of chaos theory.  The USSR had over-reached and was oppressing the rights of most of Eastern Europe.  Their economy was failing, their attempts to destroy all forms of religion had only created more angst among their people, and their citizens came to realize that a small number of Communist Party members were oppressing millions of people.  Just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse, the Pope, with support from Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, brought about a peaceful revolution that resulted in new found freedom and democracy for millions of people.

Things seem to be going from bad to worse in our own country.  The president and many in congress have abandoned the Judeo-Christian morality that undergirds our society.  They have also begun to ignore our Constitution which was established to protect against the tyranny of any one branch of government asserting unilateral authority.   Congress and the president have not only racked up an almost insurmountable mountain of debt, they have also incurred hundreds of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities with no plan for how to fix any of this.  In short, our system of government is approaching chaos.  There is any number of ways we can react to this:  with disdain and anger; with disgust and contempt; with resignation to the gradual decline of our once-great society; or paradoxically, with hope.  

I submit that something akin to chaos theory will bring about a change in the direction of our country.  Perhaps it will be an awakening by the masses to the tragic consequences of the progressive agenda, or maybe the emergence of another leader like Ronald Reagan who will restore our national pride and self-respect.  It might be the rise of new technology that makes us energy-independent, or conquers disease and puts our economy and national budget back on a more solid footing.  Or it could be some combination of all three. 

Like Mary, we must choose how to go forward.  If we accept and embrace the Word of God and receive Him into our hearts and bodies, we are sure to find peace of soul, despite what’s going on around us.  Being saved from our own sinfulness is to find favor with God, and experience peace beyond understanding.   Or like Eve, we can attempt to control things ourselves, which is what created the mess the world’s in now.  The choice is yours:  “Let it be…”  Or “Let me.”

Reason to Rejoice, Despite Our Political Mess?

As always, the third Sunday in Advent is designated as Gaudete Sunday, taking a pause from the more somber preparations of the season with a reminder to be joyful and rejoice at the prospect of the coming of the Lord.  The first reading from Isaiah opens with,

“The LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,
to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORD
and a day of vindication by our God.”  (Isaiah 61:1-2)

Frankly, I am sorely in need of some glad tidings.  This past week, our national legislators approved a massive budget that funds President Obama’s unlawful breach of his constitutional authority.  Worse yet, they added budget earmarks from both sides of the aisle for pet financial projects, swelling the budget to over a trillion dollars, despite federal revenues falling far short of that amount.  I’m frustrated that all this is happening in a lame duck congress, but with the collaboration of politicians who ran political campaigns on the promise of NOT doing this.  From my point of view, all three branches of our federal government are broken and getting worse, and both political parties are to blame.

Fortunately, my personal happiness is not dependent on the government, and neither are my God-given rights, which lately the government has been attempting to usurp. One of my Advent readings this year includes daily excerpts from Bishop Fulton Sheen and in today’s selection the good bishop cited Arnold Toynbee who wrote about three would-be saviors: “the savior who believes in automatic progress; the savior with the sword who cannot sheathe it when he has cut his way to the throne; and the savior who tries to save the world with philosophical sayings.  None of these, says Toynbee, can bring salvation.  The only one who can save civilization is The Savior who saves us from our sins.  Pointing to Christ he says, “There is the Savior.””  (Bishop Sheen - Thoughts for Daily Living)

Now this is something to rejoice about!  Given humanity’s inclinations toward selfish endeavors, we will never have “peace on earth” brought about by political movements, government entities, dictators or monarchs.  But we can find peace in the knowledge that this troubled world is nothing more than a short stop on our eternal journey; or as I like to think of it, a gestational period before we are born to eternal life.  At the risk of repeating what I wrote last week, when the Angels announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds, they proclaimed, “Peace to men, on whom God’s favor rests.”  This has also been interpreted as peace to men who fear the Lord.  This notion of fearing the Lord is commonly misunderstood in our modern minds.  To fear the Lord, is not to fear God’s punishment, but rather, fearing that we might not live our lives in ways that are favorable to the Lord.  The prophet Sirach cites fear of the lord as the beginning of wisdom, and says that those who fear the lord will be happy in end, even in death.

When Jesus departed from His apostles, He left them with this short, if mysterious comment, “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you.” (John 14:27)  I’ve never quite understood this phrase, but perhaps it was a promise of offering “God’s favor” on those committed to living out fear of the Lord which is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Fearing the Lord means trying to avoid sin, and sin is defined this way in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”  (CCC 1849)

We live in a sinful world, meaning that we all say and do things that are “offenses against reason and truth.”  We violate our conscience and rationalize such offenses in the name of personal happiness or freedom, when in reality we are destroying happiness and enslaving ourselves to our passions.  Our political leaders violate reason when they run up massive debts, and they violate truth when they legalize abortion and more recently, euthanasia.  Now we even have government regulations that demand people violate their “right conscience” or be fined and labeled as intolerant and a violator of civil rights.  

The catechism’s definition of sin is well worth remembering.  Many of us who are conservative are disgusted by what is happening to our culture, led by politicians whose “failure in genuine love for God and neighbor” is “injuring human solidarity.”  We are in the process of unraveling civilization which made its greatest progress when it was adhering to Judeo-Christian morality as the gold standard for our national ethics.

In the midst of these disappointments, there is still reason to rejoice because despite our personal and national sinfulness, we have a savior, one who is no politician, not an academic, nor a philosopher.  We have Jesus Christ, the very Son of God who, amazingly, loves us despite our sinfulness and saves us from ourselves.  To know Him, love Him and serve Him, is to find peace of soul, despite what’s going on around us.  Remembering today’s reading from Isaiah, although we may be brokenhearted at what’s going on around us, these are “glad tidings” because the day of vindication by our God is nearer than we think.

Seeking Peace Amidst a Broken World

As we progress through Advent, it is hard to ignore all the problems raging in the world.  ISIS is still on the move, torturing and killing Christians and Moslems who fall under their control; Boko Haram is running rampant in Nigeria, killing 320 people in the last few days, including the bombing of two Christian churches; protesters disrupt traffic and commerce over their outrage at the decision of the grand juries in Ferguson and New York.  Our president in the meanwhile does scant little to address these atrocities.  Sadly, the news of the world is shaped by political interests, and is often less than truthful for having been spun to favor one point of view or another.  We have a president who took an oath of office to uphold the constitution and the laws of the United States, but repeatedly violates his oath by refusing to enforce the laws he doesn’t like, or changing laws without bothering to consult Congress.  He fuels the fires of racial hatred and indignation by weighing in on racially charged incidents before the facts are revealed, and he questions the judicial system when he dislikes their decisions, without benefit of hearing the testimony or facts they considered, further emboldening racial agitators.  Let’s face it, the world is a mess and trending even worse. 

In the midst of all this, Christians are trying to prepare themselves spiritually for the coming of the Lord, but peace on earth seems to be retreating further and further away.  It is increasingly difficult to be at peace with so much bad news bombarding us day in and day out.  One option is to shut out the world, ignore the news, cloister ourselves, and simply pray for peace.  Certainly there is nothing wrong with this and of course prayer is more powerful than simply trying to shout down those who disagree with you.  The opposite response might be to combat the bad news with criticism and harsh condemnation, but that only seems to deepen the chasm of angst between opposing factions already polarized against each other.  A third option would be to find a balance between these two approaches, one that is well-informed and seeks to find solutions to the problems rather than simply condemning the action or inaction of others. 

I wonder if our current day predicament isn’t much different from what the Jews faced at the time of Jesus birth?  Romans had conquered most of the Western world and the Caesars declared themselves gods, running roughshod over the peoples they had defeated.  Even the Jewish leaders, operating under the auspices of Rome’s approval, brutalized the Jews.  High priests extorted tributes from their own people who at times were forced to borrow money they could not repay, in order to make the required temple offerings, then sent to debtors’ prison when they defaulted.  Herod mercilessly killed his own sons to retain power, then slaughtered innocent children in an attempt to root out a potential Messiah.  In the midst of this hostile environment, God sent a prophet in the form of John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus.  Then of course Jesus entered the world as a helpless child.  But what John and Jesus both had on their side was the Truth.  They unwaveringly spoke the Truth, even though it landed John in prison and cost him his head.  Jesus revealed His mission to Pontius Pilot when He said, “The reason I was born, the reason why I came into the world, is to testify to the Truth.  Anyone committed to the Truth hears my voice.”  (John 18:37)

Despite His short life and ignominious death, Jesus succeeded in changing the world.  He conquered sin, not with words or with might, but with love.  So great is His love that He conquers the very worst thing that can happen to anyone: death itself.  Jesus gave His followers, and gives us even now, hope when everything seems hopeless.  The good proclaimed by Jesus is that love conquers even the worst evil, and the kingdom of God is a kingdom of Love that supersedes even the worst things happening in the world.   We know this because the world is transitory, and Love is eternal.  We now know we are destined for eternal life, and we know this because Jesus Himself rose from the dead and promises us eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

When the angels proclaimed the birth of Jesus, they sang: “Glory to God in high heaven, peace on earth to men on whom His favor rests,” sometimes translated as “Peace on earth to men of good will.” (Luke 2:14)  If we are seeking peace in our lives and in the world, we must begin by becoming people of good will, people on whom God’s favor rests.  If we are committed to the Truth, we must listen for the voice of Jesus, as He explained to Pilot.  Rather than merely wishing all the bad things happening in the world would simply go away, and instead of reducing ourselves to tactics that server to polarize people, we might instead seek the Truth by listening to the voice of Jesus.  There is plenty to hear from Him in scripture: parables about Our Father’s love, the beatitudes, and His calling out the money changers and hypocrites among the Pharisees and Scribes for example.  But perhaps the most telling of all is His forgiveness of the sins of tax collectors, adulterers, all manner of sinners, and His acceptance of God’s will, even though it meant His torture and death for the salvation of mankind.  In short, Jesus’ voice and His life teach us to love one another because when we do so, we are as close as we can be to God Himself whose spirit resides in every human being.

The Second Letter of Peter, read today, reminds us that the earth is passing away and a new heaven and a new earth awaits us, one in which Love is King:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief,
and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar
and the elements will be dissolved by fire,
and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.

Since everything is to be dissolved in this way,
what sort of persons ought you to be,
conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God,
because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames
and the elements melted by fire.
But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you await these things,
be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace. (2 Peter 3: 11-14)

This is the good news we’re waiting for in Advent, the coming of God’s Kingdom where Truth reigns and Love conquers all evil and including death.  Let’s not be afraid to witness to this in the face of a broken and hurting world.  This is after all, a recipe for hope and for peace.

Advent and "Do-it-Yourself Morality"

A new liturgical year begins as always with four weeks of Advent.  During this time we are encouraged to prepare ourselves not only to commemorate the birth of our Savior, but for the fourfold ways in which Christ comes to us:

1. The Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus, a helpless infant;
2. The coming of Christ into our hearts;
3. The saving act of Jesus’ death and resurrection; and finally,
4. The Second coming of Jesus at the end of time. 

We will read extensively from the Book of Isaiah during Advent, beginning Sunday with this important reminder: “We are sinful, all of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.”  It is precisely when we think we have it all together that we are in the greatest danger of losing our soul.  In her wisdom, the Church sets aside this time of year to help us reflect on our need for salvation, and a closer relationship with God which is only possible because God Himself has reached out to us and became man.

As evidence of our brokenness, consider the direction in which our culture is trending as it adopts a “do-it-yourself morality.”  Throughout the entire history of Western civilization, cultural heroes were always those who did the right thing, for the right reasons.  Role models were always people who did good, even under dire circumstances, and the “good” they sought was defined by some external ideal that everyone understood and agreed upon.  The definition of “good” was something everyone clung to because it was based on commonly held belief in a moral code.  Not so today.  When Friedrich Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he proclaimed the death of God and the coming of a new kind of inner-directed hero who was his own god.  He predicted the coming of Ubermensch or Supermen who would transcend social and cultural norms, casting aside religion, philosophy, and moral constraints by using their creative genius to move beyond what society thought of as objective or absolute truth.

Television and movies are rampant with protagonists who live by a personal code of their own devising. Some of the most popular TV shows lately feature central characters who live by their own personal code of behavior which is likely to include murder and mayhem to achieve their ends.  This genre may have begun with The Godfather, but is now commonplace in prime time TV.  The main characters in series like 24, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Dexter, and How to Commit Murder, (to name just a few) are all living by a moral code of their own making which justifies all manner of evil to achieve their ends.

Programming like this sets a tone, and over time defines our culture, and desensitizes us to brutality, murder, lust, and a host of other vices.  In the real world, people like Hillary Clinton say things like, “Some of the best theologians I’ve ever met have been five year olds.” (It Takes a Village).  What she and many others are saying, is that morality is no longer a question of applying reason to nature and using our conscience to determine what is moral, but rather, “if it feels right, just do it.”  When Barack Obama was asked by a minister to define sin, he confidently replied, “Sin is just being out of alignment with my values.”   If that’s the case, then we are all gods, and doing god’s will as long as we are true to ourselves.

Advent is a season for reflecting on the direction of our lives, a time for introspection, and a time to seek a deeper relationship with God who is reaching out to us in so many ways.  As the days grow shorter and darkness more pervasive, we seek the Light of the World, hence all the candles and decorative lights.  We decorate our homes with reminders of the nativity because we need Christ in our lives.  We need His forgiveness and guidance to remind us that we are better than our cultural icons.  As Christians, we are called to be counter-cultural and proclaim that there IS objective Truth. If  we fail to seek and uphold the Truth as revealed by God, we will fall into the trap of deception that entices us to believe we ourselves are gods, making up our own truth and moral code.  If we truly seek peace in our lives, we need a closer relationship with God, with His Truth, and what better way to close out a year and begin a new one, than to participate in spiritual exercises that draw us into closer relationship with The Truth that sets us free, free from the slavery of sin and the chaos of do-it-yourself morality.