Incarnation Pianity

Ever since I was twelve years old, I have been searching for Truth or, to put it another way, trying to get things Right.

The Beginning

It was in the spring of 1956 that my mother told me something that I claim as one source of my desire to get things Right and seek the Truth (the two are different but related) whenever I am confronted with a problem. We were riding south on Highway 61 from Dewitt to Davenport, Iowa in our old Chevy (all our cars when I was growing up were old Chevies, usually painted that dark green paint that I was told was leftover from painting tanks during World War II). My great-aunt, Rosa Nonnenmacher, who never married, was dying of cancer, and her nieces and nephews were making frequent trips to Dewitt to help her clean out her house and barn. On one trip home, I wondered or worried about something, and my mother told me that I was conscientious. I asked her what that meant and she said that it meant that I tried to do the Right Thing (or words to that effect). I was impressed, decided that was a good thing to be, and “internalized” that idea.

In a world of frightened people, fearful diseases, and political leaders who have a difficult time coping with both, it is more important than ever to revive in our world a concept of how sets of ideas or ideologies play out in both politics and religion. Living in the American southland for the past 50 years where religion and politics have long been intermixed, it has been intriguing to see this over the decades, even while people claim that the two should not mix or be discussed in polite company.

Of course, while growing up in the Midwest, social etiquette also dictated that one should not discuss religion or politics because they would provoke arguments and make enemies. However, I was fortunate as a young man to be taught in high school and college by men and women who were convinced that religion, morality, and politics were supposed to influence each other. It was the time of the Civil Rights movement and, later, the war against poverty. It was a time of hope.

I grew up in a time and place where people, especially my peers and teachers in our midwestern Catholic ghetto, believed in the common good even if we didn’t call it that. Morality and religion (not always combined) defines for us what is good, and it is in the political realm that we define what it is that we should hold and protect in common, for the welfare of all. I am reminded of this value whenever I see the title Commonwealth of Kentucky on our state logo.

So in this blog, I hope to consider with readers some ideas on how the Christian message might be understood in a way that unifies rather than divides people, and how that, in turn, might promote the common good. I invite all readers to help me do this more effectively.

I now invite you to consider with me two important questions once meditated upon at some length by Francis of Assisi: Who is God? Who am I?