Choices

This past baseball season had me wanting to purchase a jersey of my favorite team, the Yankees. Not knowing at the time anything of the baseball jersey market, I figured I'd be spending maybe $19.99 tops for a cotton pinstripe thing with the NY logo superimposed over the left breast and maybe I'd have a number "4" for Lou Gehrig put on the back. After all, its just a shirt worn today, stained by ketchup and tossed into Goodwill tomorrow. Silly me.

So, I turned where every would-be bargain hunter turns today to find what he or she is looking for, the internet. E-bay, being a pain in the rear to use, and a site that blasphemed my Catholic faith and my Lord, Jesus Christ when they allowed some Satan-driven nut job to sell a consecrated host, pretty much permanently turned me away from ever using them again. So, I began looking at all the other options: Shopzilla, Yahoo Shopping, BizRate, you name it. 69 to 79 bucks, for a piece of clothing, and they were the cheap ones. To my surprise, they even had Lou Gehrig Jerseys--for only $199! What a bargain! (Don't you love that. Like the shopper is some kind of idiot. OK, I take it back, many are.) Only (x exorbitant sum)! Sheesh.

Then I couldn't find anything in 100% cotton or even flannel which is what I wanted. Like Lou Gehrig wore a 100% polyester baseball jersey in 1926. "Authentic Throwback Jersey. 100% Polyester." No, you idiots at Majestic. "Throwback" means a 100% flannel jersey without a name on the back because there were no names on the back in 1929. Prior to that, there weren't even numbers! So, now I have to spend half my monthly paycheck on material I don't want. Only $299. For a shirt with a name and a number on the back. The real question is why can they charge this much? Because selfish idiots (and being largely liberal, New York and New Jersey are filled with them) are dumb enough to buy it. In good conscience, I couldn't buy one of these jerseys for more than $19.99. In reality, even that is too much. I think of people who cannot even afford tonight's dinner and something becomes very wrong with our spending habits.

George Bush is supposedly out of touch with America. The only reason he is out of touch is because to his credit, he is blissfully naive enough, as a President should be, to presume the best of the people of our nation, and the best means that we have some semblance left of Christian conscience which can discern moral right from moral wrong, something that at least 51% of Amerca can no longer do. Yes. President Bush, who comes from a Christian perpective is out of touch with America because America is very out of touch with what is truly real. Bush's real crime is that he is a Christian and is not ashamed to profess it. That is the real reason the liberal and corrupt media hates him. That is the real reason 51% of America hates him. We live in an electronic world of entertainment and video stimulation driven by greed and profit and everything that is opposed to Christ. American Idol is the motivation for our youth because to be a corrupt, aimless actor who goes around inbreeding Hollywood means fame and fortune. Like this is reality. Yeah, "Idol" is the right word.

In the 16th chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke, Jesus tells a story of a poor beggar named Lazarus and a rich man which Roman tradition calls Dives (which is Latin for "Rich"). In the story, Lazarus spends his old age penniless begging at the gates of the house of Dives who eats and drinks his life away, entertaining his friends in his rich home. Lazarus longs for the scraps that Dives feeds to his dog. In the end both die. Lazarus winds up consoled and at rest in the bosom of Abraham. Dives goes to a place of torment, presumably Hell. Dives looks afar off and sees Lazarus at the bosom of Abraham and asks Father Abraham to send Lazarus to him for at least a drop of water to quench his burning thirst. Father Abraham explains he cannot because there is a great gap between the two places and no one can cross from one to the other. Dives then asks Father Abraham to at least warn his sinful brothers that they don't end up where he is. Father Abraham explains that they have the writings of Moses and the prophets to warn them, but Dives protests saying "No, Father Abraham, if only someone would go to them from the dead then they would listen," but Father Abraham tells them that if they refuse to listen to Moses and the prophets, even someone going back to them from the dead to warn them will do them no good.

The lesson of this story is that Dives doesn't wind up in Hell because he's a bad guy. After all, he wined and dined his friends and opened his house to them, right? The reason he is condemned, very gently and lovingly I might add (he's never yelled at or belittled by his Maker--that's what we sinful, if not frustrated, Christians wrongfully do in God's name all the time), is because he never thinks to lift a finger for Lazarus. He never goes outside of his own little world to think that maybe there are other people he can help. That maybe the gift that God created him with to be able to make money was not meant to be used for himself but to help those who don't have the same gifts and cannot fend well for themselves or their families. He is condemned because he stuck his head in the sand of his own little world and refused to look about him. Sounds like a lot of people I know today. Jesus said the path to condemnation is wide and many there are who travel it. He urges, not demands, but urges us, for our sake, to take the "road less traveled." We would be wise to follow it. We don't have time on this planet to be distracted by snakecharmers like Dan Brown. People like Brown won't escape the fate of Dives for leading astray thousands of souls from a faith they might have otherwise had unless they reconcile themselves to God for their terrible errors. Sadly, Brown has probably already lost the grace of repentance forever, but most of us can still acknowledge our sinful selves and turn to God because he isn't done with us yet.

God offers grace and we need to jump on it while the offer is hot. If we reject him, he allows us that choice. Choice is a terrible thing in a universe where God's most supreme law is that of Free Will. We can choose hell if we wish. He won't stop us if we insist. Most people hate Christianity because they think it is about condemnation. It's not. It is about salvation. Additionally, there have been many Christians in history, both Catholic and Protestant, who really have given bad witness to Christ. This is not God's fault and its not the Catholic Church's fault, at least not in her divine ideal. It is our fallen nature's fault. But fallen man is too dull to see that either. In the end, it is not God who condemns us. It is we who have made the free choice to turn completely from him. It is we who condemn ourselves. We tell God "no", by our choices and actions. What is God supposed to do, twist our arms and make us love him? No, the alternative is to be away from him. So, in his mercy, God created a place where his love does not exist. That place is a place of torment because without God, there is no love. There are only people like Dives who never think to think of anyone but themselves. There are angels like that, too. Unfortunately, they are a bad tempered lot with greater ability to hate and they rule us because in Hell, they are the stronger and the fitter.

God has given us a free will. We can use it however we wish. God is pro-choice, but not in the selfish abortion sense that slogan is bandied about today. We have free choice to buy exorbitantly priced goods, especially in the season of Christmas. We have the free choice to abort our babies because of the selfishness and lack of thougtfulness before we selfishly decided to use someone else and have sex (or in the very rare case that Roe v. Wade was wrongfully, if not originally intended for, we were too selfish to give our innocent baby conceived in a rape up for adoption). We have the free choice to allow ourselves to be sankecharmed by David Letterman, Jay Leno, and American Idol. We have the free choice to vote for those who turn all that is truly good and right upside down and have the gall to call it "good" and "morally right" when it is nothing but immoral filth. Be careful of free choices, lest Dives's fate becomes ours.