Theology or Life?

“Why Don’t You Write About Your Life?”




My friends who read my blogs and notes are asking me why I always write about “theology?” “Why don’t you write about your life?”



I tell them that I’ve been there, done that, and now I have found a whole new meaning and purpose. I have conducted seminars for other people to find the meaning and purpose of their life. It’s high time for me to do that.



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I studied in Europe. It was for me. I taught in high schools. I taught in colleges. I taught in universities. At first teaching was for me – a job, a career. Then teaching took on a mission – and that mission, more clearly defined, it’s propelling me now. People say, “You’re 82. Why don’t you really retire and enjoy life?”



Well, if it’s about enjoying, I have it. I enjoy what I am doing. My best kind of fulfillment was in the wonderful family God gave me. When that was taken away by fate (if you can call fate circumstances which I caused), I find fulfillment in the mission the Lord has clearly laid out for me.



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I first heard the call, “Come follow me, when I was an altar boy of 10,11, 12 years of age. I first answered the call when I was 13 and I entered Brunnerdale Seminary and religious life in the Society of Precious Blood (to whose alumni association I belong to this day).




I answered the call by teaching high school religion classes for several years, by directing large parish religious education programs, by teaching in seminary, by pastoring churches in three countries.



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Now the mission has crystallized. “It ain’t for me” even though the bonus is that I enjoy it. It’s about what my mission really is. I have to be clear about it now. The time is short I have a very talented young friend under 30. He’s been a teacher, a college professor, but jumps at every new thing that comes along, has no focus. Maybe he would say, (surely by the time I am 82 I will find focus.”



On the other hand, my partner of 12 years has always, since college, had his focus on teaching. While he was a student at UP he supported himself teaching English to Koreans, and even taught English in a Korean University one summer. He taught in the most prestigious government and Catholic High schools. He taught in colleges and is now a professor in the country’s premier university. He taught in Saudi; he went to a call center to teach in the training program. But just recently, after winning the silver medal in the national Yoga competition, he has been invited to follow his passion – to teach Yoga in one of the top Fitness organizations in the country. He followed his training and his passion.





I have other friends who give up all to follow their passion, and they are wise enough to focus the right amount of energy on it to go places, as they say. Jim always liked “make-up,” while doing other livelihood work. He finally won a TV make-up competition, and got a full time job in his passion – by focusing on his passion.





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I have been skirting around my mission all my life. Sometimes it has involved teaching (and preaching), but now that I am 82 I see it’s not for me, for my career, for my enjoyment. It’s bigger than I am and must last beyond the term of my life.

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So, now I realize when Jesus called the apostles, he did not merely call them to “follow him” around for three years. He wanted them to do what all but one of them did --- to follow him by bringing others to a “more complete life” – until the end (which for them was martyrdom) in such a way that His Way, His Truth, and His Life will live on and on, and others will carry on the same mission.



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Well, that’s what I have to do. It’s not for me or about me. It’s so that more and more people will know His Truth.



A lot of people (priests, bishops) are telling people about His Way. They call it his truth. But he never taught it. His Life was a life of love – and never once in his whole life did he show prejudice. Yet, so many who say they teach his way live and teach prejudice.



So what’s my mission. Teach His Truth, and that means Truth without prejudice.



Now I admit that puts me in a kind of bind. How can I contradict prejudice without being prejudiced against prejudice. I find the answer again in Jesus. No prejudice, but he certainly did contradict the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.



What I have to do is fearlessly contradict the hypocrisy of sex-negative theology. There is ample evidence that some of the loudest voices, Catholic bishops and Protestant television evangelists, ranting against “sex sins” are exposed in the news, caught in the “sex sins” they rave against.



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But that is not my mission. My mission is to bring life, happiness, peace. and fulfillment to God’s people through the truth of sex-positive theology.




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But like the Apostles did, it has to be done in such a way that the mission will not end when “my term” ends, so that the mission will not only be accomplished in the individuals, scores, or hundreds God brings into my life work –- but as with the apostles it will live on and on for a better world.



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Call me an “apostle of sex-positive theology,” if you like. That is not important. One of my friends said, “Father, you will not die; you are everlasting.” That may not be true in terms of my earthly life. But my mission must make it true in terms of my passing on the Truth and the passion for the Truth to others who will pass it on to others (2 Tim 2:2).



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For this reason more and more people are enrolling in the free cyber seminar in Sex-Positive Theology. They are learning the Truth (Jesus is the Truth) and the Truth will set them free in a new Life (Jesus is the Life) of happiness, peace, and fulfillment. This is a fulfillment that can extend to a wholistic full life reaching into every fiber of their being – the intellectual, physical, spiritual, and emotional components of a wholistic life.




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Long live sex-positive theology. It’s not Jesus, but it leads to every thing Jesus wants for his people. Long live Truth, happiness, peace and fulfillment.




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So, if I do that with all my heart, soul, and strength, I don’t have time to write about myself.