Eric Fought

At the Intersection of Faith, Culture and Public Life

Recovery from Perfection

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God willing, this month I will mark another year of continuous sobriety from alcohol and drugs.

Such a time as the period before and after a sobriety anniversary welcomes a great deal of introspection, hope and fear.

It is good to celebrate such milestones. Not so much to pat oneself on the back, but to show others on a similar path that long-term sobriety is indeed possible. And, in my case, there is no doubt that I can say without hesitation, if I can do it, anyone can.

But the reality is that I am sober today, not so much because of what I did, but because of what I stopped doing.

Certainly not picking up a drink of whiskey or a hit of crystal methamphetamine—my drugs of choice—has been a helpful daily decision.

However, even more critical has been my decision to stop trying to be perfect. In the end, such a goal, the goal of perfection, is about as achievable for me as running a double marathon on a hot August day.

It’s just not going to happen.

I drank and used drugs because I was led to believe that in order to be successful, in order to fully participate in the life of this world, I needed to be perfect. And every day, when I fell short, I drank and used to console the disappointed and devastated ego within.

Even more difficult for me to endure was the fact that people around me were never going to be perfect either, no matter how much I wanted them to be. My expectations of those people in my life always led to bitter disappointment and pointed to my own failures and imperfections.

So, in isolation, away from all of the imperfection that surrounded me and found within me, I sought a way out. And in the end I was nearly successful.

I made the decision to go to treatment and seek help.

But today, as I look back, I believe it wasn’t a decision I made on my own. It was made as the result of a nudge from God and the Holy Spirit at work in my darkest days. God was at work, in spite of the fact that I was so bitter and angry and alone. God was at work even when I wanted to have nothing to do with anything spiritual or even helpful.

There is a great disconnect in the way we as the church view perfection and the way God does.

Somehow, Christianity has become the ultimate training ground for those who seek to become as perfect as possible. We have been led to believe, and many of us have taught for too long, that imperfection is not a Christian virtue. We’ve been taught the only way to live an authentic Christian life is to pick up the pieces—day after day—and try to get perfect tomorrow.

Such an obsession with perfection has made all of us sick, and it is time for us to come clean.

Throughout Scripture, we read stories of imperfect people being chosen by God. Sometimes those men and women do extraordinary things as a result of that call; sometimes they simply continue to live authentically imperfect lives, affirmed by the knowledge that God was on their side.

Indeed, Jesus had little interest and gave little time to those who viewed perfection as their goal in the life.

His view of religious and societal expectations should give us pause in an ecclesial environment so focused on doing things right all the time.

Through the years, headlines have been full of Christians who have fallen into scandal as a result of falling off the pedestal of perfection.

Each time it happens—from righteous televangelists to upright members of Congress—we are surprised and feign outrage. Yet, deep down we know we are just as imperfect and are ashamed to admit that their failures are just like our own.

Many Christians find it difficult to hear stories of the darkness of addiction like the life I experienced for many years. It is human nature to judge, and judgmentalism is often an unfortunate characteristic of the Christian life.

But in the end, I believe that it is difficult to hearabout the poor choices and failures of others because it points to the darkness in each of us, no matter how that darkness is revealed.

I’m grateful to have a different perspective about perfection today.

I find comfort in the grace I receive from sharing my story about trying to live authentically.

I’ve learned how to find the perfection in my imperfection, and I pray all Christians might find a path to embracing themselves as they do the same.

As Bells Ring, Remembering a Peacemaker

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On a recent Thursday morning the bells that hang high above the Abbey Church of Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota awakened me. Normally I pay no heed to the bells, which ring at regular intervals marking the hours of the day. But on this day, at that time, they rang and kept on ringing. 70 times, to be exact.

abbeybannerIt was 8:16 a.m. on August 6 and the bells rang out to mark what had happened exactly 70 years before, the bombing by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

The campus of Saint John’s University, where I am a graduate student, was quiet. Summer classes having concluded, most students and faculty have departed for a few weeks before the crisp autumnal air welcomes a new academic year.

As I began to wake, it didn’t take long for me to think of Ivan Kauffman. A year ago, Ivan and his wife Lois would likely have been at Morning Prayer in the Abbey Church on that August day. And Ivan would have been pleased to know that the Abbey was setting aside time intentionally to pray for peace.

Kauffman, an acclaimed journalist, author, peace activist and organizer died on July 15. He considered himself a Mennonite Catholic, one of the founders of Bridgefolk, an international movement of Catholics and Mennonites, which encouraged and brought about dialogue between the two churches.

When I came to Collegeville in the fall of 2013, Ivan was one of the first people I met, introduced by a friend and classmate of mine. Ivan and Lois lived nearby in a house of hospitality, the Michael Sattler House, established to welcome Mennonites and people of all Christian denominations and other faiths to campus and the area.

I was drawn to Ivan and his perspective on justice issues immediately. It was clear that he had been on the frontlines and wasn’t someone who just talked about the common good, but was bringing it about by bringing people together.

In the days following the release of the U.S. Catholic Bishop’s pastoral letter “The Challenge of Peace” in 1983, Ivan was deeply moved. Raised in the Mennonite tradition, absolute nonviolence was at his core. Now a Catholic, he found a voice to his own experience as he began to write a weekly syndicated column for diocesan newspapers titled “Making Peace.”

Two years later he found himself among a large delegation organized by the National Council of Churches visiting the Soviet Union. He went along as a journalist and wrote openly of the realities that he found in a region seized by violence and despair.

In late 2012 Ivan would recollect in an essay published by America magazine that “the consensus position in the liberal community had been that the Soviet Empire was here to stay, and the most we could hope for was to get along with it.”

As we all now know, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, after dividing Germany for 28 years.

Justice, and the peace that it affords, does come, even when we don’t expect it.

In recent years, Ivan turned his focus more and more toward finding peace in the church and its many forms. He remained a devout Catholic with Mennonite roots. Because of such a unique perspective he was an irreplaceable force in the ecumenical dialogue that at once, like the fall of communism in Europe, seemed impossible.

Ivan and Lois left Collegeville this past spring, after being an integral and treasured part of the wider community for a number of years. In the days prior to their move to Philadelphia they graciously invited me to join them for a casual lunch.

We chatted about many things that afternoon. However, the bulk of our conversation centered on the many lessons to be learned from the Mennonite-Catholic dialogue of which Ivan and Lois engaged.

We agreed that there was little hope for any sense of renewal or reconciliation in Washington, as polarized and dysfunctional as it has become.

But Ivan had great hope for the possibility of renewed dialogue within Catholicism and other Christian denominations themselves. Here he often spoke of the need for our churches to model the dialogue that we seek in the world, and the peace that would follow it.

Again, writing in America, Ivan noted, “There are three options open to us, not just two—left, right and Catholic. The options offered by both the left and the right are based on ideology. The Catholic option is based on realism—the careful and patient discovery of facts and the search for policies based on both facts and on the Catholic imperative to preserve and enhance the common good. Catholic and centrist are not the same; we do not achieve the common good by splitting the difference between competing ideologies. We achieve the common good by finding and advocating solutions to the real problems of real people living in the real world.”

There is no doubt, Ivan Kaufmann’s life was full, rich and grace-filled. Much more can be said about that amazing journey and the many lives he touched. As for me, I am grateful for the inspiration and the hope found in his witness, as I continue to seek to be a part of a Christian community that works for peace inside and out.

Rest in peace among the peacemakers, good and faithful servant.

On Wind, Breath and What’s Next

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NB: A version of the following was delivered as a scriptural reflection during a prayer service at Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary on July 16, 2015.

I remember, as a child, asking God in my prayers before bed one night for a sign. And then I remember staying up all through that night, afraid of what that sign might be.

It probably wasn’t much later than that when I really began a process of discernment, as I considered for much of my childhood and adolescence a call to the priesthood. There was always this sense that it was just an established reality that I was going to become a priest—no one forced the idea on me, although my two devout grandmothers, one Roman Catholic and one Anglican, had very strong opinions on how I should respond to the call.

And then I remember distinctly thinking when I left the religious order that I was a part of that by getting on a plane and heading home to Wisconsin I was saying no.

No, once and for all, to the call to the priesthood, to active ministry, perhaps even to the church all together.

But, here’s the thing. It’s never that easy and God simply doesn’t work like that. The Holy Spirit, as we heard in this morning’s readings is much more persistent, demanding even. And, in the end, I’ve come to find out, the journey of discernment is just that, a journey, not simply a yes or no question.

hurricane3A number of years ago a friend of mine, a bishop in the Episcopal Church, gave a sermon on the Feast of Pentecost, making note of a sermon she had heard recently from a Southern preacher. In the south, she noted, Pentecost often comes right at the beginning of hurricane season. To the faithful along the Gulf Coast and up and down the Atlantic, wind has a very different significance than it might to those of us who grew up in the Midwest.

Wind, in such a climate, is not a positive source of life, but one that often causes death, destruction and pain. The slightest breeze in July or August can bring shivers for anyone that has ever been evacuated or lost a home.

The wind of the Spirit, the role the Spirit plays in our lives and the questions we are asked in the process of discernment aren’t always positive. It’s often the big questions in life that cause us to stop and consider how the Spirit is working. Those questions aren’t always questions or situations we want to face.

The Spirit calls on us to consider the best way to act, to respond, to whatever the wind is pushing us towards. We are called to discern how to handle the care of an ailing parent or grandparent, perhaps even to pray about the end of life and the decisions that come with it.

Indeed, it seems that the Spirit works in us even when we might not even believe that God is with us anymore. The wind of that Spirit pushes us to reach out for help when we are struggling, after a relationship ends or our friends graduate and head off to their respective hometowns. That wind blows even when we put up as many defenses as we can, no matter how far we dig our heels into the sand.

Even when we think we’ve said no, the Spirit demands that we continue to discern and engage.

However the Spirit doesn’t always act as a mighty and destructive wind. At times, that same Spirit acts as a breath, offering us new life and energy, often at times when we need it most. Here we are reminded of the presence of God, even in the most simple and mundane ways. In the way we breathe, or how we make someone’s day with a smile or a note or surprise a friend.

The Spirit doesn’t just show up as a mighty wind, asking us to discern the biggest of decisions in our life, like whether to enter the novitiate or fly home, how to best pick up the pieces when someone dies, or even what to do when we win the Powerball jackpot.

The Spirit and our call to discernment from that Spirit shows up in varied ways—as both a mighty wind and as a life-giving breath—throughout our lives, even when we aren’t paying attention.

And, as we are reminded in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, the call to discernment is not only an individual spiritual endeavor. Indeed, for us as Christians it must happen in the midst of a community, where we are not individuals at all, but the same spirit.

There are many parallels between the church in Corinth and our church today in its many forms. The need for, and pleas toward, unity that Paul expresses to the deeply divided community he seeks to minister to can easily be adapted to our own lives, our own parishes and dioceses and the church throughout the world.

And the winds are blowing. Just visit Facebook or Twitter and search a few of the current hash tags.

We are called to consider, as the church in Corinth considered, how to welcome those who are different than us into our midst, even and especially when they are sitting right in the pew next to us.

We are called by the Spirit to discern how to move past charity and towards justice, to find ways to bring about compassion in a world that is so deprived of it.

We are blown around by the wind of a Spirit that asks us to talk to one another, to leave our ideological corners and be reminded of what makes us Christians in the first place. That Spirit tussles us until we are able to finally let go of our deeply held convictions that divide rather than unite, that harm more than care for our neighbors, colleagues and friends.

Just as we will likely not survive a hurricane standing alone in the middle of a coastal boardwalk as the eye of the storm makes landfall, we cannot thrive as a community divided as we are today.

This is the great challenge of our generation—the same challenge that confronted Paul and the earliest of Christians. How do we not only survive the storm but also breathe new life into our shared community? How do we take what we learn here in this place—not only in the classroom, but in the foyer of this building, in the Abbey church and while eating pie at Kay’s—and bring more people toward the Christ that unites and away from the ideology that divides us?

How do we answer the call to be shepherds that not only watch our flocks from a comfortable distance, but that jump into the muck and walk with those sheep?

And how do we honor the diversity of gifts that we all bring to this specific time and place? Whether we are speaking in tongues or interpreting others who do, working miracles, uttering wisdom, bringing healing to the sick, or waxing prophetic on street corners – it all stems from the same community, the same Spirit and the same God who makes it all happen.

Today we aren’t asked to answer yes or no, but to consider what’s next, together. And, together, we can stop being afraid of what that sign from God might be in the middle of the night.

Romero, Grande, Moses and the Church of Today: A Call to Conversion

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NB: A version of the following was delivered as a scriptural reflection during a prayer service at Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary on March 12, 2015. 

romeropostersThis weekend, Christians throughout the world will celebrate the long-anticipated beatification of El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was martyred 35 years ago. Many of us know at least part of the story of Romero’s death and the events that led up to it. Indeed, in the years since his assassination, a great deal of scholarship has focused on the question of his possible conversion from the position of a timid and traditional priest and prelate to a champion for the poor and marginalized. I would argue, as would many others, that the conversion Romero experienced throughout the course his life was more of an evolution and indeed a return home to his humble roots.

However one element of the soon to be beatified martyr’s conversion story is almost impossible to refute. There is no doubt that the Archbishop was forever changed when on March 12, 1977 his dear friend, the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande was killed along with two companions, including Nelson Lemus, a 15 year old boy. Romero’s episcopal successor, Archbishop Arturo Rivera Damas is often quoted as saying, “Before the body of Fr. Rutilio Grande, Monseñor Romero, on his twentieth day as archbishop, felt the call of Christ to defeat his natural human timidity and to fill himself with the intrepidness of the apostle.”

We remember Romero today not only as a martyr and holy man of God but as a catalyst for ongoing conversion in the Church—not only in Latin America but also throughout our continent and the world over. With Fr. Grande at his feet, and the countless more men and women that would die over the course of the next three years before his own death, the Archbishop heeded the call of the God of his ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob—and responded boldly to the tremendous suffering of his people.

In the third chapter of Exodus we are reminded of Moses’ conversion on Mount Horeb before a burning bush, a bush that was on fire but was not consumed by the flames. This of course took Moses by surprise and he moved in to take a closer look. And as he does, God tells him to remove his sandals, as the ground before him is holy ground. Then, after reminding Moses of God’s own history with the people of Israel, he immediately lifts up the voice of the suffering, noting their great affliction and that he has heard their cries.

The ground under Moses’ feet is hallowed, not because of the bush that is on fire, but because of the voiceless the Lord has come to give voice to and rescue.

In the streets of San Salvador, Archbishop Romero lifted up the voice of the voiceless—those who were hungry, oppressed, tortured. This lifting up of their voices by their shepherd was not a matter of the privileged helping the less fortunate at arm’s length, it was a matter of neighbor helping neighbor, the emptied helping the empty, the poor standing right alongside the poor, not only in the Cathedral, but also in the slums and throughout the streets of the city.

This perspective, what others might call a notion of a suffering servant or a wounded healer, was the direct result of the conversion Romero experienced before and after he became Archbishop of San Salvador. Here, the well educated priest who once walked the streets of Rome as a privileged seminarian found himself at home, hearing the cry of God’s people, just as Moses did so long before.

The conversion of Oscar Romero—no matter how gradual and evolutionary—directly impacted the people, relieved their suffering and in the end saved lives.

I want to turn now to another opportunity for conversion and, indeed, another opportunity to heed God’s call to relieve suffering and save lives in our world today.

In late December of 2007, I was returning to my office located near the State Capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska. I had run out to grab a late lunch before a series of conference calls that filled my calendar for the remainder of the day and into the evening. As I turned into the parking lot my phone rang. On the other end of the line was a detective from the Lincoln police department. He asked, “Mr. Fought, how do you know Hugh Hunter?” After a brief pause, I informed him that Hugh was my partner of three years. The detective then stated that he was sorry to inform me that Hugh was found dead earlier that day, the result of an intentional drug and alcohol overdose. “I’m sorry about your friend,” the detective said before hanging up. Hugh, my soul mate and best friend, was 38.

In March, I received similar news, this time about a young man I met a few years back in Minneapolis. He had come to Minnesota, as so many do, to seek chemical dependency treatment in one of our many treatment centers. Christopher had been in a coma for several days and his family elected to cease life support on that Sunday morning. Christopher, or CJ as we knew him, was 33.

I wish CJ and Hugh were alone. But I’ve known many amazing, young, bright and talented gay men who have gone too soon. I won’t be able to share all of their stories and my memories of them with you but I at the very least will offer their names. Wes, Ray, Chad, Stephen, Scott and Matt. We lost Matt earlier this year to a heroin overdose at the age of 28.

Now, let me be clear. There are many reasons why these young men died. Addiction, alcoholism and mental illness are complicated medical conditions. But there is no doubt in my mind, having known each of them personally and having spent three years of my life with one of them, that a great deal of their suffering was directly connected to the way in which our Church treated them and how we treat other gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children of God in our midst.

We have failed them and us, and as the people of God we are better than that.As a gay man in recovery, I’ve spent many years in 12-step meetings with other gay men and women listening to their stories. And I of course know my own. I will say without hesitation that every single man and woman that I’ve encountered comes to sobriety with deep emotional and spiritual scars—scars left by Church teaching, literal interpretations of Scripture, political battles waged by bishops over civil marriage, sacraments being denied to us and our loved ones, and scars left by a laity that has either assisted in such spiritual violence or has sat idly by as our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, neighbors and friends have suffered and died.

The time for conversion as to the way in which we as Church exclude and vilify gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people is well overdue. Just as Archbishop Romero was profoundly and forever changed by the death of Fr. Grande, I have been forever changed by the loss of my friends and loved ones that I remember each day. And I lift up their names and their stories so that we might ensure that no one else dies in the name of stubborn, mistaken hermeneutics and long dismissed theories regarding the nature of sexuality. I lift up their lives so that we might create a Church where love rises above all else, where we heal rather than wound and offer hope rather than hurt.

Indeed, the Lord, the God of our ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent us to do this work. That God is calling out from the bush, telling us to take off our sandals and honor the holy ground that is before us.

On that ground we honor Hugh, CJ and Matt; we honor Oscar, Rutilio and Nelson and all those who have died before their time with us should have ended. And we also remember those lucky ones who have survived but remain marginalized today.

God has witnessed the affliction of God’s people and has called each of us to conversion. Let us say, with hearts burning, Here I Am.

The Last Sunday Homily of Oscar Romero

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Today marks the 35th anniversary of the martyrdom of San Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero. He was powerfully prophetic until the end, calling for justice, conversion and change. His own conversion moved him from a place of timidity to standing with his people in the midst of their great suffering.

In his last Sunday homily, given on the day before his assassination, Romero concluded his remarks with a pointed critique of the violence being perpetrated by the national guard, a rebuke that likely sealed his fate.

I would like to appeal in a special way to the army’s enlisted men, and in particular to the ranks of the Guardia Nacional and the police — those in the barracks. Brothers: you are of part of our own people. You kill your own campesino brothers and sisters. Before an order to kill that a man may give, God’s law must prevail: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God. No one has to fulfill an immoral law. It is time to take back your consciences and to obey your consciences rather than the orders of sin. The Church, defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such abominations. We want the government to understand seriously that reforms are worth nothing if they are stained with so much blood. In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people, whose laments rise to heaven each day more tumultuous, I beg you, I beseech you, I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression!

The Church preaches its liberation just as we have studied it today in the Holy Bible — – a liberation that includes above all, respect for the human person, the salvation of the people’s common good, and transcendence, which looks before all to God, and from God alone derives its hope and its force.

Let us now proclaim our faith in this truth……

On this day we remember Romero’s life of ministry, his call to conversion and his tireless pursuit of justice. And we continue his work, guided by the liberating nature of the gospel and God’s continuing revelation to God’s people. Thank you for your witness, Monsenor. Be with us as we seek to do the same in the world today.

A Church of Mercy, A Servant Pope

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As we reach the two-year mark of the papacy of Pope Francis and look back it is undoubtedly a stunning view.

I often find myself in conversation about the Pope, frequently with non-Catholics who are inspired and intrigued by him. Of course, he’s amazingly popular among Catholics as well. In the United States alone his favorability among practicing Catholics rivals that of ice cream and chocolate.

And yet there are many Catholics who, while they might like him, are also critical. For my more progressive friends, he’s not doing enough. For my more conservative friends, he’s doing too much. And, at the end of the day, I think they are all wrong. This makes me especially popular at dinner parties.

Francis is a rare kind of pope, a type we haven’t seen in a very long time, if ever. He is pastoral, energetic, approachable, down-to-earth, joyful, funny, hope filled and at times most prophetic. I would argue that he is also incredibly smart, strategic and politically savvy, which makes his detractors so weary.

Each pope has his strengths and weaknesses. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is a brilliant theologian and has been throughout his life. Pope John Paul II began his long pontificate with incredible pastoral energy and engaged and inspired young people more than any modern pope has until now.

But there is no doubt that the world was ready for Pope Francis and what he is bringing to the Church. After decades of doctrinal rigidity, he has called for mercy and love. He has demanded that the members of the hierarchy serving the Church do so as shepherds that smell like their sheep and not as princes counting their fine wool sweaters. He has a vision of the Church as a field hospital triaging the complex lives of the faithful that walk through its doors.

Pope_Francis_St._Martha_House_Chapel_01And he has backed up his words with action. The people of Chicago and San Diego, for instance, now have incredible pastoral leaders serving them. Other, more out-of-touch prelates like Germany’s “bishop of bling” and embattled Cardinal Raymond Burke have both been pulled from their previous posts and demoted. The Pope continues to make significant reforms throughout the curia, all of which will take a great deal of time and patience following years of mismanagement and abuse.

Has he done enough to bring about full inclusion of LGBT persons in the Church? No. But he’s come further than anyone has or would have. Is there more work to be done considering the place of women in the leadership of the Church? Most definitely. And the list of reforms and issues goes on and on.

However, there is no doubt that in two short years, the Holy Father has done much to return the Church to its roots as a people concerned with the Gospel values of justice, mercy and peace. In the Pope the poor, marginalized and oppressed have a true friend, and his witness and direct actions are having an impact on all of us. If they haven’t had an impact on you, you need to ask yourself why not.

FrancisClosenessAnd, at the end of the day, that was my greatest hope when the Conclave gathered two years ago. I prayed that the cardinals would elect, and God would bring to us, a pontiff who was truly devoted to ensuring that the poor came first and that our Church would be a place of mercy, hope and love. Through his actions and his words, we have such a servant leader.

After all, if we aren’t doing that right—if we aren’t a poor Church serving the poor before all else, we can’t expect to do much else. And we certainly can’t expect to preach the gospel with a straight face.

There is much work left to do, and the Catholic Church is not a fast-moving operation. But I remain hopeful today and am so very grateful for the gift of Pope Francis.