- “For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists, not just that beyond the steely brightness of the starts there is a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going, but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself in the stars but in one way or another is trying to get the messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world. It is not objective proof of God’s existence that we want but the experience of God’s presence. That is the miracle we are really after, and that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.” –Frederick Buechner, “The Magnificent Defeat”
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I am a Catholic youth minister in Portland, Oregon. I am a proud Catholic and a proud Portlander. I truly believe these things are deeply connected.
I think Portland is Jesus’ kind of place. It’s green. People are kind to each other. It smells nice after it rains. We have good coffee and like to read books. We like walking more than driving. We shop local and organic, our produce is world-class, and we care about good food and hospitality. We have Burgerville, Voodoo Doughnuts, and Powell’s Books – three of the greatest institutions ever created by man.
I believe in a God who loves the messy screwed-up people as much as the perfect holy people. I believe in a God who wants me to do better and love more and speak truthfully, but who is not holding out until I’m perfect before He loves me. I believe in a God who likes me exactly as I am.
I believe in a Jesus whose posse of followers, if he lived in our world now, would include the following: drug addicts, gays and lesbians, people with HIV/AIDS, illegal immigrants, the developmentally disabled, the physically disabled, people on Death Row, women who have had abortions, and members of every single other subset of society who the Catholic Church has ever led to believe that we had no place for them. I don’t think this is fluffy New Age nonsense, I think it is the truth.
I would like to believe that Heaven is a place where all the people I’ve loved and lost are enjoying themselves and making friends with each other, at a spectacular cocktail party hosted with great flair and style by my mother. And the Virgin Mary. (You have only to look at the story of the wedding at Cana to know that she was a fabulous hostess.)
