Month: July 2010

The Ecumenical Apologist

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As I wrote in my very first post, recently I have been called upon more and more to defend my faith – Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.

The continued questioning by others about my faith was actually one of the main reasons I started this blog in the first place.  Sometimes, in an attempt to provide someone with a satisfactory explanation, I had to do quite a bit of research.  A blog will now allow me to share the fruits of my hard work with more than just that one person!  Also, as time has progressed I’ve noticed that much of the discussion has been around similar issues so I intend to use this blog to publish my explanations to some of the more commonly-asked questions and invite feedback.

However, before I can start addressing some of these issues, I feel the need to write about a tension that I find within myself, the tension that comes from being an “Ecumenical Apologist”…

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Sunday Lectionary: The Hippo Gospel

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I thought I’d write a brief entry on today’s Gospel, the parable of The Good Samaritan. The interpretation I’m going to give may be one you’ve never heard before.  It comes from St. Augustine, bishop of fifth century North Africa in his work “Questions on the Gospels”.

I had never heard of this interpretation of the parable until I started studying the Early Church Fathers where I found this explanation also offered by others such as Ireneus and Origen.

I’ll talk about the Early Church Fathers specifically in another post, but for now, let’s look at one of the ways St. Augustine explained this parable:

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’“

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Sometimes you just have to shake things up a bit

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I’ve been mulling over the best way to start this blog.  There’s so much to say about my decision to quit my job and to start working for an American company; so much to say about my nomadic life and eventual move to the United States…but I’m getting ahead of myself.  As Glinda, the Good Witch Of The South, would say, it’s best to begin at the beginning…

Begin the beguine

Although in some ways the seeds of this adventure had been planted earlier, things started to come to the fore in 2006.  I had been living in Cheltenham for about four years.  I had moved there following university, after a brief, false start in Salisbury (my employer went bankrupt three days after I joined).  There was nothing wrong, per se, with my life in Cheltenham; I had good friends, a lovely church and a great place to live, but I couldn’t shake my feeling of unease.  Life just seemed a little bit too….predicable and, well, comfortable.  There was nothing in my life which was pushing me out of my comfort zone.  I had recently passed into my mid-twenties and it felt like I was just getting old and boring before my time…

I was at a loss as to what I should do to get out of this funk.  I considered changing careers. I thought about becoming an IT trainer (I’ve always enjoyed telling people what to do). I also gave serious consideration to resurrecting my sign language and training to be an interpreter.  I considered moving to another town or city in England.  The trouble was, after living in Cheltenham, pretty much everywhere else appeared ugly, boring or had limited job opportunities.  I did consider moving abroad, but that just seemed far too scary!

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