Thinking about Strength

Whoever said you can't smoke yourself in three minutes was wrong. I once heard an interesting theory about physical fitness. According to this theory, if you work out to 100 percent of capacity you die. That is, you exhaust all the energy in all your muscle groups and your body shuts down. Working out to 96 or 97 percent you pass out or go into a coma. So the ideal training intensity is about 94 or 95 percent of physical capacity.

Now, most people have mental safeguards against pushing themselves this hard. It becomes a bit uncomfortable right around 50 percent. Past that it starts hurting. The whole point of Navy SEAL training is to teach the candidates to push themselves past that fifty percent line, past seventy-five, past eighty, all the way up to ninety-five. It is a curved function. Hundred percent is a theoretical quality, for most intents and purposes it does not exist. Even those guys who go through hell week hit what they would have considered their hundred percent mark about day two. I passed my hundred percent mark several times at SAPPER school. That's because it was all in my head.

Today I did a three minute workout, thirty seconds each of clean and press 95lbs, pullups palms out, 28 kilo kettlebell lift (two hand), deadlift and raise 95lbs, chinups palms in, and 28 kilo kettlebell swings (two hands). Thirty seconds each. I felt like I was going to die. I made it, but I couldn't maintain the intensity. In a week or so I will try it again and I will do much better. I will not be any stronger physically, but I will be stronger mentally.

Strength is at the heart of everything that the warrior does and is. His physical strength, mental strength, and emotional strength flow from his spiritual strength, or they are nothing. People make a great deal of sportsmen, football players, UFC fighters, boxers and such. Time and again we find commentators talking about heart, or lack of heart. "Now it comes down to the crunch, it's all about who wants it more?" But this is not strength. Strength is not about how big your muscles are, or how much you bench. It is not about how much money you can make or what kind of car you can afford to drive. It is not the suits you wear, the football you can throw or catch. It is not in how you can stand on a line of scrimage and take and give hits. It is not about the risks you take, the thrills you seek or the fights you get into. It is not how many phone numbers you can get at the bar. It is not how hard you can throw a punch. It is not about how badly you want it.

I will tell you, there is no such thing as strong enough.

This is strength: When you are given a task, not something that you chose to do because it looked fun or cool, not something you chased after, but something given to you, and you accept it, neither asking for it nor shirking it, because it needs to be done, and when you can give your best to this task, because that is what is required, when you have forgotten why, and you no longer have the strength to want it, then you are strong enough. This is why there is no strong enough. Strong enough exists only in the past. I was strong enough for that trial, then. Now I am recovering and growing stronger before the next trial. I am preparing myself. You can never be strong enough before the fact.

Strength comes from realizing that you are not strong enough, and depending on He who is.

Strength is how much you can give of yourself. A man who fights for someone else is always stronger than the same man fighting for himself.

Keep this always in your mind when you train, especially when you train physically. There are physical aspects to physical training. You have to strike a balance between strength and power to lift and move heavy things and the endurance and stamina to go forever. However, remember that the real boundaries are always in your mind. In ruck marching only the first twenty miles are a physical test. In a forty mile ruckmarch, once you have reached twenty-miles you are done being tested physically. The rest is all in your mind. If you can physically go twenty miles, you can physically go twenty one. If you can go twenty one, you can go twenty two. If you can go twenty two miles, you can go twenty three, and so on, as long as need be, until you reach the end or you die. The physical test has already been passed. The rest is all in your head.

I've tried many times over the years to put together a training program for the wariror, a complete curriculum of body, mind and heart. It hasn't happened yet. The program for training the body and the skills of the body is very simple. It is just a matter of writing it down. Physical fitness, martial arts, movement, shooting, communicating, explosives, first aid, land navigation, all of these are easy to write about. So much so that it would be more like researching, compiling and editing than writing. Training the mind in observation, logic, general science and military strategy is also easy. We probably should even continue in the dual nature vein and include the liberal arts, along with philosophy and theology. In the physical skills training we could include carpentry, vehicle repair, electrical work, plumbing, farming or any number of other skills. To train the heart is a little more complex. By training the heart, I mean a conscious and deliberate effort to train the warrior to cherish the good, the true and the beautiful. There is no way to do it directly. He must do that himself. From the outside it can only be encouraged by exposing him to such things. On an even deeper level, moral training, the training of the will is essential. Without giving the warrior a strong sense of morality you have no right to train him to kill. That is a recipe for disaster, especially in this increasingly violent society.

The trouble is that the only aspect of training that can possibly be isolated from the others is skills training, and that is the training that most needs to be controlled and influenced by the rest. The other three, mental, moral and emotional grow from each other, interconnect with each other. That is what complicates them, the fact that it they are so close. I can't sort through them yet. However this I do know. The skills training must not under any circumstances be divorced from these three. The mental, emotional and especially moral training must constantly inform every aspect of martial training. Without it, you will only release walking time bombs on society. We have had enough of indiscriminate violence already.

I'm not old enough to write such a book yet. I've had a lot of different things I've wanted to do over the years, but one thing that has remained a constant over the years is that I want to teach. Particularly I want to teach young men to be warriors. There are so many young men with the warrior's heart. I myself am one of them. I've been learning for years now, and one of the saddest things is that I have never had a mentor.I have had many trainers, teachers, instructors and even leaders, but I have never had a true, solid, Godly warrior to take me in hand and teach me, and so my training has suffered. Everything I have learned I have picked up as I found it, following leads and trails, researching, teaching as I go, refining. Looking back I can only be amazed at how God has lead me and put me in the right place at the right time to learn more and more. Hopefully I will get the chance to pass that on some day. I believe that mentorship is an intrinsic part of warriorhood. No warrior will ever be complete unless he passes that calling on to the next generation of warriors. If the chain breaks, society is doom. Don't believe me? What would happen if all the cops in New York City went on strike for twenty-four hours? Unfortunately too many warriors do not follow God, and so do not reach their full potential.

Hands

I like hands. I really do. They are a marvel of design engineering, flexible and strong at the same time, capable of incredible versatility. Nothing we have ever invented can even come close to God's work. We can build things stronger, but not as dextrous, or faster, but not as versatile. Plus, hands are so individual. Hands are as individual as the people who own them. There are long slender hands, short pudgy hands, tiny petite hands, massive gorilla hands, callused hands and soft hands, scarred hands and flawless hands, hands perpetually dirty under the nails, and hands immaculately clean, rough hands, manicured hands, skilled hands, clumsy hands, you can tell a lot about people by their hands. My favorite are infant hands, the same incredible design only about a hundredth of the size. Even infants, you can tell things about them by their hands. Some have bigger hands, and they are probably going to grow big. Some reach out and look for things to grab hold of, some flail around with tiny fists, some just curl their hands up under their chins. Each has his or her own personality even at that age.

Hands are almost infinitely trainable. Some people have nimble fingers that can spider walk up and down the neck of a guitar. Others have hands that can manipulate wrenches, nuts and bolts. Some people type at a hundred words a minute, some people can grip and lift huge weights. Some people sew, some paint, some sculpt or build or lay bricks. Some people can turn their hands into deadly weapons. Cops, soldiers, martial artists, all use their hands to inflict damage on people. My own hands lean this way. The base knuckles on both my hands are scarred and leathery from bare-knuckle boxing on the heavy bag, and my hands and fingers know their way around a joint lock or a chokehold so that I don't have to think about it anymore. Even when I shake hands with someone, my hands tell me all sorts of things about them, where their weight is, how strong their wrist is, how aggressive their sense of positioning is. If I set a hand on someone's shoulder it automatically rests right over the nerves for a control grip. Hands develop habits, just like people. Other people, like doctors and nurses, have healing hands. Some seem to have a gift in their touch, just touching people they comfort them and make them feel better. Their hands develop habits as well. I knew a guy whose wife was a nurse. He told me that whenever they held hands she would automatically check his radial pulse, which I thought was kind of weird.

The best thing about hands is that they are versatile. Even those guys with the gorilla hands can still exercise some gentleness, while no matter how tiny a girl's hands might be, they can still be trained to support and grip much more than her bodyweight. Once again, the design is incredible.

I have no idea why I thought of this. I just like hands.

War Stories

I have come to the conclusion that breakfast is one of the greatest inventions of all time. By breakfast I don't mean a stack of girl scout cookies and a slim jim on the go, which I have eaten more than a few times. I'm talking about sitting down at the chowhall with sausage, eggs, fruit, and toasted bagels or english muffins. The fruit in itself is worthy of celebration in verse.

We can get spun up in the morning so early that we don't get breakfast. On the road all day, and lunch just ends up not happening, and if we get supper that isn't MRE's, well, that's a bonus. It isn't a healthy way to live, I wouldn't think, because you get into the habit of eating when you aren't hungry, just because you don't know when your next hot meal is going to be. In Iraq it was different. The chowhall served food at midnight, breakfast, lunch and dinner, and had hot plates available between times, no matter when we were going out or coming in, we got food. On the other hand, the missions were longer and we ate more MRE's. We ate only the snacks out of them, though. The main meals we would trade with the locals for kibobs and bread and chai tea, or give them to the kids, or just throw them away. All in all, Afghanistan is a pretty chill deployment.

I actually like the nights we sleep outside the wire, because there is nothing to do but sleep and pull guard, no maintenance, no meetings, just pull up, clean weapons, and as soon as dark hits rack out in the truck. I'm waiting for the bad guys to get frisky enough to try something at night, but so far they don't want to play.

Someone from operation Minnesota Nice sent my driver a whole bag of salted in the shell peanuts. He didn't want them so he gave them to me. I like peanuts (I know, Mom, what snack do I not like, right?) We've got a little brick fire pit/oven outside the hooches and the other night most of the guys in my squad ended up sitting around out there on busted up chairs just chilling and arguing about who was going to throw the next peice of wood on the fire. I brought out the peanuts and shared them out, and we cracked and ate, and threw the shells on the fire, and re-enacted the same things we have been re-enacting for fifteen months. My driver also got some tea packets and I got them and made myself some citrus and ginseng tea. I like tea. There is something therapeutic about making tea, even if it is in a gatorade bottle.

There is something about a fire that loosens people's tongues. You get a bunch of guys all sitting around it and they will start talking, and the conversation will wander and wander and gaggle on around to who knows where. If you really want to get to know your circle of friends, get them around a fire at night and watch where the conversation goes when they relax and let their guard down. And remember to listen more than you talk. If you're in a group of army guys, you'll probably end up leaving at some point, but up until then it's good times.

Sharing war stories is the order of the day around here. A lot of soldiers, when they head home on leave, get irritated by the number of people who ask "What is it like over there?" "Did you see any action?" or most rudely of all, "Did you kill anyone?" Highly discourteous. Invariably, we don't talk. I don't deal with that much. I think I have been either cursed or blessed with a face that forbids conversation. People who don't know me generally leave me alone. Other guys just evade questions or answer rudely in the hopes that these strangers will just go away. Back here, though, we will tell the same stories over and over and over again. We will tell stories to our friends and families, but not half as much as we talk to each other. And the funny thing is that we were all there. We all remember what happened, we've been telling the same stories, rehashing the same events forever. You'd think you'd want to tell stories to people who haven't been there, who don't already know how it ends. But that's not how it is.

We talk among ourselves because we understand. There is a whole language and beyond that an entire culture, with its own cultural identities, its own sub cultures and groups, its own subconscious assumptions and knowledge and shared standards that form the mental background for all these stories. To some extent, those who don't know that culture will never really understand. So we can talk a little to those who know us, who know the person. They can relate to the stories through their knowledge of the person, but they will never have the same understanding, that same, "Yes, I know, I've been there too," that I will find with an infantry grunt on the plane next to me. Neither is this culture homogenous either. Grunts can talk to other grunts, but not to staff personnel. S-shop people can talk to other s-shop people, but not to combat arms. Light and mechanized combat arms are two very different cultures, only loosely related. But nearly any soldier will understand better than nearly any civillian. A shrink would have a field day with us, if he were invisible. Otherwise he wouldn't get a word out of any of us.

I take a different approach. I have been a storyteller since I can remember, and now is no different. I like telling stories to people who haven't been there, I like trying to translate one culture into terms that another culture will understand. I like communicating. The hard part is not telling what happened, but communicating the whole atmosphere in which it happened. That's what I try to do, but it is a challenge. Partially because of OPSEC, operational security. I can't give details. Partially, though, because stories live on events and events can be described very easily, but atmsophere is harder to convey. It exists in the background, and we don't pay attention to it. It is harder to focus on, not least for those closest to it.

Some families wonder why soldiers don't talk about what "it's like over here." What is there to talk about? There is too much, a whole year or more, of experiences that they didn't share. Where should he start? Where can anyone start?

Currently Reading Rogue Warrior By Richard Marcinko see related

In the Beauty of Holiness.

I actually have been trying to get to this for some time, but work has been crazy. I can feel myself burning out, slowly but surely. For the first time this tour I am glad we're coming to the end. I don't have the energy for this anymore. I'd really like to spend an extended amount of time not trying to stay one step ahead of people who are trying to kill us. It takes its toll.

I guess one of the most disappointing things in the world is looking in the mirror and realizing you are not made of iron.

After a long, brutal day, I would really like to just go to bed, tomorrow is going to be just as bad, or worse most likely. However I get the feeling God wants to spend some quality time, so I guess we'll sit here and think about worship. If this post makes no sense at all it is because I feel completely stoned out of my mind.

Worship is what we give back to God. If faith is truth, and morals are goodness, then worship is beauty, the beauty of holiness, for in worship we give ourselves to God. We can do no less.

There are two basic kinds of worship, personal and communal. Each of these can further be broken down into formal and informal. An example of formal personal worship would be saying an Our Father, or setting up a regular private devotion. It is time that we deliberately schedule and set aside for God. Informal personal worship would be saying a quick prayer, thanking God at some point during the day for that flower, that little act of providence, or something of that nature. It is unscheduled, and somewhat spontaneous. Formal communal worship is called liturgy. It is set series of prayers and actions that we do at prearranged times and days to worship God. Informal communal prayer could be something like praying with a brother at work, or sharing insights from the Bible at a party.

No form of worship is more important than the others.

A religion, generally, is more concerned with the formal types of worship. Liturgical worship is found throughout the Bible, and in most world religions.

This isn't going anywhere. My head feels like mud.

Worship is self-surrender. We go to church, we say the prayers, we respond, we receive the sacraments (how I miss the sacraments! I don't know how you protestants [no offense] manage without them.) We go through the actions. We take part in liturgies of incredible beauty and complexity. We see patterns of spiritual history unfolding before our eyes. We make contact with God and all His heavenly host, and we yawn. Is it any wonder so many Christians don't go to Church anymore? What can we do at a Church that we can't do just as well at home? The answer is, unless you are Catholic, not much. For Catholics the sacraments are the point of worship. Everything else we may as well do at home.

But we do not become holy from going  to Church. We become Holy by worshipping God. We become Holy by surrendering ourselves to Him, completely. And we go to Church to do just that. The whole point of having a Church is to have a place and a time that are completely dedicated to Him, aside from any concerns or cares of this world. We live, we love, we work, we move and breathe and party and whatever it is we do, but we do all under God. Sometimes, we are only human after all, we have to be reminded. We need alone time, we need communion with God.

We have the same elements in all our relationships as we do with God. In all our human relationships we need alone time, we need time for the relationship to ebb and flow. We need to communicate, we need to share. Only in our relationship with God do we have to surrender ourselves. Not just our interests, or our wants, or our egos, but our very selves. Our souls, our wills, intellects, hearts, actions, everything. That is what worship is. This is an important distinction to make because it shows us two things. First, that all the church time in the world is not worship without this self-surrender. Secondly, that everything is worship when done in this spirit. Which is exactly as it should be.

Once again we start with the basics. This is where formal prayer comes in. It is basic. We pray at a certain time and in a certain way. We pray in the words given us by Jesus Himself, and we pray in the words of holy men and women who came before us. When people ask why I pray with other peoples' words instead of making my own, I simply ask why they buy hallmark greeting cards instead of making their own. Why should I re-invent the wheel when I have thousands of years of tradition and the heritage of much wiser and holier people than myself to draw from. Why do I play beethoven instead of writing my own music? Why do I sing other peoples' songs? Why do I read other peoples' books? All of the above apply. When I pray formally it does a few things for me. It disciplines me to worship whether I feel like it or not. It joins me with the prayers of other Christians. their prayers remind me of things I might forget.

Communal worship continues this. Where two or three are gathered in His name, He promises to be there. We are sharpened by the presence of our family members, but more importantly than that, God Himself is there with us. Liturgy is a way of harmonizing. Some people complain that a liturgical approach to worship ruins spontaneity, but I disagree. You might as well say that sheet music and a director and accompaniement ruin a choir. Of course a choir can sing mechanically. Any good thing can be ruined, that doesn't mean it has to be, or that a flat, mechanical choir is the way things are supposed to be. The fact that there are abuses indicates that there is a correct way of doing things. Liturgy brings many people together into one rich tapestry of worship. We all know what we are doing. People also say that doing things the same way every time makes people complacent. You might as well say that a choir should not practice because then they will get complacent. Worship should be a work of art. Only the best should go to God.

Formal worship, in order to be true worship, must be according to the word of God. I could go into a very long post analyzing biblical and especially New Testament worship, but that is another topic, and frankly, I don't have the time. However, this formal, liturgical worship is the heart of religious worship. The scripture readings, the prayers, the sacraments, the traditions, they form the identity of a religious tradition of worship. Worshiping within this tradition keeps us in harmony with that tradition, and if it is a Godly tradition, based on the word of God, our public, communal worship will keep us in the life of God.

So much for the system of religion. However, as we have seen by now, the system is only the beginning. What do we do with the worship at church?

We make it our own, like a difficult piano piece played over and over again, and then once we have mastered it technically, we play it in our own individual way. The communal worship informs our more personal and informal worship. Because we spend much time worshiping with others, in a Godly tradition, that overflows into our personal worship, keeping it in line with God's life. If we fill ourselves with God's life, and discipline our worship to be in harmony with His ways, later on we can be trusted to improvise in harmony with the overall symphony. The beauty of Holiness comes from our harmony with God. Our holiness is His Holiness in us. Faith is the truth, morals is the way, but worship is the life. As the life of God flows through us everything we do becomes His life, everything we do becomes worship.We surrender to Him in everything we do, driving, working, typing, reading, shooting, exercising, whatever it is, and in the element of surrender we find worship. Worship is the life of the Church. It is the life of the Church both as a religion and as the bride of Christ. It is also our life, as Children of God, as members of His family. Next to worship faith and morals are both dry and uninteresting. Necessary, but not as dangerous, not as perilous. Worshipping is the most perilous thing we can do, for in worship we open ourselves to Someone infinitely stronger than we are. He is good, but His goodness is not like ours is. His goodness is harder and stronger and fiercer and when we worship we willingly remove the veil that separates us from Him.

There is a reason that the Children of Israel worshipped from a far, and used Moses as a go-between. We do not have that luxury. We ask that our prayers be answered, and when we worship we pray, whether we know it or not, that everything separating us from His love will be removed. And then we yawn and stare out the window, and wonder what kind of doughnuts they will have after service. Be careful, God might just take you seriously.

All beauty in the world is only a shadow of the Beauty of Holiness, and even these lesser forms break our hearts. A child smiles a gap toothed grin, and we laugh but deep down inside there is a wistfullness. A strain of music brings tears to our eyes. A woman's hair blows in the wind and we are weighed down with nameless longing. The sun sets blazing in the west, and we feel like we could burst with too much beauty. Why do we think we could stand up under the weight of the real thing?

We can't, not yet. In worship we come close, but God, in His mercy, still leaves us a few barriers. Even when those are removed, I think I would rather be crushed flat by God, if that is what must be, than raised up by anyone else.

Now I'm going to bed.

Right and Wrong

Morals, I think, are one of the hardest parts of organized religion to swallow. Some people don't like morals because morals are definite "do not cross or else" lines and they don't like being told what to do. Others don't like morals because morals are laws, and we are supposed to be living by the law of love and not of fear. This is more of a christian thing.

But first, what are morals? Morals, in the sense I am talking about here, that is, a moral system, are black and white statements about what is right and what is wrong. Morals command certain actions and forbid certain other actions.

Many world religions have similar moral codes. In fact, ethics would probably be the greatest similarity between otherwise diverse religions. I am far from saying that Christianity, Judaism, Bhuddism, Islam, and Hindu all have the same ethics, just couched in different language. That is not true. However, all moral codes cover the same basic ground. For instance some religions allow polygamy, others do not, but all agree that you should not simply sleep with any woman you want. Some forbid violence altogether, others allow almost unlimited violence to anyone outside the tribe, most fall somewhere in between, but all place some kind of restriction on interpersonal aggression. The similarity is not necessarily in specific laws, but in the areas that the laws cover.

Morals inevitably develop into a system of rules. This is how they always have been, and probably how they always will be. Even in Christianity, under the supposed "law of love" we still have labored under specific rules. So the specific questions to answer are, why do morals develop or devolve into lists of rules, is it possible to have a religion without a moral code, and is christianity helped or hurt by rules.

I think lists of rules are natural. In the same way that we have a natural need to systematize what we believe, so we have a natural urge to systematize what we consider right and wrong. The one follows naturally from the other. What we believe about the universe and about God will ultimately determine what we believe is right and wrong, especially in regards to the authority of our morals. In their essence, morals are really free from any concept of reward or punishment. The statement, "I should" is a completely different category than "I want to" or "I am compelled to" or "it would be more convenient for me to". The moral capacity is something entirely different from any capacity for self-preservation, and it could not have come from self-preservation. In the essence of a moral code there is no concept of "do this because the results will be good" or "don't do this because the results will be unpleasant." Moral codes say "Don't do this because it is wrong" and leave it at that. At some basic level we all know that right and wrong are authoritative in and of themselves, without any element of self-preservation. This can be proved by the fact that we frequently find ourselves experiencing moral urges that collide with our other instincts.

That having been said, self-preservation can be used to support morality. This can be done in two basic ways:

Intrinsically: God has designed the universe with right and wrong at the very heart of it. Scientists think the space time continuum is the most elemental thing, but they are wrong. Right and wrong are much more basic. So for actions that are wrong there are unpleasant consequences. Evil comes back upon those who work it, inevitably. Morals really are for the greater good of society, and so some people tell us that why come from our herd instincct, to preserve society. This is not logical, because 1) it begs the question by assuming that we would feel a moral compunction to preserve society, and 2) sometimes the right thing to do is ignore society and preserve the individual. However, a society of moral people is a better society because that is how God designed us to work. A sexually pure individual can not get STD's, will run less risk of mental and emotional pain of damaging relationships, because that is how God designed us to work. So reward and punishment are intrinsic in the results of our actions. This is complicated by the fact that other people's actions affect us, and our actions affect other people so that we sometimes suffer the consequences of other people's actions, just as much as they suffer ours. However the rule remains true.

Special: A person in authority can choose to inflict a punishment on a person for their actions, or choose to grant a reward. Parents use this all the time to teach right and wrong. God has used it as well, especially in the Old testament. He doesn't do so as often or obviously in the New Testament, but He still does use special rewards and punishments on occasion. If He has moved away from special reward and punishment, it is likely because He wants us to move beyond it. However, that does not in any way remove or mitigate the intrinsic rewards and punishments that He designed into nature from the start.

In the question of religion, special punishment is a touchy question. Special punishments can be used correctly, in service of correct morals, or incorrectly, in the service of a flawed moral system.

So what makes a moral system right? It must conform with the nature of God. It most follow from what is true. By faith we appreciate what is true, and then by morals we do what is good. The nature of God is love. Right and wrong flow from love. If you love perfectly you will act perfectly. Why then the need for lists of rules? The answer is that we are fallen human beings. When a child is born it is a completely self-centered creature. He takes only, he gives nothing. This self centered attitude is exactly correct in an infant. In a toddler it is a problem that must be countered. Moral or ethical training for children almost entirely consists of teaching them to overcome their "me first" attitude. Most children do not simply apprehend this truth. We all learned it over time through specific rules. First we learned not to hit Mommy because she would punish us. Maybe we still wanted to hit Mommy from time to time, but we knew that she hit harder. Eventually we learned that it is not nice to hit Mommy. Slowly we learned that Mommy loved us, and that she did good things for us, and that we should do nice things back, and so on, slowly, by degrees, learning to live more and more outside ourselves. But for most of us, we were doing what was right because we were forced to, long before we learned the why of it. This is why moralists moralize, that is, make systems of rules. The general principle is "Love the Lord your God with all your being, and Love your neighbor as yourself," but very few people simply comprehend that principle. We have to be taught it by people who already know it, and it has to be applied to specific situations, which turn out to be rules, however you look at it.

In the army I use and teach a particularly complicated piece of equipment. I have been using it for so long it is second nature to me. I can hear what it is saying to me almost like a language. For new learners I give them rules of thumb to tide them over until they have enough practice to reach that level. This sound generally means this, that sound generally means that. Rules of thumb. When they have thousands of hours operating it, they will no longer need those rules, they will know. Until then, those rules will keep them alive.

Moral laws serve the same purpose. A perfect person, Jesus, loved everyone and everything perfectly and so always acted perfectly. His followers did not. So He left them rules of thumb to follow until they had enough practice that they didn't need them anymore. We all start out with rules of thumb, and to get the most out of them, they must be good rules.

Another reason for rules and laws is the effect on society. A society that follows moral laws is going to be happier, no matter why the people are following those laws. It may not be a heaven on earth, but it would certainly prevent hell on earth.

So is it possible to have a religion without a moral code? I don't know. It certainly wouldn't fit my working definition of a "system of beliefs, morals and worship" but it might be something that could popularly be called a religion. Or perhaps it would more commonly be called "spirituality". I am skeptical of such terms. I am skeptical of anything that purports to provide spiritual "enlightenment" without rules of conduct. I am afraid that without real honesty, purity, humility and sobriety, we will be running after an emotional high, while the term "spiritual" will give us just enough of a sense of superiority to make us insufferable. I do not see how there can be any true spirituality without true virtue. Unless my spirituality makes me work, really work, unless it pushes me to real prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude, I don't consider it worth much of anything. This is the main problem I have with certain Christian sects that take too wide a view of "God's Forgiveness" saying it doesn't matter what crimes you commit, God will forgive them. He will cover them up with the merits of Christ's holiness, like snow covering a pile of manure. I grew up on a farm, and I can tell you, a pile of crap covered with snow is still a pile of crap. So if my religion ever ceases to hurt, ceases to challenge me and point out my faults and make me squirm, I will be left with two choices. I will either have to believe that I have become perfect, or I will have to believe that my religion is flawed.

So has Christianity in particular been helped or hurt by our insistence on rules? Well, rules are definitely not the best way to acheive real holiness, they are just the only way. Without laws of conduct there would be no approaching real holiness. We would have no place to start. Even if we were taught the law of Love in our brains, it would never make its way to our heart without action. In order to act we would have to want to act, and we would have to know how to act in specific situations, and without Charity being completely a part of us, we are always going to need a lesser reason to act, and a lesser way of knowing how to act. So I think the laws, the true laws based on the word of God, have helped. We certainly can not do without them, and our society would be a right old mess without them. However, I have no doubt that some people have hurt themselves and others with laws. Anytime we consider the law to be an end in itself, and not a means to something more perfect, we do everyone a disservice, and I am afraid this has happened far too often. We fall in love with the image in the mirror, and never turn to the Beloved who is standing behind us. Christians, and especially Catholics, have a tendency to see the rules and follow the rules, and keep following the rules, and keep following the rules, and never get to the point where we go beyond them, because the morals of Christianity are good morals. If you follow them conscientiously you will be what most people would consider a decent sort of person. However we are not called to be decent people. We are called to be like God, like Jesus. We will have to be decent people a long time before we become holy people, but we will never be holy if we are content with merely decent.

Whatever the case, it is not the rules themselves that are to blame. They do only what they were intended to do, they point the way. It is the teachers and followers congregating around signposts when they should be walking that cause the problems.

This I will say. If you follow the rules because they are true and good, and you follow them to the best of your ability, God will not leave you alone. He will not let you get comfortable. Unless you take measures to keep Him out, He will find a way to draw you further in, either by showing you a glimpse of something more, or perhaps by lighting a fire under your tail. Or both.

Next I have to think about worship.

Also, please pray for another soldier, injured when his brakes failed on a steep and dangerous hill. He lost a few square inches of scalp but seatbelt, helmet and guardian angel were all working together to save his life. His kevlar helmet was crushed and deformed but better the helmet than his head. He was conscious and coherent when they put him on the bird, and after surgery he is expected to do fine. Still, head injuries are nothing to mess around with, so keep him in your prayers please. We don't have that much more time over here.