The Raft on the Tiber

I am here because I am a convert to Catholicism from the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA). My going from the ECUSA to the Catholic Church was a long journey, filled with every emotion known to man. It was a journey measured in decades, not in weeks or months or years. Along the way, I had some help; the woman I would eventually marry, a priest to whom I would eventually make my first and darkest confession, a priest that eventually confirmed me, a sponsor who later became a deacon. A great many Episcopalians have recently started a similar journey themselves. Among other things, this blog hopes to help them along that path.

I was raised in the Episcopal Church. I was even an altar boy for a while when I was nine or ten years old. This was back in the late 60s and early 70s, and as you know, it was a very different church in those days.

By the time I was 17, I was involved in a youth group that met at the local Episcopal cathedral. During the time I spent going to the cathedral, my views of the church changed dramatically. I noticed quite a few things that were not right – this was during the last half of the 1970s. They began to teach and accept things that, even at my tender age and without much religious education, seemed to go against the Bible and what my grandmother had taught me about God. Eventually, I left the cathedral, the church, and religion in general. The details of the departure are unimportant. The point is that I left.

By the time I met my wife, I was a hodge-podge of religious ideas, with no real conviction beyond the Trinity and the Lord’s Prayer. I was not much of an Episcopalian in those days, but I wasn’t much of anything, really. I was, deep down inside, miserable on a whole host of different levels.

A great many people use a swimming analogy to describe their conversion. Some people might say that I “swam the Tiber"? when I converted to Catholicism. Others might say the same with Anglicanism by “swimming the Thames"?. To keep that metaphor going, when I left the Episcopal Church I leapt into the Thames expecting to swim somewhere – but I had no idea where to go. As a result, I sent more than 20 years spiritually treading water.

The actions of the Episcopal Church over the past three years have left a great many people thinking about swimming somewhere as well. The problem is - many don’t know where they’re going any more than I did back in 1979. Not knowing is hard; I know, I’ve been there. I do not want others to suffer in the same fate that I did. Trust me: You don’t want to spend 20 years trying to decide if you’re swimming the Tiber or drowning in the Thames.

Please understand, I am not asking or telling anyone to convert. Yes, I feel that the depth of the Catholic Church is staggering once you come to appreciate it. Yes, I think Catholicism is a great gift, and that any orthodox Anglican can find a home here if they open their heart to the whispers of the Spirit. But no, I would not presume to tell anyone to convert.

I chose to call this Rafting the Tiber for a reason, but not the one that might be obvious. This raft will not take you to Rome. It’s more like a life raft anchored in the middle of the river – it is intended to help keep you afloat, give you a place to catch your breath, but not intended to get you there. Eventually, if you feel the pull, you will have to leap in and swim the last leg yourself. That leap is a leap of faith, and that’s not something that I – or any other blogger – can provide for you.

I do ask that you keep your minds open. Many of the comments I’ve seen Anglican blogs have been incorrect. What you think you know about Catholicism may not be the reality of Catholicism. And, hopefully, therein lies the fun of this blog…

I do hope that there will be a bit of fun along the way as well! I’ll keep the blog going as long as I can and as long as it remains useful. I’m sure we’ll discuss other topics as well. Blogs tend to have a life of their own, so who knows…this one may become something else over time. We shall see.

I’ve also got a little help. Kevin Miller, professor of theology and blogger at HMS, is going to stop by from time to time and help out with some of the more technical issues that might crop up from time to time.

So, let the adventure begin!

I guess I should say a thing or two about what I believe. It wouldn’t do for a conservative Anglican to be led astray by a liberal Catholic. Since I claim to be an orthodox Catholic, it might help to define that just a bit.

My library consists of books by the following authors (the order is by number of books in my book cases):

Josef Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Karol Wojtyla / Pope John Paul II
Henri de Lubac
Frank Sheed
St. John of the Cross
Mark Shea
St. Louis de Montfort
St. Francis de Sales
Scott Hahn
Karl Keating

These are the authors to which I refer when putting something on this site. If you can’t find enough orthodoxy to suit you in the pages of these books, well, I’m afraid I can’t help you.

I also believe that the language of prayer should be more formal than the language of everyday speech. The prayers you see on this site will be, when I get a chance to post them, in Traditional English. What is Traditional English, you ask? It’s the language of Donne and Shakespeare. The reason for this is simple: Lex orandi, lex credendi - As we pray, so we believe.

From Liturgicam Authenticam:

27. “...words or expressions are sometimes employed which differ somewhat from usual and everyday speech, it is often enough by virtue of this very fact, that the texts become truly memorable and capable of expressing heavenly realities."?

This guides all the translations you will find here. And, yes, I do many of the translations from Latin myself. Unfortunately, much of the English speaking Catholic world, does not put much stock in the language of prayer. Well, I’m doing my bit to help correct that.

Julie tagged me with a meme a while back, and I’ve only now noticed (ahem - I might have noticed if you'd called me Mark instead of Mike...said with a smile, of course). So, here is the Random Quotes Meme:

Go to this site and pick five random quotes that reflect either:

a) who you are, or
b) what you believe

These fall into category b, I think.

Nothing is worse than active ignorance.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 - 1902)

I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.
Arthur Hays Sulzberger

When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD), Discourses

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)

I do enjoy Latin.

Hmm...religious ed classes, eh? Isn't that kinda what I'm doing here?

The Melancholic

Time alone is vital for this reflective, introspective temperament. A perfectionist at home and on the job, the melancholic is likely the one with the perfectly organized closet and kitchen, the tidy desk-top, and the painstaking attention to religious observances, sometimes to the point of scrupulosity. A melancholic longs for a deep soul mate, yet when he is around people, he often finds himself mistrustful and disappointed. Sensing this criticism, others will keep their distance—thus further entrenching the melancholic in his solitary life. In relationships, the melancholic tends to be slow to initiate, cautious, hyper-critical, and pessimistic--yet, once committed, they are unwaveringly loyal and self-sacrificing.

Take the test here.

Pure melancholic, I might add. Not any wimpy mix, like some people...

By the way, the tidy desktop would get a real laugh at work.

The fact is, you need no credentials to be an expert on something on the web. Because of this, I thought it might be wise to put up some info about why I’m here and why I feel qualified to write on this subject.

The simple fact is that I have no direct credentials to offer. Nope. No realistic qualifications at all. Zip. Zilch. Nothin’.

I’ve been blogging for about six years now (lacking credentials obviously didn’t slow me down any). It’s been an off-and-on adventure, with some joy and some heartache along the way. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s not. Blogging is, in the words of Jeff Miller, more addictive than crack. There’s no point in arguing against that idea…it’s 100% true.

My degree is in history. I studied general stuff, but took as many medieval history classes as I could. In fact, it was in one such class that I first encountered the idea of becoming Catholic. I worked on my Masters for a short while, but ran out of money long before graduation and had to quit. So I don’t have any formal education in theology or eschatology or any other -ology. I did, however, learn to research a subject deeply and write a decent paper.

I do have a bit of background in adult education. I taught at the local community college for about four years. I am something of an expert in what I do for a living, so I was able to teach as an adjunct in the business program. It was loads of fun (and paid very nicely for a part time job). I learned a great deal from teaching. As the old saying goes, you never truly know a subject until you try to teach it.

I haven’t, in reality, been Catholic for all that long. I entered the Church at the Easter Vigil of the millennium – 2000. I have, however, spent a fair amount of the past eight years learning and attempting to teach the faith. Part of this is because I came out of RCIA knowing so little. I had to teach myself as best I could. Part of my learning curve is because of my kids. As they’ve grown older I’ve had to keep ahead of them so they can know what they need to. But most of the reason that I’ve learned as much as I have is the fact that the subject is fascinating.

For a while, I thought very seriously about going back to grad school for a degree in theology. But theology isn’t really what I’m into, so that didn’t make much sense. There are also financial and temporal commitments that I can’t even attempt. This kind of blog seems perfect for what I can do.

The research necessary is right in line with the kind of research I did in grad school. You dig through the same kind of resources and write the same kind of papers. Different topics, same methods. The teaching experience, I hope, gives me an ability to impart the information in a way that makes sense to the average reader. I could make it a lot more complicated, using lots of “$5 words” with Greek roots (eschatology, anyone?). But teaching adults in a business program taught me to avoid academic lecturing and writing. The only people that want to read that stuff are either insomniacs or experts in a field that use this level of discourse every day. My audience is neither academia nor insomniacs, so I try to write accordingly. Lastly, my love of linguistics seems to have an outlet at long last.

Blogging has run me through a gauntlet of sorts. It’s been the online world where I’ve encountered the most basic (and most hostile) assaults on my faith and my church. That’s fine. It comes with the territory. It has, in the words of one Protestant interlocutor, sharpened iron on iron. I’ve learned a great deal from these encounters. Little did they realize that their assaults on my church would have the opposite effect they had intended. Instead of making me hide under the desk, and eventually turning me away from the Church, they caused me to dig – and in some cases dig hard – to find answers to their challenges. To those that thought they’d get me to turn, I'd like to say – THANKS!

So, readers here are forewarned. I'm a self taught nincompoop suffering from blogish delusions of grandure. I think that makes me pretty much mainstream...