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Reflections of a Lay Catholic

Reflections of a Lay Catholic

Monthly Archives: December 2013

A Man of Mercy

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Christmas, Forgiveness, Jason Gray, Saint Joseph

About this time last year I was listening to a new CD I had purchased by my new favorite singer/songwriter, Jason Gray.  The CD is called Christmas Stories: Repeat the Sounding Joy.  One particular song on it, “Forgiveness Is A Miracle (A Song For Joseph)”, caught my attention because it was so different from any other Christmas song I had ever heard.  Plus, its subject was something which I had never considered:  what was going through Joseph’s mind and heart prior to, and during, his wife giving birth to not his son, but Jesus, the Son of God?

I discovered that Jason Gray had written an article for The Rabbit Room describing the story behind the song and he explores this difficult situation in which Joseph found himself.  I have re-posted his article below and included a link to The Rabbit Room’s website.  I hope you find it as thought provoking as I did.

http://www.rabbitroom.com/2012/10/the-story-behind-forgiveness-is-a-miracle/

Joseph manger stained glass

The Story Behind “Forgiveness Is a Miracle”

by Jason Gray on October 16, 2012

As I approached writing songs for each of the characters in the Christmas story, I felt particularly protective of Joseph, who I think sometimes doesn’t get the attention he’s due. At the very least I know that I’ve been guilty of not really “seeing” him for the remarkable man that he was, and I wanted to amend that. I enlisted my friend Andy Gullahorn, one of the most masterful storytellers I know, to explore a particular moment in Joseph’s story with me.

Taking my cue from Frederick Buechner’s book, “Peculiar Treasures,” in which he breathes new life into biblical characters who have grown so familiar to us that we no longer experience them as real human beings, I hoped to recapture some of the humanity of the people in the Christmas narrative. It was also important to me to try and write songs that were relevant beyond the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas day. I wanted to tell timeless human stories, and with Joseph we have the makings of just that with a love triangle, a question of revenge or forgiveness, and the age old drama of fathers and sons.

As I read his part in the narrative, I found that more than just a foster parent without much to do (as he was often relegated to in my mind), Joseph is revealed as a man after God’s own heart. Faced not only with the news that his fiancée is pregnant, but also with her incredulous story of how it was God’s doing, Joseph’s character is tested and laid out for all of us to see. What will he do? Will he hurt the one who has hurt him? Will he forgive? This is his moment, and all of history waits and watches in wonder.

There are few things more painful than the betrayal and rejection by the one you love most, so we know it must have deeply wounded him—shattering the dreams he may have had of a future with the girl he loved. Pain is like a lightning bolt striking with a violent energy that can’t be held in the human heart for long. It looks for a way out. The way it usually passes through us is in the all too common progression of hurt turning into anger and then into vengeance. Unless the miracle of forgiveness takes place in a person’s heart to absorb it, the pain we experience will pass through us and be visited upon others.

There is debate as to whether it was within Joseph’s power to have her stoned—while Jewish custom might have allowed it, Roman rule did not. However, if not to her body, we know he still could have done violence to her reputation and her heart. But I believe that Joseph did the hard work of bringing his pain to God rather than letting it pass through him, and that God graced him with the miracle of forgiveness. The narrative tells us he was a “godly man” and that instead of doing her harm, “he decided to dismiss her quietly” so that she wouldn’t be publicly shamed. He took the full force of the blow and–acting as the husband he might have been–became a covering over her supposed sin.

It’s hard for us to experience the tension in Joseph’s story since, as the reader, we know from the start that she isn’t guilty of what he naturally supposes and that God is up to something beautiful that the world has never seen before. But to see Joseph for who he is, I have to remember that he couldn’t know these things in real time. It was only after he had given himself to the work of forgiveness that the angel appeared to him in a dream to tell him that what Mary had said was true after all, and that he should marry her.

It occurred to me that perhaps this is where Joseph’s heart was proven—if not to God who already knew his heart, then perhaps to himself. (I haven’t met a man yet who isn’t daunted by the responsibility of being a father, let alone a father to the Son of God. Maybe this was a test to reveal to Joseph what kind of man he could be.) In this moment he is found to be a man of mercy, which I imagine to be just the kind of man that God was looking for to be the earthly father of his son Jesus. In a way, we see that Joseph carries in his heart the same world changing power of forgiveness that Mary carried in her womb.

It’s also meaningful to me to think of how Joseph forgiving Mary is part of the story that leads to the birth of the savior in whom Joseph would find forgiveness for his own sins. Perhaps it’s the narrative form of Jesus’ teaching that as we forgive we find ourselves forgiven.

As we wrote the song, it was good to be reminded that forgiveness is a kind of miracle. I could be wrong, but I’m not sure that we can muster up forgiveness on our own. It seems to me to be a supernatural force of renewal that we participate in as we point our hearts toward it, pray for it, and make room for it in our lives, but that ultimately we receive it as a gift from God, in his due time.

Forgiveness Is A Miracle (A Song For Joseph)
Jason Gray / Andy Gullahorn
from Christmas Stories: Repeat the Sounding Joy

Love can make a soul come alive
Love can draw a dream out of the darkness
And blow every door open wide
But love can leave you broken hearted

Did she dare to look you in the eye
Did her betrayal leave you raging?
Did you let her see you cry
When she said the child was not your baby?

Pain can turn to anger then to vengeance
It happens time and again
Even in the best of men
It takes a miracle to save us

When love is like an open wound
There’s no way to stop the bleeding
Did you lose sleep over what to do?
Between what’s just and what brings healing

Pain can be a road to find compassion
When we don’t understand, and bring a better end
It takes a miracle to show us

Forgiveness is a miracle
A miracle
And a miracle can change your world
Forgiveness is a miracle

An angel in a dream spoke into your darkest night
So you trusted in the Lord and you took her as your wife
But the forgiveness that you gave would be given back to you
Because you carried in your heart what she was holding in her womb

Love was in a crowded barn
There you were beside her kneeling
You held it in your arms
As the miracle started breathing

Forgiveness is the miracle
The miracle
And a miracle will change your world
Forgiveness is the miracle
Forgiveness is the miracle
The miracle
A miracle will save the world
Forgiveness is the miracle
Forgiveness is the miracle
Forgiveness is the miracle

Blessed Joseph
Your heart is proven
And through you the Kingdom has come
For God delights in a man of mercy
And has found an earthly father for his son

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A Beautiful Re-Union

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Love, Marriage, Renewal

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Christ, God, Love, Marriage, Marriage Encounter

 couple-holding-hands

When I posted I Am New Parts 1 and 2, I had no idea that God would re-create me again through a life changing event the very next weekend.  But He did, and, once again, I feel obliged to tell you about it in the chance it might bring you closer to God.

In I Am New – Part 1: A Product of Secularity, I shared with you my semi-agnostic life style of the last three decades.  I explained how I tried to be a good husband and father by attempting to lead a Christian-like life, but in the absence of Christ.  After my conversion last year, I became more aware of a disconnect in our marriage. Because Christ had always been very much a part of Melinda’s life, but was a new phenomenon in mine, I realized that He had been our marriage’s missing common denominator.  

Although I believed our marriage was still a loving relationship, I noticed it had moved toward the all-too-familiar rut of complacency; of taking each other for granted; and letting things other than each other become the “first things”.  I felt I needed to try and make it better.

I have a framed collector’s print hanging in my office.  We bought it with saved nickels, dimes and quarters not long after we were married.  When it was new, it was vibrant with color.  I was looking at it a while back and I noticed how it had, over time, faded towards becoming monochromatic.  It didn’t happen all at once; rather, it lost its sharpness one day at a time. This struck me as an analogy for our marriage.  Had I taken the time to recognize its beauty on a daily basis, I might have given it more TLC and taken action to keep it from fading. 

Since I became active in our church I have made many new friends and I have observed several married couples who exemplify strong relationships.  They exude a closeness and connectedness with each other, and they appear to have the type of relationship one would want to emulate. As Melinda and I got to know these couples better we came to realize that many of them have something in common:  they are “Encountered Couples” – they have attended Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend retreats.

Without much discussion or input from Melinda, I decided to sign us up for a weekend in hopes that our slightly faded but otherwise solid marriage might become even stronger. 

We arrived at the retreat center on Friday evening, along with another dozen or so couples, and, similar to our Christ Renews His Parish receiving weekends, we didn’t know what to expect.  So, we went in with the attitude of leaving our hearts and minds open to whatever the Holy Spirit might provide for us over the next forty-five hours.  We were met by three couples and, to my surprise, a priest, who would all be presenters and facilitators for the weekend.

We turned our cell phones off and tried to forget about issues at home.  The purpose of the weekend was to strengthen our relationship by focusing on each other.

Through the course of the weekend the facilitators shared times in their married lives when they struggled. They modeled techniques for effective communication and opened our eyes to how we as individuals have unique personality types and how we each require slightly different styles of communication. 

During the talks and exercises I realized how our normal daily communicating primarily consisted of chit-chat, and facts and information about children, work, bills, and stuff – all kinds of stuff – much of which was of little significance.  I saw that we seldom talked about ideas and thoughts, about our dreams for the future, and our feelings.

We both discovered we had some sensitive items we didn’t like to discuss – little things that upset us, and personal things we didn’t want to share because of fear of disapproval, embarrassment, or fear of hurting the other.  In talking through some of these issues we discovered we were wrong, that we were actually very understanding and supportive of each other.  Because of this, we saw new possibilities for improved communicating in our relationship.

I read a quote from author Matthew Kelly’s book, The Seven Levels of Intimacy, in which he writes, “Love is a choice.  When we choose to love, our spirit expands.  When we choose not to love, our spirit shrivels”.  I thought I knew how to love.  But, after some serious dialoguing and attentive listening, I made the unfortunate discovery that I perhaps had the verb form of the word “love” mixed up with the noun form of the word.  Even though I feel tremendous love for Melinda I saw where my actions have not always been representative of that feeling.  I felt sorrow because I may have caused Melinda’s spirit to ‘shrivel’ by my actions, or lack thereof.   And, I was embarrassed because I had written and posted just last June an article entitled Love Is A Verb in which I claimed to have, in the last year and a half, learned the difference between the two.  I needed to think again.

I mentioned there was a priest among the presenters.  He discussed his “marriage” to the Church, the Catholic community that is the Body of Christ.  It was interesting to hear him reveal his struggle to feel oneness with the community; of how he finds it difficult to prioritize his time with the Lord, and his time as His representative to his parishioners; and how hard it is to be totally charitable without feeling the need for a little bit of selfishness. It was, in a way, comforting to know that even he has struggled with the same types of issues as us married folk.

I think his main purpose for being there, though, was to remind us that our marriage is not a contract, but a covenant, an unbreakable promise made to God and each other, of unity, intimacy and responsibility (including forgiveness).  He reminded us that marriage is a Sacrament, an outward sign of God’s love for us, and, having entered that covenant, it is our duty to love contagiously; to be life-giving; to lift up our marriage as an example of His love for all to see; and to use that love as a tool for healing within our union when it is necessary.  He helped us see that marriage is like a three legged stool:  the pair of us making up two legs and God making up the third leg.  Without all three the stool fails to function properly.

By the end of the weekend both Melinda and I accepted shared responsibility for allowing our marriage to lose some of its luster over the course of thirty-one years.  We agreed we needed, and wanted, to:  be more open with our feelings; get better at listening; have more trust in each other and be more trustworthy; and be a true “married couple” instead of sometimes being a couple of “married singles”. 

We want to take our marriage from good to great.

It’s been a little over two weeks since our retreat.  Melinda and I agree it was the best weekend we’ve ever had together as a couple.  Since the weekend, we have been rediscovering each other and restoring our relationship – that piece of art made and sanctified by God, but which we allowed to fade over time.  It’s been a joyful and beautiful re-union.

If you have not been on an Encounter weekend and you think you might like to learn more, please don’t hesitate to ask.  If you feel your marriage isn’t quite what it used to be, my guess is that, with a little help from WWME to get you pointed in the right direction, you can also rekindle the fire, the spirit, and the love which the two of you once felt for each other but may have since faded.  You deserve to give yourselves the gift of a Marriage Encounter weekend.

On the other hand, many of you reading this may have already been on an Encounter weekend.  If so, and you care to share an experience, please comment.  I would love to hear your stories.

God Bless you all

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